There's nuthin' like a friend to pull you out of a rut.

So, things have been a little tense in the Kingdom this summer. Lots of stuff goin' on. Not all of it good. However, my good friend Kate had just the remedy. 'Let's knit a really, really complicated lace shawl!!' And you know what? She was right! A girl can't dwell on the dark side of things if her mind and hands are focused somewhere else. So, here's what we're knittin'. With Cassie's help, of course.

It's a new shawl by Anne-Lise Maigaard who designed the shawl we knit last year. Alberta. Kate's knitting a bigger size with lots of beads. I'm taking it a little easier. Mine will have beads at the cast-off edge. Kate's will be fully loaded with 'em.

It`s all Kate`s fault

My friend Kate suggested that I knit along with her on this beautiful shawl designed by Anne-Lise Maigaard. It`s called Alberta. The designer released it for free for one day during the fire in Fort McMurray. All she asked was that we make a donation to the effort to fight the fire. Mr. Coco and I chose the Edmonton Humane Society and the Red Cross.

Here`s a close-up that shows off my copper wire cat shawl pin. Kate`s written up all the details on her blog. You can see, for example, how many beads are worked into the knitting. (Kate did the large
size, and I wimped out with the smaller version.) Hers is beautiful.

Just for fun, this is what the shawl looked like straight off the needles, before blocking, under Cassie`s watchful eye.

The yarn is laceweight merino and silk, from Twice Sheared Sheep. More coral than orange. I knit it with 3mm needles.

Alberta

My good friend Kate challenged me to knit along with her on this little shawl. It's Alberta by Anne-Lise Maigaard. And it is exquisite. A little tricky, but not bad. Kate's doing the large size, but I'm cheating, and only doing the smaller size. Still, Kate has mostly been keeping ahead of me. We keep telling each other it's not a race, but who're we fooling?

We're in the home stretch now, and once we're finished, and both Albertas are blocked, we're going to wear them and meet at our favourite mid-way-between-her-house-and-my-house wool shop. They won't know what hit 'em.

Suki

There are some . . . no, better make that, a LOT! . . . of really good designs floating around these days. It would be impossible to keep up. Sometimes, it's just a question of stumbling upon the right design when we have the right materials at hand. That was the case with Suki. We saw her first on The Yarn Harlot's blog, in early October, and we thought she was really pretty. Almost at the same time, we remembered we had that fabulous plum Baby Alpaca that our lovely Stephanie brought us back from Europe last Christmas. In April, we happened on a close-out sale of Louet Gems fingering weight. When we shopped our stash, we were delighted to see these 2 yarns were just meant to be. The Louet Gems is made of 2 strands . . . a blue one and a plum one. They go together perfectly.

We have 2 skeins of each. We decided to make the small size shawl (because we are on the small side) and really want to wear it more as a scarf with our jean jacket. We used virtually ALL of one ball of the plum (186 yds.) and nearly all of the blue (185 yds.). That means we actually have enough to knit a second one. OR, maybe we need dainty fingerless gloves to match.

We LOVE the picot bind off. We didn't love doing it because it was kind of 3 steps forward and 2 steps back, but we do love the way it looks.

Suki is Miriam Pike's design and you can find the pattern for sale HERE.  It's well written and not hard, if you're in a place in your head where you can concentrate and follow a chart. When we started this a couple of months ago we weren't exactly there, but working on it has helped us find that mind-set again. That, and time, which really does heal all wounds.

We'd also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who's been kind to us these past few months. It's good to have friends.

Now, for the first time in AGES, we're going to link up with our friends at the Needle and Thread Network.........all Canadian, all the time. :)

A little knitting content for a change

I’m just gonna say it straight off….Grandma Coco and I like bamboo needles. No, what we feel is stronger than that. We LOVE bamboo. It’s light and smooth and comfortable in our hands. And the stitches slide so sweetly without any drag at all. But not that out-of-control free-fall that you can get with metal. No, bamboo’s the best. For socks and lace, especially.

What we don’t like is paying through the nose for bamboo. No, we don’t like that.

Mom used to say that it’s a bad workman who blames his tools. Well, OK. There’s no excuse for shoddy workmanship. That’s true. But poor quality tools really make it hard to do a good job. At the very least, they can suck a lot of the fun out of the process.

So, is the answer buying top-of-the line tools? Because, there are an awful lot of expensive tools to choose from.

Here, in the Kingdom of Coco, we do things a little differently. We set priorities. We pay top dollar for those things that are worthy of our top dollars and we economize where we can. And, surprisingly, bamboo needles are one of life’s little knitting luxuries that don’t have to cost the earth.

Basic bamboo barbecue skewers can be found in dollar stores and cooking supply stores and even grocery stores.  They are dirt cheap. Maybe a dollar for a hundred. They seem to come in several diameters. We found some that are 2.75 mm and some that are 3.25 mm. (That`s right. The Kingdom of Coco uses the metric system. Doesn`t everyone? Oh, yeah. OK, for the sake of clarity… US 2 and US 3, respectively.) Admittedly, not every skewer in the bag is useable. Some will be splitty and some not quite round. Just go through and pick out the best ones. To get a set of double points, choose 6 for now so you’ll have a couple of spares.

You can cut your needles any length you like.  For sock knitting, 6 inch long double points are our current faves. We like even shorter ones for knitting the fingers of gloves. (Mr. Coco’s mother had a lovely set of short needles for this purpose. Apparently, 60 years ago, these were commonplace.) For lace knitting, like this scarf we’re working on, we cut a couple to 8 inches.

You’ll want points, of course. Have you ever sharpened a pencil with a knife when you couldn’t find a proper pencil sharpener? Well, that’s what we do here. Just try for the suggestion of a point and then use sandpaper to fine-tune it. We finish by smoothing the points and the lengths of the needles with fine sandpaper and then with an emery board. When they’re pretty smooth, switch to a piece of wax paper. This will really slick them up. But be careful because this is when a stray sliver of bamboo will come loose and snag your finger and make you curse Grandma Coco and her cheapo ways  re-consider this whole process. Just go slowly. Finally, smooth a little beeswax on the needles and polish them with the wax paper.

The beauty of these needles is that they only get smoother with use. Before they’re thoroughly broken in, you may want to repeat the wax paper polishing any time you feel the stitches starting to drag. However, in time, they’ll be slick as glass.

If you’ve made single point needles, put a pretty bead on the blunt end. You can hot glue it in place.

It goes without saying that these will soon become your favourite needles (because you were there at their birth) but if you snap one or lose one or have one taken away by the nasty airport safety screeners it won’t be such a sad affair. After all, there are lots more barbecue skewers where those came from!

Pictured is the scarf we’re currently working on. It’s the Gypsy Rose Scarf  by Barbara Venishnick. This simple 2 row pattern (a variation of feather and fan, we think) is so mindless, it’s just like meditating and we find it very soothing and calming. We’ve been hearing a lot about the reptilian brain lately and ours is very mellow. We’re using our 3.25 mm homemade bamboo needles (with the lovely white heart beads on the ends) and some gorgeous laceweight yarn from Laughing Rat Studio (50% wool, 50% sillk), Fresh Beets colourway.  http://laughingrat.etsy.com

Oh, and the really observant will wonder what on earth the cheapo metal circular needle is doing in this photo? Well, that’s easy. Once you’ve roughed up a bamboo skewer you’ll never let a metal circular shove you around again. This one was snagging like crazy where the cable met the metal. Grandma Coco finally had enough and sanded the joints down with the sand paper and emery board, too. While she was at it, she sanded the business ends to perfect vicious points. The moral of the story?  Be brave. Take charge. In the Kingdom of Coco, you’re the boss.