Shimmy On

What a lovely, productive weekend. The UK enjoyed two days of glorious sunshine, blue skies and summer-like temperatures. Ahhh... Of course, being as clueless as ever, I was wearing boots and black tights underneath my dress whilst everyone else was showing off their nicest summer outfits. In the evening I wore my Millbrook cardigan for the first time since last summer. I still love it so very, very much. Note to self: I need to solve my summer clothes situation, I need to knit more summery cardigans and I need more Rennie yarn - particularly as the company has sadly gone into administration. (This is not the time for a good rant about how UK knitters need to support the UK wool industry instead of importing US yarns in the name of supporting small, local producers. But, mark my words, there will be a rant at some point.)

Ah, but first a small aside about a beautiful Sunday.

We started off with our usual trip to Auntie M's Cake Lounge, then ran into a rather rowdy Alasdair Gray at The Hillhead Bookclub (which has nothing to do with books, incidentally, but has tonnes of atmosphere), got massively tempted by Miss Katie Cupcake's wares at HB's Granny Would Be Proud craft fair (still the best curated craft fair in Glasgow), caught up with our good friends at The Life Craft whilst taking in a new Colorimetry trunk show, happened upon some real vintage bargains in Ruthven Lane (the shop owner, Stephen, was delighted: "I was told nobody would ever buy that but here you are an hour later.."), and finally ended up alongside the River Kelvin where we found some wild garlic that was put to good use in our dinner.. Ahhh.

But the lack of summer clothes is an issue. Today I'm going to cut several sewing projects. Huzzah!

I could not resist the 1950s-esque print of this cotton/poly. The colours are not very summery, but they are good, versatile ones. I'm making the Simplicity/Lisette Passport dress, although with some trepidation as I usually need to do an FBA (full bust adjustment) on tops and I haven't a clue how to do one on this pattern. We shall see.

I am also going to cut the Crepe dress in some African cotton I scored on eBay and while I'm at it, I might as well cut a skirt in Amy Butler's Daisy Chain Blush (top fabric - not my usual colours but it was a remnant) which'll be perfect for work.

Also in the works: oh gosh, it is my ill-fated Kim Hargreaves cardigan finally blocking! I finished knitting this cardigan back in January, realised that I should have done an FBA on it (somehow), and left it lying in a bag behind the sofa. I'm blocking the bejeebus out of it and I hope the alpaca will also stretch beyond belief. If it doesn't work, I'll just wear the cardigan unbuttoned. It'd look nice over the Passport dress, wouldn't it?

And my Kaffe Goes Bollywood wrap is almost done. It has been a great relaxing knit - and one of those where you thought "oh, just one more row".

I'm still not convinced I chose the right colours - it is not quite as eye-searingly bright as I had hoped - but it is one of those projects where you don't have to be a colour genius like Kaffe Fassett to figure out a colourway. The colours will magically work together no matter which ones you choose.

Now, let me get the ironing board out, find my scissors and start getting down to work..

White Lace & Pearls

And suddenly I get a design request: "can you come up with a knitting pattern for a quick project? We need it by Saturday." Sure. No prizes for guessing what this project is supposed to tie in with..

.. having said that, a good friend of mine is getting married next year and I have her aesthetic in mind as I'm designing this. I intend to reknit it in a suitable colour and wear it at her wedding.

Now, excuse me. I have a pattern to write up.

Quarterly

Can you believe the first quarter of 2011 has been and gone? It is an oddly cheerful thought and I have had an excellent first three months of the year. Selected highlights:

• I knitted a purple cardigan
• ..and finished another cardigan which I really, really need to sew together.
• I celebrated my ten years of blogging
• I celebrated my mumble-mumble birthday.
• I bought a sewing machine
• I exhibited at the Tramway Art Gallery
• .. and helped the curators with fun bits and pieces behind the scenes.
• I took a jazz singing workshop
• I was in UK knitting magazine Let's Knit
• .. and also in UK newspaper The Guardian
• I did a quilt workshop at The Life Craft which resulted in my first quilt
• I saw Patrick Wolf in concert, huzzah!
• I also saw Submarine (youtube link) which was excellent..
• .. and Skeletons (youtube link) which was very odd.

Not bad. I just need to read more books because I only finished one (one! ONE!) book during the first three months of this year. That is abysmal. I blame Zadie Smith's On Beauty which I really, really did not like.

New project on the needles. This is my take on the Unwind wrap from Rowan Magazine 49.

The original has a very muted colour scheme - soft mauves, dusty blues and earthy neutrals - but I have long wanted to combine three bold colours of Kidsilk Haze so I took my inspiration from Bollywood instead. I'm using a very bold fuchsia as my dominant KSH colour together with coral red and deep orange with lime green as contrast and a neutral pink to tie things together. The pattern also uses five different colours of Rowan Summer Tweed and again I have opted for pink-red-orange-green hues.

The wrap isn't difficult to knit as it's all stocking stitch. I think the difficulty lies in which colours to choose. These colour schemes spring to mind: ocean blues, greens and greys; spring garden in pretty pinks, greens and yellows; earth and stone in browns, beiges, fawn and soft greys; girly in soft hues of pinks and whites..

.. my Fancy jumper is zipping along really well too. It is weird having two KSH projects on the go at the same time. I think I might try to counterbalance all the airy mohairiness with some sewing later this week. I have some self-imposed deadlines (as always) and I'd also like to wear some self-made things on a trip to Yorkshire I'll be making next month.

I wonder what my next quarterly review is going to look like?

Day Seven: Time

I would love to be able to claim that all my crafting time looks like this: sitting at a table sipping delicious tea out of a 1950s retro-futurist tea cup whilst a lovely tea pot matches my knitting. Sadly that was just today.

Like many other knitters and crocheters, I tend to make things whenever and wherever. I knit on public transport, when I'm waiting at the doctor's, during my lunch hour, and even very occasionally at work (I work within the knitting industry so many people assume that means I sit and knit all day. Ha!). Oh, and at knitting groups! I love my knitting buddies.

My favourite place to knit is my bed (which is also my favourite place to read). I prop myself up with pillows and blankets, get my iPod out and just relax into a current knitting project. I listen to audiobooks and podcasts rather than music. My brain is wired to it learning as much as possible so unless I am knitting something horrifically difficult, I do not listen to music.

Lately I have been listening to:

• In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg. A BBC Radio 4 radio programme with heavy emphasis on the history of ideas, the arts, and humanities. I really enjoyed the programme about metaphors (I used to excel at hardcore literary theory and this programme really took me back to my smart days) and I'd also recommend the programmes on Aristotle's Poetics and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (I cannot find a viable link to this one, but it is available on iTunes. It is fun in that particular way anything about Lord Byron is fun).
• Philosophy Bites - tasty morsels of philosophy presented by enthusiastic podcasters/academics. Martha Nussbaum on the Value of the Humanities is sadly far too topical in these university cut-back days, but I also recommend the podcasts on Neuroscience, Socratic Method, and Humanism. I have several their podcasts lined up - including one on Jacques Derrida and Foregiveness which I'm really looking forward to.
• Stash and Burn. My favourite knitting podcast although I actually prefer their early episodes to their more recent ones.
• Georgette Heyer's "Friday's Child". More P.G. Wodehouse than Barbara Cartland, this was a delightful lightweight soundtrack to many of my recent projects. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud on public transport.
• E.M. Forster's "A Room With A View" was also good, although it certainly didn't live up to my memories of reading it when I was 17 (nothing is ever as good as it is when you are 17).

Today I finished my Catcher in the Rye shawlette (pictured next to that marvellous tea-cup above). Looking back, it was an underwhelming knitting experience but I think I burned out on making shawls during last year's 10 Shawls in 2010 knit-along. I have already cast on my next project: I now have six rows of 270+ stitches in Kidsilk Haze to rip back because I did not swatch (gulp!).

Wish me luck.

You can find more blogs participating in the Knitting & Crochet Blog Week by googling 2KCBWDAY7. If you have come here as part of the Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, thank you for visiting. I'll still be here once this week is over and I'm usually blogging about arts, books, films, language besides all the craft stuff. Do stick around.

Day Four: Worn

I am wearing two handknitted garments in this photo:

1. My Nev Shawl.

I have found a big grey shawl incredibly wearable to my great surprise. I shall have to make more neutral-coloured accessories. This revelation comes as no surprise to nobody but me: neutral colours go well with many things.

2. A handknitted sweater I have never mentioned before.

This is indeed handknitted but not by me. It is an ex-display Rowan sweater - Sarah Hatton's Beatriz from The Lenpur Linen Collection - which I was lucky enough to pick up in Yorkshire last year during one of Rowan's garment sales. It is an incredibly comfy sweater and I wear it often (usually without my bra strap showing - sorry about that). The Lenpur Linen has softened a lot with each wash and the entire garment has a beautiful drape. If you have ever wondered where display garments go to live, you have your answer now.

I am slightly incredulous that I am wearing something knitted to sample size as I am apparently too large for any of the New Look sewing patterns. And before you ask, yes, I have tried on various other (ex-)display garments and can fit all but the most fitted ones. Sizing seems very arbitrary at times.

I do wear all my handknits but some knits get worn more than others. The two knits mentioned are worn often as are my Snorri sweater, the Forecast cardigan, the Haematite shawl, and the Art Deco shawl. I wish I knew what make these knits so darn wearable..

.. which brings me to the pertinent question: what makes you wear a handknitted item over and over again? Is it fit? Colour? General it-goes-with-everything-ness?

Find more blogs participating in the Knitting & Crochet Blog Week by googling 2KCBWDAY4.

Day Two: Skilled Up

If you have ever played any role-playing game such as Dungeons & Dragons or World of Warcraft, you will be familiar with a system assigning numbers (your "stats") to indicate how good you are at something. Using D&D as an example, if you are very nimble and agile you will have a Dexterity of "15" (or higher) and if you are extremely clumsy, your Dexterity may be a "7".Your skill levels are modified accordingly, so a person scoring high in Dexterity will receive a bonus when performing acrobatics.

Now my personal stats run fairly average but I do get a hefty modifier to my knitting skills rolls. If only life were like a role-playing game and all the tasks revolved about figuring out knitting patterns..

.. but it is not and the last year has actually been quite odd from a knitting perspective. I can knit pretty much anything nowadays but I have been suffering from a lack of knitting mojo. It is odd: I have a beautiful stash, I'm blessed with fabulous knitting groups and friends, and I have allocated crafting time .. but somehow Mr Mojo just went out the door for a very long time. It felt as though all my knitting was pligtstrik, or 'i-have-to-knit-this' rather than 'i-want-to-knit-this'.

Technically I have not changed much from the knitter I was last year. I have not learned any new cast-ons or improved my entrelac - but I have become much more mindful about my knitting and what I choose to do with my knitting time. I have learned to disregard much of the Ravelry hype, avoid local knitting drama and not be distracted by what others think. Instead I have begun discovering who I am as a knitter and as a crafter. I can do so many different things but what do I want to do with them?

Like others, I am rediscovering plain knitting and I am a huge believer in 'less is more'. I am knitting for myself, to my own taste and in my own time.

To go back to the roleplaying terminology, it is as if my massive knitting modifier is now working in synergy with my WIS modifier. I suspect that means I've levelled up over the past year although I hadn't realised this. Maybe life is like a role-playing game and all the tasks do revolve about figuring out knitting patterns..

Topic: Look back over your last year of projects and compare where you are in terms of skill and knowledge of your craft to this time last year. Find more blogs participating in the Knitting & Crochet Blog Week by googling 2KCBWDAY2.