Book review and new IK

The knitter's Book of Yarn, the ultimate guide to choosing, using and enjoying yarn; by Clara Parkes

I just bought this book on Knitpicks and I went throught really fast at job, it's really a most have book to anyone who love to try different yarn and use them at their very best in your knitted garnments. This book is an investment since we spend so much time on your knitting not to be disapointed at the end by the result which can happen if we don't choose the good yarn for the pattern. You it happens to all of us knitter... spend I don't how much hours on a project and finally keep it for year in the back of the closet because it look horrible, it scratch horribly your skin or whatever other reason...and the list is long !

Back to the book itself ; it's divided in 4 sections which are : Section 1 : Fiber fondation, Section 2 : Making yarn, Section 3 : Ply me a river and Putting it all together. The first section is all about the fiber, different type from protein fibers to synthetic fibers. It's where the book is really useful. You learn about all type of fiber and blend, how they react and suggestion to how to use them. On the 40 patterns displayed in the book many are for beginner and some intermediate. They cover many type of knitted item such, as baby stuff, socks, mittens, hats, cardigan, etc. I do like some of them...

I included for your eyes pleasure some pictures of the inside :

Also I did receive my IK spring edition 2008 last week but I only take a look at it this week.

So far my favorite feature of the magazine is the great article of Véronik Avery (which is the author of Knitting classic style and her web site is gorgeous http://www.veronikavery.com/ ), it's Finishing : the thrill of the CHASE. As the title annonce, it's a finishing recipe for all the knitted item we made, a great check list to be sure not to forget anything. About the patterns now : I'm tempted by

Flutter sleeve cardigan

Holy jacket

Twisted tulip socks

and as always I love Eunny Yang work in the Ladylike gloves

So that's it for now, but I'm pleased with all this content and look further for spring content here as well !!!

Fo : Fetching

Yesterday I was all alone for the whole afternoon and evening, I made myself a little treat: watch Bee Movie from Dreamwork ! That was so fun I did love it a lot, and later on the evening The last samurai played on TV and I also enjoyed it. I used to saw it when it first came out in cinema, but I did not remember a lot and yes I cried at end like the first time! Finally being alone sometime is good! Hehe, sorry darling but I prefer to watch these instead of a hockey game when they lose 3-0 (Montreal Canadians vs Colombus Blue Jackets).

I also managed to keep my hand busy as well; I made a quick and fun pair of Fetching (knitty.com , summer 2006) for a belated birthday gift for the GF of my brother: Marie-Ève. It took me about 4h30 to made them both and I’m happy with the way they turned out.

Spec of them:

Yarn : Michell & CIA Luxury Collection Fine Merino Superwash DK

Needles : 4mm

Notes : next time I will made the thumb longer and also 2 more repeat on the top because I think they are a bit short on hand.

Umm, also I begun Anemoi Mitten from Eunny Yang… but look how the trimmed turn out… it’s way too small !!! I will rip it and redo it with larger needles. But they are very fun to knit as least…

New project ahead...

Since I receive my last order from Knit picks, I'm turning around it wondering what to do first... I may say I think it will be the 103-1 Jacket in Eskimo by Drop Design and here is the swatch for it in Knit picks WOTA bulky, the color is wine so very hard to catch with a camera. SO I gave you 3 shots with a different angle and light.

I think the one that is closer to the real color is the first one.



And I also received a new crocket hook set I've ordered on Ebay 2 weeks ago. I'm very pleased with it and now I will have to pratice before to try it on some patterns !

Update

Little news on my current WIP :

First for Cherie Amour, I mess the lace pattern at the upper body so I did rip it to the waist and redone the whole thing so I’m back at the armholes division now, so I can say no progress till now.

Thermal is going slow but very well, I change on my needle 2.75mm but on another length which is not perfect but it does what it has to do. For my other pair of needle, it’s now in 2 parts… bad but I can say anything due to the very cheap price I get for them.

Here is after the first skein

Falling leaves I cast on December are now frogged because they were so large and I couldn’t do anything to save them, so maybe I’ll made another attempt on this pattern but with less stitches.

Good bye !

Then I finish with the funniest part… I was sick Monday so I stay home but the very good thing about it is that I was home to get my order from Knitpicks !!! Yay ! So a whole bunch of yarn to play with and 2 fabulous books: The Knitter’s book of Yarn and Debbie Bliss Simply Baby.

I will have more time to talk about them another time but so far I do love them a lot!


PS little note for you Josiane : my secret project for you is somewhere in this picture... no more clues... :)

Time out

Umm bad day for my knitting today, I was happily knitting my Thermal this afternoon and the tube on my circular made a little "snap" noise. I check it out to see that is broken, so now the stitch don't fly over it, they all get stuck by it... I don't what to do. For sure I will have to fit my Thermal of my other pair of 2.75mm circular (only 30cm unfortunately) but what can I do about this one?


To be more precise, it’s half cut just after the bamboo ends inside the plastic tube. And till I decide I'm kind of stuck trying to find a better idea to continue with this pair of circular without loosing or broke any stitch...I’m not really happy about working a whole sweater on such small circumference…

If you have any suggestions I’m all open to everything!

But if I can see good thing, I made up 4’’ so far on Thermal !

Happy V Day !

Happy Valentine Day !!!

Just woke up and opened my Be my Valentine swap package from Ragdoll. My god, I have been spoiled ... Attention : extra yummy content just under this notice...

Look at this :


I have a skein of Sushi socks, 2 skeins of Claudia hand painted yarn, a bamboo crochet hook, superb pencil, heart shaped gum and stitch markers and a folder full of pattern printed out in color.

Thank you so much Barbara !

PS. it will be hard to compete with that for my BF...

What' up ?

News about my WIP, first there is Thermal as I said in a previous post, it's not a quickie, but I did about 3'1/2 which is not bad for the time I put on it... I do enjoy the waffles a lot because it's kind of no brainer project that I was looking for to listen to TV or music while knitting that's just perfect ! Look at it :

On the other hand I'm also playing with my Cherie Amour, but I find that the pattern is kind of all to follow for no particular reason and the neck decrease don't work well neither... I'll check when I'll be at the shoulder what it look like, but if I mess up, I will order circular needles to work up the lace instead of my DPN. But I did good progress anyway, I'm at the armholes split now.

This is where I was Saturday morning

Where I am now

I love the texture and the color

Quebec is Quebec

You know that here in Quebec we do have a lot of snow; we even break records this year with over 300 cm of snow since the first snow of the season! It’s huge amount of snow even for us. So that’s inspire me to talk a bit about what’s weird in Quebec…

We do love a very unique meal here in Quebec, called “poutine” which is French fries, cheese and gravy, but it’s also fully customisable with any kind of dressing or almost. And when we do travel, we miss it a lot!

We are the one and only province/state which have a nationwide debate about the color of the margarine for over 20 years!!! Should it be yellow or white? They even made a law to be sure that all the margarine is now and forever white because yellow is the color of butter. So if your margarine is another color feel lucky not to have a strange government as I do here in Quebec!

We have really bad road maintenance services and with the temperature changes we do have a lot of hole in every road or almost. So if you are coming to visit by car, keep your eyes wide open!!!


I can also way really good thing about living in Quebec like having a great hockey team in Montreal and when you want to talk about hockey you always find someone interest about what you have to say and would like to argue with you against you or with you.

Quebec city has also won a award for one the 10 safest city in Canada to live in. So it’s not dangerous around here and it’s good to live here but with all that snow everywhere I had to blow out some steam sometime…

I let you with the world most photograph building in the world : Le Chateau Frontenac

Feels good now ! Off to knit now.

I love stich markers !

Tell me how I did before to resist to the unstoppable need of buying and loving stich markers ? I really don't know except for the fact that as long as you don't know it, you don't know you want it ! And ask me, it's true baby ! I just discovered another independant artist on Etsy : Moonrise Creations at www.MoonriseCreations.etsy.com , she does a really great job and her stich marker just worth it !

Lovely Ladybugs

Valentine them one (they were supposed to be included in my Valentine swap but I did not had time on time, but it's maybe my fault because I order them late)

A little +, a Breast Cancer ribbon marker

What about yarn playing now are you asking... I made a little progrest on Thermal, but since I'm working 240 stiches on tiny 2.75 mm needles it's quite long to make 2 inches long of 1 x 1 twisted rib... anyway I choose it, I will now make it and love it, especially when I'll be done with twisted rib !! lol

But since I was in need of some instant gratification, I've also cast on for Cherie Amour and with only 12 rounds I have already 3 inches long !! But yes I know it's not the best thing to work a sweater on DPN, but I had no choices. They my only one 8mm needles except for straight one... so I'm dealing with and since stich are way bigger than in Thermal I can actually see them if they are falling off the needles !!

Last little thing, http://roavings.blogspot.com/2008/01/100th-post-rings-and-viewer.html they're is a great contest on this site and make sure you say I sent you there for the contest !!! :). She is giving a handmade ring of her own for her 100th post contest ! Congrat Rhonda

Fo Mock croc socks

Yay FO pictures

Cast on : January 5th, and Cast off : February 1st

Yarn : Knit picks Palette in color Ash, just a little more than a skein

Needle : Good old 2.25 mm DPN

Pattern : Mock croc sock, free pattern offer on the site of http://www.knitpicks.com/

Mods : None this time, I really like them just the way they are, I like the fact that the motif open wide when you wear it but still look like dozen of little bumps.

On another subject, I bought some ceramis handmade button on Etsy a few days ago and they came in Thursday, I will use them only for handknitted-handcrochet stuff I'll, Except maybe for blue and orange one that I have no idea at the moment what I can do with it ! They're also 2 pendants that can be place on a necklace, but since they are not varnich or nothing on the back side, I'm thinking of using then as a charm on handbang or something like that. The artist name on Etsy is muddymuse if you mind.

I also received some of the stich marker I've ordered look at these cuties !!! The artist is Yarn Lust (http://www.yarn-lust.com/) She is a yarn artist, dyeing lovely yarn, but since I just made a huge order yesterday at Knit picks, I will have to wait a little bit for handpainted yarn from her. She have send me my little stich marker really fast with a tea bag and a Lindor candy ! So sweet, I will definitly do business again with her ! Also as you can see under my stich marker all this yarn is my Thermal that I just cast on yesterday and made only 2 round so far because I was in a urge to finish my socks. I will not be a quicky with small 2.75 mm circular needles... but I will finish it within the year for sure... lol !

The quote under them are saying : "hear no evil" "speak no evil" and "see no evil"

At last, but not least, I just got my new baby : A new gamer computer that my super wonderful boyfriend gave me for my 2008' gifts overall !!! It's a bomb really and so much power that on the power button it is written "Start engine" and when you puch it's roarrrrrrrrr like a ferrari !!! I will maybe put it as a video to show you, that's so funny ! I will have to find how to remove it or try not to put this on when someone is sleeping in the appartement !!! Hum I know what I will do this week end for sure, I'm not sure I want to go out even for Superbowl... to much fun at home...