UFOs – Damselfly's Delights

Knit Knit

January 19, 2020 damselflysdelightsLeave a comment

For some odd reason I’ve been finding it difficult to get back into sewing. I have several projects that have been on hold, plus a couple of things to mend and a whole list of items I want to make. But so far…nope. Nothing doing.

Instead I’ve been knitting. I finished my Wolkig Cowl in my handspun Fernwood 2-ply yarn:

The pattern is a very easy one by Martina Behm from Knitty’s First Fall 2017 issue. It worked really well with the variegated yarn, neither getting lost in the colour changes nor obscuring them. The needle size was a little large (4mm) for this yarn which is slightly finer than regular fingering but the results are very soft and squishy and truly warm! Especially when I doubled the cowl on my neck. Mmmmmmm…

The cowl only used just under 90g of my 250g total of this yarn so of course I cast on for another accessory. This one is the Midas Hat by Laura Reinbach. I was going to make another Sockhead hat but the Midas has the extra-warm doubled band which is exactly what I was wishing for after a particularly cold walk a couple of weeks ago. There’s not enough of this project to show you yet.

I’m also finally plugging along on the self-designed Deciduous Pullover that I started way back in July of 2018. Somehow I got frustrated with how it was going and bailed on it for quite some time. I reassessed my issues with it and realised that I wasn’t going to have nearly enough of the main medium grey yarn to make it a tunic length, which was my first plan. So instead I went in the other direction and cropped it severely. With my fluffy belly this is only going to be wearable over dresses or longer tunics so we’ll have to see how much love it gets in the end. I’m on the last sleeve now and making use of my “sweater turntable” (I refuse to call it a Lazy Susan) to facilitate going around and around and around.

Thom made it for me and it wasn’t even properly finished before I snatched it into use. You can just see it under that heap of sweater. Guess I should have done a video so you can see how it rotates as I knit, huh? Too hard to hold the iPad and knit at the same time unfortunately. You’ll just have to use your imagination. The needles I’m using are my wee ChiaoGoo Mini Twist Shorties which work a treat for sleeve knitting. (I’ve mentioned them before on the blog here.) These 3.25mm tips are the largest size in this set so I was happy to discover that ChiaoGoo has come out with the companion larger tips set in the Blue case. So of course I had to have them too.

They go from 3.5mm to 5mm tips in 2″ and 3″ lengths. The connectors on this set are the Small size rather than the Mini ones of the Red case so they are not able to be combined together. But I don’t think that’s much of a drawback although I would like second sets of the stoppers so I can put two sleeves on hold at the same time. A possible future purchase! I’m pretty sure the eensy wee Mini ends would be too flimsy for the larger tips anyway so that’s likely why they went with the sturdier Small connectors on the new set. The blue cables are thicker as well. I now have really short circular needles in sizes 2mm to 5mm which should hopefully cover pretty much anything of a narrow circumference that I wish to knit. I rarely knit anything heavier than that anyhow. Oh, and I’m currently using the longer 3.25mm tips with the longest cable (Red set) to knit my Midas Hat so they are definitely getting a workout!

As I’ve mentioned before short circulars are probably not for everyone. Even I still prefer dpns for sock knitting though I did knit one pair successfully with the Shorties. So far I’m finding them most useful for sleeves and hats and necklines where even a 16″ circular is too long. The modular system of interchangeable needles makes them very adaptable to different situations. These little guys fill some of the gaps left by my Addi Lace Clicks which only go down to 3.5mm tips and 16″ length. As you might be noticing, I spend a lot of time knitting so to me it’s totally worth having the tools that I enjoy using. There’s a lot of options out there these days – enough to make every knitter happy.

Interlude

June 23, 2019 damselflysdelights1 Comment

We took a few days to escape the city for camping at Lightning Lake in beautiful E.C. Manning Provincial Park. The weather was most definitely chilly and changeable. We had sun, rain, cloud and wind – often all in the same hour! Luckily we’re quite used to the mountains and brought appropriate clothing and footwear along with our little propane heater for the evening. Thom’s brother and sister-in-law were kind enough to share their site with us so we had two blue VW Westfalias parked together. Theirs is a lighter blue and ours is a navy blue and they were purchased within a few months of each other over 30 years ago. Much camping has ensued ever since!

Lightning Lake, EC Manning Provincial Park

We saw some wildlife including loons, a momma merganser with 10 babies, a pika (in the rockfall you can see in the upper photo), a pileated woodpecker, deer and a bear on the side of the road on the way home. Trout were caught, trails were hiked and flowers were photographed.

I collaged a few of them for you! There’s too many more and although I can identify many of them, I don’t know all their names.

I also managed to finish those socks that have been on the needles forever.

The yarn is the no-longer-made DGB Confetti from a no-longer-in-business shop. What does that tell you about working from Deepest Stash? Love the colours obviously! The pattern is my usual top-down heel-flap basic socks on 64 stitches. No need to mess with something that works just perfect for my feet, eh? And then I started a new pair, this one’s for Thom.

The rib pattern is from Charlene Schurch’s Sensational Knitted Socks book. It’s only 2 rounds and easy to follow so these shouldn’t take too long. Notice that I’ve gone back to my Knitter’s Pride cubic needles? These are still my favourite way to knit socks. Even though my wee ChiaoGoo Minis are rather adorable. I will use them again soon anyway. Oh and the yarn is Trekking XXL and I quite like all the subtle colours that add up to brown. Almost made a pair for me with it but Thom won out. These are on 70 stitches since that’s what divided into the pattern’s 5-stitch repeat. I usually make his plain socks on 68 stitches.

So. Must run. My fishies need to be fried up in butter for supper now!

Comfortable

February 11, 2019 damselflysdelights8 Comments

When I was madly sewing trying to finish up the bra project, I had a moment when I realised that I was finally feeling for all the dials and levers and changing the feet on my 6-month-old sewing machine without thinking about it! It didn’t feel awkward or new or deliberate anymore. Just Jenny and I working together like she’s an extension of my hands and brain. It’s taken nearly 6 months to get to this point so it’s not like it was instantaneous or anything. I had to unlearn my 40-year-old Pfaff first. I guess it’s like driving a new car – except that I don’t drive. Kind of glad we’re bonded now. I have lots more items for us to to make together!

So now that I’ve crossed bras off my list for the foreseeable future, it’s back to sewing for The Bearded One. Somehow I’m finding it much easier to justify buying fabric for garments for him. Possibly because I have way too much in the fabric stash already for myself! He has been wearing the heck out of nearly everything I’ve made him so obviously he’s Sew-Worthy, right? He says he wants to have a handmade wardrobe too. Awww…isn’t that sweet? OK then. I have patterns and I know how to use them.

We had already recently bought more sweatshirt type fabrics on our last foray to Dressew so today I cut them both out ready to sew:

The brown fleece-backed knit on the left (it’s a little darker IRL) is for the North Star pullover (below left). I like the fleece side on the inside for warmth but probably will make the inner collar that sits next to his neck with the fuzzy side out and maybe the pocket bindings as well. The strip of batik binding is for the inside neck edge which definitely shows when the top is worn with the zipper partway down. I have a very cool brown zipper with bronze-green teeth for this one too. The other fabric, the navy French terry on the right, is lighter weight and will work well for the Finlayson sweater (below right). The shawl collar is very thick where it attaches at the lower front neck due to the many layers converging so it doesn’t work well with a fabric that’s too thick and heavy. It looks really nice when done though but I’m pretty sure the instructions for upper and lower collars should be reversed. The slightly smaller collar piece should be the one that ends up on the top at the centre front so the larger piece curves over top of it when it’s folded. Am I making any sense? I did let Morgan know my feelings on this way back when but didn’t get a reply. Perhaps either I’m not getting my point across clearly enough or she prefers it the way it’s written in her instructions. I’m still sewing it my way anyhow.

There will be more on these projects soon. I’ve also started assembling the many pages of PDF printouts for the Goldstream Peacoat. This is my entry for the #So50Visible challenge from Instagram’s @SewOver50 group. You are supposed to sew a pattern that features a model who is obviously older. There are prizes for randomly chosen entries! The peacoat can also be tagged with #sewmenswearforeveryone sponsored by @sewcialists so I hope to get a two-fer out of it! I’m still pretty nervous to start this one though. But I’m going to power through. Right now I’m really enjoying piecing the pattern together. It’s the easy part. Heh.

The barebones list I made last time was pretty boring, no? Besides the sewing that I’ve already discussed, here’s the rest in clockwise order from top/left:

The never-ending Deciduous Pullover. It seems to be stuck on the sleeves. Plus I’m playing “yarn chicken” with the main colour. I need to suck it up and finish the darn thing.
Blue Dragon Socks (Shur’tugal by Alice Yu). Love the yarn and the pattern but I can’t read while knitting this because there are many crossed stitches. I’m nearly at the heel turn on both socks now so it should go a little quicker after that.
Grey NZ Coopworth yarn on the Louet S-90 wheel. I want enough 2-ply sport weight for a sweater for me. So far there’s only 1 full singles bobbin and this bit. To be fair I have been spinning somewhat more recently (a New Year’s Resolution) so there is hope.
NZ Corriedale in Aurelia’s Fernwood colourway on the Louet Victoria wheel. It’s laceweight, or at least it will be when I ply it. No idea what I’m going to make with it since I only have 250g of this in total. A lot for a shawl but not enough for a sweater. I just wanted another spinning project that wasn’t the grey Coopworth.

In other news, we finally got some actual snow!

That might teach me to feel smug that the first lot managed to mostly miss us, huh? The above was yesterday and there’s a little falling now with perhaps more still to come overnight. We’ll see. I always think it’s hilarious that we West Coasters let 4”/10cm of snow shut the city down. Wimps. The rest of Canada is laughing themselves silly.

So you might have noticed that I’m posting more now that I’ve found a platform that works for me! I’m feeling a lot less frustration. Obviously that was what was holding me back before. Thank you, WordPress. And thank you, my friends, for following me over here! Your participation really means a lot to me. Otherwise I’m just talking to myself. Which of course I do. Heh. But it’s more fun with your company.