Ballee asked what was on my needles in the comments yesterday and for once the answer is almost nothing. The only thing I have actively on the needles that isn’t in some sort of deep hibernation is a pair socks that I have about 6 rounds left on and that I can’t show you. So that’s my very dull answer. I do have something on my hook though! I spent my last day in Toronto in Lettuce Knit with Laura and the crochet cardigan she’s working on got me thinking about crochet. So I found myself finally buying a sweater’s worth of yarn and a hook. Seems to be working out.

I do have a knitting fo to share that you haven’t seen yet, but by the time I remembered to photograph it even this last patch of sunlight had gone from my studio. It’s still light though, long summer evenings is pretty high on my list of reasons to love Scotland.

Because not only did I have a lot of fun in Toronto with Laura (more of our adventures on her blog), but we now have matching shoes.

Predictably we didn’t manage to leave the Fluevog store after just trying them on, although that in itself was fun, what with trying on multiple sizes and prancing around and taking photos of our feet in the mirror.

We didn’t end up quite this matchy, matchy. Laura was planning on getting them in green but they were sold out and I argued that everyone needs at least one pair of red shoes. It’s a good rule.

Not only am I in love with these shoes, and the ridiculousness of buying matching ones, but they are so comfortable. I’m not usually a fan of heels but I wore these all day on Thursday (the day after we bought them), while traveling (=lugging lots of luggage around) and all weekend in London. Still comfy!

Now I’m back home, caught up on my email and catching up on laundry. Thank you for all of the safe travel wishes everyone, the traveling was tiring but totally easy and uneventful. I had a great weekend in London too, so I’m so glad I did that even if it did make the journey home more exhausting it was totally worth it.

*You know I don’t really mean that, right? I wish we were closer, although I dread to think of the madness that would ensue.

I’ve actually been fairly well behaved while in Canada and I’ve so far resisted the temptation to buy sweater quantities of yarn. The thing I’ve loved about visiting yarn stores here is seeing (and feeling of course!) so many of the yarns that I’d only seen online. And I’ve been storing all of that information away so that when I actually have something in mind for a yarn I’ll be able to order it. We are going to look for some vacuum packing bags to add to the one I already have today in the hope that it will avoid the need to navigate London with 2 suitcases by myself. Oh London - I’m going to be in London over the weekend, hanging out with Alice and a friend from uni. I’ll only be there for a couple of days, but if you’re around maybe I’ll see you. If you’re nearby and have a bed to offer me that would be wonderful.

2 ply O-Wool in a colour Kate seems to have influenced.

Louet Merlin, a linen wool blend in my favourite sort of not too sugary dusty pink.

A baby alpaca, silk and cashmere blend. So soft!

Dream in Colour sock yarn, I’ve already made one sock that I’m not sure I can show yet but I think I might actually get two pairs of ankle socks out of this the ball is still really dense.

A lace weight malabrigo cloud.

Auracania nature cotton that I’m making a bolero length version of the cardigan in my last post, Amy and I have a little knitalong going with this. She’s using the same yarn in blue to make herself a cardigan. Super famous test knitter! There’s also some dusky pink and grey malabrigo that I forgot to photograph that I bought to make the bolero version of this before Amy convinced me to join her with the cotton. Can I face knitting the same thing 3 times in a row? Hmm… Ooh and I just realised I also forgot to photograph what I acquired from the knitty review closet. Maybe not so restrained after all, although I at least didn’t buy that.

And then there are the supplies to feed my new addiction.

I spun some yarn last night, and while still rather variable it’s more even than my first effort.

And then there’s this, which is beginning to look like real yarn!

And now we’re going to the Fluevog store, because the reasonably restrained yarn buying somehow means I can justify at least trying on some shoes I’ve got my eye on. And surprise, surprise they aren’t red! Then we’ll be heading up to the Kensington Markets and to Lettuce Knit this evening. Tomorrow I’ll be saying goodbye to Canada, at least for a while. I’d love to see you this evening though before I go.

Yesterday we went to a clothing show and I bought a couple of cute printed dresses. This is one of them, from a Canadian company called Passenger Pigeon. As is probably obvious from the print they make eco-friendly clothing, my dress is made from organic soy and organic cotton. The torso’s a little long, but it will be easy to alter - although when I’ll get around to that is another matter.

Today we hung out, taking photos and Laura taught me how to spin! It’s been a long time since I learnt something that I had no idea how to do so that was interesting, but eventually I got the spindle a little under control.

It’s messy, but it’s definitely yarn.

We also blocked the cardigan I’ve been knitting while I’ve been here and had a little photo shoot. This is basically a re-working of my cloud bolero design into a neater, simpler pattern that will be much more fun to knit. More on that later.

I bought the wonderful vintage pearl buttons on ebay ages ago, I’ve just been waiting for the perfect garment to add them to. I might be a little less precious about the special buttons in my teeny button collection now though, since it’s grown so much.

I’m finally trying to catch the blog up on my Toronto adventures. On Wednesday Amy picked me up from the train station and took me to dinner in the Kensington Markets from where we walked around the corner to the Lettuce Knit knitting night. It’s a pretty little store but they managed to squeeze a lot of people in, including several knitting celebrities, plus there was cake and beer. We had fun.

Elijah  and Otto found lots of things to play in.

Elijah found a great place to rest, but Otto was a little nervous…

They found people to play with too, they liked Denny but I think they liked her birthday cake more!

And they met Amy who I’ve been staying with. I got to see where knitty’s made + raid the knitty review stash!

And Laura, who I’m staying with from today. It’s raining and we’re going to a party later so we baked. Lots.

I got to Toronto yesterday, more on that later, but before I left Montreal I had one place I had to return to for a longer visit.

My favourite thing about this store, other than the crazy buttony decor, is the giant drawer full of buttons that you can fill a bag from. I spent a good hour and a half digging through there and basically bought myself a button collection. So much fun + there’s a button encrusted cobra guarding the treasure.

I haven’t even had a chance to tip the bag out yet and sort through them, but I’m excited to really see what I got. And I selected a variety of red buttons from the shelves because apparently I have a thing for red buttons, the teeny bag of neatly choosen buttons was more expensive though than the giant one of random goodness.

Anyone in Edinburgh feel like opening a button store?

Lots of new friends! These guys live in the adorable shop Ariadne
and were designed and knit by Jennie, the patterns for some of them are available from Ariadne and if you happen to be in Montreal she’s doing a class that sounds like a lot of fun soon. I love the idea of it - you make a basic doll in advance and then the class is for adding all of the fun details and giving the doll an individual character.

The owners of Ariadne, Molly Ann and Mary are really sweet and they took me to dinner on my first day here. I’ve ended up in the shop 3 times, I left Coraline there yesterday so we went to pick it up and found it in the window display which made me smile. If I’m going to lose a hand knit I’d like to do so at a knitting store! The trip to pick up Coraline turned into hanging out there for most of the afternoon.

Elijah and Otto also had fun meeting local knitters at the Montreal Knits meet up on Thursday. They were much more sociable than I was, what with all of the walking around me and Kate did during the day and the time difference I was very sleepy and not very talkative. It was lovely to meet people though and there was lots of enthusiasm for photographing the little guys. I love how everyone gets into that. Makes me feel less weird.

Yesterday we had fun showing Montreal to Elijah and Otto. And now our legs hurt from walking all over the place. My nose is very red too, I wasn’t expecting it to be like summer so that’s awesome. I have my red shoes and a red ribbon in my hair though so at least it’s co-ordinated.

I’ve sent out an update for the Otto pattern, the first line on p.4 should begin ‘K3 sts from needle 1 onto needle 3′ not ‘K3 sts from needle 1 onto needle 2′.

In more fun news I love this completed Coraline. If you aren’t sure whether a drapey sweater and puffed sleeves are for you she helpfully included info on her modifications here. There have been some great posts on shaping on knittingdaily recently and Coraline would be a great blank canvas to try that out on.

I’m here, and it’s really warm and sunny which is fun although it does mean I have a lot of rather useless warm clothing! I know that lots of people responded to my post about coming here wanting to meet up so I thought I’d post that tomorrow I’ll be going to the Montreal Knits meet up tomorrow evening if you want to come along. That should be fun :)