A Bluestocking Knits

Elegant

We went to Kowloon Park yesterday -- I didn't think it would be quite such a walk from the Star Ferry terminal, but the girls managed it, and enjoyed the playground as a reward.  Dodging raindrops afterwards, we somehow managed to find ourselves here --

Elegant Company, at 37, Parkes Street in Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon.  Downstairs are knitted garments, upstairs a little trove of Jaeger, Patons, a bit of Rowan, and a number of Japanese brands.  Popular this evening, too, although the four of us made a bit of a crowd all by ourselves.  The shop man was amused by the girls' delight in the way the needles swung back and forth on their hooks (at just kid-height!), and their answers to David's make-work questions of what they would knit with this yarn or that.  I had come with a List, a selection of projects and not only recommended yarns but half a dozen or so alternatives each, so I felt very organized and efficient and was able to pick out six balls of Jaeger Matchmaker Merino DK in Loden (730) within minutes.

Destined for "Forbes Forest" from the "Scarf Style" book.  HK$31 a ball, just under US$4, so I'm very happy.  (It is going for US$6.95 at home.)  Also picked up some 3.25mm Peace bamboo straights ($HK22), and it was with great difficulty that I kept myself from casting on as soon as the girls were in bed later.

"What Kind of Knitting Needles Are You?"

You are bamboo. Warm, cozy, and thoughtful, you take your time and
enjoy how things feel, smell, and taste. You
love the craft and beauty of traditional
things, and you value the comfort and
experience of knitting as much as the results.
But while you are reveling in your warm cozies,
don't get stuck. Warm is wonderful, but so is
the whole wide world!

What kind of knitting needles are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Excuses, Excuses

For everyone who was so kind about the rainy panorama, here is a sunny one --

The weather has actually been quite unpredictable lately, although always warm and humid -- one day it was sunny in the morning and bucketing rain by evening, today there was a big thunderstorm just after dawn and about four minutes of downpour, and now it promises fine.

We have no water in the buildings all day today, because of the roadworks just below (part of which you can see in the photo).  This is inconvenient to say the least, but I have filled up the two bathtubs and the tea kettle, run a last load of laundry, and finished the breakfast dishes long before I normally would have -- so now maybe I can actually knit!  It's been so busy this week that I haven't had time to do much more than just think about knitting.

(A lot of that, though -- with all of the beautiful stuff coming off of people's needles lately, I'm tempted to add a few more projects to my current works -- the Yarn Harlot's utterly lovely Lotus Blossom shawl, the Knitting Wench's gorgeous Pi Shawl in progress, any number of the beautiful things in Pam Allen's "Scarf Style", luckily for me one of only two knitting books I brought with me to Hong Kong, or I'd be delirious.)

Hey, Kids, Let's Knit in Public!

June 11th is Worldwide Knit in Public Day!

Count me in!

A Digression of Sorts

I didn't actually know that Kay of Mason-Dixon Knitting was writing about a month ago about Bloomsbury needlepoint cushions, until she told me yesterday.

Kay, Kay, Kay! --

(This image looks a little stripey to me.  Our digital camera is pretty good with most things, but parallel lines seem to give it the heebie-jeebies.)

I finished the cushion just before we left for Hong Kong.  The chart is of course from Melinda Coss' "Bloomsbury Needlepoint", a collection of cushions, chair covers, rugs, and other designs from Bloomsbury artists.  I adapted the color scheme somewhat from the chart, being so enamoured of the faded original -- I wanted to strike a balance between the original brights and the eighty-some-years-on near-pastels -- wasn't always entirely successful, but I'm very pleased with my little piece of Charleston.

Kaffe Fassett reminds me of Duncan Grant -- not just in the physical resemblance, but with the wonderful richness of color and ideas and imagination, the joie de vivre.  A lot of Kaffe's designs make me think of the studio at Charleston --

Partly just all the stuff, the busy-ness, but also the color sense, the textures, the sheer aura of creativity that seems to exude from them.  They both make one look at things in a whole different way.

Designing

I came to the conclusion a few weeks ago, that as much as I love the Clapotis, and as much as I love this color of Silk Garden, together it just didn't speak to me.  I pinned it into the Union Square Shawl shape, and couldn't raise my arms past about a 45° angle.  Not being of the suffering-for-fashion school, I can't picture wearing it like this.  (Making it longer to allow more ease would make the neck even larger than it already is.  I did think of that.)  I'd like to do another Clapotis, but in a different kind of wool, perhaps the Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb of the original, or a merino/cotton blend.  What else could I do with the Silk Garden?  Klaralund, perhaps?  Very tempting....  But on the other hand, Juno's disappointment with the pattern gave me pause, as I am certainly no stick like the model in the photo, and anything that draws emphasis to the bustline (seams??) rarely works for me.  I was also put off by so many comments by bloggers about the amount of sewing-up involved, so I started wondering about working it in the round -- different balls for front and back, so that the depth of each color stripe would remain constant between body and sleeves -- maybe even picking up stitches so that the sleeves could be knitted to the body as they progressed -- this all going so far that I would have to call the thing "Klaralundy" or "Klaralundish" from rewriting the pattern so thoroughly.  I am also not really sure that I would have much opportunity to wear a sweater that looks really warm -- so perhaps a cardigan would be better, something easier to take off and put on as desired....

So what came to mind, ever so slowly, was a kimono-shaped jacket.  The cross-over front is flattering, the basic shape is uncomplicated, the colors would work.  The trickiest part would be the angle of the two front edges.

I probably could find a kimono jacket pattern somewhere, and I might even have one already, but as I am without my knitting library for the next few months, I'll try my hand at designing one.  I'll think "on paper," as we used to say BB (before blogs).  I often get frustrated with things that don't turn out the way I expect or want them too, but since I am experimenting, I am going to let myself enjoy the process, and not get annoyed about the setbacks.  I'm also not going to rip out a swatch immediately, as is my usual procedure, but put them side-by-side and compare the differences.

Swatch One, then, on the left, is worked on 4mm needles over 40 stitches, with a 10-row seed stitch hem and 8-stitch seed border up the side.  The rate of decrease is 1 K2tog every 6th row.  I started by putting the K2tog at the inner edge of the seed stitch border, but it was kind of blurry there, so I moved it to the first stitch of the stockinette, where it looks much tidier.  The little curve along the corner is rather appealing.

Swatch Two, on the right, is worked on 4mm needles over 30 stitches, working a folded hem, then casting on another 8 sts for the seed stitch border.  This gives it a look more like the collar/placket of the fabric version of a kimono.  The rate of decrease is higher in this swatch, being 1 K2tog every 4th row, so that the crossover would be more pronounced.

I like the folded hem -- it looks neater, cleaner -- but I think the dec every 6th row, as in the first swatch, will be better.  Less bulk at the front.

(Kyoto, by the way, is similar to what I have in mind, but to me looks perfectly beautiful in the cotton.  I would like to make this later the way it is written....)

For this sleeve swatch, I cast on 63 sts, worked seed st in the round for 3 inches (24 rounds) then worked it plain until the end of the ball.  That bulge in the cuff bothers me.  The gauge is just a little too tight, as well, now that I can feel the larger swatch.

("This is compicated," observed Julia.)

This one is worked on US6 needles, casting on 55 sts, working 3 inches of seed st, increasing 4 sts evenly around, then stockinette.  It looks much nicer -- I like the smoother line.

More later....

With Heigh, Ho, the Wind and the Rain

This afternoon, the view from our bedroom windows was this --

The photo doesn't even do it justice, the intensity of the green lushness on the hills, the clear cleanness of the air, and the movement of the clouds after the rain.  (This is Aberdeen to the left, Mt. Nicholson in the middle, and Central and Wan Chai to the right.)

We went back to Paris Cotton Singlets in the afternoon, looking for this Jaeger booklet,

but it was apparently the only one they did not have, so I ordered it online later from Woodland Woolworks.  I've coveted the cardigan version of this cover pattern for a long time....

And here is Ostrich Plume so far --

Sorry for the rather ghoulish lighting, but in fact by the time I took this photo, the scene from the same window was pure white.  We are truly up in the clouds here.

"Mu Qin Jie You Lai"

("The Mothers' Day" in Mandarin, according to Laura's lesson plan for last week!)

We had a thunderstorm in the morning, but it was just a bit of rain by the time we went out.  We went to California Pizza Kitchen in Times Square for lunch and then -- admire my cunning plan! -- walked around the corner to look for this --

New Style Yarn Co., at their current location in 1/F 87 Percival Street in Causeway Bay.  We had a little trouble finding it, as not only do many of the shops neglect to put their numbers on the door or window (this is universal -- why??), but I wasn't expecting from the phone book address, which didn't have the "1/F", that the shop might be upstairs.  I should know this by now, after two months in Hong Kong, shouldn't I!  Well, David spotted the staircase (just behind the bicycle in the photo) with "New Style Yarn Co." painted in large, friendly letters on every other step, and there it was.

There were half-a-dozen or so women knitting and chatting away around a big table in the middle of the little shop, and David sat on the girls while I browsed for a while, then told the smiling shoplady that I'd come back another day without the children, and we went out again.

(I am on something of a quest to find the Hong Kong yarn shops listed here at WoolWorks.  It's a ten-year-old list, but so far a number of them are still around.  I'll email WoolWorks an update at the end of the summer.)

Meandering up the streets afterwards we came upon, by happy coincidence,

Paris Cotton Singlets Co. Ltd., at 13 Pak Sha Road, also in Causeway Bay.  A strange combination of knitting wools and men's sport shirts, the shirts available for browsing and the wools -- a little bit of a lot of things, Rowan, Jaeger, Japanese and Italian brands -- packed safely away in plastic bags behind the counter.  I did buy two balls of merino/acrylic, tentatively for socks.  It was a bit awkward, with the three salesmen all looking at me expectantly, as though perhaps I should already know what I want and simply point to it immediately.  I may go back and browse the Rowan and Jaeger books, though -- it really would be a lot easier if I already had a pattern in mind....

So this -- not counting the spaghetti-sauce chins, the wet umbrellas, the thunder fears, and the fight over the pink plate at breakfast -- was what I got for Mother's Day, along with some very sweet smiles and kisses.

My Most-Used Knitted Object

Becky of Knitting Interrupted wants to know what is your most-used knitting project?

Well, I'd love to say that it's something stylish like my Clapotis,

 

which is certainly one of my favorite projects, both in the making and the wearing, but here in Hong Kong it's just too warm now, except if I crank up the air conditioner, and back home in Southern California there will be only perhaps four months of the year when I'll be able to wear it, not counting the odd autumn evening outdoors when I want to toss it around my shoulders.

Another candidate is a shawl I started just before my oldest daughter was born, out of some Jaeger silk/wool blend that my mom gave me.  I basically made up the pattern as I went along, knitting a stockinette stitch square from the center out until I ran out of the main color, a sort of golden-brown putty, then worked the border in Old Shale in red and white with the last ball of the brown.  This color is not really one that I would have chosen myself, but the finished shawl is big, soft, and very cozy, just the thing when curling up with a book on a rainy afternoon.

But, to be perfectly honest, the knitted things I use the most are these --

Plain old garter stitch squares, in Sugar 'N Cream kitchen cotton worked from corner to corner.  I'm afraid that's a curry stain on one of them.  We use them every day, these humble little workhorses.  I've made dozens.  About four bucks for two balls at Michaels gets you five dishcloths -- can't beat that.

"Better the Knitting Bluestocking You Know...."

Some of my favorite Bluestocking-related sayings form Proverb Generator --

After a storm comes the Knitting Bluestocking.

A Knitting Bluestocking a day keeps the doctor away.

One good Knitting Bluestocking deserves another.

Every Knitting Bluestocking tells a story.

Don't put all your eggs in one Knitting Bluestocking.

A woman's place is in the Knitting Bluestocking.

Every Knitting Bluestocking has a silver lining.