what passes for thrills around here

This is how lame I am: I get ridiculously excited when I find out a yarn I've read a lot about, and seen used in many patterns, is going to become available in the UK. Like right now, Woolly Workshop is claiming they will soon have Mission Falls 1824 wool, and I am almost beside myself. I'm pretty sure this is just a very nice, basic yarn, so my excitement is all out of proportion to this news, but I'm thrilled anyway, if only because it means I won't necessarily have to substitute the yarn in some patterns I've liked. I'm all like Steve Martin in The Jerk, yelling, "The new phone books are here! The new phone books are here!"

The last time I was this excited about yarn was when Get Knitted started stocking Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride and Cascade 220. Perfectly ordinary, nice enough yarns, but there I was, getting stupid about it. I'm knitting the second of a pair of Fuzzy Feet right now with the Lamb's Pride, and sadly, it hasn't lived up to the ridiculous hype I created in my own mind. It's very nice. I'm sure it will felt beautifully. It's just yarn. My life is unchanged. I have yet to feel slightly let down by the Cascade, but I'm sure that day is coming. Koigu and Cherry Tree Hill and Lorna's Laces all totally lived up to my expectations, though. It is worth noting that these are all fairly expensive yarns, and I don't think I've yet encountered an expensive yarn I didn't love passionately. This does not surprise me in the slightest.

And all of this is just a lead-in to the latest heart-pounding thrill in my increasingly pathetic life: I'm about to order a swift. Over dinner tonight:

Phil: Blah blah blah, work, blah blah blah, new Nikon stuff, blah blah blah, enough about what I've been up to, what did you do while I was gone?
Me: Oh my god, I found two places selling swifts!
Phil: Huh? Birds?
Me: No! Yarn swifts!
Phil: Uh, knitting stuff, yes?
Me: Yes! Isn't that exciting?
Phil: Oh, certainly, yes, very exciting.
Me: You have no idea.
Phil: No, I'm sure I don't.

My husband, the terminal phlegmatic. Fortunately, he's cute, and even more fortunately, he has an obsessive hobby as well so even if he doesn't quite get what we refer to as 'the yarn thing' around here, he's agreeable enough about it for a man who is in imminent danger of losing wardrobe space to my stash.

admission

I'm in the middle of my first candy cane of the season, and feeling somewhat relaxed, for the first time in about a week. My dad had some sort of bad reaction to some medication he's on, resulting in what looked like, to my panicked mother, a stroke, so he went in for an EEG late last week, and it came back fine: no stroke, no seizure, no brain tumour, none of the ten million things I've been using Dr. Google to torture myself with. Bad reaction, the doctor is adjusting his meds, and now maybe I can stop worrying until the next crisis. He had a very mild stroke last year, so we're edgy about these things, mom and me. I hope she's feeling better, too. Her latest e-mail sounded perky enough.

Phil's still away, and won't be back until tomorrow night. I haven't told him I've got the Christmas lights up, since it'll be a nice surprise for him that way. He told me how much he loves coming home from business trips this time of year, and seeing the house all lit up and welcoming, and frequently smelling of lovely things to eat. I'm pretty sure he appreciates the beer in the fridge, as well. I did the grocery shopping today, so everything is ready for a nice weekend, without the need for one of us to run out and get something. I'm not sure what we're going to do this weekend, other than get the tree on Saturday, and I'll probably make the Christmas pudding on Sunday, but we're not anywhere near the oh-my-god-must-hurry point, so a relatively lazy weekend sounds great to me, especially if I can fit in some knitting time, because I am sort of getting near the oh-my-god-must-hurry point with that. I had to basically take a week off from knitting, due to some fairly severe pain in my wrists and shoulders, which, as it turns out, probably wasn't caused by knitting, but by the crappy chair I sit in to use my computer. Chairs are easier to replace than wrists and shoulders, so this is good news. Phil's been after me for a while to get a decent desk chair, and I've blithely ignored him, so while seeing me struck down by pain for my arrogance isn't exactly satisfying to him, he does enjoy pointing out that he was right all along, so there. So for the record, I do hereby state that my husband was RIGHT and I was WRONG.

He'll probably print that out and keep it forever.

because it makes me happy

On New Year's Eve last year, I cast on for my first sweater:



I didn't think I could do it, but I was going to try anyway. I had never knit anything more complicated than a hat and one lousy mitten at that point. I was wrong; I did it, and it wasn't even that hard. Since then, I have made six sweaters; three cardigans, three pullovers. OK, two of them were baby sweaters, but still, that's, on average, one sweater every two months. I've also made socks, gloves, more mittens, a blanket, a lace scarf, baby booties, and many other things I can't remember right now, as it's been a long, busy day, I am tired, and I have maybe had a drink or two. I have a huge stash of yarn, a gigantic vase full of needles, a shelf full of knitting books, and a couple of drawers full of knitting sundries. I keep them in my little pink office that looks out over our street, where I have marked the change of the seasons with the Victoria plum tree in my neighbour's yard, in this whole year I've been learning this craft.

I bought a darning mushroom today, because those socks were hard-won, and my husband has an uncanny ability to wear holes in lovingly hand-knit socks at an astonishing pace. I am not throwing them away. I am not possessive of the things I knit; I give most of them away. But I am protective. I knit with love and care. I am the best person I can be when I am knitting something for somebody I love, and for all my moaning about the inflexibility of cotton and the ache in my shoulders and wrists, I do not regret or resent a moment spent knitting. I have met some really wonderful people through knitting. I have knitted my way through depression and worry and a lot of happiness as well, and it's all been good for me, and good for the people I love.

I think this hobby is going to stick.

sparkly

I started getting out the Christmas decorations this evening, and naturally, one of the boxes was at the very bottom of the huge pile of crap in my guest room. My all-but-unusable-guestroom-please-god-nobody-visit-very-soon, that is. The cats have mostly taken that room over, anyway, and the guest bed duvet is covered thickly with cat hair. We are pure class around here. We have some vague notion of cleaning that room out over the holiday break (Phil has a couple of weeks of holiday time to use up) and making it into a guestroom-cum-office for him, since the crappy room in the back of the house he's been using for an office would make a much better storage room, and anyway, it'd be nice to have our respective offices on the same floor of the house, so we might actually talk to each other more frequently. As it currently stands, we both tend to get busy and absorbed, and hours can go by without us communicating at all. This isn't a marriage problem or anything, it'd just be kind of nice to be able to talk to each other without having to traverse the entire house, since our offices are as physically distant from each other as it's possible to be, while still being in the same building. Laziness has, on at least one occasion, compelled me to call him on my mobile rather than get off my big lazy arse. We're also thinking of putting a sofa on the landing (our uppermost landing is huge) so we could make it into more of a social space. We get beautiful light up on the landing, and there are four big bookcases within a few feet, so it'd make a great place to splodge out and read.

This is all a very great idea, but we'll have to see if we can shake off our annual holiday break sloth long enough to actually do it.

Anyway, I got the decorations out today mostly because while I was out earlier, I was strongly tempted to buy a few more things, and was only able to stop myself by deciding I needed to look at what we already had first. Every year, I go a little bit further over the top with the Xmas decorations, although I do confine my decorative jollity to the interior of the house itself, and refrain from putting crap out on our front lawn, or anything like that. Except this year I hung some lights on the big windows in the front hall, but they're tasteful little white lights, I swear.

I usually only decorate the front hall, the staircase and the dining room, but I think I'm going to make my first incursion into the sitting room this year. We put our tree in the front hall because that's where it looks best, and there's enough space for it without having to move a bunch of other stuff, but that also means that when we're in the sitting room, we have no tree to look at. I am not mad enough to put up more than one tree, but I am, in my dotage, getting obsessive enough about the Christmas decorating that I'm happy enough to suck another room into the swirling vortex of tacky my house becomes in December. I've given up. I'm not even trying to maintain an ironic front any longer. I love the sparkly red-and-green-and-goldness of it all, and I don't care who knows it.

I crack and talk about knitting

Could somebody please explain to me who is knitting all these hideous fun fur and eyelash yarn shrugs? And perhaps more importantly, who is wearing them, other than the same few models in, oh, practically every single issue of Knitting magazine I have ever purchased? All of whom look like they're wearing luridly coloured gorilla suits, minus the heads? And while you're at it, please explain why the hell I keep buying this sorry piece of crap magazine, because I sure don't know.

This was their Christmas Glitz! issue, so I had no excuse for being surprised, I guess, but yeesh, it was even worse than I expected. Not only was it cover-to-cover eyelash yarn horrors and vile cutesy-twee crap, but there was a definite emphasis on that Glitz! thing, because most of it was sparkly. Oh, I can just imagine how good that tinsel-and-acrylic blend feels against the skin. You might as well be wearing Christmas tree garland. I mean, I can sort of see why some people might like the odd, reasonably restrained eyelash yarn scarf, but a cross-over bolero? Yeah, exactly the kind of figure-flattering thing I want to wear to a Christmas party.

Still, it did help me kill fifteen minutes while waiting for my coffee, but this time I mean it: I'm not buying it again. And if you think I'm being picky, you should've read the letter to the editor from the crazy guy who had a list of demands for how the models should pose to best display the garment from every angle, the better to help him decide what he wanted to knit. Dude. It's a knee-length novelty yarn cardigan. It's a horror. There are no good angles.

Anyway, other than getting taken for £3.45, yet again, it's been an OK sort of day. Phil is off on business, so I'll have the house to myself for a couple of days, and with any luck, I won't be struck down by laziness, and manage to get some work done. We're getting the tree on Saturday, and I'd like to get the rest of the holiday decorating done before we get it. We've been eating our way through the stuff in the freezer so I will have room to make up cookie dough in advance and stash it, so maybe I can have a slightly less exhausting seasonal baking frenzy this year. It would be good if this time I remember to label the stuff going into the freezer, so I won't have the troubles I had this week, when I mistook the ciabatta dough for pizza dough and the ham stock for chicken stock. It wasn't a disaster or anything; the pizza was just a little puffier than usual, and the ham stock didn't ruin the risotto, but I got pissed off at myself both times anyway, because it's just stupidity and laziness on my part.

I'm sure my Christmas spirit will arrive with the tree. I sound all grumpy, but I will buck up once the house is looking pretty and there are cookies to eat.

into the woods

The weather here today has been absolutely dreadful, so naturally, we decided to go for a nature hike through Storeton Wood. Normally, I don't really do nature. I show my appreciation for it, and desire to see it preserved from harm best by staying out of it. But, hey, sometimes you have gale-force winds and occasional bursts of extremely cold rain, and this strikes your spouse as ideal weather for a nice walk, so you tell yourself it's a fine excuse for breaking out that cute hat you knitted last winter, and it! will! be! fun!

And actually, it was. It was windy and wet, but not all that cold; I was certainly comfortable enough with my hat and a light, waterproof jacket over a cotton turtleneck, especially since we were walking briskly over uneven ground. There was a bit of misunderstanding between us at first, since we were shouting at each other to be heard over the roar of the wind (and I am not exaggerating even a tiny bit about that roar) but once we figured that out, we relaxed and had a really good time, wandering about, taking photos, exchanging greetings with the other people insane enough to be out in the woods in a gale, and trying very hard not to calculate the odds of a tree falling on us. At one point shortly after entering the woods, we stopped to fiddle with our cameras, and were interrupted by a very loud CRACK, causing us to look up into the trees to see which one was about to crush us, and then look at each other and laugh slightly hysterically. I strongly considered demanding we go home, but then I looked over to my right, through the trees, and saw this:



Sheep! I love sheep, source of my beloved wool. So I forgot all about imminent death, swaying in the wind above our heads, and went down to take a couple of pictures of the sheep, who were not even slightly bothered by the stormy conditions, or the madwoman behind the fence, taking pictures of them. Phil was immensely patient with my ridiculous delight in a bunch of, let's face it, profoundly stupid animals.

Eventually I was persuaded to stop trying to get the sheep to look at me, and we carried on down the path, running into more crazy people and friendly dogs, and god, there is nothing that makes me want to add a dog to our family more than seeing happy mutts out running around in the woods, obviously enjoying themselves. Our very enjoyable walk would've been at least twice as much fun if we'd had a dog along with us. We carried on along the edge of the woods, looking out over the very pretty, if somewhat austere farmland of the Wirral:





And then near a very typical for this area country lane:



Before walking deeper into the woods, to go out the other side, because my god, the wind was getting terrible. We came back out near a really good little country pub, where we had a couple of pints, which may have been a mistake on my part, because I forgot to eat breakfast, and a pint of cider on an empty stomach quickly put an end to the day's adventure. I was fine, just in absolutely no condition to walk home through increasingly foul weather, so we called a taxi and went home in comfort. I really am glad I overcame my natural slothfulness and went out, because it reminded me of exactly why we left London, and why, in spite of the usual lack of big city excitement, we live here.

as yet unmoved by the holiday spirit

It's been one of those useless Saturdays. I mean, I got a lot done, but not nearly as much as I'd hoped to do. For once, I got up fairly early, bathed, baked a loaf of bread, did a little bit of knitting, and ran some errands, but seriously, I do not know where the time went. Yes, there might possibly have been a nap in there, but it was a late-afternoon nap, when the useful part of the day was long gone, since it gets dark at four these days.

The shopping precinct, where I very unfortunately had to go to get Phil some Euros for his trip to Germany next week, was scary busy. Since we don't have Thanksgiving over here, for obvious reasons, I'm starting to think our equivalent of Black Friday is the first Saturday in December. The bellringers and charity baggers are all out, and while I'm perfectly happy to chuck some change in their buckets, please, people who are bagging for charity, don't help me. I will pay you not to help me, no please stop putting my stuff in that plastic bag, I've brought my own bags, and I like to pack them myself, no, god, don't put the bottle of wine on top of the tomatoes....OH FOR GOD'S SAKE, HERE'S A QUID. GO AWAY. And yes, I know I'm being a bitch, but since I have started carrying my own cloth bags, the enormous pile of useless plastic carrier bags in my pantry has slowly been beaten back to a reasonable and useful amount, and I like it that way. Good for the environment, good for my sanity, good for my unbruised tomatoes, good for the circulation in my fingers, since I no longer have to suffer the pain of plastic handles, stretched by the weight of the bag to thin, wiry strings capable of breaking the skin.

Once I got everything done, and got to sit down in the decent coffee shop near the taxi queue, though, things improved, because that place is the best for people-watching. I can sit there, knit, drink coffee, and judge the poor fashion choices and parenting of my fellow Wirrallians. The fact that I was wearing a pair of yoga pants and a long-sleeved tshirt in public and I have no kids in no way stops me from this unkind self-indulgence, because I can always reassure myself that A) my yoga pants and t-shirt are clean and well-fitting, with nary a hint of exposed belly flab and butt-crack, B) I might be a terrible mother otherwise, but I'm pretty sure if my kid were spitting on people, I would at least apologise profusely and take him home before beating him, and C) I have no kids to embarrass by wearing yoga pants in public.

But the real reason the coffee shop is such a joy at this time of year, other than the coffee and the sitting down, is that it is directly across from our very small, seasonal ice skating rink. I'm from Michigan. I know ice. These folks are from the generally mild and usually ice-free northwest coast of England. They don't even put enough ice in their Diet Cokes. Watching them try to ice skate is interesting, to say the least. The skaters were mostly kids, mostly mean, and mostly having a good time, trying to push each other into the rink walls. This view, while not pretty, at least provided the second-best reminder of the day as to why I am so very glad I'm not a kid anymore, because, trust me, I'd have been one of the kids getting shoved into the wall. The best reminder, of course, was the bottle of wine we had with dinner. I may not be as limber as I used to be, but at least I can drink decent wine.

december? already?

I'm pretty sure I just finished taking the tree down like last week.

This has been a year when a significant number of my friends have had babies, concluding with two born this week. I have been churning out booties and cardigans at a steady clip, which is fun, because they're tiny and quick, and there's nothing I enjoy more than imposing my taste upon innocent newborns too tiny to stand up and assert their right to cartoon character embossed t-shirts, which I irrationally loathe. They've all been boys, though, and I selfishly want somebody, anybody to have a girl, because I have a really great matinee coat pattern I am dying to knit. (Well, somebody, anybody I like well enough to knit for.) Dear friends: Your babies are just vehicles for my handknits. Take pictures. Itchy-kitchy-coo.

The latest baby arrived in Paris, to one of Phil's oldest friends. A.'s a nice guy, but imagining him as a father, when I know way too much about his, er, history, is kind of difficult. When we heard the news he'd got married, a couple of years ago, there was a long moment when we just sat there, looking at each other and blinking. Finally, P broke the stunned silence by observing, "Well, now I know how my friends felt when I told them we were getting married." All the same, he's happy and appears to be excited about fatherhood, even if his friends are going to think it's all an elaborate joke until he shows us some photos, and possibly the results of a DNA test.

I'm actually all on the ball this year, and my gift-making and -buying is going according to schedule. I've got two things to make that need to get across the ocean in time for the holidays, and I think I just might make it. I'm knitting my father a pair of slippers, and I hit Google to find out what his shoe size translates to in inches. As it turns out, in his case, shoe size translates pretty directly to inches, so yay, that's going to be easy. I typed "american men's shoe size in inches," into Google, and bang! First hit gives me a chart. Very good. Of course, the second hit was "Shoe Size - Penis Size Conversion Charts," which is really not the kind of connection I care to make when it comes to my Dad, but thanks anyway, Google. It's always good to get confirmation of my belief that whatever the subject, SOMEBODY will create an obsessively detailed web page about it. This one is apparently supposed to be humourous, and when I was twelve, I doubtless would've found it hilarious, so it's just a shame that I'm older than the hills and there was no WWW back then.

And now I know how my parents felt when I was amazed that TV was brand new when they were kids. Phil and I actually had a conversation about this the other night. He's seven years older than me, but still was born well into the age of television, and he can remember when they only had BBC1 and ITV, and then only for relatively few hours a day. So if you were home sick, after the morning's grim social engineering educational programming, you had the option of reading a book, or watching the test card. The test card was apparently more diverting than one of the six or so cheap-ass documentaries they had on rotation, the only one of which he could recall was "The History of Paint," which he estimated he'd seen at least 150 times.

"That sounds really kind of horrible," I told him.
"At least I was born after rationing ended," he replied.

Thus ended the evening's cultural exchange.

About that Summer Tweed vow...

Well, this photo speaks for itself:



Yes, yes, I know. After all the bitching about the HCOH, and the swearing it would be a long, long time before I used Summer Tweed again...blah, blah, blah. What can I say, it's a baby sweater, it's unbearably cute, it's for the baby that will be arriving soon for one of the people I like best in all the world, and it only took me a couple of days. I had a fair amount of the brown yarn leftover from the HCOH, and the pattern only required a bit for the contrast, and two skeins of the main colour, so, what the hell. I love this sweater, it's a great pattern, and are those buttons cute, or what? So I made a baby cardigan in a silk/cotton blend. The mother-to-be will doubtless have plenty of practical things; I wanted to make something special. And I think I did.

I'll be updating every day in December, due to my annual participation in Holidailies, which also means I will be downplaying the knitting content, for the most part. My old DiaryX site (thank you SO MUCH for losing five years of my personal history, Stephen Deken) was much more of a general, old-fashioned online journal (hi! I'm old!) and that's probably what this place is going to look like for a while, anyway, although my knitting obsession is such that I'll probably be unable to resist the urge to blither about that, as well.

In other news of crafty import: I bought a sewing machine. Help me, for I am now acquiring a fabric stash as well. I really do need to get around to photographing what I am grandly calling "my studio," so the seriousness of my sickness will be evident.

Project-wise, I have made a pair of men's gloves in some yummy Yorkshire Tweed DK, which will be an Xmas present for my father-in-law, I have the first of a pair of Fuzzy Feet, for my dad, on the needles, and I am struggling my way through my first self-designed project, a tank top for my mom. Knitted in, god help me, Rowan Handknit Cotton, in a lurid shade of coral. Coral, she believes, is Her Colour. And she's right, and as she's my mother and prone to hot flashes these days, I have sadly concluded that anything I knit for her, beyond scarves and hats, had better not be too warm. I love her, but not enough to knit sleeves in 100% cotton, hence the tank. I really wish I enjoyed knitting with cotton more, since I do like the way it drapes, and the easy care, and damn, there is a lot of beautiful cotton yarn out there, but it is a challenge. It's helping me to loosen up on my death-grip gauge, though, so I'm getting something out of the experience besides tendonitis and the warm glow of filial devotion.

I need wine. And a hot bath. And for my Christmas knitting to be done. My knitting goal for 2007 is a wonderfully selfish one: I want to knit things for me. I will have my long-desired Clapotis, and I will have a jumper of some description before I knit a damn thing for everybody else next year. I've earned it.

did you hear the sonic booms?

That was me, doing this:



Nine days. A whole jumper, from cast on to sewing up done in nine days. Booyah! There is something to be said for large-gauge knitting, and that something is that it's quick. There's something else to be said of it: OW OW OW. My wrists and shoulders don't much like speed demon knitting on 8mm needles, at least not so much of it, in so short a time. Proving, once again, I should never make any assumptions about what it is I like until I've had plenty of experience with it, it turns out all that lovely bulky and chunky yarn I bought so much of last year (but it was ON SALE!) is going to be a bit of a problem to use up, not because it isn't gorgeous, but because it seems I like smaller gauge knitting quite a bit more than I thought I would. I'm not going to give it away, god forbid, or not use it, again, god forbid, but my future yarn-buying decisions will be somewhat more informed.

It is great yarn, though, and that jumper is far nicer than that snapshot indicates. I have no regrets, especially since it's made from Rowan Plaid, purchased at half price at the John Lewis summer sale. It's amazingly soft and lofty, and if plied a little loosely, it's ok, because it didn't give me much trouble at all. There's something like 30% acrylic content in it, but you'd never know, and trust me, I have some pretty damned exacting standards when it comes to acceptable amounts of acrylic. It was so very soft and springy to knit, and after blocking it with a good soak in cold water and a tad of fabric conditioner, it got even softer and springier. It's going to be a very warm sweater, but it's also quite lightweight, and I do hope my mother-in-law, whose Christmas gift it is to be, will like it. It's definitely her style -- neutral colour, high-ish collar.

One of the nicest things about knitting is that I can make sweaters that I think are beautiful, but know full well would look absolutely terrible on me, because I can give them to somebody they will flatter. I would look like hell in that sweater; my shoulders and bust are too big for that style, and the larger gauge wouldn't do me any favours. I can rock a V-neck, a cardigan, a scoop or a square neckline, but crewnecks and turtlenecks are not a good thing on me. The Wall of Bosom effect is one I'd just as soon not display.

Finishing the HCOH, and a couple of other languishing projects did so much for my self-confidence. One, I learned I actually can be persistent with this knitting thing, and I can finish a project I'm hating if I want it bad enough. Two, I learned to trust my instincts when it comes to dicking with patterns; I didn't like the stitch pattern originally called for on that cardigan, so I just went ahead and changed it, having faith in my own taste, and my ability to, you know, do the maths. Three, I now believe I could go ahead and make something without a pattern, if I wanted to, and I will be wanting to someday soon. Using patterns has been a terrific help in teaching me how to knit. I get basic construction; I know when to choose an ssk and when to choose a k2tog when shaping a neckline, and yeah, it's just right/left slant, but the point is, I would've been afraid of an instruction like "knit other side of neck, reversing shapings" until just recently, because what the hell does that mean? Well, I know now, and I also know what to do if the only instruction I'm given is to increase/decrease one stitch at each edge. Even three months ago, I'd have gone into a panic -- HOW? WHICH STITCH DO I USE? HELP! -- but now, no problem.

One final example of my increasing self-confidence: tonight, as I was cooking dinner, Phil came into the kitchen, wearing the first jumper I ever knit. This is not an unusual thing to happen, because he wears that sweater all the time. I have to wait until he goes out of town for a few days to wash it. Anyway, I noticed that the cast-off edge of the neck had a break in it, and it had laddered down a couple of rows, unsurprising, because Phil loves and appreciates that jumper, but he's kinda hard on clothing he loves. One too many times jerked over his head, and bam, something gives.

Instead of freaking out, because my precious first jumper has a hole in it, I thought, hmm, I never was completely satisfied with that collar, anyway. Now I can rip it back, pick up the, er, right number of stitches (I picked up about seven too many, and by then, it was like the twelfth time I'd tried it, and I was too tired to do it YET AGAIN, so I went with it) and do it much better this time. I made him take it off, and I'll frog the collar later, and knit a new one. I am totally unafraid of doing this, and you know why? Because of all those bloody stitches I picked up on that bloody Log Cabin blanket, that's why. No painful knitting lesson is wasted.

More bliss

SQUEE! The Tigers just totally fucking wasted the Yankees. SQUEE!

You can take the girl outta Michigan, but you can't quite take Michigan outta the girl.

Fuck the fucking Yankees.

oh, the sweet bliss of a clean knitting conscience

Two major albatross-like (TM wench) projects, finally complete. The first is the log cabin lap blanket:



Why only a lap blanket, you ask? Because my wrists were giving out from the sheer, stonking weight of this thing. For some reason, I bought a metric shitload of discontinued Debbie Bliss Merino Chunky at last year's post-xmas sale at John Lewis, because it was going so cheap, and such nice wool, and also, I was just really getting into the crazy knitting thing then, and didn't know any better. And then I didn't have enough of any one colour to make a jumper, because I didn't know then just how puny Debbie Bliss' yardage usually is, so it sat in my stash, silently reproaching me for the better part of a year, until I got a copy of Mason-Dixon Knitting, and decided it would make a swell log cabin blanket. And it has; it is snuggly and warm and did I mention very heavy? And did I also mention that I still have lots of it left, although not in those colours?

Some (again, wench) might object to all the mind-numbing garter stitch and the picking up of TEN BILLION stitches, but it was pleasantly mindless knitting, at least until my wrists started to quiver every time I picked it up. And yes, the picking up of TEN BILLION stitches sucks a big one, but given that picking up stitches is something that had previously made me nervous, I have to tell you, this was like stitch-picking boot camp. I got real good at it, real quick, and I am now pretty fearless about it, so it was worth it. Just. Also, I kind of like boring stitches, and they don't get any more boring than garter stitch.

And...and...and...I just got done finishing...drum roll, please...the Hateful Cardigan of Hate!



Oy. This sweater had an evil curse on it from the very beginning. First, there was the impulse purchase (sense a theme, here?) of Summer Tweed, led to me needing to do something with the Summer Tweed, which led to me buying the Summer Tweed pattern booklet from Rowan, and led me to an almost right cardigan, which I thought would make a good birthday present for my mum. Once I switched the reverse stockinette stitch to stockinette, made it longer, and changed the closure, since I wanted something schmancier than the plain single button at the top. Which was easy enough, and only required a bit of fiddling, except everything went wrong, starting with the nasty sensation of knitting with Summer Tweed, which is full of vegetable matter and feels like dirty twine. And is completely inflexible, but hey, whatever. It does soften beautifully, upon washing, and the resulting fabric has a truly lovely drape to it. In fact, I would probably, masochist that I am, use this yarn again, the fabric is so soft and lovely when done. Right after I use a whole bunch of other, more cooperative, yarns first. Then I had to frog and re-knit one of the sleeves, and gah, it was just a mess, until it came time to sew it up. I like finishing, so I go into it with a pretty good attitude, and here is where I made the great discovery: raglan sleeves? OH MY GOD, SO EASY TO FIT. It was like my reward for gritting my teeth and forcing myself to finish this goddamn sweater. They slid right into place, stitched up evenly and gorgeously, and huge lover of set-in sleeves though I am, I will cheerfully knit raglans again, because it was just that slick and smooth and easy.

To my eternal regret, my mother wears only gold jewelry, and is fussy about things being matchy-matchy, so instead of the lovely pewter clasp I wanted to order from Purlescence, I had to go with fake old gold, which I found in John Lewis' haberdashery department. It looks fine, but I still would've prefered the pewter. But that's OK; it's not for me, so my views in this matter don't count. Stick a fork in the HCOH; it is a final blocking and one trip to the post office away from being out of my life. Whee!

Ashley Olsen?

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

you spin me 'round like a record, baby

So there's my first two skeins of crappy handspun, made entirely by me, with the use of some really, truly bad, very nearly illiterate instructions that came as a part of my Learn to Spin kit. How bad were these instructions? Well, for a start, they were for a bottom-whorl spindle, and the kit came with a top-whorl spindle. A bad, barely-finished top-whorl spindle, but eh, it was good enough to get me hooked, and bad enough that I am highly unlikely to ever deal with the company I got the kit from again, particularly since the kit took a long-ass time to get here, and they didn't respond to my increasingly-frantic e-mails. However, I found some clear, concise spinning instructions, as narrated by an adorable child, who, alarmingly, seems to be much smarter than I am, which had me up and spinning within five minutes. Not spinning particularly well at first, mind, but at least I understood what I was doing horribly wrong.



A close-up of my crappy yarn, which I swear to god, in parts isn't bad at all, and if it weren't overspun so badly here and there, wouldn't really be any worse than, say, Point Five. It's rustic. Yes, rustic. And its destiny is surely as something felted, but dudes! I made yarn! And I am going to make more, oh yes. And I am going to get a decent spindle, too. This is less a case of a poor craftswoman blaming her tools than it is a simple desire to have a genuinely beautiful spindle. Beautiful tools inspire me, just as beautiful yarn does. And maybe a beautiful spindle will keep me from buying a wheel before I'm good enough to justify it, because that's where this is headed, you know. Today a spindle, tomorrow a wheel, probably after that, sheep. OK, probably not sheep, but this fibre arts shit is addictive. Knitting is merely a gateway drug.



And there's some real yarn, as bought for me for my birthday, by my darling. The sock obsession continues, with skeins of Schaeffer Anne, Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, and Fleece Artist, all of which are beautiful and feel lovely to the touch. There are three skeins of Alchemy Haiku as well, which will eventually be made into a shawl for me, once I find a pattern I like, although, frankly, I'm tempted to just whip out the stitch dictionary and try to come up with something on my own, since I sort of know what I'd like, and just haven't seen it anywhere yet. A new pair of Addis and some Clover Takumi circs, and a pile of new wool tops completed the wondrous birthday present, and frankly, if my birthday presents are this good, getting TOTALLY FUCKING OLD, OLD, OLD isn't so bad.

this is not happening

I am thirty-nine today.

mock at will

I just ordered a spinning kit. Yes, I have turned into one of Those knitters; no longer content to simply buy vast quantities of yarn, I am going to learn to make my own. The spindle and roving are my reward for working on the HCOH. I am now 3/4 of the way done with the second front panel, and have only one sleeve, assembly, neck and button band to go after that. I will probably live to regret saying this - oh, hubris! - but I actually kind of like finishing. Well, except for weaving in the ends, but I've been doing Russian joins when I add a new ball on the HCOH, so I won't have as many ends to weave in as I might otherwise. It's not quite as easy as spit splicing wool, but I'm very glad I learned to do it, and I'll be even gladder when I'm finishing this bad boy.

And here is my second pair of socks:



I loved making these. They're made from Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in the Moody Blues colourway, knitted on 3.25mm Brittany DPNs, and they took me about a week to make, with plenty of non-knitting busy-ness in there, so they didn't consume my every waking moment. Heh. Until I turned the heel on the second one, at which point I became obsessed and just knit like fury until they were done. I am sticking to a very simple pattern for a while, mostly because I either plan on knitting socks for Phil (who isn't exactly the lace type) or I'll be making them from variegated or self-striping yarn so beautiful I don't think it needs a fancy stitch pattern. The colourway is a bit deeper and darker than it appears in that photo, which I took in very bright sunlight. One thing this very hot, sunny weather has been good for is rapidly drying wool, 'cos those suckers blocked in about two hours flat. I am deeply in love with Cherry Tree Hill Supersock; I don't know how well it's going to wear, but it is just pure heaven to knit with, especially now that I have some wood DPNs to work with. Aluminium needles, in most cases, are just not for me, since I'm a tight knitter, and I need that little bit of flex you get with wood or bamboo.

I am going to finish the second front panel of the HCOH tonight if it kills me, so I can cast on another pair of socks in that Koigu I've been hoarding.

uh oh

Still hot. Still very hot.

Unable to locate more Rowan Chunky Print in the appropriate dyelot, so I trudged, in the heat, over to JL in Liverpool today to see what they had in similar gauge/colour/fibre still available from the sale. Found plenty of Rowan Chunky Plaid in a similar colourway, and even though it has some of the dreaded acrylic in it, it's mostly lambswool and alpaca, so it'll do. (This is for a funnel neck jumper for my MIL for Christmas.)

Came home, drank ice water, finished the instep decreases on the current sock -- it's just way too hot to knit anything big, but the sock is OK, heatwise. Decided to knock off for a bit, went upstairs to check e-mail and look at still more yarn online, because that's what I do.

DISASTER! WARNING! DANGER!

Stash in Chester (my fave semi-LYS) now has - gulp - Debbie Bliss Pure Cashmere in stock. Let me repeat that: Pure. Cashmere. 100%. Pure. Cashmere. No microfibre, no merino, no blend. Just aran-weight cashmere. Pure. There is now a mainstream source of cashmere I can personally fondle before purchasing. This is bad. This is very bad. 25g for £9.95 with a mere 45 metres per ball, which suck-diddly-ucks, but it is cashmere. I have very little self-control around cashmere. And for a Debbie Bliss yarn, that's actually cheaper than I'd expect. I am withholding judgment on the colours until I actually see them in person. And I probably won't see them in person until the weather cools down just a little, because there is no fucking way I am going to risk sweating on any yarn that goes for ten quid per 25g.

Mmmmcashmere.

heatwave

Holy crap, it's hot. Yes, yes, I know, I know, this is wussy English heat, and thus I am, well, a wuss, but I'm telling you, it doesn't take long to adapt to the generally mild English climate, and when you do, your notion of extreme changes entirely. 30 C is bloody damn hot, people, particularly in a nation where your basic climate control device is a window. Back in the fiery pit of summer hell known as the upper midwest, I would probably have considered this a nice day once, but nine years have passed, and I am more delicate now, and I want my weather in that blessed zone between 10 and 20 C, thank you ever so much.

As it happens, I've also adapted to the metric system, so it's not all pure wussery.

Fortunately, our house is pretty well designed to handle hot weather, so when the afternoon heat is at its absolute fiercest, I can retreat to my north-east-facing lair on the first floor, turn on the fan, and wait it out. Inevitably, Pix appears when I do this, and plops herself directly in front of the fan, blocking a fair amount of the breeze as she makes herself as comfortable as possible. Cats are charmingly self-centred like that. If they had opposable thumbs, they would always drink the last of the milk.

Let's see. Cats? Check. Knitting? Check. Neurosis? Oh, definitely check. The other day, I asked Phil if it ever seemed to him that I was a born spinster who'd somehow accidentally got married. He laughed a lot, and it was not laughter of the 'oh you silly girl, don't be ridiculous' variety, if you know what I mean. It was more the laugh of ironic appreciation. I mean, he's OK with it, and it's nice to know I'm not just imagining it, because it really does explain a lot.

food & yarn

So there's the itsy-bitsy-tiny cardigan I made for Casey & Josh's new arrival. The baby is so wee that it will doubtless be months before he grows into it, which is fine. May he wear it in good health and happiness.

I got a sleeve done on the HCOH, and started the other front panel. (I knit things way out of the suggested order as written in the pattern. Having to do two sleeves in a row sounds vaguely depressing, so I split them up.) I've been doing so much smaller gauge knitting lately that the 5mm needles felt huge and awkward in my hands at first, and though I did more or less adjust to them after a while, it felt really good to cast on and start another sock. My new sock is being made in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock's Moody Blues colourway. I LOVE this yarn forever and ever, and second sock syndrome will definitely not strike me, because I love knitting with the yarn so much and can hardly wait to wear the socks. Phil's already worn his; we had a cold spell last week (why yes, this is northern England, and cold spells in July are nothing unusual) and he was very grateful indeed for the snuggly new wooly socks.

Speaking of Phil, yesterday was his birthday, and while I haven't got his pressie yet (though I think all the stuff I've made for him of late should count for something, and we're planning on hitting the camera shop sometime next week so he can pick out what he wants), I did bake him an awesome cheesecake. I make maybe two cheesecakes a year, and one is always for his birthday. I go totally over the top with the birthday cheesecake, because he loves it so, and I very strongly believe everybody should get the birthday cake of their wildest dreams. Me, I like a plain cheesecake, pure and innocent and unsullied. Phil? Bring on the freaking chocolate ganache, man. So I did. One layer of dark chocolate ganache, made with Valrhona, topped with a layer of Lindt white chocolate ganache, and then I melted some more Valrhona and drizzled it over top of the white chocolate layer. This was the cheesecake of wretched excess, and even with my loathing of white chocolate, I have to admit it was fantastic. I think the double cream in the white chocolate ganache tempered its inherent sickly sweetness, and the fierceness of the dark Valhrona balanced it beautifully. I'd never choose to put white chocolate on a cake that was made mainly for my benefit, but it worked and Phil loves it, so it's all to the good, really.

In other news of gustatory delight, I picked the first ripe cherry tomatoes on Thursday, and we had them in a salad yesterday. There is very little in life that beats a good, hard-grown heirloom tomato, at least when it comes to food. I marinated a couple of chicken breasts in lemon, garlic, ginger, soy, spring onion and coriander for a good long time, then cooked them with quartered chestnut mushrooms in a little peanut and toasted sesame oil in a heavy pan. When the chicken was cooked through, I pulled it from the pan and left it to settle while I deglazed the pan with soy sauce, lemon juice, and a bit more toasted sesame oil. I sliced the chicken breasts thinly and placed them on a bed of mixed baby greens, sliced sweet peppers, spring onions, the cherry tomatoes and a handful of cashews and raisins, and then I poured the mushrooms and slightly-cooled pan sauce over it all for a dressing, and goddamn, it was good. It was one of the best salads I've ever made, and with some nice fresh bread and a glass of wine, it made a wonderful dinner. Next time, I might add some water chestnuts for a bit of crunch, but I think it'll be pretty hard to improve upon this salad otherwise. Freestyle cooking is so satisfying when it works well.

P's on holiday all this next week, and while we have absolutely nothing exciting planned, we will definitely be enjoying the garden and the fine weather, and may make the odd day trip. It's just nice to have him at home when we can just relax, sleep in, play with the cats, potter around in the garden and spend some time together. The longer we're together and the older we get, the more I think those are the best holidays of all, which doesn't mean for a minute that he's getting out of taking me somewhere for our 9th anniversary in September, of course. Ideally, somewhere with a good yarn shop.

victory is mine

But the socks are for Phil. I finished them yesterday evening, blocked them overnight, and put them out in the sun today to finish drying. When P got back home this evening, he obligingly tried them on, proclaimed them a perfect fit, and I've since put them away for cooler days.

My first sock, the cuff of which is pictured in the post below, was only a success in the sense that I learned a lot while doing it. It's recognisably a sock, all right, but it would take a very strange foot and leg to fill it, because I jacked up the decreases after turning the heel. But that's OK! I did the hard parts perfectly -- the heel went smoothly, and let me tell you, the Kitchener stitch ain't that hard -- I just made the leg of the sock waaaaay too narrow, due to my insanely tight knitting (I was so nervous I had a death-grip on the DPNs for most of the process, and also: gauge swatch? what gauge swatch?) and then fucked up the decreases after the heel, as noted above.

After finishing the mutant sock, I decided to go for something I could knit on somewhat bigger needles, to compensate for my death-grip gauge, and also, not to waste any of my good sock yarn on my second attempt. (I graciously gave myself permission to indulge my second sock syndrome, due to the fact that the first sock was, basically, unwearable anyway.) The successful pair of socks were made from regular ol' Jaeger Matchmaker Merino 4-Ply on 3.25 mm DPNs, and even though they're just plain grey wool socks, they were so much fun to knit! The Jaeger is really soft, springy wool, very forgiving, and these will be seriously cosy winter socks. I don't know how durable they'll be, since they're a fairly loose gauge and 100% washable merino, with no added nylon or polyacryl, but you know, I just don't care. It only took me six days to knit them, at a couple of hours a day, max, and more to the point, I was working with a fibre I absolutely love, and knitting with it was pure joy. It also helps that MM is fairly inexpensive, readily available, and comes in very many colours; I could see these socks becoming a winter wardrobe staple around our house, since we definitely have plenty of draughts.

Learning to knit socks was great fun, and gave me a terrific sense of accomplishment and confidence in my own abilities. I would say that if I can knit socks, anybody can, and it would be true; not because I am a barely-competent knitter, but because I now believe I'm actually a pretty damn good knitter, and the odds are, if you want to knit socks, you probably are too. It's really not hard; it just requires patience, perserverance, and desire, all three of which you will need while you're wrestling with those first few rounds on the DPNs.

Hear me: Until last November, I had never in my life knitted anything more than a garter-stitch scarf. Since then, I have made three sweaters, two pairs of baby bootees, several hats, mittens, more complex scarves, taught myself to cable, to do short rows, learned to read and follow a pattern, how to correct (or cover up) my inevitable errors, how to use double-pointed needles, knit lace, and many other things I can't call to mind at the moment, but suffice it to say, there are lots of them. I love this. I'm good at this. I will never run out of new things to learn, but I know for sure I've learned the most important thing I need to know: it's just knitting. There was no need for me to be nervous and quite literally afraid to knit those socks with those scary DPNs, and all that tension and death-gripping and whatever. It's knitting. Who the hell cares is you screw it up? You can tear it out and start over, or decide it's just too much of a pain in the arse to bother, and do something else instead. I do this because it gives me pleasure to knit, and it makes me ridiculously happy to see somebody I love wrapped in a garment made by my own two hands.

Learning to knit socks also had two happy side-effects. The first is that I now love fine gauge knitting. I used to regard it as one of those things I'd never have the patience for, because it would take so long, but I was wrong, wrong, wrong. The smaller needles make me knit much faster because they're so much easier to handle, and I am looking forward to doing a lot more work with them. The second thing is that knitting those socks refreshed me, and I'm now back to working on the HCOH, with the plan of doing ten or fifteen rows a day until it's done, which should let me finish it within a couple of weeks. Right now I'm in that delicious phase where I get to plow through my patterns and books and peruse my stash while deciding on a new project. (My stash was hugely enhanced this past weekend at the John Lewis sale; pictures to follow.) I'm also going to cast on a new sock, because socks are the most fabulous on-the-go knitting project imaginable -- I took those socks with me everywhere last week, and all I had to do was toss them in a Ziploc bag and throw it in my purse.

If all this hasn't convinced you (I'm looking at YOU, cee-dub) to try socks, I have one more wonderful revelation with which to tempt you: Number of ends to weave in? Two. Beautiful.



Note sexy legs. Phwoaaaar!