socks, stairs and dog love

 Right, so there were lots of other things that started with an 'S' this weekend. Namely SNOW. Lots and lots and lots of beautiful snow. However, it seems that I only took photos of the dogs, so I chose to leave the snow bit out of my collection of 'S' words in the title. Sorry, I do become distracted by the dogs at times...

 

Leading up to Christmas, I was in a sock knitting frenzy. Happily knitting sock after sock whilst working on my favourite socks pattern and dyeing up colours for sock kits. At the end of it all, both my parents benefited from a new pair of socks, and I just got round to photographing them this weekend. Above are my dad's in a Bronte and Mustard Seed combo that I'm quite liking.

And below, if you can see past the dog, are my mum's. These were the inspiration for the Sea Storm/Ghost/Dew Drop colour combination in the kits...and that's just what they are!

After a few minutes of pushing dogs out of the way, I just gave up and clicked away hoping to get a shot of 2 socks in focus...I think there's at least one in there...

There are so many delightful distractions outside the window in Mooresburg; wind, leaves, falling snow, any movement or noise at all...

...and so, the dogs danced around in between the socks and the camera enjoying the little bits of snow falling from the sky.

Oh, here's one of the socks!

legs...

tails...

behinds...

it's all cute really, so I'm not going to complain. Silly dogs. 

So I did manage to get a few decent sock pictures, but I think I like the dog-filled pictures better anyway...

The sock KAL is still going on in the Ravelry group until the end of March, still lots of time to join in! It has been so much fun to see Viola socks popping up, and some really lovely versions of the Favourite Sock pattern as well!

Like these, knit by the lovely traceyrr. She kindly test knit the pattern for me and made these beautiful socks in the process! Tracey's colour combo is Dew Drop (main) with Titus contrast. Thanks Tracey!

I have a pretty great prize in mind for this sock KAL as well, and I'll be dyeing that up this week so that I can share it with you soon. Stay tuned!

As for the second 'S' in the title of today's post, hooray, stairs are in place! my little dye studio now has access directly into the proper house - such a useful thing when there's 4 feet of snow outside the door!

And this seems to be the best photo I managed to take of the stairs over the weekend. I must have been really distracted by the cute dogs. Happily, I also discovered a new vantage of the studio space. It's looking pretty good!

If the weather had been on my side, last weekend would have seen running water in the shed as well. As it was, the brave plumber was rushing about Grey County fixing flooded basements and frozen pipes all over the place. I'll just have to content with my stairs for the moment.

shop update!

At long last it is time for a SHOP UPDATE! 

Click over the the VIOLA etsy shop next TUESDAY, FEBRUARY the 2nd @ 3pm EST for the latest and greatest!

I know, it's been a while. The past few months at Viola HQ have been action packed, and the time has flown by since the last shop update. I'm really excited about the yarns and colours that are lined up for next Tuesday. I think They're well worth the wait, hope you do too...

Polwarth + Alpaca is back at last! It's been away for a while, so for those of you who do not remember, Powarth + Alpaca is spun by my lovely friends at John Arbon Textiles. It's a blend of 70% Polwarth 15% Brown Alpaca and 15% White Alpaca. The natural hint of colour in the undyed yarn gives the finished colours such richness and depth. The yarn itself is light as air, soft, squishy and warm. It's good stuff!

I knit myself a Quill shawl in Polwarth + Alpaca and it has seen a LOT of action this autumn/winter. It was a perfect yarn and project pairing! Recently, I've been dreaming of a fair isle garment knit in this delightful stuff. Still in the dreaming/planning stages with that project...

 
Perhaps the best bit of news, however, is that MOHAIR LACE is returning! In the olden days of Viola (pre England) I dyed a very similar base, and it was so dreamy. When I took up dyeing again last year, I struggled to get the same base again. Just when I thought all hope was lost, this stunningly beautiful yarn appeared! Talk about good fortune, I'm still jumping for joy! 

The new Mohair Lace is almost exactly the same yarn as it's predecessor. It is a blend of 72% Kid Mohair and 28% Silk. Each 50g skein is 420 meters long.

I've just finished up a shawl (a very late birthday present for my mum) using Mohair Lace doubled with Merino Lace. The Mohair is in Twig (light golden brown) and Merino is in Ghost. I cannot even say how pleased I am with this project. I often find it really difficult to knit something so simple...always wanting to throw in some crazy detail, cable, stripe, lace, all of the above. Keeping it simple really paid off this time round!

It's a standard garter stitch triangle with this picot bind off. I'm going to be borrowing this shawl ALL THE TIME...I'll have to knit another one...that's ok. For anyone interested in knitting their own Mohair Cloud Shawl (that's what I'm calling it) I'll have lots of Mohair Lace coming up in the update, as well as Merino Lace to team it up with.

I used a 5mm needle, 2 full skeins of Mohair Lace and just over 1 skein of Merino Lace. It's big enough to wrap every which way, and light soft and cozy to boot! I wore it the other day layered over my favourite Mohair sweater (knit a very long time ago, and worn all the time!) Wearing all those layers of Mohair, whilst sorting Mohair Lace was a great treat.

a finished shawl and the beginning of a studio

Here it is at last, my finished Quill shawl! I rarely work on one project at a time...not sure that I've EVER worked on one project at a time before this. Anyway, it's happened. I put it down to the fact that I loved the yarn and the pattern, and the combination of the two of them together so much that I just was not interested in knitting anything else (like the gazillion important gifts that I should be knitting). 

I've loved this pattern from the very beginning, and when the beautiful Polwarth and Alpaca emerged from my dyepots I knew that it was meant to be. For a long time I had gone off of shawls entirely, or perhaps that was just the cold Canadian winter making me knit endless jumpers in an effort to survive. Whatever the cause, this project has brought back my shawl love!

The yarn is so light, soft and airy. Almost weightless, but completely cozy when knit up. I hardly even understand how such a wonder could be possible...and I ought to after working in the John Arbon mill for more than two years! I shall simply say it is some Arbon magic and not try to puzzle out this mystery any longer. 

I followed the pattern almost completely, initially intending to knit more stripes with more colours. When the time came to begin adding the stripes, however, I found that I loved the simplicity of the main colour I had chosen and opted to knit just 3 thin stripes around the very edge of the lace border section. I also chose to knit two extra repeats of this section, to ensure that I would have a very big and ultimately cozy shawl in the end. Success! The knit on edging was addictive and such a fun treat after miles of garter stitch. Phew, can you tell that I love this shawl?!

Just in case you're wondering where that lovely backdrop is, I shall tell you. It's the beautiful meadow at the store. My future home as well as the future headquarters of Viola. Pretty exciting stuff!

If you receive the newsletter, you may already know that renovations have already begun on the little shed that is to become my future dye studio. The week before last a little team of diggers helped to clear the old earth floor out and make way for the gravel that will eventually be covered by a new concrete floor. Who knew concrete could be so exciting?!

Much to my dismay, the digging did not revel any more buried treasures. It seems that the deer bones, rusty bits, old pepsi can and broken plastic comb will have to suffice. The only thing our weekend of digging yielded was a large hole and more rocks that I ever thought could possibly be in the ground. So many that I'm now distracted by wanting to build a stone oven! Anyhow, here is a silly picture of me with a pick.

The rather large pile of dirt that was removed from the shed is a satisfying reminder of all our hard work

And, here is the glorious hole that we dug! Doesn't look like much but by next week it's going to be a smooth concrete floor. To be honest, I didn't want the concrete and argued for keeping the charming dirt floor from the start. Turns out that there are some very sound reasons for all of this work, and I get to use a sledgehammer, so that's fun too.

Merino Lace

Like so many knitters out there, I sometimes have a tough time with laceweight yarns. Not with loving them -I seem to buy them all the time- but with knitting them up into useful things. I don't have a lot of use for lightweight jumpers, I live in Canada! In fact, this past winter was my first Canadian winter in a couple of years and I can tell you there were times that I thought I was not going to make it so summer...that I would surely become an ice cube before I could knit enough layers to stay warm. Lace yarn was not at all interesting to me over the winter, I saw it as a rather reckless and dangerous indulgence in my fight for survival!

Now that summer is officially here, and I've lightened up about the extremity of winter (only slightly) I have let another impulse take over - my need to knit up stash yarn! Another overwhelming aspect of my new (old) life in Canada is the yarn stash that I've been reunited with. I know many of you can relate to this one, it's huge, it's out of control! And so, I am working away at my stash, including that once pesky section of lace weight yarns. Turns out, There's quite a lot of stuff I want to knit with all that lace (phew!) 

My recent inventory has exposed my love of Viola Merino Lace yarn. Suppose I should have known about that already...There's something very special in the combination of a very fine singles merino yarn. It grabs dye super-fast creating beautiful splotches which remain delicate and subtle because of how thin the yarn is. I've thought about this quite a lot recently. 

Anyhow, as you may well imagine, I've been plotting many projects in the lovely Merino Lace...

You may have already seen the Light Grey Structure that I recently finished. I love this thing! Knit with Viola Merino Lace and Fyberspates Neff lace held double, I reckon that this jumper is going to be warm enough for winter layering. Huzzah! The pattern was brilliantly written and lots of fun to knit. It was my first go at contiguous sleeves and I'd say I'm a convert! I am most certainly dreaming up more double stranded lace jumpers!

I have also made a rather feeble start on the Halligarth Shawl that I was on about a while ago. I'm using Merino Lace for this again. The colourway is called 'Dusk' and I'm pretty crazy about it - so much so that the yarn is in focus instead of my knitting! 

And I am so excited to be sharing this beautiful shawl! Knit in Viola Merino Lace from many moons ago by the lovely UniqueUylond on Ravelry. The Pattern is Photosynthesis, and I'm pretty sure it was Uylond's beautiful shawl that inspired my Halligarth journey. Thanks Uylond!!

I shall leave you with a little glimpse of Merino Lace that will be making an appearance in the next Etsy update (soon to be announced!)

Happy Knitting!

finished laila

Last week my skilled camera friend Jeremy spent the day hanging out and managed to take some photos of me in my new laila jumper. He succeeded where so many others have failed to take a pictures of me with both my eyes open! It's a special gift that I have...pulling a dumb face and closing one eye exactly when the camera goes. Anyhoo, here's the jumper! I still love it and wear it every day, in spite of the climbing temperatures here in Toronto.

 

 

lots of knitting and reknitting

I believe that I mentioned in a previous post that I have been SUPER inspired with the knitting these days. I suppose that dyeing yarn again, and thus being surrounded by yarn most days is bound to inspire...if not I ought to be thinking of a job change. Phew, a sign that I'm on the right track! 

I seems, however, that I have become slightly over confident. All of a sudden, I think I can knit a new jumper every week...at the same time as socks, shawls and I don't even know what else. The result of this enthusiasm has been a lot of making mistakes, ripping back, re-knitting, ripping back again, re-knitting and so on. Oh well. Meanwhile the to knit list is consistently growing and growing and growing. 

Rather than grumble about it (more than I already have done just now) I think it would be much more fun to share some of my wonky knits and knitting dreams. So here it is, comin' at ya. All the knitting thoughts that have kept me awake at night...it's all too exciting!

First off, my Norn! I've loved this pattern for ages, well since the magazine came out (2012!) and just never got round to knitting it. I realized a couple of months ago that I've been hoarding Pom Pom magazines since the beginning, but not knit a single project from any. Well, I can say with certainty that all of that nonsense is about to change! I love this simple little crop top. Garter stitch, a little cable, hand dyed yarn. I love it all! The pattern calls for the Uncommon Thread DK. I have some, I love it, but I chose to knit this is my own MCN Worsted. These 3 skeins of Raven were sitting in my stash when I came home. They had already been knit into some failed projects and I felt it was time to give them a good home...final resting...shape, if you will. The pattern is simple and clear, I thought I'd be able to knit this up in a couple of days. Well, I have messed it up countless times by now (all because I'm not paying attention and/or rushing). Here she is, in what I hope is going to be her final stage of re knitting. Fingers crossed that the next photos of this project will be on me, finished.

 

My next tale of woe is a great one. I shared some progress pictures of this mohair cardigan a little while back, in this post. Well it was a slog to knit...but I pushed on because I was so excited about having a brioche, mohair, batwing, colourblock cardigan (as anyone would!) Here is the cardigan, almost finished. I just had a wee bit of sewing up left to go when I tried it on at last...and learned that the sleeves hang like giant, pucker-y, crumpled, lumpy capes. Sad. So I have now begun the painstaking process of pulling out all of that knitting in mohair and am pondering what on earth I can do to use the little bits of yarn that now remain. Sad day.

There has been a success, I knit this lovely Lila jumper in Noro Silk Garden Solo. I wore my Lila to the Toronto Knitter's Frolic this past Saturday and  attracted rather a lot of attention. Never have so many people wanted to stroke me before! It seems that many people have been slightly dubious about just how this beautiful colour would knit up. I'm feeling well chuffed with myself for being the bold person to go forward and knit an entire mental birthday cake jumper in the stuff!

Plans for this afternoon are a fun adventure walk to the lake and taking some proper photos of me in my 'mental birthday cake jumper' !

Next up in the cast on queue are a couple...a few shawls that I've had my eye on...

I couldn't help but hold onto 2 skeins of Dusk Merino Lace that I dyed up for the Knitter's Frolic...sorry folks, but it was my favourite.

So, the lovely merino lace is going to become one great big Halligarth shawl! It's been ages since I did any serious lace knitting, so I'm really looking forward to getting into this one.

Next up, some Wellington Fibres 3 ply. It's a lustrous, soft and fluffy combination of their own beautiful mohair and wool. I could not leave this behind when I visited the mill and farm at their open weekend a little while back ( more to come in this later). Anyhow, I cannot wait to cast on a 006 in this yarn...garter stitch AND tassles. I cannot want for anything more!

And last, but not least I have specially dyed some of my favourite colours of Polwarth and Alpaca to knit up a really, really big Quill Shawl. I have wanted to knit this pattern since the beginning of time it seems, but never had enough of the right yarn. Well, I've finally fixed that problem by MAKING exactly the right amount of the perfect yarn!

There are so many more ideas and projects to share, but you must be getting a little bored of me by now. I shall save it for next time!