Bad Oyster

I've fallen in love with my knitting again! This makes me so happy. It happens several times a year it seems - I fall in and out of love with my knitting. Sometimes it seems to depend upon the time of year, some times it seems to depend upon if I have any obligatory knitting and sometimes it just seems to be a combination of the right pattern, the right yarn at the right time.

The first thing to kind of get me out of my knitting rut was the publication of a pattern called Moonkoosas. This clever little pattern comes courtesy of Tiny Owl Knits. Tiny Owl Knits is the brains behind the infamous Beekeepers Quilt. This pattern is whats known as a viral knit - meaning everyone and their dog have knit it, are knitting it, or plan on knitting it soon. Count me in the latter group. A full blanket in fingering weight yarn. That would put a knitter into a rut, not help dig one out. But the Moonkoosas are a different story. Knit in bulky yarn and felted down to size, they are a quick knit with a gorgeous unique end product. Now, I just need to knit the second one.
Here they are before felting

And after felting.

I love how the stitch definition just blurs with felting. I may do some needle felting on these too. That is - when I finish the second one.
Why didn't I finish the second one you may ask? (You may also ask why I didn't even start the second one - that might make more sense....lol)Well, Kevin and I took a little trip to St. John's. We had to do 'house stuff'. That is we had to pick out fixtures and lighting and door knobs and god knows what else. Its all a blur to be honest. I didn't get a chance to even go yarn shopping. I know, horrors. But I did get a chance to knit! Bulky furry boots don't really constitute travel knitting in my book, so I picked out a cute promising little pattern in a very cute yarn. And OH MY GOD! The yarn gods must have been smiling on me that day because it was the perfect match of yarn to pattern and it was the perfect travel knitting. By the time I came home I had a gorgeous little shawlette.


The pattern is called Bad Oyster - the name alone is enough to make you want to knit it. Why bad oyster? Well, a bad oyster doesn't produce a pearl. Get it?? There are no purls in this pattern at all. And the fringe is sort of built in. I don't want to give any of the pattern away. But I do encourage you all to check it out and buy it and knit it - Today!!

The yarn is Socks that Rock Medium weight in the colourway Twitterpated. I love that name. I loved the pooling!! Some people hate pooling but the pooling made it more interesting to knit in my opinion. I kept wanting the colours to line up and pool. And yeah, I've already cast on a second one. In the colourway "Pinky Swear" same yarn base. Its my "purse knitting".

Random Sunday or How I love Felted Slippers

In keeping with my once weekly random blog post, here is this week's offering.

• Fiddle head mittens - FINISHED. Totally inspired by Patty finishing her's ahead of me, even though she bought her kit at least a couple of months after me.
• Squirrel Sampler Mittens. By the same designer as the fiddleheads, just not a kit this time. I love, love, love them. They are addicting to knit. I'm planning on making the liners out of knitpicks Suri dream which is a brushed alpaca. In theory this should be nice, but I'm betting (based on the swatch that I knit) it will be a pain in the arse to knit.
• Comfy Cardi - working on the skirt. I will likely finish this by the end of the month. I'm actually spacing this out now. I gave myself 3 months to finish it. It astounds me that I may finish it in a month

• My first FO for 2010 - felted slippers, crocheted at that. Wow, my first finished FO for the year is crochet. And oh, how darling they are.
  

I just love how warm these are. They fit quite nicely. They are a little long in the toes, but thats okay. I felted these in my front loading washer (tis true!) I have to wash them about 3 times to get them down to the size that I wanted. Just in time really because, I have somehow misplaced my French Press felted slippers (see several posts back)

• Upcoming plans? 'Later Gator' mittens from StitchnBitch nation for Max and Morgan
• Lace. I have tonnes of lace weight around, and have yet to knit a single lace weight item. I want to, I really do. I should have added lace to my fiber goals for 2010. I even signed up for the 10 shawls in 2010 group on Ravelry. I'm delusional really. There is no way I can do that, but I'd like to.
  

Adventures in Felting

I've been wanting to make myself a pair of hand knit slippers for sometime now. We have very little carpet in our home - mostly tile and hardwood. In the Labrador winter this can lead to very cold toes. In my quest for the perfect hand knit slipper I came across this little gem of a pattern called French Press Felted Slippers. The pattern can be found on raverly and is worth every penny. I sometimes find that felting patterns can be so unpredictable. And slipper patterns often may look cute, but be so impractical. But these are cute and practical. They stay on over the heel and they felted to just the right size after two washes in my front loading washer. And let me tell you, they were huge. I jokingly showed them to Kev prefelting and told him that I thought there must be an error in the pattern because they came out a little (a little!!) to big. Try 42cm long. See??? Huge.


But boy, oh boy are they ever cute. I'm wearing them now. I'm debating a little needle felting to embelish them a bit, but for now, I'll leave well enough alone because they are just so cute!!

More Slippers

I crocheted these adorable slippers for Morgan for Easter. They are from the same design as last pair, and they are from the same yarn as my symmetric cardi - Valley Yarns Northampton. I think this will be my go to worsted weight yarn. The colours are great and the price is right.

I just cannot get over how cute they are. Seriously. Gorgeous!

In spinning news, I've spun up some corriedale that I've had in my stash for a while. Its from Etsy seller RoaringBravado and its called Frozen treats. Its funny because pastels are totally not my colours but I really like this, and I had to cast on right away.


I ended up with about 180 yards of DK weight yarn and I immediately thought that they had to become mittens. I'm not really going by a pattern or anything. I'm just basing it on a pair of mittens that Amy was given for Christmas a couple of years ago.