"Baby Keepers"

My mom has a big box in her basement marked "Baby Keepers". It's full of baby clothes. My family has a long tradition of hand-me-downs. A lot of our wardrobe as kids came from my older cousins, and then got passed on to our younger cousins. But some things, mostly handmade, were just too special for my mom to pass on, so instead she squirreled them away in a big box and now that her first grandchild is on the way (my brother's baby is due this July and we're all so excited!) it was time to go through the box and pick out some of the special keepsakes that will get passed on to him. 

Mom and I did that earlier this week. I recognized most of the adorable baby knits from seeing them in old photo's, or even remembering my sister wearing them. But I haven't really looked at them since I've become a knitter. I picked out a few of my faves to share with you today because I was so surprised to see that even though some of these things are over 30 years old, they're still totally hip. 

Most of these sweaters were knit by my grandmother, she tended towards simple shapes, embellished with either seed stitch or garter stitch, sometimes both. When she hit upon a pattern she liked, she stuck with it (hence the photo above featuring 4 sweaters with the same yoke motif!) 

I love them all! But then again, you know I love just about all wee baby knits. But obviously, knowing that Grammy stitched every stitch in these precious little sweaters makes them all the more special. 

This week in spinning

Chris dyed this roving and when I first saw it, I was not thrilled. Orange and green? What was he thinking? I teased him about it so much that I started to feel bad. I decided to give it a chance and spin it for him. Who knows, maybe this ugly duckling would turn into a swan!

Well, now I've got mud on my face because this handspun is gorgeous! Just goes to show you really can't judge roving until it's spun. It's incredible how much it changes from beginning to end. Spinning is magic.

 Sorry Chris, I was wrong, you were right. This colour combo really does work. 

pretty purple posies

I was about to begin this blog post with the statement: "I love flowers" but that seems silly, of course I love flowers, who doesn't!? I've never considered myself much of a green thumb, I always start off the summer gardening season with lots of enthusiasm but then it fades and by August I have an overgrown mess of a garden. This year will be different! I'm totally committed to keeping up with my flowers. I'll report back in August and let you know how it's going. :)

Pretty purple pansies in a turquoise urn outside the studio. Love those happy pansy faces.

Last year Chris and I moved the rock wall that lines the raised portion of our front garden out about 2 feet so we would have more room for plants in front of the shrubs that run the front of our house. We transplanted a few hardy specimens (hosta and stonecrop are always reliable) and then planted a row of flox on the edge of the rock wall. Last year they were pretty, but still small. This year they are bursting! Cascading over the rock wall and looking so lush and lovely. I think that it's the fact flox bloom early in the season that make them one of my favourite flowers. Early blooms are always so exciting! 

TFA Colour KAL

The TFA Colour KAL has officially begun! I took some time last week to do some swatching, but instead of just swatching a flat rectangle I decided to knit a hat. That way I could swatch in the round, figure out some decreases and after all the work and math was done, I'd have a hat! Bonus. 

The swatch worked out well and now I just have a bit more math to do before I'm ready to cast on for my KAL sweater. I'll keep you posted on my progress! I may not have much time to work on it this week since I'll be a busy bee getting all the Club kits in the mail, but with my swatching all done I feel like I've already made good progress. 

I love my mom

Last year I did a Mother's Day blog post dedicated to my beautiful puppy Stella, not a single mention of my actual mom... how did I get away with that? 

This year, I want to dedicate this blog post, nay, this entire day! to my amazing, giving, supportive mother. I haven't mentioned this on the blog before, because it's a little heavy for a friendly knit-blog, but this year, life has really thrown Chris and I some curve balls. It hasn't been easy, but having my mom around, just a phone call away makes everything seem manageable. She doesn't always say exactly what I want to hear, but she's always right, and she always knows best. I know that I can count on her for anything and everything. From babysitting Stella, to labeling and packaging a couple hundred Club kits, to test knitting a pattern and giving me way more honest criticism then I asked for... I'm not sure what TFA would be without her and I don't even want to think about what my life would be without her (I'm getting all emotional just typing that). 

My mom is my best friend, she's my role model and she's a total star. I love her to pieces and look forward to spending all day with her today while she relaxes and is pampered by her adoring children! 

Thanks for everything mom, I love you.

xoxo Tan

Adorable

I knit this little hat from last week's lovely skein of pastel handspun (below right). The pom-pom is the best part. So colourful and cute!  

I'm all ready for the TFA Colour KAL to start next Monday, May 14th. I can't wait! I've wound my yarn (a Sky Palette) and have started swatching. I love working with these shades of blue... it's like heaven!

More blue yarn

This is the result of last week's spinning. I hoarded a braid of my favorite hand dyed roving and spun it into this glorious 2-ply yarn. I think it's my favorite skein of handspun yet. I'm going to make myself a really simple slouchy hat with this yarn. 

I've finally taken on the task of turning some of the baby sweaters I've been knitting into "outfits" all set for gifting. I've got a few sweaters stashed away for gifts, and though a knitted sweater is awesome, the cuteness factor is kicked up a notch if said sweater has a pair of matching booties! 

I've hopped on the bootie train and I can't get off. 

So far I've used Saartje's Bootees pattern and the Oh! Baby Baby Booties pattern. Saarje's Booties are adorable because they're so small and cute, but I think that I prefer the second pattern because the booties really seem like they would actually stay on and they kind of look like hip little baby Ugg boots, and while I'm not really into Uggs for adult, I completely approve of the look for babies!

Both patterns were modified to be knit in the round. :)

Lucky

I woke up this morning feeling very lucky. Yesterday's Etsy update was a success, which is always a bit overwhelming. I love what I do, dyeing, designing, running TFA, and the fact that you all appreciate it enough to make it possible for me to do this as a career is incredible. Chris, Stella and I all thank you very much. Our lives aren't glamourous, I spend most days in my pajamas, we have a modest house and we stay in most nights, but we spend our days together doing what we're passionate about and that makes us feel incredibly lucky. 

I'm working away at a very simple, no-frills, v-neck pullover in a ooak colourway. It coordinates quite nicely with my latest bit of handspun!

Etsy Update, plus some spinning!

There will be a Etsy Update today at 12pm (EST) aparently we had a thing for greens this time around. So many lovelies! You know I hate to part with them, I just hope they go to good homes!

We also dyed a whole bunch of roving for this update, which I'm pretty excited about. I LOVE hand dyed roving and I'm really happy to be back in the roving game. Below is my favorite braid of the day. 

It has been months since I pulled out my spinning wheel. I don't think that I've done any spinning since last June! Shame on me. I think that one of my problem's is the fact that I cherish my handspun so much (probably because I'm no expert and it typically takes me 2 or 3 nights of dedicated spinning time to spin a skein of yarn, it's a lot of work! I need to make sure I find just the perfect project for the special skein when it's all done.) Anyways... After knitting the adorable little Garter Yoke Baby sweater with some handspun I have made a new commitment to spin more often. For me, spinning is really quite a bit like meditation. It's repetitive, slow movements, I don't count, I don't really even think while I'm doing it. It makes me feel very relaxed and very zen. I could use a little more zen in my life, so I'm going to try and spin once a week from now on. Like most things, my spinning mojo tends to come in fits and spurts, so we'll see if I can keep it up... I'm going to try my best! 

On that note, last week I dug out these braids of roving that had been marinating in the stash for oh, maybe 3 years or so! I spun the singles and thought that they were just lovely, but the pale, silvery blue braid on the right was so subtle and beautiful that I decided to pair it with some merino/silk silvery grey roving that I had bought at the same time. 

I plied the soft silvers together and got a really pretty, soft grey skein. Then, I navaho-plied the pastel singles. That was cool. Watching the colours shift was really fascinating. I even made Chris watch me while I navaho-plied for a bit, man, he's a real trooper. 

I'm not sure what the skein on the left will become, but the skein on the right will most likely be something baby-oriented. Those soft pastel shades just have baby written all over them! And with only 50g, maybe I can get a wee hat out of it. 

Etsy update news

It's Monday, the weekend is over, which means that the Frolic is over, which makes me a little bit sad. I love going to the DKC Knitter's Frolic. Seeing familiar faces, meeting new knitters, it's fun. It's months of work that all boils down to one long drive from Montreal to Toronto on Friday, one insanely busy Saturday surrounded by awesome yarn, and then it's over in a flash.

Thanks to all the knitter's who stopped by our booth to say hi! It's overwhelming to see how much support we have out there. Knitter's are the best people in the world. :)

Me, Lilia and Mom working hard!

Rovings, Orange Label and lace oh my!

This year was as fun and exciting as always. We dyed a lot of One of a Kind colourways and managed to bring a few back home with us, so there will be an Etsy update on Wednesday, I'm aiming for around noon Eastern Standard time. The update will include a little bit of a lot of things (Green, Yellow, Blue and Purple Labels as well as some superwash merino rovings!)

After the chaos of the weekend I've decided to take the rest of the day off to bake cookies and then eat cookies.

It's show time!

As you read this Chris and I have piled all of our yarns into one very large rented econo-van and are driving down the 401. Next stop... Knitter's Frolic! So excited. We're bringing more than ever this year. The booth will be bursting at the seams with colourful yarn. Lilia and Mom will be there helping. With any luck Julie and her new baby(!!!) will be making an appearance. There is just so much to look forward to. I used to get really stressed around show time, but now that I'm used to the chaos I look forward to it all. 

The plan is for Chris do stay busy doing some live tweeting during the show, check us out on Twitter for to the minute Frolic excitement. 

So, for those of you going to the Frolic... see you on Saturday! And for those of you who can't make it, I leave you with this, the most adorable things in the entire world:

Say it with me now: Aaaaaaw!

Saartje's booties in some crazy leftover sock yarn. Amazing. Raveled. 

TFA Colour Knit Along!

Last week I mentioned that I was so pumped about my new Palettes that Julie and I came up with the idea to do a TFA Colour inspired knit along. We've worked out the details and are ready to get the colour wheel rolin'! The rules are extremely simple:

1) knit any project in the world that uses more than one colourway of TFA yarn. That's it, that's all. The rest is up to you. If you feel like challenging yourself, try something complex or large scale. If you want to participate but don't think that you can commit to all over colourwork sweater, knit yourself a 2-colour striped scarf! Easy as pie. 

2) cast on day is May 14th, cast off is June 17th, that's 5 full weeks to complete your project.

The KAL will be hosted over in the TFA Group on Ravelry. Julie has kindly set us up with a KAL thread here, check it out for more details.  

To get you in a colourful state of mind I've come up with a few mood boards featuring some of the colourful projects I've knit in TFA. 

Accessories!

Clockwise from top left: Grammies Hats, Garter stitch scarf, Awesome Scrappy Socks, Adelia Mitts.

Blankets!

Clockwise from top left: Ceres Blanket (knit by mom mom!), Log Cabin, Baby Shane Blanket, Granny Squares.

For Babies!

Clockwise from top left: Garter Yoke, Blank Canvas Baby Sweater, Playful Stripes, Striped Blank Canvas.

Sweaters!

Clockwise from top left: Striped Honeytree Vest, Velvet Morning Caridgan,  Ombre Cardigan, Dipped Infinity Sweater.

Of course there are lots of other pattern/project options. I can't wait to see what you come up with!