There's something about a finished project.  There's something about the satisfaction of seeing something that you've started with yarn and a few sticks, and it becomes completely functional and beautiful.

I've been working on the Pinwheel Sweater for a while now...  and by working on, I mean that I started it, was completely enchanted by the pattern, and especially by the yarn (it's absolutely mesmerizing to watch the colour change in Uberknits gradient yarn!), got to the outer edge, cast off, and put it in the knitting basket for months.

 

Why would I do that if it was so enchanting?  So beguiling?  (gee, can I think up any more descriptive words??)  It's because I got to the sleeves, I knew that I would have to count, pick up stitches, keep track of rows.  Be bored be the tedious K1 P1 ribbing for 8 solid inches on EACH arm. 

 

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But, I finally did it.  I picked it up, carefully undid the alternate arm hole, used my sweet knitpicks needles to count off the rows until the decreases.  Knit 16 solid inches of K1 P1 ribbing.  Counted rows to make sure the sleeves and trim were both the same length.

 

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It was so worth it.  My very first sweater.  I've knit probably 100 pairs of pants, but never done a sweater.  It was glorious to finally put it on her, see that it fit, feel the joy of the blocking.

Oh yah.  I'll totally be doing this again.

 

 

Oh my my my.  I did something amazing this weekend.  I jumped out of my comfort box, scootched up to Toronto and listened to everone's favourite knitter, the Yarn Harlot. 

Allyson and I drove up Friday afternoon, picked up Amanda, and scootched on the lovely TTC for the Canadian Launch of Stephanie Pearl-Macphee's new book.

The talk was great.  Stephanie is so funny, and very tiny in person.  Much prettier than in pictures too.

I have so much that I want to say about the weekend, but I'm not yet quite sure how to put it into words.  Let's try some pictures, shall we?

Here we are, first in line to get our book signed...  Stephanie graciously insisted that people with babies either inside their bodies or outside their bodies got to go first.  Of course there was more interest in Talya than in me!

With the famous needles and socks in hand, Talya is DESTINED to be a great knitter.  She grabbed right onto those things, and didn't try to put them in her mouth...  at least not right away!  I don't think I was too terribly dorky (Stephanie will probably disagree....) although I was very nervous.

She is really the most lovely person.  So real and down to earth.  I can completely understand why her blog gets thousands of hits a day, and why her books are on the best seller list.  It isn't just that she's a good writer, but she is a fabulous friendly person as well.  Stephanie made sure to talk to everyone as they went through the line.  It wasn't just a sign the book and move on kind of thing.

There were large amounts of knitters all gathered in Indigo books.  Knitting, chatting, having a great time.  It's amazing this community of Knitters.  One thing that we have in common and we all get along.  I think that there would be peace in the world if everyone knew how to knit.

Yesterday, Saturday, 20 of us met for a good old fashioned Yarn Crawl.  The Yarn Shoppes in Toronto??  Oh my goodness.  I would consider moving there just for the shops.

Here we are at Lettuce Knit.  By far my favourite shoppe.  A tiny little place, but so cute, and the people there were amazing.  I got my big purchases of the day here...  my goal was accomplished here...  my drop spindle and fleece.

We had lunch while we were here in Kensington Square (?) and compared stashes while we waited for our Big Fat Burritos.

I think one of the funniest things was the "class photos" we did at every yarn shoppe we stopped at.

Stephanie would have to wait for a red light or for the traffic to clear to be able to take the shot...  See how close she is to the street car tracks there?  Yah.  At every shoppe it was like that!

I have so much more to say about this weekend, but I think I need to let the rest of it sink in for a while.  I really do feel like it was a once in a lifetime thing, and I am so glad that I did.  The baby was fabulous.  Hauled around in the sling for ten hours, and she was content as could be.  It was amazing.

I think the best part was that the weekend was all about me.  It was all about me and something that I love to do with people in who also love to do it.  It was nice to not have to explain what the deal is with this string thing.  It was awesome to have people not look at you funny for touching every single ball of wool in a store.  It was amazing to have people nod in complete understanding when you would exclaim that a skein was good enough to eat.

More later on the weekend, but I will leave you with this egg popping (heh heh heh) picture of Talya in a hat from AlterKnits, our last stop on the crawl.

Knitter out.

I was whining about the futility of doing housework to an online knitting friend of mine, and this is what she wisely responded....

A few weeks ago, my baby-niece, Savannah (aka, Savvy) hit that amazing and scary milestone of being one year old.

I made her this little tank top and matching hat, which, (thanks Russell!) fit her perfectly! 

Isn't she precious?  It's odd that she isn't my child, and yet I feel completely right in taking all the credit for her cuteness.

 

Specs on the tank and hat, plain old Bernat Kitchen cotton, size 5 crochet hook, and I totally can't find the grown up pattern that I based it on.  Anyone recognize it??

Savvy and I have a thing...  I don't really see her too often, or my other niecey-poo, Sierra, but I taught Sav how to rub noses.  Which, while kind of disgusting when her nose is running with snot, is still very cute.  Especially since I tell myself that she only does it with me!

 

I picked up my knitting last night, and it was starting to look like something...



I worked and worked...



And a little while later, after weaving in many many ends,



Now, only the rest of the front, two sleeves and a back to go! 

Oooeee!  A new scarf!

You know, I like knitting scarves.  You can play around with funky stitches, do all kinds of fun things, and end up with this long warm fuzzy.  Nice.



Okay, bad bad picture.  If you can get around the rug pattern to see the scarf, there it is!  Blocking in my bedroom!!

This is the multi-directional scarf in Iris Schreier's Modular Knits.  Quite an ingenious pattern, actually.  Done on one circular needle, I used some grey angora like stuff from Gramma's stash, and double strand of black cotton, also from Gramma's stash.  I'm really pleased with it thus far.  After blocking, all it will need is a hefty dose of black fringe, and won't I be styling with my red winter coat!  Oooee!!


The stripes were so much fun to do.  With this type of knitting, you never cut the yarn.  It's pretty much continuous, unless, of course, you run out. 

There are quite a few other patterns in this book that I want to try, but first, methinks me needs a matching hat.  N'est pas?

Ooooeeee, now those are some warm and toasty feet I have.  Feet made toasty by the creation of a pair of socks.  Created them with my own two hands, four pointy sticks and some string, I did, I did.

I wasn't expecting them to be finished today, but, it turns out that while I was doing respite work with Aimee, I had an hour to sit and watch her shoot arrows in her archery class.  It's a good thing that I just happened to have unfinished sock number two in my bag! 



Aren't they purdy?  Made on 3.75mm dpn's with Regia Cotton Colour.  Nice stuff.  I've been wearing them for a little more than an hour now, and even though they have a decent wool count, they aren't itching me!  It must be the high content of cotton that offsets it.

If you look carefully, the striping matches up quite niceley... except that the stripes are all reversed on the second sock.  I didn't care enough to try and make the stripes match at all.  One ball must have been wound in the reverse of the other ball.

I think that now I have the hang of it, I quite enjoy making socks.  They're a nice easy fast project that I can slip into my purse and haul around with me anywhere.  I did make these a titch too short for my foot, so the next pair will have to be a bit longer.  I'm still keeping them for myself!!

Next up, a toe up sock pattern.... stay tuned...

Here I go...  the day before Christmas Eve, the day before we exchange presents with my family, and I have just started a present involving squares.  24 squares.  I have four down.  20 to go.  And about 24 hours.

In those 24 hours I also have to do laundry, play with the kidlets, and clean the house.

Thank goodness Ja brought home our yearly bottle of Amarula last night!

Doable?  Only time will tell.

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Update - 10:20 pm 9 squares and the edging to go.  The finished squares are already sewn togther, and the ends woven in! 

Unfortunately, the glass of Amarula I had tonight is not helping it go any faster....

The long list of Christmas craftiness is almost over!  And, because the recipients of these aren't really able to access the blog on their own... here are the prizes...

These are Sprites. 


One for my niece Sierra, and one for each of my kidlets.  My kidlets were so enamoured with the one that I made Sierra that I decided to make them each one... to the detriment of my poor little fingers.

The one I made for Sierra is just plain legs, with a shell stitch skirt.



The eyes are a bit lopsided, but...  meh.



Keyz's favourite colour is blue, hence the blue striping on the tights.  Which, by the way, was much easier to do than I originally thought.  I did a bit of a picot on the edge of this one's hat and skirt... just to make it different.

Then....  the need to come up with a "manly" sprite. 



A belt!  Ja thinks that this guy needs a big gold chain...  sigh.  I think he looks a bit like a leprachaun.

I'm quite pleased with them tho, and I think they will make excellent additions to the stockings!

And now, me and my sore fingers must get ready for the new addition to our family....

Okay, can everyone see these now?  Good ole blogjet... saving the day again...  Had to reload the pics to file manager to be able to do it tho.  sigh.