June Gardens socks

Many years ago (nearly a decade already?) when I was a beginning knitter, there was an amazing yarn dyer in Edmonton named Virginia vanSanten.  I used to admire her yarns in the shops and dream of knitting with something so wonderful and beautiful.  I bought some of her yarn for a shawl once (Ravelry link) and loved every moment of knitting it.  Some time after that, I found out from one of the LYS owners that she had passed away.  It was a palpable thing, to know that such an amazing fiber artist was gone.  Suddenly the few skeins of her yarn that I had left seemed so precious.

These socks represent the only skein of her sock-weight yarn that I had in my stash.  I held onto it all these years, but finally decided that I would do it justice by knitting it, more than I would by keeping it in storage.  The colourway was called June Gardens, but I've always felt that it was more of an autumn colourway, with all that orange and red.  Perhaps her garden was full of marigolds and roses.

I did my usual toe-up sock recipe, a 68-stitch circumference on 2.25mm needles, but for the afterthought heel I did something a bit different: a star heel with decreases in the round, since I felt like that would reflect the shape of my heel more than the usual way (simply reversing toe shaping.)  If the center of the star heel doesn't feel weird when I wear them, I may do this for heels from now on.

Holmes to my Watson

A couple of years ago, I knitted a pair of Elementary Watson socks for my dad, and they were a lot of fun to knit and turned out very nice.  When I had occasion to knit a pair of men's socks for another man in my life, I could have gone another route and tried something new, but as he is an avid Sherlock fanboy, I knew that these ones would be the right choice (again.)

I once again relied on the kindness of SweetGeorgia to supply me with a beautiful colour, this time a fairly solid slate grey, and went to work.  I went down a needle size, since I found them to be a bit biggish last time, at the recommended gauge.

Note to self: men's socks take ages, since their feet are even bigger than mine.

In the end, the socks are lovely and pretty perfect for the recipient, so hopefully he'll love them as much as I enjoyed knitting them.

Kismet

I've been meaning for ages to knit myself a little sleeve for coffee to-go cups, since I keep burning my hands trying to carry my cup of Timmie's to work.  I hate the paper waste from getting a second cup to insulate, so I never do, but I also hate burning myself.  Every time I get a coffee, I think "oh yeah, I should knit one of those when I get home" but I never remember.

It just so happens that I've been spending a lot of money at The Loopy Ewe this summer (and have been ordering yarn from there for a friend, as well, to save on shipping.)  They have just started up a new customer reward program this year, and with the amount we have spent, I got (among other things) a little teeny ball of yarn and a little pattern for a coffee cup sleeve.  Perfect.

I knit it up in an hour or so, over (yet another episode of) Doctor Who.  It works like a charm.

Where Do They Get Those Wonderful Toys

Devoted followers of my blog may have noticed that I changed my profile info on the right to reflect that we are no longer a "no pets" household, but rather have taken a couple of feline ladies into our home, as of a couple of months ago.

The two of them, Bela and Lily, are beautiful Devon Rex girls, a momma and daughter, who needed a new place to stay, and while it can be a bit of a trial sometimes having two more roommates in the place, they are also a joy to have around, all warm and soft and purring.

As a crafter, I of course began to think of cool things I could make for them (which is not to say I've restrained from spoiling them by buying loads of readymade stuff) and one day a while back I dug out some fabric and quilt batting and threw together a little basket for them to take naps in.

Since it's made of some cool Batman fabric, we've dubbed it the Batsket, and the girls don't seem to mind the silly name.  I often find them curled up together in it, and as you can see, it can be hard to tell where one starts and the other ends.

Tenth Doctor Scarf 2.0

Lest you think you're seeing double, this is actually a second version of the previous scarf I wove.

As I mentioned in the last post, I decided the first scarf might be a bit on the itchy-wool side of things, so I wanted to weave the same pattern in something softer.

Believe it or not, I had the two exact right yarns just sitting in my stash (it really pays to have too much yarn, sometimes.)  I have a little basket of SweetGeorgia yarn (mostly sock yarn, and yes, a whole basket just for her yarns) and I realized that I had two skeins of Cashluxe Fine in there, in the colourway Bison, that were just the absolute most perfect brown for this scarf.  And with 20% cashmere, definitely on the soft and luxurious side of the spectrum.  Then I remembered I had a skein of Tough Love sock in the Mist colourway, which is an almost ideal shade for the pinstripe - I was aiming for a cornflower blue, and Mist is just a skosh more purpley, but pretty darn close.  So, voila!  A second Tenth Doctor scarf from my stash. 

You can see that the Mist is a bit variegated, which gives some nice visual interest to the stripes, and the Bison is fairly solid, which makes a nice even background fabric.  It's soft and drapey and wonderful and I really couldn't be happier with the end result.  Hopefully the recipient feels the same way!

Tenth Doctor Scarf

Recently I gave into some peer pressure and began watching Doctor Who.  I started with the Christopher Eccleston series, since I've loved him for years - at least since Shallow Grave, if not even before that.  I enjoyed him a lot as the Ninth Doctor, and now I'm up to my ears in the Tenth, the David Tennant years.

Every Doctor, of course, has their own sense of style, and the brown pinstripe suit that Tennant wears, early on in his tenure, really stuck with me.  I decided that it would be fun to emulate it with a scarf inspired by that pinstripe design.  I had some fingering weight wool in a nice dark brown, and only needed a smidgen of blue for the pinstripe.  Even though the colours weren't quite perfect, they still look great and I'm pretty proud of how well it echoes the textile of the suit.


The weaving was finished last night, and I gave it a good soak and hung it to dry.  It turned out quite soft, although the wool still has a potential for itchiness against bare skin.  The fabric itself is a loose weave, as you can see with the sunlight peeking through it, toward the left in the photo.  It makes a lovely and lightweight and pliable fabric, all floppy and foldy, which is perfect, since the scarf is wide and long enough to be squished up and looped and tucked through itself.

I'm really happy with this one, although I do plan to revisit it again, in more accurate colours and softer yarn.

And I do really appreciate the irony of a Doctor Who scarf that isn't the stereotypical Tom Baker number.

Dusting Off the Loom

It's been a couple of months since I've had anything on my loom.  I had good intentions of doing some sewing this summer, so I cleared the loom off my table to make room, but you know what they say about good intentions...  I ended up just spending my summer knitting and never got around to the sewing.

This week I had some inspiration for a new weaving project with some leftover yarn I had laying around.  Yesterday I did the requisite weaving math and wound the warp.  Today I sleyed it and wound it on and wove a header.  Only one small mistake which was an easy fix, and now this cool new scarf is officially a work in progress.

I am so excited!

Thrace Cardigan

I finished my third Camp Loopy project about a week ago, and have worn it several times already.  It's the perfect lightweight summer cardigan, to throw on for just a bit of coverage with lots of lacy holes to let the breezes through.

When last we spoke of this, I mentioned that I was going to make the cropped version of the cardigan.  I bought the yardage for the 47" size, intending to make it a smidge smaller, since that is an inch over my size.  I knitted happily away on it and realized early on that I really wouldn't need the full 6 skeins to knit it.  I double- and triple-checked the pattern for the yardage and reassured myself that she did tell me to get a yardage that equates to 6 skeins of the Ultra Pima, to make the cropped version of the cardi.  It became quickly apparent that if I were to knit the cropped version (with my smidgen of adjustment) it would only take 3 skeins!!  Since I had so much yarn and lots of time left to complete this project before the end of August, I decided I might as well knit the longer version and use up the rest of the yarn.  Having done so, I still only used 4 of the 6 skeins, so I really don't know what the designer was thinking in recommending so much yardage.


This cardi was really quick and fun and easy (a wonderful combination.)  You begin on the back, by knitting a rectangular lace panel.  After a couple of repeats, I had the pattern memorized, which meant that I basically didn't need to refer to the pattern at all for the rest of the cardigan, save for points where I pick up stitches or bind off a certain number, etc.  You pick up stitches for the back from that panel, and cast on a bunch for the front, then knit the lace until you get to the side seam, where you do a three-needle bind off and then proceed to knit the sleeve in the round.  After doing both sides, you pick up stitches to knit the bottom half of the body down toward the hem.  I didn't actually worry about the measurement there, but just knit it to the length I thought was right for me.  Then you pick up stitches again for the ribbed button band.  But no buttons, so no buttonholes!  So easy.

It took me just over two weeks to knit the whole thing, and I enjoyed it a lot.  I am actually considering ordering another 3 skeins in a different colour, to make the cropped one that I wanted in the first place.

Juju Socks

Nothing expends some nervous energy better than the repetitive motion of stockingette knitting.  A couple of months ago, I had a sudden trip to the emergency room with my HLM.  On the way out the door, I had the presence of mind to grab a ball of sock yarn and a needle, for the waiting room.  While time ticked by in the hospital, I cast on the toe for a sock and knitted my nerves away.

The night at Emergency turned into nearly a week's stay in the hospital, and every day I took the sock and knitted away on it while I visited.  The blue and green colours began to remind me of scrubs and it seemed right that these were the socks I was knitting, in that moment.

By the end of the first sock, he was home and getting healthy again.  The bad juju of the first sock was going to be countered by some good healthy juju with the second sock.  Yesterday we were back at the hospital for another follow-up procedure (and all is well) and everything came full circle, as I sat in the waiting room, finishing the afterthought heel of the second sock.

Only after taking the photo did I notice that the charcoal colour is slightly darker on the bad juju sock than on the good juju sock.  Coincidence?

Something Girly

I finished seaming my flowery sweater yesterday, and none too soon, since the third Camp Loopy project was due to begin.

The challenge for the final project is to make something that uses at least 800 yards of yarn.  For many petite knitters, a sweater would be an obvious choice for that sort of yardage.  As a more Rubenesque knitter, 800 yards isn't a whole heck of a lot for a full-sized sweater.  Of course, I could have chosen to knit something else, like a large laceweight shawl or a baby blankie or something, but I had a hankering to make a sweater.

Once again, I made a search of my Ravelry favourites list and came up with a few contenders.  The one I ultimately chose to use for my final Camp Loopy project is a cropped lace cardigan from Chic Knits in DK weight cotton.  I've been admiring this one for a while, and think it's pretty cute but also practical for the summer months.  It has an unusual construction (been going for that a lot, lately) where you knit a narrow lace back panel and then pick up stitches from there for the rest of the back and sleeves.  It's finished off with some nice ribbing and that's it - no buttons or anything complicated.  Just what I need for some (relatively) mindless summer knitting.