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.

Socks for me!

Pomatomus socks
Yarn: Regia Stretch Colour, two skeins with plenty left over
Needles: 2.0mm dpns
Pattern: the ever-popular Pomatomus, by Cookie A. for Knitty

Notes: Well, what can I say? About a gazillion people have knit these, and I understand why- they are gorgeous socks.

I knit the leg shorter, with only two pattern repeats instead of three.

There are a few little issues I have with these socks:

-This pattern called for starting a needle with a YO. For me, that means a loose stitch there, so the YO holes are bigger there than when made mid-needle. You can see this on the left sock in the picture, I think.

-I didn't swatch or nuthin', just started knitting with my 2.0mm dpns, which is what I use for all socks. This made for a sock that is a teensy bit tight. However, the lace rib pattern is very stretchy, and the yarn is very stretchy, so it fits fine.

-I should have knit the foot just a wee bit longer, but I got impatient. As you can see, the heel flap on these sort of get tugged down under my ankle. But that's okay, I can live with it.


With all that said, I'm very happy with these socks, and will wear them lots, for sure. However, I got two things out of this project that make me even happier. 1)This is great sock yarn. Stretchy, thin, easy to work with, makes lovely even stitches. I would totally use this yarn again. 2) I am totally, but totally, head over heels in love with this twisted rib lace pattern. The over-lapping shell motif is what pleases me most, I think. Plus, I just love twisted stitches. I think it looks better un-stretched out. I want to use it for everything, and in fact, already have an idea for a project with this stitch pattern. I don't know if it's from a stitch dictionary somewhere, or if Cookie A. made it up (genius, if she did), or what.

Aieeee!

For Christmas, a very talented friend of mine gave me and The Limey a pair of beautifully hand-made mugs. We love them.


They're just the right size for juice and for the small, strong coffees The Limey makes on the weekends.



I especially love the crackly glaze and that hint of a bluey-greeny-celadon colour.

While one of them is in robust good health, I'm very very sad to report that the other one...well, the other one...


We were devastated. After some crying and rending of hair, we decided we'll try to fix it. The Limey will steal some cyano-acrylate from work (they make their own Superglue; who knew?).

Meanwhile, we still use them both, and we cherish them just a little more.

WTF?

From my living room window this morning:


WTF?! We're well into April here, people! Who is the eejit who makes the weather decisions, huh?

Geekery

The Limey and I went to Oxford for the Easter weekend. It's only, maybe, an hour's drive away, but we got a hotel room and stayed for a couple of nights anyway, to make it seem like an actual vacation. (My passport is with the Home Office for immigration things, so I can't leave this frigging country, for months and months.)

Oxford is a great town to walk around in. Lots of little lanes and backstreets, and amazing buildings wherever you look. I'll spare you the tourist pictures, though.

Oh, except one:

(Click to biggerize.)

Squeeeeee! I only wish they would let us into the actual labs. How awesome would that have been?

Plainest of the plain

Plain socks
Yarn: Patons Diploma Gold 4-ply, 2 entire skeins, from the sewing shop in Woking centre
Needles: 2.0mm and 1.5mm dpns
Pattern: Just plain stockinette socks

Notes: I'm knitting down my sock yarn stash, and The Limey was overdue for a new pair of socks. These are 76 st (knit at 36 sts to 10 cm) plain stockinette socks. The ribbing at the cuff was done on the smaller needles. Done toe-up with a figure 8 cast on and sewn bind-off.

The heel is a slightly modified Fleegle heel.


I'd tried this heel once before, and found that increasing for the gusset up to the the numbers she recommends made the sock too long. Obviously, I either knit at a looser row gauge than she does, or I'm starting the gusset too late. At any rate, I had The Limey here to try on the sock-in-progress and realized I didn't need that large a gusset anyway, so I stopped when the gusset was at 10 stitches fewer than recommended. It fits perfectly. And it goes so well with his favourite footwear.


Next up: the ubiquitous Pomatomus socks for me.

Sorry.

Thanks to everyone for the comments on the Synergy Cardigan. I love it too and it's nice when other people agree with you!

Thanks especially to those who liked it enough to ask for a pattern, but unfortunately I don't think I'll be writing one up. Two reasons: 1) I'd have to figure out how I actually did the puffy sleeves, and then grade it for all the sizes, which I'm too lazy at the moment to do; and 2) I'm not sure I can legally use that cable pattern. Hana Jason deserves all the kudos she's been given for that ingenious design. I don't know who, if anyone, owns the copyright to that cable and chart, and I would be uncomfortable stepping on any knitter's toes.

With that said, if you own a copy of the Winter '07/'08 Interweave Knits, you can easily insert that cable into a plain cardigan pattern. If you want the puffy sleeves, find a cardigan pattern with the sleeves you want and insert the cable into that. I do have my notes on this pattern in my knitting notebook, so if you're stuck on something, I'm happy to help a fellow knitter out.

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!