a wiksten spring

Seeing all the Wiksten tops in the Spring Top Sewalong pool inspired me to run out, buy both patterns and whip up one of each in a matter of days. To my family it may seem a tad impulsive, but I'd like to think that's exactly what a sewalong is for - to feed a collective sewing obsession.   

So the Tova pattern is great. I used Robert Kaufman's linen/cotton which is a bit heavy so although I had added the sleeves, they were too stiff and I took them off. But I quite liked wearing it with a shirt underneath and having playful bias tape around the inside edges is just plain fun. I've never been crazy about the collar when I've seen other Tovas so I left it out and used bias tape there too. I just think it makes a nice shape. Overall a great pattern and well suited to my, er, flattish chest.

Next up, the Wiksten tank. Again, super easy pattern and this time no adjustments at all other than how I attached the bias edges (I pressed the strips in half, stitched them to the wrong side with raw edges lined up and then pressed to the front and topstitched down). Since the inside seams are clean - which I love even though I have a serger and could have simply serged them - the whole garment just feels so "finished". The fabric is some cotton shirting and I love seeing the diagonal version of the checks, which is why pressing the bias trim to the front seemed necessary, even at the hem. It might not be a very flattering neckline for me but this will be very wearable with a cardigan.

So Wiksten officially tried and loved. More in the future for sure.

spring, sort of

While I try to avoid facing another paint colour mishap, sewing has been a decent distraction. I've had this shirt pattern for years - Vogue 7998 - and I finally gave it a try. It's a kimono/wrap style and it turned out much better than I was expecting. Given it's "Very Easy" distinction there are one or two construction details I'm not a fan of but overall I think the seams will hold and the collar does a good job of hiding the questionable bits. I used Robert Kaufman's Brussels Washer fabric which holds its shape and is very wearable. I quite like the tie at the back but it would be great to leave the ties off so you could wrap any belt or scarf around the middle. Overall, a great, somewhat-dressy shirt.

If you're looking for some spring sewing inspiration - and not the all black, full length sleeve sewing that I'm indulging in - visit the Spring Top Sewalong Flickr pool. This top is especially awesome and could persuade me to sew something gray.

And then I remember the gray paint mishap. Sigh.

all things charcoal

As a break from moving supplies, I thought I'd actually sew something (plus I took some time off this week to do just that.  Sewing is very restorative as much as my co-workers tease me for it.)  And instead of making something for the house I put the time into making something for a friend (double restorative, it turns out). A while back I spotted Meet Me at Mike's fox quilt, but didn't until this week think about adapting it to make a  foxy pillow. To better suit a square pillow form I made the fox block out of 12 squares, each being  3.5" high x 4.5" wide. I also inset the eyes so that they were part of these squares instead of appliquing them on top. The fabrics are white linen, salmon raw silk and then my current favourite, Robert Kaufman's Essex Yarn-Dyed cotton/linen blend. It's such a great design and I think it makes for a nice gift. Maybe someday I'll get around to making a wall quilt version - I know a certain basement with bare walls that's just aching for foxes.

Over the holidays I made a scarf for my dad that turned out soft, squishy and quite manly. So it only made sense that Jay should get a similar scarf. I used Berroco Vintage to contend with Jay's rough beard, but he's not one for modelling so the shot above is the best I could do. He seems pleased with the dark gray and he's not a yarn snob, so the blend suits him fine. The pattern is really great - easy to memorize (a center marker is a lifesaver) and it makes a warm, dense fabric. 

Next to the scarf is one of the nicest book covers I've ever seen (at one point I thought the whole cover would be my palette inspiration for the basement). Ru by Kim Thuy was recommended to me my a complete stranger in the line at Indigo a while back. The line was long and we managed to trade a few suggestions while we waited - it was like an impromptu Book Club. Luckily this novel counts for my Canadian challenge and even better, it was a beautiful read. Rather than being a linear story it was more a meditation on Thuy's life told in lyrical and petite chapters. It's been translated from French but somehow I imagine the rolling prose was there to begin with and it's just that fantastic a translation. I was swept up by Thuy's writing and was a little heartbroken when it ended. Thank you dear stranger!

For more knitting and reading stories, visit today's Yarnalong.

sneak peek

Ahhhh. We are practically there - I've got very little painting left to do, we've taken off the floor protection and we've even moved down a piece of furniture. Oh, and the kids had an improv ballet session on the empty floor tonight. Basically we're super excited.

This moment hasn't come without some panic and craziness, but I'm prepared to blame that on too many hours spent painting. You see, when we first uncovered the floor in the hall (photo on left) my heart sunk. All I saw was red in the finish, a tone that I didn't expect to be there. Which then led me to question my wall colour choice. On a section of wall that was finished, and at that point finishing anything was a milestone (because after jinxing myself, I did paint the bathroom 3 times, just like my kitchen debacle, but this time in oil.) I have a bad habit of obsessing about colour and caring way too much about getting it just right. Luckily I have an amazing husband who knew exactly how to save my sanity. While I was at work he brought down a carpet, a bookcase and my favourite mushroom lamp so  the space looked lived in. The floor is just one part of the space, and truthfully it isn't red at all. I was just going bananas at the wrong time. And since that night (only two nights ago!) I have finished up the main room and done the one risky move - a black wall. Thankfully the unanimous vote in the house is that we all LOVE it.

Thanks to a quick March Break road trip to Montreal (aka, "escape painting") I managed to knit up another pair of socks for Sadie. I used the Two-Tone Socks pattern in Debbie Bliss Simply Baby but with larger needles and yarn. The yarn is Koigu Kersti which seems to be holding up really well in the other socks I've made for her, plus she loves the variegated palettes. I grabbed a Berroco variegated skein for another pair of socks while we were in Montreal, at a great yarn store called Espace Tricot. Highly recommended!

Also highly recommended is Eowyn Ivey's The Snow Child. Oh, wow. I loved this quiet, fairytale-esque novel - and not just because the cover is amazing or that the description of hand-sewing a snowflake embroidered wool coat had me swooning. It is just a charming story, wonderfully told.

For more knitting and reading stories visit today's Yarnalong.

of words and rows

Even when painting never ends and work bleeds into my home life, I rarely let a day pass without reading a few pages and knitting a few rows. Likely I would lose my marbles if I didn't - somehow a few moments of making and a paragraph or two of fiction ward off feelings of being overwhelmed. Restorative pastimes indeed.

Both The Kitchen Daughter and The Three Weissmans of Westport were light, enjoyable reads. Nothing too cerebral, but full of compelling characters. I took a small break from my Canadian Challenge for these two, but they were great books to end hectic days with.

I have hit that time of the year though when my knitting isn't really working out. It's bound to happen and this time it's because I was too determined to have a red sweater. Like Red Riding Hood, we should all have one red sweater, right? Wrong. Some people just can't wear the colour and no matter how hard I try, I'm one of them. So after knitting everything but the sleeves of a raglan cardigan, using Quince & Co's Peak's Ferry, I had to call it quits. I haven't had the heart to unravel it just yet, but I'm thinking Sadie would like an Annabel cardigan like this cute one. Perhaps red sweaters are more for 8 year olds anyway? And on the bright side, I found a new colour in my favourite Debbie Bliss yarn. It's more of a raspberry/coral mix, but hopefully it will turn into something more successful. And less RED.

For more stories of reading and knitting visit today's Yarnalong.

getting there

This image shows how I wish our days were being spent right now. We'd be playing around with display items, putting an inspiring little doll into a vintage light fixture then standing back to debate if the placement was right.

But of course, that's not the case (though we did do that).  Here is where our focus is - in the big giant mess in our basement. It's getting to be a very exciting mess though, and it's amazing what has happened in the last 10 days. The floor is down (and protected under all that cardboard), the drywall is done, and there are light switches that actually turn lights on and off! We painted all last weekend, much to the kids' dismay, and I'm currently procrastinating about heading down there again right now. Back when we signed the contract somehow taking on the painting component ourselves seemed like a good idea (truthfully I quite enjoy painting) but it's a HUGE job and I'm not very fast. Every wall, every piece of trim, every square inch of ceiling and awkward closet needs at the very least 3 coats of paint. Our goal this weekend is to get the bathroom and laundry room done because we actually have things that need to be installed in both. I've agonized over paint colours for the past few weeks and hope the final decisions are decent (my kitchen debacle is fresh in my mind). The bathroom will be Benjamin Moore's Balboa Mist and the laundry room Collingwood - which are side by side on the paint chip, and both on the warm side of gray. I used Collingwood in our upstairs bathroom but this new bathroom has carrara floors and (soon-to-be) countertop so I hope the slightly lighter Balboa Mist works. Ceilings and trim are all Para's Cameo White, the same white everywhere else in the house. I'm nothing if not consistent.

Soon, soon we'll be moving in and starting to make things again. But for the foreseeable future, I'm glued to a paintbrush.

knit and purl

Malabrigo Worsted + Dovetail Cowl pattern by Carina Spencer = knitting awesomeness. I adore this cowl! Most of my knitting choices are simple stretches of stockinette, seed stitch, maybe ribbing, so this pattern seemed pretty adventurous. But amazingly, it is all based on simple knit and purl stitches, and the suggestion of using stitch markers to define the pattern repeat made staying on track super easy. The final texture is spongey yet intricate and I can't imagine a nicer yarn for the project. This was knit as a gift but I'm so in love with the pattern that I'm pretty sure I will have to knit myself one. And did I mention it is reversible?

I started Freedom by Jonathan Franzen while I was knitting Dovetail and just finished it up this week. I've heard many good things about The Corrections so I think I'll have to try it before making a final decision on Franzen. There were some things I liked about Freedom, but I definitely struggled to finish it. The characters - purposely flawed - were hard to like and there were entire sections bogged down by description. Oh well.

For more knitting and reading love, visit today's Yarnalong.

exhaustion

If there is one thing this renovation has taught me, it's this: we are not renovation people. We're homebodies. We find joy in being comfortable, in coming home to a relatively clean house that's quiet. So now that we're past the 5 month mark with this project, it's getting harder to let the noise, the dust, the daily, important questions not affect our moods. How do people go through renovations over and over again? And when they do, how do they accomplish anything outside of the reno? (I'm not knitting or sewing as much, let alone blogging.)

But there is good news - the end is in sight! These photos show progress, like having stairs again and having my own laundry machines back. Drywall has been going up all weekend and there is tile on the floors of the bathroom and laundry room. We're getting there. 

Sigh.

the girl might knit

In a rare moment of quiet over the holidays I managed to visit a favourite blog. Lori's photos and knitting projects are always so inspiring, and her recent post was exactly the inspiration I (and Sadie) needed.  Lori's simple i-cord bracelet seemed like the perfect solution for my reluctant young knitter. Yes, Sadie has knit a little and corked a little, but being 8, she's not very patient for things that take a long time to finish (oh wait, she does have oodles of patience for reading the same novels over and over and over again - it must be a crafting thing). But as the knitting mom, I instantly saw the opportunity for a quick and rewarding knitting project - and it was just the trick. I-cords are so easy and so fast that Sadie caught on in no time. She finished the day she started which even involved knitting in the car. It's super cute and she now has big plans to make them for her friends. With my stash I figure she could make about 987 of them?

Even though Sadie may not like knitting as much as I do, she does like wearing knitted things - especially socks. I gave her these on Christmas and I'm not completely ashamed to say that she's barely taken them off (hence the pilling already, there was no time to take photos!) Can a knitting mom really take issue with hygiene when a garment is so loved? I have more variegated Koigu sitting around so my cleanliness remedy will likely be to knit her another pair. And soon.

I may not have been blogging, but my knitting has been complimented by much reading. Another novel for my Canadian Book Challenge is David Bergen's A Year of Lesser. This is the first I've read Bergen and I've ordered another now that I've finished this. It's not that I found the story wholly compelling, but I was quite intrigued by the characters and the sense of place. Set in one town over the period of a year, the novel seemed to be a study of the relationships between spouses, lovers, parents and children more than being particularly plot driven. But these relationships were intense, often uncomfortable and they spoke volumes about how dynamics can change quickly, sometimes with very little to explain it. Not altogether different but definitely more compelling to me was Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. At a school silent auction fundraiser I won (well, "purchased" is more like it) a basket of book club books, which this of course came from. But it was quite wonderful. I equally disliked and loved Olive and applauded Henry for making the most of his marriage with her. I enjoyed how the stories were woven together and was heartbroken by some of the situations. Definitely a book to pass along to my mom.

Joining Ginny for the first Yarnalong of 2013! 

cowl season

Oh yes, I'm years behind in this cowl thing.  And so I'm making up for lost time and knitting a few, which has quickly turned into many. It's hard to stop myself from starting a new one every few days.

Luckily the holiday season provides a perfect outlet for this knitting obsession (although those endeavours are currently secret). My favourite free pattern for quick cowls is definitely the Slouchy Cowl. Big needles and bulky yarn make for a fast and warm garment. The purple one above is knit with Malabrigo Chunky which is so soft and squishy (I wear it way more than the red Puffin one I made last winter). Sadie's double moss stitch cowl is a simple, improvised tube, knit with a lovely grey shade of Sublime's Extra Fine Merino DK. Both wearable, both just the tip of the cowl iceberg.

As for reading, I'm running out of Elizabeth Hay options! I finished up Garbo Laughs which again was full of deep, rich characters. The storyline was linear and therefore much easier to follow than Student of Weather. The setting was Ottawa during the ice storm of 1998 and I loved understanding the references without it being from my own backyard. The shared love of old films across 3 generations of characters was pretty magical and I learned a lot about some classics. But in the end it's Hay's characters that stay with me and penetrate my thoughts. Harriet was fascinating and her family and friends no less so. What a set of neighbours to be blessed with! If you're an Elizabeth Hay fan this is another great read.

For an inspiring dose of reading and knitting, check out today's Yarnalong.