It’s been a while…

Are we still friends? As I’ve mentioned in the past, I am both busy and lazy, and I guess blogging fell into the lazy category. I will try to do better. We are well into 2018 and I have a lot of ground to cover!

First of all, I did finish my What the Fade! It’s a great size, large enough to replace a sweater. I think I might add the tassels after all. My love affair with chartreuse will NEVER end.

I was down visiting the grandkids again in November. There were actually some sunny days and beach visiting (but no swimming!) I made my little guys some Canada sweaters since they have recently acquired Canadian citizenship! I used Berroco Comfort DK, soft, washes and dries nicely. I’m stockpiling for future sweaters.

The maple leaf was a free chart on Ravelry and I winged the rest, loosely basing my numbers on oversized kid sweaters from various Rowan books I have. I also made flip top mittens for the oldest little guy, with magnet snaps (like you use on purses). He wore them for a week straight, inside and out, explained the magic of the flip tops to anyone who would listen.

I also made him a skull & bones sweater for his birthday:

I’m always trying to get around the whole intarsia thing. Hate it. The problem is most of the intarsia (well all of the intarsia) I do is with acrylic blends because it’s for the grandkids (although I’m sure I could find an adult who wants a skull & bones sweater). This time, instead of the invisible floats like I used on their robot sweaters, I tried carrying the yarns through the whole design. This way it’s like stranded knitting. However, it turned out quite textured with the acrylic. Wool is more forgiving, bouncier, better to manipulate. I think it looks fine but I won’t do it again. I think if it had been wool, it might have turned out better (well until it got thrown into the washer and dryer!).

Anyway, he also saw his mom putting on some socks I had knit for her. He asked if they were knitted socks (technically all socks are knitted, but we know what he means), and said he wanted some too! A 5 year old wants hand-knit socks! I can do that in, like, a day! So I sent these off for his birthday.

Those are spiders, by the way. Thought I’d do something fun instead of plain old socks. He will be getting more. The pirate sweater and socks were sent off in two different packages and when he got the sweater, but no socks, he was heartbroken. Until a few days later when they arrived. This kid has many knit socks in his future. I will send them to him randomly in the mail.

Remember my disastrous two-different-weights sweater? I finished it and delivered it.

Nice and long and roomy. By the way, my daughter got a really nice haircut the day after this pic, so will probably want to kill me now.

While in Cape Cod, I started knit up a secret Xmas present for hubby.

 The hat is North Road Hat. I used odds and ends of Jamieson & Smith, Rowan, Palette etc. AND I lined it with qiviut/angora yarn, the whole enchilada! from top to bottom. It’s like wearing a baby’s bottom on your head, if you could do such a thing. And of course, whenever I am knitting something for someone else, something for me creeps in (my normal ratio is 1 for you, 3 for me, but I’m flexible). This time it was Sunset Highway, a very popular pattern on Ravelry.

I used a mix of 3 ply sock, and supersock in Sailor, Mineral, Graphite and Blue Note. I changed the sleeves – not so baggy, and I didn’t like the big stripe midway across the sleeves in the original so added some patterning at the end.

While in Cape Cod, I also signed up for Kate Davies’ latest club of patterns and new yarn Milarrochy Tweed (like half an hour before we lost the internet connection, so it was truly meant to be). The yarn is a gorgeous mohair/wool blend with flecks of colour. I am about to start a project in this yarn but started one of the first patterns in a mixture of Knitpicks Palette.

This will be an oversized sweater, not unlike a swancho, but NOT a swancho. It is called Strathendrick and can be found here. All the patterns so far have been absolutely fantastic (there are 12, coming once a week on Wednesdays), 4 from the new yarn, 4 using her other sport weight yarn and 4 from a lace yarn. Totally worth it. However, I got sidetracked from my swancho-which-is-not-a-swancho because I joined the Comfort Fade Cardi bandwagon to knit one for my sis. (Photo is me and not my sis since she hasn’t received it, hopefully she will look less pained than me – maybe it was the weather).

It really has a lovely large collar. My beef with most cardigans with collars is that the collar is never large enough, this one is! After this cardigan, I managed to bang out a pullover for myself in 5 days! Ha, yes, 5 days! The gauge was 14 stitches to 4″ so it was a fast knit. I actually used my own handspun yarn, from years ago, which was meant for another sweater that never happened. 

This is another Kate Davies pattern (my Year of Living Daviesly!) called Carbeth. The yarn is 50% merino/50% tencel (fake silk?) and actually has a sheen that makes it look oddly oily. It is super soft and surprisingly light. The original pattern is a crop top, but at this point most of my pants are on the lowish side (not exactly hip-huggers, which also means high-wasted pants must be in fashion, right?) so I decided to make it a tunic and to use almost every last drop of my handspun yarn.

Going back in time a bit, to Xmas, Kathryn gave me some Finnish yarn, Tuku. This a more rustic yarn and I absolutely loved it. So while I was supposed to be knitting this for hubby (in Naturally Pride – merino):   

(which I obviously did finish) I also knit these for myself:

well the mittens… (the hat and cowl came a bit later because I HAVE to have matching accessories). The mittens are actually a free pattern! The cowl is Dragoste by Ysolda in some squishy Sincere Sheep Cormo I bought a few years ago and the hat is Kate Davies’ Neep Heid in the leftover Tuku and Drops Alpaca.

We are back at work now in the studio, and if you follow us on instagram, you can see what we are up too. We have a new colour, Corrosion and we also made a Quintet set based on it, called Foundry. In the picture below on the left, Corrosion is on a backdrop of Copper & Zinc.

I’ve knit up a cowl with Corrosion and two Copper & Zinc minis and will post the pattern soon.

We are working on some other new colours, so stayed tuned!

I actually have more projects to show so will blog again soon. Really. I’m serious this time. Plus I have to post the pattern. So I’ll leave you with Frankie. He will never need a sweater.                                  

 

 

Rookie mistake

I knit a lot. I’m pretty confident in my knitting abilities, but knitting has a way of keeping you humble. Especially when you are an ADHD knitter like I am, jumping from project to project only to realize that you have partial projects that you started 2, 3, 5 years ago. And when you go back to them, you have to figure out what the hell you were doing in the first place. I recently had to rip back 10″ on Water and Stone for my daughter. I had split for the sleeves and knit 7″ down the body and now I’m at the shoulders again. I think I started it 2 years ago (?!) I am using Berroco Weekend DK (well I know that now). (And I am not using our own yarn because I know this will end up in the dryer, ask me how I know that).  I picked it up the other day and knit away. When I added a new ball, the weight of the yarn seemed different. I checked my bag of yarn. Oh no! I had a mix of Berroco Weekend (worsted) and Weekend DK. I was knitting with the worsted and didn’t have enough. I must of have mixed them when I bought them, I thought. I did not want to rip back the whole sweater and knit in the DK (of which I have more) so ordered more worsted online. Next morning I look at the sweater. ARGH! I started in DK, at some point switched to worsted without realizing what I had done. Picked it up 2 years later and merrily knit on in worsted. There is enough DK for the sweater (the worsted, turns out was for something else I had in mind in exactly the same FREAKING COLOUR). So I have 5 skeins of worsted on its way which I don’t need (more sweaters for the grandkids) and I had to rip back to where I switched to the worsted. I must say, Berroco sure has consistent dye colours! Not only was it a different dye lot but a different weight and you couldn’t even tell. Dk on the left, worsted in the hank on the right. The knitting gods have punished me for leaving this WIP so long. The other lesson in this, don’t order yarn in a panic. Sleep on it. The next morning might show you something different, especially when your foggy brain starts remembering back to 2 years ago…Otherwise it has been a full summer. Grandkids visiting, fibrefests, lots of knitting samples – which I also mostly wear 😉 and a new mystery brioche shawl KAL from Andrea Mowry.

First up, I finished this cardigan/shrug in our DK, colour Tomato, 4 skeins. The pattern is Callas, from Bristol Ivy.

It was a quick knit and will be a great transition piece. Perfect right now over a t-shirt or tank and in cooler weather over a long sleeve t-shirt.

Then this beauty from Natalie Volyanyuk called Arrows Down. I used a new yarn we have, MCN Twist. It is a merino/cashmere/nylon blend with a high twist that makes it quite bouncy and helps keep it from growing too much once washed. It is super squishy and quite soft. One of my favourites! The pattern is stunning (and knit top-down). I highly recommend it.

Next, Reverb. A pattern I bought ages ago, knit up for a friend and only just made one for myself. The yarn is a new worsted/Aran weight we have. Super bouncy and soft. Winter will be made tolerable with this baby on my back. The colourway is a special one we created for La Maison Tricotée‘s 4th anniversary.And finally (although I’m probably forgetting something), a new shawl pattern by Jenny F aka SweaterFreak, which will be released next week, called Carmel Pine. I knit it slightly different since I didn’t have 2 skeins of the grey (Salt&Pepper) so just used one of that one Barn. I mixed my bases, 3 ply sock yarn and singles fingering. You can’t even tell, so don’t be afraid to do that, as long as the weight is the same, a few yards difference in the bases makes no difference at all.

Now that the samples are pretty well done for this season, I’m knitting for the grandkids. This is actually intarsia. If you know me, you know my visceral hatred for intarsia. But I sucked it up and did it. There were going to be 5 maple leaves, but after these two I decided that was enough. Two on the front and two on the back. I think people will get the idea. Five would just be overkill. Believe me. Plus this way I won’t end up poking out my eyes with a knitting needle. Ten maple leaves would be the end of me. I found a free chart on Ravelry (cause I’m too lazy to make one) and the rest is made up. This one is for the the 4 year old. The smaller munchkin will get one leaf on the front and back. That is plenty for a small child, don’t you agree?

Now the mystery KAL. If you are participating in What the Fade and don’t want to see what the end of clue 2 looks like, stop right here. Otherwise, behold!

This was my colour choice (I actually have a ton of things these colours go with, chartreuse is a neutral in my wardrobe!)And here we are so far:I have never done brioche before, and I love it! It is a pain in the %$& if you make a mistake (and I did, a few times) but there is a rhythm and a logic to it, so once you get the hang of it you always know what you are doing. I have a bunch more projects lined up using this technique. It’s also a good stash buster; you use up more yarn with it and get to combine those dozens of skeins of different coloured sock yarn you have. I know you all have dozens, if not hundreds of these, so stop judging me.

Lastly, here is a pic of the newest member of our indoor menagerie (we have an outdoor one too – 4 feral cats – spayed/neutered and living the life of Riley in there insulated cat houses). This is Eddie who was abandoned (?) obviously not feral, was starving and the most affection dog-like cat we have ever had. So we let him in. And he seems to like it and is obviously better at yoga than I am.

Frankie doesn’t seem too bothered by him.

If you are in the Ottawa area, we will have another knit-night at the Fluevog store on 19 October and will be at the Ottawa knitting guild on 23 October. And check us out on Instagram, we try to post almost every day, get your daily dose of yarn love.

You win some, you lose some

Ah, knitting, she can be a fickle mistress, giving you so much hope and happiness, and then snatching it away, but sometimes she lets you hang on to it. Case in point: my son’s sweater (apologies for the blurry pic, I’ve been having issues, as they say, with downloading my camera pictures).

:

Looks pretty good, right? WRONG. The sleeves are WAY to wide at the top (I will rip back halfway and cease increasing). Too many buttons, it would take him 20 minutes to button up this beast. But the worst of it, which doesn’t show, is that the front (although in theory and by row-count is the same length as the back) actually measures 34″ from the shoulder while the back measures 30″. Why? WHY, you may ask, as I did, almost sobbing. Well, a number of factors. Back neck shaping. DON’T DO IT, when knitting a v-neck cardi with pockets. Not to mention that the back neck was way to wide. (I was following a pattern and should have listened to my gut – even if that is what George W. Bush recommends).

The pockets add weight, hands in pockets add even more. The v-neck is open and loosey-goosey compared to a crew neck, so that the back shaping slides up to the back of the neck, dropping the centre shoulder seam forward and the whole front slides down. Now I understand why for some sweaters you just cast off across the whole back or even add some shoulder shaping, RAISING the back neck (which is what I have done now). This way the back has no where to slide, because it is already snugly against the neck. In addition, I threw in a couple of short rows on the front to raise it, so when hands go in pockets, or the sweater starts to sag a bit from the weight of the pockets, it will all lie straight.

You have figured out by now that I am reknitting about half this sweater. Yes, I cut off the buttons, unraveled the collar, cut all the seams and ripped back as far as was needed. In addition to the changes mentioned above, I’m moving the v-neck higher, adding depth to the shawl collar and reducing the number of buttons. The knitting muses were conspiring against me this time, but I must say, I learned a lot from my mistakes. Even though it seems easy to just follow a pattern, it’s better to just use it as a suggestion and make the changes you think are necessary. As good ole George says, listen to your gut (except when deciding to wage war). I will take another pic when it is properly finished.

On to happier news, this! THIS!!!

OMG, I am so happy with this shawl! It is called Find Your Fade, hugely popular on Ravelry (1450 projects so far). I knit it to showcase our yarn, Kathryn is picking her colours and I will knit another one – Kathryn does knit, but my fingers fly faster. Check out our Instagram feed for more colour suggestions.

I used a combo of yarns, singles, 3 ply sock, 8 ply sock, and MCN sock. It looks fine. Don’t be afraid to mix. The colours are (from right to left) Ghost, Sailor, Poppy Seed Cake, Scarab, Wicked, Twilight and Bewitched. I had a bit of crocking with Wicked and Bewitched (on all my right hand fingers too):

There is a lot of dye in these colours and a layer of black, but the dye did not bleed at all. The first colour only uses about 20 gm of yarn, so you could use a couple of minis. I did make some changes to the pattern, I only did single yarn overs, instead of doubles; I skipped a few rows (could have skipped more) and I knit tightly so when it was washed it wouldn’t stretch out too much. The shawl as written is HUGE. Mine is a nice size I think. I even threw it in the dryer! I did not want it to stretch out. And it looks fine.

I will include one more pic because I am so freaking pumped about it!

I also have some totally mindless knitting, also known as knitFlix:

This is the gorgeous pattern Helsinki (got the kit from Debbie Wilson at Sheeps Ahoy). It is a bottom-up sweater, but I have decided to do all my yoke sweaters, yoke first. I didn’t have the patience to recalculate to do this top-down so I cast on provisionally for the body and knit 3″, did the same for the sleeves, then joined them as per the pattern instructions and knit my yoke. This way I could try it on, make sure the armhole depth was good and now I just have to knit downwards and watch Netflix. I can easily decide how wide and how long I want it by trying it on as I go (I wasn’t sure if wanted to make the 37 or the 40, I knit a 37 yoke but might widen the body, we’ll see). I plan on doing all my Kate Davies sweaters this way too. I just love the colour choices, the yoke positively glows. Of course with all my other projects on the go, I should be finished just in time for summer, yay!

Because after reknitting my favourite son’s cardigan, I have to get going on this:

I am almost finished the lobster portion of this double-knit blanket, next, more fish, crabs, and sea shells. I have to get this done for March, when I go back down to see my grandkids, and it’s Oscar’s birthday. And I have to squeeze in a sweater for him too somewhere. I am having lots of fun knitting this blanket. I am using free pot holder charts on Ravelry, and Berroco Comfort DK. This yarn holds up very nicely after multiple washings and dryings. Even if wool is superwash, it will felt up after being thrown in the dryer a number of times (which I know will happen, I’m not judging my daughter, haha, so I use washable AND dryable yarn).

Speaking of yarn… we have some new colours, and more in the works. This is Jewel, I’m knitting up a sample shawl in it. A deep gold, with flecks of magenta, purple and blue.

We’ll have more popping up on Instagram as we dye them.

That’s all for now, I’ll leave you with Frankie and Shelma hoofing it down our road, well, Frankie is sauntering while Shelma is jogging.

Happy Holidays!

Let me start with my “tree”. Here is my cat for perspective. No, my cat is not 5′ tall, the “tree” is 15″ tall, including the pot. I am a minimalist when it comes to decorating although our Xmas lights stay up all year long (yes, we are one of THOSE kinds of people) – albeit inside the house.

I had a lovely 3 weeks in Cape Cod with the grandkids, if you don’t count the bout of norovirus we all had and then a cold that lasted for 3 weeks! The robot sweaters were a hit. And they fit, too well, so I immediately added length everywhere and will no longer trust my daughter’s measurements.

Grandson #1 has room to grow (after I added some to the bottom and the sleeves), grandson #2 does not (even after I added to the bottom and the sleeves).

My daughter’s shrug turned out very nicely (8-ply supersock in Cobalt & Rust). She wears it a lot. Here they are waiting for Santa.

In between holding this little guy,

who was very sick with a cold and needed a lot of holding, to the point where I almost lost the use of my arms (who knew I should have been lifting weights in preparation for my Cape Cod stay), I did manage to make these:

 The hat is called Deep Woods Toque, an Interweave pattern. I used a new yarn which we might carry, an organic 2 ply merino in Moroccan Spice. The gold is some leftover merino/silk and the green is some leftover sock yarn. I had enough to make a double knit cowl, so cast-on! I wish I had made it bit narrower, so I have since added a fold and sewed a button on it so that the cowl actually stays up on my neck for warmth and not just for fashion.

Here is the inside of the hat, I again used invisible stranding since there are large sections between the trees and I didn’t want the gold poking out. Can’t emphasize enough how much I love this technique. It does work best with wool, I think. I used it on the robot sweaters, but they were acrylic and it still shows to a certain extent. The stitches just don’t bounce back as nicely as they do with wool when you create that extra purl stitch between the knit ones.

In other news. I am almost finished my son’s sweater. It is for Christmas, but luckily we decided to celebrate with him when he gets back from visiting his sis down in Cape Cod for the holidays. One sleeve to go! and then a shawl collar! and then a backing for the button band and finding buttons! But I will be done before he returns! It probably didn’t help that I wasn’t monogamous in my knitting (although cheating on your main project does help keep you from getting repetitive strain problems in your wrists etc – at least that’s my story).

I knit up a hat with the new bulky yarn we are carrying. This is in Hell’s Kitchen and the pattern is Fidra. Super quick knit and a lovely soft 2-ply yarn. The pom pom was made from two fingering minis although I think I had enough yarn left from the hat to make one. I will knit a swatch with the rest instead.

AND, I sneaked this in:

This fantastic pattern is from Natalie Servant, Cosmic Dust. I took a beading course with Natalie this fall and fell in love with this pattern. I chose colours that would match my rain coat.

The yarn is Shirley Brian yarns, a cotton gradient. It was really fun pattern to knit and I highly recommend it. You cut the yarn at each colour change and string on the beads, it is not nearly as tedious as it sounds and goes quite quickly. Even weaving in the ends was pretty quick. I saved a bit of the cotton in the various shades and sewed down the ends where I weaved them in so they wouldn’t come out.

After I finish the cardigan-that-never-seems-to-end, I will get back to these socks for the hubby. He does love hand-knit socks and wears them so much that he wears through them. For this pair I am holding some reinforcement yarn with the sock yarn for the heel and when I turn the heel. We’ll see how that holds up.

I splurged a bit this month and went to an open house at my friend Maureen’s studio, and bought myself some cups. The blue ones are by David, her husband, and have impressions that make your hand fit right around the cup and the ones on the right are Maureen’s. Guess why I just had to buy that brown one, haha.

I hope you all have happy holidays, whatever you might be celebrating (or not) and will try to blog more often in the new year. I will leave you with Frankie relaxing in my knitting chair (until I kicked him out that is).

TWIST! and am I bat-shit crazy?

Twist Festival is this weekend!! We are bringing loads and loads of yarn and we have a new label, with a logo and everything. This is not all of it….

New label! (there is a pale stockinette pattern on the background)

Piles of samples!

I finished my sweater! I’m loving it so much, I won’t even mind when the weather cools.

Now for the bat-shit crazy part:  the pile of stuff I have to finish. Three sweaters (all for me BTW, cause I’m selfish like that).

Ambergris, love the whale tails.

These you have seen already, I’ve been distracted…

Three shawls, samples and/or for me/ who knows…

Two more shawls and a scarf, samples and/or for me, depending how greedy I’m feeling.

Socks, definitely for me and/or sample, depending how dirty I get them (in new colour Oxidized – darker than photo).

Shrug for my daughter (in perennial favourite Cobalt&Rust) – I do knit 1 out of 100 for someone else.

I did finish this hat and cowl set, with one skein of worsted singles in Sand and the stripes are sock yarn held double. Pattern is Windschief.  It is a sample! So, maybe 2 out of 100 are not for MOI.

These are just the WIPs from our own yarn. You have NO idea how many I have with other yarns (because I am a tad promiscuous in my love of yarn). I will get these done, this fall, by the end of the fall, for sure, I swear. Then I have family obligation knitting, grandkids – fast, yay!, son – not so fast 😦   and a vest for hubby if I recover in time from not-so-fast-son knitting.

Anyway, come to Twist and check out our yarns and samples. I hear there might be a few other vendors 😉  Don’t miss this cornucopia of yarn! Loads of new colours!

But if you miss it, we will be in Almonte at the Mississippi Mills Fibrefest 10-11 September. However, after Twist and before Almonte, I’m heading down south to see my munchkins. This little guy says, “See you later”.

 

What would you pay?

I’ve decided to make a few shawls to sell. We are constantly being asked at shows if the sample shawls are for sale. Now, I have no real idea what people are thinking when they ask this. I am sure if I said $200, they would say WHA? and if they offered me $60 I’d say WTF? Nevertheless, I’ve decided to knit up a few shawls and cowls. I’m using fingering- weight 100% silk, which I dyed and which I knit from my own patterns (which mostly reside in my head). The cowls will be knit from merino, and merino/cashmere. I am planning on charging between $80 and $170, depending on the complexity and size.

Notice the beaded bind off…

This one also has beads.

I’m quite proud of this one, a crescent shawl. I used a German lace pattern for the bottom half. (My camera needs to be recharged so these are from the iPad).

I think my prices are still a bargain. I am not counting the hours of knitting lest I stain these shawls with my tears in figuring out an hourly wage, haha. But I enjoy knitting them, and coming up with my own ideas, and I am curious to see if they will sell. If they sell like hot-cakes, I might up my prices, if they don’t, I won’t lower the prices, I’ll just prance around the house in all my silk-shawled glory, and if family and friends are really nice to me…

I have even managed to knit for myself. This tunic, Serenity, has been finished for quite a while. I used our fingering singles in the colour Dusk. I really love it, and I don’t look quite as fat in real life as I do in these pictures, although this IS an excellent sweater to hide all kinds of lumps and bumps.

(Frankie never worries about the size of HIS ass).

I also knit another cowl, which goes fabulously with my tunic. I used Mushroom and Damson & Denim in merino/cashmere/nylon lace. I have enough to knit another, which I might sell.

I still have another sweater to finish before the Twist Festival in our 8 ply sock, and a few more shawls, I hope.

(a wee update to the post – another sweater I knit!) I completely forgot to add this sweater to my post, Persimmon:

 I used Berroco’s Indigo, a yarn from recycled jeans. I really like the feel and love the colour (and I love matching my bag!) I changed the top pattern since the original just uses garter stitch. This yarn is not terribly bouncy and the garter stitch part was much wider, so I ripped back and substituted another pattern. I also knit an i-cord at the beginning of the garter stitch edges. It makes for a much neater edge.

Since I’ve already given you gratuitous Frankie butt shots, I’ll leave you with this cutie, can’t wait to see him again. He’s rocking that electro-static hair look!

Lack of focus

Well, no surprise there. I know I have to finish some baby items, within a month. So what do I do? Knit a sweater for myself and start a hap blanket (for myself). This is not nearly as selfish as it sounds. Really. The sweater is totally justifiable. We (Riverside Studio) have a new yarn, a DK weight, 100% superwash Merino. Yum. So I had to dye some up and knit something. First up was a cowl:

But I needed more! So I dyed up enough yarn (more than enough it turns out) for a sweater. For me, MOI, nobody else! One of my favourite colourways is Sundown, a blue and orange mix. I knit this in nine days, which includes the day I dyed it. Ha, stick that in your pipe and smoke it! (what does that even mean?) Warning, picture heavy:

 This last pic is not some smug selfie but to show you how freakingly matchy my earrings are, which I bought, I believe, in 1990? Sometimes fate takes a long time. The pattern is a Vogue Knitting one, #02 Bateau neck (always with the poetic names for their patterns). Vogue lost me for a few years, crazy expensive novelty yarn, over the top designs – wait, I don’t think six different stitch patterns in one sweater are enough, so let’s also make it in 100% Vicuña at $200 a skein! But lately I’ve been liking their patterns (still full of mistakes). I added quite a bit of length to both the body and the sleeves. No crop tops for this middle-aged survivor of the 1980’s!

But back to our yarn… This is a 4-ply yarn, squishy and bouncy with fantastic stitch definition. It didn’t grow too much, but I did wash and dry it mid-way through the back just to make sure. I always do that with superwash yarn since swatches are known to be evil little liars.

Next up is Darsham, a Rowan pattern (love their stuff lately too). I dyed this in our colourway Pond and am using our new 8-ply sock yarn. Another bouncy yarn, just a joy to knit.I love the clever use of cables and this yarn is great with cables. Next up will be a sweater in some BFL sport weight that we are thinking of carrying. I dyed some up in Goldenrod.

It is not quite as bright yellow as this appears, I’m having camera “challenges”. But nothing wrong with bright yellow.

My other distraction was spinning. A friend asked for some pointers, so I thought I had better spin a bit before offering up any wisdom on the subject. And then I got sucked down that black hole. I had some Shetland roving sitting around for a couple of years now and decided to make Hansel, a Shetland hap shawl/lap blanket (for MOI, since if I gave to somebody else, who might throw it in the washer, I might have to kill them). I spun it up as a gradient, then spun some other Moorit (brown) Shetland I had, but had to also use some Romney I had already spun (3 years ago?) and some deep dark delicious brown roving, mysteriously called 100% wool, to make sure I had enough (yay fibre stash!). I am really loving it, even though I realize it might end up looking like a hippy-tastic 1970’s rustic shawl/blanket. I’ll take my chances and start wearing Berkinstocks if it does. I have one more brown rainbow repeat to knit. Woot!

I have not forgotten the babies. One already born (almost finished the blankie) and one on the way. I have finished one little sweater, with another in the works, and a blankie. 

Kathryn has also been trying out new colours. Fantastic colours! Hard to photograph colours.

The reds on both ends are actually the same colour, just different lighting. See what I mean? Anyways, the colours are complex and scrumptious, and there will be more.

Well, I will leave you with some cuteness, as always. Shelma, our ward for 3 months, who I couldn’t find and after panicking a bit, discovered her in a carry-on bag. Small dogs, you never know where they will turn up.

While Frankie observed from our psychedelic Giant Tiger (if you are from the Outaouais you’ll know what I mean) cheapo fleece blanket protecting the daybed, thinking, small dogs, you never know where they’ll turn up.

 

Snowballs?

Let me first wish everybody a Happy New Year! We finally have snow! I’m thinking of switching to the Orthodox Christmas, not just to take advantage of boxing day sales but to have a better chance for snow? Frankie is loving it, but this is what he looked like after a romp in deep snow:He also grew a new pair – if you know what I mean. I’m sure he was very pleased with himself 🙂   But then they melted 😦

Sorry I have been AWOL for so long. I was pretty sick before and through Christmas. Lost my sense of taste. My cardamom pumpkin pie tasted like salt (?!) I had to get my son to taste my cooking and then sat down to enjoy a meal basically comprised of cardboard as far as I was concerned. I did however get some Christmas knitting done, after I swore I wasn’t going to do any Christmas knitting. Mostly small surprises, more fingerless gloves in our sport weight yarn, one for Kathryn and one for another studio friend:

I also knit up this pillowcase for my daughter in the now-discontinued Mission Falls superwash yarn. The pattern is Lyle Owl Pillow by Natalie Servant. A fun knit. I highly recommend her patterns, I have many more to knit up. (I’m not sure how I get almost everything I knit to match my wretched couch).

I used invisible floats again:

I was planning on showing the stranded sweater that I was working on for myself but got side-lined with another project, a baby blanket for my daughter’s sister-in-law who had to give birth much sooner than planned. Everyone is fine. So I am furiously working away on another Sleepy Monkey Blanket (I’ve linked to the one I previously made for my grandson). Again using the invisible floats, through the monkey’s face where there are some very long bits of stranding. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I can’t recommend this method enough.I also managed to finish some socks for hubby. This is from our new 8 ply sock yarn, such squishy goodness! The colourway was Kathryn’s first take on a request from La Maison Tricotée, grey with flecks of rust, turquoise and brown. Can’t wait to make myself a pair!

I knit myself this shawl, Elbow River, by Heidi Kirrmaier. It is knit side-to-side and is not quite as simple as it looks. She always has nice little details that make for a better result with your knitting. I used our 3 ply sock yarn in Azulejo and some random reds we had lying about. I’ll have to wear to a Habs game!This one is for Kathryn, fingering singles in Ghost, Petroleum, Graphite and Ice Blue.Kathryn gave me this fantastic drawing of sheep! I like how the first one looks like a band member from KISS and the last one like a balaklava- wearing robber. And I guess the middle one is just not amused by it all?We are back at work now, finishing up an order for La Maison Tricotée and starting on other ones. Kathryn will soon disappear behind that wall of worsted.We have some plans for the new year, a website, a new yarn line – we hope, and new colours of course. I will let you know as soon as we are up and running!

In the meantime, I have to send off this sweater for my grandson’s birthday. The Teddy Sweater, a very easy knit and easily adjustable for size and other animals. And I have to get knitting for the new grandson on the way, in March. I will be abandoning Kathryn for a month then to go help out my daughter.I’ll leave you with a bad selfie of me and Henry. Neither one of us understands what it means to actually look at the camera. Oh well, I guess we are too old for this sort of thing.

Hope the coming year is kind to you!

Just a drive by…

This won’t be a long post. Both Kathryn and I are desperately trying to finish up a lot of things. It didn’t help that I was AWOL for two weeks. Here:Spending time with the grandkid! It went really quickly. Kathryn was back home slaving in the studio 😦  while I was eating these 🙂 courtesy my daughter, the expert baker, and seeing these 🙂But now I’m back and helping her pump these out:Speaking of which, Kathryn will be at the Ottawa Valley Weavers’ and Spinners’ Guild Exhibition and Sale. It runs from Friday Nov. 6, 5-8 pm, Saturday 10 am to 5 pm and Sunday, 10 am to 4 pm at the Glebe Community Centre. It’s a great show with lots of hand-made items, roving, fleece and yarn. I won’t be there because I’ll be at the Needlers’ Retreat, teaching double knitting and eating and drinking WAY too much.

This little piggy went to market…

From May till October, there is a farmer’s market in Wakefield every Saturday from 9 am to 1 pm. Fortunately you don’t have to be a farmer to participate. Kathryn doesn’t set up a tent every Saturday, but sometimes she does, like this past weekend. And of course I was more than happy to lend a helping hand. We get to sit and knit, chat, eat, shop and hopefully sell some yarn.Her booth, freshly stocked.

Oodles of yarn!And a few of my samples hanging from the rafters to entice people.We always get enquiries about selling the samples, and have to disappoint people by telling them that they have to learn to knit, buy the yarn and then knit the thing themselves. I never ask what they would be willing to pay (don’t want to give them false hope) but I’m pretty sure it would be something like $60, at which point I would have to laugh and/or blow ice tea through my nose in shocked disbelief. We’ve also had people ask us if sell hand-knit socks, one woman said she bought a pair for $40. Lucky her, foolish knitter. At about 34,000 stitches for a pair of socks, I’d rather keep them for myself than hand them over for $40. So if I ever make you a pair of socks, I really, really like you.

I am, however,  planning to knit up silk shawls to sell, but those won’t be ready till next year (since I have to come up with the patterns, dye the silk and then knit the things myself) and they will be more than $60. I will soon have more time (and motivation) to do all this, but that will be another blog post.

It was a beautiful day, there was music and great food. Crêpes from Alska Farm (I always buy their maple syrup). They have one savory and one sweet and different ones each week. Mmmm. I had ham, cheddar and lemongrass on a kamut crêpe. They also had ice tea with a touch of maple syrup, which I luckily didn’t blow out my nose. And they are super nice people.Another favourite vendor of mine is Water Willow Design:I have jewelry, a glass bowl, a shoulder bag, yarn basket, eyeglass case, iPad case, camera case, clothes, and mittens from Mie who sews all this herself. She mostly works with felt and linen now, but still sells some glass jewelry. I didn’t realize I had this much stuff from her! But they are all being well used.

So if you are ever in the neighbourhood on a Saturday, stop by the market and pick up some fresh veggies, crêpes and maybe some yarn!

I’ll leave you with some market doggy cuteness (not Frankie) but Django (who we occasionally doggy-sit) and friend.They are surely thinking “nummmm, crêpes”