quelle erqsome...

in paris

Pattern: In Paris by me!

Yarn: KPM by Koigu and Silky Wool by Elsbeth Lavold

Needles: 2.5 mm Knit Picks Options

Comments: These fingerless mitts were designed as an entry for the contest Katia and Kyliemac were holding for their 200th episode (now rapidly approaching 300), in which I came in 3rd runner up, hurrah!

I had originally envisioned socks, but the Silky Wool just screamed to be mitts of some variety. The hemmed cuff and the colourwork, my humble interpretation of the K&K logo, both help add a bit of extra insulation (much needed these days). As these are inspired by the girls, they naturally boast their own K&K: the ladder that runs up either side of the wrist collapses just a little on one side. 

My favourite feature is the button strap that completes the thumb gusset. Tres chic, non?

As promised, I'm offering the pattern here so that any other Katia and Kyliemac fans can sport a pair of their own. The colourwork is actually pretty straightforward; I'm not hugely experienced with working stranded, so I would definitely recommend these for anyone who wants to try it out.

If you'd like in on your own pair of Katia and Kyliemac-inspired mitts, you can download the pattern here.

spreading the love

Mary W awarded me the Spreader of the Love blog award, hurrah! This is so sweet of her, and not just because she's one of my favourite people who help make the Very Longest Thread even longer. She's kind and upbeat -- one of those lovely folk who never fail to brighten your day, even when she's having a crap one herself.

As a recipient, it's my pleasure to pass it on to six more, as stated by the rules of the award:

Calista, of landolista (who just makes the world a better place)
Laura, of indieknits (who I hope to catch up with in the new year)
Louisa, of loumms (who is my partner in crime and craft)
Faith, of flash bang fibers (who just welcomed into the world a darling little boy)
Diane, of needles on the move (who just read The Eyre Affair -- at last -- and loved it)
Katie, of broke knits (who needs to get back from her holidays and start blogging again)

Thanks for being love spreaders, guys!

Right, I think I'd better fulfil the last requirement of the award and let them know they've won.

merry festivus

My short break to catch up on other things turned into a long break full of mince pies and butternut squash casserole and thus I've nearly missed my chance to wish everyone a lovely Christmas and delicious New Year. Fortunately only nearly.

Christmas this year was a proper holiday, the likes of which I haven’t seen in ages and ages, and thus fantastic. Matthew and I still haven’t given each other our main gift, because I cocked his up and have been frantically trying to fix it for days. I have been secretly concocting a skinny boy cardigan for him for months, many months. I'd decided long ago that it was to be the Christmas present to end all Christmas presents.

A week before the deadline it was all going marvellously. I had one sleeve, the yoke and button band to do and, as I'd shuffled my schedule to include the words Nothing But Knitting, I was confident I'd finish it. Ah, yes, my friends. You can see where this is going already. But I shall tell you anyway. It went a little like this:

With six days to go, I had finished the main body and the first sleeve and was about to cast on the second. While Matthew was asleep that morning, I sneakily wrapped it around his arm to see how it fit. My heart sank. The wrist was too small, while the shoulder was miles too big. Despite taking careful measurements, even the widest part of his arm was drowning in a sea of green and black. So I ripped it back and began a fresh.

With five days to go I had half a new sleeve done and a quick scout about his forearm told me I was definitely on the right track this time. Because it was going so well, I decided to spend a day working on knitted Christmas baubles. They're rather addictive and so terribly festive that I decided everyone on my list should have one, hurrah!

With four days to go, I still only had half the new sleeve complete. I began to think I should cast on some slippers so he had something to open. But I knew nothing could top the cardigan; I knitted on.

With three days to go, I had finally finished the second sleeve. All I had to do was attach them to the body and begin shimmying up the yoke. Do you know what a trial it is attaching those stinking sleeves? All those extra stitches, the way they stretch about and get out of shape, all that fussing to reduce the strain on everything. If decreasing up the yoke wasn't such a delight I'd swear off it altogether.

With two days to go I discovered two minor errors two inches down on two separate occasions and had to rip back both times. After much cursing, I reattached the arms and swore with every ounce of my being it would be fine. All fine. The yoke wouldn't take that long and the button band would be a freaking cinch. It would be a cinch if it killed me.

On Christmas Eve morning at nine o'clock, the end was in sight. I had ten rows of the yoke left, I had the buttons. The button band would be a breeze. I was sitting on a bus on my way to do some very last minute shopping when I stopped and held out the garment to admire my work. Suddenly the sound of rushing wind drowned out everything around me. Three inches down there was a break in the decrease line on the right side, it had shifted left by one stitch.

It's OK, I thought, I'll just drop down 21 times to fix it. It'll be fine. I counted the stitches and made a note of it, then decided to count the stitches on the other side, too. Suddenly the storm of gale-force winds gathered everything around me and hurled it three counties over. There were three fewer shoulder stitches on one side than the other. I had misplaced the right arm.

I think I was in the middle of Sainsbury’s when the enormity of my cock up set in. I reached the check out in a barely contained flood of tears. My legs quaked as I admitted I had lost my Nectar card. My heart flapped about my spinal column as I shook my head no, I don't need any bags. My arms detached as I bent to pick up my bags and hovered precariously a few steps ahead as I heaved myself home.

Later, in a fit of tears and quavering, I confessed the disaster to Matthew. I had mustered myself up to look at the mess as objectively as possible when I got home and there was nothing to do but rip back. I was a lousy girlfriend and a poor excuse for a knitter, that was all that could be said. Except for:

'That's all right, I'm not finished your's, either. Shall we wait and have our own Christmas later?'

I gladly accepted.

internal debate no.374 -- knitty winter 08

The new knitty came out yesterday (the day before? The days, they fade into one!) and I've got such mixed feeling about it. Actually, that's not quite true. I have conflicting feelings about it and I'm not sure how they are going to reconcile.

For a start, that cover pattern is genius! Bijouterie is so timely and so interesting, it offers (for many) a totally new way of looking at materials, of looking at jewellery, of knitting at all. The designs offered are different and gorgeous and Romi deserves a medal for producing something that has changed my entire holiday knitting list. As soon as I saw the first earring I knew: those mitts I had lined up for my best friend as well as my sister-in-law were boring and unimaginative. But these! These capture my imagination, and I know I'm not alone in this.

I was thrilled to see Poinsettia and Fernglade, both of which have made me suddenly very keen on throwing down that cardigan I'm working on for Matthew and whip up something short and sweet for myself. And when I have a bit more time, I'm thinking a pair of Larusardea will make for perfect January knitting.

I was so excited when I saw the offering from Norah Gaughan. Hurrah! I thought. Is that a capelet? Is it a wrap? Is it a capelet-cum-wrap? What new and exciting bit of construction has she got for us here today? How fashion forward! What fantastic shape! My heart sang with the possibilities, until I realised it's a cardigan. Those pictures on the Berroco equivalent of Bertha, the ginormous bobbly cuffs and bland body... How I deflated. That gorgeous capelet-cum-wrap is just a glorified scarf.

Everything sort of waned after that. Yarn choices and one rather alarming schematic left me feeling a little, well, meh.

However, I think the real thing that struck me is that, while Bijouterie glimmers with the awesome and Fernglade is steeped in lovely, they are some of a scant handful of holiday knitting options available in this issue. This isn't to say that the patterns in this issue aren't lovely and that the list of designers isn't powerful and exciting (Gaughan! Hanson! Japel!), but by putting Bijouterie first I was expecting so much more and the rest didn't deliver. This issue feels more like a November magazine: it's got a couple of patterns available for people who are already planning ahead, but otherwise a load of nice patterns that generally live up the knitty name and nothing more.

I'm probably being a bit unfair here, I realise that. I keep returning to the capelet-cum-wrap idea. I don't want the cardigan, but I'm very tempted to knit up what I thought it was because that was interesting.

a first

One of my students from the essay clinics I help run burst into my office today to share the news: she got a first!

It was her first essay back, the first one she handed in this year. I'm so proud of her. Of all my students, she is one of a scant handful that works so hard and put in so much time and so much effort into everything. She's been coming in for advisory sessions once a week since the start of term, simply because she wants to know that what she hands in exemplifies the very best of her ability. And she got a first! I can't stop beaming!

moments of weirdness

Matthew made me stay in bed yesterday, and not in a fun way. He just wanted me to stop being snuffly and ill. It's just as well, really. I missed work on Friday because I had completely lost my voice from the hacking up of my left lung.

This is probably because I did go out Thursday night to meet Lou, a last minute and ill-advised decision to go over last minute details for our sock (and after originally cancelling plans to meet up with others, too. Hark the chorus sing, 'You idiot!'). It was a stupid decision for many reasons, getting sicker not the least of them. Had I stayed at home that man would have surreptitiously jacked off to a Page 3 girl next to someone else.

I'm still so annoyed that all I did was sigh loudly, 'Seriously?' and demand he stand up so I could move my seat. Stupid sickness. I did sneeze on him as I went, but what I should have done was to very loudly sighed, 'Are you seriously trying to masturbate OVER YOUR JEANS on public transport?' and then demanded he stand up so I could move.

The weird thing is that he seemed genuinely upset that I'd outed his dumb arse and stood for the remainder of his journey looking mighty sorrowful, the paper carefully arranged over his dying still-dressed erection.

Also, I've been haunted by a dream I had last weekend in which I had to hang out with the Queen for a day and it turns out she's secretly got a Scottish accent, and only pulls out the posh one for special occasions. I keep wondering if it just might be true.

mulled wine -- lyos month 2!

Pattern: Mulled Wine, by lou and emmms

Yarn: indieknits yarn, Lustre Merino Superwash

Needles: 2.75 mm DPNs

Comments: This is the the third sock for Loumms Year of Socks, hurrah! Lou and I designed it together, and from the cranberry strings that dress the sides of the foot to the berry clusters on the cuff to finding the perfect holly leaf pattern, it was so much fun! It all came together very organically. As experiments go, I'm very pleased with the results!

The yarn is from Laura the Awesome's* indieknits yarn, her Lustre merino superwash. (It is deliciously squishy.) She dyed it just for us and as soon as we saw it in person there was a ping! and the sock was done.

Notes on how it came together are at the Loumms blog.

*Laura's name change should be made official in the next few weeks. Watch this space or hers for further details.

my tiny head

It is not big enough for the enormous amount of mucous it currently holds. Even the cats are staying away. I'm well on my way to owning the world's largest pile of used tissues. If we were in the States I'm almost certain this would be Roadside Attraction material. I'm very careful to tuck in all the gross so you can't see it from the outside; I'm pretty sure that that alone would convince the FDA or EPA or whoever that my world's largest pile of used tissues was safe to be in the presence of other people. They're all made from recycled paper as well, so I could even promote it as the world's largest pile of used 100% recycled tissues, but somehow that doesn't read well.

Did you know (you non-British people) that ginger ale is solely used as a drink mixer over here? I still find that astonishing. In Canada, everyone (that I know) uses flat ginger ale as a cure-all for flu, chicken pox, measles, laryngitis -- whatever ails you, the ale will cure. And it works. All that gingery goodness, the hint of a protective syrupy coating, the last breath of carbonation popping gently away at all that bad bacteria.

I had left a small amount in a glass to flatten over night (my arms felt too puny to actually pour it back and forth between glasses to flatten, like my dad did when I was a child) and this morning Matthew threw it out. He threw out my medicinal flat ginger ale. It would never hold up in court over here, so I didn't do anything, but seriously. Who throws out flat ginger ale when there's one of the mucous-ridden in the house? It's a good thing he used his non-puny man arms to decarbonate my next glass. That sort of negligence can be a deal-breaker.

4 a.m.

I can't sleep. This seems to be turning into a tri-weekly ritual. I conk out, knackered, at half 9 and then find myself staring at the ceiling from about 2 onwards until eventually I get up because telling myself to go to sleep isn't working. Rather, that voice gets drowned out by all the things I have to do and all those teeny flubs made throughout the day which loom up in the dark.

One of my students -- one of my brightest students -- came in to talk to me today about his essays and we got talking about Frankenstein and he got all excited about queer theory applications to Frankenstein and I got all excited about the possibilities of the creature being representative of Frankenstein's fear of his own sexuality and we both got all excited about Frankenstein cutting out the uterus from reproduction. There was much arm flailing and hyperventilating from all the excitement, and then I referred to transvestitism when I meant transgendered and tried to back-pedal because I really did mean transgendered and got all in a muddle. And he just looked at me with a mixture of pity and incredulous and gently tried to change the subject to save me from further embarrassment. But I wouldn't let him, because I meant transgendered! And there was jargon and blah and it was awful. Moments like those make me wish I came with a stop function.

So that's keeping me awake. As is the thought of making project bags. (Because in my head such things can run side by side.) I've got this fantastic thick, soft linen and some very funky prints and I'm thinking I might have to put the two together, with buttons and drawstrings and pockets, oh my!

Three things on my mind at this very minute:

1. I need to water my plants.
2. I wish Mozzie would stop farting.
3. The radiator in my office works and it's warm, hurrah!

Right. I got up to do things as well as blather. There's a list. It needs to be checked.