Summer has arrived!

So, summer is officially here, and my blogging might not be as frequent, because there likely won't be as much knitting.

There's not much in the way of shitty pictures in this blog post, all the shitty pictures have been going on Rav. I decided that since I'm trying out the project feature, I might as well take the next step and use the stash feature. Which is actually pretty cool! I'm quite tickled that you can link a project you're making, to the yarn in your stash, and when you're finished knitting, it automatically updates your stash to show how many grams/yards you have left. Nifty, eh?
I managed to stash 54 yarns before giving up. I've got some yarn coming in the mail, hopefully next week that I'll be able to add (and squish). I've missed a couple skeins, and for the most part, I left out partial skeins (except for some of my favourites) because I really didn't feel like weighing all those 3/4, and 1/2 skeins. I also left out all the cotton dishcloth yarn I still have.
This organizing thing, well, it's a lot of work. Going through my stash took up seriously valuable knitting time, especially now that it's summer, so my plan is to quit now and only add new yarns to my stash as I buy them. I'd say I've entered about 80% of my stash on Ravelry, and that's good enough for me.


I finished my All Year Cardigan and I luuuurve it. I love the airy drape of the knitted up fabric. I made a mistake on the edging by starting on the right side instead of the wrong side, but it's not noticeable (I think) I cannot believe how quickly this cardy knit up. I can't wait to knit up another one! (with my Malabrigo Arroyo in Lotus that will hopefully arrive next week).
Here's a picture of my cardy, when it was almost finished. I will take pics of me actually wearing the cardy once I finally get around to weaving in all the ends! Soon, soon.

In the meantime, I'm kind of panicking about having nothing new to knit. I didn't have any of the usual "I suck at knitting" feelings or mojo drain after this project (yay!), possibly because it did knit up so fast, but now I have nothing interesting to knit. Sure, I could knit that scarf, but it's hoooooot out, and while I love the yarn, and love the texture, I do not want to knit the scarf right now. I want to knit MOAR SWEATERS!
Especially, light weight yarn+big needle sweaters.
I think part of the problem is that I know I have some beautiful yarns heading my way and I want to knit with them, not knit the crappy yarns in my stash
(Fiiine, fiiiiine.  My yarn is not crappy, i'm just being difficult)

That being said, I found a free project on the Espace Tricot blog called Villenueve. It's a very airy racerback tank top that is knit with big ass needles and fingering yarn-or in my case, stashed sock yarn. You're meant to wear it over a tank top, or tee-shirt, which I'm guessing is because sock yarn knit up on size 9 needles makes a very sheer fabric. Which is super cool, I like layers. (don't all knitters like layers?) So, technically speaking it should knit up fast if I can get around to casting it on anytime soon. I don't know if it's a good project to take to the pool or the park though, because while small and portable, there are short rows to pay attention to.

The yarn I'm using is Valley Yarns Huntington which is a 75% Merino, 25% Nylon sock yarn. It's in the colourway North Sea, which is a greeny-blue. I have 654 yrds of it in stash, and the pattern calls for 546yrds. Brilliant! If I really like the tank, I may make another one, using two or more colours. I need to get that sock yarn stash down, this could be the perfect way to do it!

So I cast on for the tank, which calls for you to cast on, join in the round and then knit 1 row,  purl 1 row, which makes a garter ridge. I knew there was no way I was going to join all those stitches and then do a knit row and a purl row without twisting my stitches and having to frog and re-cast on, at least 3 times. I saved myself the time and trouble and knit the first couple of rows flat. After finishing the garter edge, I joined in the round and knit two rows of stockinette instead of starting the short rows right away.                 This is the actual colour.          

                   Working on the short rows. Completely inaccurate colour, but yay progress.

I also worked on my infinity scarf a little wee bit.

As well as the second Blood Orange sock. Done the gusset decreases, straight knitting until the toe decreases! Running out of yarn, have a little ball stashed somewhere just in case I need it.

I meant to review The Friday Night Knitting Club last week by Kate Jacobs last week...but I forgot. Oh well. So, on goodreads I gave this book 3.5 stars. It was okay. I actually kind of liked that the main character (who was just a tad annoying) dies. It was the most realistic part of the book. Spoiler Alert? Dude, the book has been out for almost 10 years. So, I did not like the way to book was written, with these weird halted broken sentences. Most of the characters were way underdeveloped or super cliched. Also, can we finally drop the whole "wise old woman" trope?  I did want to know more about Darwin Chui, like does she change her awful, awful name? Other than that, the book was alright. I'm glad it was a library book.

So then I read Knit 2. Oof. WE GET IT, GEORGIA IS DEAD-WE ALL MISS GEORGIA...Oh hey Georgia boring back story.  Darwin used to be interesting. Oh hey, Dakota was a bratty kid, and is now an annoying adult. Oh hey, Georgia the saint in more back stories!  meh. I finished it.
Another book I was glad was taken out from the library.

I used to read a lot of chick lit, and then the genre started to suck a little bit, the market was over saturated, the books were  getting really formulaic and I stopped reading the genre as much. Overall,  chick lit really isn't my thing anymore, so take my review of these two books with a grain of salt.

Happy World Wide Knit in Public Day!

FYI: This is not the original post.  The post that was written out, with links and pictures that was meant to be posted yesterday was wiped out in a terribly annoying accidental tab closure. Then, when I brought up the history (which usually works) there was just a blank screen where all my ramblings had been. I was so, so bloody irritated. So some of the content is missing-lost in the ether.

So today was wwkipd! I did not actually partake in any of the gatherings, since nothing was local and it was super hot; I took the boys swimming instead. Our outdoor pools don't usually open until after school finishes, but because we're going through a bit of a heatwave at the moment, the city opened the pools for the weekend. Even with sunscreen I managed to get a bit of a burn, so I ordered a swim shirt from Land's End (they're having a sale).
 I still managed to knit in public though, as I always have knitting with me.

My oldest boy turned 16 last week. As is tradition, I made him a meme cake; Dat boi.

As is tradition, it was poorly done. But, at least it tasted good!
His birthday kicks off the summer of all the birthdays broke-ness. All his siblings' birthdays are in August.

My All Year Cardy is coming along very well. I've put the sleeves on waste yarn, and am working on the increases. It's pretty well known that I love Malabrigo, so I won't overly gush, but knitting with  Arroyo is a dream, and the colour is pretty perfect.

I bought the yarn a couple of years ago, I think with the intention of knitting a Tincanknits sweater (prairie fire maybe?) but the yarn and project didn't mesh and it's been sitting in stash since then. I'd forgotten how much I love, love, love this colour.


Because I can never knit monogamously, I decided I needed to cast on another project. I loved how the slip stitch pattern looked on the Jackie O cardy, it inspired me to use a similar pattern for an infinity scarf. It was the perfect reason to use my Foxtrail Fibre Arts mcn! I've been waiting for the right project to come along, I have one full skein, plus about 70% of a second skein, so I always figured it was going to end up as a scarf or cowl. I started with 33 stitches on waste yarn (so I could do a three needle bind off when I've reached the right length) and knit a few inches, but it didn't seem wide enough so I frogged and cast on again, this time with 41 stitches and I like the width of it a lot more. I did share the pattern on the project page on ravelry if anyone's interested.

I probably won't knit on it a ton since I'm really into this cardy I'm knitting, and knitting time is about to drop off sharply with school break quickly approaching.

There's been some yarny shopping. Mostly virtual. I've been obsessing over knitting a tricolour sweater since I saw a woman wearing something that I knew I could knit. I have almost a sweaters' quantity of knitpicks swish worsted in Lost Lake Heather. If I had a couple of other colours, I could totally knit this sweater. I toyed with using another yarn (Quince&Co, Cascade) but I wasn't sure how well either of those yarns would mesh with the Swish, which I'm more familiar with in terms of growth and wear. So, despite not particularly wanting to order from kp (the shipping is too expensive, and being a Canadian, I don't qualify for free shipping, plus the CAD still isn't doing too great, so yunno, not a fan) I did order a couple of balls each of swish in Marble Grey and Honey.
You know what's awesome? 2 days after I ordered, swish went on sale. *sigh* That would have made the shipping costs slightly more tolerable.

Something similar happened to me with Espace Tricot as well. I went and bought another Zig Zag Stitches boxy bag;

they are my favourite bags for sweaters and shawls because they are roomy enough for the project, yarn and notions, and I'm tired of switching projects from bag to bag depending on what I'm bringing with me, I always end up misplacing something important. I also bought some Manos Del Uruguay Silk Blend in Black to make ze eldest daughter a shawl.

She specifically asked for one, she loved my Reyna. It will be a birthday gift for P,  she turns 21 in August.
Anywhoo, so the similar thing; As I finished paying for my purchase, I noticed a flyer saying that all purchases will receive a 10% discount on wwkipd. *sigh*

There was also a loveknitting purchase,  and this time I lucked out, they were also having a sale! I could not pass up the opportunity to get more Malabrigo in my stash-more Arroyo, this time in Lotus. That will be All Year Cardy #2! I cannot wait to get that gorgeousness in my hands.


Now I'm going to go gently rub some aloe onto my poor burned shoulders and get some sleep.

That time I quit knitting (for a couple of days)

I've decided to try using Ravelry's projects pages as a way of keeping track of my knitting. I don't really use Ravelry for much, I don't list my stash (though maybe I should) I'm not super active on the boards, though I read them somewhat regularly. I mainly use Ravelry to find projects and read reviews of yarns. So I thought it might be interesting to try out the project feature. I'm Cambriaf on Rav, if anyone's interested in taking a peek.


In knitting:
I have some finished objects! I finished the first Blood Orange sock.

I  finished the Milkweed shawl.

                                      (I have no idea why i'm making that face, but it made me laugh)

It's very lovely. I could have gone up a needle size, I think, but overall, I'm very, very pleased with it. I really enjoyed knitting with Mirasol Nuna, the sheen is lovely. There are great colours available, it washed and blocked really well. I'd love to knit some kind of drapey cardigan with it.

I also finished the Harvest cardigan. And I almost quit knitting. Yeah. Here's the story; On the 26th (of May) I received my skein of Sevilla in the mail. We just happened to be going through a week of high heat and high humidity so I did not feel like pulling out the sweater right away and knitting on it, but I powered through, I caked up the yarn, russian joined it to the little bit from the previous skein, and knit the last 2 inches of sweater. The bind off took foreverrrr but I finished it and on the 27th I gently soaked it in some eucalan, toweled it off, and lay it flat to dry. It was looking kind of big y'all. But I'm optimistic and thought maybe as it dries it would go back to the correct size. Then I basically ignored it for a few days, while it lay on the my drying mats. And when I could no longer ignore that the sweater was huuuuuge and the stitches were majorly stretched out, I tried on the sweater and cried. Originally the sweater ended at mid butt, now it was almost down to my knees. Rolling up the sleeves twice meant my finger tips were barely visible. It was horrible, horrible, horrible.  After a tantrum of frightening proportions (oh yeah, lets talk about how relaxing knitting is shall we) swatched and measured and washed and while there was growth, it wasn't nearly as significant as the sweater. I dumped the sweater back in the wash bucket, and let it soak for half an hour. I was very careful not to stretch it more, and patted it dry with towels.  I was so depressed that I threw the sweater in the dryer, on low, for 40 minutes and left the house. I promised myself that if this did not work out I was going to throw out all my yarn and burn all of my needles.
I'm very, very happy (SO HAPPY) to report that the dryer did the trick. It's back to the original size.
I'm sure there is a lesson to be learned here...

I really, really want to make another Harvest. My dream yarn for this is Malabrigo Rios in Pocion or Indicita (or even Sandbank).

Somewhere in all of that drama, using some stashed Valley Yarns Goshen in Winter Lake (Why the hell would I buy a worsted weight cotton/modal/silk blend?? Why would I think that's a good idea?) I cast on Jackie O by Purl Heroine. It's a cute little cropped cardy. It's a pretty straight forward knit, the slip stitch pattern makes it visually interesting.
I finished it, and I think I'll probably get some wear out of it?  I'm not crazy about the colour, it's kind of silvery grey, lighter than I thought. I've basically decided that if I like wearing the cardy, but I still have beef with the colour, I'll just over dye it.

I'm glad I've knit the yarn from stash, I'm pretty sure I bought it so I could expand my fibre horizons. I didn't want to be that person that finds one type of yarn and only knits with that yarn, there's so much wonderful stuff out there to knit with. That being said, I really do prefer knitting with wool. Plus, I live where it's cold for, like, 9 months out of the year, so wool just makes more sense.
 I don't have enough of the yarn left to really knit anything else, so I'm going to try to destash it on Ravelry.


In WIPs
I cast on the second Blood Orange sock. Super exciting!


In Hibernation:
The second felici sock. Still not feeling it.

Smash, Completely forgot about. Not feeling it.

Also in hibernation, Be Simple. Not feeling it either. I may have to frog it and find something else to do with the gorgeousness that is Fleece Artist Trail Sock.



June 12th- I've had this blog written for over a week, though I did edit the FOs as the Jackie O cardy was only finished yesterday (the 11th). I hadn't gotten around to posting because I hadn't taken any pictures of the FOs and WIPs for the blog.  Life, reading, video games, and way-to-hot-for-sweater weather all got in the way (though luckily, the last couple of days have been grey and cool).  As well as a lack of knitting mojo.  Anytime I finish a big project (especially with the drama surrounding my Harvest) I tend to have a mojo drain. I seem to need a few days to recuperate from the "omg i'm the worst knitter everrrrr, never knitting again" feelings. I need to re-charge my batteries.  I'm having super strong "buy new yarn" urges (coincidentally occurring as my income tax refund materialized? hahaha)  I keep filling up virtual shopping carts with all the yarn! but then not actually going through with buying any of it.

I did find another project to start knitting on, while doing all this imaginary shopping. The All Year Cardigan by Taiga Hilliard Designs. I am knitting it with Malabrigo Arroyos that I had in stash, in the colourway Chircas, which is an olive-y green. The cardy is knit on size 8 needles (my karbonz interchangeables) with a sport weight yarn, so I think it will be a relatively quick knit. It comes with three options for sleeve length and I think I may do the elbow length sleeve.

In reading:
Went to the library a couple of days ago, combined two loves and borrowed Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs. Took out the next one in the series as well...will possibly review the book in the next blog...