Hedgehog Knits

Adventures in knitting from the eastern edge of Canada.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Spinning again

Inspired by all of the "Tour de Fleece" spinning I've been seeing lately, this weekend I picked up my spindle for the first time in over a year.
This is a Fleece Artist Silk Wool sliver that I received as a birthday gift last year. This photo shows the halfway mark. I've since wound this half f the singles off (I don't like it when my spindle gets too heavy) with plans for a two-ply. My arm is tired!
Nick and I did a backpacking trip last weekend on part of the East Coast Trail. The scenery was wonderful (this little island just off the coast was home to small flock of sheep left to graze for the summer). We saw loons and otters, and lots of whales - what a great trip.

Just back from Calgary a couple of days ago, I think that I am now done with the business trips for a while. I'm looking forward to spending some quality time at home for a change!

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Thursday, July 10, 2008

I caved.


The Lady of the Lake is a tempting gal. After I took the kit out to photograph it, I couldn't put it back in the cupboard. I have officially put Gatsby Girl into hibernation to await some cooler weather (summer is short in Newfoundland, so it won't be long before I'll want a long-sleeved wool sweater) and delved into the Lake.


The jacket is knit as one big piece, with sleeves added after. It's going very quickly. It looks very short, but through the wonder of Ravelry I find that several people have already remarked on how much this pattern grows in length during blocking. It still seems a bit bright for my taste, but I think that it's growing on me more and more. Time will tell...

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Sunday, July 06, 2008

July catch-up

Wow, I was doing really well there for a while with the blogging regularly, and then June happened....

My most recent adventure was a five-day camp with my Pathfinder Unit (Pathfinders are Girl Guides aged 12-15, and I have been so lucky to have ended up with the most amazing group of girls!). Even though the weather was crap-tastic and cold, we had a lot of fun. More adventures are planned this summer with a couple of weekend backpacking trips coming up.

So, back to the main theme of this blog... what am I knitting these days?

My main focus has been my Mystery Stole 3, which I abandoned last summer somewhere around my second house move. I picked it up again a couple of weeks ago, and it is now my concentration knitting in front of the tv. Unfortunately, it just looks like a big black blob, so I haven't photographed it in a while. Further updates to come.

My mindless travel knitting has been this plain stripey sock. I bought the yarn on a whim on my last trip to Wool Trends, mostly because I loved the colourway - these are definitely my colours. The yarn is called Boston, and the company is Wisdom Yarns. I'd never heard of it before, but it's very similar in structure and price to Regia and Jawoll sock yarns. Nothing too special, but gee, I do love those blues and greens! Just one more sock to go.


I was actually at Wool Trends to pick up this:


It's a Lady of the Lake jacket kit by Fleece Artist. I had been admiring these at my LYS for some time, but the only colour they had left was a bright turquoise. It was way too loud for my taste. But then I found out that Fleece Artist will custom dye kits to order, and that was just too amazing to pass up. This colourway is called Paris, and I chose it by looking through a piles of skeins of SeaSilk. It came out a little brighter than I expected in the kit (though still not quite as bright as it looks in this photo), but I think it will look great when the colours all get mixed up together. I haven't examined the pattern too closely yet, but I think that it's knit holding together strands of the two different yarns together - Curly Locks (or the right) and Kid Aran (on the left). Now I just need to decide which to start first, this or my Ivy League Vest.

Something I've been doing over the last months is trying to catch up on all those things that I wouldn't allow myself to do while I was finishing my thesis. It's been a strange experience, catching up with the rest of the world on a number of fronts. I finally read the last Harry Potter novel (Sigh. So good. Hard to believe it's all over), and continuing the trend of being last to the party, i joined Ravelry. I've actually been on there for a few weeks now, but I haven't had time to do too much with my page yet. Come find me if you haven't already - I'm KBH over there.

I've had several requests for kitty photos, so I'll try to get some of those soon. Lassy is doing well, and has started going outside now. He seems very happy running about the neighbourhood and checking out the neighbour's garden.

I can't promise that I'll be updating the blog too frequently in the coming weeks. I've got a business trip to western Newfoundland this week, and off to Calgary the following week. Hopefully I get lots of plane knitting accomplished anyway! I'll leave you with a FO photo of my latest Swallowtail. I gave it to Nick's grandmother on her 80th birthday. As a life-long knitter, I think she appreciated it.

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