You can now follow me on knitsbynat.com.

It will be a bilingual site in English and French. Not all posts will be translated though.

Looking Forward to Opening Day in Baseball

Here I am watching Spring Training baseball, while knitting and drinking tea. I am so looking forward to the regular season. A great way to spend the afternoon. Right now it's a nice hot cup of tea but when the weather gets warmer it will be iced tea.

I am knitting a new neckwarmer with the stitch I used for the Beverly hat. I got the idea for a simple slim neckwarmer watching a lady at the bus stop one morning. She was wearing a simple stockinette neckwarmer and thought I could do that.

I caught Balou sleeping enjoying some sun. Love how hers paws are crossed.

This is her annoyed look since the sound of the camera woke her up.

How do you like to spend a lazy afternoon? Do you even have one or is it spent catching up on laundry, cleaning and such househols chores?

The Fun of Editing Photos for My Shop

I knit a whole lot of stuff the last few weeks. Took a whole bunch of photos of the items and now it's time to edit. I love to use Gimp to do this. Taking great photos of my knit items can sometimes be very hard with certain colours, no matter how much I play with lighting and such. I just love how I can tweak them with Gimp. I also love being able to crop and change the sizing on them.

Photo editing with Gimp.

It's a free software and great to work with. There is a learning curve just like most other photo editing softwares. I have however found this Gimp Bible that I'm hoping will let me in on some really great tips to editing photos even better. The user manual on their website is very useful and also some tutorials are available.

GIMP Bible

What are the photo editing softwares that you like to use?

Heat Wave Over Montreal

We are having a heat wave this week and the poor cats are just spread out wherever they can find a bit of a breeze.  Oddly enough they don't care much for the breeze coming from my fans!

Every summer when the heat picks up I keep thinking I should buy myself an air conditioner but then I never do. When I moved in over 20 years ago, there was an air conditioner in my living room. Sadly, whenever I turned it on it would blow a fuse. So, I asked my landlord to take it out but he couldn't since they threw away the window contour when they installed the air conditioner. I was stuck with it until the windows were finally changed 4 years ago.

I'm probably still not going to get one this year. Hey, maybe next year!

In spite of the heat wave I have spent most of my time knitting.  I am working on a new infinity scarf and thankfully I let it rest on my kitchen table while I knit. This way I don't have it heating up my body.

I have already finished one in mustard yellow and this is the cranberry red! I find it turned out really nice and so does my Mom! I tried it on and showed her on Skype. But then again don't mother's like everything we do?





Red knit infinity scarf

Taking Control of my Weekends

I hate when it's Monday morning and wonder where the weekend went. All the different errands and things I should have done but didn't. The lazing around when I actually had important things to do : take photos of finished works, finish the last few rows on a project, etc. 

Weekends are meant to be leisurely but I need to get work done for the Knits By Nat shop and the Knits By Nat Designs shop. Patterns are not going to magically write themselves.  Photos of my knit items are not going to be taken by themselves. And if I really mean it when I say I want Knits By Nat to be my main source of income then weekends have to be controlled better.

Actually it's more than "a" project right now that just needs a few rows to be part of the finished pile. I have quite a few projects started at work and needing to be finished like a few Beverly hats, some Stacey hats as well. I have quite a few scarves to finish so they can become Ready to Ship instead of Made to Order in my Etsy shop.

I was up and about early this morning, starting yet another Beverly Hat.  This time I am knitting it in a light grey yarn.  It should be finished later today while I watch some baseball on mlb.tv. 

Soft Grey Beverly Hat

Tomorrow should be the day I take photos of my finished items and add them to the shop.

Do you sometimes feel that weekends just pass you by?  That Mondays get here too quickly?

Will Winter Ever Leave?

Yesterday was Spring Equinox but looking outside it still feels like winter wants to stay a little bit longer.  Big, fluffy snowflakes were falling this afternoon.

Big fluffy snowflakes.

Back balcony snow falling.

 

 

 

Also, the temperatures will be going back down to -24ºC overnight and early morning.  It's been like this all winter.  Really, really cold temperatures that made it impossible for me to knit while waiting for the bus.  I think I was able to knit just about half a dozen times.

It was easier to knit waiting for the bus on the return home since I get to wait inside the métro station.  Thank goodness, as it was often behind schedule.

Home Sick with a Cold

Second day home from work with the cold.  I have been sick since Saturday night and can't wait for this cold to be over.  I have been sleeping so much and drinking lots of liquids but right now I'm just fed up with sleeping.  I don't feel much like knitting or anything else for that matter.

I have been eating a whole lot of soup though, which I love!  It's a very simple soup using dehydrated vegetables, chow mein noodles I found at Bulk Barn and black beans.

When everything is cooked I add some paste I found at the Asian Market.  It's instant Hot and Sour paste, so good!  It was the only one they had without any fish ingredients in it.