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Original Pattern: Foxy lady genser  Knitter Extraordinaire: Kristin (Ravelry ID, blog) Mods: Eliminated the colour-blocked stripes from the yoke, and adjusted the length to be more cropped.Details can be found on her project page, here. What Makes This Awesome: Simplifying a pattern is an amazing way to make one or two standout details really pop.

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Hello, loves! What a lovely week filled with hours of knitting time, a bit of cooking and reading. One of those weeks where you think to yourself there is so much to love in this little virtual knitting community in which I reside. So much to be grateful for, to... Andi

Last week, I promised you a proper FO post for my Herlacyn Heatwave afghan. I love how it looks, now that blocking has worked its usual magic. The stitches relaxed, the bumps disappeared, the seams are much straighter, and the borders lay flat.



As you can see, it features a warm gradient created using six shades ranging from pale yellow to red, and against the rich black background, the colors pop. The colors are arranged on the diagonal from the lower left to upper right, so they were worked in this order:

• Left strip: Provincial Rose, Tropical Coral, Buttercream, Banana
• Center strip: Cherry Moon, Provincial Rose, Tropical Coral, Buttercream
• Right strip: Barn Red, Cherry Moon, Provincial Rose, Tropical Coral

Herlacyn was designed with stashbusting in mind, so I was determined to work with yarn on hand. In the end, however, I had to order more Cherry Moon, because there was so little left after last year's rainbow Valere afghans and I wasn't in the mood to play yarn chicken.

Herlacyn Heatwave AfghanPattern: In development
Yarn: Cotton Fleece (Brown Sheep)
Needles: US 8 (5.5 mm)
Size: Small / baby
Dimensions: 27 x 35 ins
Yardage: ~670 yards
The back side is attractive, but it has a different look and feel. Because of the wrapped stitches, the colored triangles resemble appliques and almost appear stitched on rather than worked as part of the fabric.



Don't tell the other afghans, but Heatwave is my new favorite. It has fantastic drape, and the strong geometric shapes and cheerful colors delight my simple heart. It's also the perfect weight for our chilly spring weather and it will transition well into summer, when a soft, light afghan is welcome on a cool morning.
I'm itching to cast on another in cool blues and greens, but that may have to wait. A shawl, a pair of mitts, and a vivid rainbow afghan are already on the needles, and they're all crying out for some well-deserved attention.


RELATED



WIP| Herlacyn Heatwave Ombres & Gradients: What's the Difference?


Looking for the pattern? It's in development and should be available soon.


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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

After Years of Failure, Knitter Proves That She Can Be Taught

PORT LUDLOW, Washington, April 13th, 2018

In a Stunning reversal absolutely nobody was expecting, this morning Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, upon finishing her Russell Street shawl-scarf thing, had only fourteen ends to weave in, out of a total of about fifty-eight (58) for this project.

“I can’t even explain it” the knitter said, while looking visibly pleased with herself. “Everybody talks about how they’re going weave in the ends as they go along, but I actually did!”

As told to this reporter, at the outset, Stephanie looked at this project and realising that there were so many ends, was able to look into the future and see that (as she so eloquently put it) “this was going to be a total %^%$#-show.”  At regular intervals throughout the knitting of this accessory, she then stopped several times and worked on a bunch of the ends so that it wouldn’t all face her at the conclusion.  “I could just tell” she exclaimed, shaking her head incredulously “that if I left them, if all of those ends from all of those mini’s were staring me in the face when I was done, that I’d put it off until later.” (Here, this writer did not ask if the “later” that she was speaking of was actually that thing Stephanie does where she shoves mostly finished knitted stuff into closets for seven years rather than do a little bit of finishing work.)

“I just told myself that I wasn’t going to be that kind of knitter this time…” she said, while blithely ignoring that she has yet to weave in the remaining fourteen ends. “I can’t believe this happened. I made a commitment, and I followed through.  Do you see this? I actually wove in ends as I went along. This doesn’t really happen. I’m like a unicorn.”

When last seen, she was entirely smug, an emotion she scarcely deserves, since she’s really only just done what she was supposed to all along, and fourteen ends remain.

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My Favourite Articles and Links This Week 4 ways to fit decluttering into your schedule, no matter what. On finding friends who are like-hearted, rather than like-minded. This is exactly how I feel about spring, too – My least favourite season. I have a fear of operating rooms (more specifically, I’m terrified of being operated

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Without a doubt, spring is the perfect season for fingerless mitts. Especially if they are the colour of flower petals. Pattern: Heyworth Yarn: Rohrspatz & Wollmeise Blend (70% merino superwash, 20% cashmere, 10%nylon) in ‘Romantisch’ Needles: 3.25 mm and 3.5 mm (US 3 and 4) Mods: None Not that you know it from the many, many

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Original Pattern: Seamless Saddle Shoulder Pullover Knitter Extraordinaire: Uncia (Ravelry, blog) Mods: Uncia changed the pullover pattern to be an open front cardigan with a cabled front band, and a horizontal cable band at the hem. Her project page has fantastic, detailed notes on how she made this cardigan, check out her project page here.

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Happy Sunday loves! How was your week? Mine was filled with lots of knitting. While nothing was finished, I felt like all of the thousands of WIPs (exaggeration), got some knitting love. A stitch was put here and there. Pattern~ Vanilla Yarn~ NanoStitch Lab in the color Alkaloid New projects... Andi

Whew! The last end has been woven and my Herlacyn afghan is blocking as we speak. 

I promise to do a true FO post soon, but in the meantime, I thought you might be interested in a few quick tips and tricks to help you block everything from scarves and shawls to cardigans, blankets and afghans with greater precision and straighter lines. 

If you own the basic plain blocking tiles as I do, straight lines can be a challenge. If you're lucky enough to own blocking mats printed with a grid, you're ahead of the game but you might still find these tips helpful. Blocking wires provide a nice, straight edge, but they don't work for all projects.

Since I like to keep things as simple as possible, here's what I do. First, I connect as many blocking tiles as I need. Then, I tie a slip knot in a piece of string and hook it over one of the nubbins at the top edge of the mat.



I run this string down the full length of the mat and wrap it around the corresponding nubbin at the bottom, making sure it's taut and straight to form a guideline for the left edge.



With the edge established, I begin spreading the entire piece over the blocking mats, continuing to run string lines between the top and bottom as needed. In this instance I ran four vertical lines (one for each edge and one for each seam).

I then start patting out the lumps and bumps, pinning things into place using the strings as a visual guide to align shapes, seams and edges. 

I keep my tape measure handy and continue to make adjustments until the end result looks something like this:

In this instance, I was able to use the top and bottom mat edges as a lateral guide, but if I need horizontal lines, I simply follow the same strategy and run strings side to side. It's equally easy to establish diagonal guidelines for triangular shawls or other items with slanted shapes, and if I were making a pile of individual blanket squares, I'd get the strings in place, block the first square, then leave the strings in place, so I could block each subsequent square to the exact same dimensions.
One of these days, I may invest in mats with a pre-printed grid, but for now, this fast and easy trick helps me block straighter seams and edges to improve the overall look of the finished piece. Have your own favorite blocking tips? Feel free to share them in the comments below.

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My Favourite Articles and Links This Week Soo…. China is building a rain making system that is bigger than Spain. I’m not sure if this is an awesome thing that will help prevent catastrophic droughts in impoverished countries, or a terrifying step towards environmental destruction. If all that Marie Kondo minimalism makes you want to

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Yesterday I left the snow and general crap scene of weather in Toronto, and made my way here to Texas, where I’m at the DFW Fiber Fest, an event that I really adore.  It’s got a great vibe, and they’re such nice people, and I thought that even before last year when they were so sweet when I bailed on them to go home for Elliot’s birth. I like them so much, and am actually so grateful for that gift that I am here again, even though it means missing his birthday. They let me be there for the most important one, I can miss this for them, and I got to see him for Easter before I came, and it’s only a day, and you get it.

Truthfully, I was feeling sort of bummed about Easter. It’s usually such a nice holiday for us, low pressure, and all the Spring birthdays get rolled into it, and we have a great dinner at my mum’s and this year I felt like it wouldn’t come together, no matter what I did.  In the end (and I know you’re probably tired of hearing this, but it’s still a problem over here) I realized that I was trying to make it just like the Easters at my Mum’s, which obviously can’t happen because she’s not here and we can’t go there, and I gave up. You’d have thought that I would have figured this out at Christmas, but I didn’t. I accepted that it wasn’t going to be the same, that I couldn’t force it (though I tried for a bit) and I made some new traditions, as many as I could think of – though tried to keep them rooted in the way we do things.  My mother wasn’t there to make a ham, and we don’t eat ham anyway, so I made a vegan ham.

(Fine. It’s tofu. Whatever. My brother eats ham and he said there was “nothing wrong with it” which isn’t a completely ringing endorsement, but is a pretty ecstatic reaction for a carnivore to have to a vegan ham, if you ask me.)

Every year my mum asks me to make this braided bread, but this year I somehow couldn’t so I did bunny buns that I thought Elliot would think were funny. (He did not, but Samantha loved them) and every year I decorate one egg really beautifully as a gift for my mum (she had a whole bowl of them) and so this year I did a bunch.

I figured the girls are all adults, old enough to appreciate them.  I did make the same cake my mother always made, and though not everyone with a spring birthday could be there to celebrate (another stumbling block stumbled upon) Sam and Alex blew out their candles, and Elliot had a practice run. (So far, not his jam.)

We saw Joe’s  family, and we had an egg hunt with the littles, and I knit Elliot some lamb shoes so that he matched the other wee ones.

Pattern: Lamb Shoes, Yarn: Random handspun I found in the closet.

They are charming, and fun and fast to knit, and they come in adult sizes which is something I am really, really resisting out of some sense of decorum that only I feel.  (Everyone else in the family wants me to let go of that sense, and make them all lamb shoes. I think I might have established some unreasonable expectations over Christmas.)

Overall, it was okay – good even, if you try really, really hard not to compare it to other Easters, and just let it be it’s own thing, which is what I am doing, mostly.  Everyone assures me that this odd sense that nothing is right and I’m screwing it all up will pass with time, and I hope so.  There can only be one first of everything without my mum, and we are getting through it.

I mean really, what can be wrong as long as you can look at those little feet?

This weekend, I'd planned to pack away the winter-weight afghans and accessories and pull out their mid-weight siblings in preparation for milder weather, but somehow the task didn't get done. This turned out to be a good thing, since after an all-too-brief interval that carried hints of spring, our world is once again coated in snow that's clinging to every branch and twig and turning the world white. 

Luckily, thanks to my knitting obsession, I was able to start the day fortified by that extra touch of comfort only hand knits can provide. As I sipped my first steaming cup of coffee and watched the sun rise, I wrapped my warm and woolly Tikkyn Flagstone lapghan around my legs ...

 
 and slipped my soft, cozy Kintra Blackberry mitts onto my hands.



I donned a heavy marled cardigan (a great thrift store find) and draped my Dojeling Blackberry shawl around my neck and shoulders for extra warmth.



Now, I'm working in my perpetually chilly office with my Flashpoint lapghan tucked over my legs and feet, cheered both by it's cozy weight and the fact that it blends beautifully with the flashes of red, purple and black in my shawl and mitts. (I can be strange that way.)


The calendar may say it's spring, but the weather looks and feels like winter, so once again, hand knits have come to the rescue.


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Original Pattern: Dreyma Knitter Extraordinaire: Lisa (Ravelry ID) Mods: Using elements from the yoke design of the Dreyma sweater, Lisa reworked the original aran weight design into a sportweight hat. Details and lots more photos on her project page, here. What Makes This Awesome: I love this mod – it just goes to show that

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Good morning and happy Easter! Yarn~ Knitpicks Chroma Twist Fingering in the color Dear Diary Pattern~ Hermione's Everyday socks Hope this week treated you well. My week was a little all over the place, but I always say it is always a good day when I get the privilege of... Andi

February: paintbox yarns, passion fair isle colorway
March: twizzler socks, West Yorkshire Spinners signature 4-ply, mojito 


Hi friends! Just wanted to check in with you all and give you a quick sock update before I head off to visit Vietnam for a couple of weeks. I am flying solo on this trip so there will be a lot of travel knitting and reading to look forward to (over 20 hours of flight time). I am horrible at dealing with jetlag. Any tips? I know that staying hydrated is a must. I will also try to eat according to my destination time. But sleep is always an issue for me on planes. I have tried noise-cancelling headphones, sleep masks, travel pillows and melatonin. Nothing seems to work and Benadryl makes me extremely groggy for a long time which defeats the purpose of taking it. My husband suggested fasting during my flight but I don’t think I can go that long without eating. So I will probably end up watching all the movies, knitting on my socks and pigging out :) Speaking of socks, April is looking like a fun knitting month full of socks. I will be participating in the Coffee & Craft Podcast’s Sock Sprint that Bernadette is hosting. It is a challenge to see how many pairs of socks we can finish in a month. The hard part is trying to figure out which yarns to bring with me.

I will be flying out on Sunday so wishing you a wonderful Easter if you observe it. Have a lovely start to April!

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My Favourite Articles and Links This Week How to turn your current job into your dream job. Because the dream job is the one you custom-build for yourself. Sometimes, even if you thought you had it all planned out, a bunch of things in your life go sideways all at once – How to deal

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I read a lot of books this month, but hardly anything seemed to be really recommendation worthy, so this month’s list is a bit leaner.  What was the best thing you read in March? Share your recommendations! Best Fiction of the Month: Mr. Fox I’ve been meaning to read Helen Oyeyemi’s work for a while,

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I have a pretty big stash, and the most amazing thing about it is really that with the exception of some weird stuff in there that I can’t really explain (moments of weakness when confronted with a yarn sale, usually) I can tell you that all of it… just about every skein, I believed with my whole heart when I bought it, that it was going to be the very next thing I knit. Usually, I buy it, and I bring it home and for a while, I still think it’s going to be next so I keep it somewhere handy.  Top of the knitting basket, kitchen counter. You know, I put it right where I can get it because I am going to start knitting it really soon, possibly in minutes.  After a few weeks of that I start to think that maybe I should take it off the kitchen counter, but I still know it’s going to be next-ish, and I move it to the canopy of the stash. At that point it’s technically in the stash, but it’s still going to be next, just after the other thing that’s sprung up.  Then I buy something else, and put it on the kitchen counter/knitting basket/ in my bag, and wait a while before admitting the truth about that, and then move that to the top of the stash, which naturally pushes the thing from before down a layer and… you see. You know. You probably do it too. My feeling is that it’s pretty normal, if you’re talking about knitters and we are.

I am completely and totally aware that I do this, that I do it almost every time, and somehow, every time I buy something, I still think it’s going to be next, even though the odds that’s what I’m going to do are about the same as the odds that any day now, Joe is going to turn to me and say “You know what, I think I’m going to throw away the 35 year old copies of High Times in the basement. You’re right dear – I’m never going to look at them again and they actually are just taking up space. I see that now.” This is to say that there’s about zero chance. So you could have knocked me over with a feather when the following transpired.

I was at a fibre festival and I was walking around, minding my own business, when whammo. I saw this gorgeous shawl/scarf thing, and there was a kit to go with the sample, and then I thought “Oh isn’t that pretty, I should make that next.”

It was this… Fall Rainbow mini set from Canon Hand Dyes (in Bruce, their sock yarn with a little yak in it) and the pattern was Russell Street. I came unhinged.  I loved it. I gave her my money, and trotted off with this little prize in my hands… and it sat there on the desk in my hotel room while I looked fondly at it and thought “That’s totally going to be next.” Then I brought it home and put it on my desk there, because that’s where you put things that are going to be next… and then…

GUYS THEN IT WAS NEXT. I am not even kidding you.  I finished something, then picked up that yarn, and started knitting it. Just like that, just like I said I would. Just like I have intended to do a thousand times, but this time it just happened.

More than that, I kept knitting it.  No, I’m serious. I didn’t start and then ram it into a corner, or replace it with something better, or be tempted off by the next thing that’s going to be next.

(I did knit a pair of socks but that’s just normal.) Knitters, I think I’m going to finish it.

It’s like a miracle.

Joe hasn’t gone to the basement yet though, so as shocking as this is, we’re probably not in a parallel universe or anything.  I’ll let you know.

 

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Original Pattern: Penguono Knitter Extraordinaire: Clare (Ravelry ID) Mods: Clare changed the brightly coloured sweater to a monochromatic version, and also eliminated the back welts, added pockets, lengthened the sleeves, and reduced the front panel to avoid the original crossing over effect. Great details and more photos can be found on her project page, here.

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Hello! Pattern~ Mary Margaret's Lace Tam Yarn~ Luna Grey Fiber Arts in the color Charcoal. Happy Sunday! Spring has officially arrived for us in the U.S., although I am sure my east coast friends are looking at the calendar in confusion with all the Nor'Easter storms they have going on.... Andi