9:18 am - August 12, 2014 - AngelaH

Endless Summer

I know I should write the post about the California LYSs I visited (this is sort of like a prelude), but I feel like it has been ages since I posted anything finished (or, it had been before my Summer Skyps), so this dress is jumping the queue.

I have done a lot of sewing this summer and, as can be the way when you’re learning something new, I haven’t been very successful. I have sewed a half-dozen tops that are just blah, and it has been discouraging. (I should note that is probably as much due to my poor choice of patterns as it is to my skills. My last few tops have been pretty well made, but are unflattering, so can be donated rather than tossed out.) But, I believe in perseverance, and I know better than to be hard on myself about being a beginner. Even though I would consider most of my July projects failures, they all gave me the opportunity to practice new skills and get more comfortable at my machine, and that isn’t wasted time.

Which leads me to this dress. It’s the Endless Summer Tunic from A Verb for Keeping Warm, and I picked up both the pattern and the fabric while I was there (yes, I copied their example exactly. I wasn’t going to, but then I couldn’t resist). I had already been thinking about trying the pattern out, but what sealed the deal for me was that Verb had it made up in every size, so I could actually try them on to determine both whether it was as flattering style and what size to make. The pattern itself is relatively simple, so I wasn’t too worried about the execution.

I am really happy with this dress. It’s all wrinkled in these photos because we took these in the afternoon and I wore it all morning, but I just don’t care. The style is easy to wear, and I will certainly be able to wear it work, since my office is pretty casual.

To make it a dress, I added three inches to the length (below the pocket marks). Wearing it with a belt definitely shortens it a bit, so I might add another inch (above the pocket mark, I think, so they end up in the right place) next time. I actually left the pockets out of this version, since the double-gauze I used just didn’t seem robust enough to make pockets I’d actually be able to use, but I’m dreaming about another version in Liberty (this leafy one, I think) and it will definitely feature pockets. I like the idea of having a more fall version of this, and a darker fabric will look better with tights I think.

So, what do you think? Is it worth making another one? How to you handle disappointing FOs?

Categories: finished, Sewing Tags: dress, Endless Summer Tunic

12:24 pm - August 10, 2014 - AngelaH

Summer Skyps!

One of my favourite things about vacation knitting is that whatever project(s) I take along will forever remind me of the trip and when and where I worked on them. Even if these socks weren’t the exact colours of Big Sur, they will always remind me of beach knitting and the drive down the California coast.

I bought this yarn last spring with no real plan, and it’s one of the skeins I singled out at the beginning of the year as destined to become all the time, not-too-fancy socks. This is my fifth pair of whenever socks this year (though only the second to come from that original pile of yarn) and I’m quite pleased with them. Pulling them on in the middle of winter will be a nice reminder that the cold doesn’t last forever.

I’ve knit this pattern before, so I don’t have much (new) to say about it. It’s a nice, simple pattern — a little more interesting than basic ribbing, but plain enough to pick up and put down, or knit without looking. Looking back at my last pair, I realized that I knit them almost exactly a year ago, on our trip to Boston, so they are a tried-and-true one-the-road pattern.

Details
Pattern: Simple Skyp Socks
Yarn: Manos del Uruguay Alegria in #A9537
Needles: 2.5mm
Notes: Not much to report, really. Like last time, I split for the heel so that I maintained a purl stitch on either side of the instep, which keeps the pattern centred down the foot. I knit the heels a little deeper this time (34 rows) and stopped the pattern 1/4 of an inch earlier, to make the toe a little longer. I was also really surprised/pleased with how the yarn striped up, so to maintain that I used the other end of the skein for the heel flap. I also purposefully tried to mirror the pooling around the ankles (caused by the gussets) and think it worked out pretty well. Ravelled here.

Categories: finished, Knitting Tags: socks

10:42 am - August 8, 2014 - AngelaH

California, part 2

Holy moly, the Pacific Coast Highway is not fooling around. Every time you turn a corner (and there are a lot of corners) you’re greeted with a new and stunning view. Honestly, it was all I could do not to pull over at every little off-road pocket. Stunning, stunning, stunning.

Can you tell how happy I am to be on the road? This is the second big coastal drive L and I have done together (the other was on our Cape Breton trip) and it really doesn’t get old. We shared the driving, with whoever was in the passenger seat responsible for deciding where to pull over for great views. We left San Francisco in the early afternoon and drove as far as Carmel Valley, where we stayed for two nights. Having an extra night gave us more time to explore the area, and also to go for a hike. Our Airbnb was really close to a trailhead, so on the second day on the road we set off on foot. I would be lying if I said I enjoyed the first half of the hike (basically a continuous, and relatively steep, climb for two miles, in the heat), but as usual it was totally worth it, and once we were up, the hike along the ridge and then the descent were very pleasant.

While I’m not sure Carmel Valley is every exactly lush, the drought was very evident there. The lower part of the trail had some interpretive signs, one of which talked about spawning fish in the river, but there was no river. The trail was sandy and very dry, and near the top there was a little plastic container with a sign asking hikers to donate some of their water to help the local wildlife, which we happily did.

After the hike we were all geared up to swim, so we went back to where we were staying, took very quick showers, and set off for Carmel-by-the-Sea. Never was California’s micro-climate so stark: where the valley had bee hot and sunny, Carmel was cool and overcast, and too chilly for me to swim. L was debating whether he was going to swim and then we saw dolphins (!) so that settled that and in he went. Swimming with dolphins. It just about made up for our late arrival in Monterey — in what is becoming an unfortunate holiday tradition for us, we got there just a half-hour before the aquarium closed, which made the admission fee just a little too steep. Next time for sure, though (Audry recently went to the aquarium, so if you’re wondering what we missed out on, she has all the details.)

Day three was another big driving day — Carmel to Santa Barbara, through Big Sur. We didn’t have the best weather when we started out (that’s the bridge right before Bixby Bridge, but of similar design), but once we got over a few hills we found the sun.

We stopped at two beaches in Big Sur. We stopped at Pfeiffer Beach, which was bright and sunny, but also windy, for lunch. We had a little picnic, and I was napping in the sun when L came running over to tell me there were whales just offshore! All our photos are of the puffs from their blowholes, splashes from their jumps, and the rise of their tail flukes, but we think there were at least three, and our best guess is that they were Gray Whales, which migrate along the coast of California. We were too busy watching them frolic to take very good pictures, but they were amazing to see so close up. After Pfeiffer Beach we drove along to Sand Dollar Beach, which was overcast with no wind (or whales). The lack of wind was really nice though, so I finally went swimming (the water was really cold, but definitely worth it). Naturally, L swam at both beaches.

After our beach stops we really had a bust a move to get to Santa Barbara before it got too late. We were driving along and doing pretty well at not stopping for every view when L said, “You need to pull over.” I thought maybe he didn’t feel well, but when I pulled off the road he looked at me and said “Whales.” That man has eagle eyes. We were up quite high, but over the cliff and out in the ocean he’d seen them: four or five more whales, just playing. There were some German tourists stopped and watching them as well, and one of them said he thought they were Orcas, but I’m pretty sure they were more Gray Whales. L did quite a good job to get one in mid jump, I thought.

After that we really had to get going. We stopped at Taco Temple in Morro Bay for dinner (Audry, thank you so, so much for the recommendation, it was amazing!) and drove abandoned the coast for a speedier highway to Santa Barbara where we spent the night. We wandered through a city a little in the morning and then got back on the road to drive the last leg to San Diego. Let me just tell you now that driving from Santa Barbara to San Diego (218 miles/350 kilometres) takes longer than flying from Toronto to San Francisco (approximately 2,500 miles/4,000 kilometres) and leave it at that. L drove, I knit, peace remained. San Diego was a bit of a whirlwind for me, and it was the only day of bad weather we had — not that we could complain about a rainy day in a state that so badly needed it. It seemed like a fun city, though, and I would definitely go back. There were a lot of restaurants I would have liked to try.

Such a fun trip. It’s almost hard to believe that I was there just last week.

Category: Out and about Tags: California, Highway 1, hiking, photos, travel

9:35 pm - August 6, 2014 - AngelaH

California, part 1

I got home Sunday night and have been debating ever since how best to write about our trip. It was so, so great: the perfect mix of busy and relaxed, with great weather and great company. We honestly saw and did so much in eight days that as soon as I started going through my photos (899, to be precise) I realized one post would be crazy. Instead, I think I can do it in three — San Francisco, driving Highway 1, and LYS visiting — and I’ll warn you now, they’re going to be pretty photo heavy. Ready? Let’s do this thing.

We stayed in the Noe Valley neighbourhood, which was a great area but definitely not downtown. Although we started taking more public transportation later on, we did a lot of walking up and down – and then up and then down again – San Francisco’s hilly streets (my hips decided to pretty much fall apart while we were there, which has never happened before and was really inconvenient). The steepness is pretty much impossible to capture, but suffice to say that the street in the photo with the long view was at about a 45 degree angle (L is an engineer, so I trust his judgment on such matters) — we walked up it (on tip-toe) as part of the climb to the top of Twin Peaks, which we reached just in time for the fog/clouds to start spilling over the top.

Our impromptu visit to the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park was on of my favourite things we in San Francisco. We packed a little picnic and wandered through the park to the gardens, which were really lovely. It was the closest we came to seeing big redwoods, and the California Natives garden meant we got to see a lot of the plants and flowers that weren’t flourishing because of the drought. Besides the dozens of succulents that seem to thrive in California, the other plant we saw a ton of on our trip was nasturtiums (the first, very orange, flower). It’s one of my favourite flowers, and to see it growing wild all over the place was such a treat, and added shocking blasts of colour to an otherwise fairly pale landscape.

Of course, we did the touristy stuff too. Neither of us grew up watching Full House, but a trip to see the Painted Ladies just seemed right. And then, of course, the Golden Gate Bridge herself (himself? itself? what gender do we assign to bridges?) The bridge was covered with a tube of cloud for our first two days in the city (as in: the sky everywhere else was clear and lovely, but the there was a line of cloud low and over the bridge anyway), but on our last day somehow everything worked out and we had a clear view. We walked across it, and then back across it, and it really does live up to the hype. It’s a pretty fantastic piece of infrastructure, and the little interpretive centre on the city side of the bridge definitely added to my appreciation of its design and art deco details.

San Francisco was a great introduction to California and I could definitely have spent more time there. We even made it over to Berkley and Oakland — more on that in the LYS post. Next up: driving down the coast!

Category: Out and about Tags: California, photos, San Francisco, travel

8:40 am - July 25, 2014 - AngelaH

I slipped

I had full, full, intentions to just truck right along with my latest Skyp socks, but after grafting the toe of the first one I got that funny urge to dig around in my stash to see what was in there, and before I knew it I’d pulled out a skein of Tosh Sock in Espadrilles, wound it up, and cast on. Honestly, I don’t really know how it happened, but here we are, a full chart repeat into new socks and I’m not sorry.

This is a very bright, very fun pink, and is also very hard to photograph.

This is a very bright, very fun pink, that is also very hard to photograph.

These are Betula by Rachel Coopey (who is such a reliably excellent designer) and I love them. They’re fun to knit and, since the 15-row repeat is really just a five-row repeat that shifts, the pattern is very quickly memorized and doesn’t require much special attention (I’m using a stitch marker to mark where I am within each repeat, which helps). They are, in fact, the perfect travel knitting, which is just as well since tomorrow L and I are flying to California!

We have a whole week to spend on the coast, and I seriously cannot wait. We’ve more or less planned out our stops (we’re driving Highway 1 from San Francisco to San Diego), but if you have must-see suggestions, please let me know! I will definitely be going to A Verb for Keeping Warm while we’re in San Francisco, so I’ll have a full report of that and the rest of the trip when I get back. (I’ll probably do a little Instagramming, if you want to keep up with me over there.)

Such a summery colourway.

And, who knows, maybe I’ll have some finished socks too. I’m bringing the Skyp socks along, because as great as Betula is, when it’s my turn in the passenger seat I’m going to want a knit that doesn’t require me to look at my hands, and the Skyps are it! I hope you all have a wonderful week — I’ll tell you all about mine once I’m home again.

Categories: in progress, Knitting Tags: socks, travel

10:38 am - July 16, 2014 - AngelaH

Halligarth progress

One of the funny things about blogging is that when everything is going well there isn’t much to say! I don’t really have much to say about Halligarth besides that it’s an entirely enjoyable and engaging knit. I’m about halfway through the tree section and, unstretched, it’s measuring about 24 inches (or, the length of the needle I’m working on), which suggest that with the edging and a good blocking it will be a nice big shawl.

I always worry about the finished size as I knit because I really prefer large shawls. I bike pretty much everywhere when the weather is good, and if a shawl is too small it won’t stay on (my bike requires me to lean down). My Shaelyn is the perfect size and I have been wearing it a lot, so I’d love for this one to be similarly large. It might not end up quite that big, but I think the lighter weight will help it stay put. That’s actually one of the reasons I chose to knit it in laceweight instead of fingering weight, and I really love the way it’s turning out. This yarn is so lovely to work with, and the colour is exactly what I wanted.

Basically, it’s a boring knit in the best way possible: It’s exactly what I want, and (so far anyway) it’s knitting up just fine!

Categories: in progress, Knitting Tags: Halligarth, shawl

9:50 am - July 9, 2014 - AngelaH

Spoiled

There is no doubt that this is shaping up to be an excellent summer. Just a few days after our camping trip I was headed back up to the shores of Lake Huron (though not so far north as Georgian Bay) for a cottage weekend. An old friend of mine is getting married and in lieu of a bar hopping bachelorette we spent a weekend away (and on the beach). The weather was perfect, and the water is warm enough for swimming, and it was gorgeous.

I knit in the car on the way there, which ended up being hilarious in the stop-and-go traffic since a guy in the lane next to us was fascinated by what I was doing. He stared and, when his lane got moving, actually slowed down so we could catch up! He seemed completely entertained by the idea of someone knitting (or, at least the idea of someone his own age knitting). His amusement entertained us as well, which made for a pretty funny drive. I snuck in a little beach knitting too, and my Summer Skyp socks are coming along nicely. I’m staying home this weekend, but I’m looking forward to turning my attention to Halligarth, which is proving to be a very enjoyable knit, especially when accompanied by a podcast or audiobook.

Categories: in progress, Knitting Tags: shawl, socks, travel

10:40 am - July 2, 2014 - AngelaH

Hello, summer

Summer is finally here. I know it’s technically been summer for a few weeks now, and it has certainly felt like summer for the last month, but I can’t quite escape the grade-school sense that summer starts with Canada Day. Add to that the adult reality that summer seems to be the season when every weekend is planned months in advance and, yeah, we’re officially there.

This year we kicked off the summer with a last-minute camping trip. L’s sister and her husband recently moved to Toronto, and since they don’t start work until today we decided to take advantage of their freedom to get out of town. It has been a few years since we were in Tobermory, but Georgian Bay was as gorgeous as ever, and I’m so glad we went. It was a quick trip, since I had to work on Sunday, but we took our one full day and made the most of it, spending the morning clambering over rocks at Halfway Log Dump/walking through the woods on the Bruce Trail, and the afternoon swimming in Cypress Lake. I even managed a few rows of knitting (plus a fair bit of knitting in the car to and from).

The water may look tropical, but let me assure you it was freezing. So cold it actually hurt. (Also, the colours in this photo aren’t edited at all.)

This bunny spent a lot of time hanging out in our campsite.

I was originally hoping to get these socks finished up in time to get some pretty pictures in the wild, but it was a bit too dark by the end of the drive up (I was getting very close to the toe decreases) and once we were there we didn’t do too much sitting around. I finished the second sock on the way home and then ended up ripping out the first toe and re-knitting it (for a better match/fit) anyway, so it was just as well I didn’t try to rush things.

Details
Pattern: Basic 64 stitch socks
Yarn: Turtlepurl Yarns Striped Turtle Toes in Gatineau Fall
Needles: 2.5mm
Notes: There’s not much to say about these really. I thought about doing a contrast heel, but in the end decided just to knit from the other end of the ball, which worked out perfectly colour-wise and also meant I didn’t disrupt the stripe sequence at all. Ravelled here.

The colours in this photo are a little weird (both too dark and washed out) but it shows off the striping quite nicely.

Categories: finished, Knitting, Out and about Tags: camping, socks, Tobermory

9:46 am - June 25, 2014 - AngelaH

On my needles

I’ve been on a bit of a sock jag and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change any time soon. As I was finishing my Daphnes I started to flip through my stash (first in my head and then actually in the bin) to decide what to cast on next. Part of my plan for this year’s knitting was to knit more plain, everyday socks, so with that in mind I pulled out this self-striping yarn that I picked up well over a year ago.

This is Turtlepurl Yarns Striped Turtle Toes in Gatineau Fall, a hand-dyed self-striping yarn that comes pre-split into two matching skeins. The idea is that the skeins are dyed together, so assuming you start both at the same end, you should end up with perfectly matching socks. In this case, some of the stripes are variegated, so the socks won’t be a perfect match, but the stripes should line up otherwise.

I thought the variegation would annoy me, since perfectly-matched striped socks are kind of fun, but I’m actually really enjoying the way the colours are playing out. I’m actually deeply impressed by the idea of dyeing a variegated-yet-striping colourway, and the colours are so perfectly fall that these socks just look like a hike through the woods on a fall day.

All the plain stockinette combined with just-one-more-stripe syndrome is making these a quick knit and I’m hoping to finish them up by the end of the month. Summer is the perfect time to knit socks, and it’s maybe the one time of year plain stockinette socks become my primary knit, instead of something a pick up here and there.

Of course, I do have a background knit, and just for some balance, it’s a laceweight lace shawl. I cast on for Halligarth. After knitting Flukra I knew I’d be knitting more of Gudrun Johnson’s patterns, and when I saw the latest BT Wool People, it was pretty easy to choose which of her patterns would be next. I love the way each section of the tree-patterned lace nests into the ones before and after it, and shawls see a lot of wear around here.

Un-stretched, each diamond measures about 3 inches across.

The pattern is written for fingering weight yarn, but I decided to spice things up a bit and go with laceweight. This a BFL laceweight hand-dyed north of Toronto by Georgian Bay Fibre Co., who I found through a Ravelry ad (seriously, the first time I’ve ever clicked one of those). I love BFL yarn, but before I went crazy and bought one of everything I decided to commit to one project. There seems to be an inconsistency between how much yarn people need for this shawl and the yardage listed on the pattern page, so I’m playing it safe with a big skein. I’m planning to knit the smaller size and then weigh the skein and see how I’m doing. If I can eke out the larger shawl I definitely will.

Categories: in progress, Knitting Tags: Halligarth, shawl, socks

10:25 am - June 17, 2014 - AngelaH

Summer socks

As promised: more finished socks! This pair has been sitting, half-done, in my WIP basket for nearly a year just waiting for the return of warm weather to push me into picking them back up.

It was quite a sunny day when we shot these, but since they’re meant to be summer socks I guess that’s alright.

This is one of the few sock patterns I’ve knit twice, and honestly I think I could knit them a third time. The lace is so fun, and the logic of the pattern makes the chart pretty quick to memorize (or, if not completely memorize, at least make it more of a glance).

I knit these using Indigodragonfly’s Bleats, Shoots & Leaves (a merino, bamboo, silk blend) in the Baldersquash colourway. I got the skein a few years ago through their fibre club and I don’t think this base ever made it into their regular rotation, which is too bad, because I would absolutely buy more. It’s such a lovely summer-y yarn, slightly cool to the touch with enough stretch to be pleasant to knit with. I also really love this colourway, which is excellently squash-y.

Despite the long timeline for knitting these socks, the pattern is very quick. Each sock took about a week at a casual pace, so if you’re thinking you could use some pretty summer socks, I would definitely suggest this pattern. I have a skein of Indigodragonfly’s Merino-Silk in my stash (which is what I used for the first pair) and I am seriously considering casting on for a third pair.

Details
Pattern: Daphne by Cookie A.
Yarn: Indigodragonfly Bleats, Shoots & Leaves in Baldersquash!
Needles: 2.75mm
Notes: The only thing I’d say is to knit this using a magic loop. I’m a dpn fan, but the chart repeats once across each side of the leg, with stitches moving back and forth, so if you’re open to the magic loop method, it makes for a quicker/less annoying experience. I also wish I’d knit more stockinette before the toe. I did 6.5 chart repeats on the foot, but should have stopped at 6 and knit a few more stockinette rows. The socks are perfectly comfortable, but I think the stockinette would have mode them more robust (and certainly easier to darn if/when the time comes). Ravelled here.

Categories: finished, Knitting Tags: socks