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.