Can't Put it Down

I blocked the faggotted scarf from Victorian Lace Today. It started out at 62" x 10" and ended up as 84" x 13". I could have stretched it more but I didn't particularly think it would gain from it, and it's not a good idea for me to spend too much time hunched over a lot of pins, so I let it go at that.I don't feel hugely pleased with this: I had higher hopes of it. But I think for what I had in mind I should have used a different yarn, and as it is I think the yarn is the best thing about it, so in the end I'm not complaining. It's sock yarn from the Yarn Yard, in crocus colours. I think my friend will like the scarf, which is actually more important. I will parcel it and the Scaruffle up and send them off. Again, the really vivid violet is missing from these photos.
I have cast on twice for the Drifting Pleats scarf, but haven't been paying sufficient attention either time. I have now copied out the instructions in large print and with lots of gaps so that I can focus better on what I'm trying to do. That should help.
And I see what everybody means about the Forest Canopy Shawl - it's very moreish, isn't it? I've had to rip it back a couple of times, because I've insisted on knitting it in a bad light and when watching something very interesting on the television, but I can't put it down. I should knit the All Seasons Cotton sweater when I'm doing that, but I haven't. I'm using Fyberspates' lovely Blue Faced Leicester sock in Lagoon, but I think I'm going to run out.

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.

Automatic Knitting

It's funny, isn't it, how you sometimes sit down to knit something and you find yourself knitting something quite different. Like automatic writing, we might call this 'automatic knitting'. The haunted among us might say we are carrying out the knitting of those long gone; Freudians that we are doing the knitting that our subconscious wishes to do; or students of creativity that we are releasing our unconscious knitter. Jared says this sort of knitting is 'really refreshing'. It does tend to be free of the stresses that can accompany long-planned or cherished projects.

I had intended to return to the Kauni snails, but the pattern for that lacks the rhythm of real Fair Isle knitting, and I was feeling restless. Another friend has requested a knitted birthday present, and she, like me is a scarf aficionado. Where other woman have cupboards full of shoes, we have drawers full of scarves; where other women talk of Blahnik and Choo, we gasp over Liberty and Pucci. You have no idea of the work I had to put in to avoid becoming a Vera junkie when I discovered eBay - the trick is not to buy the first one. I know that she will like the idea of a Victorian pattern, so I thumbed through Victorian Lace Today. I knitted the Scarf on page 80 last year, and found the central pattern nearly drove me insane so I knew I couldn't do that again but I spotted the bordered scarf on page 16.

The yarn is from the Yarn Yard; it was a Sock Club yarn in 2006, I think. Jean gave it to me after she'd knitted this Little Boy Sweater. In a lace stitch it looks very springlike, and since the lace is just simple faggotting and not anything that the eye needs to follow, I think the variegated yarn works with it. It will look totally different after blocking, fortunately. At the moment it definitely fits into the category of boiled ass (TM, Rabbitch, 2006) The needles are Addi circs, size 6.5mm. I would prefer them to be a little bit pointier but I expect you're sick of hearing me wittering on about knitting needles, so I shall say no more. I don't think I'll do a border all the way round, but I might do the ends from the Page 80 Scarf - I thought I might do them with the toes-and-heels yarn that accompanied the yarn; or do you think that would look wrong?

This friend told me something yesterday which she had been afraid to confess, but which I found very flattering: a couple of years ago I knitted her one of those corkscrew scarves that were so compulsive and she lost it in the changing room of a well-known chain store. The flattering bit is that although she realized and went back 20 minutes later, someone had already stolen it.

The pattern is quite eye-intensive, I find - not suitable for watching subtitled films, or indeed any films that you actually want to watch properly, but perfect for watching the Oscars or old episodes of Law and Order. Although it is very simple, I think it would be quite impossible to rip it back and pick it up again correctly, so here's hoping I don't have to. Speaking of the Oscars, did you see Tilda Swinton? She wasn't wearing any make-up - she must have been the only woman within a 100-mile radius of the auditorium of whom that could be said - and she still looked stunning. Actually, I think the Best Supporting Actress should have gone to Amy Ryan, who was nominated for Gone Baby Gone, but never mind. Tilda was pretty good too.

On the subject of watching subtitles, I've just got the DVD of the first episodes of The Wire. It's been shown in the UK, but only on channels that don't have subtitles, so although I found it enthralling I was fairly mystified about what was actually going on a lot of the time. (There isn't anything wrong with my hearing, it's just that everyone mutters these days, honestly. And anyway, how much Baltimore street talk can you understand?) So I am going to watch it with the subtitles on and see if light dawns, or if I will continue to be mystified. Amy Ryan was in that too.

I'm meeting up with Jean and Spinning Fishwife tomorrow, for a spot of retail indulgence at the new branch of K1 Yarns. I think Spinning Fishwife and I, who haven't met before, may have had a mutual friend in the past, so there may be a fourth, absent, friend at the gathering. But I really mustn't buy any yarn.