über practical

I'm not a fancy knitter. Truth be told I tried to be and have found that I despise following other people's instructions (knitting patterns), and generally want to make things that are as practical as possible. It's taken me a couple of years of lofty, futile attempts to knit with multiple yarns at once, cables, and other projects that took more out of me than anything else to learn this about myself. Which I choose to see as no small feat! Grasping for some way to soothe myself after drooling over a whack of complex patterns on Ravelry I knew I wouldn't be able to tackle with Baby O at home (and aware of my own pattern stubbornness), my mind wandered back to a William Morris quote from my Intro to Visual Culture course from my Art School days:

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. 

Morris was a man who was focused on design and how it effects our daily lives through the objects we choose to surround ourselves by. As someone who shops carefully and more importantly who defines herself as a Maker of Things, I think this is great advice. Similar is the slightly less articulate adage: K-I-S-S, or Keep it simple, stupid! 

So I've endeavored to simplify here:

Little socks for Baby O, pattern from The Expectant Knitter

...and here:

MAN Mitts, for my man, my own pattern

neck and neck

The past year and a half has been one filled with learning and never having enough time to finish anything...until now! Here are images of a cowl I started for myself in April...yes, it's taken me 4 months to knit what's essentially a neck-sized tube. But I DID knit it, which is really the point, and doing so has truly done wonders for my confidence and for establishing an identity separate from being a Mama. Plus, the delicious earthy tones of the Manos Del Uruguay's Maxima yarn match my chocolate brown winter parka.

Detail of custom stitch pattern. Click image for link to my Ravelry page.

Below is a picture of the infinity scarf I sewed in about 1 hour, based on this tutorial. When I set out to make this I had no idea how these scarves were taking the world by storm, but I guess this is what can happen when you have a baby! My lovely friend Rita agreed to model it for me, and as you can imagine its neutral tones and sheer volume have me wishing the cold weather would hurry up and arrive already. Combining shades of grey, yellow and cream has been inspiring me lately, I think thanks to this fabric by designer Naomi Ito at Nani Iro Design. My fiance bought two yards of this for me at Miss Matatabi's shop on Etsy. I'd love to know what colour palettes protagonist readers are thinking about these days?

handmade for baby

Despite my ambitions of making EVERYTHING for my new baby while pregnant these past 8 months, this is the only project I've been able to actually finish: a newborn baby hat. Made out of 50% merino wool/50% silk yarn I won in a draw months and months ago, I think it's pretty darn cute (and as my fiance says looks a bit like a juicy breast)! With the cold winter and baby's arrival imminent, I feel like I've accomplished a solid, "motherly" task here.

making a nest

Lately my partner Shaun and I have taken on the task of acquiring "baby stuff", and feeling pretty overwhelmed by all the choices we're supposed to make. On one hand it's exciting to imagine our new little on actually using this stuff and inhabiting our world with his or her very own toys, clothes, sheets and especially needs. On the other, we've become acutely aware of all the expectations there can be for having all the right "stuff" for baby, how much we should have, how new it should be, and how virtuous/low-enviro footprint/politically correct each receiving blanket and onesie should be! It's kinda nuts, actually.

In response to all this "should" I've been choosing to knit without a net and just see what happens...turns out I knit a nest. It has no other purpose than to be beautiful, and gosh it sure looks like a mama and baby, doesn't it? Makin' handmade stuff freestyle lately has really opened me up to picturing having this kid my own way, and to take the focus away from the stuff that doesn't matter.

coming out party

Just so you know, a very important knitting event is almost upon us: World Wide Knit In Public Day, conveniently happening in your local area sometime between June 12th and June 20th! According to the website "www.wwkipday.com", you can find a KIP close to you just by throwing your country and city into their handy Find a KIP Tool, and then join other like-minded knitters in showing the world the joys and comforts of knitting. If you're a novice with just one ball o' yarn and one set of needles or a seasoned aficionado, come out of the knitting closet and join us!

of Montreal

Great, great times were had this weekend past in the fine city of Montreal! Rather than focusing our time on finding that PERFECT summer dress or vinyl pressing on Son House, we focused on QT with some of our loved ones and reaped the rewards. Only in Montreal can shabby be so very chic! (see below)

We hung out with my fiance's bro and sis n' law out in the 'burbs. They know me so well now: I unwrapped their prezzies to find Yarn Bombing, by the author duo Mandy Moore and Leanne Prain. Just last week I heard they're doing a Call for Submissions for their new book on contemporary embroidery called Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery. Not to mention the connection with the Winterlude Tree Cosy Project from February of this year, it was a synchronistic sort of gift and tres cool. Favourite project in this book: Knitted Poster Frame.

Not only did I receive a wack of knitting inspiration, my sister in law C. knit me a gorgeous, cosy scarf in a star-kind of stitch whose name I don't know. Lovely!

Time on The Mountain watching Capoeira, licking Popsicles, napping, eating fancy vegan food and holding friends' babies is good for the soul.

fingerless mitts

Not the fanciest pictures on this blog, but I thought it worth posting that my first and second pairs of fingerless mitts are officially done. Well, they were actually done in March, but it took me this long to track down photos of them. I love wearing them - these red/pink ones are by far my favourite because they match everything I wear, and they have a fancy mohair cuff. I knit these ones my preferred way: freestyle, without a pattern! I just increased and decreased stitches to fit the dimensions of my hands. Knit with the wool I won from Canadian Living Magazine's Make + Do Crafting Blog, I'm now a convert to super soft fair trade alpaca.
These purple lovelies came from a pattern I found on the web that included a ribbed cuff (good for a snug fit) and ribbed top (which I think looks a little funny with the bind off I used). I can't find the pattern anywhere, but I know cast on with 30 stitches and knit 2/purl 2 for about 6 rounds at the cuff. The rest was just knit, knit, knit. The wool I used was much more blue-lavender to begin with, so I dyed it in violet to make it a more palatable pinky-purple. Less old-lady, more fabulous. Here's another fingerless mitten pattern that has no ribbing if you want to give it a try: Fingerless Mitts from KNoon Designs

elf socks

From what's turned out to be an incredibly useful library book, Knitalong: Celebrating the Tradition of Knitting Together, I recently chose to make my first pair of socks. A friend of mine and I decided to do a knitalong with the Socks 101 pattern from this book, and have both found it to be pretty easy. I think we surprised ourselves with what we could do if we put our heads together, and now we each have a solid sock "recipe" in our knitting repetoire.

superbowl hat

Late Saturday night my fiance announced he would be watching The Superbowl - at our house. Most folks wouldn't bat an eye at this seemingly normal occurrence, but seeing as though I've never seen him do this in 4 years, and that neither of us has watched our TV in 6 months, I balked. It was a freezing cold winter night, and a Sunday at that, so I decided to join'im. I took a skein of the Mirasol yarn I won in the Make + Do giveaway, my one set of circular needles, and I knit a hat. The colour I would describe as popcorn, with a heavy emphasis on the corn. Not the best colour for us pale northern types...


...so upon completion I popped it in some Dylon French Navy fabric dye and waited to see what would happen overnight. Ta-da! Blue hat for Him.

tree cosies, you say?

This year at Ottawa's Winterlude Festival my as of yet unnamed Stitch & Bitch and I have hand knitted and crocheted cosies to warm a tree in Confederation Park as a part of the Urban Cosy Project! Our excitement cannot be underestimated at the thought that we're showing typically domestic work in a public space - let alone that we made something for the first time as a Collective. The idea is to take a non-destructive form of graffiti - ever hear of Yarn Bombing? - and use it as a collaborative method for making installation sculpture... or something along those lines...Below are picture of our group cosy, as well as other, lesser cosies.

i won!

Thanks to the fine folks at Canadian Living Magazine online, the Make + Do Crafting Blog chose me (randomly, but they still chose me!) to win 4 skeins of loverly yarn by Mirasol plus Book One of the Mirasol Collection books by Jane Ellison! I enter contests now and then, but this is the first time I've won anything in years. I'll be sure to post an update of what I end up making with this beautiful stuff.

mittens of glory

My first completed pair of mittens! I chose lemony-lime green so I won't get run over by the crazy drivers here in Quebec...these were knitted freestyle, without a pattern, and turned out better than expected. Special thanks to Seema at Yarns Etc. in Ottawa for moral and technical support - cheers!

the NEW domesticity

Been knitting up a storm lately, most likely due to the shift in the weather. This is a scarf I promised my BF I would make for him, and after ripping it out 5 TIMES, I finally found the right stitches to match the red alpaca wool and bamboo needles I bought in Toronto. I'll show the final product (hopefully with a certain lovely male model assistant...) when it's done!