Allergic to Wool

Love or Hate? A Valentine's Day post devoted to garter stitch

2012-02-14T12:27:00.000Z

So what say you? Do you love or hate the Marmite of the knitting world that is garter stitch?

Love

As you may have figured out from my post on Elizabeth Zimmermann evangelising, I'm a lover, not a hater. The inimitable EZ of course devoted an entire book to the subject, Knit One, Knit All and one of the most famous knitting patterns of all time is her ode to garter, The Baby Surprise Jacket.

There is something about the repetition of all those knit stitches (and maybe some purls if you're knitting in the round) that's rhythmic and soothing, and the simple garter stitch is especially useful if you're into sub-titled Scandinavian television crime shows. Sometimes it's nice to switch from a complicated lace or cable pattern, get back to basics, and just enjoy every stitch.

Aside from the pleasantries of knitting garter stitch, it does produce a fantastic, wearable result when used properly. Take this classic and oft knit design by Melissa LeBarre, the Garter Yoke Cardigan. I knit it ages ago and still love the end result. The simple structure of the cardi looks great on so many different people, as you can see from the projects on Ravelry.

There some other really stunning garter stitch projects out there; my friend Rikke loves garter stitch even more than I do and she's a real pro at choosing patterns that use it wisely.Here's her grellow version of Stephen West's Clockwork:

And one of my favourites, the Blackcurrant Shawl by Veera Välimäki:

And last, but not least, THE Rikke Hat, named in her honour by Sarah Young:

She's got lots of other garter-lovin' projects on her Ravelry page, so if you're still not convinced (or just crave a bit more garter squishyness) do check out her page here.

Ok, just one more... this is a delicious new pattern from the Quince & Co Scarves etc. collection. Yum!

Hate

Some knitters I know are not so keen on garter stitch. My very vintagey friend downright despises it. Is it that garter stitch has a too rustic, or on the other hand, a too modern look? Stripey garter stitch is a popular trend at the moment, but for me, not so much. In garments, you also run the risk of getting that Michelin Man look if the yarn is too bulky, or doesn't have the right drape.

So tell me what you think. Are you hot for garter? Does it make you break out in hives? Or are you wondering what all the fuss is about - it's only a stitch pattern after all! Cast your vote below...

create a free poll on pollsb.com

And to finish, here's a Valentine from me to you, my current favourite happy love song, Emmylou by First Aid Kit.

Keep your eye out for some retro shawl eye candy in the video and see the duo in some great Scandi knitwear here.

Winter Cycle Chic.

2012-02-06T12:43:00.003Z

So, yeah, I was gabbing on about the bloody joys of winter last week, extolling the virtues of cold weather, blah, blah, blahdy blah. Now I'm cold. And to pile wind upon rainy days, I went and made a resolution to start cycling to work again. In January. (Please refrain from calling me names amounting to "fool", "idiot", or "chump" in the comments section please, I already know.) But with cycling apparently comes lovely things like "good health" and "all the money I'll be saving" by not riding the nice, warm, cosy bus. (Ok, I also know that London buses are at best only mildly gross, but still.) And now it's even snowed here in London, so I am really feeling a little bit like a crazy person, thinking I could cycle in winter. So some investigations were made and as always, knitters never let me down. I am thinking I need to stay WARM. Type in "bike" into the ravelry pattern search and more than a few pretty awesome projects come up. For instance, I am intrigued by these bike helmet ear warmers by Amy O'Neill Houck. They're clever because they're like little cosies that slip on to the straps of your helmet without making you look like a complete dork (and it's a free pattern - extra points). Saying that, I tend to look like a dork anyway with my bike helmet on, but I'd rather look like a dork than, say, crack my skull open if I get into an accident, which, let's face it, with my cycling skills... I digress. Ears warm, non-dork, all good.Alternatively, there's this also very nice under-the-helmet hat, which, if I didn't have ginormous hair, I would totally go for. Plus, let's face it, it's modelled by a very handsome man:

And then there's the rather lovely collection of patterns from Natalie Selles called Knitting Cycle Style. I am particularly taken with the Pennyfarthing Legwarmers and Armwarmers (pictured top). How cute are these? Would need to wear them over tights and such of course. So, warm ears? Check. Warms arms? Check. Warm legs? Check. Now for a giant wrap to keep my neck warm. The knitting equivalent of winter's worst enemy, or kryptonite, if you will. Jared Flood to the rescue: I think either his Guernsey Wrap or the stunning Terra would do the job very nicely indeed.

I also love this pattern from last autumn's Interweave Knits by Andrea Rangel:

Now we've got all the patterns sorted, what about yarn? Cycling-inspired yarn, you say? Your wish is my command. I present to you this lovely hand-dyed blue-face leicester in the colourway "Gentleman Cyclist" by cycling dyer extraordinaire Made in Hackney. No excuses now.

The Joys of Cold Weather.

2012-01-11T08:00:00.005Z

I'm a sunshine kind of girl. I have the kind of skin that benefits from sitting on a beach (I never burn, even without sunscreen), and I'd happily wear flip flops for the rest of my life if I could. I can think of nothing better than spending my time outside in the heat, until I can bear it no longer and jump into the nearest body of water.

I got a lot of that in December in Australia. It was absolute bliss - the kind of summer I dream of here in mild and generally soggy London, where it's not unusual for me to still be wearing tights in July. We drove around the Yarra Valley with the top of the car down, I drank a seemingly endless supply of gin and tonics and ate my dinners outside - without a cardigan! Having grown up in Virginia, where you can veritably see the heat in summer, all things felt right in the world again.

All things but one - it was, after all, December. It's a strange thing for a Northern Hemisphere native to experience Christmas in what actually feels like July. Christmas tress make no sense, the fact that Santa has a sleigh is bizarre (how about a jetski?) and you just don't get that comfy, cosy, mulled wine-drinking feeling. So while it was lovely to have a barbecue with the family outside on Christmas day, I have to say that's just what it felt like - a barbecue. I'd spent Christmas in Australia before, but perhaps was too wrapped up in the trip last time to really notice. This time though, I was feeling that lack. Who knew that so much I felt about Christmas was tied up in the cold weather? It turns out that keeping warm is half the fun.

So now back in London where the temperatures are firmly in the single digits, I am surprised to be relishing it. Normally I spend as little time as possible outside in January, but since we've been back I've been enjoying weekend walks to the local cafe where hot chocolate with a giant marshmallow is made even more delicious by drinking it outside, mitts on. I suppose as knitters, winter is our time to shine and really enjoy woolliness and cosiness. Lots of countries claim this saying as their own but it's true no matter which cold climate you're in: "There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad dressing."

So bring on the snow! I've got boots, I've got hot chocolate and I've got eleven hand-knitted scarves and wraps (yes, I just got up and counted). I am loving being outside in January. So how about you? Has knitting changed how you feel about winter? Are you enjoying basking in knitted glory rather than summer sunshine? And how long will this feeling last...?

Down South.

2012-01-10T12:45:00.007Z

I know, I know, I have taken an extended break (again!), but like most people at the beginning of a new year, I've got good intentions for keeping this ol' blog bang up-to-date from now on. I do have a few excuses for being out of commission for a while, the most recent and most interesting being a month-long trip to the southern hemisphere (yes, you should be jealous).

We set off for Melbourne via Singapore and made our way up to Port Douglas and through Country Victoria during our trip. It was blissful summer, but don't let that fool you into thinking I neglected all things knit-related while we were there. This was one of our first stops:

Needless to say, I bought some yarn. Okay, I bought loads. In case you haven't heard of it, Bendigo Woollen Mills is one of Australia's biggest hand knitting yarn producers. At the mill, there is a great shop where you can buy their current yarns off the shelf, but what I would recommend is delving into their back room, where discontinued yarns and colours hide out. It's all great quality stuff for a bargain.

Lucky for my husband, the mill also makes a good stop on a road trip of the Victorian countryside. Bendigo itself is a former gold mining town with a whiff of the wild west about it and we used it as a stop on our drive up to Echuca, where paddle steamer boats chug up and down the Murray, Australia's longest river. (The fact that my husband's name happens to also be Murray made for many a hilarious joke on this trip, let me tell you.) We took a lovely little ride down the river on one of these babies:

From Echuca we moseyed over to Wangaratta (Australian town names just get better and better), where we checked out Australian Country Spinners, with a mill shop similar to Bendigo's, but with a less exciting range. Driving back down to Melbourne, I kept my eyes peeled for famous Australian wildlife (I am but an excited school kid at heart) but the only kangaroos I saw were sadly dead at the side of the road. Not cool. Eventually I decided it best to keep my eyes on the socks I was knitting.

We did lots of other fun, non-knitting things too, of course. Like head up to Port Douglas in Queensland, where the rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef. As you can imagine, it was amazing. We snorkeled with the sea turtles, we swam in the rainforest, we ate A LOT of amazing food.

Back down in Victoria, we wandered about wine country and spa towns and came across this lovely lavender farm:

And this adorably retro pitstop. (And yes, that is a mural of the infamous Ned Kelly with a sausage roll.)

On the way to and from Oz, we stopped in Singapore and it was much more exciting that I had imagined: cheap delicious food, interesting neighbourhoods, amazing architecture, and one hell of a zoo.

So now we're back in London, putting our knitwear to good use, but for once it really feels like I've been on vacation. Until next time I can reminisce, right? My new favourite thing to keep me feeling the vibe is the truly fabulous Frankie Magazine, which I highly recommend you check out. That and, well, Vegemite. No, really!

Spring Kouyou.

2011-04-11T09:59:00.005+01:00

The sun has been shining here in London, which means light, finally! Here's an in-progress shot of the shawl I have been working on for the shop.

I knitted a few rows in the park after work before getting a pizza nearby on a Friday evening. Bliss!

The project is the Kouyou Shawl* in the lovely-dovely Quince & Co Chickadee in Petal.

*Apparently Kouyou means Autumn in Japanese, but with a yarn called Chickadee in a colour called Petal, it must be Spring!

EZ Evangelising.

2011-03-25T23:11:00.004Z

This week I finished knitting the adorable Annabel Cardigan as a sample for the shop. Not only was I lucky enough to get a sneak peek of this wonderful yarn before it arrives over here in the UK in this month, but I managed to squeeze a new technique into the mix as well.

It was a very simple cardigan to knit in and of itself, being a top-down raglan in plain garter stitch, but that construction presented a problem to me which I have continually encountered and wanted to resolve. I've never been really happy with previous techniques I've used to weave or darn in ends in garter stitch. I'm not usually too much of a stickler about these things, especially when it only shows on the wrong side, but as I wasn't just knitting this for myself, I wanted a nice finish. So I went to a couple of knitting "bibles" but there wasn't anything specific to garter stitch, and the information just generally wasn't particularly helpful. Luckily we've been getting a lot of traditional books in stock at the shop, including Schoolhouse Press books, and so I turned to a copy of knitting guru Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Workshop for guidance.

She's a genius clearly. She waxes lyrical about the joys of weaving in ends, and then she gives the best advice I've ever had on the subject:

Basically, tie your two ends in and overhand knot.

Then separate the plies of each strand.

I had 3 plies in one strand of Quince & Co Osprey.

Thread a sharp darning needle with one ply and then skim the the surface of the stitches (make sure to go through both the bumps from the garter stitch AND the flat "knit" rows between the bumps).

Pull the fabric a bit to even things out, snip the end of the strand close to the fabric, and marvel at your amazing invisibly woven-in ends.

I imagine this works just as well with stockinette and just about any other stitch pattern. Rest assured I will be using this method almost exclusively in the future.

I showed this to at least 5 people in the hour after I tried it and all were suitably impressed. And you will be too. Go on now, try it!

Spring Awakening.

2011-03-21T14:05:00.004Z

This is why I love spring.

Note the ever-lovely frank ochre Ishbel in the background. Perfect for spring days.

More spring knitting to come soon!

Flowers from Columbia Road Flower Market.

Meet Derek.

2010-10-31T23:45:00.002Z

Ok, so he's not scary, well, at all (don't tell him that!)...

Derek, the Mechanobot

Happy Halloween!

New pattern!

2010-10-25T08:51:00.003+01:00

Hello there! It's been a while (again, I know!) but great news - I have finally written up the pattern for the Naomi Scarf after lots of very flattering requests for it on Ravlery. Since I added it to the Ravelry database last night, it's already in 18 queues - how lovely! I am really looking forward to seeing all the different versions everyone makes in different colours, yarns, etc. You can also find the pattern in my Etsy shop - whichever you prefer.

Here are the links:

Naomi Scarf on Ravelry

Naomi Scarf on Etsy

Hope you like it!

Passing it on.

2010-07-27T11:59:00.003+01:00

My husband's goddaughter and niece's birthday is the day after mine. So naturally I feel the urge to slightly nudge her in the crafty direction every year. I remember when I was a kid I loved crafty presents. Rug hooking, paint-by-numbers, sewing stuff - I just couldn't get enough. One of the best birthdays I had was my fifth, when I was given a huge trunk full of dress up clothes and then for my party, all my friends brought their dress ups and we went to town getting creative and sharing things.

So this year for the little one's seventh, I decided to put together a box of goodies and a book to get her going on her crafty way. The book I chose is a really sweet little book called The Girls' Best Book of Knitting, Sewing and Embroidery by Virginie Desmoulins. It has a little history, a few projects and even a paper doll that pops out of the cover of the book that you can dress up.

I got a lovely tin box from Paperchase and filled it with some felt, yarn, fabric, a notebook, a pie pincushion, stickers, beads and ribbon and then when I wrapped it up I strung a few vintage buttons on some yarn and wrapped a few lengths of the yarn around the present instead of using regular ribbon. I love the Paperchase kitty wrapping paper and card and I thought they looked so cute I had to share them here. Here's hoping the crafting bug will catch her in Australia!

Happy thoughts!

2010-06-24T16:17:00.005+01:00

I'm pretty lucky to have an awesome job. After all, I do work in a knitting shop. And so it brought tears to my eyes last weekend when we opened the doors of our new, bigger, prettier (I know, to those of you who knew the old Loop, it doesn't seem possible) shop that there were 130+ knitters (and a couple of brave significant others) queued up waiting for the big unveiling. Incredible!

Here's just a few of the lovely things people have had to say about our shop:

http://fridica.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/loop/

http://gingerclare.blogspot.com/2010/06/old-loop-new-loop.html

http://mrsgknits.blogspot.com/2010/06/right-of-passage-for-loop.html

Not too bad as workplaces go, eh!?

Beginnings and Ends.

2010-06-01T15:23:00.004+01:00

Cheerful shades of Malabrigo Worsted.

My friend Rosemary and I started this blanket together a couple of weeks ago for a friend who became seriously ill while working Zambia. She was camping, and a terrible accident occurred that resulted in her being covered in burns. She was sent to South Africa, where she was joined by her mother, sister and uncle.

Rosemary and I, who have known this friend since we were children, were so upset by this news, and wanted to do something, anything, to help. There wasn't much that we could do from so far away, Rose being in Virginia, and me being in London, but Rose had the perfect idea that we could knit her something. Of course! If anything, the knitting we would do would be a comfort to us, who felt so helpless at this worrying time.

The pattern starting to grow.

We exchanged countless emails, deciding on the pattern, the yarn, the logistics. We started the blanket and as updates came in on our friend's progress, the blanket grew. We so looked forward to the day when we could send it off to her, hoping it would cheer her hospital room and keep her warm and comforted in the South African winter.

Yesterday, we got the devastating news that our dear childhood friend didn't make it. She lasted 58 days from the day of her accident - it never occurred to us she wouldn't continue to progress. Rose emailed to tell me the news - and also, what would we do with the blanket??

I looked at the pile of knitting last night. I'd completed about half of my portion. Looking at it, once full of so much hope and so much potential... I wondered if I would be able face knitting the rest.

We've decided to keep knitting. Now her family could use some comfort and some tangible affirmation that she touched lives. And actually, once I forced myself to pick up the knitting again, working each stitch comforted me too. Although knitting this blanket is a constant reminder of what we've lost, something about the soft yarn in my hands, the cheerful colours that remind us of our friend and the rhythm of each stitch are soothing. I don't know what I would've done without it.

Colour Theory.

2010-04-18T10:12:00.007+01:00

As mentioned in my last post, I am trying to get a little culture every week with my friend Lara. Last week we visited Frederic Leighton's recently re-opened home in Kensington. I didn't know, well, anything really about Leighton until we decided to go there; as I learned, he was one of the most famous artists of the 19th century and often associated with the Aesthetic Movement. This house was built to his own specifications and is just plain stunning.

Having been working in a yarn shop for the past couple of months, I have begun to have a new appreciation - and awareness of - colour. My green Manu cardigan (finished last week and pretty much worn every day since) was my first departure from my usual palette of purples and burgundies and my visit to the V&A's quilt exhibition had me buying fabric in prints I wouldn't normally have considered.

(photo credit: Leighton House Museum)

So I feel like I was able to appreciate Leighton's House more fully than I would have three months ago. Every room was a different experience, and every room presented a new combination of colours that I never would have expected to work together. The first part of the house that you enter, the Narcissus Hall, is probably my favourite. It is lined with tiles in the most amazing shade of peacock blue with a gilded ceiling. Leading off this hall are the study, with a gorgeous green marble fireplace and William Morris Curtains. Opposite is the drawing room, with a turquoise painted wood floor and an enormous, colourful, Venetian glass chandelier. There is so much more - a dining room decorated in many different shades of red, the Arab Hall, deocorated with Middle Eastern ceramics and textiles, and another one of my favourites - the Silk Room, lined with olive green silk panels and also incorporating Italian art, Middle Eastern woodwork and more William Morris fabrics. If you're not in London to see the house in person, then I would highly recommend the virtual tour on their website (although some of the pictures don't appear to be completely up to date with the amazing restoration work they've done).

One of the wonderful things about this place is the way they've restored all this colour. Because the house was in the ownership of several others since the artist's death, the conservationists had to do some detective work to figure out exactly what it looked like when Leighton himself occupied it. They were able to read letters visitors wrote to friends (one mentioned having the same curtains as Leighton), newspaper articles and diaries to obtain clues, and then scratched through the many layers of paint to find the exact colours that were on the walls in his time and replicate them. I am also really excited to see that they have a talk coming up in June called Textiles and Wallpapers at Leighton House Museum, and you can bet I'll be there.

You'd think by now that I'd be in colour overload and ready to knit in several different shades of grey, but I'm afraid it's exactly the opposite. It looks like I can say officially that I am now a shawl knitter, and this one is my Ishbel, knit in the most gorgeous yarn - Malabrigo Lace.

Malabrigo has an amazing range of colours, and as I am feeling very colourful, and very much like spring recently, I couldn't knit it in anything but this shade: Frank Ochre.

For more inspiration on colour combinations and shades check out www.colourlovers.com - I find this can be really useful for colourwork in knitting, decorating a room, and hell, just getting dressed.

Next up: Sir John Soane's Museum in Holborn!

_______________________

p.s. If you plan to visit Leighton House, you'll obviously need tea after. Lara and I went to the lovely and unpretentious Muffin Man Tea Shop near Kensington High Street. Any place that has cakes named after recently deceased members of the royal family is ok by me.

Knit and sew.

2010-04-15T10:07:00.004+01:00

I am so behind - so many things to share! Firstly, I finally finished my most recent cardigan - the rising-up-the-ravelry-charts Manu, by the lovely Kate Davies. I have been following Kate's blog, needled, for only a short while now, but in that time, I and her many other readers were shocked to learn she'd had a stroke. It looks like she's on the road to recovery now, and back on the knitting track, and since her stroke she's not only been able to make such achievements as being able to walk and knit again, but has managed to get a pattern published. Impressive indeed.

I love the cardigan (you can read my detailed notes on the pattern and process on my ravelry project page) and it's absolutely perfect for spring. The yarn is lovely too, and while I wasn't sure about the bright green colour at first, now I just can't stop looking at it, or wearing it, for that matter. I was sure that I wouldn't have anything to wear that would actually go with the cardigan, but it turns out I was wrong about that too - it goes with almost everything!

In particular, I would like to think it goes well with this skirt I made. I got the limited-edition Liberty print fabric from the recently opened Quilts exhibition at the V&A. Feeling inspired by the sewing skills of KristenMakes, I checked out the BurdaStyle website (an almost-ravelry for sewing) and found a "novice" level pattern that worked out perfectly. Seriously, I can only use my sewing machine for straight lines, and that's all this was.

Speaking of the Quilts exhibition, it was huge. I could have spent hours in there. I don't think it was the greatest exhibition ever, or even the greatest quilt exhibition ever (that remains the Quilts of Gee's Bend exhibition I saw at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2005) but it was still amazing. Among the critiques I have are that it was so dark! It was probably to protect the quilts, but still - I wanted to see that stitching. There were also a few rather "arty" quilts thrown in there. I felt a bit like these were there to somehow justify the presence of quilts - gasp - being in a gallery. Come on now, can't we appreciate the inherent beauty and history and craft of quilts? All that aside, there were some stunning examples in there. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed, but here's a snippet of a lovely one from the exhibition booklet.

And one from a postcard from the exhibition:

And the good stuff from the shop:

I went to the exhibition with my friend Lara, and she and I both don't work Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so we're trying to get to another exhibition, historic house, etc every week! Next up: Leighton House Museum in Kensington.

Starter shawl.

2010-03-23T16:20:00.003Z

So I've joined 2,068 others in casting on Citron, from the winter Knitty. Now I'm not usually a shawl kind of person. I can appreciate the gorgeous lace, dainty nupps, and perfectly blocked points of the thousands of beautiful shawls fellow ravelers have knit, but they're just not something I've been keen to wear... until now, of course.

I actually made this one for a friend of mine, whose birthday it is today. It's pretty simple, but with a really lovely, ruffly, ruched result. I prefer to wear it "backwards", but she could probably wear it in the traditional way for a wedding or other more formal event. Now I'm hoping it will be the first (apart from my wedding shawl, here on ravelry) of many more to come.

The details:

Pattern - Citron by Hilary Smith Callis

Yarn - Fearless Fibers Laceweight Merino

Some lovely (and not too old fashioned) examples to check out (rav links):

Ulmus and Andrea's Shawl both by Kirsten Kapur

Textured Shawl Recipe by Orlane

Mara by Madeline Tosh

Springtime Bandit by Kate Gagnon Osborn

and, as if you didn't already know, Ysolda Teague's sweet Ishbel and Damson patterns.

Mmmm... toast...

2010-03-17T11:19:00.003Z

FO: Toast by Leslie Friend (rav link)

Another one of those projects I've whipped up in the last month. I decided to frog the Cashmere Drop Stitch Scarf I started on waaaay back when, as I really wanted something that would show off this yarn to its best advantage. I don't usually go for variegated yarns (in fact, I usually hate them), but the colours in this Handmaiden 4-ply Cashmere just called out to me and man it's soft. I am almost a little bit sad it's getting warmer out and I won't be able to wear them much longer. Almost.

Fills me with...

2010-03-16T12:18:00.001Z

Ok, so I promised more, and here it is. I have a confession to make.

I love Glee.

There. I said it. But so does everyone else and anyone who says they don't has no soul. We're still on the first season here in the UK, and gradually everyone is going, "I am so embarrassed to admit this, but I love Glee." And then everyone else says with relief, "So do I!"

One of the biggest talking points of the show is Jayma Mays' wardrobe as lovable guidance counselor Emma Pilsbury. Finally, librarian-chic is cool, and some well-deserved glory goes to the humble cardigan. The clincher for me though is her adorable array of sweater clips:

Clearly I am not the first to notice these as evidenced in this post.

So I had a wander around Etsy, and I caved in.

These vintage clips came from the lovely Vintage Fifteen shop.

Now, here's the problem: I don't actually own a cardigan that requires or can accommodate sweater clips. Solution: knit one! Which leads me to another problem: which cardigan??? I have seen a few, but none so far that fill me with... well you know. Any suggestions?

Spring Substitute.

2010-03-14T19:27:00.004Z

Remember I said I would work backwards? Ok, so this one came sometime before the scarf when I was feeling the need for some instant gratification, just before I started the new job.

Note the cat in the background, oblivious to the fabulous knittedness behind her!

It's a really clever pattern from Veera Valimaki, who designs some seriously covetable patterns. (I would make any one of them in a flash if only I had enough yarn and time.) The cleverness of the pattern lies in the fact that most of the shaping is made by the shapes of the leaves, which look so pretty, aside from being functional. The lovely leaves put me in mind for spring, even though London is still really rather cold, and give me hope (as did the crocuses I saw sprouting in Acton on my way to work this morning - really I did!).

Lovely leaves!

Now in spite of all the cleverness, and all the lovely ravelry projects I had seen the sweater in, when I first tried it on I felt like an American football player in full padded gear - perhaps because I was just not used to bulky sweaters. However, I test-drove it at work today and got loads of compliments! I think with the right top on underneath and my hair worn down, I manage to avoid making my head look teeny-tiny in comparison with my shoulders - a good thing, yes.

Pattern: Modern Garden Cardigan

Designer: Veera Valimaki

Yarn: Berroco Peruvia, doubled

____________________

Listening to: Laura Marling

Eating: Homemade sandwiches at work. Hooray for honey mustard!

ETA: In the spirit of spring substitutes, I have had the Australian, a graphic designer, finally tweak the look of the blog. Hope you don't mind :)

Working girl.

2010-03-04T20:21:00.002Z

Okay, so it's been awhile. I've been busy! I know, it's no excuse. It's been almost a month! Bad, bad.

But as I said, I have been busy. I have knit a whole slew of things, which if I am not too lazy - I mean busy - I will post very soon. But there is news to get out of the way first.

1) I have been writing. (No, not on this blog, but elsewhere and I am excited about it! More on this sometime soon, I hope.)

2) I have been taking an Italian class. This does not mean in any way that I can speak Italian. But I try.

2) I will be moving. Staying in London, but heading East. Woohoo. Everybody who lives East tells me they love it. I am excited.

3) I got a job! In a yarn shop! Lots of woohoos! It's all very exciting. I am doing my best not to spend the money I make on the yarn I sell. It's hard.

So that's the news out of the way. Let's get to the knitting. I guess I'll go backwards, since I just finished a project today that I am too excited about not to share. It's one I have improvised, to fit my friend Naomi's specifications. I kind of hope she doesn't like it, so I can keep it for myself.

It's in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK; a lovely pinky colour. I used mostly garter stitch, added a ruffle,some mesh crochet and a little fringe. I wasn't really sure it was going to turn out ok at first, but I have to say, I really like how it turned out and I am already plotting about making one for myself. I put it on ravelry, with more photos, here.

More soon, I promise.

Boulevard Headwrap.

2010-02-07T17:31:00.005Z

After all those teeny-tiny stitches (Lara loved the sweater btw, and it fits, it really fits!!), I felt the need to whip up something quick and satisfying. Inspired by the vintagey feel of the sweater, I decided to make up a pattern for a retro headwrap/ earwarmer/ headband/ whateveryouwantocallit.

It was so lovely and so fast that I made 3 versions of it pretty quickly and now I have the pattern available on Ravelry and in my shiny new etsy shop! There's lots and lots of how-to pics in the pattern, with instructions for all three variations.

Mine's coming in handy this weekend and as my friends on the east coast of the US know, winter's not quite finished yet, eh? Hope you enjoy :)

Fair Isle Finishing Line.

2010-02-03T08:58:00.007Z

In the months since I really got going on this blog, it felt like I was knitting a mile a minute and had something to share pretty often. For the bulk of what has been 2010, however, I have been pretty much a one-track knitter.

All has not been in vain, I hope! It is with a great feeling of accomplishment that I have finally finished the vintage fair isle sweater I mentioned a few weeks ago. Knit in a 2-ply, laceweight yarn, it's no wonder it took me so long. There was swatching, there was choosing colours, there was fiddling about with 2 strands of yarn at a time (and no, I don't do continental - yet), there was going back rows and rows when a mistake was found... and then there was finishing.

I met my friend Lara (the, um, commisioner? of the sweater) for tea last week and showed her one of the yet-to-be-seamed pieces and she seemed to really love it! Lara doesn't knit regularly, but she does know how to knit, so it's nice that she has a real appreciation for the work that has gone into it. Since we were having tea at Liberty, we took the opportunity to pick out buttons for the shoulder joins at the same time.

That night, I cast off stitches on the last sleeve, steam blocked, and had four lovely panels of knitting. Next day, weaving in ends and seaming awaited me. The weaving in of millions of tiny strands of yarn was fine. It was the seaming that became a bit of a nightmare.

The pattern called for a slipped stitch selvedge, which, while normally fine, with this very laceweight yarn, was actually pretty messy and loose. At first I tried doing the usual mattress stitch seam, but this came out horrendously. I could tell that when the two pieces of fabric were stretched over a body it would leave really ugly gaps and holes. I did a bit of research into what's best for slipped stitch selvedge seams, but nothing really specific turned up. Instead, for the first time, I decided to try a backstitch seam. A combination of a few websites' info gave me the confidence to give it a try: Knitting Daily, Figure 167 in this Google Books result for Knitting Tips and Trade Secrets, and this article in Knitty.

It came out beautifully and actually, really professional-looking, on both the outside and when you look at the seam on the inside. I love when a new technique works out.

I wish I could show you the garment in use, but Lara is teeny-tiny and so is the sweater. And tiny I am not. If she'll let me, I'll take a photo of her in it to show you. For now here's the image from the pattern:

And my project details:

On Ravelry: meghanaf's Dasha

Pattern: Dasha - La Laine No 2177

Publisher: Bairnswear (obtained from The Retro Knitting Company

Date: Unknown (unfortunately!)

Yarn: Jamieson & Smith 2-ply laceweight in shades L34, L36, L202, L43

Needles: 2.75 and 3.75 mm

Knitting for Haiti.

2010-01-20T13:45:00.003Z

As lots of you probably know by now, Ravelry has set up a great new feature wherein designers can mark patterns of theirs from which proceeds go to helping out those in Haiti who have been affected by the earthquake. It's so great that everyone has been helping out in any way they can. I recently found out my dad will be going over there to help out with medical care, so now the situation is that much closer to my heart. Cheers to Ravelry and all those generous designers who are helping us to contribute!

I took advantage of this great feature by buying a pattern that I have been meaning to do for a while anyway - it's amazing: you can filter patterns for the ones that will contribute to Haiti, and then filter further by ones that you've faved or that are in your queue- genius!

_______________________
Listening to: Phoenix

Eating: Spinach & Cheese Strata

Fair...? Isle

2010-01-12T18:16:00.006Z

How "fair" it is remains to be seen. This is my first big fair isle project, and I am doing it from a vintage pattern from the amazing resource The Retro Knitting Company. So that means first big fair isle project and my first vintage pattern. Yikes!

The pattern only comes in one size, but luckily the person I'm making it for has a very "vintage" figure - meaning very slim. The other tricky thing is that the pattern calls for a yarn that no longer exists, in a 3-ply, which isn't so common anymore. I was lucky to come across the Jamieson & Smith range of yarns made from Shetland wool. Their website says that their 2-ply works for vintage patterns that call for 3-ply, and they have an amazing range of colours, so I went for it.

Before and after steam blocking.

My tension was great at first, but surprisingly in order to increase the width of the sweater, rather than increasing the number of stitches, it calls for an increase in needle size. Unsurprisingly, this messed with my previously beautiful tension. While completing the front (which is all I have done so far) I was pretty worried things were not going to turn out well at all. Ravelry research revealed that the puckering and other tension problems are normally worked out in the blocking, which gave me hope. So far I have only done a steam block, which has corrected it a lot, but I am still not completely satisfied. Perhaps if I do a full wet block things will perk up. Fingers crossed! I had better figure all this out before I knit on...

____________________

Listening to: Bon Iver, again.

Eating: Pizzoccheri

Happy 2010...

2010-01-08T14:50:00.002Z

...to me! Because I just finished the Minimalist Cardigan - using the most gorgeous yarn gifted to me by a very lovely person. It just happens to be in my favourite colour ever - they call it "Dark Amethyst" - and is made up of a delicious mix of baby alpaca, cashmere, camel, and silk. Yum!

(Look at ALL that moss stitch!)

But seriously Happy 2010 to ya'll too. It's been a snowy one up here in the northern hemisphere, but that just means more mugs of hot chocolate for me, so so far, so good.

Merry Christmas.

2009-12-24T14:32:00.000Z

For all your oh-my-god-i-forgot-to-buy-wrapping-paper-wrap-presents-and-it's-christmas-eve needs: A tutorial I found via this very lovely blog.

Happy Christmas :)

Over the river and through the woods...

2009-12-23T13:11:00.004Z

Okay, so more "across the pond" or even really, well, across the Atlantic Ocean for that matter. We're off to the western hemisphere tomorrow and I wanted to be prepared.

See, travelling to and from the US and the UK is a bit of a hassle for us because we have 3 passports and one visa between us. (The Australian carries Australian - duh - and British passports and I have American citizenship and a UK visa.) All this requires us to carry an ungodly amount of identification with us when we travel. Seeing as how immigration procedures make me nauseous, and I have a panic attack at least five times in any given journey thinking I have dropped or lost something, I decided this time I wanted all of our docs super-safe.

Of course, I didn't decide this until today (flight's tomorrow - gah!). So I felt the need to whip something up myself. Basing the design on this very cute tutorial, I improvised a bit and added an extra bit of security so that nothing can fall or slide out. I also made it so that it can accommodate "his and her" documents. One other modification I made was to add a few sheets of newspaper as a lining so that it's a bit sturdier.

So I think it came out ok for a last-minute project that took less than an hour. I might make some more of these in the future - I can see using quilting techniques - and hey, maybe even cutting in a straight line next time so it doesn't come out quite so wonky ;)

Staying cosy.

2009-12-22T15:00:00.000Z

On one of my parents' visits to London, my mom got it in her head that we must visit the Tea Museum. Now not many people have heard of this particular institution, not even most Londoners. Let's say that at the time, it was an underwhelming experience. Luckily it looks like they are closed for refurbishment, which can only mean good things, right? Actually I am pretty interested in how certain objects or items can hold a whole lot of social history within them, and tea is no exception, so maybe a re-visit will be in order one day.

My mom however left the museum empty handed, even though I am pretty sure she was hoping to come away with a lovely teapot. So for Christmas this year, I decided to get her one - from a shop that sells English-made pots in Covent Garden. And what teapot worth it's Marks and Spencer Fairtrade Gold doesn't deserve to be cosy?

I used this Tea Mitten by Elisabeth Kleven from Ravelry and based mine on another raveler's version which incorporated the smocking. I am pretty pleased with the result - and hopefully mom will too. (Don't worry, I'm not giving any surprises away as she doesn't read the blog!)

Last Minute Gifts.

2009-12-21T15:54:00.003Z

I caught the embroidery bug from a friend, who made an amazing Lung Tie for her pulmonologist dad.

Thinking of something I could throw in alongside small gifts for some girlfriends, I first thought "tea towels" but when I couldn't find plain tea towels worth embroidering, I picked up a set of 3 handkerchiefs instead. Here are the finished products:

They are actually a bit more cute-sy than I might have preferred, but hey, they are still cute! This was my first "real" attempt at embroidery, I and I don't think they're too bad!

This is the first one I did, and probably my favourite:

It's design is from a set of transfers from Sublime Stitching. As I'm in the UK, I picked mine up at the cool store Tatty Devine. (They had a very limited stock at the Covent Garden store.)

WAIT: Just discovered you can download designs from Sublime Stitching by registering on their website - then print! I so wish I had discovered this sooner!

The next one I did was this owl - the design for which I found on this illustrator's website. With this one, I printed it out and then used my husband's lightbox (hooray for being married to a graphic designer!) to trace out the design in pencil onto the hanky.

I did the same for the last one: a slightly wonky matryoshka doll based on this project on cutoutandkeep.net.

All in all, not a bad start on embroidery I think! I hope the recipients will enjoy them - at least I've got them other things to go alongside these just in case ;) I think there is a lot more embroidery in my future - especially now I've discovered those downloadable patterns!

Now off to go and ogle all the snow falling outside the window (again!).

London snow.

2009-12-21T15:44:00.004Z

While back on my original home of the east coast of the USA they are being inundated with snow, here in London we've just had a light dusting (although a wet snow is currently falling outside my window).

I walked through the local park yesterday morning and captured this scene on my camera:

As I have yet to leave the house today (not wanting to have cold feet and all) I have been contenting myself with mugs of hot chocolate and some last minute Christmas crafting.

Potential.

2009-12-11T09:58:00.006Z

I recently received a truly lovely and unexpected gift. It got me thinking about skeins of yet-to-be-used yarn.

There it is, all bound up, the colours beautifully arranged - twisted, wound, tucked. When I look at a skein of yarn, I get excited - what could I do with it? A new skein means researching patterns on Ravelry, thinking if I could make something up myself, wondering if it should be gloves, a cardigan, a brooch. A skein has so much potential.

That reminds me of a quote that I love, but that's a little bit scary too:

If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential - for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.
-Soren Kierkegaard

It's true, I often enjoy the looking forward, or the getting excited about something, more than the end result. Do you enjoy wearing your knitted garments as much as you enjoy knitting them?

I looked up the word potential in the Oxford English Dictionary:

Potential
A. adj.
1. Possible as opposed to actual; having or showing the capacity to develop into something in the future; latent; prospective.
B. n.
2. Something which is possible, as opposed to actual; capacity for growth, achievement, future development or use; resources able to be used or developed.

and then potent:

Potent
A. adj.¹
^{1. a. Of a person or thing: powerful; having great authority or influence; mighty. Now chiefly in literary usage.}
^{2. Of a drug, alcoholic drink, etc.: causing physical effects; causing rapid intoxication; strong.}

Interesting. I know that gorgeous skeins of yet-to-be-used yarn do tend to have intoxicating effects on knitters - anyone who's been to a fiber show has witnessed that. As for "of a drug, alcoholic drink, etc" - there's a reason why knitter's call their collection of yarn their "stash" after all.

Right now I now have a lot of "potential". And so far Kierkegaard's right - possibility doesn't disappoint.

How to: the Anthro Ruffled Scarf.

2009-12-09T14:44:00.003Z

I am so happy about the response I have gotten from fellow Ravelers on my Anthropologie-inspired scarf! There have been a few requests for my notes on how I did it, and so I thought I'd write it all out here for you. If you decide to knit the scarf, there is also now a pattern page for it on Ravelry here: Anthropologie-Inspired Ruffled Scarf.

Anthropologie-Inspired Ruffled Scarf

Materials:

Approximately 4 skeins of Cascade 220 (100% Peruvian Highland Wool/Worsted/10 ply/220yds/201m per skein)
One set of 5.5 mm knitting needles
Cable needle
One 5.5 mm crochet hook
A sheet of paper folded over itself width-wise to create a 2.5" strip
Tapestry needle

Gauge: 25 st and 20 rows = 4" in k1, p1 ribbing

Finished Measurements:

Scarf without crochet border: 87" x 5"
Scarf with crochet border: 89" x 9"

Pattern notes:

C10F = Slip 10 stitches to cable needle, hold cable needle in front, work 10 stitches in (k1, p1) ribbing, work 10 stitches from cable needle in (k1, p1) ribbing

C10B = Slip 10 stitches to cable needle, hold cable needle in back, work 10 stitches in (k1, p1) ribbing, work 10 stitches from cable needle in (k1, p1) ribbing

Main Knitted Scarf Instructions:

The scarf is worked in a 1x1 rib with a garter stitch border on either side. Cables appear every 15 rows. The border is worked in broomstick crochet, without twisting the loops. More detailed information below.

With 5.5 mm needles, cast on 44 stitches (I like a tubular cast on).

Row 1: slip 1, k1, (k1, p1) to last 2 stitches, k2

Repeat this row 9 times more for a total of 10 rows.

*Cable row 1: slip 1, k1, (C10F) twice, k2

Repeat row 1 14 times

Cable row 2: sl1, k1, work 10 stitches in (k1, p1) ribbing, C10B, work 10 stitches in (k1, p1) ribbing, k2

Repeat row 1 14 times.*

Work from * to * 9 times

Repeat Cable Row 1

Repeat Row 1 14 times

Repeat Cable Row 2

Repeat Row 1 10 times

Bind off.

Crochet Ruffle Border Instructions:

If you haven't done broomstick crochet before, I suggest that you check out any of the youtube videos that give a visualisation of how to do it. It is really easy, but not unless someone shows you how it's done first. You may notice that the loops are twisted together in these videos, however in this version, you will not twist the loops. You may also notice that in these videos, crocheters often use something to hold the loops as they go around. I just used a strip of folded paper, described below.

Take a sheet of A4 or letter-sized paper and fold it width-wise to create a 2.5" wide strip - you will use this to place the crochet loops on to create uniform-sized loops as you go around. Don't worry when there isn't enough space on the strip to hold the loops you are creating; once they start falling off the end of the strip, they will stay uniform in size. You just need to keep the most recent loops on the strip so they don't pull and change in size. You could use a ruler or a piece of cardboard of the same size if you like.

With 5.5 mm crochet hook,start at one corner of the scarf (it doesn't matter which side of the scarf you work from, as it is reversible). Insert the hook into a knit border stitch and draw up a loop. Place the loop on the strip (the strip should be turned horizontally now, as in the photo below.

Continue around the scarf, drawing up a loop for each knitted stitch along the short edge of the scarf, and along each row of the long edge of the scarf, placing the loops on the strip, and moving the strip along as you go. Once you have drawn up these loops around the edges of the entire scarf, single crochet at the top of each loop all the way around. Do not twist the loops. This will secure all the loops together around the scarf. Try to lay the scarf out completely flat as you do this, so that the single crochet stitches are all in approximately the same place on each loop. You will also want to watch out that you don't miss any loops as they can sometimes get lost - check both sides of the scarf every now and then to make sure you haven't missed any. Once you have single crocheted around the scarf in each loop, slip stitch to join the last stitch made to the first stitch. Fasten off and weave in ends.

Okay, so I think that's it! If you find any mistakes in the pattern (especially as I wrote it down from memory, rather than as I knit it), please feel free to let me know!

Really and Truly Literary Knitting.

2009-11-27T11:08:00.004Z

An amazing thing happened last night - yarn and books came together in a way I couldn't have imagined being any better: a "Knitting Extravaganza" in an antique bookshop.

I heard about this over on the Stitch and Bitch London board on Ravelry - " a special yarn sale in an antiquarian Georgian bookshop opposite the British Museum." Um, yes!

So I made it over there on my way to my London Thanksgiving alternative: Japanese food with my cousin. On my way there,

I was thinking, "Oh this will take maybe 5 minutes or so...", not realising that I was about to step into this:

It was so lovely - hanks of gorgeous yarn, the gold from the Georgian books sparkling on the shelves, the soft bookshop lighting, the lovely people showing off the fibres - it was heaven! I could have bought loads (and believe me, I wanted to) but settled on one skein of Louet Gems Fine/Sport Weight - a yarn that's not readily available in most London yarn shops.

In fact, most of the yarns there weren't readily available in most shops, which is what made it so special. I got the impression that the event was run by the very nice ladies who do The Good Yarn Stall in Spitalfields Market on Sundays, but there was also a woman selling mostly Habu Textiles yarns and kits. And then there was the most amazing piles of chasmere, yak, and goodness knows what else.

I had to be basically dragged away by my very tolerant husband. Books, yarn and a knitting-friendly husband - all good things to be thankful for.

Mmmm... doughnuts...

2009-11-24T13:19:00.005Z

I am up to a bit of a spring clean - about 7 or 8 months late, I know, but we are having people over for a little Thanksgiving celebration on Saturday (We are in England. Sadly no 2.5 days off from work.) and then a friend is coming all the way from Oz to stay for a while. It was time.

So, I am filing away stacks of unsorted mail, making stacks and stacks of books look tidy, scaring the dust bunnies out from under the sofa - and, of course, dealing with the untamed wave of wool, haberdashery and pages of knitting patterns that have engulfed the house.

This morning I decided that this major operation included everything down to the last, little pin. And so I made this:

Productive, no?

Anyway, I like it and it will make a nice little addition to my newly organised desk. (Not that I need justification or anything.)

It is: the Donut Pincushion by Nevadamama, made with scraps of yarn and stuffed with dried lentils and some other bits of unwanted yarn too.

Laundrette.

2009-11-23T16:41:00.004Z

Just back from the laundrette. We have a washing machine, but it's not big enough for our duvet (or comforter, depending what country you're in) so I lugged it along to the one down the road. Plus, they have a big dryer which is handy too.

So the big duvet is in the big dryer and with my cup of tea I settle in to knit while waiting. There was an older lady waiting for her drying too (it seems that she had washed her clothes at home, but brought them in to dry...). She hadn't said anything to me previously, but when she saw me get the sock (Smiley Socks on Ravelry) on double pointed needles out she tried to catch my eye. I smiled at her and then she went into this super-friendly chatter about how she didn't think young people knit anymore and how wonderful it was to see me doing it.

It's not the first time I've had older women come out of their London-barriers to speak to me about knitting - it especially happens on the tube, and I'm sure I'm not the only younger knitter to have experienced it.

The woman was lovely. She told me about how she has knit since she was a little four-year-old girl in Bosnia and how she came to the UK in the 1950s, where she had her children and continued to knit for them. She asked me about the sock pattern I was using and said that she never uses patterns herself - that she can just look at a garment and either replicate it or do something her own way. She said she used to knit a lot, but has trouble finding the 2-ply yarns that she used to use. I told her that these can often be found online, although it seemed to me that wouldn't be much help to her. She said she also used to crochet, embroider, make table cloths, and outfits for her daughters. It seems strange, but it felt like, I, the young knitter, was inspiring her, the experienced knitter, to get back into it! She seemed really nostalgic, telling me about how when she came to the UK in the 50s, it was actually cheaper to knit things yourself than buy them. And I, in turn, told her about how I like to re-knit charity shop sweaters.

It was so lovely to speak to her - and it was nice for once to feel like I have nice neighbours here in the big city - I suppose knitting does that. Her husband came in not long after we started chatting and sat down next to me. "Oh, you are doing that very well, young lady. Are you making socks for your boyfriend?" Me: "Well, yes, for my husband." Him: "Your husband! Good girl." Although probably bordering on infringing on my feminist principles (not that there is anything wrong with knitting your husband some socks), he was very sweet and told me he had never seen an English woman knit on 5 needles before. He said that was the continental way. "But you are not English, are you?" When I explained where I was from he said, "Yes I knew you were not English," with a smile.

Then the conversation turned to the fact that I looked young to be married. "Are they not getting older before they marry in America?" I said oh yes, people are waiting longer before they get married, etc. etc. and the lady said, "Yes, you see, they get to have a life first, like the men always have! I was married very young and look where it's got me!" She pinched her husband's cheek.

"Oh you're very happy and you will have been very happy for 50 years soon!" replied the husband and she winked back. They were so cute.

I love hearing stories about knitting. Every knitted item seems to have a narrative, and now my sock will too. They soon left but had made me feel all warm inside. They wished me good luck with my sock and said, "See you next time!" It's enough to make me want to wash my duvet weekly.

November Sweater.

2009-11-18T13:42:00.014Z

I am very excited to be writing this post: I have just finished making a sweater that I more or less made up myself! I know people mod and improvise their own patterns all the time, but not me - I usually follow patterns to the letter, not changing sleeve length, stitch pattern, or waist shaping.

But this was different - I was inspired so, without further ado: the November Sweater!

Now, as you might expect, this is not the most complex of patterns. What happened was, I was on my usual trawl through the charity shops of Ealing, looking for knitwear I could unravel and knit into something else, when I spotted a dark purple-y sweater that was a bit tired, but that I was sure I could breathe new life into. The original stitch was quite lacy (how I wish I had taken a photo of it in its original form!) but fairly easy to take apart. While undoing all those machine-made stitches, I thought about what to re-knit it into. Having seen a few cap-sleeved sweaters out there recently, that's what immediately sprang to mind. I thought a smaller, more defined lace pattern than what the original sweater had would also work.

So, I borrowed the lace stitch from the ever-popular February Lady Sweater, which, in turn, had borrowed from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Sweater on Two Needles. I drew out what I hoped it would look like (excuse my extremely poor drawing skills):

It was basically just a basic T shape - the sweater would be worked in 2 pieces: front and back, and side to side so that the lace pattern would be horizontal in stead of vertical. There are no increases, no decreases, and probably the most advanced technique used was picking up stitches around the bottom of the sweater to add ribbing.

Now, not that it is necessarily required that I actually write out a pattern this unbelievably simple, here it is, posted more because of my little, private happiness at having done this on my own than for any assumption that anyone couldn't have figured this out themselves!

(Excuse the messy house behind me!)

November Sweater

Materials:

A short-sleeved sweater's worth of approximately DK weight yarn (find an old sweater in your local charity shop or thrift store)
One 26" 5 mm / US 9 circular needle
One stitch marker

Lace Stitch Pattern:

Row 1: k1, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k1

Rows 2 & 4: purl

Row 3: k2tog, yo, k3, yo, ssk

Instructions:

Front

Cast on 42 stitches.

Row 1: k2p2 - repeat to end of row

Row 2" p2k2 - repeat to end of row

Repeat rows 1 and 2 3 more times

Begin lace pattern.

Repeat lace pattern, rows 1 - 4 twice.

Cast on an additional 42 stitches.

Continue in lace pattern for 18" ending with a right side row. (Or width necessary for individual fit)

On wrong side row, bind off 42 stitches, leaving 42 stitches remaining.

Continue in lace pattern for two repeats.

Change to k2p2 ribbing for 8 rows.

Bind off all stitches.

Repeat exactly for back.

Seam sides of front and back together. Seam shoulders 5" in from end of sleeves.

Ribbing

With front and back sewn together, and starting from a side seam, pick up and knit 116 stitches evenly around the bottom of the sweater. Continue in k2p2 rib around for 2.5".

Bind off using Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy bind off from Knitty - this is really necessary for actually being able to get the thing over your head!

Weave in ends, and voila! I "designed" a sweater.

Now it is entirely possible that there are mistakes in the above, and also that there a million better ways to achieve the finished product - but I do like the way it turned out.

Also, I apologise that I haven't actually worked out different sizes (as written, it works on a size 10 UK or 6 US). Clearly I am not yet that talented. One day...

And: the project on Ravelry.

____________________________________

Listening to: Alela Diane

Eating: Stuffed Butternut Squash (mmm)

Wales.

2009-11-16T10:14:00.010Z

Where do I start?? So much happened in the last week while we were in Wales, that I don't think I'll be able to document all the lovely little moments in one post. Will another mosaic do? We took hundreds of photos. Unfortunately Murray forgot his Lomo, but we still got some good ones.

We started off driving west in our new little Fiat 500, which was a lot of fun because we are so used to taking public transport everywhere. Now, while I will be the first to sing the praises and benefits of public transport, it was so lovely to have our own little bubble of space to explore the country in. And it was nice to go somewhere without having to have my passport and visa, or to have to pack all my liquids in small bottles or checked luggage, or squeeze everything into an easily navigable suitcase, or wait in security queues, or ... well you get the idea. And most of the countryside we was so spread out that public transport wasn't really an option.

It only took about 4 hours to get from London to the Brecon Beacons National Park, where we set ourselves up in a little cottage adjoined to an old farmhouse run by the most lovely people that we have perhaps ever met. We explored the waterfalls in the park, enjoyed the most amazing views, and saw every castle and abbey in the surrounding area (no small feat, that).

We also went to some lovely little local pubs - which as a rule, seem to always have a cosy fire. My favourite meal was Welsh laverbread gnocci with leeks and cockles (how much more Welsh can you get?) and the cockles didn't scare me at all - in fact, they were delicious. (More on the British relationship with cockles here.) The best night we had was probably at the most local of all local pubs, which opens only in the evenings and closes, well, as one regular told me, "Whenever we stop drinking." Of course. They were so friendly in there they even asked us to join in their monthly quiz night, and while we didn't win, we like to think that we at least helped our team to get joint second place (there were only 3 teams...).

There was one wool shop stop (well, I found a few stalls in the markets, but this one was sadly the only one I found in the area worth buying from) and picked up some delicious Artesano Alpaca 4 ply which I plan to make into knee high Lakeside socks one day. As far as I could tell, the shops was only called The Cross Stitch Shop, but it was run by a really lovely, friendly lady in Llandeilo. (This friendliness did seem to be a real trend in Wales... maybe it was just that they weren't Londoners?)

After the Beacons (the castles, the cottage, the abbey, the waterfalls, the pubs) we made a snap decision to head down the coast to Tenby, a walled medieval city (well, town, I suppose - I learned on the radio that for a place to qualify as a city, it must have a cathedral...I guess Centreville, VA doesn't qualify then? ;) ). Tenby looked as though it would be lovely - candy coloured houses in a row on the seafront, pristine beaches, yet another ruined castle...but as it turned out, we arrived with the gales. At one point we were stuck in our B&B as the little Fiat couldn't make it through the flooded roads. I suppose it was all very atmospheric, and we didn't have to worry about this seaside town being mobbed with tourists, but it would've been nice if my Star Crossed Slouchy Beret could even stay on my head. But alas, the gale gods were not willing.

We did have a couple of hours while the rain let up to take some pictures and explore the grounds the B&B was set in - which in addition to the newly planted orchards and chickens running about, included a 12th century church with medicinal spring wells and Celtic remains from who-knows-when. I even braved the slippery rocks to have a taste of the water - very iron-y but apparently very good for you - pilgrims used to purposefully stop off here in the middle ages and it is said that a king (though I can't remember which) used to send for the water to be delivered to him specially.

Oh - so much more, but I'll let the pictures do the talking now:

The place where George Eliot wrote her first novel - note the For Sale sign. Buy it for me?

Alpacas(!) hanging out near Talley Abbey. Okay. I'll settle for an alpaca if I can't have George Eliot's house.

The lovely plant life at Aberglasney House and Gardens.

These tree roots made me want to sit down and knit something with a cable needle.

The slouchy beret staying firm at Carreg Cennen Castle.

And finally, a pair of pairs. I would not like to hear about the resemblance between the two. How did my shadow get so fat?!

Fingerless.

2009-11-06T10:26:00.004Z

So while my fingers have been keeping busy, my hands have been staying warm :)

I finally figured out this mosaic hullaballoo, so here's my first one.

With winter practically here, I have been getting lots of requests for fingerless mittens. This is good, mainly because I hate knitting fingers. I cannot think of anything more tedious and fiddly. People are lucky to get thumbs, that's all I can say.

The mitts have been a bit of therapy for me really. Nice quick projects (most finished over one or two days) and usually I learn some new technique with them. (Warning: Lots of ravelry links coming.)

First there were the Dragon Scale Guantlets for myself. These were made using leftover yarn from my Soft Kid Bubble - Rowan RYC Baby Alpaca DK. These are so soft and snuggly - not to mention warm! - and aren't too scratchy to sit against my skin (see blog title above!). The pattern kept me pretty interested too, which can sometimes be a problem when I have to knit two of something (sleeves, socks, etc.).

Then there was my second-ever Dashing - a request from my friend Naomi, who was gifted the first set after I realised I really can't handle Kilcarra Aran Tweed on my arms. I used Rown Kid Classic on these - a yarn that's lovely and fuzzy, with a nice, soft stitch definition that produces pretty professional-looking results no matter what the pattern.

As you know from my last post, I have also been working on Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts. These are obviously going to be a bit more slow-going than the others due to the stitchwork, but I have run low on the Baby Alpaca DK (even more leftovers from the Soft Kid Bubble and Dragon Scale Gauntlets!) so may rip back and shorten the wrist portion.

Then there's Veyla. This used the tiniest amount of RYC Cashsoft 4-ply and is the extremely well-written pattern from Ysolda Teague. These were originally intended for my friend Lara's birthday present - she being an aficionado of all things Victorian, but I decided that the sheen from the yarn was a bit too much for these - if you look at Ysolda's original, the halo from her use of an alpaca blend is really what clinches the vintage look. So I stole the buttons off these and used them instead on...

The Plain Talk Ruffled Mittens by Laura Irwin (in the lovely book Boutique Knits). I think these are my favourite. I decided to not to go full-mitten (Lara's a smoker), so shortened the hand portion, adding some ribbing on the top and keeping the thumbs open. The ruffles are glorious, and the first thing Lara said when I gave them to her was, "How Victorian!" Mission accomplished.

I am off to Wales tomorrow for the first time and am looking forward to so much: walks in Brecon Beacons Nation Park with the Australian, cosying up in our rented cottage in front of the inglenook fireplace, wearing wellies in the mud, sitting in warm pub with a pint of cider, visiting the National Wool Museum... and knitting of course.

The Australian and I are both bringing our cameras (he his big SLR and the Lomo my dad gave him, and me my little digital Fuji) so expect lots of photos of our adventures.

Multi-tasking.

2009-10-29T09:57:00.006Z

I am a reader. I love to read. I take pride in my reading. But - knitting has come between me and my books.

Turns out, I love both too much to choose between them. Usually, on a tube ride into Central London, I will bring both a book and some knitting, and depending on the conditions of the train (how hot, how crowded, how bumpy) I will choose one or the other to take up the journey. (I absolutely, positively loathe any kind of waiting or idleness, and must keep busy somehow or else I go mad.)

At home, it's a different story. Do I read or do I knit?? How could I possibly choose? When I was writing my MA dissertation on knitting in literature, my supervisor even asked me if I was able to knit and read at the same time. (She really shouldn't have encouraged this.) I developed a method of opening a book out on to a pillow on my lap and weighing it down so it stayed open with my phone. This was okay, and fairly do-able as long as I wasn't knitting something too complicated or reading something too complicated.

And then, an epiphany. I didn't need to use my eyes to read - I could use my ears! So, my adventures in podcasts and audiobooks began. I have listened to a lot of stuff now. Here in the UK you can get a good amount of quality listening from BBC Radio 4. However, I just can't seem to get into the radio drama, The Archers, which seems to be their leading fiction. It seems strange, then, that now I live over here, I am in love with NPR - the closest thing Americans have to the BBC. In particular, I just can't get enough of This American Life. I will go as far as to say it's one of my favourite things in the world. Ever. (Other favourite things include Murder She Wrote, but for entirely different reasons...)

It's sort of difficult to explain TAL, but it's basically a real life story or stories based around a theme. It's an hour, weekly, and it's just never enough.

Going through TAL withdrawal for the rest of the week (it's available on Mondays on iTunes), I had to find something to tide me over. TAL lead me to The Moth - more real life stories, except these are one-off, 15 minute stories told live in front of an audience. It's people from all walks of life, and though they aren't necessarily professional story-tellers, it does often turn into a performance. Some are really funny (in fact most have elements of humour) and a lot of them are really touching.

From there, (because clearly, 1 hour of TAL and 15 mins of The Moth are just. not. enough.) I found Selected Shorts. This time it's fiction. Short stories from any time period, often read by actors or other theatre people. Also usually on a theme (French Fictions, anyone?). It's wonderful.

Not exhausted by all this storytelling, I then fall back on the knitting podcasts. I have tried out quite a few over the past couple of months, and my favourites are now The Electric Sheep and Stash & Burn. I also used to enjoy the Cast On podcast, but she hasn't had a new show on since early August, so fingers crossed she comes back. Cast On is probably the most professionally made of the three, but I have to admit I actually like the more lo-fi atmosphere of the other two. Of course, the host, "Hoxton Handmade", of Electric Sheep, has a voice for Radio 4 - a clear, English, made-for-reading-the-news voice that's lovely to listen to. Not everything she talks about is necessarily knitting related, but great for knitting along to. She even throws a ukulele Radiohead performance in there occasionally. The Stash & Burn podcast is great for catching up on what patterns are big on Ravelry at the moment, info about different yarns, etc - and they always have a great song on at the end that usually I have never heard before.

So needless to say, with all this listening, I have been getting a lot of knitting done. But that's not all! As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have also been taking advantage of the free, in-the-public-domain audiobooks that are available on librivox.org. My library also has audiobooks to check out, and I've currently got Ali Smith's The Accidental on the go.

In the photo above: a favourite antique book - an 1892 copy of Charles Dickens' Christmas Boooks and the in-progress and appropriately named Endpaper Mitts by Eunny Jang. Book vs Yarn crisis averted.

Cold arm(s).

2009-10-23T17:20:00.009+01:00

I managed to wrangle myself away from the sewing machine today to get some knitting done. I finally finished (not that it really took me that long) the Noro Striped Scarf I've been making for a friend since I returned from Germany. It's for her boyfriend's 80-year-old father, and I really hope he likes it. I always like working with Noro because of the wonderful colour changes. No matter how simple the pattern (and usually with Noro, I think simple is best) the ways the colours morph is enough to keep you interested, and you can get the credit for an amazing-looking FO without much effort. Here it is:

I debated whether to go for the fringe or not - I asked my friend and she left it up to me! I ended up with a bit of leftover because, somewhat perposterously, the end of one of my Noro skeins ended up being a tied-on completely different shade to what had come before it! So I finished before this knot and used the rest for the fringe. And I really like the result! Only problem is though, the two colourways I used were too similar in parts, so the stripes fade out a bit, which is a bit of a bummer. Still happy with it though and hopefully the recipient will be too!

So that was this morning. Meanwhile, I have been stuck at home waiting for a delivery. They said it might come any time today. So I haven't even dared go out and get milk so I don't miss it (like I did on Wednesday - oops). It is now 5.30 pm and still no delivery. Grrrr... so I have kept myself occupied trying to finish off my Dragon Scale Gauntlets. Here's me with one cold arm in my new dress.

Must. Finish. Soon. Before. Right. Arm. Freezes. Off.

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Listening to: The Lower 48 (as recommended by the Stash & Burn podcast)

Eating: Chips. (The English kind.) Lots of them.

Cheating on knitting.

2009-10-22T15:32:00.004+01:00

I got the sewing machine out today instead of the Noro Striped Scarf I'm working on. I feel so guilty, especially since I am just a few rows and a bind off away from finishing the thing. But before I even bothered eating anything this morning (however definitely not before coffee, mind) I lugged out the machine, which was a lovely wedding present from my friends here in London, but sadly not much used since I received it.

When I was a kid, I used to sit in my room making and sort of half embroidering pillows (both skills that I just improvised - I don't recall ever being actually taught either of these things) - I remember really enjoying doing crafty things like this, but I'm afraid my skills haven't really moved on since then. After much nervousness and pacing around my new beloved sewing machine last year, I finally sat down and made a dress from some gorgeous Liberty fabric that I had bought on sale. Still not the cheapest fabric, I was panicking that I was going to cut or sew something wrong and ruin it completely. Well, it didn't go really well, but it's a dress and I can wear it in public without people staring and pointing. Which is good.

So having discovered the very cool Threadbanger website, I put making this t-shirt dress pretty high on my list of crafty things to do. It's made of just three £2 t-shirts, so if I screwed it up, it would be a loss of time rather than money really. The website claims this should take you 1.5 hours. It took me at least twice that. But it was actually pretty gratifying compared with knitting, an art in which instant gratification is not the object, especially with dresses.

Now this doesn't look amazing, and I am still pretty clumsy with the sewing machine (I should take a class maybe?) but I am pretty happy with the result considering it's only my second somewhat real sewing project.

Unfortunately you can't really see the bottom of the dress in these pics, as I use the photo booth feature on my Mac and couldn't really move back far enough to get it in. But you get the idea. I think maybe it needs a belt around the waist.

Apparently my mother's mother was a real seamstress. My grandfather also owned a men's clothing store back in the day. I got a lot of my grandmother's old sewing notions when she died, and there's her gorgeous antique Singer sewing table that's waiting for me back home (you know the ones where it just looks like a regular table, but then you can open it up from the top and out comes a sewing machine...!) but unfortunately I never got any actual sewing lessons from her, which would have been nice. This sewing stuff, turns out, not so easy!

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Listening to: Ryan Adams (Heartbreaker)

Eating: Winter Cobbler

Wollen und Bier

2009-10-20T13:29:00.006+01:00

...I think. I didn't pick up too much German while I was away, mostly because so many of the lovely Bavarian people were clever enough to be able to speak English to me and kind enough to be willing to!

But wool and beer pretty much sum it up. Although I didn't bring back many souvenirs, I did manage to pick up a lovely alpaca in a colour I have been on the hunt for all autumn as well as an excellent magazine, the patterns in which I hope to some day decipher.

I was very pleasantly surprised and pleased to find that our train station ("banhof" - see I learned some German!) had a bookshop/news agent-y type of place that had an entire shelf devoted to knitting magazines - bliss! If it hadn't been for train schedules and my limited budget, I would have definitely come away with more than I did. As it was, I chose this one for these patterns in particular:

I am getting into knitted dresses these days - probably because it's getting cold and I am trying to not use the heater too much just yet, and also because I am lazy and like the idea of only having to think of one think to wear in a day as opposed to a top and trousers... Unfortunately they take up lots of yarn and are therefore expensive. I'll just have to think of them as an "investment"... Right?

The yarn in the first photo is Austermann Alpaca Silk. Yum. It actually says "Made in Peru" on the label, but it's a German company so I'll just let myself believe it's an authentic German souvenir. Better than, say, a Bayern Football Club t-shirt or a framed picture of Kind Ludwig II of Bavaria... speaking of whom, here's his house:

Yes, my friends, that is a giant, fairy tale castle on the top of a large mountain. It took a good long hike and the use of a lot of backside muscles to get up there, but it was worth it. If you haven't heard of this guy, he was a sort of 19th century Bavarian Michael Jackson and this was his Neverland. He was deposed from his role as king on the grounds that he was mentally ill and then found dead with his personal doctor days later under very peculiar circumstances. More on the "mad" king here. The castle is full of legend and fairy tale references and even has a room which was meant to be devoted to the full performances of Wagner's music for his sole enjoyment - but was never used. Just the sort of tragic, mysterious stuff I get sucked in by.

Other than fairy tale kings, knitting and beer (and there was lots of the latter), there was the scenery - probably the most beautiful of which I have ever seen:

As you might be able to tell from the photos, it went from swelteringly hot to freezing cold and snowy in the 10 days I was there. But it was wonderful to experience the place in both ways. More in the Flickr set here.

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Listening to: Emmy the Great

Eating: Aquacotta

Happy 100th, Poetry Society

2009-10-05T13:45:00.004+01:00

So it's not 'til Thursday, but the Poetry Society here in the UK will soon be 100. I had the lovely opportunity to help out with their major celebratory project - the giant knitted poem - in their offices last week. It is a HUGE project. All the letters (although not all the numbers) were finished and were being sewn together in lines first (9.5 metre long lines) and then sewn horizontally to connect all the lines into stanzas, and so on. I put in 6 hours one day and another 3 hours another day, but many others were working much longer hours to get this project done in time for the press to get snaps of it in time for National Poetry Day.

Here's a few pictures I took to illustrate just how huge a project this really is:

A lovely stitcher breaking her back to get the project done in time!

A ridiculously long (9.5 metre) line from the poem.

Just two of the many lines of the poem rolled up and ready to be sewn together into stanzas.

As far as I know, the first opportunity to see the finished poem will be at the British Library piazza on Wednesday - so fingers crossed it doesn't rain, right?

I will be far away in Bavaria, so won't be able to see it finished in person sadly. Leaving way too early tomorrow morning, but looking forward to the mountains, beer and yarn-hunting. Mmmmm....

"If clothing 'makes the man' what happens to masculinity when women make his clothes?"*

2009-10-01T23:11:00.000+01:00

So I am knitting for a couple of men in my life. Although I have to admit that I don't feel as compelled to finish their projects as I do for ones for me. Greedy, I know. It seems I started these ages ago...

For the Australian:

Which will hopefully magically transform into this:

(photo from Men's Knits by Erika Knight / Let's Knit magazine)

And for my oldest brother:

This is the Exchequered Scarf by Alice Bell (rav link).

I am going to visit said brother in Germany on Tuesday for 2 whole weeks with my mom. Very sad about leaving the Australian behind for so long, but I will be bringing along the sweater and the scarf and so will hopefully make some headway on the man-knitting on trains between Munich, Strasbourg, Wurzburg, Innsbruck and Garmisch. Maybe when I get back I will have a finally finished sweater for him.

I have never been particularly enamoured with vacation souvenirs in general (unless it's food or wine, of course) so recently my travel souvenirs have come in skein form. I have already had my brother scope out the LYS situation in Garmisch and there's at least one, but I am keen to know about any other in Bavaria and what to look out for. I have heard good things about the Wollmeise brand on the Ravelry boards and I have to say, it looks lovely.

So, will the guys in my life mind having lady-made clothes to add to their wardrobe at the end of this trip? I think they know me well enough not to answer that in the affirmative... at least not to my face.

*Quoted from The Culture of Knitting by Joanne Turney

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Eating: Jamie Oliver's Bloomin' Brilliant Brownies

Listening to: Mumford & Sons

Bread & Bubble

2009-09-21T17:55:00.005+01:00

So this might not be any great revelation to anyone out there, but I have had an epiphany. I have made my own bread.

It was so unbelievably easy. It was cheap. It was quick. And it didn't involve a breadmaker (right now, I can't even understand what a breadmaker would do to make the process any easier, but there you go). I used this recipe from BBC Good Food. It smelled so so good when it was in the oven. Like unbelievably good. And then it came out, and it was a real, whole loaf of perfectly browned, perfectly shaped bread.

I had thrown a bit of rosemary over the top before I put it in the oven just to see what would happen. It sure did make the baking process smell good, but did nothing for the flavour. So now I am all riled up to see how I can improvise and try new things, but to be honest, it came out so lovely I am a bit nervous about messing with perfection. But we'll see. It's the day after and this loaf is almost gone...

And speaking of things that I love like only a mother could (not like a real mother, but you know, my food and my knitting are my babies...) I have finished another project! It's the Soft Kid Bubble from Boutique Knits (rav link). I was so worried about this poor baby while it was in the making, but it's turned out so lovely. I eventually learned to trust the designer and once I just gave up overthinking things and followed the instructions, it all came together. Here's a little peek:

More photos over on my Ravelry project page: meghanaf's Bubble Tunic.

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Eating (with my bread, of course): Aubergine & Goat's Cheese Pasta

Listening to: Okkervil River

Crochet Couture

2009-09-17T12:52:00.004+01:00

Well, even if one of her arms was probably freezing, at least the rest of her was warm and cozy...

But I actually think she kind of pulls it off. Not a bad way to brighten a drizzly Melbourne day.

Here she is saying, "So I was at my granny's house without a thing to wear and then I said, 'Hey granny - give me that blanket, I've got a red carpet to get on'!" And Hugo Weaving is saying, "Hey. Nice one granny."

Literary Knitting

2009-09-16T09:09:00.002+01:00

Over a year ago now, I finished my MA dissertation on knitting in 20th C women's literature. While on my honeymoon. Romantic, I know. (I did give my new husband the courtesy of sleep though and did my writing/editing/panicking in the bathroom so the lights wouldn't bother him. Aren't I a good wife?)

Anyway, since I began that project, either because I am automatically attracted to books that are likely to have knitting in them, or because my eyes have been opened to the references, I have been seeing knitting everywhere in the literary realm. The texts I focused on in my thesis were the short story "Art Work" by A.S. Byatt (look out for even more knitting references in her other books) and Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. Byatt has written a great article in The Guardian, in which she "follows the tangled threads between text and textiles." All good stuff.

Not all stories have as many needlework references as these, but the references are certainly there. Right now I am reading Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South. When I first picked it up, it really didn’t occur to me that it would have anything to do with textiles at all, which of course it does. In it, our heroine, Margaret, moves from the gentrified south of England to the rather rougher industrial north – where of course industry includes textile production. I am only about halfway through the novel (partly listening to it while knitting via librivox.org – where books in the public domain can be recorded and listened to for free) and I can already see that a major motif is the contrast of the women characters' needlework projects with the large-scale industrial textile production that goes on in the town.

I'll have to let you know what I think once I have finished the book. In the meantime, other books that I have come across include The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, which is just so lovely - "It's a kind of trick, Dad, because it's just a long, long, fat string and it turns into a scarf ."

What else? I'll have to list them as they come to me and put them under the category of Literary Knitting. We could do this with movies too, but we'll see how it goes.

Cardiganarama

2009-09-15T17:52:00.011+01:00

Lots has happened since my last post. Lots meaning cardigans.

Here's the finished Herringbone (rav link):

I haven't worn it anywhere but around the house so far. It's almost too cold already for it to be of any use now, and I feel like in the summer it was a bit too warm. It shall be my "house jacket." When did I become a housewife?!

Far more exciting are my Garter Yoke Cardigan and my Duotone Cardigan, both from Vogue Knitting Fall/Winter 2008's piece on top-down raglans.

Cute no? Both really easy, both really cute. Definitely outside-world-wearable.

For the Garter Yoke Cardigan I just used a load of random buttons from my grandmother's old stash. They don't match and are all different sizes, but the gold in them brings them together and I am really liking the effect.

In other news (sort of), Murray and I just got back from the End of the Road Festival this weekend. I camped out. Seriously. But I did bring my knitting. The weather was glorious, so I actually didn't really need to actually wear any of my knitting - who knew the sun could come out in England in September? See below:

Anyway, glorious it was and I got started on what I will call my "Festival Socks" (Drops 103-11 Long Socks) because I had every intention of wearing them all weekend with wellies to keep out the mud, even though I never had to. See proof of said glorious weather in this sunset shot:

Bliss.

Eating: Garganelli with Pumpkin, Sage & Goat's Cheese (so autumn-y and lovely)

Listening to: old Tori (because I saw her last Thursday night!) and Vetiver (because they were one of the best at EOTR).

Knit a Poem with The Poetry Society

2009-08-19T13:31:00.003+01:00

Excellent! - we're in The Guardian, us knitters of letters for a giant poem. 800-ish knitters have agreed to take time out of their busy sock- sweater- shawl-knitting to contribute to the Poetry Society's Knit a Poem project, which will go on display in October. If you look closely at the mosaic on the linked page, you will see my green and purple knitted E. In case you don't have your specs on, here's a bigger version:

I have offered to help do the sewing-up, so I may just get a sneak peek at what the secret poem is...

In the meantime, I have to decide what my favourite poem is (they've asked us to send in our letters along with this bit of information). If you are inclined to read some knitting-related poetry, you can check out the Knitted Poems thread on the Knit a Poem group boards on Ravelry or check out the Knitting Poem of the Week on the Poetry Society's website.

Pilgrimages.

2009-08-17T09:52:00.003+01:00

Well gosh, it's been a busy knitting week here, keeping myself "employed" (even if not gainfully so). The Tender cardi (rav link) chugs along as ever - almost finished with left front woohoo! And the Herringbone Jacket is only moments from being finished, but I was so disappointed with the acrylic-ness of the yarn, which entirely refuses to drape at all whatsoever, I have all but given up hope. Maybe if I just finish it already and then pop it in the washing machine, all my fears will be allayed. Maybe.

But yet another pair of booties for yet another baby have been completed and wrapped up (literally). Maybe it's just that the people that I grew up with are now of baby-making age, but they sure do seem to be coming along fast. Here they are (the booties, not the babies):

And wrapped up:

I also went on a couple of yarn expeditions this week. On Thursday I decided to make my way to Putney (south west London) to check out Stash Yarns. I decided that it was such a nice day that I couldn't bear to get on the underground and to take the bus instead. Buses are a fantastic way to get around London - you actually see the places you are going through to get from A to B. Unfortunately, the journey from Allergic to Wool headquarters to Putney involved not one, but two buses. The journey on the first bus to Richmond was lovely though. The bus route goes along the River Thames and across Kew Bridge through some lovely neighbourhoods. I spotted to interesting places that I had never knew were so close - the Steam Museum and the Musical Museum. One of these days I'll keep myself occupied by giving them a visit.

It was all a lovely-dovely journey until I got to Richmond and couldn't find Bus No 2. I wandered in circles all around the bloody place, dodging designer prams and sticky-fingered children (reasons that I typically avoid Richmond), in search of the next bus. I eventually did find it, the only redeeming moment of the whole experience being that I stumbled upon the building where Virginia and Leonard Woolf set up the Hogarth Press.

Finally on Bus No 2, I arrived in Putney ready to gobble up 2 skeins of Malabrigo Merino Worsted, the praises of which are infinite on Ravelry (I think the word "heavenly" is used more than once). I had it in mind for a Liesl (yes, I have jumped on the bandwagon) and I was getting very excited as I jumped off the bus, ready for my yarn-reward for my journey. But it was not to be. The Stash people were on holiday and the shop was shut. I could only think, "I would have run the shop for them if they had only asked! I would happily be paid in yarn!"

Next day, I was rested and ready for more west-London yarn adventures. After lunch in lovely Chiswick's Turnham Green with a friend, I embarked upon a mission to two, yes two, yarn shops. First on the agenda was Sloane Square's Peter Jones. Basically just a John Lewis department store with a different name, the shop's website describes its haberdashery department as "Haby heaven with over 3000 buttons, hundreds of metres of ribbons and dozens of needles, no wonder its one of our most visited departments." Needless to say, I was excited. But again, disappointment. It wasn't closed, but it wasn't nearly the "haby heaven" they described. The department was probably smaller than John Lewis' on Oxford Street and carried all the usual Rowans. I did pick up a few balls of Rowan Pure Wool Aran, which is now ready and waiting in my stash to be transformed into the Knit.1 Dutone Cardigan.

I then took a long walk along the river, past Chelsea and Battersea (had never seen the Battersea Power Station so close and it was a little spooky somehow) and ended up a the lovely Socktopus. Now I am not much of a sock knitter. I know there are some really die-hard sock knitters out there, who just can't get enough, but I am definitely not one of them. Plus I have one-sock syndrome, and that's just a waste of time. So I wasn't banking on Socktopus being the be-all and end-all of yarn shops for me, but I have to say it was really lovely. A bit out of the way and tricky to spot, also pretty tiny, but full of truly wonderful yarns, any of which I would have been happy to take home. Sadly there was only one. But what a one it was. The lovely Handmaiden 4 ply Cashmere:

I pondered for quite some time over what to do with this one lovely (expensive) skein. Of course this is where Ravelry does its magic - I searched for just what to do with 170 metres of a variegated cashmere 4 ply and I came up with Christine Vogel's Drop Stitch Scarf. Here it is so far:

The cashmere isn't terribly smooth, so I am not yet convinced this is the right pattern for the yarn, but the colours are really coming out beautifully, so we'll just wait and see.

I ended my entirely employed week yesterday with a really wonderful Sunday. For once the sun was out in London, and Murray and I started the day with the most amazing (and filling) brunch at Christopher's American Grill. I have been missing "American" food recently (and no, I don't even eat hamburgers) and this was the perfect comfort food. All the right things were on the menu, and as I couldn't rightly get both the blueberry pancakes and a Maryland Crab Cake, I opted for the latter - amazing! Murray had Huevos California which he loved, but I have to say, even though they didn't look like American sized portions, they sure felt like it after the meal. Murray had to run along to work, so I occupied myself at Somerset House for the afternoon.

Somerset House has really become a London institution and there are so many great things about it. Considering it was once a private stately home, it is amazing just how accessible it has become to the public. I have gone along to see films at their Summer Screen in the courtyard more than once, been ice skating there at Christmas twice now, just generally sat around enjoying the fountains and of course been to the Courtauld Gallery (one of my very favourite galleries in London). This time around, I enjoyed the sunshine watching all the kiddies run through the fountains, digesting my meal and then tore myself away from the spectacular weather to have a look at the Courtauld's current exhibition Beyond Bloomsbury: Designs of the Omega Workshops. It was great - I really recommend it if you are a fan of textiles, craft, design, the Bloomsbury Group, etc - and also if you're not! I caught a free lecture/tour of the exhibition (apparently run every Sunday during the run of the exhibition at 3 pm) which was really informative and well done. The Omega Workshops basically were focused on (from about 1913 - 1919) providing textiles and home goods (mostly "useful" things like dress fabrics, ceramics, rugs, etc) with a focus on anti-mass-production, hand-made objects. The workshop itself was also the shop, so that customers could see and think about how things are made and the work and craftsmanship that goes into things. So relevant for today! Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf's sister, was one of the prominent designers at Omega, and although there isn't any knitting featured in the exhibition, she did occasionally design her own knitting patterns, often at the request of Virginia. Go along if you can!

That's definitely enough from me today; I'll just leave you with a favourite quote provided by the tour guide at the exhibition from Omega's founder, Roger Fry. A quote that's relevant to all knitters and crafty people even now:

"The artist is the man who creates not only for need but for joy, and in the long run mankind will not be content without sharing that joy through the possession of real works of art, however humble or unpretentious they may be."

Listening to: Florence + The Machine Eating: Banana Muffins

Employment.

2009-08-12T16:03:00.007+01:00

I haven't posted very often on this blog, well, ever, but I find myself in a position recently (read: unemployed) where I can finally get into it properly. The word unemployed itself is interesting... I wouldn't say I am unemployed in the strictest definition of the word exactly; I have found a million ways in which to "employ" myself - it's just unfortunate that none of these ways have managed to make me any money!

Catching up on Jessica Fletcher and Cabot Cove, Maine aside, I have been doing things that I always meant to do and wanted to do but never had the time or the energy. This includes the main reason that I originally financially unemployed myself - finally knuckling down and working on a PhD research proposal and applications - but also things that somehow remind me how to enjoy life. Growing herbs, pumpkin, tomatoes and strawberries in the garden, making real food, taking photos, listening to music, meeting friends, and knitting, knitting, knitting. (And some crocheting and dressmaking too.)

Somehow having back the energy that I lost commuting an hour each way on buses and tubes every morning has made a huge difference and I wonder that I ever thought I would miss it! And so it's time to catch up. We all know Mrs. Fletcher knows how to enjoy the simple things in life (I suppose witnessing as many murders as she has would give you some perspective) and so I felt it only right that I finally document some of these things that make me happy.

Herringbone Mesh Jacket (Amy O'Neill Houck)

Now, believe it or not, the above is set to become a sweater. Hopefully I will have proof of this soon. For now, it is a slightly confusing, but surprisingly easy to crochet hunk of pretty cheap yarn (Robin Aran with Wool 400: 25% wool, the rest acrylic). I bought the yarn ages ago thinking I would make a huge blanket, but obviously more luxurious, fascinating knits came up. And being without finances as I am, I have just recently decided to use up that stash and hitting two birds with one stone, tidy up that corner of the living room that Murray tries not to look at. Brenda Dayne, of the Cast On podcast was talking about this on her last show and basically said even if she tried to just use up all her stash - without buying any more yarn - she probably wouldn't be able to in her lifetime! Now, it hasn't got so bad for me - yet. But might as well start using it while I still have a chance. But my Liberty gift coin still lurks in my wallet, waiting to be spent in exchange for the most beautiful yarn, for the most beautiful project - but gift vouchers don't count, right?

Anyway, the sweater grows. (Confession: I may have allowed myself an episode or two of Murder She Wrote while hooking). Some notes on Ravelry. Also on the go are: Saartje's Booties done Fleegle-style for a friend of the family's baby due early September and the Tender cardigan by Kim Hargreaves.

All this while listening to the lovely Bon Iver and eating (read: getting fat on) some easy, way too quick homemade chocolate fudge. Bliss.

Too good

2009-02-23T23:48:00.004Z

I have discovered the wonderfulness that is stitch markers.

These are from Magic Bean Buyer on Etsy. Bliss.

Very luckily discovered via a lovely poster on the S&B London Ravelry forums.

thinking through craft...

2009-02-22T01:15:00.009Z

Just got thinking through craft by Glenn Adamson through the amazing Amazon Prime next-day delivery service DH is signed up to. To do with arguments that craft is often considered inferior to "art".

Very excited about starting this, especially after seeing the photos of S&B London's foray into the world of Knitta, which I can't help but think of as art, myself.

Still new to this blogging thing, but I thought I'd share my knitting experiences from the past week:

Wednesday - S&B meeting at the National Theatre was huge and great (I hadn't been in a long time). I wore my knitted dress and was so pleased at the compliments it received - I must remember to wear my knitted things to the meetings as knitters are (of course) the people who actually appreciate them! I also got lots of compliments on the Entrelac Socks I am slowly working away on.

Friday - Got started on the heap of baby knitting I need to finish by April. (There are 3 babies due on 7th/8th of April, one of which is in Australia, so need to finish that one even sooner!) I made the ever popular Saartje's Bootees which turned out adorable.

Saturday - Walked down the road to local craft shop. They weren't the friendliest, but I did pick up some unusual yarn: Mango Moon Bali Sky. It looked amazing, with a sort of candy cane stripe pattern to it, so I kept on walking down the road to the pub, thinking of what I could do with it. Had a drink, worked a bit on the socks and decided to try yet another Oyster Card Cover with it. When I got home, I gave it a go, hoping that it's tough acrylic-ness would make it an ideal material, however, knitted up it didn't look half as cool as the un-knitted yarn itself. I am now at a loss as to what to do with it. There aren't many projects on Ravelry which use it unfortunately.

That's all for now - off to yet another pub for Sunday lunch where hopefully more knitting will ensue and my companions won't be too embarrassed to be seen with me :)

Oyster Card Cover

2008-03-26T14:56:00.006Z

It was the yarn that inspired me. I figured, most Londoners don't particularly enjoy their commutes, so why not brighten it up a little. So I whipped up a little cover for my oyster card, which is now looking a million times more brilliant, not to mention a lot easier to find in the Mary Poppin's Narnia that is my handbag. For those of you interested, here's what I did:

Used: less than 1 skein Katia Galaxia yarn (purchased from All the Fun of the Fair near Oxford St)

1 5mm knitting needle
1 yarn needle

I cast on 40 stitches.
I knit 25 rows.
I cast off.

I then threaded the yarn needle with a length of the yarn approximately 3x the length of my oyster card when opened. I then weaved the yarn through the stitches on the borders of all 4 sides of the piece. I then laid the oyster card, opened out on top of the knitted piece. With another shorter length of yarn, I threaded it through the piece, at the spine, drawing the two longer sides together, and tied with a bow. I then took the two ends of the longer threaded yarn length and pulled them tightly, gathering the border stitches to form a nice cozy for the oyster card, tying again with a bow.

Pretty easy huh? I think it's a good way to personalise something that every Londoner's got, and you can embellish or modify to suit yourself pretty easily.