Fall Back

I never meant to be one of those people who starts out all their blog posts apologizing for how long its been since the last blog post. Yet I find myself in that position again.

This last weekend when the clocks fell back Adam and I had a real sense that we were falling back into our real lives. The past six weeks have been insane and slightly blurred and very happy but we are glad that the pace is starting to slow again.


All of the wedding knitting did get done in time. Just. I was knitting the toe on the second of Adam's marryin' socks at 2:00 AM the morning of the ceremony and my Mom was weaving in the ends on my shawl hours before hand (Thanks Mom!). I won't say much about the wedding (which probably deserves it's own post once the photos come in) except that it was lovely and what we had hoped for.

And a slower pace should mean a bit more time for knitting and blogging. During the whirlwind of the wedding weekend my friend Lynn and I made a "blog more" pact and I know Lynn is not going to let me slack on this one. In case that wasn't enough incentive I've decided to do NaKniSweMo this year. I know, I know one would think that I would be running from even the idea of more deadline knitting at this point. But I've had a sweater for Adam in my Ravelry queue for months* and the yarn conveniently arrived while we were away. Also who can say no to Shannon?


I filled in that late-October gap (and quite a bit of travelling-back-from-the-Rockies time) with some mitten knitting. This looked smart when we returned to Kingston in the midst of a nasty snowstorm, but today as I'm finishing them off it's 15 C and sunny outside. I feel confident they'll be needed soon enough.


These are Elizabeth Zimmermann's mitered mitts, one of the May projects in the Knitter's Almanac and the yarn is Noro Kureyon in 149, which is the same yarn as the Noro Hat I knit back in February. The pattern is typical of EZ, really more of a suggested way of proceeding than a line by line pattern. I made long cuffs and trimmed them with garter and used the thumb trick rather than an afterthought thumb. I worked these on 3.75 mm needles so they're pretty dense, but I like a firmly knit mitten - keeps the wind out. The Knitter's Almanac is the smallest of EZ's books but it is a real treasure trove of patterns. It was published in 1974 and the photography could use updating but the meat of the book remains totally relevant, as a quick browsing of Ravelry projects from it reveals.

We still haven't completely unpacked from the move, nor have we opened most of our wedding gifts. But there will be time for those sorts of things...right now we are reveling in the decompression. I need to wash my kitchen floor. I need to get my hair cut. I need to find a new job. But I also need to knit, and to blog, and I will.


*I never really bought into the whole 'boyfriend sweater curse' thing, but surely now I have NO excuses.

Apologies.....

...for the long silence.

This move has been longer and more complex and far more tiring than we anticipated.

As of this morning we have the internets at home so a real post should be coming soon. Thanks for being patient.

secret no more.....

Knit On

Only three posts for July - not good. Fortunately August should be more prolific, in both knitting and blogging.

The knitting will be driven, in part, by the Ravelympics. I'm not so much feeling the actual Olympic spirit this year, but I'm always up for a knitting event. I participated in Stephanie's Knitting Olympics in 2006, knitting (and completing) my Ribby Cardi in the specified period. Since I have a few more things on my plate this year I'm being a little less ambitious and have signed up for the Sock Putt. Haven't decided on a specific project yet, I'm hoping that a trip to my old LYS this week will clear things up.

I'm knitting for Team Anhk-Morpork Knitter's Guild.

Also likely to be keeping the needles moving in August is the premiere issue of Knotions, which goes live on the fourth. Knotions promises to be a different kind of knitting magazine and their commitment to fair treatment for designers should start important conversations within the industry.

Posting should be getting more regular very soon. In the meantime here's a vacations snapshot sneakpeak of the second slurm sock visiting Pyramid Lake in Jasper National Park.

Good News Everyone.....

We're back! Not back in France, but back on Vancouver Island visiting my parents and back to a good high-speed connection and being in the same place for more than 12 hours at a time.

I think this July is turning out to be a bit of a lost month. I've had so much to do and so many demands on my time that the days seems to have passed incredibly quickly. It's mostly been a lot of fun, but I haven't had a lot of time for regularly scheduled activities like knitting.

I let my blogiversary go by un-noted this month. I didn't intend to, I remembered on the day and everything. It's just that I spent most of the day driving from Lilooet to Squamish and finding enough wireless to blog would have meant fighting it out with the beautiful people in Whistler. Meh.


The slurm socks did get finished, proving yet again that doing a round or two here or there really does add up to a finished sock. The pattern (Charade by Sandra Park) is wonderfully hypnotic and has no purling at all in the leg and foot. I think it could translate to a good boy sock as well. I don't think I need to say anything about the yarn (Socks That Rock lightweight) except that it remains my favorite sock yarn ever. This was my first time working with one of the nearly solid colourways and I can't wait to use another one. For the record, the colour is a little closer to true in the first photo (the second was taken at twilight in shade).


The Captain Carrot scarf has also grown some - though it turns out fingering weight scarves don't go quite as quickly as one might hope. It is pleasingly mindless though and as such is good tv/car knitting. I'm only about halfway through the first 100g skein of this yarn (I have three) and I'm thinking that unless himself wants a really long scarf one skein is going to do it. I may save the other two skeins and see what sort of gauge I can get holding it doubled - perhaps a matching hat someday?


Someday is a word we're using a lot lately. That and 'after October'. Our wedding is now less than 100 days away (ack!) and we've got quite a lot of excitement coming up even before then. I can't spill all quite yet, but it's going to be a crazy few months here at chez consolations, it's all to the good though.

Next time I should have some holiday snaps as well as some new stash to flash. It's good to be back.

Still Here

Well I never intended to let two whole weeks pass without posting, but time has been flying by. We made it safely to Canada (avoiding the Lufthansa baggage handler strike by hours) and have been on the go ever since.

My brother's wedding was beautiful and joyous and all the things that a wedding should be. Unfortunately I completely forgot to get a good photo of the Greenwood blanket before it was wrapped up (!) so you'll have to keep waiting to see how it turned out. I'm hoping I can convince my brother to take a few shots.

There hasn't been a lot of knitting time - the second slurm sock is past the heel and the lovely orange scarf is growing. Yarn has also been purchased, so if I can find remember to take and download photos I should have a more interesting post soon.

Adam and I have had a little (too little, really) time to catch up with friends and now we're packing up our car and getting ready to hit the road for phase two. I'm looking forward to some car knitting and time in mountains and some down time with my sweetie.

More news from the road soon, I hope.

We're off

Our bags are packed, our apartment looks weirdly empty and speculation has begun as to whether I can get my travel knitting past 3 countries worth of airport screeners.


We're off to Canada to see my brother married, put some finishing touches on our own wedding plans and (we hope) figure out where we're going to be for the next few years. It's going to be a busy trip.

I'll blog from the road when I can and I'm wishing everyone a wonderful summer and good knitting.

Blanket coverage

The knitting of the Greenwood Blanket is done. The ends are woven and I just need to figure out how I'm going to block the thing but I feel I can allow myself a sigh of relief.

It really wasn't that much of a slog - and it was probably good that it was on a deadline. It turns out that if you keep working on something progress will be made and it will get done. Who knew?
The knit itself wasn't really enjoyable. The patten is great but I think lace on this scale just isn't for me. The chunky yarn and big needles said "mindless knitting" to me, but of course the chart reading was anything but. In fact the part of it that I enjoyed the most was when the charted bit was over and I got to settle in last night with a DVD and the garter edging. For some reason that's the sort of knitting I associate with afghans - quick and repetitive, something that can be worked on autopilot. I've been toying with the idea of a log cabin (a la Kay and Ann) to really explore the zen of garter stitch. I should probably hold off until we have some idea where we'll be living by the time the cool weather comes again.

All that said, I'm very happy with the results and looking forward to seeing how it blocks out. I suspect that because of the relatively high synthetic content it's not going to hold as hard a block as 100% wool would, but I think a little organic ripple will be okay here. There's a pre-block sneak photo on my Ravelry, and I will post a real set of photos here sometime in July after it has been gifted.


Yesterday was my Ravel-versary. A whole year of Ravelry, how many hours logged in I wonder? It's an amazing tool though and has fundamentally changed the online knitting culture. It's had a few growing pains, which I guess was inevitable but the volume of information and the ability to connect with other knitters is so valuable.

I hope to sneak in another post or two before the weekend when we start making our way back to Canada. July is going to be a very hectic month but there will still be knitting and I hope there's opportunity to blog it as well.

mmmm, pastis

Lucky me

Adam has me figured out - no question. We had several hours last weekend in Lyon to wander around in the city center and do a little shopping. Adam likes to plan these things out and had googled and mapped and researched and was ready to go. He was on the hunt for board games - Europe does amazing board games and we're developing quite the collection. Clever boy that he is, he'd also printed off a list of yarn shops and after lunch our first stop was La Droguerie.

It's an amazing shop with all manner of goodies. The ribbons and trim section was literally unlike anything I'd ever seen. As you might imagine, there was also yarn. The cashmere and linens were lovely and tempting but (as usual) I ended up with some good, plain wool.


It's lovely soft and the colour (picked by Adam) is really rich. There's 300 grams of it here, I'd guess between 600 and 700 meters at a light worsted weight. Sometime in the coming months it will become a scarf.

So, with me on the slight high of stash acquisition, Adam was able to spend the next several hours wandering amongst the game shops of Lyon in peace. It was a wonderful afternoon and a I am so fortunate to be with someone who not only understands my craft but encourages it.

On Sunday afternoon we visited the Lyon Textile Museum. Lyon was once the center of the silk trade in France and still supports a significant textile industry. The museum only had a few knitted pieces (including a pair of silk stockings knit at a gauge that I truly do not care to attempt - about15sts/in) but the collection is remarkable. Weavers in particular will be interested in the completely accurate scale models of looms showing changes in fabric making technology over the centuries.

The sock visits the musee tissus,
Lyon

The greenwood blanket did not make the trip to Lyon, but I've been hard at work on it since we returned and it is growing steadily. I set myself a goal number of rows per day and usually manage to achieve it. The pattern has a 36 row repeat so there's no way I'm going to memorize it, but now that I'm into the third repeat it is at least beginning to become intuitive to some degree.

I can hardly believe that it's already June (the weather certainly seems to be stuck in April) and that in less than a month we'll be making our way to Canada. Best get knitting.

Scheduling issues

The good news is that the afghan knitting has begun and (despite one large frogging incident) is progressing nicely. That's 'nicely' and not 'at a pace rarely achieved outside of highly skilled areas of the Faeroe islands'. It will be done in time for the wedding of the brother. The second project for said wedding, which up until this weekend I thought still stood a chance, is off.

I don't know what I'm thinking sometimes. I hoped to knit a little sweater for myself to wear to said wedding but it just isn't going to happen. I could, in theory and if I did nothing else probably finish the afghan and a small sweater in the month I have, but I know I wouldn't enjoy it. Knitting on the afghan for more than a couple of hours at a time wears me out, since the pattern requires full attention at all time. Better to take the money I would have spent on the yarn and buy myself a nice top and (as an added bonus) maintain sanity.

Of course the french vanilla cardi and the stripey socks are still lingering as well, waiting to be finished up. I work on each one a bit each day but the afghan has taken over at the moment.


I'm still not sure how much of it I will reveal on the blog before it's gifted, so that's it for photos for now. Plus macro photography of tweedy knits makes me feel like Jared (except less talented, alas).

The afghan did get a bit of a break this past weekend as we were in Lyon doing a little sightseeing and visiting friends. I got quite a lot of sock knitting done on the way there and back though, train travel is so well suited to knitting. I also got to see the new Indiana Jones in an actual theater in actual English (luxury!). As a result of this I feel I can confidently predict the majour motifs of at least the next two Indiana Jones films, but it was a fun show and a good time.

There was a little time for shopping as well.


What's in the bag (and why is this knitter smiling)? Answers next time.

Deadline

I did get a reasonable amount of knitting done while I was in Austria, I was on a deadline after all. Here we see the second of the grey socks in a moment of repose in our Viennese rental flat (which was fab).


The sock also went to one of the finest emporia of food and drink ever, Centimeter II*.


The tape measure you can see was not brought, that's printed on the menu. Centimeter II sells many of their foods and some of their beverages by the cm, you see. It is of course also handy for the visiting knitter. Though to be fair, Jaggermeister can lead to measuring inaccuracies.

We saw the hippos at the Imperial Tiergarten. The living ones were too busy practicing their (remarkably graceful) swimming to be photographed, but this little guy was an excellent stand in.


So by working away at a row or two here and there (some very lovely heres and theres) and leaving the toe to finish the morning after we returned home I did finish the socks on time. I may not be ready for the 52 pair plunge, but it turns out I can turn out a pair in a hurry if I need to.

Gentleman's Half Hose in Ringwood Pattern
by Nancy Bush (of course)
from Knitting Vintage Socks
Phildar Preface

Finished Monday, washed Tuesday and packed into another suitcase for another journey on Wednesday. I may be able to get some modeled shots when they return. As usual with Nancy the pattern is excellent, though I wish I'd made them slightly longer in the foot. In fact I'm sure I'll knit this pattern again.

Which leaves two questions: Does this mean that the vanilla sweater is finally getting some time and did I buy any yarn in Austria? It is and I did. Next post.

*the slight stirring you may have just heard was my friend Nemo actually finding something on the blog interesting for the first time....ever? Or possibly my Dad and Ragnar having a laugh at the wee Jager bottles.

Home, away.

Long distance moves are never simple, but for some reason this one has had some complication at every available turn. I'll avoid the gorey details, but even I was surprised to look at the calendar and see that it is nearly mid-February.

As promised, the Alpine booties were finished and felted before I left Canada.

Fuzzy Feet
Teresa Vinson-Sternson Knitty
Patons Classic Wool

They've come in very handy indeed. Apologies for the iffy photos, I'm working with different light here.

Also finished were the Bootsocks of Betrothal. I was at first shocked that it had taken me a month to knit these, but the pattern is fiddly. The result is good thought. All those crossed stitches make a really dense fabric. They do fit (only just) though I have not yet managed to get an 'action' shot.

Uptown Bootsocks
by Jennifer Appleby
in Favorite Socks
Dalegarn Sisu

I'm glad that I had these to work on in that last crazy month. They kept me busy and focused and mindful of what all the crazy was for.

I decided against socks for the plane knitting this time, opting instead for a small project I could have done in the course of the trip. I decided on a simple ribbed hat. I cast it on to a bamboo circular the night before I left and had no problems with security. And due to some "issues" during travel I ended up having to clear security three times in three different airports. Fun. Hat photos will have to wait for next time, as it is being proudly worn to the Netherlands, where Adam has gone for a couple of days of meetings.

That's the old stuff dealt with, and actually there hasn't been much new knitting since I've arrived. Within a couple of days of getting to France I was felled by some sort of Euro-virus which wiped a week out of my life. I'm feeling a bit better now, but I'll save the wip shots for next time, if only to have some filler. There's nothing very exciting.

I also haven't yet had much of a chance to see what's on offer locally. I have made contact with a group of local knitters through Ravelry, and I'm hoping to meet up with them in the next week or so. I'm hoping they'll be able to give me to inside info on stash aquisition - I'm already a little worried about how long the supplies I carried with me are going to hold out. Very disconcerting!

I want to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has sent good wishes and wondered how I'm doing. It's been a time of huge change and sometimes has felt a little overwhelming. It's good to know that there are people out there thinking of us and wishing us well. Thanks. I'll keep updating here, stay in touch.

Quick Trip

Gift knitting continues. Progress has been somewhat slower this past week as much of my spare time was spent filling in forms and collecting documents in preparation for a visit to the French consulate in Vancouver.

Travel knitting was a top secret project, seen here in earlier days.

And that's all your going to see of it until it has been gifted. Though of course everyone who has knit this pattern is looking at that k4p1 ribbing and going "I know what that is". Gotta love knitters.

The second gift hat is nearly complete. It's even farther on than this now, I ended up adding several repeats of the cable. The pattern (basic cable from Stitch n' Bitch) is seriously short as written. A quick Ravelry check confirmed that I was not alone in this decision.

The ability to do this kind of search is, to me, one of the most useful aspects of Ravelry. If there's a problem, I tend to assume that it originates with me, not the pattern. Having a quick way to find out that others have had the same issues saves much knitting anxiety.

Aside from the length foibles I am loving this pattern. I'm now planning another, though in a slightly brighter shade, for another person on the list. At first I felt like that was a little cheaty, but the yarn choice makes an enormous difference. The two hats will go to a couple.

I got some long anticipated yarn in the mail today, but too late to take photos for YPF. If I get a little luck with the weather I'll post photos in the next day or two. New yarn is a good closer to a great week.

Apologies

So not only did I fail to blog before I left for France, I didn't blog while I was in France. Despite assuring several people that I would (and therefor leading my brother to read a knitting blog, something which he normally would not do).

What can I tell you? It wasn't lack of time or lack of knitting or even lack of Internet access. I just didn't know where to start and so I never did.

There is a lot of change happening in my life right now. And while it's all good, it's a lot. Some of which can't yet be shared here. But this is above all a knitting blog so there will be knitting posts in the near future. Really.

How was France? France was awesome.

Bad Blogger (no cookie)

As Violet would say.

Where is the time going? September seems to be whooshing by at an alarming speed and though I've been doing plenty of knitting there doesn't seem to be a lot to show for it. The second Beryl sock is past the heel and gusset and working towards the toe.

I love this green, but it's difficult to photograph. Another few hours should see these done.

Part of the apparent lack of knitting progress is that there is secret un-bloggable knitting. Not a job, alas, but a gift for someone who reads here. The knit itself is not difficult, though it requires full attention. Interestingly, though, the project has become invested with a surprising amount of emotion and I am plotting a full post on this after it has been gifted.

I received a package from Simply Sock Yarn yesterday (surely I am not the only one taking advantage of the strong loonie in this way?). Amongst the contents were these two skeins of beauty.


Fleece Artist Merino, one of my very favorite yarns in Amethyst (r) and Cosmic Dawn (l). Yes, I've decided to jump on the bandwagon and knit me a Chevron Scarf while I'm on vacation. The example in the book never really spoke to me, but having seen some of the amazing examples on Ravelry has pushed me over the edge. The knitting itself should be unchallenging (ideal for holiday knitting in fact) but using this much colour...yikes. The Amethyst is pretty much what you see here, but there is a whole lot going on in the skein of Cosmic Dawn. I'm way outside of my comfort zone here, but that is part of what travel is about, I think. Doing things differently than one might at home.

And speaking of travel, I have a staggering list of things to do before I leave - I haven't even packed my knitting bag yet. Best get on that, non?

What I Bought on my Summer Vacation

In which I am a model of self-control and restraint.

When I lived in Edmonton it was pretty under served in the yarn shop department. That was before the recent knitting boom, of course and I had heard that the situation had improved somewhat. Time constraints and the realisation that Adam's yarn shop tolerance, while good, should only be pressed so far, meant that I only hit two shops in town. The expedition was a success.

My favorite shop was River City Yarns. This shop was profiled in VK a while back and had a lot of buzz so I was looking forward to checking it out in person. It did not disappoint. They had Socks That Rock! One skein of the lightweight had made its way into my stash earlier in the summer, but I had never seen a selection of colours and weights in person. Wow. There were easily 5 or 6 skeins in colourways so lovely I was tempted to own them as art.

I managed to keep one foot in the real world and remind myself that I often don't like socks knit with wildly colourful variegated yarns, no matter how pretty they may be in the hank. The skein you see is Midweight in the Beryl colourway, which is one of their shaded solids. Adam picked it out for his next pair. What can I tell you - the boy has taste.

This shop also had a great notions selection (I do love notions). I had been looking for a Norwegian Knitters Thimble for ages and was pleased to find one. I'd never seen the Phildar DPNs before, but I'm always on the lookout for good ones, so I'll give them a try. Difficult to see in the photo (glare, sorry) is a little bag of coil-less safety pins. I remembered Elizabeth Zimmermann's admonition in Knitting Without Tears that one should always take a card of these when you see them. Who am I to argue?

The Rowan Felted Tweed came from Wool Revival, a shop which has existed in various versions for a long time. It is very much an old school yarn shop. Bags and baskets of yarn spilling all over and not too much rhyme or reason. Some nice yarns but mostly stuff I can get easily enough at home. I liked these colours of the felted tweed together though - I'm thinking maybe Nucks. I was very happy to find a copy of Knitting on the Road there.
The Travelling Knitter will be an accurate description of me for the next 16 months or so. And I can never resist a Nancy Bush pattern. Itty-bitty hats was also a vacation purchase. Lots of gift ideas in that one.

That's it. I was even able to zip my luggage on the way home. Yarn is the best sort of souvenir don't you think?

And for next time....does anyone know if there's a yarn store in Jasper?

What I Knit on my Summer Vacation

An old friend's wedding on 07/07/07 meant that I was Alberta bound this year. Having finished a big lace project on a deadline just before I left (a dedicated post on which is coming soon) I decided that smaller, less challenging projects were the order of the day for travel knitting.

The idea of knitting in binary appeals to my inner nerd. A binary hat for Adam seemed like a good vacation sized project: Something I hoped to get done and send home with him at the end of the trip. I picked up a couple of skeins of Cascade 220 and cast on the night before departure. Bamboo circs aren't my favorite needles by a long shot, but I had airport security in mind. Happily I had no problems and was able to listen to podcasts and knit all the way. I am very, very uneasy whenever I have to fly, but having my knitting seemed to make a difference.

After the wedding festivities (which afforded sadly little knitting time) Adam and I headed to the Rockies for a few days much needed down time. A few hours of solid highway knitting and the hat was looking like this.

Ah yes, more stockinette in the round. What can I tell you? It wasn't a challenging knitting sort of vacation.

The glacier socks also saw their beginnings on this trip. I will probably think twice before trying to cast 70 stitches of slippy yarn onto aluminium needles in a moving car again. However I just didn't feel right without a sock to work on. As mentioned previously this is a simple sock pattern, but not without interest. A successful join was ultimately achieved. I didn't work on these as much as I would have liked - the gauge was a little small for camp-fire knitting.

Looks like grey and blue and stockinette were the themes. And I did get to work on them in some pretty amazing scenery. The binary hat was completed, with whole hours to spare, and sent back to France with Adam. We had an amazing trip and I hope that a hat knit in all these places will be a better reminder than a postcard.



Next time: What I bought on my summer vacation. Hint: Yarn!