Yarn, lots and lots of it.

I haven’t done any knitting the last couple of days but I have been playing around with yarn and roving. The first photo shows some rolags that I made using the piece of carding cloth I have that’s waiting to be made into a blending board.

Rollags made from blue and white shetland wool top from Jamieson & Smith.

Fingering weight yarn spun on my Ashford spindle.

Next I brought up an old box of yarn from the basement looking for another project that I’d started but not finished many years ago.

White Buffalo Yarn sweater.

After looking at this project I realized there were some leftover balls of yarn in the same box so I thought that I would try and find some room in my large tote for them. My tote has all my acrylic leftovers in it along with a few whole balls of yarn as well. Mostly it was a mess so I thought that if I wound all the balls into layer cakes I’d make more room for the new/old balls.

Messy yarn.

Bin partially filled with layer cakes. Filled it to the top by the time I’d finished winding the above yarn.

After winding all the yarn in the bin, I discovered that I didn’t have any extra room than before I’d started so all I can say is that I wasted an afternoon but I do have a tidy tote bin full of layer cakes. I just have to find somewhere else to stash the other balls.

Karen

Better Late Than Never

Well I’ve finally finished Jonathan’s sweater – about 16 years to late but it’s done. I believe I started this sweater when he was about 10 years old, he’s now 26 years old. I ran a Ravelry UFO KAL in March for my group Surmount the Stash (stash busting) and decided to finish this sweater for my project.

“Kids Like Fair Isle Too” from Beehive Nordic Knits. Baycrest Shetland chunky yarn.

When I first started to knit Fair Isle all those years ago the book I learned from was from Beehive and called Nordic Knits. Now after all these years, children, work, quilting and back to knitting I’ve come full circle.

Karen

Op-Shop Finds.

I haven’t been posting much because really there hasn’t been much to post. I haven’t really gotten much crafting done as I’ve been taking a break with my shoulder being so sore. I did go see the rheumatologist yesterday and she gave me a shot of cortisol so we’ll see how that goes. I do seem to be able to move it farther than before so that’s something.

First up I did finally manage to finish the pair of socks I was making for my dad. The only problem being is that they ended up fitting my husband’s feet instead so they are now his.

Paton’s Kroy FX socks in the colour Cadet. Picture of my feet hanging up there amidst the ceiling.

Next I decided to indulge in visiting Value Village yesterday. I was looking for two things, more tupperware (as if I don’t have enough) and I always look to see what knitting and science fiction books there are. I’ve been looking for any of Alice Starmore’s books for a long time and finally I scored one yesterday.

Tudor Roses by Alice Starmore. This book is currently valued starting at $99.00 on the used book market. It goes up from there and if I were to order it online through Amazon.ca I’d be paying $200.00 and change for it. Of course this (as my husband pointed out) is only if I’m willing to sell it. Someone in Ravelry said that the book is being re-issued and when it does the value will drop right down but that’s to be expected. I’m only surprised that with copies of used books being sold for over two hundred dollars that the publishers haven’t released the book sooner. Anyhow it’s in perfect shape and since it was a buy four books get one free I can pretend it’s my freebie

Another interesting thing about the book aside from all the gorgeous sweaters in it is that it gives the history of the Tudor’s and Henry and his wives so even if I never make a sweater from the patterns at least I can read the book and learn something. The patterns are very complex so I might not ever get around to trying out one of the sweaters but they are beautiful. The sweaters are the type that you pull out and work on a little bit at a time until three years later it’s done. LOL, then you hope that it fits and it looks good on you.

Some of the other books I scored:

I’ve been reading Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s book “Knitting Rules” and its been a fun read so far. Nice to see that I’m not abnormal and share several traits with my fellow knitters, vbg.

Last but not least I thought I’d post a couple of pictures of the snow that fell overnight. Unfortunately by the time the pictures have shrunk small enough to put up on the blog you don’t get the idea of the snow on the branches but it’s really pretty. I guess the snow fell without the wind blowing so it’s just sitting there decorating the trees just like the ideal picture of a Christmas tree decorated for the holidays.

Snow in Whitby, February 28th, 2013

Karen

Odds and Ends

Not much accomplished craft-wise well except for lots of yarn being spun. I did manage to get one sock done today and will cast on for the next. They were supposed to be socks for dad but I went down two needle sizes to get a tighter cloth (too prevent holes) and forgot to add in a few stitches to make up for the size difference. They are now going to be socks for my husband John.

Paton’s Kroy FX Effects sock yarn. I believe the colour is called Cadet.

It snowed overnight.

The depth of the snow on the arm of the chair is how much it snowed as there wasn’t any snow there before. It’s a winter wonderland.

And last but not least, John took a picture of a deer that came up out of the ravine to munch on our grass. This is one of two that takes great delight in chowing down on my green beans in the garden.

Female deer feeding in backyard.

Karen

Wool Combed tops.

I got a goody in the mail today that I’d ordered just before Christmas.

Package from Lerwick, England.

I have a spindle that I’ve been practising on for several weeks and I finally ran out of roving so I ordered some more from Jamieson and Smith since they had the best prices that I could see with good shipping as well.

I placed the order on December 19th and it was shipped the next day on the 20th and here it is at my front step on December 27th. Talk about fast I feel like a little kid in a sweet shop.

I didn’t know how much to order but decided to order as much as I could for the first level of shipping costs. This should keep me busy for a while.

Shetland sheep combed wool tops from Jamieson and Smith.

The shipment consists of:
1-kilogram ball of white/natural
2-sample packs of naturals, each sample pack has 5-25gram samples of white, black, moorit, fawn and grey.
2-sample packs of coloured wool, each sample pack has 14-25gram samples of various colours.
1-ball of yellow J&S-2ply jumper weight yarn.

I like the yellow yarn and have a project that could use it so I tossed it in the order as well.

Just this morning I finished plying a single I had spun and was considering buying some more roving from my local yarn store so this was excellent timing.

I looked up my spindle and it’s an Ashford student spindle. It weighs around 3 ounces and has a 3.5 inch wheel. I’ve found that if I try to spin very fine then I have to be really careful that the fibres don’t separate and the spindle drop. I’ve since read online that I really need a lighter spindle to spin a finer strand of yarn.

Even though some spots of the yarn were fairly fine and even other areas weren’t so when plied the whole thing looks very chunky. In the spindle forum they call this designer yarn, lol.

I’ll just keep on practising with this spindle for a while and then maybe I’ll try and make a lighter one and see how it goes from there.

Karen

Boxing Day Yarn

I am happy, happy, happy!

Today I went out at 7:45 a.m. to hit up Michaels and take advantage of their boxing day specials. I might not have bothered except Linda had given me a gift card for sewing up the aprons for Charlie’s birthday party so I wanted to make good use of the card because Michaels had 25% off the order including sale items.

A friend on Ravelry had pointed out that the bags of Kroy sock yarn were being advertised and even though our store had sold out I was hoping that they had brought more in for the sale and they had.

They had some really nice colours as well so I bought most of them thinking of my dad who wants more socks. There were a few pretty ones for me as well.

I also scored on some storage totes, which by the time I paid for them ended up being 75% off so five dollars and change for each tote. I’d bought a couple of these totes last time there was a big sale and I really love how they hold the smaller balls of yarn and the totes are easy to handle in and out of the closet.

Bought some gift wrap for future Christmases and then some Vanna’s choice because Charlie needs a new hat and mitts so also bought the little pattern book as well.

All told an excellent haul. I figured with the sale bags and discounts on everything and the taxes I didn’t pay I ended up saving $364.33 over regular prices. Not bad indeed.

Kroy socks

More Kroy socks

Vanna’s Choice yarn

Storage closet with totes

Storage totes stacked. These totes are scrapbooking totes, I guess for paper. They work well with small balls of yarn.

Karen

One More Pair…

Not much to blog about this time. I’ve been busy trying to get some stuff done for Christmas. I did finally get dad’s socks finished.

Ann Budd – “Knitting Socks, Getting Started” – Basic Socks pattern. The yarn is Paton’s Kroy FX – Clover.

It took me a couple of weeks to knit the socks (seemed like forever). Unfortunately I have developed quite a bad shoulder problem with rotator cuff pain so I have to knit for a bit then set the knitting aside and do something else. I’d had a sore shoulder for months but hadn’t gotten it checked out. The result was with the gear up for Christmas the pain got worse. I’ve been to the doctor and had x-rays and ultrasound done so now I have to wait and see what the results are and what can I do to help the shoulder heal (please don’t tell me no knitting).

I managed to get the quilt top for Chase pinned today and bought some matching thread so hopefully within a week’s time I’ll be able to show you a finished quilt. It’s got to be soon as I’m running out of time before Christmas. LOL, everything else has gone by the wayside, oh well “there’s always next year”.

It does occur to me as I type that I’m getting older and there may not “always be a next year”. Hmm, maybe I should have a goal of getting things done sooner rather than later.

Karen

Fair Isle Mittens

A couple of weeks ago I agree to do a test knit for ‘torirot designs’ for some fair isle mitts. Finally finished today and it’ll be a long while before I ever work on such a small project on double-point needles for a while. Talk about fiddly.

Dreaming of Provence. Pattern and copyright torirot designs. Once the pattern is fully tested it’ll be available to Ravelry members so look for it there.

John modelling the mittens. Had to colour adjust because of the light background. The real colours are in the first picture.

I mostly used Jamieson and Smith yarn for the mittens. The white was Knitpicks Palette and it is a smoother yarn to work with. The J&S is the best for knitting Fair Isle as it’s Shetland wool and Shetland yarn is more wiry so the fibres tend to stick together better and fill in the spaces between stitches for a more even look.

Now that I’ve gotten that project out of the way I’m starting in on my Christmas sewing projects namely a quilt I have planned for Chase. Once I get that done I’ll be happy, happy, happy (I’ve been watching a lot of Duck Dynasty lately, lol).

Karen

Circle Scarves.

My DIL wanted to learn how to crochet so I set her up on Ravelry and we looked at some easy projects that she might try and she found a free pattern from A Crafty House that she liked.

Well she got quite a few favourable comments on her cowl scarf so I decided I’d try a few myself making them for our Blessings group. The group has a yarn stash and knits up various winter items for those who need them. I wanted to do something but I’m so bogged down with projects it had to be a quick item to make.

I’m happy to say these scarves only take about an hour to an hour and a half to crochet. They do use up the yarn quite quickly so make sure you have full balls of yarn to work with and depending on your gauge you might not get in the full six rows for a 100 gram ball of yarn. The Red Heart super saver balls would work quite nicely because they are a bigger ball.

Quick Circle Scarves. Knit with Vanna’s Choice 100 gram solids.

Bear doing his thing modelling for me again.

Hint for working the scarf, make sure you don’t twist the chain when joining and pull the yarn from the center of the balls.

Karen

Frilly Scarf.

Thought I’d show another Frilly Scarf. I have a friend who wanted to learn how to make one of these so I bought a ball of Redheart Boutique Sashay in the colourway Rumba. Here is Bear modelling the scarf.

Redheart Boutique Sashay in the colourway Rumba.

It takes one ball per scarf and this scarf has a cast-on of six stitches. It took me around three hours to finish it and I’d say I’m about medium speed. It’s a bit fiddly at first but once you get the hang of it you go pretty fast.

Karen