The painted Fan is my first attempt at hand painting with dyes. It has become the basis of my header for the patterns I create and inspiration to keep on trying new things. Pattern was Nightfall Fan by Deborah Robinson.
Ok – everything is set up and I am at the knit until I am done stage. The only decision left is do I make a scarf or a shawl – I am thinking a shawl! So I will need another ball!
I already have a plan for the finishing. But I won’t need that for a while.
Isn’t technical stuff fascinating? My phone has an app. It is AI based of course. But it will take my rough sketch and turn it into art. If only I could really illustrate my knitting pattern ideas so well! It has been really fun to play with so I will be trying this out more!
Use the slider to see my sketch of “Quickie” and compare to the AI finish!
I have written up Quickie as a PDF. Click HERE to download the pattern for free.
Last November saw the debut of a new Canadian Yarn. One that was sourced, scoured and milled close to home. Albeit home for this new yarn is Ontario, not here in British Columbia, but this is still important. A new Canadian yarn company that is working towards a more sustainable Canadian yarn market! Something that I want to support!
Waxwing Yarn Company is the name of the new company and is situated in Ontario. The link will take you to their about page which will fill you in in all of the details. Their yarn, Cedre is available in 25 and 100 grs skeins. There are 20 colours and I loved them all. The colours are what I call clear, not greyed, and have been dyed in a palette of beautiful brights.
I had a hard time choosing just a few colours.
I ordered 2 full skeins and 3, 25 grs skeins. I basically created my own “try me” option. I am thinking of two separate projects, one a simple, single colour project in cables and lace. This is the collar I have been making. The colour I chose is called Brume – a light tone, just a shade darker than natural.
The collar is now complete and I love it, Once blocked the wool really took on a lovely personality. The cable and lace pattern I created came out crisp and clear. The pattern is a wavy cable and eyelet rib that really pulled together and stayed bouncy until I blocked it out firmly. After washing and blocking the yarn had softened but still has that wonderful woolly feel. It is behaving beautifully, staying blocked and open.
Torrent Collar, is all about the rain around here lately, water streaming down the windows and rollicking down the river, I love living on the west coast. The inspiration that surrounds me is an every day happening from the morning sunrises to the evening sunsets.
Sunrise – no filter
Torrent Collar is being test knit right now and should be available as a pattern in a few weeks!
A good start…Beauty shotI-cord loop bind-offLooking good on a formNot bad on me as well. This is the small/medium size, I really should have made the medium/large, it would sit better, but it is cozy.
I am thinking maybe and hat and some fingerless mitts will be created from the remaining yarn, something in fairisle! Or maybe entrelac? It has been a while since I designed something in entrelac. Oh so many options.
Yarn is my Happy Place. Knitting with yarn is the perfect expression of my state of mind. Knitting with yarn that is new to me and often has been gifted to me is my idea of perfection!
I am in my heart a lace knitter – it is one of the most beautiful expressions that can be created by two sticks and some string. And right now I am extra Happy!
Yesterday Angela Beltane of Widdershin Farm, which is just outside of Duncan, gifted me with some of her BFL, Blue Faced Leicester, fingering weight yarn… enough for a large shawl. I am thinking a large Pi shawl! This yarn is soft and glossy and Oh so smooth!
The Bluefaced Leicester (BFL) is a remarkable breed of sheep that traces its origins back to the eighteenth century in Dishley, Leicestershire, United Kingdom. Let’s delve into the fascinating details of these woolly creatures:
Appearance:
BFL sheep have a distinctive blue-gray face, which gives them their name.
Their ears are long, and their fleece is curly and fine.
Unlike other woolly breeds, they lack wool on their heads and necks.
The Roman noses of Bluefaced Leicesters reveal dark blue skin beneath their white hair.
Wool Quality:
Their wool is one of the softest among UK sheep breeds.
Fleeces weigh between 1 to 3 kilograms (2.2 to 6.6 pounds).
Although not heavy, their wool is lustrous and prized for its quality.
It is going to be gorgeous. I took the day off of my other projects – dress knitting, class knitting and future planning to play with my new yarn.
Umm, just ignore the mistake in the first round of eyelets! I am! LOL!
Today is one of my day’s off and it is rainy and gray and the perfect kind of day to knit! Rainy days also produce some lovely photographic opportunities! Check out the Scilla (Glory in the Snow) from the garden. They are the inspiration, and name, for my Pi Shawl, one of my favourite shapes for a shawl. A PI Shawl is circular and can be as big as you can knit! It is going to be full of floral, water and leaf motifs!
I am going to work from Elizabeth Zimmerman’s basic Pi Shawl tutorial and fill it full of my own patterns!
Can’t you just see crystal beads on the shawl? Just like the flowers!
Are you competitive? Have you participated in sports your whole life and love the “high” you get by participating and even winning? Or are you an observer, standing on the side lines and enjoying the movement and energy on the field? Until about 10 years ago I would never have considered myself competitive! But now I know myself differently. I have found that I enjoy the challenge of competition. My area of expertise is not the playing field however, it is in the area of design, knitting design. Offer me up a design competition and I am in there with needles flying.
Who knew?
In 2011 Vogue posted the Magic of Mohair design competition. A friend sent me a link and said I should try. Another friend printed out the information with a post it note and said I should try. And another friend….
So I tried.
Images from Vogue Early Fall 2011, images copyright Rose Callahan
And I came in Second!. Which won me an interview and publication in a Vogue Magazine. I went on to publish for quite a few more issues of Vogue. Maybe you have seen them?
VK Winter 2011 photographed by Rose Callahan at Alina’s loft, Brooklyn, on Oct 18-19, 2011
VK SS12 photographed by Rose Callahan on Dec 7, 2011 in Staten Island
And then the Buffalo Wool Company was looking for a design…. for a very special yarn, a 100% buffalo fibre threaded with a 24 K gold thread! limited amounts of yardage and a western theme – what could I do with those parameters? And so Yippie Ki Yi Yay! was created and submitted. And I won that one. Which lead me to become their in house designer for the next 5 or so years. And I made some wonderful friends to boot!
Yippe Ki Yi Yay! knit with 100% bison yarn with a 24 K gold thread running through the yarn, embellished with 24K gold delicas
While working for the Buffalo Wool Co, Which is owned by Ron and Theresa Miskin, there was a call to design, to create a “showstopper” shawl for Stevie Nicks to wear in an upcoming concert. Ron and Theresa ecouraged me to enter and helped me every step of the way! For the shawl Ron dyed 2,400 yds of Sexy, 50% buffalo and 50% silk laceweight yarn, in a deep blue/purple called Rhiannon, plus we ordered 20, 000 24K gold delicas and gold washed crystals. So with the yarn, beads and a couple hundred man hours later, Rhiannon was born. This was truly a show stopping piece. One that I could never repeat. One that was never considered, everyone has a different idea of “showstopper”!
But for me, for us – it was perfect! It was seen at quite a few Stitches runways over the period of a few years. It was and is truly a showstopper.
There was something of a break between this flurry of competition and there were a couple of others that I contemplated but never found the time to try until a couple of years ago. And it was a Kate Davies design competition for her new yarn Milarrochy Tweed. A fabulous fingering tweed in a wool/mohair blend! She was looking for hats to showcase her new yarn.
It was the colour of the yarn, a glorious purple called Gloamin’ that pulled me in. Purple is my favourite colour, Roamin’ in the Gloamin’ was my Grandmothers favourite song, and so “Roamin’” was born. And it was one of the hats included in her book Milarrochy Heids.
I am always looking for inspiration. I find in many places, images, feelings, comments and in calls for designs – the mood boards they include – and sometimes in the call to competition. To surpass the basic and look for the special, the unique, the unexpected and to rise to the occasion.
Who knew! That competition for me was in the knitting needles, in the ideas in my head and hands and in the sharing of those ideas!
And its a new plan. There is no Retreat this year. It is kind of odd to have that space vacant. I have no planning to do, no sample knitting, my time is free.
Not that I won’t knit, or plan or even have that much free time. I am bound by my creative nature to keep on creating – a new yarn, a new colour, an idea that blooms as I experience a walk, or a book or a conversation – I never lack for ideas! But I won’t have that event to shape any of those ideas around. Some what freeing from my regular focus at this time of the year!
So what shall I knit in the next months? I do have a couple of projects that I need to finish.
Serenity Wave – the pattern is complete except for the cover picture – I need to finish the edging. It will be done before the end of the month.
7 Hats More – there are a couple of small projects left to finish for that book. They also will be done before the end of the month.
I need to complete the patterns for two shawls – Roamin… or Lizzie’s Hap and the Georgia West Hap. I am also aiming to have those done by the end of the month.
Hmmm…. Busy month! Maybe I should add a few extra days to the timeline – anyone know how?
I did muck my initial plans up a little by adding another shawl. A Shetland styled lace stole in BC Garn Bio Shetland. Scrumptious wooly wool with a great crisp hand that creates well defined stitches. I gave myself this last week to work on it and I am almost halfway. It will be hard to put down as I work on the planned completions!
I am not sure what happened to the last couple of months of the last year – not really sure what happened to the last year. I have been struggling to cope – keeping busy does help me deal with the stress I feel. Writing usually helps – but I was too busy knitting – I am working on a balance. Funny – when I read my last post I was working on balance then too! Maybe this year I will be more successful.
My Schiehallion yarn has become Failte – a cozy beanie!
What are you working on? How do you balance life and stress right now? I would really like to know.
I haven’t walked every weekend – but more than I was before. I am watching what I eat! Way more than I should this last month! But it is my favourite time of year! And I did do some Christmas baking – I have a little dark cake and shortbread left. Just a little lingering sweetness to extend the Christmas Season. The tree and decorations came down yesterday and the lights today.
So today I start my planning for the New Year – you are part of my plan! Talk again soon!
Be Well and Knit Happy!
Lynette
PS – I baked a blackberry pie today – my husband picked the berries this last Summer. So we are smelling the sweet smell of summer blackberries as the pie cools on the counter. I hope that you can smell the sweetness of the pie and of life too.
My hands are in constant motion. I knit or sew with my hands, cook or bake with my hands and quite often talk with my hands! I don’t know what I would do without my hands. Their works have created much of the world that surrounds me.
What about you? Are you a “handy” person?
Some of the things that I have made with my hands;
Lizzie’s Hap
Celebration Shawl – created to celebrate 20 years of working at Mad About Ewe Fine Yarns.
Needs a name.
Italian Almond Chocolate Cake – flourless – something new I tried.
Jazz Hands wearing C.C. Snugs – I wished that my hands looked so good.
My best pie ever – Rhubarb from the Garden!
Garden Gate Shawl – Designed, knit and then hand-painted with dyes.
Tea Cozies are my “toys”. They are entertaining to knit and keep my tea warm.
Rhiannon’s Cloak – 20,000 + beads and a labour of love.
Not technically my creation, but my Grandson has been my inspiration for many of my knits in the last 4 years.
Sometimes I dye my own yarn.
Sometimes I sew my own clothing.
My hands don’t always create what I want them to, sometimes they fail. But the failures shape my world as much as the successes.
Waterfall Pie – todays effort – not quite as expected and I have company for dinner – life at work.
Sometimes you just have to laugh at what life sends your way.
