Nine to Five Socks

These socks took forever to complete. The knitting itself wasn't that long considering I kept them as my purse knitting for the most part, but the whole process, from start to finish took well over a year. I wound the yarn into a ball intending to knit a simple pair of socks, had several false starts when I couldn't decide on the right yarn/pattern combo and then finally a year later picked them up again and committed myself to finishing them! 

The yarn is Viola Sock in a very pretty purple/blue colourway (delphinium I think?). The Nine to Five Sock pattern by Nicole Hindes is super popular with well over 1000 projects on Ravelry, and for good reason, these socks are lovely! I'm still not convinced that this was the best yarn/pattern combo though, the yarn is a bit too variegated to really highlight all those twisted stitches to their fullest potential, but overall, these socks still rock. They are comfortable and very pretty, I really love the detail down the side of the heel flap, that's the cherry on top for me. 

Is there really any better feeling then finishing a languishing WIP? I think not. 

Ravelry project page here. 

holiday cheer!

As my second Holiday KAL project I had in mind that I would knit a hat for my sister in law using the stitch pattern from the Smooth Sailing Baby Blanket that I designed for my niece. I loved that mom and baby would both have a special knit featuring the same stitch pattern. I grabbed this skein of Stormy in a really nice worsted weight MCN blend and cast on. 

It turned out... meh... I don't like it. I've frogged it. The stitch pattern is really highly textural and requires quite aggressive blocking to lay flat and look pretty (in my opinion) and if I gave it the blocking I think it needs it wouldn't fit. I'll come up with something else to do with this skein, I already have an idea.

To ease the pain of a failed knit I gave in to my urge to do some completely selfish knitting and cast on for this knitted Christmas ornament!

The pattern is Balls Up by General Hogbuffer and it's brilliant. It's just a simple sphere, but it's perfect. The key is the Styrofoam  ball center, so much better than a lop-sided stuffed ornament. I've knit 3 more of these beauties and will definitely be heading to the craft store to by more styrofoam balls this week! These would make awesome Christmas gifts, but I plan on keeping the ones I've made for myself. There is almost nothing I like more than a handcrafted holiday decoration, and a knitted ornament as lovely as these pretty much takes the cake for me. 

Baby bump!

Yesterday afternoon Chris and I took some time to take photo's of my Coolbreeze Hat (previously known as the "Palette Hat") and while we were at it he snapped a few shots of my ever growing baby bump. I thought I'd better share it today, because by next week it probably won't look the same! 

I love finally having a real belly! Up until recently I just looked like I ate a big lunch, but now I can proudly show off a real baby bump. I'm feeling great, my second trimester is being quite kind to me. I have lots of energy and by some miracle I've got the best skin of my life! Most of all, I just feel lucky. I'm feeling little fluttery baby kicks and it's just about the most amazing thing in the world. 

November KAL - Abby's Heart Hat

My first Holiday Knitting KAL project is complete! This is the first of 4, I'm well on my way to having 4 more gifts ready to cross off my shopping list. What a feeling! Only 6.5 weeks left... yikes!

This hat is for my God-daughter Abby who will be turning 7 on December 7th. The pattern is a mash-up between my Grammy's Hat pattern (for the stitch count, decreases and proportions) and #27 Heart Hat from Knit.1 Winter 06/07 by Linda Cyr for the overall look and ear flap recipe. Back in '06, I knit a hat just like this one for my sister. At the time she was a figure skating coach and when she wore this hat on the ice all of the little girls she was teaching went crazy for it! I hope that means that Abby will love it too. 

I modified the earflaps slightly to make them rounder and more "cartoon-heart-shaped". I also added the crochet trim to add a bit more polish. Overall, this was a super fun project. Plenty of interest and detail (fair-isle, i-cord, pom-pom's, crochet, sewing) but in a small and manageable scale so by the time it became tedious it was already finished.  

I am currently having a love affair with pom-pom's. I have a fool proof method for perfect pom-poms that I'll be sharing soon. I'm considering making myself a little holiday pom-pom garland for my mantle. This is the first year that I have a mantle to decorate for the holidays! Exciting!

Ravelry project page here. 

Baby knitting

When I announced that I am expecting a month ago, I got a lot of comments from people saying: "can't wait to see all the baby knits!" and I felt the same way, there is pretty much nothing I like more than an adorable baby knit. But alas... I have only knit one thing for the baby since finding out we had a baby on board (the awesome little sweater in my announcement post). What's holding me back? This:

Here is my pile of baby knits. Things that I've knit as samples, or just because I liked the pattern and wanted to knit it, thinking a recipient would present itself eventually. So you see, I'm pretty well stocked as far as baby knits go! 

Since we've opted to keep the baby's gender a surprise, there are a few gender specific items in these piles that may not get used, like that Clara dress... may not use that much if we have a boy ;) but other than that, most of these little items are pretty gender neutral! Especially since I don't have a problem dressing a baby girl in blue or putting a little baby boy in a sweater with a smidge of pink in it. 

All the sweaters in the photo above are wee, they will probably fit somewhere between 0-6 months. And all the sweaters in the photo below are a tad bigger, for a 6 month old or older. Honestly, who can really tell when it comes to baby sizes anyway... they'll all fit at some point!

Even though I have quite the wardrobe for my baby already, I do plan on adding to it. Baby definitely needs more hats for one thing, and booties! Since our baby is making his/her appearance in April, we will likely not get a lot of sweater for the first 6 months, so I plan on focussing on knits that baby can where over the winter next year. 

As always, things are crazy busy around here, I don't expect to have much free selfish baby knitting time between now and Christmas, but it's quite comforting to know that my baby will still be well dressed even if mom is too busy to spend the next 5 months knitting for him/her!

psst :: my new baby sweater pattern (pictured on the right of the above photo) will be ready soon!

2013 Club memberships now available!

I changed the homepage photo collage on my website, pretty and colourful!

The 2013 Club memberships are officially available for purchase on my website. Exciting! Most of the changes that I'll be implementing in 2013 have already been mentioned in previous posts and can be found in full details on the Clubs page, but here is a quick rundown:

• Variety! 6 different yarn weights and bases will be featured throughout the year. 
• Patterns! Patterns will be distributed electronically via Ravelry rather than paper copies. hopefully this makes things simpler for all our members to keep their patterns organized. No need to have a Ravelry account to make the most of this feature, just a working e-mail address. 
• Julie and I are the star designers! We've divvied up the design responsibilities and have a game plan, again, variety is key here. 

Just like last year I've introduced the memberships at the same price, however due to the elevated cost of the fibers we'll be featuring in 2013, the price will be raised to reflect this on December 15th. So if you're considering treating yourself to a Club membership for Christmas, now is the time to buy! 

Next year promises to be just as colourful and fun as ever. Maybe the best year yet!

November KAL starts at midnight!

The November TFA KAL starts tonight at midnight! I certainly won't be up to cast on that late, but I do plan on getting started on one of my 4 KAL projects tomorrow. I dug through the stash and picked out a few options. 

When I say my "TFA stash" people often wonder what I mean by that. I have an endless supply of TFA yarn at my fingertips, which is awesome, but I also have a few bins full of partially used skeins, not-quite-fit-to-sell skeins and One Of A Kind skeins that were too special to part with. I keep them in bins grouped by weight, and those bins are what I consider my "TFA stash". Above is my bin of Aran/Worsted weight yarn. 

Below is my bin of DK weight yarn:

And these are the yarns that I have earmarked for my KAL projects:

The pile of purples on the left will become a hat for my almost-seven year old God-daughter Abby. It will have hearts and earflaps and be adorable and girly! The grey/purple skein in the center is for my Smooth Sailing Hat. I'll be adapting my Smooth Sailing Baby Blanket pattern into a hat. And the pile of blues on the right is for my aran weight version of my Adhara shawl. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the shawl plays out at the larger gauge. 

I'm also knitting a hat for Abby's little brother, it will be out of DK in a mish-mash of bits that I haven't decided on yet. Sort of like a hat version of my awesome mismatched socks.

Happy knitting everyone! Can't wait to see all the WIP's popping up in the Ravelry threads!

Good morning pretty birds!

I've decided on the colour scheme for our nursery... multicoloured! I love too many colours to narrow it down to any decisive scheme. Plus, I prefer an eclectic mix to anything too matchy-matchy and "decorated". Add to that the fact that we're not finding out the baby's gender until he or she is born and I think that a neutral room with lots of multicoloured accents is just the ticket! The nursery walls are currently painted a nice, soft cream. The ceiling and closet will soon get a coat of sky blue paint. The trim is white and the rest will be a fun layering in of colour.

With the scheme decided (or rather, a lack of scheme decided) I spent Saturday night with my mom working on a colourful mobile for the baby's room. The mobile I chose is the "Bird Mobile" by Spool Sewing. I pinned an image of this mobile ages ago and when I spotted it again this weekend I was dying to make some colourful birds of my own!

The bird sewing pattern is a free download and is actually very simple. Believe it or not, this is not my first time sewing tiny stuffed birds, this pattern is my favorite for sure. The template provided was for a rather large bird, I opted to downsize it to 80% on my printer and made all my birds this smaller size. They are about 5.5" from beak to tail. I used all leftover stash fabrics from previous projects (most are from my colourwheel quilt). I am beyond thrilled with the results. These colourful little birds with their glorious bright bellies make me so happy. 

I have several favourites. As we cut, sewed and stuffed birds it became apparent that the best fabric combinations were the bolder prints paired with smaller accent belly prints. I just love those striped and polka-dot bellies!  

I took a walk in the woods on Saturday and collected a few stray branches to give these birds something to perch on, but I haven't completed the project yet. For now these pretty birds are just lined up on the edge of my mantle for me to enjoy throughout the day. I forgot that they were there and when I got up this morning and walked down the stairs to find this beautiful row of rainbow birds greeting me I couldn't help but smile.  

Giveaway Winner!

And the winner to Wednesday's Stella Collection plus yarn giveaway is... Tankini Surf!

Thanks so much to everyone who entered, reading all the comments about your enthusiasm for my yarns is a real pick me up. Happy Saturday!

Projects

I've picked my projects for the November KAL. All the KAL details can be found in this blog post and in the TFA Ravelry group. I'll be knitting 3 hats and 1 shawl. All are modified TFA patterns and all are gifts. Yes! All are also to be worked up in aran or dk weight yarn and even better, mostly stash yarn. This is such a win-win. I can't wait to use up some stash and cross 4 gifts off of my Christmas shopping list. The project I'm most excited about it the shawl, I'll be knitting my Adhara Shawl pattern using worsted weight yarn, I haven't decided wether I will make it with one colour or two. I love seeing lace done up in different gauges, should be a really neat experiment.

In the meantime I've got a few projects that I'd love to wrap up before then. Not helping my cause is the fact that I've been hit with a giant wave of creative inspiration lately. I want to start lots of knew projects and not all are knitting... 

Weaving and spinning have taken a back seat to knitting and designing recently (ok, not just recently, always!) I'm ok with that. Knitting is my number one favourite thing so of course I'll spend more time on it. But I've taken out a few lovely braids of roving and have been glancing over at them sitting on my desk for the past week or two and only this morning did I notice that the one on the right has got some sparkle in it, which is so neat. I'll have to see what that sparkle looks up all spun up sooner than later. I had sort of forgotten about weaving until I saw this stunning woven baby blanket this morning. I've loved this artists beautifully subtle weaving for a while now am inspired to dig out my loom. Maybe some woven scarves for Christmas!

www.sameheartdesigns.com via TanisLavallee on Pinterest

Have you entered to win Wednesday's giveaway yet? See you tomorrow when I announce the winner!

TFA news items and a Giveaway!

Yes, I'll be giving something away at the end of this post, but first... a little bit of TFA Club news to share.

The 2012  TFA Year In Colour Club is wrapping up. Memberships for this year will remain open until the end of October, at which point the 2012 memberships will close and the 2013 Club memberships will become available. 

For 2013 I will be doing something a little bit different, rather than focussing exclusively on fingering weight yarns I'll be diversifying the Club to include 6 different TFA bases ranging from my Blue Label Fingering Weight yarn to my Orange Label Cashmere/Silk Worsted weight yarn. The other major difference next year is that all patterns will be designed by TFA! Julie and I are sharing the workload and together are designing 6 unique single skein accessory patterns. The price of the Club will be adjusted to reflect the variety of yarn bases, however same as last year, there will be a price incentive for people to sign up early! Full details will be released next week when the 2013 Club goes live. 

And now... it's giveaway time! All summer long we had a Stella Collection blog tour running with each stop doing a giveaway, well, it's finally my turn! Leave a comment on this blog post for your chance to win the Stella Collection plus 2 skeins of Blue Label Fingering weight yarn in your choice of any of these colour pairings to knit your very own Adhara Shawl. Any of the shawls featured in this collection would make for the perfect November KAL project!

Left column, top to bottom: Deep Sea and Peacock; Frost and Seabreeze; Lilac and Dove.

Center column, top to bottom: Sand and Gold; Shadow and Atlantic (the original pairing); Pink Grapefruit and Sunset; Stormy and Shadow.

Right column, top to bottom; Spearmint and Lemongrass; Garnet and Velvet; Brick and Chestnut.

A winner will be announced on Saturday, stay tuned!

This giveaway is now closed, thanks for entering!

Finished socks!

These socks for my dad are officially off the needles and even though they gave me a hard time while I was knitting them, they're pretty perfect now. A good soak in wool wash until the water ran clear was all it took to set the colour (I hope... I will advise that they wash these only with dark loads the first few times) and now that the 3x1 ribbing is behind me, I can look at these beauties and admire them for what they are: a great colour, a beautiful fabric, and a cozy sock. Dad will love them. 

Now to finish this second pair of socks that I've had on the go forever. I've got one purple sock down, and am about 1/4 of my way through the second. I'd like to have these finished by the end of the month so I can start the November TFA KAL fresh!