Category: sweaters

  • yaaaarn

    Saturday was the KW Knitters’ Fair and it rocked. I haven’t bought yarn in awhile (the thing was no yarn/fibre till KW, then no yarn till Rhinebeck) so it was really….satisfying? Hm.

    Anyway, I went with KnittyAmy, Diane, and Tamarah, absolutely wonderful yarn-fest companions. Amy’s talk went great, I think. Not too much traffic (more coming back), pho (although no veggie pho for me! had to settle for the same ol’ tofu and veg) and yarn = one good time, and four sleepy gals.

    The haul…

    From left:
    Claudia Handpainted from Pickupsticks, a new online yarn shop specializing in handdyed, handspun and otherwise unique yarns, and run by my pal Connie.
    Worsted Polwarth and fingering weight Polwarth/Silk from Rovings (sooo yummy)
    Briggs and Little – the blue is Regal, the burgundy is Heritage. How do you say no to $3/skein?!

    Yes, there are multiples of each of these. Well, not the Polwarth/Silk, actually – there’s enough yardage in there for a good sized shawl.

    I also got a wee bit o’ fibre:

    Three balls of superwash merino and a couple of batts (loooove ’em) from Laurie at The Black Lamb in Port Hope. I really got to get out there sometime. I also got a bag of pin-drafted grey alpaca, which is soo very soft.

    Car knitting was the plain black alpaca pullover – I’m just about to the sleeve/body division now.

    All in all, one very satisfying day. And drinks with the wonderful Sophie at the Rosewater afterward, although I don’t have any photos of that (where’s the photos, Soph?). I actually felt a wee bit of the overwhelm-sion at the show, though – I can’t even image how Rhinebeck will be. At least we’ll have a bit longer to check things out! I can’t wait!

  • so much knitting, so little blogging

    Ack. It’s hectic around here. Taking new opportunities = lots of work to do. I’ve been dyeing, spinning up some stuff for the shop, writing patterns and doing lots of knitting which is Work. I’ve been knitting all day, but none of it for me!

    One project going fast is a sweater I’m designing for lettuce knit, a cabled cardigan out of Misti Alpaca Chunky. Dude, is this yarn ever soft! And working up quick on 8 mm needles. The body’s on hold as I was doing the sleeves – finished those yesterday.

    Last week at SnB I also made a point of casting on for a new project (hah, like I don’t have enough to knit already) – the Sienna Cardigan from the latest Interweave. This is the aran weight cashmere I bought from Colourmart. It doesn’t really feel like cashmere, more like a really good merino, but I can feel that it’ll become really, really soft with some wash and wear. And it’s the most perfect colour, as remarked upon by several people that night.

    One other exciting thing (ah, the small things): putting labels on bundles of roving for the store, since we’lre not sure the Fleece Artist order will get in before my drop spindle classes start. I love the paper – it’s unbleached kraft, 60% recycled and 30% post-consumer.

    Back to some pattern-writin’! I’m trying desperately to get that diamond cardigan written up and up for sale.

    P.S. Check out the sidebar —-> and sponsor me in the CIBC Run for the Cure! Pretty please?

  • Well, crap.

    Why, hello. It certainly has been a few days – you know how the summer slips away so quick right before you go back to school? Well, it’s less than two weeks before school starts for me, so I’m trying to get in some of that “relaxing” before I gotta start getting up in the morning, reading books, packing a backpack, etc.

    And now, adventures in beautiful buttons. So on a tip from Alexandra, I ordered a bunch of vintage mother of pearl buttons from an eBay seller for a mere nine cents apiece. They arrived a few days ago in a large box considering it only contained a dime bag with wee buttons in it (it was like…a 12x12x12 cm box stuffed with newspaper shards). The buttons? Beautiful.

    There was one that was quite chipped, but hey, I ordered extra. Since I didn’t have any matching thread, I decided to use some of the yarn that I knit the sweater out of – Rowan Wool Cotton. It consists of four 2-ply strands, so I separated it into four and used one 2ply strand to sew the buttons in.

    (Buttons are being flashed out against the sweater due to sunlight; this is the most accurate photo of the sweater colour-wise.)

    Unfortunately…

    While they look fabulous, the buttons are a little too small and delicate for the task – they’re a thin flat button with a shank, and it would seem that the holes are too big (or the buttons are too small). They do okay, but there’s going to be poppage. I will say that the sweater hasn’t yet been blocked, so maybe it won’t need to stretch as much over the bust when I put it on, but I can forsee the buttonholes getting even bigger.

    The only solution I can come up with without having to find more buttons and take out the old ones is to make the buttonholes smaller – reinforce them and somehow make the buttons stick. Argh! I really wanted this sweater to be done. (Sweater is the Vintage Pink Cardigan from Interweave, Spring 2005.)

    Also residing in blue sweater land:

    Finished pieces of the blueberry Greek Pullover (Interweave Fall 2005). The neck treatment is just crochet, so nice and easy. I’m hoping to sew it together tomorrow. And Jill? I think I used less than 10 balls of Main Line.