A Work In Progress

Remember how I angsted* over knitting my partner a pullover? I just need to do the sleeves now and I'm halfway in love with how this self-designed pullover works. David picked out the yarn himself (New Lanark Aran, a local organic wool, in the Bramble colourway) and said he would prefer a round yoke. The body was knit in stocking stitch in less than a week (hurrah! amazing what a mild flu can make me accomplish) and then this weekend I began working on the yoke.

My first take on the yoke was inspired by Danish fishermen ganseys. I loved the idea of combining Scottish wool and Danish knitting traditions, and so bands of textures travelled up the yoke. David tried on the pullover and we were both horrified by how heavy and unbalanced the yoke looked. Back to the drawing board.

The second take is what you see in the photo. I calculated a slip-stitch pattern which would work with the decreases and added stripes of leftover Noro Kureyon. The colourway may not have been the best match as some of the stripes really pop and others blend in, but overall I really like the effect. I'm particularly proud of the subtle texture of the slipped stitches. It looks really ace all the way round.

I'm thinking I might have to nick the yoke pattern for a pullover of my own, although how tragic would it be to knit "his'n'hers" pullovers?

Wardrobe Re-Fashion is hit-and-miss, but it does make me want to pull out my sewing machine. However, given that I'm still quite woozy and a bit dizzy, I should probably stay away from sewing machines.

(* "angsted" is so a real word)

Knitting With Lilith

Spending quality time with one of my favourite people is always such a pleasure.

Old Maiden Aunt's Lilith is currently test-knitting the Adeline Coat for the a black pepper design studio and I  adore the cable detailing. I'm not one to wear copious amounts of cabling (again, body issues) but I know beautiful design when I see it. I also loved how the pattern was working up in the now discontinued Rowan Harris Tweed. The finished jacket is going to be stunning.

Lilith and I were discussing many things and not all were knitting-related. We talked about body perceptions (going back to this post, of course), feminism, how language usage shape our world (without even mentioning the good old Sapir-Whorf hypothesis!)  because apparently I act differently when speaking Danish than when I speak English, and, oh, our shared love of early 20th C country house mysteries.

But unsurprisingly we also talked knitting.

To the left, you see David's sweater in its incomplete state. I am almost done with the body and am thanking the heavens above that David is on the skinny indie boy side of things. Knitting stocking stitch in the round can be fun but .. it can also get really tedious.  I'm currently pondering doing a gansey-inspired yoke but let's see how I feel. I'm also tempted to incorporate some elements from the classic Danish SNS sweater.

To the right, you see something I uncovered in my stash. A full cone of 2-ply baby alpaca. A full cone of orange 2-ply baby alpaca. I know the yarn will not block out particularly crispy, so instead of a shawl I am considering doing a shrug or a very light cardigan/pullover. Lilith suggested maybe an orange baby alpaca incarnation of Buttercup? It'd be drapey and very lightweight. Any suggestions? I'm really eager to start knitting this beautiful yarn that I had almost forgotten..

The End of Something

My autumn/winter mitts have been blocked and subsequently worn for several days with much pride. It is a stash-busting project too as I used partial skeins of Lett-Lopi and New Lanark DK I had left over from previous projects. What is not to love? Taking a decent photo of them, however, proved too much for my photography skills, and it wasn't until this afternoon that Official Photographer went for a walk in the rain with the camera, that an in-focus photo appeared.

The pattern is free, but be warned that it needs to be tweaked in order to work. As written, the thumb increases do not match up with the colourwork and if i were to knit these again, I would go down a needle size as the mitts are a smidgen too wide across my hands despite going with the smallest size. On the positive side I can fit a pair of gloves underneath these for extra warmth.

Now to something completely different.

I first read Schrödinger's Rapist - or a Guy's Guide to approaching Strange Women Without Being Maced a couple of weeks ago and it has been on my mind ever since. In a strange way, the blog entry manages to explain exactly what it feels like being a woman and make me aware that this is how it feels for me. Honestly, I do not think about my body or my gender most of the time. My body is just there as a vehicle for my brain and, well, I have never felt like I was part of any Special Sisterhood. And yet, that blog entry made me finally acknowledge to myself that being a woman is not like being a man. I'm in my early thirties and I finally admitted this to myself.

Deep down, though, I must have known and sought to protect myself. During most of my twenties I hid in baggy black clothes. At one point I even preferred being severely overweight to having a healthy weight and receiving attention. Today I wonder why, although I have some residual fear of walking on my own in remote places and I never go outside at night unless someone is with me. For someone who is not all that aware of her own body (and, believe me, having a body never ceases to confound and surprise me .. especially after I have walked into yet another door or stumbled), I do seem to be aware of the dangers connected to having one.

After reading the initial blog entry, I wound up reading the long Metafilter thread/response. Nattie's response was particularly thought-provoking and I found myself nodding to several points she made - and surprising myself by being able to nod. I need to think a lot more about this and work out my own response. Somehow this feels like an awakening.

Chasing Wool

I had to chase a greyhound today. It went up to me in the park, looked adoringly at me, then grabbed a ball of wool and ran away. It did not get very far - not because I am a fast runner (ahahahahaha!) but because its owner was right next to us. According to Lilith, who is wise in the ways of dogs and wool, some dogs react instinctively to the smell of sheep even if they're a nice city-dwelling dog. Guess that tells you just how rustic and just-off-the-sheepsies New Lanark's wool is.. .. yes, I have begun knitting David's sweater and I'm using New Lanark Aran in the "Bramble" colourway. David chose the colour himself, bless him. I have decided to make up my own pattern as most men's patterns are not geared towards a skinny indie kid like David. I'm knitting bottom-up and am yet to decide what to do once I reach the yoke. In other words, so far it is pure stocking stitch in the round. It's not very exciting, but it is plain knitting and rather hypnotic. I'll get it done in plenty of time for our overseas visit to colder climes.

I have also begun a quick little colourwork project. I've long thought back to my favourite sweater ever: a green and red sweater with a cowl which my gran knitted for me when I was twelve or thirteen. Sadly she gave the sweater away to charity when I moved across to the UK (I've always felt the timing was highly suspicious). So I'm trying to create the sweater as colourwork mitts and I'm trying to do this from memory.

I'm using two partial skeins from the stash - Artesano DK and Rowan Felted Tweed - and am enjoying the process a lot. I'm frogging a lot as I'm working out what I want from this project, but it is pretty cool stuff. I'm learning a lot about colour dominance and about the Faroese geometric patterns which inspired the old sweater. Also, ignore the "holes" you see in the top bit of the mitten - they have been fixed.

Finally, I'm going to rip out the first sweater I ever made (rav link). I have worn it three times, it does not fit and I love the yarn and colour so much that it seems an awful shame to let the yarn go unused. So, ten balls of Noro Kureyon in a fabulous purple-pink-charteuse colourway. What would you make? I found this pattern earlier today but I would prefer something with sleeves (it's the Scotland-is-chilly thing) and I'm not sure if I could pull off wearing that top.

Deja Vu

YouTube Comment or E.E.Cummings? One of the funniest 20th century poetry/21st Century internet crossovers I have seen today. Not that I have seen that many, of course. After a few weeks of awe-inspiring knitting productivity, my busy fingers have become almost idle. I cast on, knit maybe twenty rows, decide the project doesn't thrill me and I rip it all out. Lather, rinse, repeat. Possibly it is the continuous failure of Topstykke that haunts me. The pattern is great, of course, but I keep messing up:

1. I cast on too few stitches and tried to remedy this whilst on a fast moving bus to Aberdeenshire filled with shouty Russian students.
2. I cast on the correct number of stitches but lost my stitch markers somewhere between a sofa and the kitchen table (a 3 year old nephew might have been involved).
3. I cast on correct number of stitches, got all of the set-up row right and blissfully knitted on until I realised that I was knitting a size up from what I'm supposed to knit.
4. I cast on correct number of stitches, got all of the set-up row right and blissfully knitted on until I realised I had twisted my cast-on and I was knitting a moebius-shaped top which will be impossible to wear (in this dimension, at least).

So I think it is time to let Topstykke rest for a few weeks whilst I get other things done. David's sweater is a top priority (he won the Halloween costume competition, by the way) and I want to have another lace shawl on my needles (Aeolian, I'm looking at you). I just hope that I can stick with those two projects and not rip them out after twenty rows.

Shockingly enough I have begun reading again and am currently one-third through Iain Banks' Transition. Banks strides the literary and speculative fiction divide, but cunningly uses a middle initial "M" to differentiate between the two genres. Interestingly, "Transition" is being marketed in the UK without the "M" (i.e. it is not speculative fiction, you fools!) whereas the US market gets courted with the "M" (hey, it's speculative fiction!). My favourite Banks novel, The Bridge, is a non-M novel but is more speculative than many genre novels. It's all about marketing, isn't it? So far I'm enjoying the novel, in case you were wondering..

Cause/Effect

A view from my daily walk..

..can be very inspirational..

.. don't you think?

(don't judge 'em - the gloves are unblocked and one needs ends woven in)