Annette!

A friend of mine wrote and performs in a play, with knitting at its core!

This beautiful, touching  play is called "Annette". It was mentioned in today's Knitty blog! It's also getting great reviews everywhere it's shown! Here's a link to one of those reviews:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/move-guide/meditation+politics+hockey+knitting/6201879/story.html

and a link to her website (in french):
http://unefindumondeenunenanoseconde.blogspot.com/p/annette.html

Go Annette, go!!!

A remembrance of little sweaters...

When my children were small, I knit a lot of warm woolies for them, a whole lot...
Earlier today, as I was looking through old pictures, I saw many hand knits I had forgotten about, many knits that were passed down to cousins, knits that were supposed to come back and never did... Sigh...

That made me remember other tiny sweaters, overalls, hats, scarves, mittens and coats that were made with love, well worn, but never photographed...

I'm kind of sad I don't have those baby and children's garments. I don't have grandchildren, not yet, but I know my children would have loved to see their future babies in the same woolies they wore when they were small...

Those very few knits that came back are treasured, I'm making sure that they will be there for the next generation!

As for those who were lost, I think I can reproduce most of them (those I remember) from memory...


Here are a few of my favorite pictures of times past: 

My wonderful daughter in one of the sweaters that still exists.

My son (when he was quite young and a whole lot smaller) in another one.

Another picture of my adorable son, in an intarsia sweater that has gone missing... 

The following cable cardigan only needs one button...

Sweet children, sweet memories...

Oscar night!

O.K. I'm ready! I haven't seen all the movies that are in nomination, but I've seen enough of them to make it interesting. For the moment, I'm looking through my stash to find the perfect yarn to knit something during the ceremony. I need an easy to knit (or crochet) yarn and an easy to knit (or crochet) pattern. I don't want to knit something I have to look at , I don't want to miss any of the dresses! ;-)

What are you knitting tonight?

Still dreaming of spring...

A snowstorm blew over my part of the world! It's gorgeous, but it's just another sign that it'll be a while before winter leaves us alone, so I've designed a sweater in a spring-like color (out of some stashed wool of a forgotten origin) with some crochet lace to make it flirty and feminine (which is something I strive for in the middle of winter).

It's a simple cardigan, that hits right at the hips, with darts in the front and back and decreases at the sides.

I made a collar with a few rows of crochet in a shell stitch.

Until I find a great closure, I'm fastening it with crocheted ties.

I'm off, I have to shovel a lot of very heavy snow... :-(

It's still winter sports season here! So there's still some cold weather knitting going on.

I made a ski sweater on the Passap with some nice soft wool. It's warm and comfy and it has a lot of room for layering another sweater underneath.

I was inspired to make red hearts because I started knitting  this on Valentine's day... :-)

Hats, hats and cowls!

The sun is shining but it's still cold outside... This is the moment, after many months of winter, that we begin to want new cold weather accessories. We're all getting bored with what we've been wearing and the stores don't have any winter stuff left! They're already selling their spring collections... What can we do?

Well we have a huge advantage over most consumers, WE KNIT!!! Yeah!

Here's what I've been knitting in the hat and cowl departments:

Above, a long Gaptastic cowl in mustard (with a matching machine knit hat) , a short cowl in turquoise, a crochet cowl in rust and a crochet hat/scarf in lovely buttery soft alpaca.

As you can see below, I also knit two snappy-hats! I love this pattern, it's fast and easy to knit and it looks good on everyone!

I'm knitting another cowl and hat for spring! Can't stop!!! :-)

Dreaming of springtime!

Where I live, although the days are getting longer and the past few days have been almost balmy (right around the freezing mark), winter is far from over... I'm really  looking forward to spring, to seeing the pale green of the first leaves, to being able to sit outside on the terrace... In a few months...

Meanwhile, since everything is white outside, I long for the color green! So, I made myself a green cardigan, a flowery green sign of hope:

(I think I really need a dress form to show off my sweaters better...)

I made it on the Passap, then I duplicate stitched the flowers. It's much easier than intarsia for such small areas of color.

It's wool, so it's warm enough to wear right now!!!

Guess what's upstairs!

 It's my new workroom!!!

There's yarn:

Baskets, full of skeins:

There's a vintage Passap D (circa 1949):

(It works in a totally different way than other knitting machines, not much faster than a quick hand knitter... But it sure looks cool!)

There are the machines I work with: a pink Passap Duomatic on the left and a Singer SK120 on the right.

There's also a sock knitting machine that needs a lot of cleaning and TLC:

There's a lot of light and sunshine, a nice view and everything I need to play! Yeah!!! 

A little crochet!

Here's what I made a few months ago for the guest room:

That's 169 granny squares in different shades of green, pink and lilac with a dark green border.

The cat is very happy with the results, he loves to sleep on it! :-)

A scarf is born!

I've been taking advantage of the cold weather to knit up a (snow) storm!

My friend Line is preparing a puppet theater show about a KNITTER (how cool is that!) and she needed a 35 foot (10,5 meters) long multicolored striped scarf as a prop that the main character knits during the show. Knowing I have knitting machines, she asked me if I could do it, needless to say I agreed!

The scarf had to be colorful, easy care and be able to withstand all the hardships of touring! So, I went to a lot of stores, on the hunt for enough acrylic of exactly the same size, in as many pretty colors as I could find. Let me tell you this baby took longer to block than to machine knit!

I knit it in the round on my trusty Singer SK120 (with the ribber) and here it is:

Let me introduce Felix one of the stars of "La grande Tricoteuse", draped in the scarf...

The show will be touring Quebec soon!

I'm back!

I started this blog a year ago and then I stopped writing. That's because it was a very bad year... During that time, my husband's cancer came back with a vengeance... He was very sick for months and sadly, he passed away.
I've needed time to heal. I'm not back to my old happy go lucky self yet, but I'm getting there, slowly... Keeping busy helps, knitting helps, a lot!
On the knitting and crochet fronts, I made a lot of Christmas presents, hats, scarves, mittens, cowls etc...
I also made a huge granny square blanket for the guest bedroom.
Last month, I moved my knitting room, that is my yarn, books, magazines, knitting machines and assorted paraphernalia from one part of the house to another. I'm now using the whole attic! It's large, full of light and I have a terrific view of the St-Lawrence river while I knit! I love it!
I took advantage of the move to clean my machines. The Passap Duomatic really needed it, I had to remove all the needles and pushers and deep clean the grooves. They were full of lint, no wonder it was getting harder and harder to push the carriage across!
The SK 120 and its ribber needed new sponge bars, a big problem since they're not manufactured anymore. I managed to make some by cutting a strip of tight cell foam rubber insulation in half and squeezing it in the very small metal strip. Yeah! It works!
Now, I need to clean my old circular sock knitting machine and see if it needs to be repaired. It hasn't been used in years! The friend who gave it to me never used it and she inherited it a long time ago, so, who knows when it was used last? I hope to give it a good home and a new purpose in life! LOL
To store all my yarn, I bought square baskets (that fit in the bookcases I already had in the attic) to classify the skeins differently. They're now in big Ziploc bags, according to brand and color. The cones are on shelves, according to yarn composition and gauge.
I love my new work space! I'll be knitting a whole lot more now that I'm so organized!
I'll be posting pictures of my attic soon! Stay tuned!