this too shall pass

Jet lag - 24 hours straight without sleep; one child wakes as soon as the other falls asleep; waking up from an hour and a half of sleep feeling strangely deeply rested and for that split second not having any idea where I am; both children asleep, both adults awake, all in the same bed at 2:00am.

After the hecticness of being away I have come desperate for some routine and discipline, determined to just take things slowly, be measured with time and energy. I only took two knitting projects with me to Melbourne (Jarrett and the Faux Russian Stole) and have come home to a whole slew of projects that three weeks had managed to erase from my knit-consciousness - the infinity wrap (oooh), the tibetan clouds (unbeaded) stole (aaah), the babette blanket (oooh), must seam the tomten, must work on everything at once, must cast on for new projects. Must calm down.

So far, I've worked the crochet equivalent of short rows into the dips between the infinity motifs in the aptly named Infinity Wrap. This is my modification; as the pattern is written, I'm not keen on the way the mesh edging pulls in the dips. My wrap will have straight(er) edges, then the mesh-and-bobble edging (although I'm doubting the bobbles).

home sweet home

It's all been a bit erratic around here lately, mostly because our spring break actually took us to Australia for three weeks. Now we're back home, from home. It's all a bit confusing really and that's not just because of the time difference (which is playing havoc with sleeping routines; we got up at 3pm today).

The flights were long (and I did the one there by myself with the two children as Tim was already in Australia for other matters - you can fit one adult, one child and one toddler into an airplane bathroom), our time there was hectic and wonderful and bittersweet. I caught up with old friends, met new friends (hi Leonie!), caught up with family, spent quality hours and hours at the US consulate, watched my children play with my childhood friends' children; they were supposed to grow up together, that was bittersweet.

And I went op shopping - hooray! One precious Friday afternoon solo stroll down Chapel Street, Windsor and various other opportunist stops in the course of our trip. In all it yielded:

MECWA Windsor - Dr Suess ABC game, one ball of Heirloom Alpaca
Sacred Heart Mission, Windsor - Ojay blouse to be refashioned into a dress, Country Road blouse for the lovely material, silver shoes for miss bear and this Nicola Cerini bag for $5
Salvation Army, Windsor - Rainbow Fish card game, a vintage framed story book page with a dear rabbit picture
Salvation Army, St Kilda - princess dress-up dress, Aquascutum coat, card game, Anna Sui blouse, Immune skirt
Yarraville - Miffy book
Glenhuntly - baby toys, children's Birkenstocks ($1!)
And various books from all over.

What I love about Melbourne op shopping is that it really is a case of finding the gem, as opposed to Seattle-area thrift stores which are like huge supermarkets of barely used goods. More details of some of the clothes purchases to come.

ultra-smart

'Ten ultra-smart garments' - oh how I love these old knitting pattern books, if only for the wonderful presentation. I recently received a whole package of them to add to my collection of, hmm, many many dozens.

I'm not sure where to start, with the fetching Maberley there on the left (although I may give the pom-poms a miss) or the very glamorous Judith on the right. Actually, I wouldn't know where to start because so many of these old patterns seem to be written exclusively for a 34 inch bust. I don't need to even convert that to centimetres to know that there's not a chance in Holofernes that this would fit me.

What were you supposed to do back in 1936 if you were in a similar situation? Were all knitters simply expected (required) to know how to size something up or down? I suppose that these days something like Ann Budd's Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns would indeed come in handy for working out how many stitches to cast on or increase for larger sizes and I guess that you would just follow some of the design elements or stitch patterns along the way.

Maybe this is why books like Rowan's Vintage Knits are so appealing - half a dozen sizes, contemporary yarns and ssk instead of slkpsso (even if you don't speak knitting, you can see that the former is simpler than the latter). Now that is smart. Which brings me around to Jarrett, Tim's great garment of 2011 (TGG11): it is almost finished, although I have taken no photographs to prove this. I have one elbow patch, button and buttonhole bands and collar to go. Oh, and all the seaming but never mind that.

zippety-doo-da?

It is all a bit of a tangle at the moment but I have completed the knitting on baby b's tomten. This whole jacket is made from Icelandic Lopi that I bought from the op shop (St Vincent de Paul's in Malvern - before they moved) and the thrift store (Crown Hill Value Village).

The body is all in burgundy and blue with random stripes and the sleeves in bright teal, burgundy and light teal. Yes, two shades of teal - one purchased in Melbourne, the other years later in Seattle. Although not evident in this photo, the teal right up there in the first row of the sleeve will hopefully make the most of the tomten's distinctive structure.

My only question now is what to about fastening(s)? In my mind I envisioned a two-way separating zip, plastic moulded in dark blue, burgundy or any shade of teal. Alas, no such thing exists (or at least not at this length) and so thwarted I am left in a bind. Should I just use the dark blue one-way separating plastic moulded zip that I have already bought (which is not the zip that I wanted and this will probably weigh heavily upon me forever)? Or do some more knitting - button band, buttonhole band and buttons to choose to boot?

(These aren't really the only questions that I have about life but I am content right now that these are the most pressing).

middlemarch

All through uni I had the best intentions of catching up on those novels that I hadn't managed to read for my various English courses (as in English Literature, not English the language; I studied English when I was an exchange student in Amsterdam too, again literature, not the language). Anyway, Middlemarch by George Eliot was possibly the only one that I did read after the fact. And how fortunate that I did. Oh, Dorothea.

The Vital Statistics
Pattern: Dorothea Wraplet by Lion Brand Yarn, a semi-circular crochet wrap.
Yarn: Noro Kochoran (50 per cent wool, 30 per cent angora, 20 per cent silk) in shade 17; just over 1.5 balls. This yarn has good yardage but lots of knots.
Hook: 8mm - Kochoran actually calls for a smaller needle/hook size but this was all I had to hand.
Start to finish: 2 to 7 April 2011 - crochet is quick.
Stash/recycle content: Oh dear, more yarn from Australia. I bought this from Woolbaa in Albert Park shortly after I finished baby bear's tomten, adamant that I was going to cast on straight away for the next one. Yep, that was three years ago. I haven't used it all so will have to think of something for the bit that I have left.
Comments: I love Noro, even when it is full of knots. I love to see the colours unfold, even when you are splicing in the next length of yarn after the knot. The wonderful texture (which has nothing to do with knots). Quick, simple, free pattern. I modified the edging somewhat and just did double crochet (English terms) along the straight edge, And certainly, do not break the yarn when you finish the wrap and transition to the edging; there's no need to.
Verdict: I made this to give away to someone who has given away far greater things (I just hope they remember to handwash it).

march reading

No, I didn't forget (although the book was pretty forgettable) - The Sleeping Dragon by Miyuki Miyabe. Touted on the cover as Japan's number one bestselling crime writer, I was hopeful about this but am clearly not at one with the greater Japanese crime fiction-reading population. Oh well.

Tomorrow I'll show you what I've been working on during my days off.

spring break

I seem to have taken an inadvertent spring break. I'm enjoying it - be back in a week or so.

opal

I acquired this Opal self-striping sock yarn in the form of a matching baby jacket and cap at an op shop in Benalla, a country town about two-hours' drive outside Melbourne. I'm not sure when I bought it but certainly before we came to the US.

I was delighted to be buying an item at the op shop made from identifiable commercial yarn (I still dream of a major Noro haul in just this fashion). The items weren't very well made so I unravelled them and now I am finally using it - it is yarn B in my Babette blanket (rounds three and four in square 8-3).

the feast goes on

I have been working sporadically on the Babette crochet blanket. Like self-striping yarns, these squares are quite addictive - what colour combination will come up next? All of the yarns for this are from my stash, some of them thrifted, some of them carted across the Pacific, some of them bought at the op shop (and therefore also carted across the Pacific).

I'm not sure about some of the colour combinations and I'm hoping that those darker blocks will be balanced out in the larger scheme of things. I also chose a self-striping yarn deliberately to make up some of the larger areas in the largest square. I'm not sure that this was a great idea as self-striping yarns really don't achieve the same effect with crochet.

So yes, all of these squares contain at least one round of the same yarn. In some squares it is mottled, in others there is just the dark brown, in some you get the pink. A project bag with 17 separate balls of yarn in it is quite cumbersome, so I am working all of the squares with yarn A in them first, then I'll do all with yarn B and so on. When I have a dozen or so more squares, I'll start to lay them out on a sheet to get an idea of the overall effect. I'm not going to seam as I go because I want to have the flexibility to swap some squares around.

sequoia

All five vowels in one seven-letter word!

The Vital Statistics
Pattern: Molly by Erin Ruth, available for free.
Size: Only one size available. Be aware that this hat is deep, that is, very long from ribbing to crown, almost too long perhaps. It would take a little thinking to cut some length out in terms of co-ordinating the placement of the cables with the decreases and that's why I didn't do it.
Yarn: Madeline Tosh Merino in colourway 'sequoia' bought from westknits' destash. I was curious to try this yarn out and it is very lovely, so soft.
Needles: 4mm and 4.5mm.
Start to finish: 3 to 13 March 2011.
Stash/recycle content: Yes, knit from stash.
Comments: I didn't make any modifications although I did have to fudge the number of rows in order to get the cable pattern and the knit/purl pattern to align. Just by one row though. I'm hesitant to block it out into a tam shape as this was unsuccessful with Ripley and I don't want a repeat of that. There are no mistakes, just design choices and I'm choosing to wear this as a long beanie. Perhaps some more slouch will appear with wearing ....
Verdict: Very happy. I wore it for the first time and received a compliment.

swatch and learn

This was actually supposed to be a number of swatches, testing out every possible combination of the red, burgundy and assorted brights that I have in my stash but once I got knitting it all sort of morphed into the one swatch. So, with respect to my Kashmir-shawl inspired Nine Lives, the above swatch contains (from the bottom up):
- a band of burgundy
- a band of burgundy and red vertical stripes (very difficult to distinguish)
- another band of burgundy
- burgundy and yellow vertical stripes, followed by red and yellow vertical stripes
- burgundy
- a band of red with a stranded colourwork zig-zag in eau de nil
- a band of burgundy with the matte silver beads placed on it
- red and light grey vertical stripes
- pink and red vertical stripes
- purple and red vertical stripes

I have learned a lot from this exercise: I don't like the yellow at all, the purple is too harsh and there is not enough contrast, I love the red and pale blue together, the light grey is too cold, the red and burgundy look best against each other in blocks of colour.

Right now I'm liking the pale pink as the second contrast colour. And I'm really liking the whole effect achieved by placing different colours against each other. Oh dear, Fair Isle here I come ...

And here on the right we have another swatch, this time for Jarrett. Yes, it may look like the greater part of a sleeve, replete with tubular cast-on and increases but it's not, it's a swatch because the gauge is wrong. ::sigh::

i learned a new cast-on for you

I wonder if Sinéad O'Connor knits?

For Tim's Great Garment of 2011, I have mastered the long-tail tubular cast-on. I love this cast on and expect to use it again and again in the future. I do recommend using a smaller needle size; I used 3.75mm for the cast-on and first two rows and then knit the rib on 4.5mm needles.

ishka

Bring back any memories? In my early teenage years, the store Ishka was a (literal) treasure trove of silver jewellery and incense burners (and loads of other stuff too but they are the things that stick in my mind). Those silver rings, inlaid with semiprecious stones or yin-yang symbols, were all the rage and I must have spent hours loitering in there, pouring over the display case, trying to choose how to invest my $12. This was a big deal, it was 1987 and my funds were limited.

I never did buy one, I could just never choose, and even back then, as now, 'ethnic' clothing and jewellery were not my thing. We have an alphabet book about 'exotic animals' and of course it makes me laugh that they include kangaroos - yeah exotic, depending on where you come from in the first place. Similarly, I find the word 'ethnic' uncomfortable because again, ethnic compared to what? One of the dictionary definitions is indeed "characteristic of or belonging to a non-Western cultural tradition", another is "relating to a population subgroup (within a larger or dominant national or cultural group) with a common national or cultural tradition" which seems to equate the Western cultural tradition and the dominant group.

Anyway, I'm still thinking about Nine Lives. I particularly love the way that the colour scheme and patterning were inspired by the cover of a book about India but as we have just established, that is not my thing. I do, however, want to do something similar in choosing my yarns. There is actually a long history of the Western cultural tradition adopting elements of ethnic cultures, think the adoption of Japanese and African elements in modern art and the import of floral printed cottons and Kashmiri shawls to England in the nineteenth century. Ah, Kashmiri shawls - here's what the V&A has to say about them:

"The shawl became a popular fashion item in the nineteenth century with its migration from the foothills of the Himalayas to the salons of early nineteenth-century Europe."

'... the salons of early nineteenth-century Europe' - now that's somewhere that I can imagine myself. So, looking to the salons for inspiration and also the V&A website I am considering the following:

Either the red or burgundy will be the main colour, I really wanted to use the eau de nil that I had originally chosen and the yellow will be a good contrast with that. I hope that using the red and burgundy together will give the tonal effect that I had in mind. Ok, now that I have resolved the colourscheme I will put this aside for knitting in another lifetime.

cast on|away

I recently became very fed up with all of the yarn in my cupboard. Fed up with all the little bits and bobs of balls that might one day indeed be very useful for something. So I got rid of all the bits and bobs. If I do ever need a few metres of blue cotton dk then I will beg, borrow or buy some; I won't hold on to it for years.

My next cleansing step was to decide on projects for as much of the other yarn as I could. No more sweater's worth of yarn sitting there waiting for a sweater. No, everything was going to be designated. I've done a pretty good job, it's much clearer now what will become of what is left. All the more clearer because of course I've gotten a little carried away with casting on for all of these newly decided projects.

And here is one of them:

Elizabeth Zimmerman's tomten jacket, a pattern that I have actually knit before and have wanted to again ever since. It has taken, indeed, almost three years to get around to it. I have several balls of Lopi, bought at both an op shop in Melbourne and at a thrift store in Seattle. I've made a few accessories with it but decided that I wanted it used up so a new tomten was born.

I have been working in dark blue and burgundy and am part way through the hood and will introduce some teal into the sleeves to highlight the construction. At this stage I am actually hoping that I will have enough yarn! Oh it will be funny if I have to buy another ball to finish it.

water lilies

The Vital Statistics
Pattern: Olearia by Georgie Hallam.
Size: six years.
Yarn: Noro Yuzen (56 per cent wool, 34 per cent silk, 10 per cent mohair) in colourway 3; 5 skeins.
Needles: 3.75, 4 and 4.5mm.
Start to finish: 16 to 28 February 2011 - that's stellar performance for me and explains why I blinked and missed mentioning it before! This was just so easy and a joy to knit, I even managed to read in the plain stocking stitch portions which was very satisfying.
Stash/recycle content: Yes, this yarn was in my stash. I bought it last September I think at Little Knits here in Seattle with the intention of knitting something for miss bear. I loved the yarn so much though and the resulting fabric that I just want to stock up on more of it for something for me.

Comments: This a great design because there are so many different ways that you can knit it: as a shrug, as a cardigan, all ruched or partly ruched, cap or short or long sleeves, a gathered cuff or a garter stitch cuff. Fabulous! I did elbow-length ruched sleeves on a long cardigan, working in stocking stitch after the basic bodice was completed.

A few modifications: I worked a Vogue single-row buttonhole across two stitches instead of doing a yo k2tog which I don't like at all. I also worked less ruching in that, instead of knitting kfb in each stitch on the increase row, I kfb on only every other stitch (and decreased accordingly). I did this because I think that the yarn that I used has a bit less drape than those suggested and I didn't want it to look corrugated.

This was the first time I have used Noro Yuzen (in fact, when I bought it was the first time I encountered it). I'm not sure if it is the cold here at the moment or the rustic texture of the yarn (or a combination thereof) but my fingers got really chafed knitting this garment. All worth it though because I love the texture, the colourway (reminds me of water lilies), the colour transitions. I want to make something out of it for for myself (and it has been discontinued, so must grab it while I can).

This was also my first knitted top-down garment (I think). The rows get quite long quite soon but all of a sudden you are up to the armholes. It was also a great choice for using up as much of the yarn on hand that I could (I used five of my six balls).

Finally, the buttons. I spent ages deliberating over the buttons at Nancy's Sewing Basket. There were so many choices but I was aware that this was a rather sophisticated yarn choice for a four-year old and that I needed to keep it whimsical. Finally, I looked at the children's buttons and there they were - irregularly shaped resin buttons in three perfect colours.

Verdict: Love love love - the design, the yarn, the finished product. I am so happy with this and my daughter looks adorable in it. I perhaps didn't do such a great job with the buttonholes, they're a bit fiddly to get the button through, but I'm hopeful that a couple of times opened and closed will loosen them up. The buttonhole band may also need to be stabilised at some point with a ribbon lining, I'll keep an eye on it.

I'm not much of one for knitting a pattern over and over again, but if I were to, this would be it. I would love to make a completely ruched shrug and experiment with the different long sleeves. The design is sized up to an eight so there may be time yet.

rhubarb pie liza

I am a sucker for anything vintage, or anything with 'vintage' in the title. Kristen Rengren's Vintage Baby Knits, however, had never really charmed me.

I would actually say that I never liked the Liza Sideways Sacque, in all it's bright yellow and white reminding me of a broken egg, until I saw Alicia Paulson's version which she named Lemon Meringue Liza. Well, there you go - with some thoughtful colour choices and some modifications it could be a real success.

The Vital Statistics
Pattern: Liza Sideways Sacque from Kristen Rengren's Vintage Baby Knits. A sacque is apparently an open cardigan and I would strongly recommend against the profusion of ribbon shown in the book version for fastening it at the neck. Not baby safe.
Size: 12 to 18 months.
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Solid in Manzanita, one skein and Grignasco Bambi in shade 416.
Needles: 2.5, 2.75 and 3.25mm.
Start to finish: 12 January to 7 February 2011 - not bad. The friend's baby for whom I made this was hinting at a premature arrival so I really had to get working on it. She was actually born at 37 weeks, all safe and sound. (You can tell that you knit too much when your first response to news of a baby's imminent arrival is 'but I haven't finished knitting for her yet'. I didn't say it out loud.)
Stash/recycle content: That Grignasco Bambi came from Australia - simultaneous shudder and hooray. It's a fabulous yarn, wonderful texture and lovely to work with. I previously crocheted a cute little baby hat from it. The Lorna's Laces I bought recently to complete my In the Pink stole. It was, of course, a different dyelot and anther reason why that project got scrapped. Also a lovely yarn to work with. I still have my two original skeins and one more in this dyelot. And the button was salvaged from a cardigan that miss bear once wore. (I did, however, purchase yarn for this project that I didn't end up using so I'm guessing that it would rate as stash neutral).

Comments: Oh how I love items made with fingering-weight yarn/4ply; yes, it's onerous to knit and takes ages but they are so lovely when finished. I modified the yoke on this design after reading that others who have knit it found the neckline too wide (without the ribbons - sensible). Details are on Ravelry (or if you don't use that, I can email them to you).

Verdict: I am so delighted with this garment. Seeing Alicia Paulson's version really opened my eyes to how a change in colours and styling could make such a huge difference. Yellow is not my favourite colour so it's hard for me to look closely at anything made from it but I'm really glad that I did. I think that the trick here is to choose two colours that are ... I'm not sure what the correct terms are ... close in value (?); that is, don't contrast too harshly.

february reading

Port Mortuary by Patricia Cornwell - again, ludicrous but better than the previous one.

The Winter Ground by Catriona McPherson - oh I really enjoyed this A very enjoyable read and a really great sense of post-WWI Britain; I loved all the details about class in this volume with phrases such as 'people like us' and 'our sort'. The Dandy Gilver character is wonderful fun.

As is probably clear by now, I like to read crime/mystery fiction and I like to read series, in order, from beginning to end. This is partly because I came to PD James' Inspector Adam Dalgleish books in a haphazard fashion and it always bothered me. I think there's only one more Dandy Gilver mystery available and then I'll be adding this to my list of 'waiting for the next installment'. Speaking of which, where is 'V is for ...'?

rinse and repeat

I'm still working away at my Tibetan Clouds (un)Beaded Stole. I just pick it up every now and then when I feel like some lace knitting. As I knit it I find myself scheming and calculating - 'Ok, I'm going to 10 repeats of E on either side of the central panel and I can knit half a repeat quite easily in a day so with fifteen and a half repeats to go, that would be a month's worth of knitting, assuming that I actually did knit half a repeat every day ...' And then I shrug my shoulders and try to just enjoy the knitting, I'll get there when I get there and I don't want to be compelled to knit half a repeat every day.

Now that I have parted way with the diamond mittens, I need to consider the other two projects that I have lingering from 2008 (yes '08 - ouch): the Baudelaire socks and the Faux Prussian Stole. I think that I'll address the socks first (one of them is practically done) and then there will be a serious lace knitting push for that stole.

I think that I've mentioned before that the lace repeat there is 81 stitches wide and 96 rows deep so I certainly won't be getting half a repeat done each day on that one. And again on that I have the dilemma of needing to execute k2tog or ssk over a marker (same issue that I had with the Knitted Veil) and the clumsiness of that is a real mental block for me. Perhaps I'll just use threads instead of stitch markers and then I'll be off and knitting ...

broken engagement

Well thank goodness we're actually married because I have admitted defeat and given up on the Second Engagement Diamond Mittens that I was knitting for Tim. The mittens were one of my three projects dating from the year before last and I had chosen them as the first that I would complete. Here it is mid-February and I had knit only a couple of rounds and finally realised that I just did not want to make them anymore.

I have committed instead (and anew) to Tim's Great Garment of 2011 (the one that I was supposed to make last year but just didn't get around to). I'm planning to knit Jarrett by Kim Hargreaves from Rowan's Vintage Knits in Cascade 220, shade Walnut Heather. Lots of soothing stocking stitch, I'm looking forward to the yarn arriving.

Now I just have to work out whether I can face those socks and that stole.

details

This sleep suit wasn't very comfortable for baby b because the snaps along the inner leg were spaced too far apart and he always ended up with his foot sticking out about half-way down. So I put in some extra snaps using a gadget and a hammer. And I'm very pleased with myself.