PANTS MONSTER!!!

Gosh I've knit a lot of things for babies over the years! I count 26 projects recorded on Ravelry, and I think there are probably a few that I never got around to recording on there. My favourite baby projects are always the cute little stuffies. There's just something magical about putting together a little creature and watching it come to life with its own unique personality. Some old favourites are the oh-so-clever duck-bunny, my grandmother's puppy, and Octie the Octopus (get the pattern here!).

My most recent creation was for my little one-year-old niece from Switzerland. For her first half-birthday, I had given her what the boyfriend affectionately calls the "Pants Monster", but would more accurately be called Kevin the Unibody Monster from the Monster Mobile pattern by Rebecca Danger from her book Knit a Monster Nursery. Here's what the original version I gave her looked like (or at least very similar to that, since that's a version I made for another baby):

Notice the long arms, light-weight yarn (DK in this case), small body size... The original pattern, which was only one of many monsters included on the mobile, was in fingering weight yarn, and made for quite a small monster. Well, the first monster got lost on a skiing trip, and so my sister-in-law sheepishly requested a replacement, since my niece had liked playing with it so much. And without further ado, here's Pants Monster Number Two!

He looks a little caught off-guard here, but what he's really doing is admiring my collection of physics, math, and astronomy books. He's quite an intelligent little fellow!

His personality, however, has more than one facet! He's also quite computer savvy:

He's strong, and likes doing weights:

But also sensitive, and sad about how cold it is outside...

Pants Monster #2 was knit in Bernat Softee Chunky Solid, hence the much larger size. The face was made from felt and sewed on with sewing thread. I'm really really really happy with how he turned out, and I'll admit that it was a bit of a challenge saying goodbye! Fortunately, my niece loved him, which makes his departure a little easier.

The Autumn Leaves cardigan

Carl Sagan once said, "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the Universe." I felt a little like I'd just invented the Universe with my most recently finished sweater. Two years in the making, the roving from which the yarn was made was dyed a couple of summers ago, the yarn was spun on a drop spindle over the course of those two years, and then the whole sweater was knit in less than a week.

In the beginning, there was the dying:

As I wrote in a previous blog post (unfortunately, all of the image links are broken), this roving was dyed with acid dies in the summer of 2012 during a very fun afternoon with Joanna. This is what the roving looked like after it was dry and all nicely braided up:

I spun the whole lot (I'll admit that I never weighed the whole mess, so I'm not entirely sure how much there was) on my cut acrylic drop spindle from Seven Yaks Design. I chain plied it so that it would be a 3-ply yarn with a roughly DK to light worsted weight. Of course, it was closer to fingering in some spots and aran in others, but I think the average thickness was about DK. Here's some of it on a niddy-noddy:

From how many times each skein wrapped around the niddy-noddy, I estimated that I spun approximately 588 yards of the stuff. Here it is drying after I washed all the yarn:

And finally, here's the sweater!

I loosely followed the Ruby Tuesday pattern by Ewa Durasiewicz, a round-yoke top-down design, but because I didn't get the same gauge with my handspun as called for in the pattern, I didn't do the third set of increases. Somehow, I managed to do the right calculations and end up with a sweater that fits me perfectly. The buttons don't match, but I kind of like it that way. Best part: I used up all the yarn!

As a first experience knitting with hand-spun yarn, I've gotta say, it's pretty amazing. The knitting experience felt so natural and organic, it was like nothing else. I would recommend it to anyone. I can hardly wait to finish spinning up my next batch of yarn to knit with!

Why I'm a bad blogger: catching up on last year's X-mas Knitting

Yes. I'm terrible at writing blog posts about my knitting in a timely manner. We all know that. Now, as I'm in the throes of my 2014 X-mas knitting, let's take a look at what hand-made goodies I made for my family last year!

X-mas 2013 was all about the socks. My dad was the lucky recipient of the Guitar Man Socks, a lovely pattern designed by Rebecca Mercier. They were an easy, almost-mindless knit, but with enough complexity in the pattern to prevent it from getting boring. The yarn I used was Knit Picks Stroll Tweed in the colourway Autumn Heather. Let me say it now: if you haven't yet knit with this yarn, it's an absolute must. It's lovely and soft and the little flecks are so pretty! Highly recommended.

For my little brother, I knit the Vihtory socks by Heli Heikkilä, also a very lovely pattern. One word of warning, if you're a fan of the two-at-a-time magic loop technique for socks: after knitting the foot of the sock, where the cables are only on the top of the foot, and turning the heel, the cables go all the way around, which is impossible to work two at a time. I switched to knitting the socks separately at this point. The yarn used is Diamond Luxury Collection Soxy (unfortunately discontinued) in the aptly named Charcoal Space Dyed colourway. I picked up this yarn during my trip to Victoria, BC several years ago where I visited the Beehive Wool Shop.

I'll admit to having gone a little insane with all the sock knitting last X-mas, especially since the men in my life have such large feet. The largest-footed of all is the boyfriend, whose shoe size comes in at a whopping 12 men's. I'll also admit that these socks didn't actually get finished until mid-February. They were, however, meant as an X-mas gift, so I'm still counting them. They are just plain stockinette socks with the snail added on with duplicate stitch, using this chart. I again used Stroll Tweed in the Wellies Heather colourway, which made the knitting bearable. And they were a huge success! The boyfriend has declared these his favourite socks. I call that a win.

Now, I had also knit socks for my friend Ed using the Lucky Stripes pattern by Tofutrulla, an interesting striped sock pattern which gets you to roll a die to determine how many rows of each colour to knit between colour changes. I did not, however, get pictures of them, since I was knitting the last few rows and binding off moments before they were gifted.

The final bit of X-mas knitting was not socks, but instead a hat for my cousin. I used the Declan's Hat pattern by Samantha Kirby, which was absolutely lovely. It starts off easily, and just as that ribbing starts to get boring, the crown is all fun and cabley. I've knit this pattern for myself since. The yarn is good old Cascade 220 in Light Grey which I had left over from another project.

And that's it for my 2013 X-mas knitting! Hopefully the projects currently in progress will take less than 12 months to show up on the blog!

A Pilgrimage to Yarn Mecca

Folks, I have been to the place all fibre enthusiasts hope to someday visit: The Duchess County Sheep & Wool Festival, more colloquially known as Rhinebeck. I'll admit that it was everything I could have hoped for… Hundreds of yarn and yarncraft-related vendors, lots of adorable fibre animals, a ton of delicious foods to sample, not to mention the thousands of knitters to chat with and whose knitwear I could admire.

For my first trip to Rhinebeck, I went the easy route and joined a busload of Toronto-region knitters, including my good buds Joanna (see her blog post here), Erin (who also wrote a blog post about the trip), and Kate. It was a long bus ride, but I got a lot of sleeping, reading, knitting, and drop-spindling done. Here's an action shot of the bus drop-spindling action:

After a long bus ride from Toronto, we arrived at our hotel just outside of the town of Rhinebeck in the early evening. I felt I had to take a picture of my knitted outfit, which included knitwear from three generations of knitters: the socks were made by my grandmother, the sweater by my mom, and I knit the Lanesplitter skirt back in 2012.

The next morning, we arrived 30 minutes before the opening of the festival only to find the mother of all lineups (and some beautiful fall colours).

Fortunately, it didn't take long for everyone to get in once the gates were opened, and we were soon greeted by some cute furry friends! In fact, the whole festival was full of adorable fibre animals, and I more than once considered taking one home with me… Here are a few of them:

For me, the main draw of the festival was the demonstrations. I figured, since I'd come all this way, I should learn something more about my craft or about fibre-related things in general. Seeing all the different types of fibre animals helped with that goal, certainly, but there were also a ton of other interesting things to watch. I just missed the sheep-shearing demo I'd hoped to see, but I got to watch a canine frisbee demo (adorable!):

The Fleece-to-Shawl competition took place on Sunday morning, and there were more spinning wheels and looms in operation than I'd ever seen in one spot. The idea is, in three or four hours, to prepare the fibre from a fleece, spin it into yarn, and then weave it into a shawl:

The ultimate high point for me was the Leaping Llama competition! I would have loved to watch the whole thing, but our tour bus would have left without us… The place was so packed that I didn't get any good photos, but here's a proud-looking fellow about to show us all what a good leaper he is:

After all is said and done, one of the highlights for most visitors to Rhinebeck is the shear (if you'll excuse the pun) volume of vendors at the festival. There were at least 10 huge buildings devoted to shopping, with some vendors spilling out onto the pathways between buildings. I showed amazing restraint, and somehow managed to spend less than $100 (USD) on goodies. There was so much I could have brought home with me! First, here's Joanna enjoying the view of some award-winning handspun:

A whole room devoted to fleece:

The best-tasting apple cider donut you'll ever have:

Some expensive spinning fibre (Qiviut, $60 for 1 oz):

And some very pretty spinning fibre and tools:

Last but not least, here's the obligatory loot shot. Surprisingly, I didn't buy any yarn! Clockwise from the bottom left: Official Rhinebeck project bag and zipper dangle, Goat's Milk soap from Cat's View Farm, Forbidden Fruit apple wine from Pazdar Winery, Maple Syrup from a New York sugarbush, Shetland roving from Autumn House Farm, cotton roving from The Wool Room, a "Susan" lightweight drop spindle by David Reed Smith, and "Second Quality" (which I had to card to make spinnable) angora fibre from Cozy Rabbit Farm.

I was so inspired by the whole trip that I'd love to make another pilgrimage next year! (And we're already looking at nearby B&B's!)

Thrifty Knitting: Using T-shirt Yarn

I have trouble throwing anything out. I got a lot better at it during our move, since getting rid of something I hadn't used in five years made more sense than packing it up, but I have to say that keeping things "just in case" is definitely still part of my mentality. I would rather find a way to re-use or re-purpose something than just throw it away. For that reason, I still have a pile of the boyfriend's old shirts that I plan to make into a dress, and a big ziplock bag full of can tabs that I eventually plan on making into a purse. Someday… someday…

Because I participate in a whole bunch of science outreach events, I tend to end up with a lot of free t-shirts, most of which end up languishing in the bottom of my drawer. In an attempt to satisfy my aversion to waste, I decided to convert some of them into t-shirt yarn! I don't have any pictures of the process, unfortunately, but I followed the instructions posted by Fuck Yeah Craft! (Pardon my french!) I ended up with one ball of yarn from an extra-large t-shirt:

I'll admit I didn't weigh it, so I have no idea how much it is in terms of grams or yardage. The weight was approximately worsted, sometimes a little thicker, and sometimes a little thinner. However, I do know that it was just enough to make two 6-inch dishcloths and one 3-inch coaster:

The first dishcloth is just a simple square knit in seed stitch, the second one is a diagonally knit Grandmother's Favourite Dishcloth with seed stitch instead of garter stitch, and the coaster is just a little granny square.

The verdict? Knitting with t-shirt yarn is fairly easy. It has the same stretch as a wool yarn and is pretty soft. My only complaint is that it sheds a lot. My desk ended up with little fluff grains all over it. As for the finished product, so far the dishcloth I'm using to wash the dishes every day is holding up very well. The fabric is very sturdy. So if you have some old t-shirts lying around that you don't wear any more, I'd highly recommend this as a way to re-purpose them!

A very patriotic send-off: recreating the CBC sweater

A very dear friend of mine will be moving to London, England in a couple of days to pursue a PhD and to embark upon a great adventure. Several months ago, she asked me to knit her a sweater which would make it impossible for any Brit to mistake her for American. She suggested the CBC sweater, conceived of by Granted Clothing and originally knit for a brother-in-law who had also moved to England. Here is the original sweater:

After having agreed to knit it (and arranging to get a fair bit of her furniture in return), I did a bit of research to see if anyone else had come up with a pattern for this sweater. Alas, Natalie Bursztyn had come up with a pretty good facsimile, but it lacked the authenticity I sought. Eventually, I decided to make up my own pattern, eyeballing the intarsia from the photographs and guessing at how to put it together as I went along. Were I to do it again, I would likely change a few things, but I'm fairly happy with the results. Here's the finished product in all its Canadian glory:

And the back:

I may or may not publish some charts of each design here whenever I get around to it (and maybe even a full pattern!), but I'll give a brief description of how I went about making the sweater now. I started off knitting the sweater in pieces, two fronts and a back, with sort-of intarsia where I would carry the yarn behind for the design. Were I to knit this sweater again, I would likely do the bobbin thing with fewer floats, since the colour work parts tended to be twice as thick as the solid colour bits. I would also knit it as a single piece for the body because seaming is annoying.

I ended up seaming up the fronts and backs to make a vest and then picking up stitches around the arm holes to make the sleeves, with a bit of short-row shaping to decrease underarm bulkiness. For the collar, I picked up stitches from the front and the back, and knit in garter stitch until it looked about right. The fronts were finished with a single-crochet border to which I sewed the zipper.

The most harrowing part was making the pockets. I'd forgotten to put in the waste yarn normally required to make an afterthought pocket, and so instead cut one stitch and unravelled the stitches as wide as I wanted the pocket to be. I then followed these instructions to knit the pocket from the live stitches. Here is the result:

The yarn, by the way, is Briggs & Little Country Roving, which was like nothing I'd ever knit with before. It's very loosely spun (if it's really spun at all), and very thick and squishy. It might have made for a sweater that was a tad larger than I expected. My friend was swimming in it, and it fit the 6'2" boyfriend perfectly:

Heck, maybe if he plays his cards right, he might get one too!

Things for weddings

It certainly must be said that at some point in your mid-to-late twenties, all of your friends will get married. This summer was certainly a testament to that (as was last summer) as I was invited to, and attended, four weddings. Fortunately, they were fairly spread out over the late summer and fall, so it wasn't overly overwhelming, and I've gotta say that each one was really a blast! And of course, because I am a crafter extraordinaire, for each one I had to come up with some sort of handmade component to each gift.

The first of the season was my cousin's. It was a gorgeous day in early August, the wedding was at a lovely golf resort in the countryside of Ontario, the ceremony was heartwarming, the reception was loads of fun (ohmygosh the food!), and I took no pictures because I forgot to bring my camera. I did, however, remember to take pictures of the absolutely adorable tea cozy which I made as a wedding gift.

I used the Fairy Cake Tea Cozy pattern by Frankie Brown, and used a scottish yarn (the blue) and some icelandic lopi (the beige and purple) which were both given me as a vacation souvenirs. (I think it's an excellent habit to get people to bring you back yarn from the exotic places they visit!) The pattern was super simple and fun to make, and those buttons are frickin' adorable. The tea cozy was given with that cute little yellow teapot inside, and I also included a sampling of fancy teas.

Two weeks later was my friend Nic's wedding. As it turns out three (THREE!) of the lovely ladies from my knitting group (we're famous on the internet) got married this season. Nic's was the first, and it was absolutely lovely. I, again of course, forgot to bring my camera, but I've stolen (totally without permission) this picture which Lynn's camera took of four of us in the tree house (TREE HOUSE!) at the wedding reception. I have in my hands what's left of the spoils from the ice cream bar (FRICKIN' ICE CREAM BAR!!!).

For Nic, I knit some wine bottle cozies to go with the LCBO gift card I gave her and her new hubby.

The pattern is Winecozy by Jennifer Carter and I used various soft and sparkly leftover bits of yarn. I'm an especially big fan of the adorable hearts on the black and purple one. The pattern itself is quite ingenious. I love the way the picked up tube thing makes the bottom quite stable. The only change I made was to knit in the round instead of flat.

Wedding #3 belonged to my knitting pal Erin. She had so much handmade goodness included in her special day! Probably most impressive (and not just because I helped), was the hand knit bridal and bridesmaids bouquets. All us knitter types in the group (and the token crocheter) helped a bit with that one, each of us making a couple of flowers. This picture is stolen from Erin's blog.

For her, I decided to try my hand at sewing and put together these napkins with nice folded edges and aluminum wire napkin rings:

The final wedding of the season was Lynn's in October. It was a Nerdstravaganza! And I mean that in the most flattering way possible. The programs were set up like a fantasy story and illustrated by the groom, each table had their own nerdy location (we were sitting at Aperture Labs), and they had custom-made LEGO figurines as party favours. Here's mine:

And our table:

And, for good measure, the happy couple:

I made an appropriately nerdy gift as well, a Doctor Who trivet!

It was made with some of my Mom's leftover lopi, and I used the chart from tricksyknitter called Whovian.

So that's it for weddings for a while, I hope!