Sky Fashion

It would seem that gray is the new blue this season:

Now if only the temperature would drop a few degrees......

Virtual Swatching

A squashy little bundle arrived yesterday:



My first yarn purchase in months (sob), this is destined for the one really ambitious gift on my list. I have enough hard-won self-knowledge to be (somewhat) realistic about the feasibility of grand Christmas intentions, but there is a certain someone who, more than anyone, will intimately appreciate the work and thought involved. (Equally importantly, this person is also the most likely to unconditionally forgive me if life gets in the way of the exact deadline.)

The yarn is fingering weight Romney lambswool from Red Bird Knits in the Lichen colourway. I love the warmth and subtle shading - the plan is to combine it with Sangria from Fleece Artist (also purchased from RBK some time ago):



I want to create a stranded colourwork scarf, utilising some of the fabulously intricate patterns from Anna Zilboorg's Turkish socks book. I had a little crisis of confidence though, because the Lichen has more green than I thought, and the last thing I want is a screamingly "Christmasy" look. I was hoping the gold and brown would complement the red in a rich and subtle mix.

I dug into the stash and came up with an alternative:



Pretty, but rather loud (the yellow-orange is even brighter in real life). Also, I will quite possibly require pharmacological sedation if I have to spend any more time with ORANGE right now.

So I turned to my trusty photoeditor for a bit of virtual swatching (this will also answer Judy's question about my process for extracting palettes from photographs.)

First, I used the simulated watercolour function to pixellate the photo:



This helps me pick individual colours out of the optical mix.

I created a rough approximation of the Lichen palette:



And superimposed a simplified pattern sampled from the reds:



There's no substitute for actual swatching (or in the case of a scarf - beginning) but the approximation does look close enough to my intended effect to make it worth putting the yarn on the needles.

Just One Measly Scarf

I made The List weekend before last - of handmade (mostly knitted) gifts to complete in time for Christmas. I decided that I would finish them all by the end of November, so as not to ruin December with fretting and frantically knitting through the nights. I tallied and divided and counted and allotted and generated a tidy little 6 week project chart. And as we approach the end of week 2, I am now seven gifts behind schedule.

Given that, you'd think I would have used my knitting time yesterday making gifts, or perhaps finishing The Sleeve That Never Ends. Nope. In a fit of denial (or something) I did this:

Because when I walked down to the insurance place (having finally dug up enough documentation of my lifelong citizenship to be able to change over my driver's licence) it was cold. And I realized, tragically and inexplicably, that I do not own a wool scarf of my own and instead had to borrow this:

My husband's Air Force issue, deadly-itchy-lowest-bidder wool scarf. As I trudged through the drizzle, I pondered the pruritic irony that a reasonably accomplished knitter with a modest stash would not own a Decent Scarf.

There's an oddly guilty sensation that accompanies knitting for myself between September and Christmas - sort of like going to stores between Halloween and Christmas Eve: "Can I gift wrap that for you ma'am?" "No, um.." mumble mumble, "it's actually just for me." Plus I am Seven Gifts Behind. Maybe they'd all like dishcloths.....

Promise of a New Day

So you may have noticed that, yesterday's grand statement of intent notwithstanding, nothing has actually changed around here. Yet. The thing is, yesterday was One Of Those Days, and I was feeling like - well, like this:

Nothing catastrophic, just the lingering effects of a particularly nasty virus, combined with a few months of cumulative fatigue and stress. But when I sat down to the computer after lunch, and announced in sepulchral tones that I was going to switch to the new beta version of Blogger, and wouldn't it just be my luck if the whole blog vanished to an inaccessible backwater of the space-time continuum, and heaven only knows how you go about making a backup - DH all but dragged me bodily from the keyboard. Clever man. Anyhow, once the two inches of rainwater recedes from my sputtering candle stub of rational thought, I'll get on with the aforementioned improvements.

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It's Wednesday, and time for a colour project. While the autumn foliage has been spectacular, I've just been spending a little too much time with Tomato Red and Carroty Orange of late. I'm in the mood for something quieter, more subtle, soothing, even hopeful - and what could be more hopeful than the glowing dawn of a new day?

I have always been fascinated by the colour progression of sunrise:

The subtly graduated palette:

I am disinclined in this case to superimpose a "pattern" - I think I would let the colours speak for themselves in a progression of blended stripes or waves. (Though perhaps not in a sweater - seeing as the most vivid hues would highlight the midriff....) It could however, make a stunning scarf or shawl.

Practically Knit

The little fall jacket has a (mostly) complete sleeve, waiting now for a fitting. I'm not sure my present approach to the cuff is going to work - the tried and true method would have been to decrease abruptly on the first round, for a gathered effect above snug ribbing. I was afraid that with such thick fabric, the effect might be a little stiff, and opted instead to decrease within the cuff along the seam line, and drop down several needle sizes to tighten the gauge. I'm not positive it's going to be snug enough - although, since DD is highly opinionated, it could well be just right. (I was advised in no uncertain terms at the last fitting that there were "too many strings inside" - I couldn't agree more.)

Though I continue to like the design, working it has become a chore. Normally I would relegate it to the time-out pile, and indulge myself with a newer and more exciting project - but this time I can't. This is practical knitting - a warm jacket for my own child in an increasingly cold season, and since we have presently chosen a way of life that necessitates a very tight monthly budget, knitting it from the stash was the responsible thing to do.

I wouldn't begin to suggest that we are suffering real hardship here, only that knitting for purposes of thrift and practical need throws a very different light on a traditional craft which has been overtaken by impulsive acquisition and luxury consumption. I have been working my way through Ann Feitleson's "The Art of Fair Isle Knitting", and was particularly struck by the hardship expressed in the personal interviews. Knitting is certainly about creative expression and visual and tactile pleasure, but it is also about discipline, persistence, and self-sufficiency, and it doesn't hurt to connect with the latter.

Crafting protection from a harsh climate with our own hands restores a sense of immediacy in our relationship with the natural world - and by extension, creates a greater awareness of the fragility of life without push-button climate controlled dwellings. I think that's why projects like Dulaan benefit both the recipients and the knitters.

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On a completely different (and far less philosophical) note: I plan to tackle the somewhat daunting business of switching to the new Blogger platform, and checking out Haloscan for comment hosting. Quite possibly it will involve some weirdness and/or republishing, so apologies in advance to any Bloglines subscribers who get multiple copies of this post over the next couple of days.

Autumn Inspirations

We survived the Lower Mainland traffic and arrived safely home last night. It must be the cumulative time spent in small towns across Canada, because my tolerance for aggressive big-city driving culture has dwindled to almost nil (and yes, I know Vancouver is mild compared to Toronto or Montreal). The game of chicken required for each merge, lane change, or street entry, in which two cars accelerate full throttle at the space in question, the "loser" acquiesing only at the last split second before fiery death - it makes me crazy. Especially with the kids in the car. I want to stand up and scream "People! Could we not have a civilized social contract here, in which I let you in to "my" lane in a safe and timely fashion, in the full and certain knowledge that you will do the same for me another day, and the timings would all even out such that the 0.03 seconds you added to your Two Hour Commute by not trying to kill me would invariably be gained back in reciprocity?"

I read somewhere that crowded driving conditions trigger primal territorial instincts and aggression, so I suppose not much is going to change that. Well, bike paths and responsible urban planning would help, but that's an uphill battle after the fact. It does make me terribly thankful to live in Whistler, where we are privileged to have a safe and healthy living space that is also within walking or biking distance of everything we need, and fully connected by well-constructed paths.

Speaking of thankfulness, here's a bit of Whistler autumn eye-candy:










I couldn't help but dive into the tourmaline and ruby:



And the black eyed Susan got a sparkling black tourmaline eye:



My goal for today - finish this:



before the colours which inspired it disappear under a blanket of white.

Weekend WIPs

I had intended to post this on Friday, but Blogger was being recalcitrant, and we needed to get on the road, so here I am. Trying hard not to feel self-pitying over my inability to attend a festival which, until this year, I didn't know existed. Funny how that works - one of the perils of the information age, I suppose.

The schoolteachers were professionally developing yesterday (though judging by the way DD's teacher sounded on the phone Thursday afternoon - it was one of those days - I think a day of heavy drinking or a trip to the spa might have been more to the point), so we elected to spend the long weekend in Vancouver with Rob's sister and family. We intended to head to the Aquarium today, but the wee bug the kids had last weekend seems to have caught up with me, so the cousins had to content themselves with running amok together at home.

There has (except for today) been knitting:



This is some of that South African handspun wool I have been hoarding for ages. After one too many chilly scarfless mornings at the bus, I decided that, in spite of the looming Yuletide gifting deadlines, I could probably justify whipping up a scarf for me. The simple chained ribbing combined with the thick-and-thin single ply yarn produces a pleasing effect that is rustic, yet feminine.

Speaking of looming chilliness, how is it that a sleeve, which is less than half the circumference of the body, can take twice as long to knit??



This might have something to do with it:



I gave up knitting in the ends after the first inch or so, as it was both screamingly tedious and making the underarm awfully bulky, but there's still no getting around the process of snipping and switching every round. Not to mention a day's worth of weaving in once it's all done.

Any guesses what this is?



Hint: it's a gift.

And finally, Friday morning's sunrise:



I never tire of watching the mountain wake up.

Anniversary

I discovered this poem via Mamacate:

Petals in the Dirt

Ellen Dore Watson

Your words circle, mine batter. You're a ramp, I have
no wheels. The kid who gets the brunt of our love asks us not to bicker. Think
of all the people who have lost their right
hands! The friend who says: Hug me twice,
it could be a while till the next bodyI can touch. Then there's the man who claims he wants
steady, needs steady, but each woman's a lake
he's big enough to swallow. How will hunger like that
ever learn to use a napkin? When you bring me
tenderness, it looks like one more thing
I don't have time for. Maybe when it comes
to love, the happily long-married are the biggest
fools. I'm fervent but off-and-on about my roses
--how many of us are delirious when the twenty-sixth
blossom does its gorgeous thing? I wonder
if when I get home those petals will still be
luminous and melting in the dirt. I'm thinking
maybe I need them. I'm saying what would I do
without your mouth?

--from This Sharpening


Eleven years ago today, I married the love of my life. I have written about our wedding before - it was wonderful and romantic, and entirely indicative of our mutual inclination to walk away from the crowd and do what we believed in, rather than what was expected. We have faced plenty of adversity over the years - prolonged separations, pregnancy complications, colicky-baby-crankiness syndrome, ongoing parenting challenges - and have emerged from each stronger, more settled, more robust.

Now that we have embarked on the next big adventure, turning our backs on the North American dream of working round the clock just to leverage the largest possible mortgage, shelving lucrative careers and moving into a tiny apartment in order to be where and who and what we believe in, now that we have pared down all the trappings of identity and success to the bare essentials, we realize more acutely than ever that this marvelous many-layered gift of being "us" is all that ever mattered.

In the Groove

The piles of chaos are slowly melting away. I think it's something like erosion - it may take thousands of years, but eventually the mountains wear down. Or perhaps more like the end of the ice age, with little patches of floor and counter appearing as the boxes slowly recede.

In any case, my bench emerged yesterday, and I spent a happy morning with CBC on the (newly unearthed) radio, sunshine streaming through the window and the mountain view to inspire me. It was a lovely bit of "in the groove," such as I haven't had for far too long, and I finished up a couple of WIP's and one new piece.

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Thanks for the lovely comments on the scarf, although I feel compelled to mention that it is ... ahem... possibly not actually for me. Shhhhh......

Mmmmmm... Cashmere

Sunshine burst the clouds after days of driving rain,



and out of the shimmering mists came:



A simple textured rib in KP Panache - understated, elegant, squooshy-warm and oh-so-soft:



A perfect fit.

Steek Snipping

We awoke far too early yesterday, to the piercing cry of "MOM - I have to puke!" Racing barefoot to the bathroom, I got DD appropriately positioned, flipped on the light, and looked down to see the bloody skinless corpse of a little vole in the middle of the floor. I have no idea how we missed stepping in it, but with luck like that under my belt, it had to be an auspicious day for steek snipping.

The Fall Cardigan, body finished and shoulders seamed:



In my neverending quest to avoid ever lining up two flat edges of knitting to be seamed, I worked out a way to do the short row shoulder shaping and the three needle bind-off all at once, without breaking the yarn. I was quite pleased with the results, particularly the way the pattern flows smoothly across the join.



I stabilized the sleeve steeks with my trusty little Elna. I know the purists cringe at machine sewed steeks, but we can't all use authentic Shetland wool for every bit of stranded colour work (it's "sticky" enough to stay put with less secure stabilization methods) and steeking is such an elegant way to avoid both two colour purling and seams.



Took a big breath, and snipped:



Now it's on to the sleeves. Which will be somewhat tedious compared to the body, because of this:



Ten different colours, changed every round, and even I couldn't justify stranding them all together, so they get cut and reattached every time. On the body, the yarn change occurs in the middle of the centre steek, so this wild nest of loose ends will disappear with a swift stroke of the scissors come zipper time. No such luck for the sleeves. I plan to knit the ends in as I go, weaving in the new yarn before the join, and the old yarn after, so as to reduce bulk.

Misty Mountain Morning

There's all sorts of good things going on at our little abode: my wallet turned up, along with DD's homework folder - What Kind Of A Mother loses her daughter's homework??? - they were both stowed in the same "safe" basket, which apparently migrated and burrowed under a stack of clothing during the chaos of the unpack. Also, we can now eat at the dining room table, cook in the kitchen, and sit four abreast on the couch.

AND - for the first time since August, I have live Saturday Sky technology. At the moment it involves downloading the camera to the desktop, formatting, saving to floppy, sticking the floppy in the laptop (which has the internet connection), uploading the photo to Flickr (because the wysiwig version of Blogger can't run on the ancient laptop), and inserting the Flickr code in the post - but I Can Do It - and it doesn't cost me $11 and an hour of my life.

So, without further ado, I present A Misty Mountain Morning:



Some folks call the gray drizzle depressing - I choose to see it as perfect sweater weather.

Two Stranded, One Handed

I normally knit two stranded colour work holding one yarn in each hand, picking with the left and throwing with the right, but having heard tantalizing rumors of knitters who hold both yarns in one hand, I thought I'd give that a go for this project. As usual, I forged ahead and came up with a method that worked for me - I have no idea if this is "right". I find the continental style considerably more efficient, so I simply tensioned both yarns in the left hand, extracting them alternately with my index finger:





It works well. So well, in fact, that I would love to be able to use the technique in all stranded colour work, but there's a little snag. Knitting with one strand leaves a bit of slack in the unknitted strand - this is quite manageable when the pattern is only 2 stitches long, and the colours are being consumed at equal rates, but it seems to me that longer carries and more complex patterns would require constant retensioning of the yarns, which would reduce efficiency considerably.

I'd love to hear from anyone out there who has another one handed method, or could suggest ways around the differential tension issue.

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The house? The good news - I can cook, and there is now space on the couch to squish 2 adults eating at the coffee table. The bad news - my wallet is MIA. Nobody has used the credit cards, so I'm holding out hope that it was knocked off its "safe place" and got buried in debris, but I'm a titch stressed nonetheless.

The Simple Life

There's not much knitting going on for the next couple of days (actually, I plan to work on DD's cardigan when I sit down for breaks, but that's about it) and here's why:

Before the truck:


After the truck:


"Unpacked":


There's not a square inch of clear surface at the moment, and the kids' room remains packed to the roof, although Basil clearly considers that advantageous:


We'll get there. In spite of the huge task ahead, it is a tremendous relief to be done with the business of other people traipsing through our space, handling our stuff (not always carefully), commenting (how small the space is, how much work we have ahead of us - Duh! - how much fabric and yarn there is, etc. etc.). As an intensely private introvert, I find this intrusiveness to be one of the hardest parts of moving.

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Thanks for all the encouragement on the cardigan. To answer Netter's question, DD loves the way it looks - which I suppose is really all that matters. She has the good fortune to have a complexion which looks smashing in brilliant reds and oranges, so I am confident it will look great on her. It also occured to me, while walking through the Village early this morning (sans camera), that the cardigan reflects the current fall colours almost exactly - the brilliant reds, orange and yellow, a touch of green and the intense blue sky. I'll have to get a photo in the next day or two - perhaps this wasn't such a crazy idea, after all.

Comfort Zone

Well, it's all in - all 9000 lbs of it. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling throughout the living room and the kids' bedroom, plus a huge chunk of the common storage area downstairs. I'll post photos later in the week - the unpackers come today, which should also be an adventure, since there's nowhere to set anything. Nevertheless, it is a warm fuzzy to have our stuff at last - the bed with the firm mattress, my beloved stove with the accurately calibrated oven temperature (I burned a lot of stuff last month) - it's starting to feel like home rather than playing house.

In spite of all the disruption, I did have the foresight to take some knitting photos before the Day Of Many Boxes. I've been frantically knitting up a warm cardigan for DD, since the mornings are getting frosty, but not yet frosty enough for a winter jacket - and I've managed to do it from the existing stash.

Some time ago, in an effort to expand my colour sense beyond my favorites (analagous blues and blue-greens, neutrals, blue-and-neutral), I pulled out my copy of ColorWorks by Deb Menz and picked a hexad scheme - essentially six hues evenly spaced around the wheel. I weighted the selection towards the warm side, and ordered some Wool of the Andes from KnitPicks:



I was a little disappointed in some of the colours, which were flatter and less attractive than they had seemed on the monitor, and I found the contrasts so jarring.... it went to the bottom of the heap for some time. However, it was also the only really suitable yarn in the stash for a hardwearing child's cardigan, and to my relief, DD was highly enthusiastic about the colour scheme.

I wanted to tone down the effect as much as possible, so I alternated the highly saturated with the flatter colours:



And put the whole thing on a background of charcoal gray (from my seemingly never-ending stash of Briggs and Little Regal - not the softest stuff, but the KP yarn is fluffy enough to compensate):



I am still ambivalent about it - it's so far out of my comfort zone, but I think I have successfully dodged the potential for garishness. It is knitted in the round, with a steek up the front for the zipper, and the 2 stitch stranded pattern means the carries are just long enough to make an extremely warm fabric, but not so long as to snag with hard wear. It's also very quick to knit.

Find My Happy Place

I was managing a blissfully ignorant state of optimism about today - right up until the movers popped in yesterday for a brief reccy of the apartment. I've come to take DH's doom and gloom pronouncements of "it'll never fit" with a grain of salt, because year after year he says that about what I want to take with us for holidays (mostly kid stuff), and year after year I'm right and he's wrong because I am A Good and Resourceful Packer. But when the seasoned professional stood in the middle of our living room just shaking his head.... They arrive in 2 hours time. I'll let you know how it went tomorrow, IF they don't bury my laptop.

Meanwhile, I'm going to my happy place:

Thanksgiving

There's a lot of thankfulness going on in our home these days, and this being Canadian Thanksgiving, I thought I'd share a bit of it with you. Here, in no particular order (and by no means a complete list), are some snippets of gratitude:

Rob. Who came home last week, ending an exceptionally stressful month of single-parenting. Although we were all tremendously pleased to see him, no one was more jubilant than Winnie:

Let's just say she wasn't a top priority for attention during that month.

Bunny rabbits. At one point, when DD and I were locked in a death spiral of increasingly outrageous behaviour followed by increasingly outraged responses, I paused to take stock and decided that a "just because" bit of positivity was needed. Taking a cue from Lee Ann, I pulled out my sample pack of Andean Silk (KnitPicks, impulse buy at half price this spring) and stayed up late one night making this:

Which created the desired response:

She sidled up to me the next day to say, "Mom, I really appreciate you going to all the work to make such a nice bunny for me."

Getting up every morning and throwing open the blinds to see an everchanging version of this:

(Also gazing upon said view from the hot tub and pool just down the hall from us, knitting on the patio on sunny afternoons, working at my bench... you get the idea.)

Looking forward to winter for the first time in nearly a decade:


But most of all - my family - healthy, whole, and together: