Defeat the Winter Doldrums Topic # 6

For this topic we were asked to go through the other participants' comments for the last topic, and mention which one we liked best and why.

Alaina's day away was a favorite pick for many, and I have to agree with them. But as I don't get away much, I have to say there were many 'one day vacations' that I would love to go on. This one posted by Grace seemed so calming! I've never been on one of those long boardwalks, and it is something I would love to do. I can just imagine the scenery!

I also liked the idea of spending time with horses from Pony Knit's blog.

I could have a lot of fun skiing if I were offered unlimited hot chocolate for the day!

Then there's this:

I can't believe other people are getting flowers coming up when we have nothing but snow! There's still a good 6 weeks to go before we get any sign of plants sprouting out. But a spring garden is a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.

part of the gift

DSC_8228

These are the stitch markers that I ordered on Etsy for my secret pal in the Winter Doldrums gift exchange. She likes to make socks, so I think she will like these. I don't know if she has any yet, so hopefully they are well received.

Of course, the package is well on it's way, but I didn't post a photo yet so I thought I would do it now. I'm also learning how to post from flickr, and haven't done it yet, so here goes... (if you see the photo, it worked).

Cross Border Shipping

I almost renamed Friday as Endless Errand Day.  But, we got it all done so I can enjoy my weekend.  To be truthful, my husband got most of it done for me, plus he brought me a Timmy's (Tim Horton's) coffee just the way I like it; half coffee, half hot chocolate.  MMMMMM!  I've tried getting a mocha latte at starbucks, but it doesn't seem the same to me.  Very strong taste.

As I was filing my paperwork, I noticed on my shipping receipt for my parcel that went out for the dishcloth exchange that there was an error.  Not an address error, thank goodness, but somehow I had posted the wrong dollar amount in the contents section.  I tried to use the new "Ship in a Click" on the Canada Post website to print off my shipping label. Their form took the number of items inside the package, times the value amount (I thought that was to be the total dollar value) and ended up showing the total as $89.00
So on the form I had filled out:
Items               Number of Items     Value
Knitting Supplies          4                       $
Dishcloths                    3                       $

I quickly glanced it over and figured they would do Total = Value of Knitting supplies + Value of Dishcloths, not Total = (4x$)+(3x$), which quadrupled the total value of the parcel.  Now, as anyone in Canada who has purchased an ebay item from outside Canada knows, duty fees are a dreadful thing.  I felt aweful for having made this horrible mistake, assuming my secret pal would now have to pay duty just to get her parcel!  In Canada, if you purchase anything from across the border that totals over $20 in Canadian dollars, you pay duty.  To make it worse, if it is sent by Fed Ex or UPS you pay a brokerage fee, even if there is no duty!  USPS is the best way to go, as they don't charge brokerage fees.  If you get a gift, the Canada Customs will allow for the total amount of the package to be less than $60.00 and not pay duty, as long as it is clearly marked 'gift' and not ordered directly from a company. 

I can't find any information as to the customs fees for items entering the US from Canada, other than a small article I found on Ebay.  I don't know for sure if this article is correct and up to date, but it mentioned there was a personal gift allowance of $100.  Whew!  What a relief!  I was feeling so horrible - imagine if you sent someone a nice gift and then had to make them pay a duty fee to get it.  If any of my 'anonymous' pals know about this and can confirm, that would be greatly appreciated!  Have you had a problem receiving shipments from Canada to the United States?  Please let me know!

Almost out of here!

My last Etsy package arrived yesterday, for my secret pal. The photo of these stitch markers on Etsy didn't do them justice - they are so much more beautiful in person. It's almost a shame I have to give them away. My secret pal will just love them, I know it! On her blog, she mentioned how much she likes yellow flowers, so I just had to get these when I saw them on Etsy. I believe the sellers name is sunneshine Etsy. She has lots of great stuff. I can't wait to see how my swap pal likes her gift!

I'm going to be risky and post a photo of it, since I don't believe she is looking for me in the blogs. There are so many to go through! I was hoping to read all the blogs before the swap ended, but I then I land on an interesting blog and have to read the whole thing... very time consuming, and fun! I'm looking forward to reading my secret pal's blog when it's been revealed to me!

Topic #5 - Defeat the Winter Doldrums

If money were no object, and the day was just perfect - not to hot, not too cold, sun shining, slight breeze - how would you spend a perfect day out that had been given to you in the middle of a cold and blustery winter?

I would go to Prince Edward Island and take a tour, watch their Anne of Green Gables play, and wander through Lover's Lane.  Assuming it was a beautiful warm day, I would explore the forests and smell all the flowers.  I would take my time and enjoy the outdoors.  Maybe there would even be some butterflies!

Visiting blogs today

Tonight I'm goint to catch up on some Dishcloth swap blog reading, as well as some blogs on the Scavenger Hunt Swap.  I'm trying to get through the list alphabetically.  I'm still way back at the beginning.  I've checked out a few other blogs out of order, like knit fit, and a few others after reading about them on the scavenger hunt's page (contest for listing your favorite blogs).  I'm finally done the A's and B's on the dishcloth swap (love that Coffee Yarn blog layout!).  I keep losing my place on the Scavenger hunt list of blogs, so I've read a few over - that's okay, as there's always something new to read on them.  I'm not sure if I will actually get through the entire lists, but I am hoping to.

There is one exception,  I will not be reading any blogs whose name starts with "K".  I don't want to spoil anything, and I have an idea that one of my secret pal's names starts with a K.  I deleted the post as soon as I saw there was a name accidentally on it, but tried not to look at the name.  Thankfully, I am really bad at names (not always a good thing, but here it works well) so that's all I remember.  So if you are reading this, "K" a.k.a. secret pal, I will not spoil the fun by cheating.  I'll wait like a good spoilee for my package to arrive and then learn who you are.  Then I will go straight away to your blog and find out more about you!  And as for my other secret pal, a.k.a. "secr3t pal", I have no idea who you are!

For the dishcloth exchange blogs, I'm going to try and read through the C's today - there are so many of them!  for the Scavenger blogs, I thought they were out of order but now I see they are backwards alphabetical.  So I'm going to start at the bottom and try and get A - C/D done as I know I haven't read the bottom listed names yet.

Hey - it's Friday!  Hope you've all had a good week!  Plans for the weekend?  Michaels is having a huge yarn sale tomorrow, so I'm going to double check my lists and make sure I haven't missed anything.  There are a couple of items I was having doubts about, so this gives me one more chance to finish everything up before I am due to ship on Monday... hope my Etsy items get here in time!  I just want to make sure the shipping gets there on time.  Perhaps I should double check how fast expresspost might arrive there.  Cheers!

finished dishcloth

Here are some new photos - the quality isn't the best, as I only used the computer's camera instead of my camera. I didn't want to hunt for the USB cord to connect the camera to the computer for uploading.
So, the first photo is the Super Sox - that's the one skein of yarn that I picked up for myself (while shopping for my secret pal)to try making a pair of socks one day. You can't really tell from the photo, but the yarn is very soft, and has nice rich tones of hunter green and some dark blues, and some auburn.

The next photo should be the newest dishcloth I've just finished for the Defeat the Winter Doldrums dishcloth swap. It's a double woven knitting pattern. It's got some intereted colors in it.

After that we have the moose dishcloth. I took two photos with slightly different lighting angles. I hope you can see the shape!

The kitty cat is a photo I stumbled upon while looking for knitted sweater pictures. What a cutie!

Weekly Topic #4

" Defeat the Winter Doldrums" for some of us we get the doldrums and others don't. For the ones who get doldrums what helps you get rid of them? For the ones who don't get the doldrums, what helps you keep them away?

I usually call them the Winter Blahs. Sometimes I get them, but they don't last too long. Most of our relatives are out of town, so we don't visit them as much during the winter, as well as friends who live out of town. Hot chocolate helps. We rent more movies, put on the fire place, and usually order in food more rather than dining out. My husband likes to order Swiss Chalet. I try to get a few new slow cooker recipes to try - I love soup! My husband likes a good beef stew. I like to knit or crochet warm winter accessories whilte it's still cold out. Winter is so much cozier that way. Last year I had made my first hat and matching scarf, and everytime I wear it, I don't mind going out in the cold. I would love to knit a pair of mittens - haven't done that yet. I found the best pair of mittens in college at a store. The looked hand made, though I don't remember if they were. The pattern looked so cheerful. They were large enough for me to wear another whole pair of mittens inside. All my buddies in college saw them, and ran out to get a pair for themselves. So we had a little mitten posse going on. I'm certain we had the warmest hands of anyone on campus! There were no winter blahs that year! If I ever see a pair like that again, I will have to get the pattern and make me a fun pair of mitts!

Cloth and Clay

That's the name of the LYS I went to today!  Wow!  It looked so delightful, but I couldn't stay long.  The plan was to have my husband take the boys out to lunch whilst I explored this wonderful new discovery.  But unfortunately, they could not find anything for them to do and came back to see if I was done shopping.  By then I had just finished paying for the purchases I had made for my secret pals, but didn't get to browse around for fun.  I promised that I wouldn't get anything for myself on this visit, and somehow ended up getting a skein of sock yarn (everything today was 20% off, which they said only happens every February).  The silly thing is, I have never made socks, don't have sock needles, patterns, or whatever else it is that you need to make socks.  Why on earth did I buy sock yarn?  I was buying a skien of it for my secret pal, and it looked so intriguing that for some reason I found myself grabbing an extra one for myself.  The sales lady didn't mind adding another item to my bill - which was substantially higher than what I was supposed to spend even with the discount.  But I wanted to make sure I had everything on my list, and I'm sure the gifts will be well liked.  As it is typical of me, I forgot that I already had certain things picked out (but didn't check it off my category for the scavenger hunt), and then purchased something else for that category.  So I have a few extra trinkets to put in the gift pack.  I also found the cutest soap for my spoilee in the dishchloth swap!  I am so thrilled to have taken care of it early!  The only thing I have to do now, is pick out a nice card for them, a box to wrap everything in, and finish knitting my dishcloths!  Silly me, I accidentally gave away one of the dish cloths I had made for the dishcloth swap to my sister - she really liked it.  I can whip up a new one.  I am trying to make a new pattern tonight - a double woven dishcloth.  I have already frogged it about 3 or 4 times!  I am on line 7 now.  I will take some photos tomorrow to show you some of the stuff I got! 

Dishcloth swap topic # 3

Please post a picture of your yarn stash for making dishcloths and the notions you use on them. So, 2 pics 1 of dishcloth yarn stash and 1 of your notions you use for making dishcloths.

This is a photo of my knitting suitcase. This was my suitcase as a child, recently given to me again by my sister. I had no idea it was still around! We very seldom went away anywhere with it, but had a lot of fun packing things in it and pretending to go away. Have you ever seen that episode where Mr. Bean packs his suitcase for vacation? I really like that one. My little suitcase has a nice wide pocket in the back for knitting needles to fit in.

Inside my suitcase are all my dishcloth yarns. All of them are Bernat brand, as I have not found any other brand locally for dishcloths, but I've found that Bernat and Patons brands are both made locally so that's pretty neat. I love any color of dishcloth yarn. I love working with cotton yarn. I would love to try some of that Sugar and Cream yarn that everyone else uses, but have never seen any at my local yarn store. There is one other store in my area that I just found out about on the weekend. I would like to go there this week, but the weather might not permit it. We are supposed to have a huge snowstorm tonight, so it might have to wait till the weekend. I can't wait to go there!

Okay, so as for notions: I don't have any. Unless that includes needles. I have 3 sets of needles; size 4.5mm, 5.0mm, 6.0mm. I do not have any knitting stitch markers; I have some Lion brand crochet plastic stitch markers.

That's my stash!

Hope you are having a great day!

Topic # 2 for Defeat the Winter Doldrums swap

There are many people who ADORE receiving hand-knit or crochet items; but there are just as many who have no appreciation whatever of how much love, work, and time goes into a hand-made item. Share a story of a hand-made gift you gave to someone and how it worked out - good, bad, or ugly!


A few friends and co-workers threw me a surprise baby shower a few years ago.  One of the gifts we received was a white baby blanket.  It was the most beautiful baby blanket I've ever seen, and still is.  Of course, I was never told what the pattern was called, or where the yarn might be found.  The design was so delicate, with clusters here and there.  In the light, it glistened like white pearls, and felt just as smooth.  Our baby slept so dreamily when he snuggled up in that blanket.  It is now one of our most cherished keepsakes. I adored it so much that I wished I could one day make something that special for someone else. That is essentailly what inspired me to start crocheting again.  I still haven't found a baby blanket pattern like it, nor have I found the same type of yarn.  But that makes it all the more precious to me.

Oops!  I'm supposed to write about something I made and gave to someone else!  Well, I haven't made too many things yet, as I am still a beginner.  I test out my skills by making little projects to give away.  All the Christmas dishcloths I made last year seemed to be well received.  But the one that took the cake had to be the hat I made last winter.  Here's the scoop on that one:
I had just finished making my first hat and a matching scarf for myself.  It was my first time doing a pattern in rounds, and I was so pleased that it turned out ok. I couldn't wait to start on a new project to make for someone else.  A child I knew seemed to be hatless;  he kept showing up to play at our house without a hat.  He would get so cold outside in the snow, but for some reason never brought a hat.  So I thought, why not make one?  I didn't have a child's hat pattern (and hadn't learned how to adjust for size) and figured that since I had already made one hat, it should be easy to do. After working on this hat over the weekend (without a head to measure), I presented it to him and his mother. I thought they were pleased with it.  The next day I overheard the child telling my kids about their mother's disapproval, and her criticisms.  Apparently it didn't fit perfectly.  I thought it was warmer than nothing, but tried again to adjust it by adding a few rows and some ear flaps with string to tie them together.  The added rows ended up making it look like a fisherman's hat. I suppose I added too many increases to adjust for size. It did look rather ridiculous! Thank goodness I can laugh at it now! I have to admit, I wasn't making it to look pretty, it was to stay warm, which it did all winter. I think the mother must have been embarrassed to see her son in such an awful hat, for she soon started to send him in some very nice knitted hats which his grandmother made for him.  I've made some nicer hats now that I have found a couple of children's hat patterns. The comments made were a little discouraging, and I became a little more shy about giving away projects for awhile.  I've since gotten over it. I've found that my biggest fans are the children I take care of. When I make them something, I am much harder on myself than they are. They just adore getting something special made for them, and they don't care if there are flaws. That's what makes it worth while.

I found a local yarn store!

This weekend I went with a friend to check out a local yarn store that we'd found out about.  We got there not too long before closing time, so we didn't get to browse everything.  I was looking for some yarn that my secret pal would like, but couldn't find it.  It seems to be popular with many bloggers here on both swap sites I've been to, but I have not come across it at any of the stores I have been to yet.  I will have to check online and see who carries it.  I did pick out a few balls of cotton yarn to make a special dishcloth for my secret pal.  Then the store clerk came and told us they were closing, so we had to quickly decide what to get.  I saw a free pattern for a crocheted two-tone vest that I would love to make, so the wonderful lady there helped me pick out the yarn to go with it.  I haven't found this yarn at the other stores I've been to, so I was very happy to add this to my stash!  It was two balls each of Moda Dea's "Tweedle Dee" Thunder and Blackberry.  I forgot to get the buttons;  That's the one thing I am always forgetting!  So I am going to go back again this week and hopefully find some more things I can get for the scavenger hunt, and the dishcloth swap.  I'm also going to read through other people's blogs and see if there are links to online stores that might have more unique things to spoil someone with.  My "something local" category item should be easy since I've found out that two yarn brands have their yarn made nearby.  

Anyways, I had a great time exploring the local yarn store, even though it was a short trip.  

Defeat the Winter Doldrums weekly topic

Weekly Topic: Dishrag. Dishcloth. Face cloth. I've seen folks get all fired up in forums when someone refers to their knit or crochet creation as a dishrag, as that's somehow offensive to them! When you're working on yours, what do you call them? Also, is there a difference between a dishrag and a dishcloth? How bout a facecloth? Are they all really the same thing?

My mother once explained to me that when nice flannel sheets were no longer of good use, they would be cut up into smaller pieces to be used as rags for cleaning. This saved a lot of money for people during hard times. Not too different from those who lived in remote places who would use up scraps of fabric woven together to make rugs.

Facecloths I assumed were always made more delicately, with softer fabrics.

Dishcloths; I have been amazed by all the different kinds of dishcloths I have discovered on various blogs. I have just begun to knit, and was not aware of how many many patterns there are out there. After seeing just how intricate these dishcloths can get, I can see how someone might take offense to another person calling their work of art a 'rag'. It certainly isn't a term of endearment, and doesn't reflect at all on the hours of work one might put into their efforts to design and create a beautiful cloth. When rags are leftover pieces used to clean bathrooms and scrub floors, its hard to imagine a delicate cloth being put in the same category.

But I think the main thing would be the care put into the piece being made. When a friend gives me a dishcloth, I think how nice it was that a friend hand made something special for me. And I lovingly call it a dishcloth.