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

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

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

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!

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

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

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!

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.