Survival of the Knittest

Long time no blog...

2010-04-13T08:48:00.003-04:00

It's been a while. A long while. Knitting has been done, as well as other non-knitting stuff. Trying to catch up a little, so will be posting some photo-only posts of some FOs in the next while. Don't hold your breath for daily blog posts, but I will try once in a while to post more pictures. Here is a BSJ that I thought I was making for G, but when I finished it, it was just too small, so it went into the gift box for some future baby.

The Best FO yet

2008-11-13T20:07:00.002-05:00

Gabriel was born on Monday morning at 7:14am.

Mom, Dad and big sister are all over the moon with joy. So far, he's an awesome kid.

Here he is at 1 day old.

A bunch of FOs

2008-10-22T09:03:00.007-04:00

Warning, this post is very picture-heavy. I've been busy knitting for new baby and finally got around to taking pictures of the various FOs. I also made a hat and dickie for my daughter and re-knit a hat for me.

Without further ado, I present FO the first: Tulip Cardigan

This was a fun and fast knit. It still needs to be blocked so that the fronts get stretched a little. I think I picked up a few too few stitches in the fronts, but by the time I noticed, it was too late (and I was too lazy) to rip it out and start again.

FO the second -- Unoriginal hat (modified) and Dickie for Erika -- I actually made the original dickie, not the dickie von beethoven, but the original one isn't on Ravelry for some reason.

For the hat, I used Cascade 220, which is much thinner than the Letecia called for in the pattern. I figured that since I was making for a smaller head, it should be OK, but after doing one of the cable repeats, it was most definitely too small, so I added one extra repeat. It was still too small, so there are 6 sets of cables instead of 4. At the top, I just fiddled a little to accommodate for the extra stitches.

There was also a little yarn left, just enough for the pompom, and since it was one of the mandatory items from the 5-year-old-recipient, I was able to oblige.

FO the third -- Way back in January, I had made myself this cashmere hat. I wasn't too pleased with the results, so I ripped it out, reskeined it and it was left to sit for a while while I tried to figure out what to do. After thinking about it, and realizing that what I didn't like was the way the yarn pooled, I decided to bite the bullet and knit it back and forth instead of doing it in the round. This produced the results I wanted, and I can't wait for colder weather to be able to finally wear this hat.

FO the fourth -- Alphabet Blanket -- made in Baby Bamboo in a light green. It was difficult to capture the colour properly, but it's quite stunning in person (if I do say so myself). I decided to omit the triangles around the edges and quite like the look with just the lace edging.

Blanket being held up by the big-sister-to-be (whose face is unfortunately in the shadows in this shot)

FO the fifth -- Pea Pod Sweater -- by Kate Gilbert. This was sooo much fun to knit, mostly stocking stitch with a cable thrown in to keep you awake. Just the right project for me. Made in Baby Ull, which is super soft. I heart this sweater.

FO the sixth - Moss Cable Sweater - by Jennifer. This was another fun knit for baby. It was a test knit for the pattern, and was a lot of fun to make. With the moss and st. st. combo, just when you get tired of making moss stitch, you switch to stocking stitch. Quite remarkable. The pattern is available here.

Book Meme

2008-10-08T09:23:00.003-04:00

I got this from Jenn's site, and thought it would be fun to see how many I've actually read. Also, now that I'm on semi bedrest (or at least stopped working until baby is born), I figured it would be a good way to get some book ideas.

_______________________________

The Big Read is an NEA program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six.
*Look at the list and bold those you have read.
*Italicize those you we intend to read.
*Underline the books you LOVE. (I tried to underline some, but bloglines makes it more difficult, so I gave up)
Share this list in your blog, too, if you like.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I've read most, so I'm counting it)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert (I actually read all 9 books in the series and loved them all)
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

3 FOs and a WIP

2008-09-17T09:49:00.008-04:00

It's been a while, and there has been knitting. Quite a lot of knitting, actually. Since I'm technically working, this will be a picture-heavy post as I don't have much time to write right now. (but I've been told that you'd rather have pictures than nothing at all).

First, some photos of the puzzle pillow blanket for the new baby. I had to make it unisex because we don't know (or want to know) the sex of the baby. This is the same blanket that initiated the phone calls with Meg Swansen.

Blanket in pillow form lounging on my new terrace.

Closeup of blanket in pillow form lounging on my new terrace.

Closeup of blanket in blanket form. (on the new terrace - can you tell I love my new terrace? So much nicer than the dirt/mud we've had for most of the summer)

Blanket draped across adirondack chair (on the new terrace)

Blanket came to the park for a photoshoot, and is posing on the 'spider web' during the few moments when there were no kids climbing the thing.

I'm test-knitting a pattern for Jenn, and she's let me blog about it.

I figured that since she gave me permission, I should actually do it. This is a moss stitch/stocking stitch sweater for a baby which is so far a very easy and fun knit. You think you're about to get bored with a section and woosh, you're knitting something different.

These were taken yesterday afternoon at the park, and since then I've finished the second sleeve and have started the left front. Just need to finish the front peices, sew together, add buttons and I'm done. When she publishes the pattern in October, I highly recommend it as a fun and easy knit for any baby.

Here's the finished BSJ.

It's still missing buttons, but I'm waiting until after baby is born to see which sex it is, which determines the side of the buttons.

Here's BSJ posing on some park toys.

Last, but not least, are some baby booties.

These are done in buffalo, which I picked up while in PEI this summer. I lucked upon the Fibre Isle yarn mill, which makes the most gorgeous yarns ever! They focus on buffalo yarns, but also make some gorgeous blends. When I was there, she was also working on some buffalo sock yarn, which I'm hoping to try out soon too!

These booties were hard to photograph, as they're so light and the wind kept blowing them away. These are the softest things imaginable -- this is one lucky baby! I made the booties from this pattern - One Strand Booties. Super easy to make and very fast too.

Finally got a shot of the two of them together.

I also have a Pea Pod sweater that I am almost finished seaming together (which was put on hold for the moss stitch sweater since I had a deadline of Oct 1st for it). I guess I'll have to post again when it's finished!

BSJ-a-long

2008-09-03T09:02:00.003-04:00

I'm still here. It's been a busy summer and not much time for blogging. I did get some knitting done, including finishing Meg Swansen's puzzle blanket.

I also did a fibre-quest through PEI which I will tell you about in another post. Two main highlights include visiting the Fibre Isle buffalo processing mill where they make the new Louet Mooi and the Belfast Mini Mills.

BUT...just so that I don't get accused of not posting some progress pics of my BSJ here's how it looked last Sunday night -- row 68 done. Jenn and I are doing a BSJ-a-long so we each have one for our babies - when they arrive this fall and winter. Being 10 weeks apart is kinda cool because we can each knit baby stuff which goes quickly, and do a bunch of KALs too.

I'm on row 100 this morning (of 114 rows) so should be finished by tonight. I'll post finished pics before the baby is born -- i hope!

Next up - buffalo booties (pattern still TBD) from the yarn I got at Fibre Isle.

I'm still here

2008-06-27T09:25:00.006-04:00

Hi,

I just realised that it's been almost 2 months since my last post. I guess I'm not a committed blogger...there are too many things in my life away from the computer, and when I do have an hour or two, I prefer to spend it either knitting or reading.

I do have a story to share though...

I'm working on Meg Swansen's Puzzle Pillow blanket for my new baby. Here's how the blanket looks as of this morning. Last night I was just at the end of the first oatmeal triangle, but hadn't continued it to start the parallelogram part of the oatmeal color.

Here's how I got to this point... (see below for the arrows)

I cast on 54 stitches where the pink arrow is (A-B) side.

Then knit back 53, turn, knit back, leaving one stitch on the needle at the A-C diagonal.
Knit 52, turn, knit back
Knit 51, turn, knit back,
etc.. until you're at C with 2 stitches on the needle.

You do some funky slip/knit stuff and then start on the CC (oatmeal). Starting on the D-C side, you knit 2 towards the diagonal, turn, knit back. Then knit 3, turn, knit back etc.. picking up one stitch on the diagonal each time.

The last line of the pattern at this point says "knit 54, turn, knit back. You are now at A". Well, I was was at D at that point and very perplexed. I mean...if I"m starting at D-C, knitting towards the A-C diagonal and being told to knit back afterwards, I should logically be at D, not A. Hrm..

Let me google to see if there are any errata. None... Let me check Ravelry...None posted. Check Schoolhouse press for corrections. None...

The legendary Meg Swansen can't be wrong. No way no how.

Since it was kind of late, I decided to email Jennifer to ask her to bring her copy of the pattern to work the next day so that we could try to work it out over MSN/email.

The next morning, I explained my problem. She agreed that it didn't make sense, but tried to see if maybe I/we were interpreting the pattern wrong. We didn't think we were.

I said that maybe I should email school house press to see if they know of this issue..or maybe when there were less boss-like people around, I would call. Jennifer decided that now was a good time to call, and was it OK with me if she called Schoolhouse on my behalf.

Here's where it starts to get spooky...

Jennifer calls Schoolhouse press, says that she's having a problem with a pattern, says it's the puzzle pillow blanket and is transferred to another department. The lady answers the phone "Schoolhouse Press, this is Meg".

this. is. Meg.

I had heard that Meg Swansen answers the phones once in a while, and it happened to Jennifer. how cool is that?!?!

If it were me, I would have fainted, but from what Jenn tells me, she did remain mostly calm and proceeded to explain the dilemma described above. At one point, Meg just stopped and said "uh, yes, you're right" (or something to that effect -- Jennifer will be posting her version later today -- and she did see that you should be at the D side at that point. )

She said that there was an indeed a problem in the pattern, but then she says "You know what the worst part is? Just a few days ago, we got a delivery of 20,000 copies of the pattern, which all have the error.".

What freaked me out (aside from the fact that Jennifer talked to Meg) was that after 13 years in publication, no one had found the error in the pattern. How does that happen?

Anyways, Meg asked Jennifer for our names, so that we could get credit on the Schoolhouse Press site when they posted the correction. She gave our first names only.

....

....

An hour or two goes by, we're trying to figure out how to actually correct the pattern -- either adding an extra row or removing one row -- so I can keep going. Jennifer was going to write an email to schoolhouse asking them to send us the correction (in case it takes a while to be posted).

The phone rings at Jennifer's work, and it's Meg Swansen calling her back. I think that she must have stopped breathing for a moment or two. Meg was calling to let her/us know how to correct the pattern (we were right, remove a row) so that we would be able to continue knitting the blanket.

I'm so totally and unbelievably amazed by the service from Schoolhouse Press. I would totally recommend them to anyone.

Go on over to Jennifer's site to see her version of the story.

Hopefully I'll post again sooner than two months from now. I do have pictures of some finished socks that I might be convinced to post. Maybe...

Maaike and Jenn's most excellent adventure

2008-04-28T20:26:00.012-04:00

Yesterday (was it only yesterday?) Jennifer and I went on a pilgrimage to Webs - America's Yarn Store. We actually left on Saturday afternoon as soon as Jenn finished working, and drove down to Massachusetts. I had borrowed a GPS (now nicknamed Artie) from a coworker, which did help us with directions, but it seemed to always want to go the shortest possible route -- and not always on the major highways.

As soon as we left Burlington, where we stopped for dinner, it wanted us to take the highway 7 straight down to Northampton. I didn't realize this until about 20 minutes out of Burlington when we didn't seem to be on a major highway, so I figured out that we could cut across the Green Mountains to get back to the I89.

The GPS made pouting noises when we kept ignoring his suggestions, and kept wanting us to make a u-turn to get back onto the 7. Poor little thing.

At the same time, I kept getting text messages from my husband about the score in the Habs game. We ended up losing. :(

We also got most excited when we saw a herd of sheep on the side of the road, and I *think* that Jenn wanted to stop to collect some fleece. (we didn't)

We stayed at the hotel near Webs, which was pretty plain. It was clean and quiet, so no complaints. I pulled out the spindle and did a bit of spinning (Jenn has a picture of that), and then we decided that it was time to get some sleep.

Next morning, we had a nice breakfast at the hotel, which included make-your-own waffles. The trick -- use enough waffle-off -- or the things will stick.

The it was off to Target to do a little shopping for us and our kids. I had heard fantastic things about Target, but it was just like our Zellers. Nothing too extra-ordinary. I did get a few cute things for Erika, but could have probably found most of it at home if I'd looked.

After Target, we went to Webs.

I think we got there just in time, because we were standing in line still in the main part of the store. Soon afterwards, the line for the signings went all the way into the warehouse and looped around a few times.

Just in front of us in the line was the lovely Leah and her mom. Leah is 9 and 11/12 years old, and is an a.m.a.z.i.n.g. knitter. She knit the sweater she was wearing (she's the cute kid just to the left on this shot with the purple sweater). Leah also knit the socks she was wearing, was currently knitting another pair of socks, and proudly told us that she has been knitting since she was 5 years old. She was quite an amazing girl. Later, in the warehouse when we were shopping, I spotted her with a cone of pink/purple yarn that she was planning to make into a top for herself.

We waited for about 30 minutes for Stephanie to arrive, and then the line started to move. We had our books signed just before noon, which was not too bad at all. One of the coolest things was spotting the hand-knits, and trying to figure out which pattern it was made from. We saw MANY clapotis, at least one "must have cardi" and a few others.

We brought Stephanie some bagels, squeeky cheese, and three dishcloths. Jennifer had designed them all, and I test-knit the Habs one for her. I think that they were appreciated. :-) I don't have the pic of us with the dishcloths, but it's on Stephanie's post. After having met Stephanie, and talking to her for a few minutes (there were hundred of people after us, so we tried not to linger), we ran into Kathy Elkins. If you read Jennifer's post, you'll know that she had placed a (rather large) order of Nuts, which were delivered to Webs for us. We chatted with Kathy for a few minutes, and I was asking her some questions about a Baby Surprise Jacket that I want to make. Kathy led us to *gasp* the back room -- Employees Only -- where we got to meet Pixie!!

I have to say that I've been a fan of Pixie's for a while, listening to her on the podcast, she always has informative answers and logical solutions to most problems. Talking to her about the BSJ, she gave me some good suggestions, as well as pointing me to a few good Valley Yarns that I could use. I ended up getting the Rainbow in the Royal Combo color. Since the sex of the baby who will get this isn't known, I thought this was fairly unisex. Pixie is exactly like I thought she would be. Her voice is just like the podcast, but it was kind of cool to be talking to her in person, hearing her laugh just like we hear on the radio show.

We were starting to get tired and hungry, so headed up the street for a bit to eat, and then to the Calvin.

Here are some knitters going to the Calvin.

and some more

Kathy and Steve started out by giving out some door prizes, but I think that because we were sitting on the left side of the room, we were unfairly disadvantaged. It seems like 95% of the prizes were given out to the right side.

After the prizes, we got to hear Stephanie give us her talk about why she's not stupid. You're not stupid, Stephanie :-)

The talk was funny, entertaining, and educational. Who knew that knitting was actually good for me?

There were about 1000 people in the audience...

There was one part where I laughed so hard, I actually had tears. If you've never heard her speak, I strongly suggest it.

After the talk, and the Q&A session, it was back to Webs for some shopping. I had wanted to ask a question in the Q&A, but never got the microphone. My question would have been: "There are video games about Tennis, about Golf, about driving cars and about eating little dots while avoiding ghosts. What do you think a video game abut knitting would be?". If anyone wants to comment with their thoughts on a knitting video game, please do. :-)

Before we did leave the Calvin, there were a few people blocking the aisle, and Jenn looked at me and asked why there was the hold up. I peeked ahead and whispered "I think that's Jess from Ravelry". IT WAS!! How cool is that!

I stole the photo above from Jenn's site, as I didn't get the pic with my camera.

There were people waiting in line to get their books signed while we were shopping, and when I walked out of the warehouse into the front of the store with this shopping cart, there were gasps all around. I had to tell them that it wasn't all for me. Actually, the top section of the cart is my stuff, and the bottom is all Jenn's. Just sayin'.

I ended up changing out some of the yarns for the blankets, which you can see in the pic below. The nice gentleman beside me is "justonescarf" who did make more than just one scarf. :-)

While waiting in line, we were right in front of Kimberly who had scored some awesome Lorna's Laces in a gorgeous chocolate/cherry with a hint of grape. I was very tempted to try to snatch it from her basket, but I already had enough picked out already. Plus, she's already taken a picture of me (she liked the sweater) and had written my name down in her booklet. Figuring that she knew who I was, I couldn't quite steal her yarn.

When I get around to photographing the individual yarn that I bought, I'll post them. In case I don't (I know myself), I got some Cascade220 Heathers for a Cobblestone Pullover for Dave, some Rainbow for a Baby Surprise Jacket, some Valley Yarns Plymouth for two Puzzle Pillow blankets, and some cool variegated purple Jaeger Baby Merino to make a sweater for Erika (probably Mia). I might have also bought a second spindle.

Edited to add:

We were nervous about crossing the border with all of our yarn (and nuts), but when we got there, the customs agent asked us "Anything to declare?" to which Jenn replied "Nuts and yarn". I think he gave Jennifer a confused look (they want to declare Nuts and Yarn??)

CA -- "No ma'am, any alcohol, tobacco or firearms?"
J -- "None"
CA -- "Thank you" and he hands us our passports back and lets us through.

Spinning, spinning

2008-04-24T12:39:00.005-04:00

A few weeks ago, on April 12th, I took a spinning class at the Ariadne shop in St. Henry. I have been wanting to learn to spin for a while, and finally got my chance to get my hands into it. I figured I should post about the class before the coming weekend, cuz I will surely have a new post next week after going to Webs (America's Yarn Store TM) to see the Harlot!

There were 10 of us in the class, so we were a bit crowded, but our teacher Leslie was lovely and helped us all get over the hurdles we had.

The pictures of the class were all taken by Mary of Ariadne, who graciously allowed me to steal them to post here. The photos of the actual yarn were done by me. Thanks Mary!

You can see my car parked outside, dutifully decorated with a Habs flag (go habs go!)

Here we all are learning to draft the tops.

There were some lovely treats and breakfast delights to be had.

Starting to spin.

Doing the Andean Plying so that I can ply the yarn into two-ply .

This is the first yarn that I made. I was quite proud of the results -- especially since I've never done any spinning in my life. It was a little lumpy, but I don't care.

I was so proud, in fact, that I called Jennifer (who was on her way home) and asked her to swing by just so that I could show it to her. Like a good friend, she did come by and politely said that the yarn looked beautiful - even though it was a bit slubby.

I did do what Leslie suggested and did more spinning the next night. I was supposed to do about 10-20 minutes a day, but wouldn't stop and spent the night spinning. I made yarn that was MUCH more even (above) and less tightly spun.

This second yarn is still a bit lumpy, but considerably better than the first. I currently have a third attempt on the spindle, and it's even better than number 2. I'm proud of the fact that I am at least improving each time. Now, I feel like I need to get a bit faster, and maybe try spinning with the spindle turning, instead of the park and spin method that Leslie taught us. Then, I'll have to move on to a wheel!!

Last but not least a picture of the two first yarns together. First attempt on the bottom and second on top. If you click for bigness, you can really see the difference in the two.

My 7 deadlies

2008-03-29T15:31:00.004-04:00

Jennifer is having a contest. She is making me think. She is also making me blog. Grumble grumble...

Without further ado (since I have no new pictures) here are my 7 deadly sins of knitting:

Pride -- I was indeed proud of the sweater I made for my nephew Joey. It has a few flaws, but I am sure proud I finished that one.
Envy -- I'm envious of all the people out there who can have a knitting-related job so they're surrounded by fiber stuff all day long. I"m also envious of people who spin and dye their own knitting yarn. I've remedied the dyeing last month when I learned that process (though I want to do more) and will be learning to spin in April. Now to get my hands on a wheel....
Gluttony -- I [heart] knitting books. I have at least 80 books now, and the collection keeps on growing. I do knit from some of them, but not all. I have also had quite a few signed by the designer (I'm also a glutton for signatures)
Lust -- I have to admit for a lust (quite severe) for luxury fibers. I have cashmere, quiviut, buffalo in my stash, as well as lots of alpaca. I just love the softness of them. I just have to actually knit them up, not keep them in my stash.
Anger -- Not exactly anger, but sadness -- the alphabet blanket that I made for my nephew (which did get used quite a bit at first) was accidentally washed in the laundry. I had made it from Zara which is supposed to be superwash. It's not. I'm not sure what setting it was at, but it was accidentally washed with the whites, so it might have been on 'hot'. It's felted now.
Greed -- related to lust and gluttony above - I will happily buy new knitting books or luxury fiber just to have them around. When in Calgary last spring, I bought over $100 on alpaca to make a log cabin blanket. When I got home, I even ordered more -- but in a navy color -- just to have all of the colors I wanted. Have I started it yet?
Sloth -- This one is pretty obvious - blogging. I don't blog enough. I just don't get around to it. I do take pictures of my stuff, but not enough, and even when I do, I don't always post them. I'm lazy about blogging and not afraid to admit it!

Hope I win. $30 would buy me a nice skein of cashmere, I also don't have any camel in my stash yet. Or some Alpaca with a little sparkle might make a nice scarf.

It feels good to give

2008-03-19T22:12:00.003-04:00

At the last guild meeting the topic was making hats. We all were asked to bring in yarn and some big needles, and we would be making chemo hats.

I had some leftover fleece artist mohair, and Jenn gave me some chunky white yarn from her stash. They knit up together to make this:

I finished the first hat during the meeting, mostly because I was able to knit the whole time. It took me about an hour and a bit to make. I sewed it up when I got home. Here's another view of the same hat.

It was so addictive, so I asked Jenn if I could use the leftover white to make a second hat. I had enough, and figured that I should have enough of the same mohair. I ran out of mohair just at the top, so the top is plain white. I don't think it looks so bad.

I was addicted. I was loving making these hats. I remembered that when I raided Jenn's stash, she also had some dark green of the same yarn, and I had some white mohair in my stash, so the next night, I whipped up this:

I had about enough to make 2/3 of a hat left, so I made a kids hat (it was Jenn's idea, actually), so I also made this hat. The pompom at the top was a big hit with Erika (the model).

To quote the herringbone mitten pattern - respect the Pom. I used up all of the leftover white yarn, and there was next to no green leftover. All in all, quite efficient, and I have 4 hats for chemo patients who need them much more than I do.

If anyone out there has hats they want to donate (of any style, shape, size, colors, yarn makeup) please don't hesitate to contact me, or any members of the guild, and I'll bring them in to our next meeting. Our goal is to have 200 hats done by next fall when they'll be sorely needed.

That darn sock -- or Darn that sock?

2008-03-15T20:27:00.004-04:00

Last year, at about this time, I finished a pair of socks for a co-worker. She picked the yarn and the color (STR mediumweight -- "In the navy")

She had told me a few times that she loved the socks, but since she only wore them at home, I never got to see them on her feet, nor did I know if she really wore them all the time or was just making me feel good.

Well, the other day she showed up at work with this:

and asked if I could fix her precious socks. She tells me that as soon as they come out of the wash and are hanging to dry, she sometimes can't wait for them to be fully dry, and was sad to see this big hole in the ball of the foot.

We think she probably snagged it on something on her floor, didn't realize it and then plopped them into the wash - which then made the hole bigger.

Anyone know how to fix this? The newer looking yarn in the picture is my first attempt to do some sort of duplicate stitch, but that failed miserably.

I was tempted to just take any live stitches and sew them together, but that might make it have a big pressure point on the foot.

Any help? Anyone?

Silk Twister

2008-03-11T11:03:00.000-04:00

A while ago (read 2007) , I wend to Effiloche with Jenn -- she had promised me to buy me a skein of yarn as a thank you for some photos I took for her.

I had always wanted to have some sari silk, so that's what I ended up getting. Jenn bought me one skein, and I bought a second (just in case...).

I wanted to make a corkscrew scarf with it, I just thought it would be very cool one skein project.

So, this is what I did. I cast on a bunch of stitches (100, I think), and then every other round or two, I did an increase on every stitch to double the rows. I ended up with about 500 or 550 stitches to cast off at the end. Also, some of the rows were garter stitch and some were stocking stitch so that it doesn't roll too much. I found the pattern online somewhere - if you want it, leave me a comment and I'll try to find the pattern and post it)

In the end, I decided to give this to my mother for Christmas, as I wasn't thrilled with the final result. I liked it enough, but not for me. For the next skein, I'll probably just do a simple shawl with big needles like the Handmaiden bias shawl.

I have also been busy doing some hand-dyeing. I made three gorgeous skeins which I'll be photographing soon. I actually have photos of the skeins, the cakes, but need to take pics of the swatches. What a difference it makes when knit up!! I can't wait to make all three pairs of socks.

Dino puppets

2008-03-03T13:21:00.004-05:00

Two posts in one day, there must be a full moon or something.

I know this is a knitting blog, but I do need to digress for just a moment.

Over this past weekend, Erika and I decided to make some sock puppets. She had a "how to" in one of her activity books and wanted to make some. So we got out the hot glue gun, some felt, and other arts & craft supplies.

I happened to have an old pair of ugly green socks, which we cut up to make dinosaurs.

See how cute! Erika's is the one on the right with the dark pink hat and longer hair. Mine is on the left with the "magician's hat".

She chose the heart-nose for hers. It had to be pink. :-)

Here's the full-body shot of the two together where you can see the polka-dots. Erika cut out her own polka dots, and I attached them with the hot glue gun. Actually, I did most of the putting-together with the glue gun, since a 4 and a half year old isn't quite ready for hot glue. I did let her put the stars on the hat, since I let the glue cool down just a bit before putting them on.

She also did cut out some of the teeth on the dinosaur, but then cut the teeth in half (twice) so I redid them.

These were really quick and easy, and lots of fun to make!

Bunny-liscious

2008-03-03T11:40:00.003-05:00

Jenn was talking about making a bunny the other day, and since I'd bought the pattern from Kate a while ago, I figured I should make one too. Especially, since I have a little niece or nephew coming in the next few weeks. I already have something for him/her, but figured that a cute fuzzy bunny would be a good thing.

The yarn comes from Jenn, who exchanged it with me for some sock blockers that my husband will (eventually) be making for her. He made me some for my birthday last year, and I love them, and he graciously offered to make some for her. It's super soft, and feels like a terry cloth bath robe. Just perfect for a little baby.

The picture above was actually a spontaneous shoot because Erika had placed the bunny on her quilt like that. I couldn't have arranged it better.

Quite a collection of hand-made stuff. The quilt was made by my sister in law (the one who is having the baby). On the left of bunny is Hello Kitty, and on the left is Uniqua (which we got at the Backyardigans live show two weekends ago) - both not hand made. They are all resting on Erika's baby blanket as a pillow, which she still sleeps with every night.

Bunny was a super-fun and SUPER-fast knit. I did it in two nights, but total knitting time was three hours or less, and then a little bit of finishing (maybe half an hour). I decided to not put in eyes/nose/mouth on this bunny, as they would just get lost in the multi colors.

Kindle

2008-02-21T14:26:00.004-05:00

I was going call this post I heart Alpaca, but changed it after writing the rest of the post. I do love Alpaca - sooooo soft, soooo luxurious

I cast on for Kindle - from the Fiona Ellis book Inspired Fair Isle Knits two nights ago. No pictures yet because I've only done a little bit, and it doesn't look like anything interesting yet. So far so good though, I'm about 1/2 way up the first pattern section. I am making mine in Blues and Cream. I know that Fiona says that this is a fire scarf, but I felt that the little fires could also be little snowflakes in mine. Also, I look better in blue, and it goes with more of my things.

In the mean time, until I have something picture-worthy of my own scarf, below is me, modeling the original scarf during a workshop I took with Fiona last year. This picture was actually taken on my camera by Fiona herself, with the book in the background. That table was actually filled with her cool (and BIG) swatches but they aren't too visible in this picture. I'll try to post about that workshop soon.

I couldn't take off the scarf, and tried to walk out with it "by mistake" quite a few times.

I had ordered the yarn that was called for in the book as a birthday present just before Christmas, and have been petting/fondling/loving the Alpaca ever since I got it. It was screaming at me to get this project started.

_______________________________

Wow - two posts in less than a week... I guess the fact that the Harlot left a comment on my last post spurred me on a little. I was also honored that Caroline from Destroy My Sweater left me a comment too - I've been reading your blog for a while now, but didn't know that you read mine (go habs!).

All you other lurkers out there, please do post a comment. It makes me happy to know that there are people reading this stuff, and might actually inspire me to post more often.

I was told...

2008-02-18T22:19:00.005-05:00

So, I was talking to Jenn today, who (as usual) was bugging me to post to the blog. But, it takes away from my knitting time, says I.

I was told -- "Well, you can just post pictures and not put any text."

After an absence of (just under) a month, I figure that I owe you more than just pictures.

Here's a cute story overheard at my 4 (and a half) year old's daycare.

E. (mine) - walks in with a new Montreal Canadiens pink sweatshirt and proudly shows it to her best friend K.

K. - the Habs won last night, they beat the Panthers
E. - yes, we put 2 goals in their net, and they put 1 goal in our net
K. - and Carey Price was our goaltender, he's my favorite
E. - me too.

4 and a half year old girls!!! Go Habs Go! - we're now tied for first in our division.

On another note, I finished my striped Noro scarf that I was doing a KAL with Jenn. We finished on the same day - how cool is that! Now, to cast on for my next project, the Fiona Ellis scarf from her newest book. More on that in my next post, which will hopefully not be in a month.

And now for what you're all really here for - pictures of knitting.

I finally finished the Voss sweater for my nephew and gave it to him about two weeks ago. Hopefully I'll have photos of him in the sweater soon. It's made for a 4 year old size and he just turned 2, so he'll have plenty of years to wear it.

This was my first time steeking, and (blogless) Norma showed me through all of the steps. She even came over to my place to help me do some of the sewing and make sure that I wasn't messing up too much. Well, it worked!

Here's the back of the sweater that shows the detail on at the top.

One of the things that I'm so proud of is the inside of the sweater and the nice finishing details that are build into the pattern. I didn't go so bold as the Harlot did and put in some funky color for the facings. I was too scared to go too much out of the box for my first steeking project. What if I put a funky orange or green somewhere and it ended up showing!!!

And now for some more artsy-fartsy shots using the macro lens. Here's the insides. Look at how even the floats are. I'm so proud.

The neckline detail where you can also see the snowflake up close.

I found the P.E.R.F.E.C.T buttons for this sweater at my LYS. Of course, I found only 5 of them, and had already knit the buttonhole band with 7 holes, so had to rip that out and re-knit it. But, these buttons were the ones that needed to be on this sweater, and I really had no choice. Now, when I look at it, I couldn't see it with 7 buttons anyways, and am glad I made this choice.

And here's my little E. modeling the sweater for me. It fits her just perfectly, so I'm really hoping that my nephew gets two, maybe three seasons out of this sweater.

Now, back to my knitting. I'll try to post once a week, but don't hold me to that (Jenn). Maybe you'll get just photos, no text. I should take a picture of my latest FO, the Noro scarf, but that will have to wait for a few days until I get a chance to block it.

Is this what they mean when they talk about backwards knitting?

2008-01-22T23:01:00.000-05:00

So, before Christmas, I made myself this nice cashmere hat. It's Devon's Toque from Handmaiden. The cashmere is like buttah, and knit up so fast, it was ridiculous. Even though I cast on for the hat three times, it was still super fast.

The first time I cast on with the right number of stitches, I didn't like the way the brown and black was pooling. Basically, half the hat was brown, the other was black. Not very good, in my opinion. I also thought it would be a little small, so I decided to cast on with 8 more stitches (2 more 2X2 ribs) but it didn't do much to reduce the pooling, and it still looked smallish. I cast on again with 8 more stitches. That was what seemed to work like a charm. I liked the spiral / striping effect, when I put the first few inches on a string and 'tried it on', it fit like a glove.

Well, when the whole thing was finished, the hat ballooned at the bottom. I knew that cashmere relaxes a little, but this relaxed A LOT!

Also, since I'd added so many stitches, I didn't have the length that I wanted. Even though in this picture, I have it folded nicely, when it's on my head, I can only get about 1cm of a fold, which looks weird. Jenn will be posting pictures of me in the hat when she gets around to posting about the Fibonacci socks.

Anyways, I didn't like the look of the hat. I loved the feel of the cashmere, and I'd invested $40 in the one skein of it, so I darn well wanted something that I'd love.

So, this happened....

It got ripped out and skeined on my new niddy noddy.

This is the yarn after it was skeined up. Amazing how quickly (about 2 months) the kink gets in the yarn.

Which meant soaking it,

And then drying with a little weight. I use a full spray bottle.

And then finally, the re-tied skein, looking just about as awesome as it did before I made the hat. I'll have to dig up the little endy bit that I had -just in case I need when I re-knit it.

So, what am I going to knit this up into? I'm thinking about this hat pattern - which should work with the stitch count I need, and I like how the top decreases are done.

Hab-by Christmas

2007-12-19T21:40:00.001-05:00

Look what I made tonight for my Habs-loving husband. It's not quite to scale, and is a little different from what the big boys wear, but I think it's pretty darn cute.

I've made a couple of other mini sweaters for hostess gifts for the holidays using leftover sock yarn. They're quick and easy and so much fun to make. Start to finish was about 3 hours including sewing all the ends and crocheting the C. I've already given away 2 - one to our neighbours and one to my father (I made his using leftover yarn from the socks I made him)

I still have to finish sewing up the sides of the other sweaters and making the mini-hangers. Hoping to be done these and 2 more before Christmas!!

Wild wintery weather

2007-12-18T14:11:00.000-05:00

We've had some snow here in Montreal. Lots of other Montreal bloggers have been writing about it, but I think the best example of how much snow we got recently can be seen on the weather page of my coworker Celini.

When you go to that page, click on the little square in the video to make it full screen. It's even more impressive.

What? Pictures? You've got to be kidding!

2007-12-03T21:07:00.000-05:00

Ok, it's been a while since I've posted photos. It's been a little crazy around here lately. First of all, we had a french drain put around our house. This was done the week of Hallowe'en, so we didn't have any trick or treaters this year. It was weird not having any kids ringing our doorbell, but it was way too dangerous to let anyone near the house. We were tempted to fill the moat with water and put in fake alligators, but decided rather quickly against it.

Now for some knitting photos which I know have been woefully lacking these days. I'm catching up on a lot of things (sorry, blogging has not been priority #1 for me lately) and my photos are slowly being managed.

Photo of the finished second potamotamus sock - which was finished over a month ago! Recipient has already gotten her pair of socks and apparently loves them. Her favorite colors are purple and green, so I sure hope so!

Below is some gorgeous pink/white angora/merino that I got at a sale at the Montreal Knitting Guild in September. I had bought it to make something for my 4 1/2 year old daughter (imagine, her favorite color is pink!). Tried as I might, I couldn't find the right project for it. First I though a neckwarmer or hat, but that would felt too quickly with the snow play she does. Then I thought of a nice little sweater, but I don't have enough yarn. Then I thought maybe a mini sunrise circle jacket by Kate Gilbert. The sunrise circle was THE idea for a few weeks. I ran into Kate at a workshop with Fiona Ellis (I have those photos processed but you'll have to wait a few days) and she gave me a couple of pointers of how to reduce the pattern to make it 4 year old size. When I did the math, I realized that with the much thinner yarn than the pattern calls for, I would actually have to knit the same number of stitches as if I were making the adult size LARGE, to get a sweater that would fit my daughter for maybe one season. That idea got nixed rather quickly. Also - angora for a 4 year old. She needs superwash. I need the angora. :-)

I've now decided that I'm going to overdye it with blue to make a nice purple color and make a scarf/shawl for me. I haven't figured out yet which pattern, but I'm sure it will come to me one day.

On to my mother's shawl. I've honestly had problems with this shawl. It was going along swimmingly, but then it started to get so repetitive. I had hoped to get it done by her birthday in September. That didn't work. Then I hoped to get it done for Christmas, but that's not going to happen either. Maybe for the spring? i figure I have another 5 or 8 repeats to go before it's large enough. I'm not sure if I'm going to put a border on it or not, maybe a simple scallop or something.

Last but not least - for today anyways - here are the socks in progress. I started these about two weeks ago.

Erika had asked for socks with "all the colors". I promptly went to Blue Moon, picked some nice, muted colorways - but still with many different colors. Guess which one she chose? The one with all of the most vibrant, fluorescent colors possible. The picture here doesn't do the colors justice. Picture pink, yellow, orange, green and blue highlighters.

I do truly love these socks though. I made them a bit big, and think I'll give this first pair to her little friend whose feet are just a bit bigger, and I'll make a pair that's 4 stitches less around so that they fit her this year. I fear that if I keep these for us, that she'll fit them perfectly in the summer.

I do have more photos that have been processed. The next few nights will be for knitting, but I hope that before next week I'll have another post with photos.

more knitting, less photos

2007-11-26T10:23:00.000-05:00

So, I had great intentions of posting photos on the weekend. I promise I did. I had taken the pics, adjusted the lighting, retaken the pics. I fiddled a little with them in Lightroom and had exported a few into jpg format and was planning on doing the rest on Saturday night. I promise I did all of this.

Then, I subtly mentioned to my husband that my computer was a little slow, and could he do something to make it faster (i.e. get a faster machine). He proceeded to go out and buy me more RAM, since most of what I do is quite RAM intensive.

That led to the RAM being installed, my computer then consistently rebooting and giving all kinds of errors. The RAM was removed, computer still complained. Now we're (he's) reinstalling Windows for me.

During all of that time, I did finish making a corkscrew scarf with one skein of Sari Silk that Jennifer bought for me as a thank you for pictures I took for her (see I do take pictures!!) - if I didn't know the Lucy Neatby alternative cast off, casting off the 650 stitches would have driven me bonkers!! I like the end result, and it might please me a little more after I give it a good wash. The silk smells a little like barn right now. I also find it's a little heavy, which I hadn't expected.

I also cut up a pullover I'd made a few years ago but never wear, (my first steek), bought a zipper for it, and will soon be installing the zipper. I also was about to sew and cut the dale sweater for my nephew, but when I put the sleeve up against the body, realized that there must have been a mistake in the instructions because I need to do one more row of the little snowflakes. The body always looked a little short to me, now I know why. I frogged the top repeat (which is unique for the top) last night and will be spending the next week or so knitting one more repeat of snowflakes before I can cut it up. I hope to have it ready for Christmas! Looking back at the last post about this sweater (link above), I guess I'd realized earlier that this sweater was a little off-kilter, but hadn't come to the sad realization that I needed a whole row of snowflakes. At least it's not a whole bunch of frogging....

There has been progress

2007-11-12T22:02:00.000-05:00

just no pictures...

I have finished my cashmere hat (l.o.v.e. it!)
I finished the pomatomuses (did I say that already) and have cast on a new pair of socks for my daughter. In less than 24 hours I've already turned the heel.

What I have not done is upload pictures of all my WIPs. I have the pics. I have them on the computer I'm on right now. I tried to edit/crop them a little, and Picassa crashed. I don't want to risk it again.

Soon, when I have a little time, I have to take all of the raw photos and treat them properly in Lightroom so I can export them for you to see.

Be warned, a picture-heavy post will be coming soon. (including a picture of me taken by Fiona Ellis herself)

More coming!

2007-11-02T21:47:00.000-04:00

As was so elegantly pointed out by Jenn(ifer), I haven't posted in over a month. Why? What's up? Am I still knitting? Am I still buying yarn? Am I still enabling other people to buy yarn and/or other knitting accessories?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes :-)

I haven't posted for a few reasons --

First - my daughter had a pneumonia (albeit mild) so we've been home a lot taking care of her.
Second - This week we had a french drain (weeping tiles for non-Quebec people) installed around our house. The weeks leading up to the french drain was spent getting permits, getting quotes, getting new contractors when the original ones decided not to answer our phone calls and all sorts other fun stuff.
Third - I have no pictures!! Well, that's a lie I have a few pictures of finished objects, but have had little or no time to put them onto the computer. Now that I have an 8 gig card for my camera, I don't need to empty is as often as I used to.
Fourth - with all of the above, there has been little or no time to do anything for myself, and what little time I do have I wanted to knit.

Speaking of knitting, there has indeed been progress. The pomatomuses are done, the Voss sweater that I had started and had put into hibernation for a while is almost done. I've just got half a snowflake pattern to do on the last sleeve. Steeking will happen next week when I help teach a class at my LYS. I started another project which is supposed to be strictly for commuter knitting. It's cashmere though, and I want to keep touching it. I will not knit anything else at home until the Voss is done though. I'm being good.

Photos of all of the above will come soon. Promise. (well....maybe)

On another note, I will be taking a workshop this weekend with Fiona Ellis and was lucky to go for dinner with her tonight. It always amazes me that these knit-goddesses who I've admired for so long are just normal people like you and me. We talked knitting, we talked about tons of other things. It was just like being out with an old friend, but we just met. At one point, there was a lady at a nearby table wearing a beautifully cabled sweater, and we were all trying to figure out if it was handmade. The ribbing and the seams looked like they were done by machine, so we concluded that it must not have been done by hand. Then again, the sweater that Fiona was wearing was one from her book and looked so perfect that it could have been store-bought.

Does a Pomatomus says frog?

2007-09-28T20:14:00.000-04:00

I'm sure that sure that even though the Pomatomus is a genus of blue fish, I really don't think that Cookie A. meant it to be a frog. Well, sadly that is where my Pomatomus went last night. Luckily only for a few rows.

Let's start at the beginning...

I'm making these socks for the girls who keep giving Erika their gorgeous clothes when they're finished with them.

For the oldest girl, I decided that I wanted to something a little more funky. Her favorite colors are purple and green, so I went scouring the Blue Moon site for just the right purples and greens. The colors in these pictures just don't do it justice, and it's been raining and grey here for the last few days so I had to take indoor/flash photos. I'll try to get outside shots of the FO to see the right colors. It goes from a nice olive green (and I normally don't like olive green) to dark green to dark purple and then a little hint of the light purple/lavender. The way that the blue moon girls mix their colors is truly genius.

The timing was just perfect, I'd just finished her sister's socks and this came in the mail. After fondling the yarn for a while - it's just sooo soft - I wound it into a ball. When I wind just a little loose on my ballwinder, it makes this neat pattern.

With these colors, it reminded me of the Pomatomus socks from Knitty a while back, and I couldn't resist. I'd been wanting to make myself a pair of pomatomus socks for so long, but didn't think that I'd ever wear them, I figured that a 12 year old girl would love these!

This is the most amazing pattern. So intuitive and easy to follow. I did the top repeats (2 instead of the prescribed 3) in no time at all. I love the way that the top ribbing melts into the scallops and then how the pattern flows into the heel flap. The heel flap and turning the heel went smoothly . Then the foot came along.

I had been going along so well, had practically memorized the pattern and the top of the foot started out the same as all of the others. But there's a difference. I didn't realize that difference until about 6 rows after I'd screwed up and forgotten about the k2tog tbl that I needed to start, and I don't get the nice scallop on one side. You can see on the left of this picture the nice little bit of what looks like ribbing and it should be curving back to the left. Well, that bit of knitting is gone now.

I decided to frog it back to where I knew I was OK, which took a little longer than expected (but no mishaps). After some long conference calls where I just have to listen and not participate too much, I'm back to where I was - with proper pomatomusing on the foot.

There was much rejoicing. I hope to finish the first one this weekend and then get started on the second one before second sock syndrome sets in -- though I don't' think it will for the pomatomus.

I showed these to Dave last night - who complimented me by saying that these were the coolest socks that I'd ever knit. He seemed quite impressed. by knitting. nuff said.

Just as an afterthough to this post - every time that I had to write pomatomus, I needed to go back to Knitty and verify the spelling. You'd think that after writing it 7 times I would have figured it out... Does being the mother of a 4 year old still quality me for pregnancy-brain or have I past that stage and am just a dork who can't write p.o.m.a.t.o.m.u.s. [ you don't need to answer that ]

Stripe Generator

2007-09-21T08:56:00.000-04:00

I found this really cool stripe generator today. I have a couple of ideas requiring stripes, so this will come in handy.

The next pair or orange socks are almost done - just a few more rows on the toe to finish.

Socks for S.

2007-09-11T08:53:00.000-04:00

So, the first pair of thank-you socks are done and given away already - before I could take a picture of them even!! They were well appreciated though. It was quite cute, C. opened the socks, exclaimed that she loved orange and put on the socks right away. When she started walking around on the hardwood floors in her house, she was slipping and sliding, and had quite a good time figuring out ways to slip around in her new socks.

The socks for her sister, S., are well on their way now. I cast on for these socks last Thursday and they're coming along quite nicely. I'm a little dissapointed in how the picot cast on curls down, but I think that's a function of the stocking stitch. When I put the sock-in-progress around my arm, the picot edge does 'stand up' properly, so I'm hoping that when the socks are worn, they'll look ok.

Just a few more rows and I'll be able to start the toe decreasing. I'm hoping that I can finish this pair at guild tonight and then cast on for the second one on the train tomorrow.

Oh - it's Jennifer's birthday today - go send her good wishes!

WIP and new toys

2007-08-31T10:27:00.000-04:00

One of my sister-in-law's best friends who has three daughters has - over the last 4 years - very generously been handing down their gorgeous clothes that Erika now wears. This summer- I swear - Erika had 52 t-shirts. She didn't wear them all because she would always gravitate towards her top 10 favorites.

As a thank you, I'm knitting a pair of socks for each of the girls. The two youngest girls favorite color is Orange and the oldest's favorite colours are Purple and Green.

For the orange, I'm using Regia Nordic colors and am loving the yarn, the colors and how the end-product looks. It's also got the bonus of being machine washable! I've got one and a half socks done for the smallest daughter. I might put a picot edge for the middle girl, but am not sure.

For the oldest, I'm waiting for my order from Blue Moon - A lightweight Nodding Violet. I can't wait! It's been shipped so I'm hoping I'll get it soon.

I also got these in the mail the other day...

I'd ordered this handy dandy needle holder (actually two of them) so that I could keep my needles in check when I'm not knitting with them. I love it. It's so handy to be able to neatly tuck my needles into their new tin case (made by hand by a tinsmith). If you want some, go to Woolworks. They're awesome!!

Wow - two weeks behind

2007-08-23T08:35:00.000-04:00

About two weeks ago, we went up to the family cottage just north of Ottawa for a relaxing weekend. It was nice to get away from the city for a while, to swim in the lake and be one with nature. We went with another family who have 3 little boys (all under 4 years) so there wasn't much knitting time. I did manage to snap a pic of the finished STR socks I finished recently. These are the same socks that went around Alberta with us.

The color is more accurate in the picture below, but I just love the composition of the sock with the lake in the background above. So, since I can, I'm posting both. :-)

So there I was at the cottage, where I've been going for the last 34 years of my life, and I saw something that's been there all of my life, but I'd never really paid attention to.

It looks like a spinning wheel, it feels like a spinning wheel, it has spun wool on it, so I'm guessing that this is a spinning wheel. Not being a spinner (but wanting to try), I'm wondering if anyone has used a wheel like this.

Here is a closeup. Now the question is - do I bring this thing home? The base is super-heavy (made of cast iron, I think). Would it be usable to spin, or would I get frustrated with this?

In other knitting news... I'm still working on the shawl for my mom, and it's still a stealth project. So far, it's turning out to be quite gorgeous. I love the yarn and the pattern. It's just getting longer and longer to do each row (as was expected) so I need to give myself a little push to get it done. I will be showing the unfinished project to my mother on the weekend, since it will be her birthday party, but will then need to give a good push to finish the thing.

I've also cast on for some orange socks as a thank you present for a friend who gave us a lot of clothes for Erika. Photo coming soon. These are going quickly, since they're for a 5-6 year old girl. There is just not enough knitting time in the day! These days, I get on average 1/2 an hour of knitting time per day which is just not enough to get any significant progress on any projects.

Note to self - when the camera is out - take pictures of the knitting not just the cute kids around me!!

Alberta trip - part three

2007-08-14T22:08:00.000-04:00

After seeing more of Alberta, including many pump-jacks,

a visit to the hoo-doos and Drumheller (including the awesome Tyrell Museum), we were sadly nearing the end of our trip.

We planned to fly out of Edmonton, which allowed us some time to stop in Carstairs to visit the Custom Woolen Mill.

I was in shock. I'd heard from my father - who has visited before - that this was a cool place to visit. I expected to see wool being processed, but really didn't expect to see the machines that I did.

These machines are from the 1800s, and were brought to rural Alberta by Bill and Fen more than 25 years ago. The whole history is available on their site.

What a fun place to visit. It's in the middle of nowhere, luckily we knew about it, and it wasn't too much out of the way on our drive to Edmonton. It's definitely worth the detour if you're in the area.

As we drove up, I saw a few barns, and it looked like any other farm in Alberta. Then I saw the wool shop, and the bags of wool. I knew I was in heaven.

As we walked into the processing plant, it was like we were walking into a part of history. It wasn't a big huge commercial wool processing plant. Actually, when I walked in, there was no one there to greet us 'officially', you just kind of walk in to the wool washing room. When we asked one of the people there if we should just walk around, she asked a nice looking gentleman (with a hand-knitted hat) to show us around the place. It wasn't until later that I realized that he was one of the owners.

I didn't get any pictures of the washing process, because it was too hot and humid and my camera got all fogged up. Here is the washed yarn getting ready to be carded.

After the wool is washed in two different baths to remove the lanolin, it goes to the carding machines. They can either card it into roving for you crazy spinners out there (actually I have a spinning question coming in the next post), or they can card it into batting for making quilts (which they also make on the premises).

After the wool is carded, it's spun into singles on the spinning mule. They can spin up to 192 bobbins at a time.

I was fascinated by the process. The bobbins go back and forth on the floor on special tracks. This allows the wool to be spun, and then is relaxed as the spinning mule goes back on its tracks.

After the singles are spun, it can also be plied into 2 or 3 ply yarn. I didn't get a picture of the plying machine :(

They sell all of the yarns in the yarn store, but they also make their own socks there using these funky sock knitting machines. The lady (I forget her name - I should really write this stuff down) showed us how the socks were made on these machines. I think she said that she could make one sock in about 3 MINUTES!!! I can't even cast on for a sock in 3 minutes.

It was pretty cool, the machine does the leg of the sock, turns the heel (some version of a short row heel) and then goes on to make the foot. The toe is another short-row toe, which is then sewn together on another machine. I was tempted to buy a pair of ready made socks, but decided to get the alpaca sock yarn instead and make the socks myself.

Here we see three socks that just came off the machine. They're sewn together using a clear thread by the sock knitting machine so that the stitches don't get dropped, but the clear thread gets cut off during the finishing process.

There are these funky little remnants from each sock that they give/sell to a local artist who makes rugs and other things with them. Erika got a few to play with, and was tickled pink. She was amused for almost an hour with these things.

We then got to go to the quilting room where they make their mattress covers and quilts using the same techniques that were used 50 years ago. There is a pattern that is made into a wooden template.

This is then outlined with spikes as a guide, and the sewing head is attached to an arm that travels along the spikes to sew the pattern. It has to be reset to a different part of the pattern a few times in the process so that the whole quilt has design on it.

I had gone to the mill with the intention of buying enough of the Alpaca Lopi to make myself a sweater, but ended up walking out with an entirely different set of purchases. (though I will be making an order for some of the Alpaca Lopi sometime this winter if anyone is interested).

My dad's neighbor raises Alpaca and has the Alpaca wool spun here, so I thought it would be neat to have a sweater made from an animal that I've actually seen in person.

I saw a cute sweater kit for Erika for $35 (yes, $35 for a whole sweater kit!!),

some alpaca sock yarn, (enough for two pair of socks)

the kit for the hat that Bill was wearing (I couldn't resist),

a kit for some funky socks (socks of many colors)

and a whole bunch of belly button warmers.

These belly button warmers are the coolest wool shop advertising I've ever seen. On the back, there's a brief - and humourous - description of how the belly button warmer can be used and the contact information for the mill.

Alberta Trip - part deux

2007-08-07T09:34:00.000-04:00

After our first tour of southern Alberta, where we went to Dinosaur provincial park, Writing on Stone provincial park (that was way cool) and Waterton provincial park - where the sock was just too stunned by the beauty of the place - we went back to Cochrane for a few days of rest at my father's place. [ it should be noted that in our vocabulary, rest means going to Stampede, going wool shopping, going to brunch, and generally not resting]

I had heard about the Make 1 yarns trip to the mountains for a knitting retreat, and if they're still doing it in 5 years, I'll probably go on one then when Erika is bigger - but I just had to go and visit their store.

W.O.W.

This was more than I had bargained for. They had all of the yarns that people drool over on blogland - misty alpaca, Malabrigo, Alchemy yarns, Rowan, Lorna's Laces, and tons of other hand painted or hand dyed yarns that I hadn't even heard of (but loved none the less). If ever you find yourself anywhere near Calgary, you NEED to go to this store [with your credit card].

The store had just (and by just, I mean the day before) re-opened after a week's worth of renovations. Most of the yarn was still in bags, as the dusty part of the renovations had only finished the day before. I'm sure the store looks much more put-together now, but this is what it looked like when I was there.

I was helped by the lovely Amy, one of the store's owners. I felt totally at home there, was allowed to fondle as much yarn as I wanted, and they even had a little chair with crayons for Erika to color so I could concentrate on the yarn.

I have been wanting for the longest time to make a "Moderne Blanket" in blues with a hint of orange. Amy spent quite some time helping me find the right yarn. First, we were going with some wool (I dont' remember the type) but the orange they had was too vibrant. In the end, I got some Misty Alpaca in cream, light blue, dark blue and orange. I've done a couple of sketches and think it will look pretty snazzy when it's all done.

It's so soft...I wish you could feel it through the screen.

I also got a Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton Noro book that I've been looking for in Montreal, but no one has it anymore and a skein of some lovely purple hand painted superwash/mohair. Not sure what I'll do with this one, but as soon as I saw it, I needed it.

The day before the yarn store, Dave had found out about a shop that specializes in Acoustic Guitars. I felt less guilty about buying alpaca for a blanket after he bought himself a new guitar. Let's just say that the cheapest guitar in the shop was just over $1000, and Dave didn't get the cheapest one.

Next post - Alberta trip part 3 where I go to a tour of the Custom Woolen Mills.

Alberta Trip - part 1

2007-07-24T14:29:00.000-04:00

I finally got through the 893 photos that I took in the 12 day trip to Alberta. I ended up being quite ruthless in my deleting, and kept about 500 of them. What a job! At least they're mostly of good quality, so there weren't too many touchups to do.

Where to start....

First off, Dad's socks. I don't have a picture of them on his feet, but he did seem to like them a lot, and told me that they fit perfectly. I'm sure that when it's a little colder in the wintertime that he'll wear them more around the house.

On the first day, I went to Addie's in Cochrane. We were staying just outside of Cochrane and had to run in to town for a quick trip. I managed to sneak out for 20 minutes to poke around the store. I didn't find anything that I loved, and knowing that I was going to three other yarn stores, I resisted the urge to buy. That inner strength didn't last long.

After a trip into the mountains...

In homage to the yarn harlot, the sock visits Takakkaw falls and realizes that it needs to be in focus for future photos.

The sock visits the Columbia Icefields and notices that it's still not in focus, since the silly human taking the pictures didn't look at the previous day's photos before taking this one.

We had a few days back at the house. I went in to Calgary to Pudding Yarns. It was a nice store, had a nice selection of yarns. The person who was working there when I was there happened to be a [self-proclaimed] novice knitter.

When I arrived, she was talking to a customer [who appeared to be a regular] about what project she could start while sitting by an ailing relative. Several simple projects were discussed - I piped in with suggesting that she try making a Clapotis since it's pretty brainless after you figure out the first repeat. She actually had the Clapotis pattern printed from Knitty at the top of her knitting bag!! It was neat to see that the Clapotis-fever is still alive and well.

Then I started fondling some pretty red malabrigo and wanted to make an einstein coat for Erika. I didn't remember the yarn requirements, and they didn't have the Sally Melville book in the store. My printout from Ravelry of all patterns in the queue didn't have the yarn requirements (can we add that? have to check that out). The regular customer did know of the pattern and book, and when she got home, she called the store to tell me the yarn reqs for the sweater/coat. Now that's service!!

So, I bought the malabrigo. It's so nice, and I can't wait to knit it into an einstein jacket.

I also got some sock yarn. I will be making socks for an 11 year old whose favorite colors are purple and green. Hopefully I'll have enough leftover to make a syncopated cap.

At the cash, I saw some plain looking brown yarn. It looked soft, so I touched it. Big mistake. The yarn is Buffalo yarn, and it was soooo soft, I had to get a skein. This was my luxury purchase of the day. Not sure exactly what I'll make with it yet.

Here are all of my Pudding Yarns purchases.

I did also pick up a cute little sheep measuring tape, and since Erika really wanted to be in on the photo session - voila!

Coming very soon (the photos are done!) - Make 1 Yarns and Custom Woolen Mills.

We're back!

2007-07-13T10:42:00.000-04:00

We're back from the whirlwind tour of Alberta. Lots to write about, but I need to process the 900+ pictures first to cull the bad ones and enhance/crop the good ones (as needed).

Stories and pictures to come, including my trips to 3 wool stores and 1 working woolen mill where they process their wool on machines from the 1800.

Offline for a bit

2007-06-27T09:21:00.000-04:00

We're off on vacation for two weeks, going to Calgary to visit my dad (to give him his birthday socks). I'll try to post pics of the two wool shops I plan to visit (www.make1yarns.com and www.puddingyarn.com -- if anyone else knows about other good yarn stores in Calgary, please leave a comment) .

See you in July! Happy Canada day!!

Knitting progress: there is some.

1 - One of the "jasper" socks is done to the toe, the other one is half way through the gusset.

2 - My Mom's shawl is on pattern repeat 5. I'm not sure how many I will do, it's starting to get longer and longer to get through each row, but I guess I knew that. Knock on wood, there are no major mistakes yet. I made one little mistake in one of the diamonds but it's hardly visible and I didn't want to rip back 8 rows!! I did take pictures of it, and will post the start to finish pictures after I've given it away.

The obligatory photograph, since there aren't any knitting photos - here is Erika chilling in the back yard and talking to her daddy. I had fun playing with it in Lightroom. I really like the black and white version.

Garden pictures

2007-06-15T13:31:00.000-04:00

Knitting is my first passion. I love what can be created with just some gorgeous yarn and some needles. Each stitch is meticulously created and thought out and crafted with care. When you're done knitting something, there is a great sense of accomplishment.

I have the same feeling with gardening, but in a whole different way. With gardening, you are creating the environment for the plants to thrive, and they do the rest.

Look at these daisies !

A bee came in for some food on my Lupin.

And then a couple of days later, some aphids had a feast on the Lupin. I had to spritz it with some spray to get rid of the Aphids, but the Lupin is still standing.

Here is my garden from about a week ago. It looks much more full now.

And then the crowning glory - my "Rock Star" iris. This is tempting me to start dye-ing wool. Some of the colors are just so striking that I want to dye some yarn to match.

As I was taking pictures of these dainty little pink flowers (hmm forgot the name), an ant came by for a visit. Of all of the pictures I took, this was the most interesting. Wildlife in action!

World Wide Knit in Public day

2007-06-11T08:59:00.001-04:00

Saturday, June 9th was World Wide Knit in Public day, so the Montreal Knitting Guild held its annual garden party in front of the church.

There were more people there than expected, and everyone had gorgeous things they were knitting. Even more people came after I snapped this picture. I had to leave around one to bring Erika back home for her nap, so if I missed anyone - sorry!

I brought out the macro lens and took photos of Barbara's shawl.

And Joanne's scarf made with beautifully soft wool.

Barbara brought a cute hand made mouse for Erika which is much loved and has its own special place on the shelf.

Mouse was soon joined by a bear dressed in adorable clothes made by Shirley. The yarn was dyed by a guild member (don't remember who) and Shirley knitted it up for the bear.

Some knitting progress has been made - my socks are progressing. Mom's shawl is progressing. I"ve gotten into the knitting of the actual shawl (instead of swatching) and have done three pattern repeats. Still ?? to go - I have to measure it to see.

Right now I'm stuck trying to figure out how to do the edges for the 4th (and above) pattern repeat since it doesn't quite match the first two - and in the original pattern it only calls for 3, then goes on to another pattern in the garden shawl. Back to sketching and drawing to figure it out!

No photos of the shawl yet though - it's a surprise!

Dad's socks finished!

2007-06-06T12:34:00.000-04:00

Wow, making socks for a man with 11 inch feet, is well, somewhat long. They didn't take as long as I thought they would, since the yarn was so nice and soft and smooth to knit with, and I purposely made them a smidge looser than I normally do so they would be nice and lose on my father's feet. Even though they are 10 inches around, I only used 80 stitches for the sock. If I were to use this yarn again, I'd use 2.25mm needles, but think that this gauge is perfect for my father's socks.

I'll post a picture of them on his feet when I give them to him at the end of the month. Here they are resting on my newly transplanted blue spruce.

Project Specs:

Pattern: Generic top-down sock

Yarn: Austerman Step

Needles: 2.5mm dpns
Gauge: 30 sts to 10cm

Size: 11 inches long

Cast on to Bind off: May 26 to June 3, 2997

Would I make this again: More socks - of course!

And now with 3 columns

2007-05-31T08:53:00.000-04:00

I finally found a 3 column template that looks nice, is easy to use and works with the new blogger. The only downside is that I had to save all of the links on my sidebars and will slowly be putting them back. I'm so overjoyed at the prospect, but with 5 back to back conference calls today I'll have time for some mindless multitasking. Maybe I'll knit on dad's sock instead.

Socks for dad

2007-05-29T12:10:00.000-04:00

Yes, another new project to distract me from the never-ending Voss sweater. I'm almost done the second sleeve, but my Voss mojo seems to be waning quickly. I want to finish it, so that I can steek it and finally finish it, but since I'm only giving it for Christmas, I have no need to rush.

We're going to visit my father in Calgary soon to celebrate his 70th birthday, as well as so that Dave can see the rockies, go to Stampede and many other fun western things (including going to two yarn shops in Calgary). I'll post pictures when I'm back. I was trying to think of a perfect present, but since he has everything, it's always a challenge. I decided to make him some socks to wear around the house.

I chose to try the Austerman Step yarn with Aloe and Jojoba since I've heard raves about the yarn and felt the need to try it. It is indeed very nice to work with. I'm using 2.5mm needles and find it a bit loser that I would like, next time I'll use 2.25mm needles with this yarn, as I think it will make a nicer fabric.

He's not a big fan of color, so I chose as manly a coloway as possible. I think he'll like them. I hope he'll like them. We'll see in a month.

Like the pictures? I just got a new macro lens for my camera, and will be posting pictures of my garden soon. I my macro lens!

It's a small world

2007-05-18T21:04:00.001-04:00

So here I am, dropping off my Mom at the airport for a trip to Istanbul and Greece (lucky her!) and someone shouts out "Maaike!" in the middle of the departure area. I turned around, and it was none other than Kate Gilbert with her cutie little tadpole and Frog. (!!) Knitters are everywhere!

I introduce her to my mother and say that this was the lady who designed the Clapotis scarf that I made and love so much -- and she says to Kate "Oh, you're the one that my daughter talks about all the time" [aside, I think she was thinking about the Harlot]

Erika and tadpole had a couple of really cute kid moments waving at each other. When we left, Erika says to me - "Mommy, can we go to their house to play one day?". How cute is that?

Kate - if you're reading this - I might have to take you up on your offer to go stash shopping while our girls play. I'm really not a crazy knitwear designer stalker.

FOs from 2006

2007-05-09T14:56:00.000-04:00

I have nothing new to show...I have been knitting and there is progress, but nothing exciting or photo-worthy.

I ripped out the top of the Dale sleeve that was causing me grief, reknit it, and now it's just right. Hooray! Now I need to make a second sleeve.

I do have pictures though.

In my pre-blogging days, I made a the Debbie Bliss alphabet blanket for my nephew J - also the lucky recipient of the Dale sweater. My sister-in-law just sent me pictures of J with his blankie. It's so nice to see it "in the wild" and actually being used instead of just sitting on a shelf somewhere.

Here is a picture of the blanket just after I gave it to them (Jan 2006).

Here he is with the blankie.

Here is another picture of J with his blankie

On an unrelated note - at guild last night, we had a professor from Dawson come in to give us a talk about color. Wow. He just blew my mind with some of the concepts and how to find good color combinations. My log cabin blanket that I want to make will be 3 or 4 tones of blues with a little pop of orange.

Look what I made last night

2007-05-04T12:02:00.000-04:00

So, I got a copy of this book by Alison Hansel last week and have been wanting to make something - anything - from it. As I was looking through my stash, I noticed that I happened to have some maroon and gold "Smart" so I cast on for a bookmark after work.

This book is great! Lots of great patterns from the Harry Potter movies. Some that I'd make, and some well...not sure I'd want to make "Molly's Technicolor housecoat". Take a look at the book to see what I mean.

I like how it's been divided into "first year", O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. levels for the degrees of difficulty.

I made it to the first set of yellow stripes before I went to pick up Erika, made dinner and went to play tennis. When I got home, I finished the knitting of the bookmark while watching Survivor (from the PVR) and put the fringes in while watching the news.

Voila! Le Gryffindor bookmark. It is a bit chunky so not sure if I'd use it for paperbacks, but it's kinda cool.

Project Specs:

Pattern: House bookmark from Charmed Knits

Yarn: Smart from the stash

Needles: 4.5 mm dpns
Gauge: never even checked

Size: 3.5 cm X 20 cm

Cast on to Bind off: May 3 - 3:45pm to 10pm with a break for dinner and tennis.

Would I make this again: Yes, but with much thinner yarn so that it's not so bulky in a book.

OK - now what?

2007-05-01T09:10:00.000-04:00

The Voss is the never-ending sweater from %#$@#@. Or, to be more positive, this sweater is a learning experience.

As I showed pictures of the other day, I finished the first sleeve. Last night, I finally started the second sleeve. All was looking good. I was progressing. I did the first increases after the ribbing, and things were looking like they were going much better than the first sleeve. I had learned my lesson from the first sleeve. Or so I thought. Cue the ominous music...

Just for fun, I matched up the first sleeve and placed it against the body and noticed that with the last increases I had increased the crap out of the sleeve. At the top of the sleeve, I need to increase every 3 rows 7 times. The picture just above shows the entire top to bottom shot of the sweater. The sleeve is almost three rows of snowflakes high - however the space for the steeks is 2 snowflake rows high. A more close up shot below.

I do like the way that the snowflakes line up on the body vs. sleeve, but I'm stuck to know what I should to about the 'extra' bit of snowflake? Do I rip out the last row of snowflakes on the sleeve and re-knit it without the increases, or will that make the sleeve be too constrictive?

For now, this sweater is being put on hold. I'm going to bring it to the guild next Tuesday to get advice from people much smarter than me. At least I should only have one snowflake's worth of frogging, if that's the route I end up going. I'm also wondering if I can block this sucker to make it less big, but then the rows of snowflakes won't line up. I think some riiipping is in my future. Sigh.

Shoulder Wrap done!

2007-05-01T08:17:00.000-04:00

Wow - I amazed myself by finishing this so quickly. Must have been a mix between procrastinating the second Voss sleeve and the lovely feel/drape of this yarn, not to mention that it is all garter stitch and was nice mindless knitting.

I finished with just this amount of yarn left. The little scraps below include the bits I cut off after sewing in the ends and the 25cm of leftover yarn.

Here is the shawl being blocked in Erika's playroom. Those puzzle floor tiles are great for sticking the pins into.

Project Specs:

Pattern: Handmaiden Shoulder Wrap

Yarn: Handmaiden Silk Spun in dragonfly

Needles: 7.0 mm Addi Turbos
Gauge: never even checked

Size: Finished measurements (after blocking) 16" high X 56" wide

Cast on to Bind off: April 20 - April 31

Would I make this again: Probably not. I will make other shoulder wraps, but not in this color or yarn. I would use this yarn again, it's so lovely to knit with - maybe a mini-clapotis scarf one day...

Here are some 'artistic' shots of the wrap.

Progress, progress and one new project

2007-04-26T13:03:00.000-04:00

Firstly, the new project on the needles. More socks. More Socks That Rock. This time in lightweight instead of the medium weight I used for Cindy's socks. I love this colorway!!! It's mostly purple, with some lighter pink-ish highlights. I've just started the cuff since I will be downtown tomorrow and will need some new commuter knitting. I can't tell how the colors will knit up, but hopefully I'll get to the stocking stitch part on the train.

Remember this yarn? It's Silk Spun from Handmaiden in the Dragonfly colorway. I started making the shawl and got addicted to it rather quickly. Simply put, this is amazing yarn to knit with. The pattern is stupid-simple garter stitch with increases on each row. The drape is gorgeous, and I had to force myself to put it down to keep going on the sleeves for the Voss.

The picture below doesn't really show the shape of the shawl, but it will end up being a very wide and height-challenged triangle.

Speaking of the Voss, the first sleeve is finally done. There was much celebration. I'm suffering from second sleeve syndrome - a close relative of the second sock syndrome. (as can be fairly obvious by the progress on the dragonfly shawl and none on the second sleeve)

After a couple of tries to get the increases looking right, I think I finally got it. I had to modify the pattern just slightly to put only blue in the increases of the first snowflake section, and then from there, the pattern does work itself out fairly well. If ever I make this again (!!!) the main thing to note for the sleeve and the body is to pay close attention to the pattern where it suggests to start the pattern repeats. This way, the snowflakes mirror themselves where they meet.

Another sock done

2007-04-24T08:50:00.000-04:00

I finished what I'm calling my Harlot socks. These are the socks that I cast on a few days before Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (the Yarn Harlot) came to Montreal for her hilarious speech about knitting and a book signing. She signed all three of my books. I was star-struck. She held my sock with her sock. There was much rejoicing and much knitting.

I saw the following project description chart on Jennifer's blog, as well as a couple of other peoples, so I will be blatantly stealing it and using it for my FOs from now on.

Project Specs:

Pattern: Generic top down sock pattern. Used 60 st around.

Yarn: On Line - winter

Needles: 3.0 mm
Gauge: 28 st to 10 cm

Size: Too small. I wanted to make them for myself, but made the foot too short by about an inch. I could have gone back to knit more, but I'd already cut the yarn and would have to sew in a lot of ends, not to mention that I'd have to find the right place in the pattern to start the yarn.

Cast on to Bind off: November 2006 to April 2007 (with a big break in between)

Would I make this again: Yes - silly question. I have the same yarn in pinks, which I will make for me. Since these were held by the Harlot, I'm not going to give them away outside of this household, so Dave gets them. His feet are just a smidge smaller than mine so they should fit him. He did mention a few times that he liked the color of these socks as I was making them. They do fit my feet when I put them on, but I can see the stitches all stretched out, so I'm sure they would wear much more quickly.

Socks done

2007-04-23T08:32:00.000-04:00

I finished Cindy's socks late last week and will be going downtown to the office tomorrow to give them to her. In the meantime, here's a pic of the socks. These were my first toe-up socks using Wendy's generic toe up pattern.

I liked knitting these, but I think I'm a top down sock girl. I just like the look of the gussets on the socks. I'll probably make some toe up socks for E, since they knit up so quickly I'll be able to finish them before she outgrows them!

Project Specs:

Pattern: Wendy's toe up sock pattern. Used 56 st around.

Yarn: Socks that Rock medium - in the navy

Needles: 2.5 mm
Gauge: 32 st to 10 cm

Size: Sized to fit Cindy's feet

Cast on to Bind off: January 2007 to April 2007 (mainly done in the commuter train)

Would I make this again: Yes - but would go top-down instead of toe-up. I have three more skeins of STR but in lightweight. This is heavenly yarn to knit with and I will surely get making more socks with this. I just wound up my "Jasper" yarn which is deep purples with some lighter pinky bits.

Voss update - the first sleeve is done, second sleeve is started (ribbing done)
Shoulder wrap update - it's started and amazingly gorgeous to knit. I [heart] Handmaiden.

New project soon to be on the needles

2007-04-20T14:12:00.000-04:00

The observant reader will figure out that this gorgeous silk will become a shoulder wrap sometime soon (see sidebar for future projects). I'm just finishing Cindy's socks (pictures to come in the next day or two when I finish weaving in the ends) and need a new mindless knitting project for when I'm tired of working on the Voss.

For the last year or two, I have been coveting one or Norma's scarf/shawls. Norma's is gorgeous reds, yellow and periwinkle blues which suited me perfectly. I knew from the first time I tried to ~~steal~~ borrow hers that I needed to make one for myself.

The colors in the picture are pretty true to life. I can't wait to start. Just waiting to figure out how to do the increases.

Sleeve is coming along

2007-04-19T10:06:00.000-04:00

So, after the ugly first try at the sleeve of the Dale sweater, I ripped it back to the ribbing and started again.

I got information about the jogless jog from Norma, as well as some key decisions - mainly to not put any white in the first dark blue increase section, and how I do the increases, the sleeve looks much better - well, at least to me.

It will look even better after blocking I'm sure. There is only one more snowflake section to go, then the inside facing of the sleeve and this sleeve is done. After that, sleeve the second which I'm hoping will go much more quickly since I've already made all of the mistakes with this first sleeve.

I did finish the body of the sweater already, but hadn't posted any pictures yet.

Here is the finished front, with the checkerboard section ready to be cut open to make a cardigan.

Here is the back. I'm sure it will all look better after blocking.

D's socks

2007-04-10T10:24:00.000-04:00

I finished these socks last year, but just took a picture of D wearing them out on the weekend.

These were made with self-patterning superwash sock yarn. I think it was called "River" from on-line.

K's blanket - more pics

2007-04-10T10:08:00.001-04:00

Here's another picture of K's blankie in his bed.

J's blankie

2007-04-10T09:16:00.000-04:00

Since I'd made a blankie for little K, I had to make a doll sized one for his big sister. I'm so glad that I did, because I'm told that she sleeps with it every night, and plays with it a lot. I guess I'll have to make her a kid-sized one soon.

Here she is with her doll and blankie.

More playing with doll and blankie.

More doll and blankie being played with.

Sleeping after a long day of playing. Notice doll and blankie in the corner.

I should have named this post - "how to make a knitter happy" It's so nice to see the stuff that you've knit being used and enjoyed.

The socks - they are a growing

2007-04-05T12:04:00.000-04:00

Still plugging away on Cindy's socks. These are my first toe-up socks and so far I'm loving it. Knowing that I can knit and knit until I run out of yarn makes me happy. I just showed them to Cindy and she seemed to like them. About another 3 or 4 cm to go before I start a little ribbing and I'm done.

I'm glad that I have the foot (just before the short row heel) done on the second sock, otherwise I'd sure suffer from second sock syndrome!

Look who'se wearing my Clapotis

2007-04-05T09:57:00.000-04:00

I recently went to a Lucy Neatby workshop (see Jennifer's site for details on what we actually did). The class totally blew my mind with the stuff we learned. Lucy is the most awesome teacher.

Here's Lucy showing her view of how the stitches behave in double knitting to Beth and Autie-Lou.

I have to say that the icing on the cake was on the Sunday afternoon for the buttonhole class when Kate Gilbert showed up. I was taking the same class as Kate Gilbert!!

She came over to chat with Jennifer and I after the class. She's totally down to earth, normal, easygoing person, even though she's a knitwear designer superstar. I'm still a little star-struck. The highlight was that she agreed to wear my Clapotis. Woot!

What would you do?

2007-04-04T22:20:00.000-04:00

So, I'm working on J's sweater, finished the body and am working on the sleeve. Since the sleeve is done in the same pattern as the body, with the all-over snowflakes, I find that the increase part of the sleeve where there's only a partial and increasing snowflake looks really un-Knitter-ly. It's giving me a brain cramp to think of a way to fix this. Any suggestions? When I look ahead in the pattern, I can just see it getting worse and worse...

K's blanket

2007-04-02T17:41:00.000-04:00

I made this little blanket for little K, our friend's baby. It was a really simple 4 rows of stocking stitch and 4 rows garter stitch. I used a machine washable fluffy yarn whose label I've lost and I don't remember what it was called. I made a matching pink doll's blanket for his big sister for her birthday - pictures to come.

Dishcloths

2007-03-30T14:44:00.000-04:00

So I had this crazy idea that for Christmas, I would knit friends and family dishcloths. Inspired by the Mason Dixon book I set off to get some nice cotton in blues and greens.

Not one, but TWO per person/family - for a grand total of 14 dish cloths. Good thing they were fun and fast to make.

By dishcloth number 10, I was getting a little tired of them, but plugged away. What I did notice is that using a variegated color doesn't work as well, for me at least. I've seen some nice results (don't remember where) but it the knitting mojo wasn't there for me.

In the end, all 14 dishcloths were done, and number 13 with the variegated green ended up in my kitchen. Even though my kitchen is in blues, I just didn't feel right giving it to anyone, so it's being used and abused by D and I.

J's sweater

2007-03-30T14:40:00.000-04:00

I finally fished the body of J's sweater. This is the "Voss" pattern from Dale (inspired by the Yarn Harlot's making TWO of these for the twins), knit up for the 2 year old size. Even though I got guage, it still looks like it would fit a 4 year old! I'm glad that I didn't try to make it bigger. This is the picture of the Voss-in-progress, but I swear that the body is done! Now it's sleeve time.

Sock travels virtually

2007-03-30T09:15:00.000-04:00

Check it out - the sock is in a museum!

This was created by museumr

Cindy's sock in progress

2007-03-30T08:54:00.000-04:00

This is my first time using Blue Moon socks that rock yarn. Here's the sock in progress of Cindy's sock.
This yarn is gor-ge-ous! I love knitting it. It's spun just right, so that it's a joy to knit with. And the colors - don't get me started on the colors. This is the "in the navy" colorway which is knitting up into beautiful stripes on the foot. I also have a nice purple color and a yellow/orange color which are both waiting to be knit up.