Wrist Warmers
0I’ve been knitting this sweater. I got the yarn a long time ago, inspired to make this sweater, but ended up deciding that the neck was too high. So the yarn just sat there. Finally, I found the Garter Yoke Cardi started well before Brazil. And here I am, stuck at the sleeve.
I don’t know if I dislike the twisted up ball of a sweater hanging off my needles while knitting a sleeve, or seeming more. I have been knitting away, but it seems to go so slowly… knitting, knitting, knitting, untwist.
So, I started a pair of wrist warmers.
I’ve never knit a pair of wrist warmers.
But the socks… as I was knitting them, and sticking them on my hands as I do… begged to be wrist warmers. Luckily there is yarn left over.
Voila, le debut… wrist warmers kind of fly off the needles. No untwisting… just knitting.
Maybe I won’t need sleeves on my sweater if I have these fabulous wrist warmers… or maybe that is crossing the ‘number of hand knit garments to be worn at the same time’ limit. The other day I wore three and no one commented… and if the colours compliment each other…
Forever warped
Wow. I started this simple weaving project because I was craving a little bit of that back and forth sound that comes from the shuttle skimming across the warp strings. I ripped out a circular shawl that I began as a healing shawl when I went to Brazil (it was just ugly. It looked like a doily that used to be on our table when I was a kid… I realize that it might be hard to get away from that with a circular shawl.) Anyway, I ripped out the shawl, and started planning for a nice plain-weave shawl double woven, about 6 feet long and 25″ wide.
Then, halfway through the warping process (I generally alternate the yarn with the apropriate amount of heddles as I warp, which keeps threading easier) I realized that I didn’t have near enough heddles. Not 20 short, but over 100 short. And really I was only going to be using a little over half of the width of the loom! So, I ordered new heddles, which quickly arrived from Shuttleworks in Alberta (I needed them to come ASAP – BC is lacking in heddle stock apparently) Ordered them Thursday before last and they came last Monday. So, slowly, slowly, I have been threading the heddles. It takes forever that way (336 warp threads -why do I love lace yarn so much?) but I am saving my body from the pain I normally have after doing a threading marathon.
I have 6 groups of 60 threads to thread, which means that I am a little over half way through. Here I thought I would whip this shawl off and wear it for the Gathering the Women International Women’s Day Celebration in Victoria tomorrow. Hah. Or, I will maybe be done 3/4 of the threading. Sigh.
I’ll post again when I get to the double weaving. Never tried it, should be an adventure.
Forever warped
Maven
Knitting Olympics 2010 – Noro Knee Highs
Alright, so I am a couple of days late with photos… I just kept forgetting! But I’m here now!
The socks knit up really fast. So fast, in fact, that I think that I could have taken on something a little more difficult. However, I finished them. I darned in all of the ends…
… it is quite remarkable actually, just how many ends there are to striped socks. I finished the first sock completely before I left for my spa day with the girls and the second one while I relaxed after my full body scrub (soft as a baby’s bum, I am!). Here are some photos taken in the spa (lighting is bad).
One thing I noticed as I knit away on these socks and watched the olympics out my living room window (well, not really, but you get the point), was that these olympicss really brought Canada together as a country. I even felt the need to catch the final men’s hockey game… it was beyond me to hold myself back! In fact, before we went into the spa, we sat and watched them win GOLD! Oh thank God… remember what happened when the Canucks didn’t win the Cup? ooooohhhh… pain. I digress.
Here’s a photo taken during the closing ceremony to prove that I was indeed wearing them and not knitting them after the cauldron was extinguished. See those cute boots there? I had just gotten the heel re-affixed a couple of weeks before and then on this trip the heel broke on the other shoe! ARG!
Figured it was time to splurge and get myself some John Fluevogs. Oh baby.
I found that they looked pretty darn hot with the socks. As did my husband who at this moment
said that he was trying to work and could I please stop putting my boot up on the table. Hot socks, check. Hot boots to match, check. Shiny gold Knitting Olympics medal, check.
PS: it was both inspiring and exciting to see all of your (Yarn Harlot, Melistress, Bookworm, Wise Hilda, Dances with Wool) blogs and olympic knitting feats, they updates kept me focused and created a true sense of a global knitting matrix… thanks for that!
Sock(s)
Hi. I’m checking in at 2:12 pm to let you know that I have passed the heel of the second sock. In fact, I may even be two stripes past the heal on the second sock. I haven’t tried it on though, I’m afraid to have to rip back again.
Did I mention I am not very good with heels unless I am following a pattern specifically? Especially toe up heels. I figure a couple more pairs of socks, and I’ll have the science of the situation figured out. I hope so anyway.
I love how the colourway goes with the rose the hubster gave me for valentines day!
So, to finish… I figure I need to finish the knitting part of the socks by Saturday night and then I can finish the sewing in of the ends on Sunday while I’m at the Spa with the Gaias. I know, what about the closing ceremonies? Couple of answers to that: I don’t have a tv. I don’t really want to sit in a bar and watch them. We’ll see what happens. There might be a tv where we are going… I’m letting the divine will inspire the day. I will definitely be performing a one woman fashion show after dinner. Photos to come!
Halfway questions
Today is halfway, or at least that is second hand information from the Yarn Harlot’s blog post. Am I halfway? Well, I could be. I could stop here.
I could bind off now, and have this be the top of my sock. I have completed a couple of inches of ribbing and decreased for the upper calf. But do I want knee highs, or thigh highs?
I am a thigh high person. I like to wear skirts. Long ones, but skirts nonetheless. And to be honest there is nothing I find sexier than thigh high socks hidden under skirts. I typically where knee high wool socks, because they don’t come in thigh high length. Thus, the hubster has expressed that practically ‘ you would wear the knee highs more often’. But how do I know this is an honest answer, or that he doesn’t just want me to stop shaking him by the shoulders moping about the house, glancing backwards at the sock and saying ‘do I keep knitting?’
I could even knit the thigh high, and then scrunch it down ontop of my boot when I didn’t want to hike ‘er all the way up.
Oh, did I mention that the goddamn Noro people tied a knot in the middle! And I came to it in the middle of what could be the cuff? You know the one, the classic “heh, we’ll change balls in the middle here, and not only that but go backwards from the colour progression we ended with, plus, we’ll make the change real sudden like so you can totally tell in the final knitted piece.” Yes, I did cut off a bunch of the ball to try and make it look right. Jerks. So, but continuing, I will be knitting an un colour progression.
Keep that in mind when giving me your opinions. I’ll knit away here and see what it looks like.
Knitting Olympics
The Knitting Olympics / 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games have both been points of contention for me, for different reasons of course, but I only got a handle on it today as I was standing in the shower.
Basically I have two conflicting feelings: one, that the olympics are an amazing time for an individual, a community, a country to see what they are made of. The motto – higher, faster, stronger – is so beautiful, because it doesn’t say ‘… than the other guy’. It implies that each individual is responsible for surpassing their own personal best, and each team, each country is responsible for being greater than the sum of their parts.
The second feeling begins with the fact that I live in Vancouver, I am a middle class, white female with a fairly sporty body. I have both the money and the physique not only to enjoy the winter games as a spectator (if I so choose) or as a competitor, if I desired that. Not only are the tickets to the winter games out of reach for the better part of most working class people, but there are a lot of people in Vancouver who have been marginalized by the winter games. Homeless have been displaced, problems in our society such as the economy have been swept under the carpet because the worlds eyes are on us, and the powers that be would like us to look good. We would all like to look good, but realistically, we are a normal city with normal problems.
I hadn’t been able to make up my mind just what I would do about these conflicting issues when the idea of the Knitting Olympics came around. How can I support an idea, sit and watch the opening ceremonies, when I can’t make up my mind as to what I think? I don’t want to be saying one thing and doing another.
To be honest, I still don’t know exactly what to think. I sway back and forth between my conflicting feelings, crying as we won gold for the first time on our soil, and then stopping to feel the hardship of my fellow canadians who are shoved into the background. Generally, when I am conflicted, I knit. So, I’m knitting a pair of socks for the knitting olympics. I realize that sometimes we can’t just pick a side. I’m a Canadian, and a human being. I can be excited and torn apart at the same time. I am proud of the world for trying to put differences aside and come together to be great, even if we have a ways to go all of the rest of the time.
I think they are too big. I think I’m going to have to rip back down to the toe and minus a few increases. 17 days? We’ll have to see!
A Postcard
I was going to send this while I was in Brazil, I swear.
The thing is, is that when you are in the middle of a tropical country where the most important thing you have to do in a day is trek the sinfully short 1 block commute to the healing and meditation oasis that is The Casa de Dom Ignacio overlooking this…
And sometimes this:
You quickly reorganize your priorities from staring at a computer monitor, to staring across the balcony at this…
while sucking up every millilitre of healing energy that is abundantly floating through the air.
You don’t even end up getting a ton of knitting done. But you are energized to pick up the sticks at home (why at home, and not on the plane? Because of the rediculous security between the US and Brazil. What I wanted to say was ‘trust me, I am more dangerous without the knitting needles.’ Thankfully I still had wits about me enough to know that a comment like that would get me more than I bargained for!)
So really, this ends up being a postcard to Brazil…
Dear Brazil,
I miss you, and all of your beauteous summer. I am glad to be back in the wet and wonderful North West, in fact, the smell of your amazon really made me appreciate the smell of the coniferous forests that I had begun to take for granted. The papaya trees growing in your ally ways
inspired me to try the same here, but with kale, and maybe some brussel sprouts.
Maybe we will meet again,
With love,
MK.
Movieless Monday: The waning crescent
Well, here is is, 5:08pm on Monday. I haven’t left the house yet. I am dressed… but not presentably, nor appropriately for the astonishingly dreary weather we are having. I am in the middle of painting all the kitchen cupboards. I will be starting dinner soon, and then finishing the kitchen and boxing up the Sally Anne’s boxes for transport tomorrow.
I’m also finishing my wedding album. Yes. It has been just past exactly 2.5 years since Justin and I merged our lives in marrital bliss. AND I still haven’t finished putting together the wedding album.
Yup… today, I am finishing. I’m finishing a lot of things right now, which is no coincidence. First and foremost in the line up of reasons why I (we) are doing this, it is the time of the waning crescent left over from New Year’s Eve’s full moon, which was synchronistically a blue moon. It is time to exhale last year, and in less than a week, it will be time to inhale this year. I don’t want to be inhaling a bunch of junk that I have stashed away in the corners of my house.
Second, the hubster and I are making a trip to Brazil to see John of God. Both of us have a multitude of issues relating to having sustained spinal cord injuries 12 and 10 years ago respectively. Thus, we are making space in our psyches for the new and healthier bodies that we hope to achive while we are there, by cleaning out the ‘old’ us. Anything we have been hanging onto from those days – physical or otherwise – is ousted.
Third, part of being in the Waldorf Teacher Training with my teacher and mentor, Gene Campell, is that I get my life in order. I get my house and home working smoothly, I get my intentions set and I get my body and mind working and thinking clearly. For this, she prescribes, as I am sure I have mentioned, a paper called the Labours of Herculese – 29 pages of detailed process for doing life right.
So, seeing that we leave for the hubsters school on Thursday, and then Brazil on Saturday, I may be lost in the abyss for a couple of days, until I get my feet out the door.
Wish me luck!
FO Friday: The Fibonacci Pullover
The Fibonacci Pullover is the first step I have taken into designing my own knitwear. Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Brook’s Classic Pullover pattern from The Opinionated Knitter was an excellent place to start because it gave me the experience of measuring a body and creating a sweater from the gauge I got out of those measurements. Also, being plain stockinette stitch, it leaves room for cables and modifications.
I took on the challenge of designing a cable that would work with the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, and to make it a larger cable, used the value of 8 as the base number. The cable turned out rather well, and was easy and enjoyable to knit.
I decided to place the cable in the front of the sweater where it’s beginning synchronistically lines up with the heart centre of the his chest. This cable was a little bit longer, but not long enough to include a complete amount of purl stitches for the next number in the sequence. So, I decided to continue purling all the way around his neck line, giving the rolled hem a place to rest and finishing the number in the sequence at the same time. Then, I decided to balance the sweater by doing one slightly shorter cable on the outside of each arm. The hubster is eager to greet the person who recognizes the symbolism of the cables on his sweater.
The shoulder decreases didn’t work when I tried to do the right under the shoulder bones. I ended up with a bunch of extra fabric, like little wings. So, I ripped it back and did the decreases starting three inches above armpit instead of two, and right over the armpits. Worked like a charm. Tight enough, but with enough space to reach and move.
As for the seemless bit, I loved it. Grafting the armpits was so satisfying, and you can’t even tell! The only thing is, the gauge I knit was so tight that it made my hands a bit sore to knit on circulars. If it wasn’t for that, I might never knit flat again!
As per the pattern, I left the bottom hem band of the sweater until the end, for which I am glad. I hadn’t really knitted up enough on the body before I started the arm pits, and thus that ability to add extra onto the bottom without the sweater looking cobbled together was much welcomed! Plus, I have the option of adding more to the sweater if he decides that he would like it longer at some point, or the washing of it does something curious to the length. I decreased about 10% of the stitches for the bottom band*.
So, there you have it, the Fibonacci Pullover
Yarn: Cascades Ecological Wool in the 8025 shade/colourway, just over three skeins.
Needles: 3.5 mm needles (a little bit small in my opinion, the sweater is rather stiff but we’ll see how it washes up)
Size: 44″ chest (cast on 184 stitches)Merry Christmas my love!
* One issue with adding the bottom band, post torso, is that it seems to fold up on itself. I don’t know if this is because he is sitting in a wheelchair all the time, or if it is because there is a seam there and it needs to be blocked straight (hubster maintains that his body heat will block it, and there is no need to wait any longer) If you have an answer… send a signal!
Ashford Traditional Wheel For Sale!
That’s right, I am finally admitting to the world that I cannot take everything with me when we move. So, one of the wheels has to go, and since smaller is better for tiny little cabins in the woods living, I’m going to be taking the Joy, and selling the Ashford Traditional.
The Ashford Traditional was my first wheel, which I bought second hand, two years ago. I don’t know exactly how old it is, but I figure it is about 10 years old and was barely used. When I got it it needed a little refinishing, so I sanded it down and finished it with a natural beeswax polish and a little bit of mineral oil. It came with a single treadle and I modified it to be a double treadle (Ashford parts). Then, I ordered the Jumbo Flyer to go with it, for spinning art yarns and large skeins of yarn, but never got around to putting it on. I would be happy to finish it with the mineral oil, if you don’t want to buy it unfinished.
The wheel, then, comes with all of its original parts except the single treadle piece, plus the double treadle attachment (installed), a brand new Jumbo Flyer, 4 jumbo bobbins and 3 regular bobbins, one orifice hook and everything I have for a repair kit. I would like to get $550 for the whole package, or best offer.
Please contact me directly or through Ravelry if you are interested.
