I have had so many ideas for knitting, all my own designs, and I can't seem to stop the ideas flowing, which is painful because I'm too busy! Next I have to make hubby's Norwegian sweater, as Winter is approaching. There won't be much in the way of design going into it, because it's modelled on a cardy he already has which his (Norwegian) great aunt knitted for his father many moons ago. It will be fun, as it will involve steeks and other such craziness, and it won't get boring because there'll always be colour patterns to keep track of, but I can't wait till that is over because I have so many exciting ideas I just want to squeal with excitement when I think about them!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Squeal!
I have had so many ideas for knitting, all my own designs, and I can't seem to stop the ideas flowing, which is painful because I'm too busy! Next I have to make hubby's Norwegian sweater, as Winter is approaching. There won't be much in the way of design going into it, because it's modelled on a cardy he already has which his (Norwegian) great aunt knitted for his father many moons ago. It will be fun, as it will involve steeks and other such craziness, and it won't get boring because there'll always be colour patterns to keep track of, but I can't wait till that is over because I have so many exciting ideas I just want to squeal with excitement when I think about them!
Monday, March 02, 2009
Lace Love
So the Long Lacy Summer is over, and what have I achieved? Where to begin? I'll start with tangible achievements. Finished items were Swallowtail Shawl #1, Coronet #1 and Coronet #2. All happy achievements. I particularly enjoyed the doilies. The rows are constantly changing, so there's always something to keep you on your toes. Swallowtail was good, but a little simple, especially once I had the pattern repeat drummed into my head through repetition. The nupps were a new challenge though, and I'm certainly not frightened of them any more.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Needs
1. Disquina [not her real name] needs to be prompted to see a reproductive endocrinologist.
2. Disquina needs someone to buy her debt.
3. Disquina needs cheese.
4. Disquina needs to stop living vicariously through her daughter.
5. Disquina needs officers or will cease to exist.
6. Disquina needs to get her priorities straight.
7. Disquina needs to die.
8. Disquina needs to shut the fuck up [pardon me, just quoting Google].
After this they start to get dull.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Yummy
Morsel #1:
Noro Kureyon Sock yarn. 4 ply, pretty colours. What on Earth am I going to do with it? So many possibilities. Lace? Perhaps. Hmm.
Morsel #2:
Terrible photo. It's actually chocolatey in colour. Lovely 8 ply Perendale from the guy at the Bus Depot Markets for hubby's jumper-to-be. One day. I just like to cuddle up to this stuff.
I have big time cat envy. All around me people are cuddling cats, and yet I am catless. My boy passed away in 2007: That's a little cat treat he's interrogating there. 15 years old and then bitten by a snake. Then when we moved into the share house we currently live in, we adopted the resident cat Kujo (as we re-named him) who had been abandoned by previous tenants and was unwanted by the current ones.
He had lived at the house for several years, but about three weeks after we adopted him, and he was starting to enjoy sleeping in my armchair, he died from causes which looked suspiciously snake-biteesque. It's terrible, but I pine for a cat. I dream about them all the time, mostly my old boy coming back. I see them on just about every blog I look at, and I can't resist looking at them in the pet shops. The other week on the radio I heard an interview with a man who wrote a book about the grief he had resulting from the death of his cat Blackie (also the title of the book) who died from a brain tumour. Sometimes I think the universe is trying to punch me in the face. My boy died a month after my brother's death from a brain tumour. I feel so silly getting sad about not having a cat when life is so precious and beautiful!
I'm not always a miserable sod you know!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Universes
The knitting in question is Laminaria. I am perhaps a quarter of the way through it:
I decided not to do the star stitch repeat in the pattern because I wanted a more open lacey look, so I replaced it with honeycomb stitch. I'm not sure if it matches the look of the rest of the pattern really, but of course you can't tell until it's finished and blocked:
I'm sure it will be fine. I'm looking forward to having a lovely lacey shawl, especially now that the weather has gone mad here in Canberra. I have a lovely blue and green silk dress which this shawl will look spectacular with. I'll have to make hubby take me out for a fine meal at a respectable establishment so I have an excuse to wear them together.
I have been going a little mad. Well, I can't put it into words. I have "issues" which I won't bore anyone with, but I can be fine for a couple of months, quite happy and working well, and then within half an hour one day for no reason I turn into a mess. I panic, I can't sleep, I can't assess anything rationally, every dark thought becomes obsessively turned over and over in my mind. I know a lot of people have these sorts of problems. I think reading stories in the papers about the deaths of so many people in Victoria is bound to set these things off. Since my brother died, I take every death I hear about personally, and to see photo's of these people is heartbreaking. Grief is so incapacitating, and we are not allowed to talk about it openly. I don't know why. What I wanted to get to is that I think that knitting plays a large role in the control of my mental health. I knew when I woke up this morning that I couldn't possibly work today, so I finally picked up Laminaria again, and I really do feel better already. Perhaps it's the familiar comfort of one stitch after another, or the enforced rest and contemplation. Maybe I've been working too hard. I won't go on about it. Knitting good. Working bad.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Back at Last
I'm quite happy with it, more so than with the purple one. The mercerised cotton looks lovely and shiny. It's got me so excited that I want to knit doilys for everything! I've never understood doilys, what the hell you're supposed to do with them, but now I realise that it doesn't matter what you do with them, they're just fun to make! I'm keen to do the Primula design in the same book now, but I really must start Laminaria. I'll cast on tonight! I've been so busy since I got home making jam and jelly and beer, because it's the season for these types of things! So much fruit around so cheap. The blackberries will be out soon, and I'm planning blackberry jam, blackberry wine and whole blackberries in syrup for winter desserts! Last year me and hub picked two buckets, and that was only one day. We didn't get around to going back for more. Anyway, these are topics which probably require their own blog, but since I'm so slack about updating this one, I'm not sure it's a good idea to take on another.
Well I did have a little bit of a fibre-lover's holiday, thanks to hubby being such an angel who thinks that knitting is cool rather than boring. We stopped off at an alpaca farm in West Gippsland called something like Candeleraine. They were very nice, and even offered me work handknitting shawls from their 2 ply to sell in their shop! I said yes of course, although I'm not sure that I can really fit knitting shawls for money into a full time PhD schedule... We also stopped at the National Wool Museum in Geelong. Unfortunately it was a real disappointment. Especially since we went to Geelong especially for it, and paid $110 for our motel room and everything. It could have been so good, there was so much potential. I guess wool museums don't get much funding hey? There were definitely parts I liked, like the carpet machine demonstration, and some of the demo knitting machines. I think the shop could have had a lot more stuff too. I was expecting to have to make painful decisions about what wool I could and couldn't live without, but they didn't actually have any wool I wanted to buy at all. There were some lovely jumpers and shawls and things though. Australia is the biggest exporter of wool in the world. Surely there could have been more Australian wool products? (The little toy sheep were made in China, the second largest wool exporter). I did buy a handy little wool directory though, which lists heaps of wool-related companies and organisations. We were going to stop at Bendigo Woollen Mills, but they were closed. In the height of holiday season. We almost considered staying in Bendigo overnight so we could go the next day, but then I found out from the tourist info place that you can't actually see the mill itself, just the shop, and I thought well I can buy from them on the internet. I know about the famous back room and everything, but it wasn't worth staying a whole extra night, especially since funds were low by this time (thankyou Geelong). However, I learned about the Australian Sheep and Wool Show held in Bendigo in July, and I thought that would be a good opportunity to see BWM instead. I think I might saving now for that trip!
Monday, December 22, 2008
In which Disquina makes more work for herself.
So, what's news?
Well, by now one would expect me to be posting about a lovely finished Swallowtail Shawl, because in the last post I was saying how I had finally finished the repeats on the budding lace. However. Because I had only just finished the same shawl not long ago, I didn't look at the pattern for some reason, and when I tried the first row of the lily of the valley pattern and found the stitches didn't add up, I realised that instead of doing 14 repeats of the budding lace repeat, I had done 16. Well I contemplated ripping back to the 14th repeat, but then thought "ah bugger it, the shawl is too small anyway, I'll make it larger!". So I pulled out the calculator and worked out how many repeats of this that and the other etc., and then found that someone on Ravelry had already worked it all out, which is a relief, because when I alter patterns I have anxiety attacks the whole time I'm knitting in case I've buggered it up.
So I kept knitting, but in the back of my mind a wise voice was telling me "you don't have enough yarn, idjit, what are you doing?". And of course the voices were right, as usual. So now I have to order more of the Regia, and have found that I can only get this colourway from Germany or France. So, after Christmas when money is less scarce I'll order another ball and hope that the dyelot difference isn't really obvious.
Next: Why I haven't posted lately - finished objects:
Pattern: Coronet Design doilie/doiley/doyley from The First Book of Modern Lace Knitting by Marianne Kinzel.
Yarn: Some cheap maroon cotton I bought from Spotlight many years ago. They don't seem to have it anymore. It's about a 4 ply or size 8.
Needles: 2.75mm.
I reckon: This was fun. I've never knitted flat in the round before, and it was a great learning experience. This doilie is quite large, about 40cm across.
It's a Christmas present for my beloved grandmother. I starched it (which I've never done in my life). I boiled some cornflour in water and soaked the doilie for a couple of minutes and then pinned it out. It sure is solid. I'm not sure how solid doilies are supposed to be! This one was actually just going to be a trial, and I was just going to do a couple of rows before starting a white one in mercerised cotton, but you know how it goes, I couldn't put it down, so I just finished it.
Next:
Pattern: Extermiknit
Yarn: Lincraft Cozy Wool (grey) and Cleckheaton Country 8 ply (black).
Needles: 3mm
I reckon: Very fun to knit. Weighted with a homemade sandbag in the bottom. I don't think I'll do the sandbag again, it makes it less cuddly. Xmas present for hubby's cousin.
So there's just one more piece of xmas knitting to finish as quickly as possible before we go on our travels around beautiful Victoria (during which we'll drop in on BWM in case there's anything I missed...), Coronet #2. This one's in DMC Cébélia (size 10) on 2.25mm needles:
Hubby's present. I have no pictures yet, but I can talk about it freely because he doesn't read this. There's a guy at the Kingston Bus Depot Markets who sells these lovely skeins of several types of wool, some dyed, some natural. I bought three 300g skeins of brown perendale 8 ply which will become a Norwegian Lusekofta jumper with the patterning in natural white from the same guy. This is one project I'm really looking forward to. I've squished the skeins into a box and wrapped it up. I chucked a few heavy candles in there too so he doesn't guess what it is from the weight. He's completely mystefied, which is exactly how it should be!
One last thing. Lately I've been hearing a lot of bad-mouthing about blogs. I don't know why anyone even bothers to complain about them. If you don't like it, don't read it! I know that the idea of reading what some stranger thinks or does seems boring to the average smarty pants, but the amount of knowledge I have picked up from blogs is phenomenal. We learn from eachother, we interact with eachother and we learn even more. Perhaps 50-90% of what I write here is boring, but somebody somewhere may learn something new and expand their world, and that is the most important thing I can think of.