FO : School Boy Vest

I was so excited when the Lucky Penny Baby collection was released in March. I was immediately contemplating color combos. I really wanted to splurge and get enough Tanis Fiber Arts yarn to make the whole collection but being a stay at home mom it wasn't in the budget. Boo!! So I tossed the stash a bit and found some Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo DK. I had bought it on impulse from The Crafty Lady in Lacombe a LONG while ago, and it seemed to work for this project :-) 

Pattern : School Boy Vest by Tanis Lavallee

Yarn : Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo DK in 127, 155 & 147

I like how the green and sapphire blue offset each other well but I'm not too keen on the pale blue. I don't hate the combo but I don't totally love it. The yarn is super soft and it did stretch a bit when it was drying. Mostly because I resorted to the "cheating method" to get it to dry. 

I disliked how long it took the yarn to dry. It seemed to hold the water really well even after I rolled it into a towel and squeezed it. This is why I resorted to trying the "cheating method". I knew there was a good possibility that it would stretch, considering it's 80% bamboo, but I was willing to take the chance. After all, it was laid flat to dry for just over a day prior and it was still damp. It took the better part of a day to get it completely dry after I had the fan blowing on it constantly.

Overall, I loved the pattern. I have enough yarn to make a matching Frosted Alpine Hat. Which will make a darling combo! I'm hoping that there will be a boy born in my extended family in the next year so I can gift them this set :-)

Happy Knitting :-)

Something New :-)

The last week has flown by! I've been very busy! Pretty much every minute has been put to good use, when my daughter has been napping.

I've had an idea about making some stitch markers for a while now. I've bought quite a few stitch markers over the years. Some are pretty, but not functional. Some are functional but not realistic to use for certain projects. Some come in multiple sizes, which is a pain for me. Really, do I NEED mini ones for socks? I just wanted a set that would work for the most common needle sizes. I really only use stitch markers for sweaters or complex patterns.

So my vision was set. I wanted to create simple, uncomplicated, snagless stitch markers with natural gemstones. I always was drawn to rocks and minerals. If you checked out my house I have a fairly large collection of Amethyst, Sodalite, Tourmanline ect. I'm not sure why I'm fascinated by rocks and minerals but I am :-) 

So I've spent most of the last week making snagless stitch markers. I've loaded them up in my Etsy Shop and have already sold my first set :-)

It's ridiculous how excited I am about this! I've already placed an order for more beads, so there will be more stitch markers uploaded to the Etsy Shop as soon as I get them!

See this pile of yarn? It's been dwindling down since I donated a skein of Woodland Fairy on BFL Sock for the Yarn Harlot's Karmic Balancing Gifts. Last year I was fortunate enough to win an awesome skein of yarn, so this year I wanted to give back a little by donating a skein. I wasn't expecting much but it's given me a bit of exposure. 

As expected, Woodland Fairy seems to be the popular color. It sold out pretty quick, considering I only had 1 skein in stock ;-) So I was able to dye up a couple extra skeins which I've just uploaded into the Shop. Each one is slightly different. So each one is in it's own listing so you can see how the skein looks before purchasing.

I also mailed off this order, purchased by Maria :-) It has a mix of some of my favorite colors. I hope she loves them :-)

Lastly, I'm hoping to have some FO photos shortly of my latest FO. I've washed it and I'm currently using the cheat method to dry it ;-)

Happy Knitting  :-)

Inspiration...

While I was knitting along on my mom's Crazy Psychedelic Socks, I was a bit captivated by the pooling. It inspired me to create 2 colorways.

The top skein is Day Lily and the bottom skein is Leaves in the Pool. I was able to dye them in a couple bases and it's amazing how each base takes the dye differently. I'm happy with them all and we'll see when inspiration comes next ;-)

I've posted 15 more skeins in the Etsy Shop today!!

I was so excited that my daughter had a long nap time! It gave me enough time to re skein, photograph and list everything :-) I now feel like I've accomplished something today.

Now I just need to clean up all the camping stuff from the long weekend :-( There's a lot that needs to be cleaned since it rained most of the weekend and forced us to come home a day early :-(

Happy Knitting :-)

Wholly.... Procrastination!!

Wholly moley! Talk about procrastination! I've taken a bunch of photos and posted them in Instagram but I haven't had a chance to get a blog post together. I'm so bad! So this is going to be a bit of a catch up post :-)

I'm quite pleased with how my spinning is progressing! Every bobbin I fill seems to be more even and a bit thinner. These 3 bobbins were all spun in the same day.

I find spinning incredibly relaxing now. The initial learning process was a bit frustrating but as everything came together and I got in a rhythm it became very zen like :-) 

Which is awesome because I can use more zen in my life ;-)

Although plying is a separate matter altogether. My first time was an epic fail. I seemed to get a hold of it towards the end but it will take some practice as well. No photos of my epic fail ;-)

Secondly, I've been falling behind in listing yarn to my Etsy shop! I've had some skeins dyed but not reskeined them yet. Not to mention that I spent some time dyeing the other day, so now I have 15 skeins to reskein! I'm hoping my little girl will let me work on rectifying that tomorrow :-)

I also have some FO's to share :-)

I finished a pair of plain stockinette socks for my mom for Mother's Day! It's a good thing that she likes ankle socks or there would have been a great possibility that they wouldn't have been done. I liked how it knitted up :-) They are definitely crazy Psychedelic socks ;-)

Pattern: It's a Hodge Podge ;-) I work my socks toe up using : Judy's Magic Cast On, Wendy Knit's Slip Stitch Heel, and I use this Stretchy Cast Off
Yarn : Prairie Knitting Yarns Sparkle Sock in a castaway skein that is close to Hippie Dippie

Lastly, I knitted a toque for my friend Kaylee. It was her birhtday and she really wanted me to knit her something. So she was quite excited when I showed her my stash on Ravelry so she could choose what yarn she wanted. She was immediately attacted to the brightest pinks. Which is perfect since I am NOT a pink person. It's amazing that I even have any pink in my stash.

Pattern: Cabled Canuck by Tanis Lavallee
Yarns : Dragonfly Dyewerx Smooshy Sock in Princess 2.0 (darker pink) & Rocky Mountain Dyeworks Sundance Sock in Red Hot Pink

I'm knitting her a pair of mittens as well but the colors will be reversed. I didn't have enough of one color to do both projects. I am quite pleased with the Sundance Sock. At first I wasn't sure how it would work since I knit it double stranded. It seemed a little 'OFF' but I plunked away anyway. I then decided to give it a good soak, then I threw it in the washer and dryer and boy did that make all the difference. It bloomed so well and softened up to the point where it was heavenly. It's very seldom where I keep knitting on a project when I have an 'OFF' feeling but in this case it worked out. Usually I'm swearing after as I'm ripping it out ;-)

Happy Knitting :-)

FO : Cinder Block Socks

So it's been more than a couple years since I've knit my father any socks. He hinted that he wanted another pair of socks 2 years ago. Then I informed him that he doesn't wear the first pair of socks I knitted him, so he's on the no knit sock list. Temporarily. Maybe. Apparently his feet would sweat like mad when he wore them, so he could only wear them outside when it was like -30. I don't find that as an excuse ;-)

Anyways, while checking out new sock yarns I came across Zitron Trekking Pro Natura, It's a mix of 75% superwash wool and 25% unprocessed bamboo. I figured that it would be worth a shot knitting up a pair of socks for my Dad and see if he'll wear these ones. The bamboo should keep his feet a bit cooler than if it were just wool socks. So I pulled out my go to "Manly Sock" pattern, Cinder Block Socks by Anne Hanson. It has an appealing ribbing in the sock that fit perfectly for any man's foot.

So I knitted. The yarn it's self was a bit rougher because of the unprocessed bamboo but it was even and there were no thick and thin sections. Or large pieces of pulp in the yarn, which is a bonus. I was a bit worried that I would have sections with larger chunks of pulp in them but this wasn't the case.

This was NOT a project that I was monogamous on. It lay stagnant from Christmas until April. I'm bad :-( But once I picked it up again to get them done for my Dad's birthday, I motored on them :-)

Overall, I'm quite happy with how they turned out. They didn't soften up too much when I washed them. I was hoping they would bloom or soften up a bit more but I guess they are going to be hard wearing socks. I hope!

The photos are a little washed out. So the color is more a dark teal with hints of forest green in it. I wasn't sure my Dad would like the color since he's a gray kinda guy but he was quite happy with them and they fit perfectly on him.

He even wore them the whole day I was there on Friday :-) Which is completely unheard of. The last pair of socks I knit him, he put them on for about 10 minutes. Then he had to take them off because he was sweating like a mother! I'm happy as long as he wears them :-)

I've already got yarn picked out for my next pair of socks. I'm not sure why I do this to myself BUT I always seem to leave knitting socks for my Mom for Mother's Day to the last minute :-( I blame it on the fact that between the months of April and June I have 3 birthdays and 2 parent holidays which everyone wants socks. You would think that after doing this to myself year after year I would smarten up and plan ahead accordingly. Apparently I'm not that smart...

Soooo.... below is the skein that I'll be using. It's a skein of my Prairie Knitting Yarns Sparkle Sock in an OOAK which is close to Hippie Dippie. The skein was a bit off when I was dyeing it so I decided to keep it :-)

We'll see if I can pull this off before Sunday! Wish me luck :-)

Happy Knitting :-)

FO : Papaya Cancan

I am so in love with this FO. I love the color, the base, how drapy it ended up being. I've had this yarn in my stash for about a year and even though I loved the color I was completely perplexed on what to knit with it. It was one of those yarns that needs to sit and marinate a while while I figured out what the perfect mix would be. So as soon as I saw MrsMommy's French Cancan on Ravelry which was knit with Tanis Fiber Arts Red Label in Lilac, it totally inspired me to use my favorite skein. I loved the fact that it's knit held double so you get a thicker, fluffier fabric when knitted. She also did a wonderful Post on her Blog about her cancan. I've been following her blog ever since :-)

Anyways to the beauty shots :-)

I totally took way to many pictures but it was hard to just take 1 ;-)

This is going to be part of my permanent wardrobe from now on! It was a very simple knit with just the right amount of detailing on the edging. 

Pattern: French Cancan by Mademoiselle C

Yarn: Tanis Fiber Arts Red Label in Papaya

I did use just shy of 2.13 skeins. So plan accordingly. I was able to score the extra 15 grams from a friendly Raveler that saved my butt ;-) 

Now since my baby is finally sleeping I'm going to squeeze in some knitting time :-)

Happy Knitting :-)