cosmicpluto knits!

eye candy friday

the yarns

Hey all. It’s been awhile! I guess I needed a bit of recovery after my trip – the post-vacation vacation. I spent it dealing with family stuff and staying in a lot! The house I live in (I rent one of the apartments) is up for sale now, so there was a bit of disruption with cleaning it up and stuff as well. Hopefully I won’t have to move any time soon.

So what did I bring back from my travels? Not very much! I was carrying a 40L backpack, so I couldn’t carry much extra – it never went over 14 kg (airline max is 23 kg). I did mail back a few packages of random things that I picked up, mostly maps, magazines and a bit of yarn too.

From Loop in London, just a few skeins of Wollemeise! I’m hoping to make a little lacy cardigan with the green, and maybe a shawl with the purple.

From Alice at Socktopus, some of her fabulous hand dyed fingering weight yarn! Can’t wait to play with these.

And from Purl City Yarns in Manchester, a fabulous assortment of local Manchester yarns and some other British stuff including Natural Dye Studio and Fyberspates. Yum.

As you can see, I picked up a lot of single skeins – it really wasn’t the time to be buying sweater quantities of anything. I do enjoy the challenge of dealing with single skeins so I’m hoping to come up with some fun accessories in the coming months. I’m starting work on my fall collection, which I’m hoping to release in August or early September. It’s a bit tricky to think about in the summer, but after a couple days of hot weather (and broken air conditioning, d’oh) today is lovely and cool. I’m hoping to draw some inspiration from things I saw on this trip, and put together a set of patterns with a little something for everyone.

I can’t believe it’s June already though! Better get crackin’.

the hive mind

So I need your help! I’m very shortly embarking on a month long trip to the UK and Ireland in May – and yes, I just realized that that is very, very soon. I haven’t done much planning other than buying my ticket there, and since you were all so helpful for my trip to NYC I’m hoping you can help me out on my trip planning.

As of now it’s just a pleasure trip, but I’m open to talks or teaching at any LYS if you’ll have me. Let me know by email (cosmicpluto@cosmicpluto.com) if you have an LYS or guild that would like me to stop by!

I’m still working on my itinerary, but here’s where I’m thinking of going:
Edinburgh, Newcastle, Liverpool or Manchester, London, Cardiff, Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, and the Scottish Highlands.

I’m looking for things to do, places to stay (would you like to have a visitor for a few days? I bake!), or pretty much any other advice you have! I’m really excited, although freaking out a bit since I have so much to get done here before I go, and the time is just flying by.

Somewhat relatedly, spring cleaning of my apartment has also resulted in the intense desire to pare down my stash a bit – so I’m having a stash sale. Check out my Flickr set by clicking on the photo below. If you’re interested in anything, email me at cosmicpluto at cosmicpluto dot com.

Maybe you can help me out with that too?

the yarn, the yarn!

I went to a total of 3 yarn stores in the 6 days I was in NYC, and I just bought a wee bit of yarn. From School Products, some interesting fingering weight marled merino from Italy – they had a knit sample up and it felt and looked great.

Also from School Products, some lovely cashmere tweed. I don’t normally buy yarns like this (it’s very loosely plied and kinda lumpy-bumpy) but it’s just so soft. I wish I could’ve bought a sweater’s worth!

At Purl Soho, I found most of the yarns were ones that I could get elsewhere easily, and I certainly couldn’t buy Koigu! (They’re from Ontario, a few hours away from me.) So what does that leave? Shelter, of course!

It was tough to narrow down to a couple of colours, but I think these will make a great scarf or big cowl.

I didn’t get much knitting done while I away since I was just walking around all the time (or eating, heh). But on the plane and while waiting I started a simple cowl, out of some Socks that Rock Silkie from the stash. The colourway is “Walking on the Wild Tide” and it was a sock club yarn from a few years ago. This is knitting purely for the knitting, which I don’t get to do that much these days! It’s just a simple yo, ssk pattern that spirals around. I think this is going in the basket of knitted gifts for birthdays and even Christmas this year. Preplanning!

Stay tuned, this week I have a new pattern and a stash sale coming up!

wintery

It’s pretty chilly out (-15C, 4F) and there’s a fair amount of snow on the ground. I’m wearing an old Malabrigo worsted sweater and my cashmere Beauchamp Cowl, I just finished a cup of hot chocolate and I’m nice and toasty. Turns out that wearing a cashmere cowl indoors really helps with the warmth factor!

All I want to do these days is cast on for more things. But I have so very many things on the needles already! My cashmere sweater from the last post is ready for the sleeves and body to be joined at the underarm, but of course I went and started another one.

I really want new sweaters, NOW! I know if I just kept on with one project I’d be much more likely to finish it quickly and have something finished. But that just isn’t how it works around here, ha. This black sweater is a compound top-down raglan, with a v-neck. I think it’s going to be a wrap sweater, since I have plenty of yarn. It’s a lovely many-plied blend of silk and cashmere, which I’m knitting quite tightly since it will grow considerably when I wash it. The only downside?

It comes in 25g skeins. It’s worsted weight. So there’s only about 45 yards per skein! I’ve not even been balling up the yarn, I just sit with the loop of yarn open on my lap or my desk, and knit straight from it. I suppose an upside is that I feel like I’m getting through a lot since I can knit up a skein in a sitting? Still, that is a heck of a lot of ends. (I tried the Russian join for one, but it just didn’t really work out very well with the structure of the yarn. I’m planning to just do my usual join and try to weave in the ends in small batches as I go.) The sweater up to where it is in the photo is, I think, 5 skeins.

plane knitting

As every knitter knows, the most difficult packing task is deciding on the knitting – how many projects, how much yarn, and what if you need that tool you hardly ever use? What if you RUN OUT OF YARN?

When packing for TNNA this is compounded by the fact that it’s a needlecraft industry show and nearly everyone you meet is a knitter, or at least knows a lot about yarn! So your knitting projects are on display and everyone is looking and touching. The pressure is on! (Just kidding, fellow TNNA-ers. You’re all awesome and non-judgey.)

I packed cashmere.

A plainish pullover in some silvery grey Handmaiden 4ply 100% cashmere. Canadian representation, easy to knit while chatting and drinking, and oh-so-amazing. I got a good chunk of the sweater done while I was away. My only concern is that I only have 5 skeins of the yarn, and they’re only 50g each! I’ve knit a sweater in this yarn before, and I used 6 last time – but cashmere grows a fair amount with washing and wearing, and I think for this little sweater I should be fine. I’m almost up to the underarm with just 2 skeins, and the 3/4 sleeve I finished this week at home took about 40g. By my calculations, I’ll have about 70g, or more than 25% of the total yarn to use for the yoke. The second sleeve is my toss-in-my-bag knitting now.

Cashmere part 2 was my peacock feathers shawl:

If you’ve been reading this blog awhile, you miiiight remember that I originally started this shawl on my big trip to Asia in early 2009. Although looking back through my archives, I can’t remember if I actually posted about it. Anyway, I worked on it a bit then, and a bit when I got home, but then I put it down in favour of worky design stuff and because I didn’t really have the knitting energy left over to work on a project that requires a little more concentration and a lot of chart reading.

I’ve decided that I will get this shawl off the needles soon, preferably earlier rather than later, so I took it for the 5 hour plane rides between Toronto and LAX. I figured I might actually put in some time on it, and I managed to get through about 1.5 of the charts. I was even able to watch some movies on the plane and knit the shawl at the same time.

There are 7 charts for the body of the shawl, and then a big edging one. I’m about halfway through chart 6, and while the end might not quite be in sight yet, at least it’s looking like I’ll be able to finish it! I’m knitting it in some laceweight cashmere that I bought a couple of Rhinebecks ago, on 2.25mm needles. The pattern calls for 3.5mm, but I want it to be smaller than 88″ across the top. So far it looks like it isn’t going to be enormous, so I’m pleased.

But it might be difficult to keep working away on this since I came back with so much lovely yarn that is tempting me towards some new projects.