kashmir

The Vital Statistics
Pattern: Nine Lives by Kieran Foley of knit/lab.
Yarn: Recycled red heathered wool and burgundy heathered wool from an Old Navy vest and a J Crew sweater respectively (thrift store purchases), supplemented with Rowan Pure Wool 4ply in Eau de Nil, Vintage and Gerbera.
Needles: 3.75mm.
Start to finish: 6 June to 17 July 2011.
Stash/recycle content: Mostly. I purchased the Pure Wool 4ply in Vintage for this project, the Eau de Nil I had from a while ago and the Gerbera came from another raveller. I also purchased the matte silver beads.
Comments: This was my second attempt at this design, the first colour scheme not being to my liking. I changed around the colour progressions too and knit only two instead of three garter stitch ridges. This was my first project that incorporated beads; it was slow but fun to do. I'm really glad that I found matte silver beads (Fusion Beads in Seattle, wonderful place).

Verdict: Knit/lab patterns are fantastic and if you feel like knitting some wonderful lace, elegant stranded colourwork or a combination of both, I highly recommend a look at the available designs. I'm going to have fun wearing this.

second life

I have cast on again for Nine Lives using some burgundy lambswool recycled from a J Crew sweater. So far I have the set up section and Chart A done; now it's time for the first colourwork chart and I really don't feel up to it. I have been working really hard on my Faux Russian Stole (21 out of 34 edge repeats complete) which is so attention-intensive that I all I really want at the moment is stocking stitch, long stretches of stocking stitch.

I also can't remember whether I decided to use pink, blue or yellow as my contrast colours. Maybe all of them? Anyway, going to hibernate this for a while while I consider. It will live to see another day.

ps. Ha, ha - just checked my last post on this; I had decided on the pink and blue as contrast colours. Thank goodness I write these things down, somewhere.

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::

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.

eight lives to go

Alas, this shawl is no more. Once I got to this point, I realised that I did not like the colour scheme at all. In fact, pink and purple together is easily one of my least favourite combinations. Then a friend said that it reminded her of an Easter basket and well, that was it. Frogging the beading (there's another row that is not quite visible here) was a sad process. This is the second shawl that I have frogged recently. Better, however, to frog it than to put all of that effort into something that I would not want to wear.

I love this design but the colour scheme has been an absolute challenge for me from the start. I love it presented on the knit/lab site; however, I don't want a bright red shawl and remain at a loss as to how to make it right for me. The inspiration for it was the cover of a book about India and I think that this is evident not only in the colourway but also in the design. And that is a look that completely does not suit me.

So, what could I do? I really love the shape and the mix of details - there is the beading, the lace, the stranded colourwork and also some garter stitch ridges further along. Perhaps I could just let them speak for themselves and do something tonal .... ok, on the back burner for now.

ps. I have bought the yarn to make Fleece - two different balls of Noro Kureyon Sock. I'm excited!

the incredible tedium of beading

Wow, does beading ever break the rhythm of knitting. But it looks pretty cool.

ps. Kieran Foley has a pattern, Fleece, in the latest Knitty and it's free!

swatch and wait

Last week on Friday was a wonderful mail day - three skeins of Rowan Pure Wool 4ply in Eau de Nil arrived from a fellow Raveller, as well as a skein of Vintage and a skein of Debbie Bliss Rialto in shade 26 (the yellow). Having all of my materials assembled to make Nine Lives, I proceeded to swatch. And how do you swatch for a shawl? Well really, you just start knitting it. I have completed the plain stocking stitch section and am up to the first lace chart, but it's hibernation time for this as I have other things to work on (oh, the restraint!)

Here's something else I've been testing out: Annie Blatt Fine Kid which is a sport-weight/5ply blend of 51 per cent wool and 49 per cent mohair. It was on sale at Weaving Works and I found myself with five balls (that was all they had, ok). Now the question is, what to do with it? I know that many beautiful shawls are made with Rowan's Kidsilk Haze (which is actually somewhat finer) but I have a pretty full plate of shawls at the moment. I would actually like to make a garment with it, maybe just a short-sleeved raglan t-shirt, seamless, deep scoop neck to wear as a layer when it is cold.

So of course the next question is, what pattern? I'm thinking along the lines of Veera Välimäki's Folded or Lisa Richardson's Analise (seventh image down). Or maybe Kim Hargreaves Mae, but with sleeves. There are gauge issues and shaping issues and details issues with all of these though - Folded is seamless but the neckline is not deep enough; the neckline on Analise is great but the gauge and yarn are totally different and it is knit flat and seamed and not long enough; Mae is a lovely shape but doesn't have enough sleeve and is also not knit seamlessly.

The sensible response to this is indeed to just customise the pattern or develop my own. Hunh, just? That is way more thinking and maths than my brain is currently capable of. In fact, the prospect turns me right off knitting something which defeats the purpose. Any suggestions would be very welcome.

Oh and yes, the swatch there is done with 3.75mm needles and then 5mm needles (any excuse to use my Lantern Moon needles). The fabric is too loose on the these though and I found the fabric produced by the 3.75mm needles to be quite dense (although it was only 20 stitches to 10 centimetres).

Finally, the Filatura di Crosa Gioiello knit up into a 'swatch', also known as the beginnings of Carina Spencer's Whippoorwill. It won't be actually because on 4mm needles I found this fabric too loose. I'll try again on 3.5mm or 3.75mm. I tried striping it with a plain yarn - no, didn't like the effect at all and remain uncommitted to the Gioiello itself. I will need to see a larger piece of fabric before I decide whether that gold strand works or not. Again, your thoughts?

i dream of knitting

Truly, I do. Well, daydream at least. That's how I fall asleep - I snuggle down and think about what I'm knitting, what progress I've made, what my priorities are for tomorrow and what I would like to make. I'm always fast asleep before I get to the end of my knitting project wish list because it's, well, endless.

Here are a couple of things that I'm currently dreaming of:

Nine Lives - from one of my favourite knit designers, knit/lab. I've been considering the colour dilemma which basically went along the lines of 'which red?' and 'if I use a different yarn, should I try to get all four colours in the other yarn?' and 'or should I mix the Rowan Pure Wool 4 ply and the other yarn?' and 'or what other colours in the Pure Wool 4 ply could be India?' and ... are you asleep yet?

Anyway, looking at the colour cards for the Pure Wool 4 ply I was very taken by shade 450 Eau de Nil and set about procuring some of that. I chose a slightly darker pink, 449 Vintage and bought some Debbie Bliss Rialto 4 ply to substitute for the purple and the yellow.

Now I just hope that the silver beads that I bought won't be too heavy (in a visual sense). I'm waiting for some of the yarn to arrive so will have a better idea when I can see all the materials alongside each other. Oh and the India inspiration? Out the door. Oh well.

Whippoorwill - Another shawl. I should backtrack a moment (or a year) and say that this was one of my great knitting realisations of 2010 - the semi-circular shawl. It all started with Daybreak which, while not strictly a semi-circle was my first project that distorted that traditional triangular shape. And so much easier to wear. I'm not sure whether it is just now because I am on the look out for them, but there seems to have been many more semi-circular designs available recently. And I love this one.

When Tim saw me working on my Tibetan Clouds (un)Beaded Stole a few days ago, he queried 'another shawl?' and I do seem to have become a shawl knitter of late - ah, six completed in 2010. And he's right, in order to justify it, I do need to make them different, something that I don't already have. So for Whippoorwill I was having a think about just that - what is something that I don't already have?

And I decided on something pale, with a strong band of colour along the bottom. I knew I was looking for something that was just off-white, with maybe some flecks or a filament of colour through it. And at the yarn store what I came across was Filatura di Crosa Gioiello, with the added bonus of something else that I don't have - sparkle (um, so not me). Anyway, I was thinking that the texture and colour in this yarn would give enough interest and I could possibly stripe it with a plain off-white yarn to tone the sparkle (and texture) down.

And for the bands of colour - probably a blue. It would be great to find a sweater at the thrift store to recycle for this, to balance out the fact that I bought new yarn. Ooooh, or how about even black? I already have some that I bought at the thrift store ...

I'll sleep on it.

knit/lab

Here's something that I haven't tried before - beaded knitting! Not on my list of resolutions, not recycled, predominantly not from stash - better make it a priority.

Actually, I just wanted to create an opportunity to wax lyrical about knit/lab. I recently knit Kerchief in exactly the yarns and colourways that the pattern recommends. I love the shape of it, the colours, the combination of lace and stranded knitting which I think is really unique and works so well in this design.

There are many other fabulous knit/lab patterns - exquisitely fine lace, beaded lace, stranded knitting that reminds me of old-fashioned wallpaper (in the very best way) - and the lines and motifs of many of the designs are really innovative. Also the photography is fantastic - very inspiring. I really encourage you to click over and have a look.

And now I have my sights set on Nine Lives - again some lace, some stranded colourwork and this time beads to boot (hence the purchase of 500-odd size 6/0 Matte Metallic Silver Round Japanese Seed Beads from Fusions Beads). The red used is the same as that in Kerchief - Rowan Pure Wool 4ply in 436 Kiss - and while I loved it as a band of red, it is not quite the red that I would like to have an entire stole from.

Why is it that some designs are so much more difficult to re-imagine in a another colourway? Particularly when a certain inspiration has been alluded to - I had a lot of trouble choosing a yarn for the Tibetan Clouds (not) Beaded Stole because all I could keep thinking of was the saffron of monks' robes, not a colour I would consider wearing or working with.

The inspiration for Nine Lives is apparently a book about India and with India, I just think of spices - more orange, tumeric, yellow, mustard - more not my colours. So the dilemma - what colours to go with? The website exclaims that it is "an opportunity to go crazy with your favorite colors" but I'm kind of stuck on the Indian influence. Maybe I will stick with the red, just choose a different shade, which means a different yarn, which means what yarn? Unh, I'll need nine lifetimes to work this all out.

* The knit/lab designer, Kieran Foley, also has a free pattern - Cold Mountain - available through Knitty.