Life LackaDaisiCal

You know the phrase.....basic black, black goes with everything.....you can never go wrong with black! Well, YouTube is the new black! You can find everything on YouTube! Yes you can! (Remember, I learned to crochet via You Tube...yup, a 60+ year old CAN LEARN NEW THINGS! and a lot of this new information comes from You Tube!) Here's my "Learn to Crochet" post....with the links that YOU might want to follow to learn to crochet! You are NEVER too old to learn new things!) Music Videos, old movies, concert footage....I go to YouTube to see what I can find! Welcome to the world of Video Bloggers (or podcasters) After The Edinburgh Yarn Festival, I searched on You Tube and was amazed at how many video podcasters had travelled to this event. Aha, a podcaster lounge! These "Podcasters" are celebrities in their world of video blogging and they were there in the lounge to connect to each other and to meet and greet their followers! Searching for Edinburgh ...

If you are like me, if you are sitting...you are knitting - right? Once you've got that stitch pattern down pat or when you are knitting swathes of beautiful fine gauge stocking stitch, you NEED entertaining! My latest project, Amaryllis by Marie Wallin (from her Springtime Collection ) is an interesting combination of challenging knitting, followed by LOTS of stocking stitch! The charted border of the body and the sleeves.....has some tricky irregular spacing...caught me out I have to admit! Then there are those LONG floats! But once those borders are done.....it's all stocking stitch....knitting to motor along with! Thank goodness for our modern technology! Technology today makes it EASY to keep yourself entertained while knitting! You can watch a favourite DVD (the more times you watch a DVD the less you actually have to watch it - as you are knitting you see the movie in your mind even though you might not be watching the screen! I'm right aren't I???)  You...

I love my Niamh! Yes, I do crochet! Thank you very much! Niamh, from Marie Wallin's  Winter Crochet collection seven I lengthened it by adding a repeat here and there! The Ombre shading is so on trend right now! I made the neckline a bit lower. and custom fit the body.  as I wanted a fit  that was between sizes.  (easy to do as this was a basic 5 stitch repeat pattern) I love it! Yes, I am a crochet convert! While I will always be a knitter first, I thoroughly enjoyed this foray into crochet....I loved how Niamh is edged with knit rib! If I can do it, you can too! So excited about crochet, I suggested to Marie that while some of her fans are knitting their Fair Isle Club 2 blanket.... have you seen it? There are still spots available for this exclusive Club design ......get all the details here Fairisle Club 2 . Maybe we could do a CAL (Crochet a long) with the designs in Winter Croc...

I've dabbled in crochet.... Yes, I could do a granny square....a crochet edge....but following a written pattern was a challenge. My FIRST official finished crochet project was..... Design by Lisa Richardson in Rowan Felted Tweed..... see all the details on my Frances Crochet Scarf Ravelry page! The Frances Crochet Scarf was a sophisticated version of 70's wild and crazy crochet....I loved it then and still wear it often! The huge light bulb moment for me came when I realized that to crochet....you had to start the row by getting to the height of the stitches of that next row. If you don't crochet, this might not make sense.  To get a good grip on this concept, I crochet a "swatch cowl" and blogged about it here.  There are links in this post to all of the Rowan Yarns crochet videos on Youtube! Then came the Lisa Richardson CAL on the Rowan web site!  Small gauge crochet! Scary!!!! While I didn't do this CAL, I did...

Hildis , by Lisa Richardson (free pattern) for ROWAN YARNS Select  Soffili Yak (limited edition yarn) for more details, see my Hildis project page! I have to say that when I saw this knit up at the Harrogate Stitching show last November, it was LOVE! The yarn is a Rowan Select (limited edition) so once it's gone, it's gone!  You might be able to knit this up in Kid Classic...just a thought...of course you'd need to swatch! The pattern was perfect as written. The pockets line up on the exact row that they should to keep the pattern correct....the fronts are facings that fold over....the collar, oh the collar! The ONLY change I made was the light band that highlighted the raglan shaping. I really liked the idea of keeping the edges in the two colours and having them butt up against each other....matching the edge stitches on the collar!  All in all a great knit, fabulous design, DIVINE yarn! Thank you...

I have the first of two finished 2016 projects to share with you today! The FairIsle Patch Cushion, designed by Marie Wallin using Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift In this photo, you can see how big and squishy this cushion is - the finished knitted piece measured 23"! I found the perfect fabric for the backing! Marie is offering this project as part of her day workshop program  in 2017! The colours used in this cushion are amazing! Long term knit friends will remember that I sold Jamieson's Shetland   yarnsthrough "She Ewe Knits" for 8 years! It was wonderful to get re-aquainted with this gorgeous yarn.  Each colour is a sophisticated blend of shades... Shaela, Sholmit, Bramble, Thistledown,  Tundra, Fog, Paprika, Camel, Blue Lovat, Yellow Ochre, Moss, Mooskit and Sunset! Ahh, the memories! Fog got a lot of attention! The workshop knitters adopted it as their word of choice when dealing with a tricky situation in their knitting... "Oh Fog!"...

My Fair Isle Cushion project is finished, washed, dried, and it's a bit larger than the 20x20" pillow insert I bought....what's a knitter to do? While I ponder...... I searched up and down the Ottawa St. fabric shops (a street in Hamilton known for fabrics and bric-a-brac) and found this on a clearance table - only $5 a yard! The colours are perfect for my cushion back! This has been a fabulous project - picking up and knitting each section of fair isle off of the previous bit of knitting....sort of like quilting! Marie used this technique in her Fairisle Club 2 blanket....which is absolutely stunning (I saw it in real life at the workshop). Since I haven't yet finished my Fairisle Club 1 blanket, I MUST RESIST Fairisle Club 2! Yes, I MUST! Just because I'm resisting, you don't have to! There are still spaces available here ! At the workshop, I loved seeing the garments knit up! Some that I'd dismissed are now high up on my "I...