Here are some pictures to brighten your Saturday!



Hopefully you have a place to visit to get some downtime...

So I went to my mom's to get her to teach me how to sew the panels of my multi-coloured afghan together and she advised me that my particular pattern is quite difficult.  She forgot to tell me a 'tip' that I could have done that would have made the sewing part so much easier.  Now, it is not going to be very easy and it will be time consuming.  Crap.  Because my mom knows that I want to give this afghan as a gift she offered to do all the sewing for me.  Hmmm???  I now have what I like to call a 'knitting moral dilemna'!  I want the afghan to look its best because it is a gift but I feel like I am cheating if I get my mom to do the hard part for me. 

Have you ever been in my situation before?  What did you do?

I haven't quite decided what I am going to do yet.  I am leaning towards letting my mom do the sewing part and then have her give it back to me so I can finish off the border.  I really want to learn how to sew pieces together but at the same time I know that if I learn on a really difficult project I will get discouraged and frustrated. 

I would love to hear what you think.

I received a call from my local library today that a book I had ordered had come in.  When I went to pick it up there were three books waiting for me! 

They are:  The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley (I have already read a book in this series before and loved it!), The Talk Show Murders by Al Roker and Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. 

I really want to read all these books but I am already reading several...oh, the dilemna!

Have you read any of these books?  Am I in for a treat?

dustjacket attic: Image Of The Day ...

This photo is amazing - a great definition of Downtime. Good work Dustjacket attic

dustjacket attic: Image Of The Day ...

So it's Saturday night and I was relaxing watching some TV, working on my knitting and finished my latest InStyle magazine (a pretty great night so far) and I suddenly craved cookie dough!  Not the kind of craving where you would like 'something' and would be nice if it was sooner rather than later...but I'm talking about NEEDING cookie dough NOW!  So what's a girl to do?  Make cookies!  So I pulled out my mom's famous chocolate chip cookie recipe and made a batch of amazing cookies.  There is something so classic about chocolate chip cookies - gotta love them!

Now I'm going back to work on my latest knitting project:  an afghan from Mary Maxim.  My mom made this afghan and I really loved it so I decided to borrow it and put my own twist on it.  If you are not familar with Mary Maxim, they sell their projects as packages.  So you get the pattern and all the wool in one bunch.  Normally you just buy the pattern and then pick whatever yard/wool you want to use and coordinate the pattern to your preference.  So since my mom had already made this pattern she used all the wool that came with it.  So I took the pattern to Michaels and picked out similar colours that I loved out of Lions' Brand Vana's Choice yarn.  I just love her colours and it was really fun to pick them out and 'style' my afghan.  The pattern is call 'Harvest Colors Blanket' so as you can imagine it is made with rustic, autumn colours.  Here are the colours I picked:

• Burgundy;
• Navy;
• Olive;
• Espresso;
• Sapphire;
• Cranberry; and
• Mustard.

This pattern consists of two different squares that are made in each colour in five strips. Then the five strips are sewn together.  I am just about finished my fifth strip and then I am going to get my mom to teach me how to sow them all together.  I am going there for supper tomorrow night so that works out perfectly.  After it is all sewn together and you basically have your afghan then you take each colour and knit a border all around the afghan.  In my opinion this border is really what sets the project apart from other afghans you could knit.

Here are some photos of my five strips (before my mom teaches me how to sow them together) and then I will give you some updated photos tomorrow (hopefully)!

Have a great Saturday night...

Oh by the way, this is my dog's Saturday night:





Welcome to my first blog!  I hope you will enjoy spending some downtime with me.  I think we all strive to have some downtime and that is when we really get dive into our interests, hobbies and actually have fun.  For some of us that doesn't happen too often but still something we constantly stive for.

Here are some of my interests:  Knitting (my mom is the most amazing knitter in the world and I'm trying to follow her footsteps); reading (I usually have three books going on at a time); photography (even though I can't afford the camera I really want); music (always open to new suggestions); and tea (is it tea time yet?).

So sit back, relax and enjoy my blog!  I would love to hear what interest or hobbies you have...maybe we can inspire each other?