sweetgeorgia

Uncharted Territory

In the spirit of rest and relaxation, I rested and relaxed while knitting up some swatches for the new yarns that I bought: Luxury Tweed and Savanna. I hit gauge right on with the Luxury Tweed and 4 mm Addi’s so it was off to the races. (I knit the Savanna swatch with a pair of Denise 10 1/2 US needles because the AlphaCraft store is ordering me some 7 mm Addi’s… I didn’t get gauge with the Denise set but will try again when I get the Addi’s.)

Not wanting to delay any further, I cast on for the 34″ size for Highgate. I chose to add one more row to the lower ribbing (on 3.25 mm Addi’s) so that the smooth side of the cast-on edge would show, rather than the bumpy side. Also, I noticed that the collar is going to be knit as one big long rectangle then seamed together (cast on and cast off edges)…so I’m planning on using a provisional cast on and then grafting the top and bottom edges together so that the collar will be seamless!

The Jaeger JM08 pattern book doesn’t have any charts for the cablework. The charts are provided only for the fairisle patterns. So, reading 24 rows of “C6B P4 K3 blah blah” was making me go blind. In fact, it was so easy to get lost in the written directions that by row 10 I realized that I had missed making three cables!

This morning, I decided to chart the cables and le voila things are working now!

Visit this site to make your own custom graph paper!

Husk your own Hazelnuts

Ok, so I have limited knitting news. Mainly because I spent most of yesterday husking my own hazelnuts for some lovely cookies.

Oh yeah. It’s not as fun as it looks. Little bits of hazelnut skin flying through the air! But here is where those little hazelnuts ended up:

I skipped the triple-chocolate part (dark, milk and white chocolate chips) opting instead for dark chocolate chips, dried cranberries (instead of fresh) and chopped pecans. And here they are all dressed up:

And in my limited knitting news, here’s what arrived for me in the mail yesterday!

And I’ll leave you here with a progress photo of where I am on the last scarf — three-quarters done. It will be finished tonight! I mean, this afternoon… between baking this cake and making the sauce for this pasta dish. Hey, you can’t make Christmas dinner in one day!

Merry Christmas!

The Joy of Self-Gifting

It’s literally stash madness. In the face of looming work deadlines, cooking/baking deadlines and knitting deadlines… buy more yarn.

After discovering that Wool & Wicker (in Steveston) had a few colours of GGH Savanna, I made my way down to Steveston Village on Saturday and bought 10 balls of Savanna in beige/linen to make that lovely cabled sweater. While there, I also bought two 100g skeins of Regia — one for me (the red one!) and one for the DH. He got to pick through the sock yarn section and find the colours he liked… we’ll make a convert out of him yet.

And look what the postperson brought yesterday — the Jaeger Luxury Tweed! It’s fuzzy cable time! The sellers even included two sew-in “Jaeger Handknits” labels — very nice!

Of course every purchase is justified. I mean, it’s Christmas-time.

Cashmerino Aran Swatches

I see the difference, do you see the difference? Ok, all the difference is probably in my head but I love the cashmerino aran swatches. The stitches are nice and even — even the seed stitch swatch looks good! So these are swatches #1, #2, #3, and #14. The two on the left are 20 stitches wide (ah, see the size difference?) and the two on the right are 25 stitches wide. They haven’t been blocked yet but will be soon after the Christmas knitting is done.

The only nagging concern I have is that the instructions say, use worsted weight yarn. On the yarnstandards.com site, they have grouped “Worsted” in the same category as “Aran” which is between 16 to 20 stitches per 4 inches. Seems like everything I knit ends up DK weight. When I measure the unblocked stockinette swatch, I get 22 stitches per 4 inches on No. 7 US needles. Hmm….becoming a tighter knitter???

Top 5 for 2004

So, it’s the nearing the end of the year. If you can get your hands to relax a bit from all that Christmas knitting, let me know what your knitting top five are for 2004 — the best yarn you’ve used this year, your favourite needles, the most successful finished object, or your most exciting discovery… While you’re at it, what about your knitting resolutions for 2005? Here are mine:

Top Five for 2004

1. Favourite needles for 2004: Addi Turbo’s. As a kid I knit with long aluminum straights from the K-mart in Toronto. The first pair of needles I bought when I restarted knitting this year were Addi’s and they are amazingly light, smooth and (of course) fast.
2. Favourite online shop for 2004: It’s a toss-up. E-bay and The Knitting Garden. I never thought I’d buy yarn of all things from E-bay, but you can’t say no to Jannette where she sells entire packs of glorious Rowan yarns at amazing prices.
3. Favourite yarn for 2004: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. Ok, so I haven’t finished anything in this yarn yet except for TKGA swatches, but it’s so soft and springy… and comes in fabulous colours. Really, I think I just like this stuff because it makes my stitches look good!
4. Favourite finished object and KAL for 2004: Audrey. Probably one of the best documented and well-attended knit-alongs I’ve seen this year! I even got a little label from the hosts of the KAL to sew into my Audrey!
5. Exciting new technique (for me) for 2004: Tubular cast off! Ok, so you have to plan in advance to do a tubular cast off and it takes forever to complete but once it’s done, you get a great stretchy bind off. Very good for necklines and collars!

Knitting Resolutions for 2005

1. Socks: I’ve already done all the book work — reading up about toe-up vs. cuff down, DPNs vs two circs, two socks on two circs, self-patterning yarn, joined two sock knitters KALs and harassed at least a few sock-knitting bloggers. I have at least enough yarn in the stash for three or four pairs of socks. Now, I just have to actually sit down and knit a pair!
2. Steeks: What an ingenious idea, steeks! Not that I have anything against purling… I think Wendy’s Baby Norgi is probably a good way to get into trying out a steeked sweater. Now, to find a kid who will wear my stuff.
3. Cables: Oh, this will definitely happen…once my Jaeger Luxury Tweed arrives. Then it’s off to “Highgate” I go!
4. TKGA Master Knitter Level 2: The plan is to finish all the swatches by the end of this year and ship it off. Hopefully if all goes well, I can start on Level 2 sometime in 2005!
5. Knitting up the stash: My DH keeps asking what I’d like for Christmas and when I answering, hesitatingly, “Yarn?” the answer is “uh, no.” There’s quite a few sweaters worth of yarn in the tub that need to be knit… including his Manly Sweater… Hmm, maybe that’s why I can’t get more yarn! It would distract me from finishing HIS sweater! Oh, I see the logic now.