Sensing Avoidance

I am still having trouble settling down to work in an orderly fashion.  There is more going on than just the busy day.  It's the border on my shawl.  Remember how I said, I wasn't sure about it?  I think all this avoidance is my unsure taking it's most massive form.  While my hands are busy with other things, I am giving it a good rest while I think it through and right now, I am leaning to changing it a bit.  That outer edge is too thick to do the valleys. 

But my hands are staying busy even if I am not quite ready to take apart my lace border.

I spoke earlier about my neighbour.  She has kept us in vegetables all summer and has been such a lovely welcoming person.  I asked what I could do for her and she suggested a hat with ear flaps.

This is what I have come up with.  I started with a free pattern on Ravelry, the Norwegian Star Earflap Hat.  Started anyway, but left it behind because my gauge is different than the pattern, my goal for this hat is different than the pattern and I hate knitting bottom up when I don't have a really good idea of what size I need at the end. 

I'm using the hat pattern, mostly for the lovely star on the side.  I could have looked in my books, but sometimes, when it is presented fait accompli, you just want to run with it. 

I want this hat to be lined so I need it larger than the pattern suggests.  Top down, will hopefully give me a better chance of knitting the right size.  I have a couple of ideas about the inner yarn, but I won't decide that until I know how it all fits.   

The yarn, the rich green is Schoppelle-Woolle Gradient, which is a sort of felted yarn.  It has a kind of crisp air about it.  It's quite lovely for working in stranded colourwork, but it is great for plain knitting too.  I am knitting it on needles that are just a little smaller than the yarn recommends, but I am aiming for really warm here. 

The white yarn is from the leftover bin and I am not really sure which of several very similar yarns it is.  There is lots left for a project of this size so I am running with it. It is deliciously thick and wonderful where it is stranded.  Really nice.

The colour I have is called Papagei.  It is a little unfortunate in that it has a section of white in the centre of it, right about where the colourwork is supposed to be, so I am doing a very little bit of colour manipulation. Later in the skein there is this amazing turquoise and I really want to show that off before the hat is done.  It is possible that the turquoise might only be on the border around the outer edges, but c'est la vie.   I really do hope to have some of it in here.  If not, the soft green colour changes please me, and with a little luck, will delight my neighbour and her gardener soul.

All in all, as a way of avoiding other knitting, a hat is not such a bad thing to end up with.
 

Put Away or Using Up

I had some trouble settling down to a single project yesterday.  I worked on each one that was part of this pile beside my sofa.  Sometimes I make me a little nuts.  I take things out and don't work on them much, and then in a fit of 'gee I ought to', and as part of a struggle to settle, I try them all.  *

The pile is usually much more ordered.  Really it is.  When these fits of starts and 'not feeling like it'  strike, things go a little haywire.  There are stacks of books out right now too, just out of range of the shot.  17 things ongoing (13 actually) and three almost empty WIP bins right near.  It is just a wee bit too knitterly, even for me.  

I did finally settle down to something though.  Something new.  It only looks like something old.  I finished a second tea cozy.  Or very large hat.

The other day when I finished mine, I thought about what I would do different if I knit another.  Mine fits great, but if I was doing it over, I would do another 2 sets of cables.  Mine has to stretch over the handle and spout just the tiniest bit.  While it doesn't bother me, others might find that odd enough that they wouldn't use it.  I added 12 stitches to make this one a cast on of 120 stitches and it is just the perfect bit bigger.  

I have no idea why, but this cozy really felt like a palate cleanser.  I felt so energized doing it, that I sat and knit till I finished it, even though by the end, my hand was getting really irritated by yarn and needle.  It is a very, very coarse fibre, bulky weight yarn and I am knitting it a bit tighter than recommended, on short circular 5 mm needles.  For me, all these things are usually in the no go zone.  Big yarn?  Na uh.  5 mm needles?  Not if I can help it.  16 inch circulars?  Only when I must.  

Before the first tea cozy I had 14 skeins of this yarn.  Each cozy is using up just under 3 balls of wool, so I ought to be able to make at least 3 more of these.  I  am going to keep this stuff close by.  It will be a nice change of pace once in a while.  To just sit and do something that there is no pressure of time on, where I don't need to worry about a pattern and where I know I can finish one in just a few hours.  There will always be a place to  donate tea cozys to for silent auctions, giveaways and fundraisers around here. 

But mostly, if I am honest, it is as much that I just don't want to put it back in the stash.  This is one yarn I am not at all sorry to just be using up.

*Note:  Yes this is indeed a photo in which I am using the internet to shame me into tidiness.

A whole swack of stuff!

I spent the entire day in fibre craft yesterday.  I did spinning with a friend in the morning, then went to the afternoon knitting group and then finished up with one of the newer evening groups in the Sherwood Park.  It was lovely and amazing and just really nice to spend the day that way and to meet a whole bunch of people I have not met before.

In between these things, I did the very smallest amount of Christmas shopping.  I didn't mean to.  I was actually looking for some fabric for an embroidery project I want to do. I didn't find it, but did find a heck of a deal on flannelette.  

Last Christmas I got my grown sons some silly socks.  Not handknitted ones, just other silly socks.  It cost more than it does when I knit a pair for myself and this year, I really must pair down, so the bargain shopping needs to start now.  

When I pop into a store, like a fabric store, I cruise the whole store and check out what kind of deals are available on everything.  You can find some pretty amazing stuff sometimes.  I found linen once, that was less than 3 dollars a metre. Pure linen.  You really just never know.  This time, tucked at the end of an aisle, there was a bargain on flannelette.

 4 dollars a metre and a nice decently thick fabric.  I picked up enough for a pair of sleep pants for each of my sons and for my grandsons too.  And the pink to make some sleep somethings for my granddaughter too. 

I know that pj's are part of Christmas for one of my families, and debated if this was the right move, but the way my own sons wear sleep pants isn't really about sleeping in them, it is about having casual comfortable pants around the house in their down time.  You can always use more easy pants. 
And for the kids, I only had to spend 12 extra dollars.  I had to buy extra for my oldest grandson.  He is taller that I could possibly get from leftovers from his dads pants, and the pink for Cassie.  Both of my little boys can easily be done with leftovers from the others. 

I did see some other really good deals that I would have loved to use for myself for tops, but in all honesty,  I already have plenty of clothes.  It just doesn't make sense to sew more blouses for myself when I don't really need them.  Once some of what I have are worn out, fine, but I don't need to stockpile for later.  I've already got a full shelf of that!

Most of this accumulation was purchased for skirts and pants for work wear.  It is good quality fabric and is plain enough that I can still use it for basic wardrobe items as I should need them.  I just need to sew it.  I don't want to stockpile fun prints and plaids.  Those go in  and out of style and there will always be a good deal on something.  You just have to look. 

My next step is going to have to be on the sly.  Patterns are pricey and I hate the idea of spending big bucks on something like a plain pant. I might have something in my pattern box for a starting point but can make a pattern off an existing pair next time one comes up for laundry and can scale as I need to.  For the kids, I will take a pattern when I am next babysitting.  A little newspaper or parchment paper will do perfectly for pattern swiping.   

I already have plenty of elastic on hand.

I guess before all of this, before the patterns and before thinking of anything more, I need to wash this up.  It's pure cotton and is guaranteed to shrink.  No matter how much, the 4 metres per pant for the big guys I purchased, means there will still be plenty.  4 metres x 4 dollars equals a decently budget conscious Christmas gift.

The kid  stuff is really just a bonus.

Wobbly at the start

It was a little wobbly at the start, but I think I have it now. I had to reknit it a couple times and then I ended recharting out exactly what I was doing versus just working  from the book.  I am really glad I did that, because there was good stuff to learn about the pattern by laying it out on graph paper on my own.

I wasn't a hundred percent sure about my choice till I had two points done but I am pretty happy with the way it looks right now.  The garter stitch for the inner point was the right choice.  It gives the border that more grounded look the rest of the shawl has.

However, I am still not 100% sure that I have it all right.  The last 3 stitches on the edging are a variation on what is in the pattern.  The points work very nicely but the valleys might be less so.  I'm going to knit another two sections and then I think I will block it out, to see if it works out as I hope it does.

On the very very upside, this is the shawl just laying on the sofa this morning.  Isn't that just the best?

Wobbly at the start, but very encouraged!

That didn't go like I thought it would

I had plans for the weekend.  Nice plans.  There was a fibre festival in central Alberta this weekend, and I had plans to go.  Right up till Sunday morning, I had plans to go.  But reality reared its ugly head and said 'you may not go'.  So I didn't.  My loss is of some interesting local hand dyed fibre and batts.  On the upside, I conserved 4 hours worth of gas for my car and the same of knitting time.

And I did, indeed knit.

Friday, I was busy avoiding an error on my shawl.  I had a good sleep and Saturday morning, I found the source of the problem, two threads worked together in a row that wasn't supposed to have anything worked together, and merrily went on my way.  All the colour gradients are done and I am back to sheeps grey.

Next up is the edging.  I wanted to check how large this shawl is so far.  I put it on a separate needle and laid it out at it's natural width without being blocked and it's about 45 inches wide.  I don't like blocking to within an inch of a shawls life, so I knew I needed more than the narrow edging the pattern has.  A wider edging meant I had to go find more yarn.  I am already well into the third skein of  the Sheeps Grey Briggs and Little Sport and while I might have squeaked it out if I had stayed with the original border, this wider border meant I had to dig for the 5 skeins of Sheeps Grey I had set aside for a sweater project.  

Luckily, the skeins match well enough to be getting on with.  It's always a pleasure to dive in but I will have lots to do on my breaks from knitting today.  

I went though all my books and picked a nice wide edging with rose leaves in it.  I knit that edging twice and then again for good measure and then decided that this is a large shawl and I did not need to knit something that made me want to poke my eyes out and went off to find another edging.  

I ended up opting for a wider, more open version of the sawtooth type edging of the original pattern. For sure it is a pattern that will be easier to read right from the get go, and I have already had practice finding small errors and have a feel for where the small errors might creep in.  I have only had to reknit a part of it.  Twice.  Third time I was golden.

I have one complete repeat done, and though it is a little hard to see, I am not sure I have it right yet.  

I picked this edging because it was lovely and open and with its clear shapely point, would be easy to block.  I added two extra columns of faggoting to the border where I join shawl and edging  because I like the way it looks around the body of a shawl. I am very pleased with that choice but I am thinking of pulling it back and starting over to simplify the edging somewhat.  

This edging feels oddly fussy to me for what is simple sort of hap. I love the width of the edging, but it's almost too much open work after the very plain garter stitch center.  Its possible that my  thicker yarn means the lace loses some definition.  One of the options the book author mentions would be to knit the inside triangle in plain garter stitch and only do the open work pattern on the outer  points.  That small bit of a solid point will set off the lovely outer point better, I think and the extra faggoting I added will help keep the lacy open feel of the original.

The other part is that if I do that inner section in garter, I completely avoid the area where I seem to be making all the errors.  

So off to start.  Again.  It didn't go like I thought it would but it did go.  That is just the way it is sometimes.     

 

Knotty problems of all kinds.

Did you know your finger tips can hurt after tying hundreds of knots all day?  Me either.

The first thing I did yesterday morning was to place knots all along the top (opposite the opening at the bottom of the duvet) to hold the airy batts in place there.  The next big task, was to close up the side of the duvet with the extra fabric.  That took up a healthy bit of my morning, but by lunch time, knotting on the rest of the body was well under way.  Pilot episode of Endeavour down. I knotted all afternoon, through the rest of the first series of Endeavour.  In the evening I knotted and watched the first episode of series two.   I really really hoped to be done, but it was 9 o'clock and I wanted to stop before my will to live was gone.   I still have three rows to go down the entire length of the throw but many episodes left of Endeavour to get me through.

So, perfection.  Or not as the case may be.

I count when I am knitting lace. I count almost obsessively.  Each set of yarn overs is counted. Each set of decreases.  I check if the registration stitch* is standing alone right where it is supposed to be. Usually, all this counting means the rows end exactly as they ought and each pattern row is knit seamelssly, row after row.  Almost perfection.

This next round is not working out.  I have a bad feeling the number two is my nemesis even though nothing in this pattern is in twos.

I started this round three times before I sorted out where the problem on the first side was.  I am now on side two of the round and voila, another error.  Different one.  I looked.  I am a little frustrated, so the whole thing is on a time out right now.

Once I am finished the throw, I will pick it up again and will knit.  Maybe it will magically just work out as things sometimes do after a timeout on a project.

One way or another, this shawl, this very lovely large gradient thing of beauty has to be completed in short order.  It has to go to Ukraine with the Christmas shipment of goods my daughter in law sends.  It is early days, I know, but I have to finish the Bridgewater shawl to send as well, and that still has a few rounds of border and the edging too.  Lots of knitting still to come on both projects.

Or maybe I will knit a sock.  I don't know.  Might just eat popcorn.  It kind of depends on the way things go.

Tea and a Not Needing Perfection

I did finish my tea cozy!

It worked just as I knew it would.  It extended the life of my pot of hot tea by hours.

 And then I worked on tying my throw.  This is actually the perfect thing to be doing right now.  The weather has been cold and wet, part rain, very small part snow, but completely miserable.  The only really good place to be is sitting under your blankie or a very large knitting project.

So I am.  Under my blankie that is.  I didn't work on it nearly enough yesterday, so today is going to have to show a concerted effort to have it done by days end.  Days end may have to be extended in order to get there.  

I decided not to worry so much about perfectly spaced ties.  I know that this imperfect placement of knots would drive many of you, most of you, nuts, but I am just not built that way.  I don't think I ever was and rather than feeling it is a flaw as I did for so many years, I have decided that it is a quirk and therefore just part of me.  

It is actually not that I am not interested in perfection, but that I put perfection to a different place than many and this isn't it for a couple of reasons.  First, this is a throw.  It's job is to keep my feet warm.  It is needed fairly urgently and will only very very rarely be seen by anyone else in it's lifetime (which will be long, I hope) and my toes do not care if it is perfect.  Second, I have nothing in the arsenal that remains to me, that would have made marking a grid on the topper a quick and easy task.  I used to have 2 yard sticks that could have done the job well, but I have no idea where they are now.  I thought I had them at my wee house, but they don't seem to have migrated here with me.  Third, I'd have to set up my big folding table to mark on and I just really didn't want the lazy bother.  Yeah, that says it right. Lazy was actually the deciding factor.

So I am eyeballing it and feel pretty good about it.  The fabric has a placement of designs in rows that is acting as a rough guide and that is good enough to be getting on with. For me. I'm good to go.

This is one of the reasons why I love knitting so much.  It is so fluid that it can adapt so easily to imperfections, that imperfection repeated, can sometimes lead to amazing results.  It can also lead to total crap, but that is part of the fun and the continual learning that knitting is.  

I've been thinking quite a bit about perfection this week.   It's because I'm actually trying to avoid imperfection, but I will save the rest of that story.  Today, it is time to go and put in a dvd and settle in for the long sew.

I'm a little Teapot short and stout,

I'm a little Teapot short and stout,

in need of a coat 

for when I come out.

This is one of three actively in use teapots I ended up with.  I say ended up with because this was a pot of  no real choices.  It was at the store when I needed a teapot at work.  I have tried to leave it behind and to give it away, but as you see, it remains.  Now it is just one of the gang and not my favourite.  BUT, it is the teapot that is clean this morning, so it is the teapot that will try on the tea cozy.

So, there you have it.

 I want it to sidle up tight to the table top, so I have another cable repeat to do, possibly two.  Might even be three cable repeats, because after my first attempt at a tea cozy was too short and failed to keep my tea warm, I have learned to make sure it is long enough.  I don't want the decrease rows to pull the cozy up either, so longer is better.

It looks to me as if the tea cozy will be ready in time for afternoon tea.  I may have to make some tea biscuits or scones to celebrate the occasion.

 

Other Woolly Work

I knit earlier in the morning, but the bulk of the days work was other woolly pursuits.

Today, I worked on a wool throw project that was planned long before the curtains and is really needed now that the nights are getting colder.  My plan is to use my very large stash of  quilt batts to make a throw to cover my bed for really chilly nights.  I don't want to drown in it.  I just want it to cover the top of the bed with me in it.  I am hoping for about 48 inches wide  and about as long as my bed is.  

For this project, I pulled out 5 wool batts (each batt is about 50 inches long and about 20 inches wide.) and sewed them together.  Nothing fancy, just simple tacking to hold them together until everything is sandwiched inside the duvet.  The edges of the batts are thinner than the centers to make layering them possible.

I have a duvet set from Ikea that coordinates with my dandelion curtains and that is what I will use for the cover of this throw.  This one.   Here are the puffy, pouffy batts all tacked together and the light floral duvet cover just before sandwiching.

I tacked the batts to one side of the fabric in a few places.  I was a little worried about their stability. The only thing holding them together, other than my very large basting, is wool's natural ability to hang on to itself when carded.  I wouldn't call them fragile exactly, but they aren't exactly sturdy either.  I didn't want to tear holes anywhere, and I didn't want the batts to separate.

That all sounds like it should take hardly any time at all, but when I looked up, it was 4:30 and time to make dinner.

After dinner, I used the roll trick to get the duvet cover on. Worked like a charm, and my batts stayed exactly in place.

And here we are with the complete looking duvet.  But there is much more work ahead.

There is an edge that needs to be cut off and sewn up by hand.  The duvet said it was a 'full/queen' but to me, it looks like it errs on the large side.  I wasn't sure how my batts would fit, or how easy it would be to get it all together, so I left it to do later, rather than sewing on the machine before tucking the batts inside. And then,

this lovely, light pouffy throw will never survive being used as is.  The wool would be lumpy in no time, so just like quilts of old, it awaits tying.  I will get it set up tomorrow morning, and it will probably need Wednesday and possibly even the day after that to get it all done.  I have a feeling that it will need tying every 6 inches in all directions to stay put.  That is a fair bit of quilting.

No matter how long it takes, it will be much quicker than doing all the shapes and fans of my pretty blue quilt.  That pretty blue quilt awaits many more hours of stitching. It may take forever.  This cover cannot wait that long.

My feet are cold and October and points winter are not that far away.

Hitting the Books?

The tea cozy remains in it's partially finished state.  Like most in between projects, it diverted me, but did not fulfill me in the same way this shawl does.  

I spent Friday and Saturday visiting and playing with grandkids.  Sunday I came home and watched the Singapore Grand Prix and all of season 4  of Endeavour again (PVR - video comes out in October, I think) and while I watched, I knit.  If you are looking for a sport to knit too, there is nothing better than Grand Prix.  Baseball is ok, but Grand Prix is the bomb. And Endeavour?  What can I say but once again, the finest TV is British made TV.

I knit and knit and knit, and I am now on the last of the colour changes.

  

I cannot tell you how pleased I am with the gradient.  And the purple?  Perfection.

I thought it would be interesting to show you how much yarn I used for a border colour.  This grey is what I used as CC2.  Its colour 12, Medium Grey.

As you can see, not a lot, about 1/4 of the generous skein of Briggs and Little Sport.  Each colour will use about the same amount, so I am going to have plenty left over for something for me!

Soon, I have to sit down and decide if I like the size of it now, or if a larger edging is needed.  I am looking for a shawl of size.  Even a large square shawl can feel small, if it isn't large enough to wrap it over your chest and keep it closed nicely.  It's why these shawls from a photo in the Shetland museum archive are so very large.  

This afternoon, I want to pin out one side to check what I have so far for size and then I will plan out the edge.  If, by knitting a larger center, I got where I wanted to be, I'll go with the pattern as written.  If I need a little more size, I'll hit the books in search of just the right thing.

This shawl is meant for warmth as well as looks and so far, I am winning at both. Captivating knitting. 

Finding the right stuff!

I had to put a few stash bins back in the closet today  and while I did that, I dug for the right yarns for my two small projects.  And guess what?  I found two that will work just fine.

I have a stash of a yarn called Store Yarn.  It's a soft grey bulky pure wool.  

I made a vest out of the same yarn in red, and it was quite pilly. No emotional attachment at all!  It will be fine for a tea cozy.  I won't felt it, opting instead for cables on the cozy.  It's working out quite well.

Just a nice big over sized cosy that looks rather more like a hat than anything else.  I did debate using a pattern, but I don't think this cozy requires a pattern.  I plan to make the decreases quick, one row decreasing the center stitches of the knits, then the purls and then the last two of the knits.  After that I think it will simply be cinched together.  There may be knitting and reknitting, but I am okay with playing with the decreases to get things how I want them to look.

It's being knit fairly tightly on 5 mm needles and is just exactly right.  It's a wee bit hard on my hands, but that tight knit means it won't pill as easily.  Before the end of my knitting day, I made it to cable row number six, so about half done the project after day one.

Yarn two was harder to choose.  The grey would also be perfect for a nice tightly knit cabled hat for my neighbour but I wanted something superwash if possible or at least harder to felt. they grey is a little coarser too and if she is sensitive, it may bother her.  Plus this stuff felts really easily.   

My lovely neighbour is a plain sort of person. She loves her garden as I love yarn.  I came up with this.  

It's a kit Fiona Ellis did for the River City Yarns the first time she came to Edmonton.  There is yarn in the kit for the two mittens with the different tops, making a really striking pair.  

I think this is the perfect yarn for her.  It is soft to wear against skin and is really washable. She wanted an ear flap hat and this yarn would look lovely with a simple colour work design.  For a sturdy hat, it should have a lining, I think and I have just the right thing.  

I have several colours of Mission Falls 136, a DK variation of the 1824 Wool, left from a baby sweater I knit a few years ago for a niece.  The two yarns would pair really well and the smaller, and probably less tightly knit 136, would be just the right size for a lining which needs to be slightly smaller.  I am hoping that the 2 layers of yarn, will make for a good, warm hat.  

But this second project is down the road.  Not far down the road but it's not quite hat weather yet.  

One new thing a day.    It's enough for me to be getting on with. Letting go of yarn is a hard thing for me.  I know it sounds silly.  It is silly!  But it's okay.  Two nice yarns.  One for me, and one for a valued friend and neighbour.

The Problem With Store in the Stash

I have a need for a couple small things.

Number one:  I need to make a hat for my neighbour to wear while shoveling snow.  She has been giving us her excess garden produce all summer and I am grateful.  She didn't think she would wear a pair of socks, which I could have given her at the drop of a hat, but asked for an actual hat instead.  I've been pondering what hat and what yarn for several weeks now and am struggling.  A hat for snow shoveling is not a fancy slouchy hat.  It's a work hat.  So I need to make a closely fitting hat that will stay where it is put and will be warm.  To me, that means something ribbed from a good sturdy warm yarn.  A basic toque pattern or a watch cap is the right kind of pattern,  but I'm a bit stuck on the yarn.  

Number two is a tea cozy.  I cannot find the very large and thick tea cozy I made at me wee house.  

It was lightly felted and kept my tea wonderfully warm.  It also took up half a drawer when it was not in use.  It was the no spout kind of cozy, sitting right over pot, spout and handle, holding all the heat in.  It may be less pretty than a tea cozy search from Ravelry  show many tea cozies to be, but this style is a much better insulator for the tea pot.  If you put one of these over your teapot and your teapot is sitting on a felted hot pad, you have tea that will stay warm for hours.  

I refer to my tea cozy in the past tense because it is missing.  When I unpacked here, it wasn't in the box with all the dish towels and dish cloths where it ought to have been.  I need a new cozy and it doesn't need to be fancy, just effective.

The problem with both of these projects so far as the stash is concerned, is that my stash is a sweater stash.  Everything I buy, bought, see, begins with a picture in my head of what kind of sweater it would be.  I don't have a large stash of worsted weight or heavier yarns in single skeins that would be right for this kind of project.  

I do have many yarns bought early on in my yarn career, where there will be plenty of yarn left over, but the ones I have used, I'm sort of hanging on to because there is enough for a vest.  Or sometimes a second sweater.  

The fact is there is plenty of yarn and more yarn choices that would be great for both of these small projects, but I am struggling with letting go of the idea that it all needs to be a sweater.  

The problem in the yarn store sized stash is not in the stash, but in my head, you see.  It would be easy to choose from if it was just any old yarn.  This yarn stash is curated by love and admiration of colour, of fibre, of the way a yarn feels in my hand. Is it possible to be emotionally connected to the stash?  This yarn stash is precious.  

My precious.

The problem of the stash is that I am yarn Gollum.

The Store in the Stash.

Good Morning!

Do you ever wake and feel like you just can't wait to face the day.  I would do that today, but I'm cold and I would really rather crawl back to bed till I warm up. A bit more sleep would probably happen too.  I'm eager for the day, but bed was wonderfully comfy and cozy.

I worked on the shawl several hours last night, more than I thought I would but less than I wanted. Still I am very pleased with the progress and

pleased with the way it is working out. Different camera and you can see the purple!  It looks absolutely fabulous with all the grey.  

In order to shake off the sluggish morning, I started with the big cup this morning.  

And I am going to eat a sensible breakfast before I start my day.  Then, I'm going to knit a while to wake up.  

I might start another sweater today.  Or at least swatch for it.  For all that I love my Granito, and for all that I love, love, love this shawl and want to finish up my Bridgewater to send to my grandchildren's other grandmother in Kyiv, I have itchy fingers. 

I'm inspired.  Going through yarn, finding the purple, was so much fun.  I wasn't putting away or cleaning, or making sure it was safe.  I was just playing, assessing the merits of each kind of yarn. Digging in the yarn fills my imagination.  Each time I do it, I remember all the good stuff there waiting for me in my own little store in my stash.

Purple Punch

In case you were wondering why no shawl work was done, I had company this weekend.  My wee Marcus isn't so wee anymore.  He is three and Great Grandpa and Grandma just happened to come up to his birthday party!  It was a lovely weekend and I have to thank my brother for bringing them up a hundred thousand times and more.

When last you saw the shawl, I was midway through the second grey.

I blew past this and the third grey in fine order and then I had a problem.

It was time to come up with colour four.  Colour four was going to be rose or white, depending on which looked better with this soft progression of greys.  As I was digging in the yarn, I came across a little something else and went an entirely different direction.

This deep purple has been hiding in my stash for a very long time.  It was one of my first purchases from Red Bird Knits so very very long ago, when she still had a small but very lovely online yarn store.  It was a coned yarn from Jaggerspuns Heather line in amethyst.  It is a worsted spun rather than the woollen spun as the Brigg's and Little Sport is, but I know this yarn.  It poofs up quite nicely once it is washed and I think it will be just fine.  I started a project with it once but it wasn't right and I forgged it.  This pretty stuff has been waiting to find its purpose ever since.

I think it found its purpose.

It's a little difficult to see just how right this rich deep colour is for these greys.  It is just the right punch without the harshness of black or the starkness of white. It is punch without faded glory of the rose I thought I would use.

I had hoped to get just to the start of the second ridge of purple so you could see it in contrast to the very light main colour, sheeps grey.  Evening is catching up with me and I started making mistakes in the lace.  Time to put the project down.

This is such a wonderful knit though.  It's the kind of pattern and yarn combination that are hard to put down even when sense tells me too.  If you are thinking you would like a very traditional warm hap (shawl) of your very own, do consider this lovely pattern. 

The things I did today

So it is time to hunker down.  The season is about to cool, no matter how much we don't want it to.  Days are shorter and the even the hottest days, are blessed by cool night.  Across the prairies, harvest is begun. It is a little later locally, but c'est la vie.   If I have to hunker down, I need to fix a couple of things.

First up, My Argo sweater.  I love this sweater.

I wore it all last winter without buttons and really did not want to go through the cold again without.  If you recall, buttons went on a few weeks ago.

The other problem that is not so evident in the picture is how short the sleeves were.  They were perfectly 3/4 length but I am wearing the sweater outside all winter with a vest as a windbreaker.  I really needed full length sleeves.

Friday, while digging for something very different , I found the two cones of yarn the sweater was made in.  I pulled it out and I fixed the sleeves today.

I removed the cuffs and knit about 4 more inches of the darker gray.  I was worried I would run out, but had plenty.

I used the yarn from the original cuffs and reknit the cuffs.  I did think about grafting, but that seemed like a lot of extra work for no payoff.  Knitting was quicker.

The only trouble is that I only realized how very much tighter my knitting was, on wooden 5 mm dpn's versus the short metal circulars for the original part of the sleeve, after the second cuff was well under way.  I called it good.  No one will notice but me.  Maybe another knitter, but the ones I know, who would comment would probably agree with my decision.  They might not do it that way, but they would fully support my choice.

I love knitters.

And that was pretty much all the things I did today.

Before I Hunker Down

When ordering from a source online, the trick is to make your package as full as possible without raising your cost of shipping.  There is no point in getting a package filled with shipping material when yarn will do.

I was pretty close on this one.  There was only a very little bit of paper packing material.  It irritates me that I didn't order just a tiny bit more.  Which is really just the silliest thing ever, because I did order a fair bit. 

You saw the pretty coned yarns yesterday, but most of my order was weaving supplies.  Tools to make the next warp easier.  It's pretty certain that warping is something I will generally do alone, so having the right tools counts.  Even with my bookshelf and clamp solution, I decided to order a warping board.  With finer yarns, I would like to do a better job and the warping board will make it so much easier. The raddle, which is the thing with what looks like nails, is a must if you are trying to warp alone. All the other bundles are lease sticks and warp sticks.  Repair heddles and a stock of regular heddles, to add more to my loom before my next project, complete my weaving tool needs.  

I also ordered some cotton to make a first set of dishtowels.  And maybe a second set.  I have no idea how much yarn it will take, but having some in stock is not a bad idea at all.  I already had a few cones for things I planned for my wee house, and these add nicely to it.

The colours of my home!  

I also ordered a book of weaving drafts.  

I know you can get tons online from many sources, but just like a stitch dictionary, a good draft collection on the shelf will always stand you in good stead.  This book was originally printed in 1944 and remains the class of the field by all accounts.  There are lots of interesting 4 shaft drafts in it, probably more than I will ever need.  

And then filler.  Filler is the best part.  

This is my very special stash of Jamieson's Ultra.  Each little ball is 25 grams and 194 metres of loveliness.  I played with this a little bit in a class I took on my San Francisco adventure a few years ago, in an Estonian Lace class with Nancy Bush and have wanted some for a project ever since. 

It's soft and squishy and has all the character that I love in a yarn.    It holds to itself and has substance, yet for all that, it is airy and light in an entirely different way than Isager Spinni Wool 1 or Einband.

I have a lot of lace weight in my stash already.  Most of it is your basic commercial quality lace weight yarn.  They vary only slightly in quality though some are finer blends than others.  They were mostly purchased for colours rather than specific projects.  I really do look forward to using it all but these three yarns, Spinni Wool 1, Einband and Ultra have been my coveted yarns for a long while now.  They are my desert island yarns, my ice cream, my fine chocolate treats, my bucket list yarns to make one truly splendid thing out of.  Well except for Einband.  Einband is going to be several lovely projects. 

This last few months have been a lot of fun for me.  Choosing a loom and accessories, thinking about once in a lifetime yarns, dreaming of projects with it.  It was fun to plan it and budget for it, and it was such a pleasure to receive. 

Fall is here now and it is time to hunker down and knit and spin and weave.        

Another Colour Conundrum

Some time ago, I think on the last visit to the much missed Shuttleworks, I picked up a couple of cones of Harrisville Shetland.  They were the only cones on the shelf.  I took them because in this part of the country, Harrisville is a pretty rare thing.

I give you Lilac and Violet.   They are both lovely colours.  Stunning really.  The range of colours in the heathers of Harrisville yarns is amazing but these two lone cones just don't quite work together.  They needed something more.      

I had to order a couple things from Camilla Valley Farms for the loom, number one being repair heddles so I could sort out the irregularities as I warped the loom.  They carry the Harrisville Shetland and a couple of cones of yarn seemed in order to sort out my problem.  I hate unresolved yarn problems.

Without a colour card, going only by what I see on my monitor, colour can sometimes be a guessing game.  I ordered two colours.  

Periwinkle was a real guess.  I hoped it would be the right colour to bring the others together but no way to know till they were in the same light.

The Midnight was a safe choice.  It would go with either of the yarns alone and the depth of it's rich navy tone ought to overpower the others to allow them to work together.  That deep rich tone would be in charge.   

The problem is this.

These are the original configurations I thought of when I ordered the second set of cones.  I love both of them. It's just a shame you can't see them in real life.

But then there is this.

I never thought of not using the Lilac and yet the way these look together...I love it.  I have been thinking of these yarns for a shawl like the Color Affection  or some of the host of new shawls that use the play of colours for some rewarding results.  There are a few longtime favourites too.

However, as I was pondering and arranging yarns, after I already put my camera away, I saw this.

Maybe I need to use all four together and knit a gradient sweater?   It's a good kind of conundrum to have.