Knititude

Lace!

I found this photo on newyorkmetro.com, accompanying an article on spring 2006 fashion:

Now that Oliver is done, I need a new project; I've noticed the 2006 spring collections seem to be using a lot of lace, and while I'm certainly NOT inclined to knit a filmy nightgown for myself, a silk or cotton top with lace sleeves or maybe just cuffs, or hem or panels or frills around the neckline or LACE ALL OVER [slap]....  Okay, I'm okay now.   Guess I've been bitten by that lace bug or come down with lace madness, or something.  Anyway, when I saw "Chinese Lace," in Barbara Walker's 2nd Treasury of Knitting Patterns, it was love at first sight...although now that I am examining it more closely, I'm wondering if I couldn't get rid of those thick cords and just repeat the panels of undulating...petals?  (Isn't that always how it goes?  At first, everything about the object of your love is perfect, but eventually, you can see that there are certain areas which could be changed improved, um, perfected even more.  Than they already were.)   

Pair of blue tits?!

I would apologize for the gratuitous post title...except that it's not gratuitous!   "Pair of blue tits pin" is exactly how this charming bauble is described in the catalog I received in the mail yesterday.  OK, so I'm aware that the Brits call them tits, while we call them titmice, or chickadees, but "pair of..."?  I'm so glad I didn't follow my first impulse and chuck the catalog in the recycle bin immediately; instead I opened it to a random page and got my chuckle for the day.  Two chuckles, in fact--check out the $$!  ($6600, in case you can't read the small print.)

Back to posting about knitting tomorrow.

A blog is like a dog,

in some ways.  For instance, when going on vacation, one must decide beforehand how to care for the blog, realizing that it must be fed regularly.  And since I don't have a laptop, and my compact digital camera is gone for repairs, that meant deciding ahead of time what to blog about, and emailing myself an image to insert, using the husband's ThinkPad.  Which means a certain loss of spontaneity...but I'll be home soon.  (How sick is that, longing to be home for easy blogging while sunning myself on South Beach?)

Anyway.  I recently found this document between the pages of my beloved Treasury of Art Nouveau Design & Ornament.  It was created when I was in college--which, incidentally, was about when Eunny was born--yes, twenty-something years ago.  Kinda young for a person, kinda old for a throwaway piece of paper.  And I had to laugh, looking at it; it's sketches for the Boyfriend Hat and the Paisley Vest, two of my first original designs.  (Clearly I had no concerns at that time about too-long floats.)  The Paisley Vest was oversized, done in grey wool with cream paisleys in an allover pattern, and beloved among my post-college friends--so much so that I have no idea where it is now, it having embarked on a lending cycle from which it never returned.  I do remember that the V-neck pulled the paisley just below it out of shape, something which would be intolerable to me now.

As for the Boyfriend Hat, picture a common stocking cap, and then lengthen it to about five feet--long enough to wrap around the neck--and then picture various colored stripes, each embellished with either a Fair Isle-style pattern, or a more personalized jacquard motif:  snowflakes (to commemorate our ski trips together); easter eggs (the first time I went home with him to meet the folks); tiger stripes (a nod to the alma mater); Plato's Retreat (no comment); waves (our trip to Cape Hatteras); and more that I can't, or won't, remember. 

Unique?  Yes.  Hideous?  Perhaps.  I haven't seen it in many, many years, and although I remember it as being colorful and silly, not gag-inducing, we all know how memory can deceive us.  Finding these sketches did pique my curiosity:  just how bad was it?  So if you should spot it on a ski slope, or buried in your cousin's husband's closet, or bobbing down the aisle at the 7-11, please--let me know.   

Why, we could be in Torino!

It's one of those perfect winter days:  sweet sunshine and cobalt skies soon after a heavy snowfall, when the drifts are still clean and unmarked, and you can just tilt your chair back, turn your sunglassed face to the afternoon light, nurse your apres-ski draft, and watch the bunnies and the boarders to your heart's content.  Aaah... Oliver is a little young for the beer, but everything else--right up his alley!

Inserting the zipper (by hand, not machine) turned out to be a breeze, but I do have a couple of questions regarding the fit:  I'm concerned that the neck opening will be a tad small, and the sleeves could probably have been roomier.  Unfortunately I have to send him off to his namesake in San Francisco before these questions can be answered, AND before I can get a photo of him with a warm body inside; he's too small for my peanut , and too big for the teddy bear.

What comes to mind when you look at these photos?

A) Valentine's Day!

B) A swimcap a la Esther Williams

C) A strawberry

D) Odessa?!  You poor thing, what did she do to you?

E) All of the above

Yes, but what is it, this delectable-slash-disturbing item?  Just a little Valentine's Day folly that I whipped up over the weekend, with both thanks (for a wonderful pattern) and apologies (for heinously hijacking said pattern) to Grumperina.  Thing is, I had these darling red rabillettes, and I was imagining a hat upon which they could swirl gracefully from brim to crown--and then I saw Odessa.  I have to admit that as I knitted, I was tempted to abandon the tacky aluminum hearts and work the hat as G. intended; it really is a lovely design, and the rabillettes tend to obscure rather than complement its graceful lines.  But, gosh darn it, those rabies tags sure are some silly fun!  Just ask the TS (teenaged stepdaughter), whose hat has inspired numerous comments, the best (so far) being "Does each of those come from some dead animal?"  (The answer, of course, is "No, just from my deranged ex-veterinarian stepmother.)

Notes on Odessa:  I used Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece (a slightly heavier yarn than the Rowan Cashsoft DK that the pattern calls for), decreased the number of pattern repeats from 11 to 9, and got a hat with an unstretched diameter of just under 16"; it's a little tight on me, but fits my nine-year-old perfectly.  As for the rabillettes, I spaced them more widely apart than the pattern calls for, and used a technique I believe I first saw in Lily Chin's Knit & Crochet With Beads; the holes in the tags are almost 3 mm. in diameter, so I didn't have to prestring--just used a crochet hook to pull a stitch through each tag as needed.

Super Bowl Sunday:

A perfect opportunity to get a little knitting in, especially when you don't give a rat's ass who wins.  (Although the commercials are kind of fun.)  Thanks to the Steelers and the Seahawks I've made significant progress on Oliver, and here's the proof.  I like the front band much better with a row of twisted stitches setting it off.  The neckband will be folded in half and sewn in place, so I thought I'd try using cotton for the part that will form the lining, to protect my nephew's tender neck from the wool.  Anyway, that's why it's a slightly different color. 

On the back, I'm liking the way the vertical and horizontal patterns meld, but will reserve final judgment until I finish the second sleeve and the bottom band.

One disappointment:  I've had mixed success getting the travelling stitches even (and I love them so!), especially the ones that cross to the left;  I noticed that Eunny mentions this problem in a recent post.  I first tried following Barbara Walker's instructions for crossing the stitches while both remain on the needle, but I found that for left-leaning crosses, I had better luck when I took the first stitch off the needle, held it between my fingers, knitted the second at the very tips of the needle, then put the first stitch back and knit it.  Pulling the yarn tight and keeping the stitches at the very tips of the needles seem to be important in keeping those crossed stitches more uniform.  (And luckily for me, as Eunny noted, wet blocking helps.)

Groundhog Day

I'm aware that yesterday was the day the large rodent emerged to look for his shadow*; I was thinking more of the movie "Groundhog Day," and how every day can seem exactly like the one before.  Ever have that sensation of running in place?  I'm feeling the pressure from trying to complete a number of knitting patterns for a book proposal--self-imposed deadlines, to be sure (oh, to have an editor- or agent-imposed deadline!), moving targets, but looming no less for all that.

And so, instead of working on Oliver, I've been working on swatches of different color combinations; figuring out yarn requirements for sizes from 3 months to Men's XXL; and double-checking to make sure that garment dimensions follow the CYCA's Standards & Guidelines for different sizes.

Speaking of the CYCA, I did receive a nice email from Mary Colucci, their Executive Director, in response to my missive about improving knitting pattern directions, as well as an encouraging email from Interweave.

*And what's up with that?  Anyone as far north as Pennsylvania (home of Punxsutawny Phil) knows full well that we'll be lucky if we only have 6 more weeks of winter!  2?!  Yeah--in Georgia, maybe.

A Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading

TWILIGHT by Samuel Menashe

 

Looking across

The water we are

Startled by a star—

It is not dark yet

The sun has just set

Looking across

The water we are

Alone as that star

That startled us,

And as far

 

 

(Thanks to Grace's Poppies!)