Cables are taking over my life

The cables are becoming a bit of an obsession lately. I finished the Merike gloves (post-blocking photos to come soon), am sewing up the cabled pillow cover, and somehow while watching the federal election results roll in (let's not even talk about that!), I cast on for a pair of Green Autumn mittens from the Fall 2008 Vogue Knitting.


Hopefully these will be another Christmas gift - if I don't decide to keep them for myself!

This is the first time that I've bought Vogue Knitting. I saw the mittens on Jared Flood's blog, and actively went hunting for the issue. It took me three trips to Chapters to finally track down a copy (and we only have one Chapters in the city!). There's one other pattern in there, a sweater, that I might consider knitting one day, but most of the stuff is just over the top.

But these mittens, wow. This is an intense pattern - fully charted luckily. Cabling on every row, a crazy slip-stitch pattern on the palm, and bobbles. Who doesn't love bobbles?! (Well, actually lots of people hate bobbles. But not me. I'm firmly entrenched in the pro-bobbles camp.)

In other news, I quit my job last week. And it was a good thing! I have landed a much better one, and am very excited to be moving on. The new job is going to be much more condusive to building a long career, and it's only one block from my house. Perfect. I'm taking a week off between jobs to relax a bit and do a few things around the house. Looking forward to it.

Tweedy comfort

I find it amazing that no matter how I try to prioritize my knitting projects, making lists of upcoming projects, stashing yarn and purchasing patterns with definite plans, that if the right mood strikes, I will be forced to drop everything, start something new, and knit on it continuously until it's finished, or a different whim overtakes me, and I abandon it in favour of the next big thing.

I go through moods of wanting to clear out my works-in-progress to start fresh (I can dream, can't I?), and there are other times where I start three new projects in a week. There are times when a new pair of socks needs to be started just to fulfill the need for a simple, portable project to take on a trip, and then there are days like yesterday.

I've been fighting a nasty cold for a few days, and finally called in sick yesterday to stay home and be miserable lounging around the house. I've been working on a design project, trying to make some sort of cardigan out of a big pile of black Patons Fresco that's been sitting in my stash for way to long. Through the haze of cold medication yesterday, I couldn't bring myself to pick up the calculator. I needed something to pass the day and make me happy. Something with explicit instructions that I couldn't mess up very easily.

I finally downloaded Anne Hansen's Delicato pattern for lacy fingerless mitts.


There was no way that I would be leaving the house (or even getting out of my pyjamas), so I pulled out the only yarn I had on hand that would work, a cone of laceweight Derby Tweed left over from a vest I knit last year.



Exactly what I needed, and a very well written pattern. And they'll keep my hands warm in the chilly office when I return to work.

I also bought the Irtfa'a lace shawl pattern while I was at it, for another day when I'm feeling a little more adventurous. For today, I'm going to curl up and finish the left mitt and spend some quality time with Harry Potter - finally, I get to catch up with the rest of the world and read book 7.

Year-end FOs (in Knitting and Life)

2007 has been rather a monumental year for me - finally moving home after so many years away, buying our first house and car, starting a career. I feel incredibly blessed by the good fortune that has come my way. It has been very exciting, yet stressful at times. Mostly, I have felt very disorganized and scatter-brained, no doubt resulting from moving twice and living out of boxes for the better part of the fall.

Things are finally starting to come together. The unpacking is mostly done, and the first floor is exactly as we want it. With the recent addition of furniture, if I may borrow from the knitting jargon, I'm now happy to declare the living room an FO:


We now look forward to painting some of the upstairs rooms and feeling a little more settled in the new year.

A few other recent FOs to report on. The interminable Brigit socks have finally been completed, and were gifted at a family gathering yesterday.

Brigit socks (link to pdf), in Meilenweit wool, 2.25 mm bamboo dpns. Altered the heel to an "eye of partridge" heel flap.

Also known as the "Smurfy Cables", these socks were the cause of much blue dye staining my hands over the last few months. I started them on a train trip from Toronto to Ottawa, and the first sock came very easily. However, I tried taking the second sock out to knit night, and it proved to be wholly incompatible with anything that distracted my attention even remotely. The repeating cable pattern is the same every time, and really shouldn't be that difficult, but every time I started feeling comfortable with it, I would cross a cable the wrong way, or turn the heel and then realize that I had mistakenly added an extra pattern repeat before the heel. Soon the Smurfy cables became the cursed cables.... Nancy and Leanne can attest that even a couple of weeks ago, as I was attempting to turn the heel for the third time, these were still giving me grief. I'm happy to see them finished, and I really like the way they turned out. Surprisingly, I think I would even knit these again for myself, but would make them a little longer. The yarn? The Meilenweit is a perfectly serviceable wool sock yarn, but not destined to become a favourite of mine. It just didn't do it for me, you know?

I've been off work over the holidays, and decided to finally organize my stash closet. I rediscovered all kinds of treasures that I had forgotten about. Among them was the end of a cone of very furry mohair blend that I bought on a whim at Woof Designs last summer (mostly a machine-knitting sweater business, they sell off their cone ends and discontinued yarns by weight. I always love to pop in and see what new on the yarn shelf at the back). Inspired by the cold snowy weather we've been having, I decided that I needed some very warm mitten for the daily trek through the snow to work.


These were knit holding together a strand of the mohair (burgandy) with Elann.com Peruvian Pure Alpaca (sherwood forest). Together, it gave a bulky weight, and and incredibly dense, warm, fuzzy fabric. These may well be the warmest knitted mittens ever - and much less bulky than my thrummed mitts.

The biggest FO of the year though, is my Ph.D. thesis. I was in Ottawa for my defense on December 13, and my presentation and oral exam went very well. The corrections were minimal, so I managed to get them all finished and submit the final copies before the week was out. It was all a bit anticlimactic really, as I had worked myself up into a nervous frenzy over it, and since we were heading into the holidays and many of my friends had already graduated and left, there weren't really many people around to celebrate with. More than anything, it brings me an enormous sense of relief to be finished. No more guilt over procrastinating, no more self-doubt about whether my work is good enough. It was wonderful, for the first time in 11 years, to be able to sit back this Christmas with my family and know that there would be no more term papers or exams, no more frantic late nights at the library, no more frustrating encounters with university administration (perhaps that last one is a little premature - I haven't got my diploma yet!). But I have regained a lot of peace and sanity these past couple of weeks, and hopefully I'm a nicer person to be around than I have been recently!

This year, the new year brings a lot of opportunity, as I have re-gained a lot of energy and free time to devote to non-academic pursuits. I plan to get myself off the couch a little more (off to research gym memberships this afternoon), and I will finally get around to checking out the class offerings at the Anna Templeton Centre, a fantastic textile arts centre just around the corner. My sister-in-law is even interested in taking a pottery class with me. I may do a little more volunteering, and I also have a little freelance writing project that I'm anxious to get working on.

I would like to wish everyone a very happy new year, and may your knitting continue to bring you joy in 2008.

One more pair

I finally got around to knitting one more pair of mittens, which I've been planning for a while. They came together so quickly on the weekend that I didn't even take any in-progress photos.

Basic mittens in Needful Yarns Arte (a blend of merino, alpaca, and acrylic), 40 st on 3.25 mm dpns.

The scalloped edging is a single repeat of the lace pattern from a hat that I made last year in the same yarn. Now I finally have a matching set, but probably a little late for this year. It's funny, the first two skeins of this, used for the hat and first mitten (left, above), had pretty subtle, heathered colour changes, but when I started the other mitten with the third skein, I was getting a lot of solid, single-colour stripes. I cut out long portions of the solids and sort of pieced it back together to try to keep the mittens somewhat matching (there is no way to make a true match with this yarn). Overall, I think they're pretty cute.

I can't believe I only have one project on the go right now - socks. The vest that's on my WIP list hasn't actually been started, just designed and swatched. I ordered a set of Denise interchangable needles, so I'm waiting for them to arrive before I start any more big projects. I did a little research and opted for the Denise set over the KnitPicks Options because I hear that they are a lot lighter weight. My wrists and thumbs have been giving a lot of trouble lately, so I'm trying to focus on ergonimcs both in my school life and my knitting. I think the switch to all circulars all the time will help a lot. Now if they would only show up!