Category Archives: Knitting


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and the rest of the stuff

My fingers are sore! I’ve been knitting like mad all week- here’s how the rest of the projects went down:

Sunday I was able to spend some time knitting while Jakob slept, which gave me a 2 hour block. I worked on the Puffalump Limbo Line facecloth while we watched Fools Gold, which meant we had a weekend of Ray Winstone movies. The movie was cute, but it felt like I was watching a Harlequin Duets book come to life, and when there were about 20 minutes left to go I had no choice but to go upstairs and get ready to leave…and I didn’t ask Yannick to stop it. I could tell where it was going, and it really didn’t change anything having watched it or not.

Sunday night was a lot of fun, my friend Maia was in a play from the Yiddish Theater, and a bunch of us from Jakob’s playgroup bought tickets, grabbed our moms (and some bubbies) and made a night of it. Because the show started at 7 we went for an early dinner at 5. I brought the washcloth in my purse and took advantage of the 15 minute intermission to do a few rows.

I was reminded at dinner that the following day’s playgroup would be celebrating 2 of the little girls’ birthdays…which threw me into a panic. I’d been making cupcakes for each kid, remember? So now, in addition to having one week left to finish all the projects for the bridal shower, I had to squeeze in 2 cupcakes…that night!

I got home from the play around 9:45 and parked myself on the couch to watch tv with Yannick and knit cupcakes. I finished the second one at 12:50am…finally!

I’d kinda screwed up, though. I always alter the pattern, every time I knit it. I don’t like the way the top comes out if you follow the pattern, it is too flat and round for me (does that make sense?) I prefer a top that looks more like a muffin-top, almost bloused over the edges of the base. (I also ALWAYS omit the first row of the pattern, after casting on I jump right into the increases, without a plain row. This is to avoid a pointy center to the base).

This is the first one I made.


It’s lumpy because I don’t put anything in but stuffing, so there is nothing to hold the shape of the base in where I’ve increased for the top. Still…it’s not bad.

This is the second one. See the problem?

It’s an artsy photo- trying to hide the flaws. I was exhausted and too tired to play around, so for this one I followed the pattern as written. It’s basically a tube with a round top. It’s cute- but not like the others I’d given. And also a lot smaller than the one above. And I was supposed to give them to the 2 girls together.
I didn’t have the energy to stay up later and knit a third…so I decided the moms could pick for themselves. (Let’s ignore the fact that I brought them on Monday and forgot to give them to the girls, after all that work and staying up so late!)
In a way I was glad I was still up that late, because no sooner had I changed into my pjs, taken out my contacts and pulled back the sheets to climb into bed- Jakob woke up crying. And I mean CRYING. It took me until 2:30am to rock him back to sleep. I don’t know if he had a bad dream, or if his molars are hurting him, but even in my arms, with a bottle at one point he was still inconsolable.
On Monday I finished the facecloth I’d started over the weekend: the Puffalump Limbo Line (Ravelry link).

I’m very happy with how it came out; I think it will make a great facecloth and has excellent scrubber potential. The yarn is more Bernat Handicrafter Cotton (as have been all the washcloths I’ve shown so far) and I think this one was called French Blue.
Up next was Knitty’s Calorimetry (Ravelry link).
This was a VERY fast knit, and I enjoyed it so much that I want to make one for myself.

I did alter it a bit though- my yarn (Bernat Satin in the Florals colorway) was knitting up much bigger than the pattern, and had I cast on 120 sts like suggested I would have had a headband that was at least 6″ wider than the head circumference…so I only cast on 80 sts, and did my short rows accordingly.

Calorimetry was followed by a Reverse-Bloom Washcloth (Ravelry). Using a 5mm needle meant that there was not enough in one 50g ball of the variegated cotton (Playtime colorway) to finish the washcloth, so once I ran out I switched to the solid Hot Orange I’d used for the Ballband Dishcloth.

Here’s the reverse, for those of you who like that.
And here’s another one, this time in the Summer Splash colorway, with some Banana Yellow for the center (again, all Bernat Handicrafter cotton).
…and the back…
Up next is one of my favorite projects, although I’ve only made it twice, each time I want to keep it for myself!
Can you tell what it is? By the way, yes, it is crochet, not knitting. (That’s why this is the “handmade by jennifer” blog, and not “wicked knits” like it used to be).

It’s a bath puff! As still more of the bridal shower gift, I made the bath puff with a matching back scrubber

The back scrubber came out narrower than I’d remembered from the last time I made it, but it was still cute. The scrubber and puff are from a 5-piece crocheted bath set, a free online pattern. (Ravelry link). I didn’t do the face or wash cloth, and I didn’t make the soap saver bag from that set either…I found it too frilly for the bride-to-be. Instead I did one from another pattern (also a free one online but I misplaced the link). I was told by my cousin (the groom-to-be) that their bathroom is navy, so I made all the pieces predominantly white with navy and white sparkle accents. (Seriously, if you ever have the urge to make yourself a bath puff, make this pattern! It takes only an hour or so and is awesome- I MUST make one for myself!)
Would you believe that I only finished that stuff by Friday night? The bridal shower was Saturday at 2:30pm, and it was already midnight and I couldn’t force my eyes open any longer. I banked on the fact that Saturdays are Yannick’s day with Jakob, and told myself I’d finish (and wrap!) the gift the next morning.
I couldn’t force my eyes open too early, so once I was up and had breakfast, it was already about 10:30 Saturday morning when I sat down to plan out a design for a mug cozy. My first attempt didn’t give me what I later realized I’d wanted (it closed with buttons instead of being seamless) but it did give a “gauge swatch” so I could make my second attempt practically perfect.

I knit the blue one first (Handicrafter in Delft Blue) then the purple one (the Jewels colorway).
The pattern is quick and easy, and I’ll be typing it up when I get a free moment and will post it for free here and in Ravelry.

So now it was 12:30pm Saturday. I had one more gift to knit, and I still hadn’t showered.

I really, really wanted to include Knitty.com’s 302 Calories (Ravelry link) in the gift basket. Really wanted to. But it was not to be.

I had the licorice laces, and I had the 6.5mm needles (instead of chopsticks)…but it just didn’t work. First I had done about 3″ worth when I noticed a hole down below where the licorice had snapped and come open. I started over with fresh licorice and was FINISHED…just “weaving” in the ends…when I found 3 other torn spots.
See in the center there? That’s one, there’s another right below it to the right, another right below it to the left. I gave up. I had enough for the gift basket without it (!) and I just didn’t have the time to spare to go for a third attempt.

I started wrapping the gift, which of course took longer than I’d thought, and had to force myself to go take a break at 2:05 when I remembered I still hadn’t showered or dressed. Luckily the party was only 5 blocks away from my house, and I wasn’t even being picked up until 2:30…so I rushed, showered, got dressed and hurried to keep wrapping.

I made it just in time…but is it any wonder I ended up with a migraine all afternoon? Still, the party was a lot of fun, the bride-to-be is a really sweet girl, and it turned out to be a great day. (It didn’t hurt that my friends from Ottawa were coming in that night and would be coming over for dinner, so I had even more to look forwards to).

Next post- how it all came together…


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so who did *you* talk to this week?

So. Yesterday.

It started innocently enough. Maaike was having a hard time with a pattern she’s knitting, and on Tuesday night she’d emailed me to see if I could bring my copy of the pattern to work so we could discuss it via msn/email. She’s knitting the Puzzle Pillow Blanket out of Meg Swansen’s Handknitting (yes, the Meg Swansen, Elizabeth Zimmermann’s daughter), and was stuck when trying to follow on of the directions.

Long story short, the pattern says something to the effect of “start at D, knit across to A, turn and knit back. You are now at A.” Well, um…no. No you’re not. You’re back at D. Maaike was back at D, and when I looked at the pattern I couldn’t see any way you would be anywhere but D.

Maaike Googled. I Googled. I checked Schoolhouse Press’ errata page. We checked Ravelry. There was no online mention of any problems in the pattern, not even in the blurbs of the 6 other people in Ravelry who had knit/are knitting it.

Finally Maaike sent me an msn message- Maybe I should just email Schoolhouse Press. I hear sometimes Meg herself answers the phone!

I offered to call for her, since I knew that while we were both at work, she was surrounded by bosses and coworkers, and I was surrounded by…Jakob. I didn’t think he’d rat me out. Maaike said she’d appreciate it, and since I understood the problem, yes, could I please call for her.

I called.

They have a technical line so I called that and told the girl who answered that I had a problem with one of the patterns. It was easier to say *I* was knitting it and had a problem, rather then to start explaining that I was calling for a friend. She asked which pattern and I told her, and she said “hold on please”. The next thing I hear is:

“Schoolhouse Press, this is Meg. How can I help you?”

I think my exact response was “MRPHG- *gulp* (remember to breathe) OH! Hi!”

Once I’d composed myself I explained the problem to her, and after a few minutes of trying to rationalize how it could be *our* mistake, she said, “Oh. Huh. Yes, I see…Hmmm.” Yup. It was *their* mistake.

Maaike and I had been expecting that, because we couldn’t see how we were wrong, but it was still a surprise. I mean, this pattern book had been originally published in 1995 and has been knit by lys-loads of knitters…how could we have spotted something they didn’t?

So Meg saw the error clearly in the printed text, then there was a slight pause and she said to me, “You know what the worst part is? Two days ago we received the 20, 000 copies of the latest printing.”

Oy.

I apologized for being the barer of bad news and she laughed, then she asked for my name so she could give me credit for finding the error when she would post the errata. I told her my first name, but told her that I had to be honest, and that it wasn’t me who found the error, it was my friend Maaike. I told her how to spell Maaike’s name (hey Maaike- I forgot to tell you that she asked if there were supposed to be any little dots or squiggles over any of the letters in your name…I said no…I hope that was right!) and after a few more short exchanges we got off the phone.

I was back on msn with Maaike in a flash- OMG Are you sitting down?

I was laughing and grinning and typed the story relatively error-free, and we were both sending smiley emoticons at each other.

Eventually we calmed down and went about our day, then a little later we started discussing how Maaike could best continue her project, as I’d forgotten to ask Meg for her opinion on what to do to fix the pattern. Obviously there were 2 options- knit one more row or knit one less row, both would end with you back at A where you should be. We were both leaning towards “knit one row less” because it was in garter with aran-weight yarn, and an extra garter ridge could throw things off in the future.

We were actually in the middle of writing an email to sent to Schoolhouse Press, asking for their advice, when my phone rang. I answered the phone in my usual work way, with the name of our store followed by “can I help you?”.

Imagine my surprise to hear “Hi Jennifer, this is Meg Swansen.”

To my credit, I did NOT drop Jakob, although I’m glad I was sitting down when I’d answered.

Turns out she’d called US back to tell us her opinion on what to do about the error, so that we could continue with the pattern! (We were right- the best thing would be to omit the “turn and work back” direction).

The most amusing part of the conversation was when she said to me how she’d tracked us down…apparently she’d Googled Maaike’s name and found her, in fact Meg actually said “I found Maaike Lastname”, which is amazing because I’d never told her either of our last names, and I just tried Googling Maaike and didn’t see any references to her last name, so I’m not sure how Meg did! In any case, it didn’t have contact info, so she said they realized that they could *69 me! (That’s when you push *69 after a phone conversation and it tells you the number that just called you). I thought it was hysterical that she tracked us down, and am amazed by the customer service, especially since a) I got to speak to Meg Swansen!!! and b) she wasn’t profiting from helping us, because we’d already bought the patterns.

(By the way, Meg is quite lovely and charming to speak to, and sounds much, much younger than I would guess her to be. She laughs easily too, which is a relief when you’re calling to tell her that there is a mistake in her pattern!)

Way to go, Schoolhouse Press!

p.s. I just checked, and the errata is up on their website! Click here to see it, with the credit to us and everything!

You rock Meg!


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happy mother’s day!

To start this post off, let me wish a huge HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! to all the moms, grandmothers, mothers-to-be, foster mothers, and anyone else who raises, takes care of or in any way helps shape the life of a child. We rock!

Here’s Mommy with Jakob at 50 weeks (not this past week’s photo, but the one before).

I still haven’t uploaded the photos from my camera from last week, and my head is still in a fog. Sorry!

I have been knitting like mad, but can’t show any of it. See, I’m designing the sock for Robyn’s Robyn’s Nest June Sock Club Kit, and while it is going very well, it is a surprise. I still like my original design, but I came to realize that while many people might say “hey- that’s cool”, very few would actually want to knit it…or at least they’d want to knit it, but it wouldn’t be the kind of sock they’d want to wear. So I pored over my design books and was inspired by a little stitch pattern in a book by someone you might have heard of. Barbara Walker? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? I’ve been crunching more numbers than food this week, but things are starting to take shape, and I’m really pleased with the progress so far.

I can’t believe the kit is almost sold out! No pressure, or anything… 🙂

I do have some knitting that I can share, however.

Here’s the finished Marble Cabled Cardigan.

I’m really happy with how it came out. I knit the 1-2 year old size, and since Jakob is slim, I’m sure he’ll get to wear it even until next Fall.
Yannick chose the pattern when I told him I wanted to knit something with this particular Marble colorway. He also chose the buttons.
They are adorable, but a little heavy for the light sweater. I might have to change them.

Details: (from memory- so forgive any mistakes) The pattern is a pamphlet designed for the actual yarn. Needles are downstairs but I think I used a 4mm for the body and 3.25 for the ribbing.

Modifications: I reversed the cable on one side of the band so they would mirror each other instead of both leaning in the same direction. I didn’t do the hood, and did a simple ribbed collar instead. I did a one-row buttonhole instead of binding off in one row and casting on in the next. I’m pretty sure there was something else I changed but I don’t remember now.

Here’s a photo I’ve been wanting to take for almost a year.

Isn’t that cute??? I’d taken a photo of Yannick’s Mega Sock (Mega Boots Stretch yarn) next to the baby version I made for Jakob, but I always wanted to get a photo of my two boys IN their matching sock. I finally got one, and I LOVE this photo.

I leave you with a question…

My dad is trying to convince me to get these glasses for myself.

What does we thinks?

Does we likes? I really like the sides of the frame, and the side view. I’m scared to commit!
I think they’re too wide from my eyeball to my temple, but I do have a large head, and frames that fit nicely around my eye have the frame’s temple stretched sideways to go off to my ear.

So? I’ve taken the lenses out of the frame since these photos were taken, so I can take photos without the glare or designer name on the lenses, if necessary.


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happy mother’s day!

To start this post off, let me wish a huge HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! to all the moms, grandmothers, mothers-to-be, foster mothers, and anyone else who raises, takes care of or in any way helps shape the life of a child. We rock!

Here’s Mommy with Jakob at 50 weeks (not this past week’s photo, but the one before).

I still haven’t uploaded the photos from my camera from last week, and my head is still in a fog. Sorry!

I have been knitting like mad, but can’t show any of it. See, I’m designing the sock for Robyn’s Robyn’s Nest June Sock Club Kit, and while it is going very well, it is a surprise. I still like my original design, but I came to realize that while many people might say “hey- that’s cool”, very few would actually want to knit it…or at least they’d want to knit it, but it wouldn’t be the kind of sock they’d want to wear. So I pored over my design books and was inspired by a little stitch pattern in a book by someone you might have heard of. Barbara Walker? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? I’ve been crunching more numbers than food this week, but things are starting to take shape, and I’m really pleased with the progress so far.

I can’t believe the kit is almost sold out! No pressure, or anything… 🙂

I do have some knitting that I can share, however.

Here’s the finished Marble Cabled Cardigan.

I’m really happy with how it came out. I knit the 1-2 year old size, and since Jakob is slim, I’m sure he’ll get to wear it even until next Fall.
Yannick chose the pattern when I told him I wanted to knit something with this particular Marble colorway. He also chose the buttons.
They are adorable, but a little heavy for the light sweater. I might have to change them.

Details: (from memory- so forgive any mistakes) The pattern is a pamphlet designed for the actual yarn. Needles are downstairs but I think I used a 4mm for the body and 3.25 for the ribbing.

Modifications: I reversed the cable on one side of the band so they would mirror each other instead of both leaning in the same direction. I didn’t do the hood, and did a simple ribbed collar instead. I did a one-row buttonhole instead of binding off in one row and casting on in the next. I’m pretty sure there was something else I changed but I don’t remember now.

Here’s a photo I’ve been wanting to take for almost a year.

Isn’t that cute??? I’d taken a photo of Yannick’s Mega Sock (Mega Boots Stretch yarn) next to the baby version I made for Jakob, but I always wanted to get a photo of my two boys IN their matching sock. I finally got one, and I LOVE this photo.

I leave you with a question…

My dad is trying to convince me to get these glasses for myself.

What does we thinks?

Does we likes? I really like the sides of the frame, and the side view. I’m scared to commit!
I think they’re too wide from my eyeball to my temple, but I do have a large head, and frames that fit nicely around my eye have the frame’s temple stretched sideways to go off to my ear.

So? I’ve taken the lenses out of the frame since these photos were taken, so I can take photos without the glare or designer name on the lenses, if necessary.


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what i did monday and yesterday

I unpacked the nuts and fruit and chocolates.

Oy. Let’s ignore the fact that my cuboards are full and I have no where to store the nuts and fruit and chocolates, ok?
I seamed the Marble cardi. I also ignored the pattern, which wanted me to knit the hood, then pick up and knit the button bands on the two fronts, THEN seam the cardi and sew on the hood. I did a few more mods as well, which I’ll detail when the project is finished.
I also managed to knit the two front bands. By the time I went to bed last night I’d picked up and started working the collar (I’m ignoring the hood).

I would have gotten more done, but Jakob has been sick and I only knit when he’s sleeping, if I’m not already eating, cleaning, doing laundry or staring at the TV in a dazed stupor. The poor kid started a fever on Friday night, and has been going back and forth from 99.5 to 103.3 ever since. Yesterday’s high was 102, today he went from 99.5 when he woke up from his nap to 101.5 2 hours later. I know it’s not as high, but his fevers have been higher at night, so we’re going back to the doctor to make sure his cold didn’t become an ear infection. He’s also got a wicked cough and a runny nose, so when he is awake, he’s kinda miserable. (His waking up around the clock has led to my dazed stupor). I’m sure the doctor will tell me it’s just a cold and to keep him on the tempra, but I’d rather be safe than sorry…especially with a fever that has lasted almost 6 days.

Hopefully by the time I post next I’ll have a completed Marble Cabled Cardigan.

You know what I didn’t do yesterday or Monday? Photograph my booty. (Uh- yarn or otherwise). I know you wanna see the new stash…but I can’t show it to you before I show it to Yannick, and he had bowling last night. Don’t worry…you’ll get photos soon. I still have to finish the rest of the WEBS trip. I haven’t even told you about the diner of freaky thoughts yet!


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WEBS

Oh my. I mean…wow. I don’t know where to begin. This weekend was…wow.
Maaike and I left Saturday afternoon. I normally work until 5pm but my dad said I could leave at 4pm, so Maaike got dropped off at the store so we could leave right away, and we were off. We stopped in Burlington for supper, finding the route a nice, easy drive thanks to our maps and Artie (the affectionate name we gave to the GPS unit Maaike had borrowed from a co-worker). Everything was going fine, we passed the US border within 5 minutes of arriving, and kept driving. We didn’t think anything was wrong although we both kinda thought it was strange that we were taking the 7, a more residential-type road with a max speed of about 50 miles/hour, instead of a highway. Turns out that Artie thought the 7 was a better route because it was the straightest route to Northampton- as the crow flies. He didn’t understand that we wanted to take the highway so we could go faster. So we ignored Artie and Maaike directed me on a route to get back to the 89. It took an extra hour and a very scenic route over and down what I think was called Green Mountain, but eventually we got onto the 89. Artie kept sulking at us. The GPS unit beeps when it is time to get ready to turn or merge or whatever, and if you don’t do what it wants then it makes a little “why aren’t you listening to me?” noise, and recalculates. Artie REALLY wanted us to take the 7, and we REALLY didn’t want to, so Artie sulked and moped nearly the whole way there. From the 89 we took the 91, and by 11pm we had pulled into our hotel’s parking lot.

It was great to be out of the car, and after we’d settled in, Maaike pulled out her spindle and got her spin on. I pulled out Jakob’s sweater to do a little seaming, but we both quickly realized we were tired, and the adrenaline was wearing off, and we went to bed.

Breakfast was included at the hotel, and in addition to fruit, breads, coffee, etc, they had this wonderful little gadget. I’ve never seen this before- it’s a waffle maker! You put a little cup under the spout of the machine on the right and it gives you a pre-measured (I think) amount of waffle batter. You then take the Waffle-Off spray (um…Pam??) and spray the griddle (left machine). Pour in your batter, flip it, wait 2 minutes, flip it back and you have a huge fluffy waffle freshly made. It was really good!
We went to Target but didn’t find much (it looked remarkably like Zellers). Then we came back to the hotel and checked out, and went to WEBS.
WEBS! The rumors are true- it is huge and amazing and wonderful.
I have to preface the rest of this with a little backstory. See, there’s this online shop, called Nuts Online. They have a really good selection of snacks, but they don’t ship to Canada. Well. I got the bright idea to ask Kathy and Steve Elkins (the owners of WEBS) if I could have an order shipped to their store, and then I would pick it up when we drove down. Surprisingly, they agreed. (I wonder if it was the oddest request they’ve gotten?) We wanted to take advantage of this and get as many of the snacks we wanted to try, so in the future we could only order what we’d liked, and have it shipped to my grandmother’s condo in Florida, so when my mom goes down she could drive it back. I just didn’t want anyone else paying duty on a huge initial order. So Maaike, Yannick and I each went through the website and picked what we wanted. I think we ended up with a total of 35 individual 1 lb bags of dried fruit or nut snacks. Poor WEBS! I called them on Thursday to let them know the nuts were coming. (The food, not us). They never called back, so I assumed everything was fine.
Well, we get to WEBS around 11:00. We’d decided that we’d wait in line and have our books signed before the Yarn Harlot event at 2:00, so once the event was over we could come back to the store and shop at our leisure. We got into line for the signing.

This was the line ahead of us. We got in at a good spot.
This was the line behind us. It goes into the warehouse and all the way around.
While we were in line there was a woman going around with a post-it notepad, asking your name and writing it down, and putting it down on your book so it would be easier for Stephanie to sign your book. I over heard her talking to someone and immediately recognized her voice from the Ready-Set-Knit podcast- it was Kathy Elkins! When she came over I told her my name and said “You have nuts for me!” She started laughing. Apparently the nuts were causing some amusement at WEBS. She told me she’d show me where they were later, and said not to be surprised if the story about the nuts ended up in one of her blog posts. Maaike also introduced herself, and Kathy recognized Maaike’s name from an email she’d sent saying how we were coming down from Canada.
This was Maaike and myself upon realizing that we were standing in WEBS, waiting to see the Yarn Harlot (again) and having just chatted with a voice we feel we know because we’ve been listening to her for over a year. It was surreal. (It was also a remarkably good photo for one that was taken by me holding the camera over our heads and saying “smile!”).
We had brought offerings for Stephanie. We didn’t know if she had received any Montreal dishcloths when she was here in 2006, so I designed a few and we knit them up for her. You’ve all seen the Habs one already, and the Fleur de Lys one is to represent Quebec. The actual Montreal flag is extremely uncommon and unrecognized as being of Montreal, so instead our Montreal dishcloth has a bagel on it. 🙂 We also brought her a drawing from Maaike’s daughter, and 2 Montreal food offerings- a package of squeaky cheese (cheese curds) and a bag of fresh Montreal bagels.

We were really glad we’d brought the food for her, because we really doubt she was able to take a lunch break, so at least she had something there to eat.

Stephanie was gracious and friendly, and shocked the &#$^@ out of me by not only remembering who I was, but by telling ME what my website was. She knew who both of us were, and we were stunned. While we were getting our books signed Kathy came up to the table and let Stephanie know that we were the crazy nut people. Apparently the nuts really were becoming an ongoing joke at WEBS! Stephanie took a photo of us with the dishcloths, and took a photo with us and her travelling sock, and then we let her get on to the next person in line.
To keep up with the surreal-ness of the day, Maaike had a question about a pattern, and who did Kathy direct us to? Pixie!

Those of you who listen to Ready-Set-Knit know who Pixie is, and listening to her talk to Maaike about a pattern was EXACTLY like listening to the second half of their podcast, and I found it hard to not imagine I was actually at home in bed listening to this on my iPod. It was a very strange feeling. It was also really cool that Kathy just breezed us past everyone in the store to the “employees only” area, and ushered us right in to talk to Pixie. Then she took me to another area so I could see where the nuts were.

I forgot to take a photo of the nut boxes, but I can see why they were becoming a punchline. Two boxes each the size of microwave ovens! And heavy! While Maaike and Pixie chatted, Kathy helped me carry the boxes to my car.

We really were there. WEBS!
This is the parking lot area. And what’s that down at the end there?

Why it’s WEBS- America’s Bead Store! We didn’t get a chance to go in and check out Kathy and Steve’s latest project, but if it’s anything like the yarn store, it will be amazing!

We left there and went to a local tavern for lunch. Everything was delicious, and we had a great view of the Calvin theater across the street.

Why look at that…what’s going on at the Calvin? Why are there crowds of knitters showing up?
Ahh…THAT’S why. I can only wonder what people driving by thought was going on here! We’d already had people stop at our lunch table and ask us what was going on with the knitting.
We had some great seats in the very first (!) row, and the events began. First Kathy and Steve raffled off some prizes. (We didn’t win).
I got my knitting out and settled in. This is a project I designed and work on from time to time. Don’t bother trying to guess what it is- you’ll never get it. 🙂
A portion of the proceeds from that day’s sales at WEBS were going to be donated to a local midwifery clinic that had been closed and finally reopened, so a woman from there came by to talk to us and thank us.
Finally it was time to begin the real show.
Here we are being photographed for her blog with the travelling sock.
Here we are. You can’t even grasp how many people were here. It goes all the way to the back. I think the balcony was full too. I’m horrible at guestimating numbers, but I’d say we were thousands of us. It was crazy. (And sorry to the woman in front whose face I managed to blind with the flash in every crowd photo I tried to take).
Stephanie was a wonderful speaker (again) and was everything you’d expect from reading her blog. We laughed, we felt like a community, and it was wonderful.
We were some of the last to leave the theater because we’d been all the way in the front row. As we made our way to the door we saw a small crowd off to the side. I couldn’t see what was going on, but there was a woman giving stuff out. Maaike looks up and says “Hey- I think that’s Jess!”.

It was. Jess, of Jess and Casey- the owners of Ravelry. Giving out Bob stickers and Ravelry pins.

Surreal.
I can’t type any more right now…I’ve been sitting here since 9:00am and I need breakfast.

And I haven’t even gotten to the shopping yet!


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thursday stuff

Before I forget, here’s a photo of my little matzoh ball at the first seder, last Saturday night. He enjoyed his first taste of puntzles (the small matzoh meal puffs that you put in soup) and was quite adorable in his “Kosher for Passover” bib!

I didn’t realize until too late that the backlight made shadows across his face.

Apparently Yannick doesn’t realize that either because this is the photo he took for me yesterday.

It’s Mommy with Jakob at 49 weeks.
I love this photo- this is what he does all day long. Whenever he wants a kiss, he reaches up, holds your face, closes his eyes and kisses. It is the sweetest thing ever!

When Yannick got home I left Jakob with him and went for a much-needed hair appointment. Here is the end result:


I still look exactly the same but don’t have the 4″ roots like I did before. I’m really happy with how it turned out. I tried a new salon because my old one is about 25 minutes away from my house. They also have the same work schedule as me, which means that I have to either convince my colorist to stay late for me one night and tip her really well to thank her, or I have to get up at 6:30am to get dressed and drive there for a 7:15 appointment on a Saturday, so I can have them do my hair and still get myself to work for 10:00am. NOT fun. This new place is open until 9pm on Thursdays and Fridays, and is literally 5 minutes from my house. Plus the girl (Kristin) who did it is amazing. She did the hair at Robyn’s wedding and it was stunning, and she even fixed(ish) the horrible flower-basket nasty hairdo my mom’s guy did on me. I will definitely be going back to Kristin.

Ok- so knitting. I have been knitting dishcloths for our WEBS trip this weekend. You’ve all now seen the Habs one, and I also made a fleur-de-lys one to represent Quebec…and to represent Montreal I made one with…a bagel on it. 🙂

I worked on Jakob’s sweater while at the hairdresser, and am at the shaping decreases on the last sleeve. I’ve decided not to do the hood as the pattern calls for, but to do a shawl collar instead, so the sweater is almost finished.

I think I have to make myself an official knitting “to do” list so I don’t fall behind. That being said, here it is:

1. Finish Jakob’s Cabled Cardigan – due end of May/June

2. Knit 1 of the 2 Family Circle dinosaurs for Jakob for his birthday – due end of May/June

3. Knit the other dinosaur for Jakob for Jakob (optional) – due end of May/June

4. Design the June sock club sock for Robyn’s Nest’s sock club – due end of May/June

4. Design project #1 for Mary Maxim contest – due June

5. Design project #2 for Mary Maxim contest – due June

I think those are the most important things right now.


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sally melville workshops

A few weeks ago I was privileged to spend the weekend at the Travelodge Hotel with a bunch of knitters and one very famous knitting designer. In honor of her having led the very first Montreal Knitting Guild workshop 10 years ago, (and also because she’s just a wonderful teacher), the MKG brought back Sally Melville to run a weekend-long series of workshops.

Sally Melville. Maybe you’ve heard of her? Author of Styles, The Knit Stitch, The Purl Stitch and Color, not to mention designer of countless patterns in magazines from Interweave to Vogue to…

Yeah. Her.

If you ever get a chance to take a class with Sally, do it! She is the cutest little thing, and tells wonderful stories. She is also a great teacher. Here are my swatches from that weekend:

On Saturday I took 2 workshops- “Rescue Tips and Emergency Techniques” and “Learning to Love Intarsia”.

This poor swatch got really put through the wringer! First we had to cut a stitch and unravel back to show how you could cut your knitting to make changes (shorten, lengthen, etc). I wasn’t afraid to cut, remember the Superman costume legs? I’d already cut them and lengthened them by an inch, before grafting the feet back on. We also learned how to fix a mistake by duplicate stitching then cutting out the original yarn. In this swatch, the blue stitches in the Fair Isle row were originally black. We duplicated-stitched over them, then cut out the black stitches.
This was our intarsia sampler. She gave us some great techniques for avoiding holes without too much twisting of the yarn.

After the classes Saturday night a bunch of us went out for dinner with Sally. We had a great time and had some yummy (but overpriced) Italian food in Dorval.

On Sunday it was one workshop all day long; I forget the name but it was something about tips and techniques “…for the Self-Taught Knitter”.
This was a little stockinette stitch swatch I made to show Angie that knitting wouldn’t unravel sideways. She was positive that if you cut your knitting, it will all come undone- this was to show her that even in a plain-old acrylic yarn, the stitches aren’t going anywhere. The 1-stitch width you see unravelled above took a LOT of tugging and pulling to get it to “pop out” on its own.
This hideous piece was our increase, decrease and bobble sampler. It also prompted a witty observation- we spend money to go to a workshop, spend all day joyfully knitting away, then come home to our significant others waving this deformed mess at them, proudly exclaiming “look what I did today!!!”. No wonder non-knitters don’t get it!
This last swatch was for practicing seaming and buttonholes. I think one of the best “a-ha!” moments of the class was her tips on picking up stitches for a neckband. One simple modification to eliminate any gaps- it’s genious.

All in all, it was a great weekend spent with some great people. I am thrilled that I was able to meet a knitting legend like Sally, and wish her much success with future books and projects.


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red and blue

Things have been getting done around here, I promise. For some reason, though, every night around 8 or 9 pm I’ve been getting a headache and all I want to do is go to bed. I haven’t gotten as much accomplished as I would have liked, but here is some of what I’ve been doing:

I was commissioned to do the finishing work on this baby sweater that my mom’s manicurist knit. This is the sweater that (did I already blog this?) I had to go help her fix when she realized after finishing the two sleeves that she’d knit the cuffs with the larger needle, instead of the smaller one. So I showed her how to slip the stitches of one row onto a smaller needle and cut and unpick 1 row, then unravel the now-released cuff and reknit the cuff in the opposite direction. Anyways, she didn’t feel up to doing the finishing work, so she asked me to do it for her, and handed me the pattern and a bag with the fronts, back and sleeves. I sewed it up for her, and this is the result. It’s a really cute sweater, and it just needs a button to be all finished.
I’ve also been working on Jakob’s Cabled Cardigan lately, and to prove it, here are some progress photos. I keep meaning to block the pieces pre-seaming but I was going to do it after the first front and decided to wait until both were done, then I was going to do it after the first sleeve but am now waiting until both are done. Or I might not block it at all, until after the seaming is done. We’ll see. This photo shows the back, two fronts and 1 sleeve.


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more procrastination…

In keeping with my apparent fondness for throwing in extra projects even when I have deadlines, I present the 2 other projects that made up the 5 that I spent the last week on, instead of the stuff I should have been knitting.

Yannick’s cousins welcomed their second child Emily on Monday, and we were supposed to go to the hospital on Wednesday night to meet her. I couldn’t show up empty handed, especially after making/bringing something for their first-born (anyone remember Elodie’s Sweater and Booties?).

I grabbed some stash yarn and cast on for the Child’s Placket Neck Pullover (Ravelry link) Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. I know that when I’d knit it for Jakob, it had only taken me 8 hours, so with 2 evenings ahead of me, I should have been able to finish a sweater for Emily.

I didn’t do a gauge swatch because I figured it was for a baby…if it didn’t fit her at a year it would fit her at 6 months, or 18 months. Ahem. I *should* have knit a swatch, because after I cast on the number of stitches for the 1 year size and finished the 8 rows of seed stitch border, well, it was big enough to fit me!

That got promptly ripped back. Unfortunately it was now about 9 pm on Monday, leaving me with only another hour or so to knit before bed, and then Tuesday night to make something for Elodie so she wouldn’t feel left out. I had to find something quick. I found it in the Blanket Buddy pattern from Lionbrand. It is a pattern that you can either knit or crochet, and after browsing the Ravelry archives for a bit, I decided I liked the crochet version better. Plus, crochet is faster than knitting (although it does take more yarn), so I knew I had a better chance of getting it done on time.

It came out perfect, with one small flaw. It’s small. It’s supposed to be about 17″ long. Mine? Maybe 8″. I switched yarns and instead of using a bulky yarn I used a dk-weight yarn. I didn’t feel like fussing with the pattern (although it is really easy to make it whatever size you want) so I left it as is.
Here’s a bad photo of it with Jakob to give you an idea of it’s actual size.

I figure that it’s being given to an infant. She’s tiny, so her little toy can be tiny. Who knows…maybe she’ll end up loving it and it will be the “doodoo” that she carries around until she’s 18?

As I mentioned I wanted to give something to Elodie as well so she wouldn’t feel jealous of the attention (and gifts) that the new baby was getting.

After some debate between knitting anothe cupcake, another bunny or another swatch bunny, the cupcake won. Both bunnies only take about an hour or two of knitting, but they each have quite a bit of seaming. The cupcake takes under an hour to knit and really only has 4 ends to weave in once you’re done.

This time I followed the pattern exactly as written. I won’t do that again. There’s nothing *wrong* with the pattern, but my (and Yannick’s) mental image of a cupcake has some overhang where the top meets the base. We’re probably influenced by our love of muffins, and we freely admit that. Regardless…we like my variation on the cupcake better, so when I knit more of these (“when”, not “if”) I will continue to use my increase/decrease rounds in the icing section.

On Wednesday night we found out that they were leaving the hospital in the morning to go home, so instead of running down there we made plans to go see them and their home this weekend. With my now-free time I sat down to knit and by the time the CSIs in New York had caught Suspect X, I had finished all 4 of my swatches for the Sally Melville workshop this weekend.
Yup, I’ll be spending the weekend learning from Mrs. Knit Stitch and Purl Stitch herself. Is it cheesy if I bring my books for her to sign?