Laracroft and the Korsnäs Raiders!

I had the holiday of my dreams this New Year's. A crocheter's dream! I was allowed to teach 2 groups of utterly delightful fibrephiles. I was treated like royalty and generally made much of.

Mostly I coughed at them. I think I might have shown them how to do lined jacquard, between hacking attacks. The day after arriving in Toronto I developed a hideous cold, which I suppose I then shared with everyone I met. Even so, they were very nice to me!

I could kick myself for not taking pictures of the 2nd class. Anyways, I'll start with the first one.

So, the thing about Toronto is that you find the most amazing shops in strip malls. This class was held in one of the most beautiful LYS I've ever been to, Spun Fibre Arts in Burlington, Ontario. This is one very classy LYS. I could have spent days there. It could easily be on some fancy New York Avenue, in fact I doubt if any Avenue in New York can boast a LYS like this. But no, it's in a freezing cold strip mall in Burlington. And despite being in a freezing cold strip mall in the middle of nowhere, it has a lively clientele, and it's no wonder why. If I had been given one more day, I would have taken the GO Train out there just for the chance of seeing it again.

I won't tell you the real names of all those girls, just the Ravelry names ( data protection etc). From left to right, those are bjross, isobel, feyrhi (who finished a cowl in lined jacquard!), moi laracroft, jeaniex, ruthknits, spun (another Danielle like me, and the shop's brilliant owner!) and her delicious baby girl in the best ever crocheted booties, and finally, off to the side ever so modestly, so far off that I can't even get her to fit in the blogger format, is Chatouille, but Chatouille doesn't count, being in another category. She's actually an angel and I will shortly dedicate a small basilica to her.

Then a couple of days later I was invited to give a class at a LYS in Toronto called Passionknit. But the shop itself was being used for something else on the night in question, so Tamaralda who is one of its two vibrant managers, had us all over to her home where we crocheted around the dining room table. Tea, homemade spiced nuts, jolly fire crackling in hearth...castanet playing...I should have paid them for the evening!

I did not take any pictures. I just coughed at them with great abandon. (Finally the only cure was to step out and smoke a cigarette in the snow. Works every time.) I didn't even get all their Ravelry names. But they were really very, very accomplished craftswomen. One woman in particular, I'm afraid will be teaching me crochet jacquard by the next time I get to Toronto. Not surprising I suppose, being one generation older, and Latvian!

So...anyways...this Tamaralda is a live wire and as obsessive once she gets her hands on a craft as I am. She stayed up till the wee hours practicing, analyzing stitch structure, and planning further projects, and I swear she hasn't stopped yet. And she and her equally vibrant colleague Alisamcr came up with this crazy idea to start a Laracroft crochet group! I was tickled pink at the chance to keep up contact with all my new crochet cronies, so we've dubbed the group "Laracroft and the Korsnäs Raiders" and officially inaugurated it on Ravelry. I have to come up with a design for the banner, ISO good pics of Angelina Jolie w/guns. I love my group, it sounds like a rock band.

For all this and more, thank you so much Chatouille.

I could go on and on about my classes in TO but actually I have to be up early to meet with the Municipal Engineering Dept. about the upcoming Fire Drill at my school.

Come on, I have my own Ravelry Group! Can't I quit my day job yet?

In their Natural Habitat

Namely, Ontario and snow. These are my sister's Ontario mittens.


What a pretty design! I didn't actually design it, as a matter of fact. It was inspired by a pair of mittens by a brilliant Swedish Raveler called EvaL8, actually her name is Eva-Lotta and I suspect that if you say "EvaL8" in Swedish it sounds like "Eva-Lotta". Here are her "Svantar" mittens on her blog.


I have to say it again: these mittens are SO WARM! While my sister and I were taking these photos outside my Dad´s house, our poor frozen hands were just about to become gangrenous and fall off. As soon as we put our wondrous mittens on, they were Instantly Toasty. Somehow I have to patent this invention and mass-produce it for arctic crab fishermen and the like. I could make a fortune.

And these are the originals. I made the left mitten in Summer 2008! The right mitten I made this December. It's a much better mitten. Having made 2 full pairs since the first one, my technique was much improved. So my poor stepmother gets her left hand fingernails caught in the lining. Luckily she is a classical guitarist (who isn't in this family?) and so left hand fingernails are hardly an issue. The right mitten will leave her nails in perfect playing order.


I have much more to blog about my trip to Toronto. I met so many wonderful new friends! I had a crocheter´s holiday, it was awesome. But at the moment my eyes are self-closing from the enormous jet lag which besets me.

Also, my suitcase is still in Heathrow. Meaning, my newly acquired STASH is in Heathrow. I'll have to up my nerve medication to deal with this.

Will blog further tomorrow. For the sake of my readers, I hope my STASH has arrived by then.

My HOT little hands

They look like mittens, right? But what they really are, is little ovens for fingers. If you have cold fingers, make these. Hidden within, unsuspected by all, is a thick, warm and indescribably soft lining.
There are very few things that make me wish to live in Toronto again. But these mittens are definitely one of them. Here there is no call for wearing mittens of any kind, and much less these ones. So mine are all made for my Canadian family, and I dubbed them "Ontario" in their honour, and because they reminded me of winter night hikes across Ontario farmland. I have more mittens made up in other patterns, but I can't show them just yet because they are presents for my folks, and on the very unlikely chance that they will read this blog, I'd better hold off on posting them.

The pattern for these is in the Winter 09 issue of Interweave Crochet. They changed the name of them without bothering to tell me about it, and christened them with the unlikely name of "Mischa". "Mischa"? Why? What was wrong with "Ontario"? Do these look like you could play the cello in them? They also decided not to use the tutorial that I sent, so the main reason I'm posting here is to give my poor victims that tutorial.

So here we go. You see, we're doing Back Loop Crochet Jacquard with a strand of white and a strand of beige. Only we also have this big hunk of roving hanging there.

We'll just let it hang there for a while, meantime we'll be zipping along in our colour pattern.

Well, not quite zipping. You kind of have to nudge the roving from your last round down a bit to get it out of the path of your hook.

After 5 or 6 (or 7 or even 8) stitches, we're going to catch the roving and attach it to the back of the work.

Working in Jacquard, we always insert the hook underneath the secondary strand, right? Now we'll insert it under that AND under the roving, and draw up a loop.

This is the loop I drew up.

Then I completed the stitch. I've created a "float" on the inside of the work, and because it's such chunky stuff, it becomes a big fluffy puff of insulation.

And now, for your own sanity, grab that roving with a free finger, and pull it back out of the way. And then keep crocheting. You only have to hold the roving back for one or two sts, then it will leave you alone.

If you have to complete the pickup stitch in the secondary strand, which you will invariably have to do at some point, (Note: I'm assuming you know how to Jacquard or Tapestry Crochet already. If you don't, I'm sorry but you'll have to make yourself an iPod sock or wristband or something in that first, then try this technique, which is a bit trickier.) it's just the same, with one difference. The last step, i.e. pulling the roving back out of the way, should be done before completing the stitch.

What I try to avoid is starting a pickup stitch in the secondary strand. If it can't be helped, then I drop the two colours and reverse their position, so that it is no longer the secondary strand.

These are pictures from the magazine. I love these pictures!