A clean yarn drawer is a peaceful mind

I've been writing a lot over the last week, and working away in the back of my mind has been a stash tidy session: destash, knit up, log on Ravelry, contemplate, decide. Gradually working through the stuffed plastic bags that have been clogging up my drawers and my mind for the last year, and thinking, do I really want to take this with me? What have I learned in the past three year's knitting?

A case in point: cotton. It turns out I don't like it, much. Particularly not in heavy weights and in cheap varieties. It hurts the hands and doesn't shine and hangs heavy off the shoulders in a shapeless fashion. It is only ideal for babby knits, but, it turns out, I have no patience for babby knits. I am not a doting grandmother type. Not me. So farewell, entrancing package from two years ago: I've posted one bulging parcel off to a babby-loving friend who'll appreciate you, and one other is ready to go, and a sense of guilt that I never finished a babby knit has gone with you.

And then there's that other cotton, which is indeed heavy, but is not cheap and is complex and a rich rich green: Gedifra Marokko, which I had picked up on sale in KaDeWe in Berlin two years ago (I am made of fancy, I know).

Chuck, gift or knit into a bag? But I don't really do handknit bags: they sag and get grubby and don't have enough pockets. Or... I could trail Ravelry late at night for possible saviours?



Hallelujah. The yardage is exact, to about three metres or so; it'll be short and indacent, but I can wear it over a light cotton vest, and the colour will still be perfect. Type into Ravelry, photo, keep.

And so it goes. There are a few yarns I might yet part with: this sheen-less laceweight Lavenda, for instance,, another eBargain that is sitting about unloved: pure wool and vintage she may be, but she's also unshiny, fine, unsexy.

And that brings me to the point, I suppose: eYarn is not necessarily the way forward, because no matter how knacky the pattern, how perfect the gauge, what makes the garment is the yarn you use, its sheen, how soft it feels against the skin, its halo, the play of its colours. All the things you can never tell in an eBay photo. So do I regret all the eYarn? Of course not. It was my learning yarn, without which I would never know that I have no room in my life for mohair, that tweedy yarns are glorious and fun but to be used sparingly, that there is a great difference between cheap cotton and fancy cotton, that pure wool is not all alike, and possibly most importantly: the yarn on which I discovered what I love to knit and what leaves me cold and unloved. Ditching a half-knitted baby dress or scratchy scarf is much less painful when it only cost €3 in the first place. And sometimes, you even hit lucky...



As with the patient Russian angora-wool, who waited her time in the back of drawers and is finally knitting up into flickering-flame glory, three years on. Sometimes, stash patience really is a virtue. But given how fast my life moves, usually not.

O Stash, How I Love Thee

No really, I do love my stash. Not all of it equally, of course. But there's such a sense of frugality when knitting from stash! Of achievement! And I am being very, very good and holding off purchasing lots and lots of yarn that I really, really want, because... I have just found out that I am flying to the US in June. Chicago and Madison, homes of local yarn stores and lots of luscious yarn names that I have so far been only able to ogle on Ravelry and Interweave Knits and Knitty, and oh! I am drooling already! Better yet, I have a knitting partner in crime on the trip, so I suspect we'll be enabling an awful lot of fancy American kettle-dyed hand-reared yarn to make up for the acrylic wilderness of Northern England where we now live. Hooray!

So, one thing knitting from stash teaches you: what yarns you really like. Most of my stash comes from the broke days and from eBay. And much of it is sitting there looking... just a bit wrong. Just a bit too cottonny, a bit too acrylicky, a bit too chunky, a bit too listless... a bit too unloved. That's the thing about eBay, of course. No stroking and fondling the yarn! But my adventures in eYarn have been an Educational Experience, for through the medium of bargain yarn, I have found out for very few euros what I do and do not love. And currently, I am all about... the fine-gauge yarn. Yes. I have some stacks of aran and bulky to use up, some plain DKs without shine or brandname that I will doubtless get through at some time or another, but ooh, my heart is going out to fine, slightly sheeny, possibly blended yarns, sock yarns, cashmere-mix 4plys, laceweights... and I hereby promise to buy only the fine. Promise!

So what about that stashbusting, eh? Well, it's been like this...

FO: Chestnut Rose

Pattern: Rose Red, from Ysolda

Yarns: Langora (left over from my bolero), two-and-a-smidgen skeins

Needles: 4mm bamboo DPNS

Time sucked: A week or so. I was on the train a lot.

Verdict: I was risking it, using a fingering-weight yarn in a DK pattern, and even though I knitted the large size, a slouchy beret she ain't. Much more, as my lovely lady friend said, a "bell-y cloche". But my lovely lady friend is a 1930s kind of a girl, and she likes the cloche look. I'm not sure I'd wear it myself, but she loves it, and that is most definitely what matters. Hooray! It's a gorgeous pattern, though you do have to keep paying attention, and I might well stashbust some more and knit up some of the rest of my shocking-pink cashsoft into a properly slouchy DK beret...

And there's more!

FO: Baudelaire Socks

I love looking at all the pictures of these on Ravelry: because they're toe-up, people get fabulously long socks out of them, and really, long socks is where I'm at. Lookit, high lacey socks and mary-janes: it's back to primary school! Except that these are particularly witchy mary-janes, of course...

Pattern: Baudelaire, by Cookie A from Knitty, by Cookie A, from Knitty

Yarns: Schoeller + Stahl Fortissima Socka in pink, bought at the knitting and stitching show (sighs) two years ago. See! I am getting through the stash! I am! And this yarn was always meant for the Baudelaires! I like it: it's robust and even. More on that anon...

Needles: 2.5 mm DPNs

Time sucked: Two weeks. Good LORD, these socks are princessy and demand attention. I ripped back and forth and recrossed cables and picked up YOs and... well, if anyone's paying enough attention to my calves that they notice an uncrossed cable, you really have to worry about them. They're only socks! It doesn't really matter! And yet somehow, it does.

Modifications: I opened out the cables and increased them to allow for calf muscles in what I hoped was a spot of elegant-ish clocking on the side. You can kinda see in the photo. It seems to have worked; the leaf pattern isn't stretching out at all...

So in general, am I pleased with myself? I am. Onwards and upwards with the Henley P., so! It's 16 degrees and springy out, but the BBC assures me that it'll be rainy and back down near freezing at the weekend. Light lacey warm jumpers will be where it's at, then. Meanwhile, to decide how best to get rid of the rejected members of my stash: the poor fluffy baby cottons (hate baby knitting), navy sock yarn (have knitted socks for my dad, don't have any other men to knit for), the lustreless vintage Lavenda 3-ply... all to make way for US yarn. And on the subject, a sad story to finish up with: luxe yarns may be only gorgeous, but look...

My glorious Lorna's Laces! My fine and finicky Potomatusamuses! Six months of wear and the washing machine, and look what happeneth! I suppose it was inevitable, but let it also be a Warning to me on my search for luxe yarn: luxe is as luxe does, but don't get too carried away by the Shiny. Yes, Lorna's Laces is beautiful, yes, the sock pattern is elegant, but you know what? if the socks aren't going to last, then it ain't exactly worth it. Let this be a lesson to me, in my yarntastic June adventures...

stashbustin' is rock!

Stashbusting is brilliant! Look! It's the last, the very last of my ancient Tivoli Luxury Tweed Aran, which kept faith with me through the Debbie Bliss biker jacket and the Le Slouch (now defunct), and has now been whipped up into a replacement Gretel with cunning overtones of my lost Slouch. Zippy swift! (It's a lot faster re-knitting a pattern you know already, isn't it?) And I have two more berets in mind to finish up other luxe yarns, which will be only gorgeous, not to mention PRACTICAL in the horrendous weather that's in it at the moment.

So now, I'm empowered into more stash accessorising: I am knitting, finally finally, a pair of Baudelaires with the yarn I bought for them a year and a half ago.


A year and a half, three or possibly four countries, countless house moves I have been trugging that yarn around for. Good lord. But now finally it can encase my legs in springy decadence!

Accessories are fun, of course, but jumpers are where it's at, and I have finally, finally started knitting up my legendary Russian angora yarn.


I meant it to become a cardigan, for a while, and then it was to become a stole, but then I saw Interweave Knits, and my heart was lost to the dainty elegance of Henley Perfected. For once, I got perfect, heartbreakingly perfect gauge...



And here is the lunar landscape of the back of the Henley P: I've finished the back and am zipping through the front. I'm slightly trepidatious about this one, because it's the first jumper in ages that I'm making without short-rowing. You can't really put darts in lace; but non-darted jumpers either ruck up over the bosoms on me, or look like sacks. Eeeek. I'm hoping the lace will stretch. Please pray for a miracle for me?

I'm really touched, by the way, that there are still lovely people commenting on this blog. Six months away, and you still care that my hat blew off! It's enough to turn a knitting tragedy into a heartwarming moment. Thank you so much!

Next up: knitting vows, fantasies, intentions and realisations: it's Glitz's Knitting Unconscious. Be warned...

the untold viciousness of the ipod nano

So what else have I been knitting, these cold and weary months? Warm accessories, yo, to make my life that bit cosier in the wuthering Yorkshire blasts. (I never knew what wuthering truly meant until I moved here.) Some of it has been full of success, for example:


Pattern: Made up myself, from the Harmony Guide to Knitting Stitches

Yarns: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky (bargain! at £2 a ball from the Knitting and Stitching show), colourway 17020, 5 balls.

Needles: 7mm circs

Time sucked: A week or so.

Chunky, cosy, not quite as wide as I had hoped. I kind of imagined that five whole balls of chunky yarn would envelop me in a cashmerino heaven so dense it would be like rolling in clouds, but not quite. Not so much yardage in the chunky yarn, really. But it's still cosy and elegant.

And as ever, there were socks: I was at a job interview for a job in deepest wildest Wales, which in the event I didn't get, but who cares when there are yarn shops?

FO: Leaves on the Line Socks

Pattern: Ahaha. Basically a top-down heel flap sock, no pattern, but, erm, improvised by myself under very trying circumstances: viz, the train being delayed for hours when the journey was supposed to take five hours anyway in the first place. WOE.

Yarns: Kaffe Fassett Design Line, lovely Landscape yarn in lovely colourway 4255, oh yes I love it, bought in Clarewools of Aberystwyth.

Needles: 2.5 mm circs

Time sucked: Hmm. Most of a train journey, during which I mostly but not entirely managed to remember how to construct heel-flap socks. Except that I forgot how to turn the heel properly, in the midst of my trainy woe so there's twice as many stitches in the heel as there should be. Which makes for a fierce baggy heel. Oh well.

But then, alas, a tragedy! A woe! Also in the nice wee woolshop in the wilds of Wales, I saw and stroked some RYC Silk Wool DK. Oh, my. And I fell in love. You would fall, too, if it happened to you. And yes, it's insanely pricey, but oh! the sheen, the density, the colours! So I brought it home, and with great loving care, I constructed me a beret fancy enough for its glory, viz, Gretel.

FO: Oh my darling Gretel

Pattern: Gretel, by Ysolda.

Yarns: gorgeous RYC Silk Wool DK, 2.5 balls of Greenwood (306), bought in Clarewools of Aberystwyth.

Needles: 4mm dpns

Time sucked:Two weeks or so? For I had to rip back and reknit, because...

Pattern modifications... The first time I knitted this, it ended up like a pork pie hat, weeny and tiny, and I realised that the DK yarn required an adjustment. I ended up adding in 4 stitches to the cast-on, which gave a slightly uneven finish - the number of stitches has been worked out fiendishly exactly to give a perfectly balanced pattern. But I don't think you can see the glitch if you're not looking for it - there's an "orphan" point in the star-shaped crown, but you really do have to squint to find it.

And oh, how I loved my green shiny hat, through the cruel winter days of blowing and sadness! But then. But THEN, one windy moisty morning, I put on my iPod, crammed on Gretel, and battled through the dark morning to work, escaping into a cheery world of mashup. I arrived at work, raised hand to head.... and there was Gretel, gone. HOW HAD SHE BLOWN OFF WITHOUT ME NOTICING? Had I been transfixed in a mashup dream too deep to notice Gretel being whisked off my head? Or had my iPod, somehow, actually eaten her?

I know not. All I know is, I have never seen my pricey crafty Gretel again. Sadly, then, I put on my Le Slouch instead, and wore that all the next week.

Until, one windy morning, I arrived at work, put hand to head, and... there Le Slouch wasn't. Gone. Two berets, in two weeks, eaten by the Yorkshire wuthering. Emily Bronte, you should be alive at this hour to record this deepest of all mysteries, because to be honest, it is beyond me.

let's not lie about resolutions

Erm. Cough cough cough. A whole six-month hiatus? That would be the hiatus that coincided with me taking up a new job, then. I have been around on Ravelry, and I have been knitting, but blogging? well... not so much. And I'm not going to promise great things in future.

My new year's resolution, then, after an unseemly yarn binge at the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate (twice the size of the Irish one! awesome!) is to knit from stash. Thing is, right, I do have an enormous stash, but most of it is my beloved old eyarn from the broke days: nameless pastel cotton, scratchy worsted-weight wools, cheap rough and ready vintage yarns. And now that life is looking slightly less impoverished, I do have a faible for the luxe yarns.

Moreover, knitting from stash is a questionable endeavour. You start, for instance, with the remnants of your Cashsoft and a stash of Jaeger Matchmaker Merino aran, both of which you bought cheap in Knitting and Stitching shows of yore. You have fallen in love with the Neiman pattern from Knitty, and even though it's a pattern that calls for a DK yarn, you decide to repurpose the aran anyway, in the interest of frugality. So you knit and knit at an impenetrably tight gauge, adding in short rows, when, of course, the ten balls of aran you own run out, because there is less yardage in aran than in DK:



So, all in the interests of frugality, you order some more to finish the jumper. Except that Jaeger have now discontinued Matchmaker Aran, so you buy Matchmaker DK instead, and hope it works.



And you know, it works pretty well. The jumper's a bit heavy, and a bit off-the-shoulder, but in general, it's a good heavy-duty winter jumper.

FO: Neiman

Pattern: Neiman, by Weaverknits from Knitty.

Yarns: Jaeger Matchmaker Merino Aran, black, ten balls; Jaeger Matchmaker Merino DK, black, 1.5 balls; RYC Cashsoft DK, fuschia, 1 ball.

Needles: 3.5mm circs. I told you it was solid.

Time sucked:A month, I guess?

Pattern modifications Short rows short rows short ROWS.

Except. Except now, you have two and a half balls of Matchmaker DK left. What on earth can you make with them? And then you think of the almost-whole ball of Tapestry you have left over from your Seaside Handwarmers, and you think, Aha! I will do a scoop-necked tank top loosely based on Fad Classic, but to use up the Tapestry I will add in the fair-isle pattern from Interweave Knits's Sweetheart Vest! How frugal!

So you knit and knit away. And soon enough, you discover that two and a half balls of DK is nowhere near enough to make a tank top. Except that by this time, Jaeger have also discontinued Matchmaker DK. So you order Merino Extra Fine instead, in the hope that it will match. It doesn't. It's much shinier and nicer, even though it's black too.

But it all comes out in the fair-isle wash, and between the three yarns, you have more or less the foxiest tank top in town.

FO: Sweetheart Fad

Pattern: Fad Classic, with extra bonus Sweetheart fair-isle pattern.

Yarns: Jaeger Matchmaker Merino DK, black, 2.5 balls; Jaeger Merino Extra Fine DK, 2 balls, Rowan Tapestry, (Potpourri 172), 1 ball.

Needles: 4 mm and 3.5mm circs.

Time sucked: Two weeks

Pattern modifications Short rows short rows short ROWS. As ever. And I didn't do the fancy Fad Classic waffle stitch, just stocking stitch.

Foxy, yes. But was it really frugal? I leave you, oh friends, if I have any left, to decide...

Rebecca! How could you do this to me!

This is my first ever no-photo post, and it is just to say AARGH! Rebecca! How could you do this to me! For the very first time I am utterly let down by one of your designs! I love your wrap-style jumper. The body looks unusual but sexy and stylish. But the arms! The first time I put on the jumper, I had to put it on over my bra alone, for no t-shirt would fit underneath those circulation-destroying arms. And for a deep-V jumper, that's not a good look. Small body translated to neat fit on a medium me; small arms were like something from a bustle dress circa 1890, you know the ones that ladies had to be sewn into. So I knit a medium sleeve. Which just about met around my wrist, but I wouldn't swear that a t-shirt would have fitted underneath the armpit either. And now, I am finally after finishing a LARGE sleeve to fit on a SMALL jumper, and if it doesn't fit after knitting FOUR sleeves for it I'll, I'll, I'll make a hat of the whole project, so I will. BAH.

Oh OK, I feel guilty about not having a picture. Look! Conkers! Autumn is here with a vengeance, and where is my warm jumper, eh?

Knitting Frenzy

What do you think is the very best thing to do when you're starting a new job that could be make or break for your career?

That's right, get knitting-obsessed. I blame, of course, Ravelry for everything. Not my obsessiveness. Nor my lovely ladyfriend's ordering of giant oiled cones of yarn (more later.) Not my feverish desire to get jumpers finished before the autumn comes. No no. It's all Ravelry's fault.

(I'm Glitzfrau on there, but currently I am obsessively cataloguing old projects that you all know far too well, or at least, those of you who follow this blog, that is.)

So I have completed all of the pieces of my Rebecca wrap jumper, only to be caught out by the bane, the horror of the knitting life:



picking up stitches. Well, it's not the greatest horror, but it's frustrating. The border pulls and tugs at the already skimpy top and bah, it won't fit. Meanwhile, the jumper is blocking, so I have to wait for it to dry before I can rip out the ribbing. OH MY LIFE IS SO HARD. Well, perhaps not.


Pieces blocking. It's eyarn, by the way, vintage superwash, dirt cheap, cheerful of colour, rough on the skin and pleasing to the purse. I like it.

Of course, because I am a sheep and an obsessive, I already have another project in mind for the oiled yarn: Interweave Knit's Tangled Yoke cardigan. Though not in fancy Rowan tweed, heavens no. In the looky-likey King Craig's Fabrics silk/wool mix. This is coated in oil for machine knitting, and after consulting the wise Livejournal knitting community, I'm going to go ahead and knit it as-is, and wait for the final blocking to bring out the yarn's Glorious Bloom. In the meantime, it kinda reeks. And feels manky. But it's cheap, OK? All about the cheap right now. For your scientific interest, here's the difference between the unwashed swatch: smells like a mechanic's underclothes, stitch definition crisp -


and its blooming washed sister, felted and fragile and (almost) fragrant. Like the mechanic's underclothes on a date, let's say, but a date with a farmer's underclothes that aren't that fussy either.



I'm a teeny bit nervous about the fabric - it feels a bit sheddy and scary, but so does luxe yarn, I must remind myself. Fine tweedy yarns aren't intended to be robust, right? Right? (That's why I feel safer with superwash, mind.)

A long summer, with much learning therein

Oh, no. Another hiatus, and after I'd got my knitting mojo back, and all! I am so sorry, friends. In exculpation, here is what I have been doing this summer: finishing a book, going on holiday to Portugal in a heatwave, moving country to the England, and starting a new job. Is quite a lot, no? And my trusty knitting has been keeping me company - indeed it has - but my blogging ability hasn't really. I am indeed sorry, fine internet friends. Now that I am here, can anyone recommend any knitting shops in Yorkshire? Apart from the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate, that I know about, but O! November is a long time away, and I long to be stroking luxurious yarns before then. Please help!

So, I said I learned lessons, and the main one is: Yarn Will Be What It Wants To Be. Lesson one:

Variegated sock yarn is for socks

For real. Like My Fashionable Life says, variegated yarn for clothes is... tie-dye, and well, nothing wrong with tie-dye, but I am not fifteen. Hence, these glories:

Quite easily the most expensive socks I have ever knit, but so so pretty, and just look at that sheen! And utterly absorbing, utterly lovely to knit. Hooray for Cookie A. And hooray for not having knit a variegated skimpy vest that, let's face it, would have got divil the bit of wear this sad sodden summer.

And now, lesson two:

If Glampyre says a cardigan should be cropped, it should be cropped

You may remember my bulky cabled cardigan of yore. It's a Glampyre pattern, but because I was drowning in long smock tops, I decided to knit it long and baggy and... well. It started out shapeless, and I told myself that would be fine, because it would be a snuggle-up-at-home type cardigan. But then, the weight of all the extra wool began dragging it off my shoulders entirely, and I couldn't even get warm in it, because my poor neck was frozen. So last weekend, I finally bit the bullet and reknit it in small, with a couple of short rows, but otherwise much, much more according to pattern:

There. That's more like it, isn't it? Slightly longer button bands, no mixed colours, and snuggly warm shoulders. Chunky knits are in this winter, I believe, friends, so we are in LUCK.

Otherwise, there has been experiments in mitred knitting, which leaves me a bit baffled:

This is one colourway of Noro Kureyon. Number 170, to be precise. And people knit themselves jumpers in these nutso colours? I ask you. Anyway, mitred squares turn out not to be hard at all, but I'm not so sure about the end result. It's a cushion cover, and I'm sure it'll be snug, but well. Yes. Thanks to Radegund, anyway, for the kind gift of yarn!

And now, it's back to my real knitting obsession: sleek little knits for layering. O Rebecca, let me hear your siren song:

Too pink? Or not? The yarn will lead me, I promise.

In which I learn a stern truth about life

Want to know my stern truth, O readers?


Sock yarn. It's gorgeous. It calls to you, Make gorgeous vests of me! Knit me into a fine lace shawl! Shower your wardrobe with my variegated beauty!

But you know what sock yarn is very, very best for?


Socks. Mm-hm. No more poor sad random camis for my Lorna's Laces, no. She's coming home to where she belongs. That said, she's quite the most expensive sock yarn I've ever bought, so nothing but the most beautiful pattern for her.


Pomatomotamus, Hippopotamus or... well, you know what it's really called. When this pattern first came out I thought to myself, "one day, when I'm a really clever knitter, I'll make that pattern. One day." Of course, that was nonsense. This pattern is beautifully written, clear and elegant, and fiendishly, fiendishly clever. You don't have to have any brain at all to follow it. The fiendishly clever one here is Cookie A. I tell you. This is an old pattern, so you've probably drooled over it already, but look, look at the clever heel flap:


with the scales of the pattern flowing into it. Beautiful.

I'd forgotten how wonderful socks are for taking the edge off. Small and manageable and elegant and so very silly. There's a lot of changes coming up ahead, and I need some truly beautiful socks to help me stride through them, I think.

FO: ravelled bolero

Or, you know, insert pun of your choice about shrugging or boleros here. It's done! Done! All nine inches of ribbing, done!

FO: Rebecca Bolero

Pattern: Bolero mit Lochmuster, from Rebecca 31, in the larger size

Yarns: Vintage Jaegar Langora, 70% lambswool 20% angora 10% nylone, in colour 353. It took 12 20g balls. Far more than I thought.

Needles: 2.5 and 3mm circs

Time sucked: A month. I wasn't knitting constantly, but still, 3mms take their time

Pattern modifications: I didn't knit it in merino? Also, I am incapable of picking up stitches to order, counting what was it? 366 stitches exactly along the outside edge? How can any mortal figure out what intervals to pick up at? I just pick them up, damnit. Hence, the ribbing probably flares more than it should.

Here's a back view:


Not the neatest lace graft ever, but it will do, it will do.

Verdict: Well. I got gauge all right, but angora is considerably less stretchy than merino, and it's quite a bit baggier than I thought it would be. When I think shrug, I think vanishing little confection, just hugging my shoulders; this has more the ease of a full-on autumn cardigan. So, on the one hand, I'm not that sure it's all that flattering.

On the other hand, even before I'd finished the ribbing, I was more than a little tempted to just cast it off and wear it a few days this week, such is the gap in my wardrobe for a fluffy brown shoulder-warmer this cool, unpredictable summer. It's perfect for the colours I wear. It's small enough not to look wintry, it's fluffy enough to look luxurious, I will wear it and wear it. I hope. Also, it's a Rebecca pattern, the second I've knitted, and they're just so nifty, you know? Here's the Eureka moment when I folded the blocked garment together...

and the polyhedron did become a jacket, after all! Like a miracle! It feels thought-through and properly designed, is what. And maybe some day I will put on half a stone again (probably, indeed), and I will still be grateful of fluffy fitting warmth around my shoulders, and in general, I'm pretty happy.

good lord, Blogger pictures seem to be working!

Hooray for posting yesterday! I totally got my knitting mojo back. Knitting mojo hooray!

That means, of course, that my work mojo is for the birds. But oh well. It's July, it's cold and wet, and to be honjest, no-one is actually paying me to do work, so yes, sod it. So! While the peculiar polyhedron is drying, I've been busy, oh so busy...



Swatching for Serrano, for one thing, in my Russian wool-angora. For a wool angora blend, it isn't half stiff, and that's after I've washed it with conditioner. The gauge is odd: 26 stitches and 32 rows, I think, which is slightly off the Serrano gauge; but the designer gives two gauges, one blocked and one unblocked, which suggests that the yarn she's using has an awful lot more bounce in it than this one. So I don't know. I might actually write to her once I actually commit to the project, because from all I've read, it's a tricky, complex design, and I might as well get it right from the start. That doesn't sound like me, does it?


No, what would be more like me would be bating into a vest top in the round without the slightest thought for swatching or design. I took my lovely Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock for this first try, and put in the sweet eyelet pattern above... but I got only about eight inches into it before I had used half the yarn available, and the fabric was far too dense. A shame, because it's cute, but no good. This is in the nature of a perverse project for me, seeing if I really can get a camisole out of two skeins of pricey sock yarn, so I will not be defeated! Not I! I will rip back and start again on larger needles and with a more open stitch pattern...

This is the beginning of Katie's Razor Cami, a light sexy knit with sufficiently skimpy yardage to make me think that I might get there. Except, of course, that it's a non-shaped tube just like Orangina, and we all know how well that went. Not well. So my plan is to knit the first skein as far as it goes, block it, and Think Again. I think this may have to have a solid bodice with darts, if the yarn holds out, if if if. Designing on the fly and me: not the best of histories. But it's fun. And best of all, I'm knitting from stash, right?

So! To finish up, more from Family Knitting. This time, it's for the fellas. Roll up, oh dream hunks!

This set is called Big Softie. Presumably because Mr. Blonde Beard is mug enough to take your first fair-isle attempt off your hands, smile gamely while wearing it, actually think it's a thoughtful present, and hold out hopes for a proper date next time. Keep hoping, Mr. Blonde Beard. You know the knitting lady's affections are engaged elsewhere...

Mr. Star Spangled is a-coming knocking, with a veritable galaxy of Romantic Love tumbling down the back of his royal blue cardi! You can't compete, Blonde Beard. No. Knitting Lady has fallen hard, and is about to present Mr. Star Spangled with the ultimate romantic gift...

A King of Hearts themed tank top! But look! It's not just a natty reference to the dashing pursuit of Solitaire, the only thing that filled Mr. Star Spangled's life until Knitting Lady turned up. No. Do you see what she did with the heads? YES! Mr. Star Spangled's head is the King of Heart's head! What a card!

Dear sweet god. Whatever about the Cold War, the nuclear threat and mass emigration, if ever I saw an argument for thanking the stars we don't live in the eighties, it's that creepy jumper. Brrr.

family knitting

What? What?! A whole month since I updated?

I have been knitting. Just not very fast. Good grief. How did that happen?

Anyway! The Rebecca bolero is knitted and blocking, ready for assembly.



Well, it fits the schematic. If any of you can offer any hints, any slight hints whatsoever, as to how on earth this strange polyhedron possibly turns into a garment, you know, those would be very welcome. Really. Any advice welcome!

So my next project...



Is somewhere in the bottom of this cupboard. Yes. Our house is on sale at the moment, and the yarn was hurriedly stashed away in order to give the house that Aspirational Urbanite as opposed to Crazy Knitting Lesbian Ladies look. It's in there, I know. Somewhere. I'm just not sure that my mental energies are equal to battling through it...

Remains only our old favourite, wild futureknitting fantasies. And while in a charity shop, my eyes alighted on a book called Family Book Of Knitting, gloriously and unabashedly from the 1980s. Classic knitting, I thought, hardly changes at all! Look at all the cute 1940s knitting patterns there are out there! I bet with a little change of colour, these patterns will look fresh and funky in a second!

And look at the cover pic. Very funky, non? I'm not about to knit quite that much fine-guage lurex, and boob tubes aren't really me, but this is pretty great, right?

And then... you open the book. And it is hard to figure out where the glory even starts. Let's start here, though, will we? Gilt-Edged Cardigan

Perfect for wearing with Bacofoil skirts! And for disguising ill-fitting bras! And... for matching wedding cakes? Yes. Maybe something with a waist?

Those of you who struggle with hair straightners, just think. One whisk of the time travel wand, and you too can tgravel back to 1983, where frizz is cultivated. That's true femininity, right there. Sure, it's a lot of stocking stitch for one skirt, but if it's going to give you milkmaid hips like that, who's complaining?

OK, you don't like the bunchy waisted look. It's dated. Family Book Of Knitting does have the answer though...

Look, with a trilby over your eyes, no-one will ever know it's you. That's got to be a comfort, right?

angora and lace - implacable enemies or a lovably mis-matched couple?

I've been away, and back, and away, and back, so sorry, no blogging! I was even in Nuremberg in the pouring rain, and tracked down the yarn shop five minutes after it closed. That was sad. I could even see the latest issue of Verena smiling at me through the shop windows. No luck. No Verena or Rebecca for me this year, it seems.

But buying knitting magazines is only going to do bad things to my stash, and my stash is for busting, this summer. So first up: remember this springy Langora in an autumnal colour?

I decided that a Rebecca pattern was the way t magic it into a summery garment:



A wee shrug, because I didn't know the yardage of the yarn; it's 280 grammes, which seems quite little, but then again it's 14 balls, which is quite a lot. So I decided to err on the side of safety.



Evidently I am wildly conservative, because that's two balls there, and it's the guts of a sleeve. I suspect the whole confection will take 7-8 balls, which will still leave me some stash to bust. I may even have to swap some of it... then again, can one ever have enough baby-soft chocolatey cardiganness?

The prevailing wisdom says that angora and lace don't mix, because the yarn is too fluffy to show any pattern. This is a pretty simple pattern; what do you think?


The yarn is very unstretchy, presumably because the fibres are short, so I'm not sure how it will block... but it's all a brave adventure, right?