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.

Christmas finale

Finally, finally the weather cooperated, and people's sicknesses abated, so that we could get together to see Gizmo receive his Ugly Xmas Sweater!! As I stated before, everyone needs an Ugly Xmas Sweater. Gizmo loves his, and surprise! surprise! his owner doesn't mind it either. Gizmo's one handsome dude, no matter what he's wearing.

And Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a photo of Cassie. You'll notice she's not wearing a sweater.

Not a cookie

....but it's pretty sweet!

An ugly Christmas (dog) sweater for Cassie's friend Max. Cassie says she wouldn't be caught dead in it, but Max is a dog. What does he know?

I started with a pattern which I actually paid money for on Ravelry. I won't name it, because it was really, really badly written. The numbers just didn't work, and a newbie knitter would be crying now.

I used the CONCEPT and built my own sweater, subbing in my own colourwork designs.

I'm not exactly angry about paying money for the crappy pattern, because I did get the sweater I was shooting for. However, every crappy pattern that's up for sale undermines all the rest of us, who try to offer decent patterns for a fair return.

Pa-thrum-thrum-thrum-THRUM!

Ha!Ha! I don't know why it's already time to be thinking Christmas thoughts and cringing at cheesey Christmas songs, but my brain is in full Christmas mode. I finally got around to doing something I've been planning. I knit 2 pairs of thrummed mittens for 4 of my favourite hands on earth.

They are knit from Patons Classic Wool. Instead of wool roving for the thrums, I used some left-over Briggs and Little Country Roving which is 5 strands of un-spun wool. I separated 2 strands at a time to make each thrum. It works extremely well. These mittens will be very warm, and the wool Country Roving will felt down into a soft insulated layer over time. Right now, they just seem kind of bloated. :) They're the kind of mittens that should last a very long time.

In the name of science, I made one pair with a thumb gusset (the black ones on the right) and one pair with an after-thought thumb. Neither was any easier than the other, so I'll be curious to hear back from the recipients which style works best.

Now, on to the rest of my Christmas to-do list.

So busy!

I've been so busy with the Big Project (which is almost ready to show!) that Cassie has jumped in to help out. She was up half the night knitting cuffs for some booties we promised. Poor kitty. There ought to be laws about feline forced labour, don't you think?

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.

Surprise!!

Bet you thought I'd never get this sweater done, didn't you? Well, I have to admit there were moments when I wondered the same thing. But here we are. More proof that slow and steady wins the race! I just hope the intended recipient is happy with it. It's going off in the mail tomorrow. A big, warm hug of a sweater. :)

2 things

Thing Number One:

I believe they call this a 'proof of life' photo in the crime shows on TV. The only thing I don't have is a copy of a current newspaper to give the date. Trust me. This picture was taken today. It shows the 2nd sleeve of the Cowichan sweater. I have begun to knit again ....slowly and carefully... on it, so as not to re-injure my arm. I can't tell you how much I admire those west coast ladies who knit these all the time. They must have biceps of iron!! The zipper arrived this morning in the mail, so the only thing that now stands between me and a finished sweater is this sleeve and the collar. Oh, and that little thing called 'finishing'.

Thing Number Two:

Anyone know a good mail order source for this perle cotton? Preferably, a Canadian source, but any info will be welcome. Valdani Perle Cotton Size 12. I bought 2 balls of it at a fibre festival in Kingston this past fall, and I love it. Must have more!! :) Any leads would be gratefully received. Thank you.

Baby shower

Yesterday was the Big Day! We had the baby shower for my niece. I was really glad I'd got that cake topper completed early, because a couple of weeks ago, I did a  whoopsy to my back and leg. Ouch! Fortunately, Mr Coco came to my rescue and helped with the cake baking, etc. Together, we produced this:

Not too shabby, eh? The cake itself is about 12 inches in diameter. Vanilla with a raspberry filling and real buttercream icing on top. There is a whole pound of butter in the icing, and I had very little left over in the end.

There was one surprise though. Remember the pink tiled 'floor' beneath the bunny's tub? It was a bright hot pink. I had it sitting on my dining room table which doesn't get direct sunlight. By the time I finished the cake, it had faded to a very pale (nearly white) pink. :( I used Wilton paste food colouring. Burgundy. If anyone knows what may have happened, please leave a comment.

And, of course, Grandma Coco, made the baby a little pink sweater and hat set. It's tiny and precious.....newborn-sized...... which will probably only fit her for a minute or 2.

Just another Sunday afternoon

Who knows what these are? Anyone? Anyone? (that's a little Ferris Bueller humour, for those of you old enough to remember).

(I was thinking of entitling this post, "Everything in duplication.") I'm making a baby shower cake. Not only have I promised this cake, but I am determined to make a really cute fondant cake topper to crown it with. No matter that I've really never done much with fondant before, except for the cats I modeled this past summer. I just want to. So, I did what I always do. I'm going back to school. I'm following along with a Craftsy course called Too Cute Cake Toppers. And they are. Too cute, that is.

The topper is built on a base. Usually, it's styrofoam, but I couldn't find a styrofoam base, nor could I find the styrofoam form for the bathtub that the bunny is supposed to be bathing in. No biggie. I made my own out of krispie treats. Now, here's a tip for anyone out there who might also be thinking of doing this......leave out the butter. The disk on the right has margerine. The one on the left has no margerine and no butter. The margerine one is flexible. The non-fat one is dense and hard. No human is going to eat this base, so dense and hard is much better than flexible but delicious. You can quote me on that. I'm hoping the toothpicks and skewers that hold things in place will pierce the krispie treat base in the same way as styrofoam.

The first order of business is to construct the shower head, because it needs to air dry at least for overnight. I read other people's experiences, and thought I might need a back-up just in case the first one breaks during assembly. They're both OK. For now.

I have 2 weeks to pull this off. I thought it might be good to start early.

When I'm not working on baby shower cake toppers, or consulting Pinterest, or other fondant/cake decorating sites on the internet, or making cookies, you all know I've been working on the Cowichan-style sweater. There's been a lot of internet research involved in that project, too. And some un-knitting and re-knitting.

Finally, today, I have both fronts completed. I pinned them out and gave them a little steam blocking, so I could measure for the zipper. It has to come all the way from Winnipeg. There are 2 choices of colour....black or cream. Since they are cheap, and I am confused about what 'cream' could mean, I ordered one of each, and I'll decide once they arrive. I have lots of time. I still have the sleeves to knit, as well as the back which I'm re-knitting for about the 3rd time. That will all be worth it though, I'm sure, because I'm lovin' those howling wolves under the starry sky.

Full speed ahead

I got the green light on the Cowichan sweater. The wool was promptly ordered from Wool-tyme in Ottawa, and it arrived in record time. So, now, there's just the little matter of the knitting.

Working in such a chunky gauge is new to me, and requires some getting used to. Last night, I realized that I had started pulling the wool too tight when I switched into a new pattern. There was nothing for it but to un-do several rows and try again. I really want it to be right!

And, besides, I have a supervisor to please.

Pom-poms are so yesterday's news

My friend Kate often leads me astray. I'm not complainin', just sayin'. Recently, she made an adorable elephant hat. I had to follow her lead. It was an irresistible urge.

My cat's head hat combines a regular ho-hum knitted toque with the head from this delightful pattern. The hat fits a child (of course, although I'm sorta tempted to make one for myself).

Squaresville

Sooooo, did you happen to notice that the blocked square wasn't exactly square? Yeah, me, too. :( And even though I blocked it really hard, it still wowed on the sides. Double :( :(.

Blocking the square as hard as I did had an additional downside. The fabric is way less dense than I intended, and the colourwork especially, looks all stretched out.

I thought for a while the problem might be the corner increases. I was doing Kf&b (Knit through both the front and back loops) of each end stitch. That's not a balanced increase, since each new stitch appears to the left of the original stitch. In my mind, these are 4 equilateral triangles (the 4 wedges that make up the squared-off circle). And they must be symmetric.

Instead of Kf&b, I tried to put a leaning decrease one stitch in from the edge of each side. I won't bother to describe it in any more detail here, because it didn't work. Oh, I like the symmetry of it, but the sides still wowed.

A little math seems to be required, and a little more thought.

For the final block to end up at 12 inches, the radius must be 6 inches. OK. Got that. The inner angle of the wedge must be 90°. I think with the blocking, we've got that. BUT the outside edge of the wedge (the perimeter of the square) should be 12 inches, too. I STRETCHED it to 12 inches with the hard blocking, but should blocking (like marriage) really be that hard? I don't think so.

And that's what brings us to the question of gauge. With Cascade 220 Superwash in my hot little hands, with 4.5 mm needles, I am getting a stitch gauge of 5.5 stitches/inch. So, for a 12 inch outside edge, I ought to have 66 stitches (for each wedge). And what do I have? Only 44.

I forgot about row gauge. I am getting 7 rows/in. That means to achieve 6 inches of knitting, I need to do 42 rows. If I started with 3 stitches, I need to increase 62 stitches over 44 rows. Or, more precisely, over 21 rows, since I increase on alternate rows. This is where my left brain moves over so my right brain can shout, "62 divided by 21 is VERY CLOSE to THREEEEE!"

And that, Knitting Touristas to the Kingdom, is what I'm going to try next. I will make 3 increases in alternate rows. A left leaning increase one stitch in from the starting point. A right leaning increase one stitch before the last stitch. AND, wait for it........one increase right dead centre in the square. It needs to be symmetrical though. Hmmmmm......

I don't think I can visualize this until I actually get the wool on my needles. Stay tuned.

Ay, there's the rub

Thanks, Will. That's exactly what I was thinking. Wool is wonderful. You knit, and then you block it, and it's perfect. It's warm, and babies need warm. If (heaven forbid!) it catches fire, it doesn't melt like acrylic will. BUT, and it's a very big 'but', mothers of babies on this continent want to be able to throw baby's clothes into the washer and dryer. You just can't do that with wool. At least, not more than once. So, those of us who knit for 'modern babies' often choose acrylic.

I was asked to knit a baby sweater. I chose a bright 'tomato red'. It seemed to scream for a hood. On Ravelry, I found this adorable pattern by Mary Scott Huff. The Sweet Pea Cardigan. I love it. However, I think it only makes sense in shades of green. (A bright red Sweet Pea Cardigan would just be silly, don't you think?)

Sweet Pea Cardigan by Mary Scott Huff
Photo courtesy of Ravelry.com

So, I switched out the pea pods for regular cables. When you really look at the pods, they're just fanciful cables anyway. Genius, but cables. Some people on Ravelry were finding that the way the front bands pick up from the front edges, ends in an ugly line, and that's why the designer added the ribbon trim down the front. However, when I got that far, that wasn't my experience, so I didn't try to gild the lily with ribbon.

What I did have to do with this acrylic was block it, and I did it slowly and carefully, and with great trepidation. I know that if I'm not careful, there's a chance that the steam iron can melt acrylic. And that would be awful, after all my knitting. Tragic! So, here's the sweater, resting and cooling after the blocking. Once it's cool and dry, I'll remove the pins and decide if it's done. With any luck, it won't just spro-i-n-g back to its pre-blocked state.

Polly mittens

If you've been following along, you've noticed a bit of a trend. I'm having a whole lot of fun putting pets on mittens. I was chugging along quite nicely until it came to my friend Karen's cat, Polly.

Polly

She's a bit of a character, is Polly. Mostly black from the photos I've seen. My pet portraits seem to work best when the pet has fairly distinct markings like patches of colour, or lines. Polly is a black blur (mostly because she's always in motion), with lovely amber eyes. I made 2 distinct attempts. I ripped them both out (thank goodness wool is very forgiving), and put the mittens in a time out. Meanwhile, Karen released her newest quilt pattern, Under the Big Top. She sent me this photo of the impish Polly peeking out from behind the quilt.

Yes! Polly's most distinguishing feature is her eyes!! And the quilt is so colourful. And such a nice contrast to her Pollyship. I had it! And the Polly mittens just fell into place.

Be sure to check out Karen's Under the Big Top Nursery Set. It's a quilt with a canopy that goes over the crib. It's ingenious.

Cassie Mittens

Is there anything cuter than a sleeping cat?

My muse is back

My muse is a fickle spirit who runs off at the first sign of trouble. Any sadness, any loss, and she heads for the hills. A fair weather friend, at best. When she's gone, the days are very long indeed. Endless days of scarf-knitting. Don't get me wrong. Any kind of knitting is good knitting, but the best knitting happens when she's with us.

Today is a grey day in the Kingdom, but there is much under way. Here's what it looks like (since my friend Kate says people like to see what's happening, and not just what's finished):

And here's proof how little respect I get:

Meet Doug

My friend Kate recently got a new puppy, and what a pup he is!! Here's the picture she took of him.

At first, I thought he might like to be knitted into a sock in an intarsia design. Never mind that I've never done intarsia. I figured it'd be a chance to learn. Here's the chart I made for that.

When I had about a dozen tiny skeins of yarn all flipping around my knitting, I decided (as usual) I'd started too big. Simplify! Simplify! (When will I learn?)

Back to the drawing board. With the new direction that felt appliqué took me, I thought maybe what Doug really wanted to be was a mitten.

Yes. I really think Doug wanted to be a mitten after all.

Cats at the window

Inspired by a photo taken by my friend Stephanie Etherington.  See the original here: http://villagecats.com/

She gave me permission to interpret her photo in wool embroidery. Needless to say, I love the photo. I think the mittens turned out well, too.

Monkey Mitts

I like to think that even monkeys like to keep warm. And I'm sure they think about fashion, too.

These mittens fit me snugly, but my hands are small. My hand is 6 1/4 inches from tip of longest finger to the base where my wrist starts, and about 7 inches around. The ribbed cuff is 3 1/4 inches to keep the snow and cold out. They are 100% wool.

Since these mittens currently have no home, if anyone would like to adopt a pair of monkey mitts, they can be had for a minimum donation of, say, $25. (postage included) to The Lyndhurst Feral Cat Project. Cheque or Paypal, just leave a comment, or email me directly at covillewood (at) gmail (dot) com , and we'll work out the details.

Edited Sunday, December 14, 2014...... The monkey mitts are SOLD. Glad to know they've found a new home, and the Lyndhurst Feral Cat Project benefits, too.