Still here, just busy

I just realized that I haven't posted during the month of January. I have a few good subject to write about, like how I sold my shawl to a woman on the plane to Dallas, and the wonderful time I had there, but I have been super busy and tired. 


Anyway, hiya! I'll be back soon.

Mending

Happy New Year! It's 42 F / 6 C here today! 

 We've been having beautiful weather. The grass is still green and there has been hardly any snow. You know, I've always been a lover of winter but I think I could get used to this!.

Locals will have noticed that the squirrels are in fine fettle. They still have easy access to their hoards.

The white globes in the following photos are my neighbour's garden lights. They are powered by the sun and hang around a cute little patio that they made for themselves in the bottom of the garden. They have one of those metal fire pots on it (you can just see it in the second photo). In the summer they put chairs around it. You could almost use it now, it's so warm.

I would have written sooner, but I got bogged down with various things: getting ready for kitchen and basement renovations, holiday visit from my daughter, plus I messed up both my ankles back in October and the achilles tendons do not seem to be getting much better. 

Whenever I give someone a piece of knitting, I assure them that they can bring it back to me at any time for mending, blocking or even washing. The only person who ever takes me up on this offer is my daughter. This year, I had several items to mend. This dickey did battle with moths during the warm months which is sad because it's a favorite of the wearer. First, I darned the holes with pale green yarn to stabilize it... 

Then Nadia hid the darning by embroidering over top...

For those who care, the pattern is my own variation on Elizabeth Zimmerman's Dickey von Beethoven. I just added the front opening, the edging and fancied up the collar by using contrasting yarn. Here's another, more recent example:

Cheers and best wishes for 2012!

Not all is grey

Our long greyness has begun. We only see the sun for a few minutes in the morning before it disappears behind the cloud. As the sun came up the other day I was thinking about a mitten I would call "Rochester Sunrise." It would be all grey and soft like a cloud, except for the wrist which would be shades of yellow crescents soon to disappear inside the cuffs of the wearer's jacket.

Here is what we saw on our drive to Ottawa over the weekend. I love the part of New York state north of Syracuse, along Black Lake. It's depressed but moody and beautiful.

This is a picture of the only piece of knitting I have finished in the past month, apart from a little scarf. These are my sister's xmas socks but I gave them to her early. The yarn is Nashua Handknits Best Foot Forward.

And here's what I'm excited about now. This is a swatch in the Fleurette Stitch from Walker's 4th Treasury. Some of you may remember that I made a little cardigan with this as an all-over stitch a few years ago. While in the Ottawa area this weekend, I dropped in on Kathryn Dryden's studio in Wakefield (above the Tulipe Noire). Kat has been hand dying Amtex yarn for a while now and I can't say enough about her colours, not to mention the beautiful quality of the yarn itself. Kat is also a painter so of course she has great colour sense.

Luckily she was in and I we were able to have a chat. I purchased three skeins of this gorgeous fingering weight merino. Think Tosh Merino Light in Koigu colours. The colour changes are fairly short, which is good because you don't get enormous pools of a single colour. It's hard to get a good picture because of the subtle colour changes of this yarn. This photo is a bit too orangey, but you get the idea.

So, my idea is to knit a top down raglan with a solid yoke and a Fleurette bottom. We'll see if I do it. I'm moving slowly these days. Cheers!

Adjustment

I am in awe of my yarn even though it's really not that great. I recently received and put together 3 IKEA  cabinets to hold it all. They are very tall and full of yarn and knitting books. They have glass doors on top and a series of drawers below, made from soft Spruce wood stained a pale gray brown. Two of the big drawers have fabric in them. The rest holds about 80% of my stash. It's all organized. It's all beautiful: lace weight here, sock yarn there. I can stand and gaze at it or just paw through it. 

Terrible, just terrible. When it was stashed away in places where it probably shouldn't have been, I had to use my imagination. I would stealthily get it out and peer at it under poor lighting conditions. Maybe I would put it away again or maybe I'd get to work with it and make something wonderful. I would lie in bed at night and make plans. Now it looks at me face on. Pick me! Pick me! I retreat in horror to knit on a sock. I am unaccustomed to this openness. I'll get over it. Just give me a few days.

Footwear

Sitting on a rocking chair in the Philadelphia airport, I'm knitting a pair of socks and observing the passing feet...I see a preponderance of what we used to call running shoes...slip ons for middle aged women, ballet flats and Uggs for the younger ones. A certain number of short leather boots are worn by women too, a few wear mid calf level boots. A little kid just called out "hello..." An older man shuffles by in carpet slippers.

Black leather shoes seem mostly to be worn by people who are working, but hey, that's what I'm wearing, too on my way home from a conference....

A Bit of Frost

Sunday morning. Up here by Lake Ontario it is balmy 40 F (4 C) this sunny Sunday morning. The 50 year snow storm which hit the Atlantic coast missed us entirely. We had only a little frost on the ground and plants these past few mornings.  

I have admitted Vitamin D into my wardrobe even though I think I'd look better in it if I lost 5 or 10 pounds. I got compliments on it at knit night on Thursday and at work on Friday. I will not post the side view. In any case, it's tremendously comfortable, soft and light feeling. You could easily amend the pattern to leave out the short rows and just knit it as a normal top down cardigan to whatever length you like. Note to self: keep on trying to buy trousers that fit properly. 

Thanks for the comments on pattern choice. I am leaning toward modifying Celtic Dreams and knitting as a cardigan. It would be easy to do by leaving out the centre cable, lovely as it is, and maybe adding a couple more narrow cables on either side of a steek. Tweedy Aran is lovely, but the collar could be itchy and it has that dangerous horizontal line in the mid section, as Joan points out. 


A few posts ago, Helen asked about the cardigan pattern that I have had success with.  It is called Delicate Details was published in 1991 in Paton's Cardigans Booklet no. 654. It's a fairly standard cardigan pattern featuring a faroese type lace yoke. I think that the reason that it works for me is that it draws attention to the bust and shoulders and away from the midsection. 


My best advice is to spend time in a store that has a lot of knits, or possibly before your own closet, trying on different styles until you find one that suits you. Figure out why it suits you and then look for patterns like it. It is important that you be accompanied by an honest, yet supportive critic as the process can be discouraging and exhausting. 


Here is the cover of the Paton's booklet with an image of the pattern in question. Ignore all styling, colour, youth of the model and so on. The yoke pattern is the thing here.

Almost

The Vitamin D is more or less dry. I tried it on. It fits but I don't think it's very flattering, but I'll give it a chance. I'm letting it hang on a hanger over night and I'll try it on again tomorrow over all black. I may have to find a new owner for it.

Here's what I'm thinking of embarking on next, sweater-wise. Please do tell me if you think I'm on thin ice. The Longmeadow Farm yarn is aran weight and is enough to knit Beth Brown Reinsel's Celtic Dreams, which I think is beautiful. I'd want to make it into a cardigan though. OR, should I knit Nora Gaughan's Tweedy Aran, which has been on my radar for much longer? 

The Celtic Dreams pattern sits before me, crisp and ready, while the Tweedy Aran lurks somewhere in a pile...

I think I need to take a break and knit a shawlette!