Resolutions

Some people make New Year's resolutions, others, like me, can't be bothered. I read somewhere (can't remember where, sorry!) something about instead of making a New Year's resolution that was all-important and hard to achieve, instead try to take something small, a skill, a project, an idea, and work on that one thing only. Something small and achievable. In that vein, I am going to spin and knit a sweater from Alberta wool, by the time Fibre Week starts at the end of June.

Okay, you can stop laughing now. I realize that this is neither small nor perhaps even achievable, but I am trying! I have never spun enough of anything to knit a sweater and I have also never knit anything as large as a sweater, but I figured it was time to try.

So far I have spun about 300m and have another two bobbins ready to ply, but I need at least a 1000, so I still have a ways to go. I am spinning a 3-ply aran/almost chunky weight natural gray yarn and with it I am going to knit (so far) this pattern from Knitty. Sorry about the pink cast to the photo, the actual colour is a clear gray nice oatmeal.

Twist Collective

OK, I am quite possibly the only person who doesn't know about this online magazine, but hey, at least I finally figured it out! Twist Collective is knitting magazine with lots of articles and superb patterns, in a way similar to Knitty, but really, not at all the same. For starters, the patterns are NOT free. The site says why and they have good reasons. There is no argument from me, everyone has the right to make a living. I haven't read any of the articles yet, since our internet connection is quite slow and I can't bear it, but when I get a chance on a faster connection, I'll definitely give them a try. So far, I am not a real fan of the site navigation, but I have discovered that if all you want to look at are the patterns, you just need to click on Shop.

The artistic director is Kate Gilbert, needlesonfire at Ravelry and also a Ravelry designer under her own name. She also has a website here. I have a couple of her patterns and I really like them, although I have to admit - I haven't knit them yet - so many projects, so little time, sigh. Some of the designers on Twist Collective are new to me, but many of them are well known. So far my two favourite patterns are Mitaines et Moufles by Véronik Avery and Gytha by Jennifer Appleby. The mittens I probably have time to knit, the sweater, well... that's another story. The last post's story as a matter of fact!

Springing up Flowers

This is a pattern by KrisKnits that I heard about on BoogaJ's blog. Thanks to BoogaJ, I have a new pretty washcloth and something to do with the leftover balls of cotton yarn that I have from an old cotton sampler pack from Knit Picks. Once I got the KnitPicks kit, I didn't really want to knit the patterns that came with it . . . so I have a few odd balls of yarn hanging around (like that's unusual, lol!). Kris Knits has the perfect solution.

Her pattern was easy to knit even though it wasn't symmetrical. The rows are thoughtfully arranged in groups of 5 so that it's easy to keep your place and the pattern is created on the wrong side so that most of your work is knitting rather than purling. Both nice touches to a simple and pretty pattern. A nice, easy quick knit.

Things I have started lately . . .

Scribble Lace
by Debbie New or Mason-Dixon Knitting depending on who you like to credit.
I think Debbie New did it first.

Subsequently frogged for, although it was beautiful, it was also somehow unwearable.
It will be recreated into a scarf, rather than a stole.

My Future Favourite Socks
created from a variety of patterns, but mostly from:
the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook
and Working Socks from the Toe-Up by Ann Budd
in Interweave Knits Summer 2007

Things I have finished lately . . .

In no particular order:

Knit Picks Lace Headband
from the Victorian Yarn Sampler

Itty Bitty Bear
from Interweave Knits Summer 2005
made from bits of handspun dyed with coffee

Something I finished a couple of years ago, but love so much I made two pairs:
Simple T-Bar Shoes
from 50 Baby Booties to Knit
in Katia Cotton Comfort

Katja

Last summer, I made this top in a lovely blue cotton. Isis by Katia. It only took one tiny ball, I think it cost maybe $6! Fantastic, and it is so cute. But now it is getting a bit short and the back sagged in a not so cute way. I stitched some elastic to the bodice and now its back to fabulous again. Still a little short, but hey it's summer.

I like this pattern so much that this summer I decided to knit another, this time totally improvised. I had some yarn that was a gift from the LYS, but I had no idea what I was going to do with it, until - bing! - I realized it would probably be great for this pattern. The yarn is a ribbonny kind of laddery yarn (well-described, I know) in white with yellow, pink, purple, and green. I knit the smallest size of the Katja pattern adjusting for gauge changes. Originally, I just attached the I-cord neck from one cup to the other in a big loop to pull over her head, but it stretched out waaaaayyyyy too much, so I am redoing the I-cord ties. That way she can wear it until she's at least 6.

Padded Footlets

I started the Padded Footlets from Interweave Knits last summer. I finished one sock. In the photo it looks okay, but actually the heel is atrociously large and sags unbecomingly. Well, I knit the other sock this spring and it was great. Wonderful in its neat-and-tidiness. Nice small stitches. Lovely. But a completely different size than the first one due to, you guessed it, the ridiculously large heel. Well, scissors met my knitting again and this is the result.

Yes, I cut out the offending heel flap and the attached cuff. Picked up all the stitches and grafted them all. Knits, purls, pick-ups. Yup. And it looks great, if I do say so myself.

A Bag for my Sister

 

Here is the purse that I made for my sister's birthday. Actually, I've been making it for about a year, maybe even two, but hey, who's counting?? I was kind of hung up on the needle felting design. The knitting and fulling were done a loooong time ago. The photo above more accurately shows the colour of the bag, but the photos below are better for the details. Amateur photography is apparently not my long suit. Yet. Self-betterment is always a good quest, don't you think? Especially in this case.

 

It is the Sophie Bag pattern from MagKnits and it is really fabulous. Easy, pretty and only takes one skein of Cascade 220. At less than $10 that's fantastic.

 

I lined it with some quilting fabric and made sure it had lots of pockets: one for lip balm, a pen, two side pockets on one long side and one larger one on the other. Add a magnet clasp and all is done.

 

Yay! I love it, too bad I had to give it away! Nah, all along I made it with my sister in mind, so it was easy to give it away and she was thrilled. Happy smiles.

Gauntlets Complete

Here they are and I am very happy with them. Of course, summer is almost here and I don't need them, but . . . maybe we'll go camping and I'll have to bring some emergency knitting and my fingers will be cold and . . .

My modifications for the diamond pattern are below. I noticed that, at least for me, reversing the diamond pattern to make the left hand diamond the opposite of the right-hand one did not work very well. It seems that the YO, SSK combination was not as clear as the K2TOG, YO combination so I have only included that version in my notes.

Diamond Pattern for Sally Melville's Elegant Gauntlets
Page 122, The Purl Stitch

Instead of following the directions for the thumb shaping, do the following (brackets indicate directions for the right hand):
Round 1: knit to 1st stitch before the marker, inc, k9(k30), k2tog, yo, knit to marker, inc, k to end
Round 2: knit all stitches
Round 3: knit to marker, k8(k29), [k2tog, yo) 2 times, knit to end
Round 4: knit
Round 5: knit to 1st stitch before the marker, inc, k7(k28), [k2tog, yo] 3 times, knit to marker, inc, k to end
Round 6: knit
Round 7: knit to marker, k8(k29), [k2tog, yo) 2 times, knit to end
Round 8: knit
Round 9: knit to 1st stitch before the marker, inc, k7(k28), [k2tog, yo] 3 times, knit to marker, inc, k to end
Round 10: knit
Round 11: knit to marker, k8(k29), [k2tog, yo) 2 times, knit to end
Round 12: knit
Round 13: knit to marker, k9(k30), k2tog, yo, knit to end
Round 6: knit

Scissors + Knitting

This is what happens when scissors and knitting meet. Yes, I was clearly insane. I started knitting Sally Melville's Elegant Gauntlets (from The Purl Stitch) for some easy, quick therapeutic knitting as a counterpoint to the Anemoi Mittens, which for me require intense concentration.

But then, you know how it goes. . . first the cuff is a bit too loose and then I can't decide on what contrasting colour to use for the ribbing and then the next thing you know — snip snip snip!

I really love this pattern and the knitting is sooo easy. It just rips right along. You can almost do it in your sleep. I had the first gauntlet 95% complete in what probably amounted to a few hours (spread over three days of course, it's called guerrilla knitting).




This is the detail of the diamond pattern that I stuck on the middle of the hand. It's from Knit Picks Queen of Diamonds pattern.

So now I have the gauntlet unknit (is that a word?) at both ends with a total of eight dpns holding the stitches. It's a very prickly beast! I still have yet to decide on the colour for the ribbing, but now both ends of the gauntlet are going to be cast-off edges. No cast-ons remain. Weird, eh?

Finished, after three years!

Yes, I have finally finished my shawl (stole, whatever) that I began in April three years ago. I have to say, I am really happy with it. It is lovely. It is warm. And it makes a cool noise when it falls to the floor and all the beads go clickety-clack.

Anemoi, still underway

Well, I have perservered. Besides, practice makes, well, better! The cuffs for Anemoi became much easier, so much so that I ripped out the first one and made a third to match the much better second.

I am now knitting both mittens at the same time on one long 120cm circular. I am using a size 3mm since I seem to knit much much tighter on this mitten than I usually do. At any rate, it seems to be going just fine, albeit very slow.

Anemoi, trop difficile pour moi

Well, I have cast on for these. It seemed like a good way to use up the Louet Gems that I bought for a different pair of mittens but isn't, as it turns out, very suitable. The tubular cast-on was okay, but purling with my right-hand and still using my left for the main colour is NOT my idea of fun. I think after five rows that I have had enough of the corrugated rib and that although it looks really, really nice, I do not have, at this time, nearly enough patience to spend the two weeks it would take to finish the cuffs this way. Ribbit.

I'll do a different cuff and get to the fun stuff!

In other news, I did add some elastic thread to the waistband of the Perfection Pants and now they fit much better. I don't think it will last though since the thread is not very strong and pulling them over diapers requires a LOT of stretching.

Soakers

I was sorting out some photos tonight and updating my Flickr gallery and I found these. These are the Perfection Pants and Curly Purly Soakers that I knit. They have been well used. The pants were knit from New Zealand Treliske Organic Merino Wool Yarn and the pink soakers are from Cascade 220. They really do work and we use them particularly at night, since most of the day when we are at home, the little ones have always just run around naked! The pants look enormous in the photo, but now they are more like capri pants! What a difference time makes, sigh.

Dizzy

Well, since we found the fish mitts (yay!) I have been able to successfully finish a pair of mittens. This is the final version of Dizzy from Mission Falls Smittens. Of course, it was done in the round and it actually has the cuff from Hena, but who cares - they are done. Except for weaving in the ends, but let's not dwell too long on that okay? They are finished. Shush.

Snuggly Warm

The kids and I felted up some scraps of Cowichan wool the other week. I brushed it all up nice and fluffy with a metal hairbrush and then we put the scraps in some ziploc bags with some hot water and dish soap and the kids rolled and smashed and mushed until we got this lovely warm fire for Bunny.

On another note, I finished up these slippers, another Mohair Ballet Slipper from Beverly Galeskas' book Felted Knits. I have made several of these, but this was the worst one so far. I spun a really bulky yarn for the cuff and we died it with orange Kool-Aid, but it was tooooo bulky and the stitches did not felt nicely the first time round. Also the slipper cuff was stretched way out of whack in proportion to the slipper body. So, I cut out notches from either side of the heel, similar to how you would stitch a moccasin heel and stitched up the sides with wool and the joined the cuff with matching sewing thread (the original yarn was no good at all for sewing the cuffs back together). All in all, it went really really well. The seams disappeared, even on the cuff and we now have slippers for a small human that really likes orange and red.

Mittens Schmittens

There is a mitten conspiracy that is working against me. I have lost the first and only pair of mittens that I have ever made. I dyed the wool, spun it, and knitted up a pair of super cute mittens for my kids. Some of the yarn was purchased, but about half was my own. We call them Fish Mitts because they remind me of parrot fish. In any case, they are LOST. I have to check at the lost and found every where I go. Because of this sin, I cannot knit mittens. The first pair was a disaster of loose ends and poor tension. Frogged to the cuff and reincarnated as Dizzy from the same pattern book, they were splattered with coffee. I persevered. This is what I got for my efforts:


Do you notice that the bottoms of the cuffs are level? Can you see that on the bottom mitten the green begins well above where it begins on the top mitten? And can you see how my medium sized hand fits into either of these mittens????? They are wet, washed, and clean. Mostly, I couldn't get all the coffee out. They are made of superwash wool for Pete's sake!! I can't even shrink them! The smaller one is at least useable, but the larger one is enormous. I will have to frog it to the cuff and start all over. Next year.

ps Let's not discuss the fact that I had four extra stitches on my needles, okay? Or that I knit them in the round, rather than flat where I could have knit two at the same time and had the same gauge. Okay?

pps I forgot that I was wearing a Playmobil crown as a ring. . . isn't it beeeeauuutiful?

Wooly Loveliness

Here is some lovely BFL that just arrived in the mail from Margaret at Celeigh Wool in Millet, Alberta. I already have some here that I am spinning (slowly) into what will hopefully be a sport-weight 2-ply, but after the success of the Mushroom Cap Hat, the kids and I decided to do a little project. We are going to dye this loveliness with Kool-Aid, split it into manageable strips and the kids (4 and 6) are going to spin it with my wheel. I figure that I can set it to pretty much just wind-on and that will give it enough twist for a 3 wpi singles. That is what I did for part of the Mushroom Cap and so it should work again. (Famous last words, says the little sniggering sheep on my shoulder.) Once it's ready , I can knit for the 4 year old and the six year old can knit for himself (sort of). He's been practicing.

We have a little rhyme that I got from a blog I found one day, Food & Family, which roughly goes:

In through the door,
Around the back,
Peek through the window,
And off jumps Jack!

It is in her June 2006 archives in a post called Knitting. I tried to link to it directly, but couldn't for some reason.

I posted a while ago about spinning exotic fibres and some silk/merino blend that I found. This is more of the same and the green is even the same colour as what I had before, so now I will have some to match what I had leftover. In the back is some Shetland in a dark dark brown. I have never spun Shetland before (which is odd, because you know, having been spinning for soooo long, a whole two years now, you'd thinkI would have done everything by now, hey?) I am feeling very sarcastic today, I must have eaten something odd.

Smittens

This pattern book by Mission Falls has five takes on the same basic mitten pattern. I saw the Advika pattern in an ad somewhere and thought it was super cute, so I snatched it up when I saw it at my LYS. I decided to start with these (Hena).

Of course, not being content to do the smart thing and follow the pattern, I decided to convert it to be done in the round, rather than flat. So far so good. Chart reworked and off we go. Never mind that I forgot to remove the selvedge stitches before hand and that I actually have two extra stitches on my needles. Well, actually four, because as written the ribbing didn't workout and so I added two more. Hey, I said, NEVER MIND.

Oh, did I mention that I've never done intarsia before? Oh. And did I mention that knitting intarsia is one thing, but doing it in the round is another, perhaps best left for your second intarsia project, rather than your first. Especially when you have no real idea as to how to weave in ends? Because, other than stripes done flat, you've never actually done any colour work before in your entire life??

They are no longer Hena mittens. I ripped them back to the cuff ribbing and have started a much simpler version (Dizzy), which I would show you except that this happened.

The aftereffects of a two year old running down the couch and slamming into a newly filled mug of steaming goodness. Normally I would say coffee is a wonderful thing. I love it. In the morning, I steal a few precious moments out of the day just to sit in my chair in the corner and relax. Sometimes, if I am lucky I get to do it again in the afternoon. Or, sometimes not.

Well, there is a picture of Dizzy after all. Such as it is. Fortunately, of two patterns still discernable, Dizzy is one of them.

Mushroom Cap Hat

So here is the skein of the wool I spun the other day. Silly me, I thought I wouldn't need all the fibre . . . but that turned out to be a good thing. I did much better prep on the remaining fibre and used my wheel instead of my spindle and got a much more consistent yarn. And as for designing the yarn for the project, well, three tries later I finally had the colour pattern that I wanted! Of course, I had to knit the hat three times anyway. I used 15mm needles the first try and I had a hard time getting the tension right, so I tried again with 12mm and decided that the fabric was too stiff. In the end I went back to the 15mm needles and had a much easier time, I guess it just takes practice to use such enormous needles!

In the end I ran out of yarn and had to borrow some strips of Blue Faced Leicester sliver that I am using for another project. I didn't bother spinning them, I just twisted them as I knit the last couple of rows. Probably if I had been more consistent with the first batch of yarn, I might have had enough. Who knows!

Here is the finished hat. The pattern is my own, such as it is. Cast on 30 stitches, knit plain up to about 12 cm, then decrease 5 times every second row until there are 5 stitches left. Pull the yarn through and voila! — a new Mushroom Cap Hat. The yarn worked out to about 3 wpi and Barb, one of the owner's at River City Yarns, where I picked up the fibre, says that she is certain it is Merino. It is definitely soft!