Finished Object Fridays!

It's my first ever FO Friday and I have not one but two Finished Objects for sharing.

The first is the Age of Brass and Steam Shawl that I made for my Husband's Nan for Christmas this year.  (Yes, I do start my Christmas Knitting this early.  It allows me to enjoy some of it before my head attempts to explode in December.)  It's 7 1/2 skeins of Mirasol Yarn Hacho.  The original pattern was for something much smaller but this is an incredibly easy project to adapt to a larger finished size. 

It was a lovely easy knit and turned out much larger then I expected it to.  I know she'll love it and since I find both grandmothers to be a little bit of a challenge to knit for, I am thrilled to have this finished.

I even found this great shawl pin at the Frolic last weekend.  I hadn't actually been looking for a pin for the shawl but it was perfect and had to come home with me.

The second is the cowl that I test knit for my friend.  A few patterns have already been sold and it will be up on Rav soon.  It's slightly challenging in spots, but it you are willing to stick it out, (it's less then 60 rounds in total,) the final result is worth the effort.  So, for your viewing pleasure, the cowl.

Work in Progress Wednesdays

The spinning bug has finally bit me again!  The colours in the photos isn't great, but right now I am working on turning this

Into this

I have to finish this before I can move onto anything that I bought at the Frolic last weekend.  It may be a really good thing that I only have three bobbins!!

Knitters Paradise

I am very lucky to live in a city that hosts a major knitting event once a year.  The market place is huge and there are lots of great classes that you can take.  I didn't take any classes, but I did get up very early on Saturday to pick up my friend and head over to the Frolic.  When we got there this is what we saw.

We got in line and within about ten minutes, this is what was behind us.

Turns out that the people who were suppose to show up at 7 A.M. to allow the vendors into the building didn't show up until 8 so there was some last minute scrambling happening.  Fortunately, it was a beautiful morning and being knitters we all queued up nicely and waited until we were let in.  The good part was the delay gave us all a chance to find each other before heading in.

The best part was our friend Kim (aka IndigoDragonFly) was the first stall  by the main doors.  Needless to say we spent a lot of time just hanging out and chatting and any time we got separated from each other, we would eventually make our way back to Kim and she babysat us until we were all back together

This is Kim or as I call her my yarn dealer.  These are the goodies she brought me. The three blue ones are Tardis and the left includes yarn from both her Buffy and Firefly collections.  "Bored Now," (an Willow reference,) is one of my favourite yarns from her ever.  ("When I Bit Him" still wins.)

This was not the end of my falling off of the wagon.  Okay, I did not merely fall.  I did a full on face plant into the soft, cushy, bags of roving along the way and came out with this

And this

Clearly this means that I have to start spinning a lot more again.  I did sneak in a hour on the weekend, so I'm off to a good start.

And  really, when your free fall from grace is already this bad, why not add a few more things to the mix. Some Tosh and some Kiogu may have thrown themselves into my bag before I could stop them.

Eventually, when my wallet was empty, (I did do one really smart thing and left the debit and visa at home,) and my head was floating from all the pretty things I had seen, my friend and I went back to the car, made a wrong turn, drove in a big circle, and eventually returned to our respective home with out new found goodies. I know what I'm doing with everything expect the Tosh. (It was so pretty and red and named Tart.  How I was suppose to resist it's woolly siren call?!) So keep your eyes peeled for updates.  But now, it's off to make a cup and tea and spend more time at my current wheel.

Hope everyone else had a lovely fibre filled weekend too.  Cheers

Lovely Lenore

Let me introduce you to Lenore. My pair of Lenores are my favourite socks ever. I would wear these socks everyday if I could. But that would be a little gross for both the socks and my feet. So I don't. But I do wear them, and the other day and it struck me that at some point Lenore would get old and tired and wear out. That even though I could darn them, which I will do, I will eventually not have them anymore. This is unacceptable, and I realized that the best way to extend the life of my beloved socks was to have more than one pair.

So off to the stash I went.  Unsurprisingly, a skein of yarn did throw itself at me shouting "Here I am! I going to be the pair of Lenores you seek." and I knew it was right, and that it would make a pair of these socks perfectly. Out came the ball winder and swift and pattern. Voila, I was ready to go.

And here's where the problems begin. When these socks are on my feet I love them. When they are on the needles? The bane of my existence. Just to make it perfectly clear, it is not the pattern. The Yarn Harlot was able to produce a lovely, easy to read document that will in fact (when followed correctly) produce a wonderful pair of socks. Apparently I just became partly brain dead when it comes to making these socks. My first pair took me over a year and on at least one occasion had me looking at my husband and saying "I do actually know how to knit, right?" before flinging the socks across the room and bursting into tears. And here's why:

Mistakes I have made while knitting these socks:

• cast on the wrong size.
• cast on the right size with the wrong needles. 
• cast on the right size with the right needles and then changed to the wrong size half way through the lace pattern.
• completely changing  the lace pattern, making up new one as I went along.
• skipped entire sections of the lace pattern resulting in a completely incorrect sock.

A keen knitter will note that all of these things have happened before working on the actual leg.  But all of these things happened with the first pair.  And really, I have many more knitting projects under my belt and I shouldn't have the same problems again, right? WRONG!  I have made all the same mistakes again and have probably come up with a few new ones.  Frustrating would not even begin to describe the knitting process behind making these socks.  But I am stubborn and after three false starts, this is where I am in my second pair.

But, they are on the needles and hopefully they will go much better this time around.  And the knowledge that I will love them when they are finished is what's keeping me going.
I have no idea why this pattern causes me such grief.  I can do everything that it calls for and in a different pattern I wouldn't have the same problems.  So my goal is to take less then a year to make this pair.  And to not throw them across the room while I do so.

Am I the only one?  Does anyone else have a pattern that they love to hate while knitting, but knit anyway because the finished work is just so satisfying?

And the Winner is

First I would like to thank everyone who took the time to pop over and read my blog and comment.  I have to admit I was a little blown away by the page views that entry received in such a short time!  Anyway, I know that what your really interested in is the winner.  My random number generator, aka my husband, called out number 17 from the sofa when I asked him for a number between 1 and 25.  So that mean the winner is Productofloveliness!!!!  Congrats and I'll send you a message on Rav for all your details.

As for everyone else, check back over the summer.  I have a feeling that there may be more chances to win then.

Look how Different We Are!!!!

Yummy beer tasting

My bff and I have a lot in common. We both like the same kind of movies and the same food, (expect for tomatoes, which she hates and I love. Whenever we eat out this works out in my favour.) We love good wine and beer.  When we introduce ourselves to new people we tell them "we like to keep things simple" because we share the same name.  


And most importantly, we both love to knit.

She is my knitting Guru. Without her enabling tendencies encouragement I never would have picked up the needles as an adult and would have more money in the bank less wonderful knitted objects.  On occasion we have even been known to knit the same projects, sometimes at the same time.  But that is where the similarities end.  What we envision in our heads makes our final products very different.

Take our Multnomahs ; same project, same number of stitches. Two very different yarns created two very different wraps.

She went for a much bulkier yarn producing something super cozy and warm and I chose a Dk silk blend making something my BFF calls "classy" .

The same thing has happened with our Urbanas.  Having our own mini knit-a-long, we each cast our projects on and again two different yarns are producing two different final products.  This time at least we are both using Indigodragonfly yarn.  She                            picked a slightly heavier weight and mine is in lace.

By the time that we are both finished, the same project is going to look very different.

Only our Boneyards have come out very similar.  This time we both had almost the same weight and we made two final products that do actually resemble each other.

I think that it's fascinating that even within a pattern there is room for so much diversity and creativity.  It also goes to prove that yarn selection is really important for making the final product look the way you want it to.  And if my BFF reads this, ('cause I know she will ,) love you and keep giving me those tomatoes.

WIP Wednesday, April 20

It's been a bit of a schizophrenic week of knitting.  I can't seem to stay focused on anything for too long.  I blame the Asterick.  I've hit a little stumbling block  in the directions.  I honestly don't know what direction to be knitting in.   I think the directions are telling me to turn, and knit back to the start of the wing, and then wrap those stitches again.  But, I'm not certain and I would rather stop knitting it for a day or two then deal with the ramifications of messing it up.  Fortunately my BFF has made it already and warned me that this was coming.  It's going to be a quick question and answer and then I'll be off to the races again.  With that in mind, the main body of the shawlette is finished and the first wing is in it's final section so I'm not complaining too much.

Updated from this morning: Problem was worse then I first thought and I had to rip out the enter wing back to the main body.  Good news, the directions make a whole lot more sense now, though there was a serious amount of grumbling on my part while I frogged back.  Bolix!!!!

I also ended up casting on Urbana by Stephen West.  I hadn't planned to do this right now, but I need at least one mindless projects on the needles and my BFF is casting on her's and we thought that it would be fun to have a little mini knit-a-long.  The colour way is "When I Bit Him, I Could Hear the Ocean."  It's a Buffy the Vampire Slayer quote from Drusilla.  However, unlike Dru, this yarn looks stunning in the sunlight. (Maybe there will be sunlight here again one day and I can take pictures then.)

Sadly the sock is still just a sock.  I finally, feel the urge to cast on the second sock.  This is good since it is not uncommon for a sock in my basket to be without it's mate for a long, long time.  I have located the cast on I used for the first sock and should be able to do that soon.

I long time WIP also saw some love last night.  Didn't get too far, but further than I was.

And now, I am adding a new cowl to the mix.  I agreed to test knit for my BFF and my reward is this lovely skein of yarn in "Edward Discovers that Wood Chippers Make Great Juicers."  Apparently, I am also modelling the final cowl.  I get to keep the cowl when it's finished and I love the colourway.  

It's a good thing I have a four day weekend coming up. I clearly need all the knitting time that I can get.  And, if any of you have felt the urge to cast on a Stephen West pattern please feel free to join in the unofficial mini knit a-long.