Sous la pression

It's kind of like those knitting (or any) projects you leave in a corner, unattended and ignored. Once in a while, you take a glance and think "oh I really should finish that one!" and then go back to whatever else seemed more important at the time.

As it turns out, December was/is more important! If you have kids, you know what I'm talking about. Think presents, decorating, baking cookies, going to winter school performances... That kind of thing.

Then couple that with having your mom in town (love you mom!) and there goes any little free time for anything much! This being said, I did manage to finish up two scarves and four cowls, all Christmas presents which left little time for blogging.

So here's to you Miss Tiffanie (I need to figure out how to link to your blog - sigh*), for giving me a much needed kick in the "derriere". I am back, so to speak and will soon post some new pics and projects.

C'est l'heure des fleurs...

Flowers and more flowers! All I can think about is how to add more flowers to my projects.


I found some more of the the Malabrigo yarn in Natural 63. It is a beautiful cream color but I wanted to add some shine. Thanks to my new BFFs at Imagiknit, I was advised to add some "Garden Metalic". A lovely combination!

Cream with a Golden Zing

The result: a chunky cowl with shine and three dangling flowers on the side made from some of my left over yarn. Not sure if it's practical but it sure is original. 

Same color as the cowl

A grey blue

A dark brown and blue mix

And this is the final result:

Cowl with flowers...

I have a poncho idea next - ideally with some flowers!

Stay tuned...

Avec des fleurs, c'est si joli!

I had this plan to make my daughter a hat and add cute crochet flowers onto it. It's always great to have the vision... implementation takes a while.

I had made her a cute little blue cowl which she actually loves and wears daily.

Ella with her COWL

With the left-over yarn, I wanted to try to knit her a hat... it turned out halfway decent!

The last time I held a crochet hook, I believe was in 8th grade. Needless to say, I immediately referred to YouTube and got a very needed fix.

The result wasn't too bad. Certainly not pro work, but not too bad for a first attempt.

Flowers in Magenta and Orange

As I started to assemble it all, I thought I should maybe ask her. It turns out, she didn't want any flowers on her hat. So that was that! We later discussed that maybe dark blue and bright green flowers would be ok. Have to love the 4 year old and her opinions!

Hat with flowers

This being said, it was great practice because inside my tiny little head, I had a million projects struggling to come out. The next one was simply beautiful!

Tout a commencé...

It all started this summer, when I purchased my first cowl from LaRedoute.ch:

I had no idea this was THE item to have as I started wearing it in San Francisco in August (basically winter...) and got so many compliments. Most of all, people kept asking me: "Did you make that?" Well, no, obviously I hadn't... but it got me thinking about it.

It was just three weeks ago, that I dug into an old drawer and found a three year old project. The infamous scarf that I could never finish. Illumination! Why not make a cowl! Shorter, faster and chunkier...

The next day, I went over to ImagiKnit in the Castro and bought my first set of needles in a round (size 17), some thick yarn and away I went on my first project. Here are some pics of it:

 

Since this first project, I found out that I was twisting my stitches. I had to go online and check out how to rectify my "purl" knit Continental Style. Because of course: the Americans and the Euros can't knit the same way! Just like they have different references for needles, stitches... you name it, it's different. And so I (re)learned. 

No matter how much I try to block it out, when I'm either knitting or purling, I can hear my 8th grade knitting teacher in my head: "une maille à l'endroit, une maille à l'envers... une maille à l'endroit, une maille à l'envers!".

Vachement Chouette!

I started knitting a few weeks ago in the midst of house hunting. My nerves just needed something to do besides drinking more wine and eating more chocolate. I became obsessed with knitting cowls. Looks pretty cool, easy to make and did just the trick with those nerves. 


Growing up in the French part of Switzerland, there was an expression we often used: "vachement chouette". Literally "cowly-owl" which means "really cool". 


So there you go, I'm the mad knitter that is cowl-y-owl!