OK, I'm feeling pretty catty after trolling all the knitting lists on my Flist.

Why does everyone knit scarves and socks and useless techno "cozies"? Everything is so sad and unlovely and uninspiring.

I am being so bad right now but, gah. The regular Knitting list is the worst.

I learned to knit because I wanted to make jumpers and things I could wear. I don't get putting all this effort into a sock...I can't imagine they stay up or wear well. I hate socks anyway, and as soon as it's warm enough I forgo wearing them.

And scarves-- OK, I've knit a lot of scarves, and I love wearing them, but I always feel a little embarrassed to post them. I feel like people are knitting these strips of fabric, and probably won't even wear them.

OK, and that's another thing-- why don't people take pictures of themselves wearing their stuff? It really humanizes it for me, and gives me some kind of content for the work.

Knitting is all about BIG COMMITMENTS-- huge disasters and near-miracluous successes.

With that said, I need a bonehead project (but for me those projects would have a lot of easy kniting, rather than something small) that I can do while watching the telly or at Knitflicks.

At the same time I need to start something absorbing, something I can knit in the garden, like St. Brigid in the Alice Starmore Aran book:

Sweater I knit out of R2 Fuzzy Felt, featuring short row shaping at the bust and several on-purpose holes.
( very image heavy post )

( so big, so bold, you need to go back in time just to get it around your needles... )
x-posted to punk_knitters and my knitting blog.

WIPs. I find myself mired in several time consuming WIPs. To finish something I need some pressure, some suspense-- do I have enough wool? Is it going to look right? Too big? Too small? But I will say this at the risk of jinxing all my projects-- they are all turning out, and I have more than enough wool to finish them, and everything's going so smoothly I hardly want to work on them at all.

I'm so close to being done with my BPT, it isn't funny. If DPN's were just a little bit funny, or jolly I should say, I would be done already. Cabling on DPN's is totally unfun. I'm to the elbow of the second sleeve. I keep telling myself when I'm done with it the hood will be a cakewalk. But it's taking me forever. Maybe the looming task of sewing the zipper in is also adding to my procrastination.

There's the purple Geisha mohair Tea Dress from Knitty-- I'm 15 inches into the skirt. I love the ribbed panel in the middle, and the feel of this yarn.

I love this yarn so much I started a top-down raglan out of bottle green Geisha. I added the mirrored decreases and increases that I fell in love with on the Teva Vest (which will be ripped).

I attempted the Teva Vest and then rewrote it because I wanted some instant gratification. There's something about working on big needles with a bulky yarn, watching the garment form in your hands that is magical. But the Teva vest has made me so angry and at this point I would need to rewrite it again for a smaller gauge because I don't like the feel of Polar on size 13's as the pattern suggests. If I do this, it's no longer that instant gratification thrill-- but more of a sweating-blood kind of endeavor.

I need to look through my other chunky patterns and find something that might satisfy.

I did finish my version of the White Lies Designs Shapely Tank. I finally *get* short rows! Hurray. I made little cap sleeves for it, but then I remembered I hate set in sleeves. The tank itself fits amazingly well, though I don't like the set in sleeves. Too bad short rows can't be added while working in the round. Or can they? I'm such a newbie where these are concerned. I really like to work seamless, and as far as I can tell short rows work best in pieced garments. I will take pictures of this sweater when I'm not all sick and freakish looking.

Stash enhancement news-- My mom has been sending me care packages of wool. She has a storage space full of wool, stuff she's accumulated since the 60's. There's so much I don't know where to put it all.
I've been updating the Excell spreadsheet where I keep track of my stash and it's getting really long.

Here's a list of what she's sent so far:
♥ 10 balls of purple Geisha-- I'm making Belle Epoque with them.
♥ Gjestal Naturgarn fuschia 4 hanks-- I'm thinking cat bed
♥ Gjestal Naturgarn plum 4 hanks-- I have no clue what to make with these.
♥ 16 balls Schoeller Esslinger Bermuda in crocus -- This will probably manifest into one of the 80's patterns I have.
♥ 12 Schoeller Stahl Merino Stretch in wine. I have the Schoeller Stahl winter book from last year and every pattern is really cute in there, but I've found the patterns a bit difficult to understand-- maybe it's the bad translation?
♥ 18 Austermann Caprice in deep plum, This is such pretty yarn-- a shiny/matte ribbon yarn with a soft mohair halo. I have no idea what to make with it, though.
♥ 17 Austermann Caprice in dusty heather
♥ 10 Unger Montage lilac-- Vintage 80's stuff. I can't wait until summer-- going to make some 80's insanity with it.
♥ 17 Schachenmayer in Rainbow-black. This yarn is a summer yarn as well, and is so soft knitted up. I will probably make an 80's style sweat shirt dress with it.
♥ 9 Nature Spun Worsted Wt. Mountain Purple. Since each skien has 250 yards, I have a ton of this stuff. Probably another dress? Nothing like starting another project which will take forever to complete!
♥ 24 Asa Gjestal Spinneri Superwash Sport dark moss. Another truckload of yarn. I want to make a mini skirt and sweater set out of this, but then I will probably still have enough left to make a swetaer for M.

Since moving to London, I have found that charity shops are a gold mine for the unloved knitting books of the 80's. So much magic for a quid...
( photos from my favorite so far, Celebrity Knitting )

I attempted the Yoke vest yesterday.
( images and processing behind the cut )

burryman models the Winter Solstice Jumper I finished for him. ( more images behind the cut )

x-posted to punk_knitters

Knitty's BPT

( more images and musings under the cut )
x-posted to brit_knits

( more images and musings under the cut )
x-posted to punk_knitters

Tunic I just knit out of Rowan Cork

Tunic is from the Book Hot Knits. I knit the medium, or finished measurement 38". It knit up to measurements, but I'm still not happy with it.

I don't know about this sweater. I hoped it would be a sweater I could just hang out in, but the neck is weirdly too small. Everything else is OK. I've already ripped the neck out and re-done it again. It's like the back armhole is too small, and the front is too long, so that the neck always feels like it's falling down my back. I loooooove this yarn though, and will probably rip the sweater so I can make some tried-and-true raglan sweatshirt thing.

( Lately I've been wanting to take on something really ambitious, like an Alice Starmore aran. )
x-posted to brit_knits

I'm drawn to impractical sweaters- you know the ones-- with the on-purpose holes and impractical details? Enough of this asymmetrical, deconstructed-cable, hoodlet-half-sweater stuff.

My husband's head was cold. We had hardly any cash to buy a hat, and yet I had lots of yarn tucked in every corner of the flat. Time to get sensible.

It only took me a night to do it. It came out too long, so M has folded it up. I think he will find that folding it down over his ears will keep him warmer, even if it looks a bit dorky.

Does any hat that goes over one's ears not look dorky? I'm skeptical.

I tried to use Sally Melville's "Almost in the Round" hat pattern on two circulars-- (see DPN angst in previous post) only to have a double mobius mess on my hands. I had to rip it and start over, using DPNs. I ended up doing the whole thing on instinct, ditching the pattern-- gorilla style.

Isn't that how they've done it for centuries? You imagine the body part you want to cover and start knitting? Fluid tubes. And when you get really good you can do patterns by memory, because you watched your grandma and your mother and your sisters and maybe an uncle doing just that.

But I would be the woman whose work was scorned throughout the village, the woman who made mistakes and who sent her husband out to sea wearing the stuff, anyway, even though the gulls, sea lions and his shipmates laugh at him.

Good thing he's a social worker for the NHS Mental Health Trust. Everyone needs a good laugh there.

He's the best husband, ever-- he will wear anything I knit him, even if he doesn't like it. (Probably because he knows I'll realize my failure and rip the stuff that looks really bad). Knitting is about making peace with my mistakes. He knows this. It's part of the unconditional love thing. Love me, love my knitting.

Next task-- knit myself a hat that will go over my dreads, or that has an opening at the top for them to fit through. (Walking around in a woolly dread crown is not my idea of fun).



( another image )

x-posted topunk_knitters

( What you sayin' 'bout my loop-d-loop cowl? )
x-posted to punk_knitters

OK, I confess, I put off learning to use DPNs for years. I have never knit a sock because DPN's scare me. I have tried to use them when knitting seamless sweaters and have just resorted to using a circular needle and sewing a seam up the side of sleeves.

I'm trying again while knitting knitty's BPT.

I can't imagine knitting a whole sleeve this way. I feel like I'm all thumbs; I get the wool twisted around the peripheral needles, and the points are always jabbing my hands, getting stuck between my fingers. I'm paranoid that stitches will slip off.

But what's worse, they keep poking me in my breasts and it's a torment. Do I have to wear my ace bandage sports bra while I use them?

There must be something I'm not getting here. I've seen tons of knitters just going to town with DPN's. They make it look so effortless. But I feel like I'm knitting with a dead bird, or with a partially shorn porcupine. Argh.

What the hell is wrong with me?

It's a fine line between exciting and unwearable. I admire Teva Durham for walking that tightrope, and I continue to be fascinated by her style and approach to knitwear. ( some images and a long-ish discussion )