The Molly beret is done and ready for gifting to Sarah.
Pattern: Molly by Alana Dakos
Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy in “Happy Forest”
Needles: Size US 2/2.75 mm and US 4/3.5 mm
I knit the hat extra slouchy to accommodate the unfortunate hair incident and got Kirtana to model it for me. Kiki adores Sarah and will do anything for her include sitting still for pictures!
Once again this pattern proved to be a quick, fun knit and even comes in adult sizes.
Love :: the little i-cord detail on top.
Enjoy your patch of sunny meadow, Spring is finally here!
Welcome back, my pretty:)
Spring is almost here according to the Weatherman and the calendar. Spring flowers have broken free a few weeks too early but no one will begrudge their overenthusiastic schedule since they make everything beautiful.
I have little something on the needles today, perfect green knitting for St. Paddy’s Day. I’m knitting the Molly hat again for my dear friend’s daughter who turns 3 next week.
She and her brother had a very unfortunate incident involving a pair of scissors and Dora. No, they didn’t cut Dora-the-doll’s hair. He decided to give his sister a “Dora haircut” and seeing that he’s only 5, he didn’t do a very good job of it. Their frazzled Mama tried to salvage the bad hair-do at the local salon, but you can only do so much to hair that’s been chopped off in clumps. Thankfully, hair is renewable and this one will definitely go down in their memory books!! I’m thinking that this beret will be cute enough to hide a multitude of haircutting disasters:)
My Tea Leaves Cardigan is coming along quite well too. I’ve finished the body while multi-tasking.
Prithvi loves to read and it’s no surprise since I used to be the same way when I was his age. I remember devouring a book every chance I got, even reading under the covers with a flashlight! So, it’s no wonder that we go to the library to check out a pile of books every week. Last week I happened to see a knitting novel called, ‘The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club’, sitting there on the shelf and had to grab it. I didn’t read the back cover to see if it was any good, I just grabbed it. I’m on the last chapter now and I have been reading while I knit. The reason…LARGE print edition!!
Unfortunately, the book is, well….meh, but I realized that I have missed reading so much that I just plowed my way through.
PS: For those of us with little people in our lives, the latest issue of Petite Purls is out with plenty of stashbusting inspiration and cuteness!
That’s all I have to say about this
this
and this
Fell off the yarn diet wagon. Bad, bad, bad!
Before the madness that was the Ravelympics I finished a very interesting shawl project. This pattern called Levens written by the very talented Lily Kate France breaks up yards of plain stockinette with vertical ruched sections and a lacy edging.
My Fleece Artist yarn in “Labrador” that I was so smitten and flummoxed by at the same time turned out to be the perfect choice for this shawlette. I’ve used Fleece Artist Merino before in a different colorway for my Monkey Socks and once again, I loved the smoothness of this yarn.
Pattern: Levens by Lilly Kate France
Yarn: Handmaiden Fine Yarn Casbah Sock in “Ruby”
Needles: Size US 6/4 mm
February has turned out to be Shawl Month for me and my shawl mojo has vanished temporarily. For now, it’s back to sweater knitting until the call of lace is too strong to resist.
Those fireworks on Sunday signalled the end of the Ravelympics. Actually, they signified the end of the real Winter Games, but you know where my priorities lie!
My challenge: to finish two shawls during the Ravelympics and knowing how I’m so easily distracted by, “ooh shiny and mmm sparkly…”, I had to focus and get these projects knitted and bound off before the flame died out. Things went according to plan (YAY!) even though my Milkweed shawl got off to a pretty rough start and had to be frogged 3 times before I got into the rhythm of the pattern.
My plan: To knit Traveling Woman and Milkweed, both triangular shawls for which I planned to use Handmaiden Casbah. Let me say, this gorgeous yarn didn’t disappoint at all. Squishy and soft, producing perfect stitch definition and excellent blocking results – that’s Casbah for you.
I signed up to be a part of two teams – Team Amiras (can’t forget my peeps) and of course, Team Canada (no brainer). My projects made it past the finish line and I think that I may have been able to get in another project before Feb 28. But I chose to sit back and relax with no knitting for a change and just enjoy these winter games. I am so glad that I did because the Men’s Hockey finals – that was a cardiac arrest waiting to happen!! Dramatic finish in Canada’s favor though, so all is well!!
Pattern: Traveling Woman Shawl by Liz Abinante
Yarn: Handmaiden Fine Yarn Casbah Sock in “Ruby”
Needles: Size US 6/4 mm
Pattern: Milkweed Shawl by Laura Chau
Yarn: Handmaiden Fine Yarn Casbah Sock in “Sea Spray”
Needles: Size US 6/4 mm
Being a part of the community hosting these Winter Games just made everything seem so close and real. Something that we will never forget and I am so grateful that our kids got to experience first hand how our country came together through sport. Vancouver2010, we thank you.
ETA: Medals Won at the Podium, woo hoo!
This Valentines Day, we scrapped the usual candlelight dinner for something different.
I’m not talking about flowers and candy either, although, both of those made their appearance and made the day that much sweeter:) This Valentines Day, we headed downtown to join in the festivities surrounding the Winter Olympics.
Since driving all the way downtown would have been a nightmare especially with so many road closures, we opted to take the Skytrain instead – which is always a treat for the kids.
We took a ton of pictures, most of which were blurry…. except those featured here. However, if you couldn’t care less about all of this olympic mayhem and are looking for knitting content, you can skip all the way to the bottom to see my Ravelympics2010 progress.
If you live in Canada, it’s a given that hockey will show up in your life everyday. So, it wasn’t a surprise that there was a giant hockey stick showcasing true Canadian spirit complete with maple leaf!
At the end of the opening ceremony which was held in BC Place, a huge cauldron was lit signifying the opening of these winter games. But that wasn’t all, hockey legend, Wayne Gretzky made his way through streets of screaming crowds to light the external cauldron by the waterfront. This is going to be a permanent fixture for all to see. Unfortunately, it’s been fenced off during the games and in my opinion, wisely so.
Ha look, another Gretzky fan….
The olympic rings on the Burrard Inlet, now in solid red – previously lit with the usual colors of this timeless symbol – looked really pretty sitting over on the water.
With the streets being completely pedestrian friendly during the duration of the games, it was great not having to worry about swerving cars or traffic lights. We saw plenty of kids on their bikes waving flags… and some other kids who can’t ride bikes yet also waving flags…
What a fantastic night!
Ravelympics2010… the blobby thing below is the progress on my Traveling Woman shawl this far.
Go for the GOLD!!
My Textured Yoke Cardigan (Ravelry link)…c’est fini!
Pattern: 113-17 Jacket with Raglan Sleeves by DROPs Design
Yarn: Madelinetosh Eyre in “Moorland”
Needles: Size US 8/5 mm
I did a few mods to the pattern :: reduced the number of stitches when I cast on and added the button bands later. Also, I changed a bit of the yoke pattern to seed stitch and altered the sleeve length to get long sleeves.
The Madelinetosh Eyre is just a dream to knit with like I’ve said before. After it’s been blocked, it’s a luxurious molten hug.
The only downside to blocking this sweater is that the garment has grown lengthwise, body sleeves and all. I don’t usually wear my sweaters this long, but oh well. I guess my row gauge was off by a mile!!!
This project took less than 8 skeins and I have almost 5 skeins of yarn leftover. I think that I may just be able to get another garment out of it – a vest maybe, or a sweater for the tot. That’s for another day.
I’m resisting casting on for another project with my delicious Tart with the Olympics just round the corner.
(don’t these babies look so yum)
I don’t want to tackle something as large as a sweater right now. Also, anything that I’ve swatched for lately doesn’t seem right. Somehow my stitches are loose, and I mean REALLY loose. To get gauge, I would need to go down 3 or 4 needle sizes and so I wait…until I get my swatch mojo back. There IS a swatch mojo, right?
This floppy knit and purl has got to be from the lace knitting that I have on my needles. Yes, I’m back with the lace and my drug of choice this time has been this beauty.
To even things out, I’ve got another very interesting knit on the needles. A second shawl and this time by the very talented Lily Kate. I think she’s only 12 (or maybe 13) years old!!!!! I’ve found the perfect pattern for my funky Fleece Artist yarn.
There have been plenty of other goings-on in these parts but somehow I only seem to talk about knitting. We still get out every weekend if it’s not too wet and I have to say that over the past couple months it has rained only two Saturdays, la dee dah! Our most recent traipsing around was over here. Will share more next time.
Every skein of yarn in my stash bin has a story. I can pick out the ones that were bought for a specific purpose and then I have those impulse skeins that just seem to hop on over into the shopping cart, virtual or otherwise. You know the feeling :: you have the Visa out and you just pick that extra skein because, it’s on sale, or it’s a colorway that always sells out, or because it looks lonely sitting out there on the shelf, or simply because your cart looks kinda empty. I’m guilty of doing all the above and then some!
But for my projects that I wanted to knit for the Ravelympics, I went to my lovely LYS and picked out yarns that I had coveted for a long, long time. I knew I wanted sock yarn (but not to knit socks) and that they could be any colorway other than green. I’ve knit too many green projects lately (remember my pink phase?) and so it was time to veer off that path. I picked out **Handmaiden Casbah Sock in a lovely blend of reds called Ruby and another called Salt Spray which reminded me so much of the winter sky and sea that seem to blend together when you take the ferry across from Vancouver to Victoria – soft shades of blue.
No yarn trawl is complete without an impulse skein and this time was no different. A skein of Fleece Artist Merino in only what I can call a most unlikely blend of colors was the culprit. It’s called Labrador and sadly, it looked waaaay more interesting in the skein than it looks wound up.
Ravelympic athletes just like the Olympic athletes are in training right now. Our (crafting) version of training is to do with picking out patterns, signing up for teams and swatching. I am so glad that I swatched and did a bit of browsing on the Ravelry boards about the patterns I wanted to knit. I was going to go with the Sagano and Citron shawls. Swatching wasn’t the funnest for both and so they’ve been shelved for another day. I’m still trawling the world wide web for replacements and I think that I’ve narrowed my choices down to a few.
Glad that I got the “training” out of the way because our house has been invaded again by the sickies. The 10-year-old has the stomach flu and the 2-year-old and yours truly have the regular flu. Nothing fun, but we’re on the mend thanks to meds and massive amounts of chicken soup – always good for the soul.
But first, I want to finish my current project which is the Textured Yoke Cardigan before the Games begin and I think that I just might because I’ve joined the sleeves to the body and begun knitting the yoke. Hopefully, I will have an FO to show soon, but first, I have to pick out the perfect buttons.
** If you are looking for the oh-so-lovely Handmaiden Yarns, Yarn Canada has a great selection here **
