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!

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.

Hudson Memories

Hudson Bay socks done!

Project Details:

  • Yarn: Biscotte Bis-Sock, color Hudson Memories
  • Pattern: same old jerry-rigged vanilla sock, this time with a picot cuff
  • Needles: Lykke Driftwood double points, 2.00 mm
  • Started: April 26, 2021
  • Finished: May 15, 2021
  • For: Me
  • Rating: ***** on the yarn. This is the first time I’ve used this, it is soft, but feels sturdy at the same time.

I’m on a sock-knitting binge at the moment. I have a bunch of hand knit socks that are approaching the end of their life-span, so I need to replenish the stash. Many of my socks have lasted more than a decade of heavy wear, so I definitely get my money’s worth out of them. John needs more socks too. The next pair will be for him. I already started these for him yesterday.

Oh my. This is Regia Premium Merino Yak sock yarn. I may have lost my mind here in the stash-acquisition department. This yarn is heavenly to knit with, and the yak content gives it a muted heathery color. You should go buy some if there is any left anywhere. Simply Sock Yarn carries this in the US, and Knitting Loft in Canada, if you are in the mood to shop.

Today

It’s that time of year. As the weather gets nicer, it’s time for all the outdoor projects to get started. Those big windows are the originals that were put in when this house was built decades ago, and the seals have failed on all of them. So we have scaffolding built, and measuring happening. The rectangular ones were easy, not so much with the top two curved panes. They are having to take off the framing and remove the glass panes to measure accurately. It’s a good thing that there is no rain in the forecast. They already have one taken out and measured, and are putting it back in. Given that this house was built from Halloween Fun House architectural plans, they are taking the other one out to measure as well, just to be sure.

Hudson Bay socks. I’m a little farther towards completion than that photo. I have the heel done and the gusset decreases completed. A night or two of good television should do it.

We’ve been watching Atlantic Crossing on PBS the past few weeks. It’s the story of the Crown Princess of Norway and FDR during WWII. Not sure how historically accurate it is, but it is entertaining.

Lastly, my newest journal. I love the leather, it is a deep green, and smells lovely. The company is Galen Leather, this is their leather Slim Notebook cover. It comes in other lovely colors as well. The notebook inserts are also from them, they use Tomoe River paper, which you should try if you never have. I’m using the A5 size.

Hope your upcoming weekend is full of fun and happy projects!