Easy Peasy!

Well not so Easy:

I have to admit that I am a bit of a snob!  I LOVE lovely yarn. I admired the yarn from Louet called Mooi first because its name means 'lovely, nice, yummy' in Dutch.  This yarn contains 70% bamboo, 15% cashmere and 15% bison.  I had the opportunity to pick up a small order and  I chose a few colours in the lace weight and a slightly larger selection of the Sport weight. 

A few skeins sold and I made a sample shawl, but at $45 and $30 a skein it really was too expensive for most knitters.

During March Madness I decided to put them all on sale.  They still sat.  Then I found Peasy a lovely sweater on Ravelry. I had 6 skeins of the aqua. The pattern said I would need 680 - 1200 meters I had 780.  (I am not the small size )  I took a chance and decided that I could cheat a little and make the sleeves shorter.  It is a top down pattern so I told myself (over and over) that I could make it work.

I began, it was clear I wasn't going to have enough to make the long sleeves.  I made the sleeves to the elbow, each using one half of a ball.  (I knit and then weighed the remaining on a scale to be sure they were even.)  Still it was not going to be enough.  I played with the idea of using a contrast colour for a colour detail for the bottom. (but it wasn't what I had in mind)  There was a skein of laceweight, actually there are 2, I was saving those for something else.  I decided that if I doubled the yarn and used it for all of the garter stitch details I would have enough.

I finished the sweater and tried it on.  It was about an 1" - 2" shorter than I would really like.  The sleeves were a funny length.  I ripped back all the garter stitch, the two button bands and the bottom border and shorted the sleeves then  re-knit the borders on the sleeves.  Using every inch of the frogged yarn I was able to add about 1" to  bottom of the body and re-knit the garter stitch bands and bottom edge.  It blocked beautifully. I found some lovely buttons in my button collection at home.


It's lovely and perfect.

You don't really even want to know what its actually worth.

A Happy Accident

It all started on a trip into a yarn warehouse.  Going down an aisle on the way out I spotted what I thought was Malibrigo sock yarn.  (It was very hard to find) The colour was too yummy to resist. Once unpacked I realized that it wasn't sock yarn but a 'newish' dk/worsted weight yarn called  'Arroyo'.  The package of 5 contained 4 skeins of one colour and one lonely skein of another.  A lovely customer quickly snapped up the 4 skeins and that left me with the one lonely skein.   I just couldn't leave it all by itself, it needed to be knit into something lovely.

 Last weekend I knit Barb's Koigu Ruffle scarf from Churchmouse patterns.  There was a tiny ball left.  The same company has baby bootie pattern.  Thinking that I really only need to make one as a sample I happily made one for the shop on Saturday.

 I weighed the bootie and the left over yarn and took a chance.  Today I finished the second.

 There are 2 tiny bits of yarn left over.

This week 3 colours of Arroyo arrived into the shop.  I am starting a sweater.

When I was entering my project on the Ravelry pages I wondered if it was possible to rate the yarn a 6 out of 5!  (Machine washable, hand dyed Merino with a lovely ply!)  Washes well, beautiful colours and will wear nicely!

See You Tuesday!

Monday's are for Blocking and Washing.

Today was blocking and washing day!

 First into the tub was my new favourite sweater, Peasy, a well written pattern with yarn that was just too precious not use.  (More about the sweater later when its dry!)

Next up were two of my winter scarves, yes I am putting them away.  Not because I know its Spring, but I have others and there will still  be cool days, see me not tempting fate?

Last week I actually began my wool washing and asked The Farmer if he would make some sweater dryers out of window screen.  I walked through to the laundry room only to pass by 2 window screens from our big sun room windows. Gave them a wipe and presto, I have 2 'scarf' dryers.

 One fits beautifully on top of the washer and dryer. Note the alternate use for empty Eucalan bottles.

The other rests nicely on the freezer.  (I didn't re-block this little alpaca shawl, I probably should but most of the time it's just inside my coat...stuffed in a sleeve. So I opted for 'drying' flat.)

Washing woollies with the new 'Soak' and 'Eucalan' no rinse wash it's just a matter of letting them soak for a few minutes and squeezing out the extra water and drying flat.

or do this:

This Week:

Sign up for Lessons, before Thursday.
Knitt'n Night is Wednesday, bring knitting (or crochet) and a small donation for our special project.

See you Soon!

You Asked?

Lessons are always a challenge. People are busy and trying to get 3 of you together at the same time is difficult.

Gerry has offered to teach 3 classes:

First up is Lace Knitting.

Classes are Saturday April 14th and 21st from 10 am - Noon. 

The Pattern is called "Branching Out" and is available through Knitty.com

There is a lovely sample knit from 2 balls of Diamond Luxury Merino Bamboo for you to see at the shop.

The fee for the 2 weeks is $40.00 plus materials purchased at Soper Creek Yarn.

Sign up soon. (It's next weekend!)