Sample Swatch

Yesterday (err, Tuesday) I knit a large gauge swatch for my dream 70s cardigan.  I knit it in the orange because I was headed to Ariadne regardless and needed to wind that enormous skein into a ball.

I cast on about 40 stitches and then knit about two inches each of stitch patterns that refuse to be forgotten.  That slipped stitch pattern?  My friend Lisa told me about it in 2007.  That star stitch?  I saw that last fall on ravelry.  That fisherman’s rib?  Mollyann from Ariadne told me about months ago.   The coolest aspect of all of this is that I haven’t ever really knit any of these stitch patterns.

And interestingly enough, the gauges are really different:  from 3 stitches per inch to 6.  But my friend Mitali can attest to that!  I certainly was having enough trouble getting the star stitch to behave.  I’m a notoriously tight knitter so any pattern that requires that I knit through anything three times is a bit above and beyond my capabilities.  I think I may have to find a charming (yet identical in every way) sort of alternative.  That saying, I’m not sure if using a substitute will get this bug out of my ear.

In other news, my cat Patrick Purrswayze fell yesterday and twisted one of his hind legs a bit.  I know it’s not too serious because he’s still jumping from the floor to the windowsill with no problems (and also, because he sometimes forgets that it hurts and runs around like a totally healthy pussy cat) but his expression is the most tragic thing I think I’ve ever seen.

Doesn’t he look disgusted, yet contemplative, yet very sorry for himself?  Poor fella.

And without further ado (and from a special request from Princess Sonya via Mitali)…

It’s perfect:  a cat sleeping on drying hand knit socks that have been well loved on a beautiful spring day.

Old/New Ideas

I’m still chugging away at those socks.  Those Belle Epoque socks are going to be completed this week I (foolishly) swear, come hell or high water.  I just want them out of the way so I can get onto something that I’m excited about.

I’ve finished the gusset and am just knitting onto the foot.  I’ve got 4 inches past the heel flap and I’m planning on knitting about 7.25 inches total until I start decreasing for the toe.  Pet peeve alert:  I kind of loathe that no sock pattern I’ve ever met has the negative ease of the length of the foot listed.  Because of that, I’m a bit concerned about when to start decreasing.  On the one hand (foot?) I don’t want the foot to be too short, and on the other, I hate that extra quarter of an inch that can end up flopping around if I knit for too long.  This is therefore the most trepidacious part of sock knitting.

Knitting on the terrace has been awesome.  I love my apartment because it’s such a typical Montreal apartment;  the terrace is so perfect, and I love sitting in the sunshine.  The weather has been great lately.  Sunshine makes any project more enjoyable.

I’ve been experiencing a bit of a knitting slump as of late; but you know what’s making me more excited about fibre arts is this yarn.  Cascade Eco in brown and orange seems like it’d make the best 70s style zip-up cardigan.  Don’t you think?

I’m super excited about knitting with this yarn!  I’ve seen so many cool things come out of Cascade Eco, and I really like the colours I picked out (with Mollyann’s help, of course.)

I had been waiting for a third skein of the Cascade Ecological wool in brown to come from the company, but I’m relatively pleased about the contrast from the orange to the brown, so I don’t mind mixing it all in.

Ahh.  Orange you glad I took all these pictures?

Kicking Up my Heels

Yesterday, I knit the heel flaps and picked up all the stitches, and turned the heels. Now I’m two rows past the heel turning, and I’m pleased.

It’s too bad this yarn was discontinued.  I really like it!  It’s perfectly heathery, and not splitty, and wonderful to knit with in general.

I really love the stitch definition.  Apparently, the Lady Galt yarn was bought out by Patons, and then the 3 ply was discontinued in favour for their 4 ply Kroy yarn.  The more plies, the better the stitch definition, but I can’t imagine it getting much better than this.

Belle Epoque: beautiful era indeed.

A Thorough Update

I’ve been a bad, bad blogger lately, and I haven’t been thorough whatsoever in detailing my knitting projects.

Project the First:

The buttons weren’t sewn on when those pictures were taken, but they sure are now.  I’ll take another picture tomorrow, so you can see how awesome these are in person.

I knit the armbands with the handspun and hand dyed yarn that I got from a friend of a friend of an old woman who used to live in my borough.  Look at the tag;  that yellow yarn was dyed with turmeric and alum.

The yarn was over spun and dyed in an odd way.  I love how you can see her learning process.  As she learned, her yarn became more delicate and more consistent.  The dyes took better and you really got to see what she was going for.  That yellow yarn was all in pieces when I got to it.

I really like the symbolism of using her work as well.  The idea of a person becoming fascinated with creation (as opposed to participating in consumerism) at a late age at least twenty years ago simply points to how separated most of us have become from the creation of tangible and useful textile art.  I love that both she and I have had the same yearning to make cloth.

Project the Second

I’ve knit quite a lot of the ribbing, but I won’t know if I’m ready to bind off the ribbing until I try it on.  I’ve been crazy busy as of late, so I haven’t plunked myself down to slip all those stitches onto waste yarn to try it on yet again.  I think I’ll aspire to do that tomorrow.

Project the Third

The neckerchief is 7 inches long, and I think I’m going to knit for at least another inch.  I went to a bluegrass night at the Barfly in Montreal, and I dropped a bunch of stitches.  I ended up having to rip back about 3 rows to figure out exactly where I was supposed to be.  It’s looking lovely, though.

Project the Fourth

I don’t have any pictures of this project (my awesome flaming tea cozy) because I haven’t made any progress on it.  Alas!  I am dreaming of needle felting all over that thing.  Yeehaw!

Project the Fifth

I’ve recorded the first song I’ve ever written on my music project blog, ClairelyNow.  Please listen and let me know what you think!

 

Collared by a Neckerchief

I was going to cast on for a snood, but I’m using the needles that I need to get proper gauge with the yarn I want to use, so that’s going to have to wait.

I started poking around ravelry, and I happened upon this pattern:  a free pattern for a knitted neckerchief from the 1800s.

I think it’s lovely.  I told Mollyann from Ariadne that I was going to knit it, and she looked at me skeptically and said, “That’s Shetland lace, hey?”

I looked back at her, tipped my jaw haughtily, and said that I was going to do it anyway.  But!  I would say that the main body of this neckerchief is actually lace knitting (with yarn overs only happening on the right side of the knitting) whereas the border is true knitted lace.  The distinction is, of course, a bit silly, but it somehow renders my attempt at this project valid.  (If you’re interested in learning more, Eunny Jang does a great job of discussing different kinds of lace here.)

I’m knitting it in Crystal Palace Panda Silk Print, colour way 4012 Forest Tones.

It’s a beautiful yarn.  It’s 52% bamboo, 43% superwash merino, and 5% combed silk.  Delicious – and I love that it’s superwash.  I like to pretend that I, someday, will wear this scarf to a picnic and end up delicately wiping my chin of a sticky sauce.

My gauge was 35 stitches to 4 inches/10 cm, so I cast on 91 stitches.  The pattern recommends that you cast on a multiple of 6 minus 1 (for a total of 89 stitches in my gauge), but I added two stitches at either end for selvage.

I really hope someone else casts on this project.  It’s gorgeous!  C’mon – knit a long!

Avocado

Is there anything more beautiful and round than an avocado pit?

Avocado pits are so whole and complete, they always fascinate me.  They seem to glow with potential and health.

We ate fresh greens and veggies and dahl with quinoa for dinner tonight.  It was delicious.  There’s something about a good, whole dinner that makes me feel awesome.  And I wanted to share that, along with my obsession with avocado pits.

Last night, we had some beer is these tiny pint glasses that were in our house before we moved in.  To give you a hint of the size, the mouths of the glasses are about 2.5 inches in diameter.

They’re super fun to drink out of.  It makes me feel like a giant; kind of like eating brussels sprouts and pretending that they’re cabbages.

I also finished the sleeves of my baby sweater on two needles.  I love this pattern, I love gull lace, and I love this yarn.  Merino is so delicious, and being able to knit a beautifully soft garment that can be machine washed is a great feeling.

I’ve already knit another two inches on the body, so I’m hoping to bind off tonight in time for a ribbon shopping Sunday.  I would also like to knit a matching pair of booties using Saartje’s Bootees pattern; maybe with some raspberry shaped buttons.  They’re so pretty, and it’d be nice to have a full ensemble – my partner is knitting the baby a hat as well.  This experience has had me thinking a lot about presentation.  The mother is very detail oriented and loves beautiful things, so I’d like to arrange all of this knit wear in a pretty box with pretty tissue paper.  Once she sees the sleeves, I don’t think she’ll care.

Aren’t they lovely?  I also haven’t finished fixing the buttons on my sweater, because again, it wrenches my stomach all the way up into my throat every time I think about it.  Bazzy seems to like it, though.

Inner City Pressure

I adore Flight of the Conchords deeply, so I figured I’d share this video.  I’m also feeling some inner sinus pressure.  Who could resist a pun like that?

I started sewing buttons onto my sweater yesterday.  I placed two correctly.  And then?  And then.  I messed up, and sewed one button about one stitch too far up and then I based another button from that button, and now I have to take them off and re-do them.  It feels insurmountable until I look at those shiny new buttons.

Aren’t they lovely?  I love metal buttons in general, but gosh, I love these buttons.  This colourway of Lamb’s Pride Superwash Worsted has a silver tone to it, and the silver buttons pick it up.  Here’s a more detailed shot.

Does anyone know what those crests symbolize?  I’m working under the assumption that they don’t really mean anything, but I don’t want to be like the one girl I knew in High School who wore a Le Tigre shirt because she liked tigers.

My Manos del Uruguay mittens are making me sad.  I took them into Ariadne and weighed them; the completed mitten weighs 32 grams and the ball weighs 19 grams.  Tragic!  I think I’m going to end up ripping out the cuff to see if I can re-knit the cuff in another yarn, and hopefully, that increase the yardage enough to make two gorgeous mittens.

I also cast on for Elizabeth Zimmerman’s baby sweater on two needles from her Knitter’s Almanac (Schoolhouse Press) last night.  I’m using Mission Falls 136 Merino Superwash in Raspberry.  Knitting this sweater is a bit strange; the pattern isn’t as, well, blocked out as more modern patterns, but the writing flows nicely.  I like how the knitter is invited to change the pattern at will.  I’ve also decided to do yarn overs instead of invisible increases so that there will be space to pull some pretty ribbons through the sweater.

I chose the colour because it’s feminine but bright.  Babies are born basically blind, so bright colours are more easily visible to them.  Pale, pastel colours for babies don’t make a lot of sense to me.  The mother of the baby looks great in vibrant colours so I hope she’ll like it.

How’s the inner city pressure treating my kitties?

Hard Yokes

I finished the yoke!  I did!  Last night.  I even did all the ribbing and bound off.  See?  I did it, all by myself.

I love this step in the process.  You see, I’ve already gone through and sewn in all the ends and tidied up different parts of my knitting.  I’ve knit too many things to want to have to sew in everything after the fact.  It’s much more satisfying to have a sweater when you’re done knitting it.

This of course means that I’m starting the button bands tonight.  Ariadne isn’t open until Tuesday, so I’ll have to wait to get the actual buttons, but I can get the button bands done up until I have to make the button holes!  Oh, golly.  This is exciting.

I’ve come down with a cold, and am therefore grumbling and moaning to myself.  Doing a simple button band shouldn’t tax my poor aching head too much.

Button bands have more importance than what I’m attributing them, though.  It’s important to make sure that you get a good balance of picked up stitches  - you don’t want to pick up too few (and buckle the fabric) or too many (and have a floppy button band).  You want the button bands to be firm, and wide enough for the buttons themselves to not deform the fabric.  It’s a delicate balance.

I’ll see if I can strike it right with the help of my supervisor, Bazorov.

Austerity

austere (adj.) 1. severe or strict in appearance or manner. 2. lacking comforts, luxuries, or decoration. origin Greek austeros ‘severe’.

From the Oxford Paperback Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Wordpower Guide published in 2001.

Once, I showed this blog to an old friend of mine.  He said that the aesthetic was ‘austere’, and implied that I should change it up, add some warm colours.  Then I showed it to my friend Mollyann at Ariadne, and she said that she liked it.  She used that same word, austere, and then said it looked homey.

I like the idea of austerity.  But then, I like neutral colours and hard lines, and I admire asceticism, and I love a good dry wine or a nice sour olive.  I value strong, hard work and a relatively practical outlook.  The harsh yarns are my favourite, and I love the colours that sink behind brighter tones.  I guess it’s no wonder.  I grew up in a sober, solemn, and serious environment.  I’m really starting to see how growing up on a cold, rocky island has impacted my colour preferences.

taken from newfiegirldotcom's flickr page

I got that picture from here.

I love those cool silvery greens and grey blues, and they tend to influence my knitting.  When I started to learn more and more about fibre, I was attracted to those bright tones that most new knitters love, but I always go back to my colour palate.

Even my cats match it.  Sometimes I wonder if I’m missing out;  if, by not trying out yarns or colours I’m not immediately attracted to, I’m somehow limiting myself.  But then, when I knit something for the store or for someone else… there’s just no spark.  And it’s hard to finish something that you’re not absolutely in love with.

Speaking of which.  I have announced today that I will not sleep until the 7 knit rows and 6 purl rows of this sweater plus ribbing are complete.  I have been swamped lately, and have been so desperate for unadulterated knitting time that I managed to knit 4 rows in a dark theatre with only two mistakes.  This sweater will be done before the next knit night – this Thursday.

I think my next project will involve richer tones, but still will fit into this heathered aesthetic.  I like the idea of knitting more “bitter” or “harsh” sweaters – it feels like a better preparation for the cold than sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.

Happy New Year, everybody.

Hollerdaze

Is it still the holidays?  Is it?  Really?

I often refer to this time of year as the ‘holler-daze’ since it makes my head feel all static-y while everything lumbers past me with holiday gusto.  I’m pretty excited for this to all be over and for me to resume my relatively dull routine.

But, in exciting news, my partner has dazzled my cats with holiday cheer!

That’s Patrick Purrswayze elegantly showing off the utility of this gift.  The cats love it.  They sleep on it and scratch it all to hell and gosh – it’s pretty cute.  Show ‘em, Bazzy!

I like it, even though it impedes access to my fridge – and in the winter, that means something great, doesn’t it?

I’ve spent a lot of time spinning as of late (and I don’t mean mindlessly in circles).  It’s still blue faced Leicester top and I think I’m getting better.  At least, I’m getting more fine.

I’ve been scoping out patterns for thick and thin yarn.  I want to make something for myself out of this first handspun (because it’s just special in that way, y’know?) but I don’t know what.  I’m thinking about dying it with strong black tea and making somewhat lacy fingerless gloves.  Perhaps something along the lines of the Spirogyra or even the Verdigris, both from knitty.com.

In the meantime, I’m chugging away at my sweater.  Unfortunately, it basically looks the same as last pictured, so I’m going to wait until I’ve finished the yoke until I show it off again.  Experiencing second sock syndrome with a sweater is a new one for me, but I guess it makes sense when you remember that I did knit the same sweater but two months ago.  I think my next project will have more colour work than cables, but who can predict anything at this stage in the game?  I just keep reminding myself that this sweater has sleeves that are completed already, so after the yoke is done all I need are button bands.  Tricking myself by sewing the ends in as I go has been necessary.

Regardless, the yoke is 1/3 done, and I’m hoping to have the entire sweater sewn up and blocked by the 31st.  Think I can do it?