Ruisseau Joubert

This past Christmas my big kids gave me an awesome gift.  They all pitched in together, which is a gift in itself if you ask me as a parent - it's always nice to see the close bonds they've re-developed together as adults... it had gone very typically missing for awhile throughout their teen years. I'm glad to see it back! And together they chose thoughtful gifts that were so meaningful and perfect for me.

G and B made me a huge pan of candy cane fudge.  So very decadent and delicious - I may or may not have hidden the pan in the back of the fridge away from little hands and nibbled it mostly in secret so I didn't have to share often.  N and A picked out teas and a mug. (I wholeheartedly recommend the Earl's Garden - I'm just finishing the last sip of it as I type - and Read My Lips from David's Tea by the way! It's so good and even more impressive given it was picked out by two non-tea drinkers!)  J and M picked out yarn.  

They had me laughing as they told me the story of how they picked out the yarn.  J of course, with his story telling abilities, told it much better, but the lengths they went to for that yarn was so touching.  They went into Wolesley Wool and were immediately overwhelmed. So when the clerk asked if they needed help they, of course, said yes. She started asking all sorts of questions: “what does she like to knit?” - “Everything” / “What colour is her favourite?” - “All of them” etc. Finally they got the clerk to look here on the blog and Ravelry trying to get some hints. J was unimpressed with me. He said, “Mom. You list all sorts of yarns you use, and you say this one is good for this reason or that is good for that reason, but you don’t give any hints of what yarns you’d LIKE!!!!” Ha ha! I guess I’m just a big ol’ enigma!

Look at those glorious fall colours!

Anyways, the yarn they chose was the very gorgeous Sweet Georgia Tough Love in the Maple colour way.  The crazy thing was, that as I wound my first skein of the Sweet Georgia it hit me.  This is exactly the yarn I envisioned dying myself all fall long, except hadn't because I was pretty sure that by the time I was done dying it, it would look a whole lot like mud and not a whole lot like the gorgeous colours of the trees along the Ruisseau Joubert I cross every day taking Little Man to kindergarten.  Long after every other leaf in the vicinity had blown off the trees (about 30 seconds after turning colour), the trees along the creek stayed full of leaves in an explosion of colour.  Reds and oranges, yellows, browns and greens.  Every day I saw those breath taking colours and every day thought, "I need a yarn that looks like that."  I couldn't believe that the very yarn I had dreamt of possessing for months was right there on my swift and had been chosen without any idea how truly perfect it was for me.  Of course I had to name my shawl after the creek given the colour of the yarn!

The Maple was far too pretty to hide in my shoes as socks, plus they'd given me two skeins of it, so I had plenty to do a much bigger project.  I wanted something fairly simple that would highlight the yarn, so chose Laura Aylor's Sunstruck.  Squishy bias knit garter stitch and an asymetrical line seemed perfect.  I chose to do mine in just two colours and I was really happy I did.  For my second colour I chose Berocco's Ultra Alpaca Fine in the Pea Soup Mix colour way.   I really enjoyed knitting the shawl and the short rows were addictive - which still seems odd to say given I used to avoid anything requiring short rows as one would avoid the plague - but they are actually very easy to do and watching the shape of the wedges emerge was fun.  

Starting the border stitches

My shawl was too long and too big for the blocking  

mats I had so I layered up quilts on the spare room bed

My shawl itself was completed in a fairly short time, but I was a bit daunted by the edging.  The top one required picking up about 375 stitches and the thought of that had me stalled out until last weekend.  In reality, I picked up the stitches one evening before bed then when I finally started actually knitting the border I did it in small snippets of knitting time over the course of two days.  I don't know why I waited so long.  Like most things it was much easier than I was imagining.  

Then it took me several more days before I blocked it.  Again,  I'm not sure why.  I ended up just spritzing the corners and edges lightly with water to block it as it certainly didn't require anything more than that.  I had dispensed with such frivolities as gauge swatches given I had lots of yarn and wasn't worried about fit and so had already ended up with bit a larger shawl than the pattern called for, which I'm absolutely fine with it, subscribing to the theory that with a shawl (and my broad shoulders) bigger is almost always better.  The more snuggly warmth and all.  However, I really did not want to aggressively block it into ridiculous proportions so I was pretty cautious.

LA LA LOVING my new shawl -
it's like a warm hug from my kids when I wear it!

This makes my fifth Laura Aylor pattern in the last six months.  I did Skerwink as a test knit, then Haycove, also as a test knit, then there was (BF)G's Fox Point then of course my beach in winter I just finished and now Sunstruck. I wonder which one of hers I should cast on next? I keep gravitating towards Paper Birch, but then I also want to do Serra, but then there's Brier Island and Cinnamon Toast as well and Sirocco would be perfect for spring... all of which are in my pattern library so I can't even narrow it down that way.  Want to help me decide?  Which one would you choose?

Knitting All the Wool

Apparently when I'm cold I want to knit all the wool and all the things.

In the past I've tried to be pretty good about not having a whole lot of different projects on the needles, because I tend to get stuck in a rut of not knowing which to work on and subsequently nothing gets finished as I spin my wheels in indecision.

Yet, the mercury dropped again (It's been up and down like a yo-yo this winter!), I felt cold and suddenly found myself, over the last few weeks, with a sweater, a pair of socks, a shawl and a pair of fingerless gloves on the needles all at once.  How on earth did that happen??? I also signed up for a sock swap in my "Octo-mamas" group on Ravelry, so need to get another pair of socks on the needles pronto.  YIKES!

After a moment of panic and aforementioned indecision I worked out a system.  The sweater - Laura Aylor's the beach in winter - is for a knit along, but the finish date isn't until March 20th, so I've got lots of time for that.  It has become my weekend knitting.  I work on it from Friday evening to Sunday evening, then I stash it away again until the following weekend.  I'm almost finished the body of it, so I'm on track.  I think...

Trying to decide how much longer to knit before
I start the short rows for the curved bottom...

The rest becomes my weekday evening knitting.  I had put the socks aside for a while because they are destined as a gift - not needed until Christmas.  Sssshhhhhhh.  Don't tell!  They're colour work and they're a gorgeous pattern.  It's going to be hard not to spill the beans early on these ones!  I've finished one sock and am three quarters of the way through the second one.  (And feeling a little smug to be ahead of my gift knitting schedule!)

Once I put the socks aside, I worked on the shawl, Laura Aylor's Sunstruck,  pretty much exclusively until it was done except the border.  I'm procrastinating on that now though because the thought of picking up all those border stitches fills me with more than a bit of dread.  But I love the shawl, so I really need to be brave and attack those picked up stitches once and for all but oh how those 375 stitches for the top border are daunting!! (I'm actually wrapped up in my shawl right now - no border, ends haven't been woven in, but it's big and squishy and cozy and I was chilly after being outside with the dog)

Cozy, cozy wool!

The fingerless gloves were a quick interlude to the other projects.  What a fun pattern.  Treads is a great pattern, that I modified very slightly to eliminate the tipless fingers - I wanted just ordinary fingerless gloves so cast off immediately after the last lateral braid instead of continuing on.  I felt the linen ridge stitch and lateral braid stitches really made the pattern more masculine which is what I was after for this pair of  charcoal grey "Manly Mitts".

Manly mitts.  See how well they go with the tools? ;)

I should actually focus on the gift socks so I can get started on the sock swap socks! I need those 2.5mm needles freed up in order to cast on.  So I guess what I know my focus will be this week!!!

I'm going to ignore the fact that there is also a 3/4 done linen Plum Blossom Tee that is sitting languishing in my closet.  But to be fair,  when the temperatures are in the -30C something with the windchill it's awfully hard to motivate oneself to knit something linen and summery.  It's all about wool.  Warm, cozy wool!!!

I think I'm going to go put on a sweater right now, though, and head down to the sewing room in the basement.  I'm putting the finishing touches on a skirt for G right now.  I hope you'll drop by again in a few days when  I'll be reviewing the wildly "Pinterest popular" Jade skirt from Lisa of Paprika patterns.  If you hurry, and stop by her site, both Jade and her immensely popular Jasper sweater (if you've been on Pinterest any time in the last year you've definitely seen this sweater and probably pinned it and now the pattern is available) are both on sale, 15% off, until February 24th! Go now, you don't want to miss out and I'll see you back here in a couple of days!