It's no fun to be taunted by your yarn. Take this simple sock, for instant. I'm knitting it in Regia 6 fadig, using 3.00mm needles. What a difference it can make from the standard sock-weight yarns. These socks were roaring along. I cast on, Saturday morning and by Saturday night, sock #1 was done.
Sock #2 on the other hand has been much more of a challenge. I wanted to try and get the sock to match. The repeats are LONG and even if the colour sequence look right, it doesn't mean that you have a match.
It's true, yarn can laugh at you.
In utter frustration, I did a provisional cast-on and continued. Now, I just need to go through the remaining bit of yarn that I have left and try and finsh sock #2 to match sock #1. It's going to involve a bit of grafting but it's much easier to go through the remaining bit that the dip through most of the skein trying to match it up.
These socks are for my mom, and although I know that she won't mind if they don't match, I really want them to match because they are for her.
Yes, this yarn is laughing and so is the Online that I've used to start my baby cables. Now that I'm into sock #2, skein #2 has gone into hiding. I have turned the house upside down and it's not to be found. Now instead of finishing the Crazy socks, I'm going to have to tidy the house. There's no justice in this world!
I've finally decided on this for my sockapalooza pal. I wouldn't want my pal to think that I couldn't be bothered to make some effort and believe me there is effort in this sock. I am having a devil of a time getting the cuff correct and this represents 3 nights of knitting and 2 nights of ripping ( Rowanette Jill would say, 'some clever clogs might find it easy '...and now you know, I'm not a clever clogs). The darkish wool isn't helping but I love this Opal. The green is really vibrant and the wool is much softer than the printed yarns.
Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road is one of my favourite books. Her socks designs are fabulous and I really want to knit just about every one in this book. I was a bit spoiled for choice since I love so many of Jeanie Townsend's designs too, but I think I'll do Cascading Leaves for my mom and Kansas Harvest for me.
Dawn and I were both agonising over our choice yesterday night. Then Mary then pointed out that someone was knitting a 13th century design. Suddenly, the panick erupted over our faces. Dawn is thinking fair-isle and I was thinking, do I have enough time to call in the professionals!
So there you go. Who knows.. I might even have an FO this month!
What's better that a skein of Polly and a skein of James? Well, the answer that is obviously a skein of James and Polly
This precious skein was sent to me by Linzi. Wasn't that just the kindest thing? It makes it all the more special because it was such a surprise.
Now, I'm really torn, do I knit it or stash it?
Sockapalooza.
I'm psyched to start my Sockapalooza sock, soon. I did a bit of espionage to get more details... because like most knitters, we love exchanges but there's that neurotic side of us that starts worrying about an expert knitter getting something less than expert. Oh my stars... please don't let me embarrass myself... and how does one say? Sock-a-pal-oo-za? Sock-a-pa-looser? like I said recently... minefields..
Bridging the cultural divide
I've been living in Europe for over a dozen years now and I still often find it difficult to navigate the cultural divide. Not growing up with the culture can mean a minefield of faux pas.
For example, take this little 2x2 ribbed cap, that I made my husband for christmas in 2002. I chose the yarn and a Rowan pattern. Back in 2002, I almost exclusively knitted Rowan and Jaeger. I selected Jaeger Extrafine merino dk in a manly olive shade. The yarn was neither too thin nor too thick. 2x2 ribbing meant a nice fit and since I worked on this in secret, I lost some sleep to get it done for Christmas. On Christmas day, the present was opened and husband was duly grateful and even wore it on Boxing day for the bracing walk that he's so fond of. I detected a bit of reservation but he assured me that he loved it, so I left it at that.
1 year later, he wore it to the annual Oxford-Cambridge Rugby match and told me that all his work buddies made fun of him and called him Benny because of his hat. I replied, what a coincidence .. the pattern is called Benny. He then explained, Benny was a character from Crossroads. A character that many considered to be the 'village idiot'. Oops...sorry dear, my intention was to keep you warm not to cast you in the role of village idiot!
Since then, the issue of hats has not often been broached, so naturally there was some curiousity when he saw me cast on for a hat.
This one, I is for my dad. It's in a manly shade of brown with slight hint of green. The yarn is Jaeger Chamonix, knitted on 4.5mm needles, with 96 stitches cast on. Chamonix is wonderfully soft and the angora makes it very warm. Now, before I give this to my dad, I need to now, are there any other village idiots that I ought to be aware of?
oh, and if you're in NY, Don't forget to take advantage of this. Good food at a discount, translates to more money for yarn.
Rowanette Jacinta was saying, how after Christmas knitting, January knitting is a bit flat. After the satisfaction of completing things regularly and quickly, ringing in the new year with something new and substantial and requiring more than a few days to finish, takes a bit of adjusting to.
I have made some progress on my teddy bear coat. In the end, I'd decided to modify the Donkey Jacket from Debbie Bliss's Baby Knits Book so all I need to actually rework are the ears.
The donkey jacket uses cashmerino aran, similar tension to the sheland aran that I have, so only a minimal amount of fiddly required.
I know, it's grey and not terribly interesting, unless your name happens to be Amelia. Just 2 sleeves and the ears to go and then, it'll be done. I really ought to have done a bit of blocking before picking up for the edging, but I was too lazy and impatient. I hope blocking will sort out that nasty rolling at the hem.
With the progress so far on Tina, I have no doubt whatsoever that the stream of baby christening shawls from ATU (Gesundheit), isn't going to happen. What was I thinking...! So I thought, this might make a good substitute.
Now, I'm relaibly told that there is an errata page to be found here.
All I need to know, is how does the yarn usage run in the pattern? I've got 10 balls of Jaeger cotton that I wouldn't mind using up and it's got the same meterage of Debbie Bliss's wool cotton, which is no longer available in any sufficient quantities in any yarn shops in London. If I chance it and run out, I suppose I can go for a different colour trim. The problem with using discontinued yarns ... got to be flexible.
Parcels
I got a little parcel from Stéphanie last week, filled with chocolate, I had to fight the husband to get my mitts on a chocolate covered almond. It was superb.
I also go this.
It's gorgeous, in one of my favorite shades of purple and it's 100% cashmere. Am I lucky or what? I'd admit to stroking Stéphanie's cashair ensemble, rather a lot when we met up in Brussels, but never in my dreams did I think that I would get one. It's so decadent! Thank you Stéphanie! I hope that I haven't ruined yours by overstroking it.
When I finally regain my composure, I'll show the state of a parcel that I got last week from the US. It was sent on Dec 2 and arrived Friday in a plastic bin liner with the cardboard box torn and folded inside. It's like they didn't believe that the yarn inside was yarn and had to investigate to make sure it wasn't something like ... plastic explosives.
Who was it that said, that it dangerous for a programmer to test their our code, must had meant the same thing about a knitter checking their own pattern. It's a bad idea!
I'd tried really hard to check the kiri pattern to make it as error proof as possible but there was goof in the edging. Sorry Gill , you being a stitch or so out was probably my fault. The reason that I'm really bad at writing up and testing my own pattern is because for me it' all visual. Once I **see** the pattern, I don't need to look at the charts/text. You see how this can be a problem when I'm supposed to be checking the knitting in front of me with the charts on paper. Anyway, erratas with credits to the poor person that must be bald by now, trying to figure out what I was trying to do. So sorry... please forgive me. On the other hand, it was pretty intuitive, wasn't it? I mean Tracy managed to finish it correctly inspite of my **destructions **. (NB: More credit to her than the dodgy instructions)
Other knitting news...
For the longest time, I've been trying to buy the yarn to make this from one of the London stockists of Debbie Bliss Chunky merino and merino dk. I've been wanting to make this coat since I bought this booklet. My nephew will be 2 in April, so I'd decided, it's do it now or never. It's been impossible to get the greys in any sufficient quantity. How very annoying that neither Peter Jones nor John Lewis can get their acts together.
In the end, I've decided to do it from stash. I'm resizing the pattern to use aran weight yarns and will be using the Jaeger Shetland in Grey Tweed and some Merino Aran in Grey Marl. I really shouldn't have to do this because shops should have these very standard yarns in stock without doing a special order. Although I had intended to use the dark grey for the body and the lighter grey for the trim, in the end, I didn't have enough of the dark grey so it'll be the other way. The Jaeger Shetland is a really nice yarn. It's 80% shetland wool/20% alpaca. It's soft, has excellent meterage and is a really good value. I don't know why this yarn isn't used more or a favourite of more people. Personally, the only thing that I don't like about it, is, that it's aran weight and at ATU, we prefer to keep our needle sizes under 4mm.
This is the second project that've cast on this year and as I'm resizing on the fly, while on this
... so it should be no surprise if it might not actually be completed in 2005.
Christmas News
It was xmas all over again, as the tree and all the decorations came down. In my haste to clear the house for arriving guests, I tidied the way that I used to, when my mom told me to clean my room. I took a large bag, dumped everything in it and put it out of sight. The problem was, some of the stuff that got tidied were envelops and cards that arrived on the 24th. Oops...! If you're looking at a model of tidiness, you've come to the wrong place.
Now to finish off on a sweet note, lookie here, some homemade marmalade, delivered to my doorstep from the ultra wonder Judith.
There's something really comforting about home-made jams and jelly. Unfortunately, it's a lot of work and there's no guarantee that it'll all gel right... these loook lovely and I can't wait until I have the opportunity to try them.
My fiddlesticks Tina shawl is finally showing some progress. Although I try to work on it every night, it's not easy.
I now trully understand the difference between knitted lace and knitting lace. There isn't a 'rest' row and stopping mid-round is a recipe for disaster. On the plus side, I find it a bit challenging (which is good) since I actually have to pay attention when working on it (and not chatter when watching TV... it drives the husband nuts).
Each round if taking ages. Each round is close to 600 stitches. Not to exaggerate, but I have nightmares about having to rip back and have even descended to using the corks from wine bottles to make sure nothing slips off the needles when I'm not looking. This is definitely going to be a long term project.
Houston, we have more than a problem
Now, I hope that squiggly bit where I picked up the stitches actually block out straight. If you look very closely at the knitted shawl, on the right side, you see the wiggly edge as well. Of course, it'll be a *feature* if it doesn't. I read in my Barbara Walker that the center panel is fir stitch, a predecessor for the fern stitch and had a tendency for the fabric to ripple at the edge. If I'd know this earlier I would had changed to center panel. As much as I want to leave it, the rippling might drive me beserk.
Then there's the colour. The yarn is supposed to be off-white, but it looks more like beige. Making white yarn off white is pretty easy, all you need is some tea, but how does one make beige yarn more white? Bleach would be too strong, do you think a solution with hydrogen peroxide would do it? If you can bleach hair with it, surely it can bleach a little merino and cashmere?
I would like to think that I'm at the 40% mark, but reckon, I'm probably closer to 30% complete. It's not only hard to photgraph but hard to estimate as well.
Other stuff
I've been a bit loathed to post, I really wanted to keep Polly and James up longer. Funny, it's just like PJ said in the comments, this was the only way to get James wrapped around my fingers. Now I really must get a nice glove pattern.
I leave you a photo of latest residents to the ATU woolroom. As of yet unnamed, but aren't they just too cute for words? This was a Christmas present that travelled all the way from W Yorkshire.
and that little bit on Chinese culture...
Just as I was hoping that monkey year would just finish off and chicken year will start (Chinese New Year is Feb 9th), I read that couples in Beijing are rushing to tie the knot as soon as possible (i.e. before the New Year), because the year of the chicken is 'Widow's Year', due to star alignment, it'll be bad luck to get married...and many men are doomed to perish, hence widows.
I really want to see a happy year. Chinese people are soooooo superstitious. Many people rushed to have cesareans in the horse year to avoid giving birth in the sheep year. Why? Sheep are viewed as 'followers' and horses are leaders so being born in horse year is supposed to be better than sheep year.
Monkey year is also supposed to be a very auspicious sign, but this past year has been appalling. For what it's worth, it is Chicken year not rooster year and sheep year not ram year. The sequence in the zodiac means that those years are feminine, not masculine (Yin and Yang).
What do you do when the new year rolls around?
Cast on something new. I must admit to frogging about 3 times before giving up and going back to a tried and true pattern. I tried using the Bell Lace pattern but it looked awful. I also tried a few other patterns but with no success either. I think misplacing my 2.25mm was the problem. 2.00mm gave me too tight a gauge to work with the patterns that I was after and 2.50mm was too loose.
This might be a small project but I feel much better casting on something new for the new year.
Coincidence
I also managed to pick-up a package on Dec 24th* from the Alpaca Spinner. Some months ago, I stumbled onto her site and saw that she was about to shear Polly.
Of course, I had to put in an order, I mean, how often do you find an alpaca with your name being sheared? These beasts only get sheared every 2 years. As a child, I always lost on on personalised keychains, cups, etc. because Polly just wasn't that common a name. In their kindness, my relatives helped spawn an identity crisis, I mean I got personalised things too, usually with the names Paula, Patty and Penny. One time, I even got one named Peter, but I won't go into that.
I was duly notified when Polly was shorn and then told that there was another alpaca also ready for shearing, by the name of James.
So what's a girl to do, when they have an alpaca named after you and your husband.... the credit card got bashed. Along with Polly and James's hair, I also got a certificate of authenticity
for each of the alpacas.
I believe that it is really important to support local/small scale producers. These British alpacas yielded lovely hair. There's still a few other Limited Addition Alpaca Hanks Left, so if you know anyone named Polly, Linford, Truffle, Dizzy or Thunder ...
You'll only need 100g to make a pair of gloves and I'm going to make me some chocolate colour gloves.
Now, off to work on my 'thank you' letters for Christmas. I did resolve not to procrastinate, even though I really want to go knit.
* Said package had been held hostage at the post office for 10 days and I was told off for not going to collect it sooner. Me and the post-office were not good buddies this year. They used to open up at 6:30am (even though the official opening time was at 7am), but now they won't let you in until 7:10am, which makes it really hard for me to get my packages before going to work. Postie and I are currently not on good terms.