fo: Basil the Lamb

Folks, Basil turned out ridiculously adorable!  He's charming the crap out of my customers in the shop, and I'm pretty sure there's going to be a flock of sheep cuddling up all over Whitehorse soon.

Pattern: Fuzzy Mitten Lamb, by Barbara Prime
Yarn: Drops Alpaca Boucle and Drops Nepal
Needles: 4 mm (knit flat, then seamed, stuffed, and sewn together)
Mods: None at all.

This was a good pattern.  Well written and easy to follow, and despite a lot of people converting it to in-the-round, I chose to just go with the pattern (hazard of knitting store samples - there's only so much you can deviate from the pattern).

The boucle yarn, on the other hand, was a nightmare.  It took a while to get the hang of it - those loops like to pretend to be stitches on the needles, the little shits - but it never got comfortable for me.  That said, the final result was well worth the trouble.  The fabric is soft and squishy, and absolutely perfect for a little lamb.

I don't have much for pics of Basil without his sweater on, but that sweater is knit separately.  It's actually a pattern from the same designer called Squirrel's Polo Neck Pullover, and probably would have been better if I hadn't...ahem...over-stuffed Basil's limbs and tummy.  Story of my life.  But it was a good first run with knitting a garment for the little guy, and I'll be using the pattern as a base for variations soon.  This little bugger is going to have a more extensive wardrobe than me!

(Basil was pretty stoked about his first sweater though.)

The ADORABLE toque was knit by a friend of mine who wanted to contribute to Basil's wardrobe.  It's perfect! Sadly, I don't have a good pic of the pompom, so you'll have to take my word that it's equally adorable.

I need to knit him a fair isle sweater soon.  And a cowichan sweater (I already have the most perfect buttons).  And some shorts.  And some booties.  And probably a headband because why not.  And maybe sew him a kilt.  And jeans.  SO MANY IDEAS.  SO LITTLE TIME.

wip: Fuzzy Lamb and some other stuff

Whew, it's been a while!  I've been busy teaching classes, running a busy shop, trying to catch up on paperwork (ARGH PAPERWORK), and training a new employee.  I'm definitely creating though.  My current favourite project is one I just started on Saturday, but that's been on my brain for a while now.

Fuzzy Lamb is a ridiculously adorable pattern by Fuzzy Mittens, and I've been itching to knit it ever since a customer came in looking for yarn to knit it a year ago.  When I opted to bring in Drops Alpaca Boucle, I knew I had to knit it up into this cute little lamb!

Though I have to tell you, the boucle is a nightmare to work with.  Cripes, I keep catching up those little loops, decreasing and increasing is a mess, and forget reading your fabric!  It's so ridiculously soft though, that it's worth the effort.

As you can see, I've got the body and legs done.  Two more limbs and a head, and I'll be able to start stuffing and sewing this adorable little stuffy.

Guys, I'm so stoked to have this little buddy in the shop.  I'm definitely going to have to knit a wee little sweater for it, and I can see working on a bunch of clothes and accessories for it.  EEEE so fun!

In other news, my sock class finished up this afternoon.  LOOK AT ALL THE SOCKS!  Almost everyone finished up at least one sock in the 3 week class, and a couple finished both today.  :)  I also finished up my pair, but I'll post about that another day, since I need to lengthen on and sew in about a thousand ends.

Also, Lady Aurora was stunning the other night, dancing right over-top of Whitehorse.  I should have driven up Grey Mountain for a view of the northern lights over the city, but instead I hoofed it down the path behind my house to get away from the streetlights and oogled the light through the trees.  Sorry for my crummy photo; I refused to deal with finding my good camera and just used my camera phone.

In a way, it's easy to forget how lucky we are here.  People make the trip north just to see the lights, and I often don't bother to go out to watch them.  But sometimes, you just need to go out and appreciate just how stunning our world is, and what beauty can be found, even in your backyard.

Ever seen the northern (or southern!) lights before?  I grew up watching them in Manitoba, but the displays are stunning up here.  You should definitely come up to see them (in the winter only - we don't even see the stars in the summer, with 20+ hours of daylight), and definitely pop in and say hello to me at my shop!  <3

fo: #rightbrainmutany project

I may be weird, but I actually like doing the year end inventory at the shop.  Well, the counting bit at least.  Gives me a chance to spend some quality time with the yarn, when I barely have a chance to glance at it most days during the holiday season.

This year, I was chatting with one of my volunteers and glanced down at the Briggs & Little Heritage shelf, and saw three skeins of yarn sitting side-by-side.  And then I felt like I got smacked in the face with them.

Sometimes a yarn will misbehave and appear to disagree with anything you try to use it in, and us Knitter's and Crocheter's will have to resign ourselves to leaving that yarn alone until it tells you what it wants to be.

These three skeins SHOUTED what they wanted, and no matter how much I fought it, I couldn't ignore their demand.  They wanted to be this:

The image I got in my head was narrow but deep gradient cowl in some sort of textured stitch, where the three colours transitioned from one to another.

Natural White, Ragg, Sheep's Grey

To get this, I held two strands together throughout the whole project.  First, I held two strands of the natural white together, then one strand of natural white and one strand of ragg (itself a marled yarn), followed by two strands of ragg.  To transition to sheep's grey, I repeated the process, holding one strand of ragg and one sheep's grey, followed by two strands of the grey.


I found the transition from the natural white into ragg was sharper than the image slammed in my head,and the transition from ragg to sheep's grey nearly invisible.  But I can't bring myself to care because the end result was stunning!

The textured stitch was just a simple Irish moss (k1, p1 around for two rows, then p1, k1 for two more).  I cast the sucker on at our last Fibre's Guild meeting with 6.5 mm needles, but after knitting a few inches, realized the fabric was too tight. 

So I ripped it out and started fresh with 8 mm needles.  Much better!

I'd originally planned this cowl to be something like 30" long, but then I realized that was a ridiculous length, and also I would need more yarn - probably just an extra ball of the ragg, but I wanted to keep this within the three balls.  It's actually a perfect size (about 18" long and 30" around).  Easy to toss on and artfully fold in whatever way I need, whether as a fashionable cowl or obscuring most of my head and face when we hit -30C temps.  And the textured stitch locks in heat, so I'm always nice and cozy in this sucker.

Why do I call it the #rightbrainmutany project, you ask?  Folks, I'm not a monogamous knitter.  I just realized the other day that while I own approximately 30 cords for my interchangeable needles, I only have 2 in my knitting case.  I have a lot of wips.  But this project?  It DEMANDED my attention.  I tried to work on other projects, but this one wouldn't allow it.  My right brain took complete control and didn't let me go until this thing was off the needles.

I had this project done in 3 days, so I guess there's something to be said for monogaknitting.  And let me tell you, it was a battle between brain sides when I had to be Not Knitting at the shop.

(Right brain often won.)

Have you ever had a project take over your brain?  Or had a part of your brain mutany and take over you?  And I've only just noticed that I've been spelling "mutany" wrong all this time.  Oh well, I've been hashtagging it wrong as well, and I'm not going back to change any of it! 

A Long Overdue fo: Whitehorse 2015 Year in Temperature Scarf

I don't even want to go dig up the old posts on this project.  The fact that it was knit and (nearly) finished in 2015 should say enough.  Though to be fair, the sewing in of ends only just got finished a couple of months ago, and not by me either but a friend who was tired of seeing it with it's sporadic fringe.

Without further ado, here is my finished Year in Temperature Scarf!

Yes, this is the slatwall chalkboard in the shop.  It makes for a fun display!  For those who don't know, this is a conceptual project, where you choose colours to represent different temperature ranges, and knit rows for each day in the colour that represents the temperature that day!

If you look closely, you can see each of the months labeled, the black deep colds at the beginning and ends of the year (which represents average temps of below -30C), and the swath of light pink that represents my trip to Mexico in June of that year (it was my only chance to use light pink!).  My favourite bit is the change from deep cold in early February to above zero temps within the week.  Oh Canada.

Here's the temperature ranges I chose:

I used Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Sport.  Most people who knit this chose a palette that follows the standard colours used to represent temperatures ranges on weather reporting (red orange yellow green blue purple).  I wasn't a fan of how they came out though, so I picked my own colours!  I love blues and purples and burgundy, so of course that had to be my range.

I knit this sucker in a 1x1 rib and did two rows of each colour for the average daily temperature for each day.  Ravelry tells me I cast on 44 stitches and and I honestly can't remember anything else about it. 

The whole thing measures just shy of 10 feet.  This scarf only really gets broken out when it's super cold, since I can wrap this thing around my head 3 or 4 times!  Makes me laugh every time I put it on, and even more when I try to take it off and boggle at the amount of wraps.

Anywho, now that Christmas Retail Insanity is over, I'm hoping to get back into blogging.  There may be a flurry of posts in the next little bit, as I've been mentally composing a ton of them in the last month or two.  I'm glad to get this one off my list at last!  It's always nice to get an old, long-term project finished up, complete with a post. 

Have you ever tackled a conceptual project like this, and would you consider it?  Where would the temperature range sit on my chart above in your area? 

Repairing a Well-Loved Sweater

So not all Store-related knit work is as fun as knitting store samples.  I'm open to taking repair jobs from customers, since despite telling myself I just don't have the time and energy, I can't leave poor damaged knitwear that someone's grandma or mom knit then.  Though I've learned to be more picky on the jobs I take on.

This sweater is one of the repair jobs that taught me that lesson.

This beauty was brought in by a local gentleman along with two other sweaters.  Um, about a year ago.  Oops.  They were all knit by his Mother years ago, and she's since passed away.  This is an important job.  The first sweater was an easy repair - a couple of broken strands and some mostly-matching yarn to fix the hole.  This is the second sweater, and boy did I under-estimate the work needed on her.

There are no before pictures, but there were quite a few holes in the sleeves.  Mostly at the elbows, but while repairing those, I noticed how thin the fabric was getting around the holes, and on other sections of the sleeves.  You can maybe see my patches above and below.

Maybe because I'm damn good at these sort of repairs - patching large sections and creating new fabric.  Though there's only so much I can do to match the yarn colour.

I only noticed the hole while taking these photos. You can sort of see a patch I started months ago. Obviously I didn't finish the section back then.

Sadly, looking over the whole sweater for other thin sections, I noticed just how brittle the yarn is getting.  I'm really not sure how long this poor thing will last, but hopefully it'll last a bit longer.  The armpits in particular are looking so strained and brittle, but there's only so much I can do here.  I've decided, for now, to leave this section be.  I'm going to tell him to bring it back in if he has any problems.  I may sew a fabric patch over the whole area if needed, rather than reinforce the entire area.

The last section to be repaired (other than a few wee holes around the colourwork at the bottom of the sweater) was the ratty hem.  I wish I'd taken a photo of it before hand, or even from a few hours ago.  I'd say about 2/3rds of the bottom hem were falling apart.  Mostly just on the cast-on row, but there were a few sections with broken strands a few rows down.

It took a few tries, and abandoning the hem to practice on the sleeve hems, but I managed to work out how to do a sewn reinforcement for most of the edge, with a few areas where I had to build up the fabric by picking up clean stitches and knitting the fabric up, then bind-off the edge.  My yarn is a bit more red than the sweater yarn, so you can kind of see what I'm talking in these photos, especially the one below that shows one section that I had to build up the fabric.

The sweater is having a bath right now.  Ye gods, I didn't realize how dirty this sweater is, poor thing.  I was hoping to take it to work tomorrow because I think he's coming by then, but I feel like I should leave the sweater in the bath overnight.  I added a bunch of moisturizing conditioner to try to add some moisture back into the fabric.  Don't know if it'll work, but it can't hurt.

Oh, and here's a shot of the yoke colourwork.  She really is a lovely sweater.  Despite the time and effort of this repair, I'm glad I could give it some life!

Do you ever tackle any big repair jobs?  I know I didn't before this.

fo: (Pumpkin Spice) Fredrika Socks

So remember that sock I mentioned at the end of my last post? 

I uh...finished them.

These were the quickest socks I've ever knit.  Granted, I shortened them to ankle-length to get the pair from one ball of yarn, and the yarn itself is worsted.  But I don't really attribute either of those to my speed.

I entirely blame the pattern itself.  It was addicting!  Each section was quick and interesting, with 4 different (but relatively easy) charts to finish, and a unique heel method that had me fascinated by the whole process - both times!  They just seemed to fall off of the needles.

Which is good because it's -17C outside right now and my floors are damn cold!

Pattern: Fredrika, by Tiina Kuu
Yarn: Custom Woolen Mills CWM Sock Yarn 4-ply
Needles: 3.5 mm
Modifications: Shortened to ankle-length

I actually knit these as an excuse to use one of Custom Woolen Mill's new sock yarns.  I'm not a quick sock knitter in general, and I resisted using their 2 ply (fingering weight) yarn.  And then the 4 ply (worsted weight) yarn arrived, and there ended any resistance.  This yarn is hardy and rustic - entirely my sort of yarn, and with 30% nylon, it'll hold up to all sorts of dragging my feet around my home.  This colour called to me too, and I'm so excited to wear these suckers!

If you have any sort of interest in sock knitting, do yourself a favour and knit these socks.  The pattern is even free, so you have no excuse!  I'm torn between making another pair, or tackling this pair that my fingers are itching to start.

fo: Unanticipated Christmas Stocking, and Another Oops

Folks, I hate all things Christmas when it's still October.  Or honestly, before Remembrance Day on Nov. 11th (do you have that in the States?  Elsewhere?).  But I've unfortunately learned that when you're in retail, especially in yarn-related retail, you kind of need to start thinking Christmas earlier than that.  Mostly because smart knitters and crocheters have started their Christmas creating by now.

Ugh.

So this year (unlike last year), I dived in early and I got a Christmas sample made up.

AND IT'S SO CUTE I COULD DIE.

Okay, so it's not very traditional for Christmas, but whatever I knit a Christmas stocking.  And do I know my customers?  Yes I do, because I had a lady with her friend come in just as I hung this sucker up and promptly freaked out about the adorable little sheep and decided to make one herself.

Though we had a good laugh because she loved my colour choices but didn't want to copy me.  Oh my dear, it's not like we'll be wearing these stockings out and get all embarrassed because OH NO WE HAVE IDENTICAL CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS YOU HORRIBLE COPY CAT YOU.  :)

Seriously though, who can resist that sheep?!  I couldn't - the sheep is precisely why I knit a stupid Christmas thing in October.  Stupid cute sheep.

Pattern: Christmas Stocking #103, by Briggs & Little
Yarn: Briggs & Little Heritage (with a bit of Custom Woolen Mills 2 ply Mulespinner, because I had a bit of cream and brown on hand for the sheep)
Mods: Only did 3 sections on the leg; changed up the heel flap for my standard heel flap method; lengthened foot of sock; did contrast heel/toe.

I loved working with this pattern, and B&L yarn permanently lives in my yarny heart.  The pattern was great because it has multiple charts you can choose from on the leg, so you have mix and match to your hearts content.  I kind of want to knit another one in blue with a snowflake theme!

Though not right away because I have way too much else to do.  For every project I show here, there's at least 3 that I've finished that I never blog about.  Certain bits of owning and operating a shop is getting easier, which frees up more time to deal with all the other stuff I never realized I should've been doing!  Haha oops.

That doesn't meant that I'm not making time for personal project though.  For instance, winter is officially here in Whitehorse, and that means that the floors of my basement suite is getting DAMN COLD.  Being a knitter, that means that I have to knit myself new thick woolen socks.  Obviously.  And when Custom Woolen Mill's CMW 4 ply sock yarn arrived, I knew immediately that they were the One.

And despite telling myself I couldn't start it until I finished a different store project and 2 repair jobs, tonight my hands conspired with my cold feet, said screw that, and I got the cuff of an ankle sock knit.

Oops.