it's a start

Thanks to Jane Patrick's DVD "Weaving on a Rigid Heddle Loom" I've managed to warp the loom and get started with weaving. Probably I should have waited until my birthday - the loom is a birthday gift after all - but waiting is not my strong suit.

I don't have a warping peg yet but Gavin says he'll put one together for me from an old broomstick and wood scraps in the garage. That'll be a big help. This afternoon I set a wine bottle on the floor about five feet past the loom and used that. It wasn't entirely ideal. I pulled it over TWICE and had to untangle all the loops and repeg them. AND my resulting warp was somewhat uneven.

Right now I have one stick shuttle but that's not enough either ... especially not if I'm going to weave stripes and plaid. Hopefully there are some more wood scraps in the garage that can be made into additional shuttles.

Enough complaining ... it's amazing to me that after an hour or so of weaving I can already see dramatic improvement in my edges. Even Gavin was impressed. Fennel green weft next for eight picks. See? I'm getting the lingo down too!

a field trip

Since I had to head downtown today for an appointment with the eye doctor, I figured I may as well check out a new yarn store that's a 15 minute walk from the doctor's office. It's called EweKnit and it's situated in the main floor of an old house in Mirvish Village. I'm so glad I did because it's lovely.

The rooms are very bright, spacious and everywhere you look ... gorgeous yarn. It was almost overwhelming, especially when faced with an entire wall of Koigu! Wow! Alongside the Malabrigo and Misty Alpaca hang skeins of Sweet Georgia yarns, and my goodness are there some beautiful colourways! If I could have settled for just one or two, some of that would definitely have fallen into my shopping basket, but in the end I just couldn't decide. Spoiled for choice.

Instead I stuck to plan and picked up 5 skeins of a DK weight yarn - Berroco Vintage, a reasonably inexpensive wool/acrylic blend. Tomorrow I'm picking up a new-to-me Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom and I wanted yarn with enough wool content to be stretchy and forgiving for my first attempts, but not expensive in case the first attempts are disastrous. The loom is an early birthday present, with thanks to Gavin. Over the last few days I've been watching YouTube videos to prepare but I'm so not prepared. I've ordered the book Weaving Made Easy  - it got the best all round reviews from what I could see. My plan is to warp something up and see what happens. Wish me luck.

Now if only I could figure out some way to make it to knit nights at EweKnit. The atmosphere of the shop is so charming and relaxing ... I really can't wait to go back.

Year of Projects: Helgi's Mittens 02

Folk Knitting in Estonia: Aino's Gloves • Anu's Christmas Gloves • Anu's Mittens • Anu's Stockings • Avo's Mittens • Ellen's Stockings • Helgi's Mittens • Hilja's Mittens • Ilmar's Socks • Juta's Stockings • Kalev's Mittens • Kristi's Mittens • Laila's Socks • Landra's Gloves • Liidia's Gloves • Liivi's Stockings • Maarja's Socks • Maimu's Mittens • Marko's Mittens • Meida's Mittens • Merike's Gloves • Rita's Stockings • Sander's Mittens • Tiit's Socks • Ulla's Gloves • Virve's Stockings

I'm finally getting somewhere with Helgi's Mittens. The first mitten is mostly done; it's just awaiting its thumb. Thanks to a day spent babysitting, I finally had an opportunity to knit for a few hours. Tomorrow I'm taking the car in for a service, and Tuesday I'm taking the train downtown for an eye doctor appointment, so there'll be several more hours of knitting time in the not so distant future. I'm hoping to finish these up by the end of the week. They're going to need a vigorous blocking though - the top shaping looks particularly bumpy.

After the first pattern repeat I was iffy about the colour combination but on Wednesday readers left lots of positive feedback in their comments. Buoyed by that I carried on and now I'm glad I did. There sure isn't much contrast but the pattern is clear enough. And when I step back to look at the first mitt "Groovy Baby" à la Austin Powers pops into my head.

The second of Merike's Gloves is still in time-out, but I'm starting to feel little twinges of motivation. I expect I'll have the stitches off scrap yarn and back on needles by the end of the week as well. I'd dearly love to promise to finish these for next week's update but maybe that's too optimistic. I'm a terrible one for underestimating what's involved in things. Is that common amongst hand crafters? Maybe. If you ever sit down to calculate the number of stitches in a pair of socks or a shawl it does make you wonder why we do it, doesn't it?

Care to knit a square?

Care to knit a square? That's the question that Kelli Ann posed in a Ravelry forum ...

J’aimerais demander à mes amis qui savent tricoter, de fabriquer ensemble une couverture en laine. Le patron ne demande que la base du tricot (tricot à 5 aiguilles en rond, point à l’endroit, augmentations dans les coins) et une petite quantité de laine à chaussettes belle et douce… Ensemble, nous pouvons assembles nos carrées en un ‘patchwork’ qui peut être mis en vitrine et fera l’objet d’un tirage au profit de la Société Canadienne du Cancer.

I’d like to ask my knitting friends to help me make a blanket, one that requires a basic knowledge of knitting (technique with 5 needles, with increases) and a small amount of soft, quality sock yarn. Together, we can sew up our separate squares and produce a lovely ‘patchwork’ that can be displayed here in town and raffled off to benefit the Canadian Cancer Society.

I've knit three squares. The first was knit with MCN from Zarzuela's Fibers. I've named this square Hurricane Sandy, because I was knitting while watching tracking the storm through TV coverage, and because of the swirling blues. The second was knit from 100% Merino from Shelridge Farms. This square is named "Through the dark Spruce" a take-off of the name of an award-winning Canadian novel because of the forest-y colours. For the final square, "Easter Parade", I tried out the pattern with some self patterning sock yarn.

The square is from the book Knitalong and to be honest I wasn't too sure about the pattern when I started these. The square begins by casting on 12 sts and then increasing from there but that leaves a noticeable hole. Fortunately that hole is easily closed when weaving in the first yarn tail. The outside edges of the square curl but that will resolve itself once the squares are assembled into the blanket. The centre of the square puffs out a bit after knitting but the square flattened out quite readily with blocking. I thought I'd better wash and block these just to make sure all the dyes were colourfast; wouldn't it be a nightmare if one of them ran and ruined an entire assembled quilt?!

Mostly I'm glad they're done; they'll be in the mail tomorrow. Lately things have been several notches past hectic and I've been feeling a lot of pressure. My focus over the coming days and weeks is to finish the things I've already started and get to work on the things I've already committed to. Well, that and to say "no" to every new project - no matter how tempting - from now until Christmas. Wish me luck; this is not something I've ever succeeded at before.

Work-in-Progress Wednesday

After a disastrous weekend of ripping out everything I knit, a couple of simple squares looked like the safest thing to attempt.  A few weeks ago I committed to knitting a couple of squares for a Barn Raising Quilt to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society. It's a very easy pattern, and with very little effort I've knit the first in a variegated blue and made a good start on the second. If you're interested in the KAL there's more information here.

And after ripping out my first attempt at Helgi's Mitts, I've made a new start now using periwinkle blue for the main colour and royal purple for the contrast colour. The resulting pattern in the knitted fabric is much more subtle than it would be if knit in black and white as suggested by the pattern, but I prefer it. Besides, I'm determined to knit from stash yarns (and preferably from superwash baby yarn) so my colour choices are limited by what I have on hand. What do you think? Are the colours okay? Because if these don't work, the next plan would see white paired with the periwinkle blue.

There are a couple more wips scattered around my dining room. After ripping back on Saturday, Merike's Gloves remain in time-out until I feel a little less defeated by them. My third dishcloth cotton shelf liner is also awaiting my attention; I'll get back to that once I clean up some of these other projects.

It's Wednesday, so you know what to do! Go, check out all the links at Tami's Amis.

Year of Projects: Helgi's Mitts 01

Folk Knitting in Estonia: Aino's Gloves • Anu's Christmas Gloves • Anu's Mittens • Anu's Stockings • Avo's Mittens • Ellen's Stockings • Helgi's Mittens • Hilja's Mittens • Ilmar's Socks • Juta's Stockings • Kalev's Mittens • Kristi's Mittens • Laila's Socks • Landra's Gloves • Liidia's Gloves • Liivi's Stockings • Maarja's Socks • Maimu's Mittens • Marko's Mittens • Meida's Mittens • Merike's Gloves • Rita's Stockings • Sander's Mittens • Tiit's Socks • Ulla's Gloves • Virve's Stockings

I hoped to show you a finished pic of Merike's Gloves but when I laid the right glove along side the left to compare the length of the index fingers I saw a mistake three fingers and several rows back. RIP!

With the gloves in time-out I then hoped to show you a good start on Helgi's Mittens. But my choice of yarns is no good - the variegated yarn is getting lost in the solid purple and the pattern is disappearing. RIP!

I'm almost afraid to try anything else today. Thank goodness Juta's Stockings were knit without incident. (The finished object post is here, if you missed it.) My plan for the rest of the evening is to put all knitting aside, grab my eReader and curl up in bed. Tomorrow is another day.

Don't get me wrong; aside from these knitting fails today was a very good day. Nancy and I went to a Fall Fibres show put on by the Guelph Guild of Handweavers and Spinners. Really enjoyable! Big thanks to Brenda Franklin for her very thorough demonstration of weaving with a rigid heddle loom and another lady who demonstrated bobbin lace techniques to us.

Surmount The Stash November Update

Some months it's hard to evaluate my progress to Surmount the Stash. This month I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped, but there is some progress.

Monthly budget of $50 for all knitting related expenses: In October I scooped up 2 balls of red acrylic DK from the clearance room at Mary Maxim for a whopping $1.99 each. Including tax, my total spending was under $5.

A week ago I came across a post on Ravelry about a KAL to make a Barn Raising Quilt for the Canadian Cancer Society. The pattern is not available online, and I wasn't sure I wanted to splash out for the book but I quickly realized that the book was available from the library. That made me feel very thrifty :)

Manage my WIPs: My Smitten Advent calendar is finally done and I'm busy scouting little surprises to fill each of the 24 little stockings. It's pretty fun. I also knit two pairs of socks, I'm a quarter of the way through my secret Christmas knitting, and I'm hoping to show a finished pair of gloves for my Year of Projects post on Sunday. Two years ago I knit a shelf liner for a friend from dishcloth cotton and had planned to knit two more. This morning I can report that the second is done, and the third is well underway.

Plan projects to work through my inventory of yarns in my Stash: I started the year with 1350 grams of dishcloth cotton and by the end of next week that total should be down to about 350 grams. That's about 75% of that stash knit!  I have some ideas about a new dishcloth design so a portion of the remaining yarn will go to that.

In the next few weeks I also plan to make two squares for the KAL - there are a couple of sock yarns whose variegation have defied all my pattern choices so I think they'll be perfect for this. And once that's done - and once my secret Christmas knitting is done - it's socks and Year of Projects knitting for the rest of the year. Sounds like I can still make inroads into the fingering weight stash!