Tattoo Parlor Knitting
The last thing you’d expect to see in front of a tattoo shop at 6am on a Saturday morning is a chick sitting on the front porch steps knitting a baby blanket. I suspect there have been stranger things, but not many. As I’ve mentioned a few times lately, Lucas and I are planning to move back to the U.S. to be closer to family at the end of the summer. I realized that it’s the first week in July and that means we could be moving as early as a few weeks from now. It seems like such a short time away all of a sudden! I’ve truly loved living in Canada and while I’ll be happy to be near to family again, I’m really going to miss it here. The three years I’ve lived here have been a very big and important part of my life and includes my amazing husband. We are looking forward to starting our own family back in the good ol’ Hoosier state. So what does this all have to do with me knitting on the front porch of a tattoo parlor at 6am on Saturday? Everything! When I realized how soon we may be leaving, it seemed like the perfect time to get the tattoo I’ve been wanting to have done before we leave: a small Canadian maple leaf on the top of my right foot, to celebrate this hugely important part of my life and my love here in Canada. It stands for Lucas (who is Canadian), and it stands for my life here. When we move back to the states, I won’t be able to forget this chapter and I will think on it with fondness. We’ll of course come back to Canada to visit friends and Lucas’ family out in BC often, but it just won’t be quite the same experience as living next to the Canadian rockies like we do now.
So why 6am? Well Smilin’ Buddha Tattoo Shop (where Lucas and I got our little matching tattoos exactly a year ago) has drop-in Saturdays where appointments are made for when the shop opens at noon on a first-come, first-served basis. If you get there first, you get your appointment first. We arrived at 6am and were the first people there. We sat together and I finished my Organic Baby Wrapper blanket for my future nephew. Around 9am, someone came along and set up our appointments in order (by this time, several more people had shown up to stand in line) and so my appointment was set for noon when the shop opened. We then went off and enjoyed a delicious pannekoeken breakfast and did a little window shopping on 17th Ave to kill time before we had to be back. I was excited that the same tattoo artist that did my first, Stacie-Rae, also did my maple leaf. She did a fantastic job!
Friday was the start of the Calgary Stampede, which turns the entire town into a rodeo. It’s amazing… it gets to be the first week in July and suddenly everyone is a cowboy. The cowboy boots and hats come out and everyone wears jeans to work all week in the downtown core. People say “Yeehaw!” and tip their hats and pretend they know how to rope a calf. Ok so I might be exaggerating just a little bit with that last sentence, but it’s amazing how many cowboy hats you see during this one week of the year. Happy Stampede! Lucas and I went for the first time ever on Friday night and we had a blast. I didn’t wear a cowboy hat and “yeehaw”, but I did throw in a lot more “ya’lls” for effect.
Also this weekend I put the finishing touches on the knitted dishcloth set (made from my free Unoriginal Bordered Basket Weave Dishcloth pattern) for my boss and packaged it all up in a small basket tied with a pretty black and white flowered ribbon. Doesn’t it look lovely? This is my last full week at the temp office job, and next week I’ll be in for the Monday and possibly Tuesday to help cross-train the new girl who is taking my place. With the baby blanket project and the dishcloth set finished, it was time to cast on something new. I’ve got quite a long list of baby things I want to knit for my future nephew, but the super soft snuggly knitted Baby Bunny from Alan Dart’s Wuv You pattern has especially been calling my name. I’m not sure if it’s the cuteness that’s drawing me in or the incredibly soft Sirdar Snowflake yarn that I can’t keep my hands off of, but I casted it on last night and will be working on it this week. Let’s hope it turns out half as adorable as the one in the pattern photo!
OH! And you won’t believe this, but I actually created some digital scrapbooking elements and papers this weekend. A quick page, too! Now don’t get too excited because I’m a bit rusty with all of this knitting going on instead, but I plan to release the little mini pack and quick page later this week so keep watching! I was inspired after working hard yesterday to finish off my 2008 digital scrapbook and get my 2009 one up to date. I know I’m 7 months behind on the 2008 one, but I really only had 4 final pages to add to it before I deem it complete. I went in and pulled from the stockpile of quick page layouts I’ve downloaded from DigiFree and been saving for a rainy day when I had time to devote to my digital scrapbooks, and rain is sure what we got this weekend. This means I’ve got some pretty layouts and featured artists to share. I’ll share the pages I did this weekend and the artists whose quick pages I used and give away some of my own created digital freebies later this week. See you back here soon! :)
Cute tat. If it weren’t for my family in MN, I’d probably live in Canada, too!