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About Rayna

Newfoundlander, returned home from Toronto a few years ago after 14 years in exile! Knitter of pretty string, spinner of fluff (mostly wheel), sometimes designer and newbie dyer. Occasional stringer of shiny rocks. Wife, and doggie mom.

Desperate times call for desperate measures

For the past few months, I have been valiantly chugging away at two pairs of fingering weight socks, one for my Mom and one for my Dad.  It all started when I was at home in Newfoundland this summer.  Mom decided she liked the pair of Hermione’s Everyday Socks I was working on, and because she had caught me at exactly the right point in the process and I was not all that enamoured with them, I offered to finish them to fit her.  Once she had them, she told me she loved them and would really love another pair to go with her brown jeans.  My parents have never asked me to knit them anything, ever, so I thought that was the least I could do.

Now, there are two things you should know about this.  My mother has a size 10.5 foot – I have a size 7 foot.  So as you can imagine these socks require an awful lot more stitches than I usually have to knit to finish a pair of socks.

The bigger issue: I loathe brown.  With the fiery passion of a thousand suns.  (That’s a slight exaggeration – indigodragonfly makes a Captain Tightpants colourway that I like, and I don’t mind it in variegated colourways like the ones in my Stillwater scarf…but that’s about it).  So it should be telling of how much I love my Mom when I tell you that I knit a pair of size 10.5 brown socks for her.

It gets better.  I cannot knit my mother two pairs of socks, and not knit any for my father.  That just won’t do at all.  This necessity for equality is come by honestly.  When my brother and I were children, Mom kept a running account of what she spent on each of us at Christmas to make sure the numbers were even.  So I ask Dad what colours he would want, since of course I need to knit him two pairs as well.  His answer?  Dark blue and….brown.  Normally, being the dutiful daughter, I would have asked him which socks he wanted first; I skipped that step and cast on the Sweet Fiber Seastorm ones.  Because one more brown pair of socks might have killed me.  He’ll get the brown ones in the spring.  After which I will be declaring a moratorium on brown knitting for a minimum of six months.

I am at the gusset decreases of the second Seastorm sock.  It’s not brown but it’s still not exactly colourful.  Last night, out of pure desperation, I cast on a Reunion Cowl.  In indigodragonfly MCN Lace.  In the most stunning red in the world, made even better by being named after one of my favourite TV characters…Inara from Firefly.

indigodragonfly MCN Lace in "Only The Exact Phrase I Used Was Don't"

indigodragonfly MCN Lace in “Only The Exact Phrase I Used Was Don’t”

This is my cheering antidote against the current winter blahs.

It has been pointed out to me….

That I really should pay more attention to my blog.  I currently hit it in fits and starts…partly because I get busy and have little time to post, partly because the only computer at home is my husband’s and he’s a student, and partly because I feel like my pics are so bad that I have no right to be putting them anywhere.

It’s been a busy autumn…where by busy I mean that I spent a lot of time knitting.  Not sure why I don’t feel like I have the FOs to show for it.  I am knitting a lot of socks that I am giving away, which is completely new for me.  More on that later.  I have completed 12 pairs of socks this year, which upon counting and discovering that,  I will admit to being a touch shocked.  One of those pairs was a test/sample knit for Kate Atherley, over at Wise Hilda Knits, one of my favourite sock designers.  Those need to be their own FO post.

Another thing I have put some time into and have hit the 50% point on is the scarf I mentioned in October.  It’s as awesome as I thought it would be and frankly, if I wasn’t trying to finish up a few things before Christmas, it would be done by now.

Zigzag Wanderer in Stillwater

Zigzag Wanderer in Stillwater

I cannot wait for this to be done!!

This past weekend I spent a huge amount of time either brunching or hanging out in yarn shops.  (What? Both are completely valid lifestyle choices.)  Lovely visits to Eweknit and The Purple Purl with my friend Shireen netted both Christmas gifts for others and belated birthday gifts for me.

Speaking of Christmas gifts, I am looking forward to Christmas in Newfoundland, which we do every second year.  We won’t be decorating or anything, as hubby is in his very last set of final exams and I really can’t be bothering him to help me do things right now.  As a result, to put me somewhat in the spirit, I have been trying to find a good gingerbread recipe.  Last night’s was a spectacular failure (my fault, not the recipe’s!) and a teensy bit too gingery for me, I think.  Half a cup of real ginger and no cinnamon or cloves wasn’t really the taste I was after.  So my search continues.  Got one to share?

FO: Baudelaire

Wow…two posts in one day!  I realized that in my blog-absence, it seems I have completed quite a number of FOs and have not blogged any of them.  Thought I’d play catch up so there’s a chance these posts might be shorter that previous ones.  We’ll see.

Early this spring, my friend Liz had some friends over to lunch and opened her stash up for perusal.  I ran across a couple of skeins/wound balls of yarn I loved, and the ever-generous Liz said “If you will use them before I will, take them!”.  Since then, of the four I left with that day, three of them have been knit up.  This project was made with a partial skein of Colinette Jitterbug, a yarn I had always wanted to try.  Because the skein was a partial, and had some 265 yards according to my calculations, I decided that socks would be the project, but that they’d need to be toe-up, because let’s face it, who wants to get to the toe of a second sock only to discover you are a few yards short?

As the beautiful cherry red yarn was staring at me from my wound stash collection, the Sock Knitter’s Anonymous group was hosting Cookie A month, and I inadvertently ran across one of her very few toe-up sock patterns, a Knitty pattern called Baudelaire.  Since I had knit precisely one pair of toe-up socks in my life, I hesitated somewhat, before deciding “it’s only yarn” and diving in.

I did these two at a time, on two separate needles, and that was the best idea I ever had, because it meant I learned Judy’s Magic Cast on once, and cast on both toes on the same day.  It also meant I didn’t run out of steam at the end of the first sock.  It’s strange; I seem to be okay doing simple socks one after the other, but if it’s at all complex, I seem to prefer doing them two at once.  Maybe it’s because I don’t forget things in the interim between the first sock and its mate.

I absolutely adore how these turned out, despite their somewhat short legs.

baudelaire

The yarn was super-dense, but a pleasure to knit with and just about impossible to split.  And the colour is spectacular.  I love the pattern, with its lace front and adorable little cables up the sides.  I very well might knit these again.

Pattern:  Baudelaire by Cookie A.

Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug in (I think) Morello Mash

Who Was It Made For?  Me

Were There Changes Made To The Pattern?  Cast on 12 stitches on each needle instead of 8…I really don’t love sharp toes as they look odd and don’t fit me.  Also shortened legs due to limited yardage.

Did I Learn Anything New?  Re-learned toe-up socks.

Anything Else?  Not that I recall.

Would I Make Another?:  Absolutely.  I really love them.

I Love It When A Plan Comes Together

A couple of months ago, my amazingly talented friend Shireen, over at The Blue Brick gave me a stunning gift: a multi-stranded bracelet she had crafted from Swarovski crystals, inspired by her trip to St. John’s, Newfoundland, or more specifically Quidi Vidi Lake.

Image

Photo credit: Shireen X. Nadir of The Blue Brick

I fell in love with the piece the moment I saw her blog post about it, but as an ex-pat Newfoundlander, I was beyond touched when she gifted me with such beautiful, tangible reminder of home.

I have been wearing the bracelet with jeans and a brown blazer since I got it…but I felt there was something else needed to tie the outfit together.  I remembered a skein of yarn I saw on last year’s TTC Knitalong; it was a skein of Malabrigo Sock in a colourway called “Playa”, that was primarily navy blue and chocolate brown.  So I headed downtown this week to see if I could find it.

While hanging out at the Purple Purl on Tuesday, I ran across a braid of SweetGeorgia spinning fibre in a colourway called “Stillwater” that looked like it would fit the bill and asked the ladies there whether they had a skein of fingering weight yarn in the same colourway.  Amazingly enough, they had a single skein of Cashluxe Fine (20% cashmere….YUM!) in the exact same colourway, perfect for a pretty scarf.

A perfect match, no?

A perfect match, no?

So, I have the skein and have chosen what I think is an awesome scarf pattern, one that I have been in love with for about a year, and that I don’t think will fight with the variegation of this awesome colourway.  Now if only I didn’t have so many other things I need to finish first, because I am just itching to grab a needle and cast on!

FO of a different sort

Remember this from yesterday?

~Handpainted Fingering Weight

Handpainted Fingering Weight

This was what it looked like after “cooking” and washing:

IMG_4407And here is the picture I got from Shireen last night:

The Finished Product!

The Finished Product!

While I may not exactly be giving indigodragonfly or Tanis Fiber Arts a run for their money anytime soon, I am fairly pleased with it over all.  Looking forward to actually having it in my hot little hands 🙂

Now, to find the right shawl/scarf pattern for it.

Back From The Dead

My blog…not me.  (Although it seems funny that I am bringing my blog back from the dead to talk about dyeing…)

I have been conspicuously absent from the blogosphere these days.  Summer always takes the good right out of me, and even robs me of my fibre arts karma.  My wheel has been covered for months and my knitting comes in fits and starts.  I spend far more time surfing Ravelry and dreaming of what I will make than I do actually making anything.  However, when a dear friend says, “We should get together and try our hand at dyeing some yarn”, that’s hard to resist.

So, yesterday my friend Shireen (from over at The Blue Brick) hosted me and our friend/my spinning teacher Leslie (from Leslie Ordal Fibre Arts) for a day of fingerpainting for adults, aka yarn and fibre dyeing.  Shireen picked up some undyed yarn and clothing dye; Leslie and I grabbed some bags of undyed fibre from stash and some food colouring and we converged on Shireen’s tidy little downtown condo and, well, pretty much totaled it.

We started out with Kool-Aid and the small sport weight skeins first, to try and get a feel for what we were doing. Not sure if I, as the designated dye blend diva of the day, managed to make them a bit diluted, or if this is the nature of Kool-Aid, but the colours did seem somewhat muted.

Shireen's Kool-Aid dyed Cascades 200 Sport weight

Shireen’s Kool-Aid dyed Cascades 200 Sport weight

We eventually moved into Rit and worsted weight yarn, leaving our precious skeins of fingering weight merino for last, when we felt we had a better handle on what we were doing.  I even painted some smaller quantities of fibre to get a grasp on how things might look before trying yarn.

Getting ready for a teal/royal blue/purple paint of my worsted.

Getting ready for a teal/royal blue/purple paint of my worsted.

When we did get to the fingering weight, I was still enamoured with the handpainting process; Shireen and Leslie opted for some immersion/kettle dyeing with a natural dye kit Shireen had picked up at a fibre fair a while back.

I had a specific idea in my head for a red/orange/yellow variegated yarn, so I set to work handpainting my skein with autumnal colours, while the ladies prepped pots for their immersion dyes.

~Handpainted Fingering Weight

Handpainted Fingering Weight

The immersion dyes both turned out absolutely beautifully (I may or may not have even threatened to steal Shireen’s navy blue skein), and both will be perfect for lace because while they are variegated, they are both beautifully tonal.

Shireen's navy blue and Leslie's forest green fingering weight skeins

Shireen’s navy blue fingering weight skein and Leslie’s forest green fibre

Luckily, there is enough navy dye left for me to do one of my own next time.  And we have decreed there will definitely be a next time, that will include expanding our materials list to include acid dyes.  I can’t wait!

All photos in this post taken by and courtesy of Shireen Nadir.

Start Spreading the News….

A couple of weeks ago, my Beloved and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary….and to celebrate, we decided to head to New York.  We managed to talk our dear friends Tommy and Austin into going with us; they have been there, literally a dozen times and we figured they’d be good tour guides.

We flew down on Porter on the Friday and came back on the Monday….and the 72 hours in between saw us pack an awful lot of activity into a very short time frame.  And there was walking.  So…much….walking.  I joked that I really wished I had thought to bring a pedometer just to track how far we walked.  I knit VERY little on my travel sock, which I specifically cast on for the occasion.

Travel Sock on bamboo needles...JUST in case!

Travel Sock on bamboo needles…JUST in case!

Attractions included the Empire State Building, the Museum of Modern Art (Van Gogh’s Starry Night – SQUEE!), the Staten Island Ferry/the Statue of Liberty, and of course Times Square.  We ate at great restaurants, and saw two separate shows: Chicago on Broadway, and an immersive theatre event called Sleep No More, which left us all wondering how to get stage blood out of our white clothes…but I digress.

And of course, what knitter’s visit to New York is complete without a pilgrimage to Soho…the home of the famous LYS, Purl Soho?  Sunday afternoon, I had half expected the place to be insane.  I had read reviews that said the store was too small, and that the staff was uncaring and worse, downright rude, but I went anyway.  The reviews could not have been more wrong.

The store, while not huge was a great size…and the staff was downright delightful.  Several asked if I needed assistance, and when I was not sure which colours to choose, they were more than happy to help me decide.

Purl Soho

Purl Soho

I did get some lovely yarn: an indie dyer out of the US called Anzula, and some special Purl Soho bulky yarn that will be used to make a Bandana cowl…for me this time.  Also picked up some MadTosh DK for a hat for hubby…and some merino/tencel fibre for my friend, Val (in exchange for some needles she picked up for me on a recent trip south of the border).

Lovely yarn and fibre

Lovely yarn and fibre

And I could not resist a few little notions and souvenirs.

Purl Soho notions - including the requisite project bag!

Purl Soho notions – including the requisite project bag!

I liked New York just fine…but I do think it falls under the heading of “Nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there!”.  Paris, on the other hand, is an entirely different story altogether….

I regret nothing…

Saturday was the Downtown Knit Collective’s Annual Knitter’s Frolic…my third in a row.  This year, I went to hang out with friends in line at about 8:15 and pretty much stayed to the end.

I met up with Shireen over at The Blue Brick, her partner Tito and our friend/spinning instructor Leslie and we patiently waited until the doors opened at 9 AM.  I bee-lined for the indigodragonfly booth, because I had a bag of single skeins I was looking to co-ordinate, for later use as a two-colour shawl, and I wanted to nab Kim before her booth was swamped by other shoppers.

One of the skeins I was looking to match was a special, limited edition one from Fibre Fling a few summers ago, called “How Many Minions Does It Take To Screw In A Lightbulb?” Kim placed a skein on either side; the blue, she said would be a good choice if I wanted a more muted effect and the purple would be better if I wanted something that would pop.  I took one look…and I was a goner.  Colour Affection, anyone?

indigodragonfly MCN Sock

indigodragonfly MCN Sock

I picked up a few more skeins from her, including one in Octobaa, a new DK weight yarn which is crying out to be yummy socks and proceeded merrily on.

I did manage to avoid buying fibre….even though TurtlePurl’s display nearly weakened my resolve some.

TurtlePurl's fibre display

TurtlePurl’s fibre display

I met up with varying friends through the day, which was why I ended up being there pretty much until they closed the place down.  Over the span of the day, I grabbed a couple of skeins of TurtlePurl yarn (she makes some nice self-striping stuff!), and some Cascades 200 Superwash for heavy socks for Chase, along with a bamboo sock-sized circular so that I can take sock knitting on the plane to New York next weekend.

Not including a destash and some KnitPicks items delivered to me from some lovely ladies up North, this was what my day looked like:

Frolic 2013 Haul

Frolic 2013 Haul

I regret nothing.