The Good Life

Sunday afternoons. Don't you just love them? Depending upon our mood and energy level, we either curl up with books or head out to explore our neighbourhood on foot. Yesterday we donned our coats and went for a walk along the Forth and Clyde canal. Glasgow Council had obviously decided the footpaths needed a spring overhaul, as the topsoil had been scraped off the sides of the paths by diggers. Quite quickly our walk turned into something else: a treasure hunt. It started off with us noticing some lumps of jet-black glass, but when I started digging with a stick, something white started emerging. Clay tobacco pipes - most likely 19th century and quite possibly from when the canals were built? We found several stems and one bowl (which you can see in the photo). I'm fairly used to finding things in the ground - I grew up in a part of Denmark which has been populated since the Neolithic period and I have found flint arrow heads etc - but it is the first time I have found anything in Scotland. It makes me want to learn even more about our local history.

Knitting continues, of course. I have a few inches to go on the body before I'm starting the edging. I'm dragging it out a bit as I'll be knitting the button band next and my buttons won't arrive for a few days.

I'm a tiny bit concerned about the fit as the cardigan is quite tight on me at the moment, but I think the alpaca yarn will stretch considerably during blocking, so it will be okay. I hope blocking will also sort out the difference between the handspun yarn (which is relatively loose) and the alpaca yarn (which is relatively tight and curling a great deal). Blocking solves everything, right?

As the cardigan grows bigger every day, I have begun to think about tiny, portable projects. Recently I promised five friends that I'd make them a little handmade something each, so I have that in the back of my head too. I was wondering whether it would be possible for me to make five items using five different crafts - and while it would becompletely feasible, I'm slightly worried about quality control. Surely I'm not the only one who's a bit paranoid about the quality of the things I make?

Thank you all for the books and TV suggestions. One of these days I should take photos of our bookshelves because I suspect you think I'm slightly bonkers when I say "oh, we already have that" or "oooh, David has that tucked away". We have a lot of books (although not quite as many I used to have in Denmark, but that's another story for another day).

PS. I cannot find my iPod. I'm mildly distressed.

Confessiones

I know I said I'd never knit a sock and suddenly I'm sitting here with the first twelve rows of Cookie A's Marlene socks knitted in The Yarn Yard's Bonny on Knit Pro sizes 2s. Gosh, just typing that made me feel like a real knit blogger. Honestly? I love the intricate nature of the pattern: lots of twisted stitches and clever decreases. I'm not too hot on the colours, so I think I'll rip it all out and begin over with some green merino I bought in Copenhagen last year. If I am to knit a sock, it might as well be in a colour I'd potentially wear.

To the right you see my actual current project. I decided to go for the Garter Yoke Cardigan (incidentally from the same magazine as the sock). The yarn? Ah, the yarn.

Seeing as I am currently knitting from stash in a desperate attempt to downsize it a tad, I dived deep into my boxes and unearthed some of the nicest stuff I own. About a year ago, a very dear friend sent me some of her handspun yarn. I am using her green handspun in the yoke (and also as a delicate accent to cuffs and buttom band). The rest of the cardigan is in Berroco Ultra Alpaca. I have a mind to take my time with this cardigan because I'd hate to rush it and mess up the detailing. The design is so minimal that I want the finishing to be exquisite (or as close to as exquisite as I can get).

When I'm not knitting, I'm reading Let the Right One Come In by John Ajvide Lindqvist as Other Half was insistent that if I liked Faber's Under the Skin (oh yes I did), I'd really enjoy this one. So far I'm not so sure but I'm only 120 pages into a long-ish novel.

(In other words, yes, I'm still under the weather. I'm bored out of my skull, miss Denmark immensely and Chez Bookish is an absolute mess. Woe.)

Post-Project Confusion

Dudes, I am torn.

• This in warm harvest yellow wool with red 1960s buttons
• This in either aforementioned harvest yellow wool or teal/turquoise tweed (buttons undecided)
• This in aforementioned teal/turquoise tweed. Selection of vintage buttons from button boxes.
• This in a dark  purple cashmere/silk/wool blend with slightly more waist-shaping

I also have 1200 yrds of dark lime green tweed (aran weight) and 1700 yrds of purple/violet tweed (aran weight) that is currently not assigned any patterns in my head. And 1700 yrds of bramble-coloured wool too.

Also, the following projects lurk in my head but necessitates buying yarn:

• Crocheted cardigan for which I'd need to buy one ball of Kauni (approx. £10)
• A summer cardigan crocheted in cotton (which, yes, I'd need to buy. Approx. £17)
• An angora beret in lipstick red or turquoise (about £11 for yarn + pattern. Do I really need this or is this just because I want to look as Old Hollywood Glamourous as Ysolda does in her photo?)
• The infamous OWLS sweater (about £50-60, depending upon which chunky yarn I can find here in the UK. Sigh.)

And let's not begin to talk about the shawls I want to knit (currently Knitty's Aeolian shawl, the infamous Laminaria shawl, and the Fountain Pen shawl). I have enough laceweight yarn to see me through the recession, mind, so I don't have to worry about that...

Comments? Ideas? More patterns I should see and fall in love with?

FO: Heritage Shawl

This is one of those sneaky knitting projects that I have been working on but not really mentioning. My heritage shawl.

My paternal grandmother is from the Faroe Islands. I am using Faroese wool. I now live in Britain. The wool has a touch of Britain’s Falkland Islands wool mixed in with the North Atlantic wool. Most of all, I am Scandinavian. The pattern by Sivia Harding is called Norwegian Woods which I cheekily, sneakily interpret as "Scandinavian Woods". I suppose I could have gone for a traditional Faroese shawl, but I had my reasons for choosing this pattern.

The wool is really strange. Snældan 1-ply is over-spun, uneven and its colour runs the gamut from very light grey to very dark grey. It is very sticky, yet easy to work with. It is rustic, yet soft. It’s absolutely fascinating. It blocks out very well too. My only criticism is that it is a teeny bit fuzzy which detracts a bit from the lace. You don’t get a crisp lace shawl with this wool. Instead you get a warm, hard-wearing shawl.

It is an easy lace shawl, comparatively speaking (although I would not recommend it as your first lace shawl) and I have not had any issues with it at all. I will be knitting it again. I also really enjoyed the story the pattern tells - the first third represents “bare branches” followed by “first buds” and then, finally, “leaves”. Knitting this shawl felts like I was knitting the end of winter and beginning of spring. It’s a powerful feeling for a Scandinavian lass like me, I tell you, and one of the reasons why I chose this pattern.

And now I have nothing on my needles! Oh no!

Forecast: Very Nice

I finally have photos of my finished cardigan, the oft-mentioned Forecast. As you might expect from an early March afternoon in Scotland, outside was freezing cold and rainy, so we didn't stick around for a longish photo shoot. But this'll do. I made so, so many modifications to this pattern that it is ridiculous: I changed the collar, the cables and the sleeves - but I like to think I've remained true to the original design's idea. I just didn't like all the textures the original design had going on. I have detailed my modifications over at my Ravelry notebook, in case you want the specifics.

I have not mentioned the wool, come to think of it. It was an eBay bargain:  I snapped up 1200 yards of Latvian pure wool for around £15. Granted, I have never picked out so much vegetable matter in my life (including Noro!), it gave me very bad yarn burn on my finger (I knit Continental) and most people would not wear this cardigan right next to their skin, but I still consider it a bargain. I love working with very rustic and under-processed yarns, the wool has knitted up beautifully, it is extremely warm and will be very hard-wearing.

Also? The colour is frigging gorgeous.

I also bought buttons off eBay after struggling to find anywhere in Glasgow which a) stocked ten of one button type and b) wouldn't end being almost as expensive as the wool. I found some really lovely buttons at an online haberdashery shop, but they could not deliver more than six buttons. Oh well, eBay can be your friend in times of need and I ended up purchasing these buttons at a quarter of the price our local John Lewis wanted for the exact same buttons. Hmm.

Anyhow, as I am off to AyeWrite tonight to hear Andrew Crumey talking with Rodge Glass, I must dash and have my dinner before I'm running late.

A Woolly Head

This is how a sewage pumping station looks in my city. Pretty cool, no? I had no idea it was still in use, but apparently so. I pass it every time I am heading towards the 78 or the Kelvingrove Art Gallery. Mi ciudad es bella. But I mention the Sewage Station because the other night I had a vivid, odd and pretty cool dream about opening a yarn shop in that particular building (blatantly disregarding the fact that a) there's a funky smell in that little corner of Glasgow and b) it is a freaking big building for a modest little business proposal).I had even named the shop, Riverworks Wool, and had begun planning the inventory in my head.

As it is, my local yarn shop is a boutique with all it entails: exotic brands such as Habu (stainless steel yarn! paper yarn!), vegan yarn (nettle! hemp!), angora produced by one guy on Orkney and interesting indie dyers such as Old Maiden Aunt and Fyberspates. Buying a sweater's worth of yarn would set you back at least £85 ($120) .. if you could find enough skeins of one wool, that is. It is a place to peruse and maybe buy a few skeins for a luxurious scarf rather than a yarn shop you rush-visit because you have just seen a gorgeous sweater you have to knit.

Obviously my head had that on the agenda the other night as Riverworks Wool (sans smell) stocked workhorse yarns as well as luxury yarn (and a little tea+ cake section). It was packed full of the Garnstudio/DROPS range which is basic, decent workhorse yarn in a multitude of colours at a decent price. I had a fair selection of worsted-weight yarns (like Cascade 220 and Berroco Ultra Alpaca) as well as a substantial sock yarn selection (because I'd want to keep Paula happy?). Add to that, Malabrigo, Kauni, Hanne Falkenberg kits and Amimono ..

.. it is one of those things which continues to puzzle me. My mother's yarn shop in rural Denmark manages to stock most of the things I mentioned above plus the entire design.club.dk wool range, Italian, Norwegian and German yarns, and also the lovely Rowan yarns . If my mum's little town of 30,000 people can support such a yarn shop, why wouldn't Glasgow be able to? I don't think I shall ever get tired of this little rant.

Anyway.

Speaking of yarn shops, I found this Faroese online yarn shop yesterday. It is very, very difficult to remember that I am on a strict yarn diet. Look at this cardigan! Or this cute girl's dress! My Faroese is .. well, non-existant .. but it being a Scandinavian language, I can make out that a 1kg cone of beautiful worsted-weight lambswool would set me back £50 and it comes in, oh, 30 colours.

I'm not buying yarn, I'm not buying yarn, I'm not buying yarn.. although I have finished three projects thus far this month. Hmm..

Addendum: Isn't this Hanne Falkenberg cardigan the most divine ting you have ever seen?