wabisabi

FO: another sock

So, finally, another one:

Usual pattern out of my head, usual 2.0mm needles (dpns), Opal yarn from the stash.  This actually came out of a grab bag from the Tutto factory store.  I think it was 15 Euros for a whole whack of odd balls of Opal, and although some are smaller, I've already had two of the balls that were large enough to make two pairs of socks, this one included.  I love the pale blue, it reminds me of robin's eggs.

So that makes four on the sock-o-meter, and if I'm going to make it to thirteen before the end of the year, there had better be some serious sock knitting to come.  Alas, I've got too many other more interesting things on the go right now.

Speaking of which, sometime soon I'll get around to writing some notes on the Strawberry Charlotte, which was grand, if I do say so myself:

FO: Hydrangea Lace Scarf

Judith reminded me (in the comments) that I'd promised a report on my finished lace scarf, but had forgotten to deliver.  I'd completely forgotten, what with all the excitement over The Other's new job and the trip to TNNA and plans for another upcoming event, but I made a note to get to it this morning.

No matter how much lace I knit, it always amazes me how, after a bath and the application of blocking wires and pins, this:

Becomes this:

Here's a close-up of the lace pattern:

And just one more photo before I get into the details:

The pattern is Fiber Trends AC-83, the Hydrangea Lace Scarf designed by Eugen Beugler.  It is very simple, and very pretty.  Also very easy to knit (once I'd enlarged the chart substantially, but that's my eyes).  There are two sizes -- a narrower scarf with a single row of the hydrangea blossoms up it, or this larger one with staggered blossoms.  Honestly, the first thought I had after blocking it was that it was a shame it wasn't larger, because it would make a stunning stole.  However, the pattern would be very easy to adapt -- it would be easy to add another repeat widthwise, and then you just knit to the appropriate length. 

The yarn is Dawn, from Naturally Yarns of New Zealand.  It's a two-ply laceweight yarn, 50% wool/50% silk, and I absolutely love it -- I'm planning on working a few more patterns in the yarn, and hope to be able to engineer something with it myself at some point.  As I've mentioned before, the one down-side is that it's a 25 gramme put-up, and I would have preferred more metres per ball so I wouldn't have to join quite so often, but it's still worth working with no matter what.

One of the freebies I got at TNNA was a copy of the summer 2007 issue of Knitter's Magazine -- and there is a top in there made out of the Dawn (held two strands together) that has gone right to the top of my wish list -- it's called Diamond Mesh, and it's designed by Simona Merchant-Dest.  I'm not going to link to Knitter's, because, frankly, I don't have the time to wade through their site (if you've been there, you know what I mean), but I did a search for the top on the 'net and turned up the web site of the designer.  I'd much rather send you there -- scroll down to May 27th to find more information about the Diamond Mesh (as well as links to the photos in the magazine).  I'm actually glad I found her site -- there are a few other items she's designed that have struck me as rather interesting.

As for my Notes from the Margin -- there were a lot of them while I was working on Hydrangea, but at the moment, I'm not sure where I put them.  Once The Other goes back to work in a week or so, I'll dig myself out from under and try to put some order to my knitting life again.

(BTW, the scarf is not for me, but was worked as a shop sample for Karen.  However, I think I may have to break down at some point and work out the stole version for myself...)

FO 2007: Socks

Yes, I am behind on my personal challenge to knit 13 pairs of socks this year.  I've just been involved in too many other more interesting projects, with very little down time.  And usually socks are what I work on whilst waiting at appointments, and I've had fewer appointments lately, and the good fortune not to have to wait when I do.

(Usually I sit down in the waiting area, pull out the sock du jour, knit two or three stitches, and then my name is called.  Works like a charm.)

But I was almost finished this pair for The Other, and I've been a little tired since Monday (hint:  the reason I know the smoke detectors are supersensitive is that electrocautery was involved, and every time the doctor went to use the machine, bam, the detectors went off.  And that's all I can say about that. No worries, nothing serious, just, you know, risk of TMI.), so I decided it was time to finish this pair off.

Voilà:

Yarn:  Regia Canadian Colours 4736

Pattern:  As usual, the one in my head.

Margin Notes:  There are some, but I'm too tired to type them out this time.  No wait, I'll put one, because there's a link to his web site, and I love his work:

David Blackwood, Painter and Printmaker

(Yes, my dream is to win the big prize in the loto and buy a Blackwood...preferably one with the traditional mittens.)

FO: Fiddlehead Scarf

Well, pretty much finished.  Yes, there are a couple of ends there to be worked in, but I don't trim those until after I've washed and blocked, and I'll do that sometime this week.  I think.  I've been So Incredibly Busy lately that I barely have a moment to breathe, and time is flying by so fast that I just don't know which end is up most days.

Those of you who read Ted's blog will already have seen this -- I admired it when he made it, and jumped at the chance to knit it up as a sample.  I did have to ask him for some advice for casting on -- both of us agreed that the instructions for that weren't quite as evident as they could be -- but after the lightbulb went off, everything was as easy as pie.

I really enjoyed working this scarf -- I found working the multiple wraps no problem, as long as I kept a light touch when wrapping them in the first place.  Ted used EZ's sewn cast-off, but I had no patience for that, so I just worked the cast-off very loosely -- another Zen moment.  But without a doubt, my favourite part was working the fiddleheads themselves -- the astute amongst you will have noticed a photo of that in the sidebar a couple of weeks ago or so, and the moment when you cast of that bit at the end, it really does curve inward and look like a fiddlehead.

I didn't have a 3.25 mm needle handy, so I just used a 3.0mm, and I think I'm happy with the result.  The finished product is kind of delicate -- I think if I were going to wear it, it would be something I wore as a decorative scarf, maybe over a turtleneck or other plain sweater, with a pin, perhaps.  Definitely not a workhorse winter scarf at all, but very, very pretty.

in the margins

I'm one of those people who makes little notes everywhere, on everything, and I thought that when I finished something, I'd just note here on the blog what I'd written down in the pattern margins as a record of whatever had caught my fancy at the time I was working it. 

1.  "Les bonimenteurs" -- these are the folks who do demonstrations of gadgets and whatnot with an eye to getting you to buy, say, a new-fangled vegetable peeler or whatever.  I was watching a report on such things on the news, and I'd never actually learned the word before, so wrote it down.

2.  sciuè sciuè -- an expression I knew, but heard used a lot during the time I worked on this pattern, so wrote it down just because I love it.  It's Italian, Neopolitain dialect I believe, for "quick" or "in a hurry" -- it's used especially to mean a quick cooked tomato sauce that you throw together at the last minute.  It's sorta pronounced "schway schway"...

3. Henning Mankell -- "Tea-bag".  Okay, I have no idea where this was mentioned.  I know it was on French television, but can't pinpoint it at this point.  Henning Mankell is a Swedish writer, and I'm always interested in books from that part of the world, so I wrote it down to look for.  I just checked the local library, and they don't have it.  However, they had another Mankell book in the New Books section, so I've put that on hold.

4. "Come Prima" -- Italian song, written by Patrizio Buanne.  A song I particularly like.  I was watching a documentary about Dalida, got singing along, wrote it down for some reason.

And that's it.  However, I do know that there are already some considerable margin notes on the pattern for my latest project...and yes, I did try writing all these things in a notebook, but never seemed to write them down at all, or not like I do on my project notes.  Go figure...

Baker's Two

Two down, eleven to go:

These were actually started just after Christmas, which is why they come so quickly on the, er, heels of the last pair.  The yarn is Opal, from the Regenwald series, and the colour is "Flamingo".  They will be perfect with my black Adidas sneakers with the hot and pale pink accents on them.  Once spring comes (and I don't trust the rodents on this one, frankly).

Of course, I was a bit curious to find this just after I'd finished off the second one:

Yes, another knot.  That's two balls of Opal in a row with a knot in.  I wonder if it's Opal, or if it's just coincidence.  I'm really glad, though, that this one turned up after I'd finished the sock, not during the knitting of it, like the last one.  I suppose that's progress, of a sort.

Here are a couple of closer pics:

Just out of curiousity, because I'd had problems with this pair being a little shorter than the ones I'd made out of Regia, I decided to see what my stitch and row gauge was. 

10.5 sts and 13 rows per inch.

I knew I was knitting them firmly, but I hadn't realized that it was that firmly.  I like them, and the feedback I get from those who've had some from me, most particularly The Other, is that they like them like that, too.  I do believe that they'll wear better knit that firmly.

I got thinking, too, about Ted's recent comments about heels of socks getting shorter and narrower with wear.  I haven't really noticed this with any of the pairs I've made.  In fact, the one comment I did have was from my sister, who thought one of the pairs I'd made her seemed a little looser -- interestingly enough, it was the only pair that was a wool/cotton/nylon blend, instead of the usual wool/nylon one.

Admittedly, I haven't really been keeping track of this, and I think I'm going to keep an eye in the future, but I did get wondering if, because I'm knitting the socks at such a firm gauge, that I'm finding less shrinkage in them over time.  Of course, then I wonder, too, about how they're washed, and whether that makes a difference.  And what about the type of heel?  Mine are always short-row heels.

Curious.

Baker's One

One down, twelve to go:

The details:

The yarn is Opal, and it surprised me the other day that the shades of violet in this sock yarn are the same ones in the violet fibre I'm spinning.

Needles used:  2.0mm Inox.  DPNs.  None of that magic loop or two-circ stuff for me, I like my DPNs.

Pattern:  Outta my head.  I like my socks no-nonsense.  I like K2P2 rib, I like short-row heels and toes (though I do think I should improve my technique.  On the other hand, they go in shoes, so who cares?)  Anyone who wants a pair from me gets 'em like this, or not at all.

I made up a chart a few years back, on which I record and keep track of socks.  It has a place to note needle size (though why, I don't know, because I always use 2.00 mm needles), the yarn used, and its colour (but lately I've been stapling the ball band to the chart).  Then there's a spot for things like number of stitches cast on, number of ribbing rows, number of rows to the heel, how many stitches worked in the heel, number of rows in the foot, how many stitches worked in the toe (same as heel).

There's also a spot for additional notes -- sometimes, I'll pick up some extra stitches after the heel and decrease them down the foot, just to give a better fit.

This is what works for me.  I no longer feel any burning desire to knit socks any other way but this (though I will confess to being briefly tempted by Eunny Jang's Bayerische socks -- I may still make those, as I'm interested in the Bavarian twist stitches and have never actually knit them, and would like to).

Socks are my mindless knitting.  They're what I take to wait for appointments, or what I knit in the evening when I'm too tired to concentrate on anything else.  Socks were the only things I actually could knit last year after I fell. 

I have a very practical, no-nonsense view of socks.  I make them in sock yarn made for that purpose.  I don't see the point of making them in something fancy or froufrou.  They need to wear well.  They need to last a reasonable amount of time. 

(Okay, I'll confess that I wouldn't mind trying out Socks that Rock, or Lisa Souza sock yarn, or anything else that causes many folks to drool.  But just Once.  Just for the experience.  But that's more about the experience than the socks, I think.)

So, that's one pair out of thirteen done.  At this rate (one pair of socks per month), I'll be one short at the end of the year.  But I've been awfully busy this past month -- I feel as if I hit the ground running the moment I crawl out of bed in the morning, and I don't stop until very late in the evening.  Yesterday, I couldn't figure out why the radio had come on in the middle of the night, only to realize that it wasn't actually the middle of the night, it was 7 a.m., and the radio was coming on at the right time, and oh, god, was I tired.

I think an end-of-January re-assessment of what I'm doing is probably in order.  I do think blogging every weekday has been an interesting experiment and a good routine, but it does take a lot of time.  So does thinking about the Project 365 photos.  So does changing my routine at the gym (which is making me really unhappy, but then it's a big change I'm working on.  However, it seems to have had the unfortunate side-effect of causing my fibro to flare rather badly, which is the exact opposite effect I was working towards.  I need to get stronger so that I can cope better with the fibro, not end up on the floor because my body doesn't like the new routine.  Tweaking is in order, I guess).

Okay, that's enough whinging for today. 

Oh, almost forgot -- just out of curiousity I timed myself on grafting the toe at the end.  Fifteen minutes.  I'd thought maybe I could do it in ten.  I'll blame it on cold, stiff fingers (fibro flare), and the fact that I was watching Questions pour un Champion at the same time, so my mind was half on that.  Three-quarters on that.  I love that show...

But so I can end on a positive note today, I have to say -- I like grafting.  I am good at grafting.  I have no complex about grafting.  Show me the grafting!