Spring (yeah... sure) cleaning

As spring tries to arrive (the blizzard we had yesterday did not really give me confidence) my winter knitting is wrapping up. I basically knit for 4 days straight over the Easter weekend. And now I have an extra day because this cold virus I've got is getting worse before it gets better.

I finished the socks for my grandparents. They ended up being an Easter gift instead of xmas! lol

(my feet)

(Grandpa's feet)

Both patterns were from Favorite Socks, a lovely sock book. G & G were thrilled!

And I achieved something huge yesterday:

I finished my sweater.



If you go back to my very first post last April, you'll see it when it was only a bit of ribbing. Aw those were the days ;) It has grown up into a very very thick, warm sweater. Maybe if, heaven forbid, winter sticks around a wee bit longer I'll be able to wear it and not sweat to death!! I love it anyway and I know it will keep me warm when those -40 days hit again next year.

A momentous thing happened as a result of this sweater. My hubby, upon seeing my completed sweater asked me if I would would make him a sweater. To put this into context, every time I've asked him if I can make him one, he gets this disgusted look on his face and says "No that's ok", like he's envisioning the ugliest sweater imaginable, in his least favourite colour. My sweater must have really impressed him!! Little did he know he's got me started down that treacherous trail that leads to feeding my addiction with more knitting... I'm thinking maybe a Cobblestone Pullover would look nice on him :) Now what yarn shall I choose.... hmmm

But first things first ...

Yesterday evening a new little bundle of yarn was born (I won't bore you with photos of its innocent little ribbing). It's called the Central Park Hoodie in Lion Brand Cotton-Ease. I know, I'm insane for starting another sweater... maybe I'll finish this one before winter... one can always dream right? :)

Random projects

I think I've got a system for starting new projects, a bit of a groove if you will. I've decide that I'm only starting one sweater per year. I really like sweaters but this all-over cabled, dk weight yarn deal is taking way too long... I have started the second sleeve though!! hooraaaay!

I like completing projects. I have finished one sock from each pair of socks for my grandparents. (photos to come when I finish the pairs).

I also finished my moebius cat bed. The cats already know what it is! :)



She walked onto it herself.


It still needs to be felted so that it stands up. I think I'm going to start a moebius bag next. Stay tuned!

And I tried out Cat Bordhi's newest book, New Pathways in Sock Knitting, the little coriolis sock. I'm going to give it to friends of mine who has a little girl.



They were a challenge but I like a challenge!!
I want to start an adult sized pair from that book but I need to finish the other socks... all part of trying to ration my projects so I don't get overwhelmed.

SOCKS!!!

What do you buy your grandparents for xmas? They're very difficult to shop for. I decided to give them an IOU for something everyone needs!
Socks!
I was really overwhelmed when started looking at sock yarn- so many colourways and fibres to choose from! I had to call Grandma and ask her what colours she and Grandpa liked. She said blues and that she liked pastels. Then the she was like: "You'll make them the same right?" She's not a knitter, bless her heart. :) I picked out a pattern for each of them from my new book "Favorite socks".
Here's what I have for Grandma's pair so far (Regia Silk) :




And Grandpa's,

This one is particularly nice because it's made with Patons classic merino!

I'd probably be finished but I'm waiting on double pointed needles from knitpicks. Speaking of knitpicks, I got my first of three orders this week!!! YAAAY :) I'm now a yarn-oholic..... *jumps up and down excitedly* This batch will be turned into various moebius projects.... tba ;)


One last exciting thing: I found this amazing site called Ravelry. It's a knitter's dream!! It's a knit/crochet community and it's a billion times better than facebook! A billion.

Christmas Knitting

I've been a busy knitter this xmas season and now that everyone has their gifts, I can post the photos. I think this xmas marks a new phase in my addiction ;) I've now busted out of knitting just for me and started to feel confident enough in my knitting to make gifts. :)

I started out by making Knucks for all the men in my life (hubby, dad and bro). Chris was kind of my guinea pig. He loved the idea. I was a little unsure but in the end my dad (below) and bro loved them too.



I also decided to knit gifts for my two office parties. The one gift exchange had a nocturnal theme so I decided to get a little creative. I found this cabled owl motif on a dish cloth and decided to make a hat with it. I knit it with Bernat Wool Blends. The woman who picked my gift was a knitter herself and loved it!!


For my other exchange I made a Pocket Creature which warms your hands in winter. :) I really enjoyed making the hair!

It's so satisfying to make gifts, especially for little kids. I made the most adorable hat for the daughter of our friends Mike and Anna. She's two and just the sweetest little girl. When she tried it on, she kept looking in the mirror and grinning. I wish I'd gotten a photo of her but I only have one of the hat. It's knit in Patons Canadiana (as is Uni, above).


I was weaving in the ends on the hat one evening and I found out that I have one of the most well behaved, patient cats a knitter could ask for. This one (Ella) and my other cat both know that playing with my yarn is off limits!


I also have an update on the sweater I've been working on since last spring!


Just one sleeve to go!!!!

I got a lot of cool knitterly stuff for xmas so look forward to some cool projects in the future. I've very very excited to start knitting moebius projects from Cat Bordhi's second treasury I'm waiting on yarn and needles from Knitpicks (my new favorite site!) right now for those projects. Also watch for SOCKS from various pattern sources including Knitty and Favorite Socks by Interweave. Socks are going to be my new thing. I just found this site called Simply Sock Yarn. Can't wait to try it out!!

Yup 2008 looks like a very promising year of knitting!!!!

Sweaters...

When I'm knitting on the bus, random people will often talk to me. They like to know what I'm knitting. I think most of the time they probably think "scarf" but I've been into sweaters lately.



Sweaters are the quintessential knitted item.



If you go into any store right now, you'll see that cabled sweaters are the "in" item of the season. When I see these sweaters, I think "I could make one of those and make it better". In our society though, we like to have everything right now, and knitting a sweater by hand takes time. I have two sweaters and a summer top in the works right now. (The summer top is on hold until spring.) I wrote about them in a previous post. I've been working diligently on the most ambitious, and consequently the most fun, sweater which has an all over cabled pattern in DK weight yarn. I have the front and the back finished and was very excited to pin it and try it on. It actually fits me pretty well. :) But here's the thing. I would probably prefer it to be a little longer. Unfortunately it was knit bottom up and I don't really want to unravel 6 months of work for a couple of inches of length.



The thing that I find most satisfying about knitting and sewing is that I can tailor the clothes to fit me. I have long arms and so have difficulty with some shirts in stores being shorter than I prefer. Same goes for my long legs. I could not find acceptably long pj pants in any stores, so I sewed my own. With sewing you just measure the fabric, sew it up and tada! It fits. If it doesn't take it in, or let it out. Knitting is different. With knitting you have to make the fabric! And you can't try it on half way through. On my previous sweater attempt, I was so intent on making the sleeves long that I made them a little too long. (I still love the sweater though!) I'm realizing now that I won't be able to knit a perfectly fitting sweater the first time, and certainly not without altering the pattern.



Knitting the perfect sweater is a journey, littered with too-long sleeves and too-short torsos. I will wear these imperfect sweaters (they're not too bad....) because I put in so much time to make them. Along the way, however, I'm learning how exactly to modify future sweaters so they fit me!! I'm up for the challenge, especially with a long, cold winter ahead!



Maybe after I master knitting sweaters for myself, my husband will finally let me knit him a sweater...

Felting/Fulling

Last xmas I knit up a pair of slippers at my dad's place. I was hoping to "full" them in his washing machine but I realized I'd left my last ball of yarn at home in Winnipeg, an 8 hour drive away! So I had to finished knitting them when I got home. :(

Fulling is the process of turning a %100 wool, knitted item into felt through exposure to friction and heat. Technically, the term "felting" refers to the same process but with raw fiber that has not been spun and knitted. You can "full" an item by hand in a sink of hot water. I had used that method for mittens and the hat/booties in my last post but my slippers would have taken a lot of elbow grease not to mention hours! The problem is I live in an apartment with coin op washers. These offer no control of water levels or timing of the cycle, not to mention the number of quarters I'd need! I did see an article on fulling your knitting in a bucket with a plunger. Maybe I'll try that another time.

So I waited until I was home at my dad's once again this Thanksgiving. To my dismay, he'd gotten a new front loading washer and I had read that you couldn't use them for fulling. I did a little searching online though and found that at least one person had tried it. So I figured I'd give it a whirl. It worked!

Here's how I did it:

I put the slippers in a zippered pillow cover and threw them in the washer with a pair of jeans (to increase agitation because front load washers have less agitation to be nicer on clothes).

I ran it through a hot wash and cold rinse, without soap. I used the "quick wash" option because it had the lowest water level. It was also a shorter cycle which proved useful because I could check my slippers' progress. It may be more difficult to do smaller items in a front loader because they might felt too fast and it's difficult to stop mid cycle. My slippers took about 4 cycles though. I let it go on the spin cycle too, on medium speed. It really sped up the drying process!

I am very happy with the results and I'll definitely use my dad's front loader again!

Allison

Itsy bitsy booties....

Being newly married, I have to be careful when I tell people I'm knitting booties. I told my grandparents and they said "OH! really??" I had to qualify that by saying "for a friend..."

Just because I'm knitting booties, doesn't mean I'm pregnant!!!!!

So with that said, my friends Nathan and Carly just had a baby girl. I knit them the cutest little felted booties from a free pattern online. They're made with Patons Classic Merino. Great yarn to felt. It has a wonderful soft texture. Here's a photo:



Then I decide to make a hat as well. The pattern was from the book "Felted Knits". I made it from some leftover yarn from my sweater: lambs pride (by brown sheep co.) which is a wool/mohair blend. Just beautiful for felting. The hat fit me before felting but now it's very much baby sized :) I finished it in two days. Here are a couple of photos:



There are numerous ways to felt items. I don't have in suite laundry (or any friends who would let me use their washers!!) so I do small projects in the sink. I just fill it up with hot water and scrub until it felts (~20 minutes). I find you have a lot of control over the the felting process when you do it by hand. It's also therapeutic in a way.... kind of like making bread. :)

Until next time....
Alley