It is September....

Nothing much new is on the needles except for a pair of socks for Sean. He requested cables but of course left the choice of pattern up to me. I liked this one (and so does he) and it is working out very well so far.
Dad's second sock has been started and I am almost finished the Alpine lace shawl, just two and half border repeats left. I have also started spinning again, trying to perfect my technique. I am turning this:
Into this:
And eventually it will be turned into a two or three ply yarn.

Yarn stores in Vancouver

On Thursday Sarah took me to two yarn stores on Main St (in Vancouver). The first store that we stopped at was very small but it you looked into the back there was tonnes of space as they card, spin and dye their own yarn.
There was a coffee shop across the street from it so we went for a latte and a cookie and to look at our purchases. Sarah bought a spindle and some fleece because she wants to learn to spin.
I bought some delicious green yarn that I am hoping is enough to make a nice warm zip-up sweater. The cookie is a giant and delicious chocolate peanut butter with oatmeal and the latte was yummy.

The second store we hit up was Three Bags Full. We spent quite a bit of time in there as it was very hard to make a decision of what to take home with us. My sister managed to keep from buying anything herself but did some serious enabling.
I bought some beautiful Rowan Felted Tweed, enough for a sweater, and some blue sock yarn that will turn into socks for the boyfriend, if all other Christmas gifts are complete.

I finished knitting Nanny's Triangular Summer Shawl on Thursday and spent yesterday sewing on the border to the main body of the shawl. All that is left to do is weave in all the loose ends and block it, but seeing as I am on vacation and don't have all my regular supplies it may not get blocked until I am home. There should be a post of the finished project in the near future.
There has also been some serious work done on Dad's socks. The heel has been turned and now I am working on the foot. My sister's boyfriend Chet was nice enough to try them on prior to the turning of the heel to make sure they would fit a man's calf. The leg portion is nice and long, just the way Dad likes it and this makes them quite a bit of work. It's a good thing I really enjoy knitting with this yarn.

I'm back baby and in more ways than one.

I will admit it has been quite some time since I have posted anything. Well nothing since the move to the new place. I'm also back in BC on vacation for two weeks (back in more ways than one; get it, I'm hilarious). It has been 8 years since I have been back "home."

Of course I brought quite a few project to keep me busy. One is my sisters scarf which will not be flying home with me. As you can see it's a pretty decent length already so any extra knitting on it is just gravy. It is my morning project while I am waiting for the coffee to kick in.

Remember Nanny's shawl? It used to be just a few inches and now the main body is done and I am just working on the edging which then has to be sewn on to the shawl before it is blocked. All the knitting should be done before I leave to get on the plane home. It is the first shawl I have made where you start at the widest end and decrease to the end. It makes the work go pretty fast.

My Alpine stole has come out of hibernation and it is at the halfway point! It should be lovely when it is finally finished.

I have restarted this shawl that made an appearance in August of 2008. I ripped it out and restarted it while on the plane. Still on the boring part but hopefully I'll plug through it and get to the interesting parts soon enough.

The one completely new thing I have to show you is Dad's Christmas socks for this year. He requested nice dress socks. For what I'm not sure. Maybe he wants to look pretty when he goes to visit his parents. The sock pattern is being improvised as I go a long and the stitch pattern is from one of Barbra Walkers Treasuries. It should turn out to be a handsome pair of socks.

I also need to post for the red cashmere sweater as it is finally done (the zipper has been sewn in) and has been worn quite a bit, however that is going to have to wait for another day as it is raining and the conditions are not ideal for a photo shoot. So I shall leave you with a picture of my booty from a trip to Granville Island and yes it does include yarn, silk yarn from a place that sold nothing but silk.

Just in case you had any doubts...

....about my ability to collect yarn. Here is a fraction of my collection (the sock weight basket spilled onto the floor) that is now sadly packed in a box to make the weight of my text books much lighter.
Just a little something to entertain you until the move has finished.

Ella Rae's Vine Flower Dress

This was made for a coworker who is expecting her first child. Her last day of work was last Thursday so we took her out for lunch so those of us who made her items could give them to her and then brought her back to the lab to enjoy some cake (pictures of the cake as well as cupcakes will follow the details of the dress).
Ella Rae's Dress
Pattern: Vine Flower Dress by Anne Hanson
Size: Middle size (20")
Needles: 4mm 16"- and 24"-circular needles & 3.5mm dpns
Yarn: Sublime Yarns Extra Fine Merino Wool DK
Yardage: 4 skeins
Modifications: Used a smaller needles size. The yarn is a superwash so it should be super easy to care for.

Game Day Socks

Thanks to the magic powers of Ravelry I found a indie dyer from Montreal called Biscotte & Cie that sells self striping sock yarn in the Canadiens colours in a colour-way called "Go Habs Go". Well I had to have a skein, so I ordered one of the said colourway. They are either going to be my game day socks or my running socks. Possibly both. The yarn is a wool, bamboo and nylon mix so they should be lovely long-wearing socks and I am really enjoying knitting with the yarn. They are fairly plain socks as I did not want to interfer with the striping too much. These are also a great shove in the bag and go project. I don't have to many of those on the needles right now. It is also the first time I am using my Knit Picks dpns.
I'm starting to think I may need a hockey sweater to match them. What do you think?

Plugging along

Someone has been asking to see the progress on Nanny's Triangular Summer Shawl. The result is some close-ups of the shawl progress so far. Not much progress will be seen as this starts at the widest point of the shawl, so progress is slow. I have finally finished the border and have started on the charts. The first row of nupps has been completed.
Lace never looks great until after the magic of blocking. See, it doesn't look like much except some bumpy knit up yarn.
The Ram's Horn sweater is moving along. I am at the armholes. The alpaca is lovely to work with. It is fairly straight-forward knitting, nothing to exciting which makes it great for TV knitting.
Also the dress for my coworkers baby is plugging along and is starting to look like an actual dress! Hopefully it will be done well before April.

Thanks to Mel and a bit of a rant

Mel came over on Family Day with her nephews to meet Piper. While they were here she was nice enough to snap a picture of me in my Tangled Yoke Cardie.

I wore it to work on Tuesday and frankly I am very disappointed with non-knitters. Very few people commented on my sweater unless they either a) knew it was almost done and were looking for it or b) was a knitter. Everyone else thought it was bought at a store (and only mentioned that when I brought up the subject). I suppose I should take that as a compliment but at the same time I hear a lot of complaints from people at work on how I never wear what I knit to work and then when I wear it I find myself having to point it out to them otherwise they don't notice. Arggggg!

Caught a small case of the startitis

Now that my sweater is done and looks great; the first big project of the year off the needles and in finished land, I now have the opportunity to start some more projects. One of the three projects was already started prior to the completion of the sweater but had to be ripped out and restarted, hence why it is included with the startitis.

The Vine Flower Dress is the one that had to be frogged. There was some weird stitch count and the needle size was a bit too big for the choice of yarn. I am making good headway but nowhere near where I was prior, sadly.
There is a bit of lace at the bottom and my only complaint with the pattern is that it only gives written instructions and no charted ones. So I fixed that myself.
I've also started on a shawl for Nanny. It is to be her Christmas present this year. Mom bought the yarn and of course I am left to do all the work. Here is evidence provided that it has been started.
I've also cast on a little something for myself out of "the pet". If you don't know what "the pet" is you need to go to the Purple Purl and ask. I'm sure they will show you. Alpaca........yum!

My Tangled Yoke Cardie!

I was home sick this week and as usual when I'm sick higher brain function isn't at its best; it is just low enough to make the finishing tasks of knitting a sweater tolerable. Below are pictures of picking up the button bands, weaving in loose ends and of course soaking.
The Tangled Yoke Cardigan
Pattern: by Eunny Jang in Interweave Knits Fall 2007
Size: 34" size
Needles: 3.5mm 24" circs, 3.25mm 32" circs and 2mm 40" circs
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed in Wheat
Yardage: 6 complete balls and a touch off the 7th
Modifications: needle size to get correct gauge and I made the sleeves longer.
Notes: I knit this at the smallest size in spite of the fact that I am a 36" chest and am very glad that I did. After blocking it had no negative ease so I suppose it must have stretched some and the fit is perfect.

I finished sewing on the buttons at the Purple Purl today and got many compliments. It is a very nice sweater and I think it will get a lot of wear. I am very pleased with how this turned out. There are several pictures below to show off the finished product. I apologize that they are not the greatest, but what can you do when there is no one else around to help take the pictures? Enjoy.

Yum! Alpaca!

The alpaca has been plied and the twist set. Who would have known that all the parrot-related items in the house would come in so handy when it came time to dry a skein of yarn!
Here is a picture of the skein in dried form with the second arm of the sweater I am working on with the finished arm sitting there mocking me.
I must say that knitting the arms are the most tedious boring parts of sweater making and what is worse you have to make two of them. I can't wait to get it finished so I can get back to the meat of the sweater and play with the cabling.

I ended up doing a two-ply of the alpaca. I figured more yardage would give me more options. My very rough calculations lead me to believe that I have over 100m. Now I just need to find a pattern.

A close up with a penny for scale.

Blowing snow

Well the snow has finally stopped falling from the sky, but that isn't stopping the wind from blowing it all over the place. A good evening to stay in and knit or spin a little while drinking a hot cup of black currant tea.
The above picture is the tangled yoke sweater which I finished in 16 days in the fall of '07 (it had a brief blog appearance here). I never got to wear it. When I first blocked it my aunt moved it when wet (I know; I have no clue what she was thinking) and it was all misshaped. That was when it may have fit. It probably would have been a tad too big but still wearable. I tried about 6 months ago to reblock it and well I tried the washing machine which didn't do anything bad to the yarn, it didn't shape well (spin cycles are the devil). It was also when I discovered it was way to big on me. I was shrinking when I made it and silly me made it for the size I was and not the size in-between size I was then or the smaller size I am now. My mother loves the fact that I'm not great with sizing as she is now the owner of the sweater (the second one of which no longer fits me).

I've come to realize how much I truely love this sweater and have after much consideration decided to give it a second go. I made the trip down to Romni and picked up the yarn. The weird coincidence being that the only colour they had enough balls that wasn't an awful pink colour was the exact colour used in the pattern. I wish they had one more ball of the pale blue I saw. I also looked at a lot of the completed projects on Ravelry and realized I like this pattern most when it had a bit of negative ease, so I am making the smallest size.

I have the body done up to the armholes (still considering adding a little extra length), one sleeve done and the second sleeve on the needles. The sleeves I've had to add a few extra inches of length due to the fact I have almost freakishly long arms. I've also already picked out some buttons!
On a completely unrelated spinning note.... I have finally finished spinning up singles today from the lovely alpaca fibre I received from Unravelling Sophia in the vintage swap! I'm going to let them rest today and ply them tomorrow. I'm still trying to decide between a two-ply which will give me a lot more yardage or a three-ply which will hide my thin and thick spinning (it's not that bad, but I tend to notice these things). I'm thinking it will have to be knit up into something that at least has a vintage look to keep with the theme. Any suggestions?

First non-lace scarf ever.......

..... to have been finished by these hands. It might help it was malibrigo; it also could have been the really cold weather that called for a scarf that can wrap around the neck and face. It was finished last night and didn't leave my neck the whole time we were at the Rex listening to swing, blues and jazz (except when other people were feeling it up).
The Purple Smoke Scarf
Pattern: my own (matches the toque and mittens)
Needles: 6mm 16" circulars
Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in Alpine Pearl
Yardage: 2 skeins plus the leftovers from the toque and mittens (almost another full skein)
Notes: It is a very long scarf, much taller than me even with me raising my hand above my head. It is also very soft and yummy and I have to say the cable pattern I worked out immediately after I bought the yarn works very well with this colourway. A lot of people have been tricked into thinking it is a reversible cable pattern.

An update or two

Well the Sky is Falling sweater has come out of hibernation and I have been working on it again. I am up past the armholes and if I can dedicate some time to it, I will be working on the sleeves soon.
I am also making very good progress on the scarf and have finished the leftovers from the toque and mittens and just have the last skein to wind to a ball and knit up and it will be finished! It should be very warm on those cold, windy days. There is something to be said for worsted weight and scarves if you aren't doing lace!
Oh and this just went into the oven.......my first try at this cranberry banana bread.