With Good Weather Comes Cotton

Last week I finally managed to go to my LYS, having spent many weeks unable to leave the dog because of an incident involving his paw and a large piece of glass (at least, we think that’s what he stepped on). I couldn’t stay long but I grabbed myself some cotton and started planning to knit myself a top and that’s when I realised.

It’s really spring.

Here in Southern Ontario we had snow three weeks ago but the temperature has been climbing steadily since then. These days it’s edging up towards the twenties (Celcius) and it is amazing.

It’s been a tough winter. I’m not just saying that because I’m the English woman struggling to adjust to the harsh weather either – everyone’s been saying it. It was endless and bleak and so cold my eyebrows froze on multiple occasions which I didn’t know was possible before then. The days were short and the wind was cruel and I was pretty sure it was never going to end. This was it. Snow forever.

Then I bought cotton.

Cotton for me is not something to touch during the winter, though like my colour changes for the seasons, I never plan it that way. It is how I tell that I no longer have full-body frostbite at grabbing my newspaper in my jammies of a morning. It is something that comes with not wearing three pairs of socks to work. Cotton for me (and many others) is a summer fibre and my creative urges agree that it’s coming.

It should be a mere pile of fibre waiting to become something lovely and instead it has all this pressure on it. It’s my symbol of hope for a new season. Being English I don’t trust seasons, knowing they can turn on a dime – I’ve worn huge warm raincoats through entire Augusts before back there. But at least there’s the chance.

Plus, guys, it’s really pretty cotton.

Experiences with tiny needles

After knitting (and frogging) a pair of socks in the last week on my tiny circular needles, I’ve discovered something.

I’m not the kind of person that thinks ahead.

To people who know me that’s not the most surprising news ever to fall out of my keyboard. It’s not even news to me, although sometimes I forget that I don’t always think things through. In this case I was happily knitting away on my needles in my usual stitch counts, just a vanilla sock because it was self-striping, when I realised my error.

I was working on 2mm needles with my usual stitch count, yet usually I work on 2.5mm or above. Result? My already tiny socks (for my tiny ankles) were laughably small.

It wasn’t me who noticed; it was my coworker, the guy who sits beside me. He’s got pretty good at knowing what I’m knitting at any given time and asks interested questions about the yarn and whether knitting is cost-effective (oh how I laughed), and he said to me, ‘those look a little small, don’t they?’.

So I looked at the socks and then at my feet and then back at the socks. And I ripped it out then and there.

Anaemia and a headache that’s been going for nearly three months now has given me rather a short temper but I did not lose it here. I’m a process knitter and enjoy the motion of knitting more than the end product. My fits of rage were fleeting as I wound back the pretty yarn and tossed it into my filing cabinet at work (hey, we’re a paper-free office, what else should I use it for?).

Despite that little hiccough I have to say I’m enjoying the tiny needles. Knitting the heel is fiddly and a bit ridiculous but the rest goes quickly and looks neat and even with no ladders where the DPNs meet.

Still, I’m casting on a few more stitches this time.

I need to stop buying needles.

Lately I’ve been turning up at my knit night with my yarn in hand and no needles with which to cast on. Don’t ask me how I manage it buy I’m always either right at the end of a project or on a really fiddly bit when I get there, which means I’m forced to start another project (I know, my life is hard). Of course I am a complete sock addict so that’s usually what I pick up.

Two weeks ago I bought some 2mm needles. Usually I knit on a larger gauge – 2.5 or above – purely because I have the tendency to break anything smaller. What? I knit tightly, okay?

Of course I broke one of the needles about five minutes in but that’s okay, I had one spare. I’m nearing the toe on that project and have yet to destroy any more needles. They’re wooden ones because despite the advantages of being less easy to snap, I cannot stand metal or carbon for long.

Last week I went back to Martina’s and still could not knit without buying some needles. Not wanting to repeat the same situation as before, I decided to try out the Hiya Hiya 9″ circulars specifically made for socks. They have tiny needles which means you have to crunch up your fingers near the end but when you’re as tense a person/knitter as me, that’s not a problem. I was surprised how easy it was to adjust to them.

One of the biggest benefits of knitting with a 9″ circular is the lack of ladders where your DPNs meet. Now, I don’t know if I’ll ever completely abandon my DPNs, but I do not hate these circulars.

When I got to the heel my mind unravelled as I attempted to figure out how to knit the heel. Turns out I should have just used Youtube, but I never make things that easy for myself. I struggled and fiddled and cursed and somehow managed to turn a successful heel yesterday.

In future I’ll stick to googling videos like this one before I get tempted to throw my project out of a window.

Have you tried these needles before? What did you think?

Terry Pratchett.

Today I bought Men at Arms which has always been one of my favourite Terry Pratchett novels. Previously I didn’t need to buy my own copies because I used the Library of Dad – it was one of the things we bonded over and how he began to realise I’m a complete nerd. Terry Pratchett’s books have brought me so much joy over the years.

I am so, so sad to hear he died today.

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living. – Terry Pratchett

There is nothing out there remotely like the Discworld novels but that was not all Pratchett brought us. I remember the day Dad came in with two hardback copies of Nation – it was released on my birthday so he took it as a sign I needed my own copy. I remember watching Pratchett’s touching talk on euthanasia, something that was close to his heart thanks to early onset Alzheimers.

Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. – Terry Pratchett

My heart hurts for the loss of this man and I’m not usually the kind to get upset about ‘celebrity’ deaths. I’ve never met them, after all.

But Terry Pratchett was such a huge part of my formative years and I will always carry his (ridiculous and surreal but always poignant) words in my mind.

From Terry Pratchett’s own Twitter…

The End.

— Terry Pratchett (@terryandrob) March 12, 2015

Lurid Rainbow Handknit Socks

There was a time in my mythical teenage years where my entire wardrobe became rather lurid. I had spent most of my life worrying about what I wore and whether it made me look ‘weird’ or ‘different’, but leaving school and leaving my childhood home made me realise that I was both of those things. More importantly, it was suddenly a good thing.

Instead of being shunned for strange tastes and obsessive tendencies, I found like-minded friends. Some of those people remain in my life today and I thank them for shaping me into a (mostly) reasonable and self-confident person.

My fashion sense went from drab to one simple rule:

• Wear as much colour as possible, all at once.

These latest socks fit the bill. Teenage me is jumping for joy, purple hair bouncing in the breeze.

The yarn that made these socks was a gift from a friend who actually predates my lurid rainbow phase. She is a wonderful and hilarious person with a huge heart, and has remained one of my best friends in all that time – at least ten years.

We have had a colourful friendship to match these socks; there have been times we have clashed so hard that we haven’t spoken for months at a time, but ultimately our differences work well together. When I left the UK in June 2014 she took me on a surprise trip to see Wicked, which shows you how awesome she is. And this yarn was a Christmas gift from her.

It came in two little 50g cakes, identical as hand-dyed yarn can be. I didn’t get a picture because I cast on right away. Hey, I was excited! The yarn came from indie dyer Truly Hooked, who may also be found on Etsy. It is lovely, just lovely.

Due to my reasonably small feet I was worried that I wouldn’t get to use all of the colours. That would simply not do. The gradients are reasonably long in these socks and I couldn’t bear the thought of not getting to the pink. I considered making them longer, but then Martina suggested knitting them in stripes – knitting from the outside of one cake and the inside of the other.

This was the result and I am thrilled.

Yes, they are bright. Yes, they are lurid. But honestly I have never grown out of that teenage all-the-rainbow phase and I doubt I ever will. My happiest days are when I get to wear my brightly coloured swooshy skirts. These socks will find a good and regular place in my wardrobe and my lovely friend knew that.

I still have just a little left which will be used to make some mini handwarmers for work.

My favourite thing about these socks is the conflicting heels and toes. It’s just adorable. and because of the slow gradients it didn’t leave an obvious change in the stripes once I’d turned the heel.

At one point I considered doing an afterthought heel but really… that’s never going to happen. It’s a sure way for me to never finish a project.

So that’s that. Some wonderful lurid rainbow handknit socks, all kitchenered and ready to go. They’re just as comfortable as they look too.

It’s just a shame it’s so wet and snowy out there or I would take some outside pictures to show off the colours even more.

Consider this post a big thank you to one of the best, most reliable and most interesting people I have known in my life. You know who you are.

Forgotten Projects

Spring is coming.

At least that’s what my girlfriend keeps saying. I think she might be ahead of herself, willing the weather into some semblance of warmth when in fact the ground outside is blanketed with white. It snowed a few days ago, recent enough that the dog walks are pleasant and not too slippery.

When she was tidying the spare room I began organising my yarn stash. Some of it I had to let go but I’m still left with plenty. There was, deep in that stash, a bag I’d forgotten.

It must have come from England with me but moving to Canada is a blur now. It feels as though I’ve always been here. Looking back, this is the bag I shoved in my suitcase because it was full of half-finished projects and I didn’t want to send that through the mail.

Inside that bag I found this.

This is a half-finished shawlette made from some Handmaiden Sea Silk. I bought this two years ago at Martina’s and it has been languishing ever since. I’ve tried to knit a few things with it but nothing has worked yet.

The colours are sublime but that’s nothing compared to the texture. It’s smooth and cool and light. It’s squishable but slinky. I love it.

Yet… I don’t think this project is right for it. I think I might be ripping it back to try something new once more. Thankfully it seems to be holding up quite well to the abuse, though I won’t rip it back until I find something that it wants to be.

Sometimes yarns don’t listen to you when you tell it what project it should be. I get this a lot, actually. Sometimes I’ll buy a yarn with a project in mind and the yarn will flat out refuse to cooperate. It’s fortunate I don’t have a problem with frogging projects (I’m a process knitter) because otherwise I would be in a constant stream of tears.

This sea silk needs to be something beautiful but more importantly it needs to be something I can use a lot and admire. I’m not the sort of person to put things away to gaze at with distant adoration. I knit to use my knitted goods.

If only I could figure out what this sea silk wants to be.

Go Read It: City of Stairs by Robert J. Bennett

I’m not sure why this book was on my Kindle. Perhaps it was fate. Perhaps my Kindle decided it was bored of my Jane Austen kick. Whatever the reason, I bought City of Stairs at some point and then began reading it on the bus to work.

It would have been easy to miss my stop that day and every other day I’ve read this book. I would refer to it as a true page-turner if I was not reading it on a screen. With a grand host of intricate and interesting characters in an intricate and interesting world, there is so much to this book I don’t know where to start.

The city of Bulikov once wielded the powers of the gods to conquer the world, enslaving and brutalizing millions—until its divine protectors were killed. Now Bulikov has become just another colonial outpost of the world’s new geopolitical power, but the surreal landscape of the city itself—first shaped, now shattered, by the thousands of miracles its guardians once worked upon it—stands as a constant, haunting reminder of its former supremacy.

Into this broken city steps Shara Thivani. Officially, the unassuming young woman is just another junior diplomat sent by Bulikov’s oppressors. Unofficially, she is one of her country’s most accomplished spies, dispatched to catch a murderer. But as Shara pursues the killer, she starts to suspect that the beings who ruled this terrible place may not be as dead as they seem—and that Bulikov’s cruel reign may not yet be over.

If that doesn’t whet your appetite I don’t know what will.

One of the best things about this book is that it defies traditional genre tropes. It is high fantasy but it is not elves and swords and thinly-veiled metaphors for Medieval European politics. It has an element of romance but it is far from the point and neither character is suited for the situation in any case. It is a book of spies and intrigue without the predictability. It has kings and Gods and terrifying sea creatures.

None of that is what I liked best about this book. The best part for me was the relatability of the characters. They are not tired old copies of characters before them. They are bright and intriguing people with flaws as high as the sky and from the first page I couldn’t get enough of them.

I gave a physical copy of this book to my girlfriend for Christmas because I know she’ll love it as much as I do. I’m fairly sure most of you will too if you give it a try.

For the Love of a Yarn

When I went to The Little Green House for the Thursday knitting group, I had just finished a commission and didn’t have anything else with me to knit – I’d been flustered after my bus home from work had been late and didn’t have time to grab something new.

Martina suggested I knit something out of a new yarn for her to show in the store. That yarn is Cascade Duo Colour, a 70% baby alpaca/30% Merino blend and oh my goodness, this yarn. It is lovely. Just lovely.

First of all the colours are beautiful. I started a hat for Martina out of the middle colour, a gorgeous burnt orange with black in it. I knitted a Barley hat from it which I’ll take pictures of once I get around to sewing in the ends – which usually takes me longer to bother with than the entire knitting process.

I also bought the red one since the rich blood red mixed with the black is striking. Knit up, it’s even better. The black and red fade between one another, speckled in places and plain in the other, and it’s subtle and lovely.

As for the texture?

Well.

I already love baby alpaca. One of my first fancy projects was some fingerless mitts in a baby alpaca blend. It’s soft with none of the itchiness of the mature alpaca and I have had many people at work wandering over to give it a pet. It’s a pleasure to knit.

The only downside to this yarn is that it splits quite a bit but if you’re careful it’s worth it.

So readers, get out and try this yarn if you’re in the mood to spoil yourself. It’s lovely and you won’t regret it.

(P.S.: believe it or not, Cascade isn’t paying me for this post. Honest.)

Stash Enhancement and WIPs

Thanks to helping out Martina at The Little Green House I’ve finally been able to increase my stash after quite a few months of languishing. Oh, it feels so good to have new yarn to fondle.

First up I got a bunch of fluffy blue Berroco alpaca yarn that I was going to make into the fabulous Brandywine Shawl. It didn’t work out; the yarn is too fuzzy where I need a nice distinct stitch pattern. So that yarn is waiting to be made into something else instead.

To replace it I got some autumn orange Cascade 220. It works perfectly. I’m near the end of it and it’s looking absolutely gorgeous (if I may say so myself).

I adore this pattern. It’s fun to knit, mostly intuitive, and it looks like the sections are overlapping which makes me extremely happy. It was a pattern I purchased nearly a year ago when I got some extra dosh and I’ve been trying to find the yarn and time for it since then. Here it is!

Since I took that picture on my crappy Blackberry camera I’ve knitted another few inches.

Last up I got a couple of skeins of Cascade Heritage Silk yarns, one in a solid blue and one that’s variegated with a blue that matches up to the first. It’s going to be a pair of socks though as I have two skeins it may well end up being some mittens too. The mitts I made for my partner over a year ago were Heritage Silk and she still wears them all the time. This yarn holds up well. Turns out silk is seriously hardy.

What’s your most recent stash enhancement acquisition?

Exploring Romney Fibre

Lately every time I admire the texture of a knitted item it seems to be either linen stitch or herringbone. There’s something about them that is almost non-knitted, as though they are some other kind of fancy magical craft like weaving or suchlike. I thought I had better give one of them a go.

I used a fairly simple tutorial which you can find here. Linen stitch is almost as basic as you can get but the dense fabric it creates is very pleasing. Perfect, thought I, for a bag. And lo, I happen to have some yarn that almost immediately made me want to make a bag with it.

This yarn was a birthday gift from Tamara, my girlfriend’s sister. It’s Romney and it’s hand-dyed/spun. It’s as close as I could get to the real colour which is a rich and slightly tonal grass-green. Very classy. I love the dramatic plying.

Of course since I’ve never heard of a Romney sheep I had to go look one up.

Credit: Wikipedia

Just look how happy this dude is. I would be too if I had legs as woolly as that (I’ve shaved mine recently). I have to admit that this guy looks like the little puffy clouds with legs we all drew as kids when asked to draw sheep – at least in the UK, even though I grew up on an island with much more unusual looking breeds.

The Romney yarn is scratchy so it’s not suitable for right next to the skin unless you’re into that sort of thing, and I’m told some people are. It talks all sorts I suppose. It’s super squishy though and I do like a good crunch to my yarn so I’m happy with it.

The main downside is that this was not well-cleaned before spinning. Half the goddamn field is in this yarn. I’ve picked out as much as I can but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it would be a lot less scratchy if it hadn’t been plied with a haystack. I know it comes from an independent dyer/spinner but I’ve used plenty of indie yarns and never found it to be this much of a problem before.

After casting on a random bag (no pattern) to see what happens, I’d say I quite enjoy knitting with this yarn. It’s not well-made. It’s uneven to the point of being bizarre and there’s too much straw in it but I like a good scratchy wool because I’m a weirdo.

I’m changing my posting schedule slightly – Monday/Wednesday/Saturday. Stay tuned for Saturday’s images of how this yarn looks knitted up.

Have you worked with Romney before? Am I alone in my love for scratchy natural fibres?