Spectra

Here it is...another Stephen West design. Obsessed much? Well yes, I believe I am. Lol. Make no wonder, just look at this stuff that he comes up with. Unbelievably simple, yet so effective.

Its knit in Berocco's Ultra Alpaca Fine and Noro Silk Garden sock yarn. I really enjoyed knitting this. I knit quite a bit while travelling to Toronto earlier this summer and vowed I'd knit until the yarn ran out - so its quite long.

I decided to lay it out on the piano so you could see the length of it. I highly recommend this pattern. It curves around the neck in such a nice way. There are endless possibilities in how to wear it.

Mystery solved

I just finished up Clue 4 of the West knits mystery knit a long. I'm super happy with the result and am wearing it now as I type. Fall comes quickly to the big land. I'll be wearing it outside soon enough.

It is quite large - about 190cm in wingspan and 60cm deep. I love the colours too. Next up, my Knitspot club knitting.

In other news, I did squeak in knitting a bit of handspun - as was my knitting resolutions this year. This pattern is a freebie called Lychee mittens. A simple knitted mitten pattern with a few stripes thrown in for good measure. I knit a pair for each of my students this year. I think the handspun makes them even more special

I've finally lost my mind!

Let me warn you all first that if any readers are participating in Westknits mystery knitalong ...there are spoilers in this blog post!!!

Okay, now that formality is out of the way, let me go on to tell you why I feel that I've finally lost it. Kev and I just got back from a trip to Toronto!! We had such a great time. We went to two Blue Jays games. Saw the musical "Billy Elliot". Went to the Hockey Hall of Fame, and had our pictures taken with the Stanley Cup!! We ate at some great restaurants and did a little shopping! And I even got to go yarn shopping!! Surprised? No, I didn't think so. Here is what I bought.

Yeah, thats a lot of yarn!! It cost surprisingly less than I had thought it would. There are some yarns there that are totally new to me - yarns that I've never tried before, but have always wanted to try out. And there are some old favorites. There is even a sweaters worth of Cascade 220 in the greatest green colourway ever - destined to become some unknown cabled hoodie. I'll figure out the pattern at some time in the future. Knowing me, it'll be like 2 years into the future, but the way I look at it, I'm saving up all this knitting for my retirement.

I bought all of this yarn at a place called Romni. Let me tell you, this place is stocked. Overstocked in fact. A lot of my friends on Ravelry recommended this place to me, and I'm so so glad that I went, but... the day that we went was sooo humid and hot. And this store is so crowded and big and not air conditioned. It was really difficult to make my way around. So I basically made one sweep through, without really thinking about what I might like to make, and this is what I walked out with. I didn't even look at the books and magazines (of which there appeared to be plenty)

In other news, I was so excited to sign up for a Stephen West mystery Knit along. I've praised this man's genius on the blog before, so its no surprise that when this opportunity came up, I signed up right away. The first mystery knit along that I did was by Lee Meridith and I loved it! It was so much fun that I knew I would definitely enjoy Stephen West's KAL too.

So far, Mr West has not disappointed me! Here are my results to date.

Oh and did I mention that I ordered the yarn from 'A Good Yarn'? And did I mention that Jenny helped me pick out the colours? And did I mention that I couldn't decide on a colour so I bought enough yarn for two shawls? Is the title of the blog post starting to become clearer? No? Well, the cincher for me would have to be, when I got home from Toronto there was a package in the mail. A package from Knitspot!!

Apparently, I signed up (and paid for!) a six month club membership and totally forgot about it! I must be crazy, right?

There is Nothing Cuter...

Than crafty kids.

Here the boys are stringing beads for necklaces for their moms. Morgan strung half dozen or so then got completely bored with it, but Max wanted to keep going and make necklaces for his nan and me and every other female he knows. Too cute!

Its August?

I don't know what it is about summer, but its like we are in some sort of time warp. I don't know if time speeds up in the Northern hemisphere, or is it just that our summers are so darned short. In anycase, I cannot believe that its August already. Only 8 more sleeps and I'm heading to Toronto!!! Hurrah...yarn shopping anyone?

In the meantime, I finished up some more Tour de Fleece yarn. Sadly, my Tour was way less productive than in previous years. I think it was because I was suddenly unexplainably smitten with my spindle. Go figure, and I have two wheels.

Jess was in town for the month of July. It was so great to see her and talk knitter with her. I had almost forgotten our language. Lol...good thing that I have ravelry and that I went to the spinning workshop. And Jess has finished her Sylvi. I was so impressed with it that I took pictures. This is in part to show off her mad skills and to pressure myself into at least casting on for Sylvi. I've had the yarn for close to two years now. Shame.

Its Tour de Fleece Time!

Its that time of year again. July is the perfect time to spin. With so many others spinning for the tour de fleece, the ravelry boards are a constant source of inspiration. For example, the other day, I saw someone had a spindle that had as its whorl, the Wheel of Fortune!! I pm'd this person to tell her how cute I thought it was and she immediately put me onto the esty seller. So, I have a new spindle on the way!!!! Not a wheel of fortune, but one with candy butterflies, set in resin. I cannot wait to see it...and spin it too, I guess...lol.

These two pictures show my favorite skein to date. Its BFL/silk from an esty seller from Torbay, Newfoundland. The colourway is Jelly Bean Row. How cute is that? I'm very happy with how the colours lined up and I only had to do a couple of resectioning in places to make it work. I'm so tempted to immediately cast on for a pair of mittens using this yarn. Thats a good sign that I'm getting over my inability to knit with handspun, right?

This yarn is my first time spinning polwarth! Its from etsy seller Kelpiefibers and I spin this completely on my new Kundart spindle - which is a dream to spin on, by the way. I don't know why, but ever since the spinning retreat, I've been obsessed with spindle spinning - and we didn't even do a whole lot of spindle spinning there.

And finally a picture of what summer is all about! Homemade popsicles with fruit! I made these for 'the boys' but so far, I've eaten them all myself. Can you blame me?

The Time of My Life

I'm just back from a weekend of spinning and dyeing at Full Tilt Creative Center in McIvers, Newfoundland! I always promised myself that if I ever got the opportunity to attend such a workshop, then I would take advantage of it. I'm so glad that I did. I was very vilifying to see other spinners (especially the instructor, Robyn Love) and realize that I'm doing things right! Most - well, all of my spinning knowledge has been gleaned from books and youtube videos. I have always felt somewhat isolated as a spinner. I learned a lot of things from this workshop, including a better way to wash fleece. My Big Project will definitely improve with the knowledge gained from this weekend.

This is Blanchard House. This is where I stayed the entire weekend. It has a beautiful view of the 'Bay of Islands". There is a small island with a tern colony just off the beach. The terns didn't stop screeching all night long. Surprisingly this was quite soothing.

Here Robyn demonstrates how to properly scour fleece. I hadn't been adding enough soap to my washings. I'm hoping this will help with my very greasy Saskatchewan fleece.

This is Jen sorting through some fiber that came from our indigo dye pot. Aren't the colours amazing?

Martina (my roommate) looks at all the dyed fleece drying in the sun. Again, the colours are spectacular!

These are my two yarns from this weekend. I used all the colours from the natural dye pots to make both of these yarns. I carded up the fibers (both on hand cards and the drum carder) for a little blending and I threw in bits of novelty yarns to attempt art yarn. I was going for a thick and thin single, which I think I succeeded.

This young lady was one of Colette's workers. (Colette is the owner of Full Tilt) She was interested in spindle spinning, so I gave her one of the spindles that Kev and I made. She is spinning with some fibre that took a quick dip in the indigo dye bath. I love that light blue!