Lavishing love on Lavishea

The following is not a paid presentation:
I love Lavishea lotion bars. I use mine all.the.time. Before, during and after knitting, after washing my hands, whenever I notice my skin is dry and sometimes even just because I want my hands to smell nice. Lavishea bars are very moisturizing, my skin just soaks it in, without being greasy. I currently own lavishea bars in Lavender and Lemongrass and they are both heavenly.

I would also like to get a Yarn Bar, and maybe the Lilac and Peppermint bars. And also the Jasmine&Vanilla.  I wish Lavishea made a little kit of sample sizes-I'm intrigued by the Man bar (I like spicy and woody scents) and Orange Pomander-because cloves and cinnamon are yummy, but orange can be iffy for me. I also wish they were easier to buy locally, especially with the rate of exchange and shipping costs...


One of my rats (Crowry) chewed on my knitpicks interchangeable cables. Because I was knitting, and the rats were free-ranging all over the place,  I didn't notice until yarn started snagging. it was my 32' length cable, perfect for sweaters in the round. I do have another one, but what if I had needed to cast on another sweater? It was an emergency and I had to go pick up another cable. Off to fabricville I went.

Why buy only one 32" cable when you can buy 2? and one 40" cable as well? Why you're at it, why not buy a couple of nickel plated tips?  extra needles always come in handy (especially the way I start projects and don't finish them hahaha)


One day, I felt the urge to start another project. I have miles and miles of stockinette on one project (aiken) and miles and miles of garter stitch on another (greenfield) I obviously needed something that has a little of everything with some lace thrown in and most importantly, will be finished quickly. I had knit Andi Satterlunds cowl from tuts a while back, using Swish Bulky in Hollyberry but I didn't like the colour on me . Red is fine for socks, and maybe as an accent colour, but not around my neck. Meanwhile I had some Blue Sky Alpaca Bulky that I recently purchased on sale (SCORE!) in the colour frost, and it's absolutely gorgeous, and the colour suits me wonderfully. But even if it didn't suit me, I'd probably wear it anyway because, duh, it's Blue Sky Alpacas Bulky-who doesn't want to wear a warm squooshy cloud around their neck?

So I cast on the cowl, using giant needles-using 12mm (us17) needles. Using stitch markers made of yarn to keep track of the pattern repeats because I dont have enough stitch markers large enough to use with these needles and start knitting.

 Halfway to finished, lovely stitch definition.

 It is a thoroughly enjoyable knitting experience, I get a lot done while at the stitch'n'bitch.  I'm a little over half way done when I decide that I do not want to use this yarn for this cowl. Not sure why, it's just not speaking to me. So I frog frog frog-and because I had spit spliced 4 skeins of yarn, I now have this giganto ball of squooshiness.  It's huge, and weighs a ton. Also, I have big feet (sz 11)

So instead of the bulky cowl by Andi Satterlund, I'm now making a Vite-cowl by Kristi Johnson. It's knit flat and then seamed, so it's pretty customizable in terms of length. I finished the first 24 rows, and it is such a simple pattern for something so pretty. I think it will look fantastic once it's been blocked!

Sweater progress:
Aiken by Andi Satterlund is coming along, I'm off pattern, because i'm lengthening it so it's a lot of knit knit knit, measuer, try on. put back on the needles, knit knit knit. measure, try on, put back on the needles. I've done a number of sets of increases, 5 I think, but I lost my notes so I'm not even sure, but it's at a length I'm happy with so I started the ribbing. Switching things up and doing a 3x1 ribbing instead of the usual 2x2 or 1x1. I'll probably do 2.5-3" of ribbing.

So hopefully sleeves soon! Dreaded, dreaded sleeves. I say dreaded because I have long arms, and again will be going off pattern to lengthen the 3/4 sleeves to full sleeves. Also, I'm concerned that I'm not going to have enough yarn *sigh* When I ordered the yarn for this sweater, I ordered according the the yardage called for the pattern. Not taking into account that a) I would not ever wear a cropped sweater and b) I don't understand making a warm sweater with 3/4 length sleeves. (my teens have accused me of never have a b point after an a...so there ya go teenager children)  Luckily, I can order more yarn from knitpicks and not be too worried about dye lots. My plan is to finish the first sleeve, see how much yarn it takes, and just order what I need for the second sleeve.
I could just do the sleeves in a contrasting colour, or add stripes, but I'll be doing that with my Greenfield Cardy (which also has 3/4 length sleeves) and I don't want a bunch of sweaters with different coloured sleeves.

Speaking of Greenfield (by Melisse LaBarre)-yes, the pattern also was written with 3/4 length sleeves. Which I will also lengthen. But, because I'm using stashed Miss Babs Yowza! Whatta Skein! there is no way I can order more, and dye lot matters when using gorgeously hand dyed yarns. Soooo, I will add stripes, gradually transitioning to a solid colour using some MadTosh dk weight in Medieval (which is absolutely stunning)

Even if it looks ridiculous I will wear the fuck out of this sweater because it will be made with two of  my favourite yarns. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm not anywhere close to sleeves. I'm still working on the increases. I'm at the 41st row of knitting, out of 72 before putting the sleeves on waste yarn. With lack of knitting time, and Greenfield being my take-along knitting, it's going to be a while before I get there. One of the things I like about this sweater the most (besides the yarn <3) is the needles-it's knit on 4mm (or us6) and those seem to be the perfect size needles for my hands. Not too small, not too big, just right. I think I need to make more projects with dk weight yarn. And by dk weight, I mean more Yowza!

So there ya go, no FOs, just WIPs.


Our summer has been typical for Montreal; incredibly humid or raining. We've had some seriously high temps all week, the kind with heat warnings. So our air conditioner has been running. It's a window unit, in the front of the house, in the front room our "den". The den is where we have our desktop computer and a bunch of bookshelves and B and I have our comfy chairs for reading. It is also where all my knitting magic happens. Now, in the evenings after B goes to bed, I finally get some serious knitting time, unless I'm exhausted from the days activities, but even then I try to get an hour of knitting done. But because the air conditioner has been running off and on all day (power saver mode for the win) the den is usually quite cold compared to the rest of the house. It's ridiculous that when it's 40c outside, I'm inside wearing a fleece onesie.

I'm not complaining about the heat at all mind you, it's been good pool weather, and good lay on the deck with a book and ice tea weather.

(full disclosure: I only got to read about 5 pages before the 5yr old needed something and this set up was abandoned-but it looks great right?)

I just really like knitting

    There isn't one thing that I can think of, that can't be improved  by knitting (well, there is one thing...hehe) Things I enjoy, I enjoy even more when I get to knit. For example; long rides in vehicles (cars, trains, greyhound style buses. possibly boats? I've never knit on a boat before-but I'd like to! I'd love to do one of those whale watching boat cruises), long walks (not during the actual walk, but when you finally get to the perfect spot and sit and knit for a bit before walking again) Watching VH1 clip shows. Chatting with mah peeps.
    Things I dislike are more tolerable with knitting as well. For example; waiting in line, waiting to see a doc at the clinic, weddings, award ceremonies.

K, so I'm done waxing poetic about knitting, lets get down to the fos and wips!

FOFOFOFOFOFO: one arc en ciel sock! Let me just say how surprised I am to have finished this sock. Boring. So, vry boring. I brought it to a movie (Jurassic World. It was ok. Lots of not so subtle advertising. Lots of running in heels)

Forced myself to finish it last Sunday at our Stitch'n'Bitch

I even weaved in the ends right away. Go me.
I'm so not casting on the second sock any time soon. Go me.

WIPS!
Aiken by Andi Satterlund...I had just cast on when I wrote my last post, I've been taking notes on the sweater as I go along.
July 10th-cast on-ball one
July 13-2nd ball (row 53)
July 15-3rd ball-row 39
July 16th-finished front/back lace
         -co 10 sts at each side
         -joined in round.
July 18th-put on waste yarn-tried on.
decided to do two more rounds of knitting
before starting the decreases.
July 18th-4th ball
July 19th-5th ball
opted to stop decreases after 5 decreases and knit an extra 4 rows instead
will add increases and length.
July 22nd-started increases (using kfbs)

Took a couple of pictures of the progress as well:

The notes will come in handy if I make another one in nicer yarn (some Malabrigo Rios perhaps?), which is a distinct possibility. Love the lace on this, and the construction is so nifty-I love a good boatneck. I also learned a new cast-on for this sweater-the Cable Cast On. Which has absolutely nothing to do with cables, from what I can tell. 

    Speaking of cast-ons....I cast on another sweater this past weekend.  I cast on the Greenfield cardigan because I had planned to visit my eldest in Granby on the 21st and wanted car knitting. Aiken wouldn't do because I was having to try it on frequently to see how many decreases I wanted to do. Nothing I wanted to deal with while in a car. Anywhoo, this pattern is by Melissa LeBarre (from New England knits. Timeless knitwear with a modern twist). It's a top down, seamless, garter stitch cardy knit in a DK weight yarn. I'm using stashed yarn (go me!) Miss Babs Yowza! Whatta Skein! in Field Mouse, which is this lovely browny-grey. 

(this picture is from Dec 28th 2014, from the blog titled "Post X-mas Jibber Jabber")

Ended up with a super long tail...long tail cast ons are annoying. I always end up with too much leftover or I haven't set aside enough for the amount of stitches. There must be a trick to figuring out the right amount of yarn for the long tail cast on. I usually do the knitted cast on to avoid this issue.

Car knitting on the way to Granby.  It rained. All the way there. Which was chill and calming. Rain and knitting go together like peas and carrots. Or pb&j.  (See what I mean? I like rain, I like car rides, combine both of those things and add knitting? Total zen!)

While at P and V's place, pictures were taken of the cats in the knitted dino hat. Hilarity ensued.
 Butterface's head is too big for the hat! But isn't he adorbs? The green compliments his gingerness.

and then sassy miss Stella wore the hat. Fit her perfectly.

Then we got ridiculous and put the hat on Igor the (female) iguana

and Pancho the tortoise

Reptiles care less for hats than cats do.

     We (being A-the 16yr old daughter and myself)  had a lovely time in Granby. We played with Tortoises, looked at the reptiles (iguana, sudans, geckos of various flavours, and a couple i'm forgetting?) Held ratties (did I mention P brought me two wittle bebes? they're super tiny and super cute, we've named them Lucifer and Cain in keeping with the superratual names) and did a little crafting in the solarium. P finished sewing a hammock for my ratties, I knit a few rows, and A looked through books. We also took Stella for a walk. It stopped raining for like, an hour, so we hopped into the car and headed over to the Ferme Heritage Miner. Nifty little place with chickens running around, goats (goats have so much personality), pigs and a couple of cows. We walked through the garden, tasted some yummy raspberries, smelled some lovely spearmint and heavenly lavender. I pinched off a tiny sprig of lavender, I couldn't help it, it's my favourite!

Too soon, it was time to head home. *sad face* P and V dropped us off at the Limocar (which is a bus, not a car) station, we bought our tickets and headed home.  After helping A figure out the free wifi on the bus, I knit a little more, and before we knew it, we were back in town. Off the bus, and on to the metro and we were home.

I feel like there was more I wanted to blog about, but my brain feels like mush at the moment, a good indicator that I should stop blogging and go to bed!

FO: Nivernais

Very short post! Not much going on knit wise (haa). Lots of summer stuff; we live in an area with a lot of parks so we've been making the rounds. And of course on the hot and humid days we've been at the pool.

That's right, Nivernais is finished. I finished the actual knitting on Tuesday, but the finishing (there was a lot of it) took me two days-picking up and knitting armholes, and neckline. Plus, seaming and making i-cord ties.

Some in-progress pictures-top: working on straps. Bottom: seaming.

And now for the final product:

I am not in love with this top. It's too short for my liking, and too wide. I can wear a tank top underneath and be fine though. If the shortness continues to irritate me, I'll likely just knit a few more rows down from the bottom. But the thought of picking up all those stitches is just...ugh, So daunting.

But I'm happy to be finished it because now I can work on sweaters! Yay!

Using knitpicks Swish in Copper-I cast on for Aiken by Andi Satterlund.  I had to tink back twice, and frog once because I wasn't getting the hang of the lace pattern, but once I got past the first 10 rows, and got a feel for the pattern and how it's written, it got much smoother. I just wish I had more time to devote to knitting it. I'd like to be able to sit down for a couple of hours and bang out a few rows, but the only time I really get is after B is in bed, and then I'm too tired to focus on it.

Leaving for stitch&bitch shortly, so really shouldn't complain too much.

Let's knit all the sweaters, eh!

Happy Canada Day!
(I really do say "eh" but I've never said "aboot")

The other night(morning), I woke up, and it was 2:45am. I was wide awake and because I had gone to bed before 10pm, so I knew there was no way I was falling back asleep. I decided to go on Ravelry, figuring that looking at patterns would make me sleepy. Instead,  in some kind of weird, insomniac fugue state, I bought an Andi Satterlund pattern.
Aiken is such a pretty sweater, I love the neckline and the lacy insert.  Of course, pattern purchase led to a yarn purchase. It's not like I had nothing in my stash (I do in fact have 2-3 sweater quantities of yarn) but I didn't have any colours that felt right. So I bought some Swish worsted from Knitpicks, in Copper, which was so deeply discounted I should have bought more (not more copper, more Swish-at those prices a sweater for B would cost like 12$).
It was destiny! It was kismet! Coming across the perfect pattern and the last day of a yarn sale-it was meant to be!

I've been super uninterested in socks, and scarves  and other such  knitting projects and I realized it's because all I want to do is knit sweaters. Aiken, this cropped-sweater-for-winter (which is another Andi Satterlund pattern) Another easy-raglan-v-neck by Stephanie Japel (I wear both my easy V-necks ALL THE TIME),  snowflake, prairie-fire and harvest ; all by Tincanknits (love their patterns) and even the holloway-pullover despite it not being a top down, seamless sweater. Why the hell do I want to make sweaters though? It's SUMMER. And even though we've been having a wet, somewhat cool summer so far (we've only had the a/c on a handful of times!) I don't know if I want to be toting around a heavy merino sweater to knit on. Of course, the other side of this is that I don't have a lot of knitting time-why not make the most of it and knit something on bigger needles with worsted weight wool, knit top down so it's just miles and miles of  quick stockinette? I hope this isn't some weird reptilian part of my brain panicking because the coming winter is going to be so cold that I should start making all the warm sweaters before it starts.

All that being said, I'm still knitting socks. Sort of.  I cast on a pair of vanilla travel socks, using Biscotte &Cie Felix self striping yarn in Arc en Ciel (Rainbow). I'm using some stashed knitpicks Stroll sock yarn in black for the cuff, heel and toe. Knitting these ones on 2.25mm, so I know I'll wear the uck-fay out of them. Slow going on these babies though...like, meh-socks.
But they are pretty. Aren't they pretty? look at the pretty! Admire the pretty!

Also, still working on Nivernais. So much puuuuurling (whine whine) but I'm loving the colours and I really like this cotton modal mix by Berroco.  Btw, my feet aren't dirty-they are tanned in this super sexy way that looks like a dirt streak but is actually tan lines from my maryjanes. I will never ever remember to put sunscreen on mah feets.

I finished the back and cast on the front. I had to cast on twice-annoying- because the numbers of the front piece don't match the numbers on the back. whaaa? And then after casting on the wrong number of stitches (which matched the number of the front) I realized that I don't have giant breasts on my back, so OF COURSE the stitch count for the front is going to be bigger. Must accommodate the breasts! Rip-rip-rip. Cast on proper amount for my size and here we are, working on the front.

So much puuuuuurling (whine whine). I'm still worried about the sizing. I guess if it's too big I can just wear another tank underneath...


I have this book. It's a neat little pattern book. Cats-in-hats is it's name, and it's a collection of knit and crocheted cat hats, The hats are exempt from my disinterest in small projects, because they knit up so fast and are instant gratification. My favourite cat hat is the unicorn one, but it's crochet so I will take away one star (instead of, yunno, learning to crochet) from my rating, leaving it with a robust 4 stars. I made the first hat, which, incidentally, is the cutest hat after the unicorn. Suuuuper quick knit. (btw, it's free on Rav, dinosaur)
Made my cats wear it.
It was terrible.
And HILARIOUS.
Here's Libby, backing away from me frantically. HAHAHAHA.

 And here is Libby, just fucking pissed. HAHAHAHA (she's probably going to kill me in my sleep, or poop in my shoes. or both, whatevs)

 And here's Nikki, all mopey and "why u do dis" (a la I can haz cheeseburger)

 Here's Nikki, resigned. I have broken her spirit. She will do that thing where she sits on my night table and when I roll over she'll meow loudly into my face and scare the ever-loving crap out of me.
Ever-loving. What a frigging weird expression.

Both cats stayed away from me for awhile after, but don't worry, I made it up to them! Ample treats were given and the hat has been put away (I'm going to give it to P, so she can take pictures of her cat, and her roommates cat in the hat-which I will then post as well)

Oooh, I think my next hat from the book will be the pumpkin hat! There will be pictures...oh yes...