Blast from the past

My boyfriend comes from Drummondville and while we were there last weekend, we decided to go to the Village quebecois d'antan, which recreates a village in Quebec in the 19th-beginning of 20th centuries.

The weather was gorgeous and we had a great time. Of course, I spent the whole time taking pictures of yarn...







... spinning wheels...



...sheeps...





...and pretty much anything that had something to do with yarn and knitting!







In other knitting-news, I'm keeping up with my resolution not to start anything new until I finish projects. I haven't made that much progress, but I'm getting there... slowly...

Mariah: Haven't touched it since the last post
Kiri Shawl: I'm on the 9th repeat (I'll probably go up to 12 after all). I made a mistake in the last row though so I'll have to fix it before I go on.
Red socks: I'm on the foot (of the first sock)

Must.finish.projects...

No pictures in this post, unfortunately, and that's because I can't seem to finish anything.

So I decided I wouldn't participate in the World Cup Knitting challenge thing. Nope.

I'm also resisting the urge to cast on for this top.

Or for Tubey. Or for this cool cabled cardigan that I saw on Crafsters a while ago and that I have the pattern for (it's from an old Vogue Knitting magazine). I also won't start an alphabet blanket, felted clogs for my boyfriend, Madli's Shawl (using the cashmere I bought on Ebay) or a Clapotis.

Nope.

This summer, I am finishing stuff. From now on and until these projects are finished, I can only work on three things:

-Mariah. This sweater should have been done a long long time ago (if only I didn't decide to start over the sleeves, we wouldn't be having this discussion). I know I can finish it before fall comes back and I'll be happy to have a new sweater when it gets colder.

-The Kiri shawl (pattern in pdf format here). I'm loving working on this so I don't doubt I'll finish it soon. I have almost 7 repeats of the pattern done so far and I'm planning on doing 10-12 of them.

-Socks. The plain red socks that I started while I was in Europe.

The only exception to my "I'm not starting a new project before I finish these" rule is that I will be able to start a new pair of socks when I finish the red ones. That's only because I need a portable and easy project that I can work on during the knitting meetups.

Hopefully I'll be able to stick to this commitment and you guys will have FO pics to see soon :)

Back home!

I came back home last Thursday after a three weeks business trip/vacation to Paris and London. It was great. Unfortunately, though, I worked so much in the first two weeks that when my week of vacation started, I was exhausted! But I still managed to have a good time.

I only visited one LYS during my trip, La Droguerie on Rue du jour in Paris. It was a lovely shop and I was especially interested in their bamboo yarn but I ended up not buying anything. I did, however, buy this beautiful scarf in another shop.



It is not knitted but it is handmade and beautiful. And it kept my neck warm which is a good thing since apparently, Paris and London never got the memo that it's almost summer now. It was so damn cold the whole time I was there!

While I didn't buy any yarn during my trip, I did spend a bit of time knitting. I began a pair of striped socks:



I'm loving the colour!

I also started the Kiri shawl with some AmiAmi yarn. I can already tell it's going to be a beautiful thing, even though it currently looks like crap.



I can't wait till it's finished. I'm working on it like a maniac even though I really should get back to Mariah. I told myself I wouldn't start any new sweater until I'm done with this one and of course there are one million sweaters I want to start right now.

Today I went to the bookstore and was happy to see that they hadn't sold all their copies of the summer issue of IK (I got the last one!). I think I want to make the Looking glass top, except without the cable in the back. I'm also totally in love with the Icarus shawl (actually, I think I'm just totally in love with lace shawl knitting).

Ok that's all for today. I now have three weeks worth of knitting blogs to go read :p