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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