I'm Not Dead.....

Since I have not posted since late July, I wouldn't be surprised if you thought I was dead. But I'm not!  A confluence of issues (chief amongst them, laziness!) got in the way of my blogging duties over the past few months.

One of the biggest problems was that I thought it would be a GREAT idea to knit all of my Christmas presents in 2016 and I almost bit off more than I could chew.  Having committed to huge projects for both my sister and my son, as well as several smaller gifts for our family gift exchange, I had ZERO time to work on my own projects, new designs, blogging, etcetera... AND, since they were intended to be surprises, I couldn't post any pictures of anything I was working on.  Believe me, I was working!

I compounded my problem by giving away all my gifts WITHOUT TAKING ANY PICTURES OF THEM.   So, post Christmas, I embarked on a mission to get all my gift recipients to send me photos of their goodies.  Apparently, none of them were as committed to my self promotions as I.  So it took a little time.  And a lot of nagging.


HOWEVER.  After a lengthy absence, I have lots to share with you and you can look forward to more regular posts going forward.  Because, I actually have been very busy.  In addition to my Christmas knitting, I have released two new designs, gone on a fantastic vacation, and developed all kinds of great new tips.  So the drought is over and I'm back!

Without further ado, here is the project that took four months to knit and nearly killed me!

The handsome lad in the picture is my son, Harry.  He is a stylish dude who is ALWAYS cold and he decided he would like a cabled cardigan for Christmas.  I will never knit an all over cable pattern on a deadline again!  This was complicated!  I spent almost as much time going backward as forward on this one, but eventually, I got into a rhythm and it came together.

Despite the amount of effort required, I LOVE how this project turned out.  The pattern is called Timberline by Jared Flood of Brooklyn Tweed and the BT patterns are among my very favourite designs.  They can be complex but are so well written that you really can't go wrong as long as you follow them carefully.  I highly recommend checking them out on Ravelry.  Because this was a huge project and I knew my 22 year old  was NOT going to hand wash it, I chose a very reasonably priced superwash merino wool from Knit Picks called Swish.  It is soft, warm, and very nice to knit with.  BUT.  Even before I finished knitting the sweater, it was starting to pill.  It also grew when I blocked it, making it larger than intended.  For that reason, I would not recommend this yarn, Because, let's face it, when you spend this amount of time knitting a project, you have every right to demand that it last forever and be included in the recipient's will, to be handed down to future generations.  Forever.  Sadly, I can't see this sweater standing the test of time.

The other big project I took on was this very simple turtleneck sweater for my sister, Jill.  Everyone, say, "Hi, Jill!"

 

This sweater, called "Minimalist Pullover" by the redoubtable Joji Locatelli was a fantastic pattern.  A super well designed, top down turtleneck that should have been a breeze.  BUT.  It was knit in fingering weight yarn (very fine) on 3mm needles (very small).  It took forever.  But again, I love how it turned out and Jill says she wears it all the time.  I used my favourite yarn, Madeline Tosh Light which is 100 % merino so it's very soft and warm.  Plus, they have the BEST colours.  This one is called Leopard and I love it!

In addition to the two BIG projects, I knit an oversized cowl, a brioche stitch scarf, and this hat for our family gift exchange.

Yes.  It's a Chicken Hat. No, it's not actually intended to be worn by the dog, but she looked awfully cute in it.   'Nuff said.

Then I learned that my son's best friend and roomate, Greg was going to be joining us for Christmas.  Clearly another hand knit gift was going to be required.  So I knit the Pebble Peak hat by Susan Lawrence in the leftover yarn from Harry's cardigan.  Harry says Greg is too ugly to model it, so he graciously offered to model it for him.

I'm pretty sure he didn't intend for me to use all of these on my blog, but that's what you get for being my son and calling Greg ugly.  (For the record, Greg is NOT ugly and I love him like a son).  This was  a GREAT pattern.  You can't see it in these pics but the top of the hat features a funky open loop that it created using the Kitchener stitch grafting method.  Amazing.  It was a revelation to me.  It is not hard to do and it looks like there is no seam at all.  You have to try it; there are multiple great videos on YouTube waiting for you!

Then, I decided that Harry needed a hat.  I saw a really fun funky pattern called Scrapalong.  It was more of a recipe than a pattern and I thought it would be a great way to use up some odds and ends of leftover yarn.  That turned out to be true.  It also turned out to be HUGE!  I am still unclear as to why it turned into a Rastafarian hat.  I'm willing to admit that I could have done something wrong, but, since it turned out to be too big for Harry, it went to his friend Cass, who through sheer volume of hair and personality turned out to be the perfect person to fit this hat.

You are ROCKING that hat, Cass!

I also knit a hat for my husband, but since he never wears anything I knit for him, I decline to feature him in this forum.  So there.

That brings us up to date as of Christmas 2016. Which leads me to my next Purl of Wisdom:

"Don't promise people hand knit sweaters for Christmas.  They will take over your life!"


Next post, I'll tell you all about our fabulous trip to the Florida Keys!

Hang in there, we'll be caught up in no time!

Things My Mother Taught Me

My Mom has been gone for almost 21 years.  I don't have any pictures of her, nor do I have a collection of family heirlooms that were passed down to me. What I did have, I lost to a house fire that destroyed most of my possessions several years ago.  Not that it matters.  I'm not really a "thing" kind of girl anyway.  Even without pictures, her face has never faded.  Not even a little.

I remember the white cats eye sunglasses and frosted pink lipstick she wore in the seventies and the power suits she wore in the eighties.  I remember the scent of her signature Oscar de la Renta perfume, the fuzzy pink sundress she wore when she did the laundry, and the way she smiled with her mouth closed to hide the little gap between her front teeth because she was self conscious about it.

I remember her voice because it is the voice of my conscience and the source of my moral standards. When I run to the grocery store in my boyfriend sweatpants and well worn Canada Day t-shirt, I still sense her disapproval. And when my son smiles it is doubly special because he is smiling with her lips and I feel warmed twice over.

I think about her a lot when I knit for two reasons.  First, because she taught me how and second, because my hands are her hands.  When I see them holding a book or a pair of knitting needles, I am transported back to our overstuffed apartment where she sat in "her" antique chair and blocked out the sounds of our squabbles and the television which was always too loud because my Father was hard of hearing.  She created her own bubble of stillness in the chaos.  Her only contribution, the turning of a page or the click click of her needles.

After I flunked out of Brownies due to my inability to knit, my Mother finally taught me how.  Before would have been better, but I'm not bitter.  Strangely, although she knit continental style, she taught me English style.  She was a picker, I am still a thrower.  There seemed to be no knitting instruction she couldn't interpret but I only saw her knitting three things:  plain socks for my Father, an impossibly old fashioned and frilly baby cardigan, hat and bootie set, and Icelandic sweaters.  All of these in unthinkable multiples.

Not my hands.  My hands are incapable of this.

Socks are hard.  You have to knit them on sets of four double pointed needles to create the small tube shape.  You have to use short rows to shape the heel.  It requires patience and manual dexterity.  I have never mastered either.  Especially when socks are widely available for purchase at reasonable prices and I rarely wear them.  My husband is welcome to buy his at WalMart.

It was sort of like this but frillier.  Really.

The baby sets were intensely feminine but my Mother made them for baby boys and baby girls indiscriminately, changing from pink to blue yarn as the occasion demanded.  Seriously, these things were so elaborate and fussy they would not be out of place at Royal Christening.  She made so many that there are probably a few still out there somewhere.  At least I hope so.  She was too ill to knit by the time my son came along.

She made exactly four Icelandic Sweaters.  One for my Father, one for herself, one for my sister and one for me.  Matching naturally.  These sweaters she knit with extremely scratchy, chunky weight yarn.  (That's thick for those of you unfamiliar with the terminology).  They also required the carrying of three different colours of yarn across the back of the Fair Isle pattern in the yoke.  This translated to four layers of extremely thick yarn across the chest.  It's an elaborate technique and it also requires time and patience.  After the first one turned out virtually unwearable, even in our Canadian winters, I am uncertain why she soldiered through three more.  I suppose she wanted to be fair.  Or perhaps she wanted to share the experience of Menopause with her family because that's what wearing one of those sweaters felt like.  We all dutifully stored them in our closets and took them with us when we moved, but no one wore one more than once.

Not the actual sweater but are you hot just looking at it?

So not only did I learn my love of knitting from my  Mother, I also learned the following "Purls" of Wisdom:

• Socks are hard.  Buy them at WalMart instead
• The patterns that are fun to knit are often completely impractical to wear.
• Use the right weight yarn for the garment you are knitting if you ever want to wear it.
• A handmade knitted garment is an act of love.  It is the product of hours of patience, sweat, and sometimes cursing.  If you are lucky enough to receive one as a gift, you should treasure it forever.

Sometimes It Just Works

Designing knitwear is a funny business.  I got started because of a Facebook Design Challenge and I enjoyed it so much that I just wanted to create more.

When I started Francoise Danoy's challenge, I had an image in my head of what I wanted to knit.  But as I worked through the steps of her process, it changed completely.  My results were a little mixed.  I liked what I had designed and thoroughly loved the process.  But I didn't LOVE the finished result.  Her process began with finding a source of inspiration and creating a mood board.  Next step, selecting stitch patterns that came from that inspiration.  It was interesting and surprising.

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/silver-birch-summer-wrap

For my next project, I approached things a little differently.  I found inspiration from the stitch patterns themselves and worked to create harmonious combinations in colours that I liked.  I decided that I liked working this way better and I liked my finished project more.

Now I had two finished patterns and I was itching to put them out in the World.  (Remember, I need a lot of approval and the dog couldn't be less interested in my knitting).  But I had read a lot of good advice from people in the design challenge who suggested that it was best to have a few patterns to offer before  opening a store.  So I decided I needed one more before I launched.

I didn't really have a firm idea for my next pattern so I looked at my yarn stash.  As I sorted through my yarn, I came across two skeins of yarn that I had bought in a bit of a frenzy at a knitting party at Northbound Knitting, a fantastic local indie dyer that I love.  I had purchased three skeins of a colourway that combined rich indigo with sunny yellow and cream.  Yum.  But when I got home, I realized that one of the skeins was a heavier weight than the other two and so wouldn't work for my original plans for it.  In that same frenzy, I bought another skein in the heavier weight (also by mistake) that was a subtle blend of pale yellow and light gray. Because I tend to use fingering weight most of the time, I decided that I needed to find a way to make these two oddballs play together.

I knew that I wanted to offer this next pattern for free because I hoped that it would help to generate some attention.  So I wanted to keep it really simple.  I cast on for an asymetrical triangle shawl.  An easy and popular shape that I happen to really like.  I knit six rows in garter stitch with the yellow.  Pretty.  But the blue combo was a much more dramatic, variegated yarn.  I really liked the way the drop stitch pattern on my first shawl showed off the variegated yarn and I think most knitters will agree that they are tricky to work with.  They look beautiful on the skein, but don't always knit up in the most attractive way.  So I did a simple drop stitch section with the blue.  Gorgeous!  I knit another yellow stripe.  Then another blue.  I was liking it, but I wondered if it was too simple?

But then I remembered that it was going to be free, so I just kept alternating the stripes until I ran out of yarn and then I cast off and wrote it up. It reminded me of Van Gogh's painting, "Starry Night."  So I called it the Van Gogh Shawl.

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-van-gogh-shawl

Want to guess which pattern went crazy?  Yup.  The Van Gogh Shawl.  It was the pattern that wrote itself.  I loved every stage of this process.  It grew from materials that I loved.  From this experience, I gleaned three more "Purls of Wisdom."

• Use the good yarn
• Choose stitches that highlight the good yarn
•  Keep it simple

And that's the process I follow now.  It led to The Monet Boomerang, which is enjoying some modest success. 

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-monet-boomerang

And, as promised, here is a sneak peek at my newest design, The Degas Ballet Shawl.

It's still on the needles, but I am loving the way it is coming together and I'm looking forward to sharing the finished product with you soon! 

"Purls" of Wisdom

So today I'm going to share the first in an ongoing series of posts I like to think of as "Purls" of Wisdom.

See what I did there?

It is safe to say that Izzy loves bones more than anything else in the World.  At some point every day she approaches us in what we immediately recognize as her  "Can I have another one?" pose.  It is a unique combination of adorable, pathetic, hopeful and excited that can only be interpreted one way.  She wants a bone.  It is subtly different from the "I want to go out" pose but similar in tone to the "I see a squirrel in the backyard" pose.

A long time ago, I recognized this quality in myself.  I'm  a girl who needs a lot of approval.  I want to be appreciated and rewarded for the things that I do.  Like Izzy, I would be thrilled if someone gave me a bone every day.

If every knitting pattern I design rocketed to the top of the Ravelry listings.

If my husband raved about every meal I cooked.

If my son told me I was the best Mom in the World.  Better yet, texted me that message every day.  Let's be realistic.

But.  Izzy does not get a bone every day.  Similarly, everything I do is not met with universal approval and love.  But here's the thing I learned from my dog.  Sometimes it happens.  And sometimes is enough to warrant ongoing enthusiasm and the expectation that it could.

So yeah, when I released this pattern?

http://www.ravelry.com/designers/cathy-lewis-tall-tree-designs

Not too many people cared.

But when I released this pattern:

http://www.ravelry.com/designers/cathy-lewis-tall-tree-designs

People loved it.

So here it is.

Purl of Wisdom # 1

No matter how many times you fail, the possibility of success continues to exist.  Every failure brings you one step closer to it. Don't focus on the times it didn't work.  Live your life like every endeavour has an equal chance to be the success you want it to be.

And just  keep trying.