Jananas

I’m doing well on my new found goal to knit 52 hats this year. I finished hats 11 & 12 this morning. I knit a fair bit of hat 13 today during study breaks from an all day data & graphing session. I need to finish hat 13 up tomorrow so that I can start hat 14, which is a custom order for a friend. The first is hat #11, which is my version of the Thorpe hat in worsted weight merino. My friend requested greens & pinks, with some pom pom-y goodness. I think I did a good job of delivering. The second is hat #12, in a lovely Strawberry Fields Malabrigo with some Blue Graphite as an accent colour to help offset the awesomenicity of how bright the pink is. I sometimes wonder about my colour choices, but according to the my friends I haven’t gone wrong… (yet).

Speaking of knitting, we went to see the new release of the Dark Night of the Scarecrow. I came across it in an e-mail from Toronto Afterdark Film Festival about a movie that Rue Morgue was showing. I forwarded it to Jason as he’s a big movie fan. Turns out its a movie that he and his sister both remembered seeing on tv as children, but hadn’t been able to find anything more about. The movie is going to be release on dvd later this year and we had a chance to see the remastered version. It was a good balance of horror/suspense and laughter, with some really good angles/shots thrown in for good measure. And I, of course, knit throughout the entire movie. Gotta keep those stash busting afghan squares coming!

I’ve been a busy bee knitting hats lately. People have told me several times that I should be knitting hats to sell on Etsy. And while there are merits to the line of thinking, it would require that I have enough time off between current projects/sales to stock pile some hats!

Instead, I took some time off last night to start my first crocheted scarf. I’m using some ridiculous pink & green camouflage (really, just variegated) yarn from Bernat. I used the first skein of this to knit my roommate a neckwarmer. I finished in fairly short order, but wasn’t 100% satisfied with the way the colours appeared more zebra striped than camouflage. I had another skein and decided to try and crochet a scarf and I’m pretty stoked on how its looking. In fact, I think I’m going to frog the neckwarmer and just give her the scarf.

The scarf is a nice project for this week. I have enough school work on the go that I can’t pick up anything that requires too much attention/row counting, as it’ll all get muddled in my head. The scarf is awesome for these sorts of weeks because I can pick it up for 5 minutes (on a study break) and ad

d a

row or two and then put it back down again without a second thought.

I found a new group on Ravelry, called 52 hats per year. The goal? Knit 52 hats. Seems simple enough. I mean, I knit a lot and I knit a lot of hats. And, well… I didn’t realize how bad it was until I counted that I’ve knit 10 hats so far this year. I think I’m doing well on my overall mission to use up my yarn stash. What it comes down to is that I really like knitting these basic, stripe-y hats. They take about a day’s worth of knitting (normally during lectures, transit & some tv watching) to complete and are just fun. So if you’d like one, let me know. Only 42 more left to go!

Sometime last year my friend Badur came across a story on BlogTO about Kakayo, a local chocolatier who makes organic handmade truffles – including some vegan gems! We always have trouble finding nice vegan chocolate for Jason, so I decided that for Valentine’s Day I’d pick him up some. I called Kakayo about two weeks ago and placed an order, just so that I’d be guaranteed some for today. Badur & I drove to the east side of town today to pick them up. They look gorgeous. There are four vegan truffles – almond ganache, banana split, chai masala, and ginger pecan. I grabbed 6 of each, so 24 in total and they came in a pretty (and reusable) wooden box. For the vegans out there, not all of the selection are vegan but, they do ship across North America.

Badur & I each grabbed a chocolate. He tried a chai masala one and loved it. I tried the lavender and loved it. Jason’s like the ones he’s eaten so far (just look at him! so cute). I’m  thankful every day that I managed to steal him away from the States (even if its only until our road tripping adventures in May).

I also figured that since I was at Kakayo, I should pick up some truffles to give to my classmate Naz (who is the only vegan at school). I picked her up two of the truffles and they came in a cute little white cardboard box. And in giving away awesome chocolate and supporting a local business, I also played my 31st Akoha mission. Crazy talk!

I mailed out the final package for my Akoha starter deck & free handmade gift give away. It was also my 30th Akoha mission and my tenth “make a handmade gift” mission played. I made this little gem while in class on Monday & Tuesday. I got a little distracted by school last semester and stopped playing, but I am definitely back on the ball!