Almost Over

Even though I've reached my goal of stitches for NaKnitMo I'm still trying to see how far I can go. My official goal was eventually raised to 180,000 stitches but I fell asleep on Friday and never got around to increasing it one last time. As of this morning I've now knit 197,264 stitches. I was hoping to reach 200,000 but there is no doubt in my mind I can do that.

Yesterday I was at The Purple Purl and I brought the final colourway I have of the Regia Designer Line Kaffe Fassett yarn. This is what I'd completed on the first sock by early afternoon. By the time I konked out last night I finished the heel. When I woke up at 4:30 this morning I cast on the toe of the second sock. I am now 4 rounds from doing the gussett so I should have the second heel done today. For the legs I am going to do the Circle Socks. These socks are supposed to be done top down but I prefer toe up so I'm just following my regular sock construction and will do the stitch pattern for the circle socks on the leg. I finished these on Saturday and as usual I love the way they turned out. I think I'll be a little sad when I finish the last colourway of this yarn. I'm debating if I want to go back to Mary's Yarns and get more.

I'm also working on Revontuli. The yarn is Lana Grossa Meilenweit in their Solo collection. I worked on this at The Purl yesterday until I reached the end of the first skein of yarn. Now I have to attach the second skein and get back to it but I think I will do that after NaKnitMo is done.

More NaKnitMo Finishes

NaKnitMo knitting continues. I've actually met my goal of 150,000 sts. I did that yesterday. The deadline to increase has passed so I am going to try and see if I can get to 170,000 even if it won't be official. I finished Revontuli except for the blocking. I used Noro Silk Garden sock yarn. I love the Noro colours but, honestly, I am not a Noro yarn fan at all. It's the second time I've knit with Noro. The first was a pair of socks out of Kureyon sock yarn and this is the second. Unless I see something amazing I don't think I'll be knitting with Noro again.

I also finished another pair of socks from the Regia Kaffe Fassett Designer Line. I can't even begin to express how much I love the way these socks work up. I found that Mary's Yarns in Markham carries the yarn so I went last week and picked up this colourway along with a skein of Lana Grossa Meilenweit Solo yarn in colourway number 5201. Then I decided instead of using the Meilenweit for socks it needed to be another Revontuli so I went back on Friday and got another skein of Solo and 2 more colourways of the Regia yarn.

I've cast on the second Revontuli and am almost finished with chart 2 but I haven't taken pictures yet. Pictures will follow when the shawl comes off the needles. I love the way the colours are working up and it will be interesting to see how much it looks as the shawl becomes wider.

This is the third pair of socks from the Regia Designer Line. I've started the gussett on the first sock and this is the second sock. Joseph has a dentist appointment this afternoon so this is the sock I decided to bring with me to work on while I wait for him to finish.

It's Amazing

NaKnitMo has been great for my knitting mojo. Here's the picture of the finished socks as promised. I really love the way they worked up. I liked it so much I went and bought another colourway of the same line. I started them last night at Snb and boy are they going to be bright. There is a very bright orange and bright green in the colourway I bought. It should be interesting to see how it works up.
I also finally finished knitting this Spring Blossom shawl on Friday and got it blocked yesterday. The yarn is my own handspun. Fibre is Ashford merino/silk blend in colour cinnamon. I am so pleased with the final result. When I blocked it the shawl ended up being larger than I expected and for that I am even happier.

Happy 2nd Birthday

Yesterday, November 15th the Purple Purl turned 2. As they did for their first birthday they had a sale on purple yarn. I took advantage and got some Noro Silk Garden sock to knit Revontuli. I've seen this quite a bit lately and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to give it a go. I've only used the Noro Kureyon sock yarn and honestly, except for the gorgeous colours, I didn't enjoy the knit at all. I'm hoping the Silk Garden will be different.



Miko and Jennifer thank you for making your "little purl of a shop" such an inviting place to be. I've made many new friends and acquaintances over the last two years. When I go to the purl it's just like knitting in my living room only so much better. Keep up the great work. I look forward to many more years of laughing, shopping, knitting and just spending time together.

Due to the birthday bash I spent the entire day at the Purl and got some great knitting time in. Between yesterday and early knitting this morning I managed just over 10,000 sts yesterday. I'm increased my NaKnitMo goal to 120,000 and I might just increase it to 150,000 as Drea suggested. I just want to see how the next few days go before I commit. Totals as of this morning is 84,632 out of 120,000.

I finished one sock using the Regia Kaffe Fassett designer yarn I bought at The Needle Emporium last week. Originally I was doing a k3p2 rib starting at the top of the foot and then ripped it out. The yarn really needed just st st to show just how nice this yarn really works up. Pictures to follow once the second sock is done.

Mr. Peacock

The best part about NaKnitMo is all the knitting I seem to be getting done. The bad part, the spinning is suffering. I haven't really had much spinning time with all the knitting. Last night I finished this Peacock facecloth. The edging is different thatn the pattern calls for. I honestly don't remember where the edging came from. I saw someone make it when I was still on the knit list. I didn't design the edging and therefore can take no credit for it. I like it much better than the edging Medrith did.

I have knit this facecloth many times but I haven't knit it in quite a few years so it was almost like visiting it for the first time. The pattern was originally from an old issue of Workbasket, I believe. Then Medrith Glover redid it. It's really magical. The knitting can be fiddly and not for the novice but it's still great fun. There is a "square" version in The Lacy Knitting of Mary Schiffmann. I knit that version as well when the book first came out but I was never quite happy with how the peacock looked off centre when you tried to square off the doily. Now I want to see if there is a way to make this lovely peacock into a shawl. I have some ideas kicking around in my brain. I'm not sure if it will work or not. Time will tell.

I also finished these socks for my BIL. He's been driving me nuts to make socks for him for years. When my MIL was in the hospital all he did was keep asking me when he would get his socks. I gave in and started these socks. The pattern is Colosseum, I believe. It was one of the socks from the Sockamania club but then it was called No Name Socks. The yarn is Brunswick Nylamb that I had in my stash. This sock yarn is so soft. It's softer than most other sock yarn I've used. The problem is the colour. It is really really difficult to knit these things with my old eyes. If I every make socks from this yarn again, and I probably will since I have more chocolate and black yarn in my stash, it's going to have to be a st st pattern where I don't have to really look at the pattern and keep track of anything. I don't plan on knitting another men's pair of socks in the near future. The feet are too long and it seems like it takes forever to knit even though I finished these socks in about 2 weeks.

DKC Bus Trip

Saturday was the 4th annual DKC bus trip. This is my first year going and I am so glad I did. I am pretty sure it won't be the last time I join the group. We gathered bright and early at Finch sation and were on our way promply at 8. The first stop was The Needle Emporium in Ancaster. It was great to see Julie on her turf. I'm used to seeing her at the Knitter's Fair or the Knitter's Frolic. Her selection is vast.
Julie always has a great bag selection and this time was no different. I bought the Namaste Hermosa bag in eggplant.



I was pretty good in terms of yarn. I only bought 2 skeins of Regia Designer sock yarn in their Exotic Pool colourway and a skein of lace yarn from Prism yarns. There's about 1,460 yards to this 100 gram skein. The colourway is fog. I just fell in love. In addition to that I bought the fall Knitter's magazine, a sheep tape measure, a Berroco pattern booklet with this pattern and some cords and 6mm tips for my Addi Clicks.


Once we were done at The Needle Emporium we borded the bus and headed off to lunch.



The bus driver took us from Ancaster to Caledon. The drive was about an hour and the scenery was gorgeous. Lunch was delicious. We had pumpkin soup, quiche with salad and then pie for dessert.



I felt sorry for our bus driver. They kept asking him to move the bus. When we finished our lunch we had to walk up the hill (not far at all) and passed this. I am guessing it's supposed to be a man and a woman but I'm not totally sure.

From lunch we went to our final desitanation - Camilla Valley Farms. I was finally able to get the 2mm - 40 inch Addi lace circular needles I'd been looking for.


I only bought the needles and this purple tencel yarn. I have an idea what I want to knit with it but I'm waiting to see if the cotton yarn I originally was going to use for that project comes in. If it doesn't I'll use this for another Magickal Earth shawl since the one I knit earlier in the year seems to want to continually develop holes.

No pics from Camilla Valley. I was so tired by the time we got there and suffering from horrible nausea so I totally forgot. It's in the middle of nowhere and really is a farm. You could tell the minute we got off the bus. Surprisingly enough though, they didn't have sheep, only cows.

As for NaKnitMo, I didn't get to knit quite as much on the bus as I would have liked because the nausea was getting bad. I did managed to knit some on both the second sock for BIL and the Spring Blossom shawl. With the knitting I did once I got home I managed to knit just over 7000 sts on Saturday.

NaKnitMo

It's November again already!! It's amazing to me how fast the time flies. Instead of doing NaBloPoMo where I have to blog everyday, I decided to do NaKnitMo - National Knitting Month. I have to knit 60,000 sts during the month of November. So far I've had a bit of a head start by finishing this scarf that is a store sample for The Purple Purl.

The pattern is called Nightjar and it's from the Mirasol Collection book 6. This book chock full of lovely accessories. The yarn I used is Sulka and it is just scrumptious. It's a softly spun chunky/bukly weight yarn that I'd love to untwist and spin with. The colour is Red Onion.

I also started this Cabin Fever pattern called Jane Austen Shawl. I did the kerchief size which is much smaller than the shawl size. This is also a store sample for The Purl and I used Misti Alpaca Super Chunky. This was such a fast knit. I'm not used to using such big needles like I used for this and the scarf. Lately I've been knitting socks on 2mm needles or shawls on like 3.25mm needles so the 6mm and 10mm needles was quite the change.

The best part of it is I've forgotten just how quickly this stuff knits up. If I need a reminder, I recently discovered Sylvi. I discovered it when an FO was posted by someone in one of the groups I'm in. Well I just fell in love and knew I had to make this pattern. It's not really for me so I decided to knit it for my daughter. I bought Cabin Fever Northern Lights yarn in Blueberry for the sweater. I was debating other colours but this was one I liked and there was enough of them in stock. I am having challenges with the gauge but I think there will be some wiggle room in the size so I am going to use 6mm needles. I tried going up to 6.5mm but I didn't like the way the swatch felt even after being washed. If I knit this with needles that are too large the weight of the coat will just stretch the coat to pieces. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Now to just try and get the first sleeve done.

I'm also trying to knit a pair of socks for my BIL. Knitting these socks reminds me why I can't stand knitting socks for men. Their feet are just to bloody long. I'm also using Brunswick Nylamb in a chocolate brown colour and it's not easy on the eyes at all. The first sock is done and I am going to try and use NaKnitMo as encouragement to get the second sock done. Even though I don't usually have second sock syndrome, I think I could easily develop it with these pair of socks.
Finally, Monday was my friend Suzie's birthday. A friend of hers made these cupcakes and brought them to The Purl last night. The decorations are knitting related. They are just too cute for words. I can't speak for the taste because I didn't try them but judging from everyone's reaction they tasted as good as they looked.

I went to Gemini Fibres on Saturday and I'll post all about that in my next post. I need to take pictures of the loot. Saturday is the annual DKC bus trip and I'm going this year for the first time. It promises to be tons of fun. I am so looking forward to it. The challenge will be to behave. I'm going to try but it won't be easy. It never is. However, my stash is so out of control I will try to keep that in mind as I try not to browse.