Aaju has arrived

For the past two weeks Kev and I have been playing host to a couple of our friends from the small northern community of Makkovik. They are here waiting the birth of their daughter -Aaju (it means big brother/sister in Greenland dialect of Inuktutut) Well, she arrived on Thursday night, in the middle of a big snowstorm. She is as pretty as can be.

You may recall that I spun up some yarn a while ago - especially for her. I thought about her while I spun the yarn. Mindful spinning if you will. I put good thoughts into that yarn. As I spun, I hoped that she would lead a good life, that she would be healthy, happy, safe and warm.

And then I knit up the stuff. No pattern for the sweater - all out of my head. I'm so happy with the little cardigan. It has a little welt knit right in which I'm using as a drawstring casing. I just love those little pompoms.

And here is the little hat. I've knit this before and each time I do, I find it completely charming. I love knitting the little short rows. I think it highlights the fractal spun handspun very nicely. The pattern is Aviatrix and its free. So, go - and knit one for a baby you love today!

My first Commission?

Yeah right!! Lol. Amy approached me some time ago about an idea that she (and her classmates) had. This is Amy's last term at Bishop's! And she wanted to get her voice coach Gail, something special. Several of her classmates felt the same way and the idea was born that they would commission me to make a shawl. I had been texting Amy quite a bit about this shawl. Issues like shape, colour, fiber content, yarn weight all came up. She was planning on getting her friends to answer most of these concerns and get back to me, but they never did! So I took it upon myself to just go for it and hope they would like it. I decided that handspun would make it more special and I decided that the colour purple was in order since that is the official colour of Bishop's university. Its knit from that first loop batt that I spun up in the colour Plum Pudding.

Then I had to pick a pattern. The latest knitty had just come out and there was the perfect semicircular shawl. Afternoon Tea. I loved knitting this shawl so much. But it turns out I was short on yardage. I ended up having to dye some yarn to match - I was a little concerned for a bit that it was brown not purple, but overall, I'm very happy.

Here it is pre blocking. This photo was taken at night and I almost had myself convinced that the edging was brown. I was in near panic thinking that I would somehow have to figure out how to dye the edging over or that I would have to rip back and knit the edging again.

Here it is blocking. The edging is actually closer to a maroon colour. My knitting room is in an obvious state of confusion. That shoe was put there so I could give Amy some sense of size. Lol. She is happy with the shawl and she is certain that Gail will like it.

But in all honesty, I don't think I'll be able to charge a bunch of college kids for knitting this.

Zombies

I knit this little zombie up the other day. I enjoy knitting toys. They go so fast. The yarn is random bits of scraps that I had lying around. The pattern is a freebie found here. I think this will be a gift for my daughter's roomie who has a thing for brains. lol.

Spinning Shetland

I finished spinning the shetland that I got from the Sheeps Company on Etsy I decided to spin the whole works of it woolen - that is long draw. And, it worked! I'm a worsted spinner by default, so it was a real challenge for me. But this particular breed (or perhaps it was the way the fiber was prepped) begged to be spun in long draw fashion.

The skeins look as though I'm a total noob to spinning - which I'm not, but I guess I'm a total noob to longdraw spinning, so there you go.

i

I'm very pleased with this as I am happy with the resulting yarn and I learned something new about a new to me fiber. Next month, we are spinning Masham - a cross between a teeswater and a swaledale sheep. I've spun teeswater before and did not like it. It was rather rope like in the end - but I blame the spinning, not the fiber. I've already gotten my Masham in the mail and its a nice grey. I may spin this long draw too and try to have it match up with the skeins of shetland that I have. I really want to make a pair of sheepy mitts and I think the spin along yarns will work well for this.

Mittens for Me finished!

But they are unlikely to remain mine. Stepdaughter Nat has been bumming asking for a pair of fingerless gloves for quite some time now. She has taken up curling this winter and fingerless mitts are just the thing. So, I will give these to her with a good heart.

Her father is modelling them here, which just goes to show how stretchy this pattern is. The design is from Laura Lineman of the Knitgirllls podcast. They were doing a KAL on their ravelry board, and I find it hard to resist a good KAL especially one involving mittens. Lol. You can find the pattern here. The blue yarn is Malabrigo Sock that I think I got in Montreal, but am not 100% sure. The orange is Tanis Fibre Arts purple label (with cashmere) that I bought from Jenny at A Good Yarn in St. John's.

And in other news, I'm working on these after thought heel socks that Im knitting using the yarn from the last blog post. I love, love, love knitting this yarn. But I'm currently stalled on these because I didn't measure my feet correctly and they are too short after putting in the heel. I need to undo the toes and knit them longer, which is easy enough, but right now, I just couldn't be bothered.

They sure are pretty though, aren't they?