Monthly Archives: August 2010

Finished Object: Summer Solstice Cardigan

28 Saturday Aug 2010

Posted by in cardigan, FO, knitting

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i woke up this morning in a scarlet ohara frame of mind, with the sun shining,

social engagements and a new cardigan to wear.

this has taken about 8 weeks with a week or so break in between for connor’s cardigan, and for a garment my size, and only a couple of hours knitting time a day, thats not bad going. i can not tell you how happy i am with it. the yarn blocked beautifully and became very soft and drapey and the fit and colour are perfect.

details are as follows. pattern: summer solstice by heidi kirrmaier.

yarn: elsbeth lavold silky wool in ‘vintage denim’ purchased in a webs sale for around $7US a skein. it took almost all of 8 skeins, so cost the grand sum of about $75AUD.

sticks: knitpicks options 4 mm all round. its possible i was supposed to use smaller sizes at some points, for the picking up, i might have done that but didnt put it in my notebook. oops.

mods: very few. i did less frequent decreases in the arms because i didnt want it too tight so that i could wear layers underneath. i knitted the sleeves to the actual length of my arms, rather than the pattern length. i didnt do the whole yoke-into-sleeve at one time because i wasnt sure if i would have enough yarn so i put the sleeves on waste yarn and came back. i think i also did some extra length in the body. if i was doing this again, and i would, i would get an extra skein and knit the collar another inch wider on either side and maybe do some kind of closure, just to bring it all the way across for windy days like today!

what i learnt: provisional casts on arent that hard. yokes knit sideways are easy and flattering. picking up hundreds of stitches for a collar takes hours. waist decreasing and side shaping is a very good idea. tape measures are your friend. cardigans with a bit of nylon in them are light and breezy and will wear well. all this makes kylie a very happy girl!

thanks to the wonderful knitabulous for the pictures!

k xx

summer too far away?

26 Thursday Aug 2010

Posted by in cardigan, knitting

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i am a fan of winter. i love the cold, i love the atmosphere, i love rugging up in woollens, i love the fashions, i love the knitting. i love that its not hot. but today, im sick of it. its been surprisingly cold here by the coast this year, lots of wind whipping up from the southern snow fields, and its like razor blades against my face. my skin is all red and itchy and flakey and dried out, my hair is frizzy, my lips are chapped, my joints creak, and i feel cold all the way inside my bones. and it doesnt even get that cold here, relatively speaking. and it does get hot. horrible scorching fire-inducing hot, where you cant move for fear of expiring. and thats even when you live here:

but today, i would give anything for it to be hot like that. if i dont get warm on the inside soon i am going to crack and fall apart. lucky for me, i have something new to wear to get me through whatever this last bit of winter throws at us. i cast off the sleeves of (the aply named) ‘summer solstice’ last night and sewed in all the ends:

then it had a bath

and is now stretched across the dining table. i think im pretty happy with it. i will be really happy if it blocks nice and loose and drapey like the swatch did, and if the reverse stocking stich rows prevent curled up edges.

i will have proper photos on the weekend, when i wear it to Stitch and Bitch. Pretty good timing all around, really!

k xx

some scenery instead

23 Monday Aug 2010

Posted by in dogs, knitting, travel

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i had been hoping to have at least one finished item to show today, given that the weekend involved travel and that meant car knitting time, and i had hoped that that item might be a cardigan, but it was not to be. i am only a few inches away however, so sometime in the next couple of days. and then i will  be wearing it by next weekend, weeee!

so i have some pictures of where we went, and they come with a little story. we went down the nsw south coast to meet up with our flyball team mates (some of them live in milton, near ulladulla, and some of them live in canberra, but have holiday houses near ulladulla as well), so milton was the destination. along the way, we pulled off the highway and stopped to let the dogs have a run on the shores of beautiful lake conjola:

lake conjola has a special place in my heart. my grandfather and his brother had little houses down here, and before my mum and dad got divorced when i was about 9, we came here quite often. we went fishing out on the lake, in little tinnies like these:

and one time i caught a 5 pound flat head. apparently this was a good catch, and i was the stuff of legend for one summer, at least! my family still lives in the houses, one has been renovated by my dads cousin, and the other is a holiday rental. in their day, they were little fibro cottages with long untended yards that backed right onto the lake, one had an overhanging tree and the obligatory rope swing out over the water, and one of them probably had a little jetty like this:

i remember long hot days spent mostly in the water, walking barefoot along the blue gravel road to the shop for icy poles, and eating lots of fish and chips out of newspaper wrappers. nothing about the place has changed much, it is still mostly holiday homes which were currently deserted, as it is still pretty cold down here, but we managed to find the little takeaway-postoffice-general store and got some hot chips,

and sat and watched pelicans feed while the sea eagles circled above. there were lots of kangaroos hopping around, which i dont remember from childhood, and they were disturbingly tame, this female sat and watched while i tried to get close enough to take a photo of her and her joey, but i only had my phone camera and didnt quite catch it.

in the morning, we took the dogs to the milton showgrounds where we trained for upcoming flyball comps, and i was busy helping so didnt get time to knit much here. the sun was out, and i didnt have a cap on, and i got a bit of sunburn on my face. it was lovely though, the view:

the peace and quiet. the not caring about the election result. being down there on this weekend really bought home to me how futile all our political angst and hand-wringing really is. i am not surpised by the election result we have now, not at all. some political commentator last week said ‘if you live by the polls you’ll die by the polls’ and this continual race-to-the-bottom dog whistling campaigning has returned the result that the media and the people who listen to them deserve.

in 30 something years, this little place on the coast has seen governments come and go and nothing much has changed. when all the humans are gone and done with wrecking the planet, it will regrow itself and return to wild jungle again, and be a better place for it. i used to be a labor voter (with a minor detour into card carrying communism as a student), but now i have no interest in the major parties. my australian history phd taught me very clearly that there is no real fundamental difference between them. both exist to serve and prop up the capitalist system, a system that brings me my ccomfortable life style at the expense of the environment, billions living in poverty in china and india, millions more fleeing war and persecution, and the continued dispossesion of Indigenous australians from the land that is rightfully theirs.

until some ethics, compassion and social justice returns to the policy making of the ALP, i will continue to vote elsewhere. as some wise person told me once, nothing changes if nothing changes. and without the environment, the safety and sustainability of the planet on which we live, everything else is completely and utterly meaningless. as places like lake conjola continue to remind me.

k xx

expanding horizons

18 Wednesday Aug 2010

Posted by in blogging, dogs, knitting, personal

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my little moan about life and rivers and things the other day was really about interpersonal relationships. as with most of life’s problems, its the inability to control others that drives me crazy. i can however, control my own reactions and responses (to some extent) and even though its hard and confronting and painful, an honest conversation has helped restore some equanimity. my real problem is that i dont like change, to be honest. i had such an unpredictable and volatile early homelife, when i escaped i developed a crushing need to have everything be Just So. of course, thats not possible, but i am getting better at figuring out what i can and cant control, what i can and cant accept. so today, the river is running a little smoother and i am feeling a bit more on top of things again.

and seriously, its impossible for me to live through more than a few days of misery. it is true that the things that get thrown into my own personal river these days are on the whole more good than bad, and i try really hard to keep some perspective and gratitude to help to restore the balance.

some of those things worth mentioning today are

1. emerging leaves on the magnolia:

there is a lot happening on this tree at the moment. it sits against the north facing wall at the front of the house, and it gets sun almost all day, so its sense of imminent spring may be a little inflated. but thats ok by me, because the show is spectacular.

2. loyal canines. last night when i was cooking, i turned around to see one my favourite things:

he does this all the time, he has done it since he was a puppy.  his front paw is right on the line between the kitchen and the dining room and he will wait like for that for  hours. just in case. cattle dogs are really labradors in disguise.

3. trips overseas.

i may have mentioned that i was going to the US for a conference later this year. we have finally been confirmed and accomodations and tickets are now being booked. as it is my sisters 40th birthday in late november, i have convinced her she needs to come with me. i am not that interested in LA so we are going to fly into san franscisco (13 hours away!), spend two nights there, then go to washington DC for 4 nights where the conference is being held, then take a train across to new york city and spend 5 days there, coming home from JFK (that flight only takes 2 days or so!!). i am now taking recommendations for hotels in SF and NY (though a very evil rosered is close to convincing me that we need to splurge and stay here), and of course, yarn stores. dates are december 6 to december 18.

so you know. i cant complain. no i cant.

interestingly, there is one area in my crafting life where i experience quite a deal of resistance to change, and this is in my attitude towards crochet, or, as i prefer to call it, the craft that can not be named. go on, call me a crafting snob, whatever, i dont care. i cant help it, but crochet has just never rung my bell. this is starting to shift a little bit though because ive recently watched a number of clever people make lovely crocheted things, and seen the humble old granny square completely reinvented. the colours and yarns can be really spectacular. i found my non-crochet resolve seriously tested this last weekend when flicking through this book, and i came across this pattern. i love blue and white homewares (as you can tell from the washing on the line this weekend):

and i can just see these little circles of blue and white yarny goodness on my bed. there are however, two potential issues here. one is my hand-eye co-ordination. the most crochet ive ever done is a single chain for a provisional cast on, and watching me try and loop yarn over the hook is, well, amusing. second is a hypothetical issue, like, what if a dog (or two, or three) got up on the bed. not that they do. but just in case, like on a really cold night, they snuck in maybe and snuggled up, because they knew i was cold, and they didnt want me to be cold, say.

me and dogs and delicate delft crochet? maybe not such a good idea after all….

k xx

life is like a river, apparently

16 Monday Aug 2010

Posted by in FO, knitting, personal

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i finally have one small finished object to show, and that is the cardigan for connor:

i dont really know why i felt the need to make a baby cardigan in the middle of all my other stuff, except for a sense that he was growing very quickly and winter was fading and if i didnt make something now then it would be next year before he could wear anything again. so i started this pattern, katie bells cardigan, on july 24, and finished adding the (very-special-bought-in-newtown) buttons on august 12.

i was worried it wouldnt fit, and i was right to worry. i checked with mamma the night before i was intending to gift it, and was dismayed to hear that bubba was measuring 20 inches around the body. the pattern for size 3-6 months had finished measurements of only 17 and 3/4 inches around! i stretched it while blocking, and it does fit, but only just. he will be lucky to get a couple of weeks out of it now, which is a bit of a shame, but it was fun to make. the heirloom bliss is really lovely, but i would also go up a needle size (to 4mm) next time.

i have also finished the first sleeve on the summer solstice cardigan.

everything is going according to plan here, and i carefully measured the sleeve as i went to make sure it fits my arm, not the imagined person in the pattern’s arm. i really want to get this finished now so i can start wearing it, its a perfect weight and warmth for spring, and i am concious of how fast this year is flying past.

on that note, i was having a conversation with Someone last night, and i complained that i would just like time, or life, to run a little bit slower, a little smoother for a while. i was informed that life is change, and the analogy of life being like a river full of rocks was used, and i said that i would just like my river to have some gentle curves and only a few rocks in it thanks, just for a little while. im kind of sick of always having to make allowances for things happening, for this constant change, of life rushing past and always having to adapt. i said in my last post that i had hit a spot of contentment and today i feel like it was a bit of fools gold, a shiny spot meant to lull me into a false sense of security. i know that life is full of joy too (and i have a great life compared to many), and that the turns in the river sometimes lead to good things, but i also think william goldman was telling the truth when he wrote “life is pain highness. anyone who tells you differently is selling something”.

i guess life turned out ok for buttercup in the end (and she didnt have knitting either). but is it wrong to wish that life was like a fairytale, just for a little while?!

k xx

talking shop

12 Thursday Aug 2010

Posted by in knitting, yarn

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yesterday i went up to sydney for a conference at which i was presenting a 10 minute paper. i just need to have a little whine about that. 10 minutes plus 5 minutes questions. have you ever tried to explain a 2 year multi-discipline project in 10 minutes? it was a bit of a debacle. i had a carefully planned presentation and i ended up having to whip through it and look really half arsed. there were 4 simultaneous streams, and i dont understand why you wouldnt just make that into a 2 day conference, so that everyone could go to more and have more time to talk and discuss.

3 hours travel for 10 minutes. and the train on the way up was packed,

and i had to sit on the stairs and try and knit (another tension square for saturdays workshop)

but the venue was nice

and there were other compensations. that is, the venue was kind of close to a rather famous street in newtown, which has a lot of attractions at the moment for the crafty minded person. first stop was the newly opening ‘granny square’:

which is going to be totally amazing when its fully stocked. i really like the thinking here, some good new stuff that you cant get easily elsewhere, and that caters to the more fussy yarn buyer amongst us, including some wonderful hand dyed yarns and cotton you can usually only buy online, as well as a great selection from the expanding morris and sons line. i was quite taken with the new ‘estate’ 8 ply but i didnt buy any. i did buy something, i’ll show you what a bit later. anyway, its a great space and i cant wait to see it again when its fully functioning.

i may have met up with some other knitters, and we wandered down to the other end of king st, where i needed to pop into this little store:

lucky i knew what i was after, or i could have got seriously lost in there. then we repaired to lunch:

and were joined by missfee and her stunning manu. some people may have bought more yarn here:

not me, largely because the yarn i did like was pear tree supersoft, which i had already picked up 10 skeins of in bendigo for less than half the price! i do have a bit of loot to show:

not bad for a 10 minute conference paper.

k xx

(photos are all from phone camera so apologies for dodgy quality!)

miscellany

08 Sunday Aug 2010

Posted by in dogs, knitting, personal

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yesterday we went off to our first flyball competition in months (and my first one since i fell and broke my elbow at the last one! its still not quite straight, that arm, by the way). its been a very cold winter here, and we tend to not schedule many comps during the cold (even though its better for the dogs than the heat. in america, where flyball is huge, most of the competitions are held indoors on special matting but we are subject to the weather and associated vagaries of outdoor venues). i took the camera and was planning to take photos of the whole day and take you through exactly what is involved in a flyball competition, but of course, the camera battery was dead. so you get a summary instead.

it was cold, the dogs ran up and down, i managed to ‘boxload’ for two teams without falling over (i fell over last time actually running a dog), i ate cold sausage sandwiches and chocolate chip biscuits for lunch, the team ran really well with no stress but were beaten by faster teams, i tried to knit but didnt get much time, and it was really really cold. it was so cold that my hands got all chaffed and red and dried out, see:

well maybe not, but red and chaffed they are. what knitting i did do was on connors red cardigan, and its coming along well, i should get it finished today:

then i will have to decide about buttons and embroidery and the like.

because i got no dog photos yesterday, i arranged for the three of them to pose on the steps just now.

possum worked pretty hard yesterday (shes the only one racing at the moment) and all she wants to do is be left alone to sleep. in the sun preferably. it is lovely and sunny here today although still a bit cold, and i have taken another photo of the magnolia out the front so you can see it in all its glory.

it has indeed been a year since i moved here, and i love this house as much as i did when i first walked in. id be happier if ricco stopped digging holes in the back lawn, but ive been lucky to not have the rent put up and to have a real estate agent who leaves me alone (the landlord likes to drop by unexpectedly. ive put a stop to that). what a year its been. and just when you think things get settled, the universe decides to shake them up again. there are some big changes ahead at work with me about to move offices and being seconded to an academic policy project, as well as my research projects, and there will be some money to hire a minion or two (ive never had a minion, i think i might like it). i am happier in my job at the moment than i have ever been, and feel quite motivated to actually be there, and do stuff when i am there. most unusual for me. i have been going to the gym in the morning before work, have found a new choir to sing with (practice starts this thursday night, with a tony backhouse workshop next sunday), am enjoying reading the hanning mankell wallander books (thanks lyn!), and have multiple social engagements with various knitters in the coming weeks.

in other words, life’s pretty good right now. but did i mention its cold?!

k xx

on taking direction

03 Tuesday Aug 2010

Posted by in knitting, rant, WIP

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i dont like being told what to do. not since i was 18 and escaped the clutches of the dragon lady (from whom permission was required to merely breath) have i coped well with being told how i should or shouldnt behave. sometimes i find myself fighting with knitting patterns and their invisible designers. just because.

most designers, it must be said, are pretty good, and usually have a reason for asking you to do things certain ways. sometimes though, there are some who appear to enjoy being difficult. or too clever. so i have learnt that sometimes (there being no knitting police) it is ok to maybe not do exactly what the pattern says. however, i think the designer of the baby cardigan i am currently working on is of the first type, even though i thought maybe she wasnt.

it says that after you knit the bodice you should BLOCK it and then sew up the sleeve seams before picking up the edge of the bodice to knit the body. i tried to tell myself i didnt need to do it this way, that i could just put pins where the sleeve seams would start and pick up for the body anyway. and block it? surely not necessary, halfway through a garment. and a baby garment at that. i consulted the eminent brains trust, one of whom said follow the instructions, the other of whom said trust your instincts. ultimately, they were both right, because, when it came time to do it, my instincts said block it and sew the sleeves.

so i did. block it (along with my swatches for what i am now pretty sure is going to be landon)

and sew the sleeve seams,

and then pick up the stitches along the bodice to knit the body:

one thing i missed is that part about the bodice being knit on smaller needles than the body. well der. its not though, i did it all on the same size. i think once i block the whole thing it will be fine, but it would be easier to follow direction if i actually learnt to read a pattern properly.

and because i am not a happy girl today (having just found out that paying $18000 in income tax somehow does NOT cover my higher education contribution scheme debt and that i owe the tax office money) (thank you labour government for that one)* i am posting a picture of the gorgeous magnolia out the front.

it was looking like this a year ago when i moved in here, and ive seen it go a full cycle now, from being bare and knobbly to gorgeous dark green leaves and now these stunning flowers. it will go through these cycles long after im gone, and continues to remind me of my insignifcance and powerlessness.

death and taxes people. resistance is futile!

k xx

* ps yes yes i know im lucky to have a job, i know im lucky to have an education, i dont usually have a problem with paying taxes yadayadayada, but today, i just dont like it!

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