A Bluestocking Knits

Hooray! It's Ray-Ray-Raining

Well -- we had another generous few hours or so last night, it's not raining now, but the air has that clean feeling and the garden has got a pleasantly-surprised perked-up look.  I'm also starting the "Rae" pullover, so there's a nice little pun for you.  Julia and I settled on an adjusted color scheme, and after I had to winkle some glue down into the crack in my only pair of wood 2.5mm circs, I was knitting away on the ribbing.  The original gauge is 30 sts per 4"/10cm, and I'm getting 28 (in the round), so I'm recalculating a bit. 

After my success with the Crazy Rails quilt, I dove straight in to the new quilt for our bed, fabrics for which have been sitting in a drawer untouched for a year.  For some reason, though, although I still really like the Cross and Crown I had decided on, it seemed a bit more-advanced than I am at present -- perhaps I'm wrong, but neither do I want to stretch myself too far.  I decided on something simpler, half-square triangles, and so I am cutting and pressing this week.  And at the same time, I thought about Laura, who at twenty is making plans to go away to college in September, and I wanted to make her a quilt to take with her.  She liked the idea, and after I proposed a few patterns I felt I could handle, she said, "You know, I'd like something with stars."  I nodded, and went to another room and came back with my copy of this magazine --

which I've been daydreaming over for quite a while.  The one on the cover was what had come to mind when Laura said "stars" -- so she likes it and we've conferred and ordered fabrics.  I'm kind of glad that I decided on something simpler for our bed quilt -- the stars one is I think a bit less-complex than it looks, but still I don't want to overwhelm myself.

A 1:12 scale sampler kit from Annelle Ferguson, on 48-count gauze.  I have had a bit of a slump this year where miniatures are concerned, but I got two of these kits for Christmas, and they are certainly very charming!

I admit also that knitting on this vintage pattern has got me thinking about knitting myself a little vintage something, perhaps in that KnitPicks Palette that didn't really work with the crocheted vest thingy last summer.  I really like the sleeveless vest/pullover style, as it's more versatile here, where real winter lasts only about three weeks, if we're lucky.  I'm very taken with the one on the left here --

or maybe (rather wildly!) this one --

for which I actually have the pattern -- "Simonetta"! -- unlike the first, which I guess I will have to make up as I go.

And because the title of this post has me singing the song, here is a version of it sung by Disneyland's Dapper Dans --

 

A Rose by Any Other Name

I have in fact finished the No.467 wrap-front vest I've been plugging away at since January, but despite the numerous re-workings I did of the angles for the front edges, which in the end turned out pretty well, the vest as a whole is unfortunately just too big for me.  Clearly, I should have tried it on and considered it for a while before I worked the crocheted armhole edging.  It's possible that at a previous point in my life I would have worn it anyway, but now, well, I want it to look good, I want it to be close-fitting like the original would, and although it was an awful lot of rather dull garter stitch, I'm prepared to rip it out -- after some careful measuring and note-taking, of course -- and re-knit it, but I think I might have to change its name to the Penelope vest, for patiently ripping it out so very many times.

Even weeks after writing about the Victory jumper as my choice for the D.E. Stevenson knitalong while reading Spring Magic, I found myself still thinking about it, wondering if the Knitpicks Palette I had somewhere in my stash would work ....  I think it will, but the larger gauge (!) and the single relatively-tiny size of the original will require a number of adjustments to accommodate the Palette, and of course a rather reserved color like this (which is "Mist") would alone make it unlike the original jumper, whose most salient characteristic is probably its distinctive and celebratory scallopy stripes.  So perhaps a "Spring Magic" jumper?!

Knitting in the Movies and TV: "The Durrells in Corfu"

Watching "The Durrells in Corfu" on Sunday evening, as one does, I spotted this jumper of Margo's, worn a number of times throughout the episode, including in an earlier scene, which is a better view of the jumper itself but darker because it's indoors at Spiro's house --

Margo has at least one other knitted jumper, in this scene from episode 4 this season (the one with Larry's friend the Indian prince) --

but it was the mustard-colored one that caught my attention, partly because unlike the striped one it looks hand-knitted, and because it immediately reminded me of one in Marion Foale's Classic Knitwear book --

Foale's version is clearly inspired by the 1930s, and hers -- called "Badminton" in the book -- is so like the one that Margo is wearing that I wouldn't be surprised if the series costume designer used Foale's pattern, just trimming some of the 1980s hem to a more 1930s length.

Actually, all of the clothes in the series are very good, and the high-waisted, slim 1930s lines suit Keeley Hawes especially well, though I'm sure that she would look lovely in pretty much anything.

I love this hat.  I do not have much of a "hat head," but if I saw this hat in a shop I would buy it at once.

Louisa also has a number of very pretty blouses, many of which I would happily wear -- certainly this one, both for its simplicity and that lovely raspberry color.

As it happened, the first thing that came up while I was looking for photos for this post was a review on “Frock Flicks,” the gist of which was “if this were my family, I’d have run screaming into the night.”

Why are they such shits to each other? Why do they stick together if they hate each other so much? There’s no sense of familial affection or tradition or anything holding them together, and they don’t have any money, there is literally no reason to be together when they’re all such assholes to each other (except for Gerry, the little boy, who isn’t a total jerk, and obviously, being so young, does depend on his mom).

Admittedly, I missed some episodes here and there – including the very first one – so, fair enough, I might have missed the “long, tedious stretches of people being awful jerks to each other, and not in a fascinating or revealing way”. But I am coming away from the series with a vastly different impression. The Durrells in the series certainly take the famous English eccentricity to rather drastic heights, but I don’t at all see a family who hate each other, I see one in which at least three of its members are almost completely self-absorbed, which leads to them giving their own wants a far higher priority than anyone else’s, and with a mother who is indulgent to a rather amazing degree, especially for the 1930s – but this isn’t hate, or even dislike. It can certainly lead to exasperation with siblings and/or parent – and yes, “selfish bastard” behavior – but is a different emotion altogether.

The English have a tendency to not run away from unpleasant things, which at one end can lead to the sort of attitude shown during, say, the Blitz, having a cup of tea on the rubble of one’s bombed-out house before setting to work cleaning up the mess, and on the other to – in the past, at least, less so now – sticking with a family one doesn’t much like (or even actively dislikes) because they are one’s family. This I think is part of the Durrells’ situation here – they have all come to Corfu, even though Larry at least is old enough have stayed in England on his own, but presumably he goes with his mother and siblings partly because he is lazy and self-indulgent enough to not want to bother supporting himself (he writes constantly but hasn’t published anything) and make a home on his own, but partly simply because his mother arranges to move the whole family. (By the way, the real Lawrence Durrell was married and possibly – depending on whether you read Gerald’s or Lawrence’s Wikipedia articles – already living on Corfu when the rest of the family moved there.) And again, the series family pretty clearly don’t literally hate each other, so the easiest thing is to acquiesce to their mother's notion and go to Corfu, albeit complaining about it most of the way.

Much of what’s irritating about the story is the hugely ethnocentric attitude this British family has toward the people around them in Corfu. Aside from two characters, naturalist Dr. Theo Stephanides and cab driver/all-around good-guy Spiros Halikiopoulos, the local Greeks are treated as strange foreigners, indecipherable oddities, merely obstacles to be dealt with, not legitimate independent people who should be understood on their own terms. And really, Dr. Theo and Spiros are only there to serve the needs of the Durrells and act as go-betweens with other Greeks. Most interactions the family has with the locals are of the ‘we’re British, we know best’ variety. It’s a genre that’s been done to death.

In fact, I rather appreciated that the series doesn’t shy away from the reality of that English ethnocentricity, which was still in full form in the 1930s. There have certainly been some expatriates throughout history who dove pretty completely into their adopted cultures, but most took that “little corner of England” with them to at least some degree, whether traveling or living abroad. It can be more than a little dismaying for us to see that attitude now, especially when it manifests itself in overt racism and subjugation – which it does not in “The Durrells in Corfu” – but personally I find it more out-of-place to see a character who is anachronistically broad-minded and tolerant, someone “modern” in a “period” setting (one of the reasons, in fact, that I increasingly found Claire Randall Fraser in the Outlander books to be a bit jarring). It may very well be that from series 1 alone, this is all the impression that we get of the Durrells – except perhaps from Gerry – but there it is. It also should be remembered that the series is clearly not holding up the Durrells as sterling examples of model behavior, either, and thus their British-is-best attitude is not being condoned here, but mocked.

Perhaps part of the problem is that the characters are, like real people, taking quite some time to develop and mature.  In episode 6 this season, Larry, during a disastrous attempt by their mother to throw a birthday party for Gerry (she literally doesn't remember that he is turning thirteen, not twelve, and has wrapped up a knitted bunny toy for him more suitable in fact to a four-year-old), shows her some of Gerry's zoological notes and says to her, "Gerry's going to be a really good writer" -- one of the few times that Larry has said something really generous, or shown a real awareness of any of his siblings as a person.  I have been watching the series partly because it is filmed so beautifully and partly because it's hard not to think "what kind of idiotic things are these people going to do next?" but I'm enjoying it this season even more because the Durrells, while still as the English would say, completely mad, but also are, slowly but surely, growing up.

Thoughts on the Parley Cardigan, and Some Catching Up

My Parley was finished and worn exactly a month ago, to be honest, but it has been quite summery lately, really too warm to want a sweater, and I've been rather busy with other things as well, so haven't had the wherewithal to photograph it.  But the weather dropped about twenty degrees quite suddenly this past weekend -- I kid you not, twenty degrees -- and I wanted wool, so I am wearing the cardigan again today.  It is of course the Parley by Mary Lou Egan of Yarnerinas, from her book with Gale Zucker and Kirsten Kapur, Drop-Dead Easy Knits.  The book is full of good-looking knits that are fairly low on the concentration scale, which is great for those of us who tend to have -- cough -- numerous projects going at once.  This particular one comes in pullover and cardigan versions, with simple shaping and lots of stockinette, with a bit of twizzle at the edges to keep it interesting.

This is just four skeins of Briggs & Little Sport in mulberry, which I got from Penelope Fibre Arts in British Columbia, as it's apparently a rather small line produced in Canada, and not many US shops carry it, even online -- it's worth perusing the B&L website to see the "tour" section and how the wool is processed, from grading to shipping.  Mine is a lovely purply color, with hints of blue and red and black giving it a lively depth which is very difficult to capture with the camera!  The yardage on the Sport wool is quite impressive, as I still had a good-sized ball and another full skein left over -- I bought five.  The wool is a single-ply, so tends to worm a little while winding and knitting, but not frustratingly so, although it doesn't feel particularly pleasant to knit with since it is rather rough in itself and perhaps it is that combined with the single-ness that makes it feel a little like wire when wrapped around my fingers.  Much of the roughness does wash out, though, and so now it has a sturdy wooliness to it and a light sheepy smell which is not atal unpleasant.  I am a little concerned about the alarmingly frequent thin places as I went along, two or three of which were such a hair's-breadth, literally, that I broke and spliced them on the spot.  I was tempted to weave in a bit of extra wool as a reinforcement in the less-alarming places, and had at least a dozen safety pins marking them as I went along, but in the end I didn't -- although I do have so much wool left that at least there is enough for repairs if that does become necessary later on!

The buttons are La Mode no.214 (eleven, not ten, since the buttonhole band came out with that many, as it happened).

The purple is generally a bit darker than I could get in these photos --

The sizing is quite generous, and I probably could have made the next size down instead of the 42 for my US12 figure, but there it is -- it's a great no-fuss cardigan, and in this yarn is good for nicely-cool days, not too light, not too heavy.  It probably does look its best with a scoop neck underneath, not a collared shirt, to play up the slightly-rolled neck, which has a gracefully curving line to it that I really like.

We had a good bit of rain this past winter, much to everyone's relief.  The down-side is that all of the weed seeds that have been lying dormant for the past three or four years of drought have apparently all decided to sprout and grow now.  Our backyard, which has a gigantic pine tree in it and therefore little else, has been since February or so a veritable sea of stinging nettles and crabgrass, which I have been digging up -- with a shovel, mind, not one of those mild-mannered forks -- an hour or so every morning, filling usually two trash cans a week. 

Unfortunately for the butterflies, some of whose caterpillars subsist pretty much exclusively on stinging nettles, this is not good.  I fully expect the nettles to come back again next year (she said, weeping quietly into her tea), but this year for the bees and other insects in our little patch of wilderness in the middle of suburbia, I scattered around a packet of California wildflower seeds in the few spots that get any sun, and a packet of shade flowers for the more woodsy corners.  The photo above is the very first bloom, which is a baby blue eyes (Nemophila maculata).  It looks like a little bit of everything in the sunny packet has come up so far -- I am quite looking forward to the mountain garlands and the lupines!

This is something else that has been keeping me busy, albeit indoors -- a pair of Elizabethan venetians (which are sort of ur-trousers) for David's Renaissance Faire garb.  These have been a real pain in the neck, to be honest, but I am on the home stretch at last, and only need to do buttonholes and lacing eyelets now, which will mean that -- huzzah! -- David will for the first time have a complete period outfit, bar the shoes of course.  More photos to come.

We took the afternoon Saturday to go and see the "Dressing Downton" exhibit at Muzeo in Anaheim.  I have rather mixed feelings about "Downton Abbey", not as keen in the later seasons as I was at the beginning -- but from start to finish, the clothes are pretty wonderful.  This suit of Lady Sybil's, from season 1, is probably what I would choose if they were to say, "Yes, you may have one!" although Mary's red suit from the same season would run a close second.  Cora's court dress from season 4 would be my favorite of the fancier ones, I think, but, goodness, how often would I get to wear it?!  More photos later of this, as well ...

The weather has been cool enough too, this past weekend, for me to enjoy again the feeling of wool running through my fingers, so last night when I had three hours in front of the television (new episodes of "Call the Midwife" and "Home Fires", and a repeat of "Wolf Hall"), I managed to get the rhythm going and finished the thumb gusset and worked over half of the medallion of the first two-end mitten.  It puzzles me why this cast-on doesn't lie as smoothly as the first one, but I tried a different technique, so I guess it just does.  V. glad that these fit well, to be sure!

And, yes, there is a new petit-point carpet!  It's spring, how could I resist?  This one is the Flower Trellis by Sue Bakker from Venus Dodge's Dolls' House Needlecrafts.  I haven't yet worked a Bakker chart that was free of significant errors and this one is no exception, I'm sorry to say, and in fact has some real doozies.  The chart gives symbols for "red, light red, green, gold" etc. with the materials list specifying which colors of DMC floss are used, either by themselves or in combination with similar shades -- but although there are symbols for "blue" and "yellow" there are no indications in the materials list that you need any blue or yellow at all.  I had to just choose shades I thought went well with the other colors.  The chart has the full border and the "trellis" in the main field, but only one each of the flowers inside each medallion, so the stitcher must decide where to put what -- this is perhaps not a serious drawback for a more experienced stitcher, but a beginner may not appreciate this, nor the fact that one long edge of the "vine" is clearly marked with the symbol for yellow, not green. 

But, yes, it's a very pretty carpet now that it's finished, I must say!  I worked out before I started the flowers which one I wanted where, and whether or not I would reverse it (just to make each medallion a little different).  I also reversed the light and medium pink blends here and there, for the same reason.  I used a partial chart for the half-medallions, leaving a one-stitch edge between them and the gold border, to match the trellis-work -- some have worked it differently, I find from poking around the internet.  Mine is kind of busy as a result, but in an ordered sort of way -- quite garden-like.

I used the following shades of DMC floss (3 strands, on 22-count mono canvas) --

• dark gold = 680 and 420 (1 + 2 strands)
• yellow = 745 and 3078
• blue = 931 and 932
• pale pink = 223 and 224 (2 + 1)
• medium pink = 223 and 3372 (1 + 2)
• red = 356
• pale green = 3347
• medium green = 3347 and 3052 (2 + 1)
• grey = 646
• background = 3033 (instead of ecru)

Note that I needed 3 skeins of the background color, not 2 as on the materials list, and that the number of red stitches (the "tulip" stamens) is a mere six per medallion, so if you have a bit of a pretty red already, you really needn't buy a new skein!

Progress

I am halfway up the second sleeve of the Parley cardigan, with the first sleeve and body waiting to be joined together.  To be honest, I would have probably finished it by now were it not for this --

which I was completely smitten with from the moment I saw it last summer, the Heriz carpet by Sue Bakker, in an old post at Open House Miniatures.  Fortunately I was able to get hold of this chart as well as a few others of Bakker's, wh. pleases me greatly.  I did find a number of errors here, both in the chart and the list of floss colors -- astonishingly, things like leaving off a digit -- but, yes, I am so pleased with the finished piece that I am willing to overlook them. 

I fairly careened through this piece in my joy -- just a little over two weeks from start to finish -- so I did make quite a lot of mistakes, most of which I noticed before long, some of which have now become permanent, but I admit that this bothers me not a whit.  I also made some deliberate variations in the serrations of the "leaves" in the border, just because I felt like it. I had noticed in the original photo that sometimes the edges around the lighter-red figures appeared to have a sort of golden shimmer to them, and so I theorized -- since I was already aware that the photo and the chart didn't always match, eh-hem -- that Bakker may have added a touch of gold to the edges, and so I tried that with the first pair of the little "flame" figures at the narrow end of the center panel, but this was more than a bit of bother, so I decided to skip it on the pair at the other end; as it happened, once the carpet was finished, I could see that in some lights the light-red figures seemed to have a golden edge to them even when I knew very well that they didn't, so apparently it is due to the surrounding colors, presumably reflections on the stitches causing an illusion of color bleed.  Interesting!  I did, though, shade the four blue "leaves" in the corners of the red medallion with the charted medium-blue blend around the edges, and an unblended (slightly lighter) blue in the middle, also an experiment in color shading -- very subtle, to be sure, and I'm not sure if it is really noticeable at all, though I suppose if I were making a museum piece (!) it would be worth it!

The colors are just gorgeous, really rich.

This actually looks a bit less messy in the photo than it does to me in real life, which I suppose is a good thing.  Some petit-pointers can make the backs of their work look nearly as good as the front, but this is something I think I can only admire from a distance.  I find it much easier to make the backs neater in wool, because of its "stickiness", though it is possible that I am too doubting and therefore leave the floss ends a bit long unnecessarily.  I don't want to think that I can't be bothered to make it neater, either -- what good is it to improve one's skills on a craft if one's dedication goes only halfway? -- but on the other hand, it is the back of the piece, after all, and in a room setting will make not a jot of difference as long as the miniature carpet lies flat like a real one.

This carpet, by the way, is worked in half-cross stitch, which Bakker insists is better for miniature carpets than continental stitch, which as I already know is what other designers insist is best -- I suspect that this may have something to do with both the fiber being worked (wool or floss or silk), as Bakker seems to work entirely in floss, or on the individual stitcher, for surely just like with knitting each of us has a slightly different tension and way of working the individual stitches.  I also didn't bother with basketweave stitch on the backgrounds here -- for one, yes there is a lot of background but it doesn't come in large patches, only in little fiddly bits, which doesn't seem to me to utilize the speed and  non-warping property of basketweave much, and for another, I just didn't, no reason why, really.

This particular canvas is obviously heavily starched, as when I washed the piece most of the starch came out and it is now quite limp -- which is great for displaying as it lies very flat, but makes it tricky to fringe and hem, especially since it also means that the threads of the canvas don't adhere to each other at the crossing points any more, as they did while I was stitching -- you can see how they distort a bit at the points of the herringbone hem -- but on the bright side, it mitered just about perfectly!  The long-legged cross-stitch edging has that nice habit of making the canvas fold along that line, so happily I didn't have to pull the hemming stitches very tight at all to get the turning to lie smoothly.

I also decided to let this carpet be a little more realistic than I have done with previous ones, and not block it with pins and a straight-edge.  As you might expect from reading this blog the past year or so, I've been looking at images of real antique carpets quite a lot, as well as the miniature re-creations, and it is increasingly obvious to me that real ones can be pretty wonky.

Of course, I completely understand that some stitchers may far prefer the straight edges, and that is absolutely fine and admirable, of course.  I would just like this house to look lived-in, and to be honest, in my own house that would certainly include things like wobbly carpet edges.

Here also is my first piece of homemade furniture for Hardy House -- the Arts & Crafts bed from Jane Harrop's Edwardian Era Miniatures in 1:12 Scale.  David cut the wood for me, after I cut a few pieces and realized that I was kind of making a mess of it.  I like to think I would have stuck with it if the wood were bass or something ordinary, but this is mahogany, said with that rather awestruck tone one reserves for things like diamonds or Lauren Bacall.  You just don't want to mess up mahogany!  But I did glue the whole thing myself, and its handsomeness is pretty much entirely due to the simplicity of the original piece and the well-designed miniature.  Luckily the glue splodges are mostly on the back of the headboard; I still have a tendency to use too much glue, but as it happens, even though this is just Aleene's Tacky Glue it worked marvelously, so I will trust it a little more next time.  The only "change" I made was to lightly sand all four upper edges of the post caps, which I think gives it a subtle realism.

The book recommended for this particular project to finish it with a simple beeswax, but while we were at Rockler for the wood, I found Tried & True's Original Finish, which is a blend of linseed oil and beeswax, and came highly recommended by the salesclerk.  I used three coats here, letting it cure gently for a few days between each coat and buffing it well with a piece of old cloth.  The third time I used 4/0 steel wool, which was also suggested by the finish instructions, but the steel wool shed so much that although I was willing to add a few more coats, I didn't know if I'd be leaving steel wool fibers behind to get stuck in the next coat, so I stopped.  I think it looks pretty good even with "just" three coats, and it's wonderfully silky.

I didn't finish the mattress slats, not at all sure how long it will take for the finish to stop being just a little oily -- wh. I can't imagine would be good for the mattress or the bedclothes! -- but I couldn't help getting some finish on the slats anyway.

It occurred to me as I was putting this together that for a double bed it's a bit on the narrow side, but then again, the room is pretty small!

Parley Vous?

Well, the Mora mitten is back in the ball -- wh. by the way was not a simple matter, since of course it's a center-pull ball, and I think my first attempt at coping with this will probably not be successful, which was winding another center-pull ball with the ripped-out portion and shoving it back into the original center.  It doesn't pull out easily at all, even though I figured theoretically this should work.  We'll see.  It wasn't as onerous as I feared, taking the two-end knitting apart, but perhaps that was because I hadn't actually worked far enough to make two separated piles of kinky wool an issue.  It's good to notice your mistakes early! (she said dryly).

(Am relieved to see, by the way, that the amount of dyed wool needed for this particular mitten is barely one arm's length.  I'm hoping to use the rest of this Black Cherry-dyed length, wh. is roughly the size of a golf ball, for a bit of color-work on a fingerless pair with the second skein of the Mora wool...)

I did start the Parley cardigan last night, while the Mora wool is resting.  I didn't even look at other colors of the Briggs & Little when I ordered it (though I see now there are quite a lot), just thought to myself "yes, that one!" --

-- which is Mulberry, here in one of the photos from the book.  I was having hard time capturing the color the other day and thought I would have to do lots of fiddling, whether by adjusting the camera settings or "fixing it in post", but it seems to have come out all right this morning, so perhaps the gloom is not such a bad thing!

We Now Return To Our Regularly-Scheduled Knitting

Well, it's a new year, a clean slate and a fresh start and whatnot, and as I started to clear out drawers I haven't opened since Hector was a pup, I saw the corner of something under a bag of those little balls left over from socks through the years.  "Oh my goodness, it's that Setesdal scarf!"  Right, I thought, it's time to do something about those unfinished projects still sitting around.  Yes, they have come bubbling up to the surface of my conscience with uncomfortable regularity -- it's just that until now I haven't had the nerve to publicly out myself.  So, snagging the idea from Rose Red, I am instigating my own WIP-apalooza for this year.  With a button, of course.

Nine works-in-progress to finish in twelve months -- I can do this!  Here they are, I think in order of ancient-ness ...

Setesdal-style scarf, in fine black and white wools.  I bought this wool at Super Yarn Mart, which tells you how long I've had it.  The WIP isn't quite that old, but nearly.  In my own defense, I misplaced it for quite some time, but I had set it aside in the first place because although I like knitting at a fine gauge, I had got to the "dull" lice section, and the idea of another mile and a half of it was starting to get me down.  This -- I will get my confession out of the way up front -- is by far my oldest UFO, probably twenty years, maybe 25.  Shameful -- especially because I still like it.  I'll photograph the ball band next time, for those of you who remember Super Yarn Mart with affection.

Mother-in-law socks, the Blueberry Waffles, in Shepherd Sock's "Purple Club" colorway.  I chose this pattern partly because it was touted elsewhere as being good for avoiding the pool-and-flash problem, and partly -- I admit -- because Purple Club in this pattern looks just like mashed blueberries and cream.  I got distracted by something else, can't remember now what, and put these away out of trouble, and forgot where they were.

Cousin socks in Shepherd Sock's "Pink Blossom".  I had grand plans of cables and patterned legs to make a splendid pair of knee socks, and gradually realized that all of the already-written patterns wouldn't fit M.'s shapely legs, so gradually got plainer and plainer, and more and more disappointed with the results.  If they had been for me, I wouldn't have minded -- I like vanilla, after all -- but when you've got a reputation to uphold, well.  Of course, now my reputation is as a dawdler!  Part of the trouble is that I was also beginning to suspect that I do not have enough yarn....

Garter Heel Socks, from the Vogue sock book, started in May 2009.  This is Chameleon Colorworks Bambino superwash merino/bamboo/nylon blend, in Viridian.  These didn't quite speak to me at the time, so I felt little compunction in pulling out the needles when I wanted them for something else, and here they still are.  I don't know why I felt so indifferent about them, as I like the color, and the pattern goes well with the yarn.

Klaralund, for a friend, who has either shown enormous patience or has completely forgotten I ever offered to knit her one with this yarn, which is the fabulous Noro Silk Garden #39.  I had got pretty far along with a Rosedale cardigan and decided that I looked like a blimp wearing a Noro cardy, so I frogged it and the yarn sat in the drawer for a long time until I'd made a Klaralund for myself, and thought, "hey! that stash of #39! --"

Muriwai Bath Mat, by Mel Clark in her Knit 2 Together book.  Another rather dull project, miles of garter stitch in the round.  I set this aside for two reasons, actually, one because I was knitting it at a purposely tight gauge so that it would make a thick, absorbent bath mat, and it made my hands ache if I worked on it for very long, and also because it was getting so big that I needed yet another circular needle to hold all of the stitches, and I'd already incorporated all of both mine and my mom's.  (Sorry, mom, I still have your needles!)

Selbu mittens, also -- coincidentally -- in that same Super Yarn Mart wool.  I was working on these in January 2011, I see.  Love these, but because I loved everything about them so very much -- the colors, the feel, the Norwegianness -- wanted nothing less than perfection, which because I was making it up as I went along, kept eluding me.

This is number 6 of a set of felted place mats in Araucania Nature Wool, in a funky random stripe.  Mats 1-5 have been in use on the dining-room table for some months, and I like them a lot.  I've started to run out of colors, though, so I wasn't sure if I should just carry on in the narrow-stripes manner, make them considerably wider, or just go for broke and make a solid -- I have lots of green wool left.

Yoga socks, not strictly a UFO since it's only been about a month since I started them -- but technically, yes, they are still unfinished.  This is my former Invercargill scarf, which rolled mercilessly.  I don't like the yarn that much, as it has a weird squishy feel to it, and I don't especially want acrylic on my feet -- and then I had the brilliant idea of yoga-style socks, which I could wear over regular cotton ones.  I still haven't got to the halfway point of the ball yet, and it's nearing knee-height ...

Whew!

I was relieved to see the Winter 2007 "Interweave Knits" yesterday.  Was beginning to worry that my IK subscription would suddenly go the way of Vogue Knitting, with far too much "hip" stuff.  I just don't do edgy.  While the Tilted Duster on the cover of the Fall issue was fascinating in construction, I personally could never pull it off -- otherwise, the Tangled Yoke cardy was the only thing I was even remotely interested in.  (You can take the girl out of the library, but you can't ... oh, never mind.)

But there are in fact four projects in the new issue that have caught my eye.  (All photos from here.)

Pam Allen's Refined Aran Jacket.  Love this, love it backwards and forwards and maybe even upside-down.  Get in the car, girls, we're going to the yarn shop!

Jess's Gansey, by Elizabeth Lovick.  (The pdf pattern is available only if you sign up for the Knitting Daily newsletter.)  The model isn't helping the sweater much, I'm afraid -- and it doesn't fit her well at the armholes -- but I like the idea of tweaking the gansey shape.

This one --

really speaks to me for some reason, possibly just because I get such a kick out of Old Shale.  It's Cathy Payson's Brushed Lace Cardigan.  I'm not sure about the colors, so I would probably do something more boring, I mean subtle, like shades of grey.

This, on the other hand, Eunny Jang's Ivy League Vest, is wild in the best possible way.  Again, tweaking the shape of a traditional garment.  I've had a hankering for colorwork lately, too.

Now, if only the new "Getting More Hours Out of Your Day" magazine would arrive!

Thoughts on Klaralund

"K" is of course for Klaralund.  This sweater, from the Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton Book Two, was one of those patterns that I mulled over for some time, not sure at all that it would work on me, but impressed with its classic simplicity.  I have to say, that despite my not being a wispy little thing like the model in the book (nor the photos turning out the way I imagine that I look), it's actually a rather flattering design, and I'm very pleased with the results.

I'm still not quite sure what I think of Silk Garden.  It has a curious now-soft-now-scratchy texture, and there is of course the infamous vegetable matter to be dealt with.  I was lucky this time in that all of the colors were present in each ball, but in the past I've been frustrated to find that the knots seem to jump quite a distance in the color sequences, usually skipping my favorite one.  In this batch, though, the problem was of thick/thinness, in that the wool far too often wasted away to almost nothing.

I usually broke these sections and spit-spliced them -- in Silk Garden's favor, it splices wonderfully.  I just don't think that that should excuse the poor quality of the yarn itself.

On the other hand, Noro's famous colors were much in evidence.  I've marvelled before that just watching the colors change is fascinating -- I loved the surprise, too, of knitting in the evenings in artificial light and finding out the next day what the colors had done.  I meant to not fiddle with the sequences and changes too much, although I did towards the end when the colors almost lined up -- I don't seem to mind the asymmetry, but the just-slightly-skewedness was hard to bear!

 

But Klaralund, that's what I was talking about.  Very long, very wide sleeves do not often work for me, and so I decided to shorten and narrow those famously long and wide sleeves a bit.  The sleeve measurements as given in the book are somewhat deceptive, though -- I was sure that 26 1/2 inches would be too long and 16 inches far too wide, assuming also that the weight of the Silk Garden would pull them even farther.  I initially worked the sleeves to 11 inches long to the underarm and starting at 13 1/2 inches wide at the cuff, but this proved to be in fact too short, and so with only a twinge of regret -- for one of the sleeves had taken a day of only slightly obssessive knitting to work -- I ripped out both and worked them again, taking off only about 3 inches from the original length, about 25 inches total, and 1 1/2 inches or so (6 sts) from the width at the cuff.

(Check the errata page here for corrections for a number of the patterns in this book, and additional sizes for Klaralund.)

"K" also stood for "Kristin Lavransdatter", which I watched while knitting much of Klaralund.  (It's three hours long! good for almost a whole sleeve!)  The book is one of those that I should like, having so many of my favorite elements -- the Middle Ages, high language, Norwegians -- but I just can't seem to get the hang of it.  The movie hasn't helped much, I confess.  The story is, briefly, that Kristin, the rather willful daughter of a farmer/landowner in 14th-century Norway, falls in love with a knight and has a passionate affair with him despite her father's wishes that she marry a neighbor's son.  I was rather surprised that the movie lets us know at the very beginning that not only do Kristin and Erlend eventually marry, but that by then their affair has already been consummated, although this does give the story an air of inevitability, if not "happy ending".  It might be that now that I am a parent myself I felt much more sympathy for Lavrans, Kristin's father, whose goodness shone through this film for me.  The characters I should have liked (I assume, not having read the books) I often didn't -- Kristin's so-called childhood sweetheart pulls one of those "if you loved me, you would" manipulations that irked me no end -- I wanted to smack him.  Simon Darre's only fault seems to be that he is not Erlend Nikolaussøn, but then I cannot for the life of me see what is so attractive about Erlend himself.  He is dull and stoic and dumps his mistress (who left her husband for him) and takes up with someone else's bethrothed.  Not the best catch, frankly.  I found the two main characters so flat and uninteresting that I was easily more interested in the parents' relationship, impressed with the subtlety and depth that the actors brought to their roles, and in the crippled sister, wanting to know more of their stories.

   

So, well, I was so unsatisfied that I had a sudden craving to see "Babettes Gaestebud (Babette's Feast)" afterwards.  Alas, not starting with "K," but a wonderful movie nevertheless, filled not only with affection and gentle humor but with much deeper layers of meaning than I ever got from "Kristin Lavransdatter".  The story here is that two elderly sisters, the daughters and heirs of the pastor of a stoic religious sect in a remote part of 19th-century Denmark, find themselves taking in as housekeeper a political refugee from Paris, the Babette of the title.  After some fourteen years with the sisters, Babette, whose only tie with her former life is a lottery ticket, wins 10,000 francs and decides to spend the money on a celebratory feast the sisters plan to hold in honor of the hundredth anniversary of their father's birth.  The film has many delightful moments -- the look on Babette's face when one of her new employers shows her how to make ale-bread is alone worth the price of the movie -- and when you know Babette's backstory, it makes the moment that much better.  But it also has some very philosophical things to say, and the characters evolve, unlike Kristin and Erlend, who seem miserable throughout.  Martine's erstwhile suitor -- not to give too much away, I hope -- says early on, "I am going away forever, and I shall never, never see you again. For I have learned here that life is hard and cruel, and that in this world there are things that are impossible," but by the end of the film this has become, "I have been with you every day of my life. You must also know that I shall be with you every day that is granted to me from now on. Every evening I shall sit down to dine with you: not with my body, which is of no importance, but with my soul. Because this evening I have learned, my dear, that in this beautiful world of ours, all things are possible."

I Spy

I spy with my little eye --

-- something beginning with K.