new knitting plans...

This year Santa didn't bring me any knitting goodies - but my mom did, and so did Dave and Tara, Mike's brother and sister in law!

my mom is such a supplier of yarn porn! just look at this lovely mass of Handmaiden yarn - Lady Godiva and Stretto, from the Maid Marion Vest Kit...

She also got me the little pewter and wood closure for the vest:
I love the yarn in this kit, but I'm not entirely sure that I'll knit it as written... I'm not sure if the vest is really my style, so I'll probably turn this yarn into a sweater of some sort... the pattern is knit side to side in order to maintain the vertical stripes, so maybe I'll try and build from that.

Tara, who has heard me complain many times that I can't crochet to save my life, decided to remedy my situation with this fab little kit from Klutz Books:

yarn, instructions, crochet hook, tapestry needle... at this rate I should be crocheting ponchos in no time! :) actually, what I really want to be able to make are the little crocheted amigurumi creatures that seem to be everywhere these days... like this elephant, for example... I seem to recall some fuschia fun fur hiding at the bottom of my stash box that would be perfect for this - after all, everyone needs a pink elephant in the room! :)

(Well, okay, not me... I already have one - his name's Colosso!)

Kieron, our house-mate, and his mother (who came to visit for Xmas) gave me the lastest issue of Knit 1 Magazine, and that new-ish book Not Your Mama's Knitting. Now I have even more patterns that I want to knit for myself!

My resolution for this year, therefore, is to knit one item for myself for every item that I make for someone else - be it friend, family, or charity knitting. That way I will make up all the sweaters waiting for me in my stash box, without feeling too guilty about spending so much time on myself! so all of you guys get to be my conscience - if you see me knitting a gift item, ask me about the me-project that the gift item is sharing its space in the "current projects" knitting basket!

yarn funness!

yes, yes, I've been a truant blogger... so i'll try to make up for it now!

first, more yarn porn courtesy of mom!
It's another kit from HandMaiden Fine Yarns! This one, as you can see, makes the angel Scarf, or the Bias scarf - but mom insists that the Angel Scarf is the one I have to make. :) Here's a close up for better drooling...
Again, this is two types of yarn that are to be knit together - the fuzzy, thin yarn is called Angel Hair, and the bumpy yarn (for lack of a better descriptive word) is the Silk Rumple. It should be a quick knit, but again, I think its going to have to wait till later in the summer/early fall, due to all the baby knits that are still on my list.

Another package arrived last Wednesday, this one from my Auntie Nona in Toronto
Fun knitting magazines! yay! I've taken a brief look through these, and have noticed a few potentially knittable items... but I have yet to take the time to peruse in greater detail, and you know, actually read the patterns/articles instead of just looking at the pictures... I will let you know of any must-knits that I find. Thanks Auntie Nona! (ps: this is not the Nona of NonaKnits, although my Auntie Nona knits too!)

And finally, just to prove to you that I have actually been doing some knitting, here's my latest finished project:
It's my completed Pinwheel Blanket! This is for a friend who's baby is due later this summer... we don't know what the sex will be, so i tried to get an all-purpose colourway - I'm still not sure about this one though, because this one really seems to change with the lighting. It looked too pink and girly while I was knitting it, but in this photo the lavender and red seem to stand out more - and looking at it sitting here beside me, it suddenly looks very green. So maybe its okay after all. here are the details:

Yarn: 512 yards of superwash, sport weight, 100% merino wool from Hello Yarn (machine washable and dryable, and therefore perfect for a baby!); the colourway is called Anxious - I liked it because it was one monster-sized skein, which eliminated the joining yarns problem (highly recommended for this pattern). The edging is made from a creamy-white Scheepjes Delfi yarn from my stash - 50% Acrylic, 50% cotton. It took about a skein and a half of this stuff (about 150 metres total) just to do two rows of stocking stitch, and a cast off fringe (made by casting on 6 stitches, then casting off 8 stitches). The finished blanket is 32 inches across, but I'm hoping it will grow at least one or two more inches when i block it - i think the pinwheel pattern will look better if it's stretched out just a little more.

Needles: Despite the recommendation of 3.5mm needles, I decided to use 5mm needles, in order to make a more loose-knit fabric. I started with 4 dpns, then switched to an Addi turbo circular (40cm length), and then to an inox aluminium and plastic circular (80cm length). The addi-turbo definitely lived up to its name in terms of how easily the yarn spins around the needle (whereas on the inox, i had to keep stopping to slide the stitches around the needle), but the solid part of the needles were too short and too dull for my liking... this led to an odd discussion with Mike about the feasability of going into the needle making business ourselves, just to get the perfect needle... but mike couldn't figure out the problem of how to keep yourself in business - once everyone buys the perfect, and therefore hard to break, needles, why would they keep buying more? I tried to come up with an explanation, but he's not a knitter, so he didn't get it. :)

Comments: This was a fun project to make - quick, easy, and very straightforward - and totally customizable, if you feel like being creative. I was happy to let the yarn do the work, but then I added the white border just to make it interesting. Here's a closer look:

Now that this one is finished, I get to pick out colours for my next project! yay! and for an added yay, my friend Tara (Owen's mother) has decided to take up knitting again, so she's going to be making a blanket too - so i get to help her pick out yarn too! such funness!

Ugh... but now I should go hit the books for a bit, so that i can be guilt free when buying yarn tomorrow! :)

unexpected yarn porn

One of the advantages of getting up at 7:30 every morning (it's Mike's fault - he leaves for work at 8) is being able to catch the postman when he comes by in his little package-bearing truck!

this morning, mr. postman came bearing a shoebox of goodies from my mom - the purpose of the package was to send me some shorts that I had left in Vancouver last year, but as usual, there were other fun things in the box. Like this amazing piece of yarn porn:

This is the Cap Sleeve Top kit from HandMaiden Fine Yarns (I'd neve heard of them, but it turns out that they're a division of It comes with two skeins of yarn - one 200g skein of Lady Godiva and one 100g skein of Silk Maiden; both are 50% silk, 50% wool, in the Glacier colourway. That's 300 grams kids! 775 metres! Its slightly lighter in colour than it looks in this photo - The two skeins are wrapped up together in this photo, but if you look closely, you can tell them apart - the Lady Godiva yarn is the one with the two plys wrapped together, while the Silk Maiden looks more like a handspun yarn - it has that very soft, slightly irregular look to it - but gorgeous all the same! (go here to see them individually - you have to scroll along to the left a little)

I'm sooo loving this yarn, although i'm not sure when I'm going to be able to work on it. I have oodles of baby projects to work on at the moment... one blanket on the go (due in July), another one in the planning stages (I'm thinking the Danica scarf in 2 shades of blue, with yellow or green as the accent - its for a boy that's due in September), and then one other as-yet-undetermined project for a baby due this fall - but I'm hoping to see the parents when I'm in Vancouver in August, so I'll have to finish it by then. For that one, I'm thinking an outfit of some sort - west coast babies are fun to knit for, since it never gets too hot or too cold for knitted items. Oh, and on top of all this, I still have 1-1/4 sleeves of Jemima to knit before i can start blocking and seaming... but that, too, can be put on hold, because in another week, it will be too hot to knit with warm fibres, let alone wear them!! :)

I think I'll wait on this HandMaiden project till later in the summer - we're moving to a less hot apartment at the end of June, and I'm guessing that I'll like it better if I don't have to (literally) sweat all over it in our current super stifling flat!

Ugh... but now I have to get going, so that I can walk over to the Ottawa Uni library before the heat sets in - its only 10:15 and its already 21 degrees! (i think they're threatening rain today, but I'll believe it when I see it!)

PS: thanks so much for the package mom! you're the best!