Wednesday Update

I have almost finished the Noro Blossom turtleneck, and I am actually looking forward to the cold weather, so I can wear this. The colours are of course, Noro-licious, and the Blossom yarn is seriously soft. I have only to sew the shoulder seams, and add the big, loose turtleneck, then the side seams and I will be cranking up the air conditioner to take photos of this puppy! The pattern, you will see, is very easy and knits up quickly on 5mm needles.

This

came in the mail from Elann. An impulse buy for sure, as they lured me in with a one-day-only full-bag-sale of Esprit (my favourite cotton stretch yarn) for $20 a bag of 10 balls. This will make a full sweater, with left overs for headbands or hats.

My knitting girls and I have planned a field trip (put off for a few weeks due to pending vacation trips of two members). We will visit our local alpaca farm, where we will meet the lovely animals and tour the farm, then sit down and try our hand at spinning and fondle (and buy) the local alpaca yarn products. This intriques me as I have always wondered how easy it is to spin my own yarn, and it scares me that I may end up using precious knitting time to actually spin and create MORE yarn for my stash, thus increasing the stash to infinite proportions! Still, I think I need to see and feel this ancient art. Who knows, I may find room in my back yard for a fleece producing animal of my own, and complete the whole circle of fleece-sheer-spin-dye-knit and wear a truly hand made garment....

Colinette Quick Wrap

I still have to finish the Colinette Coat (buttons and ends sewn in), but in the meantime, I have been working up a quick wrap from the left over skeins, and this is the result...

Colinette Wrap:

Yarn: One skein of Colinette Tagliatelli, and 2 skeins of Colinette Crysallis. (Or any combination of chunky leftover Colinette yarns, the more the merrier!)

Needle: 10 mm (Us 15) circular needles. I use Denise so that I can make it longer as the wrap grows.

Pattern: Starting at the center back neck: cast on 9 sts. K3, K1, place marker, k1(center st),K1, k3
Row 2 and all wrong side rows, k3, purl to last 3 sts (slipping marker as you pass it), k3
The first and last 3 stitches for the whole thing will be k3 (garter stitch edging).
Next row: K3, Yarn Over, K to marker, YO, slip marker, K1(center st), YO, K to last 3 sts, YO, K3
Repeat last 2 rows, increasing with a Yarn Over, inside the edgings and each side of the center stitch. (4 increases every right side row), and Purling these yarn overs on the wrong side. this makes a row of lacey holes at the edge and at the center, which you can see in the photo at the bottom....
If you have more than one yarn, change yarns at the edge every 4 inches (or whenever you want, mine is quite random, yarns changed when I got bored).
When the wrap is as long as YOU want...
 End with 4 rows of k1, p1 ribbing, then cast off all stitches-LOOSELY!!!!


Dampen and block so that the whole thing is loose and lacey and chunky and drapey!

Noro Blossom Turtleneck

Although Ihave had less knitting time, what with wrok, golf and impending visitors (thus laundering sheets and towels, cleaning bathrooms and dusting guest rooms, shopping for extraordinary food stuff and wines - all to appear a naturally good host). I did start the next stash project, a wooly turtleneck from the Noro Blossom picked up in the tent sale at Needle Emporium last month.... The start went well and as I imagined in the mind and drawings of the design a few weeks ago. The back is like this...

and I have begun the front in the same 5 panel stripe. The larger three panels are from the burgundy Blossom, and the 2 smaller ones are purple. I managed to grab 10 balls of burgundy mix and 3 of the purple. More than enough for a long sleeve pullover with a large loose turtleneck. Hard to imagine wearing it now, but no doubt we will find ourselves cold again one day in a few months and I will turn to this with a cozy sigh. Right now the colours are very energizing and I knit with joy. I have always found satisfaction in the unfolding of the Noro colours. How can anyone not love this?

The Books Arrived!

I got the package in the mail, and opened it to find this.....

10 copies of my first book, Chris Knits. There are 15 patterns with photos and complete knitting instructions in a small softcover glossy book... I feel the impulse to have a book launching wine and cheese party! Seriously, it is SO easy to use Blurb.com and create one of your own, and I have been imagining so many fun examples of how this service could be used. Very pleased with the service, communications and even the delivery tracking on the website, that informed me the box was leaving the USA, had arrived in Canada and was in customs... nice details.

Update, Golf and Tagliatelli

No blogging for a few days, and time for an update. First, it was a long weekend here in Ontario, and we celebrate by getting outside and enjoying the amazing, hot, summer days. Rick and I chose to participate in our Club Championships at our golf club. It is three days of intense competition, with 5 hour rounds and cheering beer drinkers on the patio to welcome you at the 18th green. I played for the first time in the Ladies Senior Open category, as I am a freshly minted senior golfer (50 and over). Being the rookie, I had only expectations to compete at a respectable level and not blow up and run crying from the course. I was playing with some pleasant ladies, all but one were familiar to me, and all welcomed the newbie to the group. I played a steady 87 on the first day and lead the field by 2, then 88 on the second day and lead by 5! No one was more surprised than me. It felt comfortable and easy, and I totally enjoyed the long hot days with these gals. The last day, I suddenly felt the nerves. I imagined hitting the ball three times into the pond on seven, and losing the ball in the woods on thirteen and not successfully clearing the creek on sixteen. All of these scenarios could lead to the choke of the century, but no, I played a bit shaky but steady and won by 6 strokes! The win has me representing my club at the district Championship in September...

Of course the long golf days left little time for knitting, but I did whip up a Colinette Tagliatelli Coat over the last week and I am just finishing up the sewing of ends and the buttons, and will likely post the pattern in a day or two, now that my golf glory high is coming down....

Write your own book....

I came across this amazing website.... http://www.blurb.com/ .... that allows you to create your own book... about anything, any size, with photos and text, whatever you would like, and print a copy to be mailed to you! It's really worth a look. You can see what other folks have come up with, and you can download the book making software and fiddle with it. It is very easy.

So of course I thought, how nice would it be to place some of my patterns in a bound book? They already look kind of cool on the website, all professional and shiny and beautiful, and I have really enjoyed seeing the patterns together here on this medium, but a real book? It was irresistable. So I downloaded the software and plunged right in. The fact that the patterns were already digitally stored allowed me to cut and paste and then move them around and insert photos all over the pages. It was an addictive process. I decided to make it like my favourite knitting magazines, where they have all the pattern photos, with short descriptions and pattern page references further along in the book. So the end result is 15 original Chris Knits patterns, followed by full pattern instructions and step by step photos when useful. A 58 page soft cover book, in colour with beautiful photos, and instructions. You can preview the end result HERE, and can even order your own copy if you are so inclined.


This photo shows the computer as you are deciding the page layout and editing the text and photos. You can easily do and redo the layout until you really like it, and in the end, you upload the whole lot back to Blurb and create your book page there and order a copy to print (or several)... it will take 2 - 4 weeks to get the books, and I will let you know how nice they turn out when they arrive.....

Wrapped Up!

The Quilt Wrap is done, and it is as lovely as I imagined. I really enjoyed this project, it was so soft in my hands and each square worked up quickly, so it seemed to grow daily. It is so long, I had to take two photos!

and the finished wrap on me, wow.