Hot off the Hook!

My tulip stitch baby blanket is done! Here it is!

 Kinda pretty, no? I love all the colour transitions and how it has a nice 3-D effect, as these close-ups show.

This blanket was an absolute blast to make...I think I will make another one with different colours one day.

And while I am sharing projects, here are a few that aren't QUITE so hot off the hook. I was looking for a way to use up a bunch of Pumpkin coloured Loops and Threads yarn I had, and came across this Nadie The Fox pattern. I decided to give it a try, and it turned out lovely! Of course, I ran out of yarn most of the way through, and had to buy another Skein of Pumpkin, so my stash is still in need of busting, but that's the way these things go, haha.

I love how it turned out. Looks like I'm well prepared for future baby showers!

I also did an amigurumi project that I spotted on Spin a Yarn Crochet... a crochet sloth for my friend who just happens to love sloths! I basically trotted off to the yarn store for yarn the moment I saw this pattern. I used the Bernat Handicrafter Cotton that the pattern recommends and it turned out just swimmingly! I really liked how this pattern was laid out so that you construct each body part and piece as you go...it took away most of the sewing hatred I have when doing amigurimi, haha.

So here's my version of this adorable sloth. I'm glad he's happy at his new home! He was hard to give away though....so cute.

And finally...I thought perhaps I should share a finished photo of those ponchos I talked about for weeks on end...

Here they are! I think they will look so cute on the girls I made them for. Now that they've been sitting complete in my house for a few months...might be time to get those in the mail so that they will be ready for action when the fall weather comes.

I hope you all enjoyed my recent finished projects! We'd love to see what you've finished lately as well :)

What do you stitch to?

And just like that, since our WIP post I've got about double the projects going on! Just the nature of the hobby :D The weather here has been glorious as well; perfect to sit outside all weekend and put in a lot of good work!

I finally got a chance to try out one of my handmade crochet hooks and it works like a dream! I always forget how quickly crochet works up (when you have an entire afternoon everything moves quickly, haha) and I've almost burned through my first 50g ball of yarn doing a self-designed shawl pattern. I've decided to "make up" the other half of it with different yarn anyway, so it'll be just fine. It's nice to test out this pattern anyway - I wanted to design something that you could either knit OR crochet and get a similar effect, so here's hoping I've got it to where I want it.

Anyway, my question today is: what do you do whilst you knit/crochet? I find myself just enjoying the weather outside and usually sitting in (relative) silence when I can get it, but when I'm inside, I usually feel I have to have something on TV - our TV kind of takes up the entire wall of our tiny living room, so it's just there LOOMING over me otherwise. But on the bus, it's all about music, and I've been enjoying a bit of a "memory lane" playback lately (especially at work): Lifehouse, Silverchair, Big Wreck, and magically, there are a few Big Shiny Tunes playlists on Spotify!

Not that I'm on the bus too often lately; with the weather so warm and pleasant, I cycle to work when I can. It's way faster and it allows me to get in way more cake ;)

AND now I see one of my favourite shows to stitch to, Stranger Things, has a release date for Season 2! Happy Hallowe'en!!

Projects abound! Our WIPs

Happy Friday! With the weekend coming up, our minds are mulling over the WIPs that we will be getting our hands on as soon as we get home from work. Here's what we're up to...

Kaeleigh: Well, if you read my Canadian holiday post, you know I have a few projects on the go - as always. I'm blocking the Creature Comforts cardi this weekend (and then come the arms, since it's cocoon-style), and still plugging away on the Starting Point shawl, which will probably finish sometime before Christmas but since the M is off the MKAL, to be honest I'm not that rushed. I've also finally started a Flax pullover for my husband since I've been trying to make him a sweater for three years and haven't yet got anything that fits him right. The first pullover was a wreck of ill-fitting sadness, and the cardigan was first, HUGE, and then once felted, too tight. Third time's the charm?

I also have in mind a cardigan for my Logan yarn, and I'm just desperate to get a few crochet projects going with the hooks that my father-in-law and I made together - that's right! We actually made crochet hooks; he's an award-winning wood carver and he let me loose on his workshop (probably too generous a statement; he taught me how to use a lathe and then I attempted to not ruin a few blanks, haha). All in all, I came away with five gorgeous hooks varying in size from I think 4.5mm to 6.5mm, and I can't wait to test them out! Bernice keeps me aware that a lot of the gorgeous patterns I see these days are done up in knitting, but I'm positive they can be "interpreted" in crochet, and a coworker of mine just brought over an Estonian knitting book that I will definitely be using for reference with some lovely colourwork charts! In essence, a very busy next few months for sure.

Bernice: Right now I'm working on a baby blanket idea I had been mulling over in my mind for quite some time - I wanted to make a blanket that utilized multiple different colourways of Caron Cakes yarn. What I finally decided on was a Tulip Stitch blanket. I decided that the four rows would be 1) a ground or dirt row, 2) the leaf row, 3) the flower row and then 4) a sky row. It took me a LONG time to decide on colours, but I eventually settled on Cookies and Cream for the ground, Lemon Lime for the leaves, Funfetti for the flowers, and Blueberry Cheesecake for the sky. I was kind of worried how it all might work out at first, but it didn't take too long before I settled into the rainbow coloured mayhem! The constant colour changes made this blanket a lot of fun to make, so much so, I had trouble putting it down and going to bed every night I worked on it!

There's a photo of how it started to work out! Once I got it to the appropriate size, it was time to decide on a border. Again I mulled over this for an incredible amount of time before I decided to keep leaning into the flower theme and went with a Rose Border. I'm using this border as an opportunity to hopefully use up more of the same colours I used for the main part of the blanket. Here's a little peek at how it's working out, now that I'm on the leaves portion of it:

The leaves are 2 triple crochet clusters separated by a chain of 5 worked into the same stitch. It is worked into the row 2 down from the leaf row and is creating a nice 3-D effect! I'm really happy with how it's coming out. Can't wait to share a finished product with you soon!

My Canadian Adventure

Well we've been on a bit of a post hiatus but it's been for a good cause: I was out in Canada for almost a glorious month of work-free shenanigans! And boy, did I keep busy!

First of all, I left my whole set of knitting needles on the coach on the way to the airport, which was BRUTAL whilst on the plane and wanting to make headway on my Creature Comforts cardi that I'd specifically chosen for the trip. Now don't get me wrong, I had two other projects on the go, but they were both too big for my carry-on, so I had to make do with sulking and loud angry music instead. My main project was a lush wedding present afghan in Lion Brand Homespun (a favourite to feel, but definitely NOT a favourite to knit as it's quite knobbly and hard to read) which I worked on constantly to finish by the end of our trip. I decided to upsize a baby blanket pattern published by The Purl Bee (Purl Soho's pattern-publishing arm) and it turned out really well...but I didn't take a single photo! Shame on me. It wasn't complicated but it looked awesome when it was done :)

My other project on the go is the MKAL from Joji Locatelli, the Starting Point shawl that Instagram was losing its collective mind over before it came out, haha. I caved and got yarn for it, all ready to tackle it over my holiday...and all my time was taken up with the blanket! So I'm still working on it.

For those of you keeping score, I had needles already in both of my pre-existing projects before I lost my other needles. And the Creature Comforts cardi starts off with pocket linings, so I had my 5mm needles in those still, but didn't have any 4.5mm, which you need for the ribbing. Alas. I bought some whilst in Michaels, and bought some new 4.0mm at Stash in Calgary for my Starting Point; although I already had one pair of 4.0mm circulars, some of you know that Starting Point has TWO pieces exactly the same, so I was using one pair already, and then had to use straight needles for the other piece...which was driving me batty.

Anyway, the trip was amazeballs, no two ways about it. Each part of it was awesome in its own way: we stayed at the farm with my in-laws (always excellent), then with my parents (of course I love being home with them), and then I went off to Bernice's and we took off to Calgary for a weekend of fantastic hair-metal mayhem and some family time with the Western branch of my family. My brother has lived in Calgary nearly twenty years but I'm afraid I can count the number of visits on almost one hand :S I love going every time I do though, and this time was definitely no exception - we hung out and had some beers, I got to play with my niece and nephew (well...I mostly just watched them play, which is more fun for them, haha), and then Bernice and I kidnapped my sister-in-law and made her take us up to Inglewood to Stash, a glorious yarn heaven near central Calgary. I restrained myself fairly well - I only bought four skeins of Logan, an Ancient Arts limited edition colourway, and another skein of an accent colour for a cardigan I have in mind, as well as some buttons and the aforementioned 4.00mm needles - but I did get a chance to pet the Lykke Driftwood needles I've been seeing, and I couldn't resist sending a picture of them to my husband. Hey, gift ideas, amirite?
But easily our favourite part of the trip (certainly more than climbing Tunnel Mountain) was the Def Leppard/Poison/Tesla show, which, from a front row vantage, was ear- and mind-blowingly amazing! I can't overstate it: the show was epic, and we came away with a pick from each band AND Bernice snagged a drumstick from Poison in the best catch I've ever seen in my life.

We had to head back to real life after that, and between some serious house renos at Bernice's and a wild wedding weekend in the country (I had to pull over for rain so hard it was completely white, and narrowly missed a tornado, and that was just the ride out!), the rest of the trip passed in a flash and we were back on the plane home all too soon, with overweight luggage and so many amazing memories. I love Canada deeply, and it was such a good feeling to be back in Manitoba, which will always be the home of my heart.

And as an awesome conclusion, I emailed again about my missing needles and they'd been turned in at the bus depot, so I picked them up, and now I ALSO have a gorgeous set of the Lykke Driftwood needles to back me up in case I'm so sleep-deprived I leave my needles behind anywhere else.

Happy Canada Day!

Wow! With the Canada Day long weekend coming up, Yarnspirations has dropped a Canada 150 edition Lookbook! The day it came out, Kaeleigh and I spent a fair amount of time looking it over and talking about which patterns we liked best.

With a nice variety of Canada-themed Patterns, I immediately felt the urge to make almost every pattern in this Lookbook.

The bad news about this for me as a crocheter is that it's the knit patterns that REALLY shine. There are three knit sweater patterns, all of which I want to make! There's the Canada pullover, and also also the beautiful Nordic Stag Knit Jacket and the True North Knit Jacket. Throw in the Loon Knit Pillow and you've got my favourite patterns in the Lookbook!

It seems the crochet patterns were all a lot more beginner or easy level patterns, and disappointingly, there are no crochet clothing patterns. I can see myself making the Lumberjack Crochet Throw or the Buffalo Plaid Afghan, they're both lovely blanket patterns.

Bernice's Stand Out Patterns:

Favourite Knit Pattern: True North Knit Jacket. I want to make both the knit jackets! It's looking like this winter I may be honing my knitting skills.

Favourite Crochet Pattern: Lumberjack Crochet Throw. It's cute AND cozy! I like the simple yet clever pattern.

No Thank You, Please: Croch-Eh! Throw Pillow. Haha, cute name, Yarnspirations. I'm kind over over the word patterns at this point. Also, eh should have a question mark not an exclamation mark after it, eh?

Kaeleigh's Stand Out Patterns: 

Favourite Knit Pattern: True North Knit Jacket. I love both jackets but this one wins because I'm not a fan of the moose on the back of the other.

Favourite Crochet Pattern: Lumberjack Crochet Throw, though to be honest this was a tough one as I loved the other throws too! I'm a big fan of the worksock similarities.

No Thank You, Please: Maple Leaf Crochet Dishcloth. As much as I do agree with Bernice about the Croch-Eh! pillow, I hate crocheted dishcloths. They are just not my jam. I'd be much more inclined to use this pattern as another applique, but definitely not as a dishcloth. It's not even a good shape for cleaning; what about a trivet or potholder instead?