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.

Blocked

The glorious Mollyann at Ariadne blocked this neckerchief for me, and I think she’s a super star.  Not necessarily because she helped me;  I’m fairly certain she can fly.

Isn’t it pretty?  Golly.  Now I can rob all the banks I want, just like Sharon Stone in The Quick and the Dead.

That Crystal Palace Panda Silk in Forest tones is so crisp and lovely, this shawl reminds me of a really gorgeous and non-perishable leaf.

In other news, the microRevolt blog has posted images of the action they had commemorating people who died in factory fires: one this December past in Bangladesh and the Triangle Waist factory fire in 1911.

If you haven’t heard of the Triangle Waist factory fire, then I recommend watching this video from Democracy Now. It’s an excellent documentary that highlights how these tragedies are still relevant.

And also, I’m sorry that there are no pictures of socks. I’ve been having major issues with gauge. It turns out that I usually knit socks on 2.75 mm needles, but that my extra super long sock sized needles are actually 2.5 mm needles. Can you imagine? When I knit those show off stranded socks, I was wondering why they fit me so nicely.  I usually cast on 56 stitches for socks and (from what I can recall;  I’m far too lazy to look up the pattern again) I cast on 64 stitches for those socks.  Curses!  Well, not really.  Socks will be a lot easier to size from now on.  This is certainly a fascinating conundrum, though.  What socks to knit?  What will fit?  What happens next?!

Time!

Tada!  I win!  All I have to do now is sew in the ends.

Oh, and cast on for the next project.

Sock it to Me

I’m very nearly done that neckerchief!

I’m really pleased with how it’s turning out – and what’s more, Mollyann from Ariadne has said that I can block it at the store with a real blocking pad and pins and everything.  I have never in my life blocked a lace shawl, so I’m really excited about how this is going to turn out.

I really like how the colour has turned out, and it’s only taken one ball of yarn.  I wonder what I’ll do with the other ball of Crystal Palace Panda Silk.

In other news, my friend Lisa give me six balls of vintage sock yarn – two each in grey, brown, and green.  I’m seeing that grey in lace and that brown in cables, but I have no idea what to do with the green.  Maybe colourwork?

As you can see, it’s 85% wool and 15% nylon.  It’s pretty soft and I really want to work with it.  I like very plain sock yarns, and I’m glad that I have access to some sock yarn that isn’t variegated.  What can I say?  I don’t like bright colours.

I have this aspiration to have enough hand knit pairs of socks so as not to need to wear boughten ones in the winter.  Wool socks are a blessing when it’s cold and wet outside.

I’m thinking pretty seriously about buying a loom.  Any suggestions?

Insert Post Here

So, this Sunday before past, I came down with the lung infection that everyone in Montreal is coming down with.  I have never hacked so much in my life – and what’s more, my partner got sick at exactly the same time.

I’m one of those people that turns into an enormous baby when sick, but I did manage to take some pictures of my armbands which I sent off to Boston last Wednesday.  Unfortunately, my sneezing and coughing buddy managed to delete them by accident, so the post I was banking on sharing with you isn’t entirely feasible.  I feel kind of silly; I even got a ravelry message from mmeadow reminding me to post them on my ravelry projects page, and I can’t.

I did get an awesome email from the 146+ crew today telling me that they not only received but really liked my armbands, so hopefully I’ll be able to link to some of the pics on their reBlog once it’s updated.

I’m very nearly done all the knitting on my knitted neckerchief, and my friend Maddy is letting me borrow Melissa Morgan-Oakes’ book, 2-at-a-time Socks which is awesome!  I’m pretty excited about the cables in that book.  I’m really excited to get the neckerchief off of my superlong 2.5 mm needle so I can try this out.

And, because it’s kind of lame to have a post without pictures…

Edgy

Isn’t it beautiful?  I’ve been knitting on the lace edge so I don’t have to deal with sewing.  It’s been a learning process, but it’s coming along.

You know what else is coming along?

My tea cozy!

Knitting On

I bound off the main part of my vintage neckerchief a few days ago and started the lace edging.

I’m sorry for the quality of the picture;  I’m really very sick and sort of went quickly.  Once I have more repeats, I’ll do a better job!

I also decided to frog a crocheted hat I made back in the fall.  It was too wide and too short, and I decided to make a better hat out of the same yarn.

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!

 

Mrow

Look at that:  a classic action shot.  I said, “Bazzy, don’t do that!” and my hand closed on the camera button as I reached to protect my new sweater.  Amazing, really.  More of a cultural portrait than a fancy knitting picture, but you can see the ribbing.  I think the best aspect of the picture is Bazzy’s expression.  He so clearly does not care what I think, but he can tell that I don’t want him to destroy my sweater, so he’s being tentative.  Jerk.

I think I have about 0.75 of an inch done.  The mission falls 136 in charcoal has been behaving a lot more nicely.  There are still loosely spun bits, but I don’t have to do nearly as much corrective surgery to fix it.  I ran out of my ball last night and didn’t bother to join a new one because it was 10 o’clock at night and I’m an early-to-bed kind of gal.  I also eat lots of fresh veggies and whole grains, which is much less boring than it sounds.

I’ve knit a bunch more on my vintage neckerchief.  I have no idea how big it is right now;  I just keep rubbing that gorgeous bamboo/merino/silk blend across my face and thinking about how much more awesome living in the 1800s would have been if scarfs were this soft.

It’s clear to me that I have to knit at least another two inches to make it wide enough.  I don’t want to rely on the edging to make this neckerchief big and bold, so I’m doing all the embiggening and enboldening now.  (I think I just made those two words up, but I don’t care.)

I like this yarn (crystal palace panda silk print in forest tones) and I like mission falls 136.  I feel as fancy and elegant as a cat washing his whiskers after a crunchy breakfast.

Mrow.

Rebelle

Last night, I did a heck of a lot of math.  I whipped out my calculator and actually did some trigonometry to figure out how big I wanted this neckerchief to be.

Ultimately, I want to end up looking like Sharon Stone in The Quick and the Dead, but with less of an urge to kill.

 

borrowed from ripinfo.blogspot.com

I think she looks great.  I also really like that movie.

I did some math, and some guesstimations, and then I decided that the rounded edge of the original pattern was a good idea.  I plan on knitting on the lace edging, so the rounded edge seems pretty useful in that regard.  I managed to knit enough yardage last night to get back to knitting directly from the ball.

In order to maintain that rounded edge (and to avoid the finished object becoming too long) I cast on 25 stitches.  My gauge being 8.75 stitches to the inch, that ended up being a 3 inch cast on edge – nicely rounded.

I love this yarn (crystal palace panda silk in forest tones).  It ripped out so nicely, and has obliged every k2tog tbl I’ve put it through.  Bamboo and merino blends are lovely that way.  I’m hoping to knit until it’s about 7-8 inches long, and then to knit the lace edging that should be about 2.5 inches wide.

I’ve already knit 4 inches or so.  I may end up knitting more;  I don’t know.  I mostly just want it to make me look badass.