Phildar love

I was just snooping around on the Phildar website and thought I'd share some cute numbers that caught my eye...

I've always been a bit of a fringe person (as in "I like fringe" not "I am on the fringe"), and just when I thought my love of fringe was on the wane I spotted these two:





Though I think those would both be easy enough to adapt, so I might have to re-visit some fringe patterns already in my possesion.

Also in love with:



Which I suppose could be considered vaguely fringe-y as well. And note: This is the only pattern of these here that has an English translation avaliable on their website right now.

And I've always had a soft spot for anything miltary or nautical-inspired...lots of patterns for that kind of stuff on Phildar right now too.

Also presently salivating over this:




and this:




I'm contemplating the dainty-ness of this next one, because I know it would probably be easy enough to bang out. I think it's time I veered away from cowls for a little while and into shawl territory again. There's a lot of really nice non-grandma-y patterns out these days.



That's it! I am well behind on taking pictures of things lately and have already been waylaid by Christmas knitting. In the past few weeks I've managed to crank out three cowls, three pairs of slippers AND a pair of socks for a co-worker...most of which has just felt like a slog (and I'm no where near done), so I am looking forward to getting back to more knitting of the personal/selfish variety!

Let's Neck!

Welcome to fall...



pattern: Burberry inspired cowl (I think I only did the four repeats that this pattern calls for)
yarn: Mirasol Sulka in "Cinnamon" (4 skeins)
needles: US 10.5



I love it when knitters come up with their own patterns for 800$ designer items...us common folk like style too dammit! God knows I don't anticiptate owning anything purchased full price from Burberry in my lifetime.

I love this Mirasol Sulka, and it has seen several incarnations of me looking for just the right pattern for it. My husband bought it for me all on his lonesome a couple Xmases ago --just walked into a yarn store and picked out one he liked. (I thought that was pretty good for a dude who knows next to nothing about knitting or yarn...) There was this cowl that never really worked out, but this hat that did. And I still thought I had several skeins of it left when I started knitting the burberry-inspired cowl last month.

Turns out I was wrong on that score, and given that it was about two years ago that he got that yarn in the first place I figured there was no way I'd get the same dye lot again...but I did! (maybe no one else was buying it?) I didn't even bother looking for the same dye lot, I was just thankful they hadn't discontinued the colour-- so I grabbed two more, brought 'em home and low and behold --the yarn gods smiled on me!

The same LYS had one of my other favourite yarns on sale as well-- Italian made Lang Silk Dream. So I bought oodles of it (well, oodles for me). This is good news and bad...good news: half price! bad news: probably because it's discontinued :( . Ah well, it's probably time for me to branch out and try something new anyway.

That said (and with favourite on sale yarn in hand), I also knit another Eternity scarf...



pattern: Eternity Scarf by Michele Wang
needles: 5.5mm
yarn: Lang Silk Dream (grey) 3 balls I think?

I was kind of bemoaning the last version I knit of this...



...because I had knit it in a DK weight yarn and I felt like it really wasn't thick enough and wanted to do it over again in an Aran.

Turns out I am slightly on the fence about it...I may still like the first one better. I think the Silk Dream is possibly just a bit too stretchy, I can't really wear it in it's "long" format without feeling like it'll be at my knees at the end of the day.

I haven't really decided yet if I will tear it out and start over with another yarn or just continue to wear it "doubled-up".



Which is pretty much exclusively how I wear the first of the first of those that I knit anyway (and I do get a lot of wear out of it), because as you know: I am koo-koo for cowls.

In fact my sickness for cowls is starting to get out of hand. So even though I loooove knitting them, I've decided I need to put a hold on any more of them for greedy little me and start busting out a few as Christmas presents for co-workers. (I will keep you posted on whether that gets accomplished--I probably need to do about 5 of them).

I think I will be abandoning a lot of personal knitting the next couple months as I scramble to get Christmas presents done ahead of time for once ---I don't want to be having hand cramps as I'm trying to stuff down all that Turkey. Though I do have a couple completed things that I still need to get around to taking pictures of (and posting about) so more to come.

I'm so happy it's fall and the need to knit is upon me again --it's a therapy I need right now!

Easing back into it...

I've had a trying couple of months. I won't go into all the gory details, but the short story is that our furry beast Poncho is no longer with us.



He deserves a mention here though because he's always figured prominently in a lot of my knitting photos. I will miss him like crazy. It hasn't been that long since we said goodbye to Archie and we find ourselves in an empty house that as far as I'm concerned is now devoid of it's soul.

We are very sad, but it has been a far less shocking situation for us than the loss of our last cat. Poncho was old and lived a full life and in the end we knew he was suffering, so it was at least a decision that we were able to make.



We love you P-man.

Neck Fail

Well, a partial neck fail at any rate...

THIS beast:



pattern: Mobius Cowl --you might have to sign up to get at these free patterns, but it's supposed to look like this:



yarn: Patons Classic Wool Roving in "Natural" (well, I think...the yarn was given to me sans labels so I'm not totally sure--there's the possibility this could also be Bernat Roving)
needles: 9mm

I suppose it actually seems vaguely passable in that top photo. But the reality is that "getting my head through it" does not a wearable cowl make.

You know, for all the times that I've mistakenly twisted my stitches while knitting in the round (and subsequently mistakenly knit a moebius) I could not for the life of me get my head around twisting the stitches on purpose.

I must have watched half a dozen youtube tutorials on how to knit a Moebius (as well as read some non video tutorials) --and believe me, the instructions are different everywhere. I mean the instructions on this pattern simply state "twist the stitches" but it's pretty easy to over-think something so simple I'd say. "Twist it all the way around?", "Loop my needle backwards?" etc. I finally just kind of pushed them up a bit and then plunged ahead, but really it's amazing how you find yourself "compensating" for a twisted stitch without even realizing it. I think it is just ingrained in me now to at least TRY not to make a mistake.

Content that I had finally done right it really wasn't until I was casting off that I reflected "wait a minute..." and realized I'd twisted the stitches twice. Ugh (blissfully this was a fast knit at least).

Laid flat it looks more like diaper than a cowl!:



D'OH! Still, as you can tell in the first picture I was able to at least put it on and get a feel for how it would look if I'd managed to do it right. And that was basically enough for me to realize that I won't bother knitting it again. I'm just too short for a cowl this size I'd venture and it totally swallowed me up.

Plus, I have already re-appropriated said yarn for a scarf that I am much happier with (but I have yet to take photos of it so that will have to wait).

I had forgotten all about the satisfying joy of knitting with big yarn and needles...nothing like a chunky knit to make you feel more accomplished.

And speaking of fast knits, I also had one ball of Twinkle soft chunky languishing in the stash. It has seen several incarnations --a couple different hats if memory serves, but I finally just pulled it all apart and whipped up a simple seed stitch cowl.

I knit this ages ago but loathed the colour of it.


yes, a leeetle too bright for me!

But I finally got around to tweaking the colour a bit and am much happier with it now.



I didn't put too much thought into it, but happened to have some Grey dye kicking around the house, so that's what I went with. It was just enough to take the edge off that harsh raspberry.



Love it, though I think it's destined for the gift box...

As I type this I have two MORE cowls in the works.

I loves me a good cowl!

Oh Hai!

I did the unthinkable and actually knit another toy--

With lederhosen and hat!



Every time I do knit a toy (and believe me it's not often) I am once again instilled with renewed resolve to learn how to crochet. Though I must also point out that has yet to happen...

Because as anyone who's ever knit a toy before likely knows, it's not the knitting, it's all the fiddly embellishing and piecing together after the fact that is so exhausting. The knitting itself seemed to take about two seconds. The stuffing, the embroidering, the sewing...well that's another story.



This 'lil bunneh is a pattern from Barbara Prime found here: the well dressed bunny and the lederhosen can be found in a seperate pattern of hers, also here: Clothing Bundle 3.

But regardless of the time spent in the details (the details are always what make it and a necessary evil unfortunately...) this guy is one cutie patootie. And you get a lot for the price of admission--the bunny pattern comes with three outfits you can also knit --but because I was so obsessed with doing the lederhosen I bought the seperate clothing bundle as well. So now I've got a million outfits I can make for my (eventual) army of bunnies and lambies.

I had originally set out to make this for my friend's daughter, but now I'm thinking the lederhosen outfit is probably a bit too fiddly for her (she's two) --the hat doesn't really stay on (it's kind of just "placed" there) and maybe I should just knit up a bunch of girlie clothes to go with him as well and then she can decide if he's a boy or a girl (or maybe I should just do a girl in a dirndle to go with?(gah! decisions decisions...).

Regardless I think the button eyes probably have to go in favour of some embroidered ones (and I suck at embroidery). She's likely too old for me to worry about her swallowing buttons, but better safe than sorry.



If you're wondering, I just used scrap yarn for this project, mostly Patons Classic (which I seem to have a lot of!). More details on Ravelry.

Minimalist cardigan

pattern: Minimlaist cardigan by Ruthie Nussbaum size 35 1/2
yarn: Patons Classic Wool in "evergreen mix" (I think about 4.5 balls?)
needles: 4.5mm
no mods



So, you may remember in my last post I was saying that half-way through knitting the back of this sweater I decided it was too big and just commenced knitting the next size down? Well, I'm happy to tell you that I was a good girl and just tore the whole thing out and knit that next size from scratch again. I'm glad I did too because I think the seaming would have been brutal on my first attempt, my decreases were so wonky.

So, that said...my thoughts on this sweater.



Well first of all, I think it's still too big, and probably way too shapeless and boxy for my 5 foot 4'ed-ness. I don't know that even knitting the smallest size would have helped. I think I might just be too busty for a sweater like this?

Because really I am kind of surprised that I'm not head-over-heels in love with it...I am all about the "grandpa" cardigans lately, I generally tend to go for the most basic of knits, and really the drabbest of colours. I know I like a lot of bright sixties mod and patterned things and loud blouses (and kitsch, kitsch, kitsch!--what can I say, it's a sickness), but when it comes to sweaters/cardigans, I am usually neutral, neutral, neutral all the way.

So I feel stumped. I don't hate it. In fact I loved knitting it, and I think the pattern itself is wonderful, it's just...gah I don't know.

For starters all these photos were taken on a hot day... it's about 40 degrees celcius here this week. I wandered around the house in it looking for sunny spots to take pictures in. I was definitely sweaty. Maybe in the fall I'll feel differently about this sweater? I definitely anticipate grabbing it to throw on when the house is freezing.

The other thing kind of bugging me about it is the arms. Way too balloony for my liking I'd say. And normally I think I fancy a puffy sleeve so I'm not sure again why this isn't working for me.



I am debating seaming them up so they're a lot more narrow, so that could really impact the overall shape of this, but whether I'll ever get around to that I just don't know.

I think the key to making this work is to keep it cropped and much more stream-lined, like the model is wearing (also she has no boobs which I am insanely jealous about):



Looking at that picture now I definitely see the difference in the sleeves and am suddenly feeling inspired to fix them.

OR I could just move on to something else...yeah, that's the ticket (that's right, I'm bring THAT expression back). I may just pat myself on the back for completing a sweater in the dead of summer and be done with it.

Also, never thought I'd say this, but I may be ready to splash out on some NICE yarn for my next sweater project. (She says as she realizes there is another patons classic wool cardigan half completed in the living room somewhere...). I am generally pretty frugal about nice yarn when it comes to knitting sweaters (no doubt because I never end up wearing most of my sweaters and hence can't part with all that cash...) and usually reserve the nicer stuff for things like cowls and scarves, the stuff I KNOW I'll wear. "Glamour" items I like to call these haha.

But again, maybe it's just all this knitting with basic wool in the hot summer heat that has me saying this. The reality is that I should not be spending any money on new yarn anyway. There comes a point though when you just get tired of staring at your same old boring stash all the time...regardless of what's in it.

If you're skipping ahead, I think the abbreviated version of this entire post would just be: I am so fucking ready for fall now.

In which I admit to being a lazy knitter...

I guess it is not that big of an admission...I tend to just generally get lazy in the summer about knitting stuff. It is usually too hot around these parts to truly devote yourself to it.

But you know, there's lazy, and then there's what I really am, and that's: HALF-ASSED.

example #1:

Interweave's Minimalist cardigan. (Previous blog entries about whisper cardigans and ruffled Patons sweaters--you can just forget 'em, they are dead to me now)

And at the very least when it comes to sweaters, I'm not quite so half-assed that I wouldn't do a gauge swatch. I *did* do one (in truth I usually do about half a full swatch, before unravelling it to begin...so technically still half-assed I'd venture!) but an attempt at a swatch nonetheless--and off I went.

I knit about 8 inches before I decided "hmmm, I think I'll do the next size down instead".

An intelligent person would probably start over at this point, not just start randomly.decreasing.wherever.they wanted.until.the.whole.back.was.finished.



YARGH...How's that for some subtle decreasing!? Seriously, what was I thinking? Now that the sweater is almost done (I've got about half a sleeve left) I've decided that I can't live with it and have promised myself that I will completely start the back over again.

Example #2:

This gorgeous Cables and Lace beret from Michele Wang.



Sure, it looks cute here, and it really is a gorgeous hat and pattern...



But I had MAJOR gauge-fail issues! I should preface by saying that it was my intention to make this hat for someone with a "big" head (I often kid my friend Suanne that they based this Seinfeld episode on her)--and I knew I was taking a chance using a DK weight yarn on a pattern that called for lace weight.

If not for the ribbed band being way too big (in the photos it's just kind of "placed" on my head) it actually would have worked I think. The body of the beret has the perfect amount of slouch, and using a larger yarn meant I didn't have to repeat the 24-row lace pattern a second time, so that was a serious time-saver!

Note the vast difference in overall size between it and another slouchy hat I finished off last week (the other hat is Le Slouch by Wendy Bernard by the way, and all my yarn details etc. for it can be found on Ravelry)



I'd say that's a pretty big difference in the ribbed opening... (she says as one hat literally swallows the other...)



I probably could have gotten away with it all if I had just cast on less for the ribbing (and then increased accordingly for the pattern), and I am still debating whether it will be at all salvageable if I just tightened up the ribbing by weaving some elastic thread through it.

Though you'd think If I learned anything from all of this it would to just tear back and start over the minute I realized there was an issue--instead of mindlessly thinking I'd somehow fix it all later. Really, you will save yourself what will inevitably be extra work, and subsequent attempts will be far superior to your original.

Sage advice that I already knew but for some reason couldn't bring myself to follow. I know it seems a shame to tear back on hours of work but just DO IT. You'll be much happier in the end.





xo

yes.

There's a SALE going on at Phildar right now.

Don't be scared, many of you often ask me about these French patterns, but the truth is that most of them come in English now (usually they include an English insert with the French patterns) so have NO FEAR (in fact you should get yourself one of those no fear bumper stickers while you're at it, just to prove how phildar-fearless you've become). And really, even if they were still ONLY available in French, and you had absolutely no grasp of the language, you'd probably still find the patterns easier to decipher than say Wenlan Chia's first book. (ZING!) God love her, the errattas and sizing weren't as big a deal in subsequent books at least...

So have gander at some of these cuties that need to make their way into your queue:

LOVE!


Love!


Love!

(though YES, I can appreciate that I've pretty much already knit this sweater in the form of the Raglan Wrap)

MUST make:

Ok, this one I have actually been eyeing for some time, so I think I need to at least buy the book. I get that it's basically a weird vest-belt (a velt? a best?) but I'm still totally drawn to it...

and also, this:

This would no doubt look like ASS on me but whatevs, I can picture myself falling asleep in a snowbank with it on it looks so darn snuggly.

And there are plenty more that I could link to that I love, but you get the idea. Phildar must have a team of knitters working around the clock to crank out all these awesome knits.

I always find that with the Phildar books I do have, I go back to them again and again....long after I've lost interest in Interweave (or even Vogue knitting for that fact). When I go back to older Phildar catalogues I re-discover new things that I want to knit that I missed the first time through. And when they're out of print and I didn't BUY myself a copy? Wahhhh! I always regret it, so I find they're worth picking up. And eventually they almost always go on sale, so it's worth it to be on their mailing list (though at this point , what mailing lists am I NOT on?)

My LYS has also started to carry some Phildar catalogues, but it's a bit of a crap shoot as to what she has in stock. But enough talk, where did I put my credit card?!

I-cord rules

Ok, why am I not smart enough to knit something like this and then sell it for $375 myself???





These Matt lamps were made by Berlin designer Ilot Ilov --aren't they cool?

I feel vaguely as though if I were to create something like this I'd be starting fires all over the place. --No doubt why I dropped the industrial design program before I even began it and got an English degree instead...(math, pffft who needs it!)

As I knit and breathe

The longer one is away from their blog, the more daunting the task of returning it seems...

So to that end, simple proof that I still exist!





Ok, so I won't pretend that this recently flew off the sticks or anything. I actually knit this in April to go with my wedding dress (yes black, I know but I was toying with a B&W (&red) theme-- white dress, black sash etc. etc.). And most of you who already read here know that I've been working on about a million of these shrugs in different colours before finally settling on black. I did a white one, an ivory one, a dark grey, a dark brown, a mustard one....(I know I'm missing a couple there), but in the end, this was "the one".



Except that it WASN'T "the one", and about two weeks before the wedding I went with a completely different dress that required no shrug. Seen here if you're interested. At any rate, I pretty much have a shrug for every dress I own now!

Now, let us never speak of said wedding again.

But speaking of the wedding... HAHA fooled you! --there's been very little knitting since. Virtually everything I started after Christmas has subsequently been abandonned.

Now that could just be a summer-time thing. I'm not as inclined to knit as much in the summer. Or it could just be a ME thing...every year I seem to crank out less and less (quality, not quantity, right??)

But recently I am back on that train baby! (and starting small so as to feel progress being made more quickly)...

BAM!


BAM!


BAM!


Though this last one has kind of made me question my sanity a bit...definitely the smallest yarn I've ever knit with. And the STATE of said yarn (constant breakage) has finally driven home to me the fact that I have a MOTH problem.

Not sure why it has taken me so long to realize this (I've never had moths before so killing the odd one didn't seem like a very big deal) but after a favourite cashmere sweater this past winter suddenly turned up with tiny holes, and virtually every night now I see or kill a little moth dude on my bedroom wall, I obviously have a bigger problem than I realized. I think it's officially time to deal with this.

Perusing the internet today for information has only served to depress me further...seems they never really go away and I might be dealing with this 4-evah. (Not to mention how itchy I've been all day just having had to think about them). If there's one thing I CANNOT ABIDE, it's bugs. (Also why I am prone to being half-assed when it comes to gardening...I just can't handle the creepy-crawlies).

My one saving grace is my stash. I really don't have anything I can't live without if it all disintegrated tomorrow (ok well maybe there are a few things I couldn't live without), but I'm not really a hoarder of insanely good yarn, and don't really have that much of a stash compared to most knitters.

So there you have it: Some small things being knit, and some yarn getting eaten.

I'm b-a-a-a-a-a-a-c-k

hmmmm, I feel like I say "I'm back" a lot lately. You'd think I actually went places (well this time I did, but mostly it's just me having zero content and being absent from this blog...)

Remember the days when I would buy one random ball of yarn and then do an entire blog post about it? or do a book report on every knitting book or magazine I ever bought? (I recently canned my photobucket account which meant A LOT of older photos that I completely forgot were associated to this blog suddenly went "poof, bah-bye" (or the more garish IMAGE NOT FOUND tiled all over the freakin' place) but rather than fix things I just deleted a lot of old posts instead--and even that seemed to take hours). Otherwise I would probably have linked to said old-posts-about-random-balls-of-yarn as proof of how painful my blog posts used to be. --And by no means am I implying that they aren't a tad painful now...I know it sometimes takes me 5 paragraphs with ten seperate asides just to get to the point... and wait, what what was my point again?

Ok my point is that things HAVE CHANGED. These days I don't like to waste anyone's time (including my own...) and like to post when I actually have something visually worthwhile to show you (or really, if I'm bored--haha gotchya!) Also changed: I try not to buy random balls of yarn anymore---usually I try to purchase with an actual project in mind cause otherwise you know what happens? A fucking stash full of random balls of yarn, that's what. Yarn with no purpose, and no direction apart from clogging up the stash! (uh oh now I'm swearing --sorry mom!). Also changed: I seldom buy knitting books anymore...not unless there's something I really REALLY want to knit in there. Magazines yes, PDFs, yes...books, not so much.

Also changed?



ME, I'm an old married hag now! ok, I haven't really changed...and being married is no different for me than it was pre-marriage, there's just more jewelry now.

And really, I won't inundate you with wedding pics here apart from some of these because, surprise: they are knitting themed!



This was all our photographer's idea...once she found out I was a knitter she was ALL OVER IT. And at first I wasn't so sure about it (mostly because I didn't know how much Nathaniel wanted to take part in a knitting shoot) but in the end he was a good sport about it and now I'm SO glad we did it this way (plus we sort of did two-shoots-in-one and there will be plenty of NON knitting pictures too).



The knitting pics were all taken at Springs Preserve in Las Vegas, Nevada by our fabulous photographer Chelsea Nicole. I've stolen all these pictures off her blog actually because so far that's all we have access to. The seperate shoot was done in downtown Vegas and I am dying to see those too. Can't wait --Chelsea rules!

Some of my favourites are of me reading "Knitting for Dummies" (yes I lugged this all the way from Ottawa in my suitcase---in addition to lots of yarn and a few knitting projects and a vintage knitting bag, most of which didn't get used---good thing it's all so squishy cause I had A LOT of shopping to bring back with me too!) and Nat reading his usual Ugly Things. (don't ask...if you're a record nerd like he is, you will know what that is).

I think I was kind of trying to imply that Nathaniel was the dummy I was knitting for with these ;)




(sorry most of these photos get cut off on the side due to blogger's weirdness, so just click on them to see the full pic)

Anyway, you get the idea...the knit heart tattoo I have obviously blogged about before,



and I also whipped up a fast "skinny" tie (you can find the link to that one via Ravelry) for my betrothed to wear in the shoot,



In addition to a few other knitting-projects-as-props, but more on those later...

Some of you may be wondering "Where is the effing SHRUG you've been working on for months???" cause uh, I knit like ten of them (in different colours) to go with my wedding dress, and I promise I will post about that later, but have to tell you that about two weeks before the wedding I found a dress with sleeves that I liked and basically went with that in the final hour and said bye bye to a fussy shrug and matching sash and giant red crinoline and blah blah blah. SO not me, and now I'm glad I did. Honestly it doesn't pay to be organized a year in advance, I tell ya. especially for someone like me who will tweak things into the ground if time provides. (Organizational skills are simultaneously a gift and a curse).

So that's the update for now...honestly I have not knit a stitch in WEEKS, but still probably have a backlog of things that I can talk about. Everything in Vegas went off without a hitch, and I'm glad to be back and back to the business of living life and (more importantly) starting new projects!

Some trip pictures can be seen here if anyone's interested. I look forward to getting caught up on what everyone else has been up to!