Day 29 - Baby Things Going Well and Second Sock

Oooh, I really like making little person things! They work up SO fast! I just started this sweater and I have the back completed and now I've started the left front. This DK yarn (Patons Beehive Baby Sport) is a lovely soft yarn. Yeah, I know...acrylic but what new mother wants to have to wash stuff by hand? I actually want her to use the item so meh, it's acrylic. Well, it's actually 70% acrylic and 30% nylon.

Here's my progress thus far:



I was at Brenda's house knitting for a while and I said that I just realised I needed a button for this sweater. A few minutes later she disappeared for a while, I thought to change the laundry load but when she came back she had a big box of buttons. She has them all organised by colour! I thought I was the queen of AR when it comes to stuff like that! Awesome, she's just as bad as me :o)

I took a few different buttons and when the sweater is assembled, I'll see which one works best. Here are the ones we picked as possibilities for the sweater:




They're all very beautiful and I'm sure one will work.

The other night I finished my first Fleece Artist Sea Wool Sock that I was working on. It feels über nice! Here it is on my footy:



Yesterday I casted-on the second sock and got the top border done. I like to have a pair of socks on needles for traveling in the car. Socks are GREAT car projects.



Well, I think I'll go knit for a bit while I do some laundry and stuff. Have a great day!

BevKnits with your Daily Dose of Fibre

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Day 28 - Road Trips and Baby Things

Today was another Friday road trip on the search for some yarn. Brenda and her daughter Charlene and I headed out after morning coffee to Listowel, Ontario - The home of Bernat and The Yarn Factory Outlet It was a nice day, just around -6°C with grey skies, on the way back we met some pretty intense snow...you know the type with the big fat flakes.

I was on a quest for some yarn to make Dianna's grand baby a sweater. Charlene was on a quest for some Nifty Knitters so she can do some loom knitting with her young sons and Brenda wanted some yarn to make baby things as well.

We were able to find all of the things we wanted. We stopped at a nice little pub on the main road in Listowel called The Anchor and had a bit of lunch before we headed back.

Once home, I casted on the back of the sweater that Dianna picked in Ravelry. The pattern is Victoria Sweater with Lace Collar and Trim by Lisa A. Richardson. I got Patons Beehive Baby Sport yarn so it can be machine washed and it's very soft yarn. Pink for the main sweater and white for the lace trim.

Here is my progress as of blog time:



I'm making the smallest size and it's for a 12 month old but I do knit tight so it might be a wee bit smaller. The back is C/O 84 on 4.0mm and can you believe this? I DON'T have a 4.0mm circular long enough to do this. I had to use straight pins and it was really funny because we were talking about the different types of needles and which ones we preferred today and I said I prefer to work all flat items on circulars. HA! I cursed my own self. Oh well, it could have been worse. I could have not had a pair of 4.0mm straights.

More and more I see the advantage to interchangeable needles. I might just have to go back to Camilla Valley Farms and drool over their set of Addi-Turbo Interchangeables.

Well, everyone has gone to bed and it's just me an my old dog, Buddy, downstairs. I might knit a couple more rows before heading up the wooden hill to sleepy land so I'll see ya all tomorrow.

BevKnits with your Daily Dose of Fibre

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Day 27 - Old Project, New Photo

I was busy rearranging our house this week, that was the reason I was late on a couple of blogs but while I was moving stuff around, I discovered a project I did many years ago.

When I first had my kids, I was a big crafter. I'd do anything going. I crocheted for years, I tried macramé, ceramics, pottery, cross stitch, needlepoint, and of course, knitting. Back then in the mid 80s, there wasn't a lot of local places to buy yarn and supplies. We had Lewiscraft but they were limited in what you could get.

That's where Mary Maxim came in handy. I was working full-time and raising a family so I didn't have time to drive all over the place looking for supplies so I ordered kits through their mail order catalogue long before the Internet was around.

I wasn't very experienced in knitting and didn't know how to do any fancy stuff but I was able to get through a few projects. Unfortunately I don't have most of them nor do I have photos of them.

But what I did find when I was cleaning and rearranging this week was a vest I made for my eldest son who will be turning 25 in May. It's a horrible acrylic yarn but I think I did a fair job on it! I'd like to chart out the pattern and make another one now with good yarn and with the knitting knowledge that I have now! :o)

Here's some pictures that I took today of a vest made almost a quarter of a century ago.










Well, I decided to head up the wooden hill early tonight with my knitting bag in hand and furry beasts in tow. The dogs are snoring away in here and I'm knitting a bit on my Fleece Artist sock. I love the feel of the yarn and I can't wait to wear it.

Have a good night everyone and happy knitting!


BevKnits with your Daily Dose of Fibre

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Day 26 - The Weekday Breakfast Club and Knitting

Just let me start by saying I've written this blog post already and when I toggled the blog software to the background while I went to the Flickr App to look for a picture, I lost all my text!! Damn! I had a great blog post almost finished when this happened. My own fault! Save and Save Often! I need to heed my own words of advice! Oh well, live and learn and here we go again. :o)

I live in a rural community near to the village of Dundalk, Ontario. I'm on a farm about 8km from that small village so I don't really have neighbours. My son and his girl friend own the property closest to us and it's still a fair walk to their house. The only other neighbour that I can "see" is not worth even talking to :o( They are NOT nice people. So here I am out here in the middle of BFN with my four dogs and lots and lots of yarn. My hubby and sons work in the city and don't come home every day.

Because of this, I go into town most days to have coffee at the restaurant. It's not a very big place but it's nice and their coffee is decent and the wait staff is awesome! I need to go into town to talk to "humans" as I've always said. You can talk to dogs a lot but if they start answering you, you know you need to go talk to other peeps. :o)

We started this Breakfast Club thing a few years ago. My hubby and I would go to the local restaurant for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday and there we got to meet some people. We've carried on the Breakfast Club tradition for the last 8 years and have added a couple of more people along they way. There are 8 of us that are the "core" breakfast club people but others join us from time to time.

Brenda and I are two of the weekend Breakfast Club people that meet during the week as well. Recently, Debbie has found herself in a situation where she gets to come to weekday breakfast club too.

Last year, Debbie bought a ball of Sirdar Big Softie and just recently she finally found a set of 12mm needles that were required to do the pattern that they gave her at the store where she bought the yarn.

Yesterday, she brought the yarn, needles and pattern to breakfast and between Brenda and I, we got her cast-on and going on the scarf pattern she has. I only helped her cast-on, Brenda was beside her so she showed her the knit and purl stitches and then after a few rows of that, there was some K2Tog and YO to deal with. She did really well!!

Here's a couple of pictures of Debbie with her new scarf:






Look at that needle!! Holy! Looks like a broom handle! lol. But seriously, Debbie hasn't knit since she was a teenager so I'm totally impressed how well she picked it back up again. She also has a brand new baby grandson. Hopefully she'll get into it as much as we do and start knitting cute little boy things.

We also have a couple of new faces to join our Weekday Breakfast Club. Dianna and Andrea. Dianna crochets and has knit in the past and she picked up a bunch of yarn and started a knitted scarf last night. I can't believe her progress already! She has a ton done and I'm sure she'd have more done but ran out of one of the yarns she was using. Andrea is a crocheter. We got all the ladies to join Ravelry so now we should have more projects floating around soon.

Not to leave anyone out we also have Charlene, that's Brenda's younger daughter. She comes once in a while to Breakfast Club too. We'd like to see her more out there! Charlene is working on her first ever knit project, a scarf made with Bernat Jacquards in worsted weight.

Well now my blog is caught up to today. I've been busy around the house rearranging furniture and such and haven't been on the computer much at all this week. I'll try to be a better blogger, I promise :o)

Until later today,
BevKnits with your Daily Dose of Fibre

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Day 25 - Felting

My experience with felting is minimal, well...purposely felted items anyway. Who here hasn't accidentally felted a knit item before? A couple of years ago, I made a pair of mittens for my best friend, Meg. They were made with Debbie Bliss' Donegal Luxury Tweed Aran in this sage green colour that reminds me of her (My BFF Meg, not Debbie Bliss).

Here they are unfelted:




And here's a picture from after they were felted:




It was an awesome pattern called: Aran Felted Mittens #132 by Shirl the Purl of Cabin Fever.

I was not able to felt them myself as I don't have a top-loading washing machine so one of the people that works at the store I used to attend felted them for me.

I finished half of the Cable Felted Bag before Christmas and have the second half on a needle somewhere. I really need to pull that out and get it finished. I bought a bunch of Patons SWS - Soy Wool Stripes at the Bernat Factory Outlet sale last summer.

Here's a couple of pictures of half the bag:






I really like the colours in this colourway and the way SWS slowly shifts from one colour to the next. It's a lovely yarn to work with and feels nice on the hands. This is a UFO that I really want to get done before the spring.

I have other felt projects queued up to do like some slippers that I saw and fell in love with. I'm nervous about the sizing aspect of felting. I mean, it's not like after you knit the item, felt it...there is no size adjusting at that point!

I should find the socks I made with SWS when I first started sock knitting. I really really loved them. They accidentally got into the regular wash and got loaded in the machine and came out thick and small. They might make a pair of heavy sock type slippers for a small child.

Here's a picture of my SWS socks BEFORE they got accidentally felted:




Ciao for now!

BevKnits with your Daily Dose of Fibre

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Day 24 - Toys

I spent almost all day doing housework and laundry and did very little knitting. I did a few rows of the Fleece Artist sock but don't have much to report on there so I thought I'd show you some things I have made in the past.

Last year I gave in to the temptation and started to knit some toys. It's VERY addictive! The first pattern I did was of a little funny looking sheep. Then I did a giraffe and then I found Barbara Prime of Fuzzy Mitten and her patterns on Ravelry.

I LOVE her patterns. They are all so cute and reasonably priced. The only difference I did was I worked them all in the round and her patterns are all written to be worked in the flat and seamed together.

Here is Alice Alpaca in the purple heart sweater and Johnathan Livingston Lamb in the blue Filatura DiCrosa hoodie.


This is Harriet Hare in a Crofters DK Fair Isle Effects dress.





This is a pattern from Little Cotton Rabbits, called Oddment Hedgehog. Also available on Ravelry.


There are lots more toys that I've made and lots of different outfits and I'm going to get back into this soon but for now, I'm going to finish my sock. I'm going to relax for a bit and hit the hay early tonight so I can get the rest of the furniture moved around tomorrow.

Good night all.
BevKnits with your Daily Dose of Fibre.

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Day 23 - Kertzer Tweed Montage, What To Do?

This is the yarn I used on the Lofty Cable Mittens and the matching hat. I REALLY loved this yarn! It is lovely to work with and feel so soft. And it contains 56% real wool so it's WAAARM. So the last time that Brenda and I were in Owen Sound at Riverside Yarns, she had a few balls in her sale bin. There was only one colourway that she had two balls of, all the rest were singles and you need more than one to do the set.




So I don't know what to do. Should I make another set of the same pattern? Or should I find something else to do with 300 grams (450 metres or 500 yards) of this lovely bulky weight yarn?

Off Topic:
It was a fairly busy weekend. We got our son and his g/f a new wood stove so that chewed up a large part of Saturday and then we went to their place for supper on Sunday night. It was really nice seeing the lovely fire burning away and their house was perfectly warm! That crappy wood stove that was in their house when they bought it was a hunk of junk! It was too small to build a normal fire and the way it was designed, you couldn't get the cleaning brush through it. The only redeeming quality it had was a glass door and Becca likes the glass door.

We found one at the TSC Store in Orangeville that had a scratch on the side and the flue handle and a couple of dents, but nothing severe. Unfortunately, this is the only one they had but it was on sale for a few hundred less because of the few small blemishes.

Here's the very first fire in the brand new stove:



I LOVE that my son and g/f live RIGHT across the road from us. We live in rural Ontario so there's not a lot of peeps around here. Even them, I wouldn't walk to their house if I was in a rush. It's almost 1km from our door to theirs and they are our closest neighbours. I can't see their house though, there's a line of evergreen trees in the path so we both have "privacy" from each other.

I swear I'm not one of those mothers that shows up all the time or anything like that. I only go over if invited and if we are going to "drop by" for a minute, I ALWAYS call. The one upside for them is that when I mow my lawn in the summer (6 acres) I go over and do theirs too (2 acres) with my massive lawn tractor. I love to mow the lawn :o) And I try to do it (weather permitting) when they're at work.

Well, back to my household rearranging. I am having such a hard time making our stuff fit into this little farm house. We're talking renovations...I hope that will commence this spring!

Bye for now.
BevKnits with your daily dose of fibre.

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Day 22 - The Socks Progress....slowly

I didn't spend a lot of time knitting today. The places where I get lots of knitting done on the weekends tends to be in the truck while my hubby drives. But today I spent all my traveling time either texting or catching up on Twitter and Facebook.

After supper I finally got working on my sock. I finished the leg, did the heel flap, turned the heel and picked up the gusset stitches.



I still find this sock a bit tight for me. It's not bad enough to frog, that's for sure!


When we were out today at the TSC Store in Orangeville, my hubby got me this cute little guy! I think he's so sweet! Every time I look over at it, it makes me smile :o)

See, I caught the little guy trying to do some of my knitting.



Okay, all together now...Awwwwww.


Hopefully I won't be as lazy tomorrow and get more knitting done. We're going over to our DS1 and his GF house for supper tomorrow night. I'm really looking forward to that!

Until tomorrow,
BevKnits with your Daily Dose of Fibre.

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Day 21 - Fleece Artist Socks

Oh yes, I am LOVING this yarn! It feels so lovely in my hands and I can just imagine the amazing socks it's going to make!

As I mentioned, the pattern calls for 3.0 mm DPNs and I had only 2.75 or 3.25mm so I mistakenly opted for the 2.75mm needles and I cast on the larger amount of stitches. It's still WAAAY too tight. In the picture below you can see the tighter one on the left, that's on my wrist and it's fairly snug on my wrist so there's no way I'd be able to get it on my foot.




So I did the painful thing. I yanked the needles out of the work and ripped the stitches all out. I find that physically painful to do for a moment.

Once I re-cast on the socks on the 3.25mm and worked them back to where I was in the ball of yarn I felt a whole lot better! The yarn feels much nicer and the pattern looks better. The colourway seems to stripe better with the 3.25mm needles.

As you can see I found a cool app to make collages.



I'm almost to the heel flap, about another 3/4". That will have to wait for tomorrow.

Photo Collage app for iPad: Photo Wall Pro for iPad, Version 3.0
Photos Taken with: iPhone 3.0 running OS4.0

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Day 20 - Finishing the Cable Ear-Flap Hat and Starting Sea Wool Bordello Socks

The Ear-Flaps have braids that extend below them. The pattern called for making flat stocking-stitch strips that you braid. I'm assuming that because it's stocking-stitch without some type of border, the strips would curl closed. So instead I decided to make i-cords.




I think the hat turned out pretty good. I'll be wearing it tomorrow!












I decided that I want to cast-on the Fleece Artist socks. After cruising around Ravelry for a while and taking some suggestions from Twitter peeps, I decided I'm going to do the pattern that came with the yarn.

The yarn is amazing! Look at this skein!!







It looks a lot different now that I've wound it into a ball.






The pattern calls for 3.0mm DPNs and look at my mess of DPNs...



Can you believe I don't have ONE set of 3.0mm. I have 2.0, 2.25, 2.5, 2.75, 3.25, 3.75 and 4.0 in this group. I have other sizes in another case, they don't fit in the small box. But can you believe it?! Not one set. So the pattern has two sizes, 7 & 9. I'll make the size 9 with the 2.75mm needles and hope it's okay.

Well I'm off to cast-on the Sea Wool Bordello Socks pattern from Fleece Artist.

Fleece Artists Web Site: http://www.fleece artist.com

I bought this yarn at Camilla Valley Farms.

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Day 19 - Just some stuff

Again, my blog is a day late (and a dollar short, but that's another story) because I'm busy on Wednesdays. I made a lovely supper for the boys of Curried Pork. I didn't make dessert as my hubby tells me he's trying to be good. If I had made something, he would have eaten it.

I didn't knit much yesterday. I did a couple of rows on the Sumac Leaf Shawl just because it was sitting here on my table. I frogged the first Ear-Flap Hat I made with the Kertzer Tweed Montage so I will have enough yarn to finish the Lofty Cable Ear Flap Hat. I pulled out the cast-on waste yarn of the final ear flap but then after supper I was so sleepy, I didn't have the energy to knit (or to do anything else for that matter!) I fell asleep early.

My CSM is calling my name. I think I should try and fire it up soon.



Look at it sitting there, minding its own business..hahahah.

I actually had the stand out because I needed the ball winder for the frogged hat. I have, however, left it out in the way because I want it to keep harassing me. Soon, my pretty...soon.

But for now, I'm finishing my cable ear flap hat because I really want to wear it.

I'll be back later today.
Have a good one!


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Day 18 - Cable Needles

Even though I've knit for many years, I never knew any advanced techniques. I knew how to knit and purl and K2tog but if there was a YO, SSK or C4L, etc, I wouldn't even attempt it.

Now I search for patterns that have things I don't know how to do in them thanks to the Internet and programs like the Knitting Help app. I'm a visual person so when I read the words describing how to do something, I have a hard time grasping it. I could NOT get the Kitchener Stitch until I found http://www.knittinghelp.com/ and for the first few socks, I watched the video each time and now it's like second nature.

I've always loved the way cables looked but was VERY intimidated by them. Now that I've done a few projects with cables in them, I'm all BRING IT ON!

I like hand tools so I want to try all different ways of doing things. I have several different types of cable needles and I tried them all on different projects.




For most projects I just use a double point in the same size as the needles I'm using but if it's a smaller project the double point gets in the way so I like the hook one shown in the centre above. My least favourite needle is the bottom one, I find it awkward and it slides out really easily.

I know there are different cable needles but these are the ones I have.




The Hook Cable Needle



Using a Double Point Needle



Knitting off the Double Point



The Metal One with the Bendy bit



Cable stitches slipped back to the left needle


I finished knitting the body of the hat. I did the top braid and one of the ear-flap braids but I'm out of yarn so I need to frog the first hat I made with this yarn because it's too big anyway. I can't see that happening tonight.



There's my hat! I love it as much as I love the mitts!



I have a natural colourway of this yarn too, 2 full 150 gram balls. Hmm, should I make another set?

Later peeps.

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Day 17 - Magic Loops VS 2 Circulars

I started my hat project the other day and discovered I don't have the correct length 5.5 mm circular. I need a 40 cm (16") one to do the hat or use DPNs which would be a pain because with 104 stitches per round there would be 26 stitches per needle.

So I headed into my wonderful Knitting Help app to learn the Magic Loop and 2 Circular needle methods. The first night I tried the Magic Loop method. I guess this method works okay but I found myself forever pulling the cable out and I don't like doing that. It feels like I'm hurting my very expensive Addi-Turbo. I have been told that they don't break easily but I still don't like putting the undue wear on it.

The next day I thought I'd watch the 2 Circular Needle method again. I didn't give it a fair shake the previous night. I was tired, a bit cranky and the two circular needles were giving me a rough time. Once I watched the video again with Brenda in the morning at coffee, I felt a little more confident that I was doing it wrong the first time and I thought I had it all ironed out in my head.

The trick with the 2 circulars is to have 2 different coloured circulars. It worked out for me because my 60cm circular is Bamboo and the 80cm circular is an Addi-Turbo. The thing to remember when using this method is to make sure you're only using one needle at a time. So whatever needle is next to be worked, make sure the other loose end you use is the other end of it, not the other circular needle. Clear as mud? lol. Got to http://www.knittinghelp.com and I found the video in Working in the Round.



You can see in this picture that I'm working the bamboo needle for this half of the hat and the Addi is not in use right now.

Of the two methods I've talked about in here, I like the 2 circulars better but my preferred method of knitting in the round is to have the correct length needle. For socks and small things, I love to use DPNs. I almost never use straight pins for knitting, even things that are worked back and forth in the flat, I use a circular needle.

Oh and I know, this blog is posted a day late. It was all in my head last night but I was too tired to enter it onto the computer. I will try and have another entry for today but that will be later on.

So here's your daily dose of fibre from me...
Later Peeps.

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Day 16 - Lofty Braided Ear-Flap Hat

I love my mittens so much I was hoping I will have enough yarn left to make another hat. I gathered up the end of the last ball and the little bit from the first ball of this yarn and together they weight 126 grams.



The pattern calls for 3-50g balls of yarn so I'm hoping I'll be able to get this hat done with 126 grams. Worst case scenario, I will pull out the first ear flap hat I made with this yarn. I find it a bit large anyway.

This pattern calls for waste yarn to be cast on before the ear flaps are knit, I used a screaming orange worsted weight I had close at hand for this use. This is a first for me. I'm not sure what happens with that later but I'm assuming that it'll get pulled out.

Here's the beginning of the hat, both flaps are ready:




I don't have a 40cm 5.5mm circular needle but I have two longer ones, a 60 and an 80. I tried the 2 circular needle method first but I didn't really know what I was doing and I found it awkward to do so I thought I'd use the longer needle and try the magic loop method.

I really think I like just having the right length needle but I guess the magic loop method is okay too. I pulled my needle out of the stitches once already looping the cord in a new spot but this yarn doesn't just drop the stitches so I was easily able to pick them up again.

I think I'll watch the video on the 2 circular needle method a couple more times and give that another shot again. I feel like I'm doing damage to the cord on my very nice Addi-Turbo.

I love this pattern. It is as well written as the mittens were so far. I'm over half way to the crown reduction already. Maybe by Tuesday I'll be wearing a nice matching hat with my incredibly warm new mittens.






The pattern is Lofty Braided EarFlap Hat by Crystal Palace Yarns. Available for free on Ravelry.


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