Ahhh, vacation

We have recently finished a nice little mid-summer vacation. Jer was able to get a nice chunk of time off again this summer and has (again) successfully packed full of stuff to do. The best part of all, was the trip to a cottage we rented (it belongs to a colleague of Jer's).



We were there for a week, joined for the first part by friends of ours from out west who were here technically visiting his mom, but they actually spent more time with us. It was so great, they have a 14 month old little boy and are pregnant again, they are such easy friends and we had a wonderful time. The second part of the week was spent with friends from home and their 2 little boys (6 and 2.5). A little louder than the first part of the week, but just as much fun.



I packed a few different projects to take along, covering different yarn weights and pattern difficulty. A couple of socks (I'm have trouble starting my second Fraggle Squiggle sock), My honeybee stole, and Shawl that Jazz. Well, I started on StJ in the car and made excellent progress on the 3+ hour drive up north and didn't really stop all week. I had finished a good portion of the body by the time we got home and have been working on it pretty steadily ever since. I started on the edging a couple of days ago, phew, those are long rows! Needless to say the other knitting I brought with me, never made it out of the bag. I'm using my BMFA Twisted, In the Navy and I'm loving it! It should be done soon, I hope.



Before we left I started, and finished, a pair of Monkey socks for a good friend. She has tried knitting, but the tightness of her knitting makes her tense and she is pretty wound up to begin with, she has been asking (jokingly) for some socks so a few weeks ago I pulled out some Yarn Pirate colourways I would be willing to part with and she chose one, BFL Soltice. If these socks had fit me, they would have been very hard to part with, lucky Julie and her giant feet.



Now I need to finish my Fraggle socks, and make some decisions on colours for the baby knitting that needs to start in September.

I love vacation.

Like Potato Chips

The Noro Striped Scarf. Once I started I couldn't stop. Of course, then it took me weeks to photograph and talk about it, but here it is.



So so fun. I used 2 balls of Silk Garden in #252, and two of #245. It's thick and long and warm and cozy.



I slipped the first and last stitches (purlwise) on the second row of each stripe. I'm not sure if I would do it that way again. Not because I don't like the way it looks, it's a very nice edge. But because I found it a little awkward. I think I would just slip the first stitch of each row instead.



I have already purchased enough Silk Garden in two other colours to make another, since while I like this one a lot, I'm not sure if it's for me or someone else. Someone shorter, someone who possibly likes it more than I do.





And here's a little teaser for something else I finished.

A cozy sweater

I don't really have too much to say about my new Central Park Hoodie. Except, that it's exactly what I wanted it to be. A nice cozy house sweater that I'm not too worried about because it wasn't crazy expensive to make. The seaming didn't even bother me too much, maybe because it's been awhile since I've had to seam up a sweater. The thing that did bug me, was buttons. Nothing was right. Even the ones that are on there right now, not right, but they'll do. I do love how the cable show up with the Cascade 220.



I started this sweater as a break from the endless garter stitch madness of the baby blanket and it provided just the right distraction. I actually finished this sweater almost 2 months ago, but the button search was making me nuts, and then I got tired of waiting for sun AND someone around to take my picture. So I took artificial light pictures myself and maybe one day I'll get someone to take my picture.



Central Park Hoodie by Heather Lodinsky
Cascade 220 Heathers, 6.5 hanks colour #2441
Size 40
5.0mm Addi Turbos



Great sweater, love the long arms.

Round 2

The first of the RSC 2009 kits has been completed. I can't even tell you how much I love the colour. My Blue Heaven. As I was knitting, I was thinking "Oooo, I think this colour is my favourite" then it would change and "Oh, maybe this one", then "No, I think it's this one". Turquoise, cobalt, teal, all of them so so pretty. The pattern is Queen of Beads, by Sivia Harding



I had some minor challenges starting these socks. You see, they begin with stringing approximately 140 beads onto the yarn. I read that dental floss threaders were the way to go, but couldn't find any. But I had a dentist appointment 2 weeks after the package arrived and asked the hygenist for some. But then of course, I had to explain why I needed them. Needless to say, she was amused. So I attempted to string the beads with the threader on the end of the yarn. No go, the beads wouldn't fit over the doubled up bit of yarn at the end and I kept breaking the end of the eye of the threader. Then, I tied a length of dental floss to the end of the yarn and put that through the eye of the threader. Better, but still difficult to get the bead from the floss to the yarn. Then I tried a length of sewing thread instead of dental floss. Bingo! There was the occasional bead that would not go on, but I'd just put that one aside and use another. I had the beads strung in no time after that.



The knitting went quickly. It's a fun pattern that is really, really pretty. With or without beads. I put beads only on the leg, but I should have done the first repeat of the instep as well, to line up with the heel flap beads. Oh well, no one will really know, will they? And I did the extra repeat in the leg, can't have a short sock!



I finished these socks a couple of weeks ago, I'm very behind in my blogging, there are a couple of other things to show you too. My next RSC kit arrived today, it too is awesome. Very girly which isn't so much me, but I love it. I've worn my Queen of Beads once, so far, and the fit is great. I lengthened the heel flap a little from what I have been doing because my socks are feeling tight around the instep and some of the are harder to get on, this worked.

Fabulous sock, pretty pretty colour. On to the next finished project!

The Ballband Dishcloth

So last week, after finishing the baby blanket, I got an urge to knit dishcloths. So I drove down to Mary Maxim to have a look at the Sugar'n Cream colours. I found I few that I liked, bought 4 balls and came home. As I was knitting that afternoon, I realized that I didn't yet have end of year gifts for the teachers and wouldn't this be a great idea. Too bad I didn't think of it BEFORE driving down to MM. So I finished up one for me, with the plan of hitting Michaels in the morning for some Bernat Handicrafter cotton.



The colour selection of the Bernat are a little less appealling, but I managed to find 3 combinations that I liked. A solid blue and a varigated white/blue/yellow for two.



The same solid blue and a varigated white/blue/brown.



And yellow with a varigated white/green/lighter green. This one is really cheery, but not obnoxious bright



I did two for each, with the possibility of a third if there was time. There wasn't, but I have plenty left to make at least 3 more cloths, possibly 4. I made them in co-ordinating pairs by reversing the colours (Betcha didn't figure that one out! :)), and knit them over 39 stiches instead of 45 as called for in the pattern. All in all, not a bad showing for 5 days worth of knitting. I missed the kick of of Summer of Socks but that's OK, the teachers have gifts and school is done tomorrow.

Congratulations Steve and Jenna

Friends of ours that live in Vancouver had a baby boy on May 27th. His name is Liam, he is very cute, but I'm not going to post his picture because he's not my kid. Sorry, you'll just have to take my word for it. Very. Cute.

Way back in February, I started a blanket for him. I went like crazy for awhile, then I kind of languished a little. Then I realized it was May, and the baby was due in May so I started knitting a little quicker, albeit, not quick enough.



I chose the Modern Baby Blanket from Mason Dixon Knitting, it was cute, looked like fun, and was something I had never done before. I knit an Intarsia baby blanket for my nephew in 2002, and I never want to sew together that many squares every again, this blanket, no seaming. None. I had a really hard time choosing yarn, I wanted to use the Rowan Calmer, really wanted to, but I need 12 balls and at $13/ball it just wasn't going to happen. I spent a really long time at the LYS looking at different DK-ish yarns, the washing instructions and the colours. I had already decided on the colour look I wanted and it needed to be easy to take care of, and not stretch out of shape since it was going to be fairly large. I settled on Sirdar Snuggly, acrylic, I known, but it feels nice, washes well and the colours were right. Well, as right as they could have been, the Calmer colours were RIGHT.





And it was fun, the squares (and I use that term loosely, they're acutally rectangles) started off being small and quick. Then they got bigger and took longer and longer. I'm pretty sure the second to last set (2 side by side knit at the same time) took forever. Then, it was finished and I thought I would maybe do an applied I-cord border, so, I consulted the project pages on Ravelry and I like the look of it so off I went to learn how to do it. Then to decide what colour. I laid the blanket out on the floor and consulted the boys. "Navy Blue or Brown" I asked them (7.5 and 4.5 by the way). The small one didn't have much of an opinion, but the big one said "Well, there is a lot of dark blue around the edge and not as much brown so I think it would show up better and look nicer if it were brown". I couldn't argue with that logic, Jer had been thinking blue, but had his mind changed by C.



I applied I-cord for an hour on Sunday night and didn't even make my way across one of the short sides of the blanket, very discouraging. But then Monday night I was an I-cord machine just zooming around churning it out. I had to make myself go to bed because the end was in sight and I could have stayed up to finish, but it would not have been smart. So I finished it last night. It looks so good. Other than my too-tight cast off across one of the ends that alters the square-ness of the whole thing, I'm pretty happy with it. I hope they are too.



Moderne Baby Blanket from Mason-Dixon Knitting
For Liam McKinley H.
4.5mm circular needle
Sidar Snuggly DK, Ivory, light blue, navy blue, brown

Secret Project

Well, my secret project can now be revealed since it has been given to the recipient. Although, it probably wasn't that secret since I have mentioned it here before, but after my Mom got on Ravelry I decided not to talk about it anymore in case she read this. Are you reading Mom?

For my Mom's birthday I knit her Mags Kandis' Modern Quilt Wrap. The momment I saw this pattern on Knitting Daily last summer I knew it would be perfect for my Mom, the quilter, the knitter.



I ordered the Rowan Kidsilk Haze in the colours recommended in the pattern from Webs in early September. All of it was backordered. Forever. I think it was February before I finally received it.



I started knitting March 1, with my May 29th deadline. It was slow to begin, I've never worked with Kidsilk Haze before, it's very tiny and I was using my Addis because that's what I had and I don't really like bamboo so I wasn't going to buy any unless this really wasn't going to work.



It works. And I got faster once I got the hang of it, pretty slippery though and the grey yarn was tough to see on the silver needles. I really enjoyed knitting this, I though I would get tired of mitred squares, but I think the colour changes every 5-7 rows kept the interest higher. I finished on May 1st. I wove in the ends as I went and I'm so glad I did. I think I had about 8-10 ends to sew in when I was done and after I clipped them off, I added them to the one cup of ends I already had. I don't even want to think about how many that is.



It turned out really beautifully, although, I'm a bit critical of the edges, but that's my own pathology.



Modern Quilt Wrap by Mags Kandis
From
Folk Style: Innovative Designs to Knit, Including Sweaters, Hats, Scarves, Gloves and More, but I downloaded it as a free pattern from Knitting Daily
Rowan Kidsilk Haze
4.5mm Addi Turbos

Someday soon it should stop raining and I'll show you all my unfinished "Earth" projects. And my new RSC08 yarn!

Good luck Mr. M

My small boy is in his first year of Kindergarten (there are 2 years here, Junior and Senior). He loves it, he loves his teacher the bald (an important fact to the 4 year old) Mr. M. This is also Mr. M's first year teaching, and it's Kindergarten. He struggled a bit at first, you could see his frustration, but he has come a long way and has been having a lot of fun with them. The kids adore him.

On May 2nd we got a note home from school saying that the teacher on Maternity leave was coming back early and that Mr. M was leaving and that his last day would be May 9th. A week. New teacher starting on the 12th to finish the last six weeks of school. I won't go into the moaning and complaining and general discontent this caused with the parents, as those of you with kids can probably well imagine. It turns out that Mrs. S is pregnant again, needs to get her weeks in so she can get her full leave again and because Mr. M is the newbie, he gets shuffled off to go teach grade 3 for 6 weeks.

But this is about knitting right! Since the momment I saw Koolhaas in the Holiday Interweave, I knew I wanted to make it for Mr. M for his end of the year gift. And, I knew it would be the perfect project for my first Malabrigo experience. I found some at the Knitters Frolic in Toronto a few weeks ago, lucky, since I had such short notice of his departure and wouldn't have time to order some.



I started knitting that night. I kind of wish I used the opportunity to learn to cable without a cable needle, but I got into a good rhythm and didn't want to mess it up.



I am so happy with this hat, I loved loved LOVED the Malabrigo. I forgot to take picutres of the hat on my husbands full sized head, so my (not quite) 8 year old agreed to be the hat model for me.



Mr. M liked it too.

Playing receptionist today

My husbands secretary is ill today, so I'm filling in. I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just sort of muddling through. I need to fill in for a week in June though, so this is good practice. But on with the knitting.

I finished the socks for my MIL in mid April (yes, I'm a bad knit blogger), on what I though was going to be the last chilly day of the season, but good old Mother Nature has decided that we do indeed need spring and not spummer.



This is the Retro Rib Sock from Interweave Knits Favorite Socks, knit in the lovely Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight, Love in Idleness. It's so pretty!



She was wearing them today when she came to watch the small people for me and says they fit perfectly. It's nice to make socks for people whose feet are the same size as your own (I'm sure I've said that before)



I went to the DKC Knitters Frolic in Toronto last weekend. Ooo it was fun. Lettuce Knit was there with a table full of STR. I came home with a mediumweight skein in Philosophers Stone and a lightweight in Moss Agate. I also got a Tulip kit, because I couldn't hold out any longer, and a skein of Malabrigo Worsted to make a Koolhaas hat for J's Kindergarten teacher. I'm in love with the Malabrigo. I want my sheets made out of it. There is more in my future, guaranteed.

Well, my car knitting wasn't in the car (silly me for not checking) so I have no knitting. Tragic isn't it? So those poor ribbed socks languishing in the WIP pile will languish a little longer, the ribbing is done though and I'm ready to turn the heel.

Coming soon, the secret project.

Oh what a Tangled Yoke we knit

So, it was a couple of weeks ago, but Tangled Yoke is done. It's so so pretty, I'm really glad I knit it.

The Pattern: Tangled Yoke Cardigan, by Eunny Jang. Interweave Knits Fall 2007
The Yarn: The recommended Rowan Felted Tweed (amazing!) in Herb. Turns out, it's a good colour for Project Spectrum, Earth.



The pattern was very well written and I had surprisingly little trouble doing cables from a chart for the first time. The cable rows were crazy long and sometimes quite complex, I was only able to get one cable row and one purl row done in an evening. That was about how much my brain could handle too.



I started in November 2007 and worked on it was I was either bored with Avast or waiting for something that was backordered that I needed for Avast. The fit is OK, the lower arms are a little big, but not bothersome big and when I tried in on after I finished the yoke, I thought it was smaller, almost too small, but it's not. It's good, it's a really nice sweater. I like it.



I'm not sure why the husband didn't tell me my hair was so weird. This is why I'm always the one behind the camera.

Next, a stash update!

Big Grey Sweater? Check.

The Big Grey Sweater is done.

I started knitting Avast, for Jer, in August 2007. He is a picky, picky man when it comes to his clothing so it took a long time for him to decide on a pattern and I stressed the entire time if the final product was going to be to his liking. And it is.



It took me too long to knit this, I admit. I took breaks between pieces to knit other things, I had to wait for back ordered needles and I ran out of yarn at one point. Amazingly, I found more of the same dye lot in a store in a very different city from where I bought the orginal. So finally, on Saturday night after reading a number of tutorials on how to sew in a zipper, I sat down with my needle and thread and 2.5 hours later (so painfully long, there is a reason I don't sew) the sweater had a zipper, and I was done. There was very little seaming, the body was knit in one piece to the armpits, then the sleeves were added and the whole thing knit, doing raglan decreases, to the neck. The only seams were sleeves and hems, there was a lot of picking up and knitting to create the hems and I am now much better at it.



I used Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed in Night, which I believe is now a discontinued colour. It's a beautiful yarn, but the cabled band that runs along the bottom of this sweater doesn't show up very well and that is a little disappointing. I didn't really alter the pattern much, I'm no designer, but I did add extra length everywhere for my husband and his Monkey arms. I'm really quite happy with the fit, it's a great sweater for the long and lean.



Now, back to stalking the mailbox for my RSC package.

Nothing like a good block

I finished the scarf for my brother's wife this weekend. It was a really quick, easily memorized pattern resulting in a very nice scarf. It could be a bit a longer, if I had more wool. The length is pretty good though, it's around 58in.



The pattern is Crest of the Waves Scarf by Judy Jacobs and I used Misti Alpaca Worsted. With it being a worsted weight I decided to do a somewhat lacey scarf a)to take full advantage of the yardage and b)to make it a little less warm since L tends to wear her scarf all day, inside and out. We don't want to boil the girl. I liked the look of the scarf before I blocked it, but it's amazing now.



I didn't do the tassels or beads on the ends, I'm kind of anti-tassel. I think she probably is too, again because of the wear the scarf all day issue. And I've never seen her wearing a scarf with tassels.



I hope she likes it!

This week - zipper, egg basket, and button bands.

Another one bites the dust

My basket is getting more and more empty!

I did start the Serendipity socks, only to frog what I did because it was too big and knit it again, and I'm just about done with the first pattern repeat. But! I finished Jeremy's slippers! I made him felted clogs a year ago (have I told this story before?) and he loves them, says they have changed his life. He didn't want me to go out and buy more wool to make them as I had enough feltable bits left over from other things that I could make him a non-matching pair. So, he has one purple/white slipper and one green/white slipper. What he wanted was a second pair so he could leave the mismatched pair at his office so he can wear them at the end of the day when he's doing paperwork and returning phone calls (no patients!), and have a pair at home. And being the (somewhat) good knitting wife I am, I made his giant feet another pair.



The problem. They are really wide. Does anyone know how to fix that without making them any shorter? I'm afraid to put them in the washer again because the length is good, but they are really floppy.

Hopefully by Monday I'll have an "all but the zipper" post about Avast. The end is in sight! I need to do the bottom band and a little bit of seaming (hems and sleeves). Then the zipper, even though I'm not quite sure how the zipper is actually going to get attached to the sweater.

Those of you that are getting buried under snow and freezing rain (like we are today) be safe!