A gathering of knits

Wherein I try to bridge the yawning gap between the knitting and the blogging of the knitting.  You could call this a retrospective with some currents to start with.

If you move in my circles you may have seen this fall’s triumph – the lovely stranded Pinked Socks designed by Judy Alexander.  My feet have often looked like this:

They certainly did for the Yarn Harlot’s book launch.  I kind of skip when I wear these socks.  Apart from my pride in knitting sock-weight yarn in both hands all the way to the end, I adore the garter tab on the slip stitch heel.  Adore is not too strong a word.  Obviously because I am now knitting another pair.  That are by necessity larger.  For the current pair is being made to fit not just any man but my man.

To wit:  an 11 ½” circumference leg.

The yarns are both Cascade Heritage (solid & quatro).  The MC is the navy held in my right hand.  My gauge on 2.25 (Dyakcraft!) needles let me make the 80 stitch cast-on size.  The only modification is that I ditched the CC strip in the cuff again.  Honestly, cutting sock yarns just for show is not so cool in my books.

It’s a simple but captivating 5 stitch stranded pattern.  I’ve sped up in knitting it again.  The first was finished January 15th, and the second is here now:

DH also received a longer-than-me mosaic scarf this Christmas.  It was not supposed to curl by design (mine) but makes up for that in the aforementioned length.  If I get him to agree to pics you guys will be the first to know.  My argument is that it was that long.  

Speaking of winter wearables, I also have a new hat.  This friends is a hat by twined knitting, and I love it.

It’s warm but elastic and fits loosely enough for a person with my hair issues.

The design is the Traditional Textured Hat in Laura Farson’s New Twists on Twined Knitting.  After some wrong yarn turns, I ran out and bought 2 skeins of Ultra Alpaca Tonal.  The fuzziness at the top is a bit of Sublime Angora Merino that I dug out of the stash.  I used just 9 g from the ball.

The technique needs the right yarn.  For example, this Akapana by Mirasol Yarns was in the direction of madness.  All stabs at texture were lost.

Casting on in the twined way is not full-on fun, so I thought I would share the what not to do pic.  As much as it pains me.

The upside of relatively mild weather is that the fall knits have stayed in rotation.  In order of their knitting…  The FO pics of my Monday Morning Cardigan by Laura Chau:

I am royally ashamed to say that was completed in May 2011.  It was shy about the wonkiness in the collar area but has grown in confidence over time.

About that collar:  knitting in a car while chatting with Sandi Wiseheart is dangerous.  That is all.

Next up is my Tappan Zee by Amy King.  Yes, a blue phase was happening.

  The pictures do the project little justice.  I used my Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool (4 skeins) for the 36″ chest size.  The mistakes are my own – it’s a great design!

 

My 5 ridges of garter at the lower edge were started 15″ below the armhole.  I also added 15 rows of stockinette after picking up at the arm and sewed all the bind-offs.  The yarn knitted very well, and is wearing beautifully.  It was so lackluster in the skein!

Another Knitty.com score was Leaflet Cardigan by Celcily Glowik MacDonald.  Knit in 4 days flat.

Business on the front.  Party on the back.

My yarn is Rowan’s Felted Tweed Aran, and I knit on 5 mm needles with 6mm for the binding off.  I had to make adjustments due to the gauge differences for a medium size.  My main modification was to use the rick rack rib from Barbara Walker’s Treasury.

This was my choice for the Woodstock fair in October, and many times since.

Garments – both knitting and designing – have been a goal for me of late.  I was able to stash sweater quantities from Main St. Yarns’ closing out sale, and am spinning away as well.  After speaking with Sandi, I’d also like to incorporate her Wise Sweater project into the learning curve.  I have also been adding to my library with books like Maggie Righetti’s Sweater Design in Plain English.

My big WIP that hasn’t been photographed is a Laar Cardigan by Gudrun Johnston.  It is giving me a run for my sanity with the miles of lace-weight knitting.  I love the result but am probably not wired for this sort of project…  Unlike some people that I know.

Lace is also a part of my knitting life.  For I keep stashing more!  I’d like to make the Prairie Rose Shawl by Evelyn Clarke with this new cone of Habu Tsumugi 100% silk:

We’re on the same page now!  How’s that for some progress?!?

 

To Good Starts

The year is young but it’s been a good one so far (knock on wood).  Of course, I rate as good any winter that gives me this vista so deep into January:

But I digress.

The good start has a lot to do with an extremely fun knitting event in the province.  My friend, Sandi Wiseheart, invited me to travel with her to the Kitchener-Waterloo Knitters’ Guild meeting on January 10th.  She was their main speaker, and the Guild had graciously agreed to let her bring a friend.  I was psyched to hear Sandi’s talk on Finishing Techniques, and it was fabulous.  Complete with slides, which were in turn complete with pictures of her cat, Tim.  Sandi’s blogged this already.

There was yarn stashing before the event (and even before lunch).  It was a first visit to the lovely Shall We Knit for the both of us.  I could rave, and rave.  Karen gave us such a warm welcome.  Seeing Sandi in her element was worth every minute but I also managed to find time to browse.  String Theory!

A skein of Caper Sock in the Vert colourway with its new bestie, Shetland Lace Knitting from Charts by Hazel Carter.  Not to mention the purpleness of this Della Q bag.

Yes, that is a creative use of my Ott light, thank you.  Like I said, it’s rainy today!  I also bought a set of DPNs.  I suspect Sandi’s purchases are in the Cone of Silence.

We had a lovely dinner with Annie B., Johanna, Lianne and Angela, and headed over for the meeting.  Sandi showed her Lotus Leaf Mittens – those are sparkly nails in the grainy pic.

I had the presence of mind to take a pic while she was setting up.

And once more during the presentation.

After that point, I was all ears and knitting.  How good was this talk?  Sandi made zippered knits sound totally doable, that’s how good!  And what is this talk called? It’s  After the Bind-Off:  Finishing a Garment you can be Proud Of.  I am sure that she’ll be asked to give it again.  Soon!

Further evidence that 2012 is pretty chill…

Last year’s Masham wool singles grew up & became almost socks.

It’s a 4 oz braid dyed by Waterloo Wools spun by yours truly up to 135 yards of 3-ply goodness.  I gave it a ton of twist in the plying on my Watson Martha wheel.  It still has a halo, and feels strong but somehow supple.

My Abby Batt is all spun up.  I finished plying the skein on my Golding Tsunami drop spindle on January 6th.  This lace yarn is for keeps!

I don’t have any SIP pics but the batt was a 38g ‘Leaf Pile’ of 30% corriedale wool/ 30% huacaya alpaca/ 30% tussah silk/ 10% merino.  I spun it by alternating 2 spindles – a Spindlecraft bracken & a Spindlewood olive square whorl.  All over town.  That’s 274 yards.  I’ll spin another fibre for a lace project down the line.

There’s more in my spinning life but I’ll round this out by showing the 60% wool/ 40% flax blend that I raced away with last week.  100g spun on my Philias Cadorette CPW currently gracing toilet paper rolls.

An experiment in over-twist?  Perhaps!

I’ll save the knits for another post.  Which I want to write now lest that promise fall flat.

 

Happy Holidays!

All odds were stacked against it but this is our happiest Christmas ever spent in Canada.  It snuck into what’s felt like a very tough year, including my day surgery 3 weeks ago.  As family rallied & recovery progressed, I slowly felt the pull of the season’s spirit.  Things have worked out.  In spite of the big worries.

It’s been a tough year for many of our friends, and probably many of you.  Kane, a friend from knit night pretty much summed it up on her gift tag:

Baaaaaa joins the flock at our house.

I am a sucker for all things sheepy.  Surprised?

There’s a whack of yarn, knitting and other fun stuff that hasn’t quite made it to publication as I navigated the past months.  Instead of being all mea culpa about it, here are my thoughts…

• May your bobbins always be full.

I will allow that Masham wool is majorly fun to spin.  This is top hand-dyed by Waterloo Wools, and spun this week on my Watson Martha wheel with double drive tension.

• New spindles always help for the rough spots in life.  Even if you aren’t well enough to use them as much as you would like.

She’s a Hounddesign lace spindle from The Fibre Garden.  Their spin-ins are stash enhancing events.  It is 20 g of Pau Amarillo spinning magnificence wearing a little bombyx silk.  Since I was also put in charge of getting some of my Christmas presents, let’s just say a couple more are in transit!

• When in doubt, learn a new way to knit.

It’s twined knitting, my new love.  It’s a traditional knitting technique from the Dalarna region in Sweden.  Strands of yarn held in the right hand are knit by ‘throwing’ (English) and twisting around to exchange for the next stitch.  This cozy is the Media Case pattern in Laura Farson’s “New Twists on Twined Knitting” book that I found in October.  I also have a new twined hat that is begging for her picture to be taken.

• Sometimes (even in Canada) the weather eases up on you at exactly the right moment.

A single bloom from the fragrant viburnum that I planted this year.  It looks as happy as I am about the mild weather.

• Giving to the Spin-worthy is a good thing.

I got to surprise my friend, Teresa with her lace-weight yarn that I spun on two Ethan Jacob spindles and plied on another Greensleeves, a Katherine’s Cup spindle.  It started life as an Alpaca/ Merino/ Silk blend hand-dyed by Corgi Hill Farm, and is now approx. 1,049 yards.

Teresa is a very talented lace knitter.  If you have seen beautiful shawls modeled gracefully and long, black hair is someplace in the photo, then that is my friend.  She prefers to knit and contribute quietly in our community, and I am very happy to call her my friend.  I really am excited to see what magic she will work with my spun-in-the-other-direction lace.  These are also her colours but not the comfort solids!

It also was a hoot to ring the girl’s doorbell early on Christmas Eve morning, and RUN!   DH and I laughed that only a Canadian wouldn’t look up the street before taking the gift bag inside.  A Jamaican’s first thought would be to catch the culprit!

Her thank you is both the best email ever, and confirmation in writing of her spin-worthiness.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, and happy holidays for your own traditions.  With a full heart, and love.

 

A Handspun Juneberry Triangle

My only FO of the season made from my hand-spun yarn is Jared Flood’s beautiful Juneberry Triangle design.  I’ll sum up my post for you now:  I loved this project from start to finish!

It all started with 8 oz of Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) top dyed by Turtle Purl in Quebec.  I split the 2 braids of fibre to keep the colour progression through the 2-ply yarn, attenuated (i.e. pulled), and spun to my heart’s content on my Watson Martha spinning wheel.  At the end of this adventure I had 523.6 yards of hand-spun goodness.  As I put it in my spinning notebook the largest skein was “mostly DK-weight with fingering”.  The other 2?  ”Mostly sport-weight.”

This was my 1st Jared Flood design.  I figured that going with a pattern sub-titled, “Textural lace shawl” by a star of the knitting world was the best I could do by this sweet teal yarn.  The pattern is totally clearly written.  His lack of spoon-feeding was a boost for my lace knitting self-esteem as I pieced it together in just 12 days.

I am calling it my Tealberry Triangle.  The centre triangle was lovely to work.  It doesn’t follow the convention coughfadcough of symmetry, and had some lace knitting on both sides of the work.  Not too much & not too little but just right.

I did a few repeats with the bobbles-as-written, and quit.  It seemed like an awful waste of hand-spun yarn.  With much shoving and hauling I managed to add beads for a bit.  It was a lost cause, so I knit the rest of the centre triangle plain.  The border has popcorns, which are bobbles-lite, and worked over 2 rows.

Any of my knitter friends can tell you I did have a big issue though – yardage.  I used a 5.0mm needle because that worked with the varying yarn grist, and dove in.  If there is a way to reliably gauge swatch for a non-standard yarn, I wouldn’t know.  My approach was to use the metrics of his suggested yarns & squeeze in between.  This resulted in an epic nail-biter with 2 border edge attempts frogged.  And wailing at knitting groups.

In spite of it all, I still love that edging pattern to bits.

The final stretch of border got knit on with double joins.  Which is far better than not getting finished if you ask me.  This is where I drew on my experience from the Spider Net shawl in Victorian Lace Today.  Sometimes we make things happen, cast-off and block out the difference with vigor.

 

 

I told you!

The Yarn Harlot blogged her Toronto book launch here.  I told you I had front row appearance – that’s me 2nd from the left in Stephanie’s Hello Toronto photo!  I love her pic of Megan & the charming Miles (aka Monkey).

I have a ton more knitting & spinning to blog but am dashing to rake leaves.  A storm is forecast for this afternoon.  Why I need to hustle:  this is my backyard with only ½ of the leaves dropped.

Those got raked.  Here’s what’s currently on the ground:

The firebush was beautiful this year.  Yes, past tense.

And so, I kid you not when I say there is raking that needs doing.  Before rainfall would be ideal.

 

All Wound Up, Toronto Launch

Last night, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee‘s All Wound Up book tour finally reached Toronto!  In a very uncharacteristic move I was Knitter No. 1 on the scene at the Chapters.  And I saw that their powers that be are still in the dark about how much of a crowd the one & only Yarn Harlot is going to draw in her hometown.  Yes, dudes – even on a cold Thursday night more than 40 chairs are required.

Teresa, Meg & the hugely popular Monkey (8 weeks old) soon arrived, and we nabbed front row seats.  No zoom required, see:

Meg took our picture – very much knitting & happy.

I do have another knitting friend also called Teresa.  This confused DH to no end, so I thought I should point out that the Teresa pictured here is not the same person who is getting my spindle-spun laceweight yarn.  This Teresa is knitting a gorgeous Helix Scarf.  I was knitting a new sock.

Monkey is a superbly happy baby!  Meg chalked up his good behaviour to the sheer cushyness of his blanket but I think he’s just a good little fella.

Mom and baby will be totally featured in the Harlot’s next blog post… she took a pic of them after signing!

I was thrilled that Stephanie read from her book!  It was hilarious to hear the stories in her own voice.  Thanks to her earlier tweet, I can also tell you that she was wearing sparkly handknit socks.

Proof of the lovely meeting that happened afterwards:

Now, I was way too shy to speak in entire sentences.  I tried gathering my thoughts but it was no use.  If I had my wits about me I would have told Stephanie a huge Thank You.  Her books and her blog got me out of my head knitting, and into the wild world of meeting other knitters.  I was brand-new to Canada back then.  Finding Knitting Rules changed everything, and then I had the good sense to get out to her Casts Off book launch to hear what she really thought.

Just for the record, Chapters:  this is what the turnout for a Yarn Harlot event in Toronto is going to look like.  Always.  Even if it rains.  Got it?

 

 

Woodstock Love

The 3rd Annual Woodstock Fleece Festival was this past Saturday in Woodstock, Ontario.  It was bigger, and a lot of fun!  Last year there were no raw fleeces but Willow Farm brought last week’s clip!

Josslyn Richardson helped me to pick Phoebe’s fleece out from the rest.  This was after she explained about the mark-up in the Royal Winter Fair’s fleece auction.  To wit, $19.00+/lb more than her Woodstock prices.  Sold!

The fleece weighs 3lb, 5 oz unwashed.  I love the light greys and the crimp.

Josslyn & Norm also sell their Romney and Icelandic in lovely roving.  I give their Icelandic tog & thel roving 2 thumbs up.  I have a 2-ply fingering yarn in production from last year’s Woodstock haul and love it.

The crowd seemed bigger to me this year, with more knitters curious about this thing called spinning.

    

Reed’s restored wheels were seriously crowd-pleasing.  This fuzzy pic is the best I could get for all the jostling – Reed’s the man on the right.  You can’t really see but he was having a blast.

What’s a fibre festival without animal exhibits and equipment for sale?

    

Back in the main show room, I was also busy shopping for the fibre needs (and wants).

L → R:  Pachuko organic cotton in ‘vicuña’; carbonized bamboo fibre; alpaca roving & hand-dyed bombyx silk top.

My LYS haunts would never carry these 2 finds so I sprung for them – Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock & Fleece Artist Saldanha Two – from Feather Your Nest.  The pattern is Barb’s Koigu Ruffle Scarf from Churchmouse Yarns & Teas.  I wanted to ditch the pattern but am glad I didn’t – 320 yards is perfect for using my hand-spun yarns.

Last but not least were these 3 books on clearance from The Yarn Source, and a lignum vitae Tabachek diz (not shown).

Again L → R:  New Twists on Twined Knitting by Laura Farson; Spinning Designer Yarns by Diane Varney (!); and How to be Owned by an Antique Spinning Wheel – A Practical Guide by Peter H. Fowler.

This is why friends let friends shop on their own at a fibre festival… Shelley surprised us all with buttons!

Mine was already joyously pinned on my Leaflet Cardi:

Yah, I shall show you Leaflet properly in another post.  Shelley braved strange looks in getting the buttons since she also got a few for herself…

And lastly, the obligatory closing animal pic!

 

Woodstock bound

Tomorrow is the Woodstock Fleece Festival!  I had a blast last year – sans camera – and have been counting down the days.  It’s the best local event for spinners, and in year 3 is growing from strength to strength.

I am rushing to make an appointment this evening but want to show Pippi off to you.  Her first blooming in 2 years!

She definitely approves of her re-potting this summer.  A second spike!

I promise you some pictures of Woodstock – the smaller camera’s battery is charged!  I may even be honest about the haul.

 

The Waiting Room

Over the past month life slowed right down.  I had a health scare that slowly made itself known.  For almost 2 weeks I knitted, spun with spindles, and did as much as I could muster energy for.  I went into the ER at the right time.  After hours of waiting for test results, we slowly got the diagnosis.  What does a spinner do while waiting?  She spins.  I had my Jenkins Delight:

I fielded the usual questions:  ”What are you doing?”  ”Is that wool?”  A little boy with a stomach ache was the most interested but nurses also asked.

The diagnosis itself wasn’t easy – a technician left me to the doctors with a hug.  It was happy to finally get some answers but there will be more to come in the days ahead.  Once decisions were made for an operation there was no time for fright or even speaking with family.  I was prepped, and sent in.  My recovery has gone well.  Luckily MIL came to visit exactly when we needed her moral support, and treats from home are always nice.

So, these are projects I had in this long waiting room.  Much more has happened since but I wanted to start here.

This is my bright version of Judy Alexander‘s Pinked Socks from Knits magazine, Winter 2010.  The yarns are – MC:  Sweet Georgia Tough Love in River; & – CC:  Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Red Rover.  It’s the 7¾” size, and I got gauge with 2.25 mm needles.  It’s my first stranded sock but is much easier than it looks.  The Zigzag pattern is just 5 stitches wide.

This first sock fits better than any I have knit in a long time.  The instep rocks!

I’ve never knit a garter tab on the heel flap, and now love this to distraction.

Not only is this sock pretty cool in its own right but it came with me to my first knitting night at Lettuce Knit in Toronto.  That was my last outing while unwell.  Which is to say that the Rest-up-and-Go plan had its flaws.  I was fortified with chai tea but you know, only days away from the ER visit…  It was the biggest knit night group I’ve ever been in, and lots of interesting people with interesting knitting.  I want to try it again when I’m not pushing a health crisis forward.

The 2nd sock is now at the foot.  I love this pattern so much that DH is promised a pair.  Yes, at size 10½ feet.

I do have another pair off the needles.  The pattern is Cookie A.’s Lindsay from her Sock Innovation book.  I didn’t check for these corrections but should have.  My yarn is Cherry Tree Hill’s Sockittome in ‘Indian Summer.’  As the 1st sock was back in August (after a slow start in mid-May):

The project bag is from Jessa Lu, and is perfect – I mean perfect – for small projects.  A better blogger would have shown you this beauty brand-new when she got it in February…

I was and am completely excited to have another bag stitched by Jess.  They just make me happy.  While I digress, let me introduce the new needles.

They are DyakCraft 5″ double points here in special-order hazelnut.  Every rave review of these DPNs is spot-on.  Tom & Linda gave good service by email, and I love the sharp points, and harder-than-bamboo material.  I also love that I could keep the contrast of a lighter stain against my yarn when knitting.

The needles are what helped me get these socks done.  One pattern row with a series of K4tog and I was very happy for the sharper points.  They were all done by September 3rd, and are now known as my Orange Crush Socks.

So named because Jack Layton passed away while I was knitting them.  I enjoyed knitting these because the pattern was easy to remember & I got to knit garter short-row heels and toes for the 1st time.  They aren’t my favourite socks though:

• The garter-stitch cuffs are saggy.  I could add elastic since mine are 2″ long but am not inspired really.
• At the recommended gauge they are too thick for my fall shoes.
• The heels and toes are super-comfy but gap all the way out of my shoes.  Stuffing socks in is no fun.
• I messed up sock No. 1′s toe grafting.  Not enough yarn or patience.  Since that happens under the foot it’s not good for lots of walking, really.

My verdict = inside socks.

Luckily, I finished the singles spinning for my big spindle project before the health scare.  Here they are all together before plying:

I’ve also changed my plying routine for this project.  While I was still recovering this new-t0-me Katherine’s Cup spindle by Greensleeves came.  It’s lighter than my Golding at 1.68 oz., and working well for the lace-weight so far.  The last sneak peek:

 

Winter is Coming – shawl edition

Apologies in advance for the sheer pinkness of this post.

One of my first impulses after the last day of work was to get back to knitting this lace shawl.  Quietly started back in January, it was at the knitted-on-border stage when I picked it back up last month:

The big fear was that I would never finish it!  The pattern is Jane Sowerby’s Large Rectangle in Spider Net from Victorian Lace Today.  As I said back in January, Teresa is at the root of the whole attempt.

Finally caught a good rhythm for the wide border.  It was all groovy until I noticed that the yarn ball was too small.  And this a special dye job of Indigo Moon wool/silk for her stall at the 2009 Knitter’s Frolic.  This knitting on of a border gives you 2 choices – rip it off or keep calm & carry on.

Gasp all you want.  Ripping out wasn’t an option.  I also wasn’t into pausing to seek another 1,000+ yards.  So the last half-corner became the natural insertion point for another Canadian yarn, Handmaiden by Fleece Artist.   I am not pretending this is either a design element or high art.  It is Former Tom Boy Does Lace.

That was blocking attempt number 2, by the way.  The dog chasing the cat over attempt number 1 was spectacular.  In the disastrous second, I caught Toby mid-run & stopped the tear of yarn courtesy of his claw.  No rest for the wicked?

I’ve called the project Lord Varys’ Little Spiders since we’ve found the Game of Thrones in the time it took to knit this.

The garish corner (yes, I can admit it) is easily covered by the sheer size of this shawl.  Winter may be coming but I’ll have a warm & super-bright shawl!  Canada is Winterfell without the wall, trust me.

All the friends assure me that fuchsia is my colour… uh-huh, right.

Layers of the warm:

And lastly, the leg o’ lace:

I’m looking forward to this afternoon – meeting up with Megster at a local cafe for fun knitting in public.  If you take a peek at her blog then you’ll know that Meg’s expecting!  Any day now there shall be a Junior in the house!