Now it’s well-known that Canadian winters are cold…and it’s maybe a little less well-known that Newfoundland winters are long and cold.  And what’s probably even less well-known, is that Boston Terriers dislike being cold.  All of them.  Every Boston on Earth dislikes the cold.  Actually, scratch that, “dislike the cold” might be a gross understatement.  They loathe it, that’s probably a little more accurate, and they will do anything to avoid contact with it.  I’m sure anyone that’s ever known a Boston will agree. 

So the need for doggie “winter wear” in Newfoundland is what I deem to be essential attire for my little Franklin.  And as a knitter of warm and woolie things I cannot live with myself if I’m forced to put him in a *cringe* store-bought dog sweater.  The problem is…Boston’s have weirdo body shapes.  Oh on a glance they appear to be in proportion…but in reality they have freakishly large chests in comparison to the rest of their body.  Hence (yes, hence), there isn’t a store made dog sweater on Earth that fits them properly…and even less available knitting patterns.  Until now…

I recently came across the Darling Darby Dog Sweater on Ravelry.  And I think I might have to say…Best. Sweater. Ever.  It’s a pattern that takes your dog’s exact measurements into account (along with a little math) and give you a recipe for a perfectly fitted sweater.  And that’s exactly what I got…finally…after 6 years of dog sweater disasters…a well fitting sweater for my fur challenged Franklin.  The Darling Darby is now officially my go-to sweater for all dogs! 

So, of course, after all the measuring, and math, and knitting, and weaving in of ends…Franklin’s sweater is ready for a day at the park (the true test of any sweater worth it’s salt).

I love my new mustard sweater!!!

Ready for action!

Family shot - Franklin, Bessie, & Blueberry (I took soooo many pictures trying to get everyone to look at me at once & have decided...IT'S NOT POSSIBLE!!!)

Franklin's always been a bit of a rebel.

Into the woods.

My ball! I can't reach it!!!

Desperate times call for desperate measures!

Success.

I hate my freezing cold, soaking wet, 20 pound sweater now and I'm going to sulk & shiver in the bushes until you take it off me

Free of the confines of the wet sweater he's ready to play again!

Well, after taking a beating for over an hour of chasing after the ball, racing through the woods, wrestling with Bessie, and going for a dip in the river, the sweater passed the test.  I will definitely be tweaking a few things on the next one I make…like tightening up the neck hole a bit, it got a bit stretched and hung down around his shoulders.  But that might’ve been from the stretchiness of the yarn I chose…or possibly the 20 pounds of water that it sucked up in the river.  All in all, I highly recommend this custom (and free) sweater pattern, especially to anyone with an oddly shaped dog (like my boy)…it’s excellent, will fit any sized dog, and can be used with any weight yarn (though they do recommend worsted).  I used just over 1 ball of Patons Classic Roving (a chunky weight yarn) for Franklin and he’s 17lbs…but don’t tell him, he thinks he’s HUGE!

You know, ever since I opened the shop, I’ve been starting to develop this strange love-hate relationship with cold weather. I can feel our all too short Newfoundland summer slowly starting to slip away.  The days are starting to get shorter again, the nights (and sometimes the days) are beginning to get a bit of a chill, and I’m once again getting the itch to knit something cozy.

For many, many years, winter and I have been mortal enemies.  I didn’t like winter, and I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual.  Working for years as a truck driver, spending 10 to 12 hours a day in and out of the truck (some days out more than in) and soaking wet, really ingrained that hatred of the cold right into my bones. 

But now…something has changed.  Now, I have my shop.  Now these winter months are going to mean something different!  It’ll mean more people in the shop looking for that special something to warm their needles.  It’ll mean I get to watch our long, cold, blustery, winter from the comfort of my warm, dry, shop window.  And up until this year, my knitting has usually taken a back seat in the long, warm Nova Scotia summers.  My knitting habits have changed since moving to Newfoundland…this year I knit, uninterrupted.  A small part, I’m sure, because the summer is so much shorter here…partly bacause I’m surrounded by irresistibly beautiful yarns all day (and anyone that knows me, knows I’m a sucker for a pretty skein)…but mostly the change has come because of the wonderful knitting community I’ve become a part of since moving to St. John’s.  In the 8 years I’ve been a knitter, I was a solitary knitter…now I’m part of a family.  And if that doesn’t keep you warm through the Newfoundland winter, I don’t know what will.

I still don’t think Old Man Winter and I will ever be friends, but perhaps a cordial truce may be in order…at least for now.  Though I’m still reserving the right to complain about the gross winter weather we surely have coming our way. 

So as a little pre-winter knit, I have written up a pattern for some alpaca mittens.  By using one strand of each of Blue Sky Alpacas 100% Alpaca Sport and Blue sky Alpacas Brushed Suri you end up with super soft and fuzzy mittens that will, no doubt, be warm as toast.  These mittens are also thin enough to still be functional…you’ll have no problem maneuvering your keys to unlock the car door when fleeing the cold!

ALPACA MADNESS MITTENS

Yarns – 1 strand of each held and knit together.

• Blue Sky Alpacas 100% Alpaca Sport Weight (1 1/4 skeins) AND
• Blue Sky Alpacas Brushed Suri (a little less than 1 skein)

Equipment

• 4 Double Point Needles – 4mm
• 3 stitch markers

Gauge

• 5 sts/inch with 4mm needles

abbreviations

CO – Cast On
sts – Stitches
K – Knit
PM – Place Marker
M – Marker
M1 – Make 1
PU – Pick Up
K2tog – Knit 2 Together

Cuff

• Using 1 strand of each yarn, CO 36 sts using cable cast on (or other stretchy cast on). Join to work in the round.
• 2×2 rib 2 1/2” or desired length
• inc. 4 sts evenly across next row
• K 1 row
• K 1 row to last st PM, M1, PM, K to end
• K 1 row

Thumb Gusset

• K to M, slip M, M1, K to 2nd M, M1, slip M, K to end
• K around
• Repeat these 2 rows 5 more times (13 sts between markers)
• K 4 more rows plain
• K to 1st M, remove M, sl next 13 sts to waste yarn, remove 2nd M, K1

Hand

• Continue knitting hand until 1 1/4” from end of longest finger

Decrease Rows

1 – K8, K2tog - Repeat around (36sts)
2 – K
3 – K7, K2tog - Repeat around (32sts)
4 – K
5 – K6, K2tog - Repeat around (28sts)
6 – K
7 – K5, K2tog - Repeat around (24sts)
8 – K
9 – K4, K2tog - Repeat around (20sts)
10 – K
11 – K3, K2tog - Repeat around (16sts)
12 – K2, K2tog - Repeat around (12sts)
13 – K1, K2tog - Repeat around (8sts)
14 – K2tog around (4sts)

draw needle through stitches and pull tight.

Thumb

• PU sts off waste yarn and distribute on 3 needles.
• K around, at end of round PU and K 3 sts.
• Next row K around to last 3 sts. K2tog, K1
• K thumb to 1/8” of desired length.
• K2tog around to last sts, K1
• K2tog around.
• Draw tail through remaining sts and pull tight.

Weave in ends.

Make second mitten same as the first.

Note: Blocking these mittens will really allow the alpaca to bloom and show off it’s beautiful halo.  I recommend doing this just for the sheer enjoyment of seeing and feeling the fuzzy softness of these mittens, but it is not essential.

* Thanks so much to Karen for the test knit and her notes

Holy crow! A month and 4 days to finish this teeny, tiny, little jacket!!!  I actually finished this up about a week ago, but forcing myself to sit down and do the seaming felt like I was going to get a tooth pulled.  But it’s finally done.  Yay!

So I do have to admit that the concept behind this Elizabeth Zimmerman Baby Surprise Jacket, is in fact (as many people before me have stated), genius.  You knit, in one piece, this piece of fabric that looks absolutely nothing like anything recognizable.  

You then spend a good 5 minutes attempting to figure out how to fold this thing into a sweater.  When all of a sudden you happen to make the right folds, and taa daa…this tiny, adorable jacket appears before your eyes and you can’t believe you didn’t see it before. 

Then all you have to do is sew up two little shoulder seams (which really should not have been as painful a task as my procrastinating self made it into), and sew on 5 little buttons, and you’re done!  I do still need buttons for it…but I’ve found some handmade, wood buttons that I’ll soon have in the shop that I think will be perfect, so I’m going to wait.

All in all, this little jacket turned out adorable. I love the striped effect of the Noro Kureyon, and even though the Kureyon is not my beloved Silk Garden, it did give a fabric more appropriate to a jacket.  It used up every scrap of the 3 balls, and I mean EVERY scrap!  In the unfolded picture, you can see a few tails of yarn hanging out…well those are all I had left to seam it up with!  I tell ya, that last cast off row was stressful watching that yarn get shorter and shorter and shorter, and you just keep knitting and hope you make it.  And yes, I realize that I own a yarn shop and could’ve just grabbed another ball…but really, is there ANY knitter out there that wouldn’t be savage over having to break into a new ball for only a metre or so of yarn???  No, no there isn’t.

This is a great, little pattern for a quick baby knit (this TOTALLY shouldn’t have taken me over a month!), but be advised…this pattern is unbelievably vague!  It’s barely a pattern by today’s standards.  As well as this turned out in the end, right from the cast on row, I had to refer to a BSJ Wiki.  And found my self there many times over the course of the project.  The Baby Surprise Jacket group on Ravelry was absolutely invaluable!  If it wasn’t for that group, I’d most likely still be on the first row…or the never-to-be-finished UFO would be hidden away, in shame, in my knitting room.  So my only advice to you is…if you want to make the jacket…JOIN THE BSJ GROUP!!!  I’m hoping to get to EZ’s Mitered Mittens very soon (steeks eek!). I wonder if there’s a group for them?  I wonder if I’ll NEED a group for them???  Hopefully not, they are only mittens after all. (of course, I did just say the same thing about this jacket just over a month ago!)

Be back soon with some new projects done over the summer!  I’m finishing up a few toys, supposed to start a sweater for an excellent friend going to Prague in October, I have some baby stuff to knit for another amazing friend, working on a really cool project for someone I’m in a secret swap with, AND I’m learning to crochet for a gigantic, top-secret project that needs to be done by November…Wow, just realizing now as I write this, how many projects that actually is…I’m screwed.  Guess I better get knitting!!!  Bye for now. :D

Woo hoo, two nice days in St. John’s…IN A ROW!  The weatherman says we’re supposed to have four, yes FOUR days, of non-rainy, non-windy, non-crapola weather!  I want so badly to believe it…but I’m afraid.  The weather dude has dashed our hopes so often already this year.  I don’t think in 2010 there has been 4 nice days in a row yet!  So I’ll just opt to enjoy it while it lasts and go sit outside and work on my Baby Surprise Jacket! 

The BSJ is coming along nicely…kind of…I think.  I really have no way of knowing, as right now it’s just some wonky shaped piece of knitting.  But I have been assured, that it is indeed, supposed to look like that.  It’s supposed to be unrecognizable as a garment.  So…mission accomplished!  Though I won’t actually know for sure if my “unrecognizable” piece is just the right shape of unrecognizable until I try to put it together.  So we’ll just have to wait and see, I guess.  Hey wait…is that why they call it a surprise???  Duh. 

BSJ - Just attached 2nd ball of Kureyon.

The BSJ seems like it should be a quick, easy knit.  Meaning, of course, quick and easy AFTER you’ve spent an hour or so going through one of the many BSJ Wiki pages out there just to get started!  And not counting the time it takes you rip back and re-refer to the Wiki page to fix your mistakes (emphasis on the plural!).  But once you’re on track again (the correct track, that is!), it’s quite a pleasant knit, and the Kureyon colour changes keep it from becoming a garter stitch hell. 

I’m now at the neck shaping, two balls of Kureyon in, and really have no idea how close I am to the end.  Though after glancing ahead, I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll be spending a little more time on the BSJ Wiki again very soon. *sigh* 

Still unrecognizable as a garment...but the colours sure are pretty. Just starting 3rd ball of Kureyon at neck shaping.

Really though, this should’ve been done by now, but it seems I may possibly have too many projects on the go.  Though is there even such a thing as too many projects??? I think not.  I’ve also been working (and stressing) on my shop website (that is FINALLY up & running! Phew!).  And I’ve been trying to get out and have fun with the dogs as much as I can…I have a very old dog at home (my old boy, Blueberry) and sadly I think this will be his last summer.   So I want to get him out to enjoy the sunshine as much as possible, while it lasts at least.  Oh and I’m totally enjoying this summer weather sooo much…so here’s a few outside, fair weather, doggie pics for you to enjoy too.  And hopefully my next post will be on my wildly successful, best ever, FINISHED, Baby Surprise Jacket!  Hopefully. LOL 

Bessie looking unimpressed at being forced to pose by the pagoda.

My old boy, Blueberry (almost 14 years old!)

Franklin enjoying his first "swim" of the year.

Well, isn’t it always the way…you wait, and wait through the rain, drizzle, fog, cold, and wind of the Newfoundland spring for that first elusive warm, beautiful day of summer…and when it FINALLY arrives, you’re sick. The drastic weather changes from Tuesday to Wednesday left me with an unpleasant migraine. Not a terrible migraine, but enough of one that I couldn’t go anywhere near the sunshine.  I did don my darkest shades and venture out for just a minute to take a picture of my lovely new shop window (thanks to Leah for the hand dying magic!), my pretty flower-pot, and my handsome “son”, Franklin.  (And believe me, Franklin was none too impressed when I dragged him back inside either) 

Franklin, my pretty purple & pink flowers, and my new hand dyed window display

But being holed up in the shop all day does have its pluses…it gave me a chance to decide on my next project!  I’ve been wanting to try an Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern for ages, and I will be putting it off no longer!  My two choices were, the Baby Surprise Jacket (BSJ) out of Noro…or the Mitered Mittens out of Malabrigo.  The Mitered Mittens with the steeked thumb are something I want to try.  I really, really want to find the courage to take a pair of scissors to my painstakingly knitted garment, and have everything turn out ok.  And to tell you the truth, I’m totally skeptical that it will, in fact, turn out ok…but “apparently” it CAN be done.  Alas, at the moment, there are no colours of Malabrigo Worsted in the shop that I’m totally in love with…and these mittens will be for me (yay!), which means I’m gonna hang on for a colour I’m dying to have. 

So that leaves the BSJ.  Since getting this pattern in at the shop I have been looking at the schematic on the pattern with puzzlement.  

BSJ Schematic

I just can’t see how this will all come together (knit in 1 piece with just 2 small seams) to become that adorable, little, stripey jacket that’s been done 11824 times on Ravelry!  But this is a tried and true pattern.  It’s been around since 1968 and ALL the bugs have been worked out of it.  So I’ve been told, that all you just have to do is “TRUST THE PATTERN”.  Well that I can do.  And that I will do!  Noro Kureyon will be my yarn of choice…and just so you know, it took a LOT of self-control to not grab the beautiful new Silk Garden colourway I just got in the shop.  But I seem to knit everything out of Silk Garden, I’m in love with it…and I do already have 3 shop samples done out of it (it’s only a small shop! LOL).  So Kureyon it is…and we’ll just pretend that it’s my beloved SG, ok? 

Noro Kureyon - Colourway 40 (Man I really need/want a new camera!)

Well, I’m off to swatch now!  Won’t be casting on til tomorrow though, because my pattern is sitting on the counter at the shop…right where I left it, so I wouldn’t forget it. *sigh*  Night all!

Well I have FINALLY sat down after a long and fabulous day!  What a turn out!  Things went so much better than I ever thought they would!

The weather started out a little sketchy this morning, and when I woke up and looked out the window and saw the grey skies and drizzle…well let’s just be polite and say I was super annoyed.  Mainly because Environment Canada had been PROMISING all week that Saturday was gonna be a nice one (and yeah, I know it wasn’t an actual promise, but I was gonna shoot the messenger anyway! lol).  But in the end, it turned into a stellar day…I really don’t think the weather could’ve been much more perfect. 

About 12 or 13 people stopped in for the KIP, and we sat proudly out on the sidewalk showing off our skillz to the rest of St. John’s.  There was also a non-stop stream of people through the store too, which was awesome…even though it meant I didn’t actually have time to sit and knit until the last half hour of the day.  But it was ok…I was surrounded by yarn, happy knitters, lemon cake, and a beautiful summer-like breeze coming through the shop all day…so I was a happy girl Franklin was there too (of course) in all his glory…and as usual, trying and succeeding, in being the center of attention.  Luckily there were 2 lovely, well-behaved young ladies that were happy to babysit Franklin all day for me…thanks Cami & Jane!

So all in all I’d call A Good Yarn’s First Annual WWKIP & Sale a gigantic hit!  And I’m so grateful that in the 9 short weeks I’ve been open I’ve already got such a wonderful, supportive customer base.  Thanks for making the day a success everybody!!!

Me little shop window

Some of the girls out on the sidewalk

Franklin showing off his vest from Paula

Jane and Franklin enjoying a sunbeam

The last few stragglers nearing the end of the day

Franklin and his little friend, Cami.

Well hi everyone!

My name’s Jenny, and I’m owner/yarnist of A Good Yarn in St. John’s, Newfoundland.  The store opened April 10, 2010, so I’m really still just a brand new LYS owner…and couldn’t be happier about it!  This is also my first time blogging, so please bear with me if it’s a little rocky at first.  It’s been a loooong, long time (high school probably) since I’ve had to do much writting at all…well, writting that actual people might read that is! lol.  I’m hoping to use this blog to keep people up to date on stuff going on in the shop, my knitting projects, doggie news, and anything else that seems interesting (knitting stuff, of course, but other tidbits of life too).

I’m just finally relaxing after a busy night of getting things ready for tomorrow’s World Wide Knit in Public Day and Sale at the shop.  I’ve always been very nervous about hosting any kind of “event”…there’s always that insidious little voice saying “nobody’s gonna come“.  But they do, and they will…and all in all I’m very excited about tomorrow!  The weather is even looking like it might cooperate (thanks in advance Weather Gods!), and by mid afternoon we should be out on the sidewalk, with the sun shining on us, showing off our knitting prowess to the world!  Well ok, to St. John’s

Well, time to call it a night…gonna be a busy day tomorrow!  Can’t wait!