stella nova, reviewed

On my travels, besides knitting frantically on the ribbing of Orangina (which never, ever will be finished) I also picked up two gloriously lurid balls of Debbie Bliss's new yarn, Stella. (I would link directly to the Debbie Bliss site, but weirdly, the yarn's not up there yet.) It's 60% silk, 20% rayon, and 20% cotton, a rather heavy aran-weight combination that gives a very average yardage of 88m per 50g. The colours are absolutely amazing:

the price is a bit jawdropping. It's silk, and priced accordingly, but it handles like a short-fibred cotton yarn, not a sheeny, long-fibred silk. On casting on, the yarn is every bit as fray-ey and splitty as it promised to be in the ball, alas. It's lovely and soft to knit, and much easier on the hands while knitting than cotton is, but it splits like crazy. Another very unimpressive quality of the yarn is the number of knots - lots of little ones holding together separate plies, making for lots of annoying little ends to be woven in to the back of the work.

On the plus side, the stitch definition is, as promised in the brochure, quite good - better than I would have thought - and the fabric it knits up into is really lovely, felted-feeling and cuddly and heavy. Also, it seems to hold its shape quite well. But still, the finished product sheds.

I had a wee stroke of Debbie Bliss's other new summer yarn, Pure Cotton, which is the most sumptuous, silky, gorgeous aran-weight cotton imaginable, and at a much better price. Stella doesn't seem to do anything that this yarn doesn't do anything that that one doesn't, apart from having the heavier, warmer qualities of silk. That said, the colours are amazing.

So what did I actually make with the somewhat maligned ball?

Another Glampyre knit, because clearly, I am unhealthily obsessed. Some day, I will knit up everything Stephanie ever designed, and then you will see a whole new theme for this blog, I swear. In the meantime, I've been slightly obsessed with this pattern: it's the nearest you can get to an accessory while still being a garment, I think, the slightest, scrappiest jumper imaginable. Does it really have a function, I asked? The answer is, surprisingly, yes, actually: it's not just bright and fun and a super-quick knit, but worn on a fair spring day over a cotton t-shirt (as in the pic), it's a really welcome hit of warmth over the shoulders, almost as good as wearing a full cardigan. That would be the silk in the Stella, I guess. Well done, Glampyre, for whipping up a natty solution to a problem I didn't even know existed. That's true science for you.

instant sun top!

Ever woken up to sun, glorious sun, and wished that you had a brand-new hand-knitted top to swank around in, without actually having to knit it?

Ta da! Just overdye an old one, and swank away! Well, swank away happily until you look at the photos and realise quite how much non-toned tummy is on view. Whoops. Just as well I knitted that extra round of lace edging the first time, no? It's last year's Soleil, overdyed in violet because, well, I just couldn't get my head around that mottled ducks-egg thing that the top had going on. Whereas violet is rock. Just to make sure that no-one mistakes me for a goth, I'm being sure to accessorise with rainbow belt and scholarly own. It's a queer-tastic purple vest top, not gothy purple lace, OK?

You are all, by the way, to be admiring HOW MUCH MY HAIR HAS GROWN in the year in between, OK? It's hard work, growing my wimpy hairs, I can tell you. A full time occupation.

And then I wandered out in the gorgeous spring sunshine to This is Knit's new shop in Blackrock, to drool and admire Lisa and Jacqui's gorgeous new premises. They recognised me as soon as I went in! Even though I've been in Northern exile for so long! That's knitting community for you. The shop is absolutely lovely, and so are the Lorna's Laces yarns. I have a job now, and I had to succumb, if only for the fun of using the ball winder:

Then down to the beach for a bit to gaze over Dublin Bay into eternity, while waiting for the train. I love my city. Lorna's Laces-enabling job or not, I can't wait to be back.

Wheeee!

FO: it's amazing what a giddy rush of colours can do

It is truly astonishing what a giddy rush of colours can do to a knitter, isn't it? The label on my multicoloured merino yarn said, adorably, Make your yarn happy - Knit It Now!. So I did. Fast.

FO: City Shawl

Tad-da! It's Glampyre's City Shawl, scaled down for a much finer gauge. While I was knitting it, I thought I was slightly crazy. And now I've finished, I think that yes, the yarn was slightly crazy, but the shawl is also awesome. This would have made great socks, but the shawl is something else.
Pattern: Glampyre's City Shawl, modified to suit a much finer yarn. The pattern as written is for chunky yarn. And once I was mistress of the mesh pattern, I started winging it, adding drop-stitch rows and garter-stitch rows at will, as the fancy took me.

Yarn: Celestial Merino Dream, in colourway Fiesta, on sale from Get Knitted. That's just one skein, people. 100 grammes, 280 metres. I can't really believe it myself.

Needles: 5mm circ.

Time sucked: A week. Glampyre suggests a weekend, but there's a lot more mileage in finger-weight yarn.



Unblocked splendour. Check out those colours!

Verdict

Oh, come on. It's awesome. Isn't it? I had moments of doubt knitting it, but the simple pattern turned out to be just perfect for such a nutso yarn. This one is for summer afternoons in the park, listening to hippy drummers and eating Mr. Freezes in the least natural colours possible.

In other news

There's my orangina, lickety-splitting along. Glampyre, she is a genius for the simple and effective. It took me a while to become one with the pattern, though. I think there's three stages in knitting lace; first, the set-up rows, where you have no idea what you are knitting and any mistake could be fatal; second, once you have a general feel for the pattern's rhythm, and have somewhat memorised it; and third, when you really know what function each stitch has in the pattern, and can instantly spot and correct a mistake. It took me a few days to get to the latter stage with Orangina, simple lace though she is, but I'm there now. Roll on summer!

We won't speak of Ivy. Not right now. But thank you, thank you for your kind words!

It all seemed so happy

Oh, last Sunday! My parents had just left me; the sunshine was beaming in through my bedroom window; I had no work to do, and Ivy had just been knitted up. All she wanted was careful, neat sewing, and I was so excited about how clever this pattern is, how scrupulous in its details, that I was prepared to spend hours getting the seaming elegant and strong.

I seamed the shoulders. I seamed an arm. I tried it on. It billowed, it blew, it looked handmade and lumpy. I checked the other arm, and found that somehow, I had gone way off gauge, and the arm was 5 inches wider across at the shoulder than it should have been. It didn't look puff-sleeved; it just looked crap.

So, yeah. There was nothing for it. I ripped the shoulders back. I love that pattern so much, and I won't have it looking lumpy and sad, you hear me? I won't! But I have this awful crashdown now; I was so looking forward to the finishing line, and to showing off a truly elegant handknit garment. I think the thing that I find most discouraging is that I don't really know why the sleeves went so horribly wrong; I couldn't make either one add up to the pattern, both went way too wide, and yet I got gauge, so I have little real hope of being able to fix it. I mean, I'm trying, but the yarn is a mess now it's ripped and has a different gauge, and in short, I have lost the love. This is a shame, because it was going to be so pretty. I will try harder, I will!

Here, have some Happy Colourdy Spring Photos instead, yes?



Look, bright green new spring sandals, and sunny forgetmenots to dance on!



And this, this is an impulse internet purchase: those colours. Could you have resisted? Now really, could you? I'm sighing and lusting and stroking it, and its dizzying kaleidoscope is taking my mind quite away from the sad Ivy mess.

It's sock yarn, really, 100 grammes (or 280 metres) of it, and of course it would make glorious socks, but I think I don't want it for zany socks. I am torn between making it into a One Skein Wonder shrug, and a very plain openwork shawl. What can you do with 280 metres of fingering weight? Tell!

the first day of spring, the first day of lace

Look at this!

Yes, I know it's a dark and obscure little photo. The point is, it's the last tie for Ivy. And that when this is done, I will have all the pieces finished, and will only have to sew it up, and it will be DONE. I have a few wibbles about the size of the pieces - my shoulder decreases on the sleeves would and would not work out, no matter how I tried, so I have a feeling it'll be a little bit puff sleeved - no bad thing in itself, right? But in general, it's going to be a slim slim cardigan in this season's silver, and of course youse are right, I am going to keep it silver for as long as metallics are in style. Next winter it can preen as an all-new violet or green garment; for now, it can stay as it is.

The ties are actually quite painless, particularly if you knit them on DPNS, rather than wrestling with a big long circular that engages in intimate embraces with a long dangling string of knitting. Zip! Zip! Watch this spot!

Last week, you may remember that the heavens were shining, I was trying on new green sandals, and spring was in the air. The soft red cotton of Orangina called to me, and I cast on. Oh, luxe yarns! This is the nicest cotton I have ever knit with, for real: soft and non-splitty and with amazing definition, definitely and definitely worth the extra you pay for Rowan if you don't get it at a bargain price off eBay. Go Rowan.



So I sat on the train, and chatted about politics and poetry, and the train sped ever-northwards, and the wind blew stronger, and flurries of snow started dancing alongside the window, and now it is about zero degrees and all thoughts of pretty light cotton lace seem as folly and vainglory. Oh well. I made a start.



My thoughts are also turning towards that vintage chocolate Langora yarn, and I suddenly was caught by the thought that I haven't yet made a long-armed shrug, and that those are actually perfect for this season's dresses and the breezy Irish weather. But are shrugs completely, utterly, indelibly over, friends? Do you know? What do you think? Would you ever speak to me again if I knitted a shrug?

In the spring, a young woman's thoughts lightly turn to...

A young woman's thoughts lightly turn to thoughts of being fickle.

You know? I've nearly finished Ivy. I really have. And I think she's very clever, very elegant, is going to be a gorgeous addition to my wardrobe. Really. It's just that... well, those very last steps, seaming and (yawn) knitting the ties), they don't really appeal. Worse, I then have to dye her, because that pale grey will just wash me out if I wear it as-is, and that sounds rather tiresome, too; how do you dye a woolen garment without a giant stainless steel pan? I suspect you can't. Some day, I will get round to it, in the meantime...

Look at that glorious blue sky! Doesn't that put you in mind of spring knitting? And look at the lovely red yarn, too. I ordered it with Orangina in mind; the eBay seller swore it was Rowan, but I was sceptical. After all, Rowan doesn't come on cones, does it? it comes in strokable little pricey skeins...

Well, it might do now, but this is the genuine article all right; proper vintage yarn in a lovely glowing colour called Rosehip, which I think is discontinued. eBay at its best. Mmm. Little lacey tops, soft summer breezes. Soon. Soon. In the meantime, I will prance about in my new sandals at home, and pretend it's spring proper.

Oh and! Did I tell you about the tragedy that befell my gorgeous bargain cashsoft DK? In our infinite wisdom, my lovely lady friend and myself decided to stash our yarn behind the sofa in the living room this winter; out of sight and ready to hand. Every so often, we would comment to each other about how the heating in this flat really didn't seem to be working, and how cool it got in the evenings. Then, one day, I was convinced I detected a funny burning smell from somewhere...

and dragged out a melting bag of cashsoft from right up against the storage heater, which immediately started cheerfully emanating heat into the room. So we did get a cosy second half of the winter, once we figured out that keeping highly insulating wool right up against the heater mightn't be the most heat-efficient way of heating a room; but I sacrificed rather a lot of yarn in the process. Sigh. There's still quite a lot left that is in perfect nick, and that which is damaged can be used for swatching...



But still. Oh, the poor sorry scorched bits, and the indelible bits of melted plastic clinging on for dear life to the lovely luxe yarn! Let this be a lesson to you all, friends. Anyone who can think of a good pattern for roughly 400g of good cashsoft and 100g of, erm, distressed, please comment below...

tiny tiny knitting, tiny tiny needles

The trouble with this knitting on 3mm needles malarkey is that there's not really that much to report. I read, I knit, I read, I knit, and slowly, slowly, slowly, the ivy leaves creep up the body of the cardigan. Ivy really is a beautiful pattern, so elegant, and so cleverly made, full of neat little details. And look! I feel like I make no progress, but look at this:



Add one and a half sleeves to that, which I currently have in the bag, and that's really almost done, isn't it? Apart from... THE TIES. Five feet worth of 1x1 rib, twice over. I'm going to have to get drunk to complete them, there's no other way.

I did get a moment of martyred knitter's gratification, though: on the bus on the way down to the metropolis, I was scrunched in a corner knitting and reading (it IS possible! Did you know? Alas, I am a devoted public transport person, and hence have no opportunity to go cruising around in search of little yarn shops en route, sorry Gilraen) and slowly, slowly marching up the first sleeve. The bus stopped in Newry for a five minute break, and in the pell-mell scramble for the ladies' loos, a girl grabbed me: "I'm sorry for bothering you, but what are you making?"

"It's a cardigan," I replied, "that's the sleeve I'm working on."

"Oh!" she said, "wow! That's amazing! I couldn't work it out, because of the tiny needles, you see! I mean, I knit scarves, but big chunky ones from huge wool. I couldn't figure out what could be so fine!"

You see? Masochistic pride. Obviously, there's no actual virtue in teeny tiny knitting, but it was nice to get the admiration, anyway, from a disciple who KNOWS.

fine-grained fantasy

Hooray! After the sober report of knitting progress come the Wild Future-Knitting Fantasies. This is the fun bit.

I've finished both fronts of Ivy, and have cast on for the sleeves; I'm trying very, very hard not to remember that I despise sleeves, and instead to tell myself that stocking stitch sleeves are absolutely perfect for reading along to. I am also congratulating myself at being half-way through a cardigan knitted on 3mm needles. Yes. 3mm. Call me Vera Lynn, or whichever 1940s diva you like; I'm knitting at almost vintage tension. And this spring, I've decided, is going to be all about the vintage tension. Fine knits are the way forward. No, I will never get sick and throw up my 3mms in disgust. Never!

Last night I dreamed I was in Berlin again, and shamefully, I did not dream of museums, cityscapes, or even dear friends I had left behind; no, I dreamed of Fadeninsel, the blessed yarn shop. Tragic, no? All the more so because here, in the slightly less money-obsessed North, the local yarn shop is still thriving in dusty side streets, little havens run by little old ladies filled with acrylic, some pure wool and just a few luxe yarns, all of which you can touch and feel. Like this one, which I found on special offer:



Vintage Jaegar yarn, lambswool and angora, and hence springlike - which is why I photographed it in daffodils - despite its autumnal rich brown colour. I have fourteen 20g balls of the stuff, which unfortunately gives me no yardage, but hey! this is what bargain yarn is all about, right? Living dangerously. So I think a fine, tight knit is in order. Something very like Knitty's Thermal, close-fitting and slightly textured; I have another pattern for a similar knit in a Verena magazine, with a cabled stitch that eats up yarn, but which looks foxier. Maybe I will drag out a stitch directory and experiment. That would be fun.

And then, there is this, the very pick of eBay yarn:


proper berry-coloured red-haired flattering DK yarn, incredibly soft, pure wool, pure cheap. I'm still looking for cardiganal inspiration for this one, and am thinking of - eeek! - using that damn white-elephant SnB knitter's notebook to actually design one. This, of course, involves Maths. I am crap at maths. No really, crap, but crap. Believe me. Watch out for baggy, sorry knits, sometime very very soon. But at least they will show my Creativity!

And then, for summer, there's this poor yarn, fabulous, fabulous raspberry-coloured Russian angora, which I've been neglecting for ages:



It's beautiful. I keep thinking it should be a shawl, but I have now decided, firmly, Look, I Don't Wear Shawls, What Am I , Miss Havisham? So it's going to be a fine lacy cardigan instead, quite possibly Knitty's Serrano - I'm loving Laura Chau's elegant, detailed designs right now, and even though I know some oneline knitters have had problems with this one, I'm more than equal to its sneaky intricacies, right? And that will be that.

In the meantime, though, although I am in a provincial, indeed rustic location, with little call for glittery mohair, I will damn well finish the Harlot's Progress as soon as I've stitched up Ivy. I will I WILL. I owe it to the Kidsilk Haze, so I do. Luxe yarns demand a little loyalty, I think.

and it turned to spring without me noticing!

Hello, dear readers! If... if there are any readers left out there? (Imagine me squinting out through my computer screen, but too bedazzled by the unexpected spring sunshine to be able to see any of ye.) It's been a month, and a ferociously busy month at that: new job, new town, new temporary life. The first three weeks were spent in such a frantic frenzy of trying to locate photocopiers, remember names and forgetting to eat that the very thought of a knitting needle was laughable. But the other feature of my job is a long, long bus ride home and back nearly every weekend, and the best way to spend a bus ride is, of course, with an absorbing audiobook and a pair of knitting needles and... a little bit of stash yarn. Just a little.



This is the first eBay yarn I ever bought. I can't remember how much I paid for it, but I thought it was a bargain at the time; only when the box arrived did I realise just how much a whole kilo of fine mohair actually was. Clouds and clouds and clouds of silvery grey yarn, with French labels; I suspect, from the styling, it's vintage yarn from the 1970s. For reasons best known to an earlier, more knit-ignorant Glitz, I decided to double the fine, fancy yarn and knit my first jumper, Cowl and Howl from it; this resulted in a floppy, seethrough, chilly, huge garment, that I tried to wear, but eventually binned. The mighty failure barely made a dent in the stash. My flat is still coming down with the stuff; I tried to knit a cardigan with it a year later, but got the tension utterly wrong; abandoned that, and then finally thought, hmm, Ivy, there's a fabulously curvy cardigan that is just begging for a soft, drapy, sparkly yarn.



So here's the cast-on, fussocky tiny cables that took forever to get through, and made me wonder if this project would ever get off the ground...

but once you're through the cables, you're stocking-stitching away, just perfect for reading simultaneously. Here's the back, and I'm on to the second front now:



Sparkly, fine and drapy, if a teeny tiny bit itchy; just as I had hoped. Have you noticed the larger problem, though? ...the above photo is black and white, and it makes little difference to the image. I don't do monochrome, really; I'm a red-head. Kind of. Of sorts. Look, I haven't seen my original hair colour in about ten years, so it is really quite plausible that I actually HAVE gone red in the interim, right? So I'll knit it up, try it on, and see if I can really imagine a silvery grey top in my wardrobe; if not, I'll dye it dusky purple. Or what do ye think?

I have lots and LOTS of knitting stash and planning news, but in this entry, I'll confine myself to Cold Hard Facts. Stashes and plannings are the exotic spices and trendy cookboosk of the knitting world: it's all very well buying them in, but the proof is late at night when you get in shattered from work, and reach for the pasta and pesto again. Or something. In other words, it's all very well me planning, but give the hours in the new job, I'll believe it when I see it.

fairest isle

It's finished! And I am ridiculously in love with it...

FO: Endpaper Fair Isle i-pod cosy

Pattern: Knit in the round, based on Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts fair-isle, and inspired by tragicheroine's iPod sock.
Yarns: Fortissima Socka, in colour 1012 (that's the hot pink), and Sirdar Town & Country 4-ply sock yarn, in colour 154. I used the teeniest scrap; you'd hardly notice I'd touched the skeins.
Needles: Ribbing done on 2mm needles, body on 2.5 mm

Here's the corrugated ribbing, and the attempted tubular cast-one. There's a row of weeny holes where the ribbing starts, and I'm not sure if that's inevitable with the technique, or whether I've done something wrong (most probable).
Time sucked: Half a day, more or less

And here's the earphone hole, at the end of the three-needle bind-off, because nanos, confusingly, have the Hold button at one end and the earphone socket at the other.

(I hate earbuds, can't keep them in my ears for the life of me, feel like a complete fool walking down the street trying to cram them into my ears every step I take. Am I alone in this?)

I know it's silly, but although I've knit far more mighty and far more practical projects than this - cardigans, socks, scarves - this tiny scrap of experimental faux-isle makes me prouder than almost anything I've done. Perhaps because of the number of new techniques I've crammed into this miniscule project, perhaps because of its perfect dinkiness - the pattern just the right size for so small an object - or perhaps just because I like shiny consumer electronics.

Next up: learning to fair-isle properly and to strand my yarns in a consistent fashion, instead of at random. But first, the move. The move!

all isles excelling

Isn't the way that Eunny Jang writes about knitting so seductive? I'm a slapdash knitter myself, possibly happiest when mindlessly zipping around stocking-stitch socks while watching television, carrying on a conversation with my girlfriend, and possibly reading the Times Literary Supplement at the same time. Fecky attention to detail makes me, like Laura Ingalls Wilder, feel as though I am flying apart. Moreover, proper attention to detail involves maths, an implacable enemy that cannot ever be underestimated.

And yet, Eunny makes the poetry of detail, the pride in precision seem like a reflection of the works of the Almighty himself. Thus, although, like Felinity, I had been intimidated away from fair isle by Debbie Stoller's dismissive description of it in Stitch 'n' Bitch, Eunny's rhapsodies about "just a little hit" for her Endpaper Mitts had me seduced. I don't really need another pair of fingerless mittens, but the tiny detailing of the project sounded wonderful.

And then, I came across this truly ravishing fair-isle iPod sock, based on Eunny's chart, but with lovely little details such as the corrugated rib and black side seam. Mmmm, I thought. Such a strange coincidence that precisely this electronic item of desire was delivered to my door last week...

...and that, although I had bought a silicone case to protect it, I quickly discovered that silicone cases and knitting households are almost entirely incompatible. Silicone picks up fluff like nothing on earth, and my lovely consumer electronic looks like something the feral cats outside dragged in. (There really are feral cats outside this flat.) I'll just swatch for the cosy, I thought, I don't need to learn all that fancy two-handed throwing yet, just see whether or not it works at all as a concept...

but when it comes to something as microscopic as an iPod nano, a swatch is more or less the size you need.

No, it's not perfect: the pattern doesn't quite match up, I'm not convinced about the corrugated rib, I didn't manage to figure out how to put in those side seams. But look! how utterly dinky, what fairy tininess is in this project:

Teeny teeny tiny, the perfect size for trying out testing new techniques: in one inch, we have a tubular cast-on, corrugated rib and stranded knitting, all new to me before midnight last night. Such a delicious little project. I foresee many, many more.

this one go chunk

A small cold moment on a freezing January afternoon gives me the perfect opportunity to finally show off my triumph:

FO: Bulky Cabled Cardigan

Pattern: Glampyre's Bulky Cabled Sweater

Yarns: Tivoli Chunky Tweed, 100% wool, in shade 755, and a random ball of Tivoli Chunky yarn, also 100% wool, in navy.

Needles: 8mm, 7mm and 5 1/2 mm Addi Turbos

Time sucked Probably about a week and a half

Pattern modifications: Ah. Yes. Several. For one thing, I didn't get gauge, but then I didn't expect to, and a top-down raglan is reasonably flexible. For another, if you follow that link, you will notice that Glampyre's snappy original has the ribbing right on the waist, creating a nipped-in silhouette, despite the bulkiness of the overall design. By contrast, you will notice that "nipped-in silhouette" is not quite the way you would use to define my version. "Vast, shapeless mass", perhaps. But I have, you see, a fondness for long floaty tops, and fashion demands, still, low-slung jeans. None of the cardigans that I own actually cover that crucial strip between top and jean, over the kidneys, and you know? it's January. So I knitted on and on and on.



But it worked. Also, I knitted it in reverse stocking stitch rather than in garter stitch, for that tiny bit more structure; given that this isn't precisely the most structured of garments, I'm glad I did.

Verdict

: I DO love it, in all its shapeless glory. Already, the weight of the chunky wool is beginning to tell, and it is becoming more and more an off-the-shoulder cardigan, and a draggy-around-the-hips cardigan. Elegant, it ain't, and I think it'll require a scarf for full body insulating purposes. But oh, it's WARM, and it's generously sized, and the colour is fun, and in general, although I feel slightly bashful about wearing such a classically hand-knitted looking lumpy garment... it's all good. It's warm. It's dancy!



Next up will have to be a very fine knit. But where, oh where will it be knitted? Finally my news: I'm moving to Northern Ireland for a new job next week, so will be in parts foreign and peculiar for four months. No more This is Knit! No more raging at Hickey's! (And of course, no more lovely lady friend, BOOO.) But at least I will now only pay local postage on online knitting orders from the UK. There's got to be some upside, right?

Berry Nice

Life doesn't stop whirling, here at Glitz Towers. Tell you what: I'll tell you why at the end of the post. And in the meantime, you have to ogle me knitting and tell me it's only gorgeous. OK?

So first up, that beret:

FO: Twilley's Freedom Spirit Beret

Pattern: Beret, from the Twilley's Freedom Spirit pattern brochure

Yarn: One and a half balls of Twilley's Freedom Spirit, 100% wool, in Earth.

Needles: 3 1/4 mm and 4mm circular needles, though this isn't actually knitted in the round.

Time sucked: Swifter than lightning! Two days, three maybe? And I was very busy doing other stuff those days, what's more.

Verdict

I love it! As Aileen says, it's a very different construction to the Le Slouch: you start increasing almost immediately, then you knit straight around for a few rounds, and then you decrease again. Also, it's knitted flat and then seamed, but since my Lovely Lady Friend taught me to seam, this no longer holds any fears for me.

The stripes in this are a lot more subtle than in Aileen's version, but no less lovely. And janey, do I ever need a dacent beret in this weather...

Actually, I lie. I'm going to put off my news till the next post. Bwa ha haaa!

new lady on the block

Hello, lovely readers! This is an exciting notice: my lovely lady friend has finally succumbed to the craft blog temptation, and is now posting her styling threads at http://msbias.blogspot.com/.

Ms. Bias is much much cleverer than me, because not only can she knit like a fiend, she sews. As in tailors. As in can actually make a substantial portion of her wardrobe herself, and frequently does. Go ye and ogle!

Patience is a virtue

...and we all know how that one ends.

The bulky cables are finished, and alas... the yarn didn't last out. You know that moment as you are hoping against hope that the last skein is still barely touched, and then when you can suddenly see through the few remaining coils of yarn, and realise that all is lost? Yes. All was lost. Thankfully, the kind eBay seller slipped in a completely random ball of navy chunky Tivoli yarn with the teal tweed, so a rescue, of sorts, could be effected. I dithered and dallied between the relative virtues of a pure, unadulterated teal tweed cardigan, and a cardigan that covered my kidneys, and January won out.

My lovely lady friend claims that the navy makes it look more pulled together; I'm not convinced. It's all looking a bit shapeless and worrying from where I;m sitting. But I will button shop tomorrow, and perhaps that will be the saviour of the cables. In the meantime, chunky pure wool yarn takes a looong time to dry.

Oh! Here is a thing to think about in the meantime:

Last Christmas, my mother, having learned about my new hobby, gave me a stack of King Cole black acrylic yarn for Christmas. I smiled thinly, and freecycled it. This Christmas, she said meaningfully, "I do hope you made yourself something nice with that black yarn," and gave me... this.

Pounds and pounds and pounds of pure acrylic. Please note the classy "Eurogeneral" label. Mmmm. I was in some despair, because evidently my mother would be really, really pleased if I made something with this: but what, hell WHAT? And then, in a charity shop the other day, I came across this:

Somebody's sweet handmade flowery bag. I feel a bit sorry for this bag, because it is handstitched; at the same time, it has no fasteners, and I am not given to yellow floral print, either. But! Look at those on-message handles! It occurs to me that, while all that grey acrylic would be grisly for a jumper, for one of those cabled clutches that are so fashionable right now, it would be just the ticket. And I could knit a strap and put in a metal snap and line the bag and truly, from a well-meaning granny bag it could go to being This Season's Cabled Tote.

Plus, my mum would be happy. Which is the main thing, I think.

winter, fear me!

It's been a busy old week here at Glitz Towers, I'm telling ye. And I didn't even get caught up in that astonishing hurricane that Europe saw last week. Nope, I had hurricanes of my own, of the worky variety. The week didn't see that much knitting, though I did make some progress on the cardigan. But last night, in the course of watching The Wind that Shakes the Barley, the ridiculousness of having a pair of socks with just four rows left to knit up grabbed me, so I finished. It felt like knitting with vicious little toothpicks, after my clunky clumsy 8mm needles, but I didn't let myself get put off...

FO: Edinburgh Bohemian Socks

These are from Lana Grossa Meilenweit Magico, in colour 2529, knitted toe-up on 2mm dpns. Plain stocking stitch, the simplest socks imaginable.


Look, matchy toes! After the last self-striping pair, I took the trouble to make sure they did actually match. A wise decision, I think. As was the stocking stitch: that colour pattern is far too pretty to mess up with funny stitching. I love the fabric.


And so back to the bulky cabled cardigan. Ah, clunky bumpy 8mm needles, flying through the chunky yarn at a rate of knots. No dangerous little spiteful 2mms, just good honest workhorse needles knitting up cardigans super-fast.



A little too super-fast, perhaps. I fear this is going to be an extremely attenuated and rather tight-fitting cardigan. The curse of ebay yarn, where you can't buy an extra ball if things go wrong, and perhaps the curse of Tivoli chunky, which doesn't reveal its yardage. "There's nothing in chunky wool," said Aileen, yesterday, "especially not with cables. It's a scam." It was fabulous to meet up with Aileen again, and somewhat startling to realise it's only the second time we've met, so avidly do I read her very entertaining blog. We wandered off to Trimmings for notions and Hickey's for yarn, and alas, it was a far cry from our meeting in Berlin and the riches of Fadeninsel. Hickey's gets more depressing every time I go in there. Who on earth invents these yarns that look as though a plastic goat excreted them? Why on earth don't they stock plain, sensible 100% wool yarn at a plain sensible price? Argh!

However, they DO stock this particularly luscious yarn, Twilley's Freedom wool. The second I saw the photo of the gorgeous beret Aileen knit out of it, I was smitten. It's even prettier in real life, too. Such subtle colours! And look, although I was very, very tempted by the purple colourway, I resisted. Look! Green yarn! Fresh new resolutions for a fresh new year. No longer will I be a slave to pink, I swear it.

Bulky Cables, redux

I've been reading a lot about vintage knitting, here and there, over the last while, and one thing that has remained imprinted in my mind is that old-fashioned knitting was done much, much more tightly, to give a more structured knit that repels water and resists wear and tear more efficiently. Whereas today's lackadaisical urban knitters prefer to whip up a giant jumper in Rowan Biggy Print and 12mm needles in the course of a weekend, because at the end of the day, knitting is a fun hobby and not an economical necessity.

Now, I'm somewhat allergic to the concept of hobbyism, the idea that you lavish leisure time and energy on a pursuit that you believe to be useless and extraneous, and don't strive to attain excellence in it, to turn it into art or to make it useful to others. Also, I'm somewhat allergic to the idea of disposable clothing, and knitting knit too loose certainly has a built-in obsolescence. My beloved Ubernatural is feeling a bit bagged-out and loose these days, knit as it is on 10mm needles; then again, it's knitted from recycled yarn, so I guess that's OK.

Anyway! All of that was by way of a wordy preamble to the conclusion that, although Glampyre's pattern for the bulky cabled sweater was knit on 8mm needles, the ball band on my Tivoli bulky tweed yarn recommended 6 1/2 mm, and I decided to compromise and knit it on 7mms. This yielded a very stiff fabric, one that practically walked around my room barking, "Get it together, girl! Sure aren't the rations fierce tight this winter, and after the Glimmerman came calling there'll be no gas to heat the house tonight..." Wartime fabric. Unfortunately, wartime fabric also eats up yarn at a fierce rate. I had just got down to below the armpits, and forty percent of my yarn was gone; robust and noble the cardigan might be, but there was no use knitting it if it wasn't going to cover my waist in my very post-modernly low-slung jeans.

So I picked up the end and cast-on again on eight millimetre needles and sadly slayed the old cardigan to feed the new, as is my wont:



I know that technically speaking you are supposed to rip back the cardigan entirely, wash the yarn to get the kinks out, and then wait for it to dry, but honestly. I am not that traditional.

Slight modification: although I like the photos I've seen of other knitters' versions, I don't like the two fat cables going side by side down the middle of the back, so in the newer version (the one on the bottom) I've spaced them by 11 stitches, rather than by 3. Also, the cardigan is being knitted in reverse stocking stitch rather than in garter stitch, because really, a looser drape is one thing, a giant springy elastic fabric another. I do need some structure.

I'm not sure whether you can see the difference between the 7mm fabric and the 8mm, but here are the cables side by side:



The 8mm one is the one on the right, and the cable is mighty, I'm telling you. Plastic and commanding and giant. And although the fabric isn't as tight, it is softer and has a more elegant drape; which leaves me wondering, what on earth were Tivoli thinking when they asked me to knit a bulky, tight-spun, pure wool yarn on 6 1/2 mm needles?

I'm whizzing down to the waist as we speak, so I should have an FO in a few days. Maybe chunky needles are a good idea, after all.

See! I'm not updating once a day, but I'm not dead yet. Oh hell no.

oh look, it's 2007

Q: Guess what my New Year's resolution is?

A: Yes, you are right. Not to knitblog devotedly every day, no. Sorry, dear readers, if any still remain: I am a ridiculously negligent knitblogger. Yes, Christmas was mental, no, it does not lend itself to quiet reflection and genteel knitting, yes, work is also quite hectic, but still. Still. There is little point having a blog if you don't update it, is there?

But I have learned an important life lesson, one that I will never forget, from this Christmas: I hate knitting for other people. Gift knitting is the worst kind of drudgery. There, you have it. I slogged through two of my Mystery Christmas Presents, abandoned the third and bought a book instead of the planned fourth. Never, never again. Does this make me a bad person in the cosy world of knitbloggers, all patiently turning out socks for dear old grandmas and cute dresses for winsome babies? But if I can't imagine every stitch transforming me into a foxy bemohaired temptress, or keeping me snugly warm against the astonishing gales we have here in Ireland at the moment, it's no good. I just hate it.

So look. Here's my mystery surprise present for my dad:

Socks! How very dadly! And look, here's the toe:



Now isn't that exciting? Well... no, not really. Inoffensive navy socks make for fierce dull photos. And my father hasn't even bothered to try them on yet, so in general, grrr. Christmas knitting bites. Perhaps my daughterly labours will bear grateful fruit yet; or perhaps not.

The other present was a second Ubernatural for my friend D., and it was a roaring success. Unfortunately, it was also a roaring last-minute success: I was frantically ribbing the waistband half an hour before running out the door for New Year's Eve shenanigans. Said last-minute-merchantry meant that no photos were taken, and now the Ubernatural is shielding D. from the bitter cold in Vienna, where she lives. I'm visiting her in two weeks, so I promise scenic photos on location.

I spent Christmas in England, which entailed a long journey in the middle of the night including bus changes, standing around foggy cities in the very early morning, trekking through the night toting a case, and my health was delicate, to say the least. A hat was clearly required. Neelia's rhapsodies about berets convinced me to give the Le Slouch pattern a try with the Tivoli Aran yarn I had left over from my biker jacket. Et voila! Le style!




The pattern is a simple k4, p4 check, and it came out fabulously textured and took one and a half balls of yarn. I love it. Very now, very warm. You should all beret! Most saliently, though, it took me an evening. Whereas the dadly socks took about two weeks. Proof that altruism is most definitely not the root of efficiency.

(I neglected Neelia's advice, and cast on as many stitches as would go round my head. DON'T do this: the brim stretches no end. However, a quick fix with elastic seems to be working just fine, though less elegantly than a properly fitting rim.)

Since then, I have lashed into another pair of Lana Grossa socks with my Edinburgh yarn:



And started swatching for Glampyre's Bulky Green Cables cardigan, in gorgeous chunky teal Tivoli tweed.



I'm still in two minds as to whether or not bold, bulky cables over my bosoms are the most slimming idea ever, but curiously for a knitter, I don't seem to have very many warm jumpers this winter, and I'm longing for the chunky comfort of a simple woollen raglan. Plus, it's a Glampyre top-down pattern, and as she says in the Ubernatural pattern, "If you don't get gauge, don't sweat it. You'll be fine." That's the kind of pattern I like.