City Limits Light + How To Fade

Guys! I’ve published my first pattern of the year! This is City Limits Light, the fingering weight version of my classic Worsted Weight City Limits sweater pattern. I knit my sample last year and then finished my daughter’s over the summer. I don’t know why it has taken me so long to get ‘er done but I am thrilled to have it out in the world!

I have linked the pattern above, there are loads of additional photos and details on the Ravelry pattern page and in the listing on my website, so I’m not going to go into much more detail here. One of the things that I struggled with around the time that I stopped blogging was figuring out what content to share on what platform. With the blog, the newsletter, YouTube, Instragram and Ravelry it felt like every time I had something to say I had to say it 5 times in 5 kinda-different-but-not-really ways. It was all feeling very redundant. So, I’m trying not to do that today. Each platform lends itself to different sorts of content, the newsletter is for news, Ravelry is for details, YouTube is for long winded tangents, instagram is for nonsense and the blog is for elaborate thoughts on life.

So, here are my elaborate thoughts about this sweater: it’s great. LOL! It’s such a lovely blank canvas. I feel very much the same way that I felt about publishing my worsted weight City Limits, it’s my perfect sweatshirt fit that leaves endless opportunity for customization in terms of colours. It can be striped, it can be faded, it can be solid, speckled, worn inside out. It can have ribbed cuffs and hems in whatever ribbing pattern you fancy (1x1 or 2x2 or 2x1! your call!).

I knit my sweater in a beautiful sweater kit from The Blue Brick. I fell deeply in love with her Blue Jay colourway when I first laid eyes on it. I bought a skein of worsted weight for a hat and a sweater kit in the same colourway and have zero regrets! Shireen’s gradient sweater kits are so much fun. She’s so specialized in what she does and she does it extremely well. A perfectly smooth gradient. I adore it. For my daughter’s sweater I picked one of my favourite speckled colourways and added a pop of colour with striped ribbing on all the hems. I often knit striped ribbing on my socks and was coming off of having just knit a sock featuring this hot pink stripe in the ribbing and thought that it really added a nice bit of fashion to the whole vibe. I hadn’t actually considered how well our blue sweaters would coordinate when I chose to knit all of my City Limits Light sweaters in blue but, y’know, that just kinda happens sometimes! I was in a soft blue sweater mood at the time and I love it.

I have a lot on my to-knit list at the moment but if I were to knit another City Limits Light today I think that I would pick a solid for the body and I would do some sort of rainbow ribbing. Or, maybe I would knit a tiny faded sweater, I’m seriously considering doing that with some single skeins I have stashed. Maybe the smallest size - even though I have no one in particular in mind to wear it - something to knit just for fun.

Since I’ve been suggesting to knitters that this sweater would be perfect for fading I’ve gotten a few questions from people wanting more specific details about how to fade. I’ve got a few tips! My most important tip is to choose colours that are closer to one another in colour than you might initially think. There needs to be quite a bit of overlap between the skeins. Speckles are essential for a smooth gradation of colour, no matter how hard you try with solids your fade will always be striped, but with speckles you’ve got so many overlapping tones to work with that the effect can be very subtle.

The socks above feature 4 different shades of blue and since the difference between each is quite subtle the fade is really elegant.

I really like working from light to dark within a fade. In this Ripple Bralette I used 3 different shades of speckled blue, each one decreasing in intensity as you go from bottom to top which I think adds to the overall affect of it looking like it was dip-dyed. Something about the light to dark adds to the illusion.

In the 2 Ceej Hats above I think the fade on the right is more effective. The palette is essentially 5 different shades of beige with varying degrees of intensity whereas the palette on the right covers much more ground. I think both hats are lovely! But since we’re talking about fades and when it comes to fades you really want one colour to fade into the next rather than striping, it’s worth comparing the two. Note that these hats were both knit holding 2 strands of fingering weight yarn together, so it’s not exactly relevant to the topic of fading for City Limits Light since you’ll only use 1 strand of fingering for the sweater, but it’s a good lesson in colour selection.

Oh my gosh I just had to include this picture! My heart! Look at that little photo bomber in the background! This vest - btw revisiting this project has made me bump this pattern up on my to-publish list! - is knit with 3 colourways of worsted weight yarn. To fade from one colour to the next I simply worked single row stripes. Start knitting a section in colour A, knit the next section alternating single rounds of colour A with colour B, then work the third section in just colour B etc. If the colourways are closely matched the transitions can be really subtle and beautiful.

If I’m really looking for the most subtle fade however, I’ll do a slightly more complicated stripe sequence where the stripes aren’t just single rounds but gradually transition.

ex: You’re working with Colour A and are ready to transition through colour B:

1 round colour B, 3 rounds colour A

1 round colour B, 2 rounds colour A

1 round colour B, 1 round colour A (3 times)

2 rounds colour B, 1 round colour A

3 rounds colour B, 1 round colour A

Continue with colour B until you’re ready to transition to colour C and repeat. This is the style of stripe transition I worked in the socks and Ripple Bralette featured above. It’s a very smooth transition indeed.

To figure out how long to knit each section you’ll have to do some math. You need to determine how many colours you want to use and how long your finished knit will be. You’ll also need to know gauge in order to determine how many inches/rounds of each colour to work. Since fades are more painterly and artistic I happen to think that it’s fine to go by feel. Change colours when it feels right. ;)

I’ve talked more about fades and shown a bunch of examples in this week’s youtube episode with Chris if you’d like to check it out.

2023 Year In Review

Wow. Here I am. I’m doing it. I haven’t blogged since Feb. 2022 and even then I was seriously fizzling. Here’s the thing, I don’t have the time or the energy to go into all the reasons why I fell off of blogging. The short version is that I totally blame social media - specifically Instagram - for the demise of the blog. But things are shifting. As they always are. Ever since short form content took over from longer form I’ve felt a pang. Actually, maybe a pang isn’t quite right, it’s less acute, more of a general malaise. A longing? A lacking? A sense of drifting? I think that for me, writing this blog has been a sort of therapy over the years. It’s my journal. I don’t keep a paper journal, with texts taking over from emails I write less and less long rambling thoughts and I miss it. I’ve known that I’ve missed it since I stopped doing it but somehow blogging felt like a waste of time since it really didn’t feel like anyone was reading it anymore. So if you are reading this, Hi! Leave me a comment so I don’t feel so useless! But even if no one reads this, I’m doing it for me. I love writing down a complete thought. I know. Groundbreaking, right? It helps me to organize my thoughts and makes me feel better. So here I am. I’m going to try to keep this up for myself.

What better was to jump back in than with a 2023 year in review!? My plan is to go through my photo stream and pick a handful of photos from each month that remind me of what we did and what feels relevant. I won’t detail every single thing I knit. I’ve done a pretty decent job of updating my Ravelry project page with all of that so this is a bit of knitting but mostly life stuff. Let’s do it.

January:

In January I started a super fun and colourful project. A crocheted blanket using only scraps and it brought me so much JOY! It was pure dopamine from start to finish. I highly recommend a project like this to start the year off right. In January I also embroidered a “boring” sweater that I had gifted my daughter for Christmas but she hated because it was beige (duh) but with the addition of those sweet roses it became one of her favourites and she has gotten a ton of wear out of it. Note to self: You LOVE doing things like this! Customize more ready to wear clothing! In January we also finally hung my Liberty Of London swatches that truly make our house feel like home. They add so much warmth to the space. I’m pretty sure that this is also the month that we painted all of our interior doors a gorgeous shade of teal.

February:

Oooh February was pretty. We tackled more home projects! I organized the basement and we did a cheap and cheerful basement bathroom refresh which involved mixing up a bunch of leftover paints to paint the vanity and hanging up lots of pretty blue art. I launched my first pattern of the year - the Flair Isle Socks - and my son modelled them expertly. I painted portraits of my children! (started in January) Aw. I love these portraits so much and so do they. I had hoped that the painting bug was going to stick around much longer and that I would incorporate it into my life more but it didn’t stick. I think that these are the only real paintings I did all of last year. Happy that I did them, sad that I didn’t do more. February was also the month I launched Paul Klee kits! They occupied a substantial part of my free time that month and they were so worth it. Such a stunning make. I do hope to do them again this year, it’s just A LOT. I also sewed 2 dresses for my daughter this month and they were the only things that I sewed all year.

March:

In March I launched my Terranova sweater pattern, my biggest hit of the year. It also made Chartreuse our most popular colourway of Luxe Yak Silk DK by a long shot, and with good reason! It’s a stunning colour. We visited family in Toronto last March, the temperatures starting warming up, we got out the bikes. Judging by my photo stream it was a quieter month but hey! Look at those sparkly bell bottoms paired with the dress I sewed. Fashion!

April:

In April we had an ice storm which knocked out our power for 5 days! It was an adventure for sure. My son got a badminton set for his birthday and I published my Flip Side Tee pattern and launched striped t-shirt kits. I love a striped knit. They just make me happy. I got a sweet new bike for my birthday. Literally the bicycle of my dreams. And my family became obsessed with fishing (have yet to catch a fish).

May:

In May I got a new robe that you will have to pry from my cold, dead, hands. Actually, I intend to be buried in it. I live in it and absolutely adore it. I also continued to bake sourdough on the regular. Started just before the pandemic and just can’t quit it! I collaborated with my bestie Julie at Knitted Bliss Stitching to create these TFA star Stick and Stitch packs and then I proceeded to embroider stars on all of my things. I got into gardening in a big way out of necessity but then realized that I actually kinda love it! I went to Knit City Montreal and my kids met Julie’s kids and they totally hit it off and that was so much fun. I became obsessed with Jessie Maed Designs Totally Tank Top and knit one and my obsession continues. It’s still perfect.

June:

In June we did a pretty big back yarn makeover which completely changed the way we use the space. We had always used the space a lot but it was sad. After completing a full interior renovation in 2021-2022 we were finally ready to tackle some of the outdoor spaces. Budget was key, we did it all ourselves and tried to be savvy about how we spent our money. We are thrilled with the results. I am so excited to see how my perennial gardens come to life this spring. I published my Quayside Tee pattern, Chris and I celebrated our 13 year wedding anniversary and Chris bleached his hair and we all loved it. He’s so hot.

July:

This July we stayed home in Montreal for longer than usual before heading out East to our cottage in Nova Scotia. We spent time with family, we swam a ton, we bought a pizza oven and made fabulous pizza’s with chanterelle’s that a friend foraged. I started my summer sweater project. July is always fun.

August:

August is always a month that is heavy on family fun, low on much else. I picked up some gorgeous handspun yarn at a local market, I knit a headband. We took countless walks on the beach collecting treasures. We did flower crowns. We ate more pizza. We went to Fort Beausejour. We returned to Montreal to a veritable jungle! Chris had scattered some grass seed over a dusty part of lawn and boy did it take. We started back at school, not once but twice! because mom and dad had the date of the first day of school wrong! Wow!

September:

In September I did a lot of spinning. So much handspun yarn and I love it! I haven’t knit with much (any?) but I’m happy to have it. I started meal planning (sort of) and making huge batches of stuff for the freezer once in a while. Such a good habit. I taught the kids to weave! Chris and I visited our friends Jeff and Jenna at their farm for a special event and it was amazing. I started working out and it has had nothing but positive affects on my life. Pretty chuffed to have found something that I love to do. I walk a lot and do Move With Nicole pilates videos on youtube. It’s my jam. The summer always marks a slowing down for me in terms of knitting. I spend a lot of time out and about in the summer, I’m way more social and I knit a lot less. This is completely normal for me and I’m used to it, and though it usually takes me a bit of time to get back into things in September I’ve definitely noticed that this year it took me even longer. I read a lot more, did more real life things like exercise, cooking, kids activities… even now my knitting time/mojo has not returned to what it once was but my life feels more diverse and I’m ok with it.

October:

Honestly this fall has been difficult in terms of the business since I have finally achieved a bit more balance in terms of my interests and what I spend my time doing - something that I have been striving towards for years - but with that comes the realization that my business is built on my enthusiasm for knitting and the yarns that we make. I still have the enthusiasm, but if I’m knitting less, if I’m sharing less knitting and if I’m creating less yarn - if I’m just generally less inspired - the business drags. In order to combat that feeling I tried to focus on what gets me the most excited and in October it was OOAK yarns and colourways. We focused on that and it was very invigorating for me creatively. In October I made Tiramisu for the first time, which happens to be Chris’ favourite desert, and it was such a hit. I’m thrilled to have mastered it. I also got a fabulous statement coat (it’s basically my robe in an acceptable outdoor garment). I dyed roving with each of the kids and then spun their roving into yarn for them. I decided to do our first ever Advent and thoroughly enjoyed the entire process. I spent a weekend away with my girlfriends and it was heaven (of course I didn’t take a single photo). And of course, it was Halloween. My least favourite holiday of the year. Hooray!

November:

In November I found my perfect red lip (in the colour Cherry Moon). I also found the best funky readers while shopping for Christmas gifts for my kids. I finished knitting what might be my all time favourite sweater and then agonized over buying the perfect blue eyeshadow to go with it because it was more expensive than I wanted it to be. It was worth it. I also finally got pattern shots of my daughter and I in a new pattern that I’ve been working on for ages. By November I start switching gears and thinking about the holiday rush / Christmas and it really shows. I had both of the sweater patterns above finished in November but by then I was already putting a pin in things to come to in the new year.

December:

Ah crazy December. It went by in a blur! In December I launched a new cowl pattern, my Ultraviolette Cowl - I am famously not a cowl person and yet I do love this one and wear it. Cowls are fun to design and to knit even though in my heart I am a scarf/shawl girl. I put together an absolutely knock out palette for the ladies at Tin Can Knits for an upcoming project and now am obsessed with bright, saturated rainbows again. September it was OOAK’s, right now it’s tonal rainbows… if I’m being honest it’s always a bit of both. Despite the obvious big December things that happen every year, this year our December was marked by one big thing. Actually, make that two tiny things… in December we got kittens and our life changed for the better in every possible way! Me, not a cat person, turns out to be the biggest cat person ever. I love these cats with all of my heart. They bring the whole family so much joy I can barely stand it. They were the best idea I ever had. The grey cat is Chanterelle and the black cat is Minuit. They love each other, they love us, we love them. I mean. It’s literally heaven.

We also did about 11 puzzles the week between Christmas and New Years so it felt important to document that here. Even though December was mostly cats. LOL.

So, there you have it! A very rough year in review. I love it. I’m so happy that I did this. A few things really stick out to me: 1) we did more home projects than I thought we did and we did them all in the first half of the year. Interesting. 2) I need to seriously give myself a kick in the pants and get those two sweater patterns published. I love them both and have been wearing them a ton, they need to get out into the world!

I feel like this goes without saying but if you’ve made it this far you won’t mind that I’m adding this “year in review caveat” at the very end instead of the very beginning, but this year also included some sickness, a birth, a life changing diagnosis, growth, loss, heartache… you know, it was an entire year lived by a human who is sharing her life with other humans. It’s not all knitting, colour and cats. But it sometimes is, and that feels like it’s worth documenting too.

Five Things

We have a big Shop Update today at noon EST! Loads of Sock Sets, Mini Bundles and Palettes will be added to the shop in mere hours!

My Jager Sock Set pattern has launched. Use code JAGER15 for 15% off on Ravelry and my website all weekend.

We uploaded a new video to YouTube last night! Check out this weeks colourful discussions on YouTube here.

Willow and I painted our nails Valentines themed and then posed super naturally. I’m wearing my Marled Metropolis here. Always a fave.

I recently finished reading this book and can’t stop thinking about it. Highly recommend to any parent. It focuses on alternative schooling but even if your children attend a conventional school (like mine) there is still so much to take away from it.

Wow! 2 nail polish posts! I received some new polishes in the mail this week and had to try them. This is Megababe Blue from Olive & June and I will report back with my review after I’ve had a chance to wear it for at least a week. I was gifted their Mani System and am initially impressed with the whole kit. Use my affiliate link and enter the code TanisL20 for 20% off your first order!

How I Wash My Hand Knits

I originally published this blog post in March of 2019. 3 years later and I think it’s time for a repost! All of this info still holds true for me, I haven’t changed my methods. Be sure to read the comments for a few more helpful suggestions such as using your top-load washer to soak and spin your sweaters without running a wash cycle and how I launder my knit socks (it’s very casual).

This is a long awaited post about how exactly I go about washing all my hand knits. There are a few disclaimers I have to put out there before I get into it:

1) No matter what kind of yarn you’re knitting with (superwash, PureWash, natural untreated…) I’m a firm believer that all hand knits should be laid flat to dry. Period. I don’t put any of my knits in the dryer and the main reason is because dryers are hard on fabrics, all fabrics. Here’s a little laundry anecdote for you: my sister and I purchased the same t-shirt at the same time. It was a nice cotton tee, nothing fancy, easily washable. I threw mine in the washer and dryer every time it needed it, but my sister lived in an apartment where she had a washing machine that only had cold water and no dryer, so her t-shirt got washed in a cold cycle and hung to dry. I bet you can guess where I’m going with this. Fast forward a few months of regular wearing and washing and my t-shirt looked dull and old and hers looked bright and as good as the day she(we) bought it. Lesson learnt. I only ever wash in cold water now. I line dry in the summer and use my dryer in the winter but anything special gets left out of the dryer because it really makes all the difference! So if that’s true for a cotton t-shirt, it’s 100 times more true for hand knits.

2) My system may not work for everyone simply because maybe your washing machine isn’t the same as mine. I’ll get into the washing machine details next but my delicate/knits cycle may be more delicate than yours and you should test a swatch before throwing in a full garment. Another reason why knitting a swatch is always a good idea!

3) I’m focussing on sweaters, hats and mitts here. Things like lace shawls that require proper blocking are treated slightly differently which I’ve previously blogged about here.

4) Superwash yarns have a tendency to grow when wet and I might break my no dryer rule occasionally if I find that a garment has stretched so far out of shape that it’s no longer working for me. I have, on occasion, put a completely dry superwash sweater in a hot dryer for 5 minute increments to fluff it up and tighten up the stitches. It’s not my favourite thing to do and avoiding this stretching is one of the reasons I developed our line of PureWash yarns.

Before we dive too deep into the exciting world of washing your knits I want to mention how infrequently I wash most of mine. This is not something that happens weekly in my house, not even monthly. Wool garments don’t absorb odours and dirt as easily as cotton items do. They are typically an outer layer and are worn over a t-shirt or tank which get washed more frequently. My kids wear knits all the time and though I’m not overly precious with them (my 5 and 3 years olds wear them to school and daycare where I have no control over what happens to them) I do simple things like take a sweater off of my 3 year old before serving him a bowl of spaghetti or, say, finger painting. Other than that they wear their hand knits the same way they would wear a store bought sweatshirt.

When an item looks like it’s ready for the wash I set it aside and typically wait until I have enough hand knits to run a load in my machine. Because we have tons of hand knits to choose from I can do that, if I didn’t have as many knits and didn’t want one to be out of rotation while I wait for a load to accumulate I would hand wash it. If something is accidentally dirtied in a way that I feel needs to be addressed right away, or if there’s a favourite item that I want to be able to reach for right away, I skip the machine and go straight to the hand washing.

Hand Wash Method:

If I’m hand washing an adult sweater I do it in the sink. If it’s a smaller item I’ll use a bowl. I fill the sink/bowl with cold water, pour in some wool wash, let it sit for 20 minutes/several hours if I forget about it. Squeeze out the excess water and then lay it flat to dry on a towel. For adult sweaters I will have Chris squeeze out the excess water because it can be a bit of a chore and then I’ll lay it on a towel, roll it up and step on it to get more water out of it before laying it flat. Garments get carefully reshaped so they dry nicely, accessories or things that don’t need as much reshaping just get tossed on a drying rack. I lay them on towels on the floor in my office. I typically do it in the evening and they are usually dry by the morning. Sometimes I’ll put smaller items like hats or mitts on a cooling rack (like what you would use for cookies) to allow for more air circulation, but sweaters go directly on the floor because I don’t have anywhere else to put them.

Full disclosure: I have a spin dryer that we use for the yarn and I use it to remove the water from garments too. It’s so much easier than the squeezing/standing on a wrapped up towel system and gets them so close to dry but I wouldn’t buy one just for sweater care.

Machine Method:

If I’ve got a bunch of knits to wash I’ll do them all in one load in my machine and I do think that not only is it quicker/easier, the items seem to get cleaner, however it is definitely harder on them so that’s something to consider. All I do is set my top loading machine to the delicate/knits cycle, cold water, add in a little less than I would usually use of my regular laundry detergent (we use an eco-friendly scent-free/dye-free variety, something really gentle on the clothes) and let the machine do all the work. I put it through the whole cycle and then lay them to dry the same way as the items I’ve hand washed. They do come out of the washing machine looking a little worse than items I hand wash, but once they’re dry and I’ve given them the once over with my Gleener they look as good as new.

All the kids clothes in the top photo and the photo below were washed using my machine method.

For things like the kids knit mittens and hats I actually prefer to hand wash only because I’m usually in a rush for them. They come home in the afternoon after having dipped their mitts in slushy puddles and I want them washed and dried in time for them to wear to school the next morning so I put them all in a bowl with some wool wash on the counter, I’ll probably end up changing the water once or twice because children are filthy and then I’ll put them on the drying wracks overnight. I can do it in less time than it takes to wash the dishes. In fact I’m often doing both simultaneously. It’s no biggie.

Regardless of how I’ve washed the items, they always get Gleened before they are folded and put back into rotation.

The blanket above is the best example I can find to show just how awesome at defuzzing the Gleener is. This blanket is knit from non-washable wool but I washed it using my machine wash method and though it looked pretty awful when it came out of the washer (just covered in pills) I gleened it and it looked better than ever. Those photos above are from years ago, that blanket was the first thing I’d ever gleened and it sold me on the tool completely. You can see the same blanket on the bottom of the pile of blankets below. The photo below was taken yesterday after I washed the 4 blankets shown using the machine wash method. The hat and mitts on top of the pile were hand washed.

Above is a sweater knit in our PureWash DK Weight base that accidentally got put in a regular wash with a load of laundry. Luckily I caught it before it got tossed in the dryer. I laid it flat to dry and then gave it a good once over with my Gleener and it came out as good as new! While I wouldn’t recommend that method of washing it is nice to know what our PureWash yarns can stand up to the abuse if it happens. I have washed and dried swatches of all of our PureWash bases and they have all made it through the process exceptionally well - they look like they’ve never been washed - but I still wouldn’t recommend you wash your knits that way. They will survive but we want our knits to THRIVE for years and years!

And one last honourable mention in the “laundering your knits” category goes to my steam iron. My iron does not see very regular use but every once in a while I will put the steam on high and run the iron lightly over a knit to and it makes a world of difference. If I’m being completely honest, I have been known to skip the wash and just give a sweater the once over with a Gleener and a steam iron and it can really breathe new life into it.

The Christmas In July sweater Willow is wearing in the above photo has been worn by all three of my kids over the past 5 years or so. Lots of wear, lots of washes and it still looks great. Because or the time and expense involved in hand knitting I think taking good care of the things we make is so important. So many people think hand washing is an insanely time consuming and labour intensive task but it’s really not. It’s nothing to be afraid of. You know what is an insanely time consuming and labour intensive task? Knitting! All that time and energy you devoted to your work means that your gorgeous hand knits need to be treated with respect. So let’s do that. Let’s wear them and enjoy them everyday and then care for them respectfully when laundry day rolls around.

If I’ve missed something or if you have a tip or trick that you do when washing your hand knits please let me know in the comments!

Five Things

The Bauble Sock from my upcoming Jager Sock Set. This one might be my fave. Look for it to be released this month.

That little tie!!! I’m obsessed. This pattern won’t be ready for a while, it’s a fun one!

The sweater scheme that got abandoned for something new. I can’t stop thinking about it though! Deep Space, Enchanted, Speckled Blue Opal, Silent Movie.

Breakfast table silhouette. My heart!

Pure Wooly Goodness

I’ve cast on for a new sweater and my level of enthusiasm for this project is off the charts! I mentioned in our latest YouTube video that inspiration/enthusiasm really ebbs and flows for me. I can go months just casually knitting on projects that are lovely but that don’t necessarily spark something inside me. Then something will shift and suddenly I’m alive with excitement over what I’m working on. I’m happy to report that I’m in an excited and inspired phase (after what felt like a very long slow period) and my current project is definitely stirring something up in me.

I’m knitting a City Limits sweater for my son in the yarn shown above. This is a sample of a 100% highland wool yarn - doesn’t sound that special until I tell you that it’s the first totally untreated yarn we’ve ever dyed so successfully. In the world of indie dyed yarn, superwash merino has reigned supreme for the 15 years that I’ve been in the biz. It’s easy to dye, easy to get bright, saturated and exciting speckles on, it really is a dyer’s best friend. It’s readily available from suppliers who market undyed yarns to dyers. The superwash process is also really bad for the environment and the process of making a yarn superwash essentially removes all of the wonderful wooly properties from the yarn.

In 2015 we decided to move away from superwash for our business and it was so difficult to source a non-superwash yarn base to dye that we had to spend the better part of a year creating our own! We launched our line of custom spun, eco-friendly and organic PureWash yarns in 2016. I am so proud of our PureWash yarns and have absolutely loved dyeing them and working with them. They are so soft and bouncy! Pure joy to work with, really. And without taking anything away from them there has been one thing on my mind since the day we started developing the line… does it really need to be non-felting? I moved away from calling our yarns “washable” a few years ago because even though that’s a big part of their appeal - the fact that they won’t be destroyed if you accidentally toss a PureWash garment in the wash - you really shouldn’t machine wash any of your knits. Even dyers who dye superwash yarns will often specify “hand wash, lay flat to dry” on their labels because that’s the best way to ensure that your garment lasts beautifully forever. Our labels say hand wash. If you ask me in an email I’ll tell you to hand wash every time, there’s really no two ways about it. Now, I have accidentally ended up with a PureWash sweater that went through the wash with a batch of laundry and I was thrilled when it survived beautifully, so I have first hand experience on the perks of having a non-felting treatment on my yarns (especially for kids garments) but I’m thinking it’s redundant. I love the natural properties of wool and don’t want to do anything to compromise them. Natural wool is insulating, water repellant, breathable, magical, mystical, magnificent!

We’re at a bit of a crossroads here at TFA currently. With supply chains being what they are these days I’ve got 2 bases backordered and I’m thinking it’s a good time to fill in the gaps in our inventory with new, non-treated yarns. We’re experimenting with a few bases and I’m excited to share them with you as soon as I can. I’d love to hear your thoughts on untreated yarns. Are you a fan of pure wooly goodness?

Five Things

We painted our bedroom this week and I can’t get over how much I’m enjoying this fresh space. It’s warm and inviting and cheerful and exactly what I needed!

Holy smokes it was a cold January!

This week’s nail colour: Sweater Weather by Static Nails.

Chris made this Oven Fried Southern Hot Honey Popcorn Chicken (basically chicken nuggets) this week and it was so good! The kids loved it as much as Chris and I did. 10/10 recommend. *image from Half Baked Harvest.

How I Wash My Hand Knits

This is a long awaited post about how exactly I go about washing all my hand knits. There are a few disclaimers I have to put out there before I get into it:

1) No matter what kind of yarn you’re knitting with (superwash, PureWash, natural untreated…) I’m a firm believer that all hand knits should be laid flat to dry. Period. I don’t put any of my knits in the dryer and the main reason is because dryers are hard on fabrics, all fabrics. Here’s a little laundry anecdote for you: my sister and I purchased the same t-shirt at the same time. It was a nice cotton tee, nothing fancy, easily washable. I threw mine in the washer and dryer every time it needed it, but my sister lived in an apartment where she had a washing machine that only had cold water and no dryer, so her t-shirt got washed in a cold cycle and hung to dry. I bet you can guess where I’m going with this. Fast forward a few months of regular wearing and washing and my t-shirt looked dull and old and hers looked bright and as good as the day she(we) bought it. Lesson learnt. I only ever wash in cold water now. I line dry in the summer and use my dryer in the winter but anything special gets left out of the dryer because it really makes all the difference! So if that’s true for a cotton t-shirt, it’s 100 times more true for hand knits.

2) My system may not work for everyone simply because maybe your washing machine isn’t the same as mine. I’ll get into the washing machine details next but my delicate/knits cycle may be more delicate than yours and you should test a swatch before throwing in a full garment. Another reason why knitting a swatch is always a good idea!

3) I’m focussing on sweaters, hats and mitts here. Things like lace shawls that require proper blocking are treated slightly differently which I’ve previously blogged about here.

4) Superwash yarns have a tendency to grow when wet and I might break my no dryer rule occasionally if I find that a garment has stretched so far out of shape that it’s no longer working for me. I have, on occasion, put a completely dry superwash sweater in a hot dryer for 5 minute increments to fluff it up and tighten up the stitches. It’s not my favourite thing to do and avoiding this stretching is one of the reasons I developed our line of PureWash yarns.

Before we dive too deep into the exciting world of washing your knits I want to mention how infrequently I wash most of mine. This is not something that happens weekly in my house, not even monthly. Wool garments don’t absorb odours and dirt as easily as cotton items do. They are typically an outer layer and are worn over a t-shirt or tank which get washed more frequently. My kids wear knits all the time and though I’m not overly precious with them (my 5 and 3 years olds wear them to school and daycare where I have no control over what happens to them) I do simple things like take a sweater off of my 3 year old before serving him a bowl of spaghetti or, say, finger painting. Other than that they wear their hand knits the same way they would wear a store bought sweatshirt.

When an item looks like it’s ready for the wash I set it aside and typically wait until I have enough hand knits to run a load in my machine. Because we have tons of hand knits to choose from I can do that, if I didn’t have as many knits and didn’t want one to be out of rotation while I wait for a load to accumulate I would hand wash it. If something is accidentally dirtied in a way that I feel needs to be addressed right away, or if there’s a favourite item that I want to be able to reach for right away, I skip the machine and go straight to the hand washing.

Hand Wash Method:

If I’m hand washing an adult sweater I do it in the sink. If it’s a smaller item I’ll use a bowl. I fill the sink/bowl with cold water, pour in some wool wash, let it sit for 20 minutes/several hours if I forget about it. Squeeze out the excess water and then lay it flat to dry on a towel. For adult sweaters I will have Chris squeeze out the excess water because it can be a bit of a chore and then I’ll lay it on a towel, roll it up and step on it to get more water out of it before laying it flat. Garments get carefully reshaped so they dry nicely, accessories or things that don’t need as much reshaping just get tossed on a drying rack. I lay them on towels on the floor in my office. I typically do it in the evening and they are usually dry by the morning. Sometimes I’ll put smaller items like hats or mitts on a cooling rack (like what you would use for cookies) to allow for more air circulation, but sweaters go directly on the floor because I don’t have anywhere else to put them.

Full disclosure: I have a spin dryer that we use for the yarn and I use it to remove the water from garments too. It’s so much easier than the squeezing/standing on a wrapped up towel system and gets them so close to dry but I wouldn’t buy one just for sweater care.

Machine Method:

If I’ve got a bunch of knits to wash I’ll do them all in one load in my machine and I do think that not only is it quicker/easier, the items seem to get cleaner, however it is definitely harder on them so that’s something to consider. All I do is set my top loading machine to the delicate/knits cycle, cold water, add in a little less than I would usually use of my regular laundry detergent (we use an eco-friendly scent-free/dye-free variety, something really gentle on the clothes) and let the machine do all the work. I put it through the whole cycle and then lay them to dry the same way as the items I’ve hand washed. They do come out of the washing machine looking a little worse than items I hand wash, but once they’re dry and I’ve given them the once over with my Gleener they look as good as new.

All the kids clothes in the top photo and the photo below were washed using my machine method.

For things like the kids knit mittens and hats I actually prefer to hand wash only because I’m usually in a rush for them. They come home in the afternoon after having dipped their mitts in slushy puddles and I want them washed and dried in time for them to wear to school the next morning so I put them all in a bowl with some wool wash on the counter, I’ll probably end up changing the water once or twice because children are filthy and then I’ll put them on the drying wracks overnight. I can do it in less time than it takes to wash the dishes. In fact I’m often doing both simultaneously. It’s no biggie.

Regardless of how I’ve washed the items, they always get Gleened before they are folded and put back into rotation.

The blanket above is the best example I can find to show just how awesome at defuzzing the Gleener is. This blanket is knit from non-washable wool but I washed it using my machine wash method and though it looked pretty awful when it came out of the washer (just covered in pills) I gleened it and it looked better than ever. Those photos above are from years ago, that blanket was the first thing I’d ever gleened and it sold me on the tool completely. You can see the same blanket on the bottom of the pile of blankets below. The photo below was taken yesterday after I washed the 4 blankets shown using the machine wash method. The hat and mitts on top of the pile were hand washed.

Above is a sweater knit in our PureWash DK Weight base that accidentally got put in a regular wash with a load of laundry. Luckily I caught it before it got tossed in the dryer. I laid it flat to dry and then gave it a good once over with my Gleener and it came out as good as new! While I wouldn’t recommend that method of washing it is nice to know what our PureWash yarns can stand up to the abuse if it happens. I have washed and dried swatches of all of our PureWash bases and they have all made it through the process exceptionally well - they look like they’ve never been washed - but I still wouldn’t recommend you wash your knits that way. They will survive but we want our knits to THRIVE for years and years!

And one last honourable mention in the “laundering your knits” category goes to my steam iron. My iron does not see very regular use but every once in a while I will put the steam on high and run the iron lightly over a knit to and it makes a world of difference. If I’m being completely honest, I have been known to skip the wash and just give a sweater the once over with a Gleener and a steam iron and it can really breathe new life into it.

The Christmas In July sweater Willow is wearing in the above photo has been worn by all three of my kids over the past 5 years or so. Lots of wear, lots of washes and it still looks great. Because or the time and expense involved in hand knitting I think taking good care of the things we make is so important. So many people think hand washing is an insanely time consuming and labour intensive task but it’s really not. It’s nothing to be afraid of. You know what is an insanely time consuming and labour intensive task? Knitting! All that time and energy you devoted to your work means that your gorgeous hand knits need to be treated with respect. So let’s do that. Let’s wear them and enjoy them everyday and then care for them respectfully when laundry day rolls around.

If I’ve missed something or if you have a tip or trick that you do when washing your hand knits please let me know in the comments!

Dreaming of a Handspun Sweater

I am getting so close to being ready to cast on for a sweater in this handspun! I have 2 more skeins to spin and then I will have officially spun up all of this pastel dream fiber and I will be able to move on to the next step. Maybe I’ll even treat myself to a little swatch this week to motivate myself! The truth is, I didn’t even like this yarn when I started spinning it 7 years ago! Yes, I’ve been working towards this project on and off (mostly off) for 7 years of my life. LOL! I dyed the fiber with a soothing, whispers in the wind, palette in mind. I spun the first braid and… bummersville, it was not what I was envisioning. It was decidedly more blue and pastel and babyish than I wanted. But that’s the beauty of time, 7 years later and I’m into it! I’m excited about it and I WILL knit this into a sweater if it’s the last thing I do! Actually, I’ll probably knit it into more than one sweater because I think I have quite a bit of yardage here. I currently have no idea exactly how much yardage but… it seems like a lot.

At this point I’m thinking of knitting a fingering weight version of my Skylights sweater. That would be pretty right? What would you knit with this special yarn?

Five Things

My new favourite photo of me and my big guy.

Colouring gauge rulers this week. Time consuming but delightful!

Another new pattern! I’m really smitten with this one.

I just started reading this book and am looking forward to getting into the meat of it.

Wishing you all a restful and warm weekend! I can’t get over the cold spell we’ve been having here!

Iggy Peck Sweater Swatch

Ahhh! This swatch has me ridiculously excited! Like. Big time. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of swatching. I’ll be the first to admit it. In my experience a swatch can lie and a beautiful swatch does not guarantee you’ll make all the right choices for your knit and everything will turn out hunky dory. Swatches are not magic but they are helpful tools.

Here I’ve knit a cowl that is actually a swatch for a sweater. A clever trick! Well, it’s clever until I admit that it was actually supposed to be a hat swatch but then the motifs ended up being too tall for a hat so it pivoted into a cowl. I used scrap yarns from my scrap yarn wall, so that’s always a nice feeling, even if that means the cowl features two different whites in a way that I find pretty noticeable but that I’m sure nobody else will detect, right?

So, here is a pretty solid step 1 to turning my Iggy Peck Architect sweater dreams into reality. I charted the motif and after knitting it I made a few tweaks and now I have a pretty good idea how to approach the sweater construction. With this pattern the struggle for me is all in the yoke. My biggest difficulty when it comes to writing sweater patterns is with the grading - ideas are easy, it’s making them work across all sizes that is hard. And in this case the pattern needs to line up perfectly with the raglan decreases (at this point I’m thinking a bottom up construction will work best for this design). I’ve charted it very carefully in such a way that the yoke decreases will align perfectly with the motif, there won’t be any weird cut-off motifs, it should all flow seamlessly if I’ve played my cards right. Step 1 was swatching and making sure that I’m committed to my motifs before I put in all the work to grade it. And here we are! I love the way this looks and now I can attack the yoke pattern writing with gusto! Wish me luck!

5 Things

The kids went back to school for 3 days this week. Monday was a snow day and today is a ped day. They’re easing back into it nice and slow. I’ve had the most productive 3 days of my life! It’s so nice to be able to get back into a work flow. Here are a few pics from the week.

Chris has dusted off his old electric base and has been practising obsessively lately.

Chris is also the king of popcorn. The best popcorn ever. Hands down.

I’ve been spinning a lot lately and loving it.

I recently discovered that making pretzels is super easy and delicious. I’ve been using this recipe with lots of success.

If you follow me on Instagram you know that I’m obsessed with this nail polish brand. With the base coat, 2 coats of polish, top coat, I get a full 7-8 days of perfectly polished nails. This link gives you $5 off.