My Stained Glass Window Tiles are coming along nicely. I have 12 (actually almost 13) completed tiles so far, and I like them all. It is such a cheerful explosion of colour.
I can’t get enough of knitting these little tiles. Which is probably a good thing, because I still need to make a LOT more in order for this to turn into a reasonably sized afghan.
Unless I run out of yarn, I think this will be my travel project for this weekend. Natalie Servant and I are going to the Knitters Frolic in Toronto on Saturday. The plan is to drive down on Friday and return on Sunday. I’m really looking forward to going, and meeting lots of people – including the fabulous Hasmi of Rocky Mountain Dyeworks. Two of the patterns in my upcoming book – Shaping Shawls – are knit with her yarn. And we have a wonderful project planned for the fall. I’ll be helping her set up for the show, and will get to play with all her yarn up close.
I’m also planning on starting (or rather, restarting) another shawl in Orihime from Spirit-Trail Fiberworks. My original plan just didn’t work out to my satisfaction, so back to the drawing board it is. With any luck, I’ll be able to bring this on the trip as well. Surely you don’t expect me to go to Toronto with only one project in my bag? 
If anyone will be at the Knitters Frolic this Saturday – give me a shout. I’d love to meet up somewhere.
I have spent the past week playing with some of the lovely colours I received from Cindy at Apple Laine, and it’s been a lot of fun. I’ve made a number of little squares, each combining two colours. The little squares remind me of colourful stained glass windows.
Each little square is unique, but they all share some design features and they are all the same size. Can you imagine all these little squares sewn together into a blanket, showing off all the amazing colours at Apple Laine? I think it would be spectacular.
Each square is about 5″ x 5″ (13 x 13 cm) and uses about 14 g or yarn total – that is 7 g (22 m / 24 yds) of each colour. So it’s also an excellent way to use up leftover fingering weight yarn from sock knitting.
I’ve been plotting and scheming for a new double-knitting project, and have been eying the delightful Apple Pie yarn from Apple Laine for a while. The colours are amazing and the yarn is soft, yet strong (and for some reason I think it smells lovely too). I’ve used Apple Pie for a design in the past – Blackheart – and also for some socks, and my Faux Russian Stole, quite some time ago. Anyway, Cindy kindly offered to send me some colours to play with, to pick the perfect colour combination, and the package arrived yesterday.
I opened it and nearly fell over when I saw this collection of yarny goodness.
Look at all those colours! I’m overwhelmed and don’t even know where to start.
Probably somewhere near this end:
I’ve been checking out a few different combinations by holding the skeins up against each other, and I think I’ll be casting on with these two first:
The shawl I’ve been working on in Land O Lace Krissy is finished and blocked, although as usual I have no pictures to share until the pattern is released. I can say, however, that I really love how it turned out. You’ll see it soon enough, as the third instalment in the Folk Song KAL. For the third and final folk song, we’ll be visiting Norway for another one of my absolute favourite songs – but more about that later.
I ended up using about 400 yds / 35 g of lace weight yarn, but the shawl can easily be made both larger and smaller. The yarn is delightful – light and airy, and with a soft halo (which I just adore), and the colour really glows. I used 3.5 mm needles, which worked well with the lace weight yarn.
The next shawl design has been started. Today I’ve been casting on (and casting on, and casting on). I ran into some bad luck when my cable separated from the join on my KnitPicks Harmony needles. I lost 40-50 stitches – unrecoverably. But I backtracked, jammed the cable in temporarily, finished casting on, and then switched to a different cable on my first row.
KnitPicks has been fabulous in the past about replacing faulty needles/cables, so I’m sure it won’t be a problem to replace this one as well. I just have to remember to phone them tomorrow.
Anyhow, for this shawl, I’m using Classic Merino Lace from Knitting Notions in the colour Dark Rose. Catherine was ever so kind to send me some a little while back for this design and I’ve been really looking forward to using it. The colour is a muted antique rose – gorgeous, and quite different form the other colours I’ve been knitting with recently.
I’ve also made some progress on my next pair of fingerless mittens. These ones are knit using ShaSha from Land O Lace. The colour is called Grant, and is a very subtle gray/lilac/denim colour. It looks really classy, and I wanted to design a pair of mittens as classy and understated as this wonderful yarn. ShaSha is a light fingering weight yarn, and the gauge is significantly smaller than that for the previous fingerless mittens in the collection. Relaxed and unstretched, I’m getting about 9.5 SPI, but it stretches easily to 7.5/8 SPI when worn.
The fine gauge looks so nice, and the cable pattern is really delicate. I can’t wait to finish so that I can show some real pictures. This is just a quickie shot while I was working on it.
As usual on Thursday, I had a chance to knit with the lovely ladies at the Manotick French Café while enjoying some tea and a bagel. I was working on these mittens. Additionally there was the lacy cardigan, for which the front is just about completed. And the entrelac afghan which has changed colours since last week – the blue and yellow of last week have been replaced with more muted navy and pale yellow. While it is discouraging to start over, I have to say that this new colour combination is even better than the previous one….. so I’m sure the final result will be better for it.
I have been wanting to share these projects with you for quite some time, and now I’m finally allowed to do so. The upcoming Fresh Design Series with Cooperative Press will feature two of my designs.
One of my designs is of course a lace shawl. This is a stole knit in scrumptious Cashmere Silk from Lisa Souza in Garnet – yet another amazing, deep wine-red. I did say I have a thing for this colour, right? The pattern is tentatively called Sea of Tulips and is knit on the bias (from corner to corner) to tilt the tulip-motifs in the centre of the shawl.
My second design is a pair of double-knit mittens, featuring some Norse motifs – I call them my Norse Mitts. They can be worn either this way or inside-out. The colour of the motifs is reversed on the inside. Like this:
They are also knit in yarn from Lisa Souza – this time in a light fingering yarn called Sock! in Ice Ice Baby and St. Valentine.
This has been a busy and productive week for me. I published the Capillary pattern – part of the Seven Fingerless Mittens collection – on Monday.
Then on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I made numerous trips to the UPS store to ship off all my samples for my upcoming book with Cooperative Press. Obviously I’m extremely nervous about sending off these samples, as they represent many months of hard work, and should they get lost in the mail I don’t even know what I’d do. So far, 3 shawls have arrived safely to the publisher and the remaining ones should show up on Monday or Tuesday. I will sleep better when they do.
For a while there, this is what all my hard work looked like:
Etcetera.
There were many packages like that all over my dining room table. Exciting to see. I’m sure it will be even more exciting once the official photoshoot has taken place and the pictures can be put in the book.
In other exciting news, like I mentioned the other day, a Kickstart campaign was launched on Thursday for the upcoming Fresh Design Series with Cooperative Press. The Fresh Design series is a set of 10 books with collections of patterns, like Shawls, Sweaters, Mittens, Scarves, etc. I think there are about 10 patterns in each book – so 100 brand new patterns. Two of the patterns in the series are mine, and both of them feature in the little video on the Kickstart page. It’s really nice to see so many lovely pictures. The campaign has only been running for 3 days, and has already raised $3,000+.
Aside from that, I’ve also been knitting away on the orange shawl I started last week at the café. This Friday I went back and spent a lovely morning knitting with friends and drinking tea. The shawl is getting close to done, and I might actually even bind off today, if things go as planned.
I love this colour. It almost looks like it’s glowing. It’s Krissy lace yarn from Land-O-Lace in Waconia.
The other projects were fun to look at, as usual. The entrelac swatch from last week had been finished, and an entrelac afghan was in progress. And instead of working on the lace sweater, Fiona was spinning with a drop-spindle while we were there. Spinning sure does look like a lot of fun, but I really can’t try. I just don’t have time for another addiction.
Once I finish my lace shawl, I’ll be casting on for another pair of fingerless mittens. I have the design all figured out, I just have to actually knit them. Can’t show to much yet, since I haven’t even cast on, but they will be knit in this lovely fingering weight yarn from Land-O-Lace.
Cooperative Press is kicking off a Kickstarter campaign during the month of April to help bring the Fresh Designs series to market faster. These books are a 10 book series featuring patterns by a number of different designers, myself included. If you would like to help, please visit Kickstarter and check it out. Two of the designs in the video are mine.
Be sure to check out the side-bar for the treats available with different levels of pledges. There are a bunch of really good things on offer.
The Capillary fingerless mittens are finished and have been released. They are also part of the Seven Fingerless Mittens collection. These were a fun knit, and a way for me to combine fingerless mittens with lace. The lace pattern is a wave-pattern that goes around the cuff and continues up on the back of the hand.
And while the cuffs are fancy all around, the palm is plain stockinette to make them more practical and wearable.
I used about 1/2 a skein of Skinny Bugga! from the Sanguine Gryphon for the medium size gloves, and had enough to make a small size as well. The colourway is Longhorned Beetle. I really like this colour – a dark, complex wine red. And the funny thing is that I noticed that it’s very similar to the colour I used for my Orchid View shawl – except that one was knit in Tush from Saffron Dyeworks.
It’s been a busy week as usual here. I’ve finished and blocked one shawl and written up the pattern – it won’t be out for a little while yet, but still – I’m happy to be able to cross that off my list.
I’ve also just about finished my Capillary fingerless gloves – just a few stray ends to sew in, and then I have to get some nice pictures taken. If only the weather will cooperate, I should be able to have that done over the weekend. The pattern is written and tested, so as soon as I have pictures, it’s ready to go.
I’m also making a second pair of the Capillary gloves in a smaller size, and as you can see, I’m about halfway done with the first glove. It’s exactly the same yarn and stitch-count, but a much tighter gauge.
Aside from knitting gloves, I also had the chance to go to the Ottawa Knitting Guild on Monday evening. The topic of the evening was gauge, and how one can adjust sweater patterns to different sizes by playing with gauge, plus the pitfalls to watch out for (e.g. even though you may be larger around your body than the pattern suggests doesn’t mean that your arms are necessarily a lot longer). Laurie’s presentation was both educational and funny, sprinkled with anecdotes of failed sweaters, and the path to the perfect fit.
And on Thursday I spent the morning knitting in a coffee shop – both fun and relaxing. The knitting itself was a little frustrating though, because I was casting on for a new lace shawl, and needed 300+ stitches. It took forever. But at least that’s done now. It was actually more fun to look at what the others were knitting – a lovely lace sweater, and an entrelac-sample.
Since yesterday morning, I’ve gotten a few rows into the project, and it’s definitely more fun to knit than to cast on. Knitted/cable cast ons are so much slower for me than long-tail, but they look so much nicer as a lace edge, so I guess it’s worth it.
The second shawl in the Folk Song KAL is based on a Canadian folk song from the Maritimes.
She’s like the swallow that flies so high
She’s like the river that never runs dry
She’s like the sunshine on the lee shore
I love my love and love is no more.
Twas out in the garden this fair maid did go
A-picking the beautiful prim-rose
The more she plucked, the more she pulled
Until she got her apron full.
It’s out of those roses she made a bed
A stony pillow for her head
She laid her down, no word she spoke
Until this fair maid’s heart was broke.
She’s like the swallow that flies so high
She’s like the river that never runs dry
She’s like the sunshine on the lee shore
I love my love and love is no more.
There are many versions of this song available on Youtube, if you search. I liked this one which is just an instrumental version (and not on Youtube).
Some versions have a few more verses, but these three (or four – however you want to count) are the first ones I heard, and the ones that have stayed with me.
As for the shawl pattern – it will be available on April 15. It’s knit out of two skeins of Perfection Sport from No Two Snowflakes in the very aptly named colourway Roses Fading Away. The yarn is sport-weight and contains 75% merino, 15% silk and 10% cashmere, for a soft and luxurious feel. 355 yds/4 oz skein, and you’ll need two skeins.
Recent Comments