Wednesday Linkage

An assortment of various links for your pleasure.

• Dicey knitting - for the ones among us who like to throw dice when we need to make a decision. "Start with the Ivory Cube -- it will tell if you you knit, purl, slip, increase, decrease, or cable/twist. This is where you Impose Chaos". Thanks, L.
• Golden silk from golden orb spiders: "A unique piece of golden yellow silk brocade cloth, woven from spiderwebs, is on display at the Museum of Natural History in New York. To harvest enough silk to make the cloth, more than a million female golden orb spiders were collected in Madagascar, "milked" for silk, and released back into the wild." The links are not for the faint-hearted, but they are incredibly interesting. I say this as a arachnophobe.
• This has been mentioned a lot on various literary blogs, but it bears repeating: An Open Letter to the Federal Trade Comission. There is a difference between being a lit blogger receiving freebies which may/may not be reviewed and a corporate shrill. The FTC has apparently not noticed the difference.
• Most of my adult life I have been looking for the perfect Bauhaus teapot. I now know why it'll never be mine.
• Glasgow Guerilla Gardening. What it says on the tin. Sometimes they include knitting.
• The house of my nightmares. And probably also of the assigned estate agent..
• The 56 Geeks. Which one are you? And yes, you will be one because you are reading a blog. Brownie points for guessing which one I am. (thanks, Emme)
• The continuing saga of Amazon, their Kindle and the concept of "Fail".
• Hilary Mantel won this year's Man Booker. I can't even pretend to be mildly interested. Sorry.
• One of Dave's online buddies have started a parenting blog. Normally the words "parenting blog" strikes fear into my heart, but when it's called When Should They See Die Hard and the first post made my day: "The first stage is what I'll call "The Minion Stage". Essentially having a little tiny henchman who does as their told and will make Manhattans for you."

Enjoy.

New Knitting Territory

We were walking by the canal today, when the sun came out and I had to take off my jacket to cool off because my Snorri is so very, very warm. "I'm so jealous of your handknitted sweaters", David said, "and I would like to be as warm as you this winter." And so we agreed that I am to knit him a sweater, particularly as we are heading to Scandinavia in the midst of winter and last time that happened, Dave nearly froze to death.

I have all the usual concerns about patterns. Dave doesn’t like any of the usual suspects (Cobblestone or Durrow), doesn’t want any cabling or any colourwork .. but he does grudgingly admit to “not minding” the style of Kerouac while not wanting a cardigan. Furthermore, Kerouac is knitted in sport-weight and I have some rather fetching aran-weight in my stash..

However, the real issue is sizing. I think I’m heading for trouble. I measured David and his chest circumference is a whopping 5” less than IK’s standard size S. He likes his clothes to be fitted rather than slouchy, although he’d want to have a t-shirt underneath his sweater.

Questions: Do I try to play with gauge and go down needle-sizes? Do I try to find children’s patterns and hope the largest boy size will fit my partner? Can I take a woman’s pattern and take out waist-shaping/modify neckline or would I get in trouble with the shoulders?

Any helpful hints or tips either regarding pattern or sizing?

Suggestions regarding feeding him more rice pudding or chocolate will be filed under "David's being silly".

In Praise of Plain Knitting

Does knitting have to be complicated in order to be worthwhile and worthy of praise? Bells in Australia posted an interesting blog entry about once being told she was a "plain knitter" and how this throwaway comment influenced her knitting. I was drawn to her blog entry because I keep receiving very kind, flattering and downright baffling comments on Ravelry about my knitting projects. One recent comment told me "I want to be you when I become a real knitter". Ladies and gentlemen, no matter what you do and how you knit: you are a real knitter.

And I knit plain things. I prefer utilitarian and practical items. I am drawn to unfussy and very simple detailing. I prefer my sweaters and cardigan to be knitted top-down with simple shaping. I do not keep my finished items in neat piles in my wardrobe - not even my lace shawls. My cardigans hang upon chairs and my shawls are tucked in bags (alongside a hat). If I knit for children, I ensure that the items can be washed because they will be burped upon. I am proud of every single thing I knit but I'm not precious about my projects.

However, I do think carefully about everything I knit. This is my modus operanti and one which seems strikingly similar to what Wendy Bernard outlines in Custom Knits:

1. I look at the basic shape of the garment. I know my body type and what flatters this body type. If the shape will work against my body type, I discard the pattern no matter how much I adore it.
2. I look at how fussy it is. Does it have any unnecessary detailing, a gazillion lace patterns or two types of edging? Can I simplify the pattern if it is too fussy or busy?
3. What will I use this item for? Does it fit into my lifestyle or is it something I will wear maybe once a year? Does it fit with the rest of my wardrobe?

Examples of these basic rules:

1. I adore the Mrs Darcy Cardigan which has just the right amount of detailing to suit my taste - my busty, short torso would look completely wrong in this knit. I could modify the neckline and shaping, but it would no longer be the same design idea. Discarded, alas. See also the Whisper Cardigan.
2. When I did my Forecast, I eliminated the random moss stitch section on the collar and pared down the cabling from cable+bobbles to a simple braid. It's not that I couldn't do the original design's cable+bobbles, I just thought the designer had thrown in two or three textures too many.
3. I'm cold. I'm always, always cold. I need long sleeves and warm garments (cue Snorri (with added sleeves) and a multitude of shawls that I can wrap around my neck or lower back). I would never get any use out of a Lotus Blossom Tank or a Delphine.

In short: I make as many decisions as I can before I start knitting something.

Plain knitting involves just as many decisions and considerations as technically complex knitting. In fact, I would argue plain knitting may involve more decisions as knitters know that our plain knits will be the ones we wear the most and so we think harder about our choice of yarn or colour.

Yes, I can do intarsia, entrelac, Bavarian twisted stitches, and a gazillion cast-ons  - but does that really make me a "real" knitter? I think not. Let us sing the praises of plain knitting: stocking stitch, garter stitch, moss stitch and k1p1 ribbing. Without these things we would be nothing.

Little Women & Werewolves

Yes, the classic "Little Women" has fallen prey to the publishing trend that started with "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". Joy. I never read the Austen-goes-supernatural novel.  I mean, I still have issues with casting Colin Firth as Darcy in that BBC mini-series, so imagine what issues I'd have suddenly encountering zombies in the midst of Pemberley! Anyway, the synopsis of "Little Women" reads thusly:

In this retelling of Louisa May Alcott's classic, the beloved little women must keep not just the wolf, but the werewolves, from the door...and the kindly old gentlemen next door and his grandson may have some secrets to hide — or share with the March girls.

There is a silver lining, though. On io9, commentators have fun trying to come up with the next installments in this classics-goes-monstrous trend and they're really quite funny:

• A Sentimental Education of Vampires
• Canterbury Tales from the Crypt
• Uncle Tom's Kraken
• Love in the Time of Cthulu
• The Barchester Martian Chronicles
• The Handmaid's Tail

Can anyone come up with a synopsis for any of these?

Self-Awareness is Good, Right?

At times our Domestic Bliss feels a lot like this cartoon:

The Threads That Bind Us Together

Knitting is in my blood. My great-great-grandmother knitted socks, my great-grandmother taught me to knit, my grandmother has never been without a project in her knitting basket and my mother loves knitting socks although she prefers to crochet.

According to my grandmother, my great-great-grandmother, Ingeborg,  "threw" her knitting and it was not until I moved to the UK I understood what she meant. Ingeborg knitted in the English manner. I continue to wonder about Ingeborg throwing rather than picking (i.e. the Continental way). Where did she learn a style which is not used in Denmark? Who taught her? I wish I knew more about her.

Now my grandmother has expressed a desire to get "something knitted" from me for Christmas. Gran used to knit sample sweaters for a local yarn shop and you should see the fair isle sweaters she used to knit for me. Of course I cannot find any photos of them (and she gave them all to charity at one point, annoyingly), but I remember them as being stunning. My particular favourite was one knitted in Faroese colourwork (two colours, geometric patterns) in bright red and dark green. I know she still has the pattern and I harbour dreams of recreating it.

On the photo above  you can see me aged five or thereabouts. I'm wearing one of Gran's creations: it looks like brioche stitch to me with set-in sleeves. I'll spare you the other photo I found. It was a zipped cardigan with a hood done in lilac. I've always hated zips in knitwear, wearing a hood and the colour lilac. Now I know why. A childhood trauma, clearly.

But what do you knit for a woman whose knitting I have worn since I was a baby?

The obvious answer is lace.

Gran has never knitted much lace, much preferring cables, brioche stitch and colourwork. When I knitted a scarf for my mother last year, Gran kept talking about the fine detailing and the delicate stitches. My family does not do "subtle" very well.

I looked in my stash and uncovered a beautiful hank of Old Maiden Aunt merino/silk in "Gothic". Then I looked at a gazillion lace shawls on Ravelry before deciding to go with a pattern I have used before: the good, old Swallowtail shawl by Evelyn A. Clark. It is one of the prettiest shawl patterns available, I've knit it twice before and know its pitfalls, and I know I can get it done in plenty of time for the holidays even if I'm going to enlargen it slightly (it is a bit dainty).

Think my Gran will like it? I think so.