Ready To Go, Ellen!

I've been busy as a beaver the past few weeks getting the children's sweaters ready to go to market. I deliver them to the store tomorrow. So I thought I'd give you a glimpse of some of them. Today I did the fibre tags and hang tags. So we're ready to go!

And, earlier this week I got a few snaps of the two blue jays that visit our back patio every now and again.

In the midst of the busyness, I've managed to knit a sweater for myself. We'll show you that one next post. Our weather has been rain, drizzle and fog (fondly known by the locals as 'RDF') for most of the past week, so as soon as the weather clears off, we'll get Ellen outside and get a few shots around town in my new sweater!

100% wool with stripes and pocket in Bunny Soft

100% wool with tiny heart buttons

Tied girl's ballet sweater (cotton/modal)

100% wool. The tiny buttons are Christmas lights.

100% wool with Bernat Boa as trim, collar and pockets.

We Got 'Em, Ellen!

The blue jay that is!

A couple of posts ago in "Backyard Visitors" I mentioned that a blue jay had dropped by a few times for a snack from the bird house in our back yard, but I couldn't get a photo of him/her because he/she was too quick to grab a bite and flee. 

This week we bought a bird seed bell and put it in one of the flower pots. Sure enough, the blue jay couldn't resist and dropped by. Got a couple of quick shots but had to take them through glass. 

I have a couple more children's sweaters knit. 

The pink and white sweater is hand knit with Berlini Smile yarn, which is a wool/acrylic blend and super soft. The fuzzy white yarn is Bunny Soft. Knit that one a few weeks ago when Hurricane Leslie blew through and we lost our electricity for a day. It did take more than one day to knit, but I got a good start on it that day until darkness came.

The red sweater is machine knit with hand knit edges with Patons DK Superwash 100% Wool. This yarn is soft enough to put next to a child's skin and not itchy at all.

L'Anse aux Meadows, Finally, Ellen!

Our destination on our trip up the coast of the Great Northern Peninsula was L'Anse aux Meadows. We'd talked about going there several times over the years but it never panned out until this year.  Both John and I are delighted that we finally visited this wonderful place. There are lots of pictures this time because I'd like you to feel like you were there too, so we tried to capture as much as we could.

There are employees (in costume) working in the reconstructed Norse building playing music, storyteling, weaving, etc. In fact one of the guys was cutting lengths of yarn for his next project. You'll see him below. I don't need to say too much here. The pictures tell the story. You do actually feel a "sense of place" (and respect) when you are walking about, especially on the area where the original buildings stood.

The sweaters on the bottom of this post are children's cotton machine wash/dry sweaters that I've machine knit (hand finished) since we came home from the road trip.

Oh yes! Almost forgot to tell you!  I've had a pattern accepted by Knit Picks. I made this pattern in the Spring and applied to Knit Picks to be part of their Independent Designer Program. It's for sale here.
Yaay!  Exciting stuff!

L'Anse aux Meadows community

Sign in parking lot before entering Parks Canada building

Vikings on the hillside

View from the deck of Parks Canada building

Metal art on walkway

Close up of above so you can read the words

Reconstructed Norse building

Storyteller/weaver cutting lengths of yarn

Musician/storyteller

Tempted to run off with this! (100% wool)

2nd picture of above yarn
(just because I love pictures of yarn!)  :-)

Stacked firewood

Interior - wall of tools

Barrels of various things. See the fleece hanging?

Viking helmets

John with Viking sword........run away!

Loom
Glad I don't have to use rocks as weights on my knitting machine!

Nice view
As usual, I like the fence line and boat. Also, chopping block in the foreground for chopping firewood.

Clothesline

Original Norse site

This robin has his worm and let us get really close.
With every click of the camera he hopped a little closer.

This guy is posted at the door of the Parks Canada building.