Monthly Archives: August 2012

Killybegs

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I finished my Killybegs sweater over a week ago, but I haven’t been able to get it posted until now.  The four of us have been staying with various friends and family members while on holiday.  This means crowded houses filled with people having fun, cooking and eating too much, children and pets running around, and general mayhem.   This does not lend itself to sweater blocking.

A few days ago, we arrived at our friends Mark and Teresa’s house, which is very spacious and lacking in the kids and pets department, and I had a 48 hour window before the place was filled with guests for Doug’s birthday party.  I walked in the door, and the first words out of my mouth (after the obligatory “Hi”) were “Can I block my sweater, like right this minute?”  Luckily, Teresa understands obsessions and the sweater was duly blocked, and spent 48 hours drying.

The Killybegs sweater is designed by Carol Feller and can be found in her book, Contemporary Irish Knits.  It is knit is Donegal Aran Tweed in a spectacular green with flecks in purple and orange.  I completely adore this colour.  Carol says in the book that the texture of the Donegal Tweed changes considerably upon washing and she is right.  It blooms and softens, and becomes completely cozy and warm and fabulous.  Killybegs is supposed to be finished with hook and eye closures along the front edge, but as I forgot to bring those along, I will sew them on later.  I love the way it looks open in any case, so I am not in a hurry to add them.

I made this sweater without any modifications (except for going up a size needle).  I knit it in a size 36, and blocked it to 37″, thus giving me 2″ of negative ease.  It is extremely rare that I knit a sweater exactly to pattern.  I can rarely resist the impulse to tinker, and frankly, most sweater patterns could use a bit of tweaking here and there.  This one just worked out perfect in every way.

One of the especially clever things about this sweater is the way in which Carol has incorporated decreases into the coin cable on the yoke.  The whole time that I was knitting the yoke, I was muttering “Genius!  This is sheer genius!”  It really is a remarkable feat, both intellectual and architectural, and was a pure delight to knit.

I can tell that this will be one of those sweaters that gets worn all the time.  It feels good on, it looks good on, it makes my inner knitter happy.

Serendipity

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I wrote a post recently showing the great pile of knitting that I was taking with me on my holiday to Vancouver.  I noted that Vancouver and surrounds has a large number of yarn stores, but I was fairly determined not to visit any of them.  A reader, kiwiyarns, commented that I was bound to yarn shop.  Shortly after we arrived here, I was perusing patterns on Ravelry and came across this cute little cardigan:

It is designed by Jennette Cross for Hill Country Weavers.  I have been following this group with interest for a while, because I like their patterns and their southwestern sensibility and colour schemes.  This one caught my eye because it is pretty and feminine and lacey, but mostly because of the unusual combination of colours.  It is made with The Fibre Company Acadia, which is a merino, silk and alpaca blend.  I have never used this yarn before, but was taken enough with the pattern to notice that it was knit with the colours strawberry and amber.

Earlier this week, Leah and I were having a celebratory lunch at Granville Island in Vancouver (celebrating Leah’s AS grades).  After lunch, we wandered around all of the little shops and galleries and just happened across a great shop for artists called Maiwa, which has supplies for dying, and beautiful fabrics, textile books, and dare I say, yarn.  As it is a shop which carries many different things, they do not have a great quantity of yarn (but what they have is fab).  The yarn is kept in baskets on a table, and the first basket I saw when I walked in the door was filled with The Fibre Company Acadia.  So, of course, I was obligated to root through it, and lo and behold, they had both strawberry and amber in stock.

Well, dear reader, this was serendipity.   I was not out on a yarn aquisition expedition, but this sort of fell into my lap.  I asked the lovely shopkeeper if I could access the internet to look up Ravelry, to determine how many skeins I would need.  They were very helpful.  And then I couldn’t help but notice that the pattern called for buttons, and that Maiwa had a large chest of drawers filled with hand carved wooden buttons.  So Leah and I spent a fun twenty minutes running our fingers through mountainous piles of buttons and searching out the perfect set.

So, despite the best intentions, I ended up buying yarn on this holiday.  It  was serendipity.

Blue Cloud

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I am on holiday with the family in Vancouver BC; one of the most beautiful cities on earth.  In between going for hikes in the mountains, visiting with family, eating fabulous fresh corn on the cob, peaches, cherries and anything my brother-in-law cooks (we’re talking seriously good food here), I have been slowly working through the gigantic pile of knitting I brought with me.  I took some time away from sweater knitting to make a gift.  Yesterday was my sister-in-law Vivian’s birthday, so I knit her a soft-as-a-cloud blue cowl.

This is knit with three skeins of Rowan Kidsilk Haze held together.  I used a US size 11 circular needle, cast on 151 stitches, joined in the round, and knit in seed stitch for 9 inches and then bound off.  It is amazingly light, and soft and cozy; even wearing it on a hot summer day I didn’t want to take it off.

When I first had the idea to knit a cowl for Viv for her birthday, I cast on with a super bulky yarn by Colinette; I posted about it here.  Though I loved the colours in the Colinette the fabric it produced was very stiff and bulky.  It really didn’t work for a cowl.  When I tried it on, it looked like I had a giant blue poodle wrapped around my neck.  So, just before leaving for the airport, I grabbed a pile of lovely Kidsilk Haze so that I could try again.  It worked so well I think I will make more of these, many more of these, perhaps one in every colour…..

Packing – the important bits

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In a few hours, I will get on a plane with my family and fly across an ocean and a continent to Vancouver.  Am I packed and organized?

Well, my knitting is.  The photo above shows my holiday knitting supplies.  It wouldn’t do to run out of knitting on one’s holiday would it?  Especially when one is going to Vancouver where there is a huge yarn shop to general population ratio.

Time spent packing clothes and other such stuff:   None

Time spent packing knitting supplies:  Lots

Why are we off to Vancouver?  To visit Doug’s lovely family (yeah!), to celebrate Doug’s 60th birthday with family and dear friends (yeah!), and to deposit Emma (and Emma’s stuff) in her dorm room at the University of British Columbia where she will be a student for the next four years (boo! yeah! boo! yeah! boo!)  Can you tell that I am a bit conflicted here?

But at least I’ve got the packing done – the important bits, that is.

Stealth knitting

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I’ve spent the weekend doing some stealth knitting:

I’m not willing to tell you what it is yet (it’s a surprise).  But it’s knit with Colinette Yarns Point 5 chunky pure wool in the colourway ‘Sea Breeze’.  It is a very soft, unplied thick and thin wool which knits up fast on big needles – I’m using US size 13 (9mm).

What’s really great about this project is that I cast on and started knitting it at the Olympics.  In my last post, I showed a photo of me with my knitting at the rowing at Eton Dorney last week.  Yesterday, we had tickets to see the women’s trampolining event at North Greenwich arena in London.  I had never seen this event before.  Did you know that these athletes reach heights of 10 metres above the trampoline?  It is like watching high platform diving, except instead of having an enormous pool of water to land in, they are aiming for an ‘X’ on a piece of fabric.  It is pretty frightening.

It’s hard to get a photo of this from the top level of a huge stadium without a telephoto lens, but that didn’t keep Doug from trying.  The above is a very cropped and blown up bit of a photo which shows the two Canadian competitors; one is 10 metres above the trampoline, and the other is on the floor awaiting her routine.  Here is a great photo of a competitor seemingly suspended upside down in mid-air:

We were thrilled to see a Canadian gold medal (the first of these Games)!  The Canadians nearly came away with two medals; here was the final score:

It was a good day, and a fun crowd.  It was our third Olympic event, and we have yet to have any problems; everything has been working like clockwork.  And here I am knitting at the Olympics, once again.  (The seats next to me were not empty; they were temporarily vacated while the family sitting there went on a food run.  The little boy, who must have been about six, spent much of the event saying ‘boing, boing, boing’ with every jump. Luckily, it was charming rather than annoying.)

Now, it’s back to my stealth knitting (this time watching the track and field from the comfort of my couch).

Knitting at the Olympics? Why, yes!

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Knitting at the Olympics?

Why, yes!  Doesn’t everyone?

Today we were among a very lucky crowd, braving the wind and clouds at Eton Dorney, the Olympics Rowing site, to watch hours of Olympic rowing!  The crowds were so great.  We were of course surrounded by Team GB supporters, but also by tons of Dutch, German, Danish, South African, Canadian and US supporters among many others.  Everyone was lovely, cheerfully cheering everyone along, winners and losers, regardless of nation.  (Of course everyone cheered for their own team, but enthusiastically cheered for everyone else too.) The TV coverage might make you think that this is all about medals, and all about nationalism; but when you are there, you realize that it is all about people, and sports, and making an effort and fun.   And that people, really, are lovely.

Flags:

German fans:

Canadian fans:

British fans:

Little fans:

Multinational fans (Emma, Leah, Kelly and Doug – the original Canadian, American, Australian, German, British fans! – We cheer for everyone!):

Women’s eights:

Canadian oar:

Cheering:

Smiles:

British medalists take a bow:

And the knitting?  What was that all about?  Well, truthfully, I knit only long enough to take the photo, and then tucked it back in my bag.  Why would I do this at all?  Well, for you non-knitters out there, knitters have a special relationship with the Olympics (we’ve even received cease and desist letters from the US Olympic Committee).  You knitters will know what I am talking about.  I couldn’t go to the Olympics and not knit (if only for a minute.)  And for the rest of you, believe me, it’s a knitting thing.  (Ten points to anyone who recognized that I was wearing the Levenwick cardigan.)