, ,

She Comes Scattered

, ,

Just a little peek of my just-off-the-blocking-board shawl. It's beautiful, it's warm and it's mine. Sorry. I notice how my projects travel by colour. I had a green phase last spring/summer, then recently I have knitted a lot of blue-ish purples and pink fuschia, and now I appear to gravitate towards rich reds. I hope I will never have a pastel phase. I do not think I'd be able to keep my sanity. Anyway, proper photos to come this weekend after Official Photographer and I manage to have a full day together. Official Photographer called me this morning to let me know that Crowded House will be touring the UK this spring and that tickets go on sale tomorrow. I have written about this before, so it suffices to say that Crowded House provided the soundtrack to most of my life. I connect places I have lived or been with their songs, and although I no longer listen to them on a regular basis, they are "my band". For one glorious moment I contemplated seeing every Scottish gig, but then I checked ticket prices and also remembered that I will be on my way to West Yorkshire for work reasons when they play Aberdeen. If you had told me ten years ago I would have to forego seeing Neil Finn live for matters involving sheep, I would have thought you mad.

Anna has written an interesting post about her relationship with "things", crafting and feminism. I enjoyed reading it. You may too.

Waiting for Spring

When I cast off a shawl last night - more on that later - I noticed that my left wrist was acting up. I have hyper-mobile joints and sometimes I forget that I have to "stiffen" my wrist when pushing against or carrying things. These past few days I have been doing a lot of pushing and shoving at work - and now my left wrist is acting up as a result. I'll need to uncover some bandages later and perhaps even scale down my knitting activities. Woe. But, yes, I have cast off my third shawl of 2010. After finishing this Feather and Fan Comfort Shawl and knowing that I would wear it, I cast on for another F&F shawl in Marks & Kattens Fame Trend in colour 651 (a sage-brown-red combo). Again, a very straightforward knit and I really love the colours. I much preferred Fame Trend to the very disappointing Drops Delight - Fame Trend is softer, the colour combinations are better and I much prefer the evenness of the resulting fabric to the substandard faux-Noro-esque Delight.

But I think I am definitely ready to move away from knitting multi-coloured shawls out of sock yarn.

My next project is a pullover from the new Rowan magazine - the Spring Summer 2010 one. Relax is a casual lacy jumper designed by Sarah Hatton and knitted out of Summer Tweed, a silk/cotton yarn, in a lovely red shade. I'm slightly concerned about how my wrist will cope with the yarn as I know from experience that knitting will cotton will hurt my hands. Hopefully the 30% content of cotton won't tax my hands too much. I'm excited about this one as I tend to knit mostly big, woolly garments and I'd love to have a pretty red jumper that I can wear throughout the year. I plan on wearing it with layers - long-sleeves black tops for spring and autumn and a little black camisole during the three days of summer we'll get. In my head I can also see it working with a teal corduroy skirt I have. Fingers crossed.

Thanks to the lovely girls at Go Fug Yourself, I spent the morning looking at ice-skating routines. Having watched Johnny Weir skating to Lady Gaga, I can die a happy woman. Growing up in Scandinavia, I watched lot of ice-skating and have always loved its mad combination of gymnastics, showmanship, and ever-looming possibility of bone fractures. Oh, the Winter Olympics cannot come soon enough.. (and I am planning to knit my very first pair of socks for the Ravelympics).

,

Turning It Around

,

I am very bad at receiving compliments, but am very good at taking criticisms to heart. Yesterday I was called something Not Very Nice by a random passer-by at my workplace. It was completely out of order, had no basis in reality and all my colleagues were stunned into silence (which does not happen often). I felt so bad yesterday that I bought two balls of Kidsilk Haze and then went home for a big hug. I'm in my mid-thirties and I still do not know how to handle unfair criticism. That too makes me feel a bit blue and inadequate. So let me write about good things. Happy things. Things, thoughts, places and people who make me smile.

  • Sarah Haskins makes me really happy. She hosts Target Women which takes a look at the often-ridiculous way the media reaches out to women. The Yoghurt edition had me at "yoghurt is the official food of women!" (and not just because I'm lactose-intolerant and yoghurt makes me feel really sick), but they are all very funny and, excuse the pun, on-target. That's Gay looks at gay representation in mainstream media with equally great results.
  • At Academia Nuts, my good buddy R. writes about art as resistance and wonders how she can incorporate her thoughts into her knitting. I have similar issues with regards to my own crafting and would love to read other people's thoughts on this.
  • I bought the pattern for the Snapdragon Tam today after coveting the hat ever since I first spotted a photo of it. Paula has just knitted a gawjuss version which pushed me over the edge. I am going to use one of the oldest yarns I have in my stash, a Malabrigo-ish 1-ply merino in a dark, lush forest green. This yarn was once fondled by Robert Carlyle, I'll have you know.
  • I was watching Nerdstock: Christmas for Rationalists last night on BBC4 (BBC4 makes me very happy very frequently). The show was very hit-and-miss: I continue to have huge problems with the evangelical branch of atheism (hello Richard Dawkins), some of the comedians were clearly out of their depths and the shiny face of Professor Brian Cox distracted me from whatever he was saying - but I really, really enjoyed Baba Brinkman's Rap Guide to Evolution. Brinkman's not the best rapper in the world but he is very clever (and I find it delightful he also does a rap version of Canterbury Tales).
  • I have finished my second shawl of the year (Rav Link - I have reasons for not writing about it here just yet) and am 2/3rds through my third shawl. I'm knitting this one out of Fame Trend (yes, still knitting up what I brought from Scandinavia) and I'm liking the yarn so much more than Drops Delight. I must admit I'm a tad tired of knitting shawls out of self-striping yarn.. but hey, it's good that I'm getting through projects!

Shawls Shawls Shawls

I have somehow managed to sign myself up for a "10 Shawls for 2010" challenge on Ravelry. By doing so I have completely ignored that I want to knit more small accessories in 2010 as I have cold fingers and a cold head most of the year round. However, the shawls challenge does fit nicely into my stashdown knitting. Besides, the goals for the challenge are quite lenient. Yardage for each shawl should be 200 yrds plus with a few exceptions. In other words, the shawls can be quite tiny. I have looked through my stash (although I'm yet to reorganise it - blame my achy shoulder for that one) and I have looked at the shawls I have in my Ravelry queue. So far I am planning to knit the following shawls (in no particular order):

I'm likely to add more shawls as I find them, as they get published, and as I get new ideas about the yarns in my stash. I do not have my stash fully entered on Ravelry, but I do have some very wonderful things stashed aside and I would rather use them than keep them boxed up in a closet.I am also fully aware that my wardrobe does not need ten shawls, so I will be giftboxing some of the finished items. This may make it easier for me to pair up yarn + pattern. I tend to get a bit intense about finding the right yarn for the right pattern but if I know I will be gifting the shawl, I need not fret so much. After all, most of the recipients have a far more relaxed attitude towards knitting than I do.

And so I cast on for yet another shawl on Sunday. Last year my friend Elaine had knitted a Feather and Fan Comfort shawl (Flickr picture not of Elaine's shawl but of one made by the hugely talented Julia) and I admired it so much that I knew I needed to knit one too. While I was in Copenhagen, I picked up two balls of Drops Delight which I thought would suit the pattern. I am not liking the yarn, unfortunately. It feels far too synthetic to my fingers and it is trying so hard to out-Noro Noro that it is overspun, thick-and-thin, and has jarring colour changes (no hay or sticks, so far though!). In short, the things I find charming about Noro is significantly less charming when the yarn is more synthetic and less baa-baa-sheepsie. At least this project is portable which is something!

The new Rowan magazine is out in the shops now. It features an article by Kate Davies about knitting outdoors - something I am extremely fond of doing myself, although I'm not likely to climb mountains or run a marathon whilst knitting. The magazine also has quite a few patterns I really like. After scrutinising the pictures, I have decided that I am not going to knit that delightful little Kid Silk Haze jumper (body shape issues) but that I really like the Summer Tweed pullover. So that has been added to the list too. So much I want to knit. So little time.

,

Monday Linkage

,

Just a quick little link dump today as I have managed to pull a muscle in my back/shoulder region which makes typing a tad uncomfortable.