sweetgeorgia

Would you like some dryer lint with that?

Why yes, I do knit. But I’m feeling pulled in all directions — should I knit something for my dad’s upcoming 60th birthday, or all those friends and colleages who are newly pregnant, or be selfish and knit for myself? Well, let’s see…

I’m knitting for myself. Awful, aren’t I?

I started the cover vest on the new Rowan 38. It’s a simple fair isle vest with a combination of Yorkshire Tweed DK, Felted Tweed and Kidsilk Haze. Of course, Rowan has written the pattern as two flat pieces to be seamed later, but the rebel in me is knitting this gasp in the round. And I’m going to steek the armholes and front neck opening.

We’re not going to talk about how the colours in the printed Rowan magazine are totally and completely wrong. But I will say that when I pay an arm and a leg for Rowan yarn, I do expect to see nice and well-made yarns. I think that’s pretty basic. But this Yorkshire Tweed? Can you say “got VM?” Every foot or so, I’m picking out pieces of straw! And the yarn itself? It looks like rocket pop coloured dryer lint exploded on my knitting… but in a good way, I guess. The grist/weight of Yorkshire Tweed DK and Felted Tweed are different, so the fair isle comes out a little bubbly looking. Hopefully a good swish and block will make it behave.

And finally, I had a chance to update the shop with some new yarns — here they are for a group photo! See the new stuff here…

There’s one skein of sock yarn inspired by Firefly, plus another that’s inspired by Pumpkin Spice Lattes… speaking of which…

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.

Rogue in my future

Mmm, free shipping on a pack of Jaeger Shetland Aran? Couldn’t resist. I figure, it was kind of for my birthday. I’ll be using this yarn to knit Rogue this fall…after I finish a bunch of other projects!

What else is coming up? I just received my selection of Jamieson’s Spindrift for Meg’s Fair Isle Cardigan — I’m still second-guessing my colour choices, but I’m swatching now to see what I’m going to do…

Blackwater Abbey Yarns

I received my tiny order of three 1 oz. balls of Blackwater Abbey yarn a few days ago. I’m test driving the yarn for the future St. Brigid from Alice Starmore’s Aran Knitting (I just managed to buy a copy — for way too much — on Ebay!). This yarn comes in gorgeous colours but is really, really scratchy. Much scratchier than Jamieson’s Soft Shetland. In fact, it’s like exfoliating your fingertips when you knit with it.

I’ve heard it’s often difficult to get gauge with AS patterns and it was funny, I got 20 sts/34 rows for the St. Brigid double moss stitch swatch where the pattern requires 21 sts/27 rows. I’m also using 4mm as opposed to the suggested 4.5mm needles to try and get a smaller gauge, but it’s made my stitch gauge bigger! In any case, I’ve also heard that there’s quite a bit of flexibility with blocking and that you can resize up or down quite a bit.

Ah, decisions decisions. Which yarn? BWA or Soft Shetland? Which colour? Pink Heather (almost the same as Jamieson’s Raspberry) or Iris (almost the same as Jamieson’s Iris). Agh. I don’t even have the energy to write about my “Meg’s Fair Isle Cardigan” angst.

Oh yeah, that gauge thing.

So it was a productive weekend full of finishing. Those two socks. The black Soleil along with its clean crocheted edges. All that work on the front of the Manly sweater (I’m about one inch from finishing the right front). And of course, the One-Skein Wonder shrug.

Remember when I said it was a practice shrug? Yeah, I didn’t even read the gauge info on the pattern let alone check gauge. Heh heh. And it makes a huge difference. The pink cashmerino shrug ended up being knit at a gauge of 20 spi when the specified gauge is 16 spi. The result?

It’s a yummy, baby pink but tiny little sweater. See, photographed here with the finished Soleil (which fits me to a tee) for comparison — I can get the shrug on, but would never actually wear it out in public. It’s ok though, I bought more yarn (!) and will check my gauge first!