sweetgeorgia

Exclusive.

It should be obvious to me that knitting a single project, to the exclusion of all other projects, allows you to finish faster. Funny that I “discovered” this while knitting Birch. I have about ten projects on the go, but for the past few weeks, I’ve been ignoring them all to work on Birch… Birch for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Birch is now off the needles, just in time for me to start the Rowan 38 River stole on September 1st!

Birch still needs to be blocked, but I won’t be able to use the top of the bed to block until Saturday morning. I’m trying to decide if I should go off to Home Depot and find some wire that I can use as make-shift blocking wires, or if I should try the Harlot’s lace blocking technique. There are of course packs of blocking wires that you can buy for $35 CDN but, again, my wallet is currently unavailable.

What’s on deck next? Finish off my KOTR Friday Harbour socks and Knitty’s Trellis baby aran cardigan… those should be quick. Maybe I should think about trimming my “current projects” list so there’s no more than three or four projects at a time… Otherwise, how do you divide your time and attention?

And oh yeah, I’m so not ready for September.

Fall is on its way…

Another day, another stash acquisition! Mmm, that’s right, I’m stashing for Fall projects now…

Little Knits is closing out their Cascade yarns, so I broke down and bought a pack of Cascade 220 for my St. Brigid… It was wonderfully priced at $4 something per skein. Funny, Cascade 220 isn’t sold at any of the LYSs in Vancouver, but it is available in the middle of nowhere. These availability issues, I just don’t understand. Anyway, here’s the colour I picked… plum. I originally wanted something heathered looking, but decided to go with this nice solid colour…

Also as a result of Wendy’s needle quest, I found myself ordering ebony needles from Susanne in Germany. I bought a set of 2.5, 3.0 and 3.25 mm Holz & Stein ebony circulars that I’ll be using for my fall Fair Isle projects. Yay.

On a quick detour after a client meeting Richmond, I picked up last fall’s Japanese knitting magazine called “News Style of Heirloom Knitting”. Very cute patterns throughout — there are at least three projects in each traditional knitting style: Fair Isle colourwork, Aran knitting, and Shetland lace. Beautiful and inspirational photos of knitted colour swatches… it just seems to exude the luxury of time. Ah, to be able to sit and slowly decide on colourways or textures…

Anne at SheEweKnits has the new Jamieson’s Shetland Heather Aran in stock, so I’ll be ordering the yarn for the DH’s Na Craga sweater. I’m excited to use this yarn and pattern — it was kind of a jaw-dropping experience when I first opened “Aran Knitting” and I’ve been dreaming about it ever since.

And finally, I have a bunch more stuff on order: the multitude of yarns for the Rowan 38 cover vest, Rebecca 30 magazine, the new RYC Classic pattern books, a Schacht Dizzy Gauge (I can’t believe this thing is $16), and a yarn meter. I think my wallet is tired now.

Coming Full Circle

Well, it’s that time. It’s my first bloggiversary. Yippee, I think I’ll have cake for lunch.

I thought today would be a good time to write about the first sweater I ever knit. If you saw my ten-year old stash, you know that I learned to knit first from a Patons “Learning to Knit” book that I mailed away for during middle school. Hey, it was free. I also had a fabulously colourful beginners knitting book that I can’t find anywhere — I loved that book and made a number of items from it including mittens, scarves and this sweater:

It’s in lilac-coloured 100% acrylic yarn from Kmart in Toronto… I managed to convince my mom to buy since it was already something like 40% off. Gee, even Kmart didn’t want it. It was knit on 5mm aluminum Aero straights — I remember because the hot summer weather made the stitches stick to the metal needles.

I knit this sweater during the summer before highschool. We had just moved from Toronto to Vancouver a few months prior and I didn’t know anyone in my neighbourhood well enough to hang out with them all summer. So I knit. Being able to knit in dark movie theatres now? It’s all because of the summer I spent watching Taiwanese soap operas on VHS and knitting this sweater.

I wore this sweater all the time and all through university… so much so, that I was teased about it at my bridal shower (”What was Felicia wearing during her and Richard’s first kiss? Uh, the purple sweater and Dr. Marten boots?”). Yes, this is also the sweater that I used to pick paint colours for the UBC Dance Club office. Hey, I loved this sweater.

But now, I can’t wear it anymore. It’s stretched out, threadbare, stained (is that Coke?!), and has a number of holes in it.

Sure, it’s old and ugly now, but it’s a 16-year old sweater. And I guess that’s a testament to how long (for better or worse) a well-loved, hand knit piece can (sort of) last. So now, even though I’m over Kmart acrylic and aluminum needles, I’m not over making things that I love to knit and love to wear.

Dreaming of a drum carder

I know this doesn’t make sense, but June’s entry yesterday about measuring yardage suddenly got me crazy about buying a drum carder. Non sequitur, I know. This summer before my birthday, all I could think about was getting a drum carder — but then when it actually came down to ordering it, I figured I had already bought too much stuff (hand combs, hand cards, too much fibre, etc.) so it never happened. But now we are closing in on Fall… and that means… Christmas is coming!

Ok, so it’s a bit of a long shot, but I can daydream about it. Here’s what I’m looking at:

It’s the Fricke/Strauch Petite Carder which is a 6 1/2″ wide carder with a brush attachment. This carder is $538 CDN from Shuttleworks (where I got the hand carders and combs from). The other carder is the Louet Junior Roving Carder which is 4″ wide and costs $415 CDN. Sure, in my dreams I’d get the Strauch Finest but that’s nearly $900 CDN, so um, no.

Anybody have either of these carders? What do you think? What do you like or dislike about it? Suggestions are very welcome.

I’d like to be able to blend my own fibres or dyed rovings. Like blending some alpaca and angora or silk and merino. Or, blending dyed fibres to make heathered yarns. That kind of stuff. Or, just carding faster than by hand! I’m leaning towards the Strauch Petite because it’s wider and seems better made but the Louet looks better and finished… hmm, off to day dream now.

Thursday, whatever.

I’m feeling a little scattered (scatter-brained) right now, finding it difficult to concentrate on one thing at a time. I mean a little knitting, a little spinning, a little dyeing. Tonight, we’re planning on going out to a movie so I’ll be able to get my sock finished — knitting plain stockinette in the round, in the dark, is the best. And I am but inches away from finishing the sleeve cap of the Manly Sweater, so hopefully that sweater will be blocked, seamed and done by the end of this weekend.

But anyway, while my mind is racing between current projects and future fall projects, here’s the sock yarn I dyed a few days ago:

Over the past few weeks since the trip to Salt Spring Island, I spun up a bit of angora fibre that I bought there. I found this fibre kind of “high-maintenance” — I mean the staple length is really quite short and the fibre itself is slippery, so I found that it would break often or I would lose my spinning… But here it is, plied and skeined.

It’s not yet finished — I’m planning on felting it a little as I’ve heard is good with angora. You alternate between washing the skein in hot water and ice cold water to shock it and then whap it against the table to agitate the fibres. All this helps the little slippery fibres hold together better. I guess it is all worth it though, this yarn is so soft!

And finally, I’ve gotten to the end of the first ball of KSH on Birch. It’s nearly six repeats. Notice the new needles? They are blue! (And the 5mm ones come in lovely lavendar!) They are Boye circulars — less than half the cost of Addi’s. I bought these on Wendy’s recommendation and they are actually quite nice for KSH. The tips are pointier, the painted aluminum finish is not as slippery, and the join is sufficiently smooth. I like. The only thing I don’t like is the cord — it’s stiffer and has a mind of it’s own.