Number Nuttiness (Adriana)

Numbers have always been important to me. I've always thought that some numbers were more attractive than others. All even numbers are pretty whereas 9, 7 and 5 can be attractive depending on their circumstances, but 3 and 1 definitely are not. I knew that I wanted to get married on an attractive date. When Pete and I were thinking about getting married in fall 2009 we looked at a calendar together and I told him all the pretty numbers that we could get married on. When we did end up setting the date, the decision was made based on when it fell in relation to a holiday (the Sunday of the May long weekend). That left me, someone who is obsessed with attractive numbers, getting married on 5/23/2010. Even the attractiveness of the year couldn't save it for me. I've had some time to come to grips with the date (yes, it did take me some time, I know I'm strange) and I discovered that May 23, 2010 is much prettier than 5/23/2010. Today is the first 23rd since we set the date and every time I've had to write the date (which has been a lot since I've been writing letters at work), I've smiled to myself and though "In one year and ten months I'll be getting married!" If I do that every month from now until the wedding, I bet that the number 23 won't seem that bad at all to me.

Not only do we have a date for the wedding, we have a venue as well: the Galt Country Club, which in addition to being lovely, is only 10 minutes from my parents' house (a big deal when all the other places would have involved highway travel to get there). It's a beautiful building which has a great division of space: we'll be able to get married in their rotunda, leave our guests to enjoy hors d'oeuvres in the large hallway and veranda while we take pictures, and afterwards the reception will be held in the ballroom. The grounds are gorgeous, it's on the river, and it's close enough to the picturesque downtown that we can go there for photos.

So, to honour the mini-anniversary of my wedding date, here are some views of downtown Galt where we will be taking pictures.


Ferguson Cottage where I want to go with my girls before the ceremony


A view down the river to the lovely churches


Quaint gives way to urban at the School of Architecture (pardon the raindrops)


Inside the school


The faux Greek ruins

(Blogging twice in two days?!? Don't get used to it :P)

A Trip in Pictures (Adriana)

Sorry for the long delay in blogging. It turns out that Fringing and blogging do not mix. I've been back home for a week now but between recovering from the trip and starting a new full-time placement, I haven't had time to think about the blog. But here I am now, ready to show off some pictures from the trip.

I don't have any pictures from the Toronto portion of the tour but rest assured that fun was had by all since I got to see Heather, Jane and Gen! Ottawa was much more exotic and I have plenty of pictures to show for our time there.

We went to Parliament Hill where I managed to knit-in-public next to the statues of the Famous Five who fought for women to be considered persons (can you believe they hadn't been?!?!). Interestingly, this group of five women are the only statues on Parliament Hill that aren't prime ministers or royalty.


We saw one of the official Parliamentary Cats (they have their own sanctuary on the hill).

We also saw a Parliamentary squirrel and groundhog but they weren't photoworthy.

Naturally we had to visit some museums while in Ottawa. We had the most amazing experience visiting the Canadian War Museum with my favourite great-aunt and great-uncle (ok, they are my only ones but they'd be my favourite anyways). It was incredible being there with them since they'd both lived through WWII and my uncle was actually a part of it.

Auntie Clayre and I model the very heavy helmets.

In what was a truly awe-inspiring moment, we got to see der Fuhrer's parade car.


After the seriousness of the War Museum, we needed some fun so we went to the Children's Museum with my good friend (and MoH) Calli, who came down from Montreal to hang out and see the show.
The Children's Museum was so much fun. Pete and Calli are like two peas in a pod, and they had a total blast there.

Here they are taking part in an impromptu play. Pete is the evil owl and Calli is the ordinary ocean.


Pete and I got to ride a vespa (I have no idea what those green lights are. I don't remember an infestation of glowing green bugs when we were there. It looks pretty cool, though :P)


And Pete pretended he was a member of the crew of the HMS Pinafore.

We went back to Montreal with Calli for a day, during which I found and purchased my wedding dress!!! We also had dinner with my dear Emma, who was the recipient of the Ribbed Lace Bolero (Rav) I made earlier in the summer.


It's fun to knit for people who are so appreciative.


And so sassy!

While there Pete got to meet Emma's adorable kitties.

I love this picture!!

That it for now. There was some knitting done on the trip but not as much as I would have liked. I'll be back in a few days to show off what little knitting I managed to accomplish, and to update you all on the latest wedding details (here's a hint, there are some!).

And We're Off (Adriana)

Today is our last day at home for the next month. Naturally, since there is so much to do, I got together with my wedding buddy Kristy and we checked out dresses (one of them has serious potential but I can't find a picture online). We also investigated floral options. I've been struggling to put together a budget so it's good to find out some estimates.

Lately I've been running around like chicken with it's head cut off (which is ok because even headless chickens have their good days) but I've still managed to get in some knitting (of course).

Look! I finished the Endpaper Mitts!

A double layer of wool is perfect for the summertime :)

I'm very proud of these, actually. I haven't done much FI in the past so it's pretty exciting that they actually look like they are supposed to.

The obligatory inside-out shot

Way back in February I bought a cell phone. Naturally I decided to make a cozy for it (loosely based on this pattern). I finished and felted it in one day but I kept forgetting to put on a button until this weekend.

Cute, eh? I used Frog Tree Merino which I had overdyed blue

Lately Pete's been on a kick to keep us from being poisoned by plastic water bottles (weird, huh?) so we recently invested in these pretties. They are great because they don't slowly kill you but they aren't so good at keeping the water cold. Water bottle cozy to the rescue!

This is a pattern I designed myself and knit in a couple of hours. It's in the project details on Rav if you're interested in making one for yourself.

I guess I should get back to packing. I hoping to be able to check email from the road but I won't be able to blog until the second leg of the tour which we are spending at my parents'. I hope everyone has a great rest of June. See you in July!

Yarn on Tour (Adriana)

As I've mentioned before, on June 18th we're leaving to take Pete's show on tour. The first stop is Ottawa, with a brief trip to Montreal. I plan on checking out the yarns stores there but I need to bring some stash with me.

Here are the yarns I'm considering taking:

1) Yarn I dyed 2 years ago. Pools with my usual 64 stitches so would need a pattern with less or more stitches.
2) The Knittery Cashmere sock yarn from Phoe
3) Sunshine Yarns Gryffindor Stripes (stockinette)
4) Handmaiden Casbah with 5) Cherry Tree Hill for heels and toes (this will be stockinette socks for my Granny)
6) Random Regia that I bought a million years ago. I knit half a sock and then ripped it out in a fit of insanity (stockinette or 3x1 ribbing)
7) Yarn dyed by Heather. Pools with stitch count between 60 and 64.
8) Jaywalkers I started a million years ago. I really should finish them since they are so close to being done.

Here's where you come in: yarns 1, 2, and 7 need patterns. The patterns can't be overly complicated since I might only have short bursts of knitting time. I'd prefer them to be memorizable. Thanks!

WIP Thursday (Adriana)

Clearly I've made some progress on the first Endpaper Mitt. I'm always surprised at how fast Fair Isle knits up. This is helping me get over my fear of colourwork and the Jane and I are in negotiations for her to design a mitten for me to knit(yay!!).

I meant to blog this yesterday but then life exploded, except it was in the best way possible. You see, it was my birthday and I had the most terrific day. I worked in the morning and then went to try on wedding dresses with my official Keeper-of-the-Bride's-Sanity (if you think that's a weird title I also have a Bagel-of-Honour. This is such a wacky wedding). After trying on dresses (no winners but I did narrow down the bridesmaid dress colour) I went for a nice long swim at the gym. It was truly delicious (I love swimming!). The perfect day was capped off by a visit from my parents who took Pete, my brother and I out to dinner. I ate so many shrimp! It really want one of the best birthday's I've ever had.

The next time I post I'm going to ask your opinions on what yarn I should take on tour with me. I will definitely be hitting up some yarn stores but I need to bring a supply with me to last until the shopping can begin. I'm thinking socks are the way to go. But what yarn and what patterns? That's where you all will come in :)

Robin's Egg Blue (Adriana)

Well this is my seventh day of blogging everyday and it was both easier and harder than I'd expected. I really thought that I'd be stuck for what to talk about but it was pretty easy to come up with subjects. The hardest part was how time consuming blogging is. I don't think I'll continue this whole blogging everyday thing but I will try to do it more often, at least until we leave on tour. The good things is that for the Toronto leg we'll be staying at my parents' so I'll have easy internet access there and will be able to report back about our adventures (Ottawa has lots of yarn stores!).

Last night I cast off the Ribbed Lace Bolero (no pictures yet). When one project is finished clearly a new one needs to be cast on. But what to knit? Ravelry to the rescue again!

A little while ago Phoe ODed on Palette and sent the remainder my way (many thanks, dear friend). I'd been at a lose for what to do with it until I looked on Ravelry. The number one suggestion under pattern ideas was Eunny's famous Endpaper Mitts. I have enjoyed colourwork in the past but I tend to be a little frightened of it so I decided to go for it.


I had trouble choosing two colours since Phoe had sent me so many beautiful balls of yarn and she had used parts of some of them so yardage was a concern. I decided to do things my way and dye white yarn a light blue to go with the brown. You can see the results at the front of the picture (Pete calls the colour Robin's Egg Blue).

I cast on with the blue as the CC and the brown as the MC. I ended up casting on 3 times for this project (first I had the wrong needles and then the wrong number of stitches - always read the instructions!!). After all that I wasn't able to get very far into the colourwork to show off but I decided to take a picture of it anyways.

I think it's going to be beautiful.

That's all for now. Thanks for keeping up with me this week. I'll be back in a few days.

Summer Plans (Adriana)

Thank you everyone for your kind words. It definitely helped. I've got the ball rolling to fix things but it will take a little while to get everything sorted out. I'm being cryptic because I don't know who is reading my blog. For my regular commenters, if you want to know what's going on just drop me a line.

I think I've already alluded to my very busy summer. I figured that now was as good a time as any to talk about it (this whole blogging every day thing is hard and time consuming, though the frequent comments is a delight). This summer Pete, my fiancé, and I (as his stage manager) are taking his one-man show on tour, hitting up both the Ottawa and Toronto Fringes. This show, Walking the Labyrinth, premiered at the London (Ontario) Fringe Festival last summer.
Here are some of the publicity pictures for the show:





It's a retelling of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur with a twist, making heavy use of electro-acoustic sounds and music. It's pretty cool if I do say so myself. And if you don't believe, check out the video!



We'll be on the road for a month, fortunately staying with my cousin while we're in Ottawa and my parents while in Toronto. Once we're back in London we will be gearing up to premiere another show in the London Fringe, Death!. It's a three-person musical about a man who has just died and needs to come to terms with what has happened and figure out what comes next. We also see those who are left behind, his wife and his best friend, as they sort out how to go on. I think it's going to be quite brilliant. Pete's playing the dead guy and we have high hopes for the actors playing the wife and friend. Though rehearsals haven't started yet, we met with the actors recently to take some pictures for publicity purposes.
I'll set the scene for you: this is at the funeral of the main character which is attended by his wife and best friend while the dead man watches them from a distance.





Happy Friday! I'm off to watch Sex and the City season 6 in preparation for seeing the movie on Sunday!