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.

more sunlight please

Sadly the place where I applied for a PhD position doesn't want me. Ah well. If at first you don't succeed, etc. etc.

It's actually been cold enough here for knitting. I've finished knitting the most beautiful shawl for a dear friend of mine - as usual, I just need to weave in the ends and block it. I hope she likes it. It went surprisingly quickly, compared to the first time I knit that pattern. It's Ene's shawl, my own being pictured above. The first time felt like it was taking forever, those endless rows, but this time around, the pattern flowed better.

As a pattern, I've enjoyed Ene's Shawl very, very much, which is why I knit it a second time. But it's also a bit risky - what if your yarn runs out? Still, I had enough yarn for the second shawl, a beautiful green Lonco Solid from Araucania that my brother brought me from Wisconsin.

But if you want pictures ... there are none yet. While it has been cool enough to knit, it has also been too dark, on the whole, to take good pictures. Otherwise I'd show you the beautiful striped dress I made for a little girl and the cute light blue legwarmers, but noooo ... not enough sunlight.

On the other hand, I recently discovered that sewing isn't as much of a pain as I remember (crazy!) and I'm starting to think of either knitting or sewing a garrison hat, after I saw that one of the shops close to my house is selling them for 80 Euros. Maybe the cold is getting to my brain.

summer break

Oh boy. Ooooooh boy. I'm having a super-hectic July again. And this time my main workplace isn't climatised.

First of all, I am currently doing research on a somewhat forgotten composer of operettas. I can read the old handwriting style that was popular in German-speaking countries up to WWII and so when somebody calls the Austrian National Library and says "I can't read these letters from Grandma, please read them for me", they say "Uh, no, but we have someone on call who does this" and they call me. This happened again at the end of May and I got to transcribe over 300 letters and when everything was done, the woman actually writing the book asked me to help her with the historical research on the guy. So about three months after graduation, I am doing what I have been studying for the last ten years, my name will be in the book and I'm even getting paid! It's too bad we don't really have enough time, since there is a deadline from the publisher, but I have found all kinds of interesting things, so we're doing well. That's one thing. I have to go to archives, libraries and next week I'll be visiting cemeteries. Well, it's definitely educational and good experience.

The second thing, which I thought I could handle alongside the research, is a course in how to properly apply for jobs. I've wanted to do a course like that for a while, so I thought it would be ok, but there's this guy who talks allllll the time and is making things really miserable - dunno if for the rest of us, but certainly for me. But oh well, I'll learn some useful things and by the end of the course I'm sure I'll have a bit more confidence when it comes to applying for jobs.

And then there's the third thing. On Thursday during that course we had to work on the computers, drafting up a little paragraph that should advertise our greatness. I was bored and started looking around this job search engine for positions in academia, when I came across one that fit me perfectly. I got very excited and started researching and thinking about what I would need and today I already called there to ask about some details (like how many references I need and whether to send a picture or not and things like that) and emailed my professors about letters of recommendation.

With that, my July has entered crazytown. Added to that is the fact that I have committed myself to go to Berchtesgaden and see the Eagle's Nest on Monday and Tuesday - July has left crazytown and is heading for parts unknown.

The only thing I can do is do what I need to do and go with the flow. That means only little knitting (it's too hot, anyway), very little anime and a blogging break until at least two of the three things are over. I do wonder why these insane periods always come when it's hot outside which makes everything about 100 times worse, but eh. It's an exercise in Zen ... or perseverance.

and here I thought 2011 was going to be different

There were supposed to be two major differences. First of all, 2011 was supposed to be a happy year. Not so. My best friend's father died yesterday. And just like M., who helped me during my father's illness, because she had experienced the same a few months earlier, I am now able to help him. It still sucks, though, and I really want noone else to experience this kind of grief.

Secondly, 2011 was supposed to be the year of knitting for myself. Ah well ... there is no such thing. I made two lovely things for a friend of mine and my brother's girlfriend. As a matter of fact, they turned out so cool that I almost regret giving them away, something that happens fairly often when I knit things for others.

These are the Mountain Form Slippers, a Japanese pattern, with modifications as developed by another knitter. It took me a while to get them right and I'm still not 100% convinced ... maybe I should have knit them even more tightly. The yarn used is Lana Grossa Bingo and a bit of Lana Grossa Nuvola for the skulls.

When I thought about what I could knit for my friend V., whose birthday was in January and who was my main support throughout the whole writing process and proofread many parts of my thesis, I thought about socks. Or slippers. And then inspiration hit me. I've always wanted to make a Yorick scarf, but the yarn wasn't available. Then Lana Grossa Nuvola came out and seemed like a good match. I just needed to test how it would felt. Ta-daa, felted skulls. Only now the winter yarn season at my LYS is over, so I need to wait until next winter to buy more Nuvola. I've also thought about embroidering the skulls to make them look like Mexican sugar skulls, but couldn't find my embroidery yarn. They're still extremely cool - I called them Mountain Goth, since she also is a capricorn and likes many things gothy.

These are the birthday fingerless gloves for my brother's girlfriend. I call them Lilac Butterflies. She loves cool purple and this yarn caught my eye at the yarn shop. It's Lana Grossa Cool Wool 2000 Melange, i.e. heathered. I absolutely love that Lana Grossa developed this kind of yarn, it adds such depth to the color and makes it a little less in your face at the same time.

When I saw the yarn at the yarn store, I already knew what design I would use. The pattern came from a sock pattern in the book "Socks, Socks, Socks", one of my first knitting books and is pretty simple to knit, except it takes up a lot of space (6st repeat).

And now it's time to stop knitting again. I'm supposed to study for my final exam, but got sidetracked today, cleaning up the chaos of finished projects, wandering yarn balls, tangled needles and knitting notions that had taken over my couch. The plan is to block something every day, so I can put it away. That means weaving in ends on a lot of projects, though - and I hate that so much. But since I have guests coming and the couch still isn't entirely cleared, I had to make some kind of effort. Tomorrow: studying.