Company's coming!

I'm eagerly anticipating a visit from Miss G this weekend, who has been considerably enamored with felting of late. In her honour, here's a fun felting book I found online.

Do also check out the most amazing beer cozies she made this past winter.

Made for crawling

I have such a weakness for small projects that finish quickly, and are guaranteed to be put in use. These are two pairs of baby shoes that I coudln't resist making while visiting my parents a few weeks ago. The beige pair are my first stab at fair-isle-y type knitting, which I think I'll do again. I wasn't a huge fan of having to sew in all the ends afterward, but I made it through.

 

Both of these are made with Knitpicks Merino Style from Debbie Bliss' Baby Knits Book. Lots of great patterns in this book--check your local library.

I miss wool!

Ugh, things are moving slowly with the Ribby Cardi.

I'm having intense issues working with this yarn. I'm using a Cotton/Acrylic yarn called Aviso that I picked up for a super hot deal at Wool Tyme--$25 for 10 balls, how could I resist? I should have known better though, I had pangs of "you-get-what-you-pay-for!" while I was paying for the lot. The yarn's been twisting like crazy, and I'm not so hot on the colour now that I've been looking at it on a daily basis. But, I'll keep my head down and keep moving; like I said, I will finish this.

I've re-knit this a number of times, using a variety of techniques, to help make this a better looking sweater. Things are looking striped, due to my knit rows being tighter than my purl rows, which are a lot more exaggerated with this evil cotton. I've tried using the combined knitting method, which I'm told is a miracle solution for tension issues, and I've also tried another suggestion of knitting with a smaller size needle on mypurl rows. Neither produced a result I was happy with, so I decided to move on to a tried and true cotton-knitting solution: bamboo needles. Things are looking up, but the sky's still cloudy.

So, I've resigned myself to the idea that this sweater is not just an exercise in me finishing a sweater, it's an exercise in patience in learning the finer techniques needed to knit with cotton.

Who knew this would be so hard?

Time to start starting

Ok, so I think it's high time I start getting some things done around here. Ever since I picked up my knitting needles again last year, I've been thinking of making a sweater. I've been putting that thought off forever now, and I think it's time to just dive in and do it. A few months ago I bought the Ribby Cardi pattern from Chicknits, which I think will be a perfect starter sweater to get me back into things. It's got everything you could want in a pattern--simple, yet enough of a challenge to keep you going for the whole thing (I hope). The extra bonus is it looks to be highly wearable. A rarerity in knitting land, in my opinion.

 

Progress so far:

 

Trouble is, what with the lack of snow, I'm feeling a bit sluggish toward knitting, so hopefully forced progress reports will help. I've got most of the back worked up, fingers crossed on the rest.

Love love LOVE flickr!

Ahhh, the joys of flickr... Now you can spell things with photos here: http://metaatem.net/words/. So many possibilities with flickr--I think it's time I get my pro account up again. I'm due.

Easter Hat

Baby knits: just too fun!!

Hard to resist fun baby hats, really-- I'm a sucker for the little knits. From Stitch and Bitch Nation, knit in Debblie Bliss Wool Cotton. I chose not to stitch on the rabbit face that the pattern reccomends, my embroidery skills just aren't up to par.

ENBALERS!

Falling victim to reading too many knitting and craft-like blogs, I've found myself drooling over high priced yarns that I can't get in town. I'm just itching to get my hands on some of the yarn I'm constantly reading about, but my selection's pretty limited, nothing at all comparable to the land of yarn that I read about online.

For example, I read about Rowan all over the place, but my experience with it up close is next to none. I've experienced exactly 2 Rowan spottings to date: I found a few skeins of Magpie in the bargain section at one of the shops in town, and they sold for the insane price of $19 for an ugly grey colour. The other sighting was in an amazing shop in Kensington Market in Toronto, a few balls of amazing-coloured balls of Kid Silk Haze...$22! Not realistic in the least.

So, I've made a compromise and ordered some stuff from Knitpicks. Not being great decision maker, it took me a good week of solid hemming and hawing before I finally made the decision to order a whack of product.

Knitpicks satisfies the shopping need

I'll post some specifics later, but I will say that the Merino Style really is great to work with. Their colours aren't quite up to what their web site makes them appear--most of what I got came in a lot duller than they'd have you believe. Regardless of what your monitor settings are.

No title for you

I am a test post and a test picture. I will say though, that when in Victoria or Vancouver BC, do visit Smoking Lily.