3 Loved Ones, 2 Cats and a Birdbrain

Wanna see something funny?

I love stripes.  In a thousand different ways and iterations.  I like them horizontal.  I like them vertical.  I like them off-kilter.  I like them straight on.  I just love 'em. 

But stripes do have their limitations.  Especially when it comes to fitting a curvy body. 

Behold Exhibit A:

I believe that is what is known as a "wow" around the girls there.  Note to self:  while stripes are lovely in all their guises, they may not be appropriate for a princess-seamed shirt.  Too funny.  The pattern (which fits pretty well everywhere else) is Butterick 5678 :

It comes with different cup sizes.  I used the pieces for the D cup (my size) but had to take an inch or so out of each underarm, making the armholes smaller, but the sleeves still fit in, no problem.  Which would lead one to wonder about the armhole/sleeve drafting.  But I digress.  The first, and most pressing issue, would be the wow, which is the result of the shaping in the princess seams. 

There are a couple of ways to fix it.  I could take the whole thing apart, and recut the side panels on the bias, so the lines are on the diagonal, and the shaping isn't as obvious.  Or I could take it apart and recut the side panels, taking some of the shaping out.  Or I could take the easy way out, which I think I will:

Put a pocket on each boob, over the worst of the distortion.  Looking at this picture, I think I will center the pocket on the seam line (like they have in the pattern ; )), and it will continue the up and down lines, thereby minimizing the wow. 

Wow.  Isn't it great to learn new things?

Note to self #2:  Make this shirt out of a solid colour next time. 

Okay, lesson over. 

P.S.  Isn't my ginormous hair also hilarious?  I decided to let it grow out, since I liked how it felt, and it's just getting bigger and bigger.  I'm beginning to feel like soon I will look like this woman:

She's from the Christmas Toast catalogue and I think she's fabulous since she is not 12, is gorgeous and she has big hair.  And because that's how we all look halfway through Christmas. 

Have some fun today. 

Gifting

Gifting can be a dodgy thing - especially for those of us who love to make stuff.  I love making things for people.  And sometimes those people appreciate it.  And sometimes they don't.  That's okay.  Sometimes I appreciate gifts from stores, and sometimes I don't. 

I didn't do much gifty sewing for my immediate family this year - just pj pants for my daughter and husband.  My son is at the age where we never see him in his pjs except for Christmas morning, so putting the effort into making something he's going to wear once seems a little much.  I was contemplating making him a pair of flannel pants that were black and looked just like his favorite jeans, but then I came across a pair of pj pants that were tie-dyed with pictures of  Animal from the Muppets on them, for less than $20.  Done!  He liked them and I gained another 30 minutes or so on Christmas Eve. 

My brother, on the other hand, loves shirts that I make him.  I made him one a year or so ago, and he's been asking me to make another ever since.  And then the rest of his family ended up with some new clothes, cause it's fun to make things for other people when you have creative control.  The only hitch is that it's taken me until now to get everything together and mailed off, so they are more February presents than Christmas presents.  But I don't think that's a bad thing.  Everyone gets so much at Christmas.  It's nice to spread it out a bit. 

Project #6 - Patrick's Shirt #1

Pattern - Burda Magazine from a couple of years ago.

Fabric - Navy cotton/linen from the stash

Now, luckily, my brother is built somewhat differently from my dressform.  His shoulders are broader and his chest is flatter!  But you get the idea.  I love this shirt.  The topstitching is all in grey, and it reminds me of a blueprint.  My brother used to build cabinets, and is now a shop teacher, so it's kind of appropriate.  The fabric is a little on the lighter side, but it's going to fade beautifully.  By summer it's going to look like your favorite denim shirt that you've had for a million years. 

Project #7 - Patrick's Shirt #2

Pattern - same as above

Fabric - from Fabricland a couple of months ago. 

My husband has very conservative taste when it comes to work shirts.  In fact, I was ironing last weekend, and my daughter was sitting watching me, and she asked me why men's shirts only came in blue and grey.  Apparently it's time for him to branch out a bit.  Anyway, my brother's taste is a little hipper.  And it totally sent me for a loop when it came to picking fabrics for him.  He told me that most of his shirts look like tablecloths.  So I was wandering through the fabric store thinking "tablecloth, tablecloth, tablecloth".  I came up with this, and hopefully he'll like it. 

Project #8 - Sarah's Shirt

Pattern: Altered Simplicity 2059

Fabric: from  Anna Maria Horner's LouLouthi Line purchased from Out of Hand

This picture doesn't make it look superflattering, but I-LOVE-THIS-SHIRT.  This pattern has gone through something of an evolution.  The first version I made was rather unimpressive, but then there was a second, and this is the third.  There's a fourth one cut out and ready to go as well.  I love the buttons on this version:

They are also from Out of Hand.  I love that store, but things do often end up getting out of hand when I walk in the door.    My favourite part of this shirt, by far, is the back.

I love the little gathered panel.  It gives it a little interest and makes it look a little different.  I asked my daughter if it would be okay if I put in a little note saying that if she doesn't like it to please send it back to me.  Kyra told me that was rude.  Honestly.  Kids these days.

Project #9 - Sophie's Tunic

Pattern: Burda magazine 12/2011

Fabric: blue knit from the stash

Transfer: L'il Blue Boo

Again, full of love for this thing.  It was super quick and simple to make, and with the transfer (in the free download section of the website) it's pretty cool too.  I bought a pair of black leggings to go with it, so it's a whole lot of awesome. 

So that's what my brother's family is getting, just in time for February, at this rate.  There are a couple of other little crafty things for my niece, and that's that. 

In case you are wondering about the project numbering system, I have decided that a ball of yarn counts as a project, so the three new skeins from last week count.  Hah!

Have a lovely and lazy Sunday.

 

 

Hey Beautiful!

Hey you!  The one in the pajamas!  You're looking lovely today!  Just thought I would let you know.

 

I am having a hard time getting pictures taken this week.  I have a mountain of sewing to take pictures of (including the Christmas presents for my brother's family - if they are being mailed in the middle of January, are they still Christmas presents?), but this week seems to be getting away on me already.  Yesterday was particularly crazy, ending with having to scrap the planned dinner and start over at 6:50 pm, with three hungry people looking over my shoulder to find out what they might eat.  I started getting snappy, then realized that I hadn't had a moment to myself since 7 a.m..  Makes for a cranky cook.  I was sitting with my family watching tv after dinner, and realized that I couldn't stand the sound of anyone talking - slightly overstimulated!!

So today shall be better!  I'm going to get some pictures of things taken, and I have a plan for a winter capsule wardrobe brewing.  Yeah! 

Just so I don't leave you with out a picture, how about this one?

This is the weather station that's on my husband's side of the bed (is the weather knowledge obsession a guy thing, or a prairie thing?  Maybe it's a prairie guy thing?).  In the upper left corner is the temperature listing.  Yup.  It's -32 degrees celsius today.  And that's before the windchill adjustment.  What's the windchill?  That's a measurement used in the winter that lets you know what it feels like outside when the wind blows your already frozen self around.  With the windchill?  It's -40 degrees outside.  If you are ever outside for longer than running from the house to the car.  Which I try not to be.  Although I do stand outside for a second after I close the front door.  And utter expletives.  It's really the only way to deal with this.  Unless you're a cat:

Then you wisely sit underneath a lamp.

Or curl up in front of the heat vent, only to be disturbed by the paparazzi. 

Then you curl up together on a wool blanket to conserve body heat. 

Enough said. 

 

The Spinning Is Out Of Control!

In  a good way though. 

I love the knitting and the sewing.  That's not up for dispute.  But I am also a spinner.  I haven't done any for awhile.  Like over a year.  There are a lot of things that I love about spinning yarn, but it just hasn't grabbed me for the last while.  Until Tuesday. 

January, which is usually one of my favourite months, is a bit different this year.  My son is now in high school and has most of the month off.  He has been in school for this week, then he has two exams next week and then he is done until February 1.  Crazy.  So this is the only week that the cave dweller (me) has to herself.  So I have been giving myself license to do whatever I want, since I will be riding herd on a teenager for the rest of the month.  On Tuesday that involved reading an entire book (it wasn't a good book, since I could read it in four hours) and then pulling out the spinning wheel.

Tuesdays used to be for spinning (a la Yarn Harlot) and I think they might be again.  And apparently most of Wednesdays too.  Seriously fixated.  But I think it might be over now.  I'm typing and not spinning, so that is the first indication.  Here's what I did:

Fairly anti-climactic, hmm?  Actually, what you see here is two skeins of two-ply worsted-ish weight yarn, and another skein of worsted-ish yarn that is chain-plied (the one in the middle).  Given that I haven't done this in over a year, I'm pretty happy with that.  They are all over-spun (a little too ambitious) but they'll settle down.  All the fibre is un-identified stuff from the stash and it's small batches - perfect for testing and getting re-acquainted with the wheel. 

One of the things that I absolutely love about spinning is watching how the colours change as you go through the spinning process.  Hand-painted roving starts off looking like a little knot of stuff:

Then you undo it, split it (if you want) and open up the fibres to get them ready for spinning (or at least that's what I did with these knots), ending up with this:

 

A big, fluffy pile of fibre, where the colours are softer and transition into each other a little more smoothly. 

Then you spin the fibre into a long thread or two, changing the colours into this:

where everything is blended but more intense.  After this, what you end up with depends on how you ply your thread.  For this particular batch, I chose to make it a two-ply, so made two bobbins (that thing the thread is on) full of this colour, then spun them together:

Ending up with this.  Things change again when you knit with the yarn.  It's pretty fun.  Okay, I find it intriguing.  Someone else in this house does too:

Or rather, she finds the basket full of wool to be a perfect napping spot.  She's helping!?!

I took a bit of a break for  a couple of hours yesterday and watched Revolutionary Road and started the scarf with my first batch of yarn (movie: very good but gut-wrenching) just to temper things a bit. 

In the middle, there.  So that's what I did yesterday and the day before.  It was splendid.  And today, I think there is some more shirt-making in my future, after I exercise a bit to blow out the cobwebs.  There's been lots of that going on here, and some of it may even make it into the world of blogging.  Crazy, no? 

I leave you with a question - does a skein of finished yarn count as a project, or does it have to wait to be made up into something before it counts?  I'm trying to keep track of what I've done this year, and it's up for debate.  Care to wade in?

Happy Feet!

Good morning!  How's the New Year treating you?  I was going to have this post be a rather earnest documenting of my hopes for the New Year, since I have made a couple of New Year's resolutions, but frankly, it's all a little too boring over here.  This is supposed to be where I explore my sewing and knitting projects, not where I spew all the other stuff.  So while I will talk about my resolutions later, now it's time for some fun!

Happy Feet!

I love shoes.  I don't buy a ton of them, or rather I try not to.  I'm much better these days about choosing one or two pairs a season and leaving it at that.  So this fall I was looking around for a new pair of boots.  I have been coveting a pair of really good red boots for a couple of years.  I even bought a pair a couple of years ago that weren't my perfect red boots, but they were pretty good.  They were red.  They were too slouchy though.  I didn't realize that until I got home.  And wore them a couple of times.  Back to this fall.  My husband and I were out for a walk in a shopping area one Saturday morning, and we went into a shoe store that I hadn't been in for a couple of years.  There they were.  Beautiful red pebbled leather boots that were flat, so you could beetle around in them all day long, and just the right height.  But they were way out of my price range.  So I showed them to my husband, sighed and went home.  Then I spent a couple of months looking around for something comparable but finding nothing.  Cut to Christmas shopping with my best friend in December, where we go in to another branch of the same shoe store and I show her the boots, and explain that I'll just wait for them to go on sale at the end of the season.  And Sigh.  So I drop her off at her house and drive home.  The minute she gets in the door, she calls my house while I am still in transit and tells my husband about the boot love.  So guess what he gets me for my birthday on December 19th?

My lovely red boots!  They are fantastic, and they are all I'm wearing for the most parts these days.  I love them because they are red and perfect, but I also love them even more because two people who love me surprised me with them. 

My birthday was very good to my feet this year.  I also got a pair of moccasins from my mom:

I don't know if moccasins are a Canadian thing primarily, but they are fantastic.  They come in a myriad of shapes and sizes and types.  The ones that you see most often around here are cow hide with fleece lining and rabbit fur around the ankle.  My feet get too hot in them though.  So about 10 years ago, my husband got some for me that were straight deer hide, no fleecy lining and no rabbit fur.  But they weren't cozy enough (I'm feeling a bit like Goldilocks here).  These ones are perfect.  They're made of deer hide and they are lined with a layer of wool fabric so they are cozy, and they keep their shape, but they aren't too hot.   Awesome. 

But this is supposed to be about the knitting and the sewing, right? 

Fear not!  Behold the first two projects of the New Year!

Project 1 - Polar Fleece Socks

Pattern: Apparently discontinued Jalie long underwear and socks.

Fleece: From Stash - bought when my daughter was younger, thinking she would love it - but she didn't. 

Cost: free since both were in the stash. 

Thoughts: I have never been a big fan of fleece socks, but other people in my life have been.  I always found them too loose - falling down in your boots and making you feel like a five year old.  But I like these ones.  They are a tight fit and they don't budge.  Plus they are bright and sunny.  The only negative thing I have to say about the pattern is that the sizes are all off (perhaps why it was discontinued).  I started out making a pair for a friend in a size 8.  It turned out that she was a size 9, so I started over, cutting out four pairs which used up almost all the fabric.  I sewed up the first one, and it was still way too small.  Then I left the sewing room.  When my head was no longer pulsing, I cut out three new sets of soles, adding an inch to the length.  These ones worked, and now I love them.  So I have two pairs and my friend has a pair, and her daughter has a pair (the initial ones which turned out to be roughly a size 6).  Which leaves one pair that are about 8.25" long on the sole.  If that might fit you, let me know and I'll send them on. 

Project #2

Wool Socks in a Dodgy Picture

Pattern: Generic Toe up socks

Yarn:On Your Toes DK by S.R. Kertzer

Cost: Yarn from stash, so free.

These are nothing to write home about, but they are serviceable and they will keep me warm.  Just not rocking my world today when there are paisley polar fleece socks about!

So my feet are happy and well dressed.  I hope yours are too!

Christmas thoughts, a round-up and some forward motion....

Merry Christmas!  I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday.  Things here were really nice and calm - and that's saying something given the year we have had.  We had family come and visit, and saw some more family today, and tomorrow will be a quiet day.  I always love the few days between Christmas and New Year's Eve.   The fluff and bother of Christmas is over with, but the tree is still up, and everyone is still enthralled with their Christmas gifts so they are occupied.  Traditionally, it has been when I have done whatever I wanted for days on end in a guilt-free manner.  How great is that?  Tomorrow will be a day with some knitting, some Downton Abbey-watching, as well as some plain food eating.  You know that you're ready for Christmas to be over when you eat a Christmas orange and your entire mouth stings because you haven't had a fresh fruit or vegetable for a couple of days!! 

Christmas was a slightly different beast for us this year.  The kids are 12 (13 on New Year's Day) and 15 and this was the first year that there was very little pretense of Santa.  It simultaneously gladdened and saddened me a little bit when my daughter pulled something that she really liked out of her stocking (yes, we still do stockings - I love them), turned to me and said "thank you mom".  I'm happy that she appreciates the work that I do, but I'm a little sad that the magic is gone.  At the same time it's something of a relief to not be solely responsible for all her hopes and dreams.  Is that bad? 

So...about this year.  Man, it's been a bitch.  There's just no getting around it.  But I have learned a lot, and I'm happy where I am at this moment.  I was going to say that I wouldn't change it, but I'm not quite there yet!!  Because I am a fan of a list, I'm going to make another one.  Crazy, isn't it?  But here we go.  The last list of 2011:

Things I Have Learned and Hope Not to Forget Anytime Soon So I Have to Re-Learn Them

1.  Teenagers suck sometimes. 

2.  Mothers of teenagers also suck sometimes, but it's a bit of a vicious circle.  If the teenagers didn't suck so much, neither would the mothers. 

3.  My  husband might be a superhero.  It helps that he's wearing the Superman sleep-shorts that I made him for Christmas.

4.  I'm better at most things than I think I am, and I'm willing to learn how to do most things better.

5.  Some things aren't worth spending the time on.  Like worrying about what teenagers are going to do.  They're going to do it whether you worry about it or not. 

6.  Cat lap (having a cat choose your lap to sit on for awhile) can heal most wounds, unless they involve bloodshed. 

7.  A full-bust adjustment is a beautiful thing.  What this really means is that embracing yourself and your shape is a simple thing once you stop fighting it.  I still fight some days, but they are fewer and further between. 

8.  Easing into life leaves way more energy for other, more fun things.  Things like sewing and knitting. 

9. There's still stuff to deal with.  There will always be stuff to deal with.  That's life. 

10.  Sewing is really fun.  I've been working my way through different variations on a blouse pattern (which I will be posting here in the next couple of weeks) and I have re-discovered how fun it can be to play around with design when you start with something that fits you well.  When the thing that you love to do is also your job, you can lose track of why you loved to do it in the first place.  I'm getting the mo-jo back. 

11.  Knitting is fun too.  I've been finishing things up for the last month or so, and I think a marathon might be in order - a "sewing in the ends" marathon.  I've been using the straightforward knitting to get through waiting in offices and the like, but I can't seem to be able to lay my hands on a needle big enough to sew the ends in.  I know I have three or four around here, but they seem to be MIA.  So maybe that's what I'll do tomorrow. 

12.  Less really is more.  It seem slightly hypocritical sitting in the midst of the post-Christmas chaos, but it's true.  I've been using up stash with abandon this Christmas, and it feels great.  I know what I have and I'm making things I love with fabrics I love.  It seems a little ridiculous, but it's changing my life and how I approach everything.  We only have one chance at this life, so what are you saving things for? 

13.  The four people that live in my house really function better with two bathrooms.  We were down to one bathroom for about two months, and it was crazy.  I know that families of twelve used to live in two rooms with an outhouse, but I'm not them, and I like to go to the bathroom without feeling like three people are standing outside the door waiting to get in. 

14.  My kids are going to be really great people, even if they make me insane in the process.  But that's their job.  My job is to take care of myself so that I can appreciate their great-ness.

15. I am beautiful.  I am strong.  I am a good person and a good parent.  This body of mine can do great things, and it looks great too. 

That's a pretty hope-full list.  I've got some actual sewing and knitting content to post in the next couple of days (crazy, no?), once the lethargy wears off.  And then some thoughts about the next year.  It's gonna be a doozy.  I'm looking forward to it.  Thanks for spending some time here this year.  I really do appreciate it!

 

 

Coming Back to Myself...

For those of you who read this regularly (which hasn't been a terribly hard task recently), I need to thank you for putting up with my inner monologue, which occasionally leaks out onto these pages.  The thing is that I have been going through a bit of a mid-life crisis of late.  Highly predictable, given that this is my fortieth year.  I have spent the last couple of years feeling not quite myself, and part of that has been that my body shape has changed and I was unsure of how to dress this new one.  I used to have a smaller chest, and not so much in the way of hips, so I liked tailored, simple clothes, and they hung well on me.  Then the boobs showed up, and the shape of all my clothes was suddenly wrong.  This coincided with the appearance of all the sewing blogs written by lovers of vintage fashion, so I experimented with that for awhile.  It didn't really work, because while I have a bigger chest, I'm still rather rectangular, so emphasizing my waist (a feature of a lot of the vintage designs that appeal to me)  doesn't really work either.  Basically, instead of looking at the clothing that I love, and changing it to make it fit my new shape, I tried to start again and find a new personal style.  Surprise!  I didn't feel comfortable in the new clothes.  I didn't feel like myself and I didn't trust my instincts about making or buying clothes.  And I entered into this vicious cycle of not feeling like myself when I got dressed in the morning, which would send my uncertain self-esteem a little further into the toilet, and I would feel even less like myself than I did before, so I would try something even more different, and the whole cycle would start over again.  Looking back on it, all I can say is : Ridiculous!

So now that I am coming out the other side of things, and not fighting with myself so much (there are teenagers in the house to fight with!), I'm returning to the style of clothing that I liked in the first place.  For the record, these are the things that I love:

-stripes - of any kind, and going in any direction, but cream and blue are my all time favorites.

-plaid - again, any kind.  I am particularly fond of plaid on the bias.

-denim - jeans, skirts, no black, just basic.

-colored pants - usually one pair a season (at the moment, pea green cords) that get worn to death then given away.

- chambray shirts - nuff said

- an array of good, tailored shirts in patterns and solids.

-an array of t-shirts in patterns and solids

-a few dresses that are interesting, and slightly unpredictable.

-patterned tights -  particularly stripes - I like to look down and see something that makes me smile.

 -cotton, wool, natural fibres.  I love polyester's wicking nature, but they smell something awful once I've worn them once or twice.  They suck up all that sweat and odour and keep it there.  Yuck.

-leggings - warmer than tights, but not quite pants.  I have good legs, and leggings are comfy. 

-straight-leg pants - jeans and chinos - flares and boot cuts make me look awkward since I often have a hard time finding them long enough in stores, and by the time they are long enough, they tend to be strangely wide. 

-my favorite colour palette this year?  washed out colours - ones that look like they have been sitting in the sun for a year or two - blues, terra cotta, worn in fuchsia, sea glass green. 

So there is my fashion manifesto this year.  However, I reserve the right to fall in love with something else at any moment.  And now that I think about it, it isn't really a manifesto at all.  It's just a statement of the things that I love and make me feel like myself in the best way possible. 

What's making you feel good these days?

The View From Here

I live in Calgary, Alberta.  For those of you who are not familiar with it's location, Calgary sits on the edge of the foothills leading to the Rocky Mountains.  I grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  It sits smack in the middle of the prairies.  I am a prairie girl at heart.  When I lived in Montreal, I found that I never truly relaxed until the plane touched down in Saskatoon and I looked out the window and could see forever.  Even now, when it isn't far to the edge of town, I still find that I don't really relax unless I can see the horizon.  I was in Saskatchewan last weekend, and I took some pictures of the sky on the way home. 

I find the quality of the light, and the vastness of the prairie to be unspeakably beautiful. 

What colour is the sky in your world?

Experiments...

So while the condition here has been radio silence, there has been lots going on behind the scenes.  I have a million posts in my head, but I'm afraid that we don't yet have the technology available to make them go directly to the computer.  That will probably happen alarmingly soon though. 

I have been working my way through some things in my head, while simultaneously working my way through the sewing room (seven garbage bags full of fabric went to new homes, and yet the cupboards are still full - you want to talk alarming).  One of the things that I have had shown to me yet again, is that I don't like to work on one thing at a time.  Which isn't a big deal, as long as it isn't causing me any stress.  I tend to be a multiple project person with respect to both knitting and sewing.  As I have already discovered with the sewing, I tend to not return to things once they have been left alone.  The knitting is slightly more complicated.  And here's why:

1.  Knitting a sweater takes a long time.  It's a lot of knitting.  As we have already discussed, I'm easily bored.  I'm also fickle.  Sometimes I want something that I have to concentrate on, and sometimes I want something that can just happen without me having to think about it too much.  When you hit the right project at the right time, magical things can happen, and the construction can seem effortless.  Really. 

2.  I generally have a couple of different kinds of projects on the go at once.  There is the car knitting - usually a sock or something similar that can be picked up and put down relatively easily.   The bus stop that my daughter is picked up/dropped off at is a five minute car ride from where we live (on 70 km/hour roads, so it isn't walkable - not that I'm defensive about it or anything ; )).  I usually have about 20 minutes in the car between making sure the bus comes in the morning and waiting for it to arrive in the afternoon.  You can make significant headway on a project if you work on it in those little bits.

There is also the upstairs knitting and the downstairs knitting.  The upstairs knitting is usually more complicated, and requires attention (cables, fair-isle, etc.).  The downstairs knitting (where the television is) can be almost anything.  It is worked on for an hour or so in the evening. This is where the most significant progress is made. 

3.  Choosing a project is just as much of a roll of the dice with knitting as it is with sewing or shopping.  The only problem is that by the time you have invested a couple of months worth of your spare time in a project, you don't really want to admit to yourself that a fuschia corset made of mohair isn't the right thing for you.  When that thought dawns on me, I walk away.  And leave another UFO behind me. 

So I'm trying to focus a little more on one thing at a time - be more mindful of what I am doing.  Use the spare moments that I have to move forward on one thing, not make miniscule progress on five things.  My theory is that if I stick with one thing from start to finish, the chances of it being a) something I like, b)something that fits me, and c) something that I will wear will be significantly higher.  Without further ado (adieu?) I present my next project:

The Going Steady Sweater

Rather anticlimactic, isn't it?  It's going to be a sweatshirt-esque sweater that I can wear around the house after yoga in the evening, but will also look effortlessly casual with a white t-shirt and jeans on walk in the woods with my two perfect blemish-free teenagers and my gorgeous husband on a Saturday afternoon in the fall (Anyone else sensing imminent disillusionment here?  At least about the blemishes?).  The yarn is a blend of alpaca, wool, viscose and acrylic that is very lightweight.  It has a slight brown fleck in it, and I'm hoping that it will be a great, great thing once it's done.  I'm making it up as I go along, and while sometimes that is a recipe for disaster, I think this one is basic enough, but interesting enough to be really cool when it's finished.  Isn't that what we are all looking for in a project?  Something that looks terrifyingly like you should already own it? 

I pledge that I will work on this, and only this, to the exclusion of all other knitting projects, until it is finished. 

I wonder how long this will take?  Anyone?  Anyone?  Beuller? 

See ya.

Beauteousness....

Because sometimes something works out so well that you just need to add another syllable. 

The shawl.  It's done.  And it's beautiful.

If you will recall, I committed to knitting a shawl as a thank you gift for a woman who ran a retreat that I attended over a month ago.  I had a hard time deciding which yarn and what shawl pattern to use, so I asked your opinion, and tried to follow it.  But then ended up with a couple of false starts and finally this one.  This one is perfect. 

 
 
As you can see, it's quite big.  But that's good.  The recipient, who is much smaller than me, can wrap it around and tie it in the back, which is one of the best ways to wear  a shawl.  It means you can move and do things without losing the bubble of warm air around you.  The ladies of Cranford are big on wearing their shawls this way, but that may not necessarily be an endorsement. 

The yarn for this shawl is from some unknown source, but I'm pretty sure it's 100% wool.  For some reason I think it's from Fleece Artist but I'm not really sure.  It was unlabelled  in the cupboard of wool, and I have two more skeins.   This shawl took just under two.  My brain has lost it's ability to save things for a rainy day this fall, and it's such a good thing.  Usually, I buy yarn and fabric that I absolutely love, then save it until I can find exactly the right project for it.  But lately, I've just been grabbing stuff out of the cupboard willy-nilly.  It's been great.  I'm getting much more done and I'm loving everything that I finish (or rather most things).  I don't love this shawl so much that I want to make another one right away though.  Maybe in a month or two. 

 
I love the way the stripey-ness of the yarn makes a slight chevron up the back.

 
It's warm and cozy, but still drapey enough to wear as a scarf. 

As a bonus, one of the other women from the retreat was in town this weekend and took it back to Edmonton with her to mail along with a framed scrapbook page that she made.  A happy knit for a happy gift. 

Yahoo.