Phew

My friend rang tonight to say that Mavis has arrived and fits. Phew. She also said that she likes it very much. She said that her friend Laurie had admired it, which pleased me enormously because Laurie is French and perhaps I should have more national pride, but getting praise about clothes from a Frenchwoman is somehow more reassuring than getting praise from anyone else.

Done and Posted

I parcelled Mavis up today and sent her off. I had another look at the neckline in bright light and still couldn't find the end, so I decided that this was a sign that I shouldn't do any more to it. Thank you very much, Zippiknits, for your encouraging comment too. It was just what I needed. The yarn softened up even more in the blocking and I began to wonder how much wear Silk Garden stands up to - should I knit elbow pads?

I had to buy an extra ball to finish off the scarf (having started it in order to finish up left-over yarn, ho hum), which I got from Jannette as usual, and I noticed that she has this - black and grey Kauni. How cool is that? You could knit words in it. If you drew up the charts.

And here is a prettier picture of the Scaruffle, as promised. It's very dainty, and I keep picking it up to play with it. For those who are new to the party, it's the Scaruffle from The Knitter's Book of Yarn, and it must be the easiest thing ever, if you can just master knitting with air (Kidsilk Haze) and barrage balloons (8.5mm needles). One of my uncles did Highland dancing when he was in the Army (he was a bandsman), and they were taught to dance in their Army boots so that when they put on dancing shoes they simply flew into the air. I think a similar effect takes place here. Knitting with matchsticks would be easy afterwards.

I've started Chrissy in the Organic (that's the colour, not the method of production) All Seasons Cotton but it's not really worth photographing. Imagine some string on an Addi circ and you've got it. I had the usual dither about what size to knit: the largest size is to fit a 40" bust, but it measures 60 inches. I don't think I actually want it too oversized, although I want it quite oversized, which is no help at all. The other ASC sweater I knitted grew with washing but it grew sideways - one expects cotton to stretch lengthwise but this has 40% microfibre so it grows sideways instead. I'm doing the ribbing at the moment, which has some curious pickup-stitch -between-needles, slip-stitch sort of tomfoolery at the ends, so I'm curious to see what that's in aid of.

Chrissy is intended to be totally thoughtless knitting, so I will need something a little more challenging to do as well. I got a an email at the weekend telling me about this sale and decided that it would be too great a shame to pass up the duck egg blue cashmere at this extraordinary price. I didn't really buy it; I just put it on my credit card and that doesn't count, does it? Not another bleeding scarf, I hear you say - I can hear you smiting you forehead too - but this one is going to be for me. You wouldn't deny me a duck egg blue cashmere scarf, would you? My very favourite colour? If all else fails, it will just be a single rib, but I'm secretly hoping I might manage to do a Drifting Pleats - be still, my beating heart.

Festival of Finishing

There's been a Festival of Finishing round here. The Scaruffle is off the needles: I didn't really block it, just gave it a soak and then squeezed it in a towel and laid it to dry naturally, no pinning. The photo above shows how much yarn was left over from one ball of Kidsilk Haze - not enough for another Scaruffle, but still quite a lot. From being unfeasibly frothy, it settled down and now looks like something you might wear seriously and not as part of a fancy dress costume. It's very pretty. It looks terrible in the last photograph; I'll try to take a better one tomorrow. I didn't think to measure it before soaking but the neck edge is a lot longer. I'll definitely do this again. It would look lovely in Kidsilk Spray, or with some beads scattered here and there, and I'm wondering whether it would work in stocking stitch: the Kidsilk is so light, I don't think the curling would be a huge problem and anyway I could do a few stitches of garter stitch at each edge. In stocking stitch, it could be striped, a sort of mini Earth Stripe Wrap. Very mini.

The Mavis scarf is finished and is blocking. I didn't pin it very rigorously, just enough to make the points nice and pointy. Seeing it in bright daylight today, I realized that the colour that I thought was cream is actually a pale pink, and not really all that pale. The colours around it must have sucked the pink out of it.

While I was doing the Mavis scarf, I decided that I would revisit the neckline of the sweater after all, just undo the cast off and knit another couple of rows with a few decreases, but when I went back to it tonight I could not for the life of me find where I'd finished and woven in the last end. I seem to have managed a perfect bit of finishing. I'll have a look at it in the sunshine tomorrow and see if that helps.

And I think the VLT scarf is finished. I haven't actually cast off yet, because I may as well continue with it until there's space to block it, but it won't be getting much longer. I don't think there'll be any sort of border on it after all. I even thought about putting a fringe on it in the crocus blue, but I feel that would limit it a bit. I may change my mind (surely not?) once it's blocked, but I don't think so. I can see quite a lot of mistakes in it but I never built up any confidence about taking it back, so I carried on regardless. I suppose it's because there aren't any plain rows in it, there's never any basis of sanity that you can return to.

Strangers on a Train was on yesterday afternoon. I watched the beginning and wondered when Margaret Rutherford was going to show up, and then remembered that was The Lady Vanishes, and anyway it was Dame May Whitty, not Margaret Rutherford. I eventually realized that I've never actually seen Strangers on a Train before, although I knew what the plot was and I've seen clips, so I watched it all. I even put my needles down for the last ten minutes; I was quite transfixed.

The Dale Damask pattern went for just over £11 ($22.55) but I don't feel any pangs of regret. Rather more amazingly, Solveig Hisdal's Poetry in Stitches was on eBay last week, and went for nearly $200. I have a copy of that already.

I was successful in my bid for the All Seasons Cotton in Organic yesterday although I almost paid full price for it, so I will start an ASC sweater this week, in either the Organic or the Iceberg. I'm sort of tempted to do something with a bit of gansey patterning on it, since ASC has lovely stitch definition and there's one in No Sheep For You which I could do, or there's Chrissy from Rowan Book 31, seen on the left. There's no surprises or anything to show off here, but I do like a classic, and sometimes they're the hardest patterns to find. Or I could be the last person in the western world to knit Rogue, although I think that I would rather do that in a darker shade, maybe the dark blue ASC that is currently in the wardrobe. Or the grey. Cheerful, eh?

Knitting with Kittens

Mavis is finished. Unless I decide to undo the neck cast-off and knit a bit more. What do you think? It's quite low, isn't it? I'm working on the matching scarf, also in chevron stitch, but have stopped on that in case I need the last bit of yarn to finish off the neck.
I don't think the sleeves are really as long as they look here: once there are shoulders inside, the sleeves will come up a bit. The Silk Garden softened up even more with blocking. I think it will continue to mellow with further washing. The yarn snapped a couple of times when I was seaming it - well, not so much snapped as fell apart with a soft sigh. It's funny to think it's the same content as Kidsilk Haze, which can take your finger off if you try to break it in the wrong place.

The Victorian Lace Today scarf has reached 58 inches, so maybe it's time to think about casting off on that. I ripped the border because it wasn't possible to line the two patterns up in a way that looked right to me: the big gaps in the faggotting wouldn't align with the close garter stitch on the border. I will have another look at borders.

I cast on for a Scaruffle, from The Knitter's Book of Yarn. This is for the same friend as the VLT scarf; as previously established, you can't have too many scarves. This gave me an opportunity to try the Addi Lace Needles, which are bliss. The pattern starts off on 3.75mm needles, for which I substituted the 4mms I'd just bought, and after a few rows requires a change to 8mm, which is what's happening in the photo. It's Kidsilk Haze in shade 581, Meadow. Knitting this yarn on these lace needles is even more bliss, like knitting with kittens.
While Mavising, I have decided to rip the Kauni snails. They would be fun to knit on mittens, but on something this size (can't remember exactly, but over 240 stitches) they're a bit of a bore. And, they're not a real Fair Isle pattern, by which I mean that they don't have rhythm or symmetry, so the purist in me disapproves. I'm looking again for a 'real' pattern. Someone on eBay is selling the Damask pattern which looks so wonderful in Kauni yarn, but I expect it will go for a lot and I still don't think it's what I want anyway. The Yarn Nest is doing a very nice pattern by Eunny Jang - I like the idea of something which looks curved. The hunt continues.

Speaking of eBay, I bought a few balls of All Seasons Cotton in Iceberg this week. When I was looking through my stash for something else last week, I found ten balls of Iceberg which I had no memory whatsoever of buying, although I now think I got them in Jenner's half-price sale which they had when they were closing down the old, fairly nice yarn department in order to open the new, devastatingly dull yarn department. Ten balls of ASC isn't much use to me, so I snapped up these four and am now looking for a project. I hope to get a few balls of ASC in Organic too, to make a usable amount for the ten balls I have of that. Organic is the warm, natural shade, not to be confused with Bleached, which is the bright white, or Cookie, which is dark beige, or Jersey, which is light beige. Iceberg is a marvellously watery pale blueish greyish green, or greenish greyish blue, depending on the time of day and prevailing weather conditions. I think my mother would have called it Eau de Nil, although nowadays that name seems to be used for a darker shade. I've found a pattern in Rowan mag 31, which I might use for the Organic. Watch this space.

I have had my eye on the Forest Canopy Shawl for a while; I bought the pattern, and even swatched a bit once. I have a horror of shawls which get wider and wider as they go on - that ever-increasing row makes me feel quite overwhelmed, even claustrophobic - but perhaps I should use this pattern as a way of getting past that. Everyone who knits it raves about it. Spinning Fishwife has just started one, and Passing Down Crazy has just finished. Hmmm.

This is nothing to do with knitting, but quite a lot of people have been posting this link - I think I most recently found it at Mason-Dixon Knitting - and it makes me laugh every time. If your setup allows you to watch your pc on your television, it's even better. Also nothing to do with knitting, the Guardian has posted a list of the world's 50 most powerful blogs. I didn't check their definition of 'powerful', but if you can read this without adding any blogs to your list, you're a better knitter than I am. Well, that's probably true anyway, but you know what I mean.

There's a new jigsaw, of the Scaruffle. I've had to add it at the top of the jigsaws, below the LOLCAT, as I can no longer squeeze them in at the foot. I thought it would be a difficult one because of all the wood and all the wool, but there are more visual clues than there appear to be at first.

K1 Yarns, Jenner's and Mavis

Monday's visit to K1 Yarns was good. It turned out to be a bit of a dry run, because one of us wasn't feeling very well, and another was saving herself for Skip North, but it was a satisfactory start and I'm sure we will do better next time. Jean liked it so much that she went back the next day and bought more wool. I got a pair of the Addi lace needles which I have been keen to try out, not just for lace but because I find the regular Addi needles a bit too rounded and blunt. I haven't tried them yet but I'll let you know when I do - in excruciating detail, no doubt. I might be going to Bristol in the next few months, Gretchen, and that will give me an excuse to go to Get Knitted and acquire some KnitPicks Harmony needles.

One of the things I like about the K1 in Glasgow and this one is that they don't stock any of the stuff you can get easily elsewhere - I like Rowan yarns a lot but it's sort of liberating to go somewhere which doesn't have any at all. Everything they have is a treat - Jamieson's, Artesano, Fyberspates and 100% angora lace-weight. I didn't get any yarn because of the awful queue of plumbers, electricians and a dentist who are standing with their hands out in expectation - it's one of those spells where I feel I might as well stand on the street corner with my wallet open, you know? But K1 had some aran weight alpaca which I can't get out of my mind - in a soft orangey red. I'm pretty sure it was Artesano Alpaca, but their website doesn't mention an aran. When I'm solvent again, I can go back and check. (I couldn't wait and I've checked online, it's that shade at the far left called Sunset.)I went into Jenner's on the way home, to check out the new yarn department and it has to be one of the most dispiriting places in town. If you were selling yarn (just Rowan and Patons, one either side) in a supermarket, this is what it would look like. They do have exhaustive colour ranges of the yarns they stock which I must remember for the future, but it's not somewhere I would go for a browse. In fact the whole store, which used to be an independent and was taken over in 2005 by a chain, is already beginning to have that terrible homogenized look. Given how much money stores must spend on re-vamping and decorating their branches, it amazes me how often they end up being barn-like and depressing. Except for the new styling for Marks and Spencer food halls, which is claustrophobic and depressing.

Anyway, back to knitting. I've been keepin' on with the Victorian Lace Today scarf. I've finished the first skein, which wasn't complete, and I'm at 40 inches. The colours are so beautiful; I've decided that is because they remind me of crocuses that I find the colours spring-like. I've wound another skein and the colours aren't quite so sharp, but part of the joy of scarves is that it won't be noticeable.

I cast on for the toning border at one end, far from convinced that it would work, but actually I think it looks good - that's a Boye needle you can see there, in a carefully matched shade of silvery green, of course.

And Mavis has begun blocking; she's pinned out on the bed, without her arms. And yes, as soon as I saw this photo I went back through to the bedroom and moved the pins; I hadn't noticed how crooked the hem was. I don't know if it's because I have prisms in my lenses, but I can never see if things are crooked; I once stuck posters up in my office and everyone who came into the room burst out laughing because they were all at different angles. Oh well. I didn't have too much trouble getting her pinned out to the required dimensions and if she needs to grow a bit further I think that will be do-able. As soon as she's dry, I'll get on with the sleeves.

Needles, Needles Everywhere

The first lot of knitting needles arrived on Saturday. And then the second lot arrived today. They took respectively four weeks and six days to arrive, posted on 28 January and 19 February, both posted by First Class International Airmail. Oh well.

That's the first lot in the photo. They've been washed and artistically arranged; the second lot are lying around in a plastic bag. I'll get to them.

I've even tried knitting with a pair from the first lot, and have cast on for the Habu Kusha Kusha scarf. The combination of superfine merino yarn and stainless-steel-and-silk yarn isn't bad to knit with at all, but I still don't feel I've got the right needles; these are short enough, but I think they're too heavy. I can't believe I'm making so much fuss about this. Maybe I just need new glasses, but I have to get a new tooth first so the glasses will have to wait.

I knitted one ball of the Mavis scarf while I was away on Friday night, between the train journey and sitting on the sofa. I expect it to grow quite a lot when blocked, and I have some bits and pieces left over, so one more ball should be enough. I need to block the sweater pieces first, and do the small rolled collar, but I can't block the pieces meanwhile.

I have been kept from my knitting and my blogging lately by a series of domestic disasters, the most pressing of which were a busted lock on the street door and a puddle of sudsy water which kept appearing and disappearing on the bedroom floor. The busted lock meant that we could hear the buzzer on the entryphone, and speak on the intercom, but I had to keep dashing downstairs to let people in. The sudsy puddle meant endless confabulations with my upstairs and downstairs neighbours to try and trace its origin. My upstairs neighbour was somewhat distracted because her bank had just informed her that someone had used her credit card to book a £650 hotel room in Dubai, amongst other things, and my downstairs neighbour had a dose of flu. Do you think there might have been a small black cloud hovering over our property?

The sudsy puddle and subsequent investigations have meant that I am moving the bedroom furniture around rather frequently, and I just can't face trying to block sweater pieces on the bed at the same time. They will have to wait until I am feeling slightly more serene. The source of the water ingress has now been found, which caused only minor devastation, but it appears that there is a blockage lower down so we are waiting to establish the extent of that. The plumber will be back at sparrowfart tomorrow.

While I was away, I was able to check that one of my youngest relations is putting to good use the items that I knit for her. I would say that she is. Do you think I should have made it a little smaller?

Mavis's Sleeves

I was looking for my address book in my handbag and what should I find but my camera? I wonder how long it had been there.

So these are the sleeves for Mavis. They aren't actually bell-shaped, that's just the way the stocking stitch has curled. There will be some serious blocking soon. I didn't try to match the sleeves, but I'm happy with the way the colours have fallen, with most of the interest in the lace part, but also a flash across the top. Both sleeve caps are the same shape, so that must be how they're meant to be; that, or I've made the same mistake twice. I haven't manipulated the colours in this sweater, just taken them as they came in the ball, except on one occasion where I snapped the yarn in order to avoid a big beige stripe across the top front. After lengthy debate my friend has decided that instead of the original high collar she would like a plain neck and a matching scarf. I'll do that in the chevron stitch. I said, 'And I can just knit until all the wool's gone, that way there won't be any wastage, which she was very pleased about, and then I thought, 'What have I talked myself into?'

So while I get round to the blocking, I've cast on for a scarf that is three chevron's wide, starting with a bit of purple. I might manage the colours a bit on the scarf, so that she gets the bright colours at the ends.

The re-discovered Kauni has reached the end of the second repeat of the big Zilboorg pattern from Fancy Feet. I was searching for another pattern when I remembered the snails. I don't know whether I'll do them in pairs or if I'll just have them all going round in the same direction. Speaking of Kauni, Purlwise had a great photo yesterday.

There's a nice piece by Hazel Tindall, who appeared in my last post when she won the World's Fastest Knitter title again, on the UK Handknitting site here. She refers to knitting lace as well as her colourwork and the speedknitting. I wonder if some publisher has got her lined up; hers would be an interesting story.

I watched Michael Clayton last night, just out on DVD. It's very good and I think I managed to follow the plot. I have a theory that when the director writes the script, the dialogue often falls short because the director is so busy thinking about how it will all look, but that isn't at all the case here - terrific script as well as a great looking film. He also wrote the Bourne films (well, the first two were good) and Armageddon, one of my faves.

No knitting needles have arrived yet but I didn't really expect them so soon. Maybe Monday. I'm going away for the night, so I have to dash now, but I've got two new knitting books to write about when I get back. Watch this space.

More Not Knitting

I was reading a blog post this morning about how one doesn't post so often when working on a single long piece of knitting. Yes, I know, I was reading knitting blogs when I should have been knitting. I'm still bashing on with Mavis and should know soon whether I've got the second sleeve cap wrong too. Once the sleeves are sorted, my friend has to decide what sort of collar she wants; I said initially that I thought the doubled over rolled neck would be too warm and she agreed, so I have been putting forward suggestions for other collars, including a removable cowl which would be as warm as the roll collar but less permanently stifling. We had a lengthy conversation about it last weekend but don't seem to have arrived at a conclusion.

I think I would, paradoxically, be much nearer the end of Mavis if those blessed Boye needles had arrived and I had been able to cast on something else as my alternative knitting. I am beginning to conclude that they have gone to the great Post Office in the sky. As long as my regular postman is on, everything's fine, but he had a few days off and chaos descended. He's back and I told him about the needles the other day, so he is on the lookout for a long, thin parcel, but I don't hold out a great deal of hope. I discovered today that a book was posted to me in January which also hasn't arrived. It's so embarrassing explaining to people overseas just how bad Royal Mail can be nowadays. This has led to my spending yet more time on eBay looking for another suitable set, and therefore less time knitting.

On a more positive note, a Scot is hoping to hold on to her title as the world's fastest knitter this weekend. I came across this clip of her talking after her win in 2004. She describes not being allowed to knit on Sundays in her youth on the Protestant island of Shetland. Coincidentally, I had been reading a Jewish knitting blogger mentioning using the Shabbos setting on her oven and then proceeding to knit on a Saturday and I had been a little surprised. I suppose the difference is whether you regard knitting as work or not; if you do, then you can't knit on the Sabbath. In Hazel Tindall's family, knitting was definitely work - quite different from recreational knitters nowadays who look forward to stealing some knitting time from what they, in turn, regard as work.

One item which has been delivered is the vintage knitting pattern; I think I will give it to Jean to go with her near-perfect collection of Vogue Knitting Books.Isn't it lovely? A must for that thesis someone is surely writing about knitting and Surrealism. The date on the newspaper (The Times, of course) is Monday, 7 November 1949. How on earth were the models arranged behind the newspaper? The only thing which would make it better would be if one of the hands were holding a cigarette.

I watched Picnic the other day. If I tell you that two of the keywords on IMDB are Drifter and Beefcake, you'll get the picture. William Holden spent a lot of his time shirtless, to the distraction of a largely female cast, although I couldn't help feeling that they were actually exploring gay male issues - I thought that before I looked up the author, honestly. It must have seemed so daring then (1955), and now it's on television in the afternoon. I spent some time following up keywords on IMDB afterwards: they're not very well thought out and have lots of overlaps, so you can find films under Drifter and Adultery (if you are so inclined), Drifter and Lust, and Drifter and Sex, not to mention Drifter and Daughter which sounds pretty worrying.

Mavis and Mags

Well, here's the first Mavis sleeve. I don't think the sleeve cap is right, but rather than rip it and do it again now, I'm going to do the other sleeve and see how the cap on that turns out: if they're the same then that's how they're meant to be, and if the second one's better I'll know what I'm trying to do with the first one. The schematics for this aren't very detailed and are driving me a bit bats; it would be helpful to know the length of the sleeve above the beginning of the decreases, but it isn't shown. I've started the second one.
I'm thinking about giving myself a day off from this because I'm in danger of hating it. I've told myself I can't do anything else until this is finished, but I think this might misfire and I might not knit anything at all, so I'm going to have a day or two off. I wish those vintage Boye needles would turn up and then I would know what I'm doing next.

I got the new Rowan mag (43) last week; I don't usually find much of interest in the Spring issues of knitting mags, as they tend to be lacy pastels, neither of which make my heart beat faster, but there are a few possibles. The Spook top is lovely (yes, I know it's lacy and pastel, but it's not very lacy and I wouldn't use a pastel shade) although I can't quite see that my rather dull life would offer any opportunity to wear it. The Purity shawl is absolutely delicious (ditto ditto). It looks like a stole in the photos, but from the pattern it seems to be a triangle; there isn't a schematic. I was going to recommend it to Jean as she's a Sharon Miller fan, but she has forsworn Kidsilk Haze forever, so she won't be interested. Unless she did it in a different yarn, of course. I like the ripped Earthly. Those of you who have been taking notes may remember that I knitted a distressed sweater last year so I probably won't do another one, but it's nice to see it.

I also got the new book of All Seasons Cotton patterns, All Seasons at the Mill. I like this yarn a lot, so I bought the book as a matter of principle rather than because it swept me off my feet. The patterns are fairly basic but could provide a starting off point; I think a selection of sort of seaside patterns would suit this yarn better; it's very soft on the skin, quite warm, and has very good stitch definition and I don't think these patterns particularly exploit those characteristics. I have quite a lot of All Seasons Cotton hidden in my wardrobe, so I think I'll do the Wrap Top, and maybe the Hooded Top, although I would shorten that as long tops make my legs look strangely short and stumpy. Although it doesn't say so anywhere, it looks as if this book was modelled by Rowan staff, which is a nice touch.

On a completely trivial note, I was very disappointed with the names in this book. Wrap Top? Hooded Top? Mans [sic] Jacket? Did somebody forget to make up catchy names for them? The mag was a bit dull in this regard too: Kaffe Stripes? Surely that name's been used before?

I bought a vintage pattern on eBay tonight; I don't intend to knit it but I couldn't resist. I'll show you when it arrives.

Mavis Reaches the Sleeves

I haven't posted the last few days because I was only progressing with Mavis and I thought you had probably seen enough photographs of minute changes, minute advances and retreats, over that particular garment. I managed to separate the back and front satisfactorily this time, and finished it off up to the shoulders. I'm very pleased that I've got a charcoal stripe one one shoulder, and a purple stripe on the other. I don't believe in making random yarns look symmetrical. The friend for whom I'm knitting this jumper did enquire whether the stripes on the sleeves could be matched, and I told her that they could, but they won't. Cranky, moi?

I didn't get much done at the weekend because I went to stay with my niece and her family. For Sunday breakfast she made me a smoked salmon bagel with scrambled eggs on the side; I am thinking of changing my will in her favour.
Today I got started on the first sleeve. I had considered doing the sleeves on four needles, but I decided it was probably more trouble than seaming them. The holey bit of the chevrons would probably get even more holey if I were juggling needles, or using circs. I've tried two circs and the magic loop and I always end up feeling as if I'm spending more time yanking the stitches round cables than I am actually knitting. And before you tell me that that's a circ in the photo, it is but I am knitting backwards and forwards.

I'm thinking this might best be blocked before I sew it together. It might be easier to get the chevrons on the body properly stretched if I'm not wrestling with sleeves at the same time, and the sleeves might be easier to block when they're flat.

We had a surprisingly lovely sunny morning today, which made it all too easy to believe that we may be going to have an early spring, although the general Scottish tendency about weather like this, whenever it occurs, is to look bleakly at the sky, shake our heads, and say, 'Aye, we'll pay for this.' Whatever may be to come, it certainly brightened up the knitting of this yarn and I still love the colours.

On Friday evening all this thinking and counting overwhelmed me and I did a little bit of fast gratification with the beginning of a Log Cabin washcloth. It's fun. I'll finish it off when I've done the first sleeve. Unless I crack and do it before that.

I'm beginning to look out for the vintage Boyes I bought last week. I think I can reasonably expect them to arrive this week and I might get slightly impatient about them soon. Once they arrive, I can cast on for Scaruffle, or for the Kusha Kusha Scarf.

Monday, Monday

I had a very nice surprise this weekend when Knitting Linguist picked me amongst the ten bloggers who brighten her day. I was amazed and flattered and at first too embarrassed to post about it, but it's part of the deal that I have to nominate another ten, so here is my list, in alphabetical order to stop fights breaking out.

Anna at Mochimochiland makes me smile with her crazy toys which are the very thing you didn't know you were looking for - today, Stackable Cats!

Another Anna, at My Fashionable Life, who hasn't been posting lately because she's been busy with an FO called Stanley, but who writes beautifully and designs such elegant patterns.

Dear Annie Modesitt, who often cheers us up when she must be feeling far from cheerful herself.

Jean Miles, who should really be first. I found Jean on the Internet and then discovered that we live in the same town and that we had lived around the corner from one another for years.

Jessie of What Housework? who dyes beautiful yarns at A Piece of Vermont, and writes wonderful posts with lots of pictures of the animals she and her husband keep acquiring, from peacocks to pigs, not forgetting Milo.

Kathy of Knitting Weather, who doesn't post often enough but when she does, she posts these beautiful photographs of Alaska which take my breath away - as well as photographs of knitting, of course.

Knitting Linguist herself, of course, who writes long interesting posts and causes me to spend even more money on books than I would anyway.

Kristin Nicholas of Getting Stitched on the Farm, who lives in Massachusetts with even more animals than Jessie and writes about her beautiful colourwork and also about lambing and sunflowers.

Rabbitch, who must be getting sick of being nominated.

Ted at Knitterguy, who doesn't exactly cheer me up every time, but I'm always happy to see that he's posted and I like reading him and seeing his breathtaking lace.

Speaking of Knitting Linguist, she had a post on Saturday about going to the zoo; that and the tiger documentary that I watched while I was ripping Mavis and getting her back on the needles (three times) had me thinking about when I used to go to the zoo with my Dad when I was small. I was always mad about animals, but particularly the cats. Edinburgh Zoo is built on a hill, so we started at the bottom with the sea lions (Californian Sea Lions, according to the label: I wonder what they thought about ending up in chilly Scotland), past the birds and the reptiles and the monkeys and apes, who were beside the ice-cream kiosk.

My Dad knew that one of the chimps smoked so he used to throw him a cigarette and a match; the chimp would strike the match, light the cig, and enjoy a nice contemplative smoke. O tempora, o mores.

Past the bears, including Jim and Queenie the polar bears who never produced a cub, in spite of Edinburgh's very good breeding record. After Jim died and they had a closer look at him, 'he' was discovered to be a girl, which explains it.

Past the penguins, of which there were so many they had to keep giving them away and supplied zoos all over the world. (See, I was an avid reader of labels from an early age.)

Then the cats' enclosures were arranged up the last bit of the hill, arranged from the smallest like civets and things to the largest, the tigers. For a long time there was a wolverine in this stretch which puzzled me endlessly because a wolverine isn't a cat but a sort of very large weasel; I suppose the enclosure was in some way the best for this animal, but to my already very organized way of thinking it was baffling. At that time the tigers were Rajah and Ranee (although I called them Mr and Mrs Tiger, I'm afraid) who had lots of cubs over the years and who used to lie around watching us with a great deal of disdain, puzzling no doubt why so many exhausted human beings struggled up quite a steep hill to stare at them. We would then stroll down the hill, perhaps pick up another ice cream and find ourselves back at the sea lions and my dad would say, 'Is there anything you want to have another look at before we go?' and I would squirm engagingly and say, 'Can we go back and see Mr and Mrs Tiger again?' Amazingly, we sometimes did.

Anyway, back to the knitting. I got Mavis back on the needles and knitted quite a lot more of the chevron bit. I got out a sheet of paper and made lots of notes and calculations. Today I am going to count the stitches and separate the body into a back and a front, and once I've done that I'm going to check the number of stitches. At least twice.

On Sunday night I scored some Boye needles on eBay. It's a vintage collection of different sizes and two lengths and it includes the sizes I need for the Habu scarf, which is nice.

Taz, if you click on the picture of the washcloth, you should be able to see the pattern more clearly.

Not Knitting

This week I have been mostly Not Knitting. By this I don't mean that I have been too busy having an exciting and fulfilling life and have not had time to knit; I mean that I have been actually refraining from knitting. I thought that this was because I was feeling guilty about starting something else, and yet also didn't actually know what else I wanted to start, but I finally worked out that it was because I was actively Not Knitting Mavis. I had finished the too narrow back and almost finished the too wide front when I put it down and told myself I had to think about it. This coincided with having another look at the measurements my friend had sent me. After Not Knitting for three days, I finally acknowledged what would have been obvious immediately to a child of six, had I had one handy: I needed to rip it back. So today I sat on the sofa and watched a documentary about tigers and ripped it back; I ripped it back all the way to the chevron stitch because I have decided to lengthen that part of it. Amongst the measurements and notes my friend scribbled down the side of the pattern (see, it isn't all my fault) I suddenly noticed she had said she wants it a bit longer.
So, this time I am going to count the number of stitches, and then I am going to count them again to check and I am going to write them down; I am going to write down my friend's measurements; I am going to write down how many stitches should be on the front and the back; and I am going to do this as if I were awake and not just skating along on automatic. I think I said some of this before, but this time I am going to do it.

On Wednesday the Habu kit arrived from The Knitting Hutch. In spite of my protestations above, this resulted in some frenzied swatching (teeny tiny swatches don't count) at 3 o'clock on Thursday morning (which definitely deosn't count). I went to visit my friend blogless Lindsay during the day and relieved her of a small part of her very impressive knitting needle collection, in the form of a pair of pale gold Boyes, size 5, and a pair of red plastic Susan Bates, size 10. (Here I must tell you that the Habu knitting pattern gives the needle sizes in US, UK and Japanese sizes, but not millimetres. Sigh.) I think the metal Boyes may be the answer to my Kidsilk Haze question; they're much lighter than the other aluminium needles I have (Blogger doesn't like how I spell millimetres or aluminium, silly old Blogger) and being shorter they are more easily managed. Anyway, I did three little swatches on the pale gold needles, one of stainless steel and superfine merino as supplied in the kit (the little pointy one at top left), and two of stainless steel and KSH because I wanted to see how that went. I meant to measure them before I felted them, but I forgot. This is them after felting, or at least after plunging into hand-hot water and scrunching a bit.

I think the KSH works brilliantly with the stainless steel. I won't use it this time as I want to stick to the pattern this time round, but I hope to use it in the future. Here is the teeniest swatch, of palest ivory KSH with the steel.

I will cast on for this just as soon as I have established just which size of needles, and then which needles, I shall use. This could take some time.

Gretchen has suggested, on the strength of the films listed to the right, that I might like L.A. Confidential. Well, I do, sort of. It's one of those films that if it's on, I'll watch it for a while, bit it's not one I watch transfixed from start to finish. I think I find it a little too stagey. James Ellroy's books are so very, very bleak, and I think I find the film just too colourful. It has some wonderful moments though: I think I was as surprised as Kevin Spacey when he - oh, haven't you seen it? I'd better not spoil it then.

Knittingwoman would like a jigsaw of the washcloth, so there is one over there in the sidebar now. I thought it would be easy because of the grid but it isn't. Not at all.

Dis 'n' Dat

Well, that was a long silence, wasn't it? There hasn't been a huge amount to say, as I have been busy knitting Mavis and then ripping it out and then knitting it again and then ripping another bit out.
I seem to have been more than usually dopey, and have managed to get more stitches on the front half than on the back half, although you can see in the photo that they're evenly matched at the hem. The obvious answer is that I decreased too much on the back but a close examination doesn't support this.
And every time I measure it, it's a different size. The chevron stitch section is impossible to measure anyway because it stretches in every direction, and the rest of it grows quite often. I think this yarn will relax a bit when it's soaked and dried anyway (I'm not going to pin it out rigorously so I am avoiding using the b-word) so at the moment I do seriously believe (as opposed to wildly hoping) that it will be the right size. There's a jigsaw of the chevrons in the sidebar.

The Kidsilk Sampler Scarf is inching along. The olive yarn did indeed turn out to be olive in the morning light, although at the curry end of the olive spectrum. I have now changed to a deep dark chocolate shade and intend to introduce that extravagantly bright green that Rowan calls Jelly next. Many thanks for all the comments about needles. Knitpicks don't ship to the UK, Gretchen, but Get Knitted import some of them and I want to try them out. I keep getting side-tracked by the multi-coloured wooden ones, of course - oh look, pretty. The facts that this yarn is much easier to knit in daylight (for me, anyway) and that fine-pointed metal needles are required, are sort of pushing this project and its companion further into the year.

What companion project, you ask? I ordered a copy of this from Amazon and it arrived yesterday. For those of you in too much of a hurry to click on the link, it is Clara Parkes' Knitter's Book of Yarn. It has a pattern for a Scaruffle, a sort of ruffly, frothy scarf which can be knitted with Kidsilk Haze and which I think would suit stripes very well. My impression of the book so far is that the content is very good, although I think she has been let down a bit by the photography and design. The photographs are pretty, but they don't always yield the information which a potential knitter needs and wants. Like a lot of knitting books nowadays, its appearance suggests that it is aimed at beginners, although the content will be of interest to advanced knitters too. One thing that really baffles me is that scattered throughout the book there are sumptuous, whole-page photos of a single skein or an artful ball of exotic fiber, with no caption to indicate what the h*ll it is. Or am I missing something? Is there a list somewhere at the back? I can't find one.

This obviously isn't a reason for refraining from buying the book: it contains a lot of well-organized information and some lovely patterns by named designers, from small and simple to a Norah Gaughan cardigan. It's a book which you will read when you first get it and continue to refer to frequently afterwards. I think it could reasonably be called a treasure trove.

I went to HK Handknit's closing down sale this week, with my friend Jean. I bought a book of Louisa Harding's patterns for children; I like her patterns but they aren't usually the sort of thing I would wear so it was nice to find her patterns for little girls. If they had had any blue Auricania I would have bought it, but they didn't so I couldn't. As Jean said, it's not as if either of us needed any more yarn.

Spring Greens

When I went to see my friend Jean last week, she very generously gave me a goodie bag of leftover Kidsilk Haze from her Earth Wrap. I've been doodling with it ever since.

I started with a light, bright green which makes me think of snowdrops and crocuses and fresh shoots poking though the soil. It's shade 581, Meadow.

You can't quite see its fresh appleyness in these pictures.

I think this is going to be a sampler scarf, while I try out to see which needles I like with the yarn. I started with a pair of 5mm beech needles, but the combination of the yarn and the needles made my skin crawl. I ripped that after one row and cast on again with long 6.5mm metal needles, but after a few rows they were too heavy and, in this weather, too cold.

I did a short stretch with rosewood 5mm dpns, which were quite nice but a bit blunt. I know people sometimes sandpaper their wooden needles to a pointier point but I feel a bit apprehensive about that (I think it would be like cutting your own hair and would end in disaster) and anyway I haven't got any sandpaper. For the long stretches I am now using bamboo 6mm dpns, but they're very basic bamboo, unvarnished and unpolished, and they stick a bit. The points are a bit stubby.
I did another short stretch of stocking stitch with 4mm metal dpns, which was good because they were much lighter than the first metal needles but still a bit cold, and then returned to the 6mm bamboos. I used Kidsilk Haze once in the past, for a project which remains unfinished, ahem, and I did that with 5mm bamboo Addis which were polished and had nice long points. I think I liked them best. If anyone has thoughts on the best needles to use with this yarn, please leave a comment.

Since I took the photos, I've joined in another shade of green. I think it's a dark olive, although I chose it after dark so I may get a surprise tomorrow.

I've ordered a kit for the Habu Kusha Kusha scarf, which uses superfine merino and stainless steel yarn; my hope is that when I've completed that, returning to Kidsilk Haze will be like knitting with chunky tweed.

I ripped back a couple of rows of Mavis tonight, and did the row with the decreases. The only reason I did this was because I'd said here that I would; I was too embarrassed to face you all on Monday morning and tell you that I hadn't done my homework.

Not a Roundup

Christmas was lovely - laughter, tears and all the other drama of a family Christmas. I'm finding life back at home rather quiet by comparison. I had some success with the scarves I knitted as Christmas presents - you can see a full report at the Knitting New Scarves KAL.

I have been flogging round and round Mavis and am on the third ball of Silk Garden now. I will have to make a real effort to find the pattern soon as I can't remember how much of these chevrons I'm supposed to do. I know roughly where it is but it's a folded-up photocopy so it's easy to lose. It isn't an illicit photocopy: the friend I am knitting this for has bought a copy of Naturally Noro but she obviously realizes that if she sends it to me she stands very little chance of ever seeing it again, so she sent me a photocopy of the Mavis Pattern.

I have been thinking about what to start next. I'm not someone who makes New Year Resolutions: I either do something or I don't, at any time of year. And I'm not given to looking back on my knitting in an annual cycle. I do look back at the year and think of the worst and the best that has happened, but that's in terms of major losses and compensations in the larger scheme of things. But coming to the end, for the moment, of that great burst of all-consuming scarf-knitting has left me in a place where I am having to think a bit about what I want to do alongside Mavis... and the Stacked Wedges in silvery grey Malabrigo that I intend to start just as soon as I get a pair of needles organized. This may involve waiting for me to buy a set of 6mm rosewood dpns as I am in my customary state of post-Christmas skintness and not even I can persuade myself that rosewood dpns are an essential - not this week, anyway.

I sold some odds and ends on eBay (not yarn) and had some credit, so I got some lovely plain grey Jaeger Matchmaker Aran called Flannel from Jannette, one of my favourite sources of yarn. I want to make something very simple and classic from it and have been toying with this pattern, Montparnasse from Berroco. The yarn is a good match. I love asymmetrical things, and deconstructed things. The back starts with a single stitch.

I also seriously think it's time I started doing something with the huge skein of Habu Shosenshi linen paper yarn which I bought a while ago, ahem. I got it at K1 Yarns in Glasgow, a heavenly shop. The Shosenshi is grey too. They also have Habu's stainless steel yarn, which I have been coveting ever since I first began to see it on blogs. I wonder if one could substitute Rowan Kidsilk Haze for the Superfine Merino in this scarf? I'm not usually terribly into felting as I have difficulty with the idea of taking the time to knit something large only to end up with something small, but I might be prepared to make an exception. I have some striped-in-shades-of-grey Kidsilk Spray and I like the idea of using it with stainless steel. Maybe this is going to be a grey year?

I have Setsuko Torii's book, Hand-Knit Works, which I bought from Amazon Japan. I still get emails from them which I assume say, 'People who bought Hand-Knit Works also bought this,' but I can't be absolutely sure. It has pictures like this, which make me swoonand this, which is nice,
and this, which makes me hyperventilate, but in a good way.
There are lots of guides on the Interwebberies to understanding Japanese knitting patterns so I'm willing to give it a go, but I would probably start with something easy, and not a stainless steel cardigan. I have my own little swoony photo, which I took when I first got the Shosenshi. Katherine Walker, who owns K1 Yarns, told me that she soaks the yarn and leaves it to dry before she starts to knit with it, so I did three little swatches. Unfortunately, the one I liked best was the one that didn't get wetted and was never washed. I ended up in a complete state of indecision anyway. Katherine also gave me a worked-out-in-English pattern for a jacket so I could do that if my struggles with the book end in tears.

I treated myself to Victorian Lace Today with some of my Christmas Cash. I'm not in a great hurry to knit anything else from it (I did a very simple scarf already) but I want to have it for the historical content. However, having raved on here for hours about grey wool and deconstructed Japonaiserie, I will probably spend the year knitting fluffy pink shawls. I hope you will be kind enough not to point this out to me.