Recharging Our Batteries

We went on a mini-break to the North-East coast of Scotland. I love visiting this particular part of Scotland - it reminds me of the landscape where I grew up (agricultural, close to the sea, small villages, cows) and yet this place is so startlingly different and dramatic (dangerous cliffs! fishing huts! waterfalls! lobsters!). We were really lucky with the weather this time, but this little place is just as beautiful in the depth of winter. Now back to normality. I hope this little mini-break recharged my batteries because I have a feeling things are going to get hectic in the next few weeks..

Calendar Confusion

This is another week where I'm going "How can it only be Tuesday? It must be Friday! Thursday, late Thursday, then!" and then my Filofax pulls me aside and gently points out it is only Tuesday. Oh my. Send me energy, adrenaline shots, copious amounts of coffee and a great deal of fortitude.

PS. Students are back. I can't stand students (therefore I must be a grown-up, I guess). I have a serious problem with students telling me I'm a freak for being very tired after a very long day. Ah, your youth will end too, dear student, and it will end sooner rather than later.

Weekend

If It's Saturday, It Must Be Random

You take approximately 750g of ripe elderberries (rinsed and de-stalked, natch), 200g of granulated sugar, two table spoons of lemon juice, two diced cooking apples and about 2 pints of water. Stick 'em in a pan and boil until you've squeezed every last drop of goodness from the elderberries. This should take about ten minutes. (Remember to remove the pink foam that will form on top of the boiling goodness.)

Then strain your elderberry juice through a clean tea towel (it will stain your tea towel!), dice another three cooking apples and put them into the elderberry juice, boil until apples are cooked (and add sugar and lemon juice to taste - usually I don't see the need, though).

Serve hot in a mug with a spoon to fish out those delicious apple bits. It's toe-curlingly wonderful stuff.

Meanwhile, on the knitting front, I have been working on a pair of fair-isle fingerless gloves to match my autumnal hat. I'm two rows away from finishing one glove and I think I will leave it at that.

It is not that it is not pretty. It is not that it is not a quick knit (each glove takes less than two evenings worth of knitting time). It is not that I do not have enough yarn. I am just not feeling it, baby.

Granted, the fit is awkward (slouchy where I'd prefer snug) and I have issues with the pattern (such as increases not fitting with the colourwork). But I could deal with that - ripping out the excess fabric and adjusting the increases - if I knew I'd wear the finished gloves. But I'm pretty sure I won't. The hunt is still on for autumnal gloves, then.

Finally, a few links:

• I want this bathroom.
• I want one of these hats (and generally want more people to wear hats!)
• Scientists draw squid using its fossilised ink. Amazingly cool.
• Scotland's oldest robbers are, of course, local boys.
• While the UK condemns ring-wing groups, something is still rotten in the state of Denmark.
• Finally, if you are able to use BBC's iPlayer, I recommend Peter Capaldi on Scottish portrait painting and the first episode of Tweed, a docu-soap about Harris Tweed. For someone who claims not to watch much TV, I have been watching quite a bit lately..

FO: Snorri

This is Snorri, my new favourite sweater. It is named for an Icelandic scholar who wrote down Norse mythology and skaldic verse in the 11th century I used the Spring Morning (Vormorgun) top by Védís Jónsdóttir as a starting point but added a fair share of modifications in order to get exactly what I wanted: a warm winter sweater. Having just done a photo shoot outside in September in Scotland, I can honestly say that this is the warmest sweater I have ever worn. Phew.

Modifications, then. You can get the full low-down at its Ravelry project page, but here are some things I did differently. The largest size rings in at a whopping 36 inches, so I decided to add an extra pattern repeat and go up a needle size to accommodate my bust. The result is admittedly snug - but in a way which suits my taste and body shape (I hope). I did a lot of shaping through using various needle sizes in an ingenious fashion.

The biggest change is that Snorri has sleeves whereas Védís' pattern does not. I added sleeves in a slightly unorthodox manner: I used a provisional crochet cast-on for the sleeve caps/yoke, unzipped the cast-on after finishing the yoke, picked up stitches from under the arms and knitted the sleeves top-down. It was easier than my explanation makes it sound. My modus operandi was completely improvised, featured some sharp decreases but it looks nice and, hey, Snorri has functional sleeves!

After the sweater was done, I decided that the bottom rib was too loose for my liking, so I put a pair of scissors to my sweater, picked up stitches and re-knit the bottom rib on smaller needles. Ms Yarn Harlot has written an easy explanation as how to do this in case you don’t know how. It’s easy, trust me, and it is one of the most useful knitting tricks I know.

I love this sweater and I loved making it. Lett Lopi is fabulous to work with and I'd knit another Lopi sweater in a heartbeat if I had to. The wool is itchy but it is not meant to be worn right next to the skin, so I've stocked up on long-sleeved tees. Seriously,  I love every little aspect of this knit - including the heritage aspect of it which is becoming increasingly important to me as a knitter.

My Army of Birds & Gulls

Tomorrow is a Finished Object day, but today you are getting a New Object! It is the February Beret knitted up in New Lanark Donegal Tweed DK in the russet colourway. It is an easy pattern - particularly if you have made the February baby sweater or the February lady sweater as you will already be familiar with gull lace stitch. (Incidentally, the gull lace stitch inspired me to call my hat "My Army of Birds & Gulls" which is the name of a very, very good song by a now defunct NZ band, Betchadupa.)

I am actually not a huge fan of this particular yarn. I adore the pure wool New Lanark yarns, but the silk/wool yarns seem like they have randomly added cheap silk nupps to the base yarn. The russet colourway falls particularly victim to this as the lilac silk nupps clash horribly with the orange-red wool.  It has a strange feel to it too.

Future Projects, then. Knitting friends believe that I will go mad if I attempt NaKnitSweMoDo (National Knit a Sweater a Month Dodecathon) and since they know my knitting ways better than most people, I trust their judgement. But I have imagined projects in my head that I want desperately to make into solid knitted objects:

• I have one particular pullover in mind that I want to knit. It will be black but with interesting, colourful and sparse detailing. It's one of those from the top of my head, so I cannot link you to any pattern.
• As you will see tomorrow, I have finished my first colourwork-yoked project and I want to make another - but make it an entirely different experience in another yarn. I'll need to think hard about this one.
• A sign of impending madness perhaps, but I want to knit an ultra-feminine pullover in something akin to KidSilk Haze. Ultra-feminine and possibly vintage pattern?
• Rosamund's Cardigan is my obsession du jour. I have many modifications in mind - including the ever-present "long sleeves!" modification which goes without saying if you live in Scotland. Another one to ponder.
• And now something which may shock some, but I'm going to rip out my first-ever pullover (Rav link) and reknit the yarn into something that I will actually like wearing. Seeing as we're talking Noro Kureyon yarn here, the shape will need to be super-simple to make the colours really pop.

And those are just the first five things...