Holli Yeoh Knits

I love receiving emails from knitters who’ve made one of my designs.  Kim just sent me some great photos of her darling daughter modeling her recently finished Jamie sweater.  Doesn’t it look great in those girly colours?  Jamie is a fun knit without any seams.  Look at more photos and read about Kim’s Jamie here.

Last night I managed to successfully add a new button to my website for the blog. 

While I was at it I changed the images of the kids modeling my sweaters on my homepage.  I’m please with my success considering I didn’t really know what I was doing!  Next step is to add a navigation button and then I can start concentrating on getting the kits onto the site.  Once I get all the web work done, then I can get back to designing and knitting.

Why does it have to take sooo long to sew things together?  I spent the whole evening mattress stitching my way through Kieran - and it’s not done yet.

In the meantime, I’m going to have some fun with this list of knitting accomplishments and aspirations courtesy of Steph.

Bold for stuff you’ve done, italics for stuff you plan to do one day, and normal for stuff you’re not planning on doing.

Afghan/Blanket
I-cord
Garter stitch
Knitting with metal wire
Shawl
Stockinette stitch
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Knitting with camel yarn
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down (I’ve knit gloves tip-down, but not mittens)
Hat
Knitting with silk
Moebius band knitting
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Slip stitch patterns
Knitting with banana fiber yarn
Domino knitting (modular knitting)
Twisted stitch patterns
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Two end knitting
Charity knitting
Knitting with soy yarn
Cardigan
Toy/doll clothing
Knitting with circular needles
Knitting with your own handspun yarn
Slippers
Graffiti knitting (knitting items on, or to be left on the street)
Continental Knitting (tried it but I’m very clumsy)
Designing knitted garments
Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran)
Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book
Scarf
American/English knitting (as opposed to continental)
Knitting to make money
Button holes
Knitting with alpaca
Fair Isle knitting (well I have done a teeny bit, but really want to knit a whole sweater)
Norwegian knitting
Dying with plant colors
Knitting items for a wedding
Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cozies…)
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars
Olympic knitting
Knitting with someone else’s handspun yarn
Knitting with DPNs
Holiday related knitting
Teaching a male how to knit
Bobbles
Knitting for a living (does designing count?)
Knitting with cotton
Knitting smocking
Dying yarn
Steeks
Knitting art
Fulling/felting
Knitting with wool
Textured knitting
Kitchener BO
Purses/bags
Knitting with beads
Swatching
Long Tail CO
Entrelac
Knitting and purling backwards (done it but I’m not adept at it)
Machine knitting
Knitting with self-patterning/self-striping/variegating yarn (maybe just a little!)
Stuffed toys
Baby items
Knitting with cashmere
Darning
Jewelry (I guess metal jewellery doesn’t count?)
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Writing a pattern
Gloves
Intarsia
Knitting with linen
Knitting for preemies
Tubular CO
Freeform knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mitts/arm warmers
Pillows
Knitting a pattern from an online knitting magazine
Rug
Knitting on a loom
Thrummed knitting
Knitting a gift
Knitting for pets
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair
Hair accessories
Knitting in public

To update you on all the knitting going on around here in anticipation of the Victoria FibreFest and Knit-Out.  Aidan is almost finished, just some buttons, a few ends and a label to go.  Photo to come soon.

Kieran is coming along nicely and is on the blocking board.  Let me tell you a little about how I block.  I like using blocking wires to keep the major sections straight and to reduce the amount of pinning, so first I thread those on between the edge st and the second st from the edge.  I weave the wire back and forth between the rows.  Then I pin the pieces down to my blocking board using stainless steel T-pins at all the major corners of the piece and stainless steel straight pins anywhere else they are needed.  My blocking board is a large piece of blue foam insulation from the hardware store. 

This is the best part - for my standard patterns I’ve drawn up a cheat sheet in all my pattern sizes on a piece of gingham using fabric markers.  All I have to do is place the sweater pieces over their pattern piece on my blocking cloth and pin to fit the measurements.  I love it and it saves me so much time.

Once the pieces are pinned on I give them a very generous spritzing of water with a spray bottle, pat them down a bit with my hands to even things out and make sure the fibre gets good and wet.  Then I leave it overnight to dry.  Once on the board I can even lean the whole thing against a wall to get it out of the way.

My needles have been flying lately and it’s going to be a long haul flight!  I have a merchant table at the upcoming Victoria FibreFest and Knit-Out on June 10 at Saxe Point Park in Esquimalt on Vancouver Island.  I’m taking my patterns, kits and yarn to sell at the Knit-Out.  Many of my samples are in yarns that are now discontinued or that I don’t carry.  It’s time to knit some fresh samples in colourways that I can offer people, so that means lots of knitting between now and then.

The weather in Vancouver is finally allowing me to knit outdoors, so here I am at Devan’s soccer practice last Friday.  By Friday night I had all the parts for the Aidan vest.  Just need to pull out the blocking board before finishing it up.

Saturday night I cast on for a new Kieran in a fresh green with a pretty blue, pink and green self-patterning.  I just now finished the back - 24 hours later.  I had lots of opportunity today to knit while at a Guild executive meeting, then later tonight while visiting after we had my Dad over for his birthday dinner.

Kim Werker oozes enthusiasm about her crochet passion.  After listening to her speak to the West Coast Knitters’ Guild about crochet, I wanted to set down my Addi Turbo circs and pick up a hook and start crocheting.

Interweave Crochet is lucky to have someone so commited and opinionated (in a good way!) about crochet.  Kim will definitely help take the idea of crochet out of the 70s and into the 21st century.

If you have a chance to hear her talk in your area - don’t miss it.  In fact, you can even request her through Eventful.

I finally managed to make my way to a new LYS the other day called Three Bags Full.  What a warm friendly little store.  Look at what I bought!

The last of sweetgeorgia in colourway Momiji.  They still have a few skeins in about six colourways - hurry on down if you’ve been toying with treating yourself. 

I also bought some hard-to-come-by Koigu.  Francesca, one of the owners was telling me they have to actually send someone to Koigu to pick up and buy whatever stock they have on hand.  Luckily she has dedicated family within a few hours drive who have been willing to do just that.  I hear it can take a couple of years to receive backordered colourways.

Three Bags Full carries a carefully selected assortment of quality fibres such as Lorna’s Laces, Malagribo, Blue Sky Alpaca, Louet, Cascade, Rowan, Lanaknits Hemp, Noro, and Mission Falls.

I’ve been wanting to try the Louet Gems sport weight which they only carry from hand-painting artist, Trish Moon of Indigo Moon.  It’s a huge skein and I need solid colours, not hand-painted.  In order to help me decide if it will work for a design project I have in mind, Francesca searched in the back room and came up with these adorable mini sample skeins to try out (hmm, might have to take another photo since you can’t tell how small they really are).

As you can see, Three Bags Full has amazing customer service.  When I was there Francesca was helping another customer choose a lace project.  She spent quite some time showing her knitted samples and talking about the merits of both the Sivia Harding design and the yarn options.  After the customer made her choice, her skeins of yarn were wound into balls for her, free of charge.