Progress

I'm making progress on my mitered square blanket, I feel a bit weird about it though, kind of how I felt while I was working on my Noro Lizard Ridge Afghan. When I take on a big project like this, invest so much money and time into it, I feel like I really need to milk it for all it's worth! I could work solidly on this blanket for another week or two and probably get it done, but I feel like it really can't be rushed, like I need to just take it slow, do one square at a time and let myself really enjoy it, because if I finish it too quickly, then somehow all the work won't be worth as much or something. That may make me crazy, but I've decided to approach it that way, I knit a square whenever I feel like it, and watch it come together slowly. I've got 3 new squares to share, I've placed them in order of least liked to most liked:

I'm not really fond of the orangy-peachy squares, but I'm working towards a rainbow-like gradation of colour over the finished project, so I need some orange/peach in there somewhere to balance it out. I'm all done with that section though, I've gone through my red, orange and yellow half of the afghan and now I'm working towards the green, blue, indigo and violet section. That's the part I'm really looking forward to, I think I'll like every square I knit from now on. I know it seems weird to be knitting with colours that I don't like, but I think/hope that the overall effect will be worth it. Here's where I'm at so far:

Half done! And I've only been working on it for a year!

Cabled Yoke Pullover

So, I have actually been doing a lot of knitting lately, but just haven't had the time to document it. Today, it was sunny and beautiful and even though it was definitely NOT sweater weather, I decided that I couldn't pass up this photo-op, and dragged Ceej outside to photograph my new favorite sweater. Voila the Cabled Yoke Pullover from Patons pattern book Cables #500846.

I used the recommended yarn, Patons Decor in Winter White (I'm not sure if that's the recommended colour). They sell Decor at a LYS near my apartment, and I had the pattern book and had been wanting to knit this sweater for months, and then one day in March I was just overwhelmed with the urge to start it right away! I had some grey wool in my stash that I had intending on using for this project, but the more I thought about it the more I felt that this pattern really needed to be knit in ecru. So I marched to my LYS and bought the Decor because I knew it was available and I'd be able to cast-on that same afternoon. If I were to knit this sweater again, I would use a different yarn, maybe Patons Classic merino Wool, as long as it was something not synthetic. Decor is a lovely, soft, pleasant yarn, but I'm really a wool person. Its the only thing I'd change about this sweater.

I made a couple alterations to the pattern. First of all, I made the smallest size, but felt right off the bat that it was going to end up a bit too baggy for my liking, so I made it a couple stitches smaller all over. I'm really happy with the way it fits now. This is one of the first times that I've been disciplined enough to rip and re-knit portions of a project that I wasn't happy with. Usually, I have a really bad habit of not being a perfectionist, I knit things once, and if I don't like it, I'd rather just never wear it then have to undo and re-knit all that hard work, I know it doesn't make that much sense, but I just hate doing things twice! But, this time, I knew that this sweater had potential, so I stuck with it. I didn't like the way the collar fit me, it was very stretchy, kind of stood up and flipped out and looked very victorian or something, so I undid the cables and did a simple 1x3 rib instead and turned in under to make a stiffer, mock turtleneck look. It really suits me better. Here's a close up of the yoke, I didn't get that much of the collar in the shot, but you can see where the cables stop and the ribbing starts.

I also had to undo the whole bottom 6 inches of the sweater. I followed the pattern, but it ended up with a very short stockinette section and the 6 inches of cables and even with that the whole thing fell somewhere just above my belly button and looked really stupid. At this point, I knew that I'd have to rip, but couldn't bare the thought of it, so I set the whole thing aside for about 3 months. When I decided to give it another go I just undid the 6 inches of cables, knit about 5 inches of plain stockinette, then added 4 inches of cables. I think that the proportions work better on me since I'm petite. A taller woman could probably handle all those inches of cables on the bottom, but for me, it was a bit much. Here's a photo of the better, shorter cabled bottom edge (I also did 4 inches of cables on the sleeves). You may also want to notice my gorgeous new shell leaf ring. I just love it!

I think that come fall I'll get a lot of wear out of this cute pullover. It's casual, but a bit special and different because of it's interestingly placed cables. A winner in my books! 

Little Inga Hat

I've taken a big liking to tackling small projects that use up stash, are instantly gratifying and are cute and challenging to boot! The Inga Hat is just such a project. 

The new technique that I learned from this great hat is how to knit a braid. Every time I saw people on other blogs knitting braids, I always thought that they were really pretty, but that they must be quite tricky, or at least finicky, because people always seemed to lament doing them. But then when I saw that Hello Yarn had voluntarily added a second row of knitted braid to her little Inga, I figured they couldn't be that bad. And it wasn't bad at all! Very much worth the effort. It fits really well, I'll definitely wear it next winter, my only complaint is that I wish I had reversed the colours, like I wish that I had done the background in the turquoise and the pattern in white. I like the colours together with a hit of yellow for umph, but in retrospect, and after exploring finished objects on Ravelry, I think that results seem to be better when the darker colour is used as the background. I can see myself knitting this hat again, so next time I'll make do it that way. Also, before this hat is considered totally finished, I plan on using double stitch to make the little dots in the center of the pattern yellow, I think it'll make them stick out more and kind of look like jewels (I stole that from Hello Yarn too). All in all, I love the pattern, and the shorter version is perfect for my little head.

Fiddlehead Mittens

This weekend I decided to knit Hello Yarn's Fiddlehead Mittens. I love colourwork patterned mittens like this! In Montreal we get a long, cold winters which are made a slight bit easier to take by the fact that we have months and months where we get to sport cozy mittens. So why not make that essential mitten wearing fun!? The prettier the mittens, the more pleasurable they are to wear, or at least that's how I feel about it. 

I had planned on making these mitts for me. I was totally going to buy a kit off of the Hello Yarn website, but she's taking a break from making them, so I had to find another solution. I loved the pattern and had seen them knit with kureyon as the contrasting colour on Ravelry, and since I have a bag of leftover Kureyon ends from my Lizard Ridge Afghan I thought I'd knit them that way. I still have a bag of Kureyon leftovers under my day-bed, but I'm saving them for more fun projects like this. By adding a bit of kureyon to a project involving other leftover yarns, stash-busting immediately becomes a lot more enjoyable! So, here are the mittens: 

I used Patons Classic Merino Wool in Natural Mix as the background colour. I love that wool in that colour, it's so wool-like, it feels like it would have come off the sheep exactly that colour, so natural and hearty. It's probably one of my favorite yarns ever. I used the leftover's from my Must Have Cardigan, so this was a real economical project. The patterns calls for dk weight yarn, but seeing as how I'd seen it done in worsted on ravelry I thought I'd give it a try. I knit it on 3.25mm needles and followed the size for the smallest version, but because of the gauge of the yarn I suspect I got a much larger result then I had wanted. On me, they fit more like oven mitts!

I prefer my mittens to fit a bit on the snug side, so unfortunately, I've had to gift these mittens over to Chris. He's a great sport and will wear almost any colour in hand-knit gifts from me. He's got purple socks, yellow socks, Blue Moon Fiber Arts multicoloured striped socks, and now, he's got pretty mittens, and while the pattern isn't necessarily un-masculine, the first mitt I knit featured exclusively pink and purple kureyon, but he still loves them. I had intended that the mitts be a fraternal pair, so to compensate for the girly colours of the first mitt, I knit the second one in a decidedly more boyish combination of blues and browns. I think they're both lovely! The pattern was a quick and fun knit, and I'll definitely attempt a second (smaller) pair in a thinner yarn at some point.

The pattern calls for the mittens to be lined, but I've opted not to do that since the heavier yarn makes for a very sturdy and warm mitt as it is. The pattern also calls for an I-cord cast on, which I had never attempted before (I almost exclusively use long-tail cast on, it's how I first learnt.) but I'm now in love with the I-cord cast on! It's so clean looking! And though it takes way longer then my beloved long-tail, it's so worth it because of the beautiful finished look it adds. I'm a convert, for certain projects at least. It was really neat to lear something new. And I realize the middle of a heat wave in June is an odd time to be knitting mittens, but I'm not really in to summer knits, so in the summer, I just suck it up, sweat through the heavy knitting, and rejoice when fall rolls around and I can enjoy all that hard work!

Another Baby Sweater

I've been briefly hooked on making baby sweaters. But I think I've gotten it out of my system for now. Here's my second Tanis Fiber Arts baby sweater. I used the pattern for the blended hues cardigan from Knitty, but while the pattern calls for 3 strands of lace weight yarn held together, I used two strands of fingering weight yarn instead, so my colour transitions aren't as smooth. I still think it's pretty cute though. I LOOOOOVE the little fish buttons. The special recipient of this sweater happens to love fishies, or at least she did the last time I saw her, 2 year olds change their minds a lot, by the time she receives this sweater she may be over fish, but I still think they're cute. 

5 New TFA Colours!

I write this just for you Vince, I feel like you need to be informed about what I'm doing. So, lately what I've been doing is coming up with 5 new colours for my Etsy site and wholesale customers. Here they are, all lined up and looking very pretty in the afternoon sunlight:

From left to right we have Grape, Garnet, Amber, Midnight and Moss. As you can see my new colours are a little more on the "earthy" side then the rest of my collection. I feel that even though there will always be a place for bright, cheerful "look at me" socks, there's also a place for deep, rich colours in my sock drawer. Here are some extra close ups of the skeins:

Hope you like them! 

 

long hiatus

Hey Vince and mom, I know I haven't posted in over 2 months, so I thought that I should do a little updating. The lack of posts doesn't mean a lack of knitting or dyeing, I've actually been dyeing more then ever, and I always have some knitting on the go. I blame the move and the computer problems for my slow updates. I'm working on it. My new computer is so beautiful I'm always looking for excuses to use it, so blogging will be the perfect solution.

This is my latest favorite knit. I made this for one of my favorite people. She's having a baby! (those of you who know me and her will know who I'm talking about) And the second I heard that she was pregnant I had to cast something on for her little bun in the oven. Even though she's not due until almost Christmas I wanted to get a head start on making her something beautiful and I wanted to make it out of Tanis Fiber Arts yarn. I chose to knit Elizabeth Zimmerman's February Baby Sweater from Knitters Almanac. I have been wanting to knit it for a while, but had no babies in my life to knit it for. This was the perfect excuse. I knit it holding 2 strands of my fingering weight yarn in Buttercup. It's gorgeous. Totally exceeded my expectations, and of course, I couldn't get a photograph that would do it justice.

The colour variations are very subtle and delicate. The fabric is firm and soft to the touch. It's the first time I've used my fingering weight yarn to knit anything other then socks, so the successful result is very exciting. I knit it in a weekend and will definitely be making another one the next time I need a baby gift. I've already cast on another child size sweater knit with 2 strands held together the bun's older sister!

Tanis Fiber Arts is making progress, I'm now in seven stores across Canada. Business is growing slowly but steadily. I've got 5 new colours in the works. Look for them here or on my Etsy site by the end of the week!

Big Day at Tanis Fiber Arts

Last week was really big as far as weeks go here at Tanis Fiber Arts. I got my first BIG order! I've been selling my yarns at my LYS for a couple months now, and they've been making orders as I've been making colours. So although they've cumulitively ordered the most yarn, it wasn't all at once. Beehive Wool Shop contacted me last week and placed an order for 92 beautiful skeins! They looked lovely all waiting to be packed up and shipped on my living room floor. It was a big deal for me because now, people on the West Coast are going to be able to pick up my yarn at their LYS, it's mind boggling. So, now I'm officially in 3 stores, the 2 mentioned above, and Greenwood Quiltery a beautiful fabric and yarn store in Guelph.



This weekend, Chris and I barely left the apartment. The weather was miserable, for once, we didn't have anything that we absolutely had to do, it was a perfect, lazy, pyjama's all day kind of weekend. So, I decided to give the socks a break and continue working on a blanket that I started months ago (maybe even a year ago... I can't even remember!) It's the mitered square blanket from the Mason Dixon knitting book. It's gorgeous. I'm making mine to hopefully fit snuggly on the top of a twin bed, or sloppily on my lap on the couch. It's going to be three by four squares. Unlike many people who approach this blanket, I'm not going at this casually, I have very strictly and specifically chosen my colour layout. It's going to be a rainbow, starting with red's in the top left corner and subtly flowing through the orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and ending with the violet in the bottom right corner. It's all mapped out, and even though some of the orangey squares aren't exactly my taste, I am confident that when all sewn together the overall affect will be worth it! (Hopefully!) So, I'm sticking to the plan, and trying to avoid the problem of endless miles of mattress stitch at the end by sewing up as I go. Bellow are the first three squares, you can already start to see the transition of colours right?





I'm knitting it using Elann Peruvian Highland wool. I love it. Elann rocks. The colour selection when I bought the yarn was amazing, I know that now they don't have all the colours, but I got lucky. And the yarn is very soft and nice to work with. When I'm done I suspect I'll have lots of leftover bits to knit a great hat/scarf/mittens or something. Maybe even a sweater!

My favorite new hats

I have a new favorite style of hat to knit and wear. I made these two hats recently, both were intended as gifts but only one actually got given away. They're very lovely and hard to part with! In December I made Shedir from knitty.com for my brother Vince for Christmas, but in the end found him a gift that I knew he would like better and ended up keeping the hat for myself. I wear it everyday and absolutey love it, the tiny cables and gorgeous crown pattern really make me happy. When Chris wears it around the house and I get to study it on someone else I really marvel at the pattern. Genius!



Next I made Koolhass by Jared Flood. Another lovely pattern with a complex crown and tiny cables. I made this one for Richie for his birthday and actually did manage to part with it this time. It was a reletively quick knit so I'll definitely be making more. I just love showing off tiny cables! Who knew I was so easily amused?

A Rainbow of Socks

I've been working on my own collection of hand dyed yarns for months now. I've experimented and played around with countless colour combinations and dye methods, and have definitely found my nitch. I'm dyeing tonal colourways that knit into a beautiful heathery fabric. If the yarn looks good in the skein, that's great, but the only way to really know how good a particular colourway is, is to knit it up. So, that's what I've been doing lately, knitting socks to test my colourways. Chestnut is being knit into a lovely ribbed sock for my dad:



Chris chose Jewel for his socks (He has very jazzy tatse in socks, I love it!) Simple cables to highlight the yarns texture:

Mom joined in on the fun to knit up Mallard for me (expertly modeled by me!):

Luke is getting something on the conservative side, Shadow, for practical, professional people, of course, with cables for pizazz!:

And I've knit myself my first picot edge sock out of Peacock, the pattern is Mata Hari by Craftoholic:



I have a couple more colourways to knit before I've got samples of everything, but I'm on a roll. As long as no one minds having only one sock! I've knit only the first sock of every pair because I wanted to be able to see many different colourways knit up as fast as possible, when I've gone through the rainbow, I'll start back at the begining and knit the second socks for each pair!

Lizard Ridge Afghan

This afghan was my introduction to Noro yarns. I saw the pattern on Knitty, I loved the colours and the wavy lines, and I decided that I was ready for a big project. I guess you could call it a good thing that I didn't realize what I was getting myself into when I begun, because if I had, I probably wouldn't have started it. It wasn't the knitting that was hard, that part was fun and just flew by, it was the cost of the yarn, and the addictive qualities of the whole thing! On an artists budget, 24 balls of Kureyon don't come cheap! I decided to make it an on-going project, when Kureyon went on sale or when I felt like I deserved it I'd buy myself a ball and knit up a square, that way it made the project last longer too, because unless I purposely tried to slow down and take my time and really appreciate this project, I could just zip right through it! All in all, it took me about a year from begining to end (actually, I still have to learn how to crochet so I can add the border) but it was well worth it. I tried to use a different colour of Kureyon for every square, I think I may have repeated one or two colours because I had forgotten what ones I already had. The balls are all so different though that you really don't notice. I brought this blanket to last months knit together at my LYS and everyone loved it! Apparently 3 people from the group have already begun there own versions of the project.

Here are a few pictures:





The camera really doesn't do the colours justice, it's gorgeous and I love it!

This one's for Vince!

I took a little break from blogging not long after I posted my very first post. The thing is... I think I got cold feet. I didn't think anyone was actually ready it, (I hadn't told anyone that I was writing it,) and I guess I started thinking that maybe it was a little bit silly to be writing a craft blog that nobody would ever read. But then I spoke to my little brother. He lives on the other side of the country, in Vancouver, and as a masters student apparently has loads of free time on his hands to google things and randomly surf the net. I hadn't told him that I was blogging, but then one day he asked me why I hadn't posted on my blog recently? I was shocked that someone was actually reading it, and though he didn't admit it, I think that he liked seeing what I was up to, even if it was mostly about knitting. So, in honour of my little brother Vince, I've decided to renew my commitment to blogging. At least for now.

Today's post, while dedicated to Vince, is also about sewing rather then knitting. I spend most of my free time knitting, I love to sew too, but I'm not as good at it, and I don't have a sewing machine, so I have to plan projects around trips to my parents house in the suburbs. As a result, I get much less sewing done then I would like. I do however, have 2 sewing projects that I'm particularily proud of. The first, is this star quilt that I made for my boyfriends little nephew, Jake:

I love this pattern, I find the stars very pretty. The quilt is very simple, which is a requirement for most of my quilting projects seeing as how, like I said, I'm not the best sewer. The thing that I like the most about this quilt is the colour. It's my second quilt. My first used the same pattern, but fits my queen sized bed (is 5 x 6 squares rather then 3 x 3) and was made using fabrics of every colour of the rainbow. I tend to gravitate towards lots of colour, but I don't think that it's always for the best. For this quilt I was able to control my urges and focus the pallette using just watery blues with a bit of gray and turquoise thrown in for good measure. From what I can tell, Jake approves.

My next favorite sewing project, the Weekender bag by Amy Butler:

I chose to make mine using a bright navy and turquoise fabric, from one of Amy Butlers collections. I bought both the pattern and the fabric this fall on a trip to Guelph to visit my great friend Jenna. Her mom owns a quilt shop and I spent the afternoon on cloud nine examining all the beautiful fabrics and samples. I'm really happy with how the bag turned out, but wouldn't call it a novice project. There are many layers of fabric and timtex and piping, and required a lot of muscle to sew through it all, my mom helped a lot. She's the best.

Oh, so not only does my brother read my blog, apparently he told my mom about it, so she reads it too. Hi mom!