Magnetograph Monday

magnetograph ~ instrument for recording measurements of magnetic fields

A funny thing happened to that sweater I was knitting for the grandbaby. The contrast yarn I bought was a lighter weight than the main yarn. The colour was good, but the yoke is kind of . . . stretchy. And the collar (which is made from the heavier, main colour yarn) looked kind of small. And I didn’t notice how bad the overall effect was until I’d completely tied up loose ends and finished it up right.

*sigh*

At the very least I plan to unravel the collar and re-do it in a larger size. At best I’m hoping that if I get the collar off I might be able to unravel the rest of the yoke and re-do it in a different, heavier yarn. But no rush. Spring appears to be here so it won’t be needed until next winter anyway.

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The annual Vintage Clothing Show was on this weekend, and the daughter and I made the pilgrimage up to Toronto to see what treasures they had to offer. This is the second time we’ve gone and it’s turning into kind of a nice mother/daughter tradition.

We got there a lot earlier than the last time, and were glad we did – by the time we broke for lunch it was getting really people-y in there. I found the price discrepancies from vendor to vendor very interesting. Some places seemed reasonable, others bordered on ludicrous.

And speaking of ludicrous, lunch was insane. Our choice was a $7 hotdog or a $9 bagel sandwich. A bottle of water was $4.50. If we had realized how little we had left to see, we would have skipped lunch at the show and walked over to the nearby Starbucks afterwards.

Still, we managed to come away happy. The daughter snagged a gorgeous poufy skirt for a song – apparently the guy selling it couldn’t read his own hand writing. I found a matching jacket and skirt with lots of beadwork and appliqué for a less modest price. They’re a little too fancy to be worn together, in my opinion, but they'll look great with other stuff.

The picture above was taken at the show. The doll heads looked a lot creepier in person than they do in the picture. And yes, those are real ducklings on the bottom left – not live, of course, which made them also creepy.

We came away from our excursion with money left over, so we stopped at the Oshawa Costco on the way home. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this Costco before, it’s the one I found annoying because everything is backwards to the one I’m used to, and the customers are really mean.

Well, now I have a witness. The daughter didn’t like it either. It kind of sucked all the fun out of going to Costco for us. And why go to Costco if you can’t have fun?

All in all, despite Costco, we had a really great day.

Monoliteral Monday

monoliteral ~ comprising only one letter

I survived March Break! Woohoo! And kudos to adults everywhere who also survived.

My sister dropped my great-niece off on Tuesday, and I took her home on Saturday. You’ll have to ask her whether it was a good visit or not – she certainly wasn’t any trouble. She’s not messy and she hardly eats, unless she had a stash of food in her room (like I did when I went to the retreat). She lasted all the way to Tuesday evening before caving and asking for the wifi password. LOL

I felt kind of bad that we didn’t really get out to do anything, having to babysit every day kind of limits what we can do. Although we did go for a trip to the sugar bush with the family of one of the granddaughter's friends.

The sugar bush, for those not born and bred Canadian, is like a big tree farm, where the trees are all maple and at this time of year get tapped with a metal spigot so the sap can be collected and turned into maple syrup, taffy, and or maple candy. Yum!

Sandy Flats, the sugar bush we went to, is about 160 acres. We went on a hay ride through the property and saw all the trees with their taps in place, we went on a nature hike where we saw many animal tracks including, my granddaughter insisted, werewolf tracks, and we got to peek into the shed where the sap was turned into syrup.

Before we left we lunched on pancakes and sausages, with lots of syrup of course. We had a great time and I may have spent a little too much money on syrup and maple butter to bring home with me.

The processing was a little more modern than I remember from when I was a kid, but the rest was pretty much the same. A trip to the sugar bush was one of the typical school trips for elementary school and not only do I remember the trip, I remember being grossed out by one of my classmates who had a peanut butter and dill pickle sandwich for lunch. :-)

The granddaughter starts kindergarten this fall – I wonder if she’ll get to go to the sugar bush on a school trip next spring . . .