Welcome back: PASSIFLORA magazine

After 2 months of silence Anya (aka Crazy Crocheter) is back. She is back to introduce a new project: PassiFlora magazine.
PassiFlora is an online magazine about eco-friendly living, vegetarian and vegan cooking, and green arts and crafts.
The first issue is available HERE. And if you want a sneak peak, check out these amazing pictures from the recipe section:


PassiFlora is envisioned as a magazine made for you and by you, so I am very excited to hear your comments and to publish your articles and recipes. All the details are available on the website.

Sock yarn and August 2009

I am fairly busy these days because of the project that has nothing to do with knitting. It takes a good deal of my free time preventing me not only from blogging but from knitting as well. As soon as more of it is ready I will share all the details with you.
Today I do not have any exciting FO's or even WIP's to show you, here are some pictures of my yarn. These are 2 skeins of Regia sock yarn I got a while ago.

First is Regia Nordic sock yarn #5517. It is light and monochrome - I am thinking of making a fairly complex lacy socks with it.


And this one is Regia Nordic #5517. It has very nice green-purple modulations but it is not too bright. Given the unusual colour I would prefer to knit it with a more simple stitch. Maybe a bit of texture would create an interesting but not overwhelming sock.


Speaking of socks, what are your plans for August 2009? Do not know yet? Let me help you: Sock Summit 2009 - a great project organized by a team of well-known knitters ( Tina Newton, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Cat Bordhi, Leslie Cumming, JCBriar, Debbi Stone, and Claire Scott) will take place on August 6-9, 2009 at the Oregon Convention Center (Portland, Oregon). You can read more about it in the latest Yarn Harlot's blog post.

Why do I like the new Debbie Bliss magazine?

First of all, because it features a gorgeous collection of knits in grey:

Secondly, because of this jacket:

And finally, because of an adorable section of child knits, specifically blankets:

In reality, the first issue of Debbie Bliss has more than these three highlights; it has a beautiful collection of “romantic” cardigans, a selection of knitted men wear, as well as knitted objects for home and for children. It also features 2 illustrated lessons of lace-knitting, clean and clear design, and great photography. More previews are available on their website. Overall, it is a very nice first issue – I am looking forward to the next one.

Award

I got my first award - the Brilliant Blog one. I was so excited last night that I even had a hard time falling asleep! Thank you so much, Susan, for nominating me. By the way, you should check out her blog (Knitting Alone).

Now it is my turn to nominate 7 bloggers to pass the award on. It is not an easy task considering the number of knitting (and not knitting) blogs I like. I will let you guess the number, it is a 3-digit one.

So my nominees are:

Knitting on Impulse
a Whistler-based knitter who dyes the most beautiful fiber, makes jewellery, and takes picture of the magnificent West Coast.

SweetP Knits
I have mentioned Gabes in my previous post. Her posts always put a smile on my face, maybe it is because of her beautiful knitting, or maybe it is her cute children, or maybe it is the pink background of the page? Whatever it is, reading her posts makes me smile.

Sel and Poivre
Can not quite remember how I found this blog but it is yet another blog with beautiful photography, knitting, and interesting posts.

Ysolda
This young lady is quite famous in the knitting community. If you do not know her - rush over to her blog. She got nice patterns, tutorials, and you might be able to attend one of her lessons.

We heart yarn
What can I say? I am a sucker for beautiful, clean designs and a nice mix of knitting and nature. Yet another visual candy (with reading substance!)

Anna's flying needles
Although I have never commented on Anna's posts I have been lurking around for a while. I really like things she knits.

And the last but not least ..... well it was hard to decide, so it's a tie between these 3:

Two little bunshees
Heart felt
The akamai knitter

I know I was suppose to nominate only 7 but there are just too many talented bloggers and it never hurts to spread the joy and brilliance, right?

Discovering

I really like finding out new things and the past several days were filled with happy discoveries.

Here is the first one:



Hemingway's "Super Stitches Knitting"- a gift from my non-knitting coworker. I have been looking at stitchionaries available at the bookstores and on Amazon for a while. I am not ready to design my own sweaters yet, but I would like to try my creativity and knit a scarf or a headband using different stitches. "Super stitches knitting" seems to be perfect for that. The book is divided into sections including: "knit and purl", "lace", "fair isle", and so on. It also has a section with tips and instructions on casting on, binding off, colour-work, and fixing errors (that one will be useful). I can not wait to create my own project using some of the stitches from the book and I think I know what it might be.

The second discovery was a long awaited first issue of Debbie Bliss magazine.


There are several interesting items in this magazine and overall presentation and design are very beautiful. I think Debbie Bliss magazine will be one of my favorites.

The last 2 discoveries were online magazines. The Inside Loop - UK based knitting magazine and Knotions. Both look very interesting and I will be spending some time reading the articles and choosing patterns I like.

There was actually another discovery or should I say an acquisition (yet another gift) but I will dedicate a separate post to it once I take proper pictures.

Slooooooow

I have told you before that I am not the fastest one at times. Couple of hours ago I got yet another prove: after blogging for less than 6 months I FINALLY figured out how to reply to the comments via email. All Blogger users can laugh at me while I will be doing my 3 needle bind-off (Knitting Help has a great collection of all the different bind off techniques over here).

P.S. I tend to blame the heat for me being slow once in a while.
P.P.S. Have a great knitting weekend!

Yes, I am scared.

Another long pause between posts. Seems like "back-to-school" rush affects even those who are not going back to school and do not have small children.
Truth is I am working on a secret gift project that is due in less than 2 weeks. I can not display any pictures of my progress but I can say that the technique used in the second part of the project is called

INTARSIA

Although it sounds like a name of an exotic flower I somehow feel that there is a poisonous center hiding behind the beautiful petals. Let me say it out load again: "intaaaaarsia".
And while I was reviewing the pattern I saw another scary animal: 3 needle bind off. I will have to attack this one tonight before getting to intarsia.

Image from A Good Yarn website

What I will be knitting tonight.

Do you have those days when a certain word, item, or a song keeps popping up everywhere? Today was one of those days for me. It started with Esya (aka Urwen) sending me these images she found on one of LiveJournal communities:

They are all part of Luisa Cerano's collection
"Look how cool these bracelets are" said she.
And indeed knitted bangles are pretty impressive. I have seen pictures of bangles made simply by wrapping the yarn around the wooden/plastic base but it was the first time I saw knitted ones. And considering the popularity of the fabric bangles these will get popular soon.

I had just enough time to finish the conversation with Esya when Gabes (aka SweetP) posted this picture on her blog:


Not only prooving my theory about knitted bangles being "cool", not only explaining that this could be a very neat way of trying new stitches or making swatches, but providing us all with a link to instructions of how to make them!

If you want to have the latest "it" object for Fall, hurry up over to See Mi Knit, pick up some leftover yarn, and get to work. You have four days left until the First of September.

P.S. Do not forget to say "Thank you" to Gabes.

Good weekend

How do you know that you had a good weekend? You definitely had a great one if you spend it looking at these:


And playing with these:

I will write a separate post about books and magazines (I got most of them in Toronto) but here is a closer look at my new stash addition.

Here is my first tenсel yarn:


After a bit of research I found out on this website that:

"Tencel ® is the brand name for a fiber called lyocell. Lyocell is a cellulosic fiber made from wood through a proprietary TENCEL® production process. TENCEL® is a man-made fiber but natural in origin. This means it is very comfortable to wear because it is breathable and absorbent, like other natural fibers. TENCEL® is durable and this means that the clothes last."

I can not wait to try knitting with it. I think those colours would look great in a lacy shawl or stole.

And here is a beautiful German wool-based sock yarn called "Strumpfwolle".


Although I have a lot of sock yarn and not enough time to knit it all up I obsessively check out the sock yarn section in every stores. This yarn comes from a cute boutique "Les Laines Saute-Mouton", located in Saint-Lambert (one of the small cities, or should I say boroughs, constituting the South Shore). I really like the way colours change from one to another creating subtle, yet impressive, palette. One of the projects I have in mind for this yarn is a pair of gloves or maybe fingerless mittens.


And finally a skein of Noro, bought at "Les Laines Saute-Mouton" simply because it is Noro and it is pretty.

The first time ....

Although I am far from an experience knitter I managed to learn a thing or two during my 4-months knitting career. I am afraid that with time I would either forget some of them or I would start taking them for granted, this is why I decided to make a little list of advice for a novice knitter/crocheter. These are the things that would have helped me if I knew them before starting to knit, however it does not mean that these are the rules set in stones. They might work for some and they might be completely useless for others, so at the end, they are just my thoughts on

Knitting for the first time.
Part I

Image from A Good Yarn website

1. Knitting does not require as much patience as you think ....
It is always surprising to me when people say: "I can't knit 'cuz I am not patient enough". I have been trying to figure out where this misconception comes from and I think (it’s just a hypothesis) that people are envisioning a huge blanket in a simple garter or stockinette stitch when thinking of knitting. Yes, it is true, a row of ‘purl’s and a row of ‘knit’s is quite unexciting, but knitting is much more than that. Once you start knitting socks, sweaters, or lace, you learn that knitting keeps you on your toes with the stitch count, knitting entertains you with cable knitting, knitting excites you with ‘yarn over’s and ‘ssk’s. And I am not even talking about knitting with colours. Knitting is anything but boring!

2. Scarf might not be the best “first project”
It is almost a given that a new knitter would start his/her knitting with a scarf. I have done it, my friend has done it, and I am sure you have done it too. It might work for 99% of the people but I still think that the scarf is not the ideal first project. The beginners’ scarf is usually something very simple and thus extremely repetitive. Unless you are making a skinny scarf or a short version of a scarf you have to make the same repetition of knits and purls over, and over, and over again. I will agree that it is a great learning experience, however here comes the second problem: since the novice knitter is learning, his/her knitting is far from being perfect and it will result in a scarf with uneven stitches and crooked edging. I am certain that most of the knitters would still proudly wear that scarf but sometimes (and I am talking solely from my personal experience) the final scarf is SO uneven that you do not want to be seen wearing it and yes, it would be quite obvious that you are the one who knitted it.
What would make a good first project? Anything small and not too complicated would give a novice knitter a happy experience of starting and finishing the project and yet allow him/her to learn some tricks and techniques. My personal favorites are dishcloths, kitchen towels, and coasters. Not only they are fast to knit, but one can use them even if they are not perfectly made.

3. Use bigger needles
Novice knitters tend to knit too tight. I remember scratching my fingers to blood, trying to pick up the thread. Using bigger needles forces one to knit looser. It also allows the knitter to change for smaller needles if the stitches become too tight.
A friend of mine says that relaxing her hands helped her to “learn” how to knit looser.


Have a great knitting weekend everyone!

Blobs

I am back to civilization and knitting. Sorry for leaving abruptly but I was hiding in Toronto for over a week and since people from whom I was hiding tend to read my blog I had to stop posting for a while.... These people are the reason why I could not show my crocheted project until now.
Here is the last picture of "almost finished" secret project:


And here are all the balls and arms assembled into 2 "blobs":


Same blobs but with the hand-made card:


These are modified Doug and Gordo from Crochet Me book. They do not look much like the original ones (I hope Kim Werker would forgive me for that) - I used a completely different size of yarn and had to improvise with the eyes and "costumes". I wanted them to look more like a girl and a boy, since they were part of the wedding gift for my two wonderful friends.

Forgiving

I usually do not stay mad for a long time. I "cool down" relatively fast, do not keep grudges, and tend to forgive (or at least to forget). So even if my arm is still hurting I can not be upset with these cuties for long. And I do not think it is fair, since it was mostly my fault. At the beginning of the evening the table was perfectly clean:

Then one of them "appeared":

Couple (should I say 4?) of hours later I made the second one:

I felt very obsessive and continued crocheting. Before I knew I had a third one ready:


And then the fourth one:


Any level-headed crocheter/knitter who has as little practice as me, would stop at that point. But being who I am, I felt obliged to continue and came up with these:


Today I have no one to blame but myself. And as a punishment I would ignore the fact that Mouline Yarns have a great summer sale!

Enough is enough

How do you know that you have been crocheting A LOT (or that you are an itsy-bit obsessive)?


Yeah, these are my hands. I have been crocheting so much that my right hand is sore and I have to wrap it tightly to prevent some irritating movements.
What should be blamed for my injury? These guys, right here:


I know they look cute and innocent but they are the soly reason for my pain!

Twist Collective

It is the first day of August. I decided that this month calls for some changes and as a result my blog has a new colour palette. I like blue-brown colour combo and even though I do not have anything blue-brown in the "real" life it is a nice combination for my virtual "home".

Knitting news: Twist Collective is out! I know, I know you all are aware of it, you actually knew about this Canadian project for a while (I found out about it this morning, thanks to Lin), some of you submitted patterns, others were posting sneak peaks on Ravelry, and those who were completely oblivious to it read Yarn Harlot's blog post. But hey, I am a bit slow these days.
I had no clue that Twist Collective existed until early this morning and I had no time to post about it because I was running late to my driving lesson (told you, I am slow, I do not know how to drive, at my age!). So even if you have heard about it already, hear once again, and go check it out!


Have a great knitting weekend, everyone!

Good yarn

Take a look at these gorgeous knitting images. They are part of "A good yarn" project - a yarn store that has more than just yarn.
I was not sure which image to choose for the last-day-of-July post but this one is too funny.

Useful

My collection of favorite knitting blogs is growing - take a look at the right-side bar!!!
One of them, is Lime & Violet a great resource ran by 2 great women (Miss Lime and Miss Violet). In their blog (which is only a tiny part of the whole project) they post useful and interesting knitting-related information. Today it was this:

As it turns out they found the chart on Label-free blog - another useful resource, this time for those who like to sew. Go and check both blogs and do not forget to get Lime & Violet button.

Knitters'

No knitting pictures today. I am a very very slow knitter these days. However I picked up a copy of Knitters' magazine couple of days ago.

They have shawl patterns as well as an article by my favorite Cat Bordhi about sock knitting (what else). The issue also features several nice summer tops and since I am too chicken to knit a big sweater, a nice top or cardigan could be a fun project.
Here are some of my favorite designs. I will appreciate any suggestion and colour changes:





To see all the designs from this issue of Knitters' click here. You can also browse through past issues to find a model you like.

And I can not not show you a beautiful sock pattern by Cat Bordhi:

They are called "Spring Thaw Socks" and it seems like they are made of snow, first spring leaves, and snowdrops.

It is quite obvious that all the images in this post are taken from Knitters' website.

Contest

I LOVE knitting community (all those people behind blogs and Ravelry profiles). It seems to be a very friendly, helpful, and entertaining bunch full of stories, photographs, FOs, stash, yarn give-aways, and contests. Just today I left a comment with a question on Monika's blog and got a detailed answer via email in a matter of minutes!

Yarn contests seem to be big in the knitting world. No wonder - who can resist an addition to the stash collection? For the yarn-addicts here is a contest from Knit Witch and Amia yarn store:

Just click on the image or HERE to read the instructions.

Good luck to all of you!

Addition to my stash

July has been busy .... busy with work, trip to Toronto, meeting friends, and knitting. It was also busy with discovering new yarn stores and getting additions to my stash. If you are looking for a place to get a lot of different yarn you have to go to Toronto's Romni Wools.

I have read several reviews about the store. I also seen this picture on their website. I was expecting a big place but felt like it would be more of a warehouse and that I would not like it there. One thing for sure, the place is HUGE. It is the biggest yarn store I have seen so far. And yes, it has a bit of a warehouse-ish ambiance, but hey, they have SO much yarn that it is hard not to look like a warehouse. By the way, apart form different yarn they also carry a great selection of needles and hooks by different producers.

Seeing this colour/texture explosion I almost broke down in tears (now I know how my sister feels when she walks into an art-supply store, and why Urgwen becomes "not quite her usual self" in the bead stores). I felt overwhelmed by the beauty and shear amount of yarn. I could have not walked out without purchasing at least something, so here is my small addition to the stash:


This is a beautiful sock yarn from Araucania. I will admit that the colour combination is not my first choice but since I have been stuck on blues recently I let my sister pick the colour and she fell for this one. I doubt I would be making socks with this, I can envision a beautiful scarf or maybe a pair of warm mittens. The colour of this yarn is 501 and here you can see all the subtle details of it.

Romni Wools has the greatest selection of sock yarn. I wanted some darker and earthy colours and found this:


I am struggling to figure out the name of this one. I know it is German but would like to know how it is called.

And finally, I could have not walked away from the gorgeous Fleece Artist Suri Blue (the colourway is called Dandelion). It will be definitely turned into a shawl some time soon.


If you want to see other colours Fleece Artist makes this site has a beautiful collection with all the names.

Don't you wish you slipperS WERE hot like mine?

I finally have a finished project to share with you. Now I have 2 sexy slippers – “woot woot woot” - like my sister would say.


It took me a while to finish the second slipper, probably because I was dreading the knitting of ties. Remember, I made a mistake when knitting the ties of the first slipper and it made my knitting life so much more difficult. I did not want the second slipper look any different so I purposefully knitted the ties in a wrong fashion. But now, all of this is behind and I am enjoying my super-warm Twinkletoes.


There are a couple of mistakes (they are all on the sole so it would not be noticeable), also the second slipper is slightly looser at the back – this is what happens when you wait too long before completing the project.


And what would look nice with these slippers? A pair of matching socks. Here is a beginning of “Cablenet” in Regia #5769. I am very excited to attempt this rather difficult pattern. I would not stress myself with knitting it fast – it would be one of those “knit a bit when feel like it” projects.


Since I am sharing my progress here is how the felted purse looks like:


It is growing pretty fast and I am excited about felting it. By the way, is it me or felting is super popular today? While in Toronto I saw Toronto Outdoors Art Expo and was amazed to see several stands with felted purses. I also noticed felted items in different clothes/accessories stores. I better hurry up to learn this technique if I want to stay “cool”.