In the Summer I always try to finish up a project for myself. A sweater or vest, something new that I can wear to work.
This year I have at least two things on the go. A light and airy mohair sweater knit with Amitola Brushed by Louise Harding. This is a heavier mohair and silk blend and I am knitting it quite loosely. I love mohair’s loft when the you let the fuzz fill in the stitches. It makes the garment light but still cozy! This sweater is underway and will be knit from sleeve to sleeve. The Amitola has a long, slow stripe and it is showing beautifully. I am barely through 60 grs of the first ball. I think that I will have plenty of yarn. I am knitting on a 6.0mm US #10 – this sweater is knitting up fast!
The Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed yarn is going to take much longer to knit. Right now it is going to be a vest. But I am loving it so much and I think I have enough yarn, so it might turn into a full sweater. I am loving the stitch pattern. Time, as always, will make the final decision. And yardage, where is the rest of the yarn? Somewhere in my stash!
Summer is also when I make tea cozies. They are small and fun and I think I might design a class around a new idea I have.
Last week I bought a new toy. It is designed to hold my phone as I video myself knitting a new technique. You have already seen it at work as I ripped back my last hat!
The weather here is back up to being hot again. So I am looking at small projects as well. Beading something, anything, is always good for hot weather knitting.
I also love to knit shawls in the Summer. Tomorrow I hope to have the Green Man motif ready to show.
Do you have a “colour” ? Something you know you love to knit with. Something that you “lean” towards. Something you sometimes are unaware of. I do. Apparently I wanted a co-ordinating set. LOL!
Don’t they look great together? I guess I will have to finish the gloves sooner rather than later!
Below are some random images of this Summer and Summers past! They are part of my inspiration as I dream up new ideas.
I have cleaned and organized everything. OK – everything might be a bit over the top but I have accomplished a few very necessary jobs!
I have unearthed my computer desk and my yarn winding station. My stash has been realigned and in some cases reassigned to different locations. I have filed away multiple stacks of papers ie. trashed or recycled them. There is still one stack of papers left to organize into different files. That will wait until next weekend.
You can see that it is a bit of mess.
As I dug in, I got a little distracted along the way…. knit a thing…. wound some yarn.
The little cowl is a test knit of a new yarn that is coming to Mad About Ewe. And I love it! 70% Superfine Merino (non superwash) and 30% Yak, this DK weight yarn is supersoft, bouncy and easy to work with. I think I may need a new sweater. The Funnel Cowl and Mitts are complete. Click here to link to the pattern on Ravelry.
The yarn being wound is Chantal, a special hand dyed silk from Fleece Artist, Iceberg colourway. It was one of the yarns from their 25th Anniversary celebration in 2013. This huge hank weighs in at 350 grams, 700 yds and should knit to about 18 sts in 4 inches. I am close to half way now and it has no knots so far. Because it is silk and is stretchy it has to be hand-wound and it is a bit of a mess from being in the cupboard for so long. So it may take a couple of days.
I hung a few pictures that have been gracing the cupboard floors. That felt good. Everyday I have been trying to do one more thing that would get me closer to my goal.
There have been a few distractions through the week but after each one, I got back on track and kept on working. I started this project last Wednesday and it is still not quite done. It most likely will never be “done”. I really don’t work too well in a tidy space, but now the chaos is a little more tamed and much closer to “done” than it has been in a while.
My White Lavender it in full bloom.
I started this post over a month ago. So much has happened creatively in that month. Was it tied in to the cleaning? Maybe, so lets see….
I have submitted ideas for patterns to three companies – Laine, Birlinn Yarns and Ancient Arts. Laine and Birlinn were not interested in my ideas and I won’t hear from Ancient Arts for a couple of weeks. My “secret” project is complete and gone! As soon as I can I will share – I was very pleased with the results!
On the up side of submitting ideas to magazines and being rejected, I now have lots of ideas to pull from if and when I am looking for something to knit! I know we can’t like all the things and if my ideas don’t fit their vision they usually work well for mine!
Fall KAL – The Greenman KAL
I am working on a new shawl pattern. You may have noticed the two “swirl” centers I have started. They are the center of the Greenman Shawl. I hope to have the idea all pulled together in the next month, so please keep it in mind.
I am working one in Schoppel Zauber Lace Ball 100 (currently purple, but it is a striping yarn so that will change). It is a lace weight.
I am teaching a new technique at work right now. Dip Stitches, as in stitches that are created by dipping down into your knitting and pulling up loops of contrast colour to create almost an embroidery look! Meet Beach Bucket, soon to be released on Ravelry – most likely next weekend! The turquoise version is knit with Noro Kashirukuru and Silk Garden for the detail yarn. The grey version is knit with West Yorkshire Spinners The Croft Shetland Tweed in pink tweed with grey. It is not complete yet. I am using it for demonstrating techniques in the class.
I have started a couple of sweaters for myself – we will see how those go – they almost never get done as I get too distracted by other knits!
I am planning on picking up the dress again in September. Right now it is too hot to knit with double layer Lopi Einband on my lap! I have been thinking and planning how to proceed. I noticed that a few others look like they are interested! Looking forward to picking it up again.
I lived in Malaysia when I was much younger and I have many fond memories of the people and the country. One of my favourite memories is the hedges of Hibiscus flowers, such beautiful blooms. So every now and then I try to keep a plant alive with varying levels of success. This is this years attempt!
I hope that your Summer is going well. Mine is certainly going by very quickly! Lots of ideas and never enough time to knit them all!
Today is the first day of the Beach Bucket class. The focus of the class is the Dip Stitch. A very cool technique of adding extra depth of texture and colour. So yesterday Ray took a little video of how do work the stitch.
The original sample was knit with Noro yarns. Those bright colours remind me of a tropical beach bucket. This new sample is knit with West Yorkshire Spinners The Croft Shetland Tweed. More a north coast beach bucket! LOL!
There are a few other interesting techniques used in this pattern; provisional cast-on, knitted in fold, and I-cord bind-off.
The Beach Bucket pattern will be available around the 20th.
We always try to get there around this time of year to get the best effect from these amazing trees. While there are some small rhododendrons, many of the plants here are very old, as the Grove was started back in 1960’s. Most of the trees and flowers tower over my head!
The colour and aroma of the flowers are myriad. The shapes of both flowers and trunks are interesting. The trunks are very smooth and a little twisted. You can see how they grew extending out towards the sun as they went.
Some of the flowers here are hybrids that may not be seen anywhere else. The range is remarkable. While The Grove shows best from Mid April to Mid May, some of the flowers start in late February and others show in June. You can see a carpet of glorious pink petals in one of the pictures I shot, even when the blooms are finished they leave a beautiful reminder! In amongst the Rhododendrons you will see companion plants, such as ferns, hostas, camellias, dogwoods and azaleas. Joy for the senses all around you!
The park has many levels. There are stairs and pathways up, down, and around the trees. So many beautiful plants to admire.
I hope that you enjoy the walk as much as I did! Click on the arrow to move the pictures along.
The last few pictures are a meadow across from the Grove, next to Millstone River.
It can be said with some authority that I am more than a little obsessed with beads and the many possibilities they offer for embellishment on our knits. It is more than a pity that our society really isn’t so much into the glittering styles of the past! I would so rock those days!
Rhiannon – knit with Buffalo Wool Co Sexy yarn and 20,000 + 24 k gold dipped delicas and crystals.
Knitting with beads – There are several methods for placing a bead onto knitted fabric: between the stitches, on one arm of the stitch or on both arms of the stitch. Some methods require that the beads be strung on the knitting yarn before knitting. Some are placed on the stitch as it is knit and others are added after the work is finished. The size of bead will determine whether it can be placed on the stitch or whether it needs a separate strand. If you are planning to use thousands of beads on a project, do work a sampler first to determine the most efficient method of working the beads. When stringing beads make sure that there are no knots in the yarn.
Pre-strung beads used for loops and beads placed between stitches in a garter stitch background.
Traditional bead knitting -The bead is placed on one arm of the stitch. All beads need to be pre-strung and if using multiple colours they need to be pre-strung in reverse order.
Bead knit gloves, mitts, gauntlets and jewelery!
A bead is placed on an arm of each stitch, as you are knitting through the back of the loop. This style of knitting will have a tendency to bias. This is not a problem if the fabric is knit circularly. (Which is the only way I will tackle it!) Most Victorian purses were worked circularly and the biasing was not readily noticeable. The other advantage of working circularly is that you do not need to work a purl stitch through the back (try purling through the back of a loop and placing a bead at the same time!) Bead knitting used to be worked with small (think micro) seed beads and silk or cotton thread and very fine steel needles. There are still knitters who work in this way.
I work bead knitting with small beads (not micro) and fine yarns – lace or fingering weight yarns (not threads) and small needles, anything from 2.0mm US#0 to 2.75mm US 2. I haven’t done any bead knitting for quite a while. I have taught both styles of bead knitting but always had a hard time convincing others that working traditional bead knitting was worth the effort!
I still use a lot of beads in my knitting but they are mostly placed with a small crochet hook, and not always pre-strung as in traditional bead knitting.
So, when I decided to knit a pair of gloves with some beautiful new yarn I also decided to knit myself a beautiful bead knit edge for those new gloves.
I am seeing a short beaded gauntlet with either short finger gloves or mitts! But maybe I won’t be able to resist the lure of a proper pair of gloves! These gloves are my “swatch” for the yarn. From this I can learn about the yarns strength, how or if it has a “halo”. How much will it stretch (alpaca has no memory – so if it stretches it won’t go back). And I have something useful at the end of the knit. Many of my hats are gauge swatches. A trick that Elizabeth Zimmermann suggests as a means to learn your yarn and create something useful at the same time!
The yarn is a breeze to knit with. And yes, there is a lovely halo. The yarn is also handling the weight of the beads without too much obvious stretch. So I will continue on, and isn’t it a beautiful colour?
I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a workshop this summer to learn how to bead knit…. I would love to lead you down the garden path and introduce you to another side of working with beads and knitting!?
Check out the Orchid! It is still kicking and has opened some new blossoms!
I had a couple of shawl samples come back from my test knitter in the last couple of weeks. It was planned and it worked! They both are knit in fabulous fresh Spring colours! And I hope to have both patterns out by the end of May!
Cockleshell Love – knit in B.C. Garn Loch Lomond Lace, Eggshell and Baby Pink (more rose pink) colourways.
Fushia – knit in Manos Fino, Topsy Turvy colourway.
I have been a fan of Kate Davies ever since I first discovered her patterns and books! I love her sense of style and secretly covet every piece of her wardrobe! Her sense of style resonates with me. Over the years I have participated in several clubs, collected, yes collected with no real purpose in mind, multiple balls of her yarns, especially the Milarrochy Tweed, and have a significant stash of her books.
So when she started advertising her new club I was immediately interested!
Seriously, how could I not join? Books, with a new to me Mystery writer, essays, conversations and knitting and a Mystery KAL if you want to knit along with it. Something to think about and look forward too after a long winter. The Mystery writer is one of the Vintage queens of the Mystery genre, Margery Allingham. The themes or inspiration for the patterns, including the MKAL and essays will be taken from the time period of Margary Allingham’s writing career, from the 1920’s through to the 50’s.
I love vintage patterns. Kates’ designs will be vintage inspired, but with her own little twists. I also love to read mysteries and have never read any Margery Allingham! But I am so looking forward to discovering her books!
The yarn Kate will be using for the designs is her Milarrochy Tweed, which is one of my personal favourites – wool and mohair blended with tweed flecks spun into the mix. This creates a beautiful yarn with body, a slight halo and colour combinations galore, thanks to the tweed flecks!
The KDD forum on Ravelry already has three very active threads going, all about this particular club. I am really enjoying it all. Tracking down the books, playing with my yarn and anticipating what I may want to purchase (OK, I don’t need any more yarn. I have already put together 2 possible options for the Mystery KAL. But you never know what might jump into my shopping cart!).
Option 1 :Lochan, Smirr, Garth, Stockiemuir, and for pop Foxglove.
Option 2: Bruce, Hirst, Backen’, Asphodel and for pop, Ardnamurchan.
I am thinking of trying a couple of other swatches as well. The first swatch is easy and may end up being what I knit, but it is too easy – I wear all of those colours and I am begining to think that it will look like everything else in my wardrobe. I think the second is my favourite so far, is is closer to the colours of the time period and possible moodiness to the novels – but there is something not quite right.
While starting my collection of books I learned a valuable lesson. On-line book stores also sell postcards. Vintage stock, that look exactly like a book and were just as expensive! So I am now the proud owner of a Vintage Postcard! It will become my place holder for the Mystery MKAL! The Goff Place Mystery KAL.
I have a friend who will decide to be a domestic goddess for the weekend and knock off her housework all at once! I am not that person. But I envy her ability just to decide to “do It”!
I – when I am feeling the urge – am a hit and miss type of house keeper. When the urge hits I will putter around and clean corners or objects very thoroughly. And then move onto the next thing that catches my eye. Seldom do I finish any one room all at once.
The last year has been more miss than hit.
But I am starting to actually feel like maybe I want to clean up and start fresh on some things. I got rid of the dead plants this morning… and bought some new ones. A beautiful white orchid and a small hydrangea. I will keep you posted on how well the orchid does – my history with them is very spotty!
I like to buy flowering plants instead of bouquets. They last longer and may actually continue to grow. Though I haven’t been paying enough attention lately.
It’s not that I don’t know how to clean house. I paid my way through a year of university cleaning professors homes. That included anything and everything. I polished brass and silver! Cleaned windows with newsprint and vinegar or with windex as directed. Washed floors and cleaned bathrooms! It really left me feeling like housekeeping is one of those unforgiving jobs. No matter how often or how well you clean the house, it never stops needing to be cleaned!
Any tips or tricks to share? I am all ears.
Tip #1 – I have been told by many that the trick is to never let it go too long between cleans. Then it is much easier. I get that, but I would rather KNIT! That is most likely the crux of my problem.
Happy Easter from my about to be cleaned up Home! LOL!
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!
