Happy Birthday

It's my mother's birthday today; so Happy Birthday Mam!  We're from the north of England where we call our mother's Mam.

I made her this card:

I got it as a freebie in this magazine.

It said it should only take 5 hours to sew.  It took me a lot longer😕

I got my mam a subscription to Prima Magazine

I wanted to get myself a subscription as well, but they are not shipping international at the moment?  Honestly I nearly gave up the will to live trying to order my mam her subscription, as my Canadian address proved to be a problem; again????  Finally got it ordered.  I will get her something else when I see her later in the year, as she is coming for a visit.

Yarn Along - May 27th 2015

I haven't done much in the way of knitting this week, but I have learned a couple of things.  I bought the Spring 2015 issue of Simply Knitting.

 In it was this free flower brooch kit.

I figured I would give it a go, despite the fact it had a couple of abbreviations I knew nothing about.

Luckily my mam mailed me this booklet she got free from the Daily Mail newspaper in Britain.

Discovered:

sl means pass a stitch from left-hand needle to right-hand needle as if to knit or purl without working it.  Who knew? Don't see the point of this, but did it all the same.

M1 means a knit wise increase (same as inc.)

yo means yarn over; where you make a new stitch by placing yarn over right hand needle.

s2kpo means slip two stitches from left-hand needle to right-hand needle, one at a time, knit the next stitch and pass slipped stitches together back over the stitch; which in turn forms a left leaning double decrease.

Luckily there was a page in the book that showed me a step by step on increasing, as I wasn't sure about that.  Plus by reading over the abbreviations and meanings a couple of times I managed to understand what they were trying to say.

I have read this great book this week.  Well worth the read and I have just ordered the sequel to it as it was that good.  You can read my review here.

If you want to see more knitting goodness please visit this week's Yarn Along:

M.I.A. - not really

Life is flipping busy at the moment, so sorry for not popping in and keeping you updated with what has been happening.  Since May 5th we have had visitors from Britain, namely my mam and step-father.  They came to see their great-granddaughter.  The trip was planned back in November and at that time we weren't sure when we would be moving.

Anyhow, their visit has been busy for both them and me, with things to do everyday.  Today (Monday) we had tea with Queen Victoria:

What both my mam and step-father found amusing was that they do not celebrate her birthday in her country of birth, but here in Canada we go all out.  There was an event at the local museum and we went and had an enjoyable time.

They leave on Saturday evening, so only a few days left now.  

A while ago I mentioned a friend/co-worker/surrogate Canadian brother had cancer.  He lost his fight last Tuesday and tomorrow (Tuesday) is his funeral.  Please say a prayer for his wife and two young children (ages 2 & 5) and his parents and family.  They are all devastated and understandably so.  

The house is coming along nicely and we had a visit on the weekend with all the family and got to look through it.  Very excited and pleased with how it is all looking.  Here are a couple of photos.  The first one is of the ceiling in the family/living room looking towards the kitchen.

That light fixture is going and shouldn't actually be there.  We are all very pleased with the look of the ceiling.

This one is of the kitchen looking towards the family room:

The counter tops are not in yet, they are a light granite I think/hope!!!  Don't remember what I ordered.  All the tiles, hardwood and carpet are in.  They are down to the nitty gritty and fingers crossed should be ready in time for us to move into.  Can't wait to show you all what's what.

I finally sold the last of the big things on Kijiji over the weekend.  Plus I got rid of all the firewood we had left over from this year.  Packing will resume in earnest after the weekend, although dh has made a start on clearing out the garage as that is a big job.  

We managed to get a lot of old wood burned on the fire pit yesterday so again a good jobbed, jobbed as I say.

Our little munchkin just turned 6 months old:

And has just got her first tooth and should be crawling pretty soon, as she doesn't like laying still!!

She is a little character that's for sure with those big blue eyes.

Another bit of news, our Little Princess is going to be a big sister in September.  It's going to be a surprise as to what sex it will be, but my bet is on a little boy.

I may not get back to posting until after next weekend, but want to thank each and every one of you who pops by and reads my blog.  I do so appreciate it.

Gill xoxo

Jack Straws anyone?

Do you remember this game from your childhood?

I ordered a few things from Lakeland Plastics and the game was one of those things.

The only problem with Lakeland Plastics is their delivery charge for non EU countries.  So I spent 30 pounds so I didn't have to pay shipping and get the order shipped to my mam and she ships it on for me.  Now the funny thing about my parcel, I ordered some candy, Licorice Alsorts amongst everything else.  So when my mam went to mail the parcel it was going to cost just over 30 pounds.  So the lady at the post office suggested she split the parcel up so it would be cheaper as it was over a certain weight.  Well it was decided that my mam and step-father would eat the candy and it ended up costing just over thirteen pounds.  So the cheap candy which cost two pounds would have cost me nineteen plus pounds.

Then she mails it ground which can take anywhere between six weeks to three months to get here.  It came in 8 days?  Go figure.......  My mam is going to Lakeland Plastics this next week, and the Lakeland Christmas catalog came on Friday, so need to study it to see if there is anything I need!!!

The trees are starting to change and the weather has been glorious these past few days.  Did put the flannel sheets on the bed as dh is cold, but still don't have the fire or heating on.

I was able to have a fire in the fire pit on Thursday as it was finally a calm day.  Look at all the weeds in my raspberry bushes, anyone fancy helping me weed them?