Author: Lorette

My name is Lorette. I learned to knit in 1999, and took up spinning in 2009. I'm a physician specializing in internal medicine, and live in the Pacific Northwest. Enjoy my blog!

Never-ending lace

This monster is slowly but surely getting done. I’m past the halfway point, but still have 172 rows left, plus the crocheted edging along the long sides. I clocked myself a couple of days ago, I’m averaging 10 minutes a row, so I still have a bit to go.

Because lace-in-progress photos always look like crap, here’s the photo from the pattern with what this will look like.

I bought this yarn years ago, it is handspun yarn, spun by women in Tajikistan as well as Afghanistan. This particular batch was spun by a woman in Afghanistan, named Maliknoz. The fiber is 100% kid mohair, aka cashmere. This is still marketed by Cashmere People Yarns, and you can buy similar yarn here. They also sell a cashgora blend in several weights. Go buy some, you won’t be sorry you did.

And a photo of my remaining skein. I’ll have at least a bit of this left once I’ve finished the shawl, but this surely won’t go to waste.

Flash cards

I’ve been studying French since I retired. I know, it’s probably somewhat useless. Given the current pandemic crap, I’m not likely to be traveling anywhere soon where I might actually use this skill.

It is definitely more challenging to learn a new language at nearly 65 than it is in high school. I’ve resorted to making flash cards. If you see me walking around muttering the days of the week to myself, I haven’t lost my mind. At least not yet.

One finished, another started

New socks! I don’t even think I showed that I’d started these, but they’re done as of this morning.

I started these on July 28th, so just about a month to finish. The pattern is the same MacGyver’d pattern I always do: top down, German twisted cast on with 2 by 2 rib, flap heel and gusset. Knit on size 2 mm double points. The yarn is Urth Uneek Sock, color Tigress.

That makes room in the WIP list for a new pair of socks.

A boy that I know that likes blue has already claimed these. John says these are pretty close to Carolina blue. The color name is Anna Grace, but I think it looks like cumulocirrus clouds.

The yarn is from deep stash. I bought this years ago from Kris when she had a yarn shop named Sonny and Shear. The yarn is from Zen Yarn Garden, especially dyed for Kris and named after her daughter, Anna Grace.

There’s lots more going on in my knitting world, but I’ll save it for next time.

Pesto blobs

We have several basil plants on our patio that have yielded a bounty of basil all at once. I made a huge batch of pesto yesterday (around 12 cups of cleaned basil). I’m freezing it in meal-sized blobs to give us a taste of summer through the dark, rainy days of winter.

That’s just a bag of happiness right there.

I have been knitting, of course. I signed up for a mystery knit-along, Casapinka’s autumn shawl project. It’s just plain fun. I have the first clue done, the next one comes out tomorrow. I even used stash yarns.

The first section used three of the four colors, the fourth I’m using is a deep blue. Most of the yarn is from the Sanguine Gryphon, sadly no longer available. That pale gold is a four skein gold gradient from a long-ago sock yarn club (Three Irish Girls).

Those little knitted knots in the center of that are called Gobshites, if you want to know. There’s likely an official knitting name for them, but that’s what the designer calls them, so there you have it. If you’ve knitted any of her patterns, you already know that she doesn’t take things too seriously.

Something new, part 1

Since I was on a finishing frenzy in July, I had plenty of open needles to start some new things. Here’s the first new thing.

This is going to be another CustomFit cardigan. The pattern is Mine Hill, here is the photo from the pattern.

I plan on making it with full length sleeves. This will be a nice “between seasons” layering piece. I’m using a lovely wool blend from John Arbon Textiles, one of my favorite wool sources. They have some wonderful wool blends, I did a pair of socks earlier this year using their Exmoor Sock yarn. This is their latest offering, Appledore DK.

The color name is Sheep’s Nose. The yarn is a blend of Devon, Romney, and Exmoor wool, and it has a nice soft hand despite a bit of a rustic look. It also has a divine sheepy smell. You will hear more about John Arbon’s wool here in the future, since it is becoming one of my favorite sources for yarn. It isn’t cheap, but it is very high quality, and the mill is a small family-run business that uses primarily local fiber, and processes the wool on vintage spinning machines. I ordered this particular wool direct from their UK shop, the shipping was reasonable and fast. The Woolly Thistle here in the US does carry some of their yarns, though not this one at the moment.

I have some other new projects to show you, but I’ll save those for later!

A two-fer

Here are more new things hot off the needles.

Socks! Same old jerry-rigged pattern, size 2.00mm double point needles. The yarn is deep stash Socka wool, I don’t think they even make this any longer. I think it looks like white cupcakes with sprinkles.

That one is a Hitchhiker, not the first I’ve made, and likely not the last. I used a skein of Wollmeise Pure, color Poison #5. The color in the third photo is close to what it really looks like.

I love both, though it is way too hot to wear anything with wool right now.

New things off the needles means one thing: new projects coming!

Stay tuned!

Dockside Cardigan

Finished!

Project Notes:

  • Pattern: Dockside Cardigan, by Amy Herzog. This is one of her CustomFit patterns.
  • Yarn: Warm Valley Orchard wool/alpaca blend. This is deep stash yarn, purchased on a vacation to their farm on Orcas Island in 2006. It’s about time it got made into something lovely. I used a bit under 1600 yards for this, I have a little under 700 yards left for a squishy shawl, or perhaps hat and mittens.
  • Needle: Size 6 circular
  • Started: February 22, 2021
  • Finished: July 27, 2021
  • For: Me
  • Rating: *****for both pattern and the wool. If you haven’t used CustomFit, you pick your pattern, enter your own body measurements and your row and stitch gauge from your swatch. You get a pattern that is customized for your fit and the yarn you want to use. I’m sold on this. This is the best fitting sweater I’ve ever made.
  • What I learned: I need to knit more from deep stash. I have some very lovely yarns that I’ve collected over the years. The new and shiny will always catch my eye, but the “old and curated” once caught my eye for a very good reason. I also learned to trust the measurements. I tend to knit oversized sweaters in general, so I kept thinking that this was going to be on the small size. It fits perfectly.

Another couple of photos, since I don’t finish a sweater every day.

Buttons

I finished the knitting on my Dockside Cardigan over the weekend, and sat down this morning to sew on buttons. Button-sewing is not my favorite task, and it needed to get done in the morning hours when it is still relatively cool around here.

Here they are, half done. There are actually five already sewn on, five more to go.

And a close up:

How about that fancy button-shank-making tool?

Of course, where there are buttons, there should be buttonholes. I did remember to put those in as well. I fidgeted around with a couple of different methods of knitting these, and settled on a one-row buttonhole using the “TULIPS” method. Here’s a link to an article about how to do these, and a video explanation as well. These look really complicated, but once you’ve done one, it all makes sense. It’s the best of the horizontally placed buttonholes that I’ve found.

Next time, I’ll do a finished project post about this, and perhaps a bonus finished project as well!

Little lace loops

I’ve been knitting away on my Cathedral Stole lace shawl for months. My Ravelry project page says I started this in 2016, which is true. This is what it looked like since then.

I pulled this out of hibernation in mid March and started working on it again. This is a rectangular shawl, started in the middle with a provisional cast on. You knit for miles, bind off, then pick up the provisional stitches in the center and knit for a few more miles. Fortunately I’m happy knitting the same thing for miles and miles. This yarn helps. I bought this yarn in 2014. Here is what I wrote about it then. *

 Peace Fleece got in some lovely lace yarn hand spun by women in Tajikistan. They had a nice little story to go with the yarn about how these women spin yarn to help feed and clothe their families. One skein provides enough money for them to buy a chicken, a loaf of bread, or a kilogram of potatoes. Tell me you could resist that. Let’s just say I bought enough for a nice chicken dinner complete with potatoes and bread for the whole family. 

I’m not sure exactly why this sat unloved for so long. At any rate, I am just finishing the first half. I decided to do a fancy schmancy crochet loop bind off. It isn’t hard to do, just fidgety. And trust me, you do NOT want to have to undo this, so make sure it is what you want before you wade in. You can always put in a lifeline before you bind off, but where’s the fun and adventure in THAT.

It makes pretty little loops along the edge. Here’s a birds eye view of the lace.

Have faith. Lace knitting always looks like crap until it’s finished and blocked.

*The links in the quote don’t work, Peace Fleece only carried this for a short time. This, my friends, is why I buy yarn that I love when I see it.

Forgotten but not unloved

I’m not sure how you can forget to post about such a pretty pair of socks. That color! That woolly wool!

This is my usual generic jerry-rigged sock pattern: 2×2 ribbing, heel flap and gusset, no frills. I modify the standard heel flap by adding a few more rows, it fits my high arch foot much better. I used 2.00 mm needles.

The wool is John Arbon Exmoor sock yarn. It is a lovely wool blend with a bit of nylon for durability. The colors I used are Mizzle, and Quickbeam (that orange). I’m really happy that I love this yarn, because I bought a bunch of other colors as well. You can get some of your very own at John Arbon in the UK, or at Woolly Thistle here in the US (though they are sold out at the moment-not my fault, I bought direct from the UK). I will warn you about checking out the John Arbon website, it will be difficult to resist some of their other offerings. You may see some of their yarn in future projects here at Chez Knitting Doctor.

Making

I sort of fell off the radar screen there, didn’t I? June just whizzed by, we had an awful heat wave, and now we’re settling in to the other part of summer in the Pacific Northwest: the season of vacationing relatives. Which means time for fun, food, and hanging out outside enjoying the beautiful summer weather.

Despite our high temps a couple weekends ago, I have been getting some knitting done. Our house isn’t air-conditioned, so when it gets hot, I retreat to the basement where it stays relatively cool. I have a big woolly cardigan that is just short of the front bands and buttons, but I’m not too enthusiastic about working on that in the summer, so it’s in time out for a bit. I am working on a pair of socks, a lace shawl, and a Hitchhiker. I’ll save the photos of those for another day.

I have been finding myself sitting at the spinning wheel more often. It’s such a relaxing, meditative thing to do when my mind just wants to veg out. I finished this over the weekend.

That is around 684 yards of lovely cream colored blue-faced leicestershire wool. This was handspun and plyed on my Watson wheel. The weight of the two hanks is 320 grams. I thought about throwing this in the dye pot, but I’m now leaning towards leaving it the way it is. I think it would make a lovely shawl.

Here’s another photo:

It isn’t everyday that I finish a big whack of handspun yarn. Instead of shoving that into the vault, maybe I’ll wind it up today and cast on for something new. There isn’t a rule about how many projects I can work on at the same time, right?

Stay tuned.

Ah, Retirement

Yes, it is everything I’d hoped it would be.

Those socks are coming right along. This is John Arbon Exmoor Sock yarn. The colors are just lovely. I may have enough in the stash for a few more pairs. If you must have squishy-soft merino sock yarn, this isn’t it. It has a sturdy, rustic hand, and I suspect it will wear well due to the wool blend used.

Because I know someone will ask, the pins are to help in counting rows so the second in the pair ends up more or less the same length. I just put a pin in every ten rows to keep track.

Well this is embarrassing

I finished this shawl almost a month ago, and I’m just getting around to posting about it.

Project Details:

  • Pattern: Boneyard Shawl, by Stephen West
  • Yarn: Sincere Sheep Cormo Fingering, color 9 Mile Ranch
  • Needles: 3.75 mm
  • Started: January 29, 2021
  • Finished: May 11,2021
  • For: Me
  • Rating: ***** for both pattern and yarn. This is a free pattern, available on Ravelry. It was originally written for a DK weight yarn, but can be made with any weight yarn, really. The pattern is dead simple, and can also be adapted to the yardage you have available. This is the second one of these I’ve made, and it won’t be the last. The yarn I used comes in a 500 yard skein, and makes a nice small shawl to wrap around my neck. This does work well with a gradient dyed yarn like this, since the background pattern is so simple. The color changes do all the work here.

In other news, I’m still on a sock-knitting binge. Here’s the latest.

The yarn is Exmoor Sock, from John Arbon. This is a lovely wool blend, with a bit of nylon for durability. It has a somewhat rustic hand, and is on the light-fingering end of the sock yarn spectrum. I might have a few more colors of this in the stash. The luster and colors of this yarn line are fabulous.

One more finished shawl photo for you:

Insomnia is good for something

New socks for John! I nearly finished these late last night.

In a rather uncharacteristic bit of wisdom, I decided to wait to do the toe grafting this morning. I woke up at 4:30, couldn’t go back to sleep, and finally got up and finished. At that I ended up screwing up the Kitchener and ripping out half of it to re-do.

It’s the same old pattern, 2.00 mm needles. The yarn is Regia Premium Merino Yak. It is insanely soft, we’ll see how well it holds up to sock wear. I ended up using 38 grams of the grey yarn and 66 grams of the teal for these.

A couple more photos:

Yes, that is considered fashionable footwear where we live.

I still owe you a finished project post for that sunshine-y shawl I finished recently. It will be sunny outside this weekend so I’ll get John to take some photos for me.