Cast On, Cast On, Cast On

I am right in the middle of choosing patterns. Maybe this one, maybe that. Do you love doing this?

It’s amazing how much time I can spend deciding and undeciding (is that a word?). One little voice is saying ‘make up your mind’, another voice is saying ‘let’s look at one more ravelry page’. I also scan my library of patterns over and over. I downloaded those patterns for a good reason, at least I thought so at the time.

This one is from my library. I do love a long project. I am knitting the Polaris Wrap by Veera Valimaki as a blanket. I belong to the Rustic Heather Sport Club by Lichen and Lace, where I get 2 50g skeins of rustic sports wool every month. I am going to knit the blanket out of my club wool. It will be bigger than the wrap because I’m jumping from fingering (pattern) to sports weight (my wool) and a much bigger needle. I think it will make a great blanket.

Looking good so far don’t you think, ha, ha.

Next I cast on Romi Hill‘s Winter’s Finery shawl, again in the Rustic Sport wool. I am experimenting with what this wool can do.

A lace shawl always looks a mess before it comes off the needle. I am very close to being done.

I am also knitting from one of my own workshop instructions: 3 Tier Shawl Workshop. I have taught this do-it-yourself triangular shawl at several retreats. I give you a basic structure and you choose the stitch patterns from a list in the pattern. It starts with the normal tab cast on to knit a triangle shawl with centre increases. Then it breaks into sections where you can work different stitch patterns. It’s tons of fun and I will tell you more about it as I get going.

I have knit several shawls using this pattern. Here’s one of them.

The shawl here is a stockinette based version (wrong side rows are purled). This time I decided to jump on the wool/mohair band wagon and work a garter stitch based version (all wrong side rows are knit) of the same shawl. I’ll post the pattern on ravelry this week. (The title of the workshop pattern might change since ravlery quite often doesn’t like my titles.)

How many is that, 3 so far. One long project, one almost done and one shawl just started.

I have a sock on the go, of course. I am trying to see how I can make Timberyarns stripes dance a bit. Nothing too complicated. An increase at either side of the front of the sock and a double decrease in the middle, with a short row heel. Fun to watch the stripes move.

I guess that’s enough to get on with at the moment. I have one more I want to start but nothing on the needles yet.

How about you? Is this Cast On time for you? What is taking your fancy?

Cheers, Deb

Cabin Fever patterns by Deb & Lyn and the cabinfever crew

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

Debgemmell 435 on youtube

deb.gemmell on instagram

Resting after vacation

Does anyone else have to do this? I’m just back from an 11 day bus tour of Newfoundland, with 3 days of driving on either side. We travelled across 5 provinces, wow. It was a whirlwind tour around most of the NFL province. When I got home and let my daughter know, she sent the message “will you be in bed for the rest of the week?”. Ha, Ha. She’s not wrong. My husband knows I won’t even go out of the apartment for several days. There are people out there and I can’t talk to another person, except you guys, of course.

So I am knitting, knitting, knitting. My comfort place. I’m finishing up a Musselburgh hat for my grandson. It will be done today.

Timberyarns

I knit on the trip. Not as much as I had thought but that’s always the case. My Reversible Ribbon Wrap/Scarf was easy knitting on the bus. Please excuse the wrinkles. I had it stuffed into a small project bag. It’s probably a little bit larger than a travel project should be but easy to work on.

I added the second Contrast Colour and am really happy with it. I wish I had thought of it sooner. My winter coat is that green colour but I felt the wrap needed a little lift and the celery coloured stripe does that. I’m going to make the celery colour wider and the dark green narrow as I progress. You can see I’ve started triangle #4 (bottom right). This will be good TV knitting.

On the trip I finished a pair of socks for my grandson.

Timberyarns

As you can see Stripey the Sock went on an adventure. My grandson is 5 and reading so I sent him a Stripey story every day. Stripey saw the ocean. Look at all the rocks on the beach. Stripey though a beach had sand but not here.

Stripey went on a couple of boat rides. The sun was shining and the ocean was calm. A great ride.

Stripey liked all the fishing boats, especially this one.

Stripey accompanied me on a little walk in the woods.

When travelling in an new place it is comforting to be somewhere that is somewhat familiar. I took a big breath and enjoyed a woods walk, even though it’s not quite the same as home.

And I went to a wool store in St. John’s. This is Pam of Windswept Fibre and Designs.

It’s great to go away but it’s wonderful to be home again.

Cheers, Deb

Cabin Fever patterns by Deb & Lyn and the Cabin Fever crew

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

deb.gemmell on instagram

debgemmell 435 on youtube