Monthly Archives: September 2010

hello mojo or: FO flirtini socks

30 Thursday Sep 2010

Posted by in FO, knitting, socks

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

well well. you finish one pair of socks and look what happens, you finish another pair.

these are the flirtini socks i have been working on for far too long, my first yarntini self-striping club purchase. i love this colourway, but i wanted to make socks for my sister, who does that crazy roller derby thing, and these kind of matched her team colours, and you know, she just had to have them.

so finally, she will. have them (although i am loathe to take them off my own feet). they are not without trauma these socks. they were knit toe up on a 2.5mm knitpicks fixed cable, using the magic loop method. the first one had a short row heel and a normal (but loose) cast off. did not like the short row heel at all, and the cast off was too tight. sigh. second sock used a gusset heel (much better) but was too loose on the leg for sister. attempts at decrease shaping looked, well, stupid, so it got ripped back to the foot and reknitted. finished with a sewn bind off. cuff of sock one then ripped and also refinished with a sewn bind off. much better.

the yarn is amazing. its so soft and smooth, the texture reminds me most closely of koigu. the stripes are so well done, i could have matched them perfectly, if i was that way inclined. which im not. they are close though. love (1000).

i so enjoyed making these socks, i have so enjoyed FINISHING some socks, that i have started another pair.

these are for me to go to NY with, the yarn is Fibranatura Yummy in Grilled Chillies colourway, and its fairly variegated, but i didnt want to just knit plain socks, so these are constructed using one of the neverfail Nancy Bush rib recipes in knitting vintage socks. this particular pattern is the Oak Ribbed socks with a french heel and a round toe, but i might do a different toe. will see how i feel when i get there. i cast on over two needles to get a very loose cast on, and then i eschewed the usual tight rib cuff and went straight into the leg ribbing. the cuff tightness has been an issue for too long, so i really needed to try something different. they might look a bit dodgy here, but i know they will look fine on.

my sock mojo has been MIA since very early this year (i cast on those flirtinis in february). i dont know whether its the weather, or all the car knitting i’ll be doing this flyball season, or the fact that i can not bear to look at another cardigan pattern, but the sock and shawl mojo is back.

look out!

k xx

going around again

27 Monday Sep 2010

Posted by in dogs, knitting, socks

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

,

i am not much of a gardener. i like the IDEA of it, but the reality is something different. i am good at the planting, but the whole weeding and watering and maintaining thing appears to be a bit beyond me. every year, i go through this cycle of buying potting mix and putting things in the ground, maybe harvesting a few tomatoes, and then watching it all wither and die. sigh.

nevertheless i spent part of the weekend trying my hand at it yet again. i really want to at least have some herbs for summer, because i use them a lot in pasta and stir frys and salads, so i arranged the pots, got the requisite plants and bag of dirt

added water, and voila:

lets see how long it lasts. note to ricco, i do not need your help with  the digging up, thanks. jem likes to help with the rolling up of the hose though.

i made the three of them sit for a photo when we were done:

its been almost a  year since i took this one of them, as you can see the puppy has grown a little. in the last year he has been rechristened Destructo Ricco because he completely and utterly destroys anything he gets his teeth into. plastic pots, stuffed toys, balls of yarn, lumps of wood, clumps of grass directly out of the lawn. he really doesnt care. lets hope hes not into herbs.

i have had a rather productive weekend, aside from the pots. i finished one sock of a long-suffering pair, and mastered the art of the sewn bind-off in so doing:

this is sock one of a pair i am calling ‘mixed ganseys’, i did the first one as the diamond gansey from wendy johnsons book, and it looks great in the lovely brown patonyle (they are boy socks) but the diamond pattern was annoying as hell and i needed to look at a chart (because im a little simple like that) so the second sock is going to be a traditional gansey because i think thats easier to follow, sans chart. i will cast on the second one today, but first i wanted to finish another long suffering pair, so i did my twisted rib cuff and sewn bindoff, then went back to sock one to redo the cuff and bind off (which was not sewn and therefore too tight).

these will be repaired shortly, and ready to be gifted to my sister. i tried one on and the yarntini wool is so yummy and smooshy, i am going to drag out another skein for me as soon as these are done.

i did all this sock knitting despite going to a football game,

where i did not knit, but rather took notes about alcohol advertising and behaviour, for a work project, and cried a little when wests lost. i might live in the illawarra but it doesnt mean i have to support those dastardly dragons, who were my fathers sworn enemy, and therefore, mine. i would have made a good viking*.

k xx

* obtuse true blood reference

FO: Monkey socks

25 Saturday Sep 2010

Posted by in FO, knitting, socks

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

,

i was meant to be cleaning the bathroom this morning but instead i took an hour out to finish off the monkey socks i have been working on. im glad i did, they are lovely.

you may notice a few things however. firstly, they are not the same.

i quite like the idea of making a pair of handknitted socks where one is slightly different to the other, although i know this sends some people into paroxysms. also, it helps with the dreaded second sock syndrome.

the changes go like this: the first sock is a traditional, exactly as per the pattern, knit and purl monkey. 2.5mm knitpicks bamboo DPNs the whole way, 6 pattern repeats on the leg, six on the foot. it fits nicely, possibly about a quarter centimetre too long, and perhaps a tad tight on the cuff. but when are they not, with my calves?

the second sock has quite a story to tell. i cast on on 2.75mm knitpicks bamboo, thinking this would give me a bit more stretch, with the intention of swtiching to 2.5 for the legs. i promptly jumped in the car for a long road trip, forgetting to pack the spare needles. you may remember, we stopped in berry and i ran into a famous shop there to procure me some 2.5mm needles, which, i was informed, dont exist. huh.

because we were away for the weekend, and this was the only knitting id bought, i thought i might as well just do the rest of the leg in 2.75. i thought it was a bit loose though, and i think i knit a bit looser with bamboo sticks, so when i got home, and it was time to do the heel and gusset, i switched to these:

they are the wonderful kollage square needles i picked up at iknit london, and i knit my favourite koigu socks with these, and they are 2.75mm and did a lovely job, so i stayed with these for the whole foot. they made a lovely smooth slightly tighter fabric than the bamboo needles of the same size and i should make a big note to myself to only ever use these for socks.

the other thing that is different about the second sock is that it is a ‘no-purl’ monkey. so everything exactly the same as per the pattern, but just knit the purls. i like the effect a bit better i think, although the colours pop more with the purls. i love the way all the knit stitches make the pattern a bit more swirly, and less ‘branchy’, if that makes sense. can you see?

the only other thing to note about these is the yarn, which is lorna’s laces shepherd sock in’pilsen’, and i love it. this is the first time ive knitted with lornas laces, and lucky for me i have a lovely purple colourway in my stash, because i want more. smoosh factor high.

and for trent, pictures of the magnolia:

this is one of the last flowers, and i’s so big and covered in leaves now it makes a lovely shady spot on the front lawn.

today really feels like summer is coming here on the coast, there is that salty haze we get on hot days, and the windows are open, and im wearing a tshirt.

none of which means the bathroom will clean itself, however.

kxx

heel and toe

20 Monday Sep 2010

Posted by in knitting, socks, WIP

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

it was all about the socks this weekend for me. first, there was a little trip down to kiama with randomknits and knitabulous to watch missfee do her thing and teach the ladies of the kiama knitters guild to knit socks from the toe up on two circulars. i tried to help but was probably more of a hindrance, mostly because i dont use two circulars (i was taught magic loop and it just seems easier now) and judys magic cast on is something i do by instinct. to try and explain it to people was a real challenge! (there was also much coffee drinking, nattering, lunching, and a small matter of the vanilla slice from hell. a great day all round).

i took all the socks i currently have on the needles down with me, and while i was there i worked mostly on the flirtini socks that have been hibernating in the naughty corner since that slight sizing and shaping problem some months back. i had ripped it back to the foot, so was able to redo the heel, and i did this second one with a gusset heel:

mostly because the short row shaping of the first heel looked just ghastly:

i think the gusset is better, but there are some holes in it i dont like, and this was beginning to be enough to swear me off short row heels and toe up socks for the rest of my knitting days. but then i remembered that the diamond gansey socks are toe up, and a gusset heel, and that seemed to work ok:

perhaps its the yarn? the yarntini is a fair bit loftier than the brown patonyle, and i think stripey yarn shows up odd in wrap and turns, so there’s that lesson learned. but the magic loop toe up is really very fast. i worked on the flirtinis again in the car on sunday and they are now well up the leg.

i do love top downs though, i only have 4 more pattern repeats on the foot of the nopurl monkeys:

and there is something about the gusset heel on a top down that just looks so much better, dont you think?

do you have a preference, or some secret tips i should know about?

when not out and about on the weekend, i have been working on adrift.

i cast it on on friday night, checked and rechecked my stitch count (with the aid of lots of markers)

and last night worked the short row shaping for the neck.

the wrap and turns look fine here, although i think there is a special way to pick up the wraps on your way back that i need to know about, but otherwise, this is going to be gorgeous. long rows though. 278 stitches to cast on. let us not speak of the 580 something after the increases….

k xx

(todays styling courtesy of the hanging-over-the-side-fence-wisteria)


dancing and drifting

17 Friday Sep 2010

Posted by in knitting, travel, yarn

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

, ,

its been a hectic week here, so much going on at work, we have a new associate dean research and hes all gung ho and full of ideas that it becomes my job to implement, im moving offices, my minion is doing a great job, my own research projects are getting bigger than ben hur, and we’ve booked the flights to the US (weeeeee!!!) and then theres socialising and flyball training and knitting and, well, its just exhausting!

last night i fought through the haze of weariness and went to The Theatre (you must say that with a posh pommy accent) to see Bangarra Dance Theatre perform their new show ‘of earth and sky’ at the illawarra performing arts centre:

i havent seen these guys for a few years, and i was really looking forward to it. they did not disappoint. the first act was called ‘riley’ and it was a set of pieces influenced by the beautiful photos of indigenous artist micheal riley.

these were amazing contemporary dance pieces, stark lighting, syncopated music, very haunting, especially the womens bible piece. the second act was the ‘earth’ part, called ‘artefacts’ inspired by the indigenous artefact collection at the south australian museum (or gallery, i cant remember which), but the point here was to demonstrate the way that indigenous ‘objects’ that we see only in museums, actually relate to a still-living culture and practice. so it opened with this beautiful possum skin coat coming to life, out of its dusty cabinet, and moved on to celebrate the items of everyday mens and womens work. interestingly, there was a piece called ‘weaving’ that was about the amazing pandanas mats that indigenous women make, (bells saw them making beautiful baskets recently)

at the end of this piece a beautiful gigantic set of ribbons was raised to the ceiling so that it hung down on the stage, like the strands of pandanas, and the men and women performed a beautiful piece together that used the symbolism of weaving to demonstrate men and women working together (well, thats what i thought it was about anyway!). it was just wonderful, if you get a chance to see bangarra, make sure you do.

i didnt take any knitting with me, partly because i didnt think i would have time, and partly because i am kind of in between things. i have nearly finished a pair of socks, and have a few more repeats on the lily of the valley scarf to go. but i havent done much on either of them because i have been swatching. yes, swatching. damn you liz gemmell and all your talk about no-knitting-shortcuts. i did her workshop at guild a little while ago, and a lot of what she talked about has stayed with me, so the first thing i did when i got home after last weekends guild was swatch the madeline tosh merino light

to see what it would look like, and what gauge might be so i could work out what to knit with it! this is pretty close to the colour

and im thinking some kind of sleeveless or short sleeved a-line top, like buttercup, or elvira. i cant decide. i have decided not to decide right now though, because im thinking it might be more practical for me to work on adrift, for which i have also been swatching.

its lightweight (3ply baby wool) but would make a good layering item in new york (should i say that again do you think? that im going to new york??!!!). and its red.

boy is it red. my only problem here is i have to cast on 200 and something stitches. eeep. i should force myself to do it this weekend though, or it will never get done. and my sister wants a hat and some socks to take to the US, and i was thinking of a hat for myself too, and look its september, and the magnolia is now nearly fully covered in leaves

and where the hell did that year go?!

k xx

once a month, on a friday

12 Sunday Sep 2010

Posted by in friends, knitting, yarn

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

i have developed a little routine. it involves using my flexi-day from work and getting on a train

finding the right seat,

knitting and listening to music (the temper trap‘s ‘conditions’ being my new favourite album)

for the nearly two hour trip north along the coast and the spectacular view across the pacific:

through the royal national park,

into sydneys southern suburbs

and towards the city.

from there, i head even further north to stay over at rosered’s place, where i play with the bay-bee

and do some cooking. this week i made char sui pork for dinner, while rosered did a heap of baking for morning tea at knitters guild on saturday.

i am very much enjoying the new guild venue over at surry hills library

its a beautiful big light and airy room,

and this week it was full of the usual great people showing off their latest amazing array of handknits (and strangely, some crochet!). i forgot to get pix of that sorry. then its out to crown street,

in search of sustenance with wonderful knitty friends

(organic eggs and ham at bird cow fish. yummo). this little trip may also have resulted in some accidental stash acquistion:

madeline tosh merino light in a gorgeous deep dark green called moorland. my phone camera does this colour no justice at all because im not usually into green but everyone agreed this one would suit me, and i couldnt really resist. i have 1200m here and im thinking of some kind of layering, swingy tee or tank.  my current thoughts are tending towards resizing sage remedy for 4ply, or something like elvira. thoughts or suggestions anyone?

then its home again via central underground (track work on the country lines again)

to crash in front of three football games last night, two rugby league finals and the rugby union test. i do so love september! speaking of which, spring really has arrived, with the wisteria bursting into flower suddenly

and the magnolia in all its glory.

i just want to finish on some amateur philosophising. the thing i like most about travelling up to guild meetings once a month is the people. ive talked before about the joys of knitters as friends, and of course, there are plenty of people who knit that i am not friends with, and that i dont need to befriend either. but this last couple of weeks, i have been reminded yet again of the power of the People Like Us. we are not perfect, and we have disagreements, and irritate each other. sometimes we even hurt each other, as humans are want to do, but i have been reminded yet again of how much these kinds of friendships are worth fighting for. how lucky we are to have each other.

k xx

(note: sorry about dodgy picture qualities, both digital cameras have no batteries at the moment, so these are all phone camera pix!)

duck season

06 Monday Sep 2010

Posted by in knitting, lace, socks, WIP

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

is knitting seasonal?

im beginning to think it is, to some extent, because i find myself suddenly unable to contemplate the knitting of a thick cable cardigan. partly this is because this year has been the Year of the Cardigan for me. a mountain view, two featherweights, and a summer solstice, not to mention two little boy items. thats a lot of garments, for me.

i sat down to knit the other night and for the first time ever, after only casting something on the day before, i had no interest. i know im easily distracted, but really? 24 hours and im bored?

it occurred to me that it wasnt just boredom. it was gut feeling that something wasnt right. rosered asked me what my gut feeling was, and i said ‘doubt about that item for me, doubt about that yarn for that item, and doubt about the pattern itself, in terms of its ease of instructions (or lack thereof)’. it occurred to me that this was a lot of gut feeling, and i would proceed at my own peril.

i have decided not to proceed. not at this point. i would not normally have moved straight to another cardigan, at this time of year, and if i was going to it would have been adrift. the only reason i started landon was because i wanted to wear it in america in december. that, my friends, is a deadline, and if there is one way for me to kill a project, its put a deadline on it. so landon is hibernating. it may yet reappear, possibly as a bruegel, which means i never really did make up my mind about that either.

do not despair, however. i am not completely self-will-run-riot, not just yet. i felt like knitting lace, and something delicate and difficult, as opposed to the soft squishy yet somehow stodgy four ply yarn-overs of the stonington (its like the bread-and-butter pudding of lace knitting, really). so rather than cast on something new, even though my fingers were twitching (silk lace weight and annis calling my name in particular), i pulled out something that was hibernating, and that will be just as useful in a cold washington winter as a 10 ply jacket, and that is the lovely estonian lily of the valley scarf in jade sapphire mongolian cashmere:

now that i am past my fear of nupps, and have conquered the art of LOOSELY making 5 stitches in one, this is flying off the needles.

its so soft, so beautiful, i dont know why i stopped in the first place. once this is done, i will let myself cast on something else very lacey and complicated.

summer is also when i seem to get my sock mojo back, and im pleased that despite recent weird discussions about needle sizes, i am nearly at the heel of the second monkey sock. i am doing the second sock no purl, the first one is purl and looks good

but the no purl looks better so far. the yarn is lornas laces shepherd sock in ‘pilsen’. oddly enough, the sticks are 2.5mm knitpicks harmony DPNs.

at least, i think they are!

k xx

road trip with donuts

04 Saturday Sep 2010

Posted by in dogs, travel

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

,

*warning, very picture heavy post! enter at own risk!

so yesterday, friday, we headed off late morning for our annual pilgrimage to kioloa beach where there is a flyball competition held at the caravan park there. its usually a great weekend away, (although something always goes wrong with the team but let us not speak of this), and i had intended to take a whole heap of pictures that would explain flyball somewhat. i know not everyone is into dogs, and thats cool, but trent and i share three (two from our previous marriage, plus ricco the rescue), and we still do dog sports together. we got into flyball many years ago because we had a tennis ball crazy dog called scout, who would break out of our house on abercrombie st and go and steal the balls off the sydney uni tennis courts, and i saw this flyball thing on tv and thought she would be good at it. she was, but she didnt live long enough to really succeed. but her owners were hooked, its just as much fun for the people as it is for the dogs, and of all the dog sports its the only one you do in a team with other people and their dogs. which can be great fun. it can also be really f*cking painful. but we are with a good team of easy going people at the moment, and all is well (touch wood).

but i digress. after you spend about a year training your dog, you travel all over australia (well the east coast mostly) to compete against other teams, in one or two day competitions. we often compete at the big rural shows, like the canberra royal, and the sydney easter show. this was meant to be just a small comp, where everyone travels down to kioloa (halfway been ulladulla and batemans bay) on the beautiful south coast, hires cabins in the caravan park, do flyball, have bbqs, and take the dogs for runs on the beach.

this year, however, it rained. it rained the whole way down, from the minute we left home. our first stop was berry

mostly because i had forgotten to bring my 2.5mm DPNs with me and thought i might grab some from ‘sew and tell’ the little shop you can see on the right hand side of the road. this is a great shop, with a terrific range of yarns, however, the shop attendant wanted to argue with me about whether or not 2.5mm needles even existed, because they didnt sell them and most people made socks on 2.25 or 2.75 so obviously i had no idea what i was talking about. sigh. after that, i needed sustenance from the famous berry donut van

mmm hot freshly cooked cinammon donuts

from here, we wound our way through dairy country

and past nowra into the coastal rainforests

and then turned off the highway into bawley point and head further south along the coast road to kioloa beach

where kangaroos roam freely.

they were out in force this weekend,

probably because its not tourist season yet. we had time to let the dogs have a run on the lovely kioloa beach

and then walked along the headland

and out to the point

it was a fantastic day, i love the ocean in winter, all that grey thundery melancholy! great for photos, great for dogs exploring:

or just looking.

i found the stick figure instructions for this new rescue device amusing:

and possum just loves jumping into the waves. in this photo, you cant see, but she is swimming along as trent walks along the breakwater.

we sat for a while and i did some knitting,

i only took this one sock with me (my plan was to do the cuff on 2.75 then switch to 2.5, alas, the whole leg gets done on 2.75 now, no thanks to sew and tell!), and i have nearly got the whole leg done. then we went to the caravan park to set up our gear, and finally drove back to milton to our friend and team mate rosie’s house (along this road somewhere):

where she had the fire going and a casserole in the oven, which was good because it was still raining. and really cold. we got up at 5am this morning, to head back down to kioloa, without coffee and muffins from the ulladulla mcdonalds (which was closed due to an overnight robbery. its all happening on the south coast today). it rained the whole way down there. it was pouring when we got there:

and this is as close as we got to doing flyball this weekend. poor puppies.

oh well. at least we had donuts!

kxx



careful what you wish for

01 Wednesday Sep 2010

Posted by in dogs, knitting

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

,

it did not escape my attention the other day that moaning about being cold was more than likely to bring on the heat, and then i would really have something to moan about. and so it has come to pass. well, nearly. i took the dogs for a walk yesterday morning along the sand dunes behind the beach and had to take my jacket off. the dogs felt it too:

all through the beach scrub the wattle was out, and a hundred other wild flowers. i especially love this grass, and the pattern it traces in the sand as the breeze moves through its leaves:

at home, the magnolia is fast becoming more leaves than flowers:

and the sky is cloudy now with an impending storm. the camera used a flash for this close up, and i had to share it. you can almost feel the velvet waxiness.

soon these will be all gone and there will be big glossy leaves and cool shade underneath. today i wore my new cardigan to work and it was almost too warm. already! this early warmth is a little unseasonal, it will cool down again as the rain starts, but its been lovely to feel the warmth coming back into the sun, and to notice the smells of summer approaching. today i can even smell smoke in the air, but thats probably just a back burn on the escarpment because it wasnt windy today.

my favourite smell from spring though is jasmine, and i have a pile of it tumbling over the back fence.

im not sure which sort this one is, maybe a multiflorum (or star jasmine). my favourite one is the pink or white jasmine (polyanthum) and the next time i am home for the weekend i am going to plant some along the hot back fence. im not much of a gardener, things tend to die on me, but every year i always try to grow something, tomatoes, basil, rosemary, and i will try again this year!

meanwhile, i am trying something new in the knitting department, having cast on for landon a couple of days ago. this was not in my regular schedule, coming into the warmer weather, but now that i will be in the northern hemisphere in winter, i figured i might as well try and get it done in time. last night i started the cable panels that run along the front:

knitabulous taught me how to do the cable without a cable needle, its only a 2 stitch twist everytime, so im hoping i can manage it.  ive never done anything with cables before, i think they are a bit bulky for me, but this pattern has a delicate running trellis, and i am modifying the pattern so that there is only one panel down the front rather than two, and will be putting in button holes for my wonderful silver buttons.

i wont get to work on it this weekend though as we are headed down to kioloa for our annual flyball competition by the sea, so hopefully i will come back with a finished pair of socks and some more pictures of the fabulous australian coastline.

k xx

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 304 other followers