Way back last summer, Gryphon of the Sanguine Gryphon visited me at our cottage. While she was there we were chatting and knitting and chatting some more. Among other things we were chatting about my next book, and Gryphon graciously offered some yarn support. Some of that yarn was the lovely red Eidos seen in my last post.
Fast forward to October and Rhinebeck, and more particularly the week after Rhinebeck, and you’ll recall that the Sanguine Gryphon announced that it was splitting into two separate companies – the Verdant Gryphon and Cephalopod Yarns. Since both Gryphon and Sarah are such wonderful dyers, it seemed like a great idea to try to include yarn from both of their new companies in my upcoming book. Sarah and I started discussing green. I was looking for a nice cedar green for one of the shawls and Sarah asked me to take a picture of what I had in mind.
This is what I sent her as a starting point (and asked her ever so kindly to overlook the dead orange parts on my cedar trees).
And this is what she came up with.
Allowing for the poor lighting in the first shot, it’s absolutely perfect. So…… now that I’ve finished the red shawl in Eidos from the Verdany Gryphon, the next design is green Skinny Bugga! from Cephalopod Yarns. And given all the cold, white snow we have outdoors, green is just what I need to feel that spring is around the corner (who am I kidding? It will be another 3 months….. Still, if I can fool myself into thinking it’s soon, that’s wonderful).
The first shawl design of the year is completed. While we were snowed in yesterday, I managed to finish knitting one of the shawls for my upcoming book. I really do know that knitting faster does NOT generally prevent me from running out of yarn, but it seemed to work this time. When all was said and done, all that was left of my two skeins of Eidos was this:
Phew!
Well….. it is January, and we do live in Ottawa, so snow is to be expected.
Today, however, we are expecting a winter storm – apparently heavy snow (20 cm) followed by freezing rain. So the school buses are cancelled (to the delight of the children) and we are staying home today. We’ve already lost power once, but it came back reasonably quickly. I’m planning on staying in front of the fire place and finish up two of my knitting projects.
One is the red shawl in Eidos that I was talking about last time, and then the last pair of fingerless mittens from the Seven Fingerless Mittens collection is just about complete. Should be ready to release soon. Maybe I’ll be able to get some good pictures today, if it doesn’t snow too much.
Happy New Year everyone. I hope 2012 will be a wonderful year for all of you.
I ended the year with a lot of knitting, so it may take me a little while to catch up. At the end of November I released the sixth pattern in the Seven Fingerless Mittens collection – Zenwald.
Zenwald is designed to be knit with variegated sock yarn. The design itself is relatively simple in order to let the yarn shine. This particular version is knit in Shepherds Sock! from Lorna’s Laces, and is a deep forest green mixed with blacks.
They are a fun knit, and quite versatile. So much that when my son asked for some fingerless mittens for Christmas (four days before Christmas, to be exact), I knew just what to make. I did modify them a bit for him, since he’s only 8, and his hands are (naturally) a lot smaller than mine. On top of that, he requested “no fingers”, as in gauntlet style. So instead of knitting half-fingers like I did for mine, I just continued the hand a little longer, and then worked a few rows of garter stitch prior to bind-off.
I did manage to finish them on time – on Christmas eve, only minutes before our guests arrived. So….. perfect timing. They have been much appreciated and worn already. But then yesterday it got really cold (-23C), so he might have to wait for a while until he can wear them again.
Aside from that, the La Toupie KAL officially started on January 1. I’ve already seen a bunch of pretty pictures of shawls in progress and am looking forward to many more over time. 
Me, I started the year with a new design using Eidos from the Verdant Gryphon. Eidos is lovely as always, and the colour is one of my favourites – deep red (Charybdis, for those who really want to know). It’s one of the designs for the new book, so I can’t show too much.
The book is coming along slowly but surely, and more than half of the designs are complete and just waiting for the rest to join them.
Well, fingerless gloves, double-knitting and lace just about sums it up, I think. You’ll see more of everything in 2012. All the best!
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