Craftiana

busy winter

2009-03-22T19:27:43Z

I have completely neglected to update this, again, so now to catch up I'll have to cram a post full of FOs!

Beware, Ravelry links in places - plus Knitty links, Flickr links, etc. A good thing is that even though I tend to take little to no notes as I knit, I often end up chatting about the FO in Ravelry messages exchanged with friends. I'll reproduce those here as needed in lieu of notes.

Since Christmas, I knit quite a bit.

- Four shawls:

A striped and luxurious version of the 'Northern Lights' Revontuli shawl, Lady Revontuli, half in organic alpaca-silk and half in Lady Godiva from Handmaiden (wool-silk blend):

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This (free) pattern is absolutely stunning; I could not resist it. My Revontuli shawl was the 400th Revontuli on Ravelry at the time I finished it (there are now 585), and the first one to use deliberate stripes (rather than take advantage of long repeat-striping yarn). The palette is perfect happenstance: the lady godiva "Bronze" has a series of colors I personally love to DEATH, but knit alone I found the variegation a little muddy (I like what I did with alternate stitches and modular-like knitting in my project with the cushions, but it was partly a blue-er colorway, Glacier, and it was cushions. I wanted to knit something to wear with the rest of that yarn because it's so soft and glorious). The undyed natural "honey" colorway of the alpaca-silk blend was somehow the perfect match, and the thin stripes IMO allow the extraordinary colors to really come through. It's muted, but really luxurious and pretty up close (two people IRL told me they find it a little boring and too muted, but whatever, they're wrong wrong wrong!).

Then there's my Squishy, aka the 'Reading Shawl' by Danielle Landes, which I knit in two days to use up the rest of the Coproca alpaca (still doubled up). I dispensed with the lace edging, but I'm very pleased with the tiny colorful Kureyon border; it gives it interest and character. The shape of this shawl allows it to stay put on the shoulders, which is great, and it's so soft that I've been keeping it close to fondle it a lot. Another happy project!

Still not sick of garter stitch, I also knit another small shawl, using what was left of my Evilla pre-yarn. I don't have any FO pictures, but the Ravelry project page has a few in-progress shots. I called it Smokey because the deep colors and the pre-yarn texture gave me the impression I was knitting alternately with ink and with smoke. Wonderful.

And finally, my first 'serious' lace project, the Shetland Triangle by Evelyn A. Clark. I knit it in Zephyr Jaggerspun, a wool-silk laceweight I held double, and made it a present to Mom for her birthday:

- Two hats.

First, a Vortex hat I called 'citrus vortex', from this great Knitty pattern by Lee Meredith:

Knit for my best friend in Paris who went through half this particularly cold winter (for Paris) without a hat... I love the look, but the mohair blend I used is a little thinner than the noro, resulting in a lightweight cap that's very .. beanie like, very close to the skull. My Mom thinks it looks better on her, who has cropped hair, than on me with my hair escaping from it because it's longer.. But the pictures my friend sent back showed it suits her well, and she loved it, which is the most important thing!

I think I might try to knit it again in an Aran weight, some time, and see if it's more 'hat like' when more rugged and thick. It's a great pattern.

Second, a ridged 'noro hat' in black fingering alpaca from Coproca (yarn held double) for a guy friend of mine. He llked my colorful Kureyon version and needs to keep his kead warm too, but he wanted something discreet enough that he won't be conspicuous when participating in various protest marches (he is very politically active). I did not take a picture of the FO before sending him the hat, but no doubt I'll be able to take an action shot soon.

- One blanket - or one more shawl, depending: I finally knit a Pi Shawl from the wonderful EZ pattern! I used Evilla pre-yarn, approximately 160g, and chose really big needles for the yarn at 5.5mm. It covered the table in its unblocked state:

And it grew a little, so that it now has a diameter of about 160cm. It is light as air and superwarm! I started it thinking 'at least I'll have a mindless project I can knit on slowly' but, then I made the mistake of being monogamous with it: in just a short few days I was increasing to the 576 stitches row...

I thought I'd use only the purple-black wheel of preyarn, but in the end I didn't have enough - I dippêd into the second wheel for the border, hoping the blue-ish tint wouldn' scream too badly next to the blackberry shades (then I decided to keep knitting that blue wheel, and knit the Smokey shawlette).

It was a really fun project, though I think I might like it better in one shade allover ala Jared. (you can see from the pictures that I knit that same variant, the yarnovers one. No fancy lace there).

- one scarf:

Two weeks ago I went to the luxury yarn shop in town (Elle Tricote) and could not resist one of the store models, the Toscane (Tuscany) scarf knit with two alternating colorways of Noro Flower bed. The scarf is now finished and blocking, no pictures of the FO proper but here's a view of the halfway point:

Well, that's it for the FOs! Next time, a peek at the projects, which are also many.

Unvented tree stuffies

2008-12-02T18:51:03Z

I unvented something. I saw these little stuffed trees on the tables of the wonderful winstub I had lunch in saturday, and it inspired me to try and make them myself.

The first version (red velour) was completely hand-sewn and can't hold up without being propped (you can see the little felt "plug" I made to help it along). For the second I used my machine, and took pictures of the various steps so I could make this quick tutorial. There might be another somewhere else on the web already, in which case it's probably better... but I didn't see it, so I thought making mine would be useful.

For one stuffed tree:

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- Gather your fabric (I used a piece of light felt I had lying around, but any fabric would work; red and green / Christmas prints or nature/tree prints would work well) and your tree shape cut out in paper or cardboard. I made mine a little "squat" and wide, because I knew that the final shape of the tree would look thinner and "longer". This explains why the one-dimensional tree you can see on the right behind the others is so wide; it was made with the same basic cut-out.

- cut out 4 tree shapes in fabric, so you have a stack, like so:

- Sew them together two by two, fabrics facings inward; that is to say, make two trees you'll be able to turn inside out, like so (one tree just done sewing, and one already turnd inside out). Don't close the bottom! Make sure to keep a wide "mouth" opened there, and only sew the corner closed before you turn them:

- avoid breaking your needle like I did;

- Now lay one tree on top of the other and line them up well, then sew them together with one central vertical seam, as seen here:

This vertical seam creates four 'pocket' half-trees for later stuffing, which is how the tree will then be able to stand up. Start stuffing your tree with whatever you have - I had these yellow foam bits left over from an old... something or other (can't remember!) and I used it all up with my two trees. Finally! I can buy proper polyfill soon.

Once you're done stuffing the four volumes, sew them closed:

And tada! You have a tree! Or two.

Embellish with sequins or beads, either sewn or pinned like I did (it's quicker and I'm a sloth); use it to suspend your earrings, drape ribbons over... have fun!

Oh, oh, and if you make some, please tell me? I have no doubt that much better looking trees can come out of this; I admit mine are very... beginner-level. Ahem.

Call out

2008-11-28T11:30:24Z

This is a semi-silly entry for my own benefit. I'm calling out my friend Sheeplass of sheeponmystuff, who is as talented with a crochet hook as with needles (this is not my case. I can not go much beyond single chain).

If you ever wanted to make me something some day (I seem you remember you asking, a long time ago - not of me personally, but in a general "what do my friends like?" kind of way), I would gently point you towards Gelsomina, a free felted crochet hat pattern on the Berroco website. I love hats! And this one is lovely.

I also meant to point you towards these adorable sheep stitch-markers on Etsy. Thought you might like'em.

Christmastime at Habitat

2008-11-27T23:28:15Z

And oooooh, I have a weakness for that. Oooooh, I have a thing for that. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot that horrifies me (the prices, for one, and today, looking at some of the toys and ornaments, the unknown and dubious ethical provenance of things, which tends to make me avoid buying the cheapest things possibly made by starving children. Of course, I should research the topic instead of relying on impressions yet continuing to be a Habitat client... I'm not claiming a moral high ground here).

The thing I really wanted that I did not buy is this little tree+lights - 55 Euros omg no. I did my best to pick carefully and still indulge a little bit.

]]> Last year one of the Christmas presents I received was this metal wreath, except in a dark chocolate brown - this year the color of the collection seems to be a light bronze / old gold color (same as the tree I want!). I haven't seen that one in the shop today though, I'm only finding it online now as I browse to find links for the things I did buy. If I had seen this one I might have been also tempted... Though who needs two metal wreaths of bells, seriously. Plus, these suckers are really heavy.

I did get a pack of the same little bells that I bought last year in red, which are available in that light bronze shade now.

There seems to be a sort of "vintage" feel thing going on this year, a sort of half steampunk-y vibe (or at least, I know I could easily do a steampunk-y tree using some of those: the flat "ball, the dew-drops pendeloques, the diamond-shaped old-glass bauble that I had to resist really hard not to buy). Less vintage-like but still yummy, the rose-thicket metal ornament.

(note: use the little arrows on the site to "see more" colors and models; hover the mouse on the picture to see a larger, close up one.)

Eventually I broke down and bought one of these weird elongated bell glass ornament because I want to use it to entrap some tiny plastic people on a shelf (I took the most transparent one, probably the "tarnish" color, as it is very slightly grey), as well as one of these gorgeous scalloped glass balls, in the dark grey shade (jade grey?), and a grey textile knot ornament. These are huge - same size as the scalloped balls, so about the size of my (admittedly smallish) fist, basically.

They'll probably end up in my bedroom here, on each side of the curtain masking my messy overflowing shelves; I recently changed it and the fabric I'm using now is in matching colors. Apparently I'm attuned to the color trends of the world, despite not going outside into the world all that often. =)

I really like two-tones christmas trees, and now I'm tempted to do a grey/muted gold thing this year. I'm only going to do the tree a scant few days before Christmas itself I bet (I don't know yet when I'm going down to the house). But then, I'm not sure if I have enough ornaments to do that without buying more, which would be relatively unwise - hmm, I could just buy an assortment of cheap Xmas ornaments in grey or pearl though. Food for thought.

Kaysersberg

2008-10-22T22:54:52Z

Saturday, Mom heard on regional news that Sunday was the last day of a yarn fair held all last week in Kaysersberg, a little town an hour away by car, so we spent our Sunday afternoon walking around in the sun and... buying fibery things. The fair was small, only eight or ten exhibitors, but really varied and nice, with a mix of weavers, knitters and felt-makers, and products ranging from organic yarns (dyed in vegetable dyes) to felt jewelry to hats and bags, etc. Mom found great felted wrist warmers/mitts (not knitted and then felted, but wet felted only) for a friend of hers with a birthday coming up. I nearly bought a felt hat.

]]> I did buy 2 skeins of a fat single ply of wool-linen blend (260m) in a wonderful acid green to knit a quick scarf for a friend (I'm thinking 7mm needles and the Yarn Harlot's one row scarf pattern), as well as 100g of a tweedy hairy wool (mohair blend?) in a wonderful tawny rust color highlighted with a discreet strand of lurex. That one is much thinner, DK or sport, perhaps even thinner.

Both came from the same table and are the work of the dyer Catherine Morel for her shop 'L'atelier de Laine Garance', which Google found only one mention of in all of the internet, here, in 2005. I will keep her card preciously, as her yarn looked wonderful. I'll to ask her for a color card.

I have started knitting the scarf and stopped when I had used the whole first skein; my plan is to knit a pair of mitts with the second skein, which won't use all of it, and then to use the rest to lengthen the scarf. The first mitt is done, though I fought tooth and nail and messed up the kitchener stitch about 5 times, ouch. I'm trying to knit a second one twin to it, which might prove hard as I sort of improvised loosely, once more, on Ysolda Teague's wonderful garter stitch mitts pattern. I'm doing these in a very different gauge, with a different stitch count, and this time not even in garter but in stockinette, so... Wish me luck that I can replicate what worked once!

(The reason I couldn't resist casting on to try those in stockinette is that I desperately needed a reason to put into practice the fabulous Japanese short rows method I finally "got" the other day. I'm not using a pin, because now that I got it, I don't need to - and oh, this clever trick fills me with such joy!)

Cornish Hemlock lap blanket

2008-09-30T20:06:00Z

When I was in Cornwall recently I bought one hank of a lovely aran weight pure wool for a friend who wanted to (re)learn how to knit (he chose it). He mastered the knit stitch quickly enough, but after a while knitting a scarf in garter stitch, concluded that the wool was a little too scratchy to be worn next to skin around his neck.

I hence inherited 380g of undyed aran wool I had no project for. Quickly, an idea presented itself: I could not resist trying to knit a Hemlock Ring blanket, because it's a such a gorgeous pattern.

]]> Let me share a secret: I'd rather knit something from a written out pattern than from a chart. Charts are great to help me understand what's going on, yes, but when it comes to following the pattern I prefer to read out written instructions. Which in this instance was great, since the Hemlock Ring is written out and not charted. Still, I am also tempted to chart it, just to put the chart out there - it seems a little sad that only the latter, expanded part of the pattern that Jared charted exists out there (most likely, this idle thought of mine will never lead anywhere. but it's a nice thought for something useful to do one day!). The knitting went well, though it was tiring in places, because I was of course dealing with an increasing amount of stitches on a limited circular needle. Then I hit the end of my 380g of Dales pure British wool, and I wasn't done. I could have stopped there, of course - backtracked and knit the border and call it a small lap blanket, but I wanted it bigger. Fortunately, I had in the stash two skeins of undyed DK weight French wool (sheep from the Pyrenées, wool washed, carded and spun in Ardèche, bought on a market in the Massif Central).

So I knit a few more repeats of the pattern holding this yarn double. I thought it's be interesting, color-wise, later on, because there was no doubt that both yarns would absorb dye differently. Before I started I saw on Ravelry that variegated yarns obscured the central motif, so I was confident that my choice of a solid was right, but that did not mean a colored ring effect wouldn't be lovely on the finished object... Which it is, as it turned out. The I hit the border. I am in love with the border as it appears on Jared's pictures. I was therefore very disappointed when I realized that I could not, no matter what I tried, construct my border in a way that would make it look remotely like that. The patterns proposes two possibilitis for the edging: a knitted and a crocheted variant. Clearly, Jared's is the knitted border (it says so on Flickr, if you're doubtful), which goes like this:

k2tog, O, k2tog, turn, p 1, work 5sts in next st-- to work 5sts in 1 (k 1, p 1) twice in the same st, then k in the same st. once more, P 1, sl 1, turn, bind off 7sts (1 st remains on right-hand needle)

...repeated as many times as possible (O = yo). I tried to knit it as written; I tried the same with only one strand of my DK wool instead of too when that looked too bulky and blah; I tried making it less "round" (to better match the picture) by knitting only 3 stitches in one instead of 5. I knew of course that the picture I was trying to match was of a blocked blanket edging, but even with the magical blocking to come, I could not believe that the bulky round scallops I was knitting would ever become anything approaching that image I loved so much. In the end I opted for the crocheted border, which I chose to do with the grey-white variegated Monoprix yarn Rayure Double (Ravelry link), since my plan was to dye the blanket blue once the knitting was over.

Crocheting it went by much, much faster, too, and though I see now that blocking probably would have made the difference, I'm not sorry. It's not very big - under 4 feet across, smaller than Jared Flood's I think (which kinda bugs me because I used a lot more yardage than him, seems like!) and there are rather big mistakes in the beginning, right past the flower, but even though they're big I don't think people will see them. Much. When I'm not pointing them out, anyway.

erroneous lifelong preconception

2008-09-27T20:49:28Z

Today, I discovered that for years I have not been doing what I thought I was. Apparently this is the long tail cast on, when what I've been doing all along is this, aka the twisted German cast on, that I was mistakenly calling long tail. I found this out through a comment with embedded video on Livejournal in the knitting community. I'm still sort of in shock, heh. I'm surprised, too, because the person who posted the video mentioned that it's a stretchy, springy cast on. I've always found it quite tight, and its tightness is actually part of the reasons that made me think it was the long tail cast on, which everybody always notes is tight. I think tubular is stretchy, but twisted German? Not so much... In other news, I have a ton of pictures to edit, of the yarn I added to the stash during my trip to the UK, and of several FOs: the Hemlock Ring blanket I knit last week (which I just dyed blue - it's cooling as we speak), a ribbon scarf I knit out of bamboo for my friend in London, and the Noro Silk Garden vest I knit sideways for Mom this week. But I'm a little too tired to fiddle with that right now, so it'll be for another day!

yarn, paper, yarn, bacon, yarn, chocolate, yarn, books, yarn. What.

2008-06-25T13:03:41Z

I was already coveting Habu paper yarn and others, but now with these examples I'm positively lustful!

A Dutch designer called Greetje van Tiem makes yarn from old newspaper; Italian artist Ivano Vitali is already all over that.
I love how the comments from the dezeen.com post are teeming with people who want to buy some, to make some, and who're already trying to reproduce the result. Enthusiasm is fun.

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I can't believe I completely missed the latest Anticraft! By months! Where was my head.

And it's an entire issue on our friend the pig (like we used to say with the most gluttonous of my Exes: "le cochon est notre ami". Derivation of sorts on the French classic saying "tout est bon dans le cochon"). Of most worthy note, the embroidered Bacon of Hate. I'm having a phase, being more and more drawn to embroidery; I think this has to come on the list of things to embroider in the summer.

Though I might have spoken too fast, because the recipe for bacon chocolate fudge and the angel crafted out of bacon are indeed also noteworthy.

-

I'm knitting! It deserves an exclamation mark because for a month or two I found myself utterly unable to settle on a project. I finished one or two piteously small an uninteresting WIPs, then gnashed teeth and frothed at the mouth while trying to pick something else to do. Since knitting is rage-therapy, and well, therapy period, for me, not knitting meant a lot of bile and anger to repress. And yet, starting something was suddenly impossible, as I had infused everything with a sense not of urgency but of *importance*. I was looking at the yarn I'd recycled and dyed and trying to pick a "worthy" project for it; I was eyeing patterns I could not afford to buy (I'm poor at the moment) and getting frustrated over them even though there are a thousand free patterns waiting for me to get to them; I found myself squinting at large pieces, garments and shawls, when all my yarn buying has always been limited to 2 skeins of the same thing at a time, pretty much. All in all, everything was generally inadequate, either me or the projects or the world, and it was irritating and craziness-inducing.

Thankfully, it faded out. And so, I'm knitting my first adult garment that is not a scarf or hat or mittens - a short cardi-like thing based on this recipe for a 'sassymetrical' top. Mine is horizontally striped, and I had to adjust the numbers of course (not the same gauge, plus I am NOT an XS). I did picot edging for the first time ever on the sleeves' edges, though one of them is giving me trouble and I might have to undo and redo for the third time. For once instead of putting stuff up into Ravelry and then having to mark it hibernating or frogged, I decided to wait until i can upload pics of the finished project, ha. Exciting!

I'm using a heathered dark purple-brown-bronze bamboo from La Droguerie, part of a kit I received as a present and dismantled as I am wont to do, and 3 balls of Karabella Frost in a faded red or crushed raspberry color (color 9259 - 30% cashmere/30% silk/40% viscose) that I bought second hand from the adorable Cosette Cornelius-Bates from Cosy knits, literally
fame at the same time as I bought her a signed copy of her book, Knit one, embellish too. You can see why I need her patterns, what with being a small projects knitter and all. That, and they rock! (I've wanted to know how to make a root vegetable hat for ever).

In summary: yarn, yaye.

Quiet Night

2007-12-31T23:29:05Z

We're being very, very quiet here for the passing of 2007. It's just Mom and my brother and me. We had quite the domestic day. In the morning we did all the shopping for groceries in the next village over and joked with the butcher. In the afternoon, I put on a stew for tomorrow, then dyed some recycled sweater wool in food coloring dye, then prepared the upside down apple pie for the evening meal. I have enjoyed quiet New Year's Eves several years running -- big parties in the streets are not my type, I have a deep phobia of the sudden popping noises of firecrackers -- but this one might take the cake with its exceptional calm. We were done eating our wonderful roast duck meal at about 9.30, and an hour later the pie had been gleefully consumed, too. Mom dozed in front of the TV while me and my brother puttered each at our laptop for a while.. It's now just gone over into 2008 and Mom's in bed already! I might follow soon; I got up after a mere 5 hours of sleep last night. I only wanted to post this recipe I improvised for my stew, because I think tomorrow it'll be the yummiest start of the year, along with the New Year Concert of Vienna. In a cast iron pan: - first, on medium-high heat, sautee a red onion and a shallot finely chopped in a glug of oil - add in thick a 1/3 cup worth of dice cuts of bacon (smoked or not) to make them start sweating the fat - throw in your meat - I had two pork cutlets w/ bone today, but chicken would work, either noble breast bits or wings or legs. You only want to brown the meat some, seize the outside and get the yummy Maillard reaction going. (meat w/ bones is good in things like this because it'll stew a long time at low temps and the meat will come off the bone in the end anyway). - reducing the heat, pour two cans of coconut milk in the pan, then the equivalent volume of water - add 2 finely chopped cloves of garlic and the equivalent volume of ginger root; if you have it, throw in the same amount of fresh lemon grass, - add two tablespoons of soy sauce, - add a 1/2 teaspoon each of : ground black pepper, cumin powder, red pepper flakes - now is time to add carbs and veggies before you leave the stew to simmer for hours. I chose a can of mushrooms, drained (the equivalent amount of fresh would work too - if you notice, a lot of this is eyeballed anyways), and a smaller can of chickpeas. - Leave to simmer on low for at least two hours, checking and stirring once in a while. Reserve. Reheat and bring to a simmer the next day, ENJOY. (you can eat it the same day you made it! It's just better reheated.) This is the first thing I'll eat in 2008... Except for the deep mint flavored 70% cocoa piece of chocolate I just had. Darning, I have a cramp. Look like this year starts w/ RSI. Augh. Hope your festivities are going well!

holidays make me chatty...

2007-12-28T18:44:55Z

Wah, I am still really bad at updating this, uh. Let's do it in reverse chronological order, shall we?

In culinary news, yesterday I tried this recipe for experimental dark chocolate chip / bacon cookies.

I messed up and put the bacon bits and chocolate chips in the dough at the same time as the flour.. So the whole thing ended up less bit-heavy that it should have been: the chocolate and bacon got chopped fine fine fine by the food processor. Still, an interesting experiment, and I will know better next time! I like the result a lot. It was also my first time ever making sugar icing, which is easier than pie!

Yay for icing.

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On Christmas day, I went to see friends and brought the one piece of Christmas knitting I had done to finally gift it to its tiny recipient:

Gaspard got his Baby Surprise Jacket. I am so proud! The pattern is as magical as everybody says. Next time I do one with a variegated yarn, promise.

Earlier, I decorated our tree... Which proved very hard to photograph at least for my poor skill at it.

I chose to stick to red and silver this time, two colors are enough and make it easier to do something pretty in a shorter time span (I put it all together on the 23th in an hour). I love decorating the tree, but there's not ritual of community around it, I was left alone to do it according to my whims and wants. I should take a picture of Mom's nativity scene some time, which she puts up every year because it's beautiful (and ritual) even though she's Jewish, and above all, an atheist.

Yet before that, in the week prior to coming down here to celebrate,

I hand sewed a cushion from a recycled sweater made of part angora as a Xmas present for my brother.

I particularly like its underbelly.

At the same time as I was finally doing my Christmas crafting I decided I should really knit myself mittens, since it had become really cold. It was clear by then that my endpaper mitts had entered hibernation, as ravelry puts it, and my focus was nowhere near where it needs to be for knitting colorwork.. Thankfully, Ysolda Teague had just come up with a handy pattern!

I jumped at it and improvised a version w/ a different stitch count to match the bulkier yarn: I wanted them in Manos. Tada! In less than 24 hours I was done with my wonderfully warm mittens. Mmmm, toasty.

Whew! I think the catching up is done - let's leave the November leek pie and punkin biscuits to the mists of history where they now belong.

I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season, whether you celebrate them or not. Let's hope 2008 can be kind to us all.

ridges ridges ridges

2007-11-11T02:20:24Z

One FO! A day to remember, then.

Yesterday I dragged my brother back to Le Comptoir, and bought a second skein of yarn for the odd shoulderette object. The lighter blue I'd picked was all sold, so I settled for a darker, petrol blue. Yes, my FO is made out of two - no, actually, 3 - different colors. I did wonder how silly it would look, and I thought perhaps I would even frog and knit it back up while striping all the while... Since the ridged design even naturally lends itself to that.. But I decided against. This was to keep me warm now that winter-y temperatures are there, and I needed/wanted it sooner rather than later.

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Hence, finishing. After I finished adding the 3 downwards ridges that made it grow past my shoulders to hugs my arms, I took up the collar again. I had first made a floppy triangular kind of improv collar with a variegated petrol-teal blue in a softer yarn (the one I used for the "body" is not recommended to wear next to skin while this variegated one was merino, way softer), and I started by frogging it completely. I knitted two ridges in its place and cast off. This made the FO that my brother likes best as it is.

But I was afraid I'd be cold from the neck up, so I knitted a separate little FO w/ the remainder of the merino yarn: I could knit as many as 3 more ridges with it, which makes a little straight neck-thing that I can wear on top of the shoulderette to keep my neck warm, OR, like I am wearing it now, flip up around my head to keep my ears warm and my hair outta my face.

One knitted thing down! My little victory of the day.

Scatterbrain

2007-11-08T23:28:39Z

I can be extremely short-spanned some days (also, language-mangling, if you notice). For example, the title of my post yesterday had to do with the fact I'd meant to write about my Endpaper Mitts project (ravelry link) - but I completely lost sight of that as I wrote out the rest.

What I wanted to say yesterday: I have frogged what I had so far, as it was but the swatch for the project. The plan is to cast on again tonight (as soon as I post this, actually), and perhaps manage to knit the whole ribbed cuff of the first mitt in the time it takes to watch Bones. That is rather optimistic, but you never know.

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As for the lack of picture of yesterday, I remembered that I have the yarn, if not the FO, to show.

This is the wool I used for this weird non-capelet thing I made, which my brother has taken to calling my Persian armor. I still intend to lengthen it so it falls past my shoulder, which would modify the look of it and hence the visual connotations, I think (not that they bother me) - but I'll need to buy more yarn for that.

100 fois sur le métier...

2007-11-07T21:47:19Z

No pictures this time, I've missed the right daylight window to snap up the new yarn I bought in Nantes. I was away for a weekend of professional networking, which I am unused to, and it made me feel strangely afloat and vulnerable. Obviously the way to regain my footing and manage some semblance of control over my surroundings was to buy yarn! And needles - I needed big circs for some of the more bulky threads I'd bought recently, and I managed to acquire both 6mm and 7mm circulars. Too short, yet useful anyway.

I used them already, knitting a sort of shoulderette thing from the blue 100% wool I bought at Le Comptoir in October. It's inspired from the Noro Hat from Saartje de Bruijn (Ravelry link). I knitted two of those last year, one in Kureyon #165 for me and one in Iro for Mom, and I love the effect of the horizontal faux-rib so much, I used it for this shruglet-noname blue experiment. It stope right after covering my shoulders so far, and I think I'll go back to the shop for a second skein and lengthen it some.

I might even manage to take a picture of it, too! I'm wearing it right now, it's nice and warm.

Rising

2007-10-30T19:58:45Z

Let's ignore the previous, sad half-life of this here limping blog and start anew with vim and vigor! I got my ravelry invite a few days back - a week, two weeks? - and I borrowed my brother's camera to take snapshots of what yarny things fill my life at the moment; in short, I am hopeful I might be able to stick to blogging about crafty topics this time.

I recently knit an Edgar for the one I call sister-friend, whose birthday I was late celebrating.

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She's always working too much and going places and she's a slip of a woman (as opposed to me with my warm-keeping padding), so I thought a comfy scarf when the weather changes was the right thing to do. Plus I had these 2 balls of "rayure double" from Monoprix in fall colors, a wool/acrylic blend with wonderful variegated colorways.

I also splurged - couldn't help it - for two skeins of Manos 100% wool, one in brown and one in deep pink-red, which I think I might use to stripe a Baby Surprise Jacket for a friend's new(ish) baby for Christmas. I know I want to knit one of those, I'm just unsure about the yarn for it and the gauge issues I might have using it for this pattern, which I have never yet knitted. (If you have advice about that, please don't hesitate to pipe up...)

Last month I was overjoyed to discovered a French yarn I didn't know, the little brand Fonty, which puts out, among other things, a 100% wool yarn in jumper weight and lovely solid colors.

I bought a brown and a teal in two different yarns of comparable weight (the teal is a cotton/wool blend) to finally try and make myself a pair of Eunny's Endpaper Mitts. What you see there is my swatch, the good side of. I wanted to see if I was getting gauge w/ the middle size of needles (3mm) for a pair in the M size... I am not: I get 9+ stitches to the inch where Eunny wants 8. But it's okay, because it fits my arm, wrist, over my hand in all the right ways.

Now I only have to frog and start over, with the proper smaller needles on the ribbed part, AND without making as many mistakes in the chart. The bad side of the swatch is littered with awful awful misses. It's a portable project, though it demands a lot of concentration for me (my first colorwork ever!), so I might take it with me on the upcoming travels... we'll see. I wish I was done already, because my arms are cold, but it's very slow knitting.

On the needles I also have a Print o'the Wave scarf in seasilk... It's reduced from the stole, of course (and again I'm using a free pattern from Eunny, where would I be without her?). I'm at the border part now, which makes it non-portable: I need to consult the chart plus be really careful with the whole attaching procedure, it's better if I have a flat surface, some quiet and really good light.

I'll post some pictures of that when it's done; that piece is always so spectacular in all the photographs of it that I've seen. I hope mine will turn out that way as well.

I aten't dead!

2006-11-14T19:08:22Z

I left this place dry out and collect dust, and there's just no excuse for that, but! I need to mention that, behind the scenes, I've spent my summer creating a proper studio I can craft in, sorting out my supplies, and thinking stuff up. Since then - September - I also went back to school to learn literary translation and started a creative sort of part-time job... in short, time is sorely lacking these days. Nevertheless, without blogging about it I've continued to knit. I'm saying this here so it forces me to go dig up the pictures and post about the stuff I made. For now, suffice it to say that I am waiting on pins and needles to know if I get included in this meathead knitalong, and that I'm stroking a few hanks of Kureyon while pondering what I'll knit for Norovember. I finally finally got my hands on some of it in October, and it is such glorious wool, I totally understand now why so many others rave about it. I've become a raver too. These colors! Posting pictures soon. I promise.