Cutest Logo Ever

As mentioned in the previous post, the boyfriend actually made a decision on what sort of knitted Christmas he'd like. He said things like "cardigan" and "black" and "cabled". Feeling a little bad about throwing out all his cardigans a few years ago (they were all nasty-old and acrylic and very Mr. Roger-ish), I found and bought Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan (which I'd been meaning to do ever since Yvonne brought it to Liberty's night to show-and-gloat) and pointed out the Pentagon Aran Cardigan. In agreement on the pattern, off we went a couple of weekends ago to Main Street on a sunny Sunday afternoon to acquire the necessary wool since, unfortunately, my stash is severely lacking in black wool. Our first stop was Birkeland Bros. which, unbeknownst to us, was closed for the long weekend (Canadian Thanksgiving). Which left us wandering up the street in search of the much spoken-of new yarn shop, Three Bags Full (also linked in the sidebar as "My Local"). So new, in fact, that they didn't even have a sign up yet. It was pure luck (and vigilance) that I even spotted their window display from across the street. We had three choices of yarns: Cascade, which I found scratchier than my liking; Debbie Bliss, which I found pricier than my liking; and the Mission Falls 1824 Wool, which, although pricy still, was less expensive than the imported Bliss (it's a Canadian-made yarn) and less scratchy than the Cascade. Alas, the black was back-ordered... but Brendan found the charcoal well enough to his liking and our mission for the day was accomplished. As so it should be smooth sailing to Christmas morning, right? ha!

The Christmas Cardigan Saga: Part I - From Humble Beginnings

So, here we are at row 22.

What the picture doesn't show is the three times I had to frog this section, twice right back to the cast on. I don't think Gaughan realized that some of her readers don't think too hard before starting chart-work. The first time I started, I didn't even realize I was supposed to start on the Chart and, instead, started a 1x1 ribbing. When I figured that out, I decided a ribbed edge might be nice. Started the Chart after an inch of ribbing on the RS. Six rows later, came to the realization that the cabling is on the even rows and, therefore, I was cabling on the WS. Frog. Decided to read the Chart backwards the second time around (don't even ask, there was some sort of logic to it, I think). Frog. Got it going the correct way but lost a stitch during one of the cables the third time. Frogged back to the dropped stitch. So, three days after starting, I've got a hard-won 22 rows done. Yay, me!

Any hints on photographing cables in dark wool, Polly? They'd be much appreciated!

Need some Notions

Just finished this infant-sized kimono from Debbie Bliss' Special Knits book. I'm pretty sure I'm happy to ignore the embroidery instructions. With the number of babies popping up all around me, the more gender-neutral I keep these projects, the better. I really like the way the green Wool Cotton knits up and the leftover white from the little sheep dress I made earlier this year works well as the border. I still haven't bitten the blocking bullet yet so I think I'll have to steam and press this before wrapping it up for Christmas. The hem curls something ferocious.

My shopping list gets longer everyday. I still need to pick up buttons for the Town-Square cardigan (which has found its perfect owner, btw) and now I need a ribbon of some sort for the tie on this kimono. Brendan's also decided on a cardigan for Christmas... with a zip front! Gah!

Bootee Duty

My friends seem to insist on growing up and getting married and starting families. Most of them actually in that order now (as opposed to some of my high school friends...) and I've been kept busy trying to organize some suitable baby projects to foist on the tots. My newest victim is Nathan, now four months old.
Here he is just back from a second walk in as many hours, a little confused as he experiences deja vu for the first time.
He's a happy baby, which is a blessing. He's also extremely tall (but proportioned) for his age. The bootees I brought with me won't be used for long, I'm sure.
First, there were these Textured-Cuff ones done in Rowan Wool Cotton. I need to practise picking up stitches. The sides kept wanting to buckle when I was setting up this picture.
Later, I found a ball of very yellow (shudder!) acrylic yarn in my stash. (Don't ask me what possessed me to buy it in the first place.) In any case, the colour was very appropriate for the Duck Feet pattern sans the blanket stitching on the ends. Both bootie patterns are from Zoe Mellor's 50 Baby Bootees to Knit. There's quite a few more patterns that I'd like to try but many involve haberdashery that I don't have lying about - buttons, ribbon, lace, etc.

Town Square in Sage

For the girls at Liberty's, this will look familiar. I was working on it the last few times I was able to make it down on Wednesday evenings. Sans buttons so far, I finally got the pattern to match up reasonably well on the sleeve seams. Honestly, I nearly lost my will to live, sewing and picking out stitches umpteen times.

The pattern is the "Town Square Jacket" by Melissa Leapman from the August-October 2005 issue of Cast On magazine (for knitters). I substituted Debbie Bliss Alpaca-Silk Aran for the acrylic yarn recommended and then reduced the size of needles from 4.5mm and 5mm to 4mm and 4.5mm.
Without the buttons, the weight of the yarn made keeping it on the hanger for this picture pretty tricky. I was almost tempted to sew loops into the shoulders like they do for dresses that slide off hangers (but then I remembered that I wouldn't be hanging this anyway). The collar isn't shown in any real detail in the magazine picture so I was a little surprised when it came out with three corners but that's what happens when you "inc 1 st at ea shoulder seam and at center back neck". Oops, I guess EOR means "every other row". Oh, well.
The sleeves look kind of long but I'm thinking that the body will stretch out a little with time...

I haven't figured out how to take close-up pictures with a flash without getting the funny little shadow at the bottom of the picture so please bear with me. Casting on the button band and button-hole band turned out to be time consuming as the right side turned out to have more rows than the left. Brendan commented that I didn't seem to be enjoying my hobby as I muttered profanities over my sixtieth (not really) cast-on.

I really loved the way this yarn took to the texture of this pattern:
Row 1 (RS): *K1, p1. Rep from * for pat.
Row 2: *K1, p1. Rep from * for pat.
Row 3 and 4: Knit.
Repeat Rows 1-4 for pat.
I'll have to remember it for future projects. Love it!

And, finally, a close-up up the three most challenging parts (after the sleeve seams) - the collar, the button-band, and the sleeve-to-body seam. Not too shabby, I think!

Zig Zag Zaniness

I've spent the past few days of unemployment trying to finish up half-done projects and so far, I'm happy to say I've been fairly productive. I hate sewing...

This is an aerial view of my completed "Stitch-effect Sweater" from Julia Cooper's Textured Knits (a book which a bunch of people at the Liberty knitting group apparently got for free while I paid for). I did this with the discontinued shade "Madame" in Rowan Cashsoft DK.

I need to find a better way (and place) to photograph my projects.

It knitted up really quickly and, as with the previous project I did from this book ("Casual Cable Sweater"), I actually enjoyed working from the charts Cooper includes.

If you look closely at this strangely posed picture above, you can see the reason I thought this pattern was so cute - the stitch pattern trails onto the back. Unfortunately, this made making up the seam even more annoying than usual...

To be Felted

I really need to get myself a copy of Emma King's 25 Bags to Knit: Beautiful Bags in Stylish Colours. The colours aspect isn't so good since many of her choices have been discontinued now but the patterns are fun and they are quick ways to use up remnant yarn. This one is "Cranberry" (ironically, knitted in Cassis shade) without the beading, which I haven't been bothered enough to try. I actually knitted it on the plane from Heathrow to Calgary and got it all done except the handles. Now that it's done, though, I've decided that I need to try felting. It's a nice enough bag but really floppy (10mm needles) and the way I load up my bags, I'll need something a little hardier. Cabling on 10mms is interesting...

First Socks

Socks have been on my to-do list for a long time. These aren't exactly what I had in mind. I've got several balls of beautiful self-patterning stuff waiting for my attention but this pattern in Julia Cooper's Textured Knits seemed to be a quick and easy way to use up some remnants (alas, see yarn story below). Anyhoo, they're done now and even full-sized.
I think I need to work on keeping the yarn tight on the short-rows. I ended up with rather lacy heels.
I don't think I'll ever be a bobble fan. But at least I can say I've done them now. :o)

A Short Yarn about Yarn

Before I left the UK, I made a couple of knitted gifts for my co-workers. For my department head, I made a sea-man's scarf in the UK Select Alpaca. Same pattern as I made for Chris Q. last Christmas. For Alice, the other Geography teacher, I made a little handbag out of Rowan Classic Kid. Now the pattern calls for 2 balls and says it is to be knitted doubled up, so I did what I thought was the sensible thing and took the strand from the inside of each of the balls and knitted it double that way. When I finished it, I had the majority of two balls of yarn left. So the other day, I got sick of the jumper I've been working on and decided to use the remnants of this creamsicle-coloured Classic Kid to make a pair of bobbled socks. I thought if I made them for smaller feet I might be able to do one sock with one ball. Well, about three rows from the decrease, I ran out. Annoyed.
Went out to a new-to-me yarn shop in West Point Grey (Urban Yarns) today who I'd called about my situation yesterday. Turns out they have an entire bag of this discontinued colour in the back. For $12.95 a ball! It's a lovely little shop but I'm having a hard time believing that I'll be able to afford to shop there anytime soon...

Yorkshire Kid Knit

This is a project that I've been meaning to tackle for months, ever since I saw the little sheep on the hem. It's from the Debbie Bliss "Baby Knits" book and I knew that I had to make it for Nina, my Skipton family's little girl.


I changed the main colour from the sack-cloth brown in the book to a more pastural green to emulate the Yorkshire Dales. It's meant to be a smock-style dress (no fitting or shaping for a waist), which works well with the "smocking" of the yoke, I think.
Attaching the collar was tricky, as I'm not an experienced seamstress and really resent the entire making-up process. (There are two jumpers still in pieces, awaiting my attention.)
I've always enjoyed cabling and I think the smocking came out really well.
I've never done any fair isle or intarsia work so the sheep were the most challenging aspect of this project and I decided, after the fair isle came out looking a bit tight, that I'd try both techniques. Above, are the fair isle sheep I did on the back of the skirt. The green between the sheep is buckling a bit and the material is obviously heavier with the black & white strands twisted in behind. Below, are the intarsia-style sheep. I'm calling them intarsia-style because I actually fair-isled the black behind the white in each sheep rather than create a new bobbin for the three or four stitches that make up the tail and ran the green through behind each of the sheep (which peeks out every once in a while). I think this was the better way to go as the green remained the same thickness and texture as the rest of the skirt, which is voluminous to say the least. The down-side being that there were all these bits of black and white to sew in at the end.


I wasn't sure how the little white hem was going to turn out as I don't think I'd ever done anything like it before but once I got my head around the instructions and my fingers adjusted to the pick-up stitches, it went fairly smoothly and really finishes off the look of the dress. I need my friends to have more girl babies so that I can try something like this again! But not for a while, please.

I'm hoping for a picture of Nina wearing the dress but until then, my loyal readers can put the two together by checking out this jaunty little picture of her from my main blog.

Baby knits

When the onslaught on newborns on the way, I dug into my stash and came up with some cashmerino aran wool and adapted a Debbie Bliss pattern for a baby raglan jumper to knit top-down. The whole thing is down in stocking stitch on purpose so that the neck, hem and cuffs roll.
The pattern is a little wonky in that the sleeves are relatively long compared to the length of the body. These pictures are actually from my second go. The first one was in newborn size for my nearly-bursting co-worker, Sahera. That one was done to the patterns numbers and looked really short. The pictured one (done at the 12-18 month size) went home with Ms. Walker for her niece and I purposely lengthened the body a little to balance it out.

As with all my top-down attempts, the raglan looks lovely...
The colour is pictured a little bluer than reality. I hope Sahera has a girl.

Curly Whirly Madness

Wow, has it ever been a long time since I posted here. There have been a few projects since the Cotton-Silk Challenge, some involving wool importing, but the only pics I've got on hand (or disk) are of my CWs.
This was my first one. It was an initial cast-on of 700 stitches and ended up as more of a ruffle since there was so much of this beautiful boucle from Touch Yarns that I didn't want to stop knitting when I got to the end of the decrease so I increased again... The final product was given as a gift to Jewel Staite at the Serenity Squared convention.

This was my second one which took a lot longer because, as pretty as it is, I do not enjoy working with Kidsilk Spray. I assume the same will hold for KSH and KSN too. Much too fine and fussy. This one is being modelled here by the birthday girl and recipient, Tam, who I met through Serenity functions (premiere and convention). Another reason this one took so long is that I did it on the increase - starting with 150 stitches, doubling, doubling, and doubling again. Turns out that casting off 1200 stitches in KSS takes me about four hours.

After Tam's I didn't think I'd want to do another CW for a long, long time but it was a flatmate's birthday recently (not Sarah, the flatmate pictured above, but Kylie who didn't want her picture taken) and she seemed to like the one I made for Tam. This one only took a few days. I used Wendy Jazz, a novelty yarn (shudder) which, to be fair, is exceptionally soft and comes in some lovely colours. Having learned my lesson with the increase CW, I cast on 600 stitches with this one and halved every five or six rows. Came out a little on the short side (see below) but Kylie's happy with it.

Better Late than Never

Here are front and back views of the hoodie I made for Marianne out of the Debbie Bliss cotton-silk aran. I hope it looks better when she's wearing it... I still think that it might've been the wrong yarn to use but at least the silk content should prevent the colour from fading much.



The pattern is from Vogue Knitting Magazine (Fall 2005). I might try another one from the athletic section for my other sporty friend. After the socks, scarfs and slippers, of course.

Ally Pally Stash

My two days at the Alexandra Palace Knitting and Stitching Exhibition (October 15 & 16) were a great contrast to each other. On Saturday, I spent much of the day at the Relax and Knit tables and a little walking about. My only expenditures were a heinously over-priced lunch of chicken and rice and about thirty quid of yarn - one being a hank of Alchemy bamboo, the last one they had in that colour.

One Sunday, the floodgates opened and I ended up travelling home with about six carrier bags of loot. Here's some of it:
(Edit: the green-blue hank of boucle in the middle of the picture has since been transformed into the curly-whirly scarf seen here.)


These are two skeins of one of the softest, definitely the lightest natural yarns I've ever encountered. This is Touch Yarns' possum-wool yarn. 500m to the 100g. I've since sent one skein off to Knitting Mama in Saskatoon. Gotta share the joy.
I'm one of Touch Yarns biggest fans now. Above, is eight skeins of their 12-ply mohair-merino. On the left is three of their brushed variety and to the right is five of the boucle. Altogether, this set of chloro-octuplets is going to make one gorgeous blanket for Merwitch and Qball's wedding gift.

Thrumming Along...

Here are pictures of my first thrummed project - a pair of super-warm slippers for my coldest-blooded friend, the Merwitch. They somehow took longer and yet were quicker to do than I'd thought. Longer because the first pattern I picked turned out to be a rubbishy slipper. It looked more like an envelope with lacings than a slipper. Quicker because pulling the thrums and knitting them in is actually a pretty simple skill.


Still, all is not perfect. Thinking myself smarter than the second pattern, I reversed the cuff on my first slipper (closer one in the picture above) so that the knitted side would face out at the top of the fold. Forgetting to do that on the second slipper, I realized that the pattern meant for the purled side to face out so that the fold wouldn't try to roll. Well, now she'll be able to tell right from left...


Just a couple of wooly squashes... The orange is the (now discontinued) Debbie Bliss Tweed Aran that I picked up pretty cheap at Ally Pally. The idea is that it'll felt up nicely as the slippers are worn.

This is the second thrummed project I did. My flatmate asked for a thrummed ear-warmer headband (although not in so many words). The picture was taken before I finished it off by Kitchener stitching the two panels of ribbing together, sealing the thrums inside and effectively creating a yarn-based inner tube. The yarn is the blue Debbie Bliss Cotton Silk Aran that I used on the hoodie earlier. As if I hadn't learned it well enough before, this yarn has very poor elasticity for ribbing. Sarah will probably have to tie off a bit at the back with an elastic to get a good fit.

Manly Lace

My first sperm... er, seaman's scarf. This is before I had woven in the ends but I'm pleased with how it turned out. I wanted a pattern that could be viewed from both sides so the double moss-stitch was ideal and the ribbing (K4, P4) is very stretchy and warm. I framed the panels with three rows of garter stitch at the ends of the scarf and three stitches at the end of each row in garter stitch to keep it flat. No decrease in the middle - the ribbing does all the work. I used Alpaca Select, the same yarn as the dimple stitch shawl, and so the detail is quite clear and the scarf is, of course, very soft.

Charity Knitting

Here's the first project I've encountered that I can actually contribute to... might even walk 'em down to the office myself!
Innocent bottles

And the how-to

Rescued!

Today, I fully conceded to the fact that I'm going to need more yarn to finish this hoodie. As the yarn has been discontinued, I had to turn to Ebay for sellers and, as luck would have it, there was a seller with the right shade to sell... in Canada! After a few emails and a harrowing experience setting up a Paypal account, it's done!

In other news, I made it to my first London knitting group meeting at the very posh Liberty's store. It was nice to be one of the crowd again. There were some extremely talented knitters present - one who does the most amazing lace wraps on a weekly basis apparently. The ringleader (of sorts) is Yvonne who turns out to email Sally regularly. What a small world this is! Even better, Yvonne runs a booth at the Knitting and Stitching Show and, in exchange for some volunteer time, I get in free! Knitters rock!

Sleeve Joy

I started in on the cotton-wool hoodie sleeve the other night, paying careful attention to the bind-offs in the pattern as I was picking up and increasing. Reading a pattern backward isn't nearly as difficult as I anticipated. Eventually, I realized it had worked out really nicely! Will post a pic soon. Now I'm concerned that I may be running out of yarn.

Cotton-Silk Frustration

I decided that I'd try for a non-wool project for one of my more sporty friends and found a neat pattern in the VOGUEknitting International mag that seemed to suit the bill. However, the pattern for the hoodie pullover calls for alpaca wool (who would go jogging in alpaca?) so I found a Debbie Bliss cotton-silk yarn that fit the tension (see previous post about tension squares) and started in, choosing to forego the side seams by knitting it on two circulars from the bottom up.
A few issues have cropped up. Firstly, although the yarn fits the tension, it doesn't have the same elasticity as wool and so the ribbing on the hem and waistband isn't looking so hot. Next, the twelve-strand nature of the yarn is proving difficult to execute the Russian Join with. There are some unfortunate lumps and pokey bits where yarns have been joined. Third, because I'm knitting this hem up instead of collar down, I'm not exactly sure how to join up the shoulders or how to work in the sleeves. So far, I've put the stitches I was supposed to bind off under the arms onto a contrasting piece of yarn in hopes that I'll be able to pick them up later for sleeve-work. This whole project may have to be binned or frogged. I'll have to find out what normal people use this yarn for...

Trippy Trip...

Look where I'm going in October...
Alexandra Palace