Knitting Al Fresco

It would seem that one large home improvement project per year is the way we roll around here. Two years ago it was the roof and last year...windows. Those were great but when they're done, you don't get anything new out of the deal just updated versions of what you already had. This year is different. As of tonight, I have large machinery in my back yard.

For the last couple of years, I've plunked down a cheapo gazebo - the kind you get at Canadian Tire. It's been a great place to hang out on warm summer nights and surf the net or to knit. I had little white tea lights suspended from the roof of the gazebo to make it just a bit more magical. When it collapsed last fall, I decided to invest in an oasis of my own and to do some proper landscaping. So, this year - we're installing a patio, pergola and some gardens.

I had a very talented young landscape designer create the plan for me and now, we execute it. Here is day 1. the digging has commenced and all looks good. The patio will be this brick and the pergola will look like this. I'll be buying the plants later this week and completing the final installation myself on Canada Day this Friday. If all goes well, I'll be sipping some of our new Trius Rose on my new patio this long weekend whilst working on my Kowloon cardigan. I did complete my Maritime cardi so look for pictures of that soon!

Stay tuned for an update as this oasis progresses.

Time Machine

I wish I had one. Wow - my last post was Jan. 30 so here I am four months later finally posting again. I have a new job managing a winery with the same company I've been with for the last six years. It's exciting and busy...hence the lack of blogging. Hallet's Ledge is coming along nicely and the second sleeve it about 2/3 done so just the button and neck bands to do after the arms are attached.

Spring has been slow to arrive but now that it's finally here - I'm jonseing for some warm weather knits.

In particular, I'm quite taken with the new book from Fibrespates called Scrumptious Knitting. This lovely cardigan is made from some laceweight. I have some Hepburn from Abstract Fiber in a shade called "Big Girl Pink". This is the pink that was mentioned on the Knitmore Girl's Podcast. Now the two skeins are quite differently shaded so I'm either going to have to alternate every other row or shade from dark to light.

I also love this lacy cardigan from the same book. My stash of Green Stinkbug Skinny Bugga will be perfect for this one too. I bought it to make the Austin Hoodie but ended up getting the Tosh Merino Light anyway.

I'm plugging away on a garter stitch vest called Desert from the Savannah book from Rowan. The lilac shade is so pretty and the strips of garter stitch are a welcome diversion when my brain is fried. With a new job there's lots of information to cram in so many nights - I'm only good for garter stitch. The strips are knit one way and then the other way with a yoke of short rows to finish it off.

I'm excited about my trip to BC in a couple of weeks so stay tuned for lots of nice pictures as I hook up with a couple of knitting buddies in Vancouver. I'll certainly need to learn how to blog from my iPad.

Out on a Ledge

I do enjoy blogging - really I do! You'd never know it from the infrequent posts last year but it's been a busy but good year. Amongst all of the craziness is still yarn. And although I dabble in several fibre arts - knitting remains my first love. I fell head over heals in love with Hallett's Ledge from the Fall 2010 Twist Collective. I find cables so soothing and zen - I always find myself thinking I must do more when I'm working on a cabled project.

I do so love the Rowan Felted Tweed and couldn't pass up a chance to use it for this design. I got a new Nikon D3100 for Christmas so I've been playing with it a bit. I'm no Jared Flood but here are my attempts at showing the beautiful texture of the design as well as the flecks of caramel and icy blue that highlight the ivy shade of Felted Tweed. I've actually manged to remain monogamous since crawling out on "the ledge". It's just that satisfying.

The body is done in one piece and I've pinned it to Judy just to get a sense as to how it will hug the body. It spurs me on to keep at the sleeves.

I'll be going to Madrona in a couple of weeks and I'll be taking a photography course with Franklin Habit so fingers crossed - hopefully there will be some better shots to come!

Sheep to Haul


This past Friday the Canadian fibre contingent headed up to Rhinebeck NY for the sheep and wool festival. The weekend was a whirlwind but the highlights are as follows:




First Place in the "So Cute I Want to Steal You" category: These Australian Shepherd Puppies. I'm sure they're chewing somebody's slipper as we speak.









First Place in the "So Beautiful I Want to Steal you while your Maker is sleeping" category: Dr. Steph's Swedish Heartwarmer Shawl. Of course since she was providing the passage back to Canada - I chose a ride home over a life of crime but isn't this shawl amazing??? I'm still knitting away on mine but I'm inspired to keep going after seeing hers.




First Place in the "So Beautiful I want to buy more yarn and cast on this second" category: Glenna C's absolutely stunning cabled pullover Royale. She was nice enough to let me try it on and I couldn't click that Pay Pal link fast enough!! I'm eyeing up a nice Indigo Dragonfly yarn for this baby.



My spoils included several stops at the Jennie the Potter booth and I got a beautiful mug so each morning as I sip my coffee ( OK, more like gulp and I'm usually running late but a girl can dream) I can remember my wonderful weekend at Rhinebeck. I also got some buttons from Jennie the Potter and from Sheila and Michael Ernst but I'll blog more on those later.





Gotta run. One more weekend of weaving seminars and I'm through the most intense of the fibre activities for the fall!!

Monkey off my back



Yesterday was the Five Counties guild competition and as usual, I was finishing my entry at the last minute. Most years, I end up putting the last touches on during the car ride to the event. Since I was driving this year, I thought my passenger would appreciate an earlier push.












The pattern is the Sleepy Monkey Blanket from Twist Collective. It's really two blankets knitted in the round, steeked and then bound together wrong sides in and finished with two seperate borders (backing on each other). A final garter round seals both sides and makes the blanket totally reversible.






I spun the yarn on my Schacht Matchless and then Navajo plied it to a triple ply. The roving was superwash merino and the colours were dictated by the guild challenge. I had to use orange and green but could add other colours too. You can see the two sides here before I bound them together. The back side is quite colourful. I opted for a garter stitch border instead because it is reversible and I would have had to spin more yarn to do it as indicated in the pattern. Time didn't permit however, I'm pleased with the garter finish. The blanket is very cushy so if you make this, it's almost like a flat pillow.


The theme of the competition was "energy" so my very talented guild mate suggested we make felted balls and create an energy transfer machine ala physics class. You can see them here behind the mesh holding the display items. People did play with our machine which is what we wanted but alas - the judges didn't think it was the most "eye catching" so we're bridesmaids again. However, I loved seeing all of the entries and was so proud of the talent in our guild.

The Sleepy Monkey will be resting in my cedar chest. I can't bear to give it to anyone because there's so much of me in it. I think it will go to the first grandchild. NOT ANYTIME SOON!

A Good Bath

It sucks when you work on a project and the whole time you feel it's a disaster. Such was my experience weaving my second project - an undulating twill blanket. The yarn choice, pattern choice and sett were not "in sympatico" so I had lots of slippage. It was a rookie mistake. I powered through with some coaching from the amazing Jane Stafford who gave me some advice. The best advice she gave was to reserve judgement until the finished cloth hit the water. "A good bath often turns an ugly duckling into a swan," she counselled. She was right.

Here is the finished blanket. It was designed to act like a runner on a leather chair in our living room. Colours were chartreuse and taupe. The pattern I chose was an undulating twill which has long floats. The yarn was a silk-superwash merino blend which I thought would wear well. However, it makes it more slippery and less forgiving when it comes to fluffing up during washing to stabilize it.

When I found big gaps in my sample weaving because the yarn slipped around I panicked and e mailed Jane. She recommended a pick of plain weave 100% wool (very fine) between the picks of twill to stabilize it. Here on the close up you can see the wool picks and it certainly did the trick! The final blanket was more than 5 feet long so I was very glad to finish it off.

I washed it in warm water with Soak soap and spun it dry This was my first time using a floating selvedge and I love the way it makes everything so neat and tidy.

It looks great on the chair and I'm still amazed at how a little bath saved the day.

Summertime: Livin Easy, Fish Jumping and Cotton is on the Needles

In spite of the fact that I'm delving into other fibrey pursuits - knitting remains my fist love (rest assured). There are many projects in the queue and a couple that will make it to finished object status soon.

Here in wine country, we've been enjoying an amazing summer. Our winemakers are grinning ear to ear and they say it'll hopefully be the best vintage ever. We've been renovating here at chez veritas. The new roof was last November and now it's time for all new windows. What a difference it makes! Of course - it ain't cheap so thank goodness that most of the fall projects I'm lovin can come from stash (more on that later).

First up is a cardigan I started a few seasons ago - Maritime from Rowan 43 in Cotton Glace . I'm finally on the last sleeve so here's a sneak peek of the pieces tacked to Judy (she's such a trooper). The button band is done in a lovely lilac shade and I have funky lilac buttons with white trim to finish it off. This is very "Anthroplogie" to me. I got a navy ribbon for the waist trim.

Also chugging along is my submission for this year's spinning/weaving competition for September. It's Sleepy Monkey. Our colours are pumpkin and sage green so I'm doing the monkeys in the pumpkin and the edging will incorporate the green. I can add as many other colours as I want - just 50% of the item has to be a combo of pumpkin and green. It's a merino superwash that I've spun to worsted weight and Navajo plied.

I'm hoping to post a final review of my woven blanket once it's off the loom and washed - we'll see if a good bath can save it.

I'll leave you with a lovely glamour shot of Phoebe. She actually looks regal! You'd never know she was such a goof-ball.

Drive By Blogging

So you may be wondering how the heck the weaving is going?? It's been said that good judgement comes from experience and that experience comes from...bad judgement.

I'm getting lots of "experience".

Thanks so much to everyone who posted here and in the Handwoven study group forums to help me figure out how to save this project. It's a classic case of yarn and weave structure not being compatible. Undulating twills have long floats on top of the cloth. This is a bigger yarn and is super wash/silk blend (in other words slippery). Undulating twills it turns out are much nicer when woven in fine yarns that can grip a bit. Ah - go figure!

At any rate, the amazing Jane Stafford has suggested that I weave a pick of fine neutral 100% wool between the picks of twill to stabilize it. That's what I'm doing and it's definitely better but still a bit more "mobile" than I would like.

The true test will be when it takes a bath. Hopefully the wool picks will felt a wee bit and hold it all together.

Time will tell! I'm in the home stretch.

Feeling like a wet blanket:

I'm weaving a blanket for my husband out of City Silk in taupe and chartreuse. It's an undulating twill and I don't understand the weave structure as it's got some long floats.

I'm concerned about the end fabric though. The weave seems uniform and firm when I first do it but as it winds around the front of the loom, there are some gaping holes as the threads shift. Is this something I should be worried about or will it work itself out when I wet finish it?

This is the fabric on the top side which looks fine:

Here is the fabric underneath:

What say you oh weaving mavens?

Oh, Bugga


I manged to forgo the Koigu craze.

I even resisted stashing up on Socks that Rock


In fact, I'm quite proud of my ability to resist the "latest cool yarn" - that is, until I met Bugga.





Or should I say- Bugga met me? Oh sure, I'd heard whispers in chat rooms about its decadence and beauty. Merino, Cashmere, Nylon might be Kryptonite to some but not to me. Then Vanessa showed up at Madrona wearing her Swedish Heartwarmer shawl made in 100% Bugga. Here it is modeled by Steph at our weekend retreat in March. Vanessa kindly brought it to the Yellow House for all of us to ogle. My other knitting buddy Joy also made this out of the Mountain Bearfoot yarns originally prescribed. Both versions are stunning but I really wanted to knit with the Bugga to see what all of the fuss was about so I planned my colourway.



I want to stay close to the original colourway (done in Bearfoot Mountain Colours) but at the same time, I want to put my own stamp on things. I found inspiration in a wall calendar I have. This is the April image and I particularly love the way the red boat pops on the subdued grey/blue background. It's got a Ralph Lauren vibe that I especially like.
(The colours, not the image which is kind of goofy)





Over the month of March I acquired the necessary shades. Top left going clockwise they are: Tomato Frog, Blue Metalmark, Bog Fritillary and Sooty Dancer. I'm working on the plain section that starts the shawl done all in indigo. In this case it's Sooty Dancer.




I'm doing a huge, stranded colourwork shawl on 2.25mm needles.


I'm knitting it with the most amazing yarn ever made.



Kinda like drowning in a vat of liquid chocolate. I may not make it out the other side but I'll certainly die happy.

Spring Shell Games





Once upon a time, I was going to knit this





I purchased the Rowan Milk Cotton DK in the soft Apple Pips shade to make it. Then, I woke up and realized that I wasn't a supermodel and that the sizing just didn't work for me. So, the milk cotton has languished until now.








I LURVE this cardigan. Practical, classy. Kim has really knocked it out of the park this time with her new Summer book Misty.










Once upon a time, I was going to knit this.








I purchased the Rowan Fine Milk Cotton in the Barley shade to make it. I've seen a store sample (Julie had one in her booth at the Toronto Knitter's Frolic last year). It's stunning and I still love it BUT this lacy tank (right) is also in Kim's new book. How sweet! Wearable with skirts and jeans for summer. I think I'll repurpose the yarn for Arielle instead.




Oh yeah, and I also love this ice blue lacy cardigan (below) from the new book. It's made from Calmer and I have a half-knitted Audrey that I never finished way back in the day. I don't think I'll wear Audrey very much. I lost interest after the millionth knitter made it. I think I'll frog Audrey and use the teal Calmer for this design.




So, I'm frogging a Kim Hargreaves design to make another Kim Hargreaves design. I guess she gets the triple play here.