After a bit of a hiatus (sorry guys!) I am back to posting the featured blogs from those kind, lovely souls who supported my Kickstarter last year. I’m working hard on the knitted gifts and there are a few other blogs/shops to feature in the meantime.
If you’re expecting a gift it’ll be there in the next couple of months – as I said before, the response was much larger than expected so my timeline kind of flew out the window. But happily.
Today I’m featuring Fiber Sprite, a website by Pamela. It’s relatively new but there is tonnes of excellent content. In her own words:
Fiber Sprite is a new blog that focuses on all kinds of fiber art (mostly knitting, spinning, and weaving). You can also find the “Legend of the Fiber Sprite,” which is the story of my fiber journey.
I’m all about knitting origin stories as you know.
First up: the blog is adorable. I mean, way cuter than mine. I’d be jealous except I love it too much. It’s clean and bright but not at all sparse; it’s got enough content and pretty pictures to feel cosy and warm. Just what you need from a knitting blog.
If you’re looking for some post highlights, check out these links:
Doctor Who is one of my favourite shows. It’s been a part of my life for a long time: the first joke I heard on the playground as a British kid was a sign of how deeply the show is embedded in the national psyche:
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Doctor.
Doctor Who?
Yes!
Groan.
At the time I had no idea what the joke meant or who The Doctor was beyond a vague impression of time travel, blue boxes, and daleks, yet I laughed at that joke and hummed to the theme tune if I heard it. This was the 90s, bereft of any steady Doctor, and they were dark times indeed.
We are lucky as geeks today to have so many shows to choose from and though I love so many others, it’s Doctor Who that nestles closest to my heart. I may have abandoned ship from the UK but there are things I miss: one thing (aside from the Indian takeaway near my sister’s house) is the buzz of excitement whenever something happened on the show, i.e. a new Doctor or a new showrunner. I can absorb some of that glee from the internet but it’s nothing like sitting on the bus and seeing two blue-haired old ladies discussing Matt Smith’s potential as a Doctor.
All that to say… I love Doctor Who. It means a lot to me. Going through all the Doctor Who patterns on Ravelry has been a joy and I will be revisting this compendium one day. Next month I’m moving on to book-related knits, but Doctor Who is never far from my mind. You’ll be seeing this again.
In the final week I’m sharing the random bits and bobs I’ve seen that don’t fit in any of the other sections. Enjoy.
“We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing – an actor, a writer – I am a person who does things – I write, I act – and I never know what I’m going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.” – Stephen Fry
Do you consider yourself a knitter? Or do you just knit? A spinner, or someone who spins? A crocheter or someone with a penchant for hooks?
I’ve been thinking about this quote for a while. Stephen fry is a wonderful, intelligent man and much of what he says rings true. Perhaps this does too. I’ve been struggling with what it means to be certain things (a writer, a blogger) and Mr. Fry made me realise that it’s not that simple. Yes, if you write you are a writer, and if you knit you are a knitter.
But is it healthy to define yourself that way?
Spoiler alert: I consider myself a knitter. There comes a point in any hobby when it’s taking up so much of your time and attention that it has to become a defining part of yourself. I’m also a writer: I have been writing roughly two decades longer than I’ve been knitting and it’s not easy for me to stop. It’s compulsive. These are two of my defining attributes and I’m comfortable with that, but I still take something away from Stephen Fry’s words.
That is: labels are not everything. Calling myself a knitter does not negate the fact that I do other things than knit. I do not have to write at every opportunity to consider myself a writer. Our identities flex and change and that’s all right.
Maybe one day I won’t be a knitter any longer. I can’t imagine that day coming but it’s possible. Perhaps one day I’ll consider myself only a person who knits.
There is a forum on Ravelry where you can test-knit patterns for people (on a volunteer basis). It’s not for the highly technical side of editing but rather to check the pattern works and there are no glaring mistakes, and I’ve read the threads with interest for a long time.
About a month ago I loved one of the patterns I saw so I agreed to test knit it. There will be photos when it is blocked and the pattern is up on Ravelry, but for now let me explain JUST HOW MANY CABLES THERE WERE.
MANY. There were MANY cables. Upper case essential.
Aside from never wanting to do cables or bobbles ever again, I have enjoyed knitting it. I have not so much enjoyed the amount of times I’ve messed up cables and had to ladder my stitches down to the relevant row and redo the cables, though I have to admit it makes me feel like a bad-ass.
At one point I realised I had messed up about ten stitches two rows back and had to carefully drop the stitches in two catches, crossing the cables correctly and hooking the stitches back up to the current row. It took about half an hour of scowling at the yarn but somehow I managed it. If you follow me on Instagram you would have seen my efforts in real time.
And when it’s fixed…
Most knitting doesn’t bother my hands but I have to say cables make my fingers very sore afterwards. I think it’s time for a crochet project to give them time to recover.
Or I could just put down the yarn for a few days but let’s face it, that’s never going to happen.
You know what the problem with socks is? No one sees them. Especially in a Canadian winter; I have never once taken my boot off in the -15 Celcius weather to show someone my fancy handknit socks, and it’s a damn shame. Solution? Mittens.
Mittens aren’t very good when worn on your tootsies but they’re great for keeping your fingers warm while simultaneously being much easier for people to see. With that in mind, let’s fly our TARDIS geek flag high and have a look at these wondrous Doctor Who mittens in the latest of this series of Timey Wimey Knits posts.
There’s some fabulous patterns out there, people. If you do any of these, let me know! I love them all.
That’s it for today, but pop by next Wednesday for a jammy dodger and the last of this series of posts.
As an aside for those who got this far: I just finished Amy and Rory’s run of the show and I miss them terribly, but my sorrow is somewhat lessened by the lovely Clara Oswald. I had forgotten how much I like her.
The first time someone suggests you should learn to knit you may be baffled. People still do that? Do I look like I’m eighty? Etc etc. Put aside all your prejudices and try knitting on for size because there are many things to please you.
At least… if you’re me.
One: Rows and rows of stockinette.
It’s one of the most basic stitches. On straight needles it’s knit one row, purl the next, but when you’re knitting in the round (like I almost always do)? It’s just knit stitch over and over. People complain about the miles of stockinette some projects have and even I have been known to gripe, but let’s face it: this is what knitting is all about. Anything else is gravy.
Note to new knitters: gravy is a metaphor. Do not attempt to apply gravy to your stockinette.
Miles and miles and miles and miles and
Two: Blindingly complicated lace patterns.
Yes, I like to jump through the extremes.
Lace is sometimes to complicated it hardly looks like knitting any more, but even the hardest is much easier than it looks. It’s all just knitting, purling, increasing, decreasing. There may be about a thousand variations of those things before you even get to the ridiculous ones like p5tog tbl (purl five together through the back loop, and no I have never seen this on an actual pattern yet) but even a nupp is just knits and yarn overs and a decrease.
The hardest part is the counting. Seriously, I can do fiddly lace if I use roughly 5,405 stitch markers so that I don’t have to figure out where the heck I am in the pattern.
Three: Casting on.
Once again there are many ways to cast on, but I’m not talking about the technicalities. I’m talking about that moment where you’re done one project and moving on to the next. That moment where you have come to the end of the second sock and seek out a new pattern to start.
Or, if you’re more like me, that moment halfway through a project when you think you’ll scream if you have to do one more bobble so end up casting on something else to keep you sane.
It’s the thrill of the new and the thrill of the familiar all wrapped up into one, and I love it.
Four: Nupps.
I hate them. Really, really hate them. Yet the sense of triumph at mastering something so fiddly and ridiculous is overwhelming. I still fondle the nupps of my Damask shawl regularly. At present it is pinned up on my desk at work to stare at happily until it’s spring and I can wear it again.
Got to love/hate a good nupp.
Nupps, for me, signify that moment of realising I can knit well. Not just get by, not just churn out a few simple things. I can do something difficult and I can, after a few attempts, do it well. That negates the hate a bit.
Five: Frogging a project.
This may sound counter-intuitive. What’s so fun and satisfying about ripping back a project until it’s nothing but a ball of yarn once more? Doesn’t that mean defeat, resignation, sadness?
Yes, maybe. Or maybe it’s one of my abandoned projects languishing in my drawer for three years before I get it out and now I have a ‘new’ skein of bright red merino/silk sock yarn to play with again.
Ta-dah!
Besides, I’m a process knitter. I may love most of my finished objects but certainly not all of them.
Okay, okay, try not to faint in shock. I know this is unusual and a little bit baffling. Polo, knit socks? Never! Except for those dozens of times, and all those socks I have planned for the future and all the skeins of pretty sock yarn and all the pairs suffering from Second Sock Syndrome…
These ones are made from glorious Manos del Uruguay. If you haven’t knitted with it before you need to head to your local yarn store and get some as soon as possible. It’s luscious.
The pattern is Business Casual and I’ve kind of stopped looking at it because it’s very intuitive, though considering my recent track record of messing up things when I glance away from the pattern for three stitches, maybe I should reconsider this. (You will be hearing more about that later, since I did the dumb thing and gifted the resultant mittens without getting photos.)
I’ve named them Come Along, Pond. Why? Well. Because they’re ginger, of course.
Come along, Pond!
That’s what they look like inside but in natural light they’re far more red than it seems there. It’s orangey-red rather than just plain orange. This is a closer match to the colour:
Can’t you feel how soft and smooth and fluffy that yarn is through the screen? You know you can. And isn’t it pleasing that the two-stitch cable pattern splits from the 2×2 rib of the cuff? Yes, yes it is. These socks are a dream to knit and my saviour in between fun but difficult patterns.
As an aside: I’m knitting them on my only pair of cubics and they’re great. No better than ordinary DPNs for me, though some people swear by them. The best thing is how they line up so neatly when you lay them down on the table. No more abrupt squats to pick up escaping needles!
Though squats do give you a fabulous derriere.
Amy Pond is one of my favourite characters in Doctor Who because she gets to live out such a huge part of her life and, more than most companions, she has the control. She says when she’ll go with the Doctor and when she won’t. She manages a life with her husband and the rest of their family and yet still gets to go off on adventures with her alien friend. She’s also totally hilarious and a bit mental, so I dig her.
These socks are in her honour as I come to the end of Eleven’s time in the show in my binge-rewatch.
Onwards I go through my Doctor Who binge, the first I have done since I started watching it. It’s fun to view them all in order and refresh my memory on so many characters and episodes that I had forgotten.
I just watched the Wedding of River Song and oh, how I love her. She’s smart, she’s capable, she’s brutal. She parades into the Doctor’s life and doesn’t apologise for it. Though morally she’s not a particularly good person she does her best for the people she loves and boy, does she have good hair.
Sometimes Doctor Who can be a cheesefest (which is why I can’t convince my girlfriend to watch it) but on the whole it’s full of complex characters and big emotions. It’s easy to cry when watching Doctor Who but it’s just as easy to laugh.
Since I shared some of my favourite Doctor Who socks last week, here are a few more to warm you – this time with some variety. Tune in on Friday to see my completely-not-themed-but-still-counts ‘Come Along, Pond’ socks (you’ll see).
I’m in love with the Companions today so you’re getting ones themed around them, the constant complement to our favourite erratic Time Lord.
Let’s start with the biggest (on the inside).
And yes, the TARDIS counts as a companion, even if it was only for one episode. Oh, Idris. (Perhaps it’s the Doctor who is the Companion there…)
That’s it for this week. Next week we’re looking at some rather terrifying villains, though why you’d want to put anything reminding you of the Weeping Angels anywhere near your body I’m stumped.
When you’re looking at a pile of WIPs that need finishing, what do you do? When you realise that it’s also November and you have to figure out how to squeeze in at least 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, what’s your plan of action? Oh, let’s not forget a dedication to writing comic reviews and a book review assignment due at the end of the month for your other site.
If you’re sensible you’ll write a plan of action and get going on all your commitments. If you’re me, you’ll find a project you haven’t touched for months and start procrasti-knitting.
On the plus side these socks are necessary, though not urgent. They are a gift for a dear friend who once had me knit her a lovely green dress out of Manos del Uruguay while I kipped in her bedroom, cut adrift from my partner while I waited for my Permanent Residency in Canada. Lucy is one of the best people I know in the world; she’s the kind of friend who hears you’re stuck in the wrong country again and the first thing she does is offer her spare room, hundreds of miles away. She’s a wonderful musician and artist, and we had an intense eighteen months leaning on one another before my PR came through and she moved to Glasgow with her partner.
When I was on my way back from Manitoulin, where I bought this yarn, Lucy texted me to ask ‘Aunty Eag’ (me) whether I can please knit her lots of baby things. I burst into tears and announced the socks I was knitting had to be for her. If I finish them today then I can get them sent to her before Christmas, thereby breaking my trend of never getting any gift to anyone on time ever.
If you’re wondering about the Eag thing, her neighbours were some young kids with broad Geordie accents and one day they were leaning over their wall telling us they were learning to spell. They asked what my name was, then said “I can spell Laura! E-A-G!”.
Yes, my ‘real’ name is Laura. Forget you knew that, please.
The yarn is crunchy and amazing, and it is dyed with natural colours. I’m looking forward to washing it because it’s superwash and turns much softer after, or so the dyer told me.
On the plus side I’ve already finished two out of the Kickstarter rewards and written 10,000 words for NaNoWriMo, so this is just a case of November being my most productive month. If I indulge in a little procrasti-knitting between important things, well, at least Lucy will be getting her Christmas gift on time.
It took me quite a while to realise that the ‘nupps’ people wrote about on Ravelry were the same as the ‘noops’ one of the my friends talked about occasionally, and even longer to figure out why they are so intimidating. Upon figuring out what they were I made a few attempts to do them but always gave up in frustration. That is… until I started my Damask shawl.
First up, maybe I should talk about what a nupp is. It’s a stitch that comes from Estonian knitting, a gorgeous lace-heavy style. According to Google Translate the word ‘nupp’ means button which is totally adorable and I love it. Basically a nupp is a bunch of knits and yarn overs worked into the same stitch, then on the following row you knit through all the loops in one go, leaving a little bobble-type thing on your object. There are other ways to get similar effects but nupps are smart and neat when they’re done right.
If you’re curious how to do a nupp, check out this video. I think I watched this many years ago and this isn’t how I do my nupps but I’ll come to that.
Okay, so on the video the woman uses the crochet hook for the nupp and the reason I think that I did watch this video years ago is that when I came to the first nupp on the Damask I had the thought that I should use a crochet hook. However instead of doing the whole thing on it like in the video, I did the nupp the normal way on the first row and then on the way back along the wrong side I used my crochet hook to grab the yarn and tug it through all the stitches before purling the resulting stitch. It worked out beautifully.
After the first row.
This was my first attempt and for the first row of the Damask they all look like this. I’m not sure what I did, but I think I may not have purled them and instead carried on as if they were knit, which dragged the yarn across the front. They all look like wrong-side nupps and I was not at all pleased with them but nor was I willing to break my momentum and go back to fix them.
Once I figured out how to do them they turned out much neater and worked well for the rest of the shawl.
Much bubblier, don’t you think?
By the end of the shawl nupps became quite boring which is a sign I’ve come far since the beginning of it. As ever I’ve found that pushing myself past a thing that intimidates me makes me much stronger in the long run.
At one point I dropped the nupp mid-crochet which almost made me burst into spontaneous flames. Thankfully I managed somehow to wrangle the three-inch strand of yarn back into a nupp and it’s only slightly messier than the ones around it.
I’ve still got a way to go before my nupps are as perfect as I want them but I’m still pleased with the progress.
The Knitter Nerd 