sweetgeorgia

Gift for Dad

My dad went to Paris for his birthday. As an artist, it was his dream at 26 to go to Paris… but then, wouldn’t you know it, my parents had me and the big trip to Paris never happened. Oh the guilt.

Anyhow, they came back home last week and we celebrated his birthday here with a belated turkey dinner. This was our gift to my dad on his 60th birthday.

I knit a scarf from two balls of Noro Kureyon that I bought in Japan — I had already had this little project for my dad in mind when I bought the yarn. See? Stashing for a reason… it’s a good thing.

Richard knit a pair of fingerless mitts (foreground) with some Patons Classic Wool using the pattern from “Last Minute Knitted Gifts”. Very cool. I think he can (sort of) read knitting patterns now. My dad was very excited when he found out Richard knit them. Richard was very cool about it all, saying, “yeah, it took me just two days.”

So cute.

I am going to attempt to go to my first spinning guild meeting tonight… Very intimidating. If I don’t post about it in the next few days it’s because I chickened out.

Fondant Hat!

Lookie, lookie! Mari designed an earflap hat and knit it up in my handspun yarn! See it here: http://marirob.blogspot.com/2005/10/fondant-hat.html So fun!

I’d love to see anything you guys make with my yarns (so curious!)… and if it’s ok with you, let me know if I can post a photo of it in the new “The Sweet Shop Gallery” here: http://blog.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/photos/the-sweet-shop-gallery/gallery/

End of Electra

What can I say? This vest was fun, fast and easy to knit. I’m wearing it today and just love it. Here are my finishing photos:

This is the top edge of the vest — I didn’t bind off just yet. I just strung the stitches onto some waste yarn so that I could sew and cut the steeks first. You can see the stitch markers indicating where the steek stitches start and end.

Yeah, there were a ton of ends to weave in, even with knitting in the round. But maybe a quarter of the number of ends compared to knitting flat and then seaming. Whoohoo.

Just like with the baby norgi, I machine stitched down between steek stitches 1 & 2 and 3 & 4. Then again down the middle of stitch 2 and 3…

Then I cut straight down the middle between stitches 2 and 3… Easy peasy.

I couldn’t resist the lovely window light coming through the sheers in our bedroom. The vest is kind of cropped, so there’s a bit more shirt sticking out than I’m used to. But I love it!

Electra Vest from Rowan 38

• Pattern: Rowan 38
• Yarn: Rowan Kid Silk Haze, Felted Tweed and Yorkshire Tweed in the specified colours
• Needles: US 7 / 4.5mm and US 3 / 3.25mm Addi Turbos
• Changes: Rather than knitting flat pieces, I knit this in the round and steeked the neckline and armholes. I added 4 stitches for each steek. The shoulders were joined with a 3-needle bindoff. Yippee, no sewing!
• Finished Measurements: 34″ size

I love Paris

How well do my parents know me? They just got back from Paris last night and brought me back a lilac/lavendar purple pashmina shawl and a Phildar magazine. Awesome. My parents go to Europe for the first time in their lives and my mom finds a yarn store! It must be genetic.

Thankspinning

There has been much spinning and much dyeing. How can you not be thankful when you wake up in the morning and see this in the living room:

I’ve decided that I love, love, love Blue-Faced Leicester (BFL). It’s said to be the softest of the long wools and takes up dye beautifully. It’s much less prone to felt than merino and fluffs up amazingly when you pre-draft it. Awesome, I say. The top-left and bottom-right corners of the photo are BFL. The pink/brown and the red/orange/brown fibre is Superwash Merino — another new favourite. I love things that don’t felt!

And yes, there’s more sock yarn in the shop… along with some new handspun yarn. Like this merino wool that was dyed by the Fleece Artist:

Singles are crazy when they come off the bobbin — then you set the twist and they straighten out and behave themselves nicely! I’d love to keep this skein, but I know, being a “Winter”, it’s just not my colour!?! sob…

I need to get these yarns off the bobbins (or buy more bobbins!). The multicoloured bobbin at the bottom is the above merino bulky singles. The two orange/gold coloured bobbins are also Fleece Artist merino (courtesy of my brother!) and I might ply the two together. In the top-right hand corner is a bobbin of superwash merino that I dyed blue/navy/brown. I’ve since Navajo-plied that one for socks!

And finally, that’s my spinning class homework. That’s right. Homework. It’s a four-ply cabled yarn and took about 6 or 7 hours to spin! Crazy. I spun four very fine singles in “Fleece Artist 70% Kid/30% Silk”, then two-plied two singles, then two-plied the 2-plys together! Phew. It’s about 12 wpi which is now “worsted” weight. Wow. I think this week, we are spinning merino/tencel in class!

Oh yeah, there was knitting this weekend too — I am 3 rows (and a bazillion ends) from finishing Electra.