Behold! Sleeves!

It took some wrangling with numbers and some frogging (if only I'd taken my own advice that lifelines are not just for lace), but I have finished both sleeves for Louhi.


It would have been easier if I hadn't done that last little pretzel-y arch, but it's such a great detail. There are no schematics, and no pictures of the whole sleeve, so I'm not sure, but from working through the numbers, the pattern doesn't seem to result in a normal sleeve cap shape. I haven't taken any pattern rows out, so the height of my sleeve cap is the same as the pattern's, but the width is much smaller. This means I'll have to calculate my armscye shaping, of course, but that should be okay. I just hope the wide, short sleeve cap will seam into the armscye okay and won't look too weird.


Now, the bigger problem. When I first got this yarn, it was in with a bunch of other yarns- most memorably bags and bags of muppet pelt mohair- and I swear I counted 20 skeins and a few pieces of an almost-finished Aran jumper, done in the same yarn. Now, however, I can only find 14 skeins of the yarn, and no sign of the jumper. I can only guess that everything else was lost in the move from Surrey. Since this yarn was from the '80s, I'm pretty sure I can't get any more.

Okay, I used 4-1/2 skeins for both sleeves, so the 9-1/2 skeins left would normally be perfectly adequate for a sweater body. But I wanted a hip-length cardigan. So, to get as much length as I can, I'm going to knit the body of this sweater from the top down. This may require a radical re-interpretation of the pattern, in addition to the re-calculation of all the numbers I'd already signed up for, but there are a few advantages to doing it this way.

First, I'm essentially knitting the armscye first, so I'll be able to see if it fits the strange sleeve caps, and, if not, adjust it accordingly, without having the whole rest of the cardigan body to contend with. Second, the back of Louhi is taken up by a gigantic cable motif which, if knitted from the bottom up, requires prior knowledge of length and precise row gauge and then some charting magic. If I do it top down, I can stop the motif when I want, and just continue the rest of the length in normal seed stitch. Otherwise, I may merrily knit up to the back and realize that I have half a cable motif left, but no more back length, or that I'm done with the cable, but there's still inches and inches of back still to do, which would look weird at the top. Third, hmmm, I had a third advantage, but now I've forgotten it. Damn.

Anyway, yes, so now I'm working the left cardigan front from the shoulder down. It's interesting...

Mods galore

So remember I wanted to knit a long cabled cardigan? Well, I eventually decided on Louhi. There are a few challenging things about this decision: 1) as the designer says, the pattern isn't so much a pattern as a set of guidelines; 2) it was written for a 48"/ 122cm chest size; 3) it's ankle length, and I want mid-thigh length.

As I said, these are challenges, and not insurmountable, but I'll be making major major modifications.

Luckily, I got gauge with my seed stitch swatch. Oh, right, I'm doing this with the "normal" seed stitch (purl the knits and knit the purls) rather than the double seed stitch (?) used in the pattern.

First up, the sleeve. The cabled hem band is knit, then stitches for the sleeve are picked up along one edge. To make the sleeve skinnier, I made the hem band shorter, and took the pattern's advice about where to start and stop knitting the cables to make them symmetric when I seam it into a circle.


I also picked up fewer stitches for the sleeve itself. This was fine as long as I had enough stitches to accommodate the large cable running up the sleeve. I also ignored all the instructions about increasing for the sleeve and pretty much winged it until it looked like it would fit right- wrapping the sleeve-in-progress around my arm gives me a pretty good idea of fit.

So far, so good.

The next tricky bit will be the sleeve cap shaping, which I will have to recalculate. This is trickier than it would normally be, because the sleeve cap for Louhi has a special cabled arch, and the pattern has carefully placed decreases to shape that arch. I'll have the same number of rows for the cap, but fewer stitches, so I'll have to figure out how to decrease fewer stitches in the same number of rows, yet still keep the arch shape. Stay tuned!

My downfall

I generally try to eat well, and these days, because I'm not working and can get out to the shops frequently, I buy lots of fresh food. The covered market may be a bit touristy and some of it pricey, but I've found I can manage pretty well on our one-income budget there. I buy veggies from the greengrocer (they are very good about having local produce and it's easy to see at a glance what's in season- and when stuff is in season, it's cheap; I was buying kilos of broad beans for less than £1/kilo); meat from the butcher (there's actually an organic butcher in the market! And again, easy to see what's available and in season); seafood from the fishmonger; bread from the baker; I try to stay away from the cheese stall (spendy), but The Limey loves it.

Having said all that, there is one packaged food I will not give up. I know it's terrible and barely counts as edible food, it's bad for me, it's basically petroleum by-products and chemical flavouring, but...instant noodles. I have a big salt tooth...well, let's face it, it's an MSG addiction, really...and instant noodles are satisfying in a way almost nothing else is: starchy, salty, soupy goodness. I have tried lots of brands from that one aisle in the Asian market- you know the one, lined with random brightly-coloured rectangular packets with lettering in scripts you can't even begin to read. The best- the absolute best- instant noodle on the market is the Korean Shin Ramyun "Hot & Spicy". I used to buy it by the 20-packet box. If you don't like spicy, then I can't help you. (Pic taken from Amazon.)
I add whatever I have in the fridge to the ramen. Asian greens such as bak choi or gai lan are obvious choices, but green beans, mange tout- anything with a bit of bite or crunch. If I have tofu, especially cubes of the fried stuff, I'll toss that in. If I'm really hungry, I'll stir in an egg as well. If I happen to have frozen potstickers (a kind of dumpling) I'll add a few of those. The Limey prefers his potstickers cooked properly- steamed and browned in a skillet- but that would involve using another pan, which is so not the point of packaged noodles.


All this takes five minutes, and then I can get back to the couch with my Agatha Christie or trashy romance. (Those may be more elements to my downfall.) Oh yeah.

IKnit day

On Friday I went down to London to take in some of IKnit's weekender. I went last year, and this year they've expanded to a full two-day show. I hadn't booked any of their workshops or talks, although they certainly produced an all-star line-up. Mostly I wanted to mooch around and see if anyone I knew was there.

Though there was a good crowd, I was kind of surprised at how calm and easily-navigated the main exhibition floor was. I think because it was a Friday rather than a weekend. Also maybe lots of people were at the workshops?


I delivered some patterns to Jeni at the Fyberspates stall. She was displaying a bunch of knitted samples. And look what was there!


My Hera Jacket! She said there'd been lots of interest in it, and by mid-afternoon, she'd sold all but one copy of the pattern. I greeted this news with pleased surprise, but she said this meant she'd have none to sell the rest of the weekender. I hope she found a copy machine. Still, this news made me very happy.

Surprisingly, I didn't buy much. IKnit had a blocking wire set which I thought hard about, but decided to leave for another day. The House of Hemp had a beautiful display and some of their hand-dyed hanks were gorgeous. They were madly busy every time I went by. Eventually, I elbowed my way through and, after much dithering, bought four skeins of their 4-ply in a pretty blue, with a sleeveless shell in mind.


They'd organized the yarns into baskets based on broad colour families, and I needed help getting four skeins of the same colour. The lady was really nice and pulled out skein after skein, comparing colours and running under a skylight to see better. We eventually felt these four were as close as we were going to get. I'll probably use two skeins for the front of the shell and two for the back, doing a couple rows from each skein to blend the colours. If I like working with the yarn, I get the feeling I might be heading to their website to buy some of the hand-dyed; they had a hank which reminded me of glorious peacocks...

I also bought a skein of some faaaabulous yarn from the IKnit stall, which will be a present for The Limey. You, and he, will have to wait until I finish it to see.

I stopped by say hi to Diane, then ended up spending most of the day sitting around knitting and talking with her and some fairly random strangers.

Eventually, hunger and the fear of spending more money drove me out of the show. I stopped by an Oxfam bookshop on the way to the tube station and- surprise!- found a few really good knitting books. I got one of Kim Hargreaves older books, and one from Kaffe Fassett as well.

I ate, and then hung around until it was time for my train back. One thing I don't like about training it from Oxford is that the cheaper day tickets mean pre-booking specific trains; how do I know beforehand when I'll be ready to head home? But it turns out I needn't have worried.


I was well-entertained at Paddington station by the Great Western Railway Paddington Band. Who knew?

Aeolian

I started and finished Aeolian while on holiday. Then it sat in a drawer here for ten days while I tried to figure out where to block it. It turns out, the bed worked great.


Yarn: Malabrigo lace, baby! In "Buscando azul", bought during a long ago field trip to Get Knitted; shoulderette used about 40g of the 50g skein.
Needles: 3.5mm Addi Turbos
Pattern: the lovely Aeolian, from Knitty Spring '09, by Elizabeth Freeman; shoulderette version

Notes: This was a total breeze to knit. I even got the hang of the nupps after only the first couple. I knit this exactly as written for the small shoulderette version, except without beads. I had a dickens of a time blocking it though. I didn't know what the heck "The shawl will block to slightly more than a triangle" meant. "More than a triangle"? Wha? I looked at a bunch of pictures of blocking Aeolians on Ravelry and got the jist, though. Apparently, "more than a triangle" is this:


I wasn't really happy with my blocking. I felt that the nupped "flowers" of the edging could have been stretched more, but there wasn't room, if you know what I mean. The body of the shawl wanted to be "slightly more than a triangle" but the edging wanted to be way more than triangle. If I could have blocked in 3-D, the edging would have given a ruffled effect.

Speaking of the nupps...I say I got the hang of them, but maybe not. See this close-up here?


Those red arrows point to nupps. Can you see them? Of course not. But can you see them here?


Yes you can. On the reverse side. Those bastard nupps, which weren't exactly easy to make, popped out on the wrong side. I thought blocking would help. But no. Traitors.

But overall, it's a gorgeous shawl, and the Malabrigo lace makes it basically weightless. It's featherlight. I kind of wished I'd used beads, which would have anchored it in case I encounter a slight breeze. I do note the yarn is a single and spun very loosely- it feels like it'll felt if you look at it weird.


The finished size is roughly 42in/107cm from tip to tip, and 20in/51cm from centre to point. Because I had a fifth of the yarn left over, I could probably have added a few repeats- the pattern is great because it tells you how to work varying sizes.

It's a beautiful, delicate shawl, but I'll probably be wearing it like this, where you can see the laciness so well.


I think I'll wear it to the iknit show tomorrow. Say hi if you see me!

Hera Jacket pattern up for sale

The Hera Jacket is up for sale on both the Fyberspates website and Ravelry.


(Click on pictures to biggerize.)

This jacket is all about texture and shape, both kept simple and wearable. The nubbly, woven-like fabric is made with the easy-to-work rosette stitch. The swingy shape can be worn open, or closed with a belt knitted in the same yarn, or with a store-bought belt.

The body is worked in one piece, and the sleeves worked in the round, so the only seaming is at the armholes. For a professional, finished look, all edges are hemmed with fold-over, knit-as-you-go hems.

Hera is a great cover-up for when the days start getting chilly. The wool/silk blend of the Scrumptious yarn is warm and soft and really pops in the textured pattern.

The fronts of the jacket overlap, so one size will fit a wide range of bodies. This is also meant to go over other clothing, so choose a size with a couple of inches of ease.

Finished measurements: 36.5 (40.75, 44.75, 48.75, 52.75, 57.25, 61.25) inches at bust, including 3-inch overlap on jacket fronts; 18 (18, 19, 19, 20, 20, 20) inches long from hem to underarm;
92.5 (103.5, 114, 124, 134, 145, 155.5) cm at bust, including 8 cm overlap on jacket fronts; 46 (46, 48, 48, 51, 51, 51) cm long from hem to underarm

Yarn: Fyberspates Scrumptious Chunky (45% silk/55% merino wool, 122m per 100g skeins): 13 (14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21) skeins

Gauge: 20 sts / 22 rows = 4 inches / 10 cm in rosette st pattern

Needles: 4.5mm/US 7, or size needed to get gauge, 40 inch / 100 cm circulars; 3.5 mm/US 4 40 inch / 100 cm circulars.

Notions: removable stitch markers, stitch holders or waste yarn.

The pattern is an 8-page PDF with clear schematics and finished measurements for 7 sizes.

The pattern is available for £4 and you can buy from the Fyberspates site, from Ravelry, and by clicking the "Buy Now" button on the blog here.

Travel broadens more than the mind

As I've mentioned before, when I travel nowadays, whatever little planning I do is centred around food and yarn. I've found that it's a great way to travel. If I'm looking for specific yarn shops and restaurants, this involves my navigating around new places with a goal in mind, rather than mindlesslessing wandering around the easy-to-find touristy areas. Often, these places are out of the most touristed bits, so I am forced to interact more with locals and to use whatever little language skills I may have picked up from a guidebook.

This latest trip home may not have required navigating around strange cities and foreign language skills, but I still got in a lot of food and knitting. Here are some highlights.

Ramen, tempura and tonkatsu at Suzu Noodle House in Japantown in SF. That is some good stuff. My veggie tempura had a piece of aubergine that was done damned near perfectly (which is good, 'cause it's so easy to make aubergine gross).


Imperial rolls at Turtle Tower in the Tenderloin in SF. Not the best neighbourhood, no (though I grew up there), but great Vietnamese food- just down the street from here is the place that makes the best bahn mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) in the city. The dishes we had here came with lots and lots of greens, which is what I loved most about eating on my trip to Vietnam. I'd ordered the cha ca, and it was the nearest to what I'd had in Hanoi than any version I've had since.


Oysters at Hog Island in the ferry building market in SF. I love oysters, but the picture here is The Limey trying a Kumamoto. This is amazing because before he met me, the only fish The Limey had ever eaten was battered and deep-fried beyond recognition. Although he's tried lots of fish since and even liked some of it, oysters weren't something he was ever even vaguely interested in. But here he is! His verdict? "I could see how some people could get used to it."


Uh....we didn't actually eat or buy anything at this deli in the ferry building market, but you gotta give it points for truth in advertising.


And the best thing I ate in SF: crab in ginger and scallions, cooked at home. This is one of my favourite dishes in the world and I've never had it better than the way my father cooks it. He makes this for me whenever I go home. The last two times, he has tried to teach The Limey how to do it. I think he's nearly got it down now, although my father's method of killing the crab is a bit too ruthless for us- we'll have to find a a wussier way of doing it.

Did you say yarn?

Some Lana Gross sock yarn from Bluebird Yarn and Fiber in Sausalito- these were picked out by The Limey for his next socks. A skein of Online Linie12 from Knit and Pearl in Santa Barbara for me to play with; I've been kinda interested in linen yarns for a while.


Jared Flood's book of patterns for Classic Elite Yarns, again from Knit and Pearl in SB. There are some lovely patterns in here and the Classic Elite stuff is hard to get in the UK, so I jumped at the chance to grab it. A Japanese stitch dictionary from the Kunokuniya bookstore in Japantown in SF. I was tempted by a few of the pattern books as well, but figured I wouldn't actually knit anything out of them. This stitch dictionary, though, has a bunch of stitch patterns I've not seen anywhere else, so I couldn't resist. The bookstore had a large knitting section, which I had to go through book by book because I can't read Japanese and therefore couldn't tell what was in the books by the spine!


And, oh yes, I finished knitting my Aeolian. It's still unblocked, but it was a great knit.

I don't know about this sunny and hot business...

Sure, SoCal has the beach and ocean...


And it's got the palm trees and hot hot hot weather...


But all that means for me is a mild sunburn and the need to mainline iced coffee all day.

No, what I'm really excited about is...


Mexican food!


Mmmm...fresh tortillas...tamales...many and varied salsas...

Also, some pretty good seafood. It turns out The Limey has never had clam chowder (until last night, anyway)! How does someone reach his fourth decade without ever having clam chowder?!

But I'm over all this hot weather business, and am really glad that we're off to San Francisco tomorrow. Whew. With any luck, I'll need to actually wear a cardigan at some point in the next few days.

In sunny Santa Barbara

Got my Addi Turbos through two airports with no problems. At Heathrow, the needles were empty, so I figured at most I'd be out the cost of a pair of Addis, but at my layover in Vancouver, they had 8 hours of lace work on them, so I was quite nervous. Security didn't bat an eye, but I did have a fellow passenger say she had wanted to bring knitting but didn't think she could get needles through.


It turns out, for me, about eight hours is what it takes to get to the edging charts of the Aeolian shawl (I'm doing the smaller shoulderette version, without beads). I've just finished the second set of nupps, and you know what? Those bastards don't show up very well for me- they want to appear on the wrong side.

It's nice to see The Limey, and I had a present for him.



Oh That's Punny!
Yarn: Trekking XXL for the main body of the sock, and I think some Paton's Diploma Gold 4-ply for the words
Needles: my usual 2.0mm dpns for the main sock, with the stranded colourwork done on 3.0mm
Pattern: the body of the sock is basically Kate Blackburn's Hareton Socks, with, uh, a modification at the top of the leg

Notes: A visual pun of one of The Limey's favourite cursewords. I don't even know if other people except he and a buddy from grad school use it. It was suggested during the camping trip in March, and it was easy enough to do, so I did it.

The argyle-y pattern of the socks is great; it's all elegant texture. It would be perfect for a pair of fancy dress socks. If you don't put swear words on the cuff, of course. I did some non-obvious modifications of Kate's pattern as well- I did it toe up, with my usual short row heel.

Good plane knitting?

In a valiant, and somewhat successful, attempt at avoiding the huge to-do list, I finished The Limey's socks yesterday. I was saving them for the plane ride. So now I have no plane knitting! Oh noes!

I'm racking my brains here...I like sock knitting because my wooden dpns are less likely to be confiscated by the overly zealous security people, but I have no more sock yarn for The Limey and I don't want to knit socks for me...I want to start a good lace project, but I don't want to risk my Addi lace turbos with the aforementioned security and I have no wooden circulars of appropriate size...it would be a good time to do colourwork, but I don't have a project picked out, and there's no time to get more yarn, so whatever it is has to be do-able with what I have...

I'm going to add "rummage through stash" and "do humongous Ravelry pattern search" to my to-do list.

Make me do chores!

I'm leaving for California in a few days. The Limey's already there, working. I'm going to fly out to Santa Barbara and hang around for a few days while he finishes up work, and then he's going to take a few days off, and we're going up to San Francisco to see my family.

(Despite living just a few hours away, I have spent very little time in southern California; in fact, I think I've only been south of Santa Cruz twice. I'm kinda looking forward to mooching around SB. Mexican food, here I come.)

But, before I leave, I have to get all sorts of crap done. I have to clean the house, set up everything for the person who's going to come in to feed the cat, pack, arrange for a neighbour to keep an eye out, do some laundry...aaargh, a thousand little things. And right now I can't even be arsed to make myself lunch.

Must. Get. Ass. Off. Couch.

What to knit next?

Last year, The Limey's mother gave me a bunch of the yarn she had left over from the '80s when she used to knit. A lot of it wasn't to my taste, but she had a bag of cream-coloured Wendy Sarto (80% wool / 20% nylon). I instantly wanted to make a long cabled cardigan from it. This was put on hold until a few days ago.

I browsed patterns and asked on Ravelry (there are lots of cabled cardigan patterns out there, people) and really liked these patterns:

Louhi:

I'd seen this before, and think it's gorgeous. Look at those cabled bands going all around the front, hem and hood! However, the pattern's more of a guideline, and in one size, so I'll have to do a lot of number crunching to make it fit me and make it shorter.


Nell:


One of Kim Hargreaves beautifully classic designs. I have to be careful not to let the photography/styling/model influence me, though. I may want to live in a Rowan photo shoot, but that doesn't mean I want the knitwear. Also, for this, I'd have to get the Hargreaves book, since the pattern isn't sold individually. (A kind soul on Ravelry has already offered to lend me her copy, though- the wonders of the interwebs!)


Fireside (Ravelry link):

Isn't it lovely? All that cabley goodness, and it's got front bands that cable right up to and around the collar, like Louhi. Also like Louhi, I'd have to do a bit of number crunching, in this case, to lengthen the cardi.

After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, I've decided to read through the Louhi pattern and see how easy/hard it will be to re-size. I think it's got a certain something, and it's definitely different...

Not bad, if I do say so myself

In the last few days, I've managed to get quite a few things done, and put other stuff in order. I'm surprised, because I feel like I've just been surfing the internet and reading teen sci-fi/fantasy books (I'm rediscovering Diana Wynne Jones, at the moment).

1. I got Milkweed done in record time.

2. I sent out the first draft of that Fyberspates pattern. I also scheduled a photoshoot with a friend this weekend to get some pictures for me before I send the FO off to Jen.

3. I downloaded Scribus and played with it to see if I might want to start making my patterns look a bit more professional. It's a very basic desk top publishing program (can't afford InDesign!) but it looks like it will do what I need to lay out patterns and such.

4. I did up the charts for another design, swatched it, realized it didn't work, messed around some more with the charts before deciding that the stitch pattern probably won't do what I need it to do, picked another one, messed around with it a bit and charted that up. I "just" have to swatch it up now.

5. I've decided that I will definitely take a break and do a personal knitting project before I start work in earnest on the next design. I will work on either that dress I've been talking about, or a long cabled, belted jacket, maybe with a hood? Any ideas on patterns for that, by the way?

6. I've also decided that The Limey's socks will be finished up on the plane over to California. It'll be a cool surprise for him, and -let's be honest- by then he'll probably have run out of the clean socks he took with him.

Go me! (Now with new and improved pictures!)

(Got the good camera back from the repair people. I know it's a poor worker who blames her tools, but I really did not get on with the back-up camera. Since I'm not such a hot photographer, I do need all the help I can get from the equipment.)

In a marathon knitting session, I got Milkweed done in less than two days. I really needed a quick satisfying knit, and this hit the spot.


Milkweed Shawlette
Yarn: Jenny Cook Hand-dyed sock yarn; 80% alpaca/20% silk, bought in Hay-on-Wye
Needles: 3.5mm Addis
Pattern: Laura Chau's Milkweed

Notes: Took just over 100g of this yarn- I'm guessing I used around 300m. I was really afraid I was going to have to frog a bit of the Anti-Funk, but luckily had no problems finishing up with the leftovers from that first skein. Finished size about 1 meter wide and 40cm from centre to middle point. I kind of wish I'd managed it to be a little wider, actually, so it would hang lower when worn.

I love this yarn in garter stitch, and it works with this pattern beautifully.



The pattern is clear and easy to follow- I used the charts.



Now, onto pattern writing. While the shawl was blocking, I had a small breakthrough in charting out a pattern idea, so now I'm making myself write up this last pattern before I start swatching on the next.

Camera-less

I finally got around to sending the camera away to be fixed and what happens? I finish knitting that last Fyberspates design.

It took forever. And I'm not sure why, exactly. It's not a difficult knit, and I'd memorized the lace pattern at the very beginning. I'd been holding off doing any other knitting until it was done, so now there's a short list of what-to-do-next:

1. Write up the pattern for the design

2. swatch up another design I've got in my head

3. figure out what I should do about a few swatches/proposals that I have laying around

4. Start Milkweed!

5. Finish the last three inches of The Limey's latest socks (these socks have been languishing since April).

Milkweed it is!

Thanks for the suggestions. I think because of the yardage requirements, it will be Milkweed for the Jenny Cook hand-dyed. But, in going through my stash, I found some beautifully soft bamboo blend sock yarn given to me by a visiting friend, and it is absolutely perfect for Aestlight. Yay for shopping from stash!

But first I have to finish this last design for Fyberspates. It just needs a couple of days of monogamous knitting and it'll be done. Then I can go to work on Milkweed while writing up and editing the pattern.

Decisions, decisions

Thanks for the comments about the driving instructor. I'm glad to know that I wasn't overreacting or being too "special snowflake" about the whole taking the wheel thing. I will probably call the driving school and ask for another instructor. I don't blame the school itself- after all, my last instructor worked for them and was awesome. The Limey thinks I should complain about the latest person and demand my money back, but I don't think I'll go that far.

So, then, next thing I'd like some of your opinions on. I still have some loverly hand-dyed alpaca/silk sock yarn from Jenny Cook left from the two skeins I bought in Hay. I want to make one of these new-fangled shawlettes with it. I made the Anti-Funk with one partial skein and, because I love the gartery goodness of this yarn, I've narrowed it down to two garter-based designs.

Milkweed, by Laura Chau:


or Aestlight, by Gudrun Johnston:


To be perfectly honest with myself, I probably don't have enough yardage for Aestlight, even the smaller size. But I do so love that little bit of lace!

Whaddy'all think?

Different teaching style or batshit crazy?

During the April/May/June visitors/moving madness, I had stopped my driving lessons. I'd done a good 18 hours and was at the point where we were just doing practice tests on the known testing routes so my instructor could give me pointers on what I had to improve on (mainly checking the damned mirrors in an overly cautious and -most importantly- obviously noticeable way). I'd passed my theory test with flying colours. Basically, I was getting pretty good and just needed to polish up a few things.

As stuff has settled down, I decided to schedule my last two pre-paid hours here in Oxford, with another instructor, obviously.

Now, I admit my first instructor, Paul, was great, and maybe I'm spoiled. But this Oxford person's teaching just did not gel with me at all. You all will have to tell me if this is normal driving instructor behaviour.

• She kept taking the steering wheel! She'd grab it from her side and start moving the car I'm supposedly driving. Paul never did this.

• She used her passenger-side brake and clutch all the time. It got so that when I went to use any of the pedals, I wasn't sure what I'd find. In the 18 hours of lessons I had with Paul, I remember him using his controls exactly twice.

• She seemed skittish and overly cautious. She wanted me to go really, really slowly and then to slow down even more if a car even looked like it was going to come near us, even if it had its own nice, wide lane. I realize this is a judgement call, but we barely got into third gear the whole two hours. I did more than that in the first lesson I had with Paul.

So: normal driving instructor behaviour, and I was just spoiled before? Or is she crazy?

(I hasten to add that we got along fine, and she was a perfectly nice person. Plus, she was professional, gave me a few good pointers, and said she'd been a driving instructor for seven years. So she can't be totally off, right?)

Either way, I can't imagine taking any more lessons from her. Luckily, I've finished my pre-paid hours with this driving school. Should I call them and ask for lessons with another instructor? Or should I take the really cowardly way out and use another driving school?

Munich

I will spare you the pictures of the central square and the crazily awesome architecture. Instead, I will list a few observations.

These people are serious about their beer.


You couldn't spit without hitting a brauhaus or biergarten. And we had gorgeous weather, so brauhaus (-es? -er?) and entire cafes and restaurants conducted their business outdoors. I quite liked the weisse beers I tried- I found them sweet and aromatic. Although I cannot drink them by the litre. Alcoholic drinks should not be measured in litres! Petrol and water come in litres, not beer!

These people are serious about their meat.


Bavaria does not seem to be a place that recognizes the fact that people might sometimes feel they've had enough pork and beef. However, I definitely didn't starve. Here, at Der Pschorr (at one corner of the Viktualienmarkt), I had some pike perch, on a bed of some beautifully done risotto.

But it was definitely hard going sometimes. The Limey was in Munich for a conference, and I attended the conference dinners and barbecues. This is the only time I've ever been at gatherings such as this where no effort whatsoever was made to accommodate vegetarians. I'm not vegetarian (see fish, above), and luckily I'm not picky. At the fancy conference dinner, I ate soup, salad and veggies and gave The Limey my portion of meat (so he was happy), and at the barbecue, I ate crisps and bread.

One of the great things for me about travelling when I don't know the local language is ordering random stuff off the menu to see what you get. Like I said, I'm not picky, although not eating most meat does limit this pleasure somewhat. However, ordering from the dessert menu is always safe.



These people are serious about their dirndls.


When I first saw these in a shop window, I thought, Haha, good tourist trap. But then I noticed them everywhere: in department stores that seem to to cater largely to the locals; in shops outside of the more central touristy areas. So it can't all be souvenir tat. That purple one with the peacock feathers costs EUR2200! But, except for waitresses at the brauhauser, I didn't see anyone actually wearing one. A friend of mine said that you do see more of the traditional costumes around Oktoberfest time. I did see gentlemen "of a certain age" wearing the old-skool lapel-less jackets with the small collars. I think those look really good, actually. We should have bought one for The Limey.

In all, I had a really good few days wandering around the city. The public transport was easy to use, I could get by with a half-dozen words of German, people were helpful. I do like Berlin better, but that could be because I had my own personal tour guide and translator with me there.

And now for the knitty portion of the trip review.
Non-knitters, you can stop reading now.

I know what's on everyone's minds: Wollmeise.

Okay, well. Okay. Now, I've never bought or even seen any Wollmeise yarn in person. I like touching and feeling new yarns, so I hardly ever buy stuff off t'internets. But I'd heard good things about the yarn, so I figured I'd make some sort of effort to see it. What a rollercoaster ride- it went something like this:

:) Going to Germany! Wollmeise is German! I'll be able to get some at the yarn shops!

:( Wollmeise doesn't sell in shops, even in her native land.

:) But she sells in markets! I can navigate the Deutsche Bahn website to get to a market!

:( No markets are scheduled for the few days I'm in Germany.

:) But what's this?! She has an actual physical, bricks-and-mortar shop! And it's only 30 minutes by train from Munich! And it opened for business last month!

:( But it's not scheduled to open any of the days I'm in Munich!

So I'm afraid there is no Wollmeise experience to report. I did wander around the city to find some yarn shops. Unfortunately, two of them were closed when I found them, but I did get into Lanaiolo.


They had a good selection of GGH yarns, a little bit of Rowan (KSH, natch) and Debbie Bliss. Some other cashmere, mohair, alpaca blends and such. Basically, though, it was way too hot to even think of those fibres. I was on the hunt for summer fibres for a dress. I eventually bought some GGH Safari, a linen/nylon blend- but maybe not enough for a whole dress? (Stop me if you've heard that before...) I think I'll be able to do something with a constrasting colour, though.

A spot of travel

The Limey has to be in Munich for work next week, and since we've only seen each other for a total of two days in the last month, I'm gonna tag along. The only place in Germany I've ever been is Berlin, which I loved, so I'm excited about wandering around Munich. We'll be there for five days. I think I may have to hang around with The Limey and his work people in the evenings, but I will have the days to myself.

Anybody been to Munich? Or live there? What should I see? I will get a guidebook, but it's always nice to hear people's experiences. Oooh, and restaurant recommendations, please. All I do nowadays when I travel is look for yarn shops and restaurants!