Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Grrrr

Bastard brothers in law with huge feet.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Oh dear.

I WILL finish this present before Friday. I WILL finish this present before Friday. I WILL finish this present before Friday. I WILL finish this present before Friday. I WILL finish this present before Friday. I WILL finish this present before Friday. I WILL finish this present before Friday. I WILL finish this present before Friday. I WILL finish this present before Friday. I WILL finish this present before Friday. I WILL finish this present before Friday. I WILL finish this present before Friday. I WILL finish this present before Friday.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Good gods.

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted! That's what happens when you don't have access to the interwebz at home. That situation has been rectified - yay!!

Except that now we enter that time of year where I am knitting so fast that I'm about to give myself carpal tunnel, but I can't post anything because with the exception of my father, anyone for whom I may be knitting reads this blog. Can't spoil Christmas!

So there is an FO*. It is lovely. It is straight off the Fashion Week spring 2012 runways. Well, inspired by. And the person better love it. Actually, I really don't want them to love it. Because if they don't, I'll offer to take it back. It looks great on me. tee hee.


* Finished Object, for you non-knitters, or at least those of you not familiar with the knitterly dictionary.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Et voila!

All done! Love, love, love it!




Please ignore the cheesy myspace mirror shot. I can't find my camera tripod.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Wow.

I had no idea it had been so long since I last posted! I still have no Internet at home, so that would be why.

I'm still chugging along on Inara. It's at the boring part, where I usually lose interest when there is no colour or cable pattern, but not this time! I'm knitting like a fiend because I really want to wear this!


I am loving this yarn. It's such a lovely cotton, easy to work with and check out this stitch definition:




And look at this - clever use of short rows to make the lace edging curve around the back of the neck. So smart of the designer! And here I thought short rows were just to give the girls some extra room.










Monday, August 29, 2011

Ta-dah!

It's done! Triinu, the lovely Estonian lace scarf in that amazing purple silk is DONE!! And boy oh boy do I love it.

I left off the lace edging for 2 reasons - 1, I didn't have enough yarn, and 2, I liked it better without!

Here she is, a blob of wet silk:





















Here she is, all pinned out (well, folded in half) and drying. I must get some blocking pins if I keep up with the lace stuff. Hint, hint, family members.















All dry and gorgeous:



















Closeup of a nupp. Not bad, eh?

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Yarn Shops iz ebil!!!

So while I was down in London visiting the parents, I made my annual trip to The Little Red Mitten in St. Thomas.

It made me want to cry. SOOOO much beautiful fibre, and I was on a tight budget. I could live there. Seriously.

So I only bought 2 projects worth, a pair of needles, and the latest Interweave Knits.

I got some lovely Egyptian cotton from Diamond Luxury to do the beautiful Inara wrap sweater from Alison Green Will. I bought the pattern ages ago, but just finally got the yarn now. The colour is called ecru, but that boring name doesn't really do it justice. It's more of an antique ivory, I'd say. I was reaching for the purples, when I realized that I knit in purple quite a bit. It is my favourite colour, after all. But it can be pretty limited in what you wear it with for a cardigan. So I went with a neutral. The pattern called for Euroflax linen, but I don't really like linen. It's on the same list for me as noro - The Ick List.

Then, I beat my mum to it! I scooped 2 skeins of amazing silk laceweight from Zen Yarn Garden in a soft sage green rather whimsically called 'sprig'. I showed it to her while wiping drool off my chin, and I knew she would do what she did last year and buy it for me for Christmas while I was in the store. But I can't wait that long for it! So I scooped it. It will make a gorgeous shawl.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Oy Flippin' Vey

I am having such internet problems the past few weeks! So knitting is totally happening, it just ain't being blogged.

First FO* of the summer: Louisa tunic. Here it is without the ribbon around the neck. I chose bright green to go with the green flecks in the yarn. I will post a pic of me wearing it whenever the hell I feel like it. It's a very pretty sweater, and I love the yarn, but I can't for the life of me figure out why it turned out smaller & shorter than I had anticipated. This is why I rarely swatch. They lie. My swatch was perfect in width and a little shorter in length, so I added some extra pattern repeats in the body before starting the yoke. Didn't matter.


One of the reasons I love living in Muskoka: this is the walk to my favourite beach. Ten minutes up the road and then a 10 minute walk along this beautiful path.


And this couldn't get any more Canadian - knitting on the beach! I actually showed a girl how to purl. She could only knit, and she had nobody to show her how to purl. I doubt she'll remember, but at least I showed her. I offered to let her try, but she didn't want to screw up my knitting, so she didn't. Very wise of a beginner, don't you think?


And the newest summer project: Bird Socks. Check out that pattern. The leaves & birds are embroidered on afterwards, and the tree branches are intarsia. They'll look so cool with a skirt!


Friday, July 1, 2011

Happy Canada Day!

144 years ago, Canada officially became a country. Well, sort of. In my books, we're not officially our own country until we throw off the shackles of monarchy, but, considering the fact that the poster couple for orthodontic services has timed their visit to Canada for right now, that may not happen in my lifetime. But I digress.

Canada freaking rocks. We are consistently on the top of the United Nations lists of best places to live, best places to be a woman (yeah, well, Harper has a majority now, so that's about to change), best places to emigrate.

Legally, we don't care if you're gay and want to marry your partner. Go ahead! Socially, most of us don't care if you smoke a little weed in the privacy of your own home. Spark it! Emotionally, we do care if we get mistaken for americans when overseas. Hence plastering ourselves with our beautiful flag.

We have some of the most respected social activists in the world. Craig Kielburger, Stephen Lewis, David Suzuki, Maude Barlow.

Hollywood is filled with our kind. William Shatner, Michael J. Fox, Ryan Reynolds, Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, Nathan Fillion, I could go on forever.

We make damn fine beer (I'm told) and bloody good wine (I attest). Our cheese wins first prizes all around the world.

Our internationally known knitters include The Yarn Harlot, Kate Gilbert and SpillyJane, to name a few.

And I haven't even gotten to our writers, poets, musicians and artists. I could do a whole post on them alone!

But the simple fact is, our Canada is the best. This is OUR day. Take it. Enjoy it. Remember. We. Are. Canadian.

And if you want a good laugh, click on my twitter button on the left for a Cage Fight to the Death between Sir John A MacDonald & Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Srsly.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Finished!

This is such a cute little sweater! The original pattern is a cardigan with a million little hook & eye closures. I had nightmares of not getting them to line up properly and winding up with a wonky closure. Looking at other knitters' versions on Ravelry, I discovered that a lot of people had the same worry, or else simply didn't have the patience to fiddle with hooks & eyes, so they simply sewed up the front! Ingenious! So I did the same thing.
This is adorable. I'm glad I added on more length to the bottom; even trying it on as I went (holy way to do things from the top down!) I was expecting it to be a little bit longer; sewing it together changed that a little bit.
But overall, I am incredibly happy with this project! Now, on to Louisa & ripping out about 12 rows of a lace pattern to fix the mistake that I knew I made after 1 row but had a momentary lapse of reason and thought I'd keep going. Grrr.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Knitting = Learning

There's always something new in knitting. It's like teaching in that respect. If you're not learning as you're doing it, you're doing something wrong.
So my new learning is a top down sweater. I've never done one before. And oh boy do I love it!
I have a pretty strange body. I'm well endowed but short waisted. Deadly combination. So being able to try something on as I go to check the fit is just awesome!
And it's also making me knit even faster, because when I try it on, I just love it and get all excited about being able to wear it soon!
(And aren't the sequins freaking adorable??)

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Life Lessons in Knitting

I have several things on the go lately. And each of them has taught me a lesson.

Ambrosia is a lovely little cabled summer cardi. I'm knitting it in a beautiful sequined yarn.

LESSON: Do not eat Easter chocolate while knitting with white yarn.

Louisa is a summery cotton tunic in a lacy pattern, that I'm doing in a doubled cotton tweed.

LESSON: When you're pretty damn sure you've made a mistake in a lace pattern, don't wait 8 or 10 rounds 'just to check'.

Still working on my lovely Estonian lace scarf in that breathtaking silk.

LESSON: Do NOT, under any circumstances, watch ANY program with the dreamy British actor (and my boyfriend, although he isn't aware of that fact) Richard Armitage while knitting complicated Estonian lace that requires nupps.


(Now you understand.)

Saturday, March 19, 2011

UGH.

I started Paloma last night. I ripped Paloma out 4 times. I have been knitting for over 20 years. But can I figure out what I did wrong? Nope. When you do the math on the stitch pattern, it decreases the number of stitches, but overall I'm supposed to be increasing. If you don't knit, you have no idea what I'm talking about. If you do knit, you're equally confused. The only thing I can think of is that when it says do a purl stitch, it should be knit. That way, the yarn over makes up for the 2 stitches knit together.
But there aren't any errata for this pattern anywhere that I can find! And nobody on Ravelry has said anything about it. I left a comment and hopefully someone will be able to help.
So in the meantime, I started Louisa. No issues at all with Louisa! No, not quite. I cast on 1 size, then measured it and decided that it was going to be too big after all, so I ripped it out and cast on again for the smaller size. 9mm needles and chunky yarn (well, actually 2 strands of dk held together) - this is going to be a breeze!

Friday, March 18, 2011

Decisions, Decisions

The life of an ADD knitter. I got it in my head to work on Donegal. Still can't find the bag with all the yarns in it. But, you see, therein lies the problem.
I now want to work on something new.
My Triinu scarf is coming along wonderfully. It's just challenging enough.
I started a new jacket for my niece's birthday, but it's in fairly chunky wool (by my standards, anyway) and on 5mm needles, so it will be ready in plenty of time for her Easterish birthday.
Then I spied this on my bookshelf:

I had started a cute cardigan from this book last summer, but the yarn was so slippery that I hated it. I couldn't get an even tension with it, and I have never in my life, even as a beginner knitter, had problems with my tension. So it got frogged. Note the many post-it notes sticking out of the top of the book, marking patterns I want to do. One of the ladies at Knitting Three Together today noticed that I have them all marked except 3 or 4. LOL!

So I was flipping through it and decided on 2 patterns that I'd like to try first. I figured I'd go to the store and see what I could find.
You guessed it, I came out with yarn for them both.

The first is Paloma. It's a lovely top-down tee with a ribbon laced through the neck. One of the finished pieces on Ravelry has the ribbon tied at the front shoulder instead of the back, which I quite like. I bought some lovely yarn I'd never heard of - Rozetti Soft Payette . It's acrylic, which I don't usually use, but it's soft and lovely and has sequins!!!! Can't go wrong with sequins.


The second pattern is Louisa. It's a lovely long tunic, done in a chunky yarn but in a lace pattern so it doesn't seem so chunky. In the book it's done in Louisa Harding's Thalia, which I drooled over, but has been discontinued. Boo hoo. So the ladies at the store suggested using a dk, doubled. And since it's for summer, I got a cotton. Cabin Fever Cotton Tweed. It's actually a cotton/acrylic blend, so it won't have the weight and dragging down that a pure cotton in this kind of garment would have. The pink is a much warmer shade in person that it appears in the picture.

So now I just need to decide which one to do first! Why do I have the feeling that I'll be flipping a coin?

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

But of course

I was in the mood for some colour work, so I thought I'd pick up Donegal and finish off the sleeve & neck for my dad.
I started this sweater ages ago. It was huge, so I ripped it out and started again. It was still huge, even before my weight loss, so it was hibernating. I figured it would be my bumming around sweater. A slightly fancy one. But then when my dad was up in the fall, I had him try it on. It fits him perfectly and he actually likes it!
And now, of course, I can't find the bag that has the wool for it. I did some massive cleaning a while back, and put the stash in a few places, but that bag is nowhere to be found.
This is going to drive me nuts.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Stop the insanity!!

This is my beautiful new scarf in progress. It's made of incredibly gorgeous, hand dyed, made-in-Canada silk. It weighs next to nothing and feels amazing. I can't even describe it. And the flash does not do the colour justice.
See those little blobs? The pattern of 3 blobs in a triangle? They're called nupps. Rhymes with soup. They serve 2 purposes. 1: They make a lovely pattern, and 2: You know the item is hand knit, because a knitting machine cannot reproduce them. Ah, those wiley Estonians.
I think there needs to be a 3rd nupp purpose: to drive the knitter insane. In order to make a nupp, you knit into the same stitch anywhere from 5 to 9 times, depending on the fineness of the yarn. Then, on the wrong side, you purl all those stitches together. In this pattern, it's 7 stitch nupps. The knitting isn't the problem. It's the purling them all together that's maddening!! But, I think that after 4 chart rounds I'm finally making the nupp loose enough that purling them together isn't as painful as it was to begin with. And I'm not missing any of the stitches now. Knock wood.
I'm feeling about this scarf the same way I feel about the chicken & asparagus risotto I made last night for dinner. It's going to take me a long time, but damn, it's going to be rewarding when it's done!!
Damn. Now I'm hungry. Mmmm, risotto.....

Monday, February 21, 2011

No, really, I am still alive

I'm just not knitting.
I know. Read that again.
I'm just not knitting.

No, I'm not sick. I'm just not knitting.

I think this is the longest break I've ever taken from knitting since I was 18! My sister Deanna was up for the long weekend, and I was hoping to have her other sock finished to hand over (she even brought up the other one, in the hopes of having a pair - guilt trip!!!) but nope. She said it's because I was knitting like a freak before Christmas. I'll go with that.

So today, I picked up the needles for the first time in well over a month. I did a little bit on her sock, and a little bit on my scarf. Then I drank too much wine and needed to stop or else I'd make major mistakes and need to pick back and it would not have been pretty.

Anyway, knitting now continues. Funny how quickly I realized that I really, really missed it. It's more than just keeping the hands busy. It's the whole process. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka the Yarn Harlot) says there are 2 kinds of knitters: the process knitter, who knits for the pure joy of it; and the product knitter, who knits to be able to say 'I made it'. I think I'm a combination of the two. The process fascinates me. I love watching needles & yarn create something amazing, something wearable. I don't mind giving away what I've made (at least to those who appreciate it!). It's wearable art! But I also love being able to tell people who compliment what I'm wearing that I made it. I love the looks on their faces. Usually they don't believe me, which makes me giggle. But it also makes me sad. We're so far removed, as a society, from the things we wear, that it's almost incomprehensible for most that there are still some people out there who can make clothing. Kind of like people who go to the grocery store or butcher to buy their meat and can't even connect it to the cows/pigs/chickens that they see in the fields when they drive by. Does that make sense?


Two funny stories from this weekend, one knitting related and one not.

Knitting story: I was looking at the mittens my sister was wearing, thinking I could totally knit them, and planning to copy down the design. I asked her where she got them. Turns out I knit them for her! I totally don't remember making them. That's hilarious.

Non-knitting story: We were having lunch at Wendy's before they left and I fist bumped my almost 4 year old niece and said, "Word." She came back with "Door." I adore that child.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Remember that ADD thing I mentioned?

Yeah. It struck again.
I have a sock almost finished that should have been finished for my sister for Christmas.
I have a gorgeous silk Estonian lace scarf on the go.
I have a cabled jacket & hat that I cast on for my niece but was sane enough to recognize that I wouldn't be finished it in time for Christmas, so put it aside.
I have a very complicated sleeve & neckline to do on Donegal for my dad.
And what did I do today?
I cut out the pieces for my quilt.


It's not bad enough having regular ADD. But knitting ADD is worse. I think there's a PhD in there somewhere.