Mmm...cake

There are a few foods for which I eagerly await. I am in so much anticipation for strawberry season, for example, that I can never stop myself buying the first punnet I see in the stores, even though it's April (or March, sometimes!) and I know they will taste sour. Or asparagus- there is nothing like British asparagus. As soon as I see bunches that haven't been flown in from Peru or Egypt, I snap them up. And fava beans! (Or broad beans, as they call them here.) It takes forever to de-pod and de-shell them, but by the Gods, they taste good.

So I'm always on the lookout for the stand-out foods of any time of the year. Unfortunately, in January/February, not much is out. Well, except for these:


Not very pretty, are they? They're Seville oranges. I bought a whole bag of ten for a couple quid, with absolutely no idea what to do with them. They're not very pretty on the inside, either:


They aren't eating oranges, although of course, you can't help but try some anyway, can you? They have a sour taste that goes on to become bitter. They also have an aftertaste that reminds me of something, but I can't think what. Maybe orange-flavoured liquers? That gives me an idea- you could probably steep a few slices in vodka; I bet that would be good.

Apparently, the thing to do with Seville oranges is to make marmalade. These make the best marmalade, I'm told. Unfortunately, I've never been a big fan of jams and marmalades. I gave The Limey the option of using them this way, but he declined, so off I went to look for recipes for these specific oranges.

Well, honestly, what's better than cake?

This recipe (scroll down) uses the orange zest for the cake itself, and orange juice for the syrup. It's lovely, and is reminiscent of Nigella's clementine cake, but with bite. I found that the syrup came out too runny to be called syrup, but I'm not complaining, because when you pour it over the cake, it absorbs it and the cake/syrup concoction becomes beautifully moist, but not mushy, although it's close. If I do this again, though, I'd add more sugar to the syrup.


This is not one of your light, fluffy cakes, oh no.

Old news

Right before my Thanksgiving trip home, I was laid off (or "made redundant," for the Brits) from my job.

Now, let's get this straight: being laid off sucked. Huge donkey balls.

But...but...

This does rather solve a lot of problems for me and The Limey. The silver lining shone quite brightly, as a matter of fact. My commute was getting increasingly unbearable- almost everything had moved to the science park outside of Southampton and I was spending upwards of four hours a day getting to and from it. And the golden lining behind the silver one: there is now no reason for us to stay in Woking!

Oh yes, as soon as I find a new job, we are out! And now, of course, I have a much better idea of what kind of commute I can tolerate and what kind of work I want to do.

Sure, job-hunting sucks, as it always has, and not having my income sucks, but we can live pretty much indefinitely on The Limey's salary. I'm so glad now that I insisted on renting a place we could afford on one income. Without my hugely expensive monthly train ticket, we can get by pretty well. There's not much money left over, mind, so I can't go jetting off to London whenever I want, and- horrors!- we've had to stop shopping at Waitrose, but we're comfortably in the black. Plus, I got some redundancy pay, which went directly into a savings account for the house/flat/whatever we want to buy eventually.

Anyway, what this means is I have the luxury of time in finding a new job. I'll need it in this job market, for sure, but it does mean I can look out for exactly what I want.

I didn't post about this on the blog because, unlike the last time I was job-hunting, it is now easy to find this blog with a search on my full name. And any hiring manager worth his/her salt would do such a search, I believe. But not working has such a big effect on my day-to-day life that not blogging about it seemed weird to me. So, although I won't blog about the job search itself, I will be able to talk about what the heck I'm doing with all this free time.

Reason #5803 to hate this stupid town

You know what I need? I need a partner-in-crime for my knitting/designing.

One of the things I've always liked about my science work is that there are always people to bounce ideas off of, to work through different scenarios, to egg me on to try out whatever silly thoughts happened to appear in my head, to weigh up pros and cons of various courses of action.

Unfortunately, at the moment, knitting/designing is very much something I'm doing alone, which is too bad.

Happy lunar new year!

You know, since I moved out of my parents', I don't do much for Chinese new year. I don't bother with the traditional foods, and I certainly am too lazy for the ritual end of year cleaning and stuff. So I always start the year with a vague feeling of guilt.

Next year, if we have the money, I think we'll go home for the holiday. That way, I can feel like I'm celebrating it, but not actually have to do anything! Ha. Genius.

Oh, the geekery!

I don't think it's possible to be too geeky with the knitting, do you?


Can you guess what they are? These were made for a friend, who will use them for training and education purposes. With children, even!


DNA helix
Yarn: various bits of leftover aran-ish weight yarn
Needles: 3.5mm dpns
Pattern: Kimberly Chapman's ingenious Baby's First DNA Model

Notes: Well, what can I say, it's a DNA double helix model. The twist is knit right into the backbones, which is awesome. I did ignore the directions for making the base pairs. Putting the whole thing together required more than the standard number of hands, but I eventually managed it. It's a great pattern, and, as I said, ingenious.


Chromosome
Yarn: some leftover Rowan Pure Wool and DB Cathay (I think)
Needles: 3.0mm dpns
Pattern: just two circularly-knit tubes

Notes: This was pretty easy to make. I chose random numbers of rounds for each stripe, stuffed it as I went along, and stopped when I got sick of changing colours. I used Techknitting's jogless stripes method, which works very well. There're a few bits where I wasn't careful about carrying the non-used colour up and a few loose places where you can see a bit of the stuffing (if only I could have found dark-coloured stuffing), but on the whole, pretty good.

The other thing about the chromosome is:


It un-snaps at the link! My friend wanted to be able to talk about crossovers and be able to show a bit of how it happens, so I made the chromosome "openable" to show separation in meiosis. (Or, at least that's what I remember from AP Biology.) It's just a normal snap button closure. If I had more energy, I could have made a few chromosomes, with bits or lengths that unsnapped or un-velcroed that could be exchanged, but you know, there's only so much I'm willing to do.

Yay me.

...doing little self-congratulatory happy dance...

So that second gripe in the last post about a design not working out? Today I took a good hard look at the pattern I wanted to use. I tiled the repeats together in Excel (well, Open's Office's Calc) so that I could see the whole pattern easily, then thought, well, hell, there's no need to follow Ms Walker's every last stitch, is there? So I took stock of what features I really wanted, took away those that, though nice, were not necessary, made the whole repeat smaller, simplified it, pared it down, and I've now got two possibilities charted out. Both will allow for *much* easier size grading, and are easier to understand and knit, to boot.

...does more dancing...

(Cat's now looking at me strangely.)

Of course, the proof will be in the pudding...er, swatching, but one of the possibilities will work.

GodDAMmit!

The Anti-Funk cowl did its job, and right after I finished it, I went through my (mental and actual) list of knitting things to do and started attacking those tasks that need to be done before the fun part of knitting them starts. But I swear to the Flying Spaghetti Monster the universe is out to get me. Below, my list of gripes:

1. After many hours of searching through Ravelry, and taking into account the suggestions made by you guys about what to do with that skein of Misti Alpaca variegated laceweight, I found something I thought might work: the Fiddlesticks Peacock Feathers Shawl. It's written as a triangular shawl, but a couple of people on Ravelry have converted it to a rectangular stole. I also saw a few versions made in some subtly variegated yarn (including one from the Harlot herself) that make me think it might just work with my Misti Alpaca. Great! So I set about trying to buy this pattern. First, because I'm all about the instant gratification, I look for a PDF version of this thing. Nope. Only comes in actual paper form (I know! WTF?!). Fine, okay, accept that, move on to UK vendors of the pattern, but find none that take PayPal (my knitting fund is in PayPal form). Of course I could just use a credit card, but now it's layers and layers of inconvenience piled on top of one another, you know?

2. I had a design that I'd thought out, swatched and sketched. All that remained was to scan the swatch and sketch, and write up the design proposal. Great, I did all that while on my Anti-Funk high. While trying to decide where to submit it, I started in on the fun part of knitting myself a version. While working out the math for my size, I realize it will never scale up well. While I can fudge numbers a little and and move a few stitches around to knit my size, the large pattern repeat means that sizes would have to go up by huge increments. Alternatively, I can put in partial repeats, but the pattern is already quite complicated and I'm not sure I can work out how to shift everything around and line everything up properly for seven sizes. And still have a readable pattern, anyway. So, although I've started knitting one for me, this design has to be shifted to the back burner until I can figure out what to do, if anything. It may just be a lost cause.

3. I set forth to work on my only new year's resolution of doing more colourwork. I have something in mind I want to try and went to look up appropriate yarns- a 4-ply or fingering weight yarn, with lots and lots of colour options. I found a few: Brown Sheep Nature Spun, Dale of Norway Baby Ull, Jamieson's 2-ply, Jamieson and Smith 2-ply, a few others. I went looking for places that will sell me colour cards. But I can't find anything! They must sell colour cards of these yarns- does anyone know where I can order some? Or colour cards for similar yarns?

4. From knitting the design in gripe #2, my hand hurts. Lots. I think I'm knitting too tightly, or those k3tog are causing my hand to cramp. It will annoy me no end if it gets so bad that I can't knit, so I'm rationing myself to a few rows a day.

The Anti-Funk

This, my friends, is the Anti-Funk. What?, you're saying, it looks like a garter rectangle. And that's what it is- well, actually, it's a garter loop. It's called the Anti-Funk for two reasons. One is that, other than the yarn, there is absolutely nothing special or interesting or funky about this project at all. The second is that it was knit in an attempt to get me out of a knitting funk I'm in. Prior to this, I hadn't knit anything since I finished Ephelant a week or so ago. I kept looking at my list of projects to swatch for, but nothing seemed to work. My design ideas were either stupid or impossible to execute. I didn't have any good yarn/pattern matches for other things I wanted to knit. My fingers were itching to knit, but I didn't even feel up to swatching. So, enter the Anti-Funk cowl.


The Anti-Funk
Yarn: 80% Alpaca/20% silk sock yarn, hand-dyed by Jenny Cook, from the Wool & Willow shop in Hay-on-Wye, 70-80g
Needles: 3.0mm Addi Turbo lace
Pattern: uh, it's a garter stitch rectangle?

I'd been wanting a close-fitting, warm cowl ever since my unsatisfactory experience with the Flared Lace Smokering. I was spurred on by the fact that it's been freezing over here. I looked through all the great cowl patterns on Ravelry, but, honestly, I didn't want to swatch- I just wanted to get knitting. (Haven't had that experience for a while!) Partially for this reason, I didn't knit this in the round- my brain wasn't even going to stretch to calculating how many stitches to cast on, plus I had no clue what circumference I wanted it to be. The other reason I didn't knit this in the round was that I fancied the garter ridges going vertically when the object is worn. I don't know why.

So, using the crochet provisional cast-on, I cast on until it looked as "tall" as I wanted, and just started knitting. As I knit, I reflected on garter stitch. I'd chosen it because I didn't want to have to count rows; even the two-row repeat of seed stitch was too taxing. And I remembered a while ago thinking that some variegated yarns look really good in plain garter. Lucky for me, this was one of them.



Like many new knitters, I started off knitting garter swatches. Also like many other new knitters, I was eager to go on to stockinette, and didn't like the bumpiness of the garter rows. I didn't like reverse stockinette for the same reason. As I knit more and more, though, I'm starting to appreciate them- I love the way these simple stitches perk up plain stockinette when used together, and I love the way they so easily add textural interest. I even like the edges: flat, even, beautifully finished.

As I knit my garter rectangle, I also realized how difficult it is to knit a good-looking, even garter fabric.


You think stockinette shows up flaws like uneven tension? Next time you notice rowing out or loose or uneven stitches in your stockinette fabric, flip it over and see how much more these flaws shop up in the reverse stockinette purl bumps! I really had to keep my attention on the knitting- it certainly didn't turn out to be as mindless a knit as I'd thought. Part of this ball of yarn had been used to swatch something before, and I'd unravelled it and wound it back up. As a consequence, the beginning of my garter rectange, with the previously-used yarn, was terribly unattractive. The kinks in the yarn meant the garter rows were sometimes interrupted by loose or tight stitches, every one of which showed up to mock me. In the end, I had to cut off the length knit with the previously-used yarn.

When I knit the rectangle to as long as I wanted the circumference of my cowl to be (45cm, apparently), I made sure the beginning and ending rows on the "right side" were purl rows, then grafted the two ends together. (Normal grafting makes a knit row on the "public" side of the knitting, so for a garter object, you'd want to make this knit row between two purl rows.) I grafted a bit too tightly, actually, but it's not noticeable enough to annoy me.


All in all, I think it may have done its job. I have a warm cowl, and I can face my stitch dictionaries once again to think about swatching for some designs.

Some words about this yarn: Yum. Summer sorbet colours in cloud soft alpaca/silk. I have another skein of this, and will have to think of something worth its specialness.

A present

As I've noted before, I'm quite a selfish knitter. But every once in a while, even I am moved to knit for other people. In this case, because one of my oldest friends -we've known each other since we were 12- has gone and gotten herself knocked up. Because I adore her and her husband and am deliriously happy that they are deliriously happy, I presented them with Ephalent:

Ephalent
Yarn: Sirdar Supersoft Toddler Aran, from Pandora in Guildford, less than half of one ball of the main colour
Needles: 4.0mm dpns
Pattern: Ysolda Teague's Elijah, of course

Notes: Great pattern, knit in the round, stuffed as you knit, with extremities picked up and knit, so no seaming. The pattern's very well written, and easy to follow. The only real problem I had with the knitting was that it's hard to get the eyes large enough using French knot embroidery. I guess I could have gone out and bought really chunky yarn just for that, but that seemed to be going a bit far.

Because I've never made toys before, I had a hard time figuring out how much stuffing to use. I also had to figure out how to stuff so that it wasn't too lumpy. I think it turned out alright, though.


Instead of the DK weight yarn specified in the pattern, I used an Aran weight. Actually, I had also made one in DK weight, but wanted a bigger toy for this gift. Obviously, I also used a constrasting colour for the ears and the feet/hand pads.


Other than those, the other modifications I made were to do things in a slightly different order. After knitting the head, I put on the eyes, and knit the ears before doing the body. From making the first, smaller toy, I knew it was a pain in the ass to be doing the ears at the end, when you've got turn the whole body, with legs and arms around at each row.

It's just so cute that I could hardly bear to send it off, but it's now in California, waiting for the birth of its new owner.

Anti-resolutions

So, after accepting that my house will never live up to unrealistic expectations, it is time to look even closer to home...er, so to speak.

Anti-resolution 2: I will accept that, no matter how old I am or how much money I make, I will always look like a sloppily-dressed student. As I get older, I'll simply be seen as a sloppily-dressed mature student. See, in my head, I have style, I have flair, I have personality, I don't just look like everyone else on the high street. In reality, I'm in ratty, one-size-too-big, slightly dumpy clothes, haven't had a hair cut in two years, and don't own any make-up. (Incidentally, this is why I hate pictures of myself- it interferes with the perfect me I have in my head. Cognitive dissonance- ouch.)

What I envy is the sheer “put together-ness” that some people achieve with their appearance. Everything fits, and is the correct length and proportions, and shows that the wearer has some personality. Especially around certain London neighbourhoods, I look around and wail to myself, Why not me?! I'm cool! I'm -still, relatively- young! I know what looks good!

But no. In real life, I prioritize comfort. I hate anything tight or binding. Given a pair of trousers, in my size, that fit and look good, and a pair one size up that is much more comfortable, but looks slouchy and slobby, I'll always go for the latter. I'm too lazy to accessorize: I wear scarves because it's cold out, and then I choose for warmth; I wear a belt only for the few pairs of jeans that are slightly too loose, and the fact that I have to get out the -yes, the- belt frequently means I can't be bothered with those few pairs of jeans; I haven't worn any earrings other than plain silver studs for years.

Now, wanting to dress better is not in itself a bad thing. The bad thing for me is that it means I buy clothes that I think I should wear, and so that beautiful silk camisole will just sit in the closet, un-touched, because I'll always grab the nice, comfy shirt next to it.

So. I will stop wasting my time, money and energy. I will cease comparing myself against some made-up picture in my head. I will Let It Go.

Happy 2009, everybody!

So the blogosphere is of course filled with new year resolutions and "in an earlier episode"-type summaries of 2008.

I will go without the recap of last year (whadya mean, learn from my mistakes?), but I will talk about a resolution (knitting-related), and a couple of anti-resolutions (not knitting-related).

The resolution is easy: I'll do more colourwork. It's one area of knitting in which I've been lax about learning.

The anti-resolutions may take a bit of explaining. You know how people resolve that they'll diet, or save money, or cook more? They try to get themselves to make good changes to their lifestyles (or what somebody, somewhere, thinks are good changes).

Well, in this year, as I really dig deeper into my 30s, I would like to accept certain aspects of my lifestyle, and resolve to stop myself from thinking that I've fallen short of some ideal that is only in my head, or in the heads of others whom I don't care about. That is, I will resolve not to change certain things.

Anti-resolution 1: I will accept that my home will never look like it comes from the pages of property porn catalogues. Or, more pointedly, I will accept that I am a bad housekeeper. The place in which I live, be it a teeny flat or a large house, shared space or not, will always be cluttered. There will always seem to be "stuff" everywhere. Every horizontal surface will be covered in several layers of detritus. There is no point buying flowers for my home, because they will simply be lost amongst the random crap- you'd never notice them.

(Now, don't get me wrong- I'm messy, but I'm not dirty, if you see the difference. I don't leave moldy plates of food in the bedroom or anything. Although the bathroom could be cleaned more.)

I have seen pictures of people's homes, or visited friends' places, and wail to myself, How?! You can see the floor! Look at this nicely mis-matched furniture! Look at the table that you can eat at! Look at the little tchotchkes they've displayed from their travels and how it doesn't just look like a pile of random Christmas cracker toys they've inexplicably put on their bookshelf! How?! Why not me?!

Well. I will no longer beat myself up over this. I will not be a better person if I had a neater home. I will not automatically be a happier person if I had nicer furniture. I will therefore, Let It Go.

Next up, anti-resolution 2.

How to suck up to your in-laws:

Spend Christmas week at their place knitting their son a pair of socks.

(Actually, I don't need this kind of PR, because The Limey's parents love me.)


Waffle rib socks
Yarn: Lang Jawoll Silk, 100g, from IKnit
Needles: 2.0mm dpns
Pattern: an easy, mindless, but visually interesting broken rib

Notes: I got tired of plain ribbed socks for The Limey, so this one is done in an easy four row repeat ribbing: two rounds of 2x2 rib and two rounds of plain knit. This gives the sock a great waffley-looking texture when un-worn, like above. When worn, it shows the ribs more prominently, and could be mistaken for the simpler garter rib, which is maybe what I'll try next.


I really like the texture. The rest of the sock is my normal toe-up recipe with figure 8 cast-on and short row heel. This yarn is a wool/nylon/silk blend, but to be honest, I can't really tell there's any silk in it- it's not shinier or smoother than a plain wool/nylon blend sock yarn. It does feel like it will wear well, though.

Science me up, Gok!

As a scientist, one of my personal pet peeves is the amount of pseudo-science that is spewed at people, particularly in advertising. The health and beauty industries are the absolutely worst offenders. The Limey and I keep a folder of pictures of products that are given a "nano" name because it just sounds so cool and cutting edge, even though the product is nothing of the sort. I once saw a bottled water advertised as having "added oxygen". W. T. F?

So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw my first episode of Channel 4's "How to Look Good Naked". For those who haven't seen it, it's a show in which our fearless host takes a British woman who hates her body for one reason or another and convinces her that her self-image is what needs work, that her body itself is beautiful and then shows her how to dress and style herself to show that body off. I know, it sounds a little bit...reality-show. Which it is. But I love it.

The first and foremost reason to love it is the host, Gok Wan. I tell you, we need more flamingly gay Asians in the public eye. We do.

The second reason is that, even though this sounds hippy dippy, he always convinces the women that they are beautiful as is. There is no suggestion of dieting or plastic surgery. Nothing of the sort. It's nice.

Third, and getting back to the science bit, is the way the show does its product reviews. They do them really well, and in a manner that is satisfying to my scientist brain.

1. They have a panel of 100 women, which is a good, large enough number for the data to be believable. If there are a few outliers, it won't affect the result.
2. They have the women test the products over a period of time. So they use the products as they are meant to be used, and they get to note reactions along the way. This is much better than just a first impressions kind of product trial, obviously.
3. Most importantly, they decant all the products into plain, un-marked jars. So it doesn't matter how much money is spent on packaging and advertising, and the testers can't be mis-led by scientific-sounding claims from the manufacturer.
   

As you can imagine with this kind of product testing, the more expensive, "exclusive" products more often than not end up at the bottom of the league. The women are often really surprised that the product they thought was best (at, whatever, wrinkle-removing, tanning, moisturizing, etc.) is the cheapest brand, or the one available at your normal supermarket.

The other result that kinda makes me feel smug and "I told you so" is that, for many of the products, there's very little difference in the ratings. That is to say, the night cream serum for eyes (or whatever) that gets ranked highest had a score only several percentage points away from that which ranked lowest. There's hardly ever a product which was obviously better and preferred by a majority of the testers. Meaning, most of this shite? Yeah, it's the same. And probably doesn't really do much anyway.

Help me out here

I'll get around to taking pictures of the yarn I bought in the US in a few days (it wasn't that much; I have the credit crunch to think about), but I do have a picture of one skein I bought that I want to work on soonest.


Yummy, no? It's a skein of Misti Alpaca Handpaint Lace, bought at Article Pract in Oakland. The colours are pretty true in this picture. Usually, I am very good at resisting most variegated yarns- I'm of the school that they look best in small projects in a plain stitch, so as to be able to show off the colours. Otherwise, it just makes highly-textured and patterned knitting just look kinda messy.

Well, here I am, then, with 800 metres of some of the softest yarn I've had the honour of getting my grubby mitts on. I bought the lace weight because I've had the insistent, nagging feeling for a while now that my next big project is going to be some fantastic lace.

Except...see above about textures and variegated yarns...

So I've been trawling through Ravelry and my books and magazines, but I thought I'd ask you guys: any ideas? Criteria: rectangular shawl/scarf pattern, only one skein of 800m of yarn, looks good in variegated yarn, in a mentally stimulating pattern. I don't mind paying for a good pattern, so anyone care to point me towards something awesome?

(For the non-knitting readers of this blog: The Limey and I went on a quick 24-hour trip to Brussels this weekend, but, uh, forgot to take the camera. I assure you all the city is beautiful. You can imagine it, right?)

Two continent living

So my father has decided to move out of the place we've been living in since I was 12. And for some inexplicable reason, he doesn't want to move the random combined junk of four children that is now taking up most of the volume of the current place. I know- WTF?! So apparently, we are no longer allowed to use the parental home as free storage space. The nerve.

Anyway, I swear to the Flying Spaghetti Monster I don't have much there. Well, okay, yeah, so when I moved to Dublin, I did send nine years of accumulated stuff from Seattle down to San Francisco. But I was going to move back and reclaim it after the post-doc! At any rate, I got rid of almost everything via Craig's List (have I mentioned how disappointed I am in the lame-ass Craig's List over here?), but I couldn't part with my books. I think, in the end, I sent down 14 or 15 printer-paper-carton-sized boxes, 10 or 11 of which were filled with books. Not too bad, really.

This was back in the day when the US post office still had a book rate option for shipping, so those boxes cost only, like, 10 bucks each to send across three states. However, they've gotten rid of this option, and posting my stuff to the UK would cost crazy amounts of money. So while The Limey and I were over there, we weren't going to waste our free baggage allowance, were we?



Between the two of us, we were allowed 4 bags, 50 lbs (23 kgs) each. So we filled two suitcases solely with books, and stuffed books anywhere we could in the other two to get up to the maximum weight (with some leeway; I wasn't going to get fined for being a pound over!). With this, and some culling of the collection, I've gone down to 6 boxes of books left at my father's, plus a few boxes of random bits and pieces. I think we're going to look into getting those sent over by sea freight or something.

The problem is...uh...where are we going to put all these books now?

Back in our little hovel

Got into Heathrow at silly o'clock this morning. Spent the whole day sleeping, therefore ruining any chance of a good recovery from jetlag.

At some point, we'll probably manage to get some pictures up.

Urrrgh....

There is one word that captures my week-and-a-half visiting Seattle/Portland/San Francisco, and that word is: food.

I've been pretty much stuffed to the gills the whole time I've been here. I can barely move most of the time. I still have a list of restaurants to visit.

I'm rolling myself off to bed now.

Squeee!

Just about to start packing to go for a visit to the US, for the first time in two years. The last time was right after The Limey and I got married.

Not only is it a long-awaited visit home to San Francisco, but it will also be a 3-state tour. We're seeing some of my old, old friends in Seattle and Portland before we fly down to SF.

I'm really excited because my group of college friends used to have these awesome, really fun Thanksgiving dinners, and I haven't made it to one for four years- ever since I moved out of the country. I timed this visit especially so I'd be in Portland for Turkey Day.

Besides that, I haven't seen these friends in nearly three years. Most of them, therefore, haven't even met The Limey. I have instructed them to queue up beer for him to try, because I'm sick of the crappy reputation American beers have over here. Miller and Budweiser are not representative when you have all the craft and microbreweries of the Pacific Northwest!

Tailored Tweed Dress

Have you checked out the new issue of Knotions yet?! If not, go now!

It's only the second issue of Knotions, but Jody's done such a great job with it- the patterns are really fabulous. And I say that not only because this lovely gem is in it:


Tailored Tweed Dress
Yarn: Commodum Aran Tweed
Needles: 3.5mm circulars
Pattern: my own! Available in the Winter 2008 issue of Knotions

Notes: Okay, I can hear the chorus: A knitted dress?! But, honestly, people, you will look good in this dress. I have done absolutely everything I can think of to make sure this dress fits and flatters.


This dress features:
A-line skirt: This shape of skirt looks great on virtually everyone. It skims your hips, and doesn't hug in inappropriate places.

Ribbed waist: The waist on this dress is ribbed and shaped. If you're one of those lucky women with an hourglass figure (like Audrey in these pictures), it will show it off. If you're like me and have the perfect 34-34-34 figure, it will give you a waist.


Shaping by darts: so that the dress is even vaguely woman-shaped, I have used decreases and increases in paired darts instead of just at the sides. At the back hips, I put in darts to nip in the waist. At the bust, I have put in darts at the front because, let's face it, you're carrying a bit more width at the front there than at the back, eh? (Even me!)

Slipped stitch lines: I've put in slipped stitch lines as fake "seams" to have some slimming vertical lines for the eye.

Adjustable length: Though this dress is designed to be knee-length, I know that this is different for everyone. (Oh, don't I know about height issues!) So I've written the pattern in a way that lets you decide your perfect skirt length and knit to that length.

So now that I've convinced you that you would look awesome in this dress, what's in it for you as a knitter?
Knit in the round: 'Nuff said.

Aran-weight yarn: so you're not knitting a bazillion stitches per round, but it doesn't add unacceptable bulk to the wearer. Also, this is a pretty easy weight for substitution.


Herringbone edges: I got bored of ribbed, garter, and moss-stitch edges. The herringbone is interesting.


So, go on! You know you want to!

How's that for unfair?

The Limey was sent off this morning for work... to Dublin.

The decision to send him was made at short notice, and flights for me to Dublin for this weekend (unfortunately too busy at work to take any days off) were too expensive. So I'm stuck here while he's off drinking with our friends at a variety of pubs. Pah!

City mouse vs. country mouse

For the past few months, The Limey and I have been having a conversation that goes 'round and 'round in circles. We're not disagreeing with each other, we just can't make a decision or figure out what we want.

First, the good news: due to the "current economic climate" and our- okay, The Limey's- saving prowess, we have enough for a deposit on a modestly-priced home. Even here in SE England.

The bad news is: we don't know where we want to live / what we want to buy! (I know, I know, first world problems.)

As mentioned before, I'm a city girl. I've always said that, should the day ever come, I'd choose a teeny city centre flat over a huge suburban house without a moment's hesitation. Now that that day is here, I'm completely confused.

See, when I compared the suburban home vs the city centre flat in my head, I didn't know that I would so desperately want a garden. I also didn't know that the desired flat would mean an extra hour's commute into work. When it was a hypothetical choice without, you know, reality muddying the waters, it was simple. But am I willing to give up space, an extra bedroom, a dining room, a garden, and five extra hours of life a week (on top of my already long commute)?

The Limey is different: he'd always figured he'd choose the larger suburban house, no problem. But for him, the house means he has to drive to work, which means no after work drinking with work buddies, as well as the stress of driving every day. The house means no easy ringing up of friends and saying, "See you down the pub in half an hour." The suburban house means friends and colleagues are too far away to casually invite 'round for dinner.

We've been talking about this for aaages, and we just can't get anywhere. We just don't know what we want. Now that it's time to actually look at possibilities, we're totally stuck.

How did you guys decide where to live? What other issues should we think about when deciding where to buy? How have you coped with commutes and friends? What do you wish you had known before you bought/moved? I know it's ultimately our decision, but I'm begging for any insight into the process, or any information that may sway us one way or another.

Some kind of record, surely?

Since it's been getting distinctly wintery here of late, I've gotten lots of chances to wear my knitted clothing. I've worn my Tailored Tweed Dress three times in the last two weeks. But today, I wore a record-breaking five (5!) pieces of hand-knits:

• Pomatomus socks
• Endpaper mitts
• Mongkok cardigan
• Flared Lace Smoke Ring
• hat I knit waaay back from when I first moved to Dublin

They're in all different styles and clashing colours, but so what?

SANITY PREVAILED!

As Kate noted, the title of my last post could have been written about the election results, and so it is.

I was going to write a long post about patriotism and my conflicting and confusing attitudes towards being patriotic, but I'll just say this:

I believe the election- by the American people- of Barack Obama crystallizes everything that is good about the US.

No matter what else happens, if I can hold on to that image of the Obama family as they came out for the victory speech, to know that they were given the chance (by a landslide!) to occupy The White House, I can be proud of my country.

Sanity prevails

I thought seriously about staying up all night, nursing a vat of wine and watching the election results come in. But since the polls don't start closing until 11pm UK time, I realized I'd have needed to plan ahead for it and taken tomorrow off work. Not to mention the hangover. Or, more likely, the still being drunk.

So I think I'll just check first thing in the morning.

Tease!

Back from Crete (schmoozing is tiring work!) where I had only a few minutes a day to check the internet, so it was great to come back to find that Jody has put up the Knotions Winter '08 preview. And hey, lookit this:


Remember that terrible wait for yarn? Well, it was because I had to quite hastily knit the Tailored Tweed Dress up. If I do say so myself, it was worth the wait. It knit up beautifully and is exactly how I envisioned the dress looking.

The Winter issue of Knotions comes out on Nov. 3. I'll be stalking the site.

(Oh, and before I alarm those who may know me: No, I have not magically turned into a hot Frenchwoman. I roped Audrey, our esteemed Lab Manager, into modelling the dress. Damn those perfectly-proportioned Frenchwomen!)

(Also, Ravelry says there are three projects for this pattern already. How?)

This is a pictureless post from Crete...

...because I forgot to bring (among other things):

1. a camera;

2. beach/pool-appropriate footwear;

3. my mp3 player (though, usefully, I remembered its charger); and

4. contact lens case (though I remembered its flight paranoia-compliant solution in <100ml container).

US vs Rest of World

I've just sent in my ballot for the presidential election. For the effect this will have on the election, I may as well have just put £1.80 directly into the post box. This is because:

1) I vote in California, which will go blue; and
2) they don't even count mail-in ballots unless the vote is really close, which it won't be, because see 1).

But I felt I should do my civic responsibility. Before I sent the ballot in, I brought it into work so people could see what it was like. The universal reaction was, "There are more than two choices?!" Ha. The other two things people can't understand are: the electoral college (fair enough; that bewilders lots of Americans, I think) and the fact that we vote for the actual person, not the party. That required a bit of explanation, which I'm uncertain cleared anything up.

But, really, it's amazing how interested people are in the US election. All the major news outlets have journalists over in the US covering it. TV channels here showed all the debates. Everyone is really informed about what's happening and at work, we've spent several lunch hours discussing it.

On the one hand, I think it's cool that people are plugged into what's happening in the world and interested in it. On the other hand, I hate that this feeds into the American egotism of "Of course they have to know what's going on here, 'cause we're that important." On the third hand, more than one Briton has told me (especially after Palin was announced as McCain's VP pick), It sucks that we can't vote in your elections, but at least we can be entertained by them.

As a comparison, I consider myself fairly well-informed, and when I was still in the US, don't at all remember seeing or hearing much about British politics, or, indeed, any international politics. Oh, we'd get wind of new leaders (if they lead "important" enough countries) after election or appointment, but we sure as hell didn't hear much about them otherwise. I don't even remember news of Tony Blair and Nu Labour coming in, in the '90s, and that was fairly major.

That concludes my political analysis. Either way, I'm going to be staying up late on the 4th, and drinking. Lots.

Disappointment

The last couple of weeks of knitting have been disappointing. I guess it was around time that stuff started *not* working out.

First, I've had an idea for a design for a while now, and finally got the yarn to start swatching. It's fairly pricey yarn, so I'm definitely not knitting the damn thing unless someone else buys the yarn! But, three tries later, I think I'm going to have to admit it's not going to work. Either the concept is a no-go, or I just don't have the skill to execute it at this point. Pah. It may work if I buy another ball of the yarn, but I kinda oppose, on principle, spending £15 ($30!) to make a swatch.

Second, I wanted to make The Limey some socks, for Socktoberfest. The yarn is some really squishy Shelridge Farm Soft Touch Ultra I got from Socktopus at Iknit Day. Because of all this, I wanted to make some extra nice ones, instead of the usual plain or ribbed socks I normally knit for him. So instead of my personal recipe for his socks, I decided to try an actual pattern. Again, after two tries, with two different pattersn, I think I'll have to give up and go back to my plain sock recipe.

Third, I finished the Flared Lace Smoke Ring.


Flared Lace Smoke Ring
Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr Wool-Silk, in Admiral, bought from KCG Trading, much less than the 2 oz in the skein (the above picture shows a pretty true colour)
Needles: 3.0mm lace Addis
Pattern: Flared Lace Smoke Ring, from HeartStrings FiberArts

Notes: Well. I am not in love with this. It's no fault of the pattern, though, which is simple and well-written. Lots of charts, can't go wrong, really. No, it's bad yarn choice. This laceweight is really not fuzzy enough to give the resulting knit enough body and shape. It is very drapey. So it just kinda folds and sits at the base of my neck.


It doesn't even really show the "flared" bit very well. I wanted a smoke ring that stood up arond the neck better, had more body- one that looks more like the picture in the pattern, basically. I think I may make another one in a thicker, fuzzier yarn. But I won't make it long enough to wear over my head, as intended by the designer. Because, let's face it: it makes me look like an eejit.


Plus, it's not like it keeps your head warm because, hello!, really open lace!

So, yeah, I'll do this again in a more appropriate yarn. I may also do what Eunny and Jesh did, and change the double yarn-overs to single ones.

I will allow this smoke ring to live until I come across a pattern more appropriate for this drapey yarn. It's scarf season, after all.

I must be ill

Work is sending me to a conference next week.

In Crete.

Normally, I would be all over something like this, but I really don't want to go.

It's been getting colder and darker earlier. For other people, this means it's the perfect time to go off to a Mediterranean island, but it makes me really want to just hunker down and ensconce myself at home. I want to wrap myself up in the furry blanket The Limey's grandmother gave us and drink hot chocolate. I don't want to have to do the work of travelling.

Well, it doesn't matter, I guess, 'cause I'm going.

(Got that passport just in time, no?)

Short row bind-offs

Wherever possible, I knit using short row bind-offs in place of stair-step bind-offs. Mainly that means armhole shaping, back neck shaping, and front neckline shaping. Although a really simple concept, it's much wordier when writing out a pattern than the traditional stair-step "BO x sts at the beg of the next y rows," so I really had a fight with myself about whether it was worth it to include in patterns, or just do the usual and let people figure it out on their own. In the end, I thought, Well, one of the reasons I like knitting from patterns is to learn new things, so I write my patterns including the short row bind-offs.

I'm glad now, because I've had some good feedback saying people like it, or at the very least, that it's interesting and was good to learn. So, if you never knit one of my patterns, and have never come across it otherwise, I've written a little tutorial on it here. (Although I haven't read or heard of it, I'm sure someone has done it before, and has probably written about it somewhere.)

I'll use the smallest size of the Mongkok Cardigan for my example. Normally, the armscye for the back would be done with stair-step bind-offs, and would look, to my mind, like this:


The instructions would say, roughly, "Work until piece measures 35.5cm/14 inches. Start armscye shaping: BO 4 sts at the beg of the next two rows. BO 3 sts at the beg of the two rows after that. BO 1 st at the beg of the next two rows after that. Cont in st st until piece measures x cm/y inches." Let's say your work measured the correct length after a wrong side row, so you start your armscye shaping on a right side row by binding off 4 sts.

I would show you a picture of what the stair-step bind-off looks like knitted up, but I honestly don't even have a picture of any I've done.

Short-row shaping and bind-off would make your knitting look more like this:


To do this, you'd replace the the bind-offs with short rows. Now, we'd said your piece measured the correct length after a wrong side row, and you would normally start your stair-step bind-offs on the right side row. Instead, for the short row BO, you'd purl that last wrong side row until you have the last 4 sts left, then wrap and turn. What you're faced with now is a right side row, with 4 sts at the front that you haven't knit- that's equivalent to your binding off those 4 sts. Now knit until you get to the last 4 sts, then wrap and turn. What you've done is the equivalent of the first set of bind-offs- the "BO 4 sts at the beg of the next two rows" set of instructions.

You're now at the beginning of a wrong side row again, and you'd do the equivalent of the next set of bind-offs by purling to the last 7 sts (the original 4 + the next 3), wrap and turn. Knit to the last 7 sts (the original 4 + the next 3), wrap and turn. You've just done the equivalent of the second set of bind-offs- the "BO 3 sts at the beg of the next two rows after that" set of instructions. Now, you're faced with 7 sts at the sides of your work which haven't been worked- the equivalent of binding off 4 sts, then another 3.

The next set of short rows would have you purl to the last 8 sts (4+3+1), wrap and turn, knit to the last 8 sts (4+3+1), wrap and turn.

You've now finished the short row portion of the short row bind-offs; next you'll do the bind-off portion. You're ready to start a wrong side row. On this row, purl all the way to the end, picking up and purling the wraps together with their stitches. On the next, right side, row, bind off the first 8 sts (these are your short row sts) and knit all the way to the end, picking up and knitting the wraps with their stitches. On the next, wrong side, row, bind off the first 8 sts (again, your short row sts) and finish the row as the pattern says. You're now finished with the short row bind-offs and can follow the rest of the pattern.

Basically, wherever it says to "BO x sts," you work to the last x sts, wrap and turn. At the end, you pick up and knit all the wraps before you bind off all at once.

In summary:
Where traditional stair-step bind-offs say: BO x sts at the beg of the next two rows; then BO y sts at the beg of the two rows after that; BO z sts at the beg of the two rows after that; etc.

Use the short row bind-offs as follows: work to last x sts, w+t, work to last x sts, w+t; work to last x+y sts, w+t, work to last x+y sts, w+t; work to last x+y+z sts, w+t, work to last x+y+z sts, w+t; etc until all stair steps are done. Work to end, picking up and working wraps with their sts, BO x+y+z sts, work to end, picking up and working wraps with their sts, BO x+y+z sts.

So you've now bound off the same number of stitches as you would for a stair-step bind-off, but all at once, so the resulting line is smooth and un-jagged, like this (on my swatch for the cardigan):


For me, this makes it much, much easier to seam in the sleeves later on. Note, also, at the top, I've use the same method for the neckline bind-off, which is where this method comes in really useful. Because you have one smooth bind-off line, you can leave that edge as is- it's automatically beautifully, simply, finished. There's no need to go back with a crochet hook and neaten up the stair-steps. So, for sleeveless tops, such as my Draped Lace Shell, when you're done, you're done- no need to finish off the rough edges at the armholes, because there are no rough edges!


Using short rows to shape shoulders is well-known. (I love Nona's tutorial for this.) But if you have a back neckline that's U-shaped, the short row bind-off method can also be used for it. In fact, anything U or half-U shaped, like scoop necks, and the front necklines of cardigans, as I showed above. The back necklines of both the Mongkok Cardigan and the Draped Lace Shell is done with short rows, as is the scoop neck of the Horseshoes Cardigan:



The exercise of how to do a short row bind off for a scoop neck, front or back, is left to the reader. Hint: think of it this way:


Please let me know if none of this made any sense.

Non-deadline knitting

In between knitting non-bloggable things the past couple of months (such as...oh, while waiting for my yarn!), I knit some more socks for The Limey. These are your basic ribbed socks, with two noteworthy points: 1) it contains some white and yet The Limey is willing to wear them; and 2) I put in some calf shaping.

Improved Ribbed Socks
Yarn: Regia Galaxy, from Liberty
Needles: 2.0mm dpns
Pattern: basic ribbed socks with calf-shaping

Notes: For the calf-shaping, I basically increased in pattern on the back of the socks. For the heck of it, and to see which one I liked better, I incorporated the increases differently into the 2x2 rib pattern for each sock. I don't know if you can see it that well on these pictures.


I think maybe I like the one on the left better, but it's not a strong preference. The Limey quite likes them, and I think they fit him much better than the normal straight socks, so this may get incorporated into my usual sock recipe for him.

Onto knitting for me!

Because it's defintely autumn here now, I bought the Flared Lace Smoke Ring pattern from HeartStringFiberArts. (I was paid via PayPal for a couple of the patterns I've published in on-line knitting magazines, and I've decided that money goes right back into knitting.) It's refreshing to just be able to blindly follow a pattern right now!

I started the pattern using some Jaggerspun Zephyr in a beautiful vibrant blue colour (which doens't show up at all in the pictures, unfortunately) and 3.5mm needles. Is it just me, or do the lace holes seem huge? They're double yarnovers, but still, it seems to be knitting up to a very loose lace.


This is puzzling, because Zephyr is one of the commonly recommended yarns for this pattern, and I'm using smaller needles than recommended. I know I normally knit loose, but I'm trying really hard to knit a bit tighter here, and, to be honest, the stitches on the needles and cable are pretty tight. Plus, I'm fairly close on the gauge, and the size is about right. But it doesn't look at all like the picture.


I'm continuing with the pattern anyway. But when I'm done, I may make another one in a fingering weight or 4-ply yarn. I think that would be ideal for this pattern.

What next?

I've just finished knitting and writing up a pattern to be published this winter. In the last three months or so, I've pretty much been working solidly to get out three designs. The Mongkok Cardigan was published by The Inside Loop last month, and the other two will be out sometime in the next few months, probably.

Everything I've done has either been self-published and offered for free, or been published elsewhere with a one-time nominal fee. I'm proud of these designs and feel incredibly happy and lucky that various sources have been so kind as to publish them.

Essentially, the "real" payment is to get my designs out there and be seen. This is great because I, unfortunately, do a crappy job at self-promotion.

Because of my dithering over linking my blog to my real name, I haven't ever provided a link to my blog when I've been published on-line. So my readership -though dear to me and loved!- is small. At any rate, I've failed in keeping the two separate, because my blog now turns up first when you Google my name, anyway. And I've found I'm okay with this. (Especially since I'm no longer job-hunting. What about the next job hunt, you ask? I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.)

As well, I'm terrible at networking. I've been in the London yarn stores many, many times, and never have I exchanged more than a hello/good-bye with the owners/workers/other patrons. I just browse, buy or not buy, and leave.

One of my vague plans for the IKnit day was to introduce myself to the stallholders and other yarnies there and get to know some people. I failed miserably. (Actually, I did meet Kate and Diane, the duo who run The Inside Loop, which was really cool. They were both really nice and sweet to me.) Another vague plan was to ask various yarn purveyors about possibly designing for them. But that involved putting together a portfolio to show them, which of course, never happened. Anyway, the stalls were so busy the whole day that I doubt there'd have been time to talk much anyway.

The upshot of all this blather is: what next for my knitting and designing? Is there an obvious or logical next step, even? Should my eventual goal be to self-publish and charge for my patterns? To get a job in a yarn shop? To be a Knitting Superstar?

I don't know. I do know I have lots of swatching to do, though.

It makes sense if you think about it

Last weekend, we went foraging for mushrooms in the New Forest. One of the women at work does it regularly, and so she can safely identify at least a few of the edible species. The Limey has been dying to do this forever, and this way, at least I know it's relatively safe.

(He came home one day bearing these huge mushrooms from Bushy Park, near his work, proclaiming them delicious and harmless. Uhh...by what evidence?)

Anyway, so those mushrooms- damn, they are good at camouflaging themselves. I've read you need to get your eyes properly "adjusted" to find mushrooms and it's totally true.

These are chanterelles:

You can identify them by their bright yellow undersides:

You can probably find them in this picture:

But what about here? (I deliberately took a random picture of an area near where we'd found some, so I wouldn't know for sure if there were any):


I tested myself just now, and, yup, can see some:

And I'm sure there are more there I haven't found. Those things are wily, aren't they?! It's amazing how well-hidden they are. We found brown mushrooms, bright yellow mushrooms, white ones, black ones, purple ones, and yet, they all blended perfectly into the forest floor.

We brought home bags of mushrooms. The Limey made the mother of all mushroom risottos, and we still had to freeze a lot of them.

Look what's finally shown up

Looks like the Home Office can find their ass with both hands, if given the help of a flashlight.

What was supposed to take- at most!- six months ended up taking well over eight months. At exactly six months they asked us for "more documentation". This wouldn't rankle so much except that before I sent off the application, I rang them up and asked specifically if I should include more information, but was told no. So, um, yeah, maybe time could be saved if, you know, they knew their own policies.

I know, I know, all immigration is like this. I fully expect to have apoplectic fits and melt-downs should we ever decide to move The Limey over to the US.

But whatever, I have my passport back, and more importantly, I have proof that I'm allowed to live here. So now I can, like, sign up for the NHS and try for a driver's license and stuff. Basically, get on with my life.


So now that I have proof of being legally in the country, I can leave it! Where should I go to celebrate?

Bad blogger! Bad!

Spent a week camping on the Isle of Skye...too many photos to go through yet +

Went to IKnit day...forgot camera +

Finally received wool and have seriously huge deadline knitting to do =

Bad blogger.