Tag Archives: scarf

January 20, 2019 · 9:00 AM

New year, old projects

I’m in a knitting project monogamy binge and it seems to working – though I want to have many more, more, more!, things on the needles, all things are coming off of the needles now instead of languishing. Not counting 2 small travel knits, (should just be one) I’ve only got two cardigans and a blanket in the nice WIP pool now (there’s another blanket out there in the scummy one).

The current project is this cardigan – the body is now just over halfway done – I barely started it back in 2017, then a series of needle issues stopped it until I started back on it last month. I’ve moved on to the sleeves before finishing the body because I’ll need every last bit of yarn to make it long enough and the collar/edging wide enough. My gauge was off and my numbers fudged, so while the fit still works, it’s more fitted than intended, and I’ll need to gain some extra width in the chestage. If the sleeves (just past elbow) only take a ball each, I think I’ll be okay.

The finished projects are:

N’s linen stitch scarf – I thought this would be a quick knit, and it wasn’t too bad, but there’s always that almost halfway point where the stitches begin to compress a little and you’re knitting your way out of a loose sand dune.

I was able to dig out and nearly finish during a cabin week in the summer. There are a few mistakes – I never count rows right, or the same way? in linen stitch, so even though it’s meant to have equal stripes, one or two have one more or less row than the other. Instead of fringe, I wove in the ends, and they seem to be staying put, so I may end up doing that to mine, but I’ve only worn it once? this winter so it’s probably not worth the time (or maybe even the drawer space to keep it at this point…)

The yarn came from one of N’s old oversized 1990s sweaters, and thankfully the yarn for the stripes (except beige) were run continuously up the sides, so they unraveled into big balls (except where there was some breakage (moth holes?).

There’s still an unraveled sleeve that with a few knitted additions could become a matching dog sweater…

And still have some yarn left over – maybe some boot cuffs for me, or hat/mitts for N, or just scrappy bits for scrappy knits.

(And there was a  total triumph long-term finished project that deserves its own post, so this isn’t really a list after all.)

The spin I started a month or so ago failed.

View this post on Instagram

Spin, [not span], spun… #spinning #wool #roving

A post shared by astitchmatism (@astitchmatism) on

Not failed, really, just didn’t work as I’d intended and is going in another direction. The wools weren’t like enough to be combined without being combined in a blended sort of way – I’m spinning long sections of different rovings instead of short, so a section of shiny and smooth stuff is up against matte and lumpy stuff and I don’t think it will knit up the way I wanted in the end. So I’ll be left with 8 oz of smooth in two different, but hopefully complimentary, colorways plied together, that hopefully will coordinate enough with another skein of orphaned handspun, and the lumpy will be paired with some other lumpy in the stash and hopefully become nearly a pound of stripey single along the lines of this project, only this time in greens and browns and all that is earthy and murky.

Some sewing has happened too – perhaps that too should be its own post…

Advertisement

Leave a comment

Filed under knitting, recycling, spinning

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

February 18, 2018 · 10:28 AM

Shetland blues

For the last decade or so, I’ve been buying damaged Shetland sweaters from thrift stores. They had to be misshapen and/or slightly felted and/or have holes – basically unwearable at least not without significant repair.

Most of them are from the late 1970s to early 1990s and in most cases, the colors happen to be ones I wouldn’t necessarily choose to wear or knit by themselves. But I finally amassed around a dozen (not pictured are some more blues, pinks, and greys) and originally I thought I’d knit a giant hap shawl/blanket, perhaps some colorwork accessories, and maybe a Spencer dress…

And I bought one that was in quite good condition that I kept to wear as-is.

I love the slogan: “Wool, it’s got life.”

But then I used it in my failed MFA portfolio.

(That patch is easily removed, I just haven’t done it yet. And it’s probably not work-appropriate as it is. And my workplace is hostile and discriminatory towards sweaters – it’s been near 80F in there all winter and I’m reduced to t-shirts which is absolutely obscene in the wintertime and crushing my sweater-loving soul, but I digress…)

But this was the first project that I finally started to use my freshly harvested old Shetland sweater yarn.

The absolute best thing about this Shetland yarn is that it is all the same 2-ply weight (or close enough) brand to brand, decade to decade so it is all freaky great for anything – colorwork especially – so it’s not just another one-off for the scrappy stash. And I haven’t tested it yet, but it is probably the equivalent to, and/or would pair well with, Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift yarn.

That patch above obviously used very little yarn, and I was left with quite a bit, yet not much of one individual color from this stripey sweater. (Stripey sweaters are also part of my thrift sweater collecting policy since they do make for great scrappy projects, but this one was happily the same good old Shetland yarn, only it is fairly recent – from the middle aughts most likely).

Recently my mom got new glasses and requested a new (small, more like a kerchief) scarf with blue in it. My stash only had some bulky blue earmarked for another project and some sock yarn with blues, but they seemed a little too crayon-cartoonish. I think buying something was out of the question at the time since I would have had to wait for it to arrive in the mail and/or I’d have been tempted to buy roving instead and spin something, but that would take too long… And I am stash-busting, but do make exceptions for gifts, but I don’t have a solid LYS nearby to pop into and know I could get something appropriate for a fair price (and without attitude).

So I hit the Shetland stash – enough with hanging on to the thoughts of big haps and whatnot – there is still plenty of yarn for that anyway. And I absolutely required a mindless pattern – something I could knit as quickly as I can (which isn’t that fast these days) with near zero risk of frogging and restarting. My mom liked the triangular shape of the Lacy Baktus I made for her a few years ago, and I like the the shape of a slightly asymmetric side-to-side triangle, and that is also the most forgiving for judging yarn amounts, or rather, you don’t need to worry about it at all, just stop when you’re out (the Batkus is my all-time favorite, but there will be a day I’m sure, that I will run out of yarn at the very tip).

And Clara Falk’s Tailwind shawl pretty much fit the bill. I liked that she used an icord edge to hide the yarn tails and wanted to try it out – I liked the icord edge on my Paris Toujours, but it was more of a shallow slip thing that smoothed the end rather than a tube that would successfully entomb loose ends.

And I also wanted to use up most of the blue stripey stuff, but I figured I wouldn’t have enough once the stripes grew long, so I added a purple, navy, and denim-y colored sweater to the mix. The only solid color, a cobalt blue, was from the collar, cuffs, and waistband of the stripey sweater, so I had a safe amount of that one.

I held the yarns doubled in order to get a better gradient and to plump up the weight. I used US9 needles, but probably could have gotten away with 10s – this stuff is so bloomy.

(The semi-felted sweaters can be a bit of a bitch to unravel, but the Shetland is fairly strong and can withstand some tugging, so even though the stripey sweater in particular was at least 3 sizes smaller than what it was originally, I had minimal breakage. Out of the dozen or so of these sweaters, I’ve only given up unraveling one of them, and will use it for mitten linings and such instead.)

I hemmed and hawed through the whole thing about the colors – I don’t like light blues, and I’m always a little ambivalent about knitting with colors that aren’t ones I love – but they had their purpose in making the grade.

But the gradient wasn’t always working for me – perhaps that knitting trend is out, or on the way out, or maybe still peaking? But now it’s done with gorgeous multi-toned, perhaps a little speckled yarn not in early ’80s colors that were meant to be worn with too-stiff, too-high waisted jeans and ivory corduroy pants. And maybe because it was too consistent? I think that is my issue – it’s too regimented: 10 rows of one, ten of another, 10 of another, 10, 10, 10, 10… It needed something to break up the monotony, a wave or another angle, or different stripe thicknesses…

But that isn’t for me to ponder anymore since it’s my mom’s now, and as a scarf/shawl it is spot-on: crazy warm, sheepy yet drapey, and able to be worn in several ways.

And uh, yeah, it’s not a small kercheif like thing that can be tucked under the coat…

Maybe next year, okay ma?

***

And the final verdict on the pattern is that it is a good one – the icord edge totally encased the ends (though perhaps I wouldn’t trust it as much with a non-sticky yarn). My only minor quibble is that edge isn’t quite as stretchy as I’d like, but keeping it loose when knitting helps – I think the pattern mentions to pull it tightly, but I would recommend the opposite. And then I did the icord bind off with US10.5 needles, and that was perfect – there’s about equal give on both ends. I blocked it slightly longer, but it didn’t really need to be shaped much, though the soak made the yarn bloom a little again and erase any final kinks from unraveling.

4 Comments

Filed under collecting, knitting, recycling, thrifting

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

October 4, 2017 · 2:37 PM

Small and easy status report

I still haven’t settled on the next new big knitting project, though vests and ponchos and cabled sweaters are in the queue – part of it is my insistence on finishing up a sweater that I’ve procrastinated on for months, but most of it is that I don’t have, or don’t know when I’ll have some good chunks of daylight knitting time to get over the humps of understanding and executing a new-to-me pattern’s fiddly bits.

A new Rosa’s Caponcho was on my needles for a couple of evenings, but the yarn didn’t have enough drape – I think – I may put on another row or two before frogging it, but I’m pretty sure I want to start it again with some as-yet-to-be-spun yarn, or unraveled stuff (or yet-to-be-unraveled stuff). There are a few things in the stash that might be good as well, but the one with the best drape seems pretty sheddy and light colored, so that would probably be a mistake in the end…

So I’ve been putting rows on the small and easy traveling projects while at home here and there instead.

An eight-hour flight delay turned the mesh test scarf into a thing that is now the circumference of my neck.

I’m not sure if this was the best mesh pattern to use – I wanted one with character that stretched and retreated, but I keep seeing other patterns that I wished I’d started that are a more stationary fishnet, but whatever, this one doesn’t have any p3togs or other awkward-for-me maneuvers. However it’s not great for bleary eyes – I managed to catch most of my mistakes, but one made it through so far, and the slick and variegated yarn will make repairs at the end a bit more difficult. And lifelines might be a good idea – I’m too cocky/lazy to do them lately, and I’ve tinked back without drama several times on this one since it’s only a 2 row repeat, but I might be pressing my luck….

I thought I hated mesh – several years ago I slogged through a Midwest Moonlight scarf and it’s been the only knit that I remember actively hating the entire time – I kept being plagued by one dropped or accidentally knitted together stitch, and wouldn’t immediately realize that the whole thing was thrown off until a row or two later. But lifelines saved me in the end, and this was probably the last project I did on straight needles, so I was still figuring shit out.

I still wear it too – the yarn is cotton and wool, so it also sucked to knit for that reason too, but it’s good to wear in the shoulder seasons. And I’d recommend the pattern – it’s very easy, though if I had to do it again, I’d go with a bulkier/chunkier yarn so I wouldn’t have to keep at it as long.

And I have been re-evaluating the rectangular scarf lately – I swore them off for knitting, I don’t wear them as much as my side-to-side triangles, but I what, miss them? They seem to have fallen out of favor, but I’ve been looking at them again. I used to have a fairly intense yoga practice and the instructors were always repeating that the positions you hate now might be the ones you love later. Though I never learned to love the ones that always made my toes pop out of joint, I do feel that I’ve come around to mesh (especially after this) and back to rectangular scarves in a similar way.

And socks, how could I have been so lukewarm about socks a few weeks ago?

I love socks.

I do kinda sorta have enough, but fuck it, I should always have a sock on the needles. It’s comfort knitting- it’s mostly brainless, somewhat sightless, and something comes of it relatively quickly, though I have no issue with a pair taking a year or more if only knit on occasionally.

So socks=no stress.

And last, that orange cream cashmere tube…

No new pictures because it is the same only a few inches longer. It’s a blast to knit in an endless meditative spiral slide kind of way-

weeeeeeeee around and around we go…

But suddenly I wanted more pattern.

I also remembered I wanted to make a big mosaic tube, but then I remembered I wanted simple, and while my memories duke it out, that one is sidelined now. (I could mix it up with various patterns, but I’d have to jigger the stitch counts and the stranding or slipping would probably be tighter than the striping, and I wanted something simple and nondescript, right…?)

So perhaps I’ll have some socks by the year’s end, instead of next like I’d originally thought, and hopefully I’ll have that silky mesh thing for spring (unless the long rectangle becomes beastly again…)

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

August 20, 2017 · 4:12 PM

Path of totality

I can’t stop repeating that in my head – it sounds like a threat, an end game, a complete takeover – but also a great summation and completion of fragmented parts – it is frightening and reassuring. And I know it’s just the term for the visible swath of an eclipse. But it’s a shitstorm out there and it has been for some time, and we keep breeding and uneducating shitcloud seeders, and there will always be a changeable swath of stupidity and a great joining together to make that path more narrow or wide.

I started this knit this time a year ago – we were on a vacation made stressful by either my still jobless status or anxiety over starting a new one, recently taking on a reactive dog, my foot-dragging acceptance of a body that now hurts more often than not, and the election that seemed far off and the candidate who got inaugurated seemed enough of a joke that even the most dense should get, but I still felt uneasy and dubious it would work out in the end. I grew up in a town with a population of more ignorant folks than not. Folks who hid behind religion and “tradition” and practiced tokenism to prove that they weren’t “bad” people, but folks who also tolerated klansmen as neighbors. None of my family lives in that town anymore and few live in the state – we did what we could when we were there, but the path of totality of intolerance was too scorched and wide.

I’m erroneously remembering that this pattern, Isabell Kramer’s Paris Toujours, was designed in response, or as a memorial to (one of) the Paris attacks. But it looks like it was commemorating a happy weekend (maybe there was a knit-along with this after the attack instead?) Either way, I knit it because it was easy and side to side – just the way I like to make and wear scarf/shawls – I’d clearly confused the designer’s intent and blurred yet another violent act of many so I can’t say I knit this as a statement against ignorance. But this kind of knitting feels like my own little path of totality to keep my fingers calmly and constructively moving through another year of shit, coming out at the other end with something soft and warm – and I won’t say safe, since there are no “safe places,” and let’s face it, a scarf could be quite deadly as a garrote, or a gag, or bindings in the middle of nowhere without access to food and drink (though it would make it at least a cozy slow death).

I was a little surprised that I finished it by my secret deadline, and by the end of the summer. I’d started it in the mountains and planned to work on it in another set of mountains later this year, but I’ll likely be wearing it there instead – it’s already my new favorite even in the muggy dog days.

The yarn was from a thrifted JCrew cardigan, slightly felted, in a wool, cashmere, viscose, and rabbit (I’m assuming angora) blend – and it is mad soft and not at all sneezy, with great drape and enough definition.

I would have liked it to be a bit larger – I was hoping that the last band of garter would be twice as wide as the one before it, and I lost yarn chicken twice at the end and had to unknit a couple of times, but it is large enough.

A couple of heads up about the pattern that are obvious for those in the know, but need to be stated for those who aren’t (me), especially if you deviate from the stripe sequence like I did. The stitch counts will be off unless each section is done in even numbers of the pattern repeat, so after the set up, if you want to keep doing lace, then start with row 3 of the lace pattern. I was often off with this, randomly ending up with 2 (as per pattern) or 3 stitches at the end. It didn’t really matter to me since fudge is good to do and to eat, but I kinda preferred ending in 3 stitches – if I did it again, I’d keep up with the 3 (or more) stitches at the end of the lace since a tiny bit more of garter makes the edge a little more stable. And then I can’t really describe this but the first row of garter after the lace makes a row of stockinette, so the lace sections aren’t symmetrical – again, it didn’t bother me enough to figure out how to fix it (a row of purl somehow?) but I think it could make some itchy.

This (or rather another loose variation thereof) will likely be on my needles again. And I’ve got my eye out for another one of these sweaters – wondering if it came in other colors – not that I don’t love this olive though, it’s among of my favorites. And this finishing up older projects thing has been working for me these days although everything that is left is vastly more complicated – but my path of unfinished totality is pleasantly closing in…

 

2 Comments

Filed under knitting, recycling, thrifting, unemployment

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

March 15, 2017 · 4:54 PM

Scrap heap to scraptastic

I finished up that scrappy scarf.

A couple of weeks later than I’d liked, but just in time for a late winter blast.

And my mom just got some new burgundy coordinating eyeglasses.

The scrap pile does not appear any lighter, though I used up all of the green, and chose not to use some reds and greys I’d originally picked for it.

I held a strand of thin mohair with almost all of the yarns which really helped to soften a few of the rough ones and add a bit of cohesiveness.

(I also trimmed the fun out of the fun fur…)

(And I really dislike adding fringe – it always seems to take longer than it should.)

I’m tempted to start another right away…

Leave a comment

Filed under collecting, knitting, recycling

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

February 22, 2017 · 12:54 PM

One from the scrap heap

I need to lighten my stash, I’ve been wanting to start some scrappy projects, and I needed a gift, so once again my mother will soon be the recipient of a project that might go very wrong, but I’ll still finish it and give it to her (like this hat).

scrapheap

On the heap are several unraveled thrift sweaters including a few that had [abandoned] intentions of becoming pussyhats, one or two from last spring or early summer, a never-ending cone of (I suspect, but I still haven’t tested) faux or partially faux, mohair – fauxhair? from the Cascine market in Firenze several years ago…

boot-redo-firenze

…a few balls of wool from the big box craft store that I got on the cheap nearly, or over, a decade ago to make into felted bags (I still haven’t put the handles on a couple I made around that time, but I do see myself eventually making more, so it’s not urgent I use it all up), the last bit of my kool-aid dyed yarn, and finally, and possibly regretfully, some novelty yarns – yes, a “fur”(must be under the other stuff in the pic) and some metallics. I kinda sorta like metallic yarns – if mixed well enough with wool, they feel okay and fancy up a handknit – I wear this batkus with a tiny silver thread that never shows up in photos at least once a week:

baktus3-restaurant

And recently unraveled this one…

…but I’m not so sure about gold since I don’t wear it, and I should put it in this project, but it’s just enough to make a shawl-thing on its own, so I don’t want to shortchange it. But I think I got a few balls of metallic yarns with the intention of making some knitted jewelry – ropey lariat things – but the coppery one seen above and below is fairly thick and unpleasant on its own, and most times I’d rather have a scarf, so that is no longer an intended project…

But for a long time I’ve been wanting to make some grand, chaotic, scraptacular feather & fan/old shale shawls.

A perimenopausal aesthetic has taken over and I want more drama in my knits.

I took a baby step toward this with this shawl from a few years ago that I thought I was going to sell, but have kept to use while being utterly stationary at the computer.

spring-shug or shawl

It’s made up of two sweaters – one was a blue Shetland thrifted one, and the other (I wore in the ’90s) was an Italian multicolored mohair mix that I doubled, and that was a mistake – I ran out of it before I got the length I wanted. But it’s wide, and some days I think of making a dramatic shrug out of it, or just adding more length with the blue wool, but it functions well enough for what I use it for, so best leave well enough alone.

But my mom needed a more practical scarf and I needed to finish it in a reasonable amount of time, so I’m going sideways on big, but not too large, needles with nearly all garter stitch except for a wavy-making row every 4 or so.

It now has the fun fur and hot pink silk from an ’80s skirt and it’s drunkenly teetering on the line of fuglytown…

…so it’s time for more metallics and even louder colors, right?

 

2 Comments

Filed under collecting, knitting, recycling, thrifting, travel

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

May 11, 2016 · 1:00 AM

Latest Lacy Baktus

Spring came on early- warm and dry.

I wasn’t ready – a few nights were outside of my comfort zone – and working outside for more than quarter hour required rehydration at the ready.

But then it went back to its proper cold and damp state and required woolens.

I realized if I hurried along my latest baktus, I’d actually be able to wear it immediately instead of packing it away for the autumn.

latest baktus with sweater

And so I did and have been – it still needs to be blocked, but the weather might turn warm again before it dries…

In the meantime, I’m cozy with it-

or all three…

latest baktus triple

They’re becoming invasive in my woolen collection…

And in outdoor news, the march of the invasives in our yard continues…

latest purple yard

This front yard patch of bugleweed is doubled from last year, soldiering through the lesser celandine.

I gave up fighting the ground invasives unless I hear about something magical and effective, but natural and easy – and perhaps the bugleweed will take over my ultimate nemesis the Japanese stiltgrass – I do like the intense blue too, and I don’t think it’s technically invasive, just non-native and aggressive, so I wouldn’t mind if it took over that part of the yard completely…

latest lilac

And the lilac is doing so much better after its year free of Chinese wisteria. I’ve left a tiny patch of that stuff to attempt to train, but perhaps that isn’t responsible – it would just take one untended season and the stuff would take over the hillside again.

Pray for me as I go in for the first of several annual poison ivy tear-outs soon too – too bad that is the only native stuff.

And now I should return to the knitting I’ve ignored for the baktus – none of that will be ready to wear in these last cool days…

(perhaps not even by the time the cool weather returns in a few months…)

Leave a comment

Filed under collecting, gardening, home, knitting

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

February 20, 2014 · 9:05 AM

Hitching dragons

I finished up my second Hitchhiker scarf out of my handspun “Dragon Days” mixed BFL from Pigeonroof Studios.

PRS-dragons-beach1

You might think it’s just like my other one.

Mimsyhiker & acquedotto

And they are close, but the new one is more green, more intensely hued, and I spun it a little too thin, so the gauge is half the size of the other – or is it twice the size?

PRS-Draghitch1

I made it for a gift, but I was reeeaaaaally tempted to swap it out for my old one.

PRS-dragons-beach2

The colors are iridescent and change depending on the light, though sunlight is my favorite because it is at its greenest best then.

PRS-Draghitch5

I love the striping from the spun singles.

PRS-Draghitch4

And the size is good too – bigger than my other one.

PRS-dragons-beach3

I’ve got a few more gift knits to complete in the next month or two, so I’m going to continue to be busy with unselfish knitting for a bit (I’m not counting the selfish spinning) but there just might be a startitis explosion soon after though…

2 Comments

Filed under knitting, spinning

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 3, 2013 · 1:08 PM

[Jet] lagging…

I made it to 5:12 a.m. this morning and feel triumphant!  Then I realized it was daylight savings,* so the jet lag beast has been tossed a scrap and is still pacing a bit around the room.  No more middle of the night pancake dinners/breakfasts though, but the last one was quite tasty with the last of our White Mountain edible souvenirs.

pancakes

My brain is still buzzy and unfocused and my body mildly flu-like.  I came home with mountain legs as firm as two well-aged prosciutti, but now they’re returning to their younger non-dead jiggly piglet state.  My body and mind are out of synch with my reality and just want to put one foot in front of the other until a pleasing distance and vista and lunch spot have been reached.

murder on the mountain **

I know it is incredibly pretentious, but I feel more culture shock returning to the U. S. rather than being outside of it (at least in the European bits).  Americans weigh too much, they are sick, they are loud, they drive enormous machines, they wheel enormous luggage, they can be demanding of bedraggled clerks and service workers, their children are wild, and worst of all, they build and live in suburbs – vast expanses of land without sidewalks or farms – utterly purposeless and ugly.

But this is where I was born and legally reside and thanks to N we can leave it once in awhile.

But I’m also just another American wishing she could eat, pray, love (mostly the eating part) under the Tuscan (I’d prefer Abruzzo) sun.  But there are a few things in Italy (and probably Europe in general) that are downright magical that even more increase my desire to stay.

  Dairy.  I have dairy issues in the states – I don’t know if it is lactose or casein or something else, but even when I get the organic grass-fed hoity-toity localish stuff here, I can have problems.  I can tolerate milk, ice cream, cream, etc., about 15% of the time here, so I usually just forgo anything not aged or fermented – cheese and yogurt are ok-ish.  In Italy, I have about a 99% tolerance rate – the only bad dairy experience I’ve had there was from a mediocre cream-based pasta sauce at an even more mediocre tourist trap restaurant in Rome a few years ago.  So I load up on the stuff while I’m there – cappuccino, gelato, cream sauces, oh yeah!  And of course cheese – I especially love the sheep and goat stuff – pecorino dolce, ricotta di capra, caciocavallo etc., etc., etc….

 Allergies.  I barely have them there, and leave behind my constant ropey mucous companion dangling down my throat here.  That probably has a straightforward reason about the different climate and fewer useless expanses of lawns and less proliferation of non-native species with their companion herbicides and pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

So now that I’ve established that my brain is broken, my body atrophying, my nose dripping, and I’m suffering from a vague yogurt induced gut cramp, I must mention fiber – specifically my travel knitting.

I started the first pair of socks since my sock knitting debacle months ago.  Again, my sock mojo is off – I used a bit bigger yarn on my preferred shorty wood needles with my 64 stitch vanilla pattern, thinking it would firm things up and be ok, but they’re big – baggy ankle big.  But I don’t give a damn and still have to finish the leg parts, so I can firm up the upper ribbed section.  I’m constructing them in a strange fashion, but it makes sense in my head and should allow me to use up all the yarn.  I’ve dubbed them my “Nostalgia Socks” as the color reminds me of old quilts, 1970s sweaters, and now my trip.

sock in progress

The colors in this pic are wrong, but accurately portray the weak blue light that just barely stretched down to our nearly subterranean Italian apartment.

nostalgia socksThis is how the color should look – and if you look closely you can see one of the two knots I’ve found so far.

And remember my giddiness over Pigeonroof Studios Mimsy BFL roving?  And even more over the Hitchhiker pattern? I can call it a finished project now since I shoved it in my bag at the last minute.  It was one of those that ended sooner than I was ready to finish, and previously I only let myself knit a few rows here and there as a reward for meeting some goals on my portfolio pieces.  Ok, I may have over-rewarded myself, but this is my favorite handspun yarn to date – the softness and drape are wonderful (if I do say so myself) but most of that is due to the inherent qualities of the fiber itself.

Mimsyhiker on wall

My yardage was less than the suggested amount and I used bigger needles, so I didn’t quite make it to the original 42 points.  Mine is 41 1/2 – instead of a half a point, I just made the last one wider.  I watched 42 on the plane over and hoped I could have that numerical reference as well, but I didn’t quite make the team.

Mimsyhiker & acquedotto

Mimsyhiker & biscotto

I finished it in the first few days we were there, so I was able to wear it again and again and again – it’s finally taking a rest drying from a light blocking to stretch it out a little.

As for acquisitions, I bought some cheap (but ugly) sock yarn, and some cheap (but lovely) mohair in the market.

But of course I bought more of the real thing.

yarn-laquilana

It deserves a post of its own next time.

* Daylight savings happened in Italy last weekend.  We spent a day wondering why none of the cafes were opened when they should have been, rushed to return the rental car when we didn’t have to hurry, and even left for the airport an hour before we needed to – but none of it was the problem it would have been in the spring.

** I love this picture that N took – in the camera it appeared that I had been steamrolled, but now it looks more like a Nancy Drew book jacket for “Murder on the Mountain.”  I love sleeping on mountains – some bedroom designer should get on that – forget beds – rig up a soft inclined meadow and mimic warm sun and chilly breezes in a room instead.

2 Comments

Filed under hiking, home decor, knitting, spinning, travel

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 15, 2013 · 5:13 AM

In praise of first things…

I just unpacked my woolen winter things.

I’ve gotten rid of, or ripped out, a few of my early knitting projects, but I kept my first scarf.

It was also my very first actual project after practicing with a few useless squares of nasty acrylic yarn in a pleasing shade of grey.

firstthingsscarf

I bought the yarn for this scarf in a long since closed LYS in the Midwest.  It is 100% alpaca, in probably a light worsted or sport weight, yet I’m positive I used size US7 needles since they were all I had.  After knitting a few decadently smooth rows, I convinced myself that my life had to become that of an alpaca farmer.  I joined mailing lists for breeders associations and farms, I read up on the fleece colors and textures, I learned that they don’t need as much land as sheep and could even be transported in a minivan, and I may have even looked at acreage for sale.  However, at that time I was in graduate school and living in a squirrel-infested apartment and eating from bulk bags of dried beans and rice (I cooked them first, of course).  But I thought that perhaps the fiber-bearing-animal-farmer would be a possible life for me in at least five years or so.

(It’s now fifteen and even less possible).

firstthingsscarfdet1

The color of the yarn is bit of a dated 1990s sage green, but the drape and softness are lovely, and I still wear it.  It has a couple of mistakes, but nothing that overtly advertises it as rookie work.  And despite alpaca being less elastic than wool, it has not become misshapen, nor has it become full of pills.

firsthingsscarfdet2

It’s strange to think in person terms, this scarf could now be licensed to drive.  After its journey from the back of a warm animal in Peru, it has lived in a few apartments and houses, been seen and touched by many people – yet only been worn by me, survived the devastating moth attack of 2002, been crumpled into plastic bags at the end of every season since, traveled around the country yet not left it again, worn willingly on odorous public buses and dim slushy streets, accepted accidental nasal drips, held ice crystals on its finest fibers from my breath, blown and flapped against several coats – some puffy and some wooly cousins, and has remained loyal and comforting to the slowly loosening neck underneath it.

2 Comments

Filed under knitting

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,