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Too young to knit?

January 24th, 2010 | Posted by admin in Crochet | Handmade | Knitting - (0 Comments)

On Saturday I took the car in to be serviced. The repairs were going to take a couple hours so I headed over to the coffee shop to have a nice cup of tea and work on my knitting project. So I ordered my tea and sat down in one of the over-stuffed, leather chairs in the corner, pulled out the mittens I’ve been working on and set to knitting. That’s when the gentleman beside me piped up, “you’re too young to be doing that!”. In the back of my mind I was a little offended, when is it too young to learn a valuable, tactile skill that improves motor skills and can foster literacy and social skills??! Instead of being abrupt I told him he would be surprised to know that there is a whole community of young fiber artists and all he’d have to do was a little internet research to discover the going-ons in the knitting world. I went on to back my argument with a segment from CBC radio where they interviewed a photographer with one of the only dark rooms left on the lower mainland. The photographer went on to say that more and more high school aged people were coming in to use his dark room because they are tired of sitting in front of a computer, fiddling with photoshop. They’re craving the hands-on aspect of the craft and the magic of having an image appear before their eyes.


I  believe that society, with economic times and growing technology, has come full circle and we are getting back to out roots and the basics for survival. People want to know how it’s made and want to try to make it.

What do you think? Is there a “too young”?

Where to begin?

January 10th, 2010 | Posted by admin in Handmade | Knitting | Patterns - (0 Comments)

I think I’ll start with mittens.

Last April, after finishing my practicum, I took a knitting class at a local yarn shop. I had been in University for the past 7 years so to go from learning every day to nothing I needed something to fill the time and that’s when I discovered my passion for fiber art. I’d been crocheting since I was very young, my Grandma taught me how to make butterfly fridge magnets and I was “hooked”.

So I took knitting classes and loved them, I actually can’t stop thinking about knitting. I’m addicted to Ravelry, the patterns section of Etsy and the public library for patterns and tips. So for Christmas I decided to make knitted gifts. Most of those gifts turned out to be mittens;

These mittens were for my girlfriend in England. She was so excited to get them, she said she put off buying a pair because she had good feeling I was making her some for Christmas. She was right.

These were for my girlfriend in on the coast. I started a pattern that was for two needles on four needles so I had to switch patterns and make some adjustments to make them work. They turned out a little big but are still adorable. The snowflake is embroidered on.

These Bella mittens are for my youngest cousin. She loves Twilight and her favorite color is royal blue. This was the first project I did with cabeling and they turned out perfect. So perfect that I wanted to keep them for myself.

This pair I made for my brother. He lives in Edmonton and needed a pair of manily mitts. His only comment was that the thumbs were a little tight and they're not appropriate for snowball fights but overall he was happy to receive them.

Here are the patterns:

Owl Mittens

Snowflake Mittens – you need to log on to Ravelry for this one, it’s free and AMAZING!

Bella’s Mittens

Man’s Mittens -  this pattern is in a book I got at the public library called “The Knitting Experience: Book 2, the Purl Stitch”  The patterns in it are kind of dated but this mitten pattern is very good.

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J’aime la bibliothèque municipale

November 29th, 2009 | Posted by admin in Knitting | Patterns - (0 Comments)

I don’t know when it changed but I’m addicted to the public library. The library went forgotten for a long time for me.  It could have been that I was so used to being in the University library that I lost sight of the marvelous world of public libraries. Or that, when I was in high school a friend of mine worked at the public library putting away books. She would tell me gross stories of how she would find Kama Sutra books in the washrooms and that she was constantly washing her hands in fear of pervert cooties infecting the books.

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Although the University library holds many treasures, they mostly hold journals, periodicals and text books that are not exactly comfort reading (can I use the term ‘comfort reading’?I suppose reading is a form of nourishment and for some I’m sure it gives a similar warm sense in your core to when you finish eight of Baba’s cheddar onion perogies with a thick dill sauce and a very large glass of red wine… tangent, carrying on.)

Needless to say, the public library does it for me.  They always have what I’m looking for to quench my creative spurts. Recently I found this book.

Twinkle's Weekend Knits

As some of you have noticed, I’m addicted to knitting, so when I find patterns or books as inspirational as this one I have to write about it. The author, Wenlan Chia, knows exactly what I’m looking for in a pattern book. Nothing fancy or too complicated, nothing intricate or time consuming and something that I want to keep knitting through the night. This is very much an instant gratification knitting book.  And what makes this book even better is that it came from the public library! I didn’t have to pay $18 to get a peek, I just went to my local libary website, logged into my account, ordered the book and when it was in, the nice automated lady from the library called and left a pleasant message to say that my book was in.  Gone are the days of finding call numbers in roll-a-dex catalogues, simply type “knitting” into the library search engine from home and request as many merry books as your heart desires. Keep in mind, there are late fees, respect the service, don’t get cheap with the local library. Merci, a bientot!

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A New Skill

July 12th, 2009 | Posted by admin in Knitting | Patterns - (0 Comments)

So school was all over and I was having some learning withdrawls so I signed up for a knitting class! I’ve been crocheting since I was about 1 0 and I knit a scarf in highschool so I really had no idea how to knit.

The class was offered by Art of Yarn and it was fantastic. Only $40 for 2 hours/week for six weeks! After the first 2 weeks I had successfully knit a pair of mittens and moved on to the cutest neck warmer on the planet. For those of you still not signed up for Ravelry,  do it.

flora july 09 001

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