a rainbow in my knitting bag

Just a quick post this week, so much to do.  This upcoming week is sure to be a big one, but more on that next time.

Sewing has taken up most of my crafty time lately, but I have been chipping away at my largest knitting project yet in my down time.

It`s certainly a colourful one, isn`t it.  I`m attempting the hue shift afghan from knitpicks, and I must say, as a person who has sworn to never again knit a baby blanket, I`m really enjoying it!  You see, it`s divided into little squares (what with it being an afghan and all), but it seems so much less tedious for it.  Instead of working away for an evening and having no real difference to show for it, you have one more happy little square.  I also love how you pick up the stitches at the beginning of each square, so I`m knitting right onto the main thing, not ending up with a hundred tiny squares to sew together (tying in the ends is another matter, but I`m no where near that yet).

So right now, this is my happy-for-me project, feel free to check it out on my ravelry.

nautical charts

Ouch!  2012 has not been my year for blogging.  And embarrassingly, 2013 seems to be following suit.  However, I'm not ready to let go yet, and so I stride forth, once again into the blogosphere and give you an update on my crazy cozy life.

I do have a project or two to ready to share, but instead, I have a little giftie.  Remember a long long time ago when I was saying how I was going to do up a nice proper version of the graphs I used to make my octopus hat and pirate ship scarf?  Well, voila, tout finis!

Here's the Octopus Chart (click for full view):

for a finished product that looks something like this:

or this:

And here's the Pirate Ship Chart:

for a little something that will turn out like this:

Yay! (You may notice that my charts are different formats.  Well, I actually had a much more detailed and therefor larger chart drawn up for the pirate ship, but it would have made the scarf too big for my little guy.  I had wanted to giver you that chart as well, but my computer is full of gremlins and the process by which my octopus chart was made would not be duplicated.  I made the small ship chart with a lot of cut and paste blocks; very tedious.)

With any luck, these will be understandable and useful.  Basically, it's just simple intarsia, using two colours for the octopus (the x being one colour and the o another) and three for the ship (the blue squares are supposed to be white, and the blank squares are blue).  Perhaps I will make a tutorial for intarsia one day, but for now, your best bets lay with a 'how to' book or the youtubes!

Happy knitting and if anyone finishes a project with either of these, I would be simply over the moon to see a picture of it!  Nautical charts indeed, oh the cleverness of me!

Ta!

ribbit and also choo-chooo

For those not in the know, the process of ripping out a knitting project is called "frogging" (because, you 'rip-it'...see where I'm going). This just goes to show that knitters are really as peculiar as they seem at first glance (present company included).

My point being that while I have a new baby and am on vacation and my creations are slow by any means to begin with, I'm also finding that I am having to go back a re-do a lot.

Firstly Baby's sweater dress, on take 3 and am trucking along well (finally). It will be fabulous.

Secondly, Baby's quilt. Well, while it's not called frogging when you rip a quilt, yeah it's in the same boat. I hodge-podge mashed a wild selection of prints together...wait, I'll start further back. I ordered a bunch of fabric off of Spoonflower. You can have too much of a good thing. With so many beautiful and wild fabrics to choose between, I eventually settled for just taking whatever I wanted instead of trying to co-ordinate it. Interestingly enough, A fair amount of the fabric worked, so I went down to fabricville and found a few pieces to tie it together. I'm using the Speedy Baby-2 from Quilt Taffy (which works really well with a handful of fat quarters). However, as I placed the last panels in place, I decided they were too much (too bright and crazy and colourful), so I've ripped them off and am putting in plain grey panels that match the little elephants instead.

Lastly, I realize that I've never properly shown off our train table. We finished it this summer. Every time anyone comes to the house Bugaboo takes them over to show it to them saying "My daddy maked me that". It's fabulous. We do have plans to expand and better paint the scenery and add a big red H for a heli-pad. I also want to state that the only things we paid full price for was the train 'Emily'. All the other trains were bought second hand from value village, or on sale, or were birthday gifts. The tracks were also found at value village ($5) except for the bridge which was also on sale. It's not fine art, but it's very fun.

(nice hat eh?)

Well, my little girl is hungry, so I'm off to do some mothering. :)

fall, fall, glorious fall! oh, and an octopus

Best Season Ever!

Even out here in the ever so slightly drab west coast, it makes me so happy! So a new baby and a new house make it a lot of fun (and a lot of work, but it's fun work, so that's great!).

Due to the craziness of life in general, I'm keeping things short (never know when a 4 week old little girl is going to wake up from her nap).

House=a long way to go before any exciting progress can be reported.

Knitting=looky what I made! (I'm referring here to the knitting, not the baby, allthough, yeah, I made that too)

This is what I'm calling my Octopus Sleep Sac. It's based on the Owlie Sleep Sac pattern found on Ravelry, but when I looked at my yarn options, I saw octopus, not owl, so that's what I did.

I had been wanting to try making a pattern, and with my mom here, she was able to guide me through how to knit it up once it was made. I think I've found a whole new element of knitting to become addicted to, and am scheming of many more intarsia patterns to come (um, once I get a bit more time on my hands though). All I did was draw the octopus I wanted, and then traced over it by blocking out which squares I wanted orange and which were to be blue. Feel free to use the x&o pattern here (if you can see it well enough), but I am planning on making a nice and proper one to post on Ravelry, so you could wait for that too.

Oh, and celebrating fall, we went to the local pumpkin patch for some fun.

And fun was had!

snugly bugly rugly

Ok baby, I'm ready!

Well, I've actually been ready for a while, however, I have happily completed both a girl sweater and a boy sweater, meaning that my knitting is in order and you can be born anytime now. Please!


In all honesty, I finished the little boy sweater a week or so ago, but have had no energy for photographing it, and so it waited. But Costco had sheepskin rugs on sale (I've wanted one forever) and I magically found inspiration for a few snugly photos. In other news, Bugaboo approves of the sheepskin for snuggle purposes. We'll have to find a nice central spot in the new house where it can be readily available for snuggles whenever.





Back to the sweater. I found it on Ravelry; 'Knitted Jacket with Raglan Sleeves and Cables' by DROPS design. The pattern is fabulous, but the way it's written is horrendous. Literally, I had to decode it every step of the way. I'm honestly thinking of organizing all my notes and posting a user friendly version. The biggest issue I had, was most of the pattern seemed to be nonsense until you tried it, failed, realized what they had meant, and then did it again. For example, the cables are all from charts. The key to the charts are on a separate page. I was within an inch of the end when I realized that I had been doing them upside down all along (no big deal though). The decrease pattern at the end was similar, however I did do it right. I think if I try this one again (which I think I will now that I have it deciphered) I'll decrease a lot more though, because the neck is really big. We'll see how it looks on the baby (if he's a boy).






Anyhow, it's lovely and soft and warm and I'm really pleased with how it came out, mistakes and all.

Oh, and for the record, Mom did all they tying in of the loose ends for me. :)

summer sweater knit along - finally finished

...ish.


I never did tie in all the annoying little loose ends.



However, for all intensive purposes this baby (referring to the sweater here, still waiting on the other one) is DONE!

It was for the wonderful fun Summer Sweater Knit Along hosted by luvinthemommyhood. I had already been planning on making this, and actually had all the materials just awaiting my knitting pleasure! It's called the 'One Button Wonder' from Sirdar's 'Big Softie Knits for Beginners' book. Super easy and fast to knit up, which is just perfect for a busy mommy who doesn't have hours a day to spend knitting.

I do have to apologise for the photos though. Our house has no clear spot with ok lighting, and so by the time we made out it into the yard I had been wearing the sweater for about 10 minutes and it was really very hot (and it doesn't take much to make a pregnant woman cranky).

happy civic holiday!

What a silly day. Not that I'm complaining about a day off because that's awesome, but one that's different for every Provence? Oh well, yay BC-Day!

In other news, my husband has been using our camera and has put it somewhere, so what I wanted to post will wait a few days, and instead I'll bring you and update on my dandy knitting projects. Ok, so still not finished that sweater for the Sew Along. No excuse really, other than I don't like finishing and tucking all the little ends in. However, I did finish a beautiful pair of little baby slippers!

Now, I don't actually know the gender of our baby, so I'm knitting a few things for a girl, and have a few pieces for a boy lined up too. These little sandals from Debbie Bliss's 'blankets, bears and booties' book were too cute and I really wanted the challenge. Challenge me they did and still I prevailed! There was definitely a point where they looked pretty mangled, but finish them up and stuff them each with a weeble (because I don't have any little toesies for them yet) and they turned out lovely!

I'm on the final sleeve of the matching sweater, so back to knitting I go!

PS. These were done in the fabulous sock-wool I picked up at the Belfast Fibre mill. My little guy keeps picking up my work-in-progress or the ball of wool and just stroking it, so I hope new-baby finds it as snuggly too!

for the love of wool

I'll preface this post with an invitation and a helpful piece of information. Firstly, Ravelry; check it out. My account name is Qalupilluit if you're ever interested what I'm currently working on. Secondly, when packing your knitting project away, try storing it with the needles point up (unless you're worried about safety, such as someone falling on them). The reason is so that if little grabby hands pull out the needle, all your work doesn't slide off of it. I found this one out the lucky way. Ok, now down to business...

Almost immediately after I picked up knitting last summer, I also found the joy and wonder of wandering around a cozy local yarn shop. So many colours, and textures and fibres with unlimited potential, I love it. However, it was shortly after my first few projects that I realized that different fibres knit up differently, and that I had a lot to learn about yarn.

With no real place to start, I stuck to cottons and synthetic blends, but would always snuggle the beautiful poufs of wool I'd find (before putting them back and buying a yarn I could handle). Plus, you don't have to know much of anything to see that some wools are extremely expensive, while seemingly comparable others aren't. I needed to know more, so when I spotted Clara Parks' 'The Knitters Book of Wool', I was ecstatic. This was another example of where my husband just couldn't understand my excitement (I get the same way when I bring home my books about bee-keeping).

I tore through the tome and was well rewarded. While I still fall far from knowledgeable, I had a basic understanding of this wonderful fibre. In addition, about half of the (slightly daunting in size) book is patterns selected to best illustrate how each characteristic of the different wools can be put to best use, such as the wispy fine wools for lacy shawls and easily washed super soft wool for baby clothes. Anyhow, armed with this small piece of knowledge and a few patterns I wanted to try, I then waited for our vacation back east because not far from our home town of Fredericton lies the wonderful Briggs and Little Woolen Mill. Awesome; I know.







Also awesome was that a whole crew of us wanted to make the trip down to see it. Now sadly, the mill itself was closed for the season, but the store was open and that was good enough for me. Without getting into too much detail, it was wonderful. Even my cousin's 3 year old had fun.



I will admit a slight pang of disappointment though, not in the trip or the store of the bags of beautiful wool we bought, but simply in the in-opportunity to wield my new found knowledge. You see, the mill (it is a small town operation at heart) buys it wool as many do, in large bushels. This is fine, but it is normally a mixture of fibres from different sheep, losing any specific qualities that had been bread into the animal. Briggs and Little's quality and variance of selection comes from the milling process, not the wool.

My husband, son and I were travelling to PEI the following week and my aunt, unknowing of my unfulfilled woolly-dreams mentioned another mill she had stumbled upon there. And this brings us to the second half of our journey, the Belfast Mini Mills and Fibre Store (and tea room; which really is the best possible thing to pair with knitting). Hours out of our way, my generous, supporting husband happily (well, like, without too much begging) agreed that we could check it out. And to be honest, even he was glad that we did (what?!).

It was marvelous! Better than I imagined. We bumped down the long driveway, past fields and barns, around to a small dirt parking lot edged by fenced in herds of goats, llamas and alpacas. Down past the pretty little tea house was the store. Opening the door my eyes hardly had time to adjust from the sunshine before the lady behind the desk welcomed us to their little store. Seeing that it was our first visit, she called a girl from the back room (later we found it to be the loom room; more on that to follow) to give us a tour around the mill. I wasn't sure my husband and son would be interested, so I was shocked when he quickly told her we'd love to.



It started with the chickens. Bugaboo was most impressed, especially with the chickies tripping over one another, bustling around their mama. Then she introduced us to some alpaca and pointed out their llamas and goats as well (it may have been the other way around, I don't really know llamas from alpacas, although, they're both fun to say). Inside was a blur of machines and fibres whirring and spinning madly. A few workers were in among them, but it was hard to tell which machines they were working on and which were churning out the various stages of wool on their own.

And then, believe it or not, it got even better. The batch they were currently working on was a fibre called qivuit. Now, Ms Parks, in her book had called qiviut her favourite wool, hands down, and had mentioned though that it was pretty pricey, it was worth it. So obviously, I was madly curious about the fibre, especially because it's not from sheep, but rather muskox. Well, I won't go into too much detail other than we were able to see it in all steps of processing, and feel it at the various stages. It is famous for being eight times warmer than wool and still being softer than cashmere; it is.

We eventually made it back to the store, after stopping to meet a very friendly mama cow and calf. The store itself is divided into a front section where shelves of the most gorgeous and often time curious fibres lay in a rainbow of gentle to vibrant colours, all awaiting my perusal. Then there was the back room. Again, I'm restraining from going on too much, but it was set up with a series of looms so anyone interesting in weaving could come and work on projects there. It was just incredible.
Eventually we made our purchases (even Bugaboo and my husband found some treasures; a jar of honey from the bees they keep just out back of the store, and a felted wool ball) and made our way to the tea room passing yet another critter they make their yarns from.

Honestly.

(if you can't see the lable, it says '30% Golden Retriever')

So as a penultimate note to my eccentric new love of wool, I have mostly finished my sweater for luvingthemummyhood's Summer Sweater Knit Along, I just need to set it and sew in the ends. Also, I've been playing away with my beautiful wool. I'm in the middle of a baby sweater from the wool book, and have been knitting up a few quick projects just so I could feel it.





It's a wonderful new obsession of mine and it has leagues and leagues of room to grow and thing for me to learn, so I guess this is a little warning that there may be a lot of talk abut wool in the near future. Oh, and as a final note, I couldn't extend my turn with the wool book from the library because it was already being requested by other folks, but I didn't mind because I know next chance I get, I'm picking up a copy for myself (to read and re-read, because I'm insane).


Now, back to knitting!

baby thoughts

I finished it! And with perfect timing on my part I might add. What you wonder? The BABY BLANKET! The one I started knitting for my brother-in-law's baby-to-be seven months ago. She is now almost two months old, so yeah, I'm a little late but, we are going to visit them (and the rest of our families; yay!) over the next two weeks, so yeah, squeaked it in just in time! Oh, also, having a fun summer sweater knit a long starting today might have been the extra motivation I needed. Either way, yay me!

Oh, and here it is:

It was an easy enough pattern, I just didn't realize how long it would take for me to get through it. Any experienced knitters could probably get it done in a few weeks, or a new knitter with more time for that matter. However, it's done, I'm finished yay!

Oh, and speaking of baby gifts, here's a thought: what are some fun, useful handmade gifts? Well, I've been to a friend's baby-shower a few weeks ago, and had a few of my own back when I was pregnant with Bugaboo, and feel that I am therefore qualified to offer you this list of some of my favourites (to make and receive)!

1. baby towel - a friend gave us one, all it was was a regular towel with a ribbon of hot-air ballons along the edges, and it's lovely. There are a lot of other ways to snazz up a towel too, adding a hood, and monogramming are other suggestions. Very useful either way.



2. top-knot hats



3. blankets or quilts



4. baby-bottle-cozy - you know, something to keep the bottle warm.



5. diaper clutch - think teeny-tiny diaper bag. Basically, any cute purse just big enough for a few diapers and wipes.



6. change pad



7. receiving blanket/burp cloths



8. soother clips



9. baby clothes/diaper cover



10. teddy or doll

If you're wondering, I made my friend's little one a dress. Sadly, I never took any pictures but I found the pattern here on Made by Rae and it was wonderful, although I might adjust the lining a little bit to cover some of the seams on the inside more if I make it again.

Oh, also, no matter the gift, the best way to wrap it is in a receiving blanket. Just one of the cheap gerber ones from Walmart that come in three-packs (or more apparently). You can just never have enough of those things (whereas we still have a box of once-used baby gift bags that we are slowly giving away).

Well, with that I'm signing off for a while. My little boy is growing up more everyday and I need to spend some serious summer-time fun with him! More crafts in a few weeks! (well, maybe a blip in the meantime).

Celebrate The Summer Boy: Day 3 - Summer Jammies

Woohoo! I'm loving the progress I'm making with this 'project-a-day' week. However, the downside it that I'm having a hard time photographing everything. That brings us to today's super simple post. Great project; fast, easy and money saver, but I don't have any pictures of it actually being worn! I'm just too bleary eyed to remember to get a photo of my little man in the wee hours of the morning. Whatever, I have another, even more amazing project (that I did not have any hand in making) to showcase as well. Yay, two for one, here we go.

Firstly, jammies. My little man is a skinny-minnie-miller, so he always outgrows things in length before he outgrows it around. Too easy. So what I've done is taken all his 1T size jammies that are too short and lopped them off into shorts and t-shirts. Save a little money on new jammies and it literally takes about 5 minutes to do, max.

(my 'before' and 'after' pictures are of different sets of pjs that both got the summer-treatment. Can't find the guitar ones anymore. Silly laundry.)

Now for the good stuff. It may not seem summery, but check out this super awesome poncho knitted by Grammie!

He loves it, and while it's still too big, he NEEDS to wear it (he gets testy about shoes and sweaters for some reason; everything else he could care less about). It's perfect for our Canadian summers, especially early in the morning, out playing in the yard before the sun has really warmed things up.

Thanks Grammie!

Baking Cookies! Yum Yum Yum

My little man is old enough now that he understands that you shouldn't touch what is hot, and that Mommy doesn't like it when he plays in the cat's dishes, the garbage or near the top of the stairs, all of which enable us to let him into the kitchen when we're cooking now. It may not seem like a big deal, but it's amazing being able to cook safely without having him yell at you through the bars of the baby-gate. And actually letting him help, well that's one of both his and my favourite things to do.

So to get my little chef in training set up, I badly needed a Bugaboo-sized apron. I tried tying on a tea towel or using an old apron of mine

(with a little creativity; those are blueberries for muffins he's eating), but they were not good enough. A friend with a little boy Bugaboo's age is just starting sewing and I've been helping her. I thought this could be a nice easy project to help her feel more comfortable with sewing, but while I wait to find a time where our men can take our boys for a few hours, I needed a quick fill-in. So here it is.

It's not overly clear, but it's just a piece of scrap from a blanket that was turned into shepherd costumes for a Christmas pageant. I simply cut it out to the shape I wanted and sewed on the ties (which were strips cut from old curtain material that doesn't fray). I'm uneasy about things tied around little ones necks, so I looped them under the arms instead. It took no time at all and I'm going to use the same design for the nicer version.

It had to be tried out as soon as he woke up from his nap and the cookies were great fun (with little kids, sugar cookies are nice to make because you mix them up with their help, and can cook them later when the kiddies are asleep, after the dough has chilled. It'seasier not having to try to keep their attention on cooking for too long). He refused to let me take it off until I told him we were going outside for a walk and he had to leave it at home. I suppose I could have let him wear it though.

Anyhow, in other news, I have a close friend who started knitting when I did. Both of us were taught by our mothers, but because they live so far away, we've been stumbling through the stitches together, learning quite a lot as we go. Well she got me a stitch-a-day Vogue knitting calendar for Christmas, and everyday it has a new pattern with instructions on it. I've been tempted by quite a few of them, but as is Vogue's reputation for patterns, I've been daunted by the complexity of the instructions. However, Thursday's pattern was too wonderful not to try. I actually had to keep myself from ripping it off a day early. However, I held strong and muddled through and ended up knowing how to do this!

It's called a Scalloped Shell and can't you just see it along the edge of a little girl's pinafore or a baby's cap! The wheels in my head are just a whirring with plans however, I have to finish this baby blanket first, so I guess I best get knitting!

Special Delivery - April

I'm finding increasingly, as the sunny weather is really starting to kick in, that I am very much influenced by it. On bright sunny days, such as today, I'm tidying, gardening, knitting and blogging with a fervor that I lacked all gloomy weekend long. However, I've suspected I'm solar powered for some time now, so this is nothing new. Have you ever had a day where you're outside, soaking in the glorious warm rays and enjoying a cool drink of water feeling like you might have been a plant in a previous life? Ok, maybe that's just me, however...

Our lovely garden is progressing. I don't say growing because it is still in the stages of being filled with dirt and other yummy treats for my future crops, so all the growing is still taking place on our window sill. I might have underestimated the amount of stuff it takes to fill a 1'x4'x6' raised garden. Oh well, it will be lovely once it's ready.

(This is my husband and son dumping another load of dirt into the garden. I'm pregnant, and so my husband offers to do any heavy shoveling for me. The trailer is still unavailable, so we've been hauling dirt down in our recycle bins and garbage can.)

As far a actually completing tasks, I've taken a brief knitting hiatus from my baby-blanket, and whipped up this for my April Special Delivery.

It's a coin purse from a pattern I got here: http://www.bernat.com/pattern.php?PID=4728. There seemed to be a bit of in issue with the pattern though, because while they do a decent job of explaining the 'Ssk' stitch which I believe is used to make the button holes, it doesn't actually appear in the pattern. I just omitted them and sewed up the sides. Either way I doubt I'd use it as a coin purse (it would be too easy to loose things that way) but a little pouch is sure to come in handy. I'm also really fond of the button, which I added just for show. It was in an antique sewing kit my grandmother found me at an auction, and I've wanted to find a good use for them. I think it's pretty!

The whole project took a little more than 2 hours to whip up, and I'd recommend it for anyone who is just starting to knit and wanting to practice their knits and purls (it's in seed stitch, which is just switching back and forth between the two).

Now that I'm back into the knitting swing, I hope to finish up that blanket, but I find big projects so daunting (short attention span I guess). Wish me luck!