The closest thing to actually going to Hong Kong?

Well, hey, look what's in the newest issue of The Inside Loop:


Mongkok Cardigan
Yarn: Rowan Kid Classic, 7 balls
Needles: 4.0mm
Pattern: my own! Available here at The Inside Loop

Background: I actually knit this last year during the last months in Dublin. I wrote up the pattern, but was having lots of trouble with grading the waffle brioche pattern on the bib for different sizes. The math just didn't want to cooperate, which is rare for me. But I really liked the bib detail and wanted to put it into a pattern.


That's how the Pintuck T-shirt came about. Mindful of the math-wrestling, I chose a simple twisted rib for the bib in the t-shirt, and managed to work through the sizing with few problems.

After that was done, I went back and took a fresh look at the Mongkok Cardigan. I tried a different way of knitting the bib, and found that the math came a teeny bit easier with that change. While I was at it, I re-wrote several other major parts of the pattern.


Have you ever tried to reconstruct a knit six months after you knit it? There was lots and lots of swatching. So much so that I could probably have just knit another cardi.

Notes: This will make a great, versatile cardigan for chillier weather. It's cozily fuzzy in this mohair, but plain wool would give a lovely, classic look. If you want a really fancy, evening-appropriate cover-up, this would be unbeatable in silk.

Like nearly all my knits, this piece is an exercise in short rows. Armscye, back and front necklines are done in short rows, so no extra finishing on those edges.


Edges are hemmed to give a clean, finished look. Unlike the Pintuck T-shirt, the bib here is knit as you go on the cardigan fronts. There's no bind-off then picking up of stitches to work the bib later.


I really like this cardi, and I'm so happy I have the chance to share it through The Inside Loop.

This is why I don't buy from the internet

Well, not really the internet, but mail order, anyway.

Last week, I found myself in need of a large amount of a certain yarn, and fairly quickly. I asked around, then bought from a place where I'd bought in person before. I called them to order on Monday and they said it should be with me by the end of the week. Well, it's now a week.

Where's my yarn?!

The thing is, it's not like a week is very long to wait when you order something. But in this case, I need to get this project knitted by early September. Even if that were not the case, once I've bought something, I want it now.

I could have bought similar yarn in London or Southampton. It would have cost probably twice as much. So now I'm left to wonder...would that extra money have been worth it to have had the extra week to knit it?

As someone said: You can have good and fast, or fast and cheap, or good and cheap, but not all three.

I want my fecking yarn!

Knitting to come

The problem with secret knitting is -duh- that I can't blog about it. The other big problem with it is that it is normally deadline knitting, so I don't even have time to knit other things that I *can* blog about. Thank goodness for the long train commute, I tell you.

Finally, though, finally!, one of the projects I've been working on will see the light of day, with the impending publication of the third issue of The Inside Loop.

If you don't know about it, or haven't browsed through their first couple of issues, go do it now. You'll dig it. Take my word for it. Lovely patterns, knit with yarns available in the UK- so you don't have to trawl t'internet and order it from overseas, collecting carbon miles. (Not to mention playing the postal service lottery and HM Customs obstacle course.)

I'm so happy that knitters in this corner of the world have more options for patterns and knitting information. And I'm so excited that I can contribute to it.

But I won't tell you what it is. You'll have to stalk the site until Issue 3 is published in a week or so.

Knitting! (Not mine.)

Since I have no knitting of my own to show you, I'm going to show you other people's knitting. Bwahaha!

I've been delighted with the response to my Pintuck T-shirt pattern. People are actually knitting it! Who'd a thought? I found some people's projects through Ravelry, and my, are there some talented knitters. Here, then, a mini FO gallery. (All pics from the knitters themselves.)

Alexandra's tee, knit for her daughter. In the original blue I chose for my t-shirt, so of course I think she's got great taste!



Amy's tee, knit in SWTC Bamboo. What a great knitting job. The FO looks fantastic. Srsly, if my stockinette ever looks as good as hers, I'll die happy.


Lauren's Pintuck tank, knit in Schulana Sojabama. She knit this for the Project Spectrum Air category. But maybe it should have been put under Fire, 'cause how smokin' hot does she look in her tank?


Susan's Pintuck tee with proper sleeves. This is such a gorgeous knit, and she put so much thought and work into the modifications that it's nearly unrecognizable from my pattern. I love the lace she chose for the bib portion, and love that she went ahead and figured out the actual sleeves for it. Also, I may have to go buy some orange yarn now.


These are just some of the finished objects on Ravelry. If you've knit this, or know someone who has, let me know! I love to see what people have done with the pattern, and I'll keep putting up FO shots.

Whew, a bit of down time

I've been so busy the last couple of weeks that there's been precious little time to collect my thoughts for any kind of blog post.

I've had friends staying with us. I've spent a weekend at a re-creation of the Battle of Tewkesbury. I've been down in Southampton seeing random people. This next weekend is the first that The Limey and I have nothing planned for out of town. Whew. I haven't even bought any fabric to try out on the sewing machine yet!

Another thing that keeps me from blogging is that I seem to have found my reading mojo again. I went into Daunt Books a couple of weekends ago and, for the first time in a while, found a whole bunch of books I wanted to read. I bargained myself down to just a couple, and then went to the Oxfam shop down the street and bought a couple more. I raced through the first two and am well into the third. And, for me, reading doesn't really make good blog fodder.

The thing that does make good blog fodder- knitting- has been dominated by a project I can't talk about. Suffice it to say that I'm totally over-the-moon excited about it, and even though I'm knitting the damn thing right now, I won't believe it's happening until the whole project is presented to the public.

Being excited about reading and knitting on a deadline does mean that I have to parcel out my time very carefully, though. I like to think I've been pretty good about it.

Well, I have a sewing machine

I've been mulling over getting a sewing machine for a while now. I used to sew a bit, and have one stored away at my father's, but of course that's useless to me. Recently, I've been thinking more and more that it would be useful to be able to make some of my own clothing again. I put off buying one because, honestly, the knitting is taking up enough time as it is.

But a couple of weeks ago, The Limey and I were doing our usual charity shop crawl (apparently Woking is big enough to support half a dozen of them, but not...oh, say, a fishmonger's...or a greengrocer) and he spotted an old Singer. When asked for the price, the lady running the shop said, Oh, well...I don't know if it works, so I couldn't charge you more than GBP7? We took it home.

After taking it apart and spending a few days cleaning and oiling it up...


...We have ourselves a sewing machine:




It works beautifully and perfectly. All the parts are there. And, in fact, we got replacement bobbins at the Singer sewing shop in town that fit perfectly. Only slightly a surprise, because with the machine's serial number, which is helpfully put on a plaque right on the machine:


We can look it up on the Singer website, which we did. And found that it had been made in 1899.

1899.

That would explain why it's completely manually powered. And, according to The Limey, that explains why it still works so well just with a general clean-up.

So it only goes forwards and backwards, and has no fancy stitches programmed into it. And, uh, yeah, buttonholes? Not so much.

Still, it is a joy to see it run. It's smooth, quiet, all perfectly made to fit together *just so*. The Limey is in awe of the engineering.

Now, off to buy fabric. It's good John Lewis is having its summer sale, huh?

Welcome to...?

I've seen that sign twice a day for eight months now, and I'm sick of it.

I don't want to go into it all, but the upshot is I'm beginning to feel very much like I really only live on the weekends. During the week, I go to work, I come back, usually around 7:30 or 8:30, eat, maybe knit a bit, and that's it. I don't do anything else.

During the weekends, we can get into London. There are markets, and really good food options, and movie theatres that don't just play the latest popular shite. There are good bookshops. There are yarn shops. There are knitting groups. We have some friends in London.

Every time we go in, we think, screw it, we should just move into London. My train to work stops at Clapham before it hits Waterloo, so we could move one train stop into London. Clapham would be proper London- it's Zone 2. There are pubs, shops, restaurants, etc. It didn't help that we visited friends of The Limey's who live just a few minutes away from Clapham Junction train station. And it was great!

The bad things about this option:
-Housing would be more expensive, way more expensive;
-my train ticket would be more expensive (update: just checked, the monthly train ticket is actually only GBP25 more);
-it would add 1/2 hour onto my commute, each way;
-we'd spend more money because there would be more opportunities for spending money.

The good things about this option:
-We'd be in London!
-Proper London: it wouldn't cost us GBP10 each to get into London;
-we could take advantage of all the great food markets: right now, it's silly to spend GBP10 just to go in and buy some food. We feel like once we've spent that money, we should make the most of the day. We always feel like we're visiting London;
-The Limey could take public transport into work.

So we keep throwing this idea around. What's stopping us is the expense and the extra hour of commute time for me.

(Also: I've always lived in cities. This is the first time I've lived in a suburb. And I'm not sure I like it.)

Almost there

Finally, finally!, knitting on the summer lace cardigan is done. I tell you, I love that Habu Tsumugi Silk, but the nubbiness and teeny gauge got to me after awhile. By the second sleeve, it felt like I had been doing that ladder lace pattern for centuries.

I went with plain sleeves, but 3/4-length, which gives it a summerier feeling than full length. Rarely for me, I actually have lots of yarn left. In fact, out of three cones, I still have one full, untouched cone. Not sure what I'm going to do with it now.

I seamed up the sides tonight at SnB, and pinned one sleeve, ready for seaming.


Those pins are teeny tiny clothes pegs. I saw them at a shop at the top of Brick Lane selling fancy, faux old-fashioned housewares. I didn't know what I could possibly use them for, but I also just knew they would be handy for knitting, somehow. So I bought a package of them.

Then I saw them for sale on the trip to Get Knitted, so I knew I was onto something.

When it came time to seam this cardigan...well, there was no question what tool would be perfect.

YOU, yes you, personally, are destroying the planet

Do you ever wonder why people commute by car? Driving by themselves, instead of taking public transport, and thereby ruining the planet? And killing all the polar bears? And making Al Gore cry?

Well, does any of this sound familiar:

• Are you one of those people who, on a crowded commuter train, takes up two seats by putting all your shit on the seat next to you? Instead of at your feet or on the handy overhead shelf?
  

• Do you, instead of graciously moving your shit when asked, roll your eyes, sigh heavily, and then look around you for another seat for the seatless commuter, because of course, your St*rb*cks muffin deserves its own tray?

• Are you one of those people who refuse to move to the back of the fucking bus? Do you ignore the vast area of space behind you, preferring instead to marinate in the miasma of BO and halitosis produced by your little cluster of fellow fuckwits on a muggy damp afternoon? Thus forcing passengers who board the bus after you to squeeze past your backpack and sweaty flesh to get to the back for a bit of oxygen that hasn't spent the last twenty minutes in the vicinity of your armpit?
  

If you are any of the aforementioned people, then I would like to inform you that you are the reason the earth is becoming an overheated piece of barren rock. You are the murderer of species upon species. Over your behaviour, the baby Jesus cries. You are the reason people don't take public transport.

Field trip!

When was the last time you had a proper field trip? It's one of those things about school that I actually miss. Field trip days were so exciting!

Last weekend, I went on a yarn field trip, which is just awesome, topped with some more awesome, with a little cherry of awesome on top.

Our knitting group decided on a -let's call it by its real name- pilgrimage to Get Knitted in Bristol.
It doesn't look like much from the outside:

But inside...


Masses of yarn, shelves and shelves of the stuff. Get Knitted is also a big on-line retailer of yarn in the UK, so they do quite a lot of business and keep a lot of stock. If you can't find anything in your local, physical yarn stores, Get Knitted is the next place to check.

They also had some fabrics. I don't do much sewing nowadays, so I didn't check it out closely, but I believe it was mostly Amy Butler stuff.

Half a dozen of us from the Southampton Stitch 'n' Bitch made it down to Bristol, but I've only managed a couple of pictures (too busy looking at the yarn...)

Dawn (who organized the trip) and Kate. They are standing in front of a wall of Koigu, people: a wall of Koigu.

Elana (who is always wearing a new and different handknit sweater each time I see her; how does she do it?) and a friend of hers (whose name I forgot- sorry!), and Dawn again. They are sitting in the little knitting area in the shop, which is set amongst the Debbie Bliss yarns.

For some reason, I have no pictures of Erika.

It was a lovely day. I bought a few skeins of Colinette Jitterbug to start swatching for an idea I have. We had a bit of lunch. We had cake. There was time to walk around Bristol a bit and look into a few really cool, independent shops, full of neat things you don't see on every High Street. A great field trip, basically.

Next decision

The summer lace cardigan (honestly, I tried to think of a better name) is going along swimmingly. I've got the fronts and back all knit and blocked.


I eventually chose the deep V-neck option. I think it will look pretty good.

Now, the next question is: what kind of sleeve do I want? I have a couple of options, with some sub-options.

Option A, the more exciting option, aka the one I would prefer to knit:


This is an elbow-length sleeve knit in the lace pattern used in the body of the cardigan. A wide border in the border lace pattern is knit in larger gauge and falls over the elbow. I would leave the inside of this border un-seamed, so that it can be ruffly and fluttery.

Option B, the safe, practical option, aka the one I would prefer to wear:


A fairly plain long sleeve, ending at the wrist, in the lace pattern used on the body of the cardigan. There is a possibility to add a bit of interest: for instance, have a smaller, ruffly border like the first option, but extending a bit over the wrist; or, without lengthening the sleeve, put in a small border in the border lace pattern, so that the sleeves look just like the body of the cardigan.


Let me be perfectly honest- I do not wear fluttery sleeves, and they would probably get on my nerves. I'd put a jacket over it, and get all annoyed that the ruffly bit is wadding up at my elbow. I'd reach over the table for the salt, and drag the ruffle into the ramen broth.

But, to also be perfectly honest- this cardigan cries out for Option A. Option A gives it a true summery, skipping-along-garden-lanes, running-through-fields-of-wildflowers feeling. Option B feels like the mother of the skipping-running summer sprite, hanging back waiting for the imminent skinned knee.

If I were knitting this for anyone else, or writing it as a pattern, no question I'd go for Option A. But I think, in the interests of actually wearing the finished object, and not wasting this beautiful Habu silk, I should probably knit Option B.

Oooh, is this what it feels like to be an adult?

A wet weekend

Last weekend, The Limey and I went to the Hay Festival of Literature, held in the teeny Welsh border town of Hay-on-Wye. I experienced a weird kind of nostalgia, being in a country with bilingual signs again.


This was my third time at the festival, and The Limey's first. I love the festival and the other two times I'd been, the weather was lovely. Plenty of clear skies to walk around town and to take hikes around the Beacons. Apparently, I'd been very very lucky- normally the start of the festival was a sign for the heavens to open up.

Well, my luck ran out this year, and it poured and poured. We did get one good day in. The Limey, wet and miserable, kept looking at me and accused me of lying to him in order get him to drive four hours to stay in a wet field with "a bunch of middle-class Guardian readers".*

But, actually, undaunted by the weather, we both really enjoyed the festival. We heard a bunch of panels and talks, from comedians, scientists, story-tellers, economists. Enjoyable and educational, and lots of it.

The festival brought to focus for me something I'd noticed about my reading habits in the past few months. For my first two Hay festivals, the people I most wanted to hear were novelists. They were who I was most interested in. This year, I didn't attend any sessions with novelists. I was most interested in the non-fiction authors; scientists, sociologists, economists especially. This, not surprisingly, pretty much mirrors what I've been reading lately. Lots of popular economics books, some history, some science, interspersed with some Agatha Christie (who won't be speaking anytime soon, eh?).

Overall, I'm reading much less, as well. I'm not sure why. I have the time, certainly. Every once in a while, I pick up some "serious fiction" but then realize I don't have the...emotional patience and energy... required when I really get into a well-written, well-constructed novel. I manage a lot of P.G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie because I know I won't get emotionally caught up and tangled in them.

Maybe it's a phase.

*Although The Limey staunchly refuses to admit that he's now firmly a member of the middle class, he can't have missed the fact that he's married to a Guardian reader. Willful blindness to the truth.

Too many options, not enough ideas

I'm knitting a lace cardigan from some beautiful Habu Tsumugi Silk (in colour 38, a purply-red) I bought from I Knit London a few months ago. I looked at it for a long time, and decided I wanted a lightweight, wear-everywhere, match-everything casual cardigan for warm weather. Basically to wear over dresses and tanks and stuff. But not as fancy as the black silk Horseshoes Cardigan.

I've finished the back:


I'm halfway through one of the fronts, and am at a decision point: what kind of neckline do I want?

As you may have noticed, I'm quite fond of deep scoop necks (see the Horseshoes Cardigan, the Silk Garden Scoop Neck Pullover and the Scoop Neck Tee). In this case, however, I want to be able to wear it open and closed without the sides flapping about too much.

Options:

• I think probably a normal crew neck (something like the one on the Synergy Cardigan) is the easiest choice, but kinda boring.
  
• A V-neck is the next obvious choice, but, again- eh. V-necks look alright on me, but boring again.
  
• A really deep v-neck, starting below the boobs and going steeply up to the shoulders?
  
• Or a V-neck starting from below the boobs, but stopping a few inches before the shoulders, from where it will go up straight to the top of the shoulders. So it looks like a scoop neck, but with straight lines at the front instead of curved ones. A sweetheart-ish neckline.

So, as I said, I'll have to make a decision on which neckline to do soon. (One of the reasons I knit things in pieces like this is precisely because it gives me time to think about these things. Also, so I can estimate how much yarn I have vs. how much yarn I need.)


I can't get a good picture of the colour of this yarn. It's purpler (yes, that is a word) than the picture above.

After I decide the the neckline, my next question will be what to do with the sleeves.

Summer's here!

Pintuck t-shirt
Yarn: Rowan Bamboo Soft, 6 balls, from Soton John Lewis
Needles: 3.0mm circular Addis
Pattern: my own! Available here, and on Ravelry if you have access

Notes: An exercise to update and feminize the good old t-shirt. Knit in the round, with the cap sleeves picked up around the armscye and knit down using short rows, so no seaming on this one.

The pintuck bib incorporates a dressmaking detail that I love. This detail is picked up in the twisted rib at the hems.

Shaping is done by paired increases and decreases knit as front and back darts. The hem is slightly rounded, again using short rows.

As I've said before, I dig the bamboo yarn. When I was swatching for this one, I tried lots of different yarns, but I just love the softness and drape of bamboo so much I went for it again. The bamboo does stretch slightly from the weight of the finished object, so it ended up a little longer than I'd envisioned. I took this into account when I swatched, so it's not too bad, even after I wore it all day for the picture shoot. I do intend to put in two stabilizing crochet "seams" later, though.


If this weather keeps up, I'll be wearing this lots this summer.

Quick! While summer lasts!

The weather here in this last week has been absolutely glorious. We seized the opportunity (who knows how long it may last?) and, on Saturday, took a trip to the Great British Seaside.


I loved Brighton (the San Francisco of England!). The beach, though, not quite the same.


That look on my face? Due to two things: that water is cold! And the beach is stony. Not rocky, not sandy- stony. It had stones and shells just the right size and lumpy shape that it hurt to walk on it. People did their promenading on the paved bit parallel to the beach.


On Sunday, with the weather still gorgeous, we took a picnic to Kew Gardens. We chose a nice, shady spot in the quiet walled garden bit.


This was also the day I discovered I've turned into my mother:

Ouch, that hurts

You'd think I'd be used to rejection by now, what with all that job searching last year, but no.

My submission for the summer Knitty has just been rejected. It stings, I tell you.

Well, since it's all written up and everything, I'll put it out there anyway. I just have to check everything and reformat.

Boy, this blog in the last couple weeks has been all "Boo hoo, poor me," hasn't it? I'll slap myself out of it soon.

What's a peripatetic scientist to do?

The last few weekends have been quite busy socially for me and The Limey. Weddings, birthday parties, Easter celebrations- all invitations from The Limey's university friends who live in London now, or at least down south. He reconnected with a bunch of them after moving back to the UK. They're lovely people; nice, fun, really friendly to me and great about making me feel like one of the group, even though they've all known each other for a decade and I've never met most of them more than once or twice.

Although I enjoy hanging out with them, and of course I like seeing The Limey happy at meeting up with old friends again, it really emphasizes the fact that I have no friends here. It's all this moving around every few years business. Also, although I was never one to make friends easily in the first place, I think, as I get older, I'm finding it even harder. I have less patience for the awkward beginning stages of friendship, and the actual working at making friends thing. Also, I grow more and more comfortable in my own company and doing my own thing, so it's easier for me to just not make the effort. Obviously, this is bad, and contributes to my becoming a bitter misanthrope who can't be bothered to interact with people. More importantly, it means I have no friends to go shopping with and stay up late drinking far too much wine with.

At least when I was still in some form of schooling, there were my classmates, and seeing them regularly helped to form friendships. At work, it's a little more awkward. Now, it's lots more difficult, because I don't even live in the same town as my work colleagues. I try to stay for drinks or whatever after work, but I'm always having to catch a train, so I never go out to dinner with them, or get to the Sunday pub quiz, or get together with them outside of work hours.

I don't know if it's solely a problem with me, either. I mean, most of the people at work hang out with other people from work. Aside from a few people who have lived in the city for years and years, the ones who have moved there for the job in the last few years mostly seem to stick together.

Something has to be done, but I'm not sure what.

Hell. Yeah.

Ta-da!
Bayerische Socks
Yarn: Lang Jawoll, two skeins, with just a bit left over
Needles: 2.0mm dpns
Pattern: Bayerische Socks by Eunny Jang

Notes: Avrienne and Lien guessed correctly- these are the wonderful, wonderful Bayerische socks.


You can't ever say Eunny doesn't pay attention to details. You can see how the ribbing at the cuff flows nicely into the cabling of the leg. The motif at the side of the leg splits at the gusset/heel, with a perfect half travelling down the foot. You can't see it as well here, but the cabling pattern also flows beautifully into the slipped stitch heel flap.


I only did two repeats of chart D for the leg, instead of the four that Eunny had knit. I was afraid of running out of yarn. For the record, I have a UK4.5/EU38/US7 size foot, and two repeats of chart D in the leg and four repeats in the foot gives me a comfortable bit of yarn left over. I could probably have safely done one more repeat in the leg.

These socks were fun to knit, and are just beautiful. They look great on the foot, and I just keep staring at them, marvelling at those travelling twisted stitches.

I've just realized that, out of the four pairs of socks I've knit for myself, three of them are based on twisted stitches. The very first pair is the exception- I was just learning how to knit socks so they are plain stockinette. But the second pair was the Snicket socks, which are twisted stitches against a purl background. Then, of course, came the spectacular Pomatomus socks, which are knit in a twisted shell rib. Apparently, I really like twisted stitches.

Can you guess the pattern?

Hints:
-it's a sock
-it allows me to fully indulge my love of twisted stitches
-it is, embarrassingly, knit not only in the same yarn as the original pattern, but also in the same colour*


*My defense is that I bought the yarn without thinking of the pattern, and when I wanted to knit this pattern, this yarn was the best choice for it out of my stash. I figured *not* using it simply because it's the same yarn as the original is just as bad as using a yarn solely because it was used in the original. If you get what I mean.

Horseshoes Cardigan redux

As some of you may know, MagKnits has imploded recently. It has stopped publishing and no longer hosts any of the patterns it published over the last four years. As a result, my Horseshoes Cardigan pattern, originally published in the October 2007 issue, can now be found, for free, here, or as a download at Ravelry.

If there are other MagKnits patterns you may want, you can still get most of them by Googling the name and then clicking on "cached" in the results. You can also try the WayBack Machine. As well, a lot of designers on Ravelry have made them available there, or you can always contact the designer directly.