Monday, May 24, 2010

Rest and Relaxation

It`s been a glorious May 24 weekend.  I`ve had lots of fun, sun, rest, relaxation and socializing.  But also housecleaning, shopping and cooking. It`s amazing what a difference that one extra day makes.

Oh yes, there was also knitting.  Have you seen this magazine?


It is packed with projects using traditional techniques taken from back issues of Piecework magazine.  There are some really great things in here.  Like Bohus:

And Finnish mittens:


And twined mittens, also known as two-ended knitting:

I tired twined knitting a couple of years ago, but gave it up because not only is it incredibly slow to work, but it is also recommended that you use a yarn with a Z-twist.  Most commercial yarns are S-twist and they tend to come unspun when working twined knitting. See, here's the difference between the two types of twist:

And see this, a close up of the yarn shown above with the magazine:


That's z-twist yarn!!!   I was flabbergasted.  You know where I got it?  You'll never guess. At the Waterloo farmer's market!  I was at the market just last Thursday and I bought the yarn to support the local farmer, and because it's nice stuff from a British milk-sheep. So now I think I want to make twined mittens or socks.

But also in the same magazine was a pattern for Party Socks by Nancy Bush:


Oh yes! Party-hearty weekend!!  Knit on my friends. :)

6 comments:

  1. That sock pattern is AMAZING!!!

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  2. Beautiful sock!

    What an awesome magazine to inspire such excitement. Leah just rec'd a subscription to Piecework as a gift and is loving it too.

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  3. We have that magazine at the store and I too was really impresses. There is a lot of explanation/history etc for each project.

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  4. I pre-ordered that Mag from Interweave when I was doing my Christmas shopping. I have to say, with every page turn I thought, "OMG, Laurie would absolutely love this!"

    The socks on the cover are awesome, but I gather from my limited abilty to decipher patterns, that they would be tight to slip on over the ankle.

    Oh. If the milk sheep people are the Bzikots from Best Baa farm, then I know them - at least the parents. They were the first in Canada to import British Milk Sheep, and before that they raised Columbia Sheep - my breed! I had a ram off them, and also tried (briefly) crossing the milk sheep onto the Columbia.

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  5. When I see Finnish mittens like those I always think of them being so old fashioned. But living in the south and not in Lapland, I don't know what they usually wear there. Who knows, maybe everybody has them there!

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  6. Love those socks too! It's amazing what you can find at a market :-)

    Nice to hear from you :-)

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