quelle erqsome...

ravelympics -- the podium

It wasn't a hat trick, but that Lace Panel Cardi is done. In time for the closing ceremonies, button band lined and everything. I am immeasurably pleased with this little number. On me, it turned out to be a Victorian jacket of a cardigan, the high neck extending into a ruff, while the torso connives a bone-less corset. It's a shape that tends to suit me, if I do say so myself. But there are so many other reasons to love it. For one thing, it beats out the morning frost that seems to settle over the British Library over night, and is even warm enough to withstand the afternoon chill that seeps back in after lunch.

 

For another, I seamed it. I seamed it and I enjoyed seaming it. Weirdly, this has in no way made seaming any less daunting a prospect, but perversely its made me want to seam more. Perhaps I am a glutton for punishment.

For a third thing, I not only seamed it, but I followed the pattern pretty well exactly. This is not because I fear taking control of pattern and making it my own with modifications or harp overtures of respect for the design, because some times waist-shaping, shoulder-narrowing and hip-flaring are all musts. But I really liked the way this pattern read before I started and it appeared to coordinate with the pictures, so I figured let's do it. 

For a fourth thing, the buttons make me giddy. They came into my stash by complete fluke and although there are indeed nine button holes and only eight buttons, I like the way the button band branches out now at the very bottom. I think it lends itself nicely to the Victorian overtures.

ravelympics 2010 - the sleeves are set

Not long ago I realised that the only way I was ever going to finish the goddamn Lace Panel Cardigan was if I had a deadline. I work better to deadlines set by other people, so the Ravelympics seemed like the logical way to go.

Last night, I set in the sleeves. Score 1 to me!

Tonight I plan to seam the sleeves. Arianna asked me why I hadn't just knit them in the round, like any sensible person would do. I have no answer to this, other than a misguided determination to follow the pattern though. This was clearly a ridiculous plan. I don't mind seaming, but the prospect of it does make me lazy.

I have two other cardigans that need finishing -- one being Matthew's Skinny Boy Cardigan, the other being my poor lamented Bridie -- if I can get Lace Panel done by this weekend, I'm going to move on to the next. If I can manage a hat trick, I will consider this whole Ravelympics thing a wild success.

Of course, it doesn't help that people keep adding patterns to Ravelry. Or maybe I just need to stop looking at the Pattern page...

Love Bugs are admittedly a little twee, with all those hearts, but they look like they'd be both interesting to knit and fun to wear -- plus, there's something about that colour that I adore.

 

The Chandelier Fingerless Gloves, on the other hand, are both delicious intricate and wonderfully practical. I could use a pair of these while out good-studenting. 

fangirl revealed

It's only taken me two and a half years, but I've finally started up a fan group for the Forgotten Classics podcast on Ravelry. I've never understood why there wasn't a group dedicated to it before, as it's one of my favourite podcasts and I know heaps of knitterly folks who love it, too.

I'm super excited about this as I love this podcast and find myself every week getting into blistering one-sided debates over plot, characterisation and supposition. I'm very much looking forward to meeting other FC fans.

The group is called Forgotten Yarns -- come join us!!

18/30 pattern stalker

Does anyone else eagerly flip through the Recently Added Patterns pages on Ravelry every morning? I love seeing what other people have created, trying to guess which will go viral and which will suddenly be on everyone's lips. My favourites of the ones that appeared overnight:

The Bergen Street Mitts -- simple detailing but awesome overall effect.

The Top Down Shrug Cardigan -- so short it doesn't cover the boobs but between that collar, that button details and those gorgeous little sleeves... Need it, want it, must have it.

The Cedar Leaf Shawlette -- the epitome of simplicity but so very effective.

The shawlette is a pattern by Never Not Knitting's Alana -- as soon as I realised that I was all, I know her! (I don't, not in real life. But I do listen to her podcast, and even though the theme song makes me wonder why women's domestic servitude is still considered so normalised that having a hobby can become a hilarious form of protest, her content is such that I consume it eagerly every time she uploads a new one.)

Pictures all from their respective Ravelry Pattern pages.

09/30 le secret de la mère-être est dehors

Pardon my awful (and probably unnecessarily formal, cobbled) French. You see, for the past two months, this was the only way a group of intrepid knitters could speak of l'affaire secrète, and after a while it's hard to break free of the code.

 

Yesterday afternoon, with a great deal of hushed giggling and excited shushing and laden with gifts, Shaz, Tricia, Mel, Jen and I scuttled up Laura's garden path and sprung a surprise baby shower on her. La is terribly Rav-savvy, so we were greatly relieved she hadn't sussed out our plans (although, not telling her lovely but unable-to-keep-secrets husband probably helped).

The main point of the conspiracy was a huge baby blanket and a large nursing pillow. Because La's an amazing dyer, we tried to incorporate as many squares knit out of her yarn as we could -- she has a definite palette at work and the result was a beautiful patchwork of colour that is at once intense yet subtle. The blanket and the pillow are both backed with soft, soft fleece (though I confess I sewed them in the 'wrong way' round, because I just adored the backside of the fleece -- think duckling down vs. mallard in terms of unruffled softness).

Of course, what with best-laid plans and all, not one of us remembered to pull out the camera as La opened her gifties, but you can see more pictures taken by Laura after we left here!

fo: a hap blanket

Pattern: Hap Blanket, by Ysolda Teague

Yarn: many: Artist's Palette Big Softy in ice blue, Devon Fine Fibres Bowmont in wombat and natural, alpaca from Emmms the Alpaca in natural caramel

Needles: 7 mm 

Comments: Matthew calls this my greatest achievement as far as my knitting goes. I'm not sure I agree with him per se, but other than Mr Bear or base of the kittens' bed, this is by far my most used finished product. It covers our bed when we go to sleep at night. I wear it in the mornings before I get dressed (and sometimes after). Matthew swaddles himself in it before he goes up into his studio in our loft. In the week and a half since the radiator broke we have spent almost every night huddled under it. I love it.

It will for ever be the blanket that stopped me losing my mind, for that alone I love it. I began knitting it after my granddad died back in July and finished it before the end of September, just in time for snuggling weather. Knitting it was a rather perfect way of keeping myself occupied when the grief was overwhelming; it allowed me to meditate on him and nothing all at the same time.

Choosing the yarns for the feather-and-fan edging was far more difficult than I ever anticipated. I had already chosen a yarn that was much thinner (a heavy worsted, 'light' chunky) than Ysolda recommended, so as I already had to increase the stitch count to 120 to make it satisfactorily wide enough, I decided to lengthen it as well and make it a proper-size blankety blanket by doubling every colour block. However, in doing so it meant the 6 skeins I had originally bought of the Big Softy were never going to be enough. So I bought another skein of the Big Softy and a skein of the Bowmont in natural, but I still felt there was something missing. That something was a gorgeous skein of pure alpaca sent to me by the lovely 'Lista.

'Lista and I met over at CPaAG on Ravelry. There are some people who you meet, whether in person or not, and feel an immediate connection. 'Lista is one of them. She is an amazing story-teller and can make me laugh, with stories of her sea of cats, her crazy neighbours and batty kidlets, like no one else. She has that uncommon gift of being poignant, hilarious, delicate and pithy, all at the same time. I cannot count the number of times I have wished I could step through my computer screen into her Tulsa world, though whenever I see I've got an email from her I can practically feel the sun on my face and one of her bunnies in my arms. Over the last year and a half, as well as emails, we've sent each other care packages and in one of them was a skein of alpaca. It just so happens she met the alpaca from whom the fleece that turned into this skein is from, and it further so happens that alpaca shares my name. If that isn't fate I don't know what is.

Sadly, 'Lista also had a difficult summer and so this blanket is in memory of those she has lost as well. One day, when all this recession nonsense is over and Matthew has signed with a major record company and I have started my lecture circuit around the States on Lacanian blots, phallocentrism and anxious little spies, I shall take the blanket with me to meet her in person. We will sit on her veranda wearing our tiaras and drinking cocktails, sharing stories about grandparents and the things they teach us, and as each of her neighbours passes I will be able to halloo them by name. It will be lovely.

masonic lodge version 3.2

I've had a revised version of this pattern on the backburner for months now and finally, after receiving 4 PMs on Ravelry in one week asking where the legend is, I've done it. I've also updated the layout and rewritten a couple of bits -- it's amazing how much my pattern-writing style has evolved since I originally wrote this.

If you fancy a gander, download the pattern on Ravelry or download it righ here! Definitely let me know what you think -- I'm pretty pleased with it, but Matthew has no idea what he's looking at and is thus not particularly helpful as a second editor (wonderful though he is at 'Mmmm, yes. That is a swell-looking pattern you've got there.').

stash dash

Now that the exchange rate is starting to settle my yearning for stash has increased a billionfold. The combination of Etsy (Knitmommy!) and Ravelry (Alishairish!) (Admittedly in the UK, but still! Look at that destash page!) is killing me. I am fully aware that this is ridiculous. I have oodles of yarns, and not just sock yarns, which is the usual culprit. Back in February I broke and decided that so long as it wasn't sock yarn I was free to buy it. This was because I had a lot of sock yarn. Heaps of the stuff. So I allowed myself to buy a sweater's worth here, a cardi's worth there...

I added 7 jumper's-of-various-sizes worth of yarn to the 4 already there since February. This isn't very much in the grand scheme of things. However, I've currently got two cardigans on the needles (2 months and 1 year, 2 months respectively) and a tunic (6 months) and I've been doing nothing but sock-knitting and shawl-planning since the end of May. And I wasn't supposed to buy any non-Loumms yarn at all this year.

Maybe I should concentrate on increasing my fabric stash instead...

fo: a year of socks begins

  Pattern: Aethenoth, by me!

  Yarn: Indigo Moon Superwash Merino (370 yds/100 g)

  Needles: 2 mm KnitPicks Options DPNs

  Comments: I love these socks! It was actually while watching the Yarn Harlot at iKnit Day that I cast them on and started working out where they would go. 

As of today they are officially the first socks to come out of the Loumms Year of Socks, a venture into madness that no-longer-blogless Lou and I challenged ourselves to. 

As part of the challenge, we must have a new pattern designed, written and ready for release on the 6th of each month for the next year, and because they've got to be public-ready anyway, we're making each pattern downloadable for free at Loumms, as well as on Ravelry. 

Although I'm pretty pleased with how my socks turned out, Lou's are freaking AWESOME!

Look at them! You'd never guess they're Lou's first attempt at designing. They're currently is up on the Loumms site, but we're still waiting for her Designer page to come in on Ravelry, but it'll be up there soon, too. Regardless, they're called 'Singing in the Rain' and I love them. We couldn't seem to get a decent picture of the cuff, which sucks because it's totally the best part. But we are going to do another photo-shoot soon -- they cannot remain unseen. Mind you, if we wait for the skies to clear, that might not be until next May...

So that's it! The first month of the Loumms Year of Socks has come and gone! We're going to be holding a contest to celebrate, the details for which we'll be posting in the next few days, and I can't wait. Next month's sock is a joint project, and given our peculiar love of thematic motif (and Lou's eye for detail), I'll leave you to guess how it's shaping up.

In the meantime, please let us know what you think, we'd love to hear any feedback that you might have. We've been planning it all for ages and ages, I just can't believe it's finally here!

latest masonic lodge

I've uploaded a new version of the Masonic Lodge Socks (Ravelry link), which ought to clarify where the heel flap falls. I've also rearranged the position of the stitches on the needles.

Many thanks to everyone who'd left feedback! Your input has been enormously helpful and I think collectively you've helped me make this pattern better.

I will be putting out a girl-sized version of this in the next month or so, as I've had repeated requests for one. Rather good idea, really. That way I can stop stealing Matthew's!