Stocking, Stocking - Oh How Close We Are to The Big Day!

Well, here is it is so far, in all it's glory!


I'm liking it and my intarsia technique is getting better I think (despite the faulty purling). I have 46 rows to go - well really only 30 and then I knit the toe. After the toe is done I will pull out the false stitches (the yellow line on the right and the black line on the left) and knit the two sides of the heel.

I am very confident I will be done all knitting in time to board a plane to Toronto on Sunday morning. My plan is to occupy my time on the flight with the pleasures of weaving in ends and sewing up seams - joy oh bliss! At least I'll be strapped into a seat so I guess that means I'll get it done.

I am nervous about what I can and can't take on the plane in terms of knitting needles - I would love to take these socks (don't mind the giant knot which has kept me from knitting these for over a week - knitting from both ends of the ball not to smart).



I think security will likely ban my tiny, circular metal needles. "Great, a stabbing AND a strangling object, perfect! You're clear."

Does anyone else have any recent experience flying with needles? I'd love to take some plastic needles on board to do a scarf and maybe some dp bamboo needles to do a hat. Will they care?

How is everyone else doing with their stocking progress? We are so close my Mistletoes! Monday will be the day of beautiful stockings and much celebration, I can just feel it!

Oh and check out this fabulous pin I've been wearing on my hat all week - thank you miss Jennifer! (Sorry, next post - Blogger won't upload it and it is too late to trouble shoot tonight).

Stocking Update - Week ? . . .

Who knows what week we're in (well I guess some simple math and reading back over my earlier posts would clear that up) all I know is that we've got Twenty-Two (22) Knitting Days Until Christmas my dear Mistletoes!

Here is my stocking progress to date - lots to do yet but Tuesday night is knitting group night so I'll have more for you then.

Hey Frosty kind of looks like the Fonze in this picture . . .

There is room for improvement in my intarsia technique but I'm still happy with how cute it is. I know she will love it and that's all that matters. I can't wait to see her little face on Christmas morning!!!

Socktoberfest Socks, Stocking Progress, Felting & Grave, Grave, Grave Knitting Errors, Oh My!

I have been SO busy over the past two weeks, I've barely had time to do pretty much anything I actually enjoy and do in order to relax. As we speak I have just finished sorting a huge pile of papers on my desk and have cleaned up as much as I can (considering our bathrooms are still in disarray after some renovations - almost done, down to the painting, also in the bedroom, and finishing touches) before my mom arrives in, well minutes ... she should be here any minute, for a nice long visit from Ontario!! I am excited!

So, knitting . . .

Socktoberfest Socks: Two weeks ago, at Stitch 'n Bitch, I finally finished the toes and I wore them the next day (I haven't since though, as like Laura, I have laundry on my list too!). Julia, the week's knitting host, kindly took some photos for me - check these beauties out - nice photography skills eh?





Stocking Progress:



Here you go! So far, it is coming along ... I still think it is a bit skinny but compared to my old one, it is. ALSO! At that week's knitting session I also learned that I have been purling INCORRECTLY for the past, um, maybe 10 years!! How did I not notice this? How did no one else catch this? Basically I was purling with yarn at the front of the stitch instead of pulling it behind and I was twisting every single stitch in every bit of flat knitting I have done in the past 10 YEARS! This explains why I always thought the switch from knitting in the round to flat knitting seemed more awkward - it always required a sort of twist and twitch of the needles to get the knit stitches off from the previously purled row ...

So, unless I completely frog the stocking I'll have to continue to purl incorrectly for this project, and then continue to purl correctly for the other things I'm working on - mostly little wallets and purses to felt and sell at an upcoming craft fair. Yeah, I know sounds complicated - but I'd rather not frog . . . but the perfectionist in me might . . . but then again, we're almost into November - the BIG stocking day will soon be on its way!

Well, that's all I have time for tonight - so many exciting things in the world of knitting but so little time to knit - I'm looking forward to a road trip with my mom and having her drive so I can really go at 'er!

Stocking Update - Week 5 (Already!?!)

The stocking is only a bit further along however, it is only suffering from neglect with the great progress in my Soctoberfest Socks! No photos yet, but I'm going to try and weave in the ends and tighten up/untangle the kitchener stitch toes so I can wear them tonight, damn it!

I began these socks some time ago (you know, I can't even remember when I started them!) and was using them as a sort of motivator to help me push towards finishing my MA thesis (how else does a knitter motivate herself in things not knitterly?) and getting to the ultimate goal of defending the thesis and wearing the newly named 'Thesis Defense Socks'. Well about 2 weeks ago I decided this thesis was keeping me from moving on with and living the rest of my life and I decided to withdraw from my program and start doing things I love. And so, the 'Thesis Defense Socks' became the 'Birthday Socks' but didn't quite get finished on Sunday (too many phone calls and a squash dish to prepare for dinner) and then became known as the 'Freedom Socks' which I think is a much more appropriate name. So, I'm heading out with a friend tonight to attend a live show downtown, something I never would have done while I was 'working on my thesis' and so, I WILL finish these socks and wear them tonight! Here's to Freedom from doing things you do not love and to freshly knitted socks!

Stocking Update - Week 4

Here's where I was last Sunday:


This photo was taken in my friend's car on the ferry on our way over to Salt Spring Island for the annual Apple Festival.

I'm a little further as of our S'n'B meeting this week and have the face done and am on to the scarf. Poor snowman is looking a little long in the face since my gauge is less wide than my old stocking but I've got to stay to scale and make this stocking the same size as Alyssa's sister's stocking. I'm sure he'll still look cute.

Here are some photos from the Apple Festival:


Fulford Hall was filled with people and apples - hundreds of varieties were displayed on these tables, look at all that colour! Here we enjoyed apple (orange cox) and apple raspberry pie for breakfast - delicious!


Every apple variety grown on the island was on display at the hall - here is a tiny wild apple displayed in a blue naglene bottle of course.

Then we went on, following the map, to visit orchards and farms in search of tasty treats. We headed to Moonstruck Cheese, where was saw this very cool Parking sign (udder & all) and I purchased some blue cheese for my dad hoping it will keep until Christmas.


We then met up with some other friends and visited Bright Farm where they have 350 varieties of apples, pears, plums and cherries as part of a preservation orchard and were given a tour by the owner. I purchased some Alexander apples which are the apples I grew up with in my grandparent's orchard.




Then I treated myself and purchased this beutiful butter dish made by Judy Weeden. I love it.


Now I'm on to enjoying the long Thanksgiving weekend here and I've planned a party to celebrate my birthday, Post Thesis and the opening of Trailer Park Boys the Movie so we'll be enjoying cheese burgers, pepperoni, jalapenos chips and other heart stopping treats. The rest of the weekend will be filled with farmer's markets and farm tours, local produce, hangover recovery, hiking and family feasts! Happy Thanksgiving!

Stocking Update - Week 3

A little late on Friday to do my Mistletoes update but hey I'm not doing too badly actually updating on a Friday!

It has been a bit of a long week (a whole other blog really, but I decided to withdraw from my masters program last Saturday which has meant a really good but slightly unsettling week) but I did make some very nice progress on my stocking during Tuesday's S'n'B session - the smoking snowman's hat is almost done and with the start of the pattern, everything is much more interesting and moving along much more quickly. I do have to look up an online tutorial on intarsia again; some of my transitions look very nice, others very sloppy - I'm less interested in letting that kind of stuff slide with this stocking so we'll see if that translates into actual frogging of errors.

Photos to come after the weekend I hope - I'm off to an apple festival this weekend and I'm sure I'll bring the stocking along since travelling involves a ferry ride AND my driving friend will have her digital camera I bet, so maybe a stocking shot with apples!?!? Excitement!

When Knitting Becomes an Obsession

Maybe you've already seen this, but if you haven't and you're a knitter you MUST.

It is very cute and speaks to me in so many ways about how I do indeed feel obsessed about knitting some days - and who hasn't scratched their head with their needles from time to time (well all the time?) or felt like throwing them into a deep canyon too?

I'm almost embarrassed . . .

I think photos are pretty important and interesting parts of most blogs, especially knitting blogs. I also pride myself on being a bit of an amateur photographer (even though I really only know the basics and am more comfortable shooting in automatic than ib manual). So for these reasons it pains me to even have to upload this photo . . .


Ah yes, the 'incredible' photo quality of the Logitech QuickCam 8.4.6 - here's a beauty at a whopping who knows how many pixels.

In any case here's the stocking so far in all its fine form, 33 rows in. I'm not so keen on the lettering since it looks a little 80s computer-ish up close, but from a distance it isn't so bad I guess. Only 2 more rows until I get to start the colour work and the smoking snowman's hat - this part of the pattern goes much faster once you start into the colour work.

I have to say that overall I am very impressed with the stockings that everyone else in the knit-along have begun (Darra has already finished her first!) and I'm loving the diversity and creativity!

Knit on Mistletoes!

Stocking Update

Well I'm not much further along in the stocking knitting since my post late Friday night. With a weekend of babysitting I didn't have much time for knitting, let alone complicated knitting with a graph to follow and lots of squares to count - and after our Stitch n' Bitch gathering at my place tonight I don't have much to show either - following a graph pattern is pretty difficult when there is always so much interesting conversation to jump in on!

It was a good gathering though with some delicious snacks as always - chocolate, cheese and wine as well as a lovely garden-fresh tomatoe, cheese and arugula salad and I made an Okanagan fruit buckle with plums (from my boyfriend's parent's orchard), nectarines and apricots using this recipe. There were six of us tonight and the projects varied from felted bags (this is our group's favourite pattern to modify) to afghan squares to baby hats to socks knit with handspun wool to a cool fuzzy hodded wrap/poncho. Knitting night is one of my favourite nights of the week!

So yes, back to the stocking update . . .

I am knitting a stocking for my 2 year-old-niece for Christmas. Last year I finally finished the one I started for her 4 year-old sister (I think I started that one in 2002) and when I gave it to Niece #1 she immediately wondered where the stocking was for Niece #2 - such a nice big sister - and wanted to share hers if there wasn't going to be one for her sister. So, Aunt Brandy is on to knitting family stocking Number 2.

Stockings in our family are very important. My great aunt knit matching stockings for my mom and each of her five siblings and knit one for my dad and my brother and sister and I to match. My mom's stocking was knit with 100% wool while my aunt was living in England and as a result is pretty much its original size. Ours on the other hand was knit with chunkier acrylic and so they are much larger than my mom's (more stocking = more loot!) and have stretched over the years as well (we used to wear them as giant socks when we pulled them out of the Christmas decoration box each year). My mom always went out of her way to make sure Christmas was huge for us kids (sometimes to my dad's chagrin) and the stockings were always full and usually had a giant orange stretching out the toe. Every year the three of us kids would fight over who got to put their stocking on which chair since wherever our stocking sat was where our pile of presents from Santa would sit as well. Stocking location was extremely important since we had two old stove pipe holes that opened up in the living room ceiling, one from the bedroom I shared with my sister and the other in my brother's bedroom. Vying for a spot on the chair under the stove pipe hole meant that you could get a sneak peek at the gifts Santa brought you without having to wait to walk down the stairs with everyone else. I think this may have worked for one year and then after that the stockings were always 'mysteriously' switched and placed on the couch across the room or in an opposite chair - foiled by Santa again!! So Christmas stockings are an important part of our holiday traditions and is especially important now to my sister who absolutely loves the fun of Christmas and now has her own two (soon to be three!) children to share it with.

So what do these much loved stockings look like?

Well here is a shot of mine and the toe of my boyfriend's, (knit by my wonderful aunt!) from last Christmas.

This is the same pattern I'll be knitting for this stocking. I think these stocking patterns are very cute and they are very vintage! They come from the Knit-o-Graf Pattern Co. (check here for some vintage knitwear patterns by this company) and the pattern is by Della Fitch, copyright 1952. Here is a peek at an original pattern image I found on EBay for these stockings.


My sister has the lovely Santa sleigh scene on the top left, my dad, brother and boyfriend all have the Santa one on the top right and Niece #1 has the one on the bottom right (she was the first in the family to get this one I think) and sadly, my brother-in-law has a bastardized puppy dog version (I wish I had had the chance to make him an 'original' pattern before my mom bought that one for him, oh well can't remove it from the tradition now).

I'm using a 3 3/4 mm needle (No.5 US) though the pattern calls for a No. 3 - these were the needles I used last time (if I recall correctly) so though I'd like to knit this one up a bit bigger to match the ones from our generation I have to be careful not to make them different sizes for this generation since equality among all children in the family was also a big 'tradition' at our house. I'm using Smart Superwash 100% wool for the majority of colours and will use one ball of Patons Country Garden DK 'The Claire Murray Collection' for any yellow in the pattern.

So that's it, the stocking update! How are your stockings coming along?

I do have a few other projets on the needles which I'd like to share but I don't have access to a camera right now. My boyfriend just left on his 2nd Navy sailing trip for 6 months (less a week!) and he's the one with the digital camera so I'm stuck here with film which doesn't serve a new blogger very well. In the meantime I'll have to make do with poor photo quality from my webcam to show some basic photos of my projects - either that or I'll just have to invite friends with digital cameras over more often for knitting photo shoots ... hmmmm, any volunteers?

Mistletoes Stocking Knit Along

I have officially cast on 82 stitches (as of 9pm tonight) and have knit about 5 rows. The knitting on the stocking for Niece #2 has finally begun! I will post more details about the pattern and wool next week, for now I'm off to bed since I'm doing a sleep over babysitting job this weekend - most certainly fun, but it will be tiring if I don't get my sleep.

Eggplant Babies

The whole idea of starting a little side project called "Eggplant Designs" came from the blankets I love to make for babies I know. These little gems are a flannel ruffled blanket and from what the moms have told me, they come in handy.

I've only made three of these blankets but I LOVE to make them. I love to pick out the perfect material for each baby (or as the case may sometimes be, their parents), I love how quickly they sew up and I love how cute the ruffle is and how warm and cuddly they are.

Here are photos of two of the blankets I've made. The first photo is of the first Eggplant Baby, Aidan.



Aidan is the adorable baby of my friends Amy & Mark. He is now 14 months old and also received matching burpping pads I was able to make with leftover material.

The second and third Eggplant Babies are Isabella and Rob respectively. Photos are pending for both of these cuties but in the meantime here are two shots of the John Deere blanket I made for Rob to give you a better idea of what they look like close up.





Edit:And here's a recent photo of Isabella - Wade & Bryony's oh so cute cutie - thanks for the pic Bryony!



I'm looking forward to making two more of these in the near future. On Tuesday my boyfriend's sister-in-law is scheduled for a c-section and my sister is due with baby #3 in late December.

While I have other more pressing projects on the go right now (not the least of which is my MA thesis, something I have to keep reminding myself of!) I'm hoping I might be able to take these blankets retail and sell in several local stores as well as online. I have a line on some organic fabric and I'm on the look out for vintage flannel to really make these blankets unique. The first step in making this a reality was purchasing some labels to attach to my creations. I ordered these online from Carmen at Luscious Labels and I love them! (Sorry for the webcam quality photo.)



The next step will be finishing my thesis so I can free up some time (or more realistically, finally have some "guilt free," free time) to devote to building this little side business. In addition to making these blankets, I also love to design and knit items for others and take photographs so I decided that any name for my creative business couldn't be limited to reflecting one creative outlet or the other and I chose the name Eggplant Designs. Why eggplant? I'm not really sure exactly, but my favourite colour is purple and I do love the shape and sheen of a large plump aubergine so I think that may have swayed my decision.

So that's the story of how Eggplant Designs came to be.

Eggplant Designs Online

Post # 1 is complete ... now I can share all of the knitting and sewing I'd rather be working on than working on my thesis.