poor blog

Abandoned for weeks, while I go off to have fun at work! Abused for facebook testing! A blog's life is hard.

I have tons of knitting to show you. I finished beautiful things. But now that my work is taking up a lot of time in my day, the amount of knitting I do has gone down of course. Not that anybody would see and I don't think most people would mind if I knit at work - but it's just not done. So I knit on my way to work, I knit in the morning before work, I knit in the evening after work.

The week before I started working, I celebrated by yarn shopping. I went to the yarnshop that is just around the corner from work - the wonderful Laufmasche and bought lots of yarn. And then I cast on immediately. ITO Sensai, a Japanese silk/mohair yarn, just can't be kept waiting. I picked up one little yarn cake of Blackberry and one of String and just knit whatever came to mind. Stripes, lace, cables, stockinette, garter stitch, on and on until I felt it was long enough. And it turned out beautifully, as you can see on the left.

The purple is such a beautiful, rare shade, the silk adds luster and depth, and the soft mohair just feels heavenly. The "String" colorway is not exactly grey, it has a subtle brownish touch, which adds warmth to the cold purple. I simply called it Blackberry String.

 
After I was done with this beauty, I somehow felt the urge to start a project I've had in mind since last fall. One of my favorite yarns, Lana Grossa Nuvola, has been discontinued and replaced with an updated version. The updated version is fine, too, but just doesn't have the same beautiful heathered colors that the original used to have. Good thing I bought plenty of Nuvola for two pairs of mittens and two jackets. But back to that project.

Back in 2009 I picked up some yarn at the medieval market happening every year at the Army History Museum in Vienna. It's kind of like a Renaissance Fair, but with a more military aspect. Anyway, there was a dyer who dyed with natural dyes that were available in medieval times, too. So I bought some yarn dyed with madder and some that was dyed with walnut. And ever since then I've been in love with the combination of light brown and bright red, with some white added to it, for good measure. Last year, Nuvola had those exact colors.

All that was left to do was pick some medieval patterns and start knitting. But I let the yarn rest. And rest. And rest. Until two weeks ago. Then inspiration struck.

This summer I bought a red shirt with little white bunnies on it. You can see it on the right, with the matching earrings. I love that shirt. And I quite like bunnies. So I looked at all the patterns I could find that seemed medieval to me and when I saw a bunny pattern, I knew I'd put it in my scarf.

In the end, it turned out like this:

I added some fairisle patterns I had copied from a book in Scotland for good measure and a much more medieval dog pattern, did some math (many times), cast on (many times) and knit. In the round. Yes, there was going to be steeking.

In the end, Le lièvre et le dragon took almost exactly the three balls of yarn I had, one of each color. For the white parts of the fringe, I needed a tiny bit of yarn from another ball, because I had used the white ball of Nuvola for Totoro eyes, Totoro stomach (twice) and skulls.

Isn't it gorgeous? I still need to even out some of the stitches, sew the steeked endings a little more tightly to the scarf, and once it is blocked, I need to see whether the scarf needs backing, but I'm already incredibly proud of it.

But what now? I have three big projects from last spring that need completing, two of which I actually want to finish, lots of small projects that need finishing, and little knitting time. But since the large projects are too large to lug around and the small projects need too many bits and pieces to carry with me, I cast on for yet another scarf, because I don't have one million billion kajillion scarves already. But who could say no to this color?

My Raspberry Broadside, made with the incredibly soft Zitron Unisono - the first sock yarn I've held in my hands that is actually soft enough for a scarf - is a bit of an experiment as well. I'm currently undecided whether I want to add a second skein, so I'll be weighing the rest of the skein to see how much yarn I still have left over.

There is lots more yarn waiting for me. There are many, many patterns in my queue. But I signed up to start working on my PhD and we'll see how it all goes with working, studying and knitting. One thing is sure: there will be no knitted Christmas presents this year - for the first time in ages.

the end of waiting

Oh jubilation! The time of lounging around on my couch and knitting baby clothes is at an end. *sniff* Goodbye anime! I guess I'll spend a little less time with you now, but I'll be so much happier.

Today I signed my contract to work at the Chamber of Worker's library for a year, starting this Thursday. I interned there last summer and loved it, so I am extremely happy to be back and to be able to mix things up there. I'll be partly responsible for their facebook feed, so it will get really interesting, I'm sure. And since I love bringing cakes to work, I'll be baking a lot more ... lucky colleagues!

But I said baby clothes in my last post, didn't I? Yes, sometimes I knit clothes for a non-specified child. No, not to give away. Or maybe yes, after I have stopped being capable of bearing children. But for now, some of the baby clothes I knit are for my own still non-existant children. (Note to self: good first step in that direction? Get a boyfriend.)

Most baby clothes for the Child of the Future happen like this: I go to my favorite yarn shop, see some yarn, note that the color combination is gorgeous and I'll have an idea of what to make. Sometimes I won't have an exact idea, but often I will. .And then I either start knitting right away or the yarn waits. And waits. And waits. Until I am struck with the need to knit something small but not too involved ...

Something not too involved? This little baby kimono? Oh ... whatever. I had the pink and black Lana Grossa Cool Wool 2000 for a while and wanted to do something with it ... something cool. What's cooler than a kimono? I looked up some of my favorite flowers and a fun fairisle pattern in my hand-drawn book of patterns where I keep everything I copy from somewhere else (occasionally, I design my own patterns, too).

For the actual kimono pattern, I used the Latte Macchiato pattern I found on Ravelry. I called mine Pink Punk but maybe Fluorescent Sakura would have been good, too. My camera can't handle this shade of pink ...

The back features this lovely rose you can hardly see and on each shoulder there's a little flower as well. It is very punky, but now there's thousands of ends to weave in, blocking and all that to do. I guess I'll institute a knitting morning in my work week. I can do this because I'll be working from noon to 8pm.

This is another creation for the Child of the Future. This time I thought up my own pattern and constructed this very randomly. I used a provisional cast-on and knit the fairisle band. Then I undid the cast-on and knit the orange part at the bottom.

After that, I started on the top part but unraveled it about four times to get the neck placement right, I wasn't sure whether to have more buttons on one shoulder to have more space for the head, I noticed I had enough yarn to make the sleeves a little longer and so I kept knitting and unraveling until I was quite annoyed with myself. In the end, I decided to only allow one button in the neck band and made the whole neck opening larger than before.

This one is called Arrow, knit in Lana Grossa Bingo and I must say, I am very happy with it. I just wish I could try it on an actual human child to see how it fits.

I do have a lot of Lana Grossa Bingo slotted for children's clothing. There's some purple and green waiting for something stripey, some pea green waiting for a pea jacket ... but this dark blue and light blue combination (inspired, I must add, by my Classic Baby Shirt, which I also knit for the Child of the Future) made it to the knitting process this time. It's actually pretty big, 80 stitches, if I recall correctly, maybe even 88. And I still have a bit of yarn left over, so I could have made it bigger.

But then I couldn't have added this incredibly twee collar. Yes, this piece of knitwear is called Sailor. Sue me for crimes against ... commonsense taste (or whatever the opposite of twee is called - the internets suggest unrefined, but that isn't correct, really), but I had to make this when I noticed that I really had lots of yarn left over.

A few more details: the front straps will be buttoned to the back as soon as I have proper buttons (must find something nautical). On the left, you can see some of the traveling jogless stripes in the round as taken from the excellent TECHknitting blog (link goes directly to the post on jogless stripes).

 

Finally I made this little number for the baby girl of an ex-boyfriend, but I'm starting to fear that she won't be able to fit in it anymore.

The Spirit of Lutin - the yarn was supposed to be a fairy doll - was made to fit a number of sizes, but I probably didn't make it wide enough.

After all, the main thing that makes all my baby knitting a somewhat risky investment is that I have no access to a real live child I could force to dress in the things I make. I bet if I ever have children they'll hate me for making them wear handknits all the time. Or they will always be the right size for all these pieces when it's summer ...



And with this the baby clothing streak is over for now. I've started two scarves for myself ... but the camera is still broken, because while I did buy superglue, I lost the piece of plastic I was supposed to reattach to the camera. Maybe I'll find it. Until then, a piece of tape will have to suffice. Let's see if they'll let me knit during work - maybe in the evening hours!

project 250

Before I flit off to Styria for a few days, let me tell you a little about my 250th project and let's ignore the trip to Bonn and the knitting I did there and the yarn I bought today until next week.


250 is supposed to be the first garment knit by and for myself that I can wear without thinking: "But I could have done this much better and this doesn't fit well and this isn't good and this and that is wrong". I picked a pattern that I have been wanting and waiting to knit since 2008. It's called Stormsvale (not a Ravelry link) and attracted me instantly with its pretty, understated herringbone stitch and attractive fairisle bands. Yes ... I can wait years until I start a pattern. Capricorns are patient like that.


However, I decided to go in a completely different direction with the construction. The yarn that I'm using is vintage yarn that was given to me by my father quite some time ago. It's probably between 35 and 40 years old or maybe older. I only have 10 balls of dark blue, a bit of grey, a bit of green and a bit of white - and the green is much moth-eaten. After some deliberation, I replaced the green and the white yarn with purple and a variegated turquoise-grey-brown yarn to make the fairisle band stand out more.

So making the most of my yarn gave me the idea of knitting this cardigan in a new way. Instead of starting at the bottom, I used a provisional cast-on and knit the color band that should sit just below the bust first - and I knit it with a steek, because that's easier.



Then I switched to smaller needles and used the instructions from the pattern for what would happen after the fairisle band, i.e., bust shaping, armhole shaping, back and shoulder shaping and so on. The shoulders were knit using shortrow shaping, so I could do a three-needle bind-off (so worth it!).

After that, I knit the two sleeves. They were also started from a provisional cast-off and with the color band. Instead of putting the band at the wrist I moved it up to the upper arm and decided that short sleeves were the way to go. My first try at an edging was a reverse stockinette edging that would curl inwards and give it a sort of i-cord bind-off look without the actual i-cord (I hate i-cord), but now I'm afraid that actual i-cord is called for to make it look good. Man, do I ever hate i-cord. And this jacket will need a lot of i-cord bind-off.


The next step in the plan was to pick up the stitches from the provisional cast-on of the main fairisle band and just knit down from there for the "skirt", increasing steadily to give the whole cardigan a sort of Jane Austen vibe. I started doing that and after a while, I felt the need to see how the whole jacket would look. So I used some small hair clasps to hold the pieces together and put in one sleeve.

And of course a problem immediately revealed itself. There is a lot of extra fabric under my arms that should not be there. It looks weird when I lift my arm and there are weird welts and bulk when my arm is down.

What was to blame? As per the instructions,
I increased stitches at both sides under the arms and that is where the extra fabric came from, since my gauge is a bit bigger than the pattern specified. The only solution to this is ripping out the whole top (curses and swearwords) and not increasing that many stitches. Or maybe still increasing the stitches, but making the armhole smaller.

Of course, if I do this, the question is whether the sleeves will still fit. Maybe I'll have to reknit the sleeves, too. I do have to reknit one, anyway, since I knit it far too loosely. Reknitting the whole top really doesn't thrill me at all very much, but since I am determined to make this jacket fit and look good, I'll do it.

It will be a good chance to fix the neckline, too. I went with the original neck instructions, intending to maybe do some ribbing instead of the fairisle stand-up collar, but that just looks too uptight. So, a far lower neckline is required and it will probably also be finished with the all-powerful i-cord bind-off (grumble). Then more i-cord for the skirt bind-off. Then sewing the steek! And then the endless button bands! Two of those! To say nothing of sewing the button loops and sewing on the buttons!

Why did I start knitting this again?

Well, look at that last picture. It will be a seriously nice jacket once it's done, so I'll put in the effort to make sure it will turn out that way. My new lace shawl will just have to wait ... and maybe I should block all the lace shawls I have knit up to now before I start a new one. Or not.