Pans & Needles

11:02 pm - November 10, 2012 -

Not bad for a Saturday morning

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It turns out awesome things can happen when you get up and out of the house early-ish on a Saturday morning. L and I live really close to one of (in my opinion) Toronto’s best neighbourhood farmer’s markets. Truly, Wychwood Barns is a credit to the city, and it’s one of our favourite things about where we live. We don’t always make it on a Saturday morning, but we try – it’s where we buy our coffee beans (we get the Wychwood Barns blend, of course), it’s where we buy a lot of our hearty produce, and now, it’s where I can buy wool. That’s right. Locally grown and milled wool, just steps from my house.

For most of the year the Stoddart Farm booth is only at the market on the last Saturday of the month, but in the run up to Christmas, Silvia (farmer extraordinaire) tells me she will be there every week, and I am pretty friggin’ excited about that. I mean, look at what I got!

Just the thing to relieve those February blues (or greys, whatever).

That’s 408 yards of locally grown wool – 70% Romney wool and 30% mohair – in a 100g light fingering weight. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet (it is beautifully soft, so I’m thinking shawl), but I know that I’m going to save it for February, when I need to see some green lusciousness. And really, would you look at that colour? It made my day.

Um, yes please.

Silvia raises the sheep and the mohair goats herself, and then hand paints the wool using environmentally friendly dyes. The wool itself is milled just a few hours from the city, in Elora, making the whole enterprise super-local. I didn’t have my camera with me, but her market table is a riot of colour, with yarns in numerous weights and batts and roving too. That she is the sweetest person just tops it all off. Honestly, I can’t wait to go back next week and pick up a skein of fiery orange/red laceweight I saw.

That I got this alongside Fair Trade coffee and an awesome breakfast cinnamon bun probably means that this weekend is too good to be true and I’m now bound for disaster, but oh well, I’m thinking this yarn was worth it.

Categories: Knitting, Out and about Tags: , ,
2:08 pm - November 9, 2012 -

Snapshot

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This week has been busy, but here is a snapshot (or three) of what has been going on.

First, I swatched and cast on for a new sweater. I’ll do a proper post about it when I have time, but for now I’ll just say that the pattern is Woodstove Season by Alicia Plummer and the yarn is SweetGeorgia Merino Worsted in Cypress. I am already loving the combination.

The swatch is boring, but the colour is lovely, no?

Secondly, I have been test-knitting for the shop. This is an almost-finished fingerless mitten, knit in Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend. I wish it was for me, because not only could I really use a pair of fingerless mitts, I love both this yarn and this pattern.

Third, the Daphne socks continue apace. My weekend is rapidly filling up, but if I can find a few spare hours in there, I might still be able to get them finished.

I’m a few rows away from finishing the gusset shaping on sock number 2 – so close to finishing I can practically taste it!

Categories: in progress, Knitting Tags: , ,
12:02 pm - November 7, 2012 -

Socks and socks

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Last night, I made two new sock knitters. I have taught various friends to knit socks, but this was the first time I taught in a formal environment (by which I mean, people paid me), and although I was a little nervous, it was also really fun. Watching people turn their first heel – make flat knitting into something three-dimensional – is awesome. Truly, it is knitting magic, and to watch people realize that they have mastered a technique that cool is pretty great. I taught them baby socks, since it was only a two-hour class, so not only were the heels magical, but also tiny and cute. It was seriously fun, and I think I did alright as a teacher, which was a relief.

In the world of grownup socks, stuff is happening. The same weekend I finished my Jaywalkers, I finished the first of my Daphne socks. Can we just take a minute to recognize how amazing Cookie A. is? I mean, truly. Here is a pattern that is straightforward, well written, beautiful, and not boring. What are the odds of that? Second sock syndrome? Not with her designs. I love how these are turning out, and I think the indigodragonfly Merino Silk 4-ply was a perfect choice. This photo (shot with a flash indoors – sorry), sort of shows you what I mean.

Crappy picture, lovely socks. Let’s pretend the bad quality is a way to retain the surprise in case my sister wanders over here, okay?

The silk gives the lace such richness, and the tone-on-tone variegation makes the variations in texture pop. I am going to have a hard time giving these away, which means they are going to be an excellent gift. I’m just a few rows from the heel flap on the second sock, and if all goes well, they’ll be done by the end of the weekend. (That being said, it’s only Wednesday, so anything could happen.)

Finally, remember when I said I wasn’t going to cast on any more socks until my Christmas knitting was well in hand? Well, I said that, and then an hour or so later I was leaving the house to go spend an afternoon with a friend, and realized I had no plain knitting. None. Now, I’m sure Wendy wouldn’t have minded terribly if I had charts, but it’s not really as social, so I was forced – forced! – to cast on a pair of plain socks.

These would neer be described as my colours, but I am totally loving them nonetheless.

I’m not really sure why I didn’t go for Jaywalkers again, since it’s certainly a simple enough pattern, but instead I’m knitting these in a 3×1 rib, and quite liking the result. The yarn (Fleece Artist BFL Sock in Seafoam), both in the skein and in the ball, frightened me quite a bit with it’s acid-trip-level colours, but the way they’re blending in the rib is quite pleasing. They were an excellent antidote to the greyness brought by Sandy, and although I’m now buckling down on Christmas stuff (it is November, after all), they’re a pleasant little side project and should keep my wandering eye in check over the next month and a bit.

Category: Knitting Tags: , , ,
6:35 pm - November 3, 2012 -

Jaywalkers!

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Finished at last!

These are serious contention to be my new favourite socks. I finished them last weekend and have already worn them three times, which is a pretty solid indication of knitterly satisfaction (and also why the heels look a little dull in this photo – they need a wash).

I think it’s funny how on one sock the colours are pretty randomly stacked on the other they flash in a pretty orderly way down the leg.

I have too much Christmas knitting in front of me to cast on another pair of these socks for myself, but there will be more pairs in my future. I’m going to poke around for a good self-striping yarn, I think, for my next pair, because how much fun would that be?

That being said, I loved watching these socks come together. Maybe I’m just easily amused, but watching the colours stack up was really enjoyable, as was seeing the way the colours slowly made their way around the socks. Honestly, I’m not sure this yarn is capable of pooling (or I just got lucky with the dye lot). My favourite colours in this yarn, though, were the ones that appeared as the main colours shifted. There’s a green/grey/blue in this yarn that is the exact colour of the underside of spruce needles, and every time it arrived on my needles I got a little excited to see where it would land. Those in-between colours never lasted more than two or three stitches at a time, but they were so glorious I didn’t even care.

I will say that these are among the more rigid socks I’ve knit. It might have a little to do with the yarn, which was lovely but not super stretchy, but in general the chevron pattern is not very stretchy. The width of these socks is perfect for me, but my high arch means I have to tug a little to get my foot into them. I did add a few rows to the heel flap, but next time I might add a few more, just to add a little more stretch in that area. It’s something to think about if you’re planning to knit these and, like me, have high arches.

Details
Pattern: Jaywalker by Grumperina
Yarn: Fleece Artist BFL Sock in Spruce
Needle: 2.25mm Clover bamboo dpns
Modifications: The main modification I made was to cast on the number of stitches required for the small, knit the ribbing, and then increase eight stitches evenly across the first plain row so the rest of the sock was knit in size medium. I originally planned to just go up a needle size after the ribbing, but I liked the fabric I was making, so I stuck it out. I also added a few rows to the heel flap, and just knit my normal toe instead of the one in the pattern (mostly because I didn’t even think to look at the toe in the pattern until after the first sock and then decided they should match, so I did it the same way on sock 2.) Ravelled here.

I started these way back in September (here I am knitting them on our camping trip), but if I’d focused on them, they wouldn’t have taken more than two weeks.

Categories: finished, Knitting Tags: , ,
12:34 pm - October 29, 2012 -

Jaywalking to the camera shop

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This fall has been rough on my electronics. Specifically, my expensive electronics. September saw my hard drive have a complete meltdown, and although I did have have a mostly-recent back up to restore things from, it was still stressful, especially when I wasn’t sure whether or not I was going to need a whole new computer or not.

I was doing really well in October tech-wise until last night, when L picked up my camera, and flicked it on to look through the recent photos. Or, that’s what he would have done if flicking the on switch had worked. Instead, nothing happened at all. We figured the battery must have died (I mean, the thing worked fine on Thursday and I haven’t touched it since, so…). I charged it overnight, popped it in this morning, flicked the switch, and nothing happened. My camera, it seems is a brick.

I know it’s just a piece of electronics. I know I shouldn’t have a sentimental attachment to it, but I do. I bought this camera (a Canon Rebel XT – the second Rebel DSLR Canon made) shortly after my twentieth birthday. It was the most expensive and grown-up purchase I had ever made, and I bought it with money I inherited from my Grampa Hunter, which felt like a big deal. Three months after buying my camera I moved to France. This camera – in a Ziploc bag, no less – travelled with me around Europe. It came with me to Nepal. It took many, many pictures of my parents’ gardens, my friends, my family, and my cat(s). I took this camera to the States, to the Caucuses, and to work. I have taken a lot of photos of my knitting. I went from relying entirely on the automatic settings to taking photos almost entirely with the manual settings, taking it from a glorified point-and-shoot, to a proper DSLR. A lot has happened in the last six-plus years, and it seems corny to say, but this camera has been a really reliable companion. I’ve dropped it on cobbled streets, taken photos in the pouring rain, and almost never used a camera bag, and it has always, always worked.

Six years is a long time for a digital camera, especially considering how much things have changed in that time. With that in mind, I’m a little excited about getting a new camera. I moved beyond the limits of my camera a while ago, but I’ve been reluctant to upgrade because, like that Ikea commercial, I feel a strange loyalty to all the stuff we’ve been through. This is totally silly, and I know that, but still.

Hopefully the lack of photos in this post is self-explanatory. My BlackBerry camera is woefully inadequate, but I did snap this photo of my finished Spruce Jaywalkers. I will hopefully be getting a new camera this week (I’m thinking of the Canon 60D – what do you think?), so I will have a full post with photos and details when that happens. In the meantime, here you go:

Categories: finished, Knitting Tags:
10:49 am - October 24, 2012 -

Pumpkin Hat

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No, not a hat for a pumpkin. I’m clearing this up because yesterday, a woman came into the shop looking for needles with which to knit a pumpkin hat. When I said I had just knit one too, she laughed and said, “No, not a pumpkin-shaped hat, a hat for a pumpkin.” Since that’s maybe a thing, I thought I would clarify.

Anyway, pumpkin hats. I have been planning to knit one for Baby Roud (who was born on Oct. 2 and is a little girl and just adorable) ever since, well, before she was born. I think babies should have funny hats, because it’s funny, and pumpkins in the fall are pretty cute without delving into the range of potentially tacky or overly embarrassing. I looked around for a while to find the right pattern, and eventually settled on this one: Kürbis Baby Hat by Natalja (kürbis being German for pumpkin, apparently).

I changed the pattern a little, to make it smaller for a newborn (I cast on 10 fewer stitches and knit it on smaller needles) and after a few hours I had an adorable little pumpkin hat.

It’s the curved stem that really gets me.

It is quite little, although it stretches, so I donated the original to the shop and I’m making a second, which will go to the baby. This time, I’m going to work the recommended number of stitches (10 more than last time), but stick with the tighter gauge. Honestly, it’s so quick and so cute, I think every baby I know is going to get one from now on.

Details
Pattern: Kürbis Baby Hat by Natalja
Yarn: Filatura di Crosa Zara in colourways 1928 (green) and 1939 (orange)
Needles: 2.75 mm for rolled brim, 3.25 mm for the rest
Modifications: For the first hat, I cast on 65 stitches, increasing to 70. I also purled a row to stop the brim from curling, which turned out to be unnecessary. For hat two, I cast on 75 stitches, which I will increase to 80. I won’t bother with the purl row, and when it comes to the decreases, I’ll make them all k2tog, since the ssks look messy. Photos of Pumpkin Hat 2 to come.

Category: Knitting Tags: , ,
2:35 pm - October 20, 2012 -

So long, perfect record

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Let me just start by saying that I have not been sick in about four years. I mean, I get hit by allergies in the spring and fall, and I get a cold every now and then, but I haven’t been stay-at-home sick in years. Well, until this week anyway. This week ended my no-sick streak in a big way. I missed three days of work; I went through multiple boxes of Kleenex; L made me soup; I even got to the pathetic point in sickness when you wonder if this is just going to be how it is now. I hate being sick, but as a knitter, it has its advantages.

On my first day home, I actually couldn’t knit. I spend the day wrapped in an afghan, intermittently reading and sleeping. I drank lots of tea and hot lemon (a family staple), and the next day I thought I was better. I went to work on Tuesday, feeling mostly okay. Then I went to work on Wednesday, and by the end of the night, I felt awful. I spent the next two days at home.

But, thanks to be brief uptick at the beginning of the week, I managed to make the week pretty productive. To whit: I am halfway through the first of my Christmas socks (a gift for my sister), I started a new shawl and am through the first chart, and I made a little headway on the much loved, though equally neglected, Spruce Jaywalkers. I wasn’t really planning this as a productive week obviously, so I don’t really have before pictures, but here’s what I managed to get done between sneezes and naps.

First, Christmas socks. I actually wanted to get these started a month ago (I swatched for them in August, for heaven’s sakes), but there always seemed to be something else on the needles. Anyway, on Monday night, when I was feeling a little better, I cast on the cuff for Cookie A.’s Daphne sock pattern. I fell in love with these socks when she first released the pattern, and knew it would be perfect for my sister, who always looks longingly at my handknit socks, and especially at the lace ones.

One of my favourite things about lace socks is that they’re a surprise when you put them on.

I’m knitting these in indigodragonfly’s Merino Silk 4-Ply Sock, a 50-50 silk merino blend that is very soft (and a little slippery) and perfect for the pattern. Although this is a fingering weight and the pattern calls for sport, it’s working out just fine. The colour is not quite as bubblegum as Cookie A.’s, but it’s certainly feminine, which you’d expect from a colourway called Don’t You Have an Elsewhere to Be? (Cordelia).

Here’s the expanded lace pattern. (I know this will be a good gift because I want to keep them for myself.)

Surprise!

I guess it makes sense that I started a few things this week, given all the finishing I did last week. New project number 2 is The Lonely Tree Shawl by Sylvia Bo Bilvia (hilarious name, no?). I’ve had my eye on this one since she released it a few weeks ago. It’s a free pattern, written for a worsted weight tweedy sort of yarn, and honestly, how perfect is that leafy lace for fall? Well, on Tuesday when I was in the shop, Claudia (the owner) mentioned she’d like it if I wore more garments knit from yarns we carry (I knit with shop yarns all the time, but socks and things are harder to see). I was trying not to shop for myself before Christmas, but this seemed like the perfect excuse, so I snapped up some of The Fibre Company’s Acadia – a merino, baby alpaca, and silk blend – in Douglas Fir and cast on on Wednesday.

The other reason I cast this on was because I needed something to break up all the sock action I had going on.

I just finished the first of three charts (the others are about half as many rows each) and although it looks small, I have faith in the powers of blocking. I’m thinking it will be a sort of warmer, wintry shawl, and chose the colour because it will go nicely with my dark red winter coat.

Finally, the Spruce Jaywalkers. I actually finished the first one in Nova Scotia, casting on the second during the plane ride back to Toronto. I fully planned to just buckle down and knit the second, but then other projects came along, as they do, and it just kind of stuck around. Usually a sock taking this long is an indication that I’m bored with it, but that is not the case here. I continue to delight in the colour changes and watching how they stack up, and this sock has been faithful TV and travel knitting when I didn’t have something else more pressing to work on.

One and a half socks.

The pattern is easy, but not so mindless as to be numbing, and the yarn is fun and nice to knit with. I was an inch or so above dividing for the heel when I picked these up, and now I’m into the gussets, so it probably won’t be long before this is a completed pair, which I’m quite excited about. I have another skein of this Fleece Artist BFL Sock already wound and destined to be a pair of plain socks once these one are off the needles – truly, I love this yarn.

And there you have my week. I’m feeling much better now, which probably means my knitting productivity will dip as I go back to my normal routine, but that’s okay – I’m over being sick.

Category: Knitting Tags: , , , , , , ,
2:49 pm - October 16, 2012 -

Wedding Mittens

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On Sunday, I got a front-row seat (well, I was standing, but you know what I mean) to watch two of our very dear friends get married. It was wonderful. You know how sometimes you get the feeling that a moment couldn’t be any more perfect, that everything is right and nothing could be added to make it any better? Yeah, that was Carmen and Sam’s wedding.

Yes, their wedding had an ice cream truck. Amazing, right?

We were worried it was going to rain, and it did rain a little in the morning, but it was over before we had to head to the church, and the light was perfectly flat for the photos, and everything was lush (thanks to the rain) and everyone was happy and beautiful. Truly, a perfect day.

Anyway, remember those mittens I was knitting? Well, I totally got them done in time. I finished them last Wednesday, giving them a good three days to block and dry – I spent the night before the wedding in the hotel with Carmen, which is when I wanted to give them to her. I didn’t post photos last week because I didn’t want to risk spoiling the surprise, but now that she has them I can show you how they turned out.

I had to take photos on kind of an overcast day. Nonetheless, they look okay.

I’m really pleased. They fit perfectly (thank goodness) and after a little swish in some water, they smoothed right out. The yarn also bloomed every so slightly, making them softer and filling out all the stitches. The recharted tops look pretty natural (although I’d do the palm side a little differently if I were doing them again), and all in all I think they were a pretty good gift.

Details
Pattern: Mittens with a Red Thread by Annemor Sundbo
Yarn: Cascade 220 Sport in Silver Grey (1946) and Royal Purple (803) – I used almost the entire skein of purple, but have almost half of the grey leftover.
Needles: 2.75 mm ChiaoGoo Knit Lace Red
Modifications: Probably the biggest mod was recharting the top of the mitten to add an extra half-inch to the overall length. I also chose to knit these entirely in magic loop (including the thumb), because it was easier to follow the chart when the palm stitches were on one needles and the back of the hand stitches were on the other. Otherwise, I pretty much followed the pattern as written – the only red thread I used was to hold my thumb stitches. I thought that was fair. (They are ravelled here.)

Categories: finished, Knitting Tags: , , ,
12:21 pm - October 12, 2012 -

Thanksgiving shawl

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Last weekend was Thanksgiving in Canada and we spent it with L’s parents. They live about four hours away by car, which is a bit of a ways, but great knitting time. I brought the wedding mittens with me, but between the finicky knitting and the tiny chart, they proved too much for the car. Luckily, I also brought Oaklet, which was perfect car knitting.

After all my previous indecision, I decided to stick it out. I trust that the Fleece Artist knows what she’s doing when she dyes her yarns, and wouldn’t you know it, she does! As the rows became longer and the colour repeats changed length the shawl opened up and turned almost caramel in colour (it looks a little like a chocolate bar, to be honest). Once I got into the lace, the purples and the greens started to pop, and even though I still ended up with light and dark pooling, I don’t mind one bit.

The colours are perfect for fall, no?

The finished shawl is 49 inches across the top and 18 inches deep, which is – surprise surprise – smaller than I would have liked, but still an entirely comfortable length to wear as a shawlette under a jacket, which is perfect for fall. (I should note, perhaps, that I’s actually longer (though not as deep) than the pattern measurements, which is a first.) On the pattern notes, Megan Goodacre makes specific mention of the fact that her shawl took an entire 350 yds. Although I had two skeins of this yarn, I decided I only wanted to use one, so I stuck to the pattern notes precisely – and ended up only using about 3/4 of the skein, despite going up a needle size. If I were to do this again, I would absolutely add four or eight more rows to the stockinette section, just to gain a little more length. But oh well, now I have enough Earth to knit any fancy pair of socks I want!

I also kind of wish I’d added more lace.

Details
Pattern: Oaklet Shawl by Megan Goodacre
Yarn: Fleece Artist Merino 2/6 in Earth
Needles: 4 mm Addi Turbos
Modifications: I went up a needle size because I may have finally learned that I knit more firmly than most patterns. Other than that, nothing!
Notes: If you decide to knit this shawl, when you get to the lace portion make sure to read both the written instructions and the charted ones, because they don’t entirely match at the beginning of the right-side rows. I kind of fudged this a bit and then just made sure my first set of leaves matched up so everything could flow from there, but you do have to pay attention to avoid ripping.

Categories: finished, Knitting Tags: , , ,
7:44 pm - October 2, 2012 -

A trick of the light

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So, I conquered the mitten. I’ll tell you all about it later, but suffice to say it involved graph paper, ripping, laddering down to repair colour order, and some neck strain. However, as you will see, it was worth it. But that’s not what this is about. This is about the shawl.

This is a gratuitous leaf photo because I’m excited about fall.

Last week, before the mitten waved its stranded little palm at me, I was going to knit a shawl. Anyway, I was all over the place and couldn’t choose a pattern and it turns out that the problem was just that I hadn’t found Oaklet yet. Luckily for me, Kristen saw it and, when my plea went up, she thought of me, and bam. I made myself finish the first mitten before I cast on, though, and then I spent a chunk of Sunday gloriously knitting nothing but stockinette and eyelets and it was just what my mind and shoulders needed.

And then I looked down at what I was knitting and I wasn’t so sure anymore. The thing is, I was originally planning to alternate between the two skeins, so when I cast on, I didn’t pay any attention to which ball I was using. Then, though, after inspecting the pattern a little further, I saw that I actually only needed 350 yds (the amount in one skein) and decided not to bother alternating because that would be annoying both now and later, when I will probably use the second skein to make socks (maybe these ones). So, my plan changed, I kept knitting, not thinking about what I was doing, and then I looked down and realized I should really start planning ahead better.

See these two skeins (the smaller one on the left is the one I’m knitting from). See how the one on the right has all these purples and greens laced through the brown? See how the one on the left (the one that I’m knitting from) doesn’t? Yeah. I didn’t see it right away either, but when I realized it, it did explain why my shawl looked more, well, Earthy than I had expected. Here it is:

I’m about two-thirds of the way through the stockinette/eyelet portion

When I realized my mistake (namely, that the skein I feel would work best as a shawl turned out to be the one I wasn’t using for a shawl) my immediate reaction was that I needed to rip it back and start over. I wasn’t totally crazy about the way the dark colours are pooling, and it was very brown, and it just wasn’t the shawl I’d been picturing in my head. That is, it wasn’t when it was in the house. When I took it outside to get a nice photo to show you all and ask your opinion, a strange thing happened: I started to see flecks of green and purple and shades I liked.

To be clear: I’m still not totally crazy about the way the dark colours pooled over the shorter rows (I’m also not sure it would be any different with the other skein), but seeing the shawl outside did change my perception of its colours. Honestly, I was in the 100% going to rip this camp until I took these photos. Yes, I was probably dazzled by the fall colours, but I will be wearing clothes with this shawl, so presumably they will bring out some of these same colours, right?

So, unless you think I’m setting myself up for a shawl I’ll be only mostly happy with (it may just be that I subconsciously don’t want to rip), I think I’ll keep going and see how it turns out. Thoughts? (You and I both have time to think about it since my week is dedicated to the second mitten, about which, more later.)

Categories: in progress, Knitting Tags: , ,