I'm on a roll!

Another FO! These were the most productive couple months of knitting ever. Even when I wasn't working last year, I didn't manage so many non-accessory FOs in so little time. I'm not sure how I do it.

I had no WIP photos of this because it honestly took almost no time to knit.


Aleita Shell
Yarn: 3 balls of Rowan Calmer
Needles: 3.5mm and 4.0mm Addi Turbo circulars
Pattern: Aleita Shell, by Bonne Marie Burns for Interweave Knits Spring '08

Notes: I think this simple classic pattern got lost amongst the fluttery pastel butterflies of the IK Spring issue. It didn't help that this clean-lined pattern got knit up in a non-colour for the sample. I didn't even notice it the first time I flipped through the magazine. When I finally did notice it, a bit of mental arithmetic showed me that it would be the perfect project for those three balls of Rowan Calmer I'd bought, knit up, and frogged ages ago.



It's a great pattern. But I made a load of modifications:

1. I made it shorter. There are two reasons for this- I am short in height and short in yarn. However, I may have overdone it a bit here. It could be a teensy bit longer.
   
2. I made one fewer set of waist decreases and, correspondingly, one fewer set of bust increases. The reason for this is that my waist/bust ratio is higher than average. In other words, I have no waist.
3. I don't know what all that neck band knitting and sewing was about, so I just skipped it. In fact, due to my being somewhat short on yarn and not knowing what the heck those neckband instructions were on about, I improvised a scooped back neck. It looks good and fits me pretty well.

Also, I either found a mistake in the pattern, or I am incapable of reading directions. I figure there's a 50/50 chance of it being either. To get nice even edges, the pattern has you slip the first stitch of every row. I've used this trick before and it's great; works beautifully. However, this pattern has three stitches at each edge knit in ribbing and it asks you to slip the first stitch purlwise with yarn in back. This works fine when I'm slipping the first stitch on the right side rows, but on the wrong side rows, slipping with yarn in back means the edge has a row of purl bumps instead of the nice knit V's:


You see how on the bottom edge, there is a nice row of elongated V's? That's how your nice slipped stitch edge is supposed to look. Then see on the top edge, instead of this, there is a series of bumps? Still neat, and kinda interesting in itself, but not matching the other edge. Unfortunately, I noticed this only after knitting about 2/3 of the bodice and couldn't be arsed ripping back. I did start slipping my stitches with yarn in front on the wrong side rows, which gave me nice V's, so starting a few inches from the shoulder, the two edges match.

So, if you're knitting this top:
on RIGHT side rows, slip first stitch purlwise with yarn in back;
on WRONG side rows, slip first stitch purlwise with yarn in front.

But, anyway, I'm pretty pleased with this top and hope I will be able to wear it lots. Not soon, though, because apparently they are predicting snow this weekend. The first weekend of spring! Snow!

Using up my Calmer in this top means I have knit up almost all the sweater-sized lots of yarn I have in my stash. (Except for the cursed alpaca. I'm not counting that, though.) Now I have to work down my sock yarn stash. I've promised myself one pair of socks for The Limey and one pair of socks for me before I'm allowed to even think about visiting a yarn shop.

Last winter hurrah

The Limey and I always loved going to the Dublin Botanic Gardens, so naturally we looked up the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew when we moved over here. Of course, it's not free (you guys have it so good in Dublin!), so today we went and bought a year's membership. We're at the tail end of the -supposedly- last storm of the winter this year, and it was freezing. I'm glad I was wearing my new sweater.


Stormy Cowlette Pullover
Yarn: Noro Cash Iroha in a cranberry-ish colour, 7 skeins bought at the January sales at Loop
Needles: 3.5mm and 4.0mm circulars, used as straights
Pattern: my own

Notes: I wanted a new version of a comfy, comfy old sweater that has gotten a bit too ratty to wear in public. This was knit back and forth and seamed because the Cash Iroha is a single loosely-spun yarn and I just wasn't sure about biasing. My swatch showed some biasing, so I thought I'd rather be safe than sorry. Also, I worried about the sweater stretching (I think I've heard of some Hourglass sweaters growing), so I like the insurance of the seams.


For once I had bought enough yarn (although it was close!) so I have full length sleeves. The cowl neck was picked up and knit in the round. I knit it on the larger needles to get a drapier fabric and put in lines of yarnovers just for a little bit of relief from the endless stockinette.



I'm really pleased with this sweater. I finished seaming it up on Monday and have worn it three times since. The only thing I worry about is that this loosely spun yarn may be pilly. Anyone heard anything about Cash Iroha and pilling?

WIP spotted!

I realized I have been very bad about documenting my works-in-progress. I don't take much pictures because I'm just not convinced that looking at huge stockinette swatches (basically) is all that interesting. So then I don't blog about them because without pictures, I kinda feel like, Eh-what's the point.

But the other night, I thought I would rectify this, and so, behold: knitting in progress.


I'm working on a plain stockinette pullover, with a wide, drapey turtleneck. It's basically a replacement for my favourite warm-and-comfortable sloppy cowl neck/hood sweater I got secondhand from my sister. The original is now a mass of pills held together by acrylic fuzz, so I thought I'd just knit myself another.

I didn't use the hood on the original very much, so I'm not knitting one. I've replaced it with a wide turtleneck. The whole thing is stockinette, with ribbed edges. The only bit of interest is in the diagonal lines of yarnovers I've put in the cowl/turtleneck.


I *think* it will be wide and drapey enough, but really I can't tell until it's worn for the first time. It's blocking now, so I should be able to seam it all together in a couple of days. Just in time for the last winter storm here in the UK. I hope I get a good couple of weeks of wear out of it before it gets too warm. Oh, who am I kidding? It's England; it'll be sweater weather for months yet.

Inspiration on loan

Although there is lots to complain about in Woking, I must say its library is quite good. I'm always finding interesting knitting books whenever I go. Last time, I picked up some unusual choices for me.

I'm normally not that big on colourwork. Most of my knitting is single-coloured, and my Silk Garden scoop neck gave me a few minutes of nervous twitching before I accepted it. So this was a suprise:


I know some of Alice Starmore's books are rare and out-of-print. I don't know if this one is, so I don't know if it's worth crazy amounts of money. I'm going to return it, I promise! I've flipped through some of her books before, and I've looked through her website. I understand she has a genius eye for colour. I know her colourwork design is inspired. I know her use of traditional motifs and design is extraordinary.

But.

I would never wear any of her designs. It seems like she puts her energy into the colour and motifs and therefore her sweaters are squares with tubes for sleeves. Long, boxy, shapeless things, they are merely canvasses for the design. They make the models look bad! In this book, even those designs where she has used set-in sleeves have that voluminous, bunched look of drop-shouldered sleeves.

I think this is why Eunny Jang's fair isle designs are so popular. She's got a good eye for colour and motif, but her sweaters have actual shape! They're flattering to wear as well as interesting to knit.

Still, the Starmore book is great for colour inspiration. There are also a few lovely cables that I may adopt for other uses.

The next book is of colourwork:


There is a general recipe for knitting Turkish socks, but the bulk of this book is made up of charts for traditional Turkish stranded colourwork motifs. I'm not that excited about the traditional shape of the Turkish socks, but some of those colourwork designs are gorgeous. I will definitely be using some of those charts for future projects- maybe in hats or for the legs of "normal" socks. They're a natural for mittens, too, of course. In fact, I swear I've seen those motifs, or very similar ones, in some of the current crop of popular stranded colourwork mitten patterns out there.

I bought some great plain red wool gloves in Iceland a couple of years ago, and lost them this winter. (They're on a train in Guildford somewhere, I'm certain!) Instead of buying a new pair, I thought I'd knit myself some. So this book came up just at the right time:

But I should have looked through it more carefully before taking it out. Everything is knit flat! The hats and gloves are seamed! It makes no sense to me to seam gloves- that's just silly. Each finger has a seam! Who wants seams right on your hands, where you're so likely to feel them and be annoyed? I think hats and gloves would be the natural place to have people start knitting in the round. Hats, especially, would not be too fiddly a first in-the-round project. So it looks like I won't be knitting my new gloves from this book.

I must be looking particularly Asian lately...

I've had a blissful few months without this particular annoyance, so I've lost some of my patience about it. In the last few weeks, I've had a lot of "No, where are you really from"-type exchanges.

The vast majority of people who ask me where I'm from do so because, obviously, I don't sound like I'm from these parts. When I say "California" or "San Francisco", they usually say one of two things: Oh, I visited and loved it! or Oh, I've always wanted to visit! And we continue with our lovely conversation, where I generally tell them they should go back, or they should try to visit as soon as possible.

There are, however, a certain percentage of people, here and at home, who will ask me where I'm from not because of how I sound, but because of how I look. The "No, but where are you really from" question is annoying, not least because I get tired of being asked it all the time, but there are lots of other reasons I hate this question.

First, it implies that I can't really be from California. Which, fuck you: my whole family is there; my mother is buried there; my grandparents are buried there. I'm Californian, and American, so you can stick that where the sun don't shine. Second, it shows that you don't really care to actually find out anything about me- you just want to check off the box in some list you have in your head. Listen: the fact that I'm from San Francisco tells you way more about me than the fairly irrelevant factoid you're needling for. If you were actually interested about me as a person, you would work with that.

I know that many people ask this out of genuine friendliness and curiosity. But, okay, how often do white people get asked that by random people at bus stops? Not as often as I get this question, I'm willing to bet. Does this mean that because you're white, your family and background are inherently less interesting? Well, if that's true, I'm offended on behalf of the white people I know. I mean, when people ask The Limey where he's from, and he says Stoke, that's the end of the conversation. (Or they say, Oh, where is that exactly? Or, I'm sorry.) But is his family's story any less interesting than mine?

The last few of these exchanges have involved people addressing me with the few words they happen to know of some Asian language, generally greeting me with "Ni hao". Once, I was going to say something, but the person was a well-dressed missionary, and I thought it was prudent not to attempt any conversation with them at all, so I just walked on. Another time, I responded with a smile and, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Mandarin Chinese." To which the reply was a surprised, "Well, that's a first!" How is that a first? The last time I checked, 5 billion people on this earth don't speak Mandarin, asshat. So is this really the first time you've come across a non-Chinese speaker? Even amongst us slanty-eyed Orientals, hundreds upon hundreds of millions don't speak Mandarin. It's something this guy should get used to.

I'm thinking of getting some good stock response printed up on business cards. I can just hand them out. Let me know if you have any good comebacks.

Okay, rant over.

Synergy

(This word reminds me: does anyone remember the cartoon Jem? She was a big-pink-haired rock star who had some sort of Borg-like relationship with her earrings. I used to have the choose your own adventure Jem books.)

Remember the Biggest. Swatch. Ever. where I swatched a cable pattern that turned out to have the wrong aspect ratio? I wanted something more diamond shaped? Then remember I got 3/4 of the way through the Gathered Pullover, and decided I didn't like that cable right at the bust? That diamond shaped cable?

Well:


Synergy Cardigan
Yarn: Jaeger Extra Fine Merino DK, 6 balls, from the closing sale at The Wool Shop in Bray
Needles: 3.00mm Addi Turbos
Pattern: my own

Notes: Normally, I think short-sleeved wool sweaters are pretty pointless. But, um, I ran out of yarn. These little puffy sleeves, though, are so cute, so sweet, so...just perfect for this shape.

Things I love about this project:

1. the cable provides all the shaping: love that cable; it's genius and perfect for this
   
2. the attached i-cord finishing at the neckline: first time I've done this, and I think I'll be using this finishing technique much more
   
3. those buttons! (found at Soton John Lewis)
4. the sleeves: first time I tried puffy sleeves; had no idea how they would turn out until I actually sewed them on. Whew.
   
5. the yarn: it is so sad that it's discontinued. I used its ersatz replacement by Rowan, Pure Wool, and it is nowhere near as soft, springy and nice to wear or work with

Things I didn't so much like about this project:

1. I made a mistake with the short row shaping at the bust: for future reference, put them right next to each other, right at the side seam. Otherwise, it looks way obvious and totally like you've made a mistake (see below)
   
2. my knitting has recently been getting horribly, horribly uneven. I'm rowing out like it's going out of style. In this next picture, you can see it everywhere, on the body, on the sleeves, everywhere

Still, I'm really pleased with how this cardigan turned out. I think I'll be wearing it a lot. All the edges except the neckline are hemmed. For the button bands, I basically picked up stitches and made two hems. It works really well, and I think gives a good finish, a bit more refined than ribbing or garter bands.

Still dragging out the Christmas knits...

Hopefully after this month, I will have more new knitting to show you. Work is absolutely crazy. The final report on the first phase of my project is due at the end of the month. This will pretty much determine whether the customer will renew the project and continue with phase two or not. If they don't renew, that's a lot of money we won't get. More importantly, it'll mean the loss of a big and influential client. This particular bit of work stress is very, very different from academia.

Anyway, onto the knitting. More Librarian Stockings!


Librarian Stockings, aka Anna Socks
Yarn: Patons Diploma Gold 4-ply, in grey, all of two skeins
Needles: 2.0mm dpns, 2.5mm dpns, 3.0mm dpns
Pattern: Anna Socks from Rowan 40

Notes: A (librarian) friend of mine saw the Anna socks I made my (librarian) sister last year and really liked them. So I knit her a pair for Christmas. (It turns out I know a lot of librarians. I take this as proof that I am living my life correctly.)

Some modifications: Basically, once again, I used the lace pattern on the Anna socks, but pretty much ignored everything else. I knit these toe-up, with a figure 8 cast on and short row heel. Again, I used the smallest size needles for the foot and ankle, changing to the medium ones for the shin and largest for the widest part of the calf. I also knit a few extra rounds on this pair, since the recipient is a few inches taller than my sister. From the picture, it also looks like her gams are more voluptuous than my sister's, so I could even have used larger needles on the calves. As I had done last time as well, I threaded elastic through the ribbing at the top, instead of using the ribbon called for in the pattern. Really helped them stay on when I tested it. Hard to say if they last well throughout a day of wearing, as I gave both pairs away!

More Christmas presents!

See, I haven't finished any knitting in a long time, so I'm just going to drag out the showing of my Christmas knits. Genius, innit?

(Sorry about the blurry pictures.)

Squirrel and Oak Mittens
Yarn: Patons Diploma Gold DK, just more than 1/2 skein of each colour
Needles: 3.5mm bamboo dpns
Pattern: Squirrel and Oak Mittens, from Hello Yarn

Notes: My closest yarn shop is the Singer Sewing Centre in town here. It doesn't sell very much yarn, but it has a really good selection of Paton's Diploma Gold, for some reason, in all the different weights and lots and lots of colours. So I buy basic sock yarn there now, and the yarn for these mittens.

These are sooo cute. I've wanted to knit them since I first saw them, but I don't wear mittens, so couldn't really justify it. Imagine how excited I was when my friend specifically requested mittens! I cast on practically before I finished reading her e-mail.

This is my second stranded colourwork project, and there are lots of long runs of one colour, so I had to twist the colours on the wrong side. My tension wasn't the best ever. Blocking helped a teeny bit.


A couple of small changes: I made the tips more rounded by doing two different slopes of decreases, and I left the last stitches live and did a three-needle bindoff instead of drawing it up into a point.

The only other thing I would change with this project is the cuffs. The corrugated ribbing isn't at all stretchy, and doesn't draw in the way ribbing normally does. If I were to do these again, I think I'd knit the cuffs with normal ribbing and make them longer.

A civilized walk

I am, and always have been, a city girl. It's unfashionable nowadays to admit to preferring the urban lifestyle, but there it is.

However, I’ve also grown up on the west coast of the US, where a little bit of driving brings you to mountains, and coastal hikes and paths are a short hop away. I’ve also spent close to a decade in the Pacific Northwest, where the summers are so short yet so sweet that people actively go out and enjoy as much of it as humanly possible. And then they recuperate in the winters by flying down snow-capped mountains at ludicrous speeds.

The thing is, those places have wilderness. A hike means chugging up a mountainside through the forest to a lake. A camping trip means a tent, sleeping bags, tarps and bear-proof food containers, along with the rope with which to hang it from a tree branch.

The Limey and I went on a walk this weekend. (Note: it’s a walk here, but a hike at home.) It’s as different a beast as can be to the hikes I’ve been used to at home. But it was loverly.

We walked along the River Wey. Over fields and along farms, and in one part, across a golf course. Along the way, we saw:

St Nicholas Church- old as the hills, pretty as a picture, and still being used for services, of course.

Pyrford Place, summerhouse of Queen Elizabeth (the First!). I love the first floor entrance. I wonder if it belongs to the owners of the house behind it, or if it belongs to some historical authority. Imagine having that in your yard! What would you do with it?

The remains of Newark Priory, abandoned in the 1500s, apparently. Unfortunately (or possibly fortunately), it's on private land, so we couldn't go and climb around. I love climbing around on ruins. I had a great time in Turkey for that exact reason- they took terrible care of their Greek and Roman ruins, so you were allowed to clamber up and ruin them further. I feel guilty about it, though. But I digress.

You know how in the US, the destination of a hike is a great viewpoint or a mountain lake? Well, they are much more civilized here. The mid-point focus of our walk was

Yes, The Anchor, a pub right by Pyrford Lock, with a huge parking lot and families from around the area coming for their Sunday lunch. So we stopped by for a quick pint and apple-and-blackberry pie with custard.

We started back (it was a circular hike, which is nice, no re-tracking) as the light became perfect for scenes like this:

In a ponytail

I almost exclusively knit for myself, but every once in a while, I'll knit for people if they're special enough. Christmas this year I did three small knit gifts. Here's one requested especially for the recipient to help herself keep warm during marathon mentoring.

Reasonably Hip in a Ponytail
Yarn: Maybe 2/3 of a ball of Sirdar Denim Chunky, from the Southampton John Lewis
Needles: 4.0 dpns
Pattern: Reasonably Hip, by Elizabeth Cobbe for Magknits Dec '07

Notes: I knit the pattern as written and got a stockinette stitch short row band instead of garter. Apparently everyone else knew about this error but me (it's been corrected now). I knit most of the hat, then decided that the stockinette band looked really bad, so frogged and started again.

A specific request was to make the hat ponytail-compatible, as the recipient runs with her hair in a ponytail. At first, I was going to put the Reasonably Hip brim on Hannah (from the same issue of Magknits), but she really liked the shape of Reasonably Hip, so I just added a ponytail-sized hole, instead. Works beautifully.


The pattern is simple and easy to follow. It took me maybe two or three train trips to knit the thing (including the first frogged incarnation). The only thing I'd change is the way the brim is knit. I'd try to avoid having to seam the front of it, since it adds bulk I'm not so happy about.

(As a bonus, in that first photo, you can see the top of my Hourglass Sweater. Despite extra raglan decreases, I couldn't avoid the Flashdance look. I've worn it multiple times since I knit it maybe a year ago. I may still frog it.)

Cursed yarn

I've more or less given up on the yellow alpaca Gathered Pullover. I've finished the front, back, and started a sleeve. (I'm doing the opposite of every knitter alive: I've modified an in-the-round pattern to be knit flat.) I didn't do a gauge swatch, but I've blocked the front, and it looks to be pretty close. And I do really like that cable.

But.

There's no waist shaping; there's no shaping at all except for the cable pulling in. The problem with this is that it's pulling in at the bust! So the whole thing is sort of smock/empire/afghan/tent shaped. I don't look good in this shape of garment. I always look pregnant. (I once scared my mother half to death by wearing a dress with an empire waist.) I tried to add waist shaping, but it just doesn't look right. Plus, I've just sort of fallen out of love with the pattern.

I haven't totally given up on it, but it's going into hibernation. This is the 2.5th incarnation for this yarn. It was a close-fitting round-yoked raglan which I actually wore a few times, then it was the 3/4 finished raglan that I couldn't figure out the sleeves for, and now it's this 3/4 finished Gathered Pullover. Eh. Maybe I should give up on this yarn.

On the bandwagon

The waiting list for Ravelry got short enough that signing up to it is more like waiting to get processed rather than waiting for an "invitation" (which reminds me of middle school popularity insecurity), so I signed on. They got back to me in a couple of days.

My username is Platinum. Come on over and say hi!

The meat question

I've never been a vegetarian- I've always eaten fish and seafood. However, it's been 10 or 11 years since I stopped eating birds and mammals. (Anything else I'll try at least once.)

I don't eat birds and mammals mostly because of the way our food animals are treated while they're being grown; I've no moral problems with the actual eating of animal flesh. In that same vein, I don't care what kind of animals are eaten, either. Dogs, cats, horses, snakes, frogs, whatever. I eat fish and seafood because the farming/catching of them doesn't so obviously torture them. Maybe I just don't believe their pain is as acute as those of a battery-farmed hen or a veal calf.

More and more recently, though, I think about starting to eat all kinds of meat again.

As long as the meat comes from happy animals, I don't theoretically have a problem with it. At home, I can control this by buying carefully; there's lots of ethically-farmed meat available. (For Pete's sake, the cat eats chicken that's been raised under the watchful eye of the RSPCA!) (Not that watchful, obviously, says The Limey.)

Outside the house, I'll probably keep more or less to the same eating habits I'm doing now. I'm certainly not going to start eating mammals and birds just to eat chicken mayonnaise sandwiches from Boots. Restaurants are easy as well. If they don't say clearly how and where they source their meat, I'll stick with the vegetables.

My problem is what to do when I'm a guest at other people's houses? Obviously, it is rude to say, Yes, I do eat beef, but yours isn't good enough for me. And I refuse to lie about it. (Just as I refuse to say I'm a vegetarian to make my life easier- fish are animals, too.) For instance, The Limey's mother really tried very hard to make sure there was lots of choice for me at Christmas dinner. She wouldn't have done it, and I certainly wouldn't have asked her to do so, if I ate turkey and bacon and sausages. But if it was noticed that I didn't eat them, there would probably be some awkward scenes.

Any ideas from y'all wonderful readers?

Happy (belated) New Year!

We were drunk by the time we wandered to a bridge from which to watch the fireworks being set off from the London Eye, so pictures of the night are, uh, blurry. To say the least.


We'd brought beer for the waiting around and prosecco for the cork popping sound at midnight. Afterwards, we wandered along the streets, along with thousands of other drunken revelers. At least I wasn't singing football songs at the top of my lungs (why football songs?!) and I did feel like a street drinker of a higher class, as my drink was in an actual glass!

Christmas, innit?

I spent Christmas with The Limey's family up in the midlands. A few observations from my first Proper English Christmas.

1) These people drink a lot.

2) Despite dire predictions from The Limey, it is perfectly possible to have a vegetarian Christmas dinner. His mom made a special effort. Can you even tell the difference?



I think you can just barely see a some turkey peeking out in the bottom picture. There are some bacon-wrapped sausages buried in there, as well.

3) I understood about 30% of what his uncle said. I don't know if this is because he was drunk before he arrived, or because of his accent. I'm voting a combination of both.

4) Remember point #1? The dessert (pudding for the UKians) was not spared.


The thing was drenched in alcohol, set alight, and then served swimming in rum sauce, into which more rum was added at the table.

5) The Limey's grandmother told me stories about her husband and family going down to work in the mines. In mines! I guess that sort of thing doesn't just happen in the movies.

Dispatch from my cold flat

I have been waiting for the guys who are supposed to replace our heaters to turn up. They haven't. Which means no heating for the weekend. Which means we'll have spent a whole week with our heaters turned off. The Limey is about to go apeshit. There's nothing more blood-boiling-inducing than having people say they will turn up and not. The letting agency (closed for the holidays and therefore not answering their phone) hasn't given us the contact details of the heater-replacing people, so we can't chase it up, either.

Meanwhile, I have been off work. If I stay at home, I have to fight the cat for a position in front of the toaster-sized portable space heater they've given us, so I've been out and about in London and around town.

I have some Christmas knitting to do (oh, don't worry: as I've only just started, they'll never be done in time for Christmas, so there's no time pressure), and on the pretense of having to buy some needles for one of the projects, I went to Stash in Putney. From East Putney tube station, it's a short walk through a cute little street (I'm all about exploring all the different London 'hoods) and the shop itself is wonderfully laid out and the people are friendly. I've been thinking about knitting a summer-weight t-shirt and so was on the lookout for appropriate yarns. One of the salespeople there tried to help me out, but they're mainly stocking lots of winter-appropriate stuff (duh) so I just bought some needles, a set of 4.0mm Addi bamboo dpns. Then I thought, Darn it, maybe those were too big for what I want them for, and Oh! I also need some lace needles for the Jaggerspun Zephyr I bought a month back. So off I went to I Knit London, where I browsed a bit more and got more needles: a set of 3.5mm Brittany dpns and a pair of 3.0mm Addi lace needles. It has been quite a good needle-acquiring week over here, actually. Check this out:


The ones on the right are the 3.0mm Addi lace circulars. The ones on the left are 1.5mm Inox dpns, and the ones in the middle are wince-inducing 1.25mm Inox dpns. I've been looking for needles smaller than 2.0mm forever. I knit somewhat loosely, and knit all my socks on 2.0mm dpns. This is fine, except that sometimes I want a denser fabric, especially as socks knit at tighter gauges wear better. So I've been looking for smaller needles, and the only ones I've found are ones in a Susan Bates sock set. Which I'd have to order from the US, which is more trouble than I'm willing to put into the whole thing.

So imagine how happy I was when I went into the teeny sewing and haberdashery shop in town here and found these! The shop sells a small selection of not so exciting fabrics, and an anemic selection of wool. This selection consists of a shelf of Patons, and although I can't see myself spending too much time there, I do like the Patons Diploma Gold 4-ply for socks, and they stock a lot of colours of it. I went in there the other day to get some grey 4-ply for another pair of Anna socks, and thought, just for the heck of it, to see what kind of knitting notions they had, and there they were: packages of teeny dpns tossed into a box willy-nilly. I grabbed the two sizes they had, and thought very seriously about buying two or three packages of each, in case I lost one and can never find any more. In the end I bought one set of each, but now I'm thinking of heading back over there and buying more.

And the rude Secret Santa goes to...

Thanks for all the Secret Santa ideas, everyone. The prize goes to Heidi. I'd seen the "Don'ts For Wives" book, first published in 1913, a few weeks ago, and saw it again at Borders at the last Soton knitting group meeting, so that's what I got CEO's wife. I labeled it with Mrs. CEO'sFirstName CEO'sLastName, which put her off right away. I think she was offended (rude? check.) and wasn't that fond of the book, either. Heh. But other people had a great time reading and laughing at it, so it wasn't wasted.

The Christmas party was last night and was great fun. The Limey took the train down after his work's Christmas do, which was in the afternoon. Of course we missed the last train home, but numerous people offered us a bed or a floor, so we crashed at a colleague's house. It felt like home because they had a bad-tempered cat as well. We got home this morning and our cat wasn't all that excited about not having been fed for a day.

Two more days of work, and then I can sit around for a couple weeks. Whew.

One down, one to go

Well, that's one problem solved, anyway. I gave up on the yellow raglan. It just wasn't going to work out, and I was unhappy with the fit. I didn't even bother frogging it. I un-did the neck bind-off and am knitting the new project right off the old project.


It's the Gathered Pullover, by Hana Jason for Interweave Knits Winter '07. In this picture, I'm just a few rows past the centre of the cable detail. For some reason, on the centre row, the instructions have you decrease a certain number of stitches on either side of the cable, then increase the same number on the next row. I have no clue why. Maybe because this bit goes right over the fullest part of the boobs, and the decrease/increase rows keep it from stretching too much? That's the only explanation I can think of, and I'm not sure it's a valid argument.

Unfortunately, I'd made a mistake with the decrease/increase rows:


I didn't knit through the back loop on those increases, so there are holes. Aaargh. I dropped each of the increase stitches and picked them back up. It's sort of helped.

I'm crossing my fingers and toes, and knocking on all wood I pass that I have enough yarn for this. I'm using the correct yarn weight, but it's knit much looser for drape. Even though I don't have as much yardage as the pattern calls for, I think I may just manage this. Even if I don't, this will look much better with short sleeves than the raglan would have.

Still need Secret Santa ideas, though. A note's gone 'round saying the gift has to be cheeky, rude or useless. Grrr.

A little help, please

So I have two problems I'd like to gather your thoughts on. Because I'm totally stumped.

1) For the work Secret Santa thingy, I drew the CEO's wife. I've never met this woman; I know nothing about her. In fact, I'm only assuming it's his wife- they have the same surname. What the heck do I get someone I know absolutely zilch about? 10 quid limit.

2) My train knitting has been a plain stockinette raglan. It has turned out to be totally unlike what I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be a plain raglan with a wide, drapey turtleneck/cowl, with belled sleeves and simple natural rolled stockinette hems. In reality:


As you can see, I ran out of yarn. (Yes, really! I know, y'all can't believe it!) Not only can't I do the belled sleeves, but I can't do the turtleneck/cowl either. Which meant the neckline had to be finished off some way- otherwise, it would be too unstructured up there. So there's just a bit of ribbing. The non-belled sleeves is not an issue; they would get in the way at work and were probably a bad idea, anyway. The problem I put to you readers is: what to do about the sleeves now?

I have just enough yarn to finish them off with ribbing as is, but it's a weird length. Short sleeves? Puffy short sleeves? Short drapey sleeves? I have no clue, and I've totally run out of ideas. Even though this didn't come out as I imagined, I think it could still be a good, easily wearable sweater if I sort out the sleeve issue.

Any help and insight appreciated. Pretty please?


P.S: Have you seen Cheryl's Knitty pattern? Totally cute.

I finally made it to the Southampton knitting group! It's at the Borders in town, which is conveniently close to the train station. There were a good dozen people, and everyone was awfully nice. Also, a lot of people were wearing things they'd knit, which is nice to see. I hope I can make it regularly. Work has been so crazy I hadn't managed it before.

I worked a bit on my current (and only!) project, a plain raglan knit in the round with some Artesano Alpaca which was frogged from its previous incarnation. I'm not going to have enough yarn for the full length sleeves I wanted, though.

It was really nice to talk to people who aren't work colleagues or The Limey. Much as I like all of them, I really needed to talk to other people. This brings me to the perennial "How do I make friends" problem that has dogged me for the last few years. It isn't helped by moving around every few years.

Hallelujah! (Updated and edited)

(This entry was written quite quickly yesterday, so I've added some useful stuff.)

Print O' the Wave
Yarn: 2 + an irritatingly teeny bit of a 3rd skein of Margaret Stove Artisan Laceweight Merino in plum
Needles: 2.0mm Pony bamboo dpns and 2.0mm 100cm Addi Turbos
Pattern: The oh-so-popular Print O' the Wave by Eunny Jang

Notes: Finally, finally! It only took nearly a year, but now it's done. Modifications include reducing the centre panel to only three horizontal repeats instead of four, and lengthening it to 40 vertical repeats instead of 34. Also, I did the centre panel in one piece instead of grafting two pieces.


I used Eunny's helpful advice at this Knitter's Review thread, and in figuring out all the modifications, I found CogKnition's notes on her PotW really useful.

I'm not even going to go into what happened when I ran out of yarn. (Of course I ran out of yarn!) Each 20g skein is 300m. I used two and maybe, oh, 20 metres of the third. Annoying. What'm I going to do with the rest of it? (By the way, how did I run out of yarn? The pattern called for 500 yards of cobweight weight. I made sure I had cobweight weight. I had 600m of it, and I made the centre panel a whole quarter narrower. How could I have run out of yarn? How?!)

The blocked size was 43cm wide and 160cm long. It could have been blocked longer, I think. By the way, you know how when you read about blocking lace, they just say, Oh, pin out the points, spritz, and ooooh, the magic of blocking. Well, they lie. It's fecking hard to block a huge piece of lace evenly. I'm totally buying blocking wires if I do a big piece of lace again.

This yarn is lovely to work with and blocks out beautifully. I would totally work with it again.


If you want to see a better close-up of the lace pattern, look at Knitelly's. It's just like mine! I kept doing double-takes when I read about hers.

Whew!

Well, that was an interesting couple of weeks.

Work went crazy busy for a bit as we tried to get a report out to a client. It got even busier when the response came back asking questions such as "Do the people on this project really have PhDs?" and "Do you know the first thing about what we want you to do?" and "Are you capable of achieving even the most basic requirements of this project?" They were Not Happy. So then there were rounds of meetings with everyone and his dog; there were people tripping over themselves to apologize; there was, of course, even more work for us.

I tried hard to get to the Southampton knitting group for the past two Thursdays, but each time it turned out I had to stay at work way late.

The Limey has been great even though he started work this week himself. He's gotten home before me and starts cooking, so I can just collapse when I get in.

There's one more week of instrument time, during which I have to cram in as many experiments as I physcially can. Then it'll be data analysis time, and then it'll be report time again. I'm looking forward to Christmas break, I tell you.

What's me, what's not

Well, we've had nearly a month in the flat now. The Limey has been at home to buy stuff, take deliveries, fix things around the place, etc., so things have been chugging along pretty well. But he starts work next Monday, so I think any more changes will be coming very slowly.

So unfortunately, it looks like these are staying:


Living room lights. Gotta love the fake distressed copper finish. And those green streaks running down the shades!


The hall lights. I think maybe they were stolen from a country hotel. The dusty picture-covered hallway of a manor house somewhere is missing its lights.


Uh...this is in the second bedroom. I'm not sure what's up with it at all. The Limey's already taken down the lightshade in the main bedroom, so I have no pictures, but it was a ball made from stringing plastic pink beads onto a round shape. It belonged in the bedroom of a little girl in her ballerina stage. A little girl with bad taste.


Old dark heavy wood curtain rods, mounted, as you can see, right up against the ceiling. Why?? Why?? Plus, that paint over the base there? The management agency actually paid somebody 1800 quid to repaint and touch up the flat, and that's what they did. I won't even show you the other crimes they have perpetrated on this poor flat.

Oh, wait, yes I will.

Yes, sickly mint green plastic. Lovely. Oh, that streaky paint over the top there? Yeah, great painting job, guys.

Those are some of the things we haven't fixed yet. A couple of things that we have done:


The Limey bought this on e-Bay. It is totally over the top, doesn't match anything we have, and has a tear on one of the arms. But it is awesome. Absolutely awesome. Who doesn't love a red velvet couch?! It's really comfy, too. I can sit sideways on it, knitting, with my back against the arm, and put my feet up or on The Limey's lap.

Now the best thing:


Ah, you think I've finally lost it. No, what I would draw your attention to is the tap. Do you see? A tap. One tap. A mixer tap. For reasons which I cannot fathom, the peoples of these here islands like to pretend that mixer taps don't exist. Possibly they are masochists who like alternately freezing and burning themselves. I live with it in the bathrooms. But when we moved in here, there were separate taps in the kitchen. So if you wanted to wash something and:
a) actually want to get it clean, but
b) don't particularly want all the skin on your hands burned off,
then you have to fill up the whole sink. Oh, you only wanted to wash a couple of bowls? Tough.

Not only that, but the taps they had put on there barely reached over the side of the sink, so that we could hardly fit the kettle under there to fill it, never mind fit bowls and plates and cutting boards under them to rinse.

I told The Limey his people were backasswards looney and demanded a mixer tap. So the poor thing drove around the greater Guildford area looking for a mixer tap that didn't cost 200 pounds. Then he spent a couple hours grunting and cursing under the sink. But now, behold, the mighty mixer tap!

Stay tuned for how the hell we will manage when both of us work and the cat goes crazy. Crazier.

Amidst the upheaval, some knitting

There has been some knitting the last month or so. I didn't really have the emotional strength to commit to a big project, so it's been socks.


Snicket Socks
Yarn: Jaeger Baby Merino 4-ply, lots left over from two balls
Needles: 4.0 mm dpns
Pattern: Snicket Socks by Sabine Riefler for Magknits

Notes: I knit these during the packing-up time in Dublin, picking them up between filling boxes with crap I didn't even know I had. No big changes to the pattern. I substituted my own tried-and-true short row heels and just winged it with the toes until they looked right. These could have been longer, especially since I had so much yarn left over. I made the medium size, but at tighter gauge, so they're snug.


The pattern is easy enough, but she left out some details like what to do at the ends of rounds when you can't quite finish a whole repeat. It's easy to figure out, but it was mildly frustrating to have to do it. Will wear these lots, I think. The only limiting factor is how long the yarn will last; it was pilling quite badly after the first wearing.

Random useless trivia: Lemony Snicket, the author of "A Series of Unfortunate Events" and for whom these socks are named, went to my high school! Isn't your life so totally more enlightened now?

I started these next socks for The Limey the minute I finished the Snickets. In fact, I wound this yarn at my last Dublin SnB meeting (sob!).

Upheaval Socks
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, in Moody Blues, from I Knit London, every inch of one skein
Needles: 2.0 mm dpns
Pattern: basic toe-up ribbed socks

Notes: I bought this yarn on the flat-hunting trip The Limey and I made last month, so this project has really bridged the whole moving process. I started knitting them in Dublin, continued on my first train commutes here, and finished them in the new flat one evening. Thus their fancy name, but they're just your basic ribbed socks. I knit them toe-up until I thought I had half the yarn left, started the second sock from the other end, then knit until they were both the same length and I had no yarn left. (The Limey likes his socks high.)

This is the first time I've worked with a Cherry Tree Hill yarn, and I love it. Love it. If I didn't know better, I'd swear it had some silk or bamboo in it, it's so soft and smooth. I loved just winding the skein up into a ball. I don't spin, so I have no clue, but I've heard it's smooth because the yarn is spun so tightly. It just glides through your fingers, and The Limey says they're the squishiest, nicest socks ever. I would totally, totally knit with this yarn again, so it's good I'd convinced The Limey to let me buy two skeins of it! (I used the "but I'll soon be working!" argument.)

Actually, maybe one thing would hold me back from being swept head over heels by this yarn: even though it's supposedly superwash, I've heard that it doesn't stand up so well in the machine and should be hand-washed. I'm not so excited about hand-washing socks; I'm even less excited about The Limey hand-washing his socks.

Woking girl

(Get it? Get it? Ha.)

So, we finally have interweb at home (Virgin Media sucks), so some progress reports.

1) The move: as The Limey said, everything went fine. We got here, the cat's freaked out, it's three weeks later and we're still in a sea of boxes. See, we haven't got any furniture, but we do have boxes of stuff that goes on, into, inside, around and against furniture. So that stuff'll just have to stay in boxes for now. What we're going to do about furniture will be saved for another post, I think.

2)The job: is awesome. I was lucky with timing. The project I was put on started experimental work the day I joined the company. So I could get my hands dirty right away. I'm back to UHV (ultra-high vacuum) work, which is what I did my PhD in, so I could tighten bolts, press buttons, etc., without having to be supervised or given detailed instructions all the time. Basically I felt that I made myself useful right away. The people are really friendly, and there's still the feel of a university research group about the whole thing. Except unlike some academic research groups, everything is managed very tightly and everyone has projects with clear goals and progress is monitored and measured so everybody knows what's happening. It's nice.

3)The flat and Woking: The flat is pretty good. For some reason I remembered the living room being longer, but it's still quite large. You could fit The Limey's whole Ringsend flat in it. The kitchen is a separate room, which is nice. Open plan kitchens are great in theory, but in practice, everything just smells like cooking all the time. The people who decorated the place had terrible taste. I think we'll be replacing a lot of stuff.
As for Woking, well, er, Woking is less than exciting. I think it's because it's an awkward distance from London. London is so close that there's no point having anything here except the train station. If you want to buy/do/get/see anything, you go up to London. But it's just far enough away that it's a pain in the ass if you just wanted to pop out quickly to, oh, say, a yarn shop, or anything. The pubs we've tried have been very quiet. Restaurants consist of the ubiquitous fast food chains, curry houses, Chinese take-aways, and a couple of "pizza and pasta"-type Italian places.

4) The commute: is frustrating. So, yes, I live quite far away from work- roughly 40 miles. The first 38 is covered in 45-50 minutes by train. It's fine- there're always seats. I sit, knit, read, nap, whatever. That last two miles is teeth-grindingly frustrating. My job right now is in two locations: the labs (which are still at the university) and the offices, which are in a commercial/industrial estate northwest of the city. Getting the the uni is no problem: if I take the 08:00 train, I'm in lab at 09:15. However, getting to the company's offices is a total, absolute nightmare. The first time I did it, it took me three hours. Three hours! Two hours ten minutes of which was to cover the two miles between the train station and the office. See, there's no bus to the estate. The closest bus stop is a 30 minute walk away. Worse, there's no direct bus from the train station to this bus stop. I have to get a bus into the university and change. And traffic in certain parts of Southampton (the part the buses go on, naturally) is really bad during the commuting hours. So I wait forever for the bus, then the bus takes forever to cover a 5-minute journey. So far, I've dealt with this problem by never going up to the offices. This is not a permanent solution, however, as the company is buying new equipment and slowly moving everything to the estate and leaving the university labs.

I really don't want to drive. I won't be able the beat train time on that first 38 miles; it would solely be to save my sanity on that last two miles. But then I don't get my knitting/reading time and does Southampton really need another car on the roads at commuting hours? And with the cost of a car, insurance, and petrol, I probably won't be able to do it for less than my train pass.

I think I'll get a bike.

Move

Ey'up. The Limey, here.

Lien asked me to post a quick note, since we have no internet access in the new flat, yet (hopefully this'll be sorted tomorrow). I haven't started my job yet, so I have time to sit in the coffee shop and exploit their free wireless network ... although I should probably spend more time unpacking.

The move is complete, and everyone & everything is here safely, although Chloë is a little perturbed by the change of location and the fact that new stuff keeps turning up. Lien has started her new job: she was straight into the lab on her second day, and has been doing all manner of new science since (and I'm pretty sure that she's enjoying it).

With any luck, Lien will be able to post here within the next couple of days, as our cable box is supposed to arrive tomorrow. Let's see how well ParcelForce compares to Án Post.

-M.

Aaaaaagh!

Can't blog...Limey making me pack...removals people here on Saturday...house looks like this:

Some notes on Horseshoes Cardigan

I've had a trawl through the web and thought I'd address some of the thoughts people have had on the Horseshoes Cardigan. I've really enjoyed reading what people have to say about the pattern, so I hope this is useful (if people who want to knit the cardigan actually find this blog!).

1. Sleeves- this would look great with long sleeves. I would have put in long sleeves, except -you guessed it- I didn't have enough yarn. I wouldn't even bother putting in shaping; knit straight and block to the required trapezoid shape. Or keep the straight shape for a swingier sleeve.



2. Sizing- I realize the smallest size is a 36 inch / 91.5 cm bust measurement. This was just how the math came out. However, in the photos, I'm wearing the smallest size and my bust measurement is 34 inches / 86 cm. And there is no ease. How have I achieved this? Through the minor miracle of blocking- I simply blocked the cardigan to my size. Lace is stretchy and looks nice in a range of stretchednesses (look! I made up a word!), so it's easy to block the finished garment to a couple inches smaller or larger than the stated sizes. Just remember not to block the ribbing too much.

3. Length- It's easy to make this longer or shorter. For more length, knit more ribbing or add a few vertical repeats of the lace before you start armscye / neck shaping. For shorter, knit less ribbing..


4. I really like to use short rows for the shaping when I can. The neckline was done with short rows, so there's a nice, even straight edge, and you don't have to go over it with a crochet hook or anything. It's finished as you knit.

Why, lookie here

Horseshoes Cardigan
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Pure Silk
Needles: 2.5 mm

Pattern: my own, found at Magknits! (Eeeee!)

I wasn't entirely sure Magknits were going to publish this until a few days before the October issue went live, and then I saw it just as we were preparing to fly over to the UK to go flat-hunting, so I haven't had time to let it sink in yet!

I'm totally excited about it. The pattern editor must have superpowers or something, because her re-worked version makes a million times more sense than the original I had sent in. I do wish I had gotten better pictures, but, well, photographing knits and yarn, modelling clothes, setting up shoots, it's all an art that I still have yet to acquire any talent in.

I'd love to hear any comments, questions, rants, etc., so please feel free to contact me about the pattern!

Having said that, though, I haven't looked at any of the knitting forums to see what the reaction has been. I'm slightly frightened, because sometimes people are merciless, but if I wasn't told what isn't good, how am I supposed to improve? So I'll go and check now. Cross your fingers.