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SP12 QOTW

I’m rushing this post because I’m leaving work in 7 minutes and want to take advantage of a few Jakob-free moments at home (he spent the day at my mom’s) to tidy up before my Aquafit class, so there are no photos, just a quick answer to the latest Question of the Week:

Boy, time flies. Summer is when many of us head out on vacation/holiday. So, this week’s question/s has us wondering:
1) Where is your favorite place to go for vacation/holiday?
Hmm…I don’t know, I don’t get to take summer holidays anymore. I think those days ended when I neared the end of school and worked part- or full-time. Another sucky answer, but I really don’t have a favorite holiday spot.

2) Where is one place you’d like to go?
I’d love to travel across Canada, preferably by train.


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how it all went together

1 bridal shower + 14 days = 14 knitted and crocheted items. Not bad, huh?

If you’ve been following along then you’ve seen all this, but to recap:

top row- 4 Ballband Dishcloths (Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in White with Red, Rose Pink, Sage Green and Hot Orange)

middle row- Puffalump Limbo Line Facecloth (Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in French Blue), 2 Mug Cozies (Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in Jewels and Delft Blue), and Velvet Oblivion (Lion Brand Chenille Thick ‘n Quick in Wine and Bernat Boa in Raven)

bottom row- 2 Reverse-Bloom Washcloths (Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in Playtime with Hot Orange, and Summer Splash with Banana Yellow), Back Scrubber, Soap Saver Bag and Bath Puff (Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in White and Navy, and Bernat Handicrafter Cotton Holidays Sparkle in White Sparkle), Calorimetry (Bernat Satin in Florals)

Here’s how I put it all together as a coheisive basket. It was a “time” themed shower, and my time was 9:00am. I decided to put together a gift basket with a little package for 9:00am at every day of the week. I wrapped each day’s package seperately, and printed a label with the name of the day, and wrote a little message on the back of each label with a hint at the contents. The bride-to-be’s mother has her own handcrafting business, and the bride-to-be herself always comments on the stuff I make (not on the blog, in person), so I hoped I was safe in assuming that she would appreciate handmade items as a part of her gift.

Monday’s package:

To start the week off on a sweet note- Tim Hortons Hot Chocolate (a favorite in their household) and a mug with a mug cozy).

Tuesday’s package:

To take care of the dishes from the weekend- some dishwashing detergent and matching dishcloths.

Wednesday’s package:

To celebrate making it halfway through the week- French Vanilla Cappuccino from Tim Hortons (another one of their faves- and mine too!) and another mug with a cozy, this one purples (the bride’s favorite color).

Thursday’s package:

How do the dishes multiply so fast? More dishwashing detergent (in purple!) and matching cloths.

Friday’s package:

To remove some of the stress from the week- a facial set. Calorimetry to hold her hair back, exfoliating face scrub and face wash, and a face cloth. (By the way, yes, I know Calorimetry is supposed to be a headwarmer for Wintertime…but I like it as a headband).

Saturday’s package:

A kit to luxuriate in a long shower, get ready for the weekend, and pamper herself. Dove Go Fresh Soap and Body Wash, an exfoliating body wash, the bath puff, back scrubber and soap saver, plus an apothecary sampler kit I got her with an assortment of creams and lotions in a mix of scents.

Sunday’s package:

Hehehe. Sunday’s package is for 9:00am Sunday mornings, when her husband will be home with her…velvet oblivion, a massager and some vanilla-scented massage oil. The 302 Calories edible thong was supposed to go in this package too. ;]

I wrapped each package up in its own colored tissue (the background you see behind each collection of items, above), and when I was finally done wrapping, I had 7 little packages all lined up on the couch.
Ever trying to be practical, Yannick had been at Zellers that morning and picked me up a laundry basket to put it all in.
A quick “9:00am” label for the top (we were asked to mark our gifts with the assigned time) and I was done. At 2:35pm. Not bad for 2 weeks’ worth of work!


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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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share the love

I do have some knitting to show you, but I was too lazy busy to download them from my camera so they’ll have to wait. In the meantime, I won a contest! The lovely and talented Tara had a contest to celebrate her birthday, and I won. I think this is the first blog-contest I’ve won since I started mine.

Her kids are sick today, so as a small thank-you for the contest win, I’m asking if you could go over and send her some feel-better love in the comments.


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SP12 QOTW

The “perfect sized” stash was a tough question for many of you to answer. Maybe these stash related questions will be easier:
1) What yarn (that you don’t have/haven’t used) would make your stash “complete”?
2) What yarn do you never want to be without?

Hmm…these are harder! Let’s see…

1) I don’t know! There are a ton of yarns I haven’t used/don’t have…but I can’t think of anything I’m lacking. The only way I can answer this is to say I wish I had more sweater-quantities of yarn in my stash. I know it doesn’t answer the question exactly, but I honestly can’t think of any particular brand/fiber/color/whatever that would be my Jerry Maguire.

2) Sock yarn. It works for socks, for fine projects, for baby clothes, for accessories, lace items…plus you can double it to get a different gauge. Give me a variety of fiber contents and I think I’ll be set for almost anything.


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introducing…Phlox Socks

It’s July 1st, and with that comes two things…

1) It’s Canada Day! (Happy Canada Day)

2) I get to show you the Phlox Socks. So…ta da!

(size small shown above, size x-large shown below)
The Phlox Socks are the pattern I designed for the Robyn’s Nest June Sock Club kit. They feature an optional lace cuff, a flower appliqué with a center bead, a short-row heel and ribbing that flows seamlessly into the lace design. (The ribbing is underneath the lace cuff- so you have the pretty outside and the functional inside).
The pattern is written for sizes small through x-large (7.5″-9″) but due to the stretchability of lace patterns, fits 8.25″-9.75″ and may even fit larger.
The yarn is from Biscotte & Cie (etsy shop here) and is really soft, plus her yardage can’t be beat! I knit one x-large sock and one small, and have enough yarn left over to knit a second x-large sock for a complete pair. The colorway is called Alexandrite in the pattern, but that specific color was exclusive to the sock club.
The pattern calls for a 2.5 mm needle, and is written for both dpns and the Magic Loop method, with specific instructions for each methods when necessary.

(optional flower appliqué with center bead)

Again, the pattern will only be available for sale as of October 1st, but if you email me (or send me a message through Ravelry) I’ll put you on the mailing list with a reminder in October.


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and then there were four…

Yes folks, another dishcloth has sprung forth from my needles. I feel like all I’ve done all week is knit ballband dishcloths- you’d almost never have known that I had my mom’s retirement dinner on Wednesday, went to the West Island knitting meetup on Thursday, went for dinner with Yannick, Jakob, Maaike and her daughter on Friday…well, you *would* have known about that stuff if I’d posted better over the week. Sorry!

Friday after dinner Maaike and her daughter came over, and once the kids were in bed we popped in Meet the Spartans on DVD and knit and laughed. (Nothing is better than Kevin Sorbo’s “whee” after a particularily amusing skipping dance to I Will Survive!) I cast on for this dishcloth and got through about half before going up to bed. Saturday I had off, so I managed to finish the cloth during Jakob’s afternoon nap, while we watched Walk Hard. (It was cute, but Meet the Spartans was laugh-out-loud funnier).

Same pattern, same yarns, different color. All the details are already up on Ravelry, but I’ll post them here once the full gift basket is complete.
Depending on how much time I have by Saturday, this 4 will be matched with 4 others. If I really run out of time, I’ll split these 4 up into the two parts of the gift that I wanted to have dishcloths.
We’d rented 2 more movies when returning the first 2, so Saturday night I got more knitting done during Beowulf. It was much more entertaining than I’d remembered from reading it in university…although I’d read the early English, 11th century (or whatever) version, not a funky modern version with a smoking-hot Grendel’s mother and some major storyline changes. It was an odd feeling to keep thinking I was watching an extended cut-scene in a videogame, but it was a good movie, all and all.

I took the time to fix and finish Velvet Oblivion. First I made a small cut and unpicked the joining round of the black Boa border. Once it was detatched I made sure that the mask itself wasn’t cupping- it wasn’t. It was huge, but relatively flat. Good. Next I picked up over double the amount of stitches I’d picked up the first time. Instead of following the pattern, I picked up stitches as frequently as I could around. I knit 1 extra row with the Boa to add a little extra depth of the border since my mask was so much bigger than the finished size of the actual pattern. Once that was done I bound off with my fingers crossed. It worked- there was no more cupping.
I haven’t unpacked my black elastic I’d bought for this project years ago, and wanted to finish the pattern without waiting until the next day to run out to the store. I was afraid to attach a single tie and have the mask gape at the outside of the eyes or down on the cheeks, so I came up with (what I think is) a good idea. I took a really looooong length of yarn and folded it in half. I tied a knot about 7″ down from the fold, leaving a skinny loop. I left that loop to be the tie, and sewed each of the other ends in a V shape to one side of the mask. I repeated it on the other side, and when I was done I had a mask that held nicely over the temple and near the cheek, with ties that joined together near the back of the head, with the loop after the knot being the length to tie the bow with. (Clear as mud?) The reason I’d tied the yarn in half before attaching it to the mask, as opposed to just tying lengths to each side, is so there would be no cut end of the yarn exposed that could fray over time. The yarn itself could wear out, but I think it would take longer than a cut end.


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SP12 QOTW

Question of the Week #3
So far we’ve had a lot of fun with “summer related” questions, now it’s time to answer a “knitting related” one.What would you consider the perfect amount of stash?

Oy. I guess the perfect amount of stash is having whatever you need on hand for any spur-of-the-moment, birth-announcement, gift-idea, sweater-quantity project you might decide to do. Realistic, right?


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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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yet more dishcloths

On Tuesday night I finished the green & white dishcloth.
You can see there is 1 tiny mistake where I forgot to slip the white stitch and accidentally knit it- but I like leaving a mistake in every project (except commissioned ones), so I’m not going to fix it.
The back is pretty, in its own way. I wouldn’t knit a sweater like this…but it’s not horrible.

The same night I cast on for a pink & white one.
I finished it tonight at the West Island Knits meetup.
I couldn’t get any knitting done last night because we had my mom’s retirement dinner. It was a lovely night with good food and some really great speeches, but I was zonked by the time I got home, and after chatting with my friend Debbie (who had babysat for us) I just crashed and went right to bed.

I’m going to do one more in orange and white (so they all can clash, lol) then will move on to some other parts of this gift package. Then, if I have time before the party, I will do a few more of these in other colors.
I have a CRAZY story to share, but it is a long post and I’m wiped, so I will head off to bed, and leave you in suspense until tomorrow…