Time to get cosy?

For those of us in Southern Ontario, winter is rearing its icy head. For the last two days I have wished for a decent pair of gloves the moment I’ve left the house, but I can’t find any of my fingerless ones and it’s not quite cold enough for lined mittens.

Confession: I am in a slump with knitting. I haven’t picked up the needles in at least a week, more like ten days. This is a really long time for me, but since all my inspiration for everything is currently running dry, I’m not concerned. I know why it is happening and I know it will pass, but for now I’m living a knit-free life.

In the meantime I’ve been considering patterns to knit when I can get up the energy to do so. That’s where you come in.

Which of these patterns should I try next?

Tipsy by Andre Sue. Photo Credit.

Tipsy by Andre Sue

Simple, elegant, not all that visually interesting. These would be convenient for this kind of weather where I can still get my fingers out sometimes. However, I do like to tuck my fingertips in when it gets super chilly, so I’m not sure about these.

They would be a quick and satisfying knit though!

Get the pattern for free here on Ravelry.

 

Don’t Skid, Honey by Justyna Lorkowska. Photo Credit.

Don’t Skid, Honey by Justyna Lorkowska

I like the zig-zags on these. The yarn I have in mind is mildly variegated – almost tonal, but a bit more dramatic – so I’m considering these because the pattern would make it stand out.

That said, same problem as above: I can’t tuck my fingers in and can’t figure out if that’s a deal-breaker.

Get the pattern for free here on Ravelry.

 

Long Flap Fingerless Gloves by Lisa Dove. Photo Credit.

Long Flap Fingerless Gloves by Lisa Dove

Um, you know how I’m worried about cold fingertips? This would cure that problem, wouldn’t it?

However, it’s a super simple pattern and I don’t know if it would hold my interest. I have this problem where if it’s not challenging I go off and do my own thing which results in never getting anything finished.

Get the pattern for free here on Ravelry.

What do you think about the options?

Have you got any better ideas?

I’m looking for something functional more than decorative or I’d have a whole different list on here.

Help me, fellow knitting nerds! You’re my only hope (to regain my knitsperation)!

Suddenly, a cardigan appears

Over the last week I have finished a few projects  (on their way to the blocking mat) and frogged one fairly major project (story coming later this week). Since everything on the needles is giving me attitude, I decided to start a project I’ve been excited about for a while.

Plus it was my birthday Sunday. What better excuse to cast on a cardigan?

I only started this yesterday and it’s already ten inches deep. It’s a welcome break from troublesome projects!

It’s August. In August, I knit shawls.

This time last year I knit myself a Faroese Jane Eyre shawl, as shown in my last post. Because apparently it takes me a year to get around to posting finished-object photos, at least when it’s of projects I use all the time.

Perhaps I’m developing a habit, because a week ago I cast on Grandifolia by Vickie Hartog which is another shawl, though very different in both style and construction.

Fair warning: I actually know Vickie in real life, so I had a heavy bias in wanting to try out this pattern. That said, I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I love knitting it and how easy it is, even though the charts made my poor brain go kaboom the first time I saw it.

Turns out that once you get into it the charts are very easy to read. They are however very big so marking it off with a pencil is probably a good idea as you go (or however you normally keep track).

Here are some pictures from Instagram (you can follow me here); it’s much bigger now, but you’ll have to wait until it’s done for proper photos.

A photo posted by Polo Lonergan (@knitternerd) on Jul 28, 2016 at 4:31pm PDT

 

I don’t know what it is about August that makes me want to knit shawls but there you go.

By the way, if you love the pattern but don’t know if you can handle that much lace and so many charts, you can always try out the Grandifolia Lite. It’s currently free until October 31st.

Picture from the Ravelry Grandifolia Lite page. Copyright Vickie Hartog.

Do you love alpaca yarn too?

If you saw my last post about Nuevo Norte Alpacas and my trip into a little world full of alpaca-based happiness, you will know that I one day intend to keep alpacas.

Why? Well, the first time I felt alpaca yarn my mind was blown. I knew on a vague level that alpacas were a thing, but alpaca turned into my gateway drug into the world of fancy, soft, fluffy, amazing fibre. One small skein of pale blue baby alpaca/silk and I was sold on the world of fibre.

That project was one of the early documented ones on the blog, back in December 2011. I had been knitting for about a year and a friend send me the yarn. I found a nice pattern for fingerless mitts, something I’d never needed so badly before I knitted, and spent some of the worst weeks of my life knitting them. I was sick, I was in pain, and I’d had to postpone my year in Canada due to all of the above. (The picture to the side is from when I was bed-bound for a few weeks, and the featured cat is Disney who hated almost everyone but loved me so, so much. Especially when I didn’t move for a while.)

By December I was better and ready to go, but there’s a reason I called them ‘Escapism Mitts’. They gave me the space to enjoy texture and colour and the process of knitting instead of dwelling on the difficulties at the time.

I still have and use the mitts and they still look fabulous.

Since then I would have to say alpaca has remained close to my top spot in terms of my favourite fibre. I knit with wool more often as I knit socks pretty much constantly, but when I have an excuse for alpaca I don’t often resist.

How does that translate into wanting to keep alpacas myself?

My girlfriend and I are animal lovers. We surround ourselves with them, her even more than me (at her work). One day we plan to have a small farm – one they call here a ‘hobby farm’ – and keep a few choice animals. We’ll have alpacas (because I’m deadly serious about it), goats, chickens, horses. Maybe a few cows one day.

I mean, ideally I’d like to have an enormous herd of merino sheep but as I would spend all day running around hugging those giant puffballs, I’ll stick to alpacas.

Just look at this fluffy asshole. – Merino, Glen Orkney, Awatere, Marlborough, New Zealand, CC BY 2.0.

Wait, alpacas are also giant puffballs. Maybe I should reconsider. (I won’t.)

Do you like alpacas? Would you ever like to keep animals for their fibre? If you do already, how do you find it?

 

Bookish Knits: Jane Eyre Edition

Despite my love for the fibre arts that has since flourished, as a teenager I hated my Textiles class. Getting to spin some yarn on a wheel was interesting but I also had to sew myself an item of clothing based on the Sixties and, well, my resulting dress was not impressive. One thing I did take out of the experience was a new favourite book that remains close to my heart: Jane Eyre.

No, it had nothing to do with our class, but I would sometimes work there after school finished to avoid the unpleasant folk on the way home. My teacher was a kind soul and we talked about books; eventually she told me I would like Jane Eyre, so I tried it. By the time Jane confronted her Aunt I was hooked and I have read it many times since then, always gaining some new appreciation from it.

Jane Eyre sticks by her heart and her morals through all that happens to her. Sometimes she may waver but she doesn’t give in and I respect that. Let’s honour her today with some patterns inspired by Charlotte Bronte’s creation.

Jane Eyre Shawl

by Nikol Lohr

Image from the pattern page

Now, I’ve knitted this shawl and wear it quite frequently, so I really should get some pictures up on the blog. Perhaps Jane herself would rather I didn’t show it off; it is functional like her with its faroese styling but it has a flourish of something special, too.

Rosamund’s Cardigan

by Andrea Pomerantz

Picture credit through pattern link

Yes, they’ve spelled her name wrong, but it comes up in a search for ‘Jane Eyre knits’ so it must be inspired by her. Regardless, Rosamond is one example of the wonderful characterisation in the novel; a bit part, she nonetheless has depth in her longing for St. John Rivers.

Wandering the Moor

by Celeste Glassel

Picture credit through pattern link

Heartbroken and still on her feet, my favourite Jane is one who does nothing but survive. She leaves Rochester even if it nearly breaks her and she keeps going until she finds a new village, a new life which she carves out for herself. It’s in those chapters when she is wandering the moors that you truly see her worth.

Jane Eyre Tea Cosy

by Loly Fuertes

Picture credit through pattern link

Though I’m not certain I could imagine Jane with such an extravagantly embroidered dress, I had to include this for the sheer fact that it’s adorable. Not usually a reaction I have around this book!

Mrs Rochester of Ferndean

by Elizabeth Felgate

Picture credit through pattern link

Reader, she married him.

Timey Wimey Knits: Part Two

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…)

The Doctor’s Wife

by Corrine Walcher

Oi! Watch it Spaceman! Socks

by C.C. Almon

River Song’s Diary

by hells456

Hello, I’m Captain Jack

by C.C. Almon

Come Along, Pond

by Teri B.

 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.

Last Day to Win!

If you haven’t already listened to episode two of the Knitter Nerd podcast, go do so. Also, comment on the post with one of Diane Martini’s gorgeous patterns and you could win one of them from me.

A reminder of how lovely they are:

From Diane Martini’s Designer Page. © rantini 2015

I’m personally making the Marigny sweater as soon as I can find the right yarn for it, but she has some lovely things to choose from.

You can also use the code polo2015 on any of her patterns this month for 25% off. What a bargain.

A Triumphant Return!

At the end of the week I concluded my desperate struggle against lack of cares and finished a project. Yes, a sock came off the needles and – get this, people – I even kitchenered the toe and sewed in the ends. OOH YEAH! Look at this knitter go!

Wearing my Big Four socks today! They took me forever thanks to a knitsperation slump but I love them. pic.twitter.com/7MywPDlc8o

— Polo Lonergan (@alpacabutt) February 27, 2015

Yep, welcome to the world of crappy badly-lit camera photos taken in the joy of the moment. What the photo lacks in elegance it makes up for in enthusiasm.

These socks were a pleasure to knit. The pattern is Big Four, based on Poirot. Yes, the design was by a friend of mine (Maureen) but that doesn’t mean I’m completely biased. The design was intuitive past the first repeat and I barely looked back at the pattern despite how complicated they look. They are deceptively simple and when you’re not in a lover’s tiff with knitting, they go fast.

I knitted the first of these two socks in less than a week. The second took over a month. That’s the difference in my motivational skills right now.

Still, spring is coming and I have some pretty socks to wear into the breach. Things don’t completely suck.

Night Valian Dishcloth

Download the PDF.

My obsession with Welcome to Night Vale is well-documented at this point. Absolutely no one is surprised that I would go casually hunting for cotton at a local yarn store and come home with a purple that almost exactly matches the logo.

I considered as a result making a dishcloth with an eye in it but since I don’t want the Secret Police staring at me while I wash our Avengers-themed cups I decided to go with a simple but elegant stitch pattern that would leave me plenty of brainspace to listen to the podcast while I made it.

The result is the above.

Since it’s a simple pattern I thought I would write it up for anyone interested. It’s suitable for beginner knitters or those who need something mindless to knit while they’re fawning over Cecil Palmer.

FPC: Captain Marvel

 

Welcome to the Friday Pattern Collective where I gather up a few patterns from around the net (well, Ravelry mostly) to present them to you.

See previous weeks.

This week we’re going for Captain Marvel who, as every good Marvel fan knows, is about fifty million different types of awesome.

Glorious art by Pryce14

The latest run of Captain Marvel is written by Kelly Sue DeConnick who I met (along with her amazing husband Matt Fraction, writer of the recent Hawkeye series) last year. She’s an incredible writer and brings us Carol Danvers as a strong and interesting character full of depth and great plots.

Also… her costume is really great.

At the moment we’re not following the comics due to funding issues so since I’m starting to seriously miss my monthly binges on comics, Captain Marvel was the obvious choice for this week’s FPC.

Captain Marvel Gloves

By Maratini Knits

How can we not love Captain Marvel when aesthetically her outfit is so pleasing? And for once it’s not in a yay-boobies kind of way but because it’s three primary colours looking amazing side by side. These gloves are on my to-do list for the autumn.

Captain Marvel’s Lucky Hat

by What The Hell Am I Writing

If you’ve read the series you’ll remember Carol’s lucky hat from #9. Here it is, crocheted in all its glory. Now the Jayne hat has nothing on this for proclaiming fearlessness.

Stars in the Evening Sky Socks

by Cindy Craft

Carol Danvers is badass. Carol Danvers doesn’t need any of this oxygen nonsense. She’s happy enough to fly out into space past the vivid colours of the setting sun and out into the black, no matter who she’s leaving behind. It’s just something she needs to do.

And now for something completely different…

Baby Groot

by Alexandra Chmiel

Baby Groot narrowly missed out on being including in the previous Rocket and Groot Guardians of the Galaxy-inspired post and he is disappointed in a very friendly, forgiving way. Which means he’s going to be tacked onto the end of this. I’m 100% sure Cpt Danvers wouldn’t mind for a second.

That’s it for this week. I hope you enjoyed my little round-up of patterns. If you have any on theme to share, please do! The more the merrier.