Splendiferous

An awesome word to describe an awesome birthday!

Normally, I celebrate my birthday fairly quietly with my family and a few friends - especially when the numerous lit candles could quite possibly start a bush fire!

Sometimes in life though we get wonderful little surprises on our birthday.  Friday was just such a day, and I want to share!

The day began like every 16th March, but by the end of the day I felt so blessed to have such lovely people in my life.  Even the weather Gods smiled on me and presented a warm sunny day of 18C.  The norm for this time of year is about 4C!

Now to the fun stuff....  Most of us are delighted to get a birthday cake.....so how splendiferous is it to get two!

DQ Blizzard Chocolate Ice Cream Cake (my husband's choice)

And then there was this one from my lovely friends at Cotton-by-Post:

Thank you so much Suzanne and Garnet!

Throughout the day I received so many birthday cards (thank you especially to Barb and Palmer), lots of emails and Facebook wishes.  Two of the email highlights were from my adorable nieces.  How splendiferous is this:

Jaycee's birthday card (she's 6yr old)

Karlia's birthday card (she's 8yr old)

And my goodness, the gifts!  I was awfully spoiled!  Splendiferously spoiled!

Mum and Dad sent me a lovely necklace:

Amethyst necklace

My sister and her family sent me a gift card:

Got them well trained!

My brother and his family sent me a gift card:

Got them well trained too!

My lovely friend Roxanne gave me a gift card:

Thank you Roxy!

Suzanne (Cotton-by-Post) made me this totally awesome knitting bag:

Hand made knitting bag with sheep, wool and needles all over it!

My friend Laurie, bless her heart, bought me a pdf pattern from my "favourites" list in Ravelry DECENT DAYS waistcoat by Ildiko Eros:

Decent Days Waistcoat

And now, what would a birthday be without me buying myself a gift?  Voila:

Namaste Monroe Bag

And then to top it all off, a customer brought me in a huge bag full of.....Shetland fleece!

Shetland fleece

This fleece obviously needs washing, then carding, then spinning.  Unfortunately, it wasn't skirted, so all the crap is in with the good stuff.  But hey, it was a gift!  And I love it :-)

Thank you to everyone for making me feel so loved and special on my splendiferous birthday!  Mwah, mwah to you all!

Out with the Old and in with the New

Closets and cabinets that is, not my husband .... although LOL.

January seemed to be renovation month this year.  For a long time now, storage has been an issue in our little hand built 1959 house.  Back in those days, I suppose people didn't have much of anything in abundance to store, so homes were often built with almost no closet, cupboard or cabinet space.

The rooms that were given make-overs were the office, master bedroom and guest room.  OK, OK.....let's call it what it really is.  The guest room shall hence forth be known as the yarn room [tic].

The office and master bedroom shared a common wall and wardrobe.  Now the master bedroom has a walk-in closet!

The back of the walk-in closet is one of the walls in the office.  The cupboards from the yarn room went into the office for stationery and supplies.

The side of the walk-in closet is the hallway wall, that has now become a photo wall.

And the yarn room has been organised into wall cubes

and a cabinet.

I'm contemplating another row of five cubes in the yarn room.  I have to be stash enhancement ready LOL.

Weekend with a Harlot

A Yarn Harlot that is.....none other than the fabulous Stephanie Pearl-McPhee!

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

Profuse apologies for the tardiness of this blog post.  Stephanie was invited by Cotton-by-Post to London, Ontario for a book signing and two classes last weekend (20th - 22nd January, 2012).  And I'm so slack that I don't get around to blogging about it until today!

WHAT A FABULOUS EVENT!!

I attended all three days.  Friday night was the seminar and book signing.  I own four of her books and she happily signed them all!  Whoot!!

The 6 hour workshops on Saturday and Sunday were intense, exhausting and totally amazing!  Saturday's workshop was entitled "Knitting for Speed and Efficiency".  Sunday's workshop was entitled "Liking Lace".

I took copious notes at both workshops.  Knitting for Speed and Efficiency introduced the class to "lever knitting".  I wrote a blog post in October, 2011 about this technique here.  I'm doing my best to learn this technique so I can knit comfortably with the yarn tensioned in either my left hand or in my right hand.  Lever knitting tensions yarn in the right hand, but since I'm a "picker", I learned to tension yarn in my left hand.

Liking Lace introduced the class to lace; the history, the traditions, the different kinds of lace, determining good and bad lace yarn, and knitting lace.  Stephanie even passed around some of her beloved stash for us to pet!  She also showed us many of her beautiful shawls.

Now for the photos:

Book signing

Saturday class

Demonstration of Norwegian Purling

Demonstration of Norwegian Purling

THANK YOU SO MUCH STEPHANIE!