This is going to be a short post. I am not sure when the dry walling team are arriving. Most of the tradesmen arrive around 8:00 am – which is when I like to work on the computer.
The work on the house is progressing. They are about to drywall the kitchen and bathroom. After that paint, then cabinets and finishing. I am told that things are progressing quite well. The possible finishing date is March 7th or 8th.
My yarn room has hit a snag, they are sorting it. But nothing to report there as yet! There are always glitches when doing a renovation. On the other hand…
Now for the Knitting news. No glitch here.
Isn’t it looking great! I am loving the colours and texture. I wonder what fulling will do to the garter st texture?
… the Granny Blanket swatch is almost done. The swatch and blanket are going to be built with 13 wedges. That is official. The swatch is just about there. I will finish it tonight (or maybe tomorrow night!) LOL!. I won’t be able to full the piece for the next 3 weeks. It will take that long before I get a laundry back!
And how beautiful is the world we live in.
Sunday was glorious so we took the opportunity to get out. We went for a walk at Piper’s Lagoon.
LOOK! at the texture. It all started with a wood bug, add time, water and then weather. A somber kind of beauty is the result. Could I recreate it somehow?
I hope that you get the opportunity to go for a walk wherever you live. It is good for anything that ails you, including a renovation.
We moved in to our new place last May. We downsized from our home of 30 years to something a little less than half the size. But it had potential. Including extra space to turn into yarn storage and a very small bedroom for our grandson.
We bought it for the main room. A large living area that covered the living, kitchen, dining and entry way, a Great Room. But the kitchen area needs major work. I am pretty sure that it is original to the home and about 50 years old. It is going to get a complete renovation. From the walls out.
This is before it all started. You can see that I am not the tidiest of cooks. So I need a little space to play in. I can hardly wait.
There will be a large pantry and a central Island with seating. A big fridge as I like to cook. And I work a lot with fresh fruit and vegetables. My last home had three fridges, main, beer and dads suite fridge. And I could and did use them all in a pinch. Especially around Christmas.
Flooring, backsplash, counters and cupboards. Very neutral, because everything else is so colourful!
And – this is so exciting for me – an induction stove – a new to me toy! Plus all the rest of the bells and whistles of a modern kitchen. Is a kitchen important to you? Or do you have other interests? I have to admit cooking and knitting sometimes vie for my attention. This happens when my focus is on one and not the other! There is only so much time in the day!
We have been waiting for our contractors of choice, the MJ Chaley Construction Group. Their latest project had been taking longer than expected. They are finally free and the reno has started. The Chaley’s had done a lot of work on our old home. We trust them to do the job right!
Tomorrow the kitchen will be demolished. I should have a new, usable kitchen in early March. So says the Calendar sheets with the timeline! We will be camping out in the dining room and eating out a lot!
When I left Wednesday morning.When I got home.
The kitchen area has a large skylight! Something that I love about this home. But it needs a little TLC. Which it is about to get. And luckily not as much as we thought it would need. Whew!
Behind this new door, which is off of the office or back bedroom, something is brewing. This will be my new “Wool Room”. Right now it is an 8 foot x 8 foot shell of a former shed. It is waiting to be transformed with new walls, paint, flooring, and shelving! It will also have a platform bed for my Grandson with more storage underneath. I am so excited!
I am not sure which I am more excited about the Wool room or my Kitchen! LOL!
Please note the many mentions of wool storage. This is going to be a knitters home.
The platform bed will double as a blocking board. The shelving will be almost all wool. The shelves may also contain a few knitting books.
Under Construction
My home is under construction, and so are my many knitting projects. The knitting helps me deal with the stress of the reno’s. No matter how much we want them you know there will be glitches!
The next Blanket Square was just released this morning. The Hearts Ease Square. I have started knitting the March Square pattern and have ideas for the April and May Squares. I feel temporarily on top of that project.
And the Granny Blanket pillow swatch is coming along. I believe it will take 12 or 13 wedges to make the circle. It won’t take the 16 I originally thought. This is wonderfully easy knitting, perfect for the evening or any tv watching. Because of this it is moving along faster than my other projects.
I have also started a new project, one that has given me an idea for a new pattern.
I am making some quick hats for the construction crew. Big needles and big yarn. It is an opportunity to play and I think something interesting has come out of it! A new pattern floating around my head. More to come later.
Because of these projects, the knitting for the class projects has slowed down a wee bit. I hope to get back on track this week. There is another project, but I am not quite ready to share.
Happy Knitting All! I hope that your blanket projects are progressing well. And if not knitting a blanket – then knitting of any style is better than not knitting at all! LOL!
February is the month we celebrate Valentines. It calls for hearts and flowers and all things romantic.
So I went looking for a heart pattern. I found a stitch pattern called Hearts Ease. I thought it would be perfect for the February Square. Mostly because I could use the stitch pattern to create rows of multiple hearts. Also, because the name of the pattern had special meaning for me.
Hearts Ease, also known as Viola, are my favourite flower. Johnny Jump Ups is another name for them. That is what my mother-in-law called them. They are closely related to Pansy flowers, of all varieties, all of which were derived from Hearts Ease. My Wedding bouquet consisted of Daisies and Pansies. My friend baked my Wedding cake and collected and dried Pansies. She then used them to decorate my Wedding cake.
This pattern is a knit and purl textured pattern of repeating heart motifs. Each heart is centered in a square shaped textured outline
I am going to call the little extra download a “Fancy”. I intend to add something small and unique each month. This addition is something that we could choose to use to embellish our blanket. Perhaps on the corners or along the sides. Or maybe as extra embellishments on the squares themselves, like the Sea Star from last month.
For those who can crochet, here is an extra link. It’s a pattern from Knit and Crochet Daily. It features a pretty little crocheted Pansy. A few of these might be a fun addition to our blankets.
Happy Blanket Knitting
Lynette
If you are as fond of hearts as I am, check out my heart inspired patterns on Ravelry or Etsy.
It has been very foggy around here for the last few days. It does create a very different world when it surrounds and softens our world. Even as it lifts in the morning it leaves behind traces of singular beauty.
The Frost this morning was amazing! It gives of the sparkle of diamonds in the sunlight and rims each petal and leaf in lace.
Today is Wednesday, the middle of the work week and my day off. To rest, grocery shop and work on my knitting, patterns and blog! Maybe to nap as well. LOL!
Now it is Thursday – yesterday got interrupted by some serious knitting. I am almost ready to place the thumb stitches on my glove onto some waste yarn!
The Qing Fibre is so pretty.
My project/sample knitting is going along swimmingly while my pattern is writing lagging behind my knitting. Which is normal because I would rather knit than write! I am much better at the knitting and struggle with the writing. I blog because it does in improve my writing abilities and it fools me into thinking my pattern will write themselves, so far, this has been proven to be a fallacy. LOL!
As a knitter and as a designer I love texture and colour. Slip stitch knitting offers so many opportunities to combine both! Slip stitch knitting is very similar to Mosaic knitting in that you are never working with more than one colour at a time. The other colour in the round is slipped as you come to it. The Jelly Bean is a good example of slip stitch knitting.
I have been working on the pattern for the Jelly Bean Hat. It is just about ready for release. The charts are done and the pictures. It just needs some fine tuning.
The yarn is Juniper Moon Farm Patagonia Organic Merino in 4 colours. But it could just as easily be worked in 2 colours or every stripe of “jellybeans” could be a different colour. Knitters choice 🙂
My remainder of the samples for the Winter/Spring classes are coming along. I really only have two samples left to knit.
It is getting bigger. I am just a little ways away from dividing off for the underarms.
The Puffy Vest, which will take a while as it basically knitting two vests and then knitting them together. AND…
The Beaded and Twisted Cast-on which won’t take very long even though there are two variations on the same theme.
I am going to use gloves and socks for the samples, Which will keep the sample knitting The beaded and twisted start really could be used on almost any garment or accessory. It’s just that I particularly love it’s effect on smaller items!
The basic gloves for the class will be sampled with one of the versions of the beaded and twisted cast-on. They were started with a long-tail beaded cast-on. The yarn for the glove body is Qing Fibre Sock in the Blackhare colourway, paired with some basic black sock and size 8/0 beads.
Version 1 – gloves started with the beaded long tail cast-on and then twisted.
Version 2 – socks started with the beads randomly spaced on the knitting and then twisted.
The other example will be my Sailors Knots Socks. In this twisted and beaded cast-on the beads are placed randomly as you knit.
Epic Fail
I really struggle with the technological aspects of being a small business person in our modern world of computers. Every improvement in technology requires a new learning curve. Usually it doesn’t involve the blog but…
Yesterday I got a note that one of my posts had an error – there were two different versions, so there was a conflict. I had to pick one version. I picked wrong. SO….
My Granny Blanket post has suffered some kind of calamity and will have to be rewritten. I will work on it this weekend. Apparently it was a “me” problem I jigged when I should have jagged! I mangaged to delete the whole thing. I somehow still have a draft version that was never finished so I will use that as a base.
My Granny Blanket Swatch is building quite quickly though. I will be working less wedges than I thought (originally 16). I am currently thinking that 13 or 14 wedges might make the circle.
I hope that you are having a wonderful week. With lots of knitting and no technological glitches!
Note – if you think you have read this before – you have! I somehow deleted the original post about this afghan. I am trying to replace the post and the basic start to the blanket that was included! It was truly an epic fail.
Do you find learning a new bit of technology a challenge? I certainly do. Anything I have learned I usually do fine with. New things can cause me grief.
How did this happen? I received a message that said I had two versions of the same post in two different locations. I needed to delete one. I chose “poorly”! And lost the good post! The other post was an incomplete draft! So I am finishing the draft to recreate match the post!
So Here we go Again.
Remember the Granny Afghan? Well, after writing about it, I realized how much it means to me. Surprisingly, I had never made an afghan for my grandson Logan. I haven’t even knitted him a baby blanket (a story for another time). I have knit him quite a few things over the years, but not “keeping” or “memory” things!
I felt that needed to change. I needed to create something that Logan to have to remember his Granny.
I have made copies of the crocheted blanket, a few times, for friends or family. Copying it carefully, counting every stitch and crocheting painfully from start to finish. I am not much of a crocheter, but I can work a chain st and a single crochet. This is not me, I am a knitter, not a crocheter. Crochet has never resonated with me in the same way as knitting has. This project had to come from my love of the craft, but…
I wanted to do something similar for Logan. I aimed for something fun and not the squares. The squares are my other blanket project for this year. I wanted to knit him something fun like the Granny Blanket.
Ray, a co-worker, pointed out to me that I could knit a version of it. In fact, I had already done so. ‘What was I thinking about’! Sometimes it just takes someone else to point out the obvious.
I few years ago I knit the Shetland Wheel. It is a laceweight Shetland style lace shawl, with a center of wedges, just like the Granny Afghan. This shawl is soft and fine and I love it, but it is way to delicate for a growing boy.
I want to make the blanket out of wool. It shouldn’t be too heavy. It needs to be strong enough to endure the “careful” handling of a boy to teenager and then to man. Maybe he will keep this blanket as long as I have kept my Grandmothers.
I am going to full (felt) the blanket so that it will be washable. So my swatch is much larger than average and in all the colours. Why?
Not all wools felt evenly. Sometimes the dyes themselves affect the rate of the fulling process. And I like to use my swatches. In fact many of my hat designs were the product of a swatch. Sometimes the best way to know how a yarn will work is to knit it into something.
So lets have a pillow to go with the blanket.
Sequence of events for this project:
Pick your colours – I picked blue
Pick a needle size – in this case 5.0mm – I don’t want a hard felt, just a soft fulling
Second make a swatch – make a large swatch
Third felt the swatch
Fourth figure out how big to make the blanket from the swatch
Fifth cast on the first wedge for the blanket
Sixth turn the swatch into a pillow
Seventh figure how to finish the blanket – right now I am thinking about a knitted fringe
So I have started.
I picked my yarn, Estelle Yarns, Eco Shetland Worsted, in eight colours. Most of them in shades of Blue – Logans current favourite colour. Which has something to do with his favourite teams. The Edmonton Oilers and the Toronto Blue Jays!
I picked my needles, a 5mm US #8.
And I cast-on. The journey needs to begin with a cast-on. The knitting will take a little time, but we have that. This is easy knitting, all garter st, with rows that shrink down and then start all over.
Pick your coloursChoose your needle size – 5.0mm in this caseAI finished sketch from my poor attempt at sketching.Knitting has started. This may take awhile. Maybe a gift for his birthday – say September!The knitting is progressing.
So what is the difference between felting and fulling.
1.) Felting traditionally is worked from the fibre itself
2.) Fulling is created when you take a fabric, woven or knitted, and felt it.
Felting is what happens when you take hot water, soap and agitation and ruin your favourite sweater. That is our usual experience, but when you felt with intent, different things can happen.
Fulling occurs when wool has been worked into a woven or knitted fabric. You achieve this when you take hot water, soap, and agitation, and you felt with intent. The resulting fabric is denser, and is often softer and easier to work with. It can be cut without unravelling and will keep its shape much longer.
If you want to join me on the journey, download the instructions below. They provide some “pithy” guidance to work from.
This year is turning into the Year of Blankets, not just the Year of Blanket Squares. These are big projects so nothing is happening in a hurry. There will lots of time for experimentation. These are fun projects, nothing is heavy lifting. So lets just have fun and play a little.
We went for a walk at Hemer Park this morning. Hemer Park is beautiful all year round. Ducks, Swans, Yellow Iris, Indian Pipe, Beavers and birds, so many birds. But this the time of year that the Swans start to show up!
I had been hoping to see a swan or two this morning, I had seen them many times before, but that was not to be this time. We saw a few in a field driving home from Duncan on Wednesday! So I was hopeful.
It was beautifully sunny in Nanaimo as we headed out. But as we got closer to the south end of town and Cedar it got foggier – like pea-soup fog!
So instead of swans we saw a different kind of beauty. Fog enshrouded tree tops, ducks floating across invisible water, modern art as interpreted by drowning trees, burbling water across dead marshland and that awe inspiring quiet that comes with a foggy day!
The sun was trying its best to clear the fog, but the fog remained, grey and all encompassing. So quiet and so serene.
The fog was all encompassing,it was above us,and all around us.The sun almost made it through.The only noise was the burbling of water.The ducks seems to float across the water.Fungi emergingA green goddess bridge, fallen and twisted.Natures crown – lichen.Reflections and reality, modern art on the water.Still foggy as we left.
The colours made me want to pull out a range of yarns, in greys, blue grey, green grey, golden grey and every shade in between. Those colours, they could be the base of a new fair-isle hat design, that seems to be floating around my head.
My last few posts have all focused around the the Make-A-Blanket project. Getting the first couple of squares up and available, using them to describe some of the possibilities for blanket construction, setting up the start of the design process for all the knitters involved.
Hopefully getting everyone, including myself thinking forward to what they/I want to do with our squares. At the same time as all that it going on …The rest of life keeps on happening!
Now I am focusing on the Winter/Spring Class session. Also my designing. I haven’t felt much like lace knitting lately but I think that is changing. I have a couple of big projects to finish! My Lace Dress and the GreenMan Shawl still need to be finished. Those are going to be done this year!
Projects for the classes at Mad About Ewe are all under construction or ready for the class.
Current projects for the classes, the Twinned Mittens and Socks on Circs are class ready, but not completed yet. That will happen during and after the classes.
I did a swatch to display for the Puffy Vest, and I am currently knitting the first piece. I am really pleased with the way it is knitting up. Right now it looks like a cozy cowl! The thrums make it so bright and colourful!
You can see the swatch for the puffy vest, the Twinned Knit Mitten sample and Socks on Circs at Mad About Ewe, hanging up behind the counter if you want to check things out! All of the classes are up on the website as well!
And there are always future projects!
Like the Chintz Hap I have started knitting.
Last fall I went to the Chintz exhibit at the RBCM and it inspired me in so many ways! The history, the colours and the shapes of some of the motifs really made my sit up and take notice. I want to take those shapes and colours and knit them into one of my favourite shawl shapes – the Shetland Hap! I am working on the center square right now. I am loving the center so far and once the border and edging are complete… In my head it is gorgeous!
I am working with B.C.Garn Loch Lomond Lace! The colours are perfect for this. I may need to add that warm creamy tone, but that is still under consideration.
So life is busy at work, and in my designing and it looks like things are about to get busy around the house as well!
We downsized last year and have been waiting to get the kitchen and few areas around our new home renovated. And it is all about to start! And with my yarn room! Can I say that I am somewhat excited!
The yarn room won’t be big once finished, around 7.5 by 7.5 square feet! But it will be all mine! With shelves and storage and even room for my Grandson to come and visit.
I have it all planned out! The Daybed is for my grandson to sleep on, with a light and small bookcase for his books it will be perfect for me to block my knitting on. It is also right by the window so I can check my yarn colours under the natural light!
One of my resolutions for this year was to be more forward thinking about my classes. So I am already thinking ahead to the Summer Classes. Something light and fun and under the sun in the courtyard. Maybe some beaded fingerless mitts in a really hot colour! What do you think?
Or maybe a light and airy lace scarf in something silky? Any suggestions?
Do you plan your knitting for the year ahead or are you a knit by the moment and yarn you discover?
In the meantime I certainly don’t lack for stuff to do! LOL!
I bet that you have lots of knitting options to as well!
This year was not a traditional Christmas for our family, but it was perfect nonetheless.
Quite often our Christmas Day is culminated with Christmas Dinner that will encompass everyone, friends and family – up to 20 or so bodies at the table. And it all started as the smell of the turkey pretty much enveloped our guests as they walked in the door and up the stairs to the living room which had a center table set-up with a cheese board, and lots of baking. At the table there will be crackers, toasts, a table groaning with more food. There is always so much conversation and laughter punctuated by the occasional sip of wine!
And the conversation. Lots of individuals catching up and sharing the happenings since their last visit or since last Christmas. And I am at the head of the table ready to refill bowls, pass the gravy and listen. I listen and just take it all in and I take so much joy in the presence of family and friends. I do not usually get much visiting in or get to share in the finer details of the evening, it is just not possible to do it all!
This year was different. Because we have downsized and the space needs work and mostly because we need a kitchen renovation – the stove doesn’t work well enough to bake anything properly so we decided not to do the big dinner this year! I do not trust the stove! The kitchen reno will be happening soon, hopefully! That will another full story or two I am sure!
So, as a result these things happened:
My brother and his wife did Christmas dinner. It was just us and them. Much laughter, starting with the fact that they chose Prime Rib for dinner not turkey! Guess what we were doing for Boxing Day! Yup! Prime Rib! Another family Christmas tale was born. We laughed and visited for a few hours.
Boxing Day lunch a good friend and her son came for lunch. We have know each other for over 38 years, we even shared a home with our children for 2 of those years. That was a two hour visit with lots of laughter and conversation.
Boxing Day dinner, my son, daughter and grandson were there! There was laughter and conversation, memories and more conversations.
Day of after Boxing Day my nieces and nephews and their family came for a quick visit – that turned into a couple of hours of shared laughter and memories. All of us sitting around the table, eating the nibbles and just being together.
So – the moral of the story – sometimes the ritual forgets the point of the season! The shared time and love with family and friends. I did miss making my small Christmas gifts, the baubles and tree decorations. I really missed decorating our home. What we did was very minimal as we had to buy everything as almost everything we owned related to Christmas was in the back of the storage locker!
This month is set-up for the Blanket. Pick your colours, decide on the style and knit your first square. The instructions for each square will be both charted and written.
I am working with Cascade 220 wool. So my basic gauge is 20 sts in 4inches worked with a 4.5mm US #7 needle. After knitting my first square I think that these (my) squares will be about 10 inches wide, approx. 22.5 cm. My current plan is to make 20 squares and lay them out in blanket form and attach them together (no plan for this yet).
There are two styles of blanket options that I have considered. I will lay them both out for you so that you can think about it as you knit your first square. Within these two styles there are other considerations. Do you want your blanket to be a solid colour? Or do you want lots of colour? Do you want your squares to be random or laid out in a quilt style of pattern. I bet you can guess which way I am going! Yup, lots of colour and random squares!
Blanket 1 – knit in strips, biggest advantage, less seams and less to connect. This blanket could be knit in 1 colour, or in strips of colours with a different colour connecting them. The strips could still consist of squares that change colour with each pattern, or each strip could be knit in one pattern that repeats up each strip. How you put your Blanket Squares together is all up to you.
I do like the stripes and diamonds on this Jester! His motley costume hits all the fun notes.
Blanket 2 – knit in squares, no advantage, more seams, more connections! But I like the look better. This blanket was my original idea, Lots of patterns and many differing colours; it has been pointed out to me that I am sometimes alone in my love of the motley. But how could that be – there are so many examples of it all around us!
My sloth’s intarsia coat was a fun example of a motley coat.
I did a little sketching with Samsung Note and AI. These are the possibilities my sketches suggested.
This month the Square is a Diagonal Rib pattern. It is totally reversable. And I am really liking that feature. This may be the square that I knit the most. It could act almost like a back drop for the other squares. We will see what tickles my fancy as the year progresses. This square took me approx. 36 grs yarn to knit. With that information I am figuring that I will need at least 7 skeins of the Cascade plus more for the finishing.
Notes on working with the Squares. I will try to provide both written and charted patterns for each square. When working with charts every square represents 1 st or if the square is grey the absence of a stitch. That square can be regarded as a space to be ignored on that row.
Read all flat chart odd rows – 1, 3, 5 etc from right to left and all flat chart even rows – 2, 4, 6 etc from left to right.
Read every round from a circular chart from right to left.
Also included in this months download is the Starfish pattern. I am going to knit a few of these to sprinkle randomly over my blanket. These Starfish will each take about 6 grs of yarn. I can see quite a few colourful starfish on my blanket.
I hope that you will share your pictures and progress with me! I am trying to decide the best way. A group on Facebook and/or a thread on Ravelry. Have you got any other suggestions?
I am having a lot of fun knitting up Sea Stars, this month’s add on! But I think that next month’s add on will be just as much fun! Now what could they be?
Hint – what is the famous day in February that is celebrated with “?”‘s and flowers!
Wednesday in Nanaimo was gorgeous. The sun was shining, the skies were clear and it wasn’t even looking like rain. Rain which had been pretty continuous before Wednesday and again after Wednesday was nowhere in sight. This morning the skies were dark grey and the rain was pounding down and, at times the rain was a little chunky with bits of snow!
So, in this wonderous sunny break my husband and I went for a walk around Buttertubs Marsh and it was beautiful!
We saw basking Painted Turtles, a Grey Heron, well camouflaged by the marsh itself, loads of duck, mostly heard and not fully seen and and the Marsh itself, beautiful in tones of golden brown, deep brown and green with sharp notes of red Hawthorn Berries and soft notes of downy bullrushes. There is something percolating in my brain. There might be a pattern here.
Do you walk in your local parks? What are your favourites? I hope that you get a chance to walk in the sunshine yourself. It is a wonderful way to relax, enjoy your surroundings and be inspired.
This week I also saw the windup of the Winter session of Classes at Mad About Ewe. Last Saturday I taught the second workshop with the feather stitch. This is the Feather Slouch.
The right hand hat was knit with Mecha in the Piedras and Rosalinda. The left hand hat was knit with two shades of Highland Alpaca Chunky.
I also finished up the Top-Down Yoke Intensive. I have to do a little more work on the pattern to make it Ravelry ready. I will let you know when that happens. The pattern is called Ocean Legend.
Ocean Legend was knit with 3 shades of Eco Scandinavian Chunky. A couple of years ago I designed a hat, Legend. I loved the pattern on the hat and always wanted to turn it into a sweater yoke and so Ocean Legend came to be created.
I have got a tentative plan for Winter/Spring Classes and have already started knitting some samples. And if you haven’t heard I am planning a blanket for next year. A square a month club, free from my blog. All you need to do in subscribe below.
