And She Knits Too!

Knitfinder

The other day, I wanted to knit a beret.  So off I went to Ravelry.  Ravelry is awesome when you want to start something new and want to see what's out there.  I love Ravelry.  But as a user-driven space, what's in Ravelry is only what someone has knit or stashed, and while it seems like EVERYTHING in the Knitiverse is in there, not everything is. 

So enter Knitfinder.  It's an index, developed by a professional indexer (yes, a pro--you know those indexes in the back of books?-she makes those).  And it's awesome.  Currently every pattern in Interweave Knits from Fall 1996 to the current issue is in there, and every issue of Knitty and all the Alice Starmore patterns.  So if you have a bunch of those books and magazines and are hunting for a pattern you can search based on a number of metrics and find the patterns that match, let's say a woman's hat at 4.5 sts to the inch.  Neat eh?  Or if you can't remember which issue that pretty pink shrug is in, you can find it.

Thérèse, the brains behind this, is adding new patterns all the time.  So it's a growing index; next up are Rowan, Twist Collective and EZ/Schoolhouse Press!

She's also providing book reviews on her Knitfinder Blog.  And in that review there's a link to a full list of patterns in the book with sizing, gauge, yarn used and short design notes.  Very helpful for deciding what goes into your knitting library AND finding those patterns after those books are on the shelf.

There are also resource pages providing links to techniques and yarn how-to's and lace and knitting history--kind of like an index of the internet for knitters.  The PhD me likes indexes--they're easier than having a billion bookmarks and they point to some great places I've never ventured.

Some parts of Knitfinder are for subscribers only, but at $14.95 a year it's a great deal.  I've been poking around on the site for a few months now and love how it's quick and easy to search, is a clean site with minimal graphics (so it's great on my iPhone) and there are nifty design notes for each pattern telling you what techniques are used (like lace or colourwork) and the construction of the garment (knit flat, raglan sleeves, top down etc).  And, there's a Ravelry link button that takes you straight to the Ravelry pattern page , so you can see pattern photos and knit-up versions, read other knitters' comments, or add the pattern to your Ravelry queue or favorites.  That closes the circle perfectly!

Wanna have a peek?

Thérèse is offering you fine readers a free 1 week subscription to poke around Knitfinder.  You can use it until November 17th.

Login: demo

Password: andsheknitstoo

Blame it on the Bohus

I really love the Grey Mist Bohus I'm knitting, but I find I need time away from it.  It's not one of those projects I knit obsessively on until it's done .  I suppose that's obvious since I started in March 2007.

This past week it's been spinning and knitting hand spun that's been pulling me away.

First, at his request, I knit up my June Grafton batt into a hat for Xander.

 

I chose a simple 2X2 rib which is masculine and doesn't interfere with the stripeyness of the wool.  He's been sleeping in it which makes me very happy.

I spent Sunday surrounded by Halloween candy and my lovely "Desiccated Brains" merino sea silk pencil roving (roving dyed by the fabulous Kim).  I spun up the first half and filled what are very large Majacraft bobbins.  I love how it's turning out.  The goal is a sport weight 2 ply and it looks like I'm getting it right.

The second bobbin is currently reading more blue--it's a beautiful green, brown, turquoise mix.  Love it.

H1N1 Paranoia...Tensions Rise

I'm getting a lot of this stuff in my inbox. This one I couldn't resist...

Happy Halloween

I love Halloween--all that candy, the costumes, the super-cute little kids--all of it.

We had great fun yesterday hanging out with my friends Elizabeth, Emily and Molly.  The kids got to trick or treat and I got to give out candy and drink some wine.  All good.

Can you guess what my kids went as this year?

Xander/Vader is pretty easy.  (He was happy and it was easy--though I felt a bit like a slacker on this costumer). 

Emma might be a bit tougher.  See the resemblance?

She's wearing a bit more clothes because it was chilly, but I thought we did pretty good making her Bellatrix Lestrange.  The hair was the hardest part--it took a lot of shampoo to get that black hairspray out.

See it now ? (Thanks Emily for the fabulous photos, my camera phone (above) just doesn't cut it).

So much sibling love...

Now we're all crashing on the tons of candy they got.  I tell you I love Halloween.

Spinning Yarn, a photo essay

Fibre: Into The Whirled Falkland Top in Grape Ape

Goal: Heavy worsted yarn for fingerless mittens (hopefully subtley striped)

End result: 82 metres of chunky yarn (9wpi).  Fingerless mittens for Emma and enough leftover for a headband/earwarmer.

She loves them and I'm really pleased with how they turned out.

Rhinebeck Report: 2009 Edition

I took almost no photos--only of the end results of our trip.  It was great.  A fine time from my Toronto knit-pals and my internet knit-pals alike.  

The house we rented outside Woodstock was fabulous and spacious.  We ate good food and drank good wine (actually great wine).  

We bought shoes.

 

And yarn.

 

And yarn

And more yarn

And a lot of "protoyarn" aka fibre.

It was good.

My haul: 3 braids from Into the Whirled, 8oz of merino, a sweater's worth of Abundance BFL from Briar Rose, yarn and fibre to make thrummed mitts, a limited edition mug from Jennie The Potter and a niddy noddy.  Not a tonne, but just enough.  All the photos are here on my Flickr page.

Thanks Carol!

I love the internet.  I've met so many interesting people from all around the world through it.  I do a lot of my job on it.  I connect with people I know in real life and those whom I'm only acquainted with virtually and I've made some amazing friendships through it.

When I started spinning, one of my internet friends Carol contacted Lisa Souza, another internet acquaintance (whom I met when I sold advertising for Knitty) and gave me the fantastic gift of a certificate for spinning fibre. Yummy Lisa Souza BFL roving to be exact.

Well, one good turn deserves another, so I made Carol a scarf to say Thank You.  I'm going to meet Carol in person for the first time at Rhinbeck, which didn't give me enough time to spin and then weave some of the fibre she gave me, so I took some of my brown corrie handspun and some Fly ing Sheep BFL for the weft, and some Fleece Artist Merino Sock for the warp and made this lovely scarf.

I went for truly random brown stripes because it was randomness on the internet that led me to meet Carol (well that and I didn't have enough for the whole scarf) and I really hope she loves the jeweled blue-green tones. 

 

I don't know if Carol reads my blog, but to maintain the surprise, I've set this post up to go live after I've left for Rhinebeck.  Thanks for the fibre Carol and for being one of my virtual friends.

Queue the theme from Rocky

Tonight, after a long day in which I discovered that I messed up my data in a way that if it can't be recovered from the network will cost me about a week of work, I had the best run I've probably ever had.

Maybe it was because of the ill-fated data that it felt good, but I may have just had that feeling runners describe. I was in the groove.  I ran well and didn't feel tired.  It was what I wanted to do.  It felt good.

Because of a shin splint and the tumble down the stairs I haven't run for a couple of weeks.  I decided to backtrack to week 6 of the Couch to 5km and so it wasn't like I ran for long or far, but I did run.  And when the Ipod told me to cool down, I ran for a little longer.  I *felt* like I could have run the whole 30 minutes.  And I checked the Gmaps Pedometer--I ran/walked just over 5km!!!

And I'm anxious to run again.  Hopefully my body will send those same vibes tomorrow.

In The Pink!

We're in the good part of the bathroom reno!  Stuff is going back on instead of coming out.  We have electricity, plumbing, a bathtub with a working drain! 

We've also squared off the ceiling, installed a properly vented fan (that involved a big ladder and drilling a hole into our house--wacky) and have managed to shim the walls to be square. 

I will just say Craig is awesome.  I help, but am not the brains or brawn of this job. 

Now we're insulating (our ceiling wasn't insulated before) and drywall is soon to be installed. 

I'm hoping this long weekend we'll do a big push and maybe start tiling around the tub.  We're all getting tired of the disruption and want to see it finished.

Finished Object Catch Up

I finished a few little pieces a while back that I haven't blogged about or even put on Ravelry (do you think Ravelry has been affecting blogging?  I'm saving that for another post--but I'm putting it out there).

First, a scarf I started weaving a while back.

It didn't turn out how I wanted, but it does look great.  The colour does nothing for me, so I gave it to Emma (10 year olds seem to look good in everything, don't they?).  

The yarn is Hempathy and it weaves up so nice.  The yarn blooms and softens with washing making for a nice drapey scarf.

Emma also requested a pointy hat out of some of my early handspun.  Despite her dislike of pink she chose soft merino over some shetland she liked the colour of better and I whipped up this hat a couple of weekends ago.  

It was fun to knit with yarn I made.  I'm already planning a hat for Xander.  It's been nippy in the mornings, so they'll be wearing them soon.