New Year, New Hat

So, I walked into a tree.

In my defense, it wasn't the trunk of the tree I walked into, just a bit of a branch. Also, it was snowing quite hard, and I had my eyes on the ground, checking for ice so I didn't slip.

It was on Clapham Common a bit before Christmas, and the point of this story is that I was so dazed from the cold branch hitting me in the face, not to mention checking my glasses weren't scratched, that I didn't realise my hat had fallen off. When I went back to look, it had gone.

I needed a new hat. I picked up a ball of kid classic and a 3.5mm circular needle. I cast on 4 stitches and started working in the round. I increased four stitches every other round until it was roughly wide enough, then worked a 4x4 rib until I'd nearly run out of yarn, and cast off.

Result: one pixie-point red hat, perfect for the Christmas holidays. Final finished piece of knitting for 2010. Ravelry project page.

Conclusion: New Year's Resolution number one is to stop walking into trees.

My New Year's Resolution number two is the more serious one: do less. I've been rushed off my feet all year. I've had so much work, I haven't left much time for many of my friends, time for myself, or even simple things like tidying my room, exercise, cooking properly or sleep. I've hardly had time for a weekend, let alone a holiday. I've gone from being one of the most organised people I know, to turning up late to meetings. I've also been late with a couple of projects, and rushed a few more. I hate that. "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing properly", and all that.

2010 was a lot of fun. I've made new friends and achieved things I've never thought possible, but I finished it absolutely exhausted. Next year: do less, but do it better and be happier. That said, looking at my diary for 2011 I have some really exciting things planned. I'm going to be writing and speaking about some amazing things, and visiting some fantastic places. I just need to keep it all under control.

Having finally taken some time off over the holiday season, I've taken time to knit a few Christmas presents and pieces for friends who have recently turned 30 (urgh, 2011 is the year I do too). Will post them all soon.

... and yes, my eyes are different colours.

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.

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.

belated v-day post

EDITED to add: bobble = pompom (for those not familiar with English-English).

A few months ago my boyfriend and I had a minor disagreement over a bobble hat. We were on a boat, it was cold, and we'd just spotted another passenger knitting a stripy hat, surrounded by her family members wearing identical ones (all with bobbles).

Marcus: Ooo, you could knit me a hat.
Me: [suddenly quite elated] Knit? You? A request? And you'd wear it??
Marcus: Yeah, you could knit me a hat, I'd like that. Keep my head warm. Go on, knit me a hat. Please.
Me: Of course my love! [starts to mentally add to her ravelry queue]. I could do cables, or fair-isle, you know some really complex patterns...
Marcus: [interrupting] Ye-es. But, you know, with a bobble.
Me: [pause, then imagine the next word like Lady Bracknell says handbag] A bobble?
Marcus: [smiling, goodnaturedly]. Yeah, a bobble, I like bobbles.
Me: But bobbles are horrible and childish. I don't like bobbles. I want to knit cables, or fair isle, and a bobble would just ruin it [pouts].
Marcus: [misjudging my attitudes to bobbles slightly, trying to look cute and and taking on the voice of some kids tv show character] Bobble, bobble, bobble, bobble.
Me: [looks in another direction in disgust].

Now, a few months passed, I'm over not being able to knit him something more technically challenging. Deciding the most romantic presents are always those based on a fight, I swallowed all pride and made him a bobble hat for valentine's day. Project ravelled here.

I started as a basic top-down hat, planning ear flaps and a garter-rim. Then I realised this was basically the same as brooklyn tweed's modification of thorpe to dk-weight, but with stripes. I lengthened the odd bit here and there (and added the bobble) but basically its the same. And, I have to admit it, I think the bobble actually adds to this pattern. It lifts the eye at top of the piece a little, and so stops it from making the head look a bit flat.

I used Rowan Scottish Tweed (a ball of each) because I wanted to see how he'd react to 100% wool. I'm going to knit him a jumper for next winter, and I thought this could be a good test of his skin sensitivity. I figure I can always line a hat, but it's harder with a jumper.

FO: spiral blanket

So, what was I doing with all those spirals? I was making a blanket.

In the end, I made 42 spirals*. Then I laid them out on the kitchen table, pinned them and linked it all together with a boarder made of a deep-red wool. The MC is a variegated boucle I bought at Avril in Japan (don't ask any more details - I don't have them and when I did they were in Japanese), the CC is Rowan's pure wool aran (with the disturbing colourway-name of "blood"). I used a mix of 4.5mm and 6mm hooks.

I then spent several evenings weaving in ends. This is the key problem with crochet blankets.


It was one of the Christmas presents for my mother, which is why I've kept it secret so far. She turned 60 this year, so I thought an (ironic) "old lady blanket" would be a good idea; the crochet spirals are meant to be a twist on the traditional granny square. Because she's no square, she's my momma (plus, neither me or my brother aim to make her a granny for a while). It's based on one of my favourite scarves, which itself is inspired by some of Ruth's amazing hat creations.

I was aiming for a lap blanket, but I realised I didn't quite have enough of the spirals to cover the required area and I didn't want to space them out with too-large a red boarder. So instead I plumped for a giant wrap. As it turns out, Mum seems to find the extra warmth around the shoulders really good, and she's been wearing it loads while she works from home. This picture gives an idea of how it hangs over the shoulders (and a clue as to scale).


Plus, apparently it reminds her of a bed jacket her mother made her years ago. One of the unexpected outcomes of my adventures in yarn is it reminds mum of her own mother. She loves saying "I dreaded that thing about turning into my mother, turns out my daughter did it for me" and I enjoy haunting/ poking fun at her with it. It's that odd thing about being the kid of 50s/60s teenagers. They rebelled against their parents and made a big fuss of it. So do we follow them in such rebellion (which, if you think about it, isn't really that rebellious, as you're doing what they did), or find other ways of bugging them, like aping their parents? The delights of postmodern generational relations. That said, it probably isn't just a matter of post/late/ liquid modenity; it's not as if notions of revolutionary generational change are especially new. Still, its nice how craft often weaves links accross time, whilst allowing generations their own take on things (as evidenced by book titles like this). I wonder what my Granny would have thought of Ravelry?


* This number wasn't deliberate, but I'm a geek so it pleased me.

FO: Drops Jacket

I keep trying to get a decent photo of this. And I keep failing. Considering my previous bad luck with the jumper I think I should just blog on and be done with it.


Pattern: The snappily titled "103-1 Jacket in Eskimo or Silke-Alpaca with A-shape and ¾-long or long sleeves", more commonly known as Drops Jacket. I added a slipped stitch at the start of each row - this gives a really nice neat edge. A Zimmerman trick, well worth applying. I also added a button because I felt it needed it.
Needles: 5.0 mm 80cm circ.
Yarn: Jaeger Extra Fine Merino Chunky very cheap from cucumberpatch.com sale page. The pattern is written in two guages, but I fell in between the two, so worked as if it were aran but cast on for a slightly bigger size (I've noticed lots people who've knitted this jacket fudging this way). It's 100% wool - and even the extra fine merino itches my neck slightly, but as a cardigan I obviously have something underneath. I can't really wear it with short sleeves for long though - get ikky rash on my elbows. Grrr for wool allergy because I love this yarn - so squishy and warm.
Buttons: Bought at John Lewis in a rush at a weekend, so I can't remember any details. I really like the dark wood with the deep red yarn.

Bad luck and photos aside, it's a great piece. Warm, a quick knit, reasonably smart. And I promise it doesn't it doesn't normally cut my chest in quite such an unflattering manner when done up. Neither to I tend to hide behind my hair when wearing it. So much for winter photography.

Two FOs: red hats and purple scarf

I thought I'd knit my mum red hat and purple scarf for her 60th birthday (a reference to this poem). I chose my yarn and patterns, and planned to complete the projects during my trip to the USA.

But knitting doesn't always go to plan.

For the red hat, I planned fair-isle, mixing some red 4ply soft with opal uni in a chocolate brown. I designed a chart, cast on at Gatwick airport and, as the plane made its way to the other side of the Atlantic, got about half way through. But as we landed, I decided I didn't like colour combination in fair-isle, and frogged the lot (the brown yarn and chart pattern became these mittens). Stranded in DC with limited internet and a whole ocean away from my pattern book collection (not to mention needles), I was a bit stuck for what to do. I had a 3.25mm circular with me to make the scarf, so did a gauge swatch with the yarn held double, trying out the cable pattern I could do from memory (I'd just used it in this sock).


It worked pretty well, and the double-held soft yarn made for a lovely warm and squishy hat. I'm particularly proud of the the in-pattern crown decreases. I don't know if I could write out the pattern, as the whole project was pretty free-form, but I'll maybe have a go if I have time before Christmas.


This half of the project completed, I cast-on for a lace scarf. Swallowtail in a soysilk laceweight which I planned to dye purple once knitted-up. I worked out how to add pattern repeats to make it big enough, and got most of the way through. But the p5tog's in the boarder were my undoing. I mis-placed one (knitting lace while gossiping...) so frogged a few rows back to re-do them. But the p5tog's acted as a knot, and I literally had to rip it apart, cutting the yarn to bits. As I did this, a load more unravelled in a way I couldn't possible pick back up (and I'm pretty good at using a crochet hook to re-knit a few rows down). More ripping. So much that I lost more yarn than I could spare - I wasn't going to have enough left to re-knit the ripped bit and finish the thing.

Bye bye soy-swallowtail. You can see a picture here. It is the only thing I've knitted that has actually ended up in the bin.

By then I'd got to California, so visited Artfibers in San Francisco hoping to find something special enough to make a replacement with. What a shop! They have the most beautiful, unusual yarn. They also have mini-skeins you can knit with to see if you like it and try out stitch patterns. There are examples of swatches and pictures of finished pieces hanging up all over the place for inspiration. It has a really relaxed and friendly environment too, yet also extremely professional (photos here and here). As soon as I cast on with their Alfabeto, I knew it was perfect - so warm and silky, yet also very light. It has a very dark purple base, almost an oily black, with bits of blue, pink and red shot through (I couldn't get a photo which did it justice). It's 76% silk, 19% mohair, 5% wool - gorgeous stuff.


As a variegated yarn, I decided I'd go for a relatively simple garter-stitch based seafoam stitch, which also gives it a nice drape. It took a bus trip from San Francisco to LA, the plane from LAX to JFK and several commutes to and from work once I was home to finish, but I got it done in time for the birthday itself. I'm really pleased with it, though I think the credit goes largely to Artfibers for such delicious yarn.


So, neither piece was quite what I was planning, and all improvised on the road. But I was pretty pleased with it in the end.