Holli Yeoh Knits

As I mentioned before, my friend Marje took the morning off of work to drive me to a couple of yarn shops in Calgary. It sure beat taking the bus around town!

On Thursday morning we visited Knit One Chat Too which has renovated since the last time I was there. They’ve expanded and now have a fireplace and a cozy place to sit and knit. I was lucky to finally meet the owner Alison and her mother, Liz who were both welcoming and warm. They have a great display of Bee’s Knees Knits sweaters too!

I was impressed by the variety and range of yarns - I’ve been looking for a dk weight yarn for a design idea and they had quite a selection. After writing down Alison’s order for more patterns I bought a few balls of bulky yarn for a different design idea - Lang Tosca in the oh-so-descriptive colour 0088 and Schachenmayr Ego Tweed in Grape (85) - and then we were on our way.

PUDDINGyarn was our next stop and it is very close to the library where Marje was able to return to work. I had never been to PUDDINGyarn which is fairly new to Calgary. They’ve been carrying my patterns for just over a year and I lucked out again and met the owner, Sharon for the first time.

I really enjoyed looking at all the yarns on her shelves and treated myself to a skien of Jitterbug by Colinette in Bright Charcoal (87). Sharon placed an order with me and we swapped display samples and I was on my way.

I finished off my day by wandering around Calgary and visiting with my grandparents. I ended up at Make One Yarn Studio where I bought a lovely skein of Lorna’s Laces Lion and Lamb, colourway Vera. There was such a wonderful selection of Blue Sky Alpaca and Cherry Tree Hill and Malabrigo and Claudia Hand Painted and Alchemy yarns. I could go on and on!

Not only has it been a long time since I’ve written and much has happened, I just lost the rather long-winded post I was working on!  The most exciting thing by far that I’ve done recently is attend the Emerald Lake 2007 knitting retreat with Annie Modesitt.  What a blast!  Before I talk about that though (in another post), I want to back up to how I spent my time in Calgary before the weekend started.

I stayed with Marje, a good family friend and we had a wonderful time visiting together.  It had been a couple of years since I saw her last and I really enjoyed catching up with her.  Marje spoiled me by driving me around Calgary.  She even took the morning off of work on Thursday so I could get to a couple of yarn shops (more on that later too!).

While visiting at Marje’s house, we planned our attack on the yarn shops the next day.  I worked on finishing up Eloise because I wanted to wear her on the weekend.  I didn’t sew up the seams with the knitting yarn because it was too bulky and uneven - I just didn’t want that headache and felt that the seams would not appreciate it either.  Instead I used a fingering weight yarn in a red that basically went with the many colours in Blossom.  I could have used any colour really because the yarn just disappears into the seam, never to be seen again (you can click to enlarge the photo).  Isn’t mattress stitch wonderful!

Two evenings of sewing her together and she’s finished!  I’m happy with the fit and the overall effect of the sweater.  If I were to make it over again I would probably put on long ribbed cuffs to mirror the long ribbing on the torso.  In fact, at first I thought there was a mistake in the pattern because it didn’t call for the ribbed cuffs.  After a very careful look at the rather out of focus photo I realised I had been mistaken.

Sweater Stats
Pattern: Eloise by Jane Ellison in Noro Knits 
Yarn: Noro Blossom in colourway #5
Needles: much smaller than what was recommended, I used 3.75 mm instead of the called for 5 mm.

I finally received my invitation to join Ravelry and I’m part of the community now!  The wait wasn’t nearly as long as I thought it was going to be (just over a month).  I resisted joining because I really don’t need one more thing to lure me into surfing the web instead of designing and knitting, but the more I heard about it the more I became intrigued.  You know what the really amazing thing is?  Some of my patterns are already on Ravelry as projects that others are working on, have completed or have in their queue.  How cool is that?!

I’ve just barely scratched the surface of what Ravelry can do for me and how I can use it.  I will start populating my profile and notebook soon.  If you’re on Ravelry, pop by for a visit - my user name is HolliYeoh.

What have I been working on lately?  A bit of everything.  I started a new pair of computer socks and I’ve turned the heel on the first sock.  I’m working on gloves for my friend Carmen of Melonhead who saw my new pattern (to be released soon, I promise!) and pleaded for a pair.  I started on a vest for myself.  And I’m searching for the perfect yarn for a design I’ve been working on for ages but with which I keep running into problems.

Testing, testing, 1,2,3!  The site has been moved to a new host and I’ve switched from holliyeoh.ca to holliyeoh.com.  I keep going back and forth on which is prefereable.  Certainly the .com is the most widely used website extention.  At any rate, the .ca will send you to the right place too.  My email address from the Bee’s Knees Knits website should be working again too for anyone who might have been trying to get ahold of me.

I finished a pair of socks while my sites were down for the count.  These computer socks were knit top down with a garter stitch short-row heel from Lucy Neatby’s Cool Socks Warm Feet book along with a matching garter stitch short-row toe - neither of which can be seen in the photo!  We were on Granville Island on Thursday looking at the ducks and meeting up with our favourite friends who came for a visit from the Sunshine Coast.  This photo was taken just in front of the duck pond.

Project Specs:
Yarn: Regia Tip & Top Colour (Top Orion) purchased from Shelley at Fun Knits on Quadra Island.  It’s a cotton/wool blend sock yarn and I liked how they felt the first time I wore them - not itchy!
Pattern: loosely based on Lucy Neatby’s Timberline Toes pattern in Cool Socks Warm Feet.