Slow­ly work­ing on a few lazy sum­mer project. I bought this Bernat Hand­i­crafter Cot­ton to make a dish cloth but I had a lot left. I tried mak­ing a cou­ple more dish cloths but I still had a lot left. So I won­dered whether there was enough to make a sum­mer top with the rest. Because it’s a var­ie­gat­ed yarn I thought a sim­ple geo­met­ric pat­tern, like a dia­mond lace pat­tern, would work with­out obscur­ing the lace pat­tern too much.

It was just going to a sim­ple boxy sweater, I fig­ured I would knit in the round until under­arm, then knit front and back sep­a­rate­ly by knit­ting flat, then sew the shoul­der seams, and final­ly knit sev­er­al rounds of 1x1 rib around the sleeves and collar. 

So I start­ed with knit­ting in the round, first in stock­inette, then in garter stitch, but the pool­ing just turned out real­ly weird when I switched from knit­ting in the round to knit­ting flat when I sep­a­rat­ed front and back. I guess I should’ve known that the yarn would do that. So any­way, the above pic­ture shows that I’m back to knit­ting it flat in two pieces, then knit­ting the rib­bing on the sleeves and col­lar in the round. Will keep you post­ed on how it goes! I do like the colour com­bi­na­tion of the yarn, and knit­ting it flat is cre­at­ing more of a strip­ing rather than a pool­ing pat­tern, which I like bet­ter, so I’m real­ly hop­ing it will work. Will keep you post­ed and share the pat­tern if it works out!

Before the sum­mer sweater I was work­ing on a pat­tern from the 5th anniver­sary issue of Pom Pom mag­a­zine. It’s being hiber­nat­ed at the moment because it’s too warm to knit this. But I’m look­ing for­ward to fin­ish­ing it. I love side­ways sweaters. It just needs sleeves, which I will knit in the round after sewing up the side seams. Using Caron Cakes! :D I do love var­ie­gat­ed yarn.

And because a sweater is too large to knit on pub­lic tran­sit, I start­ed a portable project for going to and from work. I’m mak­ing some drag­on hand pup­pets for my niece and nephew for Christ­mas (shh… and no, it’s nev­er too ear­ly to start hol­i­day craft­ing). I bought a kit from my local yarn store and learned to make bob­bles (a row of bob­bles runs down the back of the pup­pet). Also, short colour repeat rain­bow yarn is so much fun to work with! Spot the tiny heart!

Looks like I have a few WIPs but I actu­al­ly did fin­ish a cus­tom order recent­ly. Ani­mal friends to be part of a com­mem­o­ra­tive project, so glad I could con­tribute to it. 

Wish­ing you much joy and cre­ativ­i­ty for the weekend!

 

Last week I helped out with the TTC Kni­ta­long and yarn-hopped with a won­der­ful group of peo­ple around the city yarn-craft­ing and shar­ing laughs! Thought I’d share some highlights!

Oh and if you aren’t famil­iar, the TTC Kni­ta­long is a char­i­ty event that ben­e­fits Sis­ter­ing, a trans-inclu­sive sup­port and drop-in cen­tre for women in down­town Toron­to. Live around TO and missed it this year? You can read all about how it works here so you can be all ready next year! :D

Our route start­ed at my local yarn store, the very cozy and friend­ly Porch Swing Yarn­som­ni­acs. Mike is such a troop­er, he had a wed­ding to attend in the after­noon but joined us for the morn­ing, work­ing on a Huf­flepuff scarf :) Also, note the bril­liant Star Wars sweater that the own­er of Yarn­som­ni­acs cre­at­ed!! (It’s on the back of the wood­en rock­ing chair — you can see it in all its glo­ry here :D)

We then hopped over to the bright and sun­ny Knit-O-Mat­ic. Must remem­ber that they car­ry Lily Sug­ar ‘n Cream cot­ton. I love sum­mer knit­ting with cotton.

Eweknit not only has yarn, it also has WATG kits (heart-eyes) and tons and tons of gor­geous fabric!

Then we took a break for lunch. We went to Lit­tle Sito for Lebanese brunch, which I’ve nev­er had before. The per­fect­ly poached eyes on rich fried cheese, avo­ca­do, herbed home fries, oh my. High­ly rec­om­mend it!

After lunch we went over to Yarns Untan­gled in vibrant Kens­ing­ton Mar­ket. It has the per­fect knit­ting spot for knitting/napping under the tree :) Also love that this shop always car­ries prod­ucts from local arti­sans like greet­ing cards, soaps and but­tons, in addi­tion to unique hand-dyed yarns.

Final­ly, we spent the rest of the after­noon at Rom­ni Wools in the isles and isles, floor to ceil­ing full of wool­ly good­ness. (every­one quick­ly dis­ap­peared behind the yarn before I could take a pic­ture :S)

Knit­ting along on the TTC! Knit­ting while stand­ing in a crowd­ed, mov­ing street­car is a Toron­ton­ian superpower. 

I’m actu­al­ly quite direc­tion­al­ly chal­lenged (had to con­sult with my com­pass a cou­ple of times through­out the trip!), so thank­ful for par­tic­i­pants who super knew where they were going, and for a rel­a­tive­ly easy, relax­ing route :) Though because I’ve nev­er led a team before I was quite ner­vous about remem­ber the route and keep­ing time, so I did­n’t try to buy any­thing until our last stops. But I did bring home sweater quan­ti­ties of Brig­gs & Lit­tle wool (Canada’s old­est woolen mill!) in these beau­ti­ful shades of green, a back issue of Pom Pom mag­a­zine with love­ly sum­mer sweater pat­terns, and a beeswax food wrap with piles of cats on it to reduce the use of Saran wrap! 

We’re so for­tu­nate­ly to have so many local inde­pen­dent yarn stores in Toron­to! I’ve always just known they are there but don’t real­ly vis­it, because going to Michaels is eas­i­er, and I’ve start­ed to take them for grant­ed. Will have to make a point to vis­it them more often! 

Wish­ing every­one a won­der­ful week!