Kastanie

Dear Father Christmas,

I have been a very good girl this year. Well, I have been a very good girl most of the year. Okay, I was a very good girl until last night. I hope we are still cool about me getting a floppy-eared puppy with big paws?

Love, Karie x

Last night I cast on for a project that has nothing to do with work nor is it one of my own designs. In fact, it is a completely frivolous project that I only cast on because - gasp - I wanted to knit it. I don't think I have done that for a very, very long time (and typing that makes me feel a bit sad, actually). Kastanie is going to be a jumper. I bought the first issue of knit.wear a couple of months ago because I loved the simple, wearable Wendy Bernard pattern. Of course it transpires that the pattern is a re-branded Riverstone Boatneck jumper which makes me very angry as a consumer. Pay $5.50 to get the one pattern or pay £10 for a magazine? I know which one I would have preferred.

Anyway. In my stash I had two large skeins of New Lanark Aran in a one-off colourway that I bought on a visit to the Mill back in 2009. The colour is a gorgeous heathery chestnut ('Kastanie' is Danish for chestnut) and I am loving up it works up with the stitch pattern. I reckon I have maybe 600g of yarn which may or may not be enough for the jumper, but we shall see. The jumper is a bog-standard, easily-modified top-down raglan so I can play around with fit and yardage. All in all, this is not an earth-shatteringly new direction for my knitting but I just really want a cosy winter jumper that I can knit up fairly quickly and without too much stress.

Speaking of stress, I use WordPress to power this site and sadly their new update makes it incredibly cumbersome for me to blog. This entry has been entirely hand-coded, for instance, and while I do like coding, I am not particularly keen on handcoding every single blog post. It takes too much time. I'm off to find a solution. If you want to see another photo of Kastanie, please visit its project page on Ravelry. No link because that would require about three different windows open and additional handcoding. You get my drift.

2011: A Year in Knitting

Although we are only halfway through December, I am ready to look back at my knitting year. I found a New Year's Resolution post I made on Ravelry on January 3, 2011:

• Sort out the unwieldy stash
• Eleven hats in 2011 (or preferably more...)
• Knit up a lot of the random balls scattered throughout the stash
• Finish more than 2.75 garments within a year.
• Relax with my knitting. It shouldn't feel like a chore

And how did I do? I did relatively badly.

I managed to organise the stash but it became rather disorganised in October when we had to get the spare bed out of storage, thus upsetting my stacks of yarn boxes in the process. Eleven hats? No. I managed three. I still need hats, so I will aim to knit some more with some of the random balls still in my stash. I did knit one cardigan and finished another one which had languished in my knitting basket. I turned a third garment into a shrug and I'm halfway through a fourth garment. Mild success? It doesn't feel like it.

As for relaxing with my knitting? Here is where I have to come clean. I work within the knitting industry. Although it is the best job in the world, knitting is still work and as such it can feel like a chore at times. Most of my knitting time is spent swatching and I rarely get to finish things. I am not complaining because I am one of the lucky ones who has managed to turn a hobby into a career, but I am now realising that sometimes knitting will not feel relaxing and that is okay.

So, 2011. What did I do and what were my favourites?

• I exhibited knitted art at The Tramway Art Gallery. Yikes.
• One of my go-to- FOs was the Silkwood Cowl which felt like a really carefree project and subsequently has been living around my neck most of the year.
• My other go-to FO has been my Red Cardigan of Doom which took me forever to finish and which I thought looked awful on me. I have practically lived in it ever since. I have to knit a proper long-sleeved cardigan out of Rowan Baby Alpaca because it makes the softest, warmest fabric I have ever worn. I am always cold - except when I wear this cardigan.
• I released a couple of patterns - some free and some not so free. My favourites? Karise was released in July and has just been the subject of a Ravelry knit-along. Tornved was released this month to a quite overwhelming response (gosh). I also did a couple of patterns for a store which I have not yet added to Ravelry.
• I tried a lot of new yarns. I loved working with Old Maiden Aunt merino/silk. It was a lovely heavy and drapey yarn just perfect for shawls. However, it is fair to say that 2011 was the year of knitting Kidsilk Haze. I used that a lot.

So. 2012. What do I spy in the crystal ball and what do I hope for?

• I'm already working on more patterns. I have sketchbook filled with what is essentially 2-and-a-half collections worth of patterns. Hopefully I will be able to devote more time to this in 2012.
• I'd really love to knit a few garments in 2012. Quality over quantity.
• And I still need more hats.
• Keeping on top of the stash. I cannot promise 'more yarn out than in' but at least I won't do the 'oh, I fancy a ball of that' thing because that way madness lies. I am getting far better at curating my stash already. May it continue.
• More conscious allocation of my knitting time: what is 'work' knitting and what is 'me' knitting?

Of course I have a list of things I want to knit, but as 2011 has shown me: I had better not plan too far ahead.

Gift-Buying Guide For Knitters

So, you want to buy a great gift for the knitter in your life? And you haven't a clue where to start? I have written this gift-buying guide for people just like you.

Pattern: Tornved

My heart sank when I woke up this morning. It was another classic Glasgow early-winter morning: overcast, rainy and dreich. And I meant to do a photo shoot today, rats. Yes, boys and girls, I finished designing and writing another pattern. Remember the Old Maiden Aunt knitalong? I set myself the challenge of designing a shawl pattern during the KAL (oh, and knitting the sample and writing the pattern too).

I had the idea very early on that I wanted to design a shawl with my childhood in mind. I spent my summers in Tornved, a tiny hamlet in rural Denmark, where my great-grandmother. Lily, lived in a cottage. Her cottage looked out on farmland and I thought I wanted to put that into writing knitting. So, there you have it: birds chasing seeds and flying over unworked soil. I find it oddly poetic.

And on a practical note, I love small shawls with a solid stocking stitch middle but I find them quite dull to knit, so I wanted a lace pattern that would break up the monotony of stocking stitch but remain fairly solid.

Anyway, I eventually decided to take some photos inside one of the glass house in the nearby Botanic Gardens. Some of the statues kindly volunteered to be wrapped up in wool which gave my shawl a faint Gothic feel. Maybe those are not birds, but hearts..Hmm..

I am still unsure about the amount of light, but things are not going to get any brighter for a few weeks (yay, solstice!). Also, the grand prize in the Old Maiden Aunt November knitalong is a complete Tornved kit, so I needed to wrap things up.

Tornved took me three weeks to chart (because charts kept being stupid and big and difficult to knit) and less than four days to knit (when I finally cracked the chart thing). This speed-knitting adventure can possibly be the reason why I'm struggling with a wonky wrist now. Don't try this at home, kids. And it was an oddly emotional knit (and I don't do emotions) because I sat there thinking about ways to incorporate memories into a knit without being too specific.

You can purchase Tornved on Ravelry, if you so desire. I used 390 yards of Old Maiden Aunt Merino 4ply in the colour Berry Good and knitted it on 4mm circs. I did not bead this shawl, but I have included several beading tips for all you bling-lovers.

And that is that, I guess. I have lived with this shawl design for a month and now it is leaving the nest. Aww..

It's Getting Cold Now

It is premature to write my Reading 2011 entry but I did leave a comment on a newspaper site yesterday about one of my favourite reads so far. I miss keeping a literary blog - but then again my old literary blog was never just about books. I wrote about whatever took my fancy and I like to think I still do that. November 30 2011 has been a day of strikes across the UK as a reaction to the Tory-led coalition's "austerity measures". I have been watching the news unfold from my cosy home, but part of me did wish I could have been out there. Some years ago I would have been. It has been interesting to see how most of them media have been shouting that this one day of strikes could push the UK back into recession .. I seem to remember most of the UK got an extra few days off for the sake of a certain royal wedding earlier this year but that was "a celebration", of course. Interesting, also, that this strike comes the day after the Chancellor's "Autumn statement" which I was following with incredulity yesterday. You can read an acerbic and pointed response here.

Moi? Cynical? I think I am turning into a grumpy old woman (I have the grey hairs to prove it). Maybe just realistic rather than grumpy.

And so with a boot firmly planted in the realistic camp, I was delighted to find other people utterly bemused* by the never-ending editorials about The Party Season. I think I had a party season once when I was 20 and as a skint student, I wore secondhand 1970s silver-lamé frocks accessorised with green Doc Martens. And nobody cared that I wore the same 1970s frock to every single drunken student jig. I do not think I live in the same world as the glossies - who does? And who buys** them?

Let me share something amazing and lovely with you: Someone has been leaving small, intricate paper sculptures all over Edinburgh. Who? No one seems to know. It is a woman who proclaims that she is used to "making things" and that she has left these art objects to voice her support for libraries, books, words, and ideas. I absolutely love these objects - I would call them book art rather than artists' books (there is a distinction, I feel) - and I love the quiet making and placing of them. There is something so utterly wonderful about art objects that do not scream but whisper.

Knitting posts to come soon. Tonight I just wanted to write about slightly more .. cerebral things.

*) Sorry about using italics so much **) Actually I use italics way too often.

Listed

I have been having the kind of month when I am constantly running behind myself. I think this is called Modern Life, but hopefully I can retire to my Absolutely Old-Fashioned Life once Christmas preparation is well under way.

• I have been running a lot of Christmas crafts demonstrations and workshops lately. One of the least expected (and totally new favourite) outcome is my Christmas Pudding pin cushion. I shall need to show you.
• I have been busy designing a new shawl pattern. The charts kept mocking me, but I am back on track. I ran a small Twitter giveaway in which people could win my new pattern which proved to be a lot of fun.
• Meanwhile the Old Maiden Aunt knit-along is nearing the final stage and people have been posting heaps of finished Karise shawls. I get this really funny feeling in my stomach every time I see another one. I'll need to show you a selection of my favourites too.
• I have managed to injure my wrist by knitting too much, but once I recover and also find time for some personal knitting, I'm pondering knitting another Kim Hargreaves cardigan in some more Baby Alpaca DK. Because I actually love wearing my Red Cardigan of Doom. It is the warmest, cosiest thing I own. Am I totally insane?
• We have been watching plenty of films in Casa Bookish lately. They have no been particularly highbrow films, but I really enjoyed watching X-men: First Class and Centurion. On a slightly more high-brow note, I am still enthralled by Mark Cousin's The Story of Film and have just begun watching the second season of The Killing (the Danish version, natch).
• No books since my double whammy of Jane Eyre and Virginia Woolf's Flush. I have a mind to read some Djuna Barnesnext, but we shall see.
• I have been doing a lot of Christmas shopping online and hardly anything has shown up despite me ordering things ages ago. I know it is only end of November, but I am usually done with my Christmas shopping by September, so I am antsy.
• I have been listening to a lot of Nick Drake lately (because I'm that kind of aging hipster). Saturday Sun may well be my new favourite song.

I am well aware that I have not been blogging as much as I would like. Partly it is because I have been rather stressed and partly because I am hoping to unveil a new look Fourth Edition in the new year. Being a one-woman show is not all that it is cracked up to be sometimes!