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.

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.