Holli Yeoh Knits

Today is my birthday and my husband has given me a weekend with Sally Melville at the end of January!  How perfect is that?  I’m confirmed in all the workshops, even the one for which I was on the wait list.  I just love taking knitting workshops no matter what the subject is.  I always learn something new.  I also like picking the instructor’s brain as far as how to make a living with designing knitwear.

Christmas is around the corner and I decided not to do the mad rush on handknit gifts this year.  Although rather belatedly I did decide upon one item.  Take a look at this frothy concoction that’s in the works.  That’s all I’m going to say about it right now.

So a couple days after I gave both Carmen and Mechelle their gloves they happened to both be on the 99 B line bus.  Imagine Mechelle’s surprise when she sat down and saw *her* gloves on someone else’s hands across the isle.  Mechelle and Carmen don’t know one another but they did know I was making gloves for two of my friends.  Naturally she said something to Carmen and they had a good laugh over the gloves.  Since I wasn’t on the bus with them to get a picture of their gloves together, we’ll have to content ourselves with one of me and Devan fooling around while wearing our gloves. 

I tried telling my husband this story and he said, oh they were probably just similar.  They couldn’t have been the same gloves.  There are lots of gloves out there like that.  … He just didn’t get it.  There are only three pairs of gloves like this out there (so far!) in this rather distinctive colourway and I knit all three pairs. 

If you want to knit these gloves in this colourway, I have enough for a couple of kits.  You get two 100 g balls of yarn (easily enough for four pairs of gloves - depending on size) plus the pattern for $40 CAD.  For $45 CAD I’ll include an Annie’s Mittens pattern so you can make both the gloves and the mittens.  Email me at info AT holliyeoh DOT com if you’re interested.

I’ve been knitting extra pairs of the Guess Who? gloves for a couple of friends of mine who are oh so deserving.  Mechelle has been a great help with photographing my designs.  I wanted to find a nice way to say thank you.  When I was working on the sample pair of gloves to be photographed for the pattern I realised that the colours were perfect for Mechelle. 

The lovely face looking out at us so intently is her daughter Nova who is also a good friend of Devan’s.  I’m looking forward to having Nova model some of my designs again down the road. 

When Carmen saw my new gloves design she was beside herself with desire.  Carmen is the mastermind behind Melonhead KnitWear and she knits like crazy for a living.  Any time that Carmen takes to knit for herself  takes time away from making more products for her business.  In fact, Carmen looks at the cost of her expenditures as how many hats they are worth.  A new pair of pants is five hats, for instance. So naturally because Carmen loved the gloves so much, I felt it was necessary for her to have a pair.  Today I was visiting her on Granville Island where she was selling her wonderful hats in the market.  I sewed in the last few ends while we visited and Carmen went home with a new pair of gloves.

Just in time to whip a quick Christmas present or two off your needles …

Guess Who?
$6.00 CAD

I love these gloves!  I’m really happy with the way the self-patterning yarn creates such a different effect on the fingers and the upper part of the hand.  I created a unique thumb gusset construction that’s reminiscent of the life line on the palm of your hand.  The thumb is completely knit before moving on to the rest of the hand and fingers.  This makes the gloves easy to try on as you go to get those finger lengths just right.

Annie’s Mittens
$6.00 CAD

Every year my knitting Guild knits mittens for an underprivileged kindergarten class in New York City.  Their teacher, Annie is the daughter of one of our members and we always call our charity project Annie’s Mittens.  Last year I knit a couple of pairs of mittens while experimenting with some design ideas I had … after a bit of tweaking, voila! a new knitting pattern.

The yarn is held double throughout these mittens which makes them a really quick knit.  You can have a lot of fun playing with the pattern repeat in the self-patterning yarn.  Both look great. You can get it to match up perfectly, or purposefully offset it.  The samples above both use the same self-patterning yarn - see how different they look?

The Emerald Lake 2007 knitting retreat was just what I needed.  A nice restful break from everyday life and lots of time to knit and chat.  I made lots of new friends and saw some old friends too. The event was hosted by Amy Swenson and Sandra Tiano, owners of Make One Yarn Studio and they did a fabulous job.  I can’t say enough about how well organized the trip was. 

I arrived in Calgary early so I could participate in an additional Thursday evening workshop with the entertaining Annie Modesitt where I finally learned how to cable without a cabling needle. Brilliant!  I’ve been reading Annie’s blog and wanting to take a workshop with Annie for quite some time now.  When I saw that she was going to be in Canada this fall I did everything I could to attend the retreat.  Workshop yarn was Sheep 1 by Sheep Shop Yarn Company.

Annie has a unique way of knitting in a Western Combined technique that I’ve read about here and there (look in the left-hand side bar for links on Annie’s site).  I know that for Annie it gives her great spead and even tension.  I’ve been playing with it over the past couple of years trying to take the plunge into changing the way I knit.  Unfortunately like everything new it takes some practice and is therefore much slower than my conventional way of knitting.  I would sure like to pick up my speed though and who couldn’t benefit from even tension?  Well, I got to see Annie in action and it’s truely amazing how quickly she can knit.  I really like aspects of the combined method of knitting and have already incorporated some of them in my knitting.  I still can’t seem to take the final step into trying to hold the yarn with my left hand exclusively instead of my right one.  This will definitely take practice to get me back up to speed.

The weekend project was a lace scarf from Annie’s new Romantic Hand Knits book.  We learned how to knit a lace pattern without having to refer to the chart or the written instructions after just a few short rows.  I also learned a tricky way to make a right leaning decrease look more even.  The yarn that was provided was Sheep 3, also by Sheep Shop Yarn Company.  It’s a wool/silk blend and is beautiful to work with and has wonderfully soft drap.

I learned all sorts of things, enjoyed the people and the setting and ate great food.  Did I mention that the weekend was inspiring too?  Check out these tire tracks in the snow that look like knit stitches!

What more could a girl want out of a weekend retreat?