And She Knits Too!

Someone loves his new sweater

Alexander has been asking me to knit him a sweater pretty much since he grew out of this one I made when he was about 2.

The kid has good taste.  He would pull Alice Starmore's Aran Knitting off the shelf and suggest patterns to me.  Complicated ones.  At 11 he's not a little kid at 5ft 3inches with feet bigger than my size 9.5 shoe size and since I suspect he's not done growing, I wasn't ready to jump into a full on aran sweater.  

So we negotiated.  I went through Ravelry and chose sweaters I was willing to knit and we narrowed it down.  Smart cookie I am, I went with aran to chunky weight yarn so it would be done fast.  He chose this pattern and I chose the Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed Chunky (on sale at Elann).  

A month later, a sweater for my baby.

He loves it.  I love him for loving it.  

The only modifications were to sleeve and overall length.  

The sweater is a man's small, and I think my gauge was a bit tight.  It fits me (in a sweater girl tight way) so when he outgrows it I will still have it for myself!

Nature Run

I try to run 3 to 4 times a week and most weeks I succeed.  I'm a bit boring in that I have about 10 routes I follow depending on the distance, weather, time of day (no Don Valley trail at night for example) and if I feel like hills or not.  Right now I'm pretty sick of them all and need to scope out some new spots to go that don't involve me getting in my car to get there.  I have considered hopping on the subway, going to a suitable distance away and then running home, but even that seems like a lot of work to change up the scenery.

Last weekend I was away in Tweed and really did get to mix things up.  The cottage is situated along part of the Trans Canada Trail and I get the luxury of running in quiet surroundings, on gravel (nice on the legs) with new, pretty and interesting things to look at.

The view 2km in, as I cross through Tweed to re-connect with the trail.  It's a palette factory.  They seem to be busy.

 

If I go the opposite direction towards I'm not sure where (but sorta north) about 4km, I see very few people (the odd walkers and ATV types) and there's this nice bridge:

While natural settings are nice, there aren't a lot of markers of my progress.  This bridge gets me almost to my turn-around point on a 10km run and that's a good thing.

On this run I stopped and had a look.  There's quite a beaver dam near this bridge (didn't see the beaver though).

Closest to home is the prettiest view.  It's great right now because there are no leaves on the trees and Lake Stocco isn't full of weeds yet.  

It also means I'm less than a kilometer from finishing.  That's always a nice thing.

Stepping Out in my New Ella!

I put on my fancy, superhero Fluevogs just for the occasion:

Ella, is DONE!

Sometimes it was a long slog of picot, ruffled, bind off madness, but most of the time it was a solidly enjoyable knit.

Nora runs a fine knit-along.  Having weekly assignments is a great idea (I work well with deadlines).  It kept me on track and it forced me to really look at my knitting, the fit of the garment and to think about what I wanted the final product to be. 

For someone who often just jumps in and hopes for the best (and ends up giving away a fair number of sweaters) this is a good thing.  I learned loads about knitting a coat, fit, and about myself as a knitter.

 

And I look awesome in this ruffly, crazy striped coat.

A big thanks to Nora and Melissa at Noni Knits for inviting me to the KAL.  You got me back into more regular blogging too.  And while I tried hanging out in Facebook more, I still don't really like it there! 

I'm working on a little embellishment that I might or might not use on Ella.  Stay tuned.

 

Ella: The making of the buttonhole band

Full disclosure: Ella is done.  She's lovely and I haven't had time for a proper wash, block and photoshoot.  So we'll play blog catch up instead and discuss the buttonhole bands.

On the weekend I found buttons and got to work on the buttonhole band.

I worked the band the same as the other side until the mid-point row and then worked 1-row buttonholes to match my marked spots on the buttonband.  Then I worked to the picot fold edge and then to the middle of the hem side of the facing.  I worked buttonholes again in pretty much the same spot. 

Learn from me now: keep NOTES on the spacing of your buttonholes, ie the number of stitches between them so you can make absolutely sure they're in the same place.  It will make your life easier.  

Then I finished the facing.  First thing I did was line up the two layers of buttonholes.

Learn from me again: keep NOTES on your button band so you know exactly how many rows to the picot turn and to the end.  Don't try count after the fact. It does not always work. 

It took a bit of fudging (see Learn from me notes, above).  I then sewed around both layers to make them one hole.  

(It's invisible on the outside, this photos shows the sewing better)

Then I sewed the bind off edge to the sweater.

The edge seemed too long, but I ignored it.  That shit blocks out, the sewing won't show.

Woot, ends are woven in! Sweater is done!  Try it on and...

That shit doesn't block out (see Learn from me again notes, above).

Undo sewing of facing.  Rip out bind off row.  Rip out one row.  Bind off again. Carefully sew down facing.  Keep checking to see that it looks find (see That shit doesn't block out, above).

Try it on.  Be happy. Sew on buttons.

Go to bed.  No photoshoots in pyjamas.

 

Flavia

I am **THIS** close to finishing my Ella coat.  I just need to sew down the buttonhole facing one more time (I don't want to discuss it).  Since I don't have a spiffy new coat to show off today I will show off a gorgeous new shawl instead.

Meet Flavia

The pattern by the awesome GlennaC was the December yummy Indigodragonfly Smartass Knitters/World Domination package this year.  700 metres of lucisious polwarth silk blend, dk weight, super skein of fantasticness.

I started the shawl in late February, knit on it like crazy, then Ella and her ruffles muscled her way into my life.  After I triumphed over the ruffles I went for the easy win and finished the shawl this weekend.

Lovely, squooshy moss stitch, a pointy pretty border.  Perfect for my chilly morning bike ride to work.

Love