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!

oh september

Summer is over here in Austria, fall is beginning. The sky is a different blue, the air has a different quality, the tree leaves are already changing and the delicious fall foods and drinks are making their appearance: grape juice that is just starting to ferment (sweet and alcoholic) and certain flavors of icecream you don't get in summer like toffee and peanut. Although I will be missing the grapefruit icecream only available in summer, I definitely welcome the arrival of cooler weather.

Why no posts? Aw, the old up up down down game. I'm still looking for a job, which depresses me. And I broke the hook that closes the battery door on my camera by being stupid (although, who makes such an important hook out of plastic?) and need some superglue to fix it or at least attempt to fix it. It's still occasionally too hot to knit and it's definitely too hot to work on anything big, which is why I've been knitting baby clothes.

Yes, it is deliberately cutesy. Twee, even. Just wait until I add the flowers.

I only have a picture of Striped Gelato, though, the other ones need to wait for the superglue. Once again I was inspired by the random combination of colors in the sales bin at my favorite yarn shop. The yarn is Gedifra Mayra, which is soft and washable.

As for the construction, Striped Gelato is a top-down dress that should also work as a top later on. The straps are buttoned at the back, with lots of button holes to adjust for growth. The sides will be taken in to form pleats, but can be let out later. It's just waiting for a few more crochet flowers, but for that I'd have to clean up my couch to find the yarn leftovers ... so it will take a while. I also haven't quite decided whether I want to give it away or not.

The legwarmer trend is also continuing. The first two pairs of legwarmers I made from rather scratchy sock yarn (not that I mind), so I made this pair out of a ball of Lana Grossa Pashmina that was leading a rather sad neglected life on my couch (which, as can be seen above, is a treasure trove of yarn, paper and allllll kinds of things). I don't care how unflattering they are on my ankles, I just love how cute they are, all light blue and flower-patterned. Of course they're called Forgetmenot.

But I wanted to use up all of that nice light blue yarn. I don't like wearing light blue shirts anymore, because they make me look like such a good girl, but I love this shade of light blue. So, inspired by a crafty site and the prevalence of bows in fashion lately, I came up with an idea.

That would be the Forgetmeknot. I want to try a broader version in different yarn, too, but this had to suffice because I was running out of yarn and had to knit it a couple of times to get it right. So far, it's too warm to wear it, but I quite like it.

So I guess I better get some superglue next week ... there are so many things I've made that I'd like to show you, after all.

commence creation dance

An example of a culinary creation dance.

The most beautiful children's film that I have ever seen is Hayao Miyazaki's "My Neighbor Totoro". If you haven't seen it yet, watch it, if you have children, show it to them.

A spirit, the "keeper of the forest" named Totoro playes a big role in this film. Actually, there are three of them, the big Totoro (O-Totoro), the smaller Totoro (Chu-Totoro) and the smallest Totoro (Chibi-Totoro), mirroring the humans in this film, the father, Satsuki, the older sister, and Mei, the younger sister. I think ultimately Totoro is supposed to be a Tanuki, but that's not very important.

There are many, many, many fans of Totoro and there are many knitting and crochet patterns for making one. I won't list them all here, just do a pattern search on Ravelry for "Totoro" and you'll find a multitude of things, from stuffies to mittens to dresses to sweaters. I always wanted to knit one, myself. But toy knitting is fiddly, involves sewing and is definitely time intensive. And while there are many Totoro items on my queue, while watching anime it's just easier to knit a big lace shawl (at least to me).

Then a dear friend of mine wanted to get rid of one ball of super bulky yarn. It was bright blue, with turquoise and purple variegations, very pretty. And since I'm a collector of single balls, I took it and knew I'd figure something out. I don't remember exactly how I got the idea of making a Totoro out of it, but that's what I did.

The construction wasn’t difficult: magic 8 cast-on, 14 stitches on each side, keep knitting back and forth on one side until you have a rectangular patch, then start knitting in the round, picking up 8 stitches at each side. Keep knitting in the round for a while, then decrease 4 sts per row on the sides (paired decreases). Decrease 16 stitches overall (I should have timed them better, but who cares), then knit straight up.
 

Once you’ve knit enough, do shortrow patches on the sides for the ears. Over the spot where the decreases are located, do shortrows on both sides, first with five stitches between the wrap and turns (I used Japanese shortrows, because I like them best), then with three, then bind off. Originally I wanted to felt the body, but although the yarn says handwash, it didn't felt - even with a pair of jeans. Probably not enough agitation.

For the eyes I took inspiration from my Mountain Goth slippers and knit two out of my trusty Nuvola and handfelted them. But with the stomach I ran into trouble. I did knit it out of Nuvola as well and handfelted it, but it seems that larger pieces of Nuvola will not felt as well and develop icky scratchy fuzzy knots! And a Totoro with a scratchy stomach is not good. So I knit another stomach patch out of Nuvola, this time on 2mm needles and let it be like that.

Now I had all the ingredients, but hit the roadblock of sewing it all together. Things got incredibly busy and poor Totoro stayed like this for a while. Then I bought a shirt that needed altering to bring out its full potential. So I altered it and in the process discovered that sewing maybe isn't so bad after all. I just needed to do it while either listening to music or while watching a film I already knew.

So I took up Totoro again and started sewing on the stomach patch, which came out slightly off-kilter. Never mind. Then I searched for yarn to do the markings on the stomach and took apart some of my purple super-bulky alpaca for those. I sewed on the eyes (one slightly higher than the other, but this I did correct) and used the alpaca for the nose as well. I faced the problem of the mouth, which is rather distinctive and did manage to make a mouth shape that pleased me, but he just looks better without it. Finally, I needed the right color for his whiskers - originally I wanted to use leftovers from the butterfly fingerless gloves that I made a while ago, but couldn't find any, so I found some light blue yarn, which worked just as well.

 And here he is!

 

 That's my Totoro.

 

For the stuffing, I unravelled an old project made almost entirely of plastic yarn, took an old pair of blue tights, put it inside Totoro and stuffed him, distributing the yarn to make the ideal Totoro shape. He's actually quite heavy, so he's able to stand on his own without a weight at the bottom.

Here you can see the decreases quite well - I should have made them higher, so that the illusion of arms comes out more, but on the whole, I'm very pleased with him as he is.


 



He's definitely the new star of my collection - and stands out quite a bit. When I think of all the fun places I can take him, I'm getting giddy ... and ok, maybe a little embarrassed to be telling you this. But since there are no comic or anime conventions to go to in Vienna, I must find my anime nerd outlets somehow :)

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.

small mercies

The craziest period is over, the more painful period of waiting is beginning. Will they get my application in time? Apparently the postal service shuts down over the weekend or something like that, but then, my thesis made it to Berlin in time, so I'm hoping the application will make it to where it's supposed to go, too. Then of course, the big question: will they invite me for an interview? And the biggest question of them all: will they hire me? I've done what I could ... I'd really like this job, but I'm not going to wait around for it, that would drive me crazy.

At least the weather has been cold enough for me to take up knitting again. That's a big relief. And I'll be able to focus on my other work again, that's also nice. However, the rain and clouds mean less foto ops and the stressful last weeks mean my room is in a state of advanced chaos (which I hate). So, when I can get to it: cleaning, not knitting. Ok, a little knitting. My most wonderful brother brought me some awesomely nice yarn from the US and I started a shawl for a dearest friend of mine.

I needed that yarn to cheer me up, because one of my favorite yarns from Lana Grossa has been discontinued - probably not sucessfull enough. I love it, it's light, fuzzy and soooooft. So I bought a large amount of red yarn and a large amount of dark grey yarn and I will be making even more cardigans. I'm starting to wonder when I'm supposed to have the time to knit all that I want to knit, but ... the time will come, I'm sure.

Now just to motivate myself to go outside ... 

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.

a true friend

The spring + summer knitty of 2011 had not one, not two, but actually three patterns for cardigans that I actually want to knit! When I see great patterns I usually put them in my ravelry queue and then they stay there and wait, sometimes for years. But when I saw Amiga, Corinne and Daedalus, I just knew I had to have all three. Especially since I have lots of yarn for Amiga, given to me by a friend of my mother's.

I started my Amiga in basic black. I cast on the numbers for the mediums size and it knit up rather quickly. Soon I came to the row where the arms are split from the body. And that is when I realized that as wonderful as that cardigan is, the original garment was knit in a "small" size. Then the numbers were scaled up mathematically and suddenly my medium cardigan had huge armholes. Now in retrospect, it might have been my gauge. I hardly ever check gauge because I dislike knitting gauge swatches (yeah, yeah, I know) and I probably knit a little loosely with this yarn.

So I grew very, very annoyed. It's always easier to blame someone else - like oh say, the designer (well, I'm still annoyed with the giant sleeves, I gotta tell you that). I ripped back a few rows to get back to the numbers for a small size, put the arms on hold and increased a few stitches under the arms to make space for my boobs. At that moment I still hated the whole garment. Of course, since I didn't rip back to the beginning, the back was much broader than intended (yes, I could have probably omitted those increases under the arms) and anyway, it was somehow loose and frumpy and annoying!

But my mother thought it was great. And since my mother likes her jackets on the looser side and has a birthday in July, well ... hello birthday present (plus a mug - my mother doesn't read this blog so I can say this). So I knit on. And on and on and after a very short while - it really knits up quickly - the thing was long enough. I picked up the stitches for the collar and once that was done, I started liking the jacket more. And more ... and more! I mean, apart from the loose fit, it is a great jacket. I did not, however, use Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind-off, because a) too much of a bother and b) a loose normal bind-off is better for this jacket, *I* think. (I always know better, check out the first panel in the third row.)

So I will be knitting this again - with the right numbers (small size) and a few adjustments. After all, I have the yarn for three more jackets. But since I don't need three Amiga jackets, I'm giving one of those yarn collections to a dear friend of mine who is just getting into knitting (she's an absolute crocheter), because Amiga is quick, simple and satisfying.

Right now I'm still on the arms. At first I knit them both at the same time might because that saves row-counting, but it's not as quick and convenient as knitting them one at a time. And my mother likes long sleeves, so I'm switching.

In other news: guess who got a haircut!

In the ongoing process of turning myself into the adult I always wanted to be which started last spring, this is a huge step forward. For the second time in my life I went to a professional hairdresser and now I have hair that is about 10 times more daring than I am. 

Lifelong learning. It's a bit scary, but fun!

Those two pictures were taken almost right after the cut, when I had about 20 5 different styling products in there. Today I washed my hair and only used a bit of curling spritz (tee-hee) and while it is still adorable, I can totally see why styling products are necessary now, since my soft curls will grow fuzzier and frizzier the longer the day is. So tomorrow - new wash, new experiment (styling foam).