A Bluestocking Knits

Thoughts on the Pulsvarmere Blonde

All in a rush this afternoon, I finished the Pulsvarmere Blonde -- lace wristwarmers -- from Marit of med pinner, which I found through Guro at rett og vrangt. (You can get to the PDF version of the pattern down where it says "klikk her".)  The pattern is in Norwegian, but it shouldn't be terribly difficult to figure out for those who have done charts.

legg opp = cast on
maske, masker = st, sts
strikk = knit, work
rettmaske = K
kast på pinnen = yo
2 masker sammen = K2tog
maske løst av = slip the stitch [wyib]

So cast on 30, knit 1 row, work 22 sts before beginning lace chart. (There is a little mistake on Row 17: the row should be "Sl 1, K2, (yo, K2tog) 3 times".)

I wouldn't recommend a multicolored yarn for this -- I tried it with some Malabrigo, and while it was deliciously soft, the lace pattern simply disappeared.

With the Jaeger Alpaca, I cast on 35 instead.  I also used a provisional cast-on and grafted the seam, to avoid bulkiness.  The wool was a real bother to work with at this gauge, I must say, very splitty; I thought I'd caught them all, but I'm seeing some rather embarrassing gaffes as I type.  Oh, well.  I am, on the other hand, cozy-warm!  Whew!

"Blonde" is a faux amis -- it does not mean "blonde" but "lace".  That took me a while to figure out, actually, although perhaps it is a little joke.  I have made only one joke in Norwegian, wh. I have quite rightly kept to myself, my Norwegian being rough as I am only learning from books and making comments on Guro's blog, who is nice enough to tell me that I'm doing pretty well.

Because in Spring You Think of Knitted Gloves

No, I don't know why, either.  I just had a craving.  This is the start of Nancy Bush's Norwegian Gloves, a free pattern available from Interweave.  I chose Dale's Falk instead of Heilo for its handwashiness -- plus it felt deliciously soft, unlike Heilo's rather gruff asperity in comparison.

Multi-color gloves are, I must say, not for the faint-hearted.  The pattern itself is not particularly difficult -- it's the fiddliness of dealing with both two strands of wool and five needles.  It took me a while to get into the rhythm of it, especially at the joins where two needles meet, and I don't think I am completely successful yet, but am erring on the side of caution where stranding is concerned, as all advice has it, and leaving the floats a bit loose.

I tried on the glove just after casting on the thumb stitches atop the gusset, and thought that it was a bit small, but after working ten more rounds or so, I realized that it was spot-on.  My gauge is pretty much exactly 7 sts per inch/28 per 10 cm, on 2.5 mm needles.

My problem with it now, you might see, is that the edges of the patterns do not line up with the edges of my hand.  The thumb gusset is too far towards the center of the palm.  This probably makes a prettier glove when lying flat on a table, but on my hand I was continually tugging at it.

I was undecided as of this morning whether I would just carry on and finish it as written, or start over again, but upon looking at the photos, I feel that I really must start it again -- it's painfully obvious in this photo, much more so even than on my hand:

perhaps because I could not actually twist my arm far enough to see it so clearly!

And I think I will take the opportunity to work the red rounds with a jogless jog, too.  In for a penny, in for a pound.

Mish-Mash

Every so often we have mish-mash for dinner, when the refrigerator is full of single servings left over from the week's meals.  Tonight, Laura had the last slice of pizza, Julia had Swedish meatballs, and David and I had the remnants of my first promenade through My French Kitchen by Joanne Harris and Fran Warde -- lentil and sausage casserole and garlic soup, respectively.  This is a lovely, evocative book that set my mouth watering as soon as I saw it.  The lentil dish is pleasant and earthy (much depends on the sausages, I suspect), and the garlic soup very tasty.  I didn't much care for the Poule au Pot, but then I've made various versions of this and never found it to speak to me much, so I can't fault Harris'.  Her Boeuf en Daube, redolent of bay and thyme and olives and an entire bottle of white wine, was heavenly!

So, then, this post will be a mish-mash too, since life has been increasingly hectic chez Bluestocking these days, and little that I have to say would stretch to a full post on its own.

I made an Odessa the other day for my aunt, whose cancer is returning.  Cashsoft DK again, so wonderfully soft and comforting -- this color is 525 Kingfisher, and worth seeking out, a lovely tealy greeny-blue.

I could not resist the lure of the laceweight -- the ball is one skein of Skacel Merino Lace, in 339 Pale Grey, luminous and pearl-like -- I'm thinking something Shetlandish.

A cup from Annie Modesitt's clever Fiesta Tea Set, in some ancient Tahki Cotton Classic that I dug up from one of the deeper drawers in my closet.  Am not sure yet if I'm going to make the rest of the set in the same color (wh. is all I have), or find some peppier shades, or just enjoy this piece on its own.

I put up a photo album in the sidebar of some of my dad's model trains, the ones I have.  Trains were such an intrinsic part of his life that I feel absurdly grateful to have these.

My Daisy troop is up to fifteen.  Fifteen kindergarten girls in one room!  Need I say more?

I've been watching a lot of movies lately, curiously enough all Norwegian ones, hard to knit to since I need to read the subtitles, my Norwegian stretching mostly to exclamations -- "Gud!"  "Nå da?"  "Fy!"-- and words that I probably shouldn't know.  Anyway, first was "Insomnia", a bleak and gritty crime thriller from a few years back, in which a detective in the far north accidentally shoots his partner during a murder investigation, and finds himself increasingly mired in guilt and the insomnia of the title as he tries to cover up what really happened.  "Hamsun" is the story of  Norwegian Nobel Laureate novelist Knut Hamsun's involvement with Hitler's occupying forces during World War II, and of Hamsun's turbulent relationship with his wife, a fervent Nazi supporter.  It's a ghastly, riveting film -- like watching a car crash that one is powerless to stop -- with Hamsun played with arresting dignity by Max von Sydow. 

"Kitchen Stories (Salmer fra Kjøkkenet)" is the lightest of the bunch so far -- and by far -- and one that I can recommend without hesitation for those who like quirky, subtle, character-driven comedy.  The premise is that Swedish researchers in the postwar craze for scientific research and efficiency are sending a team of observers to study Norwegian bachelor farmers' kitchen habits -- resulting in the quietly absurd set-up in the photo.  One of these objects of study has had a change of heart and resents the intrusion stubbornly, but through a series of small events he and his ostensibly objective observer become unlikely friends.  The ending is bittersweet but entirely believable and satisfying.

Little-known Fact #133: All Norwegian movies feature Sverre Anker Ousdal in some role, large or small.

(Not that I'm complaining, mind.  Fellow polar geeks will recognize him from "The Flight of the Eagle", the lyrical and harrowing film based on the Swedish attempt in 1897 to reach the North Pole by balloon, and

as Roald Amundsen in 1985's "The Last Place on Earth".  The sight of Amundsen and his men skiing towards the South Pole is as stirring a thing I've seen in many a year.)

I read the last of the Aubrey/Maturin series while David was in Hong Kong.  I'd been reading them slowly, trying to spin out the last few as long as I could, but then one night after finishing The Hundred Days, I picked up Blue at the Mizzen as if there were no covers between the two, just another chapter break.  It was like running down a hill -- I ran through it in delight, unable to stop myself and not caring a whit, and was surprised when I turned over the last page with something like utter joy and came to the end, not without a bit of a thud at my sudden return to reality.  So, that's that, and I guess -- unless somebody stands me 21 for my birthday -- I'll start over again from the beginning.

I've just finished reading the fourth in the Brother Cadfael series, St. Peter's Fair, retrieved deep from the basement storage area of our local public library.  It's interesting, reading the books hard on the heels of one another, instead of a year or two apart as I did when they were published -- I begin to get a sense of Peters' developing style and feeling for the characters. I had quite forgotten after so long that Hugh Beringar in his first appearance -- in the second book -- was in fact an opponent, not an ally of Cadfael's.  Almost makes me want to see the television series again, but not quite.  Only for Sean Pertwee,

for whom I almost seriously considered starting a write-in-campaign-of-one to Peter Jackson, as I had long pictured Sean Pertwee in my admittedly fertile imagination as Faramir, one of my favorite characters in "The Lord of the Rings" cycle.  Not too much of a stretch, though, I think!  (I would rather, too -- not that I've anything against Viggo Mortensen -- have seen Sean Bean as Aragorn, as he was much more my idea of the character -- but that's another story, for another time.)

Thoughts on Some Araucania Mittens

We've been talking about going up to the mountains to play in the snow -- the girls have never seen snow -- and so we've been getting ready clothing-wise.  I had to search high and low for a suitable jacket for Laura, since here in southern California, the summer wear comes out after the Christmas sales, and there was not a jacket to be found in her size, not even for ready money.  I had to buy one that is bigger than even I usually buy for a fast-growing first-grader, but my consolation is that it was on sale, and she'll grow into it.  But no-one who calls herself a knitter would let her children go out into the snow for the first time in their lives in store-bought mittens! and so I dug around in my stash of Araucania Nature Wool and borrowed Ann Budd's Handy Book of Knitting Patterns from the library again, and now they each have a pair of custom-fitted, made-with-love mittens of their very own.

My gauge on the US2 needles is a smidge under 6 sts per 1 inch -- firm but still pliable and comfy.  It's a very simple pattern -- I extended the rib at the wrists about a half-inch each, and wasn't very happy with the little "point" at the ends of the fingers on Julia's (where all of the decreases come together at once), and so on the second pair, I chose the "8 sts rem" option instead of 4, and might even do 12 next time -- but this is a minor quibble compared to the ease of knitting (two days! felt like I was flying), and the girls' delight in wearing them, even on fairly warm days.

This gives you an idea of how much wool it took for the child's medium-sized mittens -- the ball on the left is a full skein, and the one on the right is after making the pair for Julia.  (I was going to make Laura's pair in the purple, which has been her favorite color for some time now, but after seeing the red, she chose that!  Admittedly, it is not a very purple purple, and the red is beautifully intense.)

We-ell....

Now, I knew when I chose Shepherd Sock for the Nether Garments that things would happen, that with the shaping of the piece the color shifts would go in different, even unexpected directions.  It's the nature of hand-painted wool, of course.  I figured that I would just be kind of zen about it, and let the colors go where they would.

Along the ankle and calf, I like this.  It's pleasing and fairly regular.

This, at the knee, I can live with -- it has a little jolt where the calf shaping begins, but it sorts itself out.

This is getting weird --

And this, above the thigh shaping, is just bizarre.

I'd been thinking that I'd use the tights for yoga, being warm and close-fitting, you know, but I don't find anything about these flashes the least bit meditative.  Want to see the full effect? --

The moral is, you never know.

Now, that said, the garment itself is very comfortable so far.  It looks a bit bulgy at the top, but that's from the circular needles pulling it in; the above picture is a view of the front, with the thigh shaping at the inseam.  It fits my leg perfectly, of course, being made to measure, and with Elizabeth's careful planning and simple formulas it all went together without a hitch.

Here is a photo of the shaping, the back of the knee at the right and the beginning of the inseam at the left.

And I like the Shepherd Sock, too.  It's a bit splitty on the fine needles, but it feels nice in my hands.  I was thinking, even as late as when I turned on the computer this morning, that I might keep up with it, finish it anyway, not wanting to give up on my Almanac project for this month (and I have eight skeins of the wool!).  But the colors are just not working for me this way -- lightning bolts on the thighs! I don't think so -- and I don't see how I could reknit it -- maybe working with alternate balls, it could work! -- and still finish by the end of the month.  These Nether Garments didn't have much appeal to me at first, but now after actually trying on at least a part of it, it is not uninteresting.  (This may seem a little like Westley's remark in the Fire Swamp, something along the lines of "It's not too bad, really," but I'll leave it there.)  Mary at The Knitting Zone very kindly calculated the yardage for the Shepherd Sock for me, and it looks like eight would be plenty, as I've only just added the third one -- I was going to acknowledge her help in the final post on this project, but I think that for now this is it.  For those who might pass this pattern over, it's worth another look.  In a lighter wool like Shepherd Sock, they would make excellent yoga wear or ballet leg warmers, for those in less Wisconsin-like climates, or something warm and cozy in a thicker wool for those long winters in the North.  Like with the Chainmail Sweater in the March Chapter, yarn selection can make the world of difference!  I would only suggest a solid color....

Eva, thanks for the link to Zimmermania, a new knitalong dedicated to Elizabeth's patterns and wisdom.  I'll join when I feel a little less incompetent!

I needed a bit of a confidence-booster last night, and this came off the needles only an hour or so past my bedtime -- another Odessa, with beads this time.  The blue is the color Julia chose for her hat, and Laura's will be the lilac-pink.

"Knit on"!

Thoughts on Odessa and Shedir

Here are two chemo hats for my friend.  Odessa is a fast knit, simple and elegant, easily memorized (even the crown shaping), and it uses only one ball of Cashsoft with quite a bit left over, so you don't have to skimp.  I left off the beads, obviously, not sure how that would feel as a chemo hat.

The hint of cashmere makes it wonderfully soft.  And it looked so cute on Laura that I suspect I'll be making more soon!

Shedir was rather more difficult.  I expected this, of course, from looking at all of that knotwork! but I didn't expect to run out of yarn a full two inches before the end of the hat.  I had to pull out a good portion of it, removing one of the braid repeats, which gave me enough to finish.  (I also found not one but two knots in the ball, which with the iffy yardage leads me to wonder about Rowan's quality control.  My gauge was spot-on.)

The pattern itself is complicated, with a lot of fiddly cable work, although the chart may be a little more off-putting than it needs to be -- the reason for the numerous cable symbols being that in some places you cable over two knit stitches, and on others you work this maneuver over a knit and a purl, which is called a twist (not technically a cable, apparently), and these require different symbols.  After the first repeat, though, it all starts to make sense.

(I think there is an error on the chart, though, at round 63, which should include one of the stitch marker shifts.)

A bonus is that inside is a lovely smooth field of mostly knit stitches, very nice for sensitive heads, and a very thoughtful touch on the designer's part.

I am actually happier with the shorter version.  I've heard that longer caps are better for chemo patients, to keep the head covered and I suspect to disguise the lack of hair, but I think that the cap is more flattering with it not quite so low on the forehead.  (It's more trendy in the original length, to be sure, but for myself I prefer flattering over trendy any day, and I think that my friend does too!)  At this shorter length, it can still be worn back on the head so that it reaches the nape of the neck, but it frames the face a bit better.

Chemo Caps

I have a dear friend who will be starting chemotherapy for breast cancer in a couple of weeks, and so naturally my thoughts quickly turned to knitted comforts.  Fortunately, in a way, my experience with chemo is limited to one person in my family -- also breast cancer, like my friend -- but since it was high summer in Southern California during her worst weeks, she felt most comfortable without anything atal on her head, and so doesn't have much advice about patterns or yarns.  If anyone has suggestions, I would be most grateful!

I've been admiring Grumperina's lovely Odessa for some time, in and of itself, and so that was the first thing that came to my mind.  Grumperina used RYC Cashsoft DK, and I even happen to have some on hand, in a beautiful thundery grey, very "Scottish autumn," as per the request.  But I've read in a couple of places that wool is not recommended for chemo caps, and so I hesitate -- Cashsoft being a merino/microfiber/cashmere blend.  There is also Shedir in Knitty's Breast Cancer Awareness issue from a few years back, and I think that Rowan's Calmer would be a wonderful cloud-soft choice.  My friend thinks that perhaps something close-fitting, as these both are, would be uncomfortable, but I wonder if something loose wouldn't stay on very well, once the hair isn't there to help hold it on.

There is definitely a consensus on the internet about seamlessness -- understandable in the circumstances.  But what about the wool? and washability?  Does the luxuriousness of Calmer and Cashsoft outweigh the dreariness of handwashing things when one is not up to it?

There are, by the way, lots of free knit and crochet patterns for chemo caps at Head Huggers (which also accepts donated caps for distributing to patients of all ages), and links to patterns here from Dallas/Fort Worth Fiber Fest -- I've also found a fancier hat at KnitPicks (which might work in Calmer...) and a rather fetching toque here, too.

Thoughts on the Three-Cornered Hat

Well, this is a fast project -- I was finished with it before the ink was even dry on the last post!

Interestingly, it took more wool to do the bottom half than it did on the top, despite the rather large opening for one's head.  I added the second ball in the middle of the turning, and had a fair bit left over.  It was also curious how the spacing of the decreases affected their shape -- on every other row, the SSK and K2tog pairing lies smoothly, but working them every row (about halfway along the top) makes them stand up a bit, even tending to fold away from each other.

I did make a rather embarrassing gaffe at first, reading "Gauge: 5 1/2" and realizing after a few inches that the hat coming off the needles would barely have fit a baby doll -- the gauge is "5 1/2 sts to 2 in.," which I can only murmur weakly is an unusual way of writing it.  I did have to adjust the pattern then to fit the gauge of the Cleckheaton, which was in fact 5 1/2 sts per inch, so I merely doubled the cast-on.  The "pithy directions" are especially pithy here, and I found the longer explanation in the text of the chapter much easier to follow, especially as Elizabeth gives measurements here instead of row counts, and I could use those for my readjustments.

I was happy to take Elizabeth's advice -- "Do not feel that you are in any way obliged to possess perfect sets of four needles.  Emergency and experiment have taught me that a very motley quartet will finish off a hat quite adequately"! -- since I have at the moment only a US6 small circular and 3.75mm (US5) double-pointeds.  I used the circulars for the majority of the hat, and finished it off with the smaller dpns when it got towards the end.

It has a rather beret-like languor -- which would be lessened with a firmer gauge, of course -- and the corners make it not a little jaunty.

"Wear it down or up, with the point to the front or the back, or with all points tucked in -- it has as many lives as a cat"!

Knitting the "Knitter's Almanac": Borders, Small Stuff for Summer Knitting (Three Hats)

This month in the Knitter's Almanac, Elizabeth talks about hats and borders.  "I will come out flat-footed and personally disapprove of crocheted borders on knitted cardigans, but without in anyway trying to convert those who crochet borders expertly and with pleasure.  May their paths run smooth."  Ahem!  Garter stitch -- it should come as no surprise to anyone who has read even a few chapters of any of her books -- is her favorite, worked sideways or straight, to create a simple, flat border for sweaters and cardigans, shawls and blankets.

(She does say, touching on the subject of borders at the neck of a cardigan, "Don't forget to increase at the front neck-corners, and to decrease at the inside corners of a square neck," which I fear that she neglected to point out in the January chapter, regarding the Aran.)

Like Elizabeth, I'm not much of a fan of grosgrain borders, either, which always seems to end up slightly smaller than the knitted part, however sturdy it makes the buttonband.

As for hats this month, she says, "A good summer project is a bevy of hats.  They don't take much wool, and are an excellent means of using up leftovers and oddments in the form of stripes or color-patterns."  I do have about four balls' worth of the teal-green Cleckheaton left from last month's mittens, and so I will use that.

The mitered or "ganomy" hat -- gnome, to us, with that pronunciation like "gaze-bo" or "sword" with the "w" firmly pronounced, which has stuck with us since childhood -- looks very practical indeed, with the miters coming down over one's ears most warmingly, and the Maltese Fisherman's Hat even more so (with its "ridiculous tassel of a couple of dozen ends ... make still more antic by cutting them at different lengths and putting a knot at the end of each"!) -- but since I am going to make a set with the mittens from last month, which look rather less casual than the Ganomy, I will do the Three-Cornered Hat for this month's Almanac project.

Thoughts on the Mittens for Next Winter

Elizabeth discusses a variety of mittens in this chapter of the Knitter's Almanac -- thumbs at the side (thus at first interchangeable for right or left hands), thumbs that fold naturally against the palm, Norwegian-patterns on front and back, and the ones that I knitted this week, mitered ones that shape themselves into a point at the top.

I used two balls of Cleckheaton Machinewash 8 Ply Crepe, in a bright teal green with colored flecks, which I fondly imagine would be lovely against snow, although I don't know if living here in Southern California will give me much chance to find out!  The miters, alternating an increase and a decrease, shape the mitten very prettily.  At the spot where you want the mitten to curve around the ends of your fingers, you simply eliminate the increases at the sides and continue with the decreases, which pulls the sides of the mitten into a point at the top -- which discovery cheers Elizabeth enormously!

I added one more decrease round at the tip, because it was easier to graft that way, and it made the grafting all of a piece with the line of mitering up the front and back -- thus,

Elizabeth also digresses a little onto the subject of color, with which mittens are an ideal means of experimentation.  Do people see the same colors differently, and does this account for the different preferences for the same colors that people have, she wonders.  And associations with certain colors can matter enormously -- "For years," she says, "I loathed purple because it was the color of a droopy and voluminous hand-me-down coat I had to wear"!  Mittens, since they take so little wool, can be a way to try different colors, or combinations, of course, with little emotional or financial investment!

You snip a stitch where you want the thumb to go, and unravel a bit (I was amazed at how easy this was, after cutting the Aran last January -- I was quite blasé, and snipped without a second thought),

then pick up 15 or so stitches and work the thumb in the round.

I put the thumbs a bit low, I realized afterwards, and would recommend that you judge by the spot where your thumb connects to your palm, not at the bottom of your thumb joint (this part is a little vague in the book).  That spot will be at the outside edge of the mitten, keeping in mind that the miter will cause the unravelled row to run downwards at a 45° angle towards the center of the mitten.  (You will need to mark the spot at the edge, and then follow that row down to the middle of the miter, because you need to snip in the middle and then use the unravelled ends to reinforce the edges of the hole, as in the photos above.)

I added a bit of length to the thumb to compensate for the smaller gauge of the Cleckheaton, but that was all.

I found that the easiest way of sewing in the ends was in fact to wear the mitten, which gave the odd but amusing sensation of sewing on my own hand!

These are not perfectly anatomically correct mittens, and this is something of a detraction, for it means that the thumb when worn pulls the miter away from its line --

but on the whole, I think that the sheer ease of this pattern is much in its favor.

"Stash them away as they are finished, and when the time comes, next winter, you can deal them out with a liberal hand"!