Sock it to me!

The park was open again yesterday after being shut for two weeks. This morning there was a ‘reclaim the park’ walk and a memorial for Moira Jones, whose body was found in our lovely local park. Moira was abducted from very near our house, then somehow taken to the park, raped, and beaten to death. The shock of something so brutal happening so close to home has reverberated through the neighbourhood, and there is a great sadness for family’s loss and the life taken of a young woman. The park is a busy place in the day, dog walkers, joggers, families, ice cream van near the duck pond and the children’s play park. Walking past it on my way to work these past two weeks, silent, empty and guarded every couple of hundred yards by police in flak jackets, the park seems swollen with symbolism - the life inside pushed out to the edges where runners and people walking dogs circulated its perimeter.

Of course, we are all hoping the person or people who committed the crime is caught. Who doesn’t wish for that. Another rape and assault was committed nearby a few months ago - a fact that I certainly wasn’t aware of. So we have our beautiful park back, but we are cautious of each other, warily assessing each other, the park and the people. I didn’t lay flowers at the gates for Moira. I didn’t go on the memorial walk. But when I take my wee girl to the park this afternoon I will think of her family and hope they know how sad we all are, and how sorry we are that someone could exist with such hatred and violence inside them that they could do tear such a big hole in a family and in a community.

And so to knitting ….

I’m taking a break from A’s striped dress - it’s taking forever but on the last two bands now, then just the placket and trim to do. I attempted my first felted project - a little bowl - with mixed success. I’m using it to keep lemons in but think I will try another one as the sides were a bit too high and the colours didn’t quite work.

I was up in Aberdeen last weekend, saying goodbye to the old house (K’s parents have just sold the family home) and being generally spoilt by M&D. I just had to go to the wonderful Wool for Ewe shop of course, and I picked up some great Opal sock wool and some baby cashere/merino mix for a blanket I have in mind (both J’s are having babies in the next 2/3 months so mustn’t leave the baby projects til the last minute and end up with the knitting furies like pre-Christmas!) Opal is made in Germany and 75% wool, 25% polyester. It’s very cleverly dyed and knits up in fair isle and/or stripes. Magic! After knitting with linen for a while this yarn is just fabulous to knit with, and I bought a set of 5 2.5mm brittany birch dps as well which are great for socks. Here is a picture from a few days ago - I’m almost done with the first sock and will definately put up a photo of the finished ‘creation’. Socks are so much fun!

 

A Good Striped Dress

I found a gorgeous striped dress patten in the spring 2008 edition of Interweave Knits, and I thought it would make a nice take on the party dress for A. She is three (yes THREE! already!) in the not too distant future so I would like to make something special for her. It’s also part of my plan to steer her away from girly pinkness. I LOVE the colours in this dress - ginger brown, aqua/turquose and an lovely oatmeal colour which I hope to have enough left to make some hair attire - what are they called now, ‘fascinators’ I think! I just mean a crochet rose or something, nothing too big or fancy, just to add to hair clip to match the dress.

Anyway, I am about 2/3s done. The dress is knitted starting at the back, and cast on is done in the ‘invisible provisional’ method. I hadn’t used this method before so I found it a bit tricky. I’m still unsure how it is different to my normal provisional cast on which is done using waste yarn, so I need to experiment a bit more. The back of the boddice is knitted down, then the shoulder stitches picked up and the two front bodice knitted down. My problem was that I finished knitting the back, started on the fronts and after 20 or so rows realised that the tension was all wrong. The back was knitted much looser. One possibility (which I find very embarrassing!) was that I used a slightly larger set of needles (I was knitting with my super Adi Turbos, and I did have a few pairs in my bag). The other notion, which I persisted with, was that it was difficult yarn to get used to and I had just changed my gauge. Hmm.

Well, I probably should have ripped back at that point but I continued and really it’s not looking so bad, I’m quite excited about getting it finished. I’ve knitted it up in the smallest of the sizes given, so I’m hoping it will fit A. if not now in a few months time. The yarn is gorgeous wet spun linen (Louis Euroflax Sport Weight - I had to get it imported from the States). It’s a bit unforgiving, showing any little irregularity, but I think when it’s been washed and blocked it’ll be just great. Fingers crossed!

Other projects on the needles: still only knitted one out of a pair of fingerless gloves from Leigh Radford’s fabulous One Skein. And a beautiful blanket from Zoe Mellor’s Adorable Knits for Tiny Tots - a stars and hearts pattern I’m knitting up in some baby bamboo my mum-outof-law bought for me (from Wool For Ewe in Rosemount, Aberdeen - ignore the twee name, this great shop has been taken over recently and stocks some really lovely stuff). Talking of babies there are a few in the pipeline as it were! I’ve got about 8 unbanded balls of Schoeller & Stahl Limbo I purchased from Ebay and I want to knit an all-in-one with matching hat - a funky little pattern from a wee Vogue book I’ve got. Also, I have some DK soft in a really nice light blue (not pastel, honestly!) and I think I may knit up another Elizabeth Zimmermann Totem, but this time knit up into a baby-gro bag.

Lastly, I really want to try some felting. I have lots of Rowan Big Wool in various colours, so I’d like to do some experiments with bowls and bags. I’m not yet sure how to do this - my only felting experiment so far is when I felted A’s asymetrical cardigan (I wasn’t happy with it). The only felting instructions I had said to ‘jiggle’ in the washing machine, but I don’t know how to do that! The cardigan was way too felted and I’ve cut the sleeves off to make a waist coat for one of A’s stuffed toys! So I need to do some more research on that.

So, no photos for this post. But plenty to come, hopefully soon.

You Got to Sweat the Swatch!

I am sitting here in the big bay window with a crisp glass of Marlborough Sauvignon, watching the last glows of a warm spring sun. The sky is set in layers - a smog-like ivory yellow; a deep inky purple that has been thumb smudged on and will slowly seep throughout; a pure brilliant turqoise that looks like a rip in the sky, that gives us a glimpse of some other beautiful, perfect sky - a Platonic blue sky; a bright, sexy, tangerine hem at the bottom of a cloudy velvet dress, great churns of violet and slate grey; then above me night itself being drawn like a cloak across the heavens, just like in Fantasia. A. calls her the Lady of the Night. I have Bach’s Pastoral symphony playing in my head.

From my seat at the table here, I can see the whole crescent, each tenement topped by several chimney pots that look like upended cigarette butts. Some windows are blinded against this magnificent view, a shame I think, but most of the windows are lit up, making up a lozenge patchwork of oranges and yellows. In Justine’s flat at the far end of the crescent, someone has lit candles at the windowside table. I imagine Justine there, watching her huge TV, sipping her white wine and finding some peace from all those girls she has.

K. is out with friends and A. has passed out on the bed, her crimson flushed cheeks hotspots on the white linen, her nose in the air with flared nostrils exactly as in those first pictures we took when she was minutes old. I’ve let her sleep her beside me as I sometimes do, I find the little snuffles she makes comforting. I still check on her twice a night or more if she is in her cot, sometimes standing still, ear against the door until I am reassured by her slight breathing. I remember back to when she was only about 10 weeks old, her face pale, her mouth open and me leaning over trying to catch her breath against my cheek and panicking and shaking her awake and crying her name, convinced that she had stopped breathing.

Anyway, anyway … to knitting. I finished the lacy sweater for A. The pattern is from Zoe Mellor’s ‘Adorable Knits for Tiny Tots’, and the yarn is Rowan Handknit DK.  She had it knitted up in Sugar (303), which I just thought with the lace pattern and all was just too girly twirly, so I cast on in Gooseberry (219). The sweater is knitted from the bottom up, but first you knit the diagonal edging, an 8 row repeat pattern (so you are knitting an edging from left to right). You cast this off and then pick up the stitches to start knitting in reversed stocking stitch the rest of the body. The front has a nice flower and bobble detail. The arms have the same lace pattern on the cuffs which you can repeat for however many times you like I guess but in the pattern for the large size it’s repeated seven times and the upper arm is in rev. st. st. The neck band is joined on once the the right shoulder seam is made - you pick up the stitches and continue a few rows of lace pattern.

Well, the sweater worked out really well. I hate the finishing process, but I am becoming better at it. Weaving in the ends I now find actually quite therapeutic, but the sewing the seams still peeves me. I think I did an ok job this time - not perfect - but I read up on finishing in Interweave Knits last edition, and Debbie Stoller’s Stitch n’ Bitch chapter.

But guess what I didn’t do? That’s right, no time to swatch. Och, I think, it’ll be fine. Och, I think, it doesn’t look too small casting on and if it’s too big she’ll grow into it. Sigh. The sweater is lovely and it will fit perfectly … in about 4 years time.

Strangely, the pattern demanded 7 balls of the DK Handknit, and that is what I used. So how is it so big? Maybe it was just into the 7th ball, or it was a safety margin. Doing the swatch, finally, after the project was complete I realised that using the 4mm bamboo needles is not the same as 4mm alluminium needles. I had a slight glitch on the end of one of the bamboo needles too so I was probably knitting a bit cautiously to avoid that therefore getting a looser gauge. Anyway, the 10*10cm swatch I did as an after thought in 3.25mm alu. needles (I always knit too loose so have to go down a size) knitted up very well. So. All the bigs say you have to do a swatch and I have always thought ’sod it, it will be fine’. But this time it wasn’t fine. The beautiful sweater will go to Alice’s older cousin and I will do it again as a present for A’s 3rd birthday present.

 

Gallery of the Nonperfectual

Been meaning to post up some of my previous efforts with full descriptions, but I just ain’t got the time. So, hold on to your hats, here is a quick pit stop at each of a few not-so-perfect ‘creations’. I have to say although the standard is not tip top, all were knitted with love for those loved.

First up is the a tank top for the lovely Lesley.

 

Next, a spiral craft bag for Jane.

Baby SweetiePie’s ‘Sheep’. Cosy enough to keep any wee lamb warm. 

Ms D’s Diamond Scarf

Marney’s Socks (my first socks!)

A’s asymetrical cardigan.

My first go at cables.