Free Pattern and New Knitting App

A Simple Little Something (download the pattern for free on Ravelry) is knit in one skein of Mrs. Crosby Satchel. What a great way to try out this yarn. I promise you won't be disappointed. I have used it many times - it feels great in your hands and blocks out beautifully.

Amy Herzog has created a very cool app. I must admit that I haven't played with it yet but I do know knitters who have and they only say good things about it.

The Knitter’s Toolbox is exactly what the picture says – an app we’ve written that contains four super-useful, general-purpose knitting calculators:

• A buttonhole spacer
, which will space a number of buttons easily over a number of stitches;

• A multi-purpose gauge widget
, which will take any two of the following, and tell you what the third must be: row/stitch gauge, row/stitch count, and length;

• A shaping placer
, which will tell you how you must space your increases or decreases to get as smooth a line of shaping as possible while keeping the number of “even” rows the same;

• A pick-up calculator
, which will tell you not only the total number of stitches to pick up along a vertical edge, but what that translates into as a ratio.

All those calculations that no one wants to do but we need them in our knitting. I'm not sure what is more exciting - the buttonhole spacer or the pick-up calculator.

I have no new knitting to report. The last few days have been spent getting the taxes done. My personal return and my HST return are done.

There have been a few miles put on my car this week going to the new house to make sure that things are going ok. We've had a few issues. This is a totally new fireplace. Everything. The old stone was taken off and we started from scratch. It's looking good now. The mantel needs to be stained again and we are waiting for a trim kit for the actual fireplace - it's like a picture frame so you won't see the black.

For the past two days we've had three men on their hands and knees removing all the grout from the main floor. Every room is tile - long planks that look like hardwood. The grout was supposed to be grey and somehow we got a bad batch. They are redoing it tomorrow.

We're getting there.