finished objects

Spadina Avenue

| eelliottknits

A while back, I started playing around with purl ridges and came up with a simple stitch pattern that I really love.

What is it about this texture that grabs me so? I have no idea, but I find these graduated purl ridges deeply satisfying, no matter how many times I work them (and you are going to see them a lot in the next few releases). While noodling around with the ridges, I tried drawing a column of slipped knit stitches through them, and I liked that version, too.

I looked at the result and could picture it as a cowl: a big, generous cowl in a soft, lush yarn that would be as much of a pleasure to knit as it would be to wear. This design would be simple without being boring: a design to work on a lazy weekend, in stolen minutes during the day, or whenever you feel like knitting something satisfying and are not in the mood for a challenge.

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Last Minute Travel Slippers

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It started in May. I had a week to go before my road trip to Maryland Sheep & Wool, and the itch set in. The itch to make something for this trip. I can make something in a week, surely. It’s not like I have anything else to do. (I had a lot else to do.) I know: I’ll make some slippers! My beloved old moccasins are looking pretty beat up, and they take up a fair bit of room in the suitcase, and I bet I can whip out a pair of ballet-ish slippers that look nice and pack small and will keep my bare feet off the hotel carpet.

Now, this is not my first last-minute-travel-project rodeo, and though I was tempted to also spin the yarn for these things, I knew that that way lay madness. Besides, that’s much of the point of a stash, surely: to have exactly the right yarn when inspiration strikes, just waiting for you to pull it out and get knitting. So I did. I found some worsted weight from Imperial Yarn in a heathery bottle green, and off I went.*

Last Minute Travel Slippers in progress Continue reading →

The little things

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It’s Thanksgiving up in Canuckia today, and my far-flung siblings and their children gathered in Vancouver this weekend to celebrate. Thanksgiving isn’t quite the huge deal back home that it is in the US—I mean, it’s a fairly big deal, but in my experience, at least, December is when people really pull out the stops to get to where their family is—but this Thanksgiving’s a special one. This year, there’s a brand new Elliott to be thankful for. (And Werb. She is half Werb, and that’s a good thing to be, too.) My sadness at not being there is somewhat lessened by the knowledge that I’ve sent some thankfulness for this new tiny human in the form of baby knits, and these will be there, and that makes it a bit more okay. And hey, now that they’ve arrived, I can show them off to you! So here we go: tiny knits, round 1.

all the baby knits Continue reading →

Handspun inspiration

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The next round of samples is almost done, and I’m ready for a break. Between indie releases and commissions, I’ve been going pretty much non-stop since July, so I’ve promised myself at least two weeks away from sample knitting when these are out the door.

samples
Today’s project: redo the crown shaping on that hat.

Once these are off, I’ll need to spend a day or so digging the apartment out from under the mess that accumulates during a big work bender. After that, though, ohhhhh, yes. I’ve got more plans than could reasonably be accomplished: set up my workspace, finally; finish himself’s sweater, which has been a sleeve and a button band/collar away from done since April; get started on at least one of the sweaters I’ve been sketching and swatching for myself; finish my Circular Reasoning cowl before another winter’s come and gone; play Fallout 4 until my eyes bleed…it’s a very long list, and I won’t get to all of it, and I’m okay with that. The thing I’m most looking forward to, though (apart from exploring the post-nuclear wasteland), is getting re-acquainted with my spinning wheel. Continue reading →

Line and Shadow

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Goodness, it’s been a while. This spring has been a full one, with no sign of slowing down for the summer. The drawback is that a lot of the busyness has been working on projects that I can’t talk about online yet, so my posts are starting to read like a catalogue of pattern releases. I hate when that happens—I recently set up a mailing list for pattern release announcements to try to move this space towards less sell-y content—which is probably why it’s taken me so long to post about Line and Shadow. However, the sample is going to TNNA with me to be displayed in the Shibui Knits booth (the sample, that is—I’m not nearly as good at staying still. It’ll be in booth 389.) I’m pretty chuffed about that, plus it’s well past time, so here goes. Continue reading →

Born at Sea

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You may remember that some time ago, I made a blanket for my then-newborn nephew, whom we shall call Galactus, Eater of Worlds. (Really, he’s a cherubic little thing with a mess of blond curls; he’ll always be Galactus to me.) For that blanket, Ridgely (the colour genius behind Astral Bath Yarns) took my rather stream-of-images-type description and came up yarn that was exactly the colour in my head, a colour that is now in her repeatable colourways under the name Grotto.

BAS prototype 1
Born at Sea, the prototype

Her dyeing technique and those stitch patterns worked so well together, and enough people liked that blanket, that we decided it should become a pattern, and the pattern should be called Born at Sea.  Continue reading →

Christmas Quick Knits

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Well, my cunning plan for this year worked out. Having knit like a demon all spring and summer, by the first week in December I’d almost finished all the samples for this season and had no immediate deadlines reaching over my shoulder with their sharp, deadliney claws. I was feeling pretty damned pleased with myself. All that was left was the gifts for the niece and nephews–the special fun knitting I’d been saving until now–and I had plenty of time…oh, crap. Mailing times. To Canada. Why do they always sneak up on me? Gah. As it turned out, everything I’d chosen could be made quickly–the first two took a day each–so all was not completely lost. If you’re in a last minute panic, fellow knitter, maybe these ideas will help you, too. They’re not even child-specific, in my humble opinion. Continue reading →

Icelandic for tea cozy

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For a knitter, I sure have chosen a strange place to live. Most of the time, it’s hot, and when it’s not hot, it’s just sort of cool. Light weight sweaters are handy from late October ’til April, but those lovely heavy sweaters, the cozy cabled and stranded beauties that would be so perfect up north? Yeah, not so practical here. But finally, finally, I’ve come up with a way to have a lopapeysa of my own that will see regular use. Indeed, it will get used every single day. Continue reading →