The Emerald City

Only 3 hours south of us by car is Seattle.  We took an impulse road trip there last weekend and it was fun!  I love unplanned adventures like this and the kids were great about playing along.

My favorite Seattle sight was Pike Place Market especially the flying fish with the singing fishmongers. 

Check out these funny lamp men!!

Wonderful stuff all around

Post Alley outside Pike Place Market was very interesting with the famous Great Wall of Gum and fantastic graffiti.

Ewww germy and at the same time, Wow!

Poster graffiti

Seattleites, just like us Vancouverites love our Starbucks.  In fact, I’ve seen a crossroads in downtown Vancouver with a Starbucks on every corner.  That’s 4 Starbucks-es at one traffic light, sheesh!!  Here’s the first ever Starbucks…

We didn’t get a chance to ride up top the Space Needle, but seeing that this won’t be our last Emerald City visit, we have to leave some excitement for next time, right?

Just before lunch, I snuck in a visit to The Fiber Gallery and did not leave empty-handed.

Look at what jumped into my shopping bag…

Tosh DK in “Baltic”

Malabrigo Rios the new Superwash merino in “Paris Night”.  I also couldn’t resist a copy of New England Knits.

Lunch was at the famous Red Mill Burgers. 

The reviews about their burgers :: all true!

This city gets a major thumbs up from me.  Definitely a great place to visit.

Posted by & filed under Travel, Vacation, Yarn. This post has 7 comments.

Next Up

My Bugga! adventure begins now.

Bugga! yes folks, that exclamation point is intentional and rightly so.  Bugga! is MCN… which means that this yarn is 70% superwash merino, 20% cashmere (ooh la la) and 10% nylon.  Warm, durable and luxurious!  I never thought that durable and luxurious could ever go together:)

I have to say though that even thought it is labeled ‘sock yarn’, it doesn’t feel like sock yarn more like a light sportweight and since I am not afraid of skinny yarn (hello Geodesic and Paper Dolls!), knitting with this yarn should be lovely too.  

I just picked the wrong season to use my Bugga! to knit this number.  If I hadn’t dawdled like I did with my Audrey, I would have knit this pattern when it was still warm out.  But life, lemons, lemonade etc etc!

Emelie was a gift from a wonderful friend.  She saw this pattern sitting in my Ravelry faves and she also knows all about my cardigan obsession (ahem::IntSweMoDo::ahem)  That was so thoughtful and sweet of her and she’s a knitter too.  Thanks so much, dear friend:)

Swatch? Check!  The color is a bit off in these pictures.  The pink is a bit more plumy and less pepto.  My first up close encounter with Sanguine Gryphon goodies.

Let the knitting begin.

Oh oh, I got new yarnz from our Seattle trip this weekend.  Show and tell soon, ok?

Posted by & filed under Cardigans, Yarn. This post has 6 comments.

Thankful

Today, I’m thankful for so much and all you wonderful people are right up there on my list!

Happy Thanksgiving from the Great White North!

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Goodbye Sleeve Island

Knitting the sleeves on my Audrey took longer than I expected, waaaay longer!  I was stuck on Sleeve Island for so long that funny things were happening to my knitting mojo.  But we’re back on track now, my mojo and I. When I’ve knit a couple more rows of the button bands, this cardigan is going to be done!  I have yet to track down buttons and get the blocking board out to officially finish, but the knitting’s almost done, hooray!

This was my first time knitting set-in-sleeves top-down.  Sounds technical, huh???  Set in sleeves, in my opinion, give a much tailored look to any knitted garment.  But now that I’ve discovered the joys of top-down-try-as-you-go knitting, knitting the sleeves separately and then attaching them to the body always has me throwing a hissy fit.  This happens when I realize that the two pieces just don’t want to merge.  Thus ending up with a sleeve that looks squishy and puckered at the seam where most certainly a vast amount of fudging has taken place.  Square peg – round hole syndrome! 

The solution :: set-in sleeves that are knit top down using short rows.  Genius! 

The best part is that the math involved in this process is minimal aaaaaand….you get to try it on as you knit, knit, knit – giving you the perfect sleeve cap-armsyce marriage!  No ugly, puckered seams!!

Audrey in Unst has this very sleeve construction.  Now, there’s no turning back for me in the sleeve department!

*Please excuse the very blurry pics taken by 11-year-old who was already out the door to school when his mommy dragged him back in to take pictures of her sleeve.         **And please also ignore the fact that said mommy is in her PJs!!

Posted by & filed under Cardigans. This post has 9 comments.

Reset

I’ve been off the radar for a while.  Life happened, computer crashed….yada-yada. 

It’s time to hit Reset and begin afresh!

The summer went by real quick which means….bring on the cool weather knitting!  I’m plugging away on my Audrey in Unst (uh-huh, that’s still on the needles), but I want to begin knitting Emelie (Ravelry link) and this year maybe even knit a few woolly Christmas presents.

Back with actual knitting content soon – I have to show you the completed sleeve on my Audrey.  Have a great weekend everyone:)

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Random

I’ve been trying to think of something meaningful to blog about, but all I’ve got is random.  But random is better than silent, right?

So….I’m craving raspberries ever since I heard the weird but cute Peter MacNicol (a.k.a Larry Fleinhardt) say that the Milky Way must taste like raspberries.  The Audrey cardi on my needles is the same color as those delicious berries, which doesn’t make things any easier. I cannot ignore this craving any longer…. and no folks, I ain’t preggo!

Another bit of randomness is that I saw my first bunch, yes BUNCH of grizzly bears in the wild last weekend.  We were taking the Peak2Peak Gondola ride up in Whistler to the tip of the mountains in the picture above and there were so many bear families foraging about in the brush below.

Please excuse the blurry picture, but aren’t they sweet – the Mama and her cubs

The abundance of bear is probably because the Fraser River has just had largest salmon run of the century – 30 million sockeye salmon!  Now, that’s A LOT of fish in one place. Speaking of salmon, I can smell our dinner cooking – Salmon that’s been glazed with mustard and maple. Ridiculously simple and deadly yummy!

The sleeve (yes, I’m still on the first sleeve) of my Audrey is going slow.  But I love the whole set-in-seamless-sleeve construction.  This is the first sleeve I’ve knit using this method and I don’t think that there will ever be any turning back for me where sleeves are concerned.  I’ll blog about all of the technical details in a future blog post.  But first, I gotta finish this sleeve!!

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Cosette

I was fortunate to knit another Alana-Dakos-pattern for her trunk show.  This time it was the warm, cushy Cosette Wrap.

This wrap has a subtle curved shape worked with the help of short rows.  It is finished off with a lacy picot edging knit in a contrasting colored yarn.  The end result is a cozy wrap  – perfect to keep the chill off your shoulders.

The yarn I used for the body was Dream in Color Classy.  This yarn seems like sturdy, no- nonsense merino when you first knit it.  But once blocked, it transforms into a soft fabric with plenty of fluidity and drape.  The edging was knit with Madelinetosh Eyre, the same yarn I used for my Textured Yoke Cardigan.  One word about this yarn: Swoon!

Deets…

Cosette Wrap

Pattern: Cosette by Alana Dakos
Yarn: Dream in Color Classy in “Strange Harvest” and Madelinetosh Eyre in “Fig”
Needles: Size US 8/5 mm

Prithvi arrives this evening after his busy summer vacation, along with Vineet’s mom who is coming to stay with us for a month.  I’m so excited!!!

Have a great day, my peeps!

Posted by & filed under Finished Knits, Shawl. This post has 3 comments.

Sad Go Bye-Bye

It’s been a tough couple days but I have declared that life’s too short to sit around and mope.  Also, a pile of nom nom is always good for the soul…

I signed up for another round of the the MadTosh Sweater Club since I loved it so much the last time.  The first club mailing was Tosh Sport and the color I picked was Composition Book Grey (Grey-Gray? tomato-tomahto)  The perfect shade of grey which will make a lovely Goodale… I think.  This is the pattern I’ve queued for this yarn currently, but I can be quite fickle with these decisions so watch this space!

In other knitting news, I’ve just finished a sample knit for the lovely Alana.  This time it was the Cosette Wrap.  The pattern construction is similar to the Cedar Leaf Shawlette but the shape is different and this wrap is larger.  The contrasting picot border adds the perfect touch.  Lovely pattern from the designer, as always.  Post blocking pictures coming soon.

Check out her new Shawl Collared Cowl pattern – the perfect fall accessory, in my opinion.

Summer vacation is almost coming to an end and Prithvi will be home soon.  His summer has been waaaay more interesting than mine.  He has been traipsing all over the American east coast with Vineet’s mom the past 4 weeks and the pair have been having a blast sending us postcards of all their adventures which almost feels like neener-neener-neener.  I’ve missed him but Kiki has missed him the most.  She’s going to be so thrilled to see him next week and I can’t wait to witness that brother-sister reunion!

Oh, and I’m almost on the sleeves of Audrey I can’t wait to be done and wear this cute little sweater.

Posted by & filed under Family, Finished Knits, Shawl, Yarn. This post has 8 comments.

Home At Last

The last box is unpacked and everything is in place.  But for the life of me I can’t remember where I put the good coffee!  As a result, my engines aren’t revving as strong today – decaf just doesn’t cut it for me!  We’re finally done with the mammoth task of moving and we survived it.  Well, we’re bruised and achy all over, but we’re home!!!

Not having internet is a sad.sad.thing. I’ve missed all of the chatter in the blogging world and on Ravelry and being online. We’re hooked back up now and all’s well again!  Most of all, I’ve missed knitting.  I hadn’t really touched my knitting for the past week and it was so nice to finally get a few rows done in the golden evening light yesterday.

Summer evenings ♥

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Paper Dolls

You’ve already seen pictures of my Paper Dolls but here are some knitterly details.

The yarn is SPECTACULAR!

Initially, I went with Sundara Sock in the brilliant blue paired with Malabrigo Sock in the burnt orange.  But when I was knitting the corrugated ribbing, Jocelyn sweetly pointed out that the two yarns were of different weights and for colorwork that would be a definite no-no.  I immediately went to Sundara’s website to track down a similar orangey colored sock yarn to knit the dolls.  What I found was an amazing fiery orange called Fire Studies #252 and the Malabrigo pales in comparison.

With my gauge problems temporarily shelved, I zipped through the body and then it came time to knit the dolls.

I’ve talked about my colorwork grumpiness before and so I won’t recount it again.  Pouting aside, the finished top is fantastic!  Ya’ll know about my steadfast devotion to blocking and this time it did wonders to the garment.   The fit is great and the fabric has the perfect drape and softness.  I knit the short rows exactly like the pattern prescribed but I did make changes to the waist shaping and needle size for the corrugated ribbing.  I also added the pigtails to the dolls to make them look less alienesque! Details of these changes are on my Ravelry page.

I used only two skeins of the blue and about 1/3 of the orange skein.  That means I have plenty of leftover fingering weight yarn to knit another little something.

Paper Dolls

Pattern: Paper Dolls by Kate Davies
Yarn: Sundara Sock in “Cobalt Over Mediterranean” and “Fire Studies #252″Lace Malabrigo Sock in “Terracota”
Needles: Size US 4/3.5 mm

One satisfied knitter!

Posted by & filed under Finished Knits, Tops. This post has 8 comments.