Monday 28 February 2011

We have finally started doing some knitting for the new baby book. Yay. This is one of the Basic Cardigans in Heavy Worsted weight yarn. I'm laying them out to be blocked.
We have quickly moved on to some variations.
The Blue Jean sweater in regular worsted weight yarn. An easy variation.

And a very nice cabled cardigan in worsted weight yarn.
With the pattern on both front and back. We are working on a bunch more.

We've made good headway the last couple of days and 36 pages of the book are written up. Whew. I think I can see the end now. The sweaters should be coming off the needles at an alarming rate. I finished the sleeves on all of these today and tomorrow I'll start another one. But I need to get some more yarn for a boy's sweater. Onward.
-Deb

Friday 18 February 2011

I don't know if I have to feel too jealous of Lynda being in California since here it was like a spring day. I hope it was where you live. It was above freezing and I went out without my boots, wool socks, hat or mittens on. I felt so light on my feet!! What a difference wearing shoes makes.

I have one more partial sweater.
Not finished of course. I'm afraid this is the way it goes for a bit. I think I'm up to 3 partial sweaters now. They'll all get frogged or pitched. I don't know why but the sleeves are giving me grief. The finer weights of yarn are great and work fine for the 12 & 18 month sizes. But the thicker yarns don't want to fall into place. This morning I had another go at it and I think I have it all fixed now. I'm going to do the knitting to see if that is indeed the case. I hope to be doing the happy dance tonight.

That finishes off the plain cardigan. I need a name for it, anyone? All I have now is Basic Cardigan.

I've started to write the section in the book where we indicate where you can do some designing of your own. It'll be fun and I'm anxious to get going on it. Bernice and I are working on some examples to show you what you can do in different sections of the sweater. We've worked out a couple of stitch patterns to try. Lots more knitting to go.
-Deb

Wednesday 16 February 2011

Stitches West

Karen and I arrived in sunny San Francisco yesterday afternoon ... and the sun lasted for about 30 minutes then clouded over. Lots of rain since. However, much, much warmer than what we left! We'll be heading off to the warehouse this morning to pick up our boxes then off to the airport to pick up Don & Buffy of Shelridge Farm and then the conference centre to unload and begin setting up our booths.

Cabin Fever is, if I remember correctly, in Booths 617-619. Right next door to our friend Lana of Hemp for Knitting. We only see Lana at the shows as we live at opposite sides of the country.

If you're coming to the show, do stop by and say "hi". I got a couple of emails asking if I would be bringing some more Silk and Silver (yes) and SweaterKits mulberry silk (also yes). I have Deb's new shrug and a "shrawl" that Karen and I have done (just finished the black/silver sample as I was leaving for the airport). I'm still knitting one more Fern Kerchief in a lovely blue I just dyed so must finish that up tonight.

Karen's Mom, Diane, turns 70 this year and our Mom, Edith, turns 80 so we're both going to keep our eyes open to see if we see anything they might like. Being as they're both terrific knitters and we're at the biggest knitting show going ... we're hopeful :)   Mind you, that means we have to be able to get out of the booth to find something - not always an easy task as the show is very busy.

-Lynda

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Thanks Liz (from the comments). I have another pair on the go now.
These are the Waffle socks from the Need A Sock? Book . This is one of the variations based on the Basic Rib sock. It's easy to knit and a lovely texture. These are for my husband so they'll take a while to finish but I'm loving the colour so no problem hanging out with them for as long as it takes.

A couple of other projects are shaping up.

I'm teaching a Lace class in April at the Simcoe County Museum through SCACA. The class isn't up on their website yet. I've got the chart done and am just getting the last bit of writing done while I knit this second one.

And still the book work continues. Writing, editing and knitting of course.
We almost have the basic sweater done. This is much more work to do in a multi-gauge way than the smaller projects I have tackled so far. Hats and socks don't have quite so many variables as sweaters. Bernice and I have to make the final decision on the sleeve decreases and then we need to get going on adding in some stitch patterns. That will be fun.
-Deb

Monday 7 February 2011

The beginning of a book is rather s-l-o-w. Writing out the pattern is work and figuring out the charts for the multi-gauge is fun but all of it is slow. Then I had a week of looking at it and thinking it was cumbersome, awkward and just plain messy looking. But yesterday I had a moment, that ah-ha moment and now it has a new format which I think is going to work. Yay. Nothing revolutionary, just a way to deal with the charts so they aren't hanging around all over the page and messing up the written pattern. So I'm relieved, happy, thrilled actually. I'm sending it out to get this section test-knit and see what comments I get back but it's fine tuning now because it works as is.

As I was fretting about the formatting I finished my socks. Isn't sock knitting wonderful when you're in that place?
I'll need to cast on another pair because I'm not finished the book yet and there will be another fretting period but they'll all be smaller now. The big fret is over, yay, yay, yay!
-Deb

Thursday 3 February 2011

Still fussing with numbers and charts and decisions. . . decreases for the sleeves, buttonhole placement, 3 buttons or all the way down the buttonband (?), you know, the regular decisions for a sweater. But we're close, really close to having the first baby top down sweater write-up done. Yay.

Otherwise I've been working on a Lace workshop project. I've decided on a crescent scarf.
It starts at the bottom with the lace section, perfect for a workshop. To finish it off some simple short rows are worked. It's done in DK weight yarn for a quick project but can be adjusted for finer yarn. I think this will fill the bill. This is a local event. The class will be run through Simcoe County Arts and Crafts Association in April. You can come and see demonstrations of the various classes and other heritage crafts at the Celebration of Arts and Crafts on March 6 at the Simcoe County Museum in Midhurst, ON. I'm looking forward to it. I'll have another try at spinning that day too, yay.
-Deb