Tag: canal

Stitching by the water

Next summer, Welland will welcome the rowers and canoers participating in the Panamerican games (Toronto, 2015). Toronto proper doesn’t have a venue quite like this one. I’m looking forward to knitting and crocheting while I watch a race or two. More about the project in the photo, below.

Here you can see I’m crocheting a summer top for my wife. There’s only about 6 inches done on it so far, bottom-up, more details on it later, when I have more done.

I’m crocheting with Bernat’s Handicrafter #5 Thread.  It’s not really a “thread” per se in my mind as I’m crocheting with a 3.5mm hook and not the recommended 2.75mm hook (which still isn’t really a thread hook, imho).

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The lighting for this swatch photo is a bit off, but nonetheless, you can see that this yarn has a nice sheen to it. It’s 100% acrylic and it looks like it’s two ply with what I would call a medium twist.

I haven’t blocked this swatch, and as it’s acrylic, I’m not thinking that blocking will do it much good…but I really like the bounce and stretch in this yarn, so I don’t think I’ll steam it or heat it to make the blocking stick.  Instead, I’ve designed Pam’s top with some negative ease so it’ll hug her curves which will in turn make the lace open up. Another advantage to this yarn is that it is light and not warm, at least not in this stitch pattern.

This yarn does get a slight halo as it is worked. I’m hoping that it doesn’t pill under the arms or any other friction spots, but I don’t the soft fuzzy look it has so far. I should have washed the swatch before starting the garment, but I was under the spell of startitis.

By the way, Duncan, our English cocker spaniel is 7 years old, but still young at heart. He’s even on the podium taking the gold.

A couple of questions for you:

Where is your favourite place to knit or crochet outside your home?

Do you knit or crochet with acrylic? Why not? Why so? When?

Stitching on the water.

While chatting with my wife the other afternoon, mostly about knitting and crochet and my design career, etc, I said I needed to get my blog going again. She came up with the idea to take pictures of me knitting or crocheting in different places and then to do a write-up about those places, and whatever is on my mind at the time and connect it to knitting and crocheting in some way. “Brilliant!” is what I said, or something along that vein. So for the most part, that’s what this blog will entail for the next little while: “Great Places to Stitch”

Today we went on a canoe ride south along the Welland canal which flows through our city. It’s a short 2-block portage from our back yard. Our 7-year old English Cocker Spaniel, Duncan, came along for the ride…he likes to watch the ducks.

crochet cotton canal wellandThe Welland Canal connects Lakes Erie and Ontario. This branch of the canal is now closed to the lakers that now cross through our city at it’s east-most boundary (ever since 1973).

The lift-bridge in the backgroud is covered in scaffolding and tenting as it’s being sandblasted and painted. It’s an historical structure and is no longer a functional lift bridge.

Crocheting in a canoe is quite nice…when the wind picks up you get tossed lightly around and I had to stop stitching a few times to keep the canoe in the centre of the waterway. I’m holding up a washcloth made out of crochet cotton. It’s either Lion Brand’s Kitchen cotton in Kiwi or it’s Lily Sugar n’ Cream in Hot Green. Lost the band months ago.

I’ve been trying to develop a very open crochet stitch so that the dishcloth can dry quickly. I think I’ve come up with a “new” stitch and I’m calling it a hitched double crochet (or hitched treble for UK stitchers). Once I practice the stitch and test drive the washcloths I’ll get a pattern written up.