Knitting all summer...

I said I would post more often, and I suppose I lied. It turns out I hate blogging when I'd rather be outside enjoying the summer. Since today is freezing and cold and a true taste of Winter, I thought I'd update with some pictures of what I've been up to!

I am especially proud of my Ishbel scarf that I knit up while on holidays in Nova Scotia. I went out there for a wedding but we made a vacation out of it by renting a car and driving all over the island. We put on 3500km on our rental car (Yay for unlimited mileage contracts!) over 9 days. My boyfriend did 95% of the driving, which gave me time to work on this beauty:

Ishbel by Ysolda Teague

Diamond Yarn Foot Loose Superwash
Made for Me!

I'd never been that far east (within Canada) before and it was fun to do all the touristy things like Peggy's Cove and eating fresh seafood everywhere we went. I also had a chance to visit Gaspereau Valley Fibres, where I picked up some Fleece Artist yarns and a beautiful woolen blanket. I haven't made anything with the yarn yet, but I will very soon for Christmas gifts.

As I mentioned in my previous post, baby knitted goods are so much fun to knit. The patterns are generally easy-t0-follow, and it only takes a couple of hours (or couple of days) to finish a project. Here are two cute sweaters that I made earlier in the year:

Maile Sweater by Nikki Van De Car
Araucania Ranco Multy
Made for a friend's baby

This pattern is free and very rewarding, although the sleeves were a bit of a pain. I absolutely love this sweater, and the only thing that I would do differently would be to use a slightly thicker yarn in a superwash (this particular yarn needs to be handwashed!). I made the next sweater out of cotton, which turned out to be a great idea because my niece wore it all summer long:

Autumn Leaves by Nikki Van De Car
Debbie Bliss Pure Cotton
Made for my niece Talia

Again, this was a great pattern, and since it was top-down, the sleeves were very easy. I enjoyed knitting with Debbie Bliss cotton, it felt soft and buttery, but I'm not sure how it's holding up to baby wear. The last time I saw this sweater on my niece it was looking a little malformed and stretching in some areas. Since this only took me a couple of days to make, I could easily whip up another one using a more baby-friendly cotton (maybe Lion Brand!). Also, I have a huge bin of mismatched buttons and I think mixing them up on the sweater was a cute, playful idea. And what baby would refuse such a cute sweater!?

I'm in the process of making Christmas gifts, stay tuned for how they turn out!

Babies are the sweetest...

My Sister-in-law and my brother just had their first baby, and I am a new proud auntie... But honestly, when people told me that they were an aunt/uncle and had nephews and nieces, I was always happy for them, but not *excited*. I am sorry for not showing the proper emotions! Two days in and I'm already jumping out of my shoes, showing coworkers and friends pictures of my adorable niece, and I'm overwhelmed with a sense of pride for having such a beautiful baby in the family!

I didn't know it was going to be a girl, but my gut told me it would be. I started making a unisex baby blanket before she was born; I thought I was being proactive in knitting it early, but she thought she would come out a week early! I was frantically knitting this up in the 24 hours following her birth. I love the unisex colours that I chose, but ultimately I'm excited that they had a girl, and I'm excited for all the girly things I will knit her.

Hoodie Baby Blanket by Nikol Lohr

Lion Brand Cotton-Ease (50% cotton, 50% acrylic, the best baby cotton to knit with!!)

Made for my beautiful niece Talia

Ravelry Link

Surprisingly, I've never tried the 'broken garter stitch' before (which I used on the outside of the blanket, in Grey). This is one of my new favorite stitches, and I'm going to try it on some dishcloths. I love the simplicity of it, and the stitches look like little cobblestone roads. And I'd also like to mention thatI'm so proud of my sister-in-law because she was calm and collected when she went into labour, and incredibly strong throughout the entire childbirth; she didn't need any drugs at all. Truly inspiring.

Ravelympics was a failure... sort of.

So, I participated in Ravelympics this year. Part of me wanted an insane knitting challenge, and part of me obviously didn't know what I was getting myself into. If you've never heard of it, it's a challenge to knit a project (or two, three, four...) over the course of the Olympics. If you've heard of it (and participated), you probably felt the same way I did. I'm not quite sure why I chose so many events to participate in, and I didn't complete half of them. My crowning achievement was completing a sweater within the 17 days.

I had hopes to:
-knit a sweater (pictures below!)... PASS
-knit a hat (Which I did, but it was an impromptu hat and now I'm not sure what to do with it, probably not a hat I should have made)... PASS
-write up two patterns (cowl, mentioned in an earlier post, and an apple cozie), FAIL
-finish some mittens I promised I would make for my BF over a year ago...FAIL
-create a small rug from a previous sweater that I knit and now hate... FAIL

I love this sweater, although my gauge was off by a lot on the neck part. I ended up placing buttons on a diagonal to try and take care of the loose garter-stitch neck... and it seems to have worked!

Garter Stitch Cardigan by Melissa LaBarre

Berroco Alpaca and Noro Silk Garden
Made for me
Ravelry Link

My life is a little less hectic, now that the winter holidays are out of the way. I'm hoping to get into some sewing in the next couple of weeks and make a baby blanket (or two) because I'm going to be an aunt!

I fail at blogging...

...Turns out, I don't have nearly as much time as I thought I did to keep a blog active. I'm so sorry!

To make up for this, I'm posting some of my finished knitted items, and hopefully by Christmas I will have a pattern up for this:

Rosette Cowl by Corina Irvine
Lion Brand Thick and Quick

I don't want to say too much about this cowl right now (saving it for next post), but I will say that it was a fairly fast knit and would make a great last-minute gift for someone. I've also finished a couple other items, like these really cute kitten mittens:

"Kitten Mittens" by Noelle Dempsey
Shepherds Shades in Cream, and scraps
of sock yarn for the details
For a friend's niece
Ravelry link

Aren't they the cutest little things? I suppose the scale is hard to judge, but they're just itty-bitty (6cm wide, 12cm long). They were really easy to make, the pattern was well-written, and they only took a couple of nights to make. The hardest part was finding the 'perfect' yarn to make the eyes and nose. I ended up splitting some black Cascade220 into two strands to make the mouth and eye pupils. Stay tuned, I'll post more pictures and projects, a new pattern (and hopefully a more interesting post!) when I have a few days off.

8 months later...

... I *finally* finished the '3 hour sweater' that I started in May! I knit it too small, had to rip stitches out backwards, and overall, it was a messy project. But now that it's done, doesn't it look nice?

3 Hour Sweater by Vintage
Berroco Ultra Alpaca

I think it's safe to say that I will never knit this pattern again from the bottom up. The original was ridiculously short and looked like a 10 year old's sweater. I had to extend the bottom by about 4 inches. There was a lot of seaming involved, and it just made me dislike this project (which is why it sat around for a long time). Maybe I'll start finishing my other WIPS... but that's probably just wishful thinking.

Happy New Year!

Hi,
So I'm about 10 days behind on my New Years post, but I've been busy! I'd like to thank everyone for their kind words about my Habs mittens! I've gotten a lot of good responses off of Ravelry and my pattern has been queued several times. The friend that I made the mitts for told me that he has been stopped by random people on the street, commenting on his mitts and asking where he 'bought' them. I definately got a knitting ego boost after hearing that :P I'm thinking I'll have to start a mini-hockey series of mittens, so stay tuned!

I got some awesome gifts for christmas-- my boyfriend bought me a spinning wheel! It's a Louet s17. I've never used a spinning wheel before, but I managed to figure it out, and ended up with this:


The colours are okay, but its a little too pastelly/Easter egg coloured for me. And I have no idea what pattern would work with this... It's also a little uneven with thicks & thins throughout it, but I think that practice will help! It was Handmaiden Merino roving (50g), and I got around 56 yards of a two-ply worsted weight yarn out of it.

I also bought myself an SLR camera! I've just started learning how to play with it, and I have to read up on how to edit photos better. I'm hoping now that I have a nice camera, I'll actually use it and blog more often too!

Here's the camera (and a small project):

"Turn A Square" by Brooklyntweed
220 Cascade and Noro Silk Garden
For my boyfriend
Ravelry link

Thanks for reading!
~knittypie

Montreal Habs Mittens

I wanted to post AFTER Christmas, on the off-chance that the people that I knitted for read this... but I was just so excited about this latest pattern that I couldn't wait! I knitted up some Montreal Canadiens mittens for a friend:


I got a lot of positive responses from Ravelry, so I decided to write up the pattern on how I made the C:

You will need: Red, blue, and white yarn, size 3.00 crochet hook, sewing needle

If you have your own favourite basic mittens pattern, you can follow those, and just include the coloured stripes in the appropriate places (wrist and palm). The only thing that really matters for the "C" pattern is the gauge, because the “C” involves a certain number of stitches.

My gauge for these mittens was approximately 22 st for 4’’, and I used size 4 needles. The yarn I chose was Patons Classic Wool Merino (approx. 170 yds of red, and 50 yds of white), and Cascade 220 (approx. 80 yds of blue). I made this as a size large men’s mitt (finished length was around 8.5’’, minus length of the cuff), and I lined them with fleece to make them extra warm. I worked 2 rows in a K2P2 ribbing for the blue, then 3 rows of K2P2 in white, then switched to the red until the striping for the "C" pattern.

Montreal Canadiens “C” chart:

You can either:

- carry the red yarn through your stripe and try the colourwork, but it might be tricky and really ugly in the back because the red yarn has to travel across several stitches

or

- Do a duplicate stitch overtop of your blue stripe (this is what I recommend). If you need a tutorial on how to do a duplicate stitch, please refer to a Duplicate Stitch- How-To .


Tips:

-if you DO decide to do the duplicate stitch method, I would recommend finishing the stripe, but don’t close the top of the mitten until you’ve stitched on the entire C pattern (its easier, trust me).

-The crochet edge might seem a little tricky at first and you might want to practice it on a scrap square (or search the internet for instructions on how-to)

Instructions:

1. Complete the stripes on your mitt like the chart says (3 rows of white, 7 rows of blue, and 3 rows of white).

2. Start the chart by cutting a length of red yarn (you will need enough for all the red C stitches). Follow the pattern for the duplicate stitch of the C:



3. Once you are done the C, cut a long length of white to do the H in the middle. You should cut a long amount of white yarn, because you will use this to do a crochet stitch around the C after (to neaten it up).

4. Take your size 3.00 crochet hook (or something similar in size) and crochet around the edge of the C. Be careful not to cover up too much red (but don’t leave gaps between the C and the blue stripe).


Just hook the white yarn from the bottom of the mitten and pull up a small loop. (Make sure the loop isn’t too small or tight, or else your C will not sit flat). With the stitch on the hook, insert the hook into the C and catch the white yarn on the underside and pull this loop through the first one. Continue around the C.

Your finished white C should look something like this:


5. Finally, cut a long length of blue yarn so you can complete the blue outside of the C. I put the blue crochet edge on the outside of the C only:


Thanks for reading!

If there are any problems please let me know! My name is knittypie on Ravelry

All pictures copyright 2008 Corina Irvine (all rights reserved).