Weekend in Montreal, Dining and Sightseeing

Hello Friends,

I hope you are all doing well. I just got back last night from a wonderful trip to Montreal with my boyfriend. We spent the weekend eating delicious food, sightseeing, and catching up with an old friend of mine. Visiting Montreal is like going to a second home because I grew up in the west-island in Quebec and my family and I made many trips to Montreal over the years when I was growing up. Whenever we go to Quebec to visit family and friends, we also make a stop in Montreal and get some dinner or look around. It means so much more to me now that I got to spend more time just being a tourist in the city and taking it in, whereas when we usually come to visit, we only spend a couple of hours in Montreal to fit it into our plans as we are only there for a few days on our visits. We stayed at The Sandman in Longueuil because it was close to the metro and it was available at a good price. We really enjoyed our stay, the room was comfortable and clean, and we had a good time there. Being a metro ride from the city also encouraged us to see how the metro was in Montreal which neither one of us had explored.

First day: 

We traveled from Toronto on the VIA Rail train, leaving at 11:30 am and we arrived at around 5 pm. This travel took most of our day, but we made the most of our evening in Montreal once we got there. We got downtown and looked around while on our way to eat dinner.

Old Montreal

Walking to Modavie

Charming building in Chinatown

 We first walked past the Notre-Dame Basilica and the architecture of the church is so beautiful. I read online that Celine Dion got married there. It is beautiful on the inside from photos I looked at online. We did not go in this time, but hopefully I do at some point on another trip there.

Notre-Dame Basilica

At the front steps of the church, and people lining up to get a tour of the inside

We had made a reservation at a wonderful restaurant called Modavie. I had found this restaurant online and it looked like it would be nice to go to. We made a reservation for 8:15 pm and we got seated at our table with excellent service right away. I loved the ambiance and the live jazz music playing in the background was so enjoyable. It was someone's birthday there and the singer sang happy birthday to them and I thought it was so beautiful and that it would be so nice to spend a birthday celebration at a place like that. We ordered a charcuterie plate to start which was a lot of food for the two of us but so delicious. I ordered a seafood linguine dish that was so delicious. My boyfriend ordered the lamb burger with fries and really enjoyed his meal. 

Dinner at Modavie: Seafood linguine and the Modavie Punch 

After dinner, we walked to the harbor and watched a video being projected onto a wall. This resembled projections at night we had seen in Ottawa and Dominican Republic. My favorite has to be in Ottawa when a video about Canada's history was being projected onto the Parliament building.  We took some photos and enjoyed the beautiful weather. There were a lot of people around there and things going on. It was fun to just walk around there and enjoy the evening.

Display left over from Canada's 150th birthday! I was also here that weekend

Second day: 
I was in love with this view in the morning from our hotel window at the Sandman. It is such a perfect view of Montreal.

I loved this view!

We went to Terrasse Place D'armes for lunch. It is a beautiful outdoor restaurant tucked away on a terrace on 8th floor of the hotel. It was a beautiful view, overlooking part of old Montreal and it was a perfect day to be out on the terrace, the sun was shining and it was warm. I ordered the pulled pork poutine and my boyfriend ordered a burger and fries. I loved the poutine there, it was so delicious. 

My view from our table, facing Notre-Dame Basilica

Then we walked around old Montreal, went into some shops, and then got some ice cream at Ben and Jerry's. As we were eating we watched a performer stepping up on a ladder with swords sticking into it. He had the crowd engaged but did not too a lot of acts, more talking we thought than anything. 

Then we went on the Metro to St. Catherine's St.West to shop. We did not to do much shopping while there on the second day more just walking to see what was there and Simon's was closed that day so we went back the next day. After 6 pm, we met up with a childhood friend of mine downtown and went to Cafe Parvis for dinner. It was a lovely place, there were plants up towards the ceiling hanging down and it had a very relaxed atmosphere. I didn't take any photos while there but the pizza I had was so delicious. I ordered the cresson pizza that was topped with tomatoes, avocado, sour cream with green onions, jalapeno vinaigrette, and feta. It was so delicious, I will need to go back there again. It was so nice meeting up with my friend we all had a good time. 

Day Three: 

The third day we went to Dunn's restaurant which is famous for their smoked meat sandwiches. They were so delicious and we ordered a poutine on the side as well. My dad said the cheesecake was so good there too, but  we will have to order it  next time, because we were too full after our big lunch.

 The rest of the time we walked around St. Catherine's street again and I popped into Simons and this is probably one of my new favourite stores now because I loved everything in there and wish I could bring it all home. I can't wait to go back there and shop some more. We picked up our luggage from storage and got onto our train for the 4:40 pm departure and got home to Toronto around 9:50 pm. I did some knitting on the train ride and finished knitting my first sock which I will share with you tomorrow. I really liked the train rides to and from Montreal because it gave me so much time to knit and read.

Working away on the sock

The trip to Montreal was wonderful as always and I can't wait to go back. There are so many more places to explore and if we had more time I might want to go up Mount Royal, I have been up there with my family it is such a beautiful view of Montreal. I think it would be a lovely place to visit in the Autumn when the leaves are changing colors. Have you been to Montreal before? if so what were some of your favorite restaurants or places to visit?

Thank you so much for visiting my blog, I hope this inspires you to check out Montreal some time! If you would like to keep updated on when I post on my blog, please follow me on Bloglovin' and Google Followers!

Have a great day!

Knitting on the Beach, Camping, and Reading On

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. I just got back from a weekend away camping with my family and my boyfriend. I had a wonderful time. We went to Sandbanks Provincial Park and camped in a campground that is in the park. I had such a good time, spending time with family and to be in the outdoors, reading, and knitting. I went to the Sandbanks beach two days in a row and while we were there I got a lot of knitting done.

Joining Along with The Little Room of Rachell for Yarning Along, with Frontier Dreams for Crafting On, and AsKatKnits for Unwraveled Wednesdays.

It felt so good to be camping again, roasting marshmallows, spending time catching up with my family around the campfire chatting and playing games. 

My tent is the closest one, our home for a few days

Tall trees surrounded us at the campsite

We got a lot of sand fly bites while we were there, there were so many more bugs this time camping than when we go to Craigleith in Collingwood, Ontario. I really loved all the tall trees at the campsite. It was also so nice having the beach in walking distance from the campground. We could take walks there during the day to go swimming and relax, then in the evenings we could walk down to watch the sunset. They kept the washrooms clean at the campground, and the camp sites were spread out nicely. We will probably go back there, but next time I would bring more bug spray. 

Spending time reading, while hearing the birds chirping in the background

While I was camping I started reading a book called Love the Wine You're With: A Novel by Kim Gruenenfelder. I really am enjoying it so far and I got it for the camping trip to have a light read while on the trip. So far I have been introduced to the women and their work and we will find out soon how they came to create their wine shop business together. I look forward to reading about their friendship and reading about their girl time. I am continuing to read Into the Water by Paula Hawkins as well. I am really intrigued by the story and I look forward to reading on.

Thank you for visiting my blog today and I hope you come back to visit! if you liked this post and would like to keep updated on when I post new entries, please follow me on Bloglovin' and Google Followers.

Have a good day!

Sewing the Seams of My First Knitted Sweater

Hello Friends,

I hope you are all doing well. I have been away for a little while because I have exams this week for my office administration program. I just had my accounting exam yesterday which I had been studying non-stop for a few days and I think it went pretty well. Tomorrow I have the project management exam, wish me luck!

I got a little bit of work done on my sweater on Saturday and was sewing in the seams on the shoulders, and one of the sleeves. I looked up the order of how to seam and this seems to be the best way to do shoulders, then sleeves, then the sides afterwards which makes sense because you can go up the side then right up to the end of the sleeve to close the sleeve afterwards.

I started with the shoulders and did a mattress stitch to sew up the seams, this was a little bit tricky because the stitches were going in the other direction so I just put the needle horizontally across the stitches.I then moved onto the sleeve and spread out the sweater to see how the top of the sleeve would fit into the piece once the shoulders were sewed together. I then began doing the mattress stitch to sew the seams together and this worked well as well. I will finish up sewing the sweater, then talk about how sewing the sides went and post some photos of the sweater next week! I am so excited to be done and have my first knitted sweater. Looking at the photo, I think I will take some of the seam apart of the sleeve and try to have the lines in the sleeve going down the middle, I can see it is a little off center. The sleeve at the top of the photo is not sewed in yet.

The sock is coming a long too, it is getting a bit longer and I am enjoying knitting the simple sock pattern by Patons called Spiral Socks.

I am still reading Into the Water by Paula Hawkins and I am so interested in what will happen next. It really keeps you on the edge of your seat just like Girl on the Train did, and you start to feel like you are understanding the characters and that they all have some secret motives and you are trying to figure out what they are.

Joining along with The Little Room of Rachell for Yarning Along, Frontier Dreams for Crafting On, and AsKatKnits for Unraveled Wednesday

Thank you for visiting my blog today and I hope you come back to visit! if you liked this post and would like to keep updated on when I post new entries, please follow me on Bloglovin' and Google Followers.

Have a good day!

Knitting Socks,and Reading On

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well.  I am having a good week so far. On the weekend I went to Ripley's Aquarium with my family and my boyfriend and it was fun! My boyfriend and I had been there before one other time and it was nice to go back. I enjoyed petting the stingrays at the end of the aquarium, they were so smooth.  I also had a good time at a friend's barbecue, and saw my family again on Monday for another barbecue and going to an art exhibit. This week I will be busy studying for final exams which are next week. I am looking forward to being done these courses and having a little break in between courses at the end of August. I will be getting a lot of knitting in that week!

I made more progress on the sock which I am knitting for my mom for Christmas. I am following the Patons Spiral socks pattern, It is a nice, relaxing pattern to knit because it is a five row repeat all the way down to the toe shaping. I can remember the repeat now so it is a good project to bring with me to watch television or on vacation.

I will be starting the sweater seaming this week too because the back piece is blocked now. I will be seaming the sides and the top of the pieces to attach the front and back pieces together. I just want to look up how to properly seam pieces of garments together before I do that. The sleeves are also ready to be sewn on as well as I did not block them.

Pieces done and blocked, ready for seaming

I have not really picked up the stocking and scarf since last week, so I will share those maybe next week when I have made some progress on those projects.

I have finished reading Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy by Helen Fielding. I enjoyed reading about Bridget's difficulties and gains, and while I was reading the book I felt like her character was so easy to relate to and understand. I have difficulty reading a book if I cannot relate to the protagonist but she is like every woman trying to find their way through difficult times and also to understand sometimes complicated relationships.  Now I am going to focus on reading Into the Water by Paula Hawkins more intensely. I was so excited to read this book so I started reading it at the same time, but honestly, I have not picked it up much this past week as I have been working on finishing reading Bridget Jones. I will be reading one book at a time after this because it is hard to juggle two books as you all  probably know.

Joining along with Frontier Dreams for Crafting On, AsKatKnits for Unraveled Wednesday, and The Little Room of Rachell for Yarning Along.

Thank you for visiting my blog, if you would like to keep updated on when I post entries, please follow me on Bloglovin' and Google Followers!

Have a great day!

Stitchy Saturday: How to Knit the Chickadee Bubbles Stitch

Hello Friends,


I hope you are doing well. This week I decided to knit the Chickadee Bubbles Stitch. I found a lovely photo of the stitch on Pinterest by @woolvan knits and I wanted to give it a try. I love the look of this stitch and it was a lot of fun to knit up!

Chickadee Bubbles Stitch 

For my swatch, I cast on 20 + 3 stitches and knitted the 12 row repeat three times

Pattern:

Knit 4 below: Insert needle in stitch in the 5th row down, drop stitch off needle and unravel 4 rows down, and knit, catching the 4 loose strands behind stitch. (Directions with photos below)

With color A, cast on a multiple of 4 stitches + 3.
Row 1 - wrong side: purl.
Row 2 - right side: knit.
Row 3:  purl.
Row 4: knit.
Row 5: purl.
Row 6:  knit 3, * knit 4 below, knit 3; rep from * to end
Row 7: purl.
Row 8: knit.
Row 9: purl.
Row 10: knit.
Row 11: purl.
Row 12:  knit 1, * knit 4 below, knit 3; rep from * to last 2 stitches, knit 4 below, knit 1.
Repeat Rows 1 - 12

Knitting pattern from Knitting Stitch Patterns. 


Instructions on how to do *knit 4 below: 

1. After knitting the three (row 6) or one required stitches (row 11), on the next stitch, count five holes down below the stitch

2. Then put needle through the fifth hole below the stitch

3.  Drop the first stitch on the left needle, then pull the stitch down until there are four rows of dropped stitch visible

 4. Then wrap your yarn around the right needle to make a knit stitch and pull through

 5. Once you have knit the stitch, it will look like the photo below, then continue on to knit three stitches

 It will look like the photo below once the three stitches are knitted, then repeat steps 1 through 5 to complete the knit four below step in the chickadee bubble stitch pattern.

What I thought of the stitch pattern:
I loved this pattern, it is so fun to knit up and does not take a lot of time. I really love the finishing texture and I think it would be so fun for a hat and give it such a fun unique look.

Knitting level:
I think that this could be done by a beginner knitter because it looks hard, but it requires mostly knit and purls and then if you follow the photos above to knit the "knit 4 below" technique, it is not that difficult to do.

Thank you for visiting my blog and if you would like to keep updated on when I post more Stitchy Saturday posts and other posts during the week, please follow me on Bloglovin' and Google Followers.

Have a great day!

A Visit to Wishing Well Sanctuary, Knitting, and More Blocking

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. I am sorry for my lack of posting in the past few days, I have been working on finishing up some courses for my certificate. I did a quiz yesterday and was studying up until that point. I only have one more chapter to get through for Accounting, then I am done. I am not working towards an Accounting certificate, I am working towards office administration but it is one of the courses you must take towards getting the certificate.
I had a great weekend, on Saturday I went to the Wishing Well Sanctuary in Bradford, Ontario. At the sanctuary, they keep animals, cows, pigs, sheep, lamas, goats, ducks, and horses who were abused by past owners, had nowhere else to go, or would have been euthanized. The sanctuary was nestled in a rural area with beautiful fields, and greenery. We were part of a large group of people for the tour and while on the tour, the volunteers told us about the animal's stories from before they arrived at the sanctuary. The tours only go on the first Sunday of the month and the last Saturday of the month so it draws in large crowds by not running every weekend. First we went to feed the steer and bulls grass that we collected along the way. There was one cow but she wasn't coming to eat the grass from us.  It was fun they came right up to us and ate the grass from our hands, they were very sweet and let us pet them as well.

Then we visited all the other animals and were lead into their sections by a volunteer. I enjoyed petting the sheep, their coats were so soft, and they had just been sheered. I also enjoyed being in with the potbelly pigs and goats, they were so cute.

The rooster's Harry Potter cage

Visiting the sheep and lamas

I would go back there again, it was a wonderful experience and the staff who work there have big hearts and love the animals. I look forward to visiting again.

I finished knitting the Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief again. I had taken it apart because it was not large enough and did not match the measurements required in the pattern. I knitted another section of the stockinette/garter section and then the final section. I noticed one side has a line at the bottom, which is where I connected another skein of yarn that matched at first then switched colors. It bothered me at first, because as knitters we are picky about how our final projects turn out! But now I am accepting that it has a flaw but it gives it character. I love how it turned out and I will block it soon after I block the sweater pieces. It now wraps right around my neck to the front so I am more pleased with how it fits and it will be even bigger once I block it.

For my other smaller projects, I have been working on the stocking and the chevron lace scarf. I haven't picked up the scarf in a while so it is not much longer. For the scarf I am using the pattern for the chevron lace stitch which I shared in a Stitchy Saturday post. The stocking is coming along and I have added a few more rows. I am using a pattern I found on Ravelry called Christmas Stocking in a Jiffy- Striped by Jennifer Jackson. I have been enjoying knitting it and thinking of Christmas as I knit it. I hope you all enjoyed my Christmas in July posts, I had a lot of fun making them and thinking about Christmas at this time of year and preparing for the holiday season earlier than I usual do.

I recently started knitting the socks that I will be working on this summer with the Patons Kroy FX yarn. I found a pattern on Ravelry called Spiral socks by Patons. The pattern required the Patons Kroy FX cameo yarn and had required the 3.25 mm needles so I decided on the pattern. When I looked it over again, I realized they are long tube socks, and have no heel so I was wondering if that would be something I would want to work on but I realized they look cool the way you can twist them up and they look comfortable. They will be a gift for my mom for Christmas, so I checked in with her to make sure she would want tube socks and she said she would. Here is how much I have knitted so far:

Products I am using for the socks:

    

I blocked the back piece of the sweater today. I will be blocking the sleeves in a couple of days, then I will be started to seam the pieces together.  I am looking forward to sewing the front and back pieces together and seeing how the body of the sweater fits.

I am still reading Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (Bridget Jones series Book 3) and Into the Water. They are so good in different ways and I have enjoyed reading them, they are so well done. I will be finishing them soon, I have been busy with school work and also knitting, but will spend more time reading this week. I would like to start reading something fun and light for summer soon, so I will be looking for ideas on Goodreads.

Joining along with Frontier Dreams for Crafting on, with AsKatKnits for Unraveled Wednesday, and The Little Room of Rachell for Yarning Along.

Thank you so much for visiting today! if you would like to follow my blog and keep updated on when I post, please follow me on Bloglovin' and Google Followers.

Have a great day!