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).

Rosalind Scarf

Since designing my Rosalind DNA back in summer 2006, I've made six of the things. And given away each and every one of them, I decided it was high time I made one for me (plus it's been featured in WIRED. How can I not have my own version?). I've been talking about it for ages, but was inspired to finally cast on by some of my students, who are currently knitting the history of genetics.

The scarf employs a technique called illusion knitting (sometimes know as shadow knitting). When viewed straight on, it just looks like slightly wonky stripes. When viewed from the knitting's edge, however, this wonky-texture reveals itself as carefully placed bumps and gaps, and presents a hidden image. This is a picture taken while I'm wearing it, looking down my front, along the line of the pattern.




Illusion knitting is notoriously hard to either describe in words or photograph, so I've embedded a short video. There's another side-view shot at the bottom of this post, along with a picture showing the back of the scarf, where you can see a sort of fossil of the pattern. This is probably the best photo I've seen of this pattern though (i.e. not by me, and using a better contrasting set of yarns).




DNA and illusion knitting could be made for one another. Looking across the scarf, the ladders of the striping pattern twist round those of the helix as purls and knits start to bunch together to display a regular shape (at least for those initiated on how to look). The pattern's title is inspired by Rosalind Franklin (google it), and, because I thought a family reference would be appropriate, a cousin of mine.

I think my favourite illusion knitting pattern is the Cheshire Cat 'Wonderland' socks. I love illusion socks. Straight on, and it's just stripy, point your toes and the cat is revealed. With valentines soon upon us, I should probably mention the lovemeknot socks too.

The Rosalind pattern is available for download on ravelry - or through googledocs (though if you are a knitter and read blogs, er, why aren't you on ravelry?). Knit-geeks who want details of yarn, pattern mods and needles can also check the project's ravelry page.

Busy-busy-busy as a bee

This jumper took me just under four months to make. Seeing as I'm used to chugging one out in a matter of weeks, this seemed like an age. Cycling-to-work really has cut down my knitting time. Also, it was 4ply, on 2.5mms (2mm for the ribbing), so I guess it was always going to take a while.

It's a product of my stash (which itself is best understood as a product of John Lewis sales). I had a bag of not-quite-a-jumper-worth of yellow 4ply tweed, as well as few balls of brown 4ply left over from this top. Put them together and you get a sweater which stripes pleasingly like a bee. Despite the tiny gauge, it was a very simple project - a basic top-down raglan, done seamlessly in the round. As you can see from the third photos in this post, I didn't bother with any jog-less join (I can do a jog-less join, it just seemed like too much effort).

The stripes are perhaps a little too short, and I definitely made the neck too high/ small - makes me feel slightly as if I'm wearing an optical illusion. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. I really like the triangle shapes it makes around the armpits. Plus, small vertical stripes can be surprisingly flattering. Details on ravelry.

It's a Monday, which is always busy for me, but today I've been busier than usual. My MSc students have an essay due (cue: last minute queries about citations, phonecalls asking for extensions...), plus the undergrads have an essay back and I'm running an event this evening which has suddenly become really popular.

But, I've made time for a lunch break when I can make up a pot of tea, switch off work email and write up this post. It's important to take a moment to pause amongst all our business, sit and think about something other than our everyday routine. Today more than ever, perhaps (I mean the Copenhagen conference, if you don't want to bother following the link).

On that ecological note, and considering the bee-like stripes of this jumper, I should probably make some reference to the plight of the honeybee. Bee colonies are collapsing across the world. This is serious. According to this book, bees pollinate 70% of our food. To repeat one of those lines credited to Albert Einstein, if bees disappeared: "No more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." Scary stuff. If you're interested there's a nice gallery of photos on the subject from the Guardian here and a nice blogpost from BBC's Newsnight here.

Right, busy-busy-busy. I'm off to give a lecture on the cultural legacy of mad cow disease. Then it's the exciting seminar this evening - Mike Hulme, Professor for Climate Change at the University of East Anglia (the place with *that* scandal about the emails...). He's written some provocative pieces in the last week (e.g. this, see also interesting discussion here). Our audience will be a mix of science media people and climate scientists. Should be interesting.