Do you <3 socks as I <3 them?

I was browsing through endless knit blogs and stumbled upon these beauties:





Meet Cookie A.
I think these socks are divine and should be worn instead of shoes for some special occasions. Go to the website and check out other sock beauties.

How far is Toronto?

Here is Palette on my way there:


And this is what I brought home last night:


I did not knit all the time while on the bus but I am happy with the progress made.
The pattern for Palette comes from one of back-issues of Knitty. I decided to experiment with yarn and used a skein of Noro(S185) sock-yarn I've picked up at Mouline Yarns.

The picture comes from THIS German website.
And HERE you can find another gorgeous picture of the yarn

Originally I was thinking of making socks, something like this beauty by The Loopy Ewe. At the same time I wanted a fun project that would be easy enough to knit on the bus, yet challenging to prevent me from dozing off. This lacy scarf proved to be ideal.

Toronto - the city of yarn and honey.

I am in Toronto and I have big plans for the weekend, specially for tomorrow: I will be having a yarn-storethon. We (my sister and I) will start with Kensington market and the one and only Lettuce Knit. After, we will be heading to the Queen street for The Knit Cafe and Romni Wools (they are having 20% off on some of their yarns!). Thank you, Angela, for your suggestion.

While in Montreal I was busy with the The Print O' The Wave Stole. Here is what it looks like for now:


I can already see the design of the stole. Can not wait to block it and see the yarn "bloom".

And this is my crochet project. I am really happy with the yarn - it is easy to work with and it makes a rather random pattern.


Time to get some rest before tomorrow's yarn-storethon.

Ravelry and errata

I discovered Ravelry. After giving it just a quick glance I understand why most of the knitting (and as it turns out not only knitting) people are using it. I will try to dedicate a separate blog post to Ravelry, for now I just want to share a piece of important information I found. Remember my Reverse Psockology socks?
It turns out there is an errata for the pattern. As Anne Pattigrew, the creator of this pattern, mentions on her blog:

it is difficult to get the holes formed by the yarn-overs the same size
because of the transition between knit and purl stitches

I remember noticing it when working on my pair but I did not know if it was "normal" or if it happened because of my uneven knitting style, after all it was my first pair of socks.
For those of you who are working on these, here you can find a different version of the lacy pattern.

In my defense ....

Members of the court,

it is not a defense that I present to you. I am not in any way seeking to escape the reprisals of the knitting society in general and lace knitting society in particular for the mistake that I had made. I wish merely to give you an explanation of my acts and to tell you how I was led to perform it.

I have been a lace knitter for a very short period of time. I started knitting lace on the 28th day of June, 2008. Since that day, my life had changed dramatically. Everywhere I went, I saw lace patterns emerging in front of my eyes, I dreamed about lace, researched on lace-knitting, and spend every free minute of my time knitting lace. I would like to point your attention to the fact that lace knitting is addictive and that I was never warned about it. In fact, to prevent further incidents, I think that all products related to lace-knitting should bear a warning about it's addictive properties (similar to the warnings on the cigarette packages). As a previous smoker, I can also assure you that knitting is highly more addictive than smoking, which in turn is more addictive than such drugs as cocaine and heroine.

My previous statement informed you about an unhappy experience with lacy shawl, that took place on the 2nd day of July, 2008. This incident did not diminish my enthusiasm for the lace-knitting and I began a new lace project: the Print O' The Wave Stole on the same day.
Previously, I had purchased 2 skeins of Alpaca yarn and this small fact can not be neglected. The presence of the second skein is the sole reason to why I did not rip out the swatch for the shawl, and kept looking at it, while working on the stole. I would like you to take in consideration the fact that the purchase of 2 skeins was not premeditative, thus I could not be held responsible for keeping the first swatch.

At this point I was completely impaired by the addictive properties of the lace-knitting. The image of the pattern haunted me, I had visions of the lacy pattern not only in my sleep but in the middle of day. My inability to see the resemblance between the swatch and the original picture caused even more distress. Here is Exhibit A, the blocked shawl swatch that caused me so much distress:


Although I was intoxicated by the lace-knitting, I was able to recognize my mistakes. The recognition happened at the moment of scrolling through the lace-knitting tutorial by Eunny. I fully understood the wrongness of committed lace blocking when I saw the following diagram (Exhibit B, diagram of trinagular-shaped shawl knitting, as depicted in the tutorial):

When I looked at the star and followed directions of the arrows I felt very very stupid. I would like you to take in consideration the fact that I realized my mistake of not blocking the swatch correctly. The shawl pattern started with 5-stitch row which I assumed to be the bottom of the triangular. I also earlier confessed to attributing "shawl is knitted from top down" instructions as a typo, and hope that it would diminish my punishment.

Here is a side-by-side look at the same swatch, blocked differently (Exhibit C):















I hope that this comparison will make you understand the frustration I experienced throughout this whole process. As it could be seen, the incorrectly-blocked swatch (depicted on the right) has a slight hint of the pattern, which causes a great trouble to the novice lace-knitter. Moreover, the horizontal position of the needles makes it counterintuitive to block the swatch in any other way.

In conclusion, I would like to say that several outlined reasons (my inexperience, addictive nature of the lace-knitting, possession of the second skein, and the needles themselves) should definitely be considered when determining my future fate as a lace-knitter. Meanwhile, I would keep this shawl swatch as a constant reminder of the foolish mistakes I made:

Lacy links

For those of you who are learning to knit lace, here are 4 tutorials from Eunny:

Introduction to majoring in lace
Yarn and needle choices
The structure of lace
Cast ons for lace knitting

Happy lace knitting!

Defeated

There are no knitting news today. I slightly advanced on my second slipper and a bit on my new project but I did not even take pictures of the progress. Reason?

LACE

I started knitting lace and the last 2 days have been spend decoding ssk, k2sp, and k2tog(s). Inspired by my own post about the alpaca yarn, I decided to get back to my shawl, ripped down whatever I had knitted earlier, and started fresh with a 5-stitch chain.

- After the first 13 rows I had a light suspicion that the shawl did not look like what it should be

- After the 30th row, the annoying voice in my head told me to stop but I convinced it that I should keep going and that the pattern will miraculously emerge (I believe in miracles, I really do, even after last night!)

- After the 64th row I started panicking, wet the swatch, tried to pin it down, failed miserably, stretched it and looked at it from every possible angle to see the glimpses of the design.

- After yet another hour spend meditating on my swatch I said:
(I don’t think I should write down what I said, because there might be children reading this) and began looking for another …. lace pattern (did I mention before that I am very stubborn? Wait a minute; let me put it in my profile description).

- By 2 AM I learned how to do invisible cast on (KnittingHelp video), did it 2 times (again, I’ll omit everything I was saying and mumbling at that time) and knitted first 3 rows of this gorgeous stole, by Eunny.

Oh wait, there was also an incident with scissors but do not worry, everyone is alive and in good health.

Today’s plan for the evening: knit the first rows of the stole. G-d, give me strength and patience.



Meanwhile, I would have to admire the work of others, like this gorgeous Turquoise Lace made by The Daily Purl (click on the image to see the original post):


If you like knitting, weaving, and beautiful photography - visiting her blog is a must!

Mouline Yarns, bonsai, and a new project.

After getting sock yarn at “La Tricoteuse” I was excited about discovering more Montreal’s yarn stores. A fast Google search revealed a list of at least 10 stores spread all over the city, from East End and Plateau to the West Island. The closest ones to my house were “Ariadne” and “Mouline Yarns” located at a walking distance from the Lionel Groulx metro station. I decided to start my explorations with “Mouline Yarns”. The reason was purely materialistic – they were having a big Spring sale and who can pass discounted yarn?

The first thing that surprised me was the amount and the selection of yarn. It seemed like each corner of the store was holding more and more surprises. Loyal to the advertisement, most of yarns were reduced, some to as much as 50% and 60%.

The shelves were stacked with yarns and topped with different garments knitted with the presented yarn selections. Scarves and shawls, socks and mittens, baby sweaters and full-sized adult tops decorated every surface of the store. It is nice to be able not only to see the yarn, but to touch the final item, to know how the colors would look like once the sample is knitted.

Apart from yarns, the store also carries the greatest selection of knitting and crocheting books and magazines – this was the place where I spotted the first North American issue of "Verena" magazine.

I asked the owner (Svetlana, yes she speaks Russian, as well as fluent English and French) about lace-weight yarn and showed her the pattern from “Knit1” magazine. As it turned out “Mouline Yarns” had exactly what I needed: sea silk in different vibrant colors. Unfortunately it was a bit pricey for me and I asked for any acceptable alternatives. Svetlana offered several yarn varieties and explained how many skeins I would need and why one type would be better than another. I chose beautiful Baby Alpaca yarn (from Misti Alpaca) that was very affordable and picked two skeins of a nice "Blue Mist Melange" color (CD 42).

I also picked up a pair of Addi Turbo lace needles that Svetalana recommended. Sensing my “newness” to the whole knitting business not only she explained to me that the yarn had to be rolled into balls before knitting but let me use the yarn winder, patiently showing me how to mount the skein, find and cut the nod, and attach the end to the rolling part.

While rolling the yarn I witnessed numerous customers coming to Svetlana with different questions and she would recommend yarns, explain patterns, or simply give some advice.

I couldn’t not come back to the store again and soon after finishing my socks I came to “benefit” from some yarn specials – but this is a different story.

Mouline Yarn

2657 Notre Dame West (Not far from Lionel Groulx metro station)

The store offers different workshops and lessons. Call (514) 935-4401 to enquire about the summer schedule.

It has absolutely nothing to do with knitting but I wanted to share this picture of one of the goregous Bonsai trees from Montreal's Botanical Garden. If you are in Montreal check out the Japanese Garden and Pavillion of Jardin Botanique.

And finally, here is a colour scheme for my new crocheting project:

I am using 3 different "Bernat" colors: Off white (00002), Boston blue (27201) - part of their "Colonial colors" collection, and Earth Ombre (33048) - part of "Naturals" collection.

Don't you wish your slipper was hot like mine?

Do you remember a little secret project I started a while ago? I think it is time to share some of my progress with you. The little blue swatch turned into a wonderful sexy slipper (I have been a slow knitter recently and the second slipper is still in progress).

For those of you who do not know me or my taste in shoes, here is a picture of the sexiest shoes ever, according to Anna. And yes, I owe a pair exactly like this:

Now you can see why I use the word “sexy” when describing my new slipper. The pattern comes from one of back issues of “Knitty” and it is called: “Twinkletoes”. I slightly modified the original pattern: by mistake, I did not knit the strings same way as described on the pattern. I also did not knit the 1k1p border, since it was making slippers a bit bulky-looking. Because of this modification I am afraid that the back of the Sexy Slipper would slip off my foot (no pun intended). A loop in the back of the shoe that would hold the slipper and the straps would prevent slipping. I will definitely post pictures if this modification will be made.

When my dad saw the Sexy Slipper he asked with terror in his voice whether I was planning on wearing it outside! Sometimes I wonder what others think about me.

The new technique I learned from this patter was a "Lifted Increase/Decrease". Although the pattern provided explanations and instructions I searched some detailed instructions and videos and here are links to the most useful ones:

Wonder How To has links to every possible "How to" video. Here is the one for Lifted Increase/Decrease

Stich Diva Studio has some useful instructions with step-by-step photographs. Here is her version of LI/D. I really like the way she uses yarn of 2 different colors to make explanations easier.

Stash

Stash organizing is one of the biggest problems for knitters. No matter how hard you try the amount of yarn eventually exceeds the amount of empty space available for its storage. Also, as time goes by, one accumulates more and more half-finished projects that have to be stored until the better days.
Experienced knitters have different ways of managing their stash; some keep it in their closets while others have elaborate organizing cabinets and boxes.

Last week I realized that my stash is getting too big for its basket. I tried solving the problem by putting some of it in the box, but miraculously couple of plastic bags full of yarn appeared in my living room (I had nothing to do with it – they just appeared one morning on top of the table). I tried separating yarn by the usage, putting it in Ziploc bags, spreading started projects evenly over the rooms in my apartment. None of it helped taming the yarn monster. Finally, I found a big box and managed to staff all my stash in it.

I realize that the box is already full and any new yarn acquisition will lead me back to square one, but next several days I’ll be enjoying my neatly organized stash.

P.S. As I was proofreading the post, my dad brought me a plastic bag with 10 skeins of mohair/acrylic yarn from the owner of this wonderful dog.

I managed to fit it in the box but looks like the week will be spend thinking of new stash organizing techniques.