What Do I Work on Next?

  There are two shawls I want to work on right now.  I have a knitted one that I have had floating around in my mind for a while and I also have a pattern that was written by one of my friends.  I have already tried to start the shawl by Sally twice.  The first yarn I used was a really good color for it, but was too thick, and the second yarn I tried was the right weight, but the colors were too crazy and you couldn't really see the pattern.  Third time will hopefully be a charm.  I have a cone of yarn that I've been trying to save for the perfect project.  While I'm not sure this is the perfect project for, I know it will be a good one.
  I've also been stuck in The Hat Zone.  It's been so hot that even though I really would like to start a bigger project, I have not been able to fully commit.  I've also been really enjoying trying to perfect this latest hat pattern.  It is based off a sweater I vaguely saw on the episode of Days of Our Lives I watched while waiting for my car's 100,000 mile service to be done.  There might even be two patterns that came out of it because my mom said she really liked the first time I tried it, even though it wasn't the effect I was going for.

  Tea, knitting, and crochet have really been helping me lately.  I know everyone has their every day stresses, but I feel like mine have been hiding in shadows and have all been jumping out at once.  I was feeling fine about work, then suddenly felt behind.  I have been severely neglecting the basement because I feel overwhelmed when I think of cleaning the yarn.  I know I could just toss it, but I also know I can fix it.  I also feel like I have a back-log of patterns I'm designing that are ready to be put into a more official format than my bullet points of rows on Google Docs.
  I have started to work on the stuff in the basement and it hasn't been as bad as I was worried it would be.  I had to throw out about 2 large trash bags worth of old food that was old and also eaten or crawled on by mice.  I have also learned a lot about mice preferences.  They really like cotton yarn, but not wool.  They also love pecan swirls, fruit granola bars, but don't like powdered mashed potatoes, or dried pasta.  I've also had to throw out two skeins of 100% cotton that they made nests in.
  I know that I just have to keep chipping away at it.  Baby steps are better than no steps.  Happy Friday the 13th everyone!

In No Particular Order

  This is an interesting hat.  I taught the class a really long time ago, at least three to four years, maybe even more at this point.  You can also see that part of the way through the body of the hat, I've managed to change gauge.
  I didn't know you could change gauge so easily on a loom.  I picked it up and decided to give loom knitting another try, since I was most of the way done and didn't want to just take it out.  I managed to loosen up a bit once I got to the top.
  I had fun doing it, but I felt like it was a lot slower than I would have been knitting if I had needles.  I know there are people out there who love loom knitting and I get it.  I might give my sock loom another try at some point.

  If you've been here a while, or went back and read the archives, you'll remember these berets from back on December 31, 2013.  This hat is probably from about that time, but for some reason, I decided that I didn't need to tie off the last stitch and weave in the last end until now.

  I'm not sure what I was trying to do with this hat, but I hope I was happy with it when I finished it.

  This is another hat that I made from teaching a hat.  I also made a tiny version of this, but I forgot to take a picture and have already given it to K&CC.

  I remembered not liking this class very much.  You were making a baby hat, but everyone's came out the size of a preemie hat.  There were no size options, so it wouldn't be easy to just make a larger size.  It was at least a quick project where people could learn how to decrease and seam up an edge.

  I remember when I started this hat.  I was just trying out a new stitch and I was really liking how the yarn was pooling.  I got to the point where I was supposed to start decreasing and didn't know what to do.  I knew that the crown decreases would disrupt the yarn patterning.  I was debating making it into a cowl, but it felt a bit too narrow for that.
  It then sat for years and years.  I found it again when I started clearing out all the stuff that I had just thrown into my craft room in the basement.  I let it sit for a while after that because I still couldn't decide on what to do.  I finally just finished it and I know the person who gets this won't care that the top isn't the same as the body of the hat.

  This isn't all of the things I found that only need a little bit to make them into finished items.  I have no idea now why I didn't just finish them, but I'm also pretty sure that past-me doesn't know either.  Since I do love the feeling of starting a new project, I know there is no way for me to just focus on the almost-finished projects.
  I also get very overwhelmed when I get to start a new project.  I always want to start on a hat, and a shawl, and start designing a new pattern.  Right now I'm almost done with a new pattern that I'm designing.  Once my computer is fixed, or if I can find my templates on a back-up drive, I'm going to work on getting the pattern for the Lattice Hat done.  I've made it so many times that I'm not sure I will need it to be tested, but it never hurts to get another set of eyes on it.
  I have a hat in the works that was easier for me to design.  I could have tried to design more than one size, but I think I'll just make a note about yarn and needle sizing for other options.  I could probably do one size up and down, but unlike the Lattice Hat pattern, they will each need to be done by hand and won't just be the same repeat, but starting at different points.  Saying all of this, I might still change my mind later.

Graffiti Alley

  Just to warn you, there are quite a few pictures under this post.  I had found some HTML to make a very pretty slideshow, but it kept messing with Blogger and I didn't like the way it was acting.  This way you can easily scroll down and click to enlarge as you would like.

  The styles of art were so different and some even had some metallic silver on them.  It was all so impressive and some people were even hanging around to do some fashion-style fashion shoots.  I would love to go back and see it again.  It was so much to take in during one walk-through.

Home Again!

  Remember how I was going to make one more hat in the medium size for the pattern photos?  Well, I was going to have it be two colors and maybe make a note on how I did it.  I weighed the other hat and weighed my yarn.  My yarn was 3 grams heavier and so I felt like I could make it work.   As you can see by that spot of navy blue on the top, it did not work.  I was knitting along, making notes about the decreases when I noticed that my yarn ball looked a bit small to me.  I kept trying to reassure myself that as I was going I was decreasing and each row needed less yarn.  Then I started knitting faster so I could get to the end of the project before the yarn knew it had run out.  I lost that game of yarn chicken.   I also made use of having to re-knit the piece to make the decreases for the extra-small and medium easier to do.  Now you won't have to move the beginning-of-row marker as you go.

  I know people joke about packing too much knitting for how long their trip is.  Like their trip is somehow going to only be about knitting and not about their destination.  I almost didn't bring enough knitting.  I figured I would work on making the large sized hat and that should take me most of the trip.  It almost got me through the whole trip.  I then made a small size, and since that went a lot quicker, I also made an extra small.  I didn't have enough yarn to start a medium hat.

  The lighter yellow on the right was one that I made before I left.  The one on the left was the second hat I started on our trip.  I know they look exactly the same, but I actually did the decreases in an easier manner the second time around.

  I'm not sure why the baby size turned out a different shape at the crown as the others.  It has the exact same decease rate, only fewer repeats of it.  I'm sure it will look fine once you put it on an actual head.  Blocking will probably also help.  I wanted to get pictures taken before I forgot again and give them away at a K&CC meeting.

Final Leg

  We got to pass this again.  I feel like it is so smart because then they won't need to have two people out there all day when they aren't even working on it.  There is also no need to try and rush the job to get both lanes usable before dark.

  We got to see a lot of this before we got to be home.  To help cheer ourselves up we stopped at Sonic.  I was going to just get my usual strawberry limeade, but then I saw an ad for The Reaper.  They said it was a slush made with Carolina Reapers.  I was a bit nervous, but decided to try it since most items at fast food restaurants that claim to be spicy are rarely as spicy as I hope they will be.
  It was a nice level of heat for me.  It warmed my whole mouth but didn't hurt and it also didn't linger too long.  We listen to the podcast And That's Why We Drink and I really like it.  I am so worn out from all the travel and all the fun I had, but make sure to brace yourself for a lot of very similar looking knitting pictures soon.

More Wings!

  We didn't want to leave Canada, so we tried to figure out some more things to do before we had to cross the border.  We found this all-you-can-eat sushi place.  It was really good, they didn't just offer a generic buffet.  You ordered something and they made it for you.  They even had a strawberry and cream cheese roll that was really good for dessert.

  I spotted this on our way north and we figured we could stop by on the way home.  They let you do very affordable tastings.  There are a few of their base flavors, but they also have a lot of flavored options.  Our favorites were strawberry, crabapple, and rose.

  One last stop before we got out of the range of Tim Horton's.  As you can see, I got their loyalty card.  I don't know if I will ever get enough points to earn a reward, but I think it is fun anyway.

  Summit was crazy when we got there.  The parking lot was practically full and the waitresses were running around like crazy people.  Amy was so nice to us and even carded me when I got a beer.  We outstayed most of the crowd and you could tell that the staff was running ragged.  We at least got to try three more flavors: Rattlesnake, Honey Sriracha, Jaz & Junk.  I find it interesting that the wings can vary anywhere from having a lovely dry rub on it to looking like it is floating in delicious soup.

  We went back to the Royal Inn.  There were more people staying this time and there were even a group of bikers.  However, we got one of the rooms in the back and it was definitely not as nice as the first.  There was no ventilation in the room, so it was musty smelling.  There was also a lot more dust and general grim around.  While I would probably stay here again, I would just try and avoid any room numbers 350 or above.

Hanging Around the Neighborhood.

  Where we are staying did a lot of things right.  The layout of the apartment is really nice and they provided the TV entertainment correctly.  The last place we were in didn't have a TV at all, so we had to just use our phones for watching anything late night.  This place has a small TV with a Chromecast connected.  Since they provide really fast internet, doing this means that they can give you a usable TV without having to pay for cable.

  Most of the places we went to the other days were a bit out of our comfortable walking area.  The most direct way to get to where we were going was to take the 2 subway West and transfered to the 1 heading south.  After that we would usually hop on the Queen Car and get there in no time.  This time we decided to stick to our area and go down Bloor St.

 I was sad to learn that Lettuce Knit was permanently closed.  So it was nice to have a yarn shop so close to our Airbnb that we stubbled upon while trying to get to Shoppers.

   I seem to have a thing about buying three skeins of yarn.  I also bought three when I was in Iceland.  I wanted to just get yarn made in Canada, but the purple called to me.  I got Riverside Studio in Lagoon, Artful Belle in Cabernet, and Hedgehog Fibers in Vengeance.  I'm thinking of putting Lagoon and Cabernet together in what I make with them.

  We passed this place a few times on our first day in town.  Every time we passed we both commented that it sounded good.

  We were thinking of getting bulgogi, but got distracted by other things.  Instead we got Tofu Don, Oyako Don, and Gyoza.  Everything was really good and it was a nice light meal to start our day.

  We missed it the first time and had to turn around.  The Monkey's Paw is a small store with a dark front and no large sign over the door.  It is really easy to miss it.

  This is what we were really after.  You buy a token and you get a random book from the vending machine.  They are usually older books and are fairly strange.  Krissy got Desired Haven by Evelyn M Richardson and I got No Room in the Ark by Alan Moorehead.

  When in Canada you have to go shopping at Roots.  I don't actually know if this is a rule or not, but I wanted to go.  I know that there is a location not far from my house, but I wanted a true experience first.  They were actually having a sale and I got a t-shirt for a pretty good price.  This was a little out of our original planned area, but I'm glad we went.

  We didn't want to head back to the Airbnb yet, so we looked for some place to get a beer and lounge around.  Harbord House popped up and didn't sound like it was too far away.  We walked though the University of St Michael's College.

  I don't know if it was because it warmed up or because the sun came out, but the walk felt a lot longer than it should have.  We were really glad to see that they had sticky toffee pudding, so it was eventually worth the walk.  Krissy also got their watermelon lemonade to help cool off.

  There were so many ramen places to choose from it was so hard to decide.  We scrolled through the pictures of a few and this one looked best.  We were right.

  I was really surprised when she told me that their monthly special of roast beef ramen was a cold noodle dish.  The walk was pretty hot, so it was a welcome surprise.  I was a bit nervous about it, but I really liked it in the end and might make some at home.

  On the way back to Shoppers we spotted this store.  It was a lot like Lil Thingamajigs near where I work and I had to go into it being very careful.  I had to keep an item count in mind and not go over it.  They had so many rolls of cute washi tape and really cute anime keychains.  I got one keychain, and since I got stickers from the shop in the mall I didn't get any of the washi tape.

  These were two things I definitely needed.  I can sometimes find the Ruffles All Dressed at home, but can never find the Ketchup chips.  I am going to wait to try them until I get home, which might be a mistake since I can't easily get more.

  We did get a bit lost when went straight down a road that we normally turn on.  We figured we could just go down one more street and then over, but that lead to a cul-de-sac at an apartment building.  A nice lady who lives there told us of a shortcut around the side and it was a nice walk.