Finished Knitting the Casual Lace Knit Shawl

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. I have been social distancing and working on different things at home to keep busy. I have finished knitting the casual lace knit shawl! It took me awhile, but I am now done and binded off last night. I had finished knitting it last week, but then I found it short on the ends and I want to be able to wrap around to the front. They are still a bit short, but I think blocking the shawl will help a lot. I love the way it looks and it was a fun project to knit up and definitely has been good company while trying to keep busy through these strange quarantine days.

Project Notes:

Project: Casual Lace Knit Shawl
Author: Purl Avenue
Yarn: 3 skeins of Lion Bran Vanna's choice yarn in the colorway 'Dusty Green'.

Needles: Chiaogoo 40 inch circular needles 
Ravelry Notes: lneedlesandwool

I will be blocking the shawl this weekend when I have more time. Then it should help to flatten out with the curling at the bottom of the shawl and also stretch it out more and give it more length. I will wet block it like it is suggested in the pattern. I was also thinking today that I would love to add tassels to the ends as well to weigh it down when I put it on. I will take photos with it on soon.

This past weekend I went to pick up my groceries at Superstore.  I drove up and an employee came to my car and filled my trunk with bags of food. It was so great, I didn't have to go into the store. I was so grateful for this service. I got home and washed my hands and then as I put all of the groceries away I wiped them with Lysol wipes. It made me feel like I was helping wipe the potential germs off of the food. I have looked for more time slots available for this service for next week and nothing is available anywhere now. I knew that this kind of service would start getting more popular with all that is going on. I think next weekend I will have to venture out to the store, but I am going to keep checking in case a spot becomes available. I am making sure I wash my hands more frequently. This past weekend I had a fun FaceTime chat with my whole family. At one point both my sister and I had our partners come on the screen, so there were six of us all chatting it was special. Especially now that we can't all be together right now. I feel so bad for people in New York it is so horrible there right now with so many people sick and dying. Last night I felt kind of worried because I was watching the news late at night which is never a good thing. We can only take this thing day by day and pray it gets better for people and for the world. The numbers are rising in Canada too and in Ontario and hopefully we flatten the curve and we can keep our distance and numbers will start going down. Most days I am fine and think about it a little bit, but sometimes it gets to me a bit. How are you coping with it all?

I am still reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and Good Morning,Good Life by Amy Schmittauer Landino. Both are good books so far and I am enjoying them. I am also enjoying The Science of Well-being course which is a Yale University course offered through the website Coursera and taught by Laurie Santos. It is right up my alley and keeping me busy. It is now going on week two of the course and I am working ahead and trying to keep going with it.

Joining along with Frontier Dreams for Crafting On and As Kat Knits for Unraveled Wednesday.

Have a great day!

Social Distancing and Things I am Doing to Keep Busy

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. It has been over a week since the last post and I have still be mostly staying at home. I have been working from home everyday and I am fortunate that I can do my job at home and have been working at my desk. My dad brought over an extra monitor he had last weekend, so now I have two monitors and it is easier for me to work. At the office I have two screens so it feels more like when I work there. Just talking about it feels like it has been so much longer away from the office now than it has been. I guess two weeks away is a long time. I have been enjoying work from home and my fiancé Liam is also working from home with me too which has been so nice to have him here with me. I know for sure I will be working one more week from home at this point but I have a feeling it will be longer. Tonight Liam and I walked to pick up takeout for dinner and I felt worried about passing people I saw quite a few people wearing masks, we still aren't but I think of starting. I saw two line ups outside of LCBO and Loblaws, people rushing to get things for the weekend. It is quite a strange reality right now.

I actually binded off the Casual lace knit shawl and then I thought it was way too short, so I actually took the last bind off row apart to starting knitting row 73 of the pattern again. I am glad I made that decision, because I want it to be longer. The ends didn't come down far enough and I thought maybe when I block it it might help, but I don't want to leave it to hope that blocking will stretch it out to my liking so I will add more on instead, then block it. If it doesn't turn out the way I want, I probably wouldn't want to wear it so I would rather spend extra time on getting the desired length than finishing it sooner. I will hope to be done this weekend. I am staying in all weekend again anyways I have a lot of time.

I have started reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. It seems like it will be a really interesting book. I am still reading Good Morning. Good life by Ana Schmittauer Landino it is an easy read. I am thinking of also starting to read a fiction book soon too to get a little time away from thinking about the virus.

Some extra things I have been doing lately while in social distancing are:

•  I have started a puzzle I have done already. It's a Ravensburger puzzle. I enjoy seeing the buildings and I feel like it satisfies my feeling of wanting to travel right now.

• I have enrolled in a course taught by a professor at Yale University called The Science of Well-Being a couple of days ago. I heard on the radio that this course is very popular at Yale and is free right now through the Coursera website so I wanted to join in. I have started it and really feeling like it will be interesting. I always loved taking courses online so this will be right up my alley.
• I have also started taking a course on LinkedIn Learning for outlook to learn more tips and ways to use Outlook more to improve my tasks while at work. I will also be starting some other courses soon for work thinking it will be a good time to work on professional development.
• Continuing to exercise following Popsugar videos on Youtube. I also think a lot of gyms including my gym Goodlife fitness are offering online workouts so people can keep working on while at home.
• Playing games with Liam. We played Unlock!: The Nautilus' Traps last night. I got it for him for his birthday and we enjoyed it but the one I got him is tricky, but if you are into escape rooms this is a fun game to play at home. We have also played Portal 2 on our computers and probably will be playing more together this weekend.

• Listening to relaxing music in the evenings. I love listening to AlexrainbirdMusic it is such beautiful music and really enjoyed their Relaxing Sunday Mornings playlist last night while I wrote this post. It is so uplifting, beautiful, and so calming.
• We celebrated Liam's 31st birthday on Monday, his mom got him a cake and champagne so we had a little celebration for him in quarantine it felt special. 

I really want to start organizing my apartment more I have not started yet, but I am inspired by seeing so many other vloggers and bloggers tackling their closets and bathrooms during this time. I want to organize my space better while I am home so much.

Thank you for visiting my blog today. I hope that you have a good Friday. How are you doing with all this? It truly is a difficult time I miss seeing my family and friends, going to stores, and restaurants. I miss just being able to do whatever I wanted and not to worry about passing by someone on the sidewalk. I have no idea when this will all be done, but I hope that it is over soon and we can back to normal life and enjoy all that life has to offer us.

Joining along with Frontier Dreams for Crafting On and As Kat Knits for Unraveled Wednesday.

Self-Quarantined Four Days

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well.I am in Toronto and it has been four days of working from home this week and not really going out other than bringing the compost out. The Covid-19 pandemic has been spreading in Canada and so all stores, restaurants, and more have closed their doors to prevent furthering the spread of the virus. I am not sick, but decided not to go out to keep from adding to the spread of the virus and keeping healthy. This is like a bad dream that I can't wake up from. I miss being able to go out to work for a regular work week and looking forward to my wedding instead of worrying it will be postponed. I have called my venue and they said that for now we will wait two weeks until we make decisions and there are other couples still planning on having their weddings in May so that made me hopeful. I hope that we can and people will want to come. But I am becoming more open to having it postponed if it comes to that. It has been a hard few days of coming to terms with the fact that this can affect my wedding. I know it is not a big deal and our health is more important, but I have been planning for over a year and so it feels like a loss even though it isn't quite yet and it might only be postponed.

I have been continuing to knit the shawl, Being at home all week has given me more time to knit and focus on my knitting and reading goals. I have been knitting more of the Casual Lace Knit Shawl pattern by Purl Avenue. I am almost done and I am on the last line of the pattern now. It looks small in the photo, but I can't have the shawl pulled out completely on the needles yet so it will be wider.

I am still reading Good Morning, Good Life by Ana Schmittauer Landino.  It is very good so far and I can relate to the author's passion for morning routines as I love to have time in the mornings to myself before a busy day at work doing things for other people. I am now starting to read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. I am excited to read this book. My friend read it and said it was very good and it have been on my to-read list for quite some time. I am glad I got it as a Christmas gift from my Fiancé and eager to start reading it now.

I really hope that this pandemic comes to an end soon. I would be happy if these few weeks of stores, restaurants, and cinemas being closed make a big difference in flattening the curve. I would be ecstatic if that meant I can continue on with my wedding preparations as I had been before all this started. I feel for the other couples who had their weddings postponed or cancelled due to the pandemic this month. I have a feeling this will need to continue on longer to make the difference required. It is such a scary time and I hope we can get through it and see the light to life getting back to normal soon. For now, I will continue hibernating in my apartment and working from home, knitting, and reading.

Joining along with Frontier Dreams for Crafting On and As Kat Knits for Unraveled Wednesday.

Have a good day and stay safe!

Keeping Safe, Knitting, and Reading updates

Hello Friends,


I hope you are doing well. I hope you are also keeping healthy and staying away from the Covid-19 disease. It is a really scary time for us with this going on. Today I went to Metro grocery store and there was no toilet paper at all on the shelves and the shelves were mostly bare in each of the aisles. I grabbed some extra essentials such as peanut butter and bread. I think we have a lot of canned goods and food in our cupboards now and in our fridge now and we are stocked up on beans and soup as well. I really don't know what is to come and it is a time of fear right now with everyone not knowing what to expect and stocking up in case they have to stay inside their homes for weeks. I have received permission to work from home starting tomorrow and I am so glad I don't have to go to the office from now on until we are notified to return to the normal working routine. How are you coping with the worldwide issue and concern of this virus?

Lately I have turned more and more to my knitting to find some peace and comfort. It really helps to calm me down when I am thinking about this whole crisis. I am still working on my Casual Lace Knit shawl from Purl Avenue. I really love this pattern and how it is turning out.

I am continuing to read Good Morning, Good Life by Ana Smittauer Landino and finding it really interesting to read. Morning routines are so beneficial to getting more done and I feel like in the morning I can focus on my goals and plans more than any other time of the day. During the day and in the evenings, activities and plans are happening so there isn't as much time for that quiet time of reflection I crave in my day. So I really like to use time in the morning to have that time to journal, look over goals, read,  exercise, and knit.

I am using a cute bookmark I got from Liam's Dad and Stepmom for Christmas with balls of yarn. I have some other knitting related ones also from the package.  The brand of the bookmarks is Yarnology and I found them online they are sold in Hobby Lobby and can be purchased online as well.

I went to visit my parents this weekend after going for wedding dress alterations. I met up with my mom and sister to go for the dress alterations, then I spent most of the weekend visiting with them. It was also nice to see my parent's cats Moo and Roo. In the photo below, Moo lying on the rug at the front door looking relaxed. I spent a lot of time with him and his brother Roo cuddling and playing.

Joining along for Crafting On and Unraveled Wednesday.

Thank you for visiting my blog today! I will be getting ready for another week of work but it will feel different because of working from home this week. I am looking forward to being at home and "self quarantining" as I probably wont really leave the house all week if I don't have to. Hope that you stay safe during this time and take care of your loved ones.

Have a good day