Waiting for crumbs

Balou loves to wait for crumbs when I eat toast or bagels.  She will sit by me (of course now that I wanted to take a picture of her she's gone, I will catch her one day) and meow until I give her my plate of crumbs.

This morning she is waiting for bagel crumbs and they are amazing multigrain crumbs.  The bagels come from Mount Royal Bagel and are only a 20 minute walk from work. Their whole wheat varieties are vegan as well as their soups.  I will work on them to make all their bagels vegan.  If they can make the whole wheat ones vegan why not the others?   Last night I ate the all-dressed bagel with vegenaise and slices of tomatoes, simply delicious.

This morning I am eating it with a new spread I found at Rachelle Béry : Yoso spreadables plain.  It is somewhat reminiscent of the creamy Sheese but has a whipped texture. I really liked it. Yoso has another spread called "cream cheese" which I will look for and try.  They also have sour cream and yogurt I would love to try as well.  Hopefully Rachelle-Béry has them or can get them for me.

Cloudy weekend

Why is it cloudy this weekend?

All week the weather channel kept showing lots of sun and warm weather.  I know I shouldn't believe the weather channel since it's wrong 95% of the time but I was looking forward to taking wonderful pics of my latest knitted creations to add to my shop.

I also wanted to take out the new bike I bought for a great ride around town but I guess it will be for next weekend, if the weather is nice.  It's a Fuji Absolute 4.0 and I love it! Mine has a baggage rack in the back and a water bottle holder.

I did eventually take some pics of a few of my knitted creations.  I will add them to my shop later this evening.

I also have a few projects to finish, well more than a few to be honest.  Like around 10 of them.  I need to weave in the ends of a few, add fringe to some others and even knit a couple of centimeters for the rest.  They should be available soon in my shop.

Return from vacation in Wildwood

I returned from vacation in Wildwood last Sunday actually.

We had an amazing time enjoying the beach, the boardwalk, the rides, water park and lots of other activities.  As usual we went biking to Cape May, played a bit at the casinos in Atlantic City (I lost 4 dollars) and went on the dolphin-watching cruise.  I love going on the dolphin cruise since we go see them in their habitat; they are not captive in a tank.  We saw a lot of them and they were jumping and splashing with their tails.  We also finished our vacation with some time in New York City walking through Central Park and later Times Square.

The return back to Montreal was unfortunately not as smooth as usual.  We were driving north on I-87 around 3:00 Sunday morning when a black SUV sped by us (he must have been driving 100 mph/180 km), passed the car in front of us by the right lane, got into the U-turn, turned and started driving southbound towards us.  Luckily my boyfriend remained calm and when the SUV was around 30 feet from us he drove on the right shoulder a bit in case the driver wanted to turn towards us.  The SUV passed us staying in the left lane and my boyfriend just took off.  He had no intentions of being around if the SUV decided to turn around and drive after us.  He slowed down maybe an hour later and we never saw the SUV again.  This is the first time ever either of us wished we had a cellphone to call 911.

Talking about the return to people made me realize how lucky we were he didn't swerve towards us or that there weren't other cars around.  It could have ended with an awful accident.

A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns

I have found a copy of "A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns" SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Yes, I am acting totally giddy ever since I found it.  My boyfriend found my reaction "cute and hilarious".  He just doesn't understand how much I wanted a copy of this book.  I love intricate patterns and had heard there were some amazing ones to be found in here.

Where did I find it you ask?
At an old books store in downtown Plattsburgh.


What was I doing in Plattsburgh?
Supposed to be enjoying the beach but since the same rainy weather was happening here as well we ended up in Ausable Chasm and then went on to Port Kent.  The weather did clear up late afternoon so we went walking in downtown Plattsburgh.  As soon as I spotted the old books store I knew I had to see if they had any knitting books and boy I hit the jackpot!


I  have already charted a lace pattern and will soon be knitting wonderful scarves and more inspired by the lovely intricate patterns in this book.

Here are some pictures from Ausable Chasm.  The first one is a a little chipmunk who kept coming onto to the porch whenever someone left to see if he could find some crumbs.  The second one is of the falls.  We spent an enjoyable time looking around a bit and chatting on the porch while it rained.

Inspiration for the garter stitch lace scarves

The inspiration for the garter stitch lace scarves was from Baktus which I saw once on Ravelry and can be found here on Flickr :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/norwayneedles/2963651011/

I liked the idea of creating a scarf that started slim, went wider in the middle on one side and back to slim.  Although her's looks really more like a shawl with a deeper V in the back. I found the lace edgings browsing through the Harmony Guide book :

I will really enjoy knitting more of these scarves since I love the look of them.  The yarn I used comes from La Bobineuse de Laine and I am knitting another one in orange tones as well.  They should all be up soon in my shop.

Heat wave the last few days

We have been having hot and humid weather for the last couple of days.  I love the heat, hate the humidity.

What this means?

No biking home on a BIXI since I don't feel like collapsing somewhere on the side of the road.

I have still been knitting but this morning the yarn and needles kept sticking to my fingers how humid it was.

If all goes according to plan I should have some scarves to add in my Etsy shop over the weekend.

Canada Day, or should I say moving day!

Yesterday was Canada Day.

You know what it means here in Québec?  It's moving day.  Most leases finish June 30th and I don't know why but Montrealers have a passion for moving.

I spent most of my bike ride home last night biking around trucks that were blocking the bike lanes.

So for for the next couple of weeks lots of junk will find it's way on the street curbs waiting to be picked up by the garbage truck; things like mattresses, couches and lots of computers.  I even saw one guy taking the computers apart to get the parts that may still be good and useful.

It also means new people in the neighborhood; new dogs to see being walked by their parents.  This morning I saw the most adorable little pug enjoying his walk.  I wonder if I'll see him often.

Unfortunately it will also mean lots of abandoned animals because the new place they are moving into doesn't accept animals.  I hope there won't be that many this year but I'm not optimistic.