Souvenir of Newfoundland

When preparing to leave Newfoundland several months ago, I thought about what I'd like to have for a souvenir.  I had a few good ones:

My mummer ornament.

My extensive photo collection.

1. Lighthouse, 2. Urchin, 3. Near Port Aux Basques, 4. Cape Bonavista Lighthouse, 5. Dungeons Provincial Park, 6. Kilmory Resort, 7. St. John's fence 3, 8. Ferryland lighthouse, 9. Cliffs, 10. Rasta-sheep, 11. Megan and Laura at the Sea Stack, 12. Blue at the Spout, 13. Untitled, 14. ECTA sign, 15. Rocky seas, 16. Durrell

And of course, my degree.

 

I felt that I needed something else, something that, like the mummer, represented the traditions of Newfoundland.  And then it came to me.  There was a little yarn shop two blocks away.  The owner designed her own patterns.  Among them, there was a pattern for a traditional fisherman's sweater (but toddler-size and therefore do-able).

It's been a slow process, but the project is coming along.  The pattern is one you have to focus on - not exactly mindless knitting.  But it's a fun one!  Check out this nubbliness:

And the cables (love a cable):

A close up of the back panel:

Progress so far:

By the way, in case you were wondering, there is no current intended recipient of this baby sweater.  It's something I'll keep on hand, just in case I need it down the road...

Want to see more knitting projects?  Check out this blanket and this blanket, this hat, this scarf, these mittens, oh, and these mittens too.

Soft as a rock

During a rare slow period this past winter, I recklessly decided to start a new hobby.  In retrospect, I needed a new hobby like an Eskimo needs a Frigidaire (as George Jones would put it).  But the curse of the crafty is that when you see a new craft, you think, "I can do that!".

Needle felting, that's what I'm getting to.  If you are reading my blog, I'm assuming you have seen some felted projects around the blogosphere, Etsy, Supermarket and the like.  Anyway, I loved the aesthetic of felted pieces and had heard over and over again that needle felting was "easy" (with the small footnote that even experienced needle felters occasionally spill their own blood).

For those of you still in the dark, needle felting is a way of turning raw, unspun wool (a.k.a. roving) into felt.  Have you ever washed a wool sweater and had it come out of the washing machine looking like it might fit a neonate?  Well, that's wet felting.  The water, heat, and agitation of the washing machine denature and tangle the strands of wool into a thick, tough (shrunken) mat of felt.  With needle felting, the wool stays dry.  A very sharp (remember the blood I mentioned above), specialized needle with tiny divots in it is used to poke at the wool and mechanically tangle the fibres.

So, given my (short-lived) free time and the low start-up cost of needle felting, I gave it a try.

Stones like these were my inspiration.  Stones are a great starter project - there is no right shape to aim for.  A little wiggle room is ideal for your first project.

So I found some lovely grey and ivory roving (at this little shop during my trip to Ottawa) and gave it my best poke.  Well, my best million pokes.  And came up with something like this:

Not too bad, I think!

For now, they decorate a large glass vase/candleholder on my table.

 

I have a few more items in the works, mainly consisting of decorations for our inaugural Christmas tree (for which we have a current total of nine ornaments).  I would love to do a Christmas post on a few of them.  Guess I better get felting!

Michael's blanket

It's been quite a year for babies amongst our friends!  Shortly after finishing Gretta's blanket, I picked the needles up and started right into another blanket for another great pair of friends.  The little bundle of joy, Michael, was born on the last day of January to some pretty happy parents!

And I got to visit him just last week!  Such a happy little sweetie.  I think he'll look great wrapped up in this little basketweave blanket.  Knitters can find my pattern modifications at the bottom of this post.

I made the tag with supplies from my craft box:

Isn't the stamp great?  I thought a giraffe was suitable for a little baby boy.  It came from a stamp set I got a few years ago.  The images are woodcuts taken from an old edition of Webster's Dictionary.

And the gift wouldn't be complete without a handmade card:

I tried to emulate the "basketweave" pattern of the blanket on the card by weaving strips of cardstock together:

Now, on to the knitting details!

• Find my Ravelry project here
• I wanted to make this blanket suitable for a car seat/carrier, so it measures 30" x 31.5"
• According to my initial swatch and desired size, I loosely cast on 144 st
• Needle:  29" 4mm circular
• I went for a seed st border (k1, p1 and repeat for one row, then knit the purls and purl the knits for subsequent rows) of 14 rows deep
• For the 15th row (the first row of basketweave squares) I began a 12 st side border in seed st, then k10, p10 and repeat until 12 st from the edge (seed st last 12 st)
• [In retrospect I would have cast on 140 and made the side borders 10 st wide instead of 12]
• Each basketweave square is 14 rows x 10 st
• After 14 rows, simply switch knit sections to purl and vice versa
• When 2" from desired length, revert back to seed st for 14 rows and loosely bind off
• Yarn is Lion Brand Cotton Ease - machine washable and dryable!  Essential for a little babe.

And that's all I have to say about that.  Michael, I hope the blanket keeps you toasty this winter and I just can't wait to see you next time!

More of my knitting posts can be found here.

Wedding Retrospective: The guest book(lets)

Well, it's been ages since the wedding... but I realized there were still a few projects I hadn't yet blogged.  Also, we are right in the thick of wedding-planning season for any Spring brides out there!  It was two full years ago that I was pulling this project together.

[finished booklets]

Initially, these booklets were going to be labeled as table numbers.  I had seen a great tutorial for making the booklets on the DIY Wedding section of the amazing Once Wed, and instantly loved the idea.  As time went by and the decor/venue plans evolved, I decided the booklets might be too small to serve as a table marker.  Instead, I decided a booklet at every guest table would take the place of a single guest book at the front of the hall.

Why a whole bunch of little booklets instead of one normal guest book?  I liked the idea of people being able to take the time to write a thought or a story or a bit of advice for us instead of just writing a short greeting and signing their names.  Mike and I have a lot of creative/hilarious/thoughtful friends and family members in our lives and I wanted to capture more from them than simply "Congratulations and Best Wishes".

[moleskine booklets]

My favorite - totally favorite - part of the project was choosing the paper.  (I have a thing for paper).  Our colours (as you may know from previous posts on the wedding) were pink and brown and cream.  Most of the paper was found at DeSerres in Halifax with a few special (i.e. velvet-texture pink damask) sheets from Michaels in St. John's.

[paper]

I found a paper cutter came in handy for this craft (and for several crafts thereafter).  I simply cut strips of  the paper to cover the Moleskines with about an inch of extra paper left to affix (using double-sided acid-free tape) onto the inside front and back covers of the books.

[supplies]

Another cute feature of the booklets was the ribbon page-marker.  I found a thin, satin finish ribbon, cut the end on the bias and a few inches longer than the spine of the booklet, then taped one end of the ribbon to the outside spine of the booklet before covering it with paper.

[page-marker and inside cover]

[page markers in finished booklets]

Now, Mike and I have a little shoebox containing the booklets.  They are filled with notes, funny stories, hilarious kids drawings, a limerick, a list of potential baby names, tear-jerking memories, hilarious grown-up drawings, and some really lovely poems.  In retrospect, this might have been the best DIY project of the whole wedding!  Re-reading them over the past few days has reminded me how amazing our wedding guests were and how lucky we were to have so many friends and family members join us!

And now, loyal readers, I will give you a peek into our guest book(lets):

This last drawing by Mike's little cousin was accompanied by the charming caption, "You are now royalty".  So sweet!

Gretta's blanket

When we found out our close friends were expecting a baby, I knew an epic knitting project would be required.  Attempting my first baby blanket seemed appropriate.  This was a project many months in the making. Thanks to the healthy arrival of beautiful little Gretta (I met her yesterday and I'm totally in love), it is finally time to unveil on runty mouse!

I spent a lot of time on Ravelry, searching for the perfect pattern.  We didn't know if the bun-in-the-oven would be a boy or a girl, so I was looking for something gender-neutral - but nonetheless awesome - for this little kid.  I thought about the Log Cabin Blanket as well as the Moderne Baby Blanket - longtime faves from Mason Dixon Knitting.  But it was a pattern I had never seen before that really caught my eye:  Pickets by Jennifer Crawford (find it on Ravelry or KnitPicks).

A full rainbow!  All the way across the baby!

It was a pleasure to knit.  I LOVE garter stitch.  So soothing.  So uniform.  I chose a very practical acrylic yarn that would be fully machine washable, making the blanket actually useful to our friends.  The colours available were perfect.  *A full rainbow*.  My personal favorites are the bright blue, the yellow, and the purple.  Here are some photos of the blanket in-progress:

Even after finally finishing the blanket, I still felt crafty.  So I made this little card as well:

Finally, some modification notes and tips for interested knitters:

• You'll notice I dropped one of the "points" of each "picket" so that only one end of the blanket had "points".  I knew that my "increasing end" would not be symmetrical with my "decreasing end", so I just cast off the full width of the "picket".  I think it looks more like a picket fence this way, or maybe a set of crayons?  
• Regarding gauge, I knit 24 stitches across at the maximum width, and knit about 149 rows per panel (after the "point" was completed).  
• All through the project, I was dreading the final seaming of all ten pickets.  However, I was directed to a knitty tutorial by a fellow Raveler which turned out to be so easy and effective, I actually looked forward to seaming!  In retrospect, I would have left a "tail" at the end of each picket that would equal the entire length of the picket (plus about six inches) - it could then be used as the seaming yarn.
• Link to my project page on Ravelry

Advent calendars

As it is almost December 1st, and I've been seeing so many advent calendars around the blogosphere lately, I decided I would provide you all with a little collection of my faves.  Some are very suitable for DIY.

The first is from Miss Gioia via oh, hello friend (who happens to have an excellent round-up of advent calendars).  I am in love with this one - it uses an increasing amount of buttons to indicate the number of each pocket.  Love, love, love.

The next is actually a DIY project and comes from Paige Russell via Poppytalk.  I think the stark white mixed with rainbow bright colours would be perfect in a modern home or apartment, don't you?

Here is a fun little pyramid calendar from Country Living.  I found it courtesy of craft lovely.  If you are like me and love candlelight, and prefer a matchstick to a lighter, you may just have a few matchboxes lying around.  Alternatively, you could purchase a multipack of matchboxes and store the matches in a large jar while the boxes are re-purposed.

This final calendar is a beautiful print-it-yourself project by Jen Hill (found via the ever-addictive Design*Sponge and their round-up of calendars in general).  It comes free with purchase from her shop or you can get the .pdf for $5 on her site.

If this post inspires you to make up your own advent calendar, I need to see pictures, so let me know!

Winter is here!

So, technically, Winter isn't here until December 21st, but today was the first real snowfall here in St. John's.  So I'm christening Winter today.

Today was also the first day I had to break out a hat.  My personal favorite hat.

It was knit long before this blog started.  Super quick and fun.  Love the spiral pattern of the top decreases!

And the big wooden button, of course.

If you know me on Ravelry, the project has been posted there for awhile.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but could the best part of winter be the knitted accessories?

New mittens

It has been quite a while since I knit my last pair of mittens - way too long in fact!  So I was due for a new pair:

A trip to Toronto last month brought me into a fancy yarn store... so tempting that I couldn't leave without some amazingly soft alpaca yarn.  A pair of garter-stitch mittens in the store caught my eye and the ladies included the pattern in the purchase:  the Greyden Mitts (link to pattern page on Ravelry).

The photoshoot was at Kilmory Resort, Swift Current, NL (post on that trip still to come!).

For more of my knitting posts, click here.

Heart on your sleeve

Has anyone else noticed the trend in decorative anatomy?

I'm used to seeing anatomical images at work, though usually on a poster or textbook.  It's another thing entirely to see these images as jewelry.   I love the juxtaposition when these things adorn the outside of a neck, a wrist, a finger.

[spine and pelvis necklace by Lillian Crowe via Supermarket]

[pelvis necklace by Missy Industry on Supermarket]

Now, some people just can't stomach these types of images.

[stomach pendant by TillyBloom via Etsy]

They aren't for the faint-of-heart.

[heart ring by Melanie Favreau on Supermarket]

So, if you see one of these items on a friend, just take a deep breath...

[lung necklace by Missy Industry on Etsy]

Any squeamishness is just in your mind.

[brain necklace by Moon Raven Designs on Etsy]

Try to see these beautiful pieces as I do:  art, not ick!

For more quasi-medical decoration, see my previous posts here and here.