Something Totally Different

Something I didn't count on when I was finishing the Spring Celebration Wrap was the question of "What next?".   It's sort of like finishing a really good and engaging book; I was at a bit of a loss for what to do next.

But that didn't last long.  I've been hankering after a pair of fingerless mitts for most of the winter and I finally had some time to knock out a pair.  I had a ball of wool from my stash that I quite liked but was having trouble figuring out how to use.  This is Autumn Flame from Sweetgeorgia Yarns.

I found a simple pair of mitts on Ravelry called Chillchasers by Shannita Williams and they were perfect.  They were simple to make (only took 48 hours), long enough to cover my wrist and lower arm,

had a thumb that was worked into the design

and had something new for me to learn.  You see - I've never learned how to do an I-cord.  For 13 years or so, I've managed to dodge it.  Do you ever take an irrational dislike to something?  I did - to i-cords.  And I decided I was going to correct it.

The I cord, as you can see was easy enough to learn but ironically, in this case, I don't think it works.  I wore these at work today and the binding around the fingers was just a wee bit to firm.  I would have preferred a looser edge to allow more movement of fingers.  Perhaps next time.  Right now, I'm still marvelling that something so simple could do such a great job of keeping me warm in a cool office.

However, having finished them so fast, I'm back where I was.  What next?

New Yarn and One Sock

This past week was somewhat difficult.  There was a major professional deadline to be met and a major winter storm came through.  My boss is a big fan of me working from home when the weather is poor so I've been at home since Wednesday!  On Tuesday night as I drove home I figured I'd be able to get some spinning done, and move ahead with my knitting, tame the laundry monster and get the floors cleaned all while hitting that deadline with ease.

HA!  What a joke.....that professional deadline ended up being tighter than I thought but I had everything done by 5:00 on Friday.  The downside is the laundry monster is still rampaging upstairs and the floors still aren't clean.

I did however get some spinning done.  This is my very first attempt at a three ply yarn.

The colour is called "Tavern" and is part of the spinning colour Six Pack from SweetGeorgia Yarns.  I'm much happier with the finished look and feel of this compared with the two-ply yarns I've been making up until now but that could possibly be because maybe, perhaps, I'm getting better at this.  I've also learned that I'm not a good judge of how a dyed roving will look when it's been spun.  I thought the roving for this was straight up ugly.  No nice way to say it, but I'm quite taken with this finished yarn.

I also have a finished sock in the Fleece Artist yarn I showed you last week and have done about half the leg on the other sock.  I decided to give them to Chuck for no particular reason other than I thought he'd like them.  I was right - he's looking forward to having them.

I'm also considering the purchase of a new spinning wheel.  I have a lovely Jacob Plum wheel that works well and is in good repair but that has the distinct liability of only having one bobbin - makes making a decent three-ply yarn more of a production than it needs to be.  I knew when I bought the wheel that this was going to end up being a problem and since there isn't a local 'Jacob Plum' dealer it's not a simple thing to get parts.  I know I can send the entire flyer assembly to a guy who will make bobbins to order and that's all well and good, but what happens when something else breaks or wears out?  

The quest is on.

Hope Springs Eternal

It's true.  Hope does eternally spring up and it can take many forms.

Like my dog who wants nothing more than to just lie out in the sun.  He's been dancing at the door all day asking to go out.   But it's -12C with a fierce windchill and he's a skinny hound with a very thin coat so he'll stick with a sunny spot on the carpet.

I've started work on the Autumn Arbor Stole again.  This has been hibernating for a few months now since the dog pictured above gave the yarn cake a shake.  It is now about 3/4 finished and sadly, I'm getting a little bored with it.  I have about 140 rows to go and then have to graft the two pieces together.  The good news is the first half is done.

I got this in the mail the other day.  The colours are really "in your face" bright and there is some silver thread woven through it so it sparkles.  Kinda like Unicorn puke.  Totally not my thing but I keep picking it up and looking at it and wondering what I could do with it.  Socks is definitely a possibility but I'm going to keep looking.  Then again, I have a niece who might just adore a cowl made from it.

Now this Fleece Artist BFL sock yarn is more my style. I cast on for socks last week at Mount Pakenham and didn't touch this all week.  I did this yesterday and am totally enthralled by this.  My husband keeps eyeing it as well so I may lose it.

And to prove that hope really does spring eternal, I got out my book on companion planting, re-did the garden plan (you can see the new one here) and ordered my seeds today.   This is my garden as of right now.  You can sort of see the rectangular area that is a little rougher than what is around it.

Yeah, it's pretty cold today but the sun is shining, the birds are mobbing the feeders we have out and the sun is in the sky longer and longer everyday.  Hope springs eternal.

Pirouette

It takes some oomph to get up again after making a mistake.  More so when you make the same mistake twice.  The Semele scarf was a bit of a surprise when I ran out of yarn, even after being weighed.  Twice.  So to do the same style of scarf again - measuring by weight - was, in my mind at least, tempting fate.  Still, I had an idea what I wanted to do.

Here is Pirouette, inspired by Storm Warning by Liz Corke.  This was made with SweetGeorgia Yarns Silk Crush; a 50/50 superwash merino and silk blend.  It is 375yds / 115 g (Only in Canada will you see such a blend of metric and imperial measurements...).  The colour is called "At the Ballet" and since it is the January 2013 Sock Club yarn, it is not yet available to the general public.  The beads are called "Roses & Diamond".  The finished dimensions are 60 inches measured straight from tip to tip and 10 inches deep at the widest part.

This is a slim crescent shaped scarf with three primary motifs.  

There is a slender faggotting column along the top edge, 

a stockinette panel which defines the overall shape and a beaded sawtooth motif on the bottom.

The bead work was fiddly and slowed down the knitting process but it offers a fascinating design element that gives a lot of glamour to a very simple pattern.  I think I'll incorporate more of this.  

There are a variety of methods to place beads;  I used a tiny (0.75mm /US 12) crochet hook.  

The hook is small enough to slide through the eye of the bead but still has enough of a hook to actually catch and hold the yarn.  

A note on beads: I don't remember where I read this, but I heard that Czech beads were of a much better quality than most others.  I was able to find Czech beads in a local art supply store in a 24 g tube (about $5.00 CDN) and there was only one bead that I couldn't use.

The big drawback I see to incorporating beads is the project is no longer a good candidate for travel knitting.  The risk of dumping your tube of beads is just too great.  So as I sat at Mount Pakenham yesterday while my son had a snowboarding lesson, I cast on a pair of socks using this.  This is BFL Socks by Fleece Artist in Nebula (I think).

And I think I'm about ready to finish the Autumn Arbor Stole by Anne Hansen.  Lets see if I can do it without my dog 'helping' me again.

Step Away

I'm clearly not destined to have this scarf.  Do you see the problem?

How about now....

I don't know how I did this.  This is about how big it was the first time I made it, when I realized I wasn't going to have enough wool to finish it.  I ripped it back totally, paid very careful attention to the rate of increase, started the even section in the middle one repeat early, and only did one repeat even instead of two before starting to decrease.  By rights, I should have lots of yarn left over.   Words fail me.
**actually, in the interest of full disclosure, words did not fail me but I'm trying to keep this family friendly.

So I did the only thing I could do.  I very carefully folded it up and put it away with the pattern before I poked my eyes out with the needles, or strangled myself with the cable.

And wound this into a cake.

This is from SweetGeorgia Yarns and is the January 2013 Sock Club yarn called "At the Ballet".   It is 50% merino and 50% silk so I'm not going to make socks out of it.  I prefer my socks to have 15 - 20% nylon simply because I think they wear better in the heel and toe.

I'm going to make another single skein scarf (glutton for punishment, I know...).  The pattern here is called Storm Warning by Liz Corke and you can find it on Ravelry.

As you can see, I've knit some of it and I don't totally like the combination of the yarn and pattern.  Firstly, I'm not a huge fan of garter stitch and a whole pile of this scarf is going to end up as one big swath of garter stitch.  Secondly, I think there is too much going on.  The sawtooth edging, the cable and the garter stitch are all textural elements and with the combination of the strongly varigated yarn, the texture is being lost.   If I had a tonal yarn, I think this would be perfect - even with the garter stitch.   I have a few ideas about how to change this so I'll work it again to this point and see what I think.

So did anything work out well this morning?  Well, yes as a matter of fact, something did work out well.  I simply adore the beads in this and whatever I end up doing, the beads will be part of it.

Update

I spent a few hours playing around and I now have this.  A simple twisted column on the top, a stockinette panel in the middle and I kept the beaded sawtooth motif at the bottom.  This has potential.

Lakeshore Drive

So I finished spinning up the roving from SweetGeorgia Yarns.  This was 28g (1 oz)  from the spinning colour six pack in Lakeshore Drive.  The fibre is Superwash Blue-Faced Leicester - for those of you who care to know such things.

I'm really quite taken with this.  I even managed to get a sneaky photo of my camera shy cat.

 

It isn't plied as tightly as I'd like it to be, but I figure this is still a learning process.  I know I can run this through my wheel again to put more twist into it - I might go ahead and do that anyway.

But I really am pleased with the colours in the end result.  

The Semele scarf is progressing too.  I've passed the halfway point and have started decreasing towards the end point.  Apologies for the poor quality photo.  I only ever seem to think of getting a picture of this after the sun has gone down.

Raspberry Fizz

It's amazing what can be accomplished once there is a little pressure and a deadline.

Here is the first of three projects I'm aiming to complete before Christmas.  At the time of this writing, I have 32 days remaining to complete another scarf which is far less complicated than this (and to be fair - it's already half finished) and a pair of socks - which I can almost knit in my sleep.  I think it's a reasonable goal.

The pattern is Alhambra by Anne Hanson.  This is the third time I've knit this so I'm getting faster at it.  The first time, it took me 5 weeks.  The second time was 3 and now I'm down to 2.  Two weeks for a lace scarf.  Not bad.  Like the others I've made, this is knit in SweetGeorgia CashSilk Lace - a lovely blend of cashmere and silk.  The colour is called "Orchid".

One down, two to go.  Knit on!

Knitting Update

It's been a while since I've posted anything related to knitting so without further ado, here's what's going on.

This is called Semele (you can find it on Ravelry here) and is knit in Indigodragonfly's Merino Silk 4-ply Sock yarn.  This is lovely stuff to work with, very soft and the finished product has a wonderful sheen. In the right light, it will be almost iridescent   The colour is called 20,000 Lawyers Under the Sea.  Kudos to Kim for endless creativity and a spot of humour in naming her yarn.  I'm undecided who is going to get this when it's done.  It might end up under the tree for Christmas.  Then again, I do like it so I might keep it.  

This one is definitely going to be under the tree.  Since I don't know if the individual in question reads this I'm going to be very vague about the recipient.

This is knit in a lovely baby llama from Illimani.  According to their website, once llama has been "dehaired"  (i.e. the coarse outer hair has been removed) the resulting fleece is as soft as cashmere,  while being warmer, lighter and stronger than wool.  I believe it.  This is a fairly thick scarf but still has a lovely drape to it.  Having worked with cashmere, I agree this is as soft and now that it's long enough to pool in my lap as I work, I can tell it will be very warm.  I hope the recipient likes it.  Apologies for the dog hair in the photo - some things you just can't get away from around here.  Dog hair is one of them.

A last minute "gotcha", is my brother announced that he's moving in with his girlfriend.  She's a lovely girl and I'm very happy that she'll be part of our family, but dammit, now that she's part of the family I have to figure her into the family knitting.  I mentioned much earlier - last March I think, that all the women were getting scarfs for Christmas.  I found out her favourite colour is pink so here we go - one more scarf to be done before Christmas in what is becoming my go-to scarf yarn CashSilk Lace by sweetgeorgia yarns.  I figure since the rest of my shopping will be done online, I can spend the time I'd normally spend plowing through herds in a mall sitting at home and knitting.  

Oh, and a pair of socks too!  Recipient to be announced.

I can do this....I think.