Spin, Span, Spun

This year I participated in the Tour de Fleece, which is a spinning challenge that runs during the Tour de France. Basically every day that the cyclists are competing, we spin. I looked forward to the opportunity to get through my fibre stash.

Day one I realized that I was going to have to learn to pace myself. My usual approach to spinning is to do a lot in a single sitting. See, my youngest is especially fascinated by the wheel, so I usually keep it in the craft room, out of the way. So when I do take it out I sit at it for hours, usually finishing up whatever I've decided to spin in one or two sessions.

If I kept that pace up for the entire tour...well...I would not make it.

I started with some gorgeous green silk and merino that I had picked up at Sunrise Mercantile last year. I had already spun half of the 1/2lb bag into a single well before the tour started so I spun the second half and then plied them.



In the end I had just over 300yards in about a dk weight. I did this in the first 2 days of the tour...and had a hard time walking after.

So when I chose my next fibre to tackle I decided that I'd spin during one episode of Doctor Who and then I'd stop for the night. But by the time I'd prepped the fibre and really got going my time was up so I decided to keep going, just a little bit longer. Next thing I know it's 1am and my heel is numb. But that single was done!

Next day I gave myself the limit of just the length of one Smodcast , but my ankle and back protested long before the ending. Over the next couple days I worked on the second single.



The fibre I bought from a local dyer/spinner/knitter/belly dancer extraordinaire. Merino top, in the colourways Rose Garden (on the left) and The Briar and the Rose (on the right)

Then I plied them together, finishing just before the day of rest (which my ankle was grateful for)



Final yardage was about 270yards in a heavy fingering.

After the break I started spinning up a FatCatKnits merino top. This was very slow going because both my ankle and my back were protesting any stretch of time at the wheel, and I had some issues with getting the fibre to behave itself. In the end though, it made a lovely soft yarn



About 360yards in heavy fingering weight.

Next to hit the wheel was a batt called "Starlight", superwash merino and angelina from Mandalinn. I've never spun from a batt before, so I used this for the challenge day which is when the cyclists are on the toughest part of the tour. My initial plan was to thread beads onto one of the singles, which I did, and then slide them into place as I plied. I started out ok, but then the beads hit a slub and the single snapped and beads went everywhere. So I abandoned that plan to try another day, and just made a lovely 2ply yarn



174 yards in a dk to worsted weight. The sparkle of the angelina doesn't show up well in pics, but it's very very pretty in person.

So, all tallied up I finished up 24oz of fibre from my stash.

The tour I participated in was held on Ravelry, and I spun with my rubberneckers on Team Hoar. In the Tour de Fleece group there was a daily progress thread where you post pics, and the posts are entered into a random draw. I won a prize on day four, and chose this lovely braid of merino and silk



Donated by All Spun Up. It's so soft and gorgeous, I cannot wait to spin this up.

And I may have had a little falling down when I saw that YarnPirate had put up a little shop update and bought this braid of awesome.

So...24oz out, 8oz brought in, bringing my total fibre out at 16oz. Not bad...not bad at all.

It's probably going to be a little while before I get back to my wheel, I'm a little spun out at the moment. At the same time though, I've hit my stride as a spinner so I'd hate to let too much time pass between spinning sessions and lose that progress I've made.

In the meantime...time to pick out some projects for these pretties

Toys!

I love knitted toys. Love them. I am fully addicted to MochiMochiLand (I just picked up her book, you should definitely check it out, it's amazing!). I especially love toys that are unusual, and the cuter the better.

Danger Crafts has some really adorable patterns as well, I made two of the Greta the Cat patterns for some babies I know (I can't seem to find the pics of those but here are their rav pages: One and Two)

Back in December MochiMochiLand published a pattern of a teeny tiny snowman. Inspiration struck and I thought of something very fun and immediately bought the patterns needed to make it happen. Of course...it stayed as An Idea for a long time, but recently I made it a Reality:



Using the Tubby pattern and the Teeny tiny snowman pattern, and some ice cubes, I made this little scene. I'm going to buy some of those clear plastic crystal-looking things to replace the ice so I can have it on display in my craft room. I am ridiculously pleased with how this turned out.

Speaking of inspiration that got shelved...ages ago I was watching a video cast by Carin called Round the Twist and she showed us some hedgehogs she was making for some little girls that we both know...and I fell in love. Had to buy the pattern and make some. I finished one, but had to wait for an order of eyes and noses to arrive (local craft stores are very eye and nose deficient) and while I waited I bought more fun fur and prepared to make more hedgehogs for my kids (the original is mine!). Got eyes and noses, ran out of stuffing. Then it all just fell to the wayside, but I've finally gotten the first two done:



On the left is "Minnie" and she's mine. Grace named hers "Rose". Gabriel's will be blue. Cam is entirely too cool to admit he wants one too.

During my toy madness, a friend of mine had surgery to remove a faulty gallbladder. Knowing her and I share a similar sense of humour, I knew just the thing to cheer her up



Yeah, that's a knit gallbladder with a card begging forgiveness, lol! She loved it and I feel both ridiculously proud and dorky.

So that sums up the recent toy knitting. Next post I'll show you some pretties I've been spinning, I'm participating in the Tour de Fleece this year (we spin every day that the Tour de France is on) so I've been doing a lot of spinning.

Lacy Bits

I have come to the conclusion that I have a wee lace problem. I love it. Especially shawls. I love shawls.

For Christmas I decided to share my love of lacy things

For my Mother In Law I knit an Ishbel out of Malabrigo Laceweight (a lovely, soft and airy single ply lace yarn)

It was a delight to knit, quick and simple to follow. I had planned on knitting one for myself, and then I saw a friend's done without the stockingette section, straight to the lace and I love the look of it. I'll likely do mine that way.

For my Mom I cast on a Tesla in Handmaiden Sea Silk, in a deep, earthy purple colour.

The pattern calls for beads on the cast on edge, and I modified it to put beads on the cast off edge too. I added a bead for every second stitch because I was worried doing every stitch would weigh it down too much. The effect is quite nice, I think.

Over the Christmas season I got sick of the deadline knitting and cast on something pretty for myself

This is Fingerless Pomatomus Gloves(rav link) which is based on Pomatomus socks by Cookie A. I love them, they are perfect for me since I rarely get to wear my actual mittens...they come off every few minutes to open doors, fix small hats and small mittens on small people, buckle car seats, etc etc etc. Plus they are easier to drive with and for hanging onto small ones while walking. I wish I had gotten on board with the fingerless mitt thing sooner.

Over New Year's a friend of mine went to Toronto and snagged me a skein of Dream in Colour Starry, which has silver spun into it. It didn't stay skeined very long (too pretty!), as it was quickly knit up into Damson

I love this, it's very pretty. And Ysolda's patterns are fabulous, very well written and easy to follow.

The Olympics came to Canada, and Ravelry held their own Ravelympics. Basically you cast on during the opening ceremonies, something that will challenge you, and you have it done before the torch is extinguished. Teams were created and I captained our local group's team. We had a great Opening Ceremonies Party (where I also got to show off the house to my knitters) where we ate a mess of snacks and cast on our projects while watching Canada greet the world. It was a lot of fun.

Ravelry broke down the competition into categories, and my project for the "lace luge" was Ulmus knit with the December Mean Girls Yarn Club shipment, called "Aurora's HOARealis" and a special complimentary pinks skein that Laura (head Mean Girl) was nice enough to dye up for me

I love this shawl. The colours make me ridiculously happy, the texture is fantastic. Totally recommend this knit to anyone.

March found me itching for a simple, yet somewhat lacy knit. Enter the Simple Things Shawlette(rav link), and my skein of Pagewood Farms Merino/Cashmere/Nylon that Hope brought me back from Sock Summit

I named the project Happy. Because that's what it made me. I liked it so much I made a second one out of merino/tencel that I was planning to donate to a silent auction raising funds for the Canadian Cancer Society's Relay for Life. Unfortunately I was unable to connect with the organizers in order to hand it over, so I might do something else with it to raise funds and make a donation myself directly to a cancer-related charity. I'll get back to you on that, it may involve a silent auction here on the blog...I haven't worked out the details yet.

The shawl bug bit again early June and I knit up this beauty

Annis, knit with Yarn Pirate Merino/Tencel, the Herron colourway (one of the booty club shipments). I did beads where the nupos are supposed to be because nupps are really fiddly and while they looked nice, not nice enough for me to want to fiddle with them here. I am delighted with how this turned out and frankly I'm eye-ballin other skeins of merino/tencel to make another. It's light and pretty and the tencel makes it perfect to wear in summer.

Days after blocking Annis, I cast on Haruni (rav link) in another skein of Yarn Pirate, this time her merino and bamboo blend in a colourway called "Pixie"

I don't really have words enough to describe how much I love this shawl. It's just gorgeous. I even did a crochet bind off on this one! And I think I might actually make a second one...I saw someone else's on ravelry who beaded the the leaves on the edge and the effect is stunning.

Well, that's all the knits I have to show you at the moment. I have some merino/tussah silk from The Unique Sheep that's calling my name...

*Tap Tap Tap*

Is thing on?

Umm...Hi.

It's been a while. 6 months actually. So much for the promise in my last post that I'd post more, lol. Be assured, I make no such promises now.

I have been thinking a lot about the blog lately, I miss it as an outlet, but between Facebook (which I have issues with), Ravelry and twitter I've pretty much said everything I want to say and that leaves little for the blog. But those have their limitations...facebook is creepy with it's weird privacy things, I'm no longer comfortable expressing myself there...not everyone is on Ravelry...and twitter is limited in 2 ways, 1st by its 140 character limit and 2nd my tweets are locked and I use it almost as a chat place for friends and not always stuff I'd share with all and sundry.

So that leaves the blog as a place where I can share, know that what I share here is shared with all and not get weird ads that are half-related to what I'm saying, I can be as verbose as I please, and those of you not on Rav or facebook or twitter can see what I'm up to.

There have been massive changes around here, so much that I don't think I can do it all in one post. We moved at Christmas time into a house, we decided to pull Cam out of public school and start a home schooling journey, I started working as a Pampered Chef consultant, and many other ups and down along the way.

Change is good. Challenging, but good.

I've been knitting like a fiend, lots of projects piled up. The move meant I got a dedicated craft room, so all of my yarn is in one place, and I was sort of alarmed when I saw the stash in its full glory. I have a lot of skeins of hand-painted sock yarns. A lot:


And I've bought more since that photo was taken. So I'm on a shawl kick, simple elegant shawls that aren't too patterned in order to show off the yarn's glory. If you check out the side bar there is a flickr badge that displays my finished objects, and you can see the recent ones on there. I'm still knitting socks like I'm scared there's going to be a global shortage, but I need to whittle down this sock yarn stash and shawls are a great way to eat up the yarn.

I've also been spinning more since the move, more room to use the wheel and having my stuff acessible has helped. When moving into my craft room I was hit with the full extent of my fibre stash, and I was alarmed. Again, I've bought more since then, but have made a dedicated effort to getting that under control. A large part of it is undyed superwash merino....rememebr way back when I went to Pacafiesta? And I enabled a couple of friends right into buying bags of stuff? Well, that worked out really well for me, since once the fibre fumes wore off they both realized they weren't spinners and had no interest in becoming spinners and their bags made their way to my house. Roughly 7-8lbs of the stuff in total. But now I have two wheels...I have Charlotte, the wheel I bought from a friend a couple years ago, and my parents bought me Ashley, an Ashford Traditional that needs a bit of tlc and should be up and running soon.

I've also taken up belly dancing. I love it. It's chocolate for the soul. I've been recommending it to everyone as just a feel-good activity.

Ok, I think we're caught up. I can't say for sure that I'll be posting more regularly, but I hope to be. I have a lot of knitting to show you.

I've been knitting....

But I cannot show you any of it. Not until after Christmas anyway. I can give you the numbers though...out of the 8 things I had planned to knit, 4 are done and 1 has been abandonned (well, I finished it but widely misjudged the size and it fits my 4 year old instead of the intended adult-sized recipient. If I have time to do it again, I will. But otherwise I'm not doing it). I am also half way done the knitting on two other projects, leaving just one to be cast on. I would suggest that those numbers say I'm ahead of the game this year, however that would be tempting the knitting fates I would never ever do that. So I'll leave it at "Progress has been made and will continue to be made as we approach Christmas."

What I can show you is the events of last Thursday.

We had our Christmas party!

We started the tradition last year and opted to step up the fun this year.

Once again we made use of my connection to Chef Live! (seriously, if you have an event you should check him out. Amazing food!) who made us a buffet of chilli roasted chicken wings with a thai peanut charred lime sauce, carmelized onion and asigo tartlets (mmmmmm), Bacon wrapped scallops roasted with brown sugar and other yummy goodies.

I meant to take a pic before we got into the food, but hunger overcame me and I forgot. However, you can see how good it all looks here

Just thinking of it all is making me hungry...

Last year we did a secret sock yarn swap where everyone brought a wrapped skein of sock yarn and we played a game to determine who got to go with what. We did that again, but we decided to do a Magic Yarn Ball version. We would take the sock yarn and wrap goodies into it, starting with a Christmas ornament. Then wrap that in festive wrapping.

The table just before we started the game:

If you look in the middle there you'll see a picture of one of our members on a popsicle stick. She had been hoping to be there, but got called away for school and missed out...so I made a Jenn-on-a-Stick and sent her pics via twitter all evening. It was fun!

One of our members very very recently had a baby, and she was good enough to bring the noob out to play

Doesn't she look great for being a new mommy? That wee girl in her arms is only a week and a half old!

This is what I found in my brightly wrapped parcel


The yarn is Zauberball (in the colourway that I wanted too!) martini stitch markers, blue glass beads, hot chocolate, berry scented epsom salts, and my ornament is a little snowman that lights up. Thanks again Julie for putting together and awesome yarn ball!


All in all we had a fantastic time, and I'm looking forward to next year and what that might bring. Thanks to Kathy for opening up her house, thanks to Richard (aka Chef Live!) for the feast, and thanks to my amazing knitters!!!

Remember when I used to blog a lot?

I have been really terrible about blogging, and with Christmas and a big move coming up that's not likely to change in the near future, but I'll try. The blog seems to go in phases, where I post a lot, then silence for ages. The stuff I plan to post about piles up and before I know it I'm doing a catch up post with lots of pics.

Sort of like I'm about to do now...

Knitting wise I've got something in my hands at all times, but it's all Christmas presents so I can't post about that, just in case the recipient happens to be reading here, but these are a couple projects I can show you:

This is the Aviatrix Baby Hat(rav link)

What a fun knit! I already have plans for other ones, I'd like to try and make a rainbow one.

And I made these:


Wanida socks from the Cookie A Sock Innovation book. Knit with Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball. I opted to make them opposite of one another, and I love the colour changes


The only problem with having them opposite is that it looks like I'm wearing two different socks when I'm wearing pants. My little brother came home for a visit and I wore them when I went to see him, and he dubbed them my Hot and Cold socks, lol.

As for other knitting I can tell you about, Loppem is stalled once again. I had finished most of one sleeve but it was way too wide so I had to rip it back and sort out some decreases. For now it's put away until I make a dent in this Christmas knitting. I'm also working on a pair of socks for Grace, and that's what I work on if I'm around the people I'm knitting presents for.

Non knitting things that happened:

My little girl decided she was big enough

to get her ears pierced. It hurt a lot more than she expected but she was very brave and was very proud of herself for getting the second one even though the first one hurt so bad. She's had them long enough to be able to change them, and we picked out some fun earrings already, but she's nervous to change them. I think she's afraid that it will hurt the same as when she got them done. But that's ok, when she's ready she'll do it. Or not, and that's ok too.

I suppose this is rather knitting related, but I got my package in the Yarn and Book Love swap the Rubberneckers did on rav.

My first Terry Pratchett book...I'm really excited because I've heard so many good things about his work. The yarn is a Araucania Itata Multy, which is a yummy wool, silk and bamboo blend. She also sent me book plates, which I literally squealed over...I had these "This Book Belongs To" in pretty much all of my childhood books, I was really excited to get some new ones.

We also got to take the kids down the road to watch the Olympic Torch get relayed


Grace and Gabriel were excited, but they didn't really know why (Grace shouted "Why are they running with fire? That's DANGEROUS!!!" lol)

The sock enjoyed it though


And of course, you know about the staggette ;)

I think that's us all caught up. I'll pop in more often, I promise.

Celebrate the Good Times!

Ah, knitters. What we can't accomplish when we put our minds together....

The Plan Part 1: Getting it Together

One of our knitting group members is about to get married. It has been a long road to get to the wedding day, road block after disheartening road block, and now that the day is coming together we wanted to celebrate.

Then we got the idea that wouldn't it to be oh-so-much fun to surprise her?

We sat down with a calendar one knit night while she was stuck at home (her groom is a military man and was away) and picked a date. Another of our group is a sales representative for Passion Parties, so we planned to start the evening with some food and drinks and see the new and fun toys for grown-ups. Date set, pm's of invites sent out and secret RSVPs sent back, and we had ourselves a party.

Part 2: Duping Our Bride

The Bride and I share a love of snarking on the Twilight Saga, that completely ridiculous, yet strangely addictive story of angsty sparkling vampires. We decided ages ago that we would go together to the see the New Moon movie, but that we'd go to an afternoon show and wear wigs so as not to be recognized.

When I realized that the night we planned the party was also the opening night of the film, I chatted with the Bride on the phone and said "Hey, know what would be fun? Let's go on opening night and laugh at all the Twi-hards!" She agreed, and a plan was set for her to come to my place for supper and then we'd head out to the late showing.

I furthered the lie by telling her I had bought our tickets ahead of time to make sure we got in and to wear a white bra because I had made us funny tee shirts to wear (I made HER a shirt, for her staggette, lol, with help from another knitter in our group).

Later, when I knew she'd be out, I called her groom to let him in on the plan, just to make sure he would get her to my place on time.

Part 3: Getting a Special Guest

Several times while we planned her wedding (I went with her while she got her dress and helped with other decisions, I'm also taking her pictures and helping her plan her shower), Our Bride told me how she missed her Matron of Honour. MOH lives in Quebec and they hadn't seen one another in a couple years, and wouldn't see one another until the wedding.

I sent MOH a message letting her in on the plan, and said "I know this is a long shot, but any chance you'd be able to get here? I'd love to see her face when she realizes you're here"

Lo and behold, the MOH made it work, and the morning of the party I picked her up at the airport. I had a really stressful trip to Wal-Mart picking up last minute items, worried that The Bride would have ventured out for the day to run errands and would catch us, lol.

The Plan in Action

That evening, knitters began to gather at my place


And we waited, jumping every time the phone rang or the door buzzed. We had been very good at keeping our secret, Alison even exchanged innocent tweets with the bride from my couch..."Bride: headed over to lulubelle's" Alison"Oh what are you two up to?"...lol

Finally she arrived and we all sat hushed and giggly in the livingroom....

And SURPRISE!!!! She was stunned, standing there with the brownies she brought for dessert, it took a few minutes for her to register that we were having a party for her!

But the best part was when the MOH walked out of the kitchen. Our Bride was just saying "Oh, I really wanted to go to the movie, haha" and MOH says "Are you over the shock of the party and ready for the next one?" The look on our girl's face was priceless


Once she picked up her jaw off the floor there were hugs, and nearly tears, and we got down to the business of eating and our rep got down to her business.

Then we gussied up the bride


And headed out on the town!


Had some laughs


And more than a few drinks...


I'm still sort of reeling that we managed to pull it off without her ever suspecting a thing. But it was a great night, fun had by all.

It is rather scary to think of what we could do if we used our powers for evil...

Simply Lovely

After my conflict with Loppem I decided I needed something more simple to work on. Lo and behold the Fall Knitty comes out and one of the sweaters is all stockingette and garter...it doesn't get more simple than that!

I cast on, a little nervous that I'd quickly grow bored with the project, but surprisingly it turned out to be just what I needed. Soothing stitch after stitch, stacking up row after row, and before I knew it I had a sweater.


Pattern: Margot by Linden Heflin. Yarn KnitPicks Swish (Superwash Merino) in "Storm".

While knitting this my friend Ann drew my attention to Shawl that Jazz(ravelry link) and I started thinking about the big cone of licorice twist undyed that I had bought from Deb. Then I started thinking colour, and what would suit my wardrobe best, and before I knew it I had dyed it up in a yummy blue colour and started knitting until...



I had a lovely cozy wrap, perfect for fall. And done entirely in garter, so again we have a simple, soothing project.

What makes the yarn so amazing is that one of the 4 plies takes the dye differently, it absorbs more, creating a lovely effect.


Since both of these projects are on the large size, they were not exactly purse portable. So I picked up the sock that I had started in the workshop Deb Barnhill put on for my knitting group back in August. And between dentist appointments, movie showings, car trips, weddings, and line ups with a friend while she gets a book signed...I made these



Plain socks using Deb's very freakin cool toe-up method, yarn is Sweet Lime, in bamboo merino from the Yarn Pirate. This was my first shipment of the booty club, so it feels good to have this all knit up.

So now that I've gotten all of this plain knitting out of my system, I'm back knitting my Loppem sweater, working on a pair of Wanida Socks from Cookie A's book, and looking forward to casting on a lacy something from Knitted Lace of Estonia. Ahhhhh.

New things I got...

The past few weeks have actually been pretty good to me for getting new things!

To begin, my husband got to travel to Montreal to see Metallica play at the Bell Centre. He had a great time, and was so close to the stage he could have been sweated on (ew). But during his weekend away he took some time out to wander around and find a shop called Ariadne and buy me some souvenir yarn



The pink stuff is O-Wool Balance, a merino and cotton blend. The orange is a sock yarn that is dyed by the owner of Ariadne, and was also the last of the stuff she had done herself. He also picked up a set of stitch markers made by a local artist. And how awesome is it that I have a husband willing to seek out a yarn shop in a strange city and choose yarn for me? I am very lucky!

Then I got these:

The pink case is for my knitting notions, and it's awesome. It has this zippered pocket on the top that is perfect for all those smaller loose items that would get in the way in my old bag whenever I tried to get out my scissors or darning needles...it is actually for the small travel sized shampoo bottles, but I think my use is better. The book is Cat Bhordi's new one, called "Personal Footprints" and it's sheer genius (not surprising...it's Cat!). The yarn is Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball and it was the craziest thing...I was admiring it while chatting with L at Tangled Skeins as I paid for my book and before I knew it I was paying for the yarn too and walking out with it. I have no idea how that happened. But it's ok...because that weekend I was also



getting older, so I deserved a little something (plus my MIL had sent my husband some money to spend on me, so he handed it over and said "Have fun!"). To sort out how old...add the total number of candles to the number shown. We didn't have the right candles, so Phil got creative, lol.

Besides my little spree at the yarn shop, I got a new outfit from my Mom and Dad, and some money to put towards my heart's desire from my Nan, and these from my birthday buddy Shannon



3 skeins of Debbie Bliss Pure Silk. It's so yummy, I have it sitting on top of my computer monitor so I can pet it.

Earlier this week I got the September Booty Club shipment



It's my last for a while...my sock yarn stash is becoming rather overwhelming so I needed a break. I'm probably going to have a little sad every month as I see the new colours that are coming up but I'll be ok. Once I get some of this stash knit up I'll look into starting my subscription again. But really, a quick peek into my stash on Ravelry shows that I've got about 20 skeins of Yarn Pirate (plus what I've already knit into socks) so I think I might have hit my allotment for YP yarns.

Then yesterday I got this



As a thank you gift. My friend Cherie is a Pampered Chef sales rep and this is the Pampered Chef Square Baking Pan, and it's got brownies from the mix she brought over. The thank you was for taking care of her little girl while she was off having a second little girl...not that I minded looking after her, she's a delightful child. But I do love my new pan (and the fact that I've got brownies!).

Finally, over the weekend...I got to confuse some wedding guests. Our friends tied the knot and during the waiting periods (before the ceremony, during cocktail hour, in between courses for dinner) I knit a sock. I actually knit most of a sock, and this was something of a novelty.



So much so that the photographer had to snap some pics of it. Of course, I don't find it odd that I knit during that time...it made sense to me.

So that's what I've gotten recently. I hope you've gotten some goodies recently too.

Thanks to knittingwoman in the comments who pointed out that the link to Ariadne wasn't working. It's fixed now.

Dear Sweater,

I am not sure where we went wrong here. We started off great, your stitches flying, inches adding up, cables turning out beautifully. Loppem, you are lovely sweater and I look forward to wearing you.

Why are you being so difficult now that I've reached the yoke?

Here's the thing...when I do a stitch count and get that right, then meticulously do the increase round I fully expect to have the right number of stitches when I am done. But I didn't. So I spent an hour (a whole freaking hour) going over each stitch trying to see where I went wrong. When it was clear that I was not wrong, I started searching online to find pattern errata (because sometimes it really isn't user error), only to find that while there is some I have the updated pattern so it doesn't apply.

I decide to simply do away with the extra stitches and carefully planned that out. This only made our problems worse. Because now you don't have enough stitches. I know I decreased the right number. Where are these stitches, I ask you sweater?!

I can only suspect that you are angry with me. You must have heard me saying that I didn't think you were long enough and that I planned to wait until you were done to be sure of the length, but chances are good that I'd be undoing your cast on edge and adding a cable repeat. I don't know if I'll need to or not, can we please wait until the moment arrives to be upset about this?

Maybe you're insulted that I decided that a wool sweater really should have sleeves and have plans to alter the pattern to make full sleeves. Look, I live in a cold climate. Sweaters without sleeves are not a lot of use to me. Shrugs are a different story, but I wouldn't make a shrug out of pure cozy wool. It's not a reflection of your design, just a reality of living in Nova Scotia.

Or maybe your feelings are hurt because I ordered two more skeins of yarn to make sure I have enough. I assure you that you are not lacking just because I need more.

The fiasco the other night was regrettable. Angry words were spoken, and I'm sorry I threw you to the floor.

All that said, I do think we need a break from one another. Just a little one. I'll pick you back up, I promise.

In the meantime, please do not feel threatened by my casting on Margot. I just needed something simple to work on in the interim. Signs of Fall are everywhere, I will need more than one sweater.

Yours with love,

Lesley

Some yarns are more demanding than others

Sometimes a yarn comes into a knitter's life that will just Not. Shut. Up. It demands to be knit, there can be no waiting.

Heartless Tart was such a yarn. It didn't even make it into the stash before I caved to its demands and started looking for a pattern.

I didn't want to make socks. Ok, the yarn didn't want to be socks. It wanted to be a shawl.

I settled on the Aeslight Shawl by Gudrun Johnston (ravelry link, designer's website) and got to knitting. And knitting. And knitting. Mere 8 days between start to finish (and that's with working on other stuff between, lace isn't always portable).

And now I have this:




And I can breathe a sigh of relief that the tart is off my back (so to speak...I will likely wear the shawl on my back, but I mean that it's not pestering me...oh, hell, YOU know what I mean).

Once this was done I got a hankering for something else new to knit. I just got some yarn from a friend's destash, and it wants to be a cardigan. A Norah Gaughn cardigan. So, despite the basket of FO's waiting to be completed, that was cast on last night...

Making me wonder, do I have a hobby...or does the hobby have me?