Pattern Recommendations

I'm growing more and more obsessed with Ravelry; an online knit & crochet community.

There's no better place to browse patterns, network with other crafty types, get advice on how to fix your spinning wheel, and even help plan your next mini-vacation!  Everyone is just really keen to share!

I thought I'd share a few of the projects I've been working on, or had my eye on (you'll need a free ravelry account to access these)

Right now, I'm working on a crocheted soaker for baby diapers by Good Housekeeping (a pattern that's atleast 50 years old!) with some unraveled wool sweater yarn.  The important aspect here, being that you use 100% wool; such as this handpainted, 100% Peruvian Highland wool in my shop:

I also just added this knit beanie by Jessamyn Van Den Elzen to my list of favorites, which would also be perfect to use with a yarn similar to above:

A lot of people who purchase my thick 'n thin handspun yarns make baby hats.  I spotted this Long Tails Beanie by Jen Bartlett that would work perfectly with those yarns:

(wouldn't it look great with this?)

If you are wanting to make an adult hat with some chunky handspun, the First Hat pattern by Nikol Lohr would be perfect:

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Next on my list this Dandy Neckerchief by Ariane Caron-Lacoste:

I love the leafy design!  Not sure which yarn I am going to use yet... hoping to stumble upon an earthy green or brown.  We'll see!!

Winding Down..

I'm hoping things are winding down as we approach the last couple weeks before the holidays.  I have been busy keeping the shop stocked, but will be taking a break from making anything new until I get caught up on all my gifts and shopping.

I will also be doing a craft show this year- something I typically don't do... but its going to be a really cozy, fun, non-formal type deal.  If you are in the Lethbridge area, check out Craftateria!  Art and Indie Craft Fair on December 18 at the PARLOUR window downtown:

I'll bring my spinning wheel and some new hand painted yarns, and knit & crocheted goodies.

This year, I'm trying to keep the Christmas insanity to a minimum.  But as I'm sure many artists and crafters will agree, it's a challenge to find a happy balance at this time of year.  On the one hand, its probably the best time to sell your wares- so you try your best to keep the shop stocked, but on the other hand, you've gotta have a life!  I am not complaining as I feel really lucky to have such support for my work, but perhaps this serves as a little hug to all you makers out there- hang in there and keep up the good work!!  We are making a deep dent in gift giving awesomeness!

Here's a few of the projects I've been working on.

I was asked for a custom order for a set of family slippers:

I have also been making some mittens:

 

They are both made out of vintage yarn.  The first pair came from a couple of very pink balls of acrylic/wool buffalo yarn, which I over dyed, you can see the original color here:

The second pair I have already mentioned in a previous blog post, but I over dyed the gray color into purple.  Here's the original color, before dyeing.  This is buffalo yarn too, but 100% wool.  (And no, still haven't made my sweater)

And I made a present for myself (gotta have a little gift to yourself once in a while!)- a kerchief with some of the noro furin yarn I picked up on my last trip to edmonton. 

I like these triangle type scarves because they are bit dressy and you can wear them indoors and outdoors, and also because you only need one ball of noro (or other super yummy yarns) to make.  They are something I'm considering making & selling in the shop- maybe with handspun yarns!  I used a vintage wooden button and it can slip anywhere I want in the knitted fabric, so the scarf can be loose fitting or more snug.  You'd probably get a better idea of the size if I tried it on, but I'm still in my pj's :)

Afghan History

In browsing the endless abyss of facebook, I discovered a project going on in my former home Edmonton.  It sounds like a wonderful project, and the perfect piece of public art for a senior's centre.  I always wondered why these blankets were called "Afghans"... I always thought it was a somewhat politically incorrect term.

HOW MANY AFGHAN BLANKETS DO YOU HAVE?
Instant Coffee wants to photograph your afghan blankets
A Public Call and Event
...
The artist collective Instant Coffee would like to photograph your favourite afghan blankets. The resulting photographs will be used as part of a public art commission for Edmontons New North Central Community Recreation Centre.

The afghan blanket with its erratic and saturated palette, its repetitive patterns and grid forms became a common household craft and item in North America in the sixties and seventies. The name comes from the influence of Afghani textiles, which were made from recycled or left over wools, came in vibrant colours, and incorporated holes as a basic part of their geometric pattern. As a North American tradition, the modest, domestically crafted blankets were rarely sold commercially, usually offered as personal gifts and familial hand-me-downs. Currently, they have found a secondary market and are readily available, but the domesticity and sentimentality of their making is still a vivid part of this personal, yet shared history.

Please grab these cherished items from off your beds, sofas, lazy-boys and shoulders, and bring them to Central Lions Seniors Association on Thursday, October 7th at 6 to 9pm for Instant Coffee to photograph, catalogue and enter into a competition. Only three of the afghan designs will be chosen by the collective to be part of a permanent kinetic wall mural. If an image of your distinctive blanket is selected, your name and any information you might have about it will be inscribed next to the artwork.

Works in Progress: Thanksgiving

Last weekend in the mountains; secret project, beer & bread

 Fall outdoor spinning (was for this)

 

The evolution of my studio, now with drum carder station and a cool new woven rug;

 

 I finally spun the west coast batts I've been saving forever... (and unfortunately forgot to take a picture of them before spinning) Has anyone ever heard of these before?  I'd love to get some more but they don't seem to be on the net.

The beginnings of a really simple triangle shawl/scarf- was going to do something a little fancier but then decided to let the yarn speak for itself.

Almost Every Day is a Sweater Day

It has been a beautiful week of weather here- our lack of summer is partially being made up for with warmer than seasonal temperatures (+26 C for instance).
The warm wind is quickly shuttling the leaves off the trees. 

We have been harvesting and starting to retreat to the indoors.  Plants have been pulled, outdoor decorations and furniture put away for the year, perennials trimmed and thinned.

I figured there was no use in being sad about the lack of summer so I decided to try and fully embrace fall.  After all, I know I won't be hunkering down for another Edmonton winter, so maybe it isn't all that bad.  I think fall is the favorite season of many knitters, crocheters and spinners.  We can embrace what we do, knowing its fully justified with the oncoming winter.  What better feeling is there than knowing you're creating warm, cuddly things for you and your family/friends?

I have a couple of expecting friends, so I thought I'd make them something.  I've always been a little bit afraid of baby clothes, maybe its because I'm clueless when it comes to anything baby.  But I found a great pattern and made Mary and her bean this little sweater:

The pattern is called Every Day is a new Sweater Day and you can find it on ravelry too- i like to look at the projects to see what everyone has done with it.  I really loved this pattern for it's flexibility.  You can not do the arms and its a little cap sleeved vest.  You can roll the collar over or leave it like a turtle neck.  I doubled up the yarns so its probably more of a jacket.  I used some vintage pearly crochet yarn:

Doubled up with an oatmeal colored wool, my fave bamboo hooks, a few cups of tea, and my favorite little owl, the pattern took no time at all.  Now I just can't wait to see it on the little bean when she arrives :)

Following the Fiber

One of my fave crocheters and all around creative gal has to be Cal Patch of Hodge Podge Farm.  
Not only does she make beautiful crocheted, sewn, and dyed goodies, she also has her own book out; Design-It-Yourself Clothes; Patternmaking Simplified (which I've been meaning to add to my library for a long time now!)  Cal also lives in an amazing rural farmhouse in New York where she is "living the dream"; creating, teaching and living the handmade life.  And I'm pretty sure she has chickens too, which I am highly envious of (in talking to some friends in my new home city, it doesn't look like our bylaws will be bending to allow chickens anytime soon.  boo-hoo.)

So in lieu of me not making anything lately due to my move (I am just about at a breaking point here people!), I am vicariously living through others' creations.  Cal has done a series along with 2 other artists that follows the fiber from the undyed roving through to the spinning process, and then ending up at the final destination to be crocheted.

It's an amazing journey that often goes unappreciated, so check it out here.

 

Latest Custom Order

These were finished and sent off just before I moved.  Trish, the customer, had bought this yarn (malabrigo twist) but didn't quite know what she wanted to do with it. 

So she had me crochet her a matching pair of fingerless gloves and neckwarmer based on a couple of my previous designs.  She also sent me some matching yellow lucite buttons that complimented the yarn nicely.

I was really impressed with the yarn, it is a bulky weight, hand-dyed baby merino wool.  It almost has the softness of cotton.  I would definitely recommend it to those who find wool itchy.

Update on the moving front: we are settling in quite nicely and I love our new house.  I haven't unpacked my studio because it still has to be renovated.  But I'm hoping to slowly start spinning and dyeing more yarn over the next month, so stay tuned!

Smokin' Clothing

I think I freak people out when I talk about spinning various fibers into yarn and the possibilities.  I guess maybe folks don't recognize that wool yarn is, simply put, twisted sheep's fur.  And therefore, you could potentially make yarn out of many other types of fibers, such as cottonwood fuzz, alpaca fleece, angora bunny fur, strands of plant fiber such as hemp, dog fur, dandelion fluff, dryer lint, and apparently now cigarette butts!!

A friend shared this link with me on a project that Alexandra Guerrero is doing with re-purposing a very common piece of garbage into something functional.  It sounds disgusting, but after you read about the intensive sterilization & cleaning process, its kind of neat.  Cigarette butts litter our streets and take a really long time to break down.  I wonder what exactly are the fibers in cigarette filters/butts?  fiberglass maybe?

And she makes really cute crocheted accessories with the yarn too!

Read all about it at treehugger and see more pics of finished projects here.

oh, and hey, don't forget to enter my giveaway and the sale happening in my shop right now; 15% off!!

Granny Love

Granny squares are back.

It's been a while for me, but I'm itchin' to get back into making them after seeing all the lovely work folks are making:

 

Photo & Blankets by Elizabethcat

  

 Elizabethcat's African Flower blanket

 

LittleTinBird's patchwork blanket in progress

cauchy09's keep on truckin' granny

 I've made 3 blankets in the past:

 

 

Granny ('05?) Made for a friend and her new baby.

Totally scrappy and one of my first large-scale projects.

 Granny ('06?)

Some friends from the organic store I used to work all got together and made this granny for our co-worker who was moving back to NZ.  I never did get a picture of it finished (hmmm.. some investigating needed)

This is where I learned that if you get 4 hookers together and have them make the exact same square with the same sized hook and yarn, they will all turn out different sizes because everyone's gauge is different!

 

 

Afghan '07-08

Here is my first zigzag afghan, which is not even really a granny square but I thought I'd throw it in anyways since we're talking about blankets.

My plans are to make one big granny like cauchy's above for my new home!  And I just don't have the patience right now to make a bunch of little ones and then sew them all together.

The yarn?

I will be crocheting 2 strands together using a mix of:

- Maple Tweed Fisherman's Wool  

- My hand-dyed angora-merino- 1 dyed magenta, 1 dyed violet:

The colors & yarns will be randomly placed, I think!  Nothing too stuffy or structured, cuz granny's are all about fun!

Farewell, Tweedle Dee

 

  

 

 

One of my favorite commercial yarns, Moda Dea's "Tweedle Dee" has apparently been discontinued, and the whole line has been "retired".  

Above are some of the items I made with the yarn.  It was one of the first "art yarns" (if you can call it that) that I used, and it was such a pleasure to work with.  It's subtle color changes and little sparks of color made crocheting a long scarf (like those above) a little more interesting.

You can still get some of it online, but I guess once its gone, its gone.  And I don't order much yarn online so I'm going to savor what I already have (plus I don't need anymore yarn!) 
So I've decided to remake the scarf shown at the very top.  I've already unraveled it, this time I'm going to knit it in a simple k3p3 pattern, 30 st's wide.. my first ENTIRE knitting project done in continental (the absolute BEST way to knit.. saves so much time!)  That way, it will be nice and wide (all the scarves I've made for myself I find too thin).  The original scarf I crocheted lengthwise (as a lot of crocheted scarves are) in a mock rib-stitch, and therefore made more of a striped effect. But I'm going to to knit it width-wise to show off the subtle color changes.

Here is what I have so far, and I'm loving it:

Is anyone else mourning the loss of tweedle dee?!