Goofing Off

There was no shortage of things to do this morning, the most urgent being to polish up this,in time for today's submission (fortunately, I can hand-carry it.)

There's reams of computer work I should be doing, a house which is in dire need of organizing, and a sadly neglected coil of fine silver casting longing glances at a pair of size 00 needles. Even the poor Dulaan sweater is merely inching along:

Instead, I went skiing.

Because really, what is the point of living here, if you're too busy to ski? Also the twenty pounds that have attached themselves to my waistline over the last year are not going to melt away by the power of wishful thinking. (Believe me, I have tested this method extensively and feel I may speak with authority on this point.) The conditions were fabulous, the crowds were minimal, being early on a weekday, and I feel so much better. Now back to work!

Work work work

I spent a goodly portion of yesterday turning a corner of my living room into a photo studio, so as to create a series of 8x10 glossies of my work. (Amazingly, the printer did not run out of ink, jam, or otherwise thwart this effort.) The portfolio gets turned in Friday, and then we see what happens. (You'll be the first to know if something happens.)

As a result, I didn't get much knitting done, so here's a wee bit of crochet from the other day:

Opportunity

I'm beginning to see a pattern to this business of creative entrepreneurship. There seem to be flurries of intense activity engendered by pop-up opportunities, followed by lulls during which one thinks all those long overdue daily life and paperwork things can now get done because it is going to be months until the next big push, and suddenly another opportunity comes flying in the window and the deadline is Three Days Away and everything goes on hold again. Not that I'm complaining! Opportunity is a very very good thing, with spin-off benefits like food and clothing. It just makes things feel perpetually scattered.

I have still managed time for some walking:

With the cold temperatures over the last week, Fitzsimmons Creek has begun to bloom with ice, and the effect is simply mesmerizing.

I have also managed to accomplish my daily knitting increments:

Dulaan:

More swatching in Lopi:

I know, it's a bit skinny for a legitimate swatch - I wanted to play around with gradually contracting and expanding a cable as a shaping device, and I think the effect is quite satisfactory. This particular cable is a bit unusual - you place all the cable stitches on a dpn, rotate it 180 degrees and knit them off. The purl side is hidden in the twist and it makes for a nice little 3-D effect.

Daily Increments

It appears that my attempt to demonstrate, by way of that little photo documentary, that steeking is not so scary, has failed miserably. A round of tranquilizers, anyone? Seriously, it is fascinating what a mythical beast it has become in the collective modern knitting consciousness, considering its humble origins as a shortcut construction method for every-day work wear. Ah well, I'll make wider steeks on the Dulaan sweater. Those have a more reassuring look about them, since the cut edges are so far away from the working stitches.

Speaking of the Dulaan sweater, I did get a start on it over the weekend:Knitting time has been pared down considerably of late, and likely will be scarce for the next couple of weeks, but I figure if I set a goal of one motif per day (usually 5-8 rnds) the project will at least progress, albeit slowly. After swatching and measuring, I opted for 192 stitches around, which gives me lots of potential variety in terms of pattern repeats. I'm choosing smallish motifs from Sheila McGregor's "Traditional Fair Isle Knitting" as the mood strikes me.


I haven't forgotten to swatch, either:
This is the Teetering Ovals pattern from Barbara Walker's third treasury (another Christmas gift from my sweety) and I love it. I think this will be the centre panel on my cabled Lopi sweater, with the loose cables on either side. As for the remaining motifs - I'm still pondering and waiting for it all to gel, which is fine, since I've got plenty to work on in the meantime.

Steek Day

I managed to clear a space in the chaos that has reclaimed our condo (why is that battle never over?) and pulled out my sewing machine to do the deed. Better knitters than I have expounded upon hand stabilisation methods, including simply trusting the wool to grab itself; however, until I move on to authentic Shetland wool, I feel most secure with machine sewing. (Besides, if it was good enough for EZ....)

1. I got brave this time, and made a measly 4 stitch steek. (I've seen EZ use only two, but I'm not quite ready for that yet.) Below you can see the four stitch column, with pins inserted up the middle to ensure I don't lose my way on the dark gray yarn. (BTW, a couple of commenters and family members think this sweater is blue - does it look that way to anyone else? I'm wondering about my monitor.) I chose good cotton thread (no polyester sullying my wool), and the widest zigzag setting, with the centre mark of the presser foot aligned between the two stitches to be stabilised. (I haven't seen zigzag discussed as a means of stabilisation - I find it preserves the elasticity of the knit fabric, while also functioning similarly to two rows of straight sewing.)

2. I sewed down the two stitch column on each side, being careful to reverse for a short way at top and bottom to be sure to catch the edge stitches. Red denotes the cutting line, and green is the space in which stitches will picked up for the sleeve.

3. The deed is done!

See? Not so scary!

No Steek Today

Instead we've been working on this:

The final frontier of project Downsize Our Lives: the books. Rob and I each did a preliminary cull before we moved. (I got rid of obselete medical texts, he parted with tomes like "The World's Most Offensive Jokes" and "My Jedi Journal". It's a pilot thing.) Since our storage space has turned out to be substantially less than we had hoped at the time of the move, the day has come for the final cull. There are three boxes in the car waiting to go to Goodwill, the two in the chair are also leaving, and the rest..... We'll be covering one wall (at least) of the bedroom in shelving. Really, how could we part with Tolstoy, and Dickens, and Timothy Findley, and Margaret Atwood, and all the other truly great authors who have graced our imaginations. (The Yarn Harlot also made the cut.) We were ruthless, we really were, but there are some books you just can't part with.

But every day's a good day when it ends like this:

Especially when you watch it from the hot tub.

Scattered

I've been feeling a bit discombobulated the last few days. There was a wee bit of unpleasantness earlier in the week - not extremely serious, though alarming enough, and thankfully resolved with an appeal to ethics and the rule of law - that nevertheless caused us to reflect on the fact that money is power and in choosing to do with much less of the former, we may need to give careful thought to fall-back strategies for asserting our right to exist. (On the plus side, my chronic existential guilt for having achieved socioeconomic success has abated slightly. ) It was all very stressful, and today's post will therefore be a little... scattered.

Firstly, the plain knitting portion of the gray sweater zipped along faster than expected (funny how mindless knitting seems to accrue all at once) and I have now reached the day of reckoning: time to sew and cut the steeks. (Pictures of that process on Monday).

After the steeking comes the Day of Math. I plan to chart out a variety of approaches to short-rowed, top down, set-in sleeves in order to compare their shapes, and ultimately work out a formula to mimic the classic bell curve.

Secondly, the latest swatch:It's nice enough, and a successful experiment in filling in the yo holes with M1's (this is supposed to be outerwear, after all), but it just isn't as deeply ribbed / embossed as I would like. No matter, I've got several other motifs in mind that will be closer to the effect I'm looking for.

Third, and last - for all the poor snowless folk out there:

As of today, a record-breaking 28.4 feet has fallen since November 1st. The snowfall in the first 11 days of January already exceeds all previous records for the month. Sidewalks are reduced to corridors between 8 ft high snow-plowed walls, dump trucks are hauling away tons and tons of the stuff to make room for daily life, and the skiing:

Is incredible. (For real-time mountain top views, check out the web cams.)

While I couldn't help laughing at Seattle shutting down for an inch or two, I have to admit that snowclearing infrastructure makes all the difference in the world. Every time it snows here, armies of plows descend on the town around 5 am, scurrying about like manic insects, so that by the time most people leave the house, the roads, parking lots and sidewalks are clear and tidy. It's really quite amazing to watch, and intimidating if you are walking early in the morning because they are mostly operated by 20-something males working on commission, and therefore go like stink.

Shawl Pins

I finally pulled together some uninterrupted time at the bench this week (amazing how challenging it is to get work time when working from home) and created some shawl pins:

These are sterling silver and not over heavy - no. 1 weighs 5 gms and no.'s 2 & 3 are around 9 gms each. Being relatively new to lace knitting, I don't have many shawls to try them on, but I use my prototype regularly to close buttonless cardigans, decorate scarves, etc. and have found it very versatile.

These are available for purchase: No. 1 is $30 (Canadian), No.'s 2 & 3 are $40 each. Postage costs: Xpress post (14 business days to the US, 3-5 in Canada, with package tracking and insurance): anywhere from $12-$14 to the US and Canada, a little more internationally. Regular small package mail is in the $2-$6 range to the US and (inexplicably) $10-12 within Canada. Since these are small and actual postage varies so drastically, I will obtain the actual cost from the Canada Post site prior to invoicing.

To purchase: email me regarding the pin of choice, your address and preferred shipping option, and I will send you a postage quote prior to generating a Paypal invoice.

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Number 3 has been sold.

Number 1 has been sold.

Number 2 has been sold.

More in the works - meanwhile feel free to email me if you would like something similar to those pictured above.

Guinevere Usurped

Or at least her sweater. By me. Remember my little baby girl (all 160 lbs of her)?



Or, as she appears now, in her winter coat:

Back when we lived on the prairies, in suburban single family dwellings with fenced yards, she used to sleep in the laundry room and spend the better part of the day outside with her best buddy Lightning (rest his soul). They would dig holes and roll in the mud and snow, and by spring, her coat would be thoroughly felted and stinky (she has ultra sensitive skin, and hates brushing with a passion, though we always made an effort to keep up with it). And since it was awfully hot for her, we always had her shaved right down in the spring.

We thought when we moved to Whistler that we would have to keep her coat short year round, in order to make her bearable to live with as an apartment dog. I had the brilliant idea that the poor dear would need a warm sweater for those long winter walks, and before we moved, ordered 25 balls (let's not get into what that cost) of Alafoss Lopi in a nice heathered ecru.

It turns out that a) with the occasional trip to the groomer, her coat stays quite nice when she spends her days sleeping on the couch and stealing food off the counter, b) she is bone lazy and protests mightily when forced to walk more than a block or so from home (the first year we had her, we worried that she had some hidden orthopedic problem, but it is apparently a trait of the breed), and c) it never really gets all that cold here. So she doesn't actually need a sweater (nor would she likely tolerate it, in any case).

I, on the other hand, would love to have a thick cozy sweater as outerwear for mild winter days - a longish one with big squashy cables, roomy enough for layers, but shapely enough to be distinctly feminine.

The first swatch:
I am looking for big, curvaceous cables that suggest a sort of free spirit that could go looping off wildly at any moment. I have a fiercely intricate Aran design in mind for another day, but for this sweater I want sensuously organic curves rather than primly mathematical knotwork.

Cheap Cashmere?

I came across this article via the Worsted Witch. (A fascinating blog I would never have found if Juno hadn't linked it some time ago.) The article discusses the horrific environmental toll on China's grasslands, as goat herders respond to North America's insatiable demand for cheap cashmere. It got me thinking about the yarns I have used with bits of cashmere content, and where that might come from. The downside to inexpensive yarn (perhaps inexpensive anything?) is the abusive practices that are sometimes the means of keeping costs down. It did make me resolve to think more carefully about where my fibre comes from - and I'll be avoiding cheap cashmere in future. (Though not throwing away the small amount already in my stash - that would serve no purpose.)

Plain

The gray sweater is past the waist, traversing the bust and heading for the shoulders.

I had a moment of indecision at the waist, as it was time to leave behind the texture patterns, and move into plain stockinette. For some reason, stockinette feels like a sort of design mediocrity - I was tempted to abandon the plan and go for Fancier! More Intricate! The rational part of me quite likes the effect, though - I think the contrast showcases the knit-purl patterns very effectively. Plus, the point of this sweater was to permit myself the luxury of playing with the mathematics of the sleeve cap without having to match up patterns.

I also opted to steek the armscyes so as not to interrupt the soothing rhythm of plain knitting in the round. (I'm all for soothing things right now - the excess of the holiday caught up with my head and my stomach this weekend.)

Here you see the underarm stitches held on one of my trusty KP Options cords, and four steek stitches cast on above them.

Swatch of the day? Maybe later on. As I said, I didn't feel like much of anything requiring original thought this weekend.

Magic

Yesterday saw an enormous amount of snowfall. Listening to the radio reports of highway mayhem (as happens on a Friday evening when the folks from the Lower Mainland decide that bald summer tires will do just fine in a blizzard just this once, and since they are important and in a hurry to get to the slopes, the double solid line on the blind curve doesn't apply to them) and the collapse of the BC Place stadium roof, we snuggled up safe and cosy by the fire and thought how tremendously thankful we are to live here.

In the morning though, comes the magic.

Chaos and Creation

The school holidays wind down this week, not a moment too soon. Although I love having the whole family home together, the lack of routine is starting to take a toll on peace and serenity. Not to mention my work schedule (or lack thereof).

In spite of the chaos, I did manage to finish up phase 1 of the collaborative project last night, and the results are posted over at my jewellery blog.

The exercise resolution is coming along - it works out that each round of the charcoal sweater must be paid for with 5 sit-ups, 4 push-ups and a chin-up. Not an unreasonable plan time-wise, though I'm really feeling the muscles today!

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Swatch of the day:

A gauge swatch for the next Dulaan sweater. I want to write up a simple pattern for a child's sweater that will also serve as a low-stress introduction to both stranded colourwork and steeking.

String Bag patterns

So wouldn't you know it, just as Charity kindly linked to my string bag pattern, the new Blogger template disappeared my own link. Sigh. It's back now...... (in the sidebar, under Original designs).

Sedentarily

The biggest downside to this life of creativity is the fact that I now spend great swaths of time just sitting - at the computer, at the bench, on the couch.... And while I always made time for formal exercise when I was working in an office, working from home is much harder to define. It's tempting to feel that every hour of the day is (or ought to be) a work hour, followed by a sinking sensation of wastage as the tasks of daily living encroach on that. Leaving the house for an hour or two to exercise feels like a grievous waste of already eroded work time rather than the wise allotment of personal time it used to be - so I end up not doing it. The result, of course, is that my once svelte physique is now oozing over the top of the one pair of pants I can still squeeze into. Bleh!


So, my latest resolution: Log my minutes of sedentarianism (sedentariosity?) and for each minute spent sitting, I will do a push-up, sit-up or chin-up, or spend one minute in aerobic activity. For example, having swatched, blogged, and worked on my website this morning, I logged 180 minutes of sitting. Now I have to ski today. No excuses (the snow's too heavy, I find the crowds intimidating, it's pouring rain, yada yada yada....).


Speaking of swatching:

I took the chevron pattern from yesterday and worked it in a series of needle sizes from largest to smallest. I think the pattern maintained its crispness and integrity nicely, which means that varying gauge is a viable shaping strategy for this stitch.

Sedentary tasks for today: finish the collaborative jewellery project, do a pile of website work, and continue reinstalling all the blog bits that got lost in making the leap to the new Blogger template. I spent several hours yesterday restoring it to a semblance of its former self - I'm not entirely clear how this constitutes "new and improved", although it does seem like future edits will be easier to do with the new template format. Maybe.

Third Day And Still Swatching!

Here's the second swatch:Definitely getting closer to what I'm looking for. It's a bit fiddly to work, but not horrendously so, pulls in a bit like a ribbing, and transitions nicely to stockinette. I tried a couple of purl ridges after establishing the initial pattern - they don't disrupt the shape, but add a bit of texture, and I like the way purl rows soften a colour transition. I'm presently on a quest to mix and blend colours without the added bulk of stranding.

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Another progress shot (this time with a decent amount of natural light):

I am love love loving the process of this knit - the reassuring elasticity of good wool, the deliciously deep charcoal colour with just a hint of tweediness to give it life and dimension. It's going to need a good blocking to counteract the bunching tendencies of the purl stitches, but if lace behaves itself, I see no reason why this won't.

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And a peek at my other project for this week - a collaboration with a local glass artist:

First Swatch of '07

Having resolved to swatch this year, I took that a step further, and decided to try to do it on a daily basis. Not obsessively so (because then I would miss a day, like I just did yesterday, and think the whole business was ruined and give up in a little puddle of stymied perfectionism) but mostly every day. It's just more likely to get done that way. What I have done in the past was to wait until I was actually ready to start a given project and the fever of getting on with it was upon me, and then the swatching felt like a huge ordeal standing between me and casting on for my heart's desire. The plan now is to swatch steadily for projects in the vague "what would happen if?" stage and by the time I reach the "nothing else on the needles, must start NOW" stage, the prep work will be done.

Here's the first one:

The goal of this round of swatching is to explore patterns that will blend two colours (probably a handpaint and a closely related solid) in an intriguing, non-pooling fashion, and transition smoothly to stockinette. (I am not going to use up expensive handpainted yarn on swatching, though.) Jury's out on this particular swatch - it has potential, but not exactly what I had in mind.

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Progress on the charcoal sweater:

It is quite a challenge to adequately photograph monochromatic texures, especially with natural light so scarce this time of year.

Out of the Starting Blocks

The first new project of 2007:

The project: a gently fitted wool sweater, just roomy enough to layer over a long sleeved T-shirt, featuring hemmed borders and cuffs, understated knit-purl patterning, and just a hint of brushed alpaca for tactile luxury.

Yarn: Elann's Peruvian Highland Wool (just a wee bit more expensive than KP's Wool of the Andes, but far superior colour and feel) and a tiny bit of KP's Suri Dream.

Design goals: 1) Work out a seamless replica of a fully rounded set-in sleeve cap. 2) Explore traditional Scandinavian knit-purl patterns. 3) Try out hemmed cuffs and borders.

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Happy New Year!

Resolutions

This has been a year of enormous change and upheaval, and I think the only thing I can say with certainty at the start of 2007 is that I am no longer certain about the vast majority of the things I used to think I knew, particularly about myself. And while that is an undoubtedly profound realization, it doesn't go far towards generating a tidily bulleted "to do" list for the upcoming year. I've launched into uncharted waters - this will be the year to sail them.

In the midst of that, I find myself paradoxically clear and specific about what I want to accomplish as a knitter. Perhaps this relates to Elizabeth Zimmerman's famous statement: "Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crises."

Knitting Resolutions for 2007:

1) I'm not making any formal resolutions about knitting from stash because it's a moot point - our budget simply won't allow for extravagance, and I have enough of this and that to tide me over. Any purchases will likely be good workhorse wools for specific design projects that require something not presently in the stash.

2) I want to grow my design skills, and to that end, my motto for this year is restraint. By which I mean, I resolve to set aside the obsessively overachieving impulse to try to make every project the most wildly inventive, intricate and originally dazzling thing EVER. (Also the corresponding neurosis that nice yarn would be wasted on anything but.) Rob gave me a copy of "Knitting in the Old Way" for Christmas, and between that and my little EZ library, I want to try all the shaping and construction techniques, and play with form and fit until they are firmly under my fingers. That means a series of sweaters that are simple and elegant, with one or two delicious details. For now, I intend to reserve intense intricacy for little projects.

3) Colour. Two to a project. Maximum. I wove in over 500 ends (seriously!) for that little cropped cardigan, and I am SO done with ends for a while. Not forever, but for a while.

4) Spinning. I will dig out the spindle. I may not get to be any good at it, but I will start.

5) Dyeing. Same idea as no. 4 - no pressure to do great things, but I will do the research and get started.

6) Swatching. Not just the bare minimum required to establish gauge before getting on with the good bit, but swatching for its own sake - to explore technique and texture and colour in miniature. I might even blog and gather them into a personal reference library.

7) Gift knitting. I will regularly add items to the 2007 gifting box, and will NOT be caught short next year. Seriously. I will also get DS's stocking done for Christmas 2007.

8) Knitting for DH and the kids. Primarily DD, since the men of the family are Delicate Flowers in the skin department.

9) Charitable knitting. I will get my five Dulaan items done (and mailed In Time), and design a free sweater pattern for the project.

And that's about it. I have a small number of WIP's to finish up, and I'd like to make enough socks to wear handknits all the time, (DH too, if he can get over his wool-next-to-the-skin thing).

As for the uncharted waters - I do have a compass, but it's a little like Jack Sparrow's - and I'm not at all sure where it's taking me.

We Now Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Life

But not quite yet. We're still in leisure mode, but with a growing sense of anticipation, optimism and renewed energy for 2007. (Which means that some day soon there will be another introspective bit of philosophizing - but in a happier way. The muddling fog is starting to clear just a bit.)

As for the Christmas recap - it was altogether lovely. The snow fell all night in enormous lacy flakes, drifting down pillow-soft onto the magic forest. (Then several hundred pounds of magic fell off the third story roof all at once, nearly ripping our balcony right off, but the nice maintenance guy with the big shovel saved the day.)

The children were thrilled with their Christmas Eve robes (a slight variation on the usual pajamas),

and as per tradition, we slept all together in front of the tree on the pull-out couch. (Actually, the kids slept, and Rob and I squirmed about in the little bits of space they left us, adjusting our aching backs as best we could. Tradition is important.)

Christmas morning, the stockings were opened with delight, and freshly baked croissants (yes, the real thing, made from scratch) were then consumed with large dollops of Nutella. Mr. and Mrs. Claus pulled themselves together with a pot of strong coffee, then started into the mimosas. As per tradition, the gift opening was savored one at a time, with rapt attention given to the recipient, followed by oohing and ahhing and hugs of gratitude all round. This year was much more restrained financially, but no less joyously abundant.

Speaking of gifts, I can now blog this:

A knitted Babe, with big blue eyes, and an unruly mop of blond hair, just like her new owner. I knitted her in DK, rather than fingering weight, and converted everything to round knitting, including i-cord for the limbs. The sweater was worked up from leftover sock yarn. DD was thrilled to bits, and immediately pulled out her new sewing kit in order to work on expanding her wardrobe.

Boxing Day, we headed down to the city for a slightly belated (but also wonderful) celebration with the in-laws and the cousins. While there, I finished up FIL's knit-to-order bedsocks:
They turned out just right, but as much as I love the man, I will NEVER ever again knit plain dark navy socks on size 0 needles in splitty superwash wool. Ever.

We arrived home around suppertime last night, and fell into bed early, exhausted and slightly dyspeptic with merriment. One more cup of coffee now, and the post-Christmas excavation begins!