Fingerless Mitts - So quick

I have been knitting using the "Twinning' technique for the better part of a month. I made my son some gloves which I absolutely loved. So warm and plush. I made myself some mittens for walking my dog. And now I made my daughter some fingerless Mittens. I loved how they turned out. It was a pattern on Knitty.com called "Larus and Ardea". Very cool.

The one thing is that this type of knitting is very tight so for now I need to give my hands a break. Perhaps I will do some lever knitting. So much fun being able to use different techniques.

Knitting "Twin"ing

I have been searching for years for the warmest mittens I could make. This does not include "Thrum" mittens. I don't want big bulky things, but rather sleek mittens to walk my dog on the cold days. My best pair to date were my "Incredible Checkerboard" mittens from Robin Hanson. These are simple stranded mitts, where the strand creates a double layer. Actually in eastern Canada/US they are known as Double Knitting.

While I love these and have made quite a few, they still let the wind pass through. I next tried to actually double knit (two sides at once) with Cascade on the outside and Misti Alpaca on the inside. Well, these are the softest that I have done and with no wind are extremely warm. The problem is that when the wind howls they are worse then the stranded ones.

Given my obsessive nature to find the perfect pair, as those of you who know me know I will, I then took a class with the "Yarn Harlot" on Matawa Mittens. Now the class actually did not turn out to be about mittens but it was about Matawa. And Stephanie did bring along her Matawa mittens. These looked good and felt warm. I still can't say about the wind as I did not have them outside. So, I ordered 3 skeins of hankies from Blue Moon Fibre. They arrived a few weeks back. Now I wish I could say I have made these mittens but instead tried something else.

I had just read about "Purl Inlay" technique in my "Principles of Knitting" book so decided I would do the outside as a regular mitten but use the Matawa for the Purl inlay. basically this is just stranding it and locking it in after every stitch on the inside. I finished one mitten. The problem though is that the Matawa has no stretch. So while it was warm and probably good against the wind, you could feel the matawa bindings and it felt terrible. I still want to make some actual Matawa linings but that is for another post.

So, know you are thinking "I read all this, but what does this have to do about twins". Okay....Over the holidays my son was looking for a pair of gloves for me to knit. He wanted them in one colour but warm. I figured I could do stranded using the same color for warmth but then saw something new in my "Principles" book. It was a technique called "Twining". I think it is from the area of Sweden. I had seen it before but never tried it. While, I had a few weeks during the holiday so grabbed some Sublime Marino extra fine DK and sought out to make a Twined Glove. As I began to knit this I started to fall in love with the results. Plush, warm, soft, and looking like they would do great in the wind.

I finished the pair and gave them to my son. Unfortunately this does not allow me to try them out much. So I then searched and found some new books on twining. One is called "New Twists" on Twining by Laura Farson. Wow...Anyways I have just tried making my first Twined Mitten. Actually it is a twined with a reverse stitch. Incredible. Well I am not sure about my colors, you can see below are some pictures of the outside and even better looking the inside. Also note the purl band. I want to work on my decrease ending as I like something more rounded but I am hooked on this technique. Now I am making the second and then off to some slippers from a second twining book from Laura

 Below (inside of mitten)

The Finish Line

I am getting closer to finishing my Shetland Cardi. Just one more buttonband, one neck edge and get the sleeves on. And finally some duplicate stitching. Okay so maybe I am not finished.

I am also trying to get a pair of Chipman Check mittens done as a gift for the holidays. One is done and the other should be in a few days. I am thinking of knitting in a lining and if I decide to, which I probably will, then of course neither of them are done.

Sometimes in the past I find that I have to look for a new project but this is not one of those times. I have a million things in mind that I want to get done.

1.) Matawa Mittens
2.) Matawa inlay on mittens (see how that works)
3.) Finish my Cobweb Shetland Stole - that will take some time especially being in black
4.) Socks made doing lever knitting with some great marino wool
5. ) Need another hat for the winter for myself
6.) Gloves for my son this winter

That is just the start of the list. Finally I want to wish everyone who reads this (if any) a Happy Holiday Season, A Merry Christmas, and Happy Hanukkah, and of course a Good NEW YEAR.

Not sure if anyone reads this but if they do I wish you all the best in the coming year.

P.S. If you do read this perhaps you could let me know with a quick comment just this one time. I am a bit interested to see if anyone actually is reading this.

Go Easy With Love

Although there are few days that I don't wake up thinking about knitting today was one that I didn't. Today we had to say goodbye to our dear family member Toulouse.

Toulouse was a cat that had a tremendous amount of love in his heart. His favorite thing was to jump on to your lap and push his head against you so you would rub him. His other favorite love was catching mice. I remember 16 years ago, going to pick him out with my two kids in the back seat with excitement in their eyes. They chose one of the kittens and my daughter named him "Toulouse" after the cat in the cartoon "The Aristocats". Odd name for a cat but that was what it was. The first few days my kids would hug this little kitten, and it would wriggle and get away and hide under the bureau. I would spend time to coax it out so they could hug him again.

Over the years Toulouse was a great cat and a great family member. My son and I took him to the vet this morning to say goodbye. It was a hard day. Later on this evening my tv turned off for no reason. I turned it back on and a few minutes later it turned off again. For some reason I feel that was Toulouse saying he was still with us.

Go easy my good friend. You were loved dearly and will be missed greatly.

How you can hate something so nice

As a knitter I tend to enjoy learning new things and techniques. Like on my last post where I learnt a few things from the harlot. Well about 3 months ago I decided to join a KAL to learn how to steek a sweater. I had heard about steeking but never done it. For those who don't know this is where at some point you take a big sharp pair of scissors and proceed to cut right through your knitting, usually from top to bottom.

I know you are thinking what sane knitter would do this, but of course it has it's purpose which I shall not go into. Anyways, the sweater is a beautiful stranded cardigan from Rowan. The KAL was going to be about 8 weeks. Well, here we are at are 10th week, and although I have come a long way, it feels to me like the end of this keeps moving farther down the road. I am spending so much time on this project to try and finish it that I will probably have to go this winter without gloves, hats or scarves.

I am at the shoulder shaping part, trying desperately to remember my short row shaping and wrap pick ups. I have gone backwards as much as forwards and each day think that it would not be so bad to just drop it out of my car window and forget it ever happened. I am growing to hate this beautiful object.

Of course sometimes the best projects are the ones that were hated the most during knitting. This was certainly the case with my Shetland Shawl that is now one of my favorites.So I shall not throw this out the window. I will not accidentally have it fall into my fireplace. I won't even misplace it in a garbage can on garbage day.

No, I am going to keep moving forward. I will finish my shaping. I will block it out. I will three needle bind off the shoulders. I will seem parts of the arm. I will attach my sleeves. I will put on my ribbed bands and attach my ribbed bottoms. I will do the ribbing on the end of my sleeves. I will attach buttons. I will cut the steeks and sew them before and after. I will do the duplicate stitching.

Yes I will do all of this and hopefully sometime before I turn 80 I will have a great looking cardigan for my wife to wear.

Sure I will go hatless, mittenless, shawless, sockless and every other thing I could have knit in the meantime but I will move forward. Isn't that what us knitters do. At least the ones that have an unnaturaly strong pull to this art form.

Wish me luck!

A Day with the Harlot

Saturday I had the lucky fortune to be able to spend a day with the Harlot. Yes, the famous and oft quoted "Yarn Harlot. I was very excited and looked forward to my day.

The morning class was about speed knitting. I was really glad and sometimes things just happen at the right time. You see, I had been fooling around with a technique called "Lever Knitting" or "Irish Cottage Knitting". I had found this on you tube. It looked like an incredibly fast and efficient method. I was having trouble getting it so looked forward to being taught from Stephanie. I was not dissapointed and was able to learn correctly how to knit this technique. Needless to say I have spent the next 2 days knitting this style. Of course I am doing a ribbed noro striped scarf which normally would drive me crazy. Yes, I hate scarfs. Not the begginning of them you see. Just the remaining 2/3rds. That being said I am really enjoying learning this style on guess what......straight needles.

The afternoon class was on matawa knitting. In other words knitting with silk hankies. I thought that we were going to be knitting mittens but it turns out this was not the case. Although I was not as crazy about this class in the end I did learn what I wanted. That is how to knit with silk matawa hankies.

Throughout both classes Stephanie was well spoken, knew incredible amounts, and was very funny and entertaining. And I was able to learn to great skills with alot of other amazing tips thrown in.

Thanks go out to UNWIND YARN HOUSE and the new owner MICHELLE for hosting such a great event. The Yarn Harlot in Newmarket.

Can't wait to order some silk hankies and start making some mittens.

And of course I was the only knitting male in the class.

Now That's Amazing

Let me start by saying it's been quite a while since last I wrote. My apologies but it has been a very hectic year.

Both my children are now out of the house in University so I am trying to get used to being what I guess they call an "Empty Nester". I call it "I LOVE THE CLEAN BUT MISS MY KIDS".

Funny, while they are teens and rolling their eyes and eating you out of house and home you can't wait for them to move out. Of course when they do you wonder why you ever thought that in the first place.

I have been very busy knitting lately and most of the year was dedicated to shawls. The two main were for my DIL and the other to a special niece. I was thrilled that my DIL actually wore hers to the wedding and there were many comments.

I also had the extreme pleasure of attending my nieces wedding and having four people wearing estonian shawls that I had knit for them. That was really a treat.

And of course the picture above shows my "Flying Geese" mittens that were adapted from Robin Hansons fantastic book.

I also figure I am out of my mind as I decided to order "Cobweb" 1 ply yarn from the UK in order to do a shetland lace stole that has lace on every row. And to make it more fun the yarn is in black and I am using 1.5mm addi lace needles. You know sometimes I think I really have very little going on upstairs to try these things.

Of course that too is on hold as I am taking a Shetland Cardigan KIL that involves steeking. I always wanted to learn how to take scissors and cut my work in half so decided this would be a good time to do it. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Of course I am the only male in the class of about 18 females. Sometimes I wonder whether me being there changes what the course of conversation would have been. Afterall, I would think there are certain subjects that females must talk about when males are not around.

And that brings me to my title. Last week I was at the hospital waiting for my dad to be discharged. Since I was there for about 8 hours I had brought along a simple hat that I was doing for my son. What was amazing was how many of the nurses came up one after the other to tell me how shocked and stunned they were to see a male knitting. That this was something they had not seen before. It was as if I was sitting in a room naked. And of course all would tell me how in the old days it was the men who knit but Given how young most of them were I figured "How do they know".

Yes, here we are in the year 2012 and it is still amazing for women or men to see us guys knitting. I wonder if I was naked which would be more shocking. The naked or the knitting.

Well, hopefully I will never find out. Hopefully for both of us.