It's getting there. I just have the sleeves to finish now. And I'm going to go out button shopping soon too.

You can see the shaping clearly here. I really like an A-line shape which I worked into the sides of this top.

When I look at the photo I can also see some horizontal lines across the middle. I am currently trying to loosen up my grip on the needles. It makes my tension somewhat irratic at the moment. Washing may take some of that out, fingers crossed. The death grip I have on my needles might be due to knitting sample garments and trying too hard to make them look good. I never used to knit this tightly so I'm trying to go back to my old relaxed ways, sometimes a little toooo relaxed obviously.

-Deb

It's Here!

Yes! Teens & Tweens has arrived! Here are a couple of images from the book. I'll post all the colour pages on the gallery on the web site.

The Cabled Hoodie above, Kendra's Tunic below:

The Waffle Scarf & Mittlets, below left, Mirror Stripes Pullover, below right & bottom left, and the Tam & Zigag Scarf bottom right:

Now to update the web site!

-Lynda

I finished Mary's Shawl/Scarf. This is the scarf size which uses one skein of sock wool. It starts at the tip goes up to the top which was a new wasy of doing a shawl for me. I really enjoyed it. The pattern should be ready the first week of May.

And another finished item, yay!

I think I have 3 black and white checkered buttons at the shop. They would look so cool on this Last Minute Baby . It feels terrific to finish a couple of things. Now back to some of the UFO's I have stuffed behind my chair (and we all know why they are behind the chair - guilt is oozing off of them, it's messy).

-Deb

Fiona Ellis (canadian designer) told me that she and her friends do a 'knit count' on all the movies that they watch. So chime in when you have one that's got a high count. Elizabeth has started the list with 'Out of Africa' for shawl knitting. I would add in 'Emma' which has only a couple of shawl sightings but better than nothing. I do remember that 'Cider House' had quite a few of knitted garments in it.

What a fun class we had, 3 Saturdays making socks and mittlets, 2 at the same time. These classes are run by the Simcoe County Arts and Crafts Association  http://www.simcoecrafts.ca/quilting-rughooking-stainedglass-knitting-weaving-spinning.html who's mandate it is to support the heritage crafts. The first class was all about the cast on and it's tricky. I put everyone in training (the Olympics are just over afterall) starting with one sock and then graduating to two socks on the two circular needles. Everyone got it and now they have one pair of mittlets finished, 2 pairs of socks and 2 pairs of mittlets well on their way. Next year I think we'll tackle lace knitting with charts.

And I learned something this weekend. Some projects need a certain atmosphere to progress. My shawl was a little stalled or at least progress was slow. But under the right conditions ...

... it took off. Pride and Prejudice viewing did the trick and I'm now on the second last row! Although there was a shocking lack of knitted shawls. This movie gets a '0 knit' rating I'm afraid. I hope that my knitting a shawl while I watched helped.

-Deb

I think it's really coming along. And are you noticing that lace is showing up everywhere? So to jump on the bandwagon I decided to put a lace border on my summer sweater. It must be this lovely sunny weather that is causing this outbreak of lace.

I think lace knitters would call this scarf 'true lace' where you work the lace pattern on both the right side and the wrong side of the scarf. No gooffing off with a Purl Back row. I am testknitting this pattern so I have worked through both the written instructions and the Chart. I'm definitely a chart person. It makes so much more sense to me to follow the pattern when it's in chart form. But my state of mind is rather jumbled and disjointed at present and I'm finding I can only concentrate for small periods of time (totally me and not the pattern which is lovely to knit) so I've been sitting and working through one set of motifs and then putting it down for a bit. By working this a couple times a day I'm hoping to finish this scarf up next week.

Because I'm also knitting a very quick couple of  Last Minute Baby samples in cotton. They are fast and fun and a really easy TV watching project. I am quite convinced that one must have several projects on the go. Lace for when you are bright and want to really create something beautiful, a simpler lace to add a certain something to a plain sweater and the dead easy, work it in your sleep, project for when you're asleep at the needles. I'm sure that's not enough yet, I should start a sock soon too.

-Deb

I'm outside today even though it's not quite warm enough. The sun is shining which is such a change from the other day. You're right Jo-anne, I have some time before summer comes to get my sweater finished.

We finally got our usual April snow storm. So now that that's over with it's officially spring.

 To celebrate I'm knitting a new testknit.

A new scarf designed by Mary Hobbs. It starts at the point and works up. It's my first time doing it this way and I like it. Mary knit the matching shawl so I'm making the smaller version scarf. Just right for this time of year.
And my sweater for summer has reached another milestone, the bottom lace border. Lovely, lovely to knit with big double yo's.

Don't you love double YO's!

-Deb

I thought at the end of the last post that I was half way along on my summer sweater but . . . NO. I find myself in that great middle distance where you are looking at the horizon and the long road running towards it and even though you are moving along the road the horizon never seems to get any closer. Don't get me wrong, I love knitting sweaters. I love wearing sweaters. I love knitting sweaters even better than working on small projects which finish quickly. I'm busy paying attention, working the increases, so it's not boredom. But there is this long, long middle section before I get to the horizon where I know there is a slope down which my sweater will roll without effort to the finish. I wish! I don't find finishing up easy either but at least I can see the finish line. You would think that every time I start a new sweater I would know this is coming but I'm still surprised when it arrives. It does not deter me, obviously, because I always start another sweater. Maybe it's the satisfaction of overcoming the middle and hanging on to the end that does it.

So all of that is to say that my sweater looks the same as the last post, only a little longer.
-Deb

My summer sweater is coming along. I added 8 extra stitches on each of the Fronts to accomodate my bust. But then I was wondering where to get rid of those extra stitches.

I decided to knit straight until I was past the largest part of my bosom for a start. Then I worked double decreases at each underarm (on the Front only) every 1/2" until the Front had the same number of stitches as the Back. It worked a charm and fits really well, at least as far as I can tell with several circular needles stuck in it. Now I have started to work the A-line of the body, a pair of increases at each side seam Marker. You can't see that yet but in a couple of inches it will show some shaping.

I can't believe it but it's not even summer yet and I have it half done. Wow.

-Deb

Teens & Tweens

While Deb and I are working on the editing I thought I'd let you see the cover! It's a family affair, the girl on the left is Thomasin, daughter of Sophy, our Shipping Goddess and accessories designer. Michaela, top right, is the daughter of our photographer, Leanne, along with her girlfriend. The middle boy is Oscar, Sophy's nephew. The boy at the bottom right, is Leanne's son, Chris! 

The cover and inside colour pages went to the printer today and fingers crossed I got it all right. We actually print on two different presses - the colour pages on a huge offset printer that prints a gazillion pages a minute and the inside pattern pages on a smaller digital printer.


OK, now back to editing as Sophy found some changes I need to make!


- Lynda

OK, so this is my idea. We usually measure our busts and get the number of inches and then we pick a size from our pattern. But what I want is a nice fitting summer top with buttons down the front which do not gap. Which really means that I need more material in the front than the back, in essence I need the idea of a bust dart.

So I measured my bust, 37" around, then I measured right underneath for my underbust which measures 34". Which means my back measures half of that, around 17", leaving 20" across the Front. I'm adding in 1 1/2" of ease in the Back so it's going to measure 18 1/2" and then I'm adding in the same ease on the Front, for 21 1/2" and I will end up with a 40" sweater around my bust which is what I like. No gaps, no pulling in the Front and room to move but a better looking Back as I'm walking away.

At this stage it still looks like this.

Except it's a little bit longer. I've reached the number of stitches I need for my Back and also coincidentally the exact number of stitches I need for my sleeves. I have no idea yet whether this would also work out for every other size but it would be great if it did. So now I am going to continue working down to my desired yoke depth and increase only on the Fronts. That will give me the extra fabric on the Front that I need. I'm quite curious to see if this works out. Only 16 rows to go.

-Deb

Still editing. One more week and the new Teen booklet goes to the printers. I've been editing and taking care of other business: teaching a Top Down class, the end of the curling season, raking leaves, rehearsing with a band. General stuff mostly to keep myself from getting too anxious about the editing. Panic sets in at this stage for me because after this it's out there and who knows what will happen.

I recently read a book which says that you should start a new project before the old one is done. This keeps your momentum up and pushes you forward past the ending of the current project. So I have started several new projects. One is a sock book, another is some more single pattern leaflets which I will tell you about when I have some photos taken, and this new Top Down.

It's a square-necked, short sleeved cardigan which I am going to have done for the summer. This sits really well on the shoulders.

And the back is also dropped. The sleeves are large at the shoulders to get the drop in the Front and Back so I am almost at the full sleeve width already. That's what's making this interesting. I'm going to start playing with different neck treatments and see what happens. And I get a new sweater out of it too. Bonus!

-Deb