So, what have you been up to in the last six years, eh?

     It is incredible to think that I haven't written in this blog for six years. I guess I'd rather be knitting than writing, right? Except of late, I have been doing just the opposite. I have written a novel, dusted off two novellas from years ago that could be published under one cover, and am working on a YA short novel and something called The Detective and Doreen which is stalled right now because I have to write a courtroom scene and I don't want to. But, regardless, my blog writing has dropped to nil. I'm still knitting, but not as much.

    In November, 2022, I developed acute sciatica while my husband and I were at his mother's house being caregivers. We were there for just over a month, and into the second week I was in so much pain, every movement had me whimpering. Visits to a local chiropractor and physiotherapist did nothing, and the strong meds I was prescribed when we finally got home likewise did not alleviate my suffering. I joined a pilates class and the instructor very strongly recommended her osteopath-acupuncturist, who managed to get the inflammation of the sciatic nerve to subside with three needle treatments. I was able to wean myself off the prescription drugs and only took acetaminophen as I needed it. It has been more than two years and I still have sciatica. It's not acute anymore, and I'm not crying with every movement, but I live with daily pain. The small little aches that had suddenly gone quiet when the sciatica was screaming are back, though, and cause me more problems than they did. I'm convinced all this is related to whatever brought on the sciatica in the first place.

    The first thing to suffer was my knitting. I could not sit and knit for hours on end as I had been used to. I had brought with me a sweater I was working on for my husband, from fingering weight yarn. I finished the back and held it up to him and realized it was never going to fit. So I ripped it back to balls, found a different pattern, went to the LYS for different needles, and started again. In the end, I think I knit the sweater three times. When it was done, my husband tried to try it on. It was not to be. It fit me. Then I washed it and blocked it and it grew so that it fit my son, but he didn't want it. He's not a fan of V-necks, which it sported. In the end, I detached the sleeves, turning them into leg warmers, and knit garter stitch edgings around the armholes to match the button bands, producing a vest. I have no idea what to do with this thing. I don't want it. It doesn't fit my husband, and my son doesn't want it. I suppose I'll just put it in the church rummage sale, which seems like a sad thing to do with something I spent so much work on. I made my husband a pair of socks from leftover yarn, and there's still enough to make myself a pair of knee socks if I want them. I'm just so sick of this yarn that I don't even want to look at it any more.

    But I have made other things in the meantime, just not as enthusiastically as I once did. Cowls, fingerless mitts, shawls: pretty things. I cast on the other day for a MKAL that I'd been postponing for a while, an Estonian lace shawl from blue silk lace with beads and nupps, and when my son was over for dinner this evening I showed it to him. He was very dismissive. I knit so many shawls, pretty, lacy, frivolous things, that he seriously can't tell the difference between one and the other, except by colour. I told him that when I started knitting after years of not knitting, I made the decision I would knit what gave me pleasure, and pretty lace does. I'm not looking to clothe people. If the above-described cardigan fiasco is any indication, I shouldn't even bother trying. I will knit what pleases me and makes my knitting friends ooh and ah. It's something I do for myself and no one else.

    Having said that, I can now post some FOs that I'm proud of. Two brioche shawls, one that I gave away to a friend, and one that was a test knit which I think I'll keep for myself.

Entwined Queen's Shawl by Julia Decker
modelled by my friend Valerie

Bloodlines (Dreaming of Lillies) by Padma R
modelled by me

Purple Kiss (Ishq) by Nidhi Kansal

    I won the yarn and pattern for Ishq by commenting on Sweet Paprika's blog. They had commissioned the shawl to be knitted in their Messa di Voce, an exquisite light fingering in superwash merino. It was a delight to work with. I wore it over to a friend's place for dinner lat night, and never felt the need to take it off. Just delightful.

    So, that's where I am now. Maybe I'll be inspired to keep writing in this blog. But maybe I won't. Time will tell.

Tempus fugit

Indeed, time does fly. It has been almost a whole year since I last blogged here, and I realize I have made many, many knitted projects since then that I haven’t talked about. So, here’s a quick overview of my accomplishment highlights.

I made a lot of cowls last year. There were a couple of KALs and a few test knits. One that I’d been working on for a long time, Endless Rose Cowl by Jeffrey Wall, finally got finished. I used KnitPicks Bare Superwash Wool DK for the main colour, and Woodland by Classic Elite Yarns (now discontinued) for the contrasting Fair Isle.

Another was Joyful Cowl by Heather Anderson, made from Mini Mochi. I gave this to my niece’s first mother-in-law, with whom I am still friends, and she was absolutely delighted.

There were other cowls, just as nice and just as blog worthy, but I tire of cowls. I also made fingerless mitts. Lots and lots of fingerless mitts. I even tried brioche for the first time. Here’s the pair I made for my daughter, The Astronomer’s Mitts by Sabine Kastner.

But of course, you want to hear about the shawls. There were those, including a few epic knits. Here’s a test knit I made for Mary-Anne Mace, The Eye of Day, from Sweet Paprika Grazioso.



Another of Mary-Anne’s, Speckle Tonic, was a disappointment, not in the pattern, but in the yarn. I used two skeins of Serenity 20 by Zen Yarn Garden, a lovely blend of merino, cashmere and nylon. When I washed it prior to blocking, the dark blue dye ran into the white and stained it. I used the leftover yarn for my daughter’s mitts, and wisely put some vinegar in the water first. It kept the colour from running. I love my Speckle Tonic. It’s warm and cozy, but it’s not how I envisaged it.

Another test knit, Summer Petals by Mary-Anne Mace, came out perfectly. I used Sea Lace by Handmaiden Fine Yarn and the result was absolutely gorgeous. I ended up giving it to a visiting pianist on whom it seemed completely at home.

The next test knit, again for Mary-Anne Mace, was Liquid Geography. This was knit from KnitPicks Curio Cotton. It’s going to a friend who is getting married next spring.

One more Mary-Anne Mace shawl, which I modified ever so slightly so I wouldn’t run out of yarn, was Feathers are Leaves on Birds. It called for a tad more yarn that I had, one skein each of two different colourways of Sweet Georgia CashSilk Lace, but I made it work, and I absolutely love it.

I took part in a Heather Anderson KAL and knit her Magic Dragon Shawl from KFI Luxury Collection Luxury Silk Sport by Knitting Fever. I had previously test knit the matching baby blanket and liked the pattern enough to make something similar.

But the pièce de résistance is going to get its very own blog post. So read on.

Why the Yarn Chicken Crossed the Street

Remember a couple of posts ago I wrote about a shawl I’d played yarn chicken with and lost? It always irked me, that black cotton edge. I know it was very dramatic looking, but I didn’t like the way it hung, how the cotton didn’t have the same drape as the bamboo. So when I was at the Knitters Frolic in Toronto last April, I went in search of the Dye-Versions booth and sought out another skein of 100% bamboo fingering in Vampire’s Kiss. I found one, among other lovely things.

Then I unravelled the seven or eight rows from my shawl, got all those stitches put back on a circular needle, and proceeded to reknit (and rebead) the edging. I think it was worth it.

A Mashup and a KAL

I have been busily knitting away, so much so that I think I have injured my right elbow. But that isn’t enough to make me stop. No siree.

In December I completed another test knit for Mary-Anne Mace, my favourite NZ designer. She has created yet another absolutely gorgeous shawl, which she calls “Lace Eater Mashup” as she incorporates lace from various of her other designs to create something new. I made it out of two different yarns, Manos del Uruguay Lace (70% alpaca-25% silk-5% cashmere) and Estelle Yarns Baby Silk Lace (70% alpaca-30% silk). The story behind those two yarns is worth telling in itself.

An internet friend of mine was getting married, someone I had never met in the 3D world but whom I had come to know through an online RPG I subscribe to. We were clannies and I shall hereafter refer to her as Delmaya, that being the name I knew her by ingame. I wanted to do something for her and, after seeing a photo of her wedding dress, knew that she needed long gloves to cover her bare arms. I had already fallen in love with the Kensington Mitts pattern from the first Jane Austen Knits magazine, and she loved them too once I showed her the picture. So, now that a pattern had been chosen, I needed appropriate yarn.

That proved more difficult than I thought it would. On a visit to Toronto, and many many wool shops, I came away with fine lace, even though the pattern called for fingering. It meant that I ended up holding the yarn double, and the finished mitts turned out quite beautifully. However, let me tell you about my shopping expedition. At one point I found myself in the basement of Romni Wools on Queen Street. If a bargain is to be found, that is the place to find it. My gaze fell upon this skein of Estelle Yarns lace, marked down to $6.00. It was all by itself, not enough to do anything with on its own, and the colour was just not white enough for wedding mitts to be worn with a pure white gown. I dithered. I hemmed and I hawed. The old guy who haunts the basement of Romni Wools came around to give advice, which was, “It’s only $6.00; buy it!” So I did.

At EweKnit (in its old location in Mirvish Village), I engaged the help of the salesgirl, who scoured the store for something suitable. We could find nothing in a fingering weight yarn. It was pretty disappointing. Then she remembered that they had Manos del Uruguay Lace, which was absolutely perfect in every way except for the thickness. But, as I said, I could hold it double. So I bought two skeins. The colour wasn’t pure white, but a creamy white, warmer than the wedding dress, but sufficiently pale to match.

Because Delmaya lived at a distance from me and wasn’t around for actual fittings, I used the Estelle lace to make parts of the mitts in different sizes, which I mailed to her and had her try on, and then mail back with copious notes about fit. In this fashion, I was able to determine that she was a combination of sizes, and I could proceed accordingly. The mitts turned out beautifully. I was pleased, she was delighted, and the photographer captured them for immortality.

Aw.

Since I’d unravelled the Estelle lace from the test pieces and still had a quantity of the Manos left over, I decided to use these for the Lace Eater Mashup test knit. It meant separating the doubled strands, which took a fair bit of time and no small amount of frustration; but at last I had yarn to knit with. For the top of the shawl I used the leftover Manos, and for the rest the Estelle. I figured that the colours were similar enough that the change wouldn’t show, especially as it’s very lacy. I was right.

Nice, eh?

So, while you’re admiring the lace there, Mary-Anne is having a knitalong of this very shawl on Ravelry at this very moment. Feel free to join in. You won’t be sorry.

Playing yarn chicken... and losing.

While waiting for a computer ordered on ebay to arrive so I could get back to work at a project which would actually pay me real money, I embarked on what I called “nervous knitting” to keep me from losing my mind. It was a very stressful time. My own computer had overheated and died and I didn’t want to have to upgrade my software halfway through the project. I’ve been using the same program since 2006. So the Mac technician suggested I find a similar model to my own and he could transfer over the hard drive. I did as he suggested, purchasing an identical computer on ebay which took almost two weeks to arrive. It was during those two weeks that I knit another Mad Blood shawl by Mary-Anne Mace with 100% bamboo yarn by Dye-Versions I’d bought at last spring’s Knitters’ Frolic in Toronto. I’d also bought a large bag of No. 6 red beads, and as the yarn was a lurid combination of black and red called “Vampire’s Kiss,” I thought they deserved each other.

I tested this pattern years ago with a 100% wool light fingering yarn by Sweet Paprika and it made more of a shawlette than a shawl, especially as the wool tends to shrink up after blocking, not staying stretched out. Bamboo, though, is a different fibre altogether. It stretches hugely in the blocking and even afterward. In my original Mad Blood, I didn’t add beads. One of the testers did and the designer incorporated her placings into the final pattern. I decided there weren’t enough beads, and added more earlier on.

There was one issue that I considered and planned for, and that was that I didn’t have enough yarn to knit the pattern as written. So, accordingly, I eliminated one repeat of the vertical motif by omitting an increase row in the plain knitting part and starting the lace at the appropriate number of stitches. I still didn’t have enough of the bamboo.

I ran out of bamboo yarn nine rows from the end. This is not the first time I’ve gone stash diving to find something to edge a shawl with, and I think that contrasting edgings are often quite dramatic looking. But the problem was not a colour thing, but a textural issue. As I said, bamboo stretches. If I used wool, it would shrink up against the vegetable fibre. Silk might have worked, but I didn’t have any in my stash of an appropriate weight or colour. The best I could do was cotton fingering that I had acquired so long ago it seems like it’s always been there. It’s the stuff I pull out when I need a provisional crochet cast-on; not particularly high-quality material. But I used it anyway and this is the result.

It’s not great, but it works. My son took photos of me modeling it.

In retrospect, I probably should have worn a different top.

Lysanne’s Fingerless Mitts

A couple of months ago I was in Montreal to attend a live show of the podcast “Welcome to Nightvale” and arranged to stay overnight with a friend whose acquaintance I had made in a rather roundabout way. Let us just say that an online MMORPG, an aged mother’s broken shoulder, and serendipity all played parts in bringing us together. We discovered a few more coincidences along the way, such as the boyfriend of the friend I had traveled with to Montreal being a good friend of hers as well. So, considering all that, I felt I could ask her to put me up that night as I didn’t feel like renting an expensive hotel room and didn’t know whom else to ask.

It was an absolutely delightful visit. Her cats were enthralled with my knitting, her husband made up a futon for me (so I didn’t have to sleep on the couch) and fed me an excessive breakfast the next morning. She took the day off work and we spent the morning exploring neat shops nearby, one of which is Espace Tricot on Monkland. I’d heard about this fabled yarn store, but this was my first visit. I found some nice skeins in the bargain bin and also bought a cake of Freia Ombré Fingering. My friend was also looking at sock yarn, although she doesn’t knit, and purchased a skein of Hedgehog Fibres Sock which she then handed to me and said, “Make me a pair of socks.” Well, I did that and had close to 40 gms leftover. So, I decided to make a pair of fingerless mitts to gift her as insurance against needing a place to stay in Montreal again. At first I tried to modify the pattern from the socks (Tea. Earl Gray. Hot), but it wasn’t working to my satisfaction. So I started over again and this is what I came up with.

I used a simple smocking stitch for the cuffs and knit two of them separately on dpns (because you have to switch stitches from one needle to another every other smocking round) before placing them both on one circular needle to continue. There are a left and a right with the thumb on each offset onto the palm of the hand, a very simple gusset, and more smocking for the fingers bindoff and an even simpler BO for the thumb; and there is a cable and lace panel for the back of the hand.

Not having charting software, I decided I would write up the pattern in a modular way, listing all the things I did and letting the knitter figure it out for herself. I also used 2.5 mm needles and a fine sock yarn, so these are definitely for a small hand. As the cuff is a multiple of four stitches, one could enlarge it by adding that many, and then having more stockinette on either side of the hand panel. I will leave all that up to the intelligence of the knitter and just give very basic instructions for the modules as I made them.

CUFF:

With size 2.5 mm dpns, CO 48 stitches. I used an Estonian long-tail cast-on because it goes better with k1p1 ribbing, which the smocking stitch basically is. Join in round (without twisting) and place marker for BOR.
Rds 1-3: k1p1 ribbing
Rd 4: *Insert RH needle between 3rd and 4th stitch on LH needle, pull yarn through, place loop on needle tip, then k2tog (new loop and first stitch of group of three), p, k, p.* Repeat to end of round.
Rds 5-7: k1p1 ribbing
Rd 8: k1,* p1, Insert RH needle between 3rd and 4th stitch on LH needle, pull yarn through, place loop on needle tip, then k2tog, p, k.* This includes the first stitch of the next round. Your BOR marker will remind you where you are and that you should put that last k stitch back on the LH needle.
Repeat these last 8 rds twice more, then repeat Rds 1-3 once more. This should give you a 2" cuff. If you are planning to make two mitts at once, knit an identical second cuff, and then place them both on a 2.5 mm circular needle so that you can continue with the hand.

I found it easier to knit the mitts with the palms up (i.e. they begin the round) so that I could coordinate my gussets more easily. As there are 48 stitches total, I began the RIGHT mitt with a purl and then started the gusset as follows:

Rd 1: after first purl stitch, place marker, m1, place marker, knit 23, begin back of hand panel (see below). As the purl stitch that starts the round is actually part of the back-of-hand panel, I will not repeat it in the instructions. You begin with the first SM.
Rd 2: slip markers, k to back of hand panel, continue in pattern.
Odd Rds 3-15: slip marker, m1R, k to marker, m1L, slip marker, k23, continue in pattern.
All even rds: slip markers, k to back of hand panel, continue in pattern.
At the end of Round 16, there should be 15 stitches between the SM. At this point, stop increasing and continue knitting straight until the hand is long enough for you to consider closing off for the thumb. When that happens (I had cabled 6 times on the back of the hand), put the stitches between the markers on waste yarn and join in the round, continuing until the hand is as long as you want it to be before the edge border.

LEFT mitt is very similar to the right. Remember that there is one purl stitch from the back of the hand pattern on the palm side.

Rd 1: k23, place marker, m1, place marker, p1 (and continue with of back-of-hand panel)
Rd 2: k23, k to 2nd marker, continue with pattern
Rd 3: k23, SM, m1R, k to marker, m1L, SM, continue with pattern
Repeat Rds 2 and 3 as per the Right mitt (i.e. until it’s long enough; this will be simpler if you’re making two at once) before putting the 15 thumb stitches on waste yarn.

(IN THE EVENT you don't want that misplaced purl stitch to worry about, you could arrange your stitches so you have 25 on the back of hand needle and make your thumb gusset right at the edge of the second needle [provided you are using a circular needle and not dpns]. It’s your choice. Just remember that the hand panel is 25 stitches wide.)

HAND PANEL:

The back of the hand has a simple lace and cable pattern that I devised myself. It is too fussy to write out instructions for all of it together, as the cables and lace do not coordinate. There is also that purl stitch beginning or ending the panel which is either on the end of the last needle or the beginning of the next, depending on which hand you are knitting. So I shall write instructions for the first few rounds and let the intelligent knitter figure out the rest. (C4L and C4R are 4-stitch cables, where the 2 right stitches cross in front of the left in the first instance, and then cross behind in the second. It doesn’t really matter which ones you do where, just as long as they are symmetrical.) (CDD is a central-double-decrease: slip 2 together knitwise, k, psso)

Rd 1: p2, C4L, p2, ktbl, yo, ssk, yo, cdd, yo, k2tog, yo, ktbl, p2, C4R, p2
Rd 2: p2, k4, p2, ktbl, k7, ktbl, p2, k4, p2
Rd 3: p2, k4, p2, ktbl, k2tog, yo, k3, yo, ssk, ktbl, p2, k4, p2
Rd 4: p2, k4, p2, ktbl, k7, ktbl, p2, k4, p2
Rd 5: p2, k4, p2, ktbl, yo, ssk, yo, cdd, yo, k2tog, yo, ktbl, p2, k4, p2
Rd 6: p2, C4L, p2, ktbl, k7,  ktbl, p2, C4R, p2
Rd 7: p2, k4, p2, ktbl, k2tog, yo, k3, yo, ssk, ktbl, p2, k4, p2
Rd 8: p2, k4, p2, ktbl, k7, ktbl, p2, k4, p2

By now you get the idea what’s going on. The 4-stitch cables are running along the sides, twisting in opposite directions every fifth round. The 7-stitch lace panel alternates with plain knits separating the rounds with the yos.

EDGE:

When the mitts are as long as you want them (mine are not that long as my friend works with computers and needs finger mobility), make a smocked edge starting with Round 4 of the cuff pattern. After 11 rounds, BO as follows: k1, p1, slip first stitch over second, yo, k1, slip first stitch plus yo loop over second. Continue in this fashion, binding off single purls and knits with their yo loops until the end. Pull up last loop, cut yarn, leaving tail to weave in.

THUMB:

Pick up thumb stitches from waste yarn and arrange somehow on your needle(s). Pick up and knit 3 stitches from the hand, closing the gap (18 sts), working 3 rounds of stockinette. Work one round of k1p1 ribbing. Bind off as for the hand.

Weave in ends, block, and presto! Beautiful fingerless mitts that only required a little bit of hair being torn out.

Shawls and other things

I decided this year that I would cut back on the shawl knitting. I mean, come on, I have so many of them and I don't know what to do with them. But I do love knitting lace shawls, which is why I accepted the challenge of testing Mary-Anne Mace’s High Country Circle. She called for a DK or sport-weight yarn as her vision for this lovely thing was as a throw for a couch and a lap warmer for cold winter nights. I went to my LYS and was daunted by the cost of enough yarn for the whole project; but, happily, the owner had a pile of Sandnes Garn Tove she was trying to get rid of and made me a very good price. I found the wool a bit scratchy to work with, and it didn’t soften up that much in the subsequent washing and blocking, but it did make a lovely small blanket, which now adorns the couch in my living room.

The colours are kind of dull in that photo. Here’s another picture:

It only took me two months to make, which is pretty good considering I didn’t work at it every day.

I also made another of Mary-Anne’s shawls, The Emperor and the Scarab, from some silk-linen yarn I had got in a subscription box with beads. I had made one of these before from Patons Lace, which I was not happy with. It is now hanging in my friend’s LYS as an advertisement for that yarn. This time I used Grazioso by Sweet Paprika and was very happy with the result.

I also made a necklace with the beads and leftover yarn and gave them both to my sister-in-law for her 60th birthday.

There is one more shawl, another test knit, this time for Heather Anderson. I had received another subscription box including a pattern which again I disliked, but the yarn was perfect for Heather’s Hungry Caterpillar Shawl, so I used it. I was not too happy with the end result, as I had wanted the cool colours in the subscription and been sent the warm ones by error. But one of the ladies in the knitting group absolutely fell in love with the shawl and even offered to buy it from me. I could not refuse her.

I have made other things that weren’t shawls. I finally finished a pair of fingerless mitts I started last November, Jane’s Barathea Mitts from Jane Austen Knits 2014. I still had a large quantity (and still have 30 gms left over) of Rhapsody Light by Artyarns, the stuff that turns my hands green, so I used that and I'm very happy with the result.

I also finished a test knit in a similar colour but totally different yarns, also leftovers, for Sabine Kastner (not yet published).

The yarn for the main body is Qiviut Queen from Cottage Craft Angora and the contrasting cuff edging and hand flap Silver by Dye-Version. I like that they are only subtly different and that the silver has that discrete sparkle to it.

This post would not be complete without mention of my latest Biarritz Cloche. I love how this hat turned out. The one I’d made several years ago was from Patons Grace, a very nice mercerized cotton fingering weight yarn, but this time I used Drops Muskat, a slightly heavier weight of cotton. It’s labeled DK, but seems a bit sportier than that. Nonetheless, the resulting hat is fantastic. I don’t need any starch for it to keep its shape, and I get untold compliments on it.

Not the best photo. Here’s one my daughter took with her cellphone at my son’s recent convocation: