Lies on Knitting

Taking the knit along

At least a week I spent without a no-brainer on the needles. Waiting for my Magic Ball I decided to keep the sock needles free, and I started a baby sweater. The same as I knitted in december 2006. I know, I know. Not really an adventurous knitter I am. I needed a no-brainer, remember? :-)

This little knitting bag here is a very clever idea by one of the residents of the Dutch socknitting yahoogroup. (I would love to give her credit, but I lost the initial e-mail about it... who was she?) It takes a cloth placemat and a zipper and half an hour to make it. This is how it's done: You cut a strip off the placemat to make it an exact square, you sew the zipper on two sides of one corner, you close the other two sides by folding them in half first, and make a loop-handle out of the strip you have cut off to tidy up the pointy end... bingo! Lovely, isn't it?

Fast and Magic

A little notice about motivation: A gun on my head would not prompt me to knit faster than a magic ball does. In four days I finished knitting all 150 grams of wool that was used to wrap a series of lovely presents. I did not make a pillow cover, after knitting two rows I changed my mind (hey, I am a woman. I am in title to change my mind) and started a curly scarf like this one. I altered the pattern a very little bit: I started with an I cord cast on. While knitting, a few nice ribbons fell out of the ball, a series of buttons, a few sachets of Espresso, and two wooden discs that I do not know what they are for. (edit: they are moth-repellent cedar wood, what a clever idea!)

I unpacked a very clever spinning device, a beautiful apron, (with sheep and a spinning wheel in batik print) a ball filled with beads, a piece of soap that looks like some luxurious dessert, and the most luscious, beautiful fiber to spin. It has red and purple and something white and some shiny fiber as well. I feel thoroughly spoiled!

Then I was out of yarn, and I hadn't cast off the gazillion stitches that were on my longest needle. So I did some stash-diving, and found a lonesome ball of Noro Silver Thaw, that felt at home with this Gedifra Living. See? A match made in heaven.

Now when I started Ravelry to add this curly scarf, I found a hint of who my Magic Ball Maker could be. Is it you?  You did a wonderful job. What a nice ball this was! Thank you!

Magic Ball

At last! today the Magic Ball arrived. 

Look! isn't it lovely? The ball itself (Gedifra "living" in a dark red colour) came in a buttonhole bag, a nice green one. I know a few ways to use this bag.... and I already decided what to knit from this magic ball: A pillow case. Really. You know, I have this old, vintage chair, that I am working on to restore it. It needs a few loose pillows, and this Gedifra living will be part of that.

So... off to find my 5 mm needles. I'll keep you informed on what comes out of the ball. Thank you, Magic Ball Maker!

Not on demand

Surely everyone who is knitting in public recognises this situation: you are merrily knitting on your sock, and a passer-by stops and asks when or whether you will knit him (mostly they are men) a pair of socks. Especially the ticket-controlling men on the train seem to be desperate for warmer feet. I mostly answer in the same tone by joking about my hour-fee being astronomical.

But it is not always joking. Only yesterday H. -who is not a ticket-controller, but a long- time friend of Yep- offhandedly ordered 16 pairs of handknit knee high socks. Sixteen pairs. Really. They were all to be knit in the same colourset, for a soccer team. Ofcourse I said no, no! NO! but he insisted with "I'll pay for it!"

Hm. If we assume my hourly fee would be half of what a cleaning lady gets nowadays, (fat chance, but just for the sake of argument) and if I needed 30 hours of knitting per pair (I'm being optimistic here) these 16 pairs of socks would cost him 2400 euro's. Without the material. :-) I don't think we are in business here. Besides, knitting 32 knee highs in the same colour...argh, it would bore me to death.

Amazing, when you think of it! Sometimes I think I don't value my knitting for what it's really worth. Ofcourse I do not consider it _work_ but it would be impossible to sell it for a realistic prize if I did.

I did a lot of very secretive knitting, since I entered a new Magic Ball exchange, and I am sure my victim is reading here. Also I plodded on on my Slow Bee Mystery stole, and I finished the -identical- Brazil socks. I finished them on a trainride home, and photographed them right away. A gentleman sitting a few rows down came looking, and offered to take the socks home with him, since they seemed to be his size. Sigh...

Catching up

Hi! I am back online! and I have loads of things to blog about... First of all, We went to Liverpool, Cultural Capital of Europe for 2008. We walked around town (a lot) and climbed to the tower of the cathedral, we ate more than we should, we visited Tate gallery and Walker art gallery, we ferried across the Mersey, we photographed 50 (!!) Superlambanana's. There was a huge designshow, there was Port Sunlight, there was Cavern Street (where there was no need to go into one of the clubs, the partying crowd on the streets was a spectacle in itself) and then there was happy hour: two cocktails for the price of one :-) Beforehand, I found this knitting group on Ravelry, so I went to knit along in the Bluecoat Centre for a few hours. One of the knitters in the group is the owner of the Purlesque yarn store, and she did a sunday-special opening for me.  And that is where I purchased this Louise Harding Sari Ribbon. I am not sure what I will knit from it yet, it might be possible to turn it into a glamour-ruffled scarf. Thank you, Purlesque ladies! It was a really pleasant afternoon, and if you ever get to the Netherlands, you know where to e-mail me...

John Lewis is a huge department store, that  uses balls of yarn (I think it is Rowan) in one of its advertisements, in which the yarn is tastefully depicted between glass ware and kitchen utensils. Naturally we went shopping. I bought a new pair of scissors, as I had been dumb enough to carry mine in my handbag, I had to leave them in Holland at the airport security desk. Apart from Rowan and Sirdar, John Lewis carried Mirasol, apparently a Peruvian brand. Quite exclusive, and be-au-ti-ful!

I have been totally immersed in the knitting of Slow Bee 1.  On the picture here you see the state of affairs on the 27th of June... I just finished clue 4.  The group is working on clue 7 as we speak; Moni, the very talented designer who thought this whole thing up is uploading  one clue per week. I do not know why this is called "slow bee"! You know, I knit and knit and knit, and I can not possibly keep up. This bee is faster than I. Not to worry, though. It'll get finished, in time. Though I am not a lace-wearing kind of woman, I love the knitting of it!

Not on purpose

As most sock knitters, I usually have one no-brainer, plain vanilla, sock on the needles. One that I can knit with my eyes closed. Eehhm.... that is a lie. I can't knit with my eyes closed. Dear Edith, resident of our sock knitting yahoogroup is blind, and knits the most intricate patterns, after she gets them translated into braille. Isn't it grand? Being a skilled, experienced knitter I tried to knit simple stocking stitch in the dark, but I messed up right away

Anyway. I have a sock that I can knit on while watching tv, or travelling on a full train, I can even knit on it while reading (something not too absorbing) or standing in a qeue: The Sock for the Road. At the moment I am using a yarn that I got out of a sockyarn swap, in the colors of the Brazil soccer team. It has _really_ long repeats, and to my surprise I got this:

Doesn't it look exactly like a "how to knit a heel" tutorial, like this one? And I swear, on all things woolly, I had no intention to do this whatsoever. But the second one will be less of a no-brainer... I want it the same.

Meanwhile, my computer has given up on me. Forgive me if I did not respond to an email!

A spoonful of knitting

The Slow Bee Knitalong is so entralling, it almost makes me a  monogamous knitter. Knitting with beads is not the fastest way to achieve some results, I tell you. I photographed the gauge swatches, one of them blocked. (The other one was most definitely a needle size too big)

Also, I spun. I spun a bobbin full of dark green merino, and I started on a light green. I plan to ply them together, like this. If it comes out the way I hope, I might use this yarn to knit a new gentlemans scarve for Yep.

Finishitis

I know of Startitis, I have had a few serious cases of that. But now I am doing the opposite: I keep finishing -or frogging- things that have been hibernating.

Nrrdgrrl came to the Netherlands, so I finished Rikki's hat. I had knitted one for her first child, send it to South Africa by mail... and that is where it disappeared. I made an exact replica that I finished only two hours before our lunch-date, and handed it to her in person this time.

I decided to not finish the pink ribbon socks. To be perfectly honest, I did not like the first sock that much, and beyond that: I think she has a point on the subject of breastcancer and charity. Also in the frog pond: the Socks That Rock jaywalker. Too tight. And the Briochestitch scarf: Ripped.

I finished the Socks for the Road,  a plain and simple stockinette pair, in a lovely Storm in the Attic colorway. We loves them. Ofcourse I started a new sock for the road right away, in the colors of the Brazil national soccer team. I don't like soccer, but I do like these colors!

The Log cabin blanket is nearing completion as well. You have to take my word for it: I have no picture. So that leaves me only one UFO: Mermaid. Yeah. I might even take that up again! But in the meantime, she (enabler) lured me to a knitalong, one of those mystery lace knitalongs. And I was powerless. I ordered yarn, I bought me some beads, and I will be eagerly awaiting cast-on instructrions. Maybe I caught startitis again?

Brioche-dilemma

Remember the beautiful handdyed roving Judith made for me? After I had spun it, I decided 100 grams was not quite enough to knit it into something wearable. So I bought 100 grams of a matching blue Merino roving, spun it the same way as I did Judith's blues-and-greens, and started a two coloured briochestitch scarf.

I learned this briochestitch trick in a workshop Nancy Marchant gave on SnB day, last year. I LOVE the way the two colours work together. On one side darkblue ridges with the glowing colours in between, the other side a feast of shifting blues and greens, the dark blue in the background providing rest for the eye.

But I definitely do not like the edges. The edges are sloppy, and curling. I tried various kinds of selvedge-stitches, but I can't get it to work the way I like it.

What do you think? Should I give it up and rip it? I could well knit it into a striped scarf like I did a few times earlier. Not the most entertaining knit, but the result will be beautiful as well. Or maybe even a babygenius rib scarf, like the Mason Dixon ladies invented. Or I could knit on, and hope the sloppy edges will disappear in some vigorous blocking. What do you think?

I finished Charli's Angels as well. Pretty, no? I don't think I will wear them myself, they are too girly for my taste. But it was a great knit!

Not my forte

I tried. I really, really tried. I can see all the advantages that it brings to be knitting two socks simultaneously, on two circulars. In theory, I understand how it works, and being somewhat anal retentive occupied with symmetry, I like the idea of having the socks exactly the same. But it is not my thing. It didn't work for me. It went tediously slow (but I figured that would change once I got used to it. You see, I was being optimistic and trusted my capabilities to learn something new. Ha.) But I kept struggling with the yarn that got tangled up all the time, I repeatedly started on the wrong needle, thus tangling up my Addi Turbo's as well. After I turned both heels I had one sock the wrong way around on the needles. (yes,  really. I have no idea how I managed this)

I took out my trusted, battered old bamboos. Why change a winning team, I thought. Hehhhh... thats better. Lovely pattern isn't it? Charli's angels.