Happy Canada Day!

Diane’s Canada Day Quiz

1) Canadian-born author, L.M. Montgomery,is famous for penning which novel?
2) What symbol is on the Canadian flag?
3) What is the name of the National Hockey League’s championship trophy?
4) Name Canada’s Ten Provinces and three Territories (one point for each correct answer).
5) What airline flies direct from Dublin to Toronto during the summer?
6) Name the Irish-born person who would serve as Ontario’s Lieutent-Governor from 1997 to 2002?
7) A world-renown Canadian entertainer who will be performing in Dublin on July 26th, 2008.Who is it? Who is the current Prime Minister of Canada?
9) Name the Canadian city that will host the Winter Olympics in 2010?
10) Which Superhero was the co-creation of an American and a Canadian?
11) How many time zones are in Canada?
12) Which Canadian coin is known as “the Loonie”?
13) Canada’s most famous coffee chain is named after which famous hockey player?
14) What is the name of the Grafton Street business that proudly flies the Canadian flag?
15) The first part of the Famine Memorial in Dublin commemorates the departure of the Irish who were suffering due to the famine. Which Canadian city has the second part of the Famine Memorial which celebrates the arrival of the Irish in search of a better life.

a portion of leafy greens…

I am still on a knitting break this week…

45g of 100% merino wool roving

handspun into singles

look how kool is that…

I am taking a bit of knitting break, so that I can play with some Kool-Aid and fiber.

what’s on the stix…

I haven’t been feeling well at all this week…crossing the different time zones from to Milan to Toronto to London and back to Dublin has finally caught up with me. I am mainly catching up on my sleep and organising my digital photos from all our travels since April. Presently, I am working on a small knitting project right now…

baby bootees for Connor

summer solstice: 20.06.2008 @ 2359h

The beginning of the summer season…

the travel series…on flight knitting

I use to dread the flights over the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans until I started knitting. This is optimal knitting time. My non-knitting friends ask, “How/what do you knit on an airplane?”

Once the aircraft takes off, and the seatbelt light switches off, I either cast on my stitches for a pair of socks.

or pick up stitches from a WIP*

*note: if I am knitting a work in progress, I will thread a length of waste yarn through the stitches before I pack my knitting in my carry-on

On an Air Canada flight to Toronto, I was working on a pair of footies and one of the flight crew asked to see the pattern I was knitting from. I showed her the downloaded pattern from fpea’s blog, then looked for her pen, to write down the website for herself.

Chic with Stix’s Hints and Tips to On Flight Knitting
1) Request an aisle seat whenever possible. This makes it easier to crouch down and look for that dpn you just dropped.
2) Once the aircraft has taken off, and the seatbelt light is switched off, lift the arm rest. This will give you a little more elbow room when knitting.
3) Knit small and easy projects.
4) Organise your knitting paraphernalia so that it is easily accessible. Therefore make use of the seat pocket in front of your seat.
5) Consider your safety and the safety of other passengers during air turbulance, stop knitting and put your needles down. Also, do not knit during take off and landing.

next week: Chic with Stix goes shopping for souvenir yarn

contest deadline coming up…

don’t forget to send in your blog link for the “Look what I did on WWKiP Day” Contest

WWKiP Day in London…

The Spouse loves to organise our weekend getaway. When he planned our June weekend away a few months ago, he did not realise that it would be the WWKiP Day weekend. He encouraged me to look up the WWKiP Day events in London, so I joined a couple of the UK’s Ravelry groups and took part in a few discussions and come across the I Knit London’s Ravelry group…So my planning began…

I started my day on 14.06.2008 at:

I joined fellow Ravelers, fingersandtoes,jam, and Snowballjane to form our four-knitter team, A Tension Seekers.

Each team was given a yellow balloon,

Craig (co-owner of I Knit London) reviews the WWKiP Day Scavenger Hunt Guidelines and Rules…

Then away we go…The A Tension Seekers, walking all over central London with our map, questions and guide to earn points, oh yea…knitting on the go with a set of 4mm needles, cast on 15 stitches to knit a scarf…we were determined to knit the longest scarf!

There were reports of sabotage…

We spotted our competitors in a crowd…


We were accousted by a street performer…

Spotted a celebrity…

that was Terry Prachett

Walked along some of the most colourful (Leake) streets of London…

Four hours later, we crossed the finish line (back at the shop) and Gerard (second-half of I Knit London owner) totalled our points…

While we all devoured the refreshments…

Our team, The A Tension Seekers came in THIRD place and WE knitted the longest scarf!

Oh what a day…

14.06.08

Happy World Wide Knit in Public Day! Take your camera along today, snap a few pics of how your spent WWKiP Day and enter your photo in a contest sponsored by Chic with Stix’s sister blog, Dublin Knit Collective.

The travel series…packing for your trip

The Adventures of the Knitting Tourist:  Traveling with Chic with Stix
The Travel Series: Packing for your trip

With the summer traveling season thrust upon us, a day does not go by when a new discussion thread or post pops up the knitting discussion boards. Questions like, “Who has travelled recently through London Heathrow with knitting needles in their carry-on?” or “Should I bring my Harmony Knitpicks on my flight from New York to London?”

I have flown many times on Aer Lingus, Air Canada, British Airways, BMI and Ryanair.

Without question, I knit when I travel. As a general rule of thumb, if my flight is over 1.5 hours, I will bring my knitting on board the aircraft. This is how I do it…Can you see the bamboo dpns?

List of Knitting Parapharnalia in my carry-on:

> pencil case with the following items…

>> pencil
>> eraser
>> pens
>> USB flash memory stick
>> iPod Shuffle
>> Brittany Birch dpns
>> plastic darning needle
>> plastic stitch markers

note: I have no metal objects like paper clips or safety pins

> sock pattern
> sock yarn
> dental floss (use the tiny blade to cut your yarn, also keep it separate from the pencil case)
 

next week: on flight knitting