sweetgeorgia

Looking back, looking forward

Thanks for everybody’s lovely and generous comments about my new sheepy gift! My friends were both surprised and flattered by your comments. And just for that, here’s a photo of some of the sheep from the Owens farm:

Our holidays were wonderful and much sleeping was enjoyed. Is it surprising to know that I spent the morning of Christmas Eve dyeing?

… the afternoon was spent spinning…

… and New Year’s Eve was spent with friends, knitting this sock and drinking overly aged icewine…

Because of the nature of this skein of yarn, all the brown bits end up on one side of the heel. Fun.

We’re five days into 2006 and I know big things are going to be happening to me and friends and family around me this year. Here’s wishing you all a 2006 full of good health, happiness, food and fibre.

Oh! And before you go, my friend, stylish Jen, wanted me to mention the new knitting bags up at Jordana Paige. Cute little satchels in blue, lavender and brown. Must. Open. Wallet.

Speed Demon.

We can’t all knit as fast as Cara. And lately, I’ve been feeling like the slowest knitter in the world! My Jaywalkers? I’ve just turned the heel on the first sock… and I started nearly three weeks ago. So, I was positively giddy when I received a shipment of superwash sock yarn to dye. See the yarn dyed in Fondant:

These are toe-up socks knit on US 6(!) / 4mm Addi’s and I’m getting 6 sts/in. The socks are 46 sts around. What does that mean? That means super-fast knitting! That means socks in a day! So I wanted to share the joy joy joy and so I’ve posted a couple skeins of this new “Speed Demon” sock yarn in the Sweet Shop for you. The best part? They are superwash, so no worries about felting. Happy day all around.

My horoscope said I would be productive these past few days and look, see, I’ve been productive:

I spent the weekend dyeing about ten pounds of yarn! Much of it is up in the Sweet Shop today — there’s Slayer, Willow, Elf, Coal Harbour, Marina, and more… for most colourways, I dyed at least two skeins. And there is lots more coming in the next few days. By the way, go check out Kira’s beautiful Misty Garden scarf that she knit out of a skein of Marina…

Oh! And those of you that requested skeins of River or Fondant be set aside for you, I have skeins of both in superwash or non-superwash for you to pick from!

Sucked back in.

Yep. I’m knitting a Jaywalker sock. And yes, I joined the KAL.

Let’s see how far I get with this KAL… No wait, let’s see how long I can restrain myself from also joining Cara’s “Crossed in Translation” KAL for this amazing sweater.

I suck at knitting along.

It’s September 30th and tomorrow my fellow “Knitting on the Road” knitalong-ers will be moving on to the next set of socks, “Conwy”. Me? I’m missing the boat. Here I am at the toe of the first “Friday Harbour” sock:

I even started right on the first day of the KAL, August 1st, and can’t believe it’s been two months and this is as far as I’ve gotten on this sock. Shameful.

These “time management” issues have been on my mind for some time, but I was confronted with them a couple days ago when Roxanne posted a comment asking “How do you find time for everything?” And the answer is, I really really don’t.

I try to spin a bit every evening; I knit in the car on the way to work and back, at lunch and when I get together on weekends with friends; I dye on free Saturdays and update the shop on Mondays; and I work all week at my design business. But all the to-dos from work, home, craft, etc. pile up — the unfinished knit projects, the unspun wool, the undyed wool — it gets overwhelming. The only thing I can do is work on a little at a time and whittle away at it.

So, here’s the plan. There are a couple things I need to finish off: the Electra vest, the Trellis baby cardi, the Harry Potter scarf, and these socks! I’m going to frog the pink mohair mess that was a “Hollywood Knits” sweater and re-knit it (eventually) with my own pattern. And Lucky? Well that will be on hold until springtime.

Then, I can work on my lovely fairisle cardigan (ala Meg Swansen), start Na Craga for the DH, and possibly Rogue for me. I thought about setting up some rules for myself. Something like:

>Maximum number of allowed projects at any one time: >* One sweater for me >* One sweater/big project for gifting >* One lace shawl for me >* Two pairs of socks

Hmm, I might still use that as a general guideline. But all I can say is, do a little bit everyday…

For naughty people who want to spin at work

Heh heh, here is the little spindle I made at work.

To make one, you’ll need:

• 1 free pencil from big name paper company
• 1 free cheese-shaped eraser from Babybel bag of round red cheeses
• some yarn to use as a leader (I stole some from my fairisle vest — that’s Rowan Felted Tweed! ooh, fancy!)
• 1 elastic band to hold the leader to the pencil.

I couldn’t actually get the tip of the pencil all the way through the eraser, but no matter, just as long as it doesn’t fall off! I could have probably used a paper clip as a hook and attached it to the pencil eraser, but I was in a bit of a panic (needing to spin that fibre that arrived from the postman) and didn’t think of it.

Enjoy your clandestine office spinning!

Knitting on the Road

Like many people, I’ve had Nancy Bush’s book, “Knitting on the Road” for a while and have not yet knit anything out of it. So the new KOTR knit-along is a great motivator. It will be an ongoing KAL where we knit a pair of socks every two months using a pattern from the book. Last week, we voted on which sock to knit and “Friday Harbour” came up as the final decision. Here’s my start:

I’m using some yarn that I dyed in a crockpot with washfast acid dyes. Being “Friday Harbour”, I was going for a kind of watery theme. Ah well, it’s an excuse to knit up some stashed yarn. Besides, it seems incredibly difficult to find the recommended Mountain Colors Weavers Wool in Vancouver.

Rather than use DPNs, I’m using my Addi circs (3mm) for magic loop again. I just put stitches from needles 1 and 3 on one side of the loop and the stitches from needle 2 on the other side of the loop. The chart has so far been easy to follow and it’s working itself pretty quickly — it’s only 49 stitches around now.

Oh, and here is another sock I knit on Friday: my first toe-up, short-row heel sock in my very own handspun!

I chose a skein of the craziest, most barber-poled handspun and used Wendy’s Generic Toe-Up Sock pattern for this. It’s all 30g of yarn knit up. I used a sewn Tubular 1×1 cast off for this (see Katherine Buss’ Big Book of Knitting — it’s fabulous)… but mainly because when I first cast off normally, I couldn’t get the sock on my foot!