Twist!

At last weeks stitch&bitch, I knit a little on my Aiken, I knit a little on my skoodlet, and I knit
a little cat toy for T's kitten,  which I stuffed with catnip before seaming it up.

I think he likes it!

The past week was all about getting serious about finishing the second sleeve of Aiken, casting all other WIPs aside to focus solely on getting that dreaded second sleeve out of the way, and it worked because i'm finished!! YAY! I love love love it.

I'm almost wishing for cold weather, just so I can wear it, allllll the time. My
only issue with this sweater is the yarn, I wish I had used nicer yarn. I'm happy with the colour (which is outside my usual palette) and I like the feel of Swish against my skin, but I think I'm finished with Knitpicks Swish yarn. The colour selection is good, the price is good, but every single ball (out of  11 and a bit) had at least two of these weird areas that looked poorly joined/felted.

So, I cut those parts out, and used the russian join.  Which, is annoying enough to do twice for every ball (not even counting the times I was joining the ends of balls together), but several of those balls had between 4 and 6 those awful felty bits. 
That was a lot of russian joining. Which is very irritating, and maybe I wouldn't have
needed an extra ball of yarn if I hadn't had all these weird spots in the yarn. Btw, that extra ball I had to order ? Had three bad spots. *sigh* (also, got the Jasmine and Vanilla Lavishea bar-yummy!)
It really left a bad taste in my mouth. So, i'll knit up the Swish I have in my stash
but I probably won't buy yarn from them anymore.
Strangely though, early in the week I  dreamt about knitting the Harvest cardigan by Tincanknits, using the Rainforest Heather Swish I have in stash. It was a very vivid dream, and I may just have to cast on when I'm done with the Greenfield cardy. Get rid of all the Swish to make room for better yarns!

Speaking of the greenfield cardy, I was looking over the pattern, and instead of there being 72 rows before putting the sleeves on waste yarn, there's only 70 rows to knit! Awesome. Glad I checked, tinking back two rows when there's over 400 stitches would make me cry. More about Greenfield later though...on to the Skoodlet.
So, I knit section 1, and after I finished Aiken, I started working on section 2. It was my take along knitting, and there was a lot of park visits and errands so it was going pretty quickly. There was this line though, a stretched out line from the provisional cast on.

I kept knitting through section 2, thinking maybe, it'll come out with blocking. Or I could seam it up somehow...and just kept knitting. But every time I picked up the skoodlet to knit on, that line bothered me.
I like this yarn, I like this project-if it has a weird line, I'm not ever going to wear it, which is such a waste. A waste of yarn, and a waste of time. Soooo, I frogged it.
Re-cast on, this time with smaller needles. Knit the whole section 1 all over again and today at stitch&bitch; I got to section 2. There is a tiny line, but no where near as big and stretched out as before. I think I can live with this line, it's barely noticeable, and likely will block out just fine. Or at least I hope so...who knows how I'll feel when I get a couple inches done.

Anywhooo, the best thing ever, I went to my first Fibre Festival; TWIST. It was fantastic. My mom watched the kids, so I got to spend some alone time with my sweetie. The drive was long (an hour and 40 minutes) but very pleasant once we were outside of Montreal (with all it's ridiculous road construction). Once there, we walked around a bit together, but knitting and fibre arts aren't really his thing so he went and chilled out at the car (we brought camp chairs, just in case) and listened to podcasts while I walked around, talked to some super friendly vendors, bought some things. Wabi Sabi had a large kiosk, with Kate Sherrat from Ashford (all the way from New Zealand) showing the most gorgeous wheels and looms. Despite knowing nothing about spinning, I still fell in love with one of the wheels. It's a good thing I left my credit card at home. M and I met up for the foodie fair, we had bison burgers (so so so good!) and poutine made with local curd cheese. I'm not a poutine fan, and even I thought it was yummy. After we ate and chatted, we walked around a bit more, and I did some final shopping.

An octopus printed project bag, and a skein of sock yarn "Blood Curdling Scream" (is that not the best name ever?) purchased at the Trailhead yarns booth. Really friendly mom and daughter duo from Ontario. Loved their stuff, and would have liked to buy more, but I'm trying to be more responsible about yarn buying  (ie: not buying just to have more yarn)

At the Zenitude Fibre Arts kiosk, I bought a Thrummed Slipper sock kit. I love me some knitted slippers, and I love how thrummed items look, and I especially love having warm footsies! Gorgeous colour combos, I had a really hard time deciding which colour to get!

How gorgeous is this colour? ^
At the Gaspereau Valley Fibres booth, I fell in love with a shawl; Virpi by Lilja Palmgren and purchased the pattern and some yarn to make said shawl. Chatted with the ladies from that booth for a bit, they're from Nova Scotia, where I lived for a year, and would happily move back in a minute.

I had already spied Sweet Paprika Designs Fish in the Sea sock kit, before I went to Twist,  and had planned on buying it if I saw it in the booth-so I did! I may be out of sock mojo at the moment but I think these might be the socks that bring me back. Totes adorbs, and super nice gal running the booth! (Also, local! yay local!)

How cool is this? A drop spindle and some wool roving (plus instructions!) Bought this at the Shepherd's Spring Farm booth. Since, I'm not in the place to buy a spinning wheel (as in, I've not researched wheels, and have no idea what one should look for in a beginner wheel) I figured a drop spindle is a good place to start.

That was all the wool I bought. I was very good, very rational. But also full of regret of the yarns I did not buy. But, I bought other things that were not yarny goodness, but equally lovely! Such as:

 Felted soaps, yummy smells from Les Belles Bouclettes. Very difficult to only buy 3 soaps. I didn't really get a chance to check out their booth (was always pretty full of people anytime I walked by), but they had some bath bombs, and lip balms that interested me as well as their yarns; they specialize in mohair, alpaca and llama!

 A lovely little necklace, and a gorgeous knitting bowl from Julie Magnan, I had a difficult time choosing which bowl to get, there were so many to choose from, and all equally appealing!

Lotion from La Flaneuse-I grabbed a Lavender and Rosewood lotion, and I'm in love with it. It's light, but so moisturizing. That was a particularly dangerous booth for me, I could have easily walked away with hundreds of dollars of lotions and soaps-everything smelled so so good. The soaps (and maybe the lotions?) are made from donkey milk. Sounds weird. Smelled awesome. Should have bought soap, but I already had bought some felted soaps. (again, leaving the credit card at home was a very wise decision)

 

And finally, from Water Willow Design, I bought a circular needle case, and my favourite non-knitting purchase; a messenger bag. It's stunning and I walked by the booth 4 or 5 times (ok, like 6-7 times) before I finally bought it. My (admittedly) shitty pictures do not do it justice...but follow the link and you can see all the gorgeous products (I want them all-in every colour)

And now a bunch of random crappy pictures from Twist!

 (I want this one ^ I have no idea how to use it, but I want it)

 (giant needles! I made a joke about staking vampires when not knitting. no one laughed. except me.)

 (this booth was fucking cool, and i'm really, really sorry I didn't buy anything, but I ran out of cash.)

 (food shot! Bison burger and poutine, plus, ice tea I brought from home)

 (Heyyyy look, Maison Tricote had a booth! I'll see you guys in September)

(sassy little buggers, turned away from me or lowered their head every time I tried to take a picture)

So, then I was broke, and it was time to head home. Sad face. Goodbye Twist. Maybe see you next year!
I knit on my Greenfield cardy, and thanks to the 1hr40min there, and 1hr, 40min back-I was one row away from separating the sleeves! Which I did today at stitch&bitch. Separated the sleeves, cast on the underarm stitches, and even knit a row after that. I feel like I got over a very big hurdle. Now...do I start the sleeves or finish the body...or yunno, sleep.