knitter

by

The Great Northern Knitwear Collection

Being a knitter and a fan of Twin Peaks, I was excited to hear that Teresa Gregorio and Leah Coccari-Swift were writing a book of patterns based on the show. Twin Peaks is known for its many, many sweaters. One fan counted as many as 118! It’s therefore surprising that Teresa and Leah are the first knitwear designers to pursue a Twin Peaks project. However, it’s ideal that they are going to be the ones to do it, since both designers’ aesthetics are well-suited to Twin Peaks. They are not afraid to experiment and tackle the odd and unique, which results in interesting designs that are not run-of-the-mill. All qualities that also describe Twin Peaks.

Jade_Loop2_medium2 ccbonnet8_medium2

Both designers are also clearly knowledgeable when it comes to fashion, culture, and history, which is reflected in their work. This is ideal, since Twin Peaks is very much steeped in time and place, albeit one that is not far removed from our own. Masterful clothing and set design is what signals the subtle shift in time and place to the viewer effectively. It’s part of what I love about the show, and these ladies have recreated the feel of Twin Peaks perfectly. While none of the patterns in the book are going to be slavish reproductions of specific sweaters seen on the show, it is evident that Teresa and Leah have done their research and are true fans. Just check out these obvious sources of inspiration.

The Last Evening wrap channels some early Maddy.

The From Another Place sweater has clear nods to Lucy’s first sweater,

in addition to a few other peak-filled (get it?), high-contrast, chevron-y numbers.

log-lady

And just like that, Log Lady makes her first appearance in this blog post: setting up the perfect segue to…

Cherry Pie. Yes, the Cowichan-like jackets the ‘lady wears while ambling around town and eating the iconic Twin Peaks sugary fare are an obvious inspiration for Cherry Pie, the sweater.

They most definitely informed this design as well.

I’m sure these other cozy gems had something to do with it too.


twin-peaks-sweaters-s2-ep13-lucy.nocrop.w1800.h1330.2x

I love that Gregorio is opting to update this classic look of the Cowichan with more modern colours from Rain City Knits.

I CANNOT WAIT.

Then there’s Audrey’s cropped, fitted little numbers translating well into the design for a sweater called Too Dreamy.

twin-peaks-sweaters-s1-ep5-audrey-lace-2.nocrop.w1800.h1330.2x

The sketch even LOOKS like Audrey.

Lastly, we have the cleverly named Lynch Pin sweater.

With its lapel collar, use of see stitch and deep beige colour, it’s also very reminiscent of several sweaters in the show.

Well done, ladies!

This fan is impressed.

For more information and to fund the Kickstarter head over to greatnorthernknits.com

by

Relay Recap

Friday night into Saturday morning was the Canadian Cancer Society’s Toronto-Central Relay for Life in support of Sunnybrook Hospital’s Odette Cancer Centre.

Our team, Downtown Knit Collective, raised almost $13,000!! I myself raised my all-time best of $560! Thanks to those of you who saw my many requests and blog post and donated 😀

In a typical relay you walk around the track all night from 7pm to 7am. Now, 12 hours is a LOT, so that’s why you register in teams, so that you can spell each other off, hence “relay.” Our team, however, has special dispensation to knit all night instead.

Though the reason for the event is serious and sobering, which is at times brought home by things like the Luminary ceremony, ultimately it is a fun night of camaraderie and hope. That and lots of sugar and coffee to help you stay awake.

       

   

There were also activities you could do on your breaks, including SUMO WRESTLING (yes, again. I don’t care it’s super fun) and these gigantic inflatable bouncy pony things that became the best thing ever at 3am.

CanadianChia even cut off her hair to donate to Locks of Love. And instead of just sending donors on their way, volunteer professional stylists styled your new cropped ‘do for free!

   

New this year was a Night Market. Naturally, we knitters had some wares for sale.

Flowers by the lovely Ilana. 

The cuteness of this hat just kills me.

by

Relay for Life 2014

Once again I’m participating in the Relay for Life on the Downtown Knit Collective‘s team.

We’re currently in third place for top fundraising team!!! (PS: if you feel like helping us get to number one, and donating to a very worthy cause you can donate by clicking here)

I’ve participated in the past (see here), but this year is particularly meaningful to me because my grandmother is fighting her battle with cancer. The same grandmother who taught me how to knit ❤

This year also marks 10 years of the Downtown Knit Collective relay team. To celebrate we will be hosting a Fibre Arts Activity Area at our Team Site at the Relay. As you may remember, in order to help the relayers stay up all night there are various activity areas. In 2012 canadianchia and I got to wrestle in sumo suits (pics here). We are thinking of using our activity area to teach other relayers things like arm knitting and finger knitting, making a pompom, corking/spooling, knitting on a giant scarf, crochet, making a flower, demos of spinning on a wheel and needle felting.

There is also going to be a marketplace this year and we have been offered a table. We will be selling small items in the range of about $1 to $5, such as hand-knitted cancer ribbons.

I’m SO excited!!!

by

Lonely Tree Shawl

Done!

Here is the pattern. I wanted to make this usable in the summer, so I used cotton yarn. Just good ol’ Sugar n’ Cream in the batik ombre colourway. I’m pleasantly surprised at how it turned out.

by

Inked

So I got this yesterday.

I am very, very happy. It’s something I’ve wanted for a long while. My knitting and cat obsessions are likely obvious if you read this blog, but what might not be is that I learned to knit from my grandma and come from a line of crafty women. Hence, this design has multiple meanings for me.

Putting it on my wrist was a bit of a big decision, but I’m ultimately very happy. My first tattoo isn’t so visible, and I’ve always wished I could show it off more. So, I figured why not take the plunge with this second one?

Another thing that I’m excited about with this tattoo? My husband drew it 🙂

Of course, small tweaks needed to be done by the tattoo artist. He added the detail on the yarn for example, which I LOVE. It was really cool to bring the hubby and let the two artists figure out the final product. I of course had input, but my art skills are so terrible I was happy to defer to them.

PS: the artist is Peter Belej at TCB Tattoos. HIGHLY recommended.

by

Too often for coincidence

She always manages to sit right on top of my pattern or knitting.

Always.

Come to think of it, he’s started following suit…

Oh cats…

by

My Knitted Wedding

Well, I talked about doing it, and I’m pleased to say that I actually did.

With the help of some friends, including Ilana, Joanna, and Lynn, I have knitted my wedding bouquets, corsages, and boutonnières.

Not only can I still not believe I got them done on time, I am beyond happy with how they turned out. They are even worth the 240 inches of i-cord I had to knit.

As you probably know, I also knit my wedding shrug. Here are a few pictures of it.

I’m now married to the love of my life and knitting was involved. No wonder I’m smiling.

by

TTC Knit-a-long 2013

The annual TTC Knitalong was this past Saturday. I was on Team Intarsia (a.k.a. the best team).

Team Intarsia started at Creative Yarns in Scarborough, which had a great sale and the Zauberball I’ve been coveting, so I did a lot of my shopping there (the Malabrigo and the Louisa Harding below were both from there too).

After that it was a long bus and subway ride to The Purple Purl. My friend Ilana broke a DPN en route!

But she bought new ones when we got to the Purl, where is where I got the Sweet Georgia DK. I normally don’t do crazy colours, but the skein was just so vibrant I couldn’t say no. It was calling to me. You know how it is. Ilana’s DPN troubles were soothed when she won the Purple Purl’s draw for their limited edition Indigodragonfly colourway and a pattern.

It was also at the Purl that I started binding off my wedding shrug 😀

Then it was on to Romni Wools. I bought a spindle there that is hopefully better quality than the current homemade one I have. It’s Ashford, so it should be. Romni was also giving away free needles and this little adorable guy, who now resides in my craft room.

We discovered that Romni also apparently sells the stuff you’d need to make muppets.

Then it was on to Americo Original, where everyone got a free skein of lace weight 100% llama for FREE. I was nearly done binding off at this point.

I walked down the street like this too. Really weirded out some of the uninitiated, lol.

At the Rivoli I finally finished the shrug.

AND I got the following certificate, after my team leaders nominated me <3! The lovely Glenna C. was one of them. She has some great photos of the day (and of the most awesome team, if I do say so) on her blog here.

A damn good day.

by

For the love of yarn

It’s been officially over a month since my last post. It was the holiday season and I was furiously knitting, crocheting, and sewing, so I make no apologies. More to come on those adventures soon. For now I’ll continue on the topic of my being a process knitter, or “knitting for knitting’s sake,” lest things get disjointed.

More proof of my process bent can be found in the fact that I recently got a copy of this in the mail:

One of EZ‘s best, but perhaps most esoteric works. Lots of great patterns and knitting advice next to divergent stories about her life. Because of this, some find it tedious and lacking in enough patterns to be “worth it.” Yet I find her life supremely interesting: her stories of first learning to knit as a child, how this creative spark later translated into going to school for fine art and into starting her own knitting related business, how she loved to create clothes for her family and ended up passing her passion on to her daughter Meg. To me it’s inspiring.

Let’s be frank, my love for “Knitting Around” isn’t just proof of my being a process knitter, it also exemplifies the extend of my nerdiness. Take, for example, this other tome I bought (I use tome judiciously – it is rather large):

As this review states, the book is a sort of social history told through mittens. It is a collection of traditional knitting patterns and the stories behind them. Robin Hansen “gathered them from authoritative sources in New England, the Canadian Maritimes and Scandinavia—from knitters who are grandmothers, fishermen, lumberjacks and farmers, men and women, and who learned them from parents, aunts and neighbors.”

Does this kind of talk get the interests of you guys piqued, or is it just me?

As a side note, Hansen also wrote Sunny’s Mittens (which I’ve written about previously) and this other kid’s book I just stumbled across:

As a knitter, history lover, and children’s librarian, I heart you Ms. Hansen.

The same author appeared mentioned in another book I’ve read lately:

The author, Gwen Steege has put together a great compilation of things you need to know to be a knitter who can truly say she knows her craft. In it she mentions Hansen’s “Favourite Mittens” and talks at length about her work on twined knitting:

“Twined knitting was used throughout northern Europe and the Middle East whenever a firm, flat edging was needed, such as on scooped necklines or stocking caps. Today it turns up in eastern European and Middle Eastern knitting as a decorative edging, often called ‘braided edging’, although the effect of the two-color twined purl is more like a series of sideways chevrons than braid. The apparent reason for twined knitting’s demise in many regions has to do with the spread of the German or continental method of knitting in much of Europe… In twined knitting two strands are worked alternately, usually two ends of the same (quite small) ball. The strand for the present stitch is brought consistently either under or over the strand just used, creating a half-twist between stitches… The knit side is typically quite flat and firm, and the fabric has only slight elasticity… Although working twined knitting initially seems slow, the resulting fabric is firm, warm, and durable and, depending on the yarn and ornamentation, can also be quite elegant.”

A great tutorial on twined knitting by Knitty can be found here.

Since books seems to be the theme (yet again) I have to share this other recent acquirement (sales! all sales! I swear!) :

By the great Margaret Radcliffe, this is hands-down the best book on colour knitting I’ve seen.

Lastly, I need to share this:

“From the neo-feudalistic slubs, the corn-filled world of Tane’s youth, to his apprenticeship among the deadly saleswarriors of Seattlehama–the sex-and-shopping capital of the world–to the horrors of a polluted Antarctica, Yarn tells a stylish tale of love, deceit, and memory. Tane Cedar is the master tailor, the supreme outfitter of the wealthy, the beautiful, and the powerful. When an ex-lover, on the run from the authorities, asks him to create a garment from the dangerous and illegal Xi yarn–a psychedelic opiate–to ease her final hours, Tane’s world is torn apart. Armed with just his yarn pulls, scissors, Mini-Air-Juki handheld sewing machine, and his wits, Tane journeys through the shadowy underworld where he must untangle the deadly mysteries and machinations of decades of deceit.”

Um, awesome? It’s on my to-read list.

ADDENDUM: while on the topic of nerdy knitting things, I just found this post on knitting in Shakespeare by fellow blogger Katknit. “I mean, that my heart unto yours is knit” – I might have to use that in my wedding vows…

by

I am not a crocheter

As you may remember from my last (real) post that I recently finished my fingerless mittens, using Julia V’s pattern:

While I am enjoying them (aran weight merino is lovely warm and soft, though sadly the brand I used no longer exists) I recently had the revelation that I don’t think I entirely enjoyed making them.

How can this be?!

The problem, I believe, lies in the fact that a) they were crocheted, and b) my answer to the age old “are you a process or a product knitter?” question is that I am a process knitter. How are these two things related? And how did I come to these conclusions? Let me explain:

These fingerless mittens took much less time to whip up than the last pair I made, which seemed to prove the oft-heard adage that crocheting is faster than knitting. So, when my brother asked for a pair of convertible gloves, I immediately searched for crochet versions on Ravelry.

I even went so far as to narrow it down to Sue Norrad’s Crocheted Mittens / Fingerless Gloves

Yet when it came time to start the foundation chain (like casting on for you knitting-only folk) I felt something I had never felt before: reluctance. I did not want to start the bloody thing, regardless of how much I admired the pattern and liked the idea of getting the mittens made quickly. For a brief moment, this made me fear I was loosing interest in a hobby that has been such a focal point in my life, but as I thought about it some more, I realized my problem was that I did not want to start another crochet project so soon. My hands were missing their beloved needles. I think there is something in the process of knitting, in holding a needle in each hand and working with them in tandem that I crave. Indeed, as I performed the same Ravelry search for knitted convertible mittens, I felt noticeably happier.

So, I learned some things today:

1) though I thought I didn’t have a preference when it came to knit vs. crochet, it would seem I do, and 2) despite the fact that I had assumed I was a product knitter since I like the feeling of completing a project, it looks like it may actually be the process I am infatuated with (let’s be frank, at this point my love of yarn is an infatuation).

(However, I have to say that I am a little adverse to lumping people into two tight categories. I may enjoy the process, but I’ll be damned if I don’t also enjoy getting the product at the end of it.)

So, are you curious as to what pattern I ended up with?

At first I thought I had narrowed it down to Glenna C.‘s Podster Gloves pattern…

but I thought “the maximum size given is a men’s small. My brother most definitely does not wear size small” and “I’m really not feeling the each-finger-has-a-hole thing. That took a lot of time last year, and I still have a lot of holiday knitting to do. Plus the last thing I need is another part of the mittens that might not fit my brother’s massive fingers.”

Finally I stumbled across Lauren Perruzza’s appropriately titled Manly-Man Man Mittens.

Perfect! Albeit, Lauren claims the pattern is a work-in-progress so some directions may be difficult to decipher. But she’s open to helping, the size is already set to ‘men’s large’ and there are no finicky finger holes outside of the thumbs. I can work with this.

The only thing missing is the awesomeness that is the ‘podster’ thumb from Glenna’s pattern. I’m thinking of trying to incorporate it. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Mine are coming along nicely, having just cast on:

I’ve been using the Lion Brand Fishermen’s Wool I got on sale last year. Relatively inexpensive real virgin wool with the lanolin still in. I forgot how much I love wool like this. Plus it’s perfect for my outdoors-loving brother who is known for being rather hard on clothing.

Needless to say, I’m back from my post crocheted fingerless mitten slump 🙂

The bad side to this new mitten project, however, is that my Hitckhiker shawl, which I was all excited about starting in my last post, is going to be stuck at the 25th row mark for a while..

What might cause it to languish even longer is the fact that The DROPS Advent Calendar has come out. Thanks to katknit for pointing this out. Free pattern every day, yes please.

Here’s the cute mini stockings for Dec 1:

http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/us/pattern.php?id=5903&lang=us

One last thing to share before I go:

Believe it or not, this isn’t just another picture of my cat (though I love any opportunity to post one, let’s be honest). The focus here is on the yarn and needles (or the end of one of them anyway)

The yarn isn’t super sexy, I know. And straight needles are kind of out-or-character for me. I’m using them to practice a new knitting technique! Lever knitting.

Last Saturday I took a class taught by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka the Yarn Harlot) on Knitting for Speed and Efficiency at Unwind Yarn House, where she taught us this technique. We’re supposed to practice it for 30 days (a little per day, as much as we can stand it). Apparently that’s about how long it takes to master a new way of knitting. I can believe it, since my stitches are not at all uniform and are ridiculously tight, which has brought back buried childhood memories. Yet slowly, day by day, I’m getting there. Just like when I was nine 🙂

Felicia Lo of SweetGeorgia Yarns has a great summary of the Stephanie’s explanation of the differences between lever (aka Irish cottage), throwing (aka English), and picking (aka Continental, though Americans like to call it American) and how they came to be. She also has links to Youtube videos of Stephanie lever knitting, though FYI Stephanie herself advises to watch sans sound/commentary.