Archives: wool

I’m not someone who does a crazy amount of planning for special occasions. But I do often have little mini ideas mapped out in my head for treats that can easily be cooked up at any given time.

For this year’s Valentine’s Day I picked up a few gifts locally for some little surprises for my Valentine.

We love coffee at our house and since being home full-time I’ve seen my coffee consumption double! Steve, as of late, has been branching off from our traditionally consumed French-pressed coffee to espressos. So I thought I would indulge in his new coffee interest and get him a cute one-shot stove-top espresso maker. I picked one up from Faema on James North. They’ve got a pretty good selection of espresso machines, with a not-bad retro looking used one that we might actually be able to afford -eeek! If we end up getting it, it’ll soon be lattes and espressos all day long chez nous!

I also stopped by Ola Bakery for some Portuguese sweets. Ola has some lovely fluffy, flaky baked goods (and I’ve heard they do a great sandwich too).

As a Valentine’s mid-morning surprise I managed to put this spread together with a quickly crafted homemade Valentine’s Day card. Steve’s been really busy at work so it was nice to be able to share a quick coffee break midday in his at-home office while Omi napped.

I executed this next surprise Valentine’s treat that Steve has still yet to discover.

I recently saw a cute DIY post on Design Sponge about patching little moth eaten holes in sweaters with felted hearts. I really need to invest in some lavender sachets or a cedar something or another but I haven’t and so Steve and I both have a couple of sweaters with a few sad moth munched holes in them.

So besides needing a sweater with a hole, you’ll also need some felting wool and felting needles. I picked mine up from Needlework on James North.

You’ll also need 2 sponges to stack under the sweater for when you’re jabbing your wool with the needle. That way you won’t give yourself multiple stab wounds.

Next make a little stencil for the shape and size of the felted patch that you want. Flip your sweater so that you start felting your patch on the reverse side. Take a nice size bit of wool and start to felt away!

Once the shape is pretty solid from the reverse side, turn your sweater right side out. You should see the shape of the heart clearly. Take smaller and thinner pieces of wool to shape the heart and felt it until the heart looks nice and full.

I practiced first on my sweater with this red heart and did Steve’s hearts with grey wool. I thought the grey hearts on his grey sweater would be more subtle as I wasn’t so sure how he’d feel having bright red hearts felted everywhere.

Can’t wait for the day when he pulls the sweater out of the closet to wear and sees a few cute little grey hearts on his sleeve. Until then, shhh -don’t say a word.

So I’m not really a knitter. Which is precisely why I signed up for a toque knitting class at Needlework.

To prepare for the class I had to brush up a little on my knits and pearls and I also had to pick up some yarn.

A while back I posted about a knit store called Fire Ball Knits that was in Westdale, which has since closed up shop. So let it be known that downtown Hamilton does not have a knit shop (yet).  I’m sure it’ll be no time until someone gets in on this minor gap in the market of downtown knit shops. But until then the closest knit shop for me is in Ancaster at the Needle Emporium.

It was my first visit to the Emporium, and although I wasn’t able to explore in the shop for too long I did love that it was in old Ancaster. I got to take a nice winter scenic drive up the mountain and sneak some peaks at some of the old surrounding buildings on Wilson St. I loved the old stone building exteriors of many of the neighbouring shops.

 

Inside, The Needle Emporium is ram packed with a variety of wool in all different shapes, shades, textures and colours. It was a tight squeeze with Omi in a stroller walking amidst walls of yarn so I took just a quick look around, bought my required wool and headed back home.

I would like to come back another time to get a better look at their yarn selection. Once I get this whole ‘how to knit’ thing figured out I’m sure I”ll make a trip back up the mountain to pour over all my knit purchase options.

In the end I narrowed down my yarn selection for my toque to Madeline Tosh‘s hand-died yarn (in charcoal) or something a little brighter. In the past most of my toques have mostly been black so I thought I’d forgo the charcoal and opt for a super colourful ball of Drops Big Delight.

In hindsight I wished I’d gone for the Madeline Tosh. Once I successfully finish knitting my first ever toque I’ll be gunning back for the hand-died charcoal.

*The Needle Emporium, 420 Wilson St. East, Ancaster, 905.648.1994