Category: Knitting

Knitting as Blood Sport.

An Open Letter To Bendigo Woollen Mills

Thank you for the shade card. I do hope it didn’t cost a bomb to send out (I assumed you sent one to everyone), becuase there seems to be a terrible, glaring, horrible travesty of a mistake.

No, not the fact that the colours are dreadful, we’re used to that, and not the fact that the yarn doesn’t seem to come in black – or even cream so we can dye it ourselves (for it is rather yummy yarn), or even that fact that you included a colour which strikes me as being rather fungal, a sort of mouldering beige that should never have been let out of the biology lab. No, none of these things. It is the name you have given this revolting festering ecru.

Neon. Please tell me the printer was on acid ? They haven’t quite got the medication right, it’s a horrible mistake, and the real shade card is in the post ?

I Have a New Love

I’ve just cast on a gauge swatch for a beanie I am knitting for a work colleague who is leaving to move to Tasmania, to work on a house he has bought down there. Toby is a funny guy, with possibly the driest sense of humour I have ever come across, and we have had our clashes in the past, but I really like and respect him, and will miss having him around. Toby loves good craftsmanship, classic design, and things that are handmade.

So I thought it fitting to knit him a beanie to keep his head warm in the cold Tasmanian winter. I chose Naturally “Harmony” 8ply 100% merino, in a charcoal grey. It’s a low twist, with an almost felted feel, and it knits up to be an incredibly soft and wonderful fabric.

I bought this at Champion Textiles in Newtown, for $6.50 a skein. I can feel a Rogue Hoodie coming on. Though I would really prefer the zippered version that Kris did, but this is such a lovely fabric, the fact that the colour is lest than exciting doesn’t bother me.

Oh dear. Have I finally seen the merits of substance over style ?

Jelly

The past few weeks have been a catalogue of disasters. The death of Rhubarb, SImone’s cat, Scooter, the death knell for AppleCentre Broadway (and probably 2 years worth of my superannuation payments gone with it), and some random lunatic setting fire to Simone’s house – all within three weeks.

So it’s nice to have some happy news in the mix. Adam and Sarah are pregnant. Very early days (about 6 weeks by now), but mother and Jelly (that’s the baby’s official name for now) are doing very well – apart from Sarah feeling very tired and unwell !

George would be very pleased – he’d been pestering me for a great grandchild for years – his sisters had quite a few between them, and he felt a little left out. My parents aren’t too sure if they are ready to be grandparents, but I am ready to be an auntie. Prepare for many bunny booties, bonnets and blankies !

Sick!

I’ve been feeling a little poorly for a few days, but this morning my sore throat felt like it was closing up entirely – and I woke up to a very bad asthma attack. My asthma has been bad since the weather has become colder, and I’ve been careful to take my preventer religiously, knowing that if I don’t, I could end up in hospital, or worse.

So today I’ve had a very quiet day. I’ve been feeling frustrated that I don’t get enough time for myself, for my knitting, photography, writing, gardening, and all the things that get forgotten in my busy life.

So with a day off, I was feeling miserable that I wasn’t able to use my time constructively. I did a load of washing, and put the dishwasher on, but between the painkillers, the sudafed, and the vast amounts of ventolin I had to take to keep breathing, I was about as jittery and scattered as a frog in a blender. Which, as you know, is strongly against my deeply held beliefs.

I finished the Surprise Jacket for little Lara on the weekend, and on monday I finished the Baby Fern Jumper. My dear friend Anna and her lovely husband are probably going through labour right now. On Saturday afternoon, she was 11 days overdue – and she was going to be induced today. I’ve got everything crossed, and am waiting with bated breath for an announcement.

Anna and I shared a house in the early nineties, and without going into too much detail, we shared some turbulent times. I am very happy that she is back in my life, and more than a little touched that she and Rob are considering naming their baby daughter Lara.

I knitted a fab blankie for them when I first learned they were having a baby. At that time, the baby was called “Boris Bump”. I am hoping to document the pattern properly, and perhaps even have the pattern published, so no pics yet. It’s pretty simple, but I think it’s the sort of thing I would have loved to knit as a newbie, so the Boris Blankie has to stay off the blog for now.

But I took pics of the Baby Fern Jumper today, and decided that it would be a good exercise to try to write up the pattern properly. Knitting things from a pattern is one thing, but writing up a pattern other people can follow is a skill I haven’t attempted until today.

So here it is, and here is a schematic. I’d love it if anyone actually wants to knit it, and if you do – and please send me any notes and corrections.

Learning a new skill

This past week has been very slow in knitting news, as I have decided to bite the bullet, and try to teach myself to knit right handed.

I first started knitting by holding the yarn in my right hand, and dropping the right hand needle to wrap the stitch, but for my first major project (The Go Everywhere, Wear with Everything Cardi from “Stitch ‘N Bitch”), I decided that my techniquie was far too inefficient for about 30 bajillion miles of stocking stitch (Note to American readers, what you call stockingette, we call stocking stitch).

So, armed with the instructions from “Stitch ‘n Bitch” , which are excellent, I taught myself to knit continental. And I forced myself to use the method for every bloody stitch of that god forsaken project. I love the cardi, but it is a challenging knit. Brain death occurs about 1 inch into the back piece, and then you realise you have two fronts, and two arms to do, and there is no way you can go back and frog because even that 1 inch has caused you so much pain.

So after THAT, I was pretty comfortable with continental, and have been happily speeding through my kniting and feeling (although not the fastest knitter in the world), that my knitting is not embarassingly slow, and that I have enough speed to be able to conquer a big project.

And then I saw Emma knitting the Fair Isle Sampler Hat from an old Interweave Knits magazine. And she was knititng with a strand in each hand, and I was in awe.

GIven that I am slightly left/right challenged in the first place, and that I had already pushed my boundaries to switch to continental, I really felt that that technique was not for me. But then I tried doing it another way, and quickly learned that only pain lies in that direction.

So I have pondered the problem for about 18 months, alternating between “I really should pull my finger out and try that” with “I don’t want to go backwards, look how far I’ve come”.

So this week I cast on another Umbillical Cord hat, and gritted my teeth, and decided to do it.

And I have discovered 2 things.

1) It’s very, very hard, but I can get about 1 stitch in 10 to slide off the needles with a proper flow, and if I am determined, I may get better with practice.
2) It’s much easier to knit in traffic with your gearstick hand free.

And a Post About Knitting !

These are the socks I didn’t quite get finished for my mother’s Christmas present. She was very gracious about it, even though dad got his. I finished knitting them over New Year, but I did the kitchener graft on sock one after a few too many shandies, and IT ALL WENT HORRIBLY WRONG.

Two months later, the socks were still languishing in my knitting bag as a mocking reminder of my multiple failures, and I decided to take the bull by the horns, and DEAL WITH IT. I was not going to let a pair of socks get the better of me. No, I am bigger than a kitchener graft, and what does not kill me will make me stronger.

So I took the socks to the pub, determined to get them finished. And….

Emma didn’t show up !

Of course, I had tied myself up in knots so tight that I couldn’t deal with it without Emma, so I waited another week, Emma showed up, undid the horror, put it all back on needles, and I did a neat, but spineless, three needle bind off.

The point of all this, is that

1. Emma is a superb human being.
2. Knowing your limitations can be a strength if you have support and can learn from experience.
3. It is good to put down a project and revisit it with fresh eyes.
4. You don’t need fresh three months to gain perspective on a knitting problem.
5. Three months can easily turn “perspective” into “terror”
6. Emma is superb, and everyone should have one.

Why I Won’t Wear Silk

Or knit with it…

Silk is a fibre made by larvae to protect them while they metamorphose into their adult form. It is very fine, soft, and strong, and when collected and made into clothing etc, is light and soft against the skin, yet very durable.

But it requires the death of thousands of creatures. The cocoons are “stifled” (they don’t call it killing), before the silk can be harvested. I don’t have any scientific knowledge of whether they feel pain or not, but to me that is beside the point.

To kill another creature to save my own life is one thing, to kill for comfort and luxury is quite another.

For an in depth explanation of silk “processing”, listen to this

Since I know that angora bunnies are farmed for their coats, and I know that bunnies are intelligent and sensitive creatures, I also won’t buy or knit with angora. And NZ possum? Four Australian possums were taken to NZ many years ago, and now they have reached plague proportions. Many people have no problem using the fur from their pelts to knit with, knowing that the animal was killed to get it. I’m just not comfortable with that.

And in Knitting News

You can’t take a camera phone into the Downing Centre Courts, so I had to check my phone at the door. And my embroidery scissors, and a small pen knife I had. No big deal.

But after court I went to meet my father for lunch at the Supreme Court – he was there as the Executor of George’s will, lodging some paperwork. Mum and I were meeting dad at the restuarant on the 14th floor for lunch. I expected that they would take my phone, so I surrendered it, only to be told it was ok.

BUT THEY TOOK MY KNITTING !!!!!!!!!!!!