Category: knitting

  • random thursday

    sock of randomness

    Despite all the other knitting I’ve got to finish, I cast on for some plain socks. I really needed something I could just knit and not think about! Socks That Rock Lightweight in a “Steph Dyes” colourway – the product of steph in the dye studio.

    editing

    I’ve been doing piles of editing, with my favourite red pen.

    ugly but delicious

    I made blueberry cup-pies (you know, like cupcakes) on Monday for Pi Approximation Day. I decided to make them when I had only 2 hours in which to do it, but I managed to pull it off! They’re quite ugly and my crust sealing could use some work, but they were delicious. I really must get a proper rolling pin, though. (Recipe? I used a standard all-butter crust recipe, and frozen blueberries tossed with a little sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice. Bake at 425F for 15 min, then turn down to 350F until they’re done – about 15-20 minutes.)

    Aaaaaand on this Random Thursday, I have a contest for you all!

    mal twist

    Leave a comment on this post with something that makes you happy – anything! Signs of spring, your favourite yarn, food, book…

    I’ll pick 10 winners at random to win a copy of The Map Collection, and one of those people will win 2 skeins of Malabrigo Twist in Damask Rose – perfect for the smaller Signal Hill Scarf!

    Comments will close on Sunday, March 20 at 11.59 EDT, and I’ll announce the winners next week before my trip to NYC!

  • sweater frenzy

    I know everyone in the wintery parts of the world are super sick of snow, and slush, and cold, but I’m not! (Okay, maybe the slush. That’s annoying.) As a wool-loving person, I just love the weather in which it’s actually useful and necessary. I love sweaters. I love coming into a warm house from the cold. And I love new sweaters.

    rios sweater

    Of course I make the wool work for me even in the summer (I get tons of wear out of my fingering weight Bellevue, for example), but I’m really hurrying to finish a few new ones before it gets too warm for the super cozy ones. This blue sweater is done now, and I’m hoping to even get the pattern out in the next couple weeks. It worked up really quickly in Malabrigo Rios, and I’m really happy with how the neck turned out. And it does have sleeves!

    I’m still working on the black cashmere/silk sweater, and I’m hoping to have that done soon too – it’ll be a good jacket weight as well, once it gets a bit warmer. The tiny skeins aren’t going very far on the sweater border – I picked up all the way around the front edges of the cardigan, which means there’s LOTS of stitches, and one 25g skein only gets me 4 rounds!

    My goal is to have the sweater done for the 24th…in time for a trip to New York City! I’ve only been there once before, and it was just a day trip (from elsewhere in the state) with my family, and it was a long time ago. This time I’m planning on staying over the weekend and cramming in as much sightseeing, photography, shopping and eating as I possibly can. So of course, I could use some recommendations! What do you love in NYC?

  • a cozy cashmere sweater

    caaaaashmere

    As you may remember, I worked on this sweater while I was at TNNA this January. I managed to screw up the yoke pretty royally when I got home – I started the v-neck below the underarm, attached the sleeves and went merrily along decreasing for the raglan and the neck, but discovered pretty late that I had actually mis-divided the front for the bust increases and v-neck! I had to rip all the way back to the waist, argh.

    But once I got everything back on track it was smooth sailing. I knit this sweater with just five 50g skeins of Handmaiden 4ply cashmere – cashmere is so light, there are a lot of yards per skein. Since the yarn is hand-dyed, I’m not reeeeally surprised about this, but there’s quite a bit of green in this yarn that looked just silver in the skein!

    caaaaashmere

    No pattern for this one, sorry – it’s just a simple bottom-up raglan with waist shaping. For the sleeves I did a slight balloon shape – I cast on 48 stitches for the cuff, then increased dramatically to 72 sts, which is the upper arm circumference, and just knit straight up to the underarm. For the V-neck, I started decreasing away a couple inches below the underarm, since I wanted it to be fairly deep. I stuck a little cable along the raglan lines and decreased until there were no more front stitches, then I added on the twisted rib neckband.

    caaaaashmere

    I’m not a huge fan of the pooling, but you know what? It’s a cashmere sweater and it’s still super soft and cozy.