Knitting is slow-going these days, but I finished the Brooklyn Tweed Irving toque this past weekend. It's a belated Christmas gift for my dad.

{I asked Greg to wear it for the photo. He gave two thumbs up for the Kathmandu tweed I found at Romni Wools to use as a substitute for BT Shelter.}

Jyri

I found some time this past spring to knit myself a scarf. I have not picked up the needles since. I lost any will I had to knit after finishing Norah Gaughan's Jyri. Which is a shame, because I like how it turned out.

Jane, for gran

I knit a toque, changing up the length and decreasing it properly to make a cap instead of a slouchy knit. A gift for my gran. Not in the mail yet, but soon. I tried it out this weekend (is that even allowed), while back at the Farmhouse.

It was cold. I was warm.

Habitat

I couldn't help myself. I knit Greg another toque. I love the Habitat pattern. I had a skein of grey Lopi and I had exam studying that needed to be put off. And so, I knit.

After the first of my four finals, my friends convinced me that the best place to study over the weekend was at a farmhouse on the Bay of Fundy. I did study, and when the studying was done, I finished the toque. I rushed to finish it, actually, because we planned a study break walk alongside the Bay of Fundy and it was frigid out (and maybe by "rush," I mean that I took a study break to knit).

[Greg wears the toque below]

If You Build It, They Will Come

I had several 3/4 balls of wool and was racking my brain trying to figure out what to do with them, and then it came to me: I need to knit baby-sized things. There are no babies in my life, but I figured, not improbably, that if I knit baby-sized things, someone will eventually have a baby. In honour of one of my sister's favourite childhood books, I knit Saartje's Booties in red red wool.

The Sweater That Took Three Years to Knit

(my roommate Aurelie is modelling it here)

This sweater started at Birkeland Brothers back in September of 2007 when I bought 8 skeins of Berroco Peruvia in grey. I had in mind a different sweater to knit, but changed my mind when I came across the Drops Jacket pattern. I started the actual knitting a year later, after I'd left Vancouver for Halifax and was living in a lonely one bedroom apartment. Although I don't like starting one thing before the last is finished, I knit several other things (including a whole different sweater) before casting off and seaming this jacket in August of this year.


By the end, I tore apart and reknit so much of this that I could have knit two other sweaters. But, that's part of the process, and in the process, I'm learning patience.

Needle Roll Redux

Kate is a good friend, who happens to be a fellow knitter. She visited me while I was living in Toronto this summer and, among other things, we went to Lettuce Knit. She picked up a needle roll and might have bought it, but I offered to make her one for her birthday if she a) promised not to buy herself one and b) forgot that I offered. She turned 25 last week. So, using bespoke uprising fat quarters, I made one for her this afternoon. Thankfully we're celebrating her birthday tomorrow. Otherwise, I'd be late.

Jacques Cousteau's Toque

It's taken a long time to photograph the Jacques Cousteau style toque I knit Greg (a basic 2x2 rib in red wool), but he wore it this past weekend, while we were camping in Frontenac Park, and as the sun went down and it started to rain, I did, between fits of laughter.


This man is hilarious.


(J-Y C photo found here)

Needle Roll

I love the needle roll my sister made for me, and Aurelie was in need of one for her expanding knitting needle collection, so, I made her one as a birthday gift. I used a Repeat fat quarter, a Ro Fagan print, and some blue cotton.

Happy birthday Aurelie!

Handknits for my Beautiful Little Sister

In 2005 - A 2x2 rib scarf made from a hank of hand-dyed wool I found at Urban Yarns in Vancouver (I was knitting her a reversible cable scarf with wool she'd given me, but I ran out of wool at about 36 inches).

In 2007 - The second pair of Pearl's Topless Mittens I'd ever made (I had enough wool, once I frogged the reversible scarf). For cdc, for shoulder season dog-walking.


In 2009 - I knit Bella Mitts for three of my favourite ladies. I knit a mohair plum coloured pair as a Christmas gift for cdc.

[cdc also obliged my request for photos of her handknits, because I didn't photograph what I'd made her, either.]

Grove Mittens for Katie

These are the mittens I made Katie. I knit rows during study breaks, hidden away in a library carrel.

They're meant to keep her hands warm while walking dogs, shovelling snow, or while riding her bike during the winter months.

Pattern here: http://brooklyntweed.blogspot.com/2009/08/made-in-brooklyn-accessories.html

Guillaume Sweater

He noticed my knitting basket the first time he came to my house. He knew his grandmother loved him, he told me, because when he was little, she knit him sweaters (we've revisited that conversation several times since, and it eventually came out that the sweaters were too itchy to wear.) And I realised I loved him when, among other indicators, I found myself wanting to knit him a sweater, too.

I had two patterns in mind and consulted in secret with our mutual male friends and with his mother (who is also a knitter). I found the wool at Romni Wools during the end-of-September bff reunion weekend in Toronto. The Romni ladies helped me figure out how much wool to buy (the pattern recommended 10 balls of out-of-production wool) and helped me find a non-itchy fiber. Suze helped me pick out an appropriate colour of wool.

Every Friday afternoon; evenings spent watching Gossip Girl or Mad Men; a post-exam weekend on the couch; and finally the sweater was knit. I blocked it with a dry iron and a wet sheet late the night before my roommate Aurelie and I made the holiday drive back to Ontario, pressing each piece between pulling clothes and other sundries out of my drawers and cupboards. I started seaming it while listening to CBC overnight and finished it by the time we hit New Brunswick. I was in the passenger seat and held it up to show Aurelie. As I did so, this strange feeling come over me - an indescribable feeling - because this was the first sweater I'd ever knit and I very surprisingly enjoyed all of it. Tearing it apart because I thought it was going to be too small; hours of stockinette; too scared to check my gauge (which I did do, and which was bang on); worrying it was going to be too big; seaming.

He thanked me. He wore it. He thanked me later that day and again since. He wore it again.

So a sweater was the right gift, superstition or no. Also, he looks incredibly handsome in a handknit.

Bella Mitts for my BFF

Having seen me knitting the Kelsey-bound Bella mitts this past summer (during an unseasonably cold and rainy weekend we had planned to spend wine-touring the Niagara region), Suze asked whether I might make her a pair for Christmas.

"Of course," I answered, "what colour?"

One long trip to Romni Wools in Toronto, and several colour consultation cellphone photos later, I had 200g/200m of wool in mustard (I have about 60g/60m left). It took a car drive from Montreal to Halifax to knit the left mitt. I started the right mitt on a labour day weekend away and finished it up during an afternoon with my knitting group later in September.

This was the first Christmas handknit I finished and Christmas was still over three months away. And so I stored them in a box in my closet; an end of September bff reunion and Suze's November birthday passed, and still I waited to give them to her. Then December came. Exams ended. A long drive back to Ontario was survived. Suze visited me at my parents' house on the 26th, and five minutes once in the door we exchanged gifts. And as the friend she is, she didn't take the mitts off for the better part of her overnight visit.

She also sent me photos of the mitts almost immediately after I asked for them, because I'd forgotten to take any myself.

Bella Mittens for KLC

It took a few months to finish these. Mostly because warming weather makes knitting with wool from Iceland a ridiculous pasttime. But, I did finish them, because the weather hasn't always been so balmy.

See here for pattern: http://subliminalrabbit.blogspot.com/2008/12/bellas-mittens-updated-pattern.html

Because I am Committed to Revisability

The very first thing I ever knit, and way back in 2003, was a scarf for my bff Suze. It was 15 feet long and very narrow. She graciously accepted it, and even wore it a few times (it is for reasons like this that Suze is my bff). Realising that it wasn't going to get much play and wasn't very useful, I thought it best to take the scarf back, tear it apart, and make something new to offer to her.

I made the Morningside Cowl for myself over the holidays. I wear mine all the time. I thought, what better than to make la Suze something already known to be useful? So, I've spent the past month's worth of Friday afternoons knitting it for her and, because I was so close to done, finished it last night.

Very soon she will be visiting and I will offer it to her then.


(Edited January 2010)

Suze modelling the cowl:

Although they're impractical when it's really cold out...

One night on a post-exam bar tour, I lost the first pair of Pearl's Topless Mitts that I knit. Although I called the many bars I'd stopped at several times in the weeks that followed, the mitts never turned up. I knit the second pair of Pearl's Topless Mitts for my sister. This is my third pair.

Because sometimes cold wind blows down my back

I learned the brioche stitch (it took two days, several starts and a season of the Wire) to make this cowl. It keeps me warm. Which sort of works out, because Halifax is by no means balmy.

Though this isn't my brother, this is the hat I knit for him. It took over a year to finish. It's keeping him warm in Montreal.