FO: Mosswell, Rust well

This was going to be a tale of woe, but like all the best stories, this took an unexpected turn. Once upon a time I bought some merino lace from 100purewool.com - I have an affinity for peridot green and their "Green Sausage"(!) colourway looked like a perfect shade. Sadly it was more yellow than I would have liked, so I overdyed it. It turned out acidic green rather than peridot green.

Fast forward some years and I decided to knit the Aeolian Shawl out of the yarn. The end result was pretty but still acidic green, so I decided upon another overdyeing session. The solution was a bit strong (never dye when you are sleep-deprived) and some parts of the shawl were a bit .. splotched. And I decided to overdye the shawl again.

Yes, this is why I first thought this was going to be a tale of woe. I was despairing by the third overdyeing session and I was worried when the shawl did not take the dye well. But this is also where the tale gets good: I pinned the shawl out deciding that I'd like to see the dry dyeing result.And I liked what I saw.

Granted, I'm an urban decay sort-of woman. I take photos of crumbling walls, overgrown buildings and burnt-out cars. The shawl actually looks as though it is rusty and has moss growing on it. I'm not sure how I can incorporate echoes of deindustrialisation, disenfranchisement, inhospitable cityscapes or abandoned buildings into my personal wardrobe, but I shall find a way. I live in Glasgow, after all.

Specifications: Pattern: Aeolian Shawl by Elizabeth Freeman, free pattern from Knitty. Modifications: Yucca Chart x 6, Agave chart x 2 before Finale Agave Chart. No beads. 7-loop nupps. Yarn: 100purewool merino lace 950yrds/100 gr. Used 60 gr. Needles: Addi Turbo, 3.75mm.

Isn't the shawl just pretty?

Do you like the photos? We were out grocery-shopping when we walked past a doorway with fabulous old tiles. Our part of Glasgow is filled with old Victorian buildings and you see these doorways everwhere - although not always with fantastic colours or, to go back to the idea of urban decay, tiles missing.

Next on the agenda: I hope to reorganise my stash this week. It is long overdue. I have a walk-in closet(!) which doubles as yarn stash and spare-bed storage. I have boxes and bags stuffed with my yarn, but I want to start having a proper system. My stash is such a size that I am beginning to forget exactly what I own and where it is. I find it a bit overwhelming, but that is surely a sign that I should start weeding out old partial skeins and what-was-I-thinking balls of yarn. I have already tossed out some old projects and odds-and-ends today and it felt really good.

Finally, I missed my own personal goal of finishing my 4-ply cardigan by the end of the FIFA World Cup 2010. I still need to knit one sleeve and one front, plus all the finishing flourishes. It is a shame, but I did sustain an injury to my wrist. I'm tentatively rooting for Spain tonight, although Denmark does have long-standing football grudges towards Spain.. but I really haven't been keen on how Holland has been playing throughout this tournament..

Friday is for Finishing, Fine Bags and Finking Of New Stuff

Two-thirds of Britain are enjoying a heatwave. Meanwhile Glasgow is 14C with light drizzle. I dream of blue skies, warm weather and sitting outside with an iced coffee. Maybe that is why I'm making a summery bag? Actually, this was the very first pattern I ever queued on Ravelry: Inga's Haekelbeutel. An easy bag assembled from 16 crochet squares. I'm teaching a session on crochet squares next week, so I'll be able to use my bag as an example of what you can do with squares. The square Inga's bag uses is very plain, but you can obviously use which ever square you want (Ravelry examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5). The assembly is pretty ingenious - I'm saying this before I have assembled the bag - and you can even use knitted squares if you don't like crocheting. And did I mention that the pattern is free?

As for the real reason as to why I'm making this bag right now.. well, I had a long and tiring day at work yesterday, which made for some comfort yarn shopping. I got a full bag of Rowan Milk Cotton DK for £12 (down from .. £47, I think?) and some select balls of Pima Cotton which I knew would be perfect for this Haekelbeutel. I'm pondering what to do with the Milk Cotton - I'm thinking either Anais (which a girl in winter has handily just made),  or maybe just a quick top-down raglan a lá Japel's Cropped Cardi (but with different neckline, a lace pattern, buttons and .. totally different, really).

Summer knits on my mind and the summer is nowhere to be seen.

The Mosswell Shawl is off the needles and currently being overdyed. I'm a bit sceptical about the dye solution, but we'll see..

Hold Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand

Via Lori:

Midway

The 4-ply cardigan has been pushed aside for a little gratuitous shawl knitting. The shawl has been worked on and little now and then, but I feel so frustrated with my cardigan that I thought I would give Mosswell (i.e. Aeolian) some love. As always, a shawl actually works up quickly once you pay it some attention. I zipped through the Set-up Edge Chart and am now midway through the Main Edge Chart. Another few rows and I will have a finished object. I feel almost faint. Still not head-over-heels with the pattern. It is exceedingly well-written, well-charted and well-explained, but it does lack a certain oomph. Perhaps I expected too much from the woman behind Laminaria (still my favourite shawl pattern), but I thought the stitches would flow into each other far more than they are. This is not to say that I am not enjoying knitting my Mosswell (because I am) but it is a different experience to what I had anticipated.

It is also very green which is why Mosswell will be given a little dye-bath once I have bound off. I hope to give a slightly more, er, "mossy" look. If not, I'll just rename the darn thing. Blackwell. Brownwell. Mudwell.

Oh, I nearly forgot.

Come autumn I will be releasing a couple of patterns for some scarves (just in time for Christmas knitting - you'd think I had planned this).One of the scarf patterns is currently with test knitters, but I thought I would let you catch a glimpse of my swatch. Once Mosswell comes off the needles, I will start working on the scarves in earnest and write more about the design process.

Oh, but for more hours in the day.

A couple of links:

• The early reviews of Christopher Nolan's Inception are in - and they are frighteningly GOOD.
• I chuckled at this list of imperfect Romance heroes/heroines. Oh no, Lady Alys is tall and odd-eyed! Prudence Lancaster is bespectacled and plain!
• 'Till Derrida Do Us Part' is the loveliest thing I read for some time. Other Half read it and said: "your mother would kill you". I replied: "I'm pondering if having a wedding ceremony just to interrogate the idea of "the vow" would alter the contextual meaning-making of the vow to such a degree that it could no longer be said to be a vow but rather an avowed non-vow?" Then he threw me out of the living room. Men.
• This method of making iced coffee looks very inviting - and possibly also a bit too daunting to someone whose idea of a good cup o' java is wholly dependent upon how much sleep she has had.

Findings

Find of the day week month year: Alice Starmore's Scandinavian Knitwear, mint condition, for £2. My hands were shaking slightly. I'm doubly pleased because I actually really like the patterns in the book and can see at least three future projects ("Skåne", "Halland" and "Blekinge" (sorry, Danish joke) "Delsbø"). I also bought John Allen's Fabulous Fairisle for a mere pittance. It is not a collection of knitting patterns, but rather a compilation of traditional fair-isle patterns. I particularly like how Allen explored the use of colour and how different colour combinations affected the chosen fair-isle patterns. Some of the patterns were shown in non-traditional colour combinations (pinks, greens and yellows on bleached white background!?) which was admittedly interesting, but also slightly off-putting.

Stranded knitting is definitely on the agenda later this year. I have no excuses left (bar lack of time).

A few days ago I was contacted by a staff member of a search company who informed me that the company was about to launch a Top 100 Most Influential UK & Ireland Knitting Blogs. Seeing as the company had included this very blog on the list, would I be interested in offering some critique? I pondered this whilst feeling mildly dubious (which I always do with such lists) Later I notice that an Irish felting blog* has now posted the entire list, and my lingering feeling of mild doubt has become less .. mild. Where is Needled? Ysolda? Attic24? Mooncalf Makes? And that is just off the top of my head. It is flattering that I should be called one of the top five most influential UK knitting bloggers, but it is also completely tosh. Who would you include on your list of "influential" UK knitting bloggers? And what is this "influential" thing about, anyway? Bah.

Still knitting that 4-ply cardigan. I'm contemplating cheating on it with a quick little knit - a hat or a cowl. The weather has turned decidedly autumnal today, and I'm tempted to knit a small bow-knot scarf. Just to get that "just completed something" glow, you see. It has been a while since my last Finished Object..

*) I don't know why I'm so surprised to see blogs devoted to felting, but I actually am..

Spot the Mistake

Sorry about the size of the picture, but I thought I would share what happens when you knit on five hours of sleep (I know other people do just fine on five hours of sleep, but I'm a nine-hours sort of gal). This happens.

The project is my Harmony cardigan made with Rowan Fine Milk Cotton. I'm currently knitting the left front. The button band is integrated with the lower half of the pattern: you knit the lace pattern, then knit nine stitches in a rib pattern and finish with a K1. It is easy and looks elegant. No problems.

Problems arise on the purl side where the pattern has you P1, then knit in rib pattern before purling back across the lace pattern. I blame my lace-knitting ways for instinctively slipping the first stitch instead of P1. I did not realise my error until much later - to be honest - I'm not going to rip back some fifty rows to fix this. I know this means I'm a bad, bad knitter, but so be it.

Besides, the right button band will overlap the left one and we are talking about something that'll be around lower-belly height. I would have ripped back had I made that mistake somewhere much more visible, believe you me.

Speaking of mistakes, I made the mistake of looking at my knitting queue and then looking at the local yarn sale. My planned 2010 Stash Slam Down is going seriously wonky, because I came away with nine balls of Calmer in a rich chocolate brown (which will become Still as soon as I finish Harmony) and four balls of Kidsilk Aura (destined to become Opal). I had my eye on some Pima Cotton in Caftan too, but thankfully I was reminded that I am not much of a cotton knitter (nor do I wear pink). Thank you, Paula, for talking some sense into me. Although there's always Daisy...

No. Well. Anyway. Stashdown.

In wholly unrelated news, I have finally listened to the new Crowded House album and, oh, it is not good. It is really not good. I have been composing an essay in my head for a few days now - all about the trajectory of Neil Finn's creative output (starting with Split Enz, then the various incarnations of Crowded House, through to the Finn Brothers albums, his solo output and collaborations) but I think my 3,000 word essay might just have to stay in my head, because someone else have already said pretty much what I wanted to say.

Heroes should never be allowed to grow old. Or grow a moustache.