What am I knitting. Where am I knitting?

My latest work in progress, can you guess what it is yet?

It's going to be a scarf, based on the Step Up afghan from Woolly Thoughts. The pattern is the sort of super-logical and efficient-as-possible one I love. There's lots of picking up stitches, knitting one shape into another, and rules like all triangles are stocking stitch, or vertical parallelograms have garter stitch light-coloured stripes. I'm still getting to grips with these rules, but am getting there.

Rather than what am I knitting, a better question might be where am I knitting it? Ignore the old bag from a conference in Florence; that's a red herring.

If you can't quite work out that white fuzzy dome in the background, here's a better shot, stepping out from the macro a bit:

I'm in DC for a couple of months, visiting faculty at American University, School of Communication. I'll also be spending a bit of time in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Toronto and Ottawa while I’m here. Any don't miss knitting things to do, people to see, yarn to squeeze? (don't think I can make Maryland Sheep and Wool).

I just managed to catch the last day of the Crochet Reef display at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History on it's last day. Best two overheards there: "it's not coral, it's made of sweater stuff" (but in a tone of "and OMG that is awesome") and "it wasn't just one person you know, it was loads of people, it's a community project" (again, clearly the speaker thought this was the best bit. I agree).

Owls (and Ibsen) Revisited

I finished my Aran-version of the Owls Sweater over a year ago (amongst the snow of Feb '09), but it was always a bit on the short side. I was over-cautious about yarn quantities and ended up with a slightly too small sweater (well, fitted, shall we say) and a whole ball left over.

I did wear it, just not as frequently as I'd like. Last week I took action: unpicked the cast-on edge, picked up the ribbing and added a few inches. The result is much more wearable (and afterall, we are all wearing our tops longer these days). If you look very closely, you can just about see where I picked up the stitches, but you do have to look carefully. Full notes on ravelry project page.


The building site/ roundabout in the background is the lovely Yorkshire city of Sheffield, which I visited at the weekend, mainly to see An Enemy of the People. Sheffield might seem a long way to travel from London to see a 19th century Norwegian play about the politics of sewage, but I do love that play. Ibsen has a reputation as grim. This is wrong, especially in terms of An Enemy. The ending is tragic, the final line especially so, but that's only because the build up is so full of joyous enthusiasm for life. It is also a classic study of science and society (Ibsen was a med student turned journalist before he was a dramatist), in many respects as relevant today as it was in the 1880's.

I first saw it in the late 1990s. It was at the National and Ian McKellen played the lead. I was an impressionable 17, and inspired. I ended up doing a big coursework essay on it, and er, devoting my entire life to studying/ researching/ teaching issues of science in society. So, it was with excitement but also a bit of trepidation that I went back. I wasn't disappointed: by the play, by the production or by the changes I could (Holden Caulfield style) track in myself. That's enough blather about literature though, I'll finish with a shot of my current WIP: a small and very easy project using some a few balls of leftover yarn.


It's really just icord with the odd leaf growing out of it. Yes, there are a load of ends to sew in, but I'm doing them as I go. It is inspired by a few projects I've seen around, but largely improvised. It should make a lightweight decorative scarf when its done (or maybe just slightly odd bunting). More details on ravelry project page.

Warming jumpers and balling yarn

Happy New Year. I'm sneaking in a quick blog post between start-of-term business and our impending house-move next weekend (no huge life-dramas: it's just that the land-lady's selling up and we're only moving a mile away, but moving is a hassle).

I thought I'd share a recent experience in balling some yarn of my mother's, in case the info is of any use to fellow knitters. Exhibit one: some pretty, but very tangled and very, very slippery yarn.

My mum bought it in Damascus (here). From my own experience with a lace-weight version of the same yarn, I predicted it would be a humongous pain to ball. Loads of tangles, and so slippy you leave it un-gripped for a millisecond and the ball falls to pieces (creating more tangles in the process). I warned her, and insisted she came round to use our swift and ball winder.

I was right about the tangles and slipperiness. About 1/8th of the way through we decided to ditch the idea of the ball-winder (it just slipped off it, you had to hold the ball in your hand the whole time...). We needed a bobbin which could readily be passed through un-doing knots. We looked around the table and spotted some rolls of parma violets I had lying around ready to be sent off to a friend who lives in the states.

They worked REALLY well. The thick pen-like shape was great for wrapping yarn around whilst keeping tight in your hand, as well as pointing through the knots. We then balled the yarn (by hand) from these bobbins and kept the balls secure with some tissue paper and rubber bands. It still took several hours: the finished knitting pieces from this yarn better be worth it!

If you don't know what these Parma Violets things are, they are UK-sweeties (candy if you really must), flavoured with violets. You either love or hate them. See a close up of the 'bobbin' here.

I'll finish with a couple of FO shots - pieces finished over the Christmas break, my last knitting of 2009.

It's the Wedgewood blouse from IW Knits Summer 2006 (but modified as a woolly jumper), and a super-simple top-down raglan cardigan. Ravelled here and here respectively. The yarn for both comes from aborted attempts at Demi (rav link). Which, using yarn from a first-day-of-the-sales trip to John Lewis, is my current WIP. I've modified to work it as a top-down raglan, but I'm a little worried I won't have enough yarn. Wish me luck.

knit grumps of a WIP (plus a nice FO)

My attempt at the Pretty as a Peacock shawl is kicking my bottom. Doesn't it look pretty up there? Pah! That was *four* false-starts ago.

First, I changed my mind about gauge, and I frogged and started again. The yarn pictured is Fyberspaces infinity, held double. Once the gauge was sorted it was going along pretty well, but I still felt the yarn wasn't the best match for the pattern: the thicker, shinier and evenly-dyed silk I bought in Damascus would do a better job. Again, I frogged and started again.

But this yarn is so slippery if a stitch falls even a little, it'll fall all the way to the end (imagine the complete opposite of kidsilk haze). Plus the pattern, at least in the first few charts, isn't regular enough that its easy to see how to neatly bring the stitch. I'm normally pretty good at using a crochet hook to bring dropped stitches up from several rows down - I'll happily turn cables around the other way or re-situate lace. But for some reason I can't get my head around this one. So, there's been two further full frogs. Grrr.

In happier news, I finished a cardigan, and I love it - even if I do seem to look especially grumpy in all the photos.

Its Rambling Rose from Rowan 39. I'd made this ages ago but it came out way too big. Plus, I thought a longer version would look nice, and I much preferred the ones I saw in ravelry which had been made out of a springy wool rather than the recommended cotton. The restult is the basic idea and charts of Rambling Rose, but done as a top down raglan with a load of side shaping. It fits perfectly, and is a pretty and practical cardi. A nice bit of warmth over a tee for the warmer months. Details of yarn, needles etc can be found the project's ravelry page.

In even happier news, Lara is coming round for afternoon tea, so I'm going to put the annoying knitting away, getting out some plain old stocking stitch to talk-and-knit with and putting on a batch of maple-syrup scones (they have oats in them and make the kitchen smell gorgeous, recipe from this book. Eat them with marmite: it shouldn't work but it really does).

Damascene Silk

Yes. I've been knitting in the desert. Those are Roman remains in the background (Palmrya). The project is a top-down take on Rambling Rose. 

My baby brother's been working in Damascus this year, so my Mother and I decided a visit was in order.  The last family holiday together before baby-bro gets married in the summer. Mum and I flew into Istanbul then made the rest of the trip overland.  We explored Crusader castles, sacred churches and mosques (e.g. where St Paul had his sight returned), amazingly empty Roman ruins, drank minty lemonade and generally pretended to be Agatha Christie (we had coffee in the hotel where she wrote Murder on the Orient Express). I've put some of my favourite photos at the trip at the end of this post, but first: the yarn. 

After managing to avoid anything more yarny than spotting a lady knitting socks outside Istanbul university, on our last day I discovered a little store hiding in the spice souk of Damascus's old town. Surrounded by a heady scent of cinnamon, cardamon and freshly ground coffee were shelves upon shelves full of gleaming silk, all in the deepest, brightest colours. Plus, possibly the rudest shop-keeper I've ever met (though I suspect he was watching the shop for a friend, he seemed to care so little about selling anything). Above are some of the yarns I saw, these are the two I bought. 

I had just bought 3000m of cobweb purple silk from Fyberspates, but the aforementioned baby-bro wedding is set to be a giant Malaysian/Scottish triple-event extravaganza, so I've been planning a bit of a summer of lace as it is. 

There has been knitting

The yarn cake: product of the ball winder I finally decided to buy. Its amazing. Why didn't I get one before? Not only has there been ball winding, but there has been knitting. This is partly because I realised how close Christmas is, and partly because I took a few days off cycling to work*, thus opening up bus-journey time for the knit. The links below are to ravelry.

Rosa in Wool Cotton

Robot Hat (as socks) in various sockyarn

Arch-shaped socks in Smooshy

* The pause in cycling due to being HIT BY A CAR last week. Driver decided to illegally turn left and not look before he did it. Clever. I was very lucky, a few bruises, and the bike seems equally unscathed. I got straight back on the saddle, and have cycled into town several days since then, but I was a bit shaken up and stiff to manage every day.

domestic saturday

As a balance to the last two messy tuesdays posts, here is one based on a day of domesticity. Though I dare say you can spot some mess at the back of a few of the shots. The day started with a shower, a bit of a tidy of the kitchen and a check of jobs.ac.uk, followed by a lengthy deconstruction of pantomime cross-dressing over brunch at a local cafe with Marcus. He pottered off to the football, and I picked up some groceries on the way home. I only went in for bread flour, but there was a special offer on frozen raspberries.


So now we have 9 jars of jam. I do like raspberry jam. While doing the washing up, I found an Agatha Christie on the BBC7 iplayer. I not only know whodunit, but could virtually recite the script verbatim, but Miss Marple is one of my favourite guilty pleasures. This one even starts with a knitting; a dropped stitch and skein of blue wool to be exact. So, during the rest of the radio play there was a bit of knitting from me. Socks, using 'magic-magic loop' of two-on-one-needle, I'm making the pattern up as I go.


Then some baking. Kirsty and I, in a moment of whimsy earlier in the week resolved to make a cake in celebration of the return of Dr Who, challenging ourselves to include ingredients starting with the letters d, r, w, h and o. So, a carrot cake with dates, raisins, wholemeal flour, honey and the juice of an orange. We baked it in a loaf tin and covered it in blue icing, full results here. We made up a couple of mini-muffins with the leftover mix, TARDIS door-knobs?


After that little excursion into geekery (unusual for either of us), we completed the day in relative elegance with some pre-dinner cocktails. Because one should always keep a bottle of cava and some cassies on hand. Take that Nigella.

Tomorrow, I work. Marking exams.

unfinished

Ravelry didn't kill the knitblog. If anything, it's inspired more people to set them up. I do think, however, there's been a dearth of work in progress posts since the advent of ravelry. If you know your current new cast-on will make it through friend's activity pages, why blog-up their blogroll too? But there is a place for moments taken to sum up works on the needles; time out to consider the process. It being a messy tuesday I thought I spend some time, on my blog, pausing to consider a few incompletes in my life.

Above is a stole I've just started. Muir, to be precise, and in the yarn the pattern calls for, artfibers Tsuki. It's so rare I ever follow yarn specifications, it came as a bit of a surprise to me to realise I'd inadvertently done what I was told. I think it's going to bit a WIP for a while. I have to look at it when I knit, so not great for knit groups, knitting while chatting at home, or knitting in front of the television. It is small, and I had planned it for bus-knitting, but the yarn's so slippery it's hard to knit on a moving vehicle.

Next, is my Demi, in Cash Iroha bought in the John Lewis post-Christmas sale. It's knitted. It's even seamed, and this shot was taken while it was drying after having been washed and blocked. It is however, still without buttons. I had just over a ball left over of the yarn, so I've cast on for a beret. Neither this, or the jumper itself is especially seasonal. I started this back in January, thinking there'd be plenty of time to wear it this year, but things kept getting in the way. I thought it'd still get a wearing after the snow over Easter (in London, yes, the first snow of the year, a week before we swap from GMT to British Summer Time). But its been raging sunshine the last few days. And not the crisp cold kind of sunny either.

Finally, it's my biggest WIP of all, the thesis. Please note the 'horrible' in the document title isn't a comment on the work, as much as a reflection of the case study. As I seem to be saying to people daily at the moment, it's ok, it's getting there. It's getting there slowly, but it is going to be 90,000 words (plus or minus 10,000 words or so), good-quality words at that, so you shouldn't expect speed. And it is getting there.

Ever increasing circles

I have turned into a spiral-producing machine. I'm not saying what these are for (it's that time of year...). Simply that they are driving me ever-so-slightly looney.


However, I have mastered the art of an adjustable-ring cast-on. In boucle yarn. On a number 52 bus. Which is an achievement at least. And I'm nearly finished. Maybe four more spirals to do, which equates to roughly two commutes back and forth to work. If I tell you my standard commute is up to 90 minutes each way, you'll see this is slo-oo-ow work.


The yarn is from the Tokyo branch of Avril (aka Habu). And I have no idea what its called or what its made of because I don't read Japanese and long-ago lost the ball band. I suspect a synthetic mix with a bit of wool thrown in. There is 250g of the bleeding stuff though.

fingers and toes

7:45am on a Sunday morning is maybe a bit early for blogging, but Marcus had to leave at 7am for a football game. I couldn't get back to sleep, so thought I might as well catch up.

A while ago I knitted a single sock for the ADD knitter. In exchange, I've received a single sock of my own - this beautiful Gothic Spire from Zeitgeistyarns. When swaps work out, they really are wonderful things.

The colour, the feel of the yarn and the pattern are all amazing - I can't wait to get started. Her generous package also included the needles - knitpicks circs, which its great to have a try of as they are only just starting to be available in the UK. I've cheated though, and am first using one of them to finish off my current WIP, a pair of mittens.


I was working this on the plane, so was using bamboo dpns for that 'these are really just sticks gov' look when going through security. I find dpns can be neater for colourwork, but generally a lot less comfortable. Now I'm off the plane and with a spanking new 2.5mm circ it was much easier going. They are nearly finished, I only really have the thumbs to do.

It's my own design - would people be interested in the pattern?

EDIT: yarn for mittens is cashmerino baby (pale peach) and opal uni (brown). The cashmerino is thicker than the opal, but that actually helps it 'pop'.

Capitol Time

I'm in DC. At least for the next coupe of hours, as my flight to LA leaves this evening. The photo above is of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum building (still say ours is prettier). I've really loved DC - for some reason I thought it would be dangerous, unfriendly, ugly and impossible to walk around. I was wrong.




Now the conference is over, today I did museums, and geeked over kids science literature in bookstores. But mainly I just wandered about what I've discovered is a really beautiful city. The weather has been great and sun shows off all the autumnal colours. Plus, I followed Lolly's recommendation of Teaism and had the best noodle soup I think I've ever tasted.

What am I knitting in the bottom left picture? That'd be a secret. As I'm uploading photos though, I'll leave you with a few pictures of some beaded icord I've done recently.