Modelled, and needed, on the city walls, york.
Wednesday 29 December 2010
Monday 27 December 2010
Monday 13 December 2010
Guy's Scarf
Soon I will post a photo, but last night I finished a scarf for my husband, who has been feeling the cold here in DC (and also has a long history of losing scarves that I knit him!).
Shortly after he requested it, we found ourselves at a farmer's market in the small town of Smithfield, in southern Virginia and a local alpaca farmer and spinner had a stall there selling her wares. I bought two skeins (about 350 yards) of rust-red alpaca in what was probably a 4 ply weight, and some emergency needles as I had conveniently run out of knitting to do, had no small needles with me, and had a four hour train journey the next day!
On the train I cast on 48 stitches and set to work using a basket stitch-type pattern, and knit for many hours as our train was held on the line somewhere near Providence Fort for two hours, in addition to the normal time our journey required. The pattern was inspired by recently watching the 1980s series of The Balkan Trilogy - "Fortunes of War" I think it is called, with a very young Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson. It's a period piece and throughout Kenneth Branagh (who stars as Guy) wears a basket stitch scarf. I liked the look of it and filed the idea away as good for a men's scarf.
Last night I ran out of yarn, and so finished the scarf. It is light, soft and very warm - just the thing for the frigid DC temperatures last week and again this week.
Shortly after he requested it, we found ourselves at a farmer's market in the small town of Smithfield, in southern Virginia and a local alpaca farmer and spinner had a stall there selling her wares. I bought two skeins (about 350 yards) of rust-red alpaca in what was probably a 4 ply weight, and some emergency needles as I had conveniently run out of knitting to do, had no small needles with me, and had a four hour train journey the next day!
On the train I cast on 48 stitches and set to work using a basket stitch-type pattern, and knit for many hours as our train was held on the line somewhere near Providence Fort for two hours, in addition to the normal time our journey required. The pattern was inspired by recently watching the 1980s series of The Balkan Trilogy - "Fortunes of War" I think it is called, with a very young Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson. It's a period piece and throughout Kenneth Branagh (who stars as Guy) wears a basket stitch scarf. I liked the look of it and filed the idea away as good for a men's scarf.
Last night I ran out of yarn, and so finished the scarf. It is light, soft and very warm - just the thing for the frigid DC temperatures last week and again this week.
Saturday 11 December 2010
In my last post I reflected on my current transient status and how that was affecting my knitting, and lo and behold after that something seemed to shift. It's funny how talking about issues can result in some kind of movement.
To help this movement forward, "New England Knits" arrived in the post and I immediately cast on for the Bulky Lace Vest, using the recycled soft beige yarn I had bought from a "thrift store" and unravelled one afternoon while watching Pride and Prejudice (the newer version, sadly, not the classic with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, which is my favourite). It is now finished, blocked, and ready to wear next week on the plane journey back to London. I used nearly all of the yarn - a whole sweater's worth - to complete this long-line vest and promise a picture soon. A lovely pattern, it was well constructed and written with no errors that I could see. The only mods I made were to leave the back neck stitches live in order to knit them into the edging, rather than cast off and then pick up later; I also ended up with a slightly different number of edge stitches but decided that didn't really matter. This would have been my mistake and nothing to do with the pattern as counting bores me and I probably wasn't very specific about it when picking up! I compensated for my completely different yarn (a bulky aran/light chunky) and tension by going up the size guide and knitted a very large size; on reflection perhaps a bit overcompensated, but this kind of design can be wrapped and pinned and that is what I plan to do with this vest. I am very happy with the result indeed.
A creative burst has also overwhelmed me - during a visit to another "thrift store" with a new-found friend here in DC, I found a basket full of yarn for sale - lovely high-grade Egyptian cotton in white, blue and black from a Norwiegian yarn supplier. Excitedly I bought everything I could find, and the assistant at the store, seeing my interest, showed me two half completed projects that had been donated with the yarn. I bought them too, thinking I could recycle them. However when I got them home and looked carefully at them I noticed how beautifully they had been knitted and made, and also recognised the basic design they used - they had been knitted in the German/European style without a pattern, just to measurements the knitter knew would work for her (or him). One was a blue and white striped boat necked style sweater, and this only required the ends to be woven in and the seams sewn to be complete. One evening in front of the TV and this was complete - I wore the resulting sweater this week (a little out of season perhaps) to lunch with the friend who had been there when I bought it and we both agreed it was a lovely piece of work, to which I can't take much credit. The other piece has only the front completed, and is knitted in the same style and to the same measurements as the striped sweater. This one has intarsia night-sky blue stars scattered on a black background, which I will make the front. This afternoon I have swatched to complete a plain black back,and I will probably do some kind of short sleeves, depending on how much yarn I have left. I couldn't bear to rip out this sweater - the design reminds me of Van Gogh's Starry Night picture; it's beautiful. Both have kind of an 80s vibe (and the yarn dates from that time I would say), but that's ok as that look is quite in at the moment. These discoveries have led me to wonder why they were donated - did someone who knit beautifully in the 80s just lose interest in the craft? Or did they become unable to knit for some reason (this happened to my German aunt, whose work these designs remind me of)? Or did they move, or pass on, leaving their work unfinished? Somehow it feels right to be finishing, rather than ripping, these pieces. Again, pictures will follow at some stage.
This burst of creativity re-sparked my interest in sweater design, and so I began to sketch out some sweaters I would like to make. This snowballed, and I have a pile of sketches to work from now! Between completing these, and the City and Guilds Distance Knitting course, I think I will be very busy indeed these next 6 months.
It's good to feel less transient and more grounded.
To help this movement forward, "New England Knits" arrived in the post and I immediately cast on for the Bulky Lace Vest, using the recycled soft beige yarn I had bought from a "thrift store" and unravelled one afternoon while watching Pride and Prejudice (the newer version, sadly, not the classic with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, which is my favourite). It is now finished, blocked, and ready to wear next week on the plane journey back to London. I used nearly all of the yarn - a whole sweater's worth - to complete this long-line vest and promise a picture soon. A lovely pattern, it was well constructed and written with no errors that I could see. The only mods I made were to leave the back neck stitches live in order to knit them into the edging, rather than cast off and then pick up later; I also ended up with a slightly different number of edge stitches but decided that didn't really matter. This would have been my mistake and nothing to do with the pattern as counting bores me and I probably wasn't very specific about it when picking up! I compensated for my completely different yarn (a bulky aran/light chunky) and tension by going up the size guide and knitted a very large size; on reflection perhaps a bit overcompensated, but this kind of design can be wrapped and pinned and that is what I plan to do with this vest. I am very happy with the result indeed.
A creative burst has also overwhelmed me - during a visit to another "thrift store" with a new-found friend here in DC, I found a basket full of yarn for sale - lovely high-grade Egyptian cotton in white, blue and black from a Norwiegian yarn supplier. Excitedly I bought everything I could find, and the assistant at the store, seeing my interest, showed me two half completed projects that had been donated with the yarn. I bought them too, thinking I could recycle them. However when I got them home and looked carefully at them I noticed how beautifully they had been knitted and made, and also recognised the basic design they used - they had been knitted in the German/European style without a pattern, just to measurements the knitter knew would work for her (or him). One was a blue and white striped boat necked style sweater, and this only required the ends to be woven in and the seams sewn to be complete. One evening in front of the TV and this was complete - I wore the resulting sweater this week (a little out of season perhaps) to lunch with the friend who had been there when I bought it and we both agreed it was a lovely piece of work, to which I can't take much credit. The other piece has only the front completed, and is knitted in the same style and to the same measurements as the striped sweater. This one has intarsia night-sky blue stars scattered on a black background, which I will make the front. This afternoon I have swatched to complete a plain black back,and I will probably do some kind of short sleeves, depending on how much yarn I have left. I couldn't bear to rip out this sweater - the design reminds me of Van Gogh's Starry Night picture; it's beautiful. Both have kind of an 80s vibe (and the yarn dates from that time I would say), but that's ok as that look is quite in at the moment. These discoveries have led me to wonder why they were donated - did someone who knit beautifully in the 80s just lose interest in the craft? Or did they become unable to knit for some reason (this happened to my German aunt, whose work these designs remind me of)? Or did they move, or pass on, leaving their work unfinished? Somehow it feels right to be finishing, rather than ripping, these pieces. Again, pictures will follow at some stage.
This burst of creativity re-sparked my interest in sweater design, and so I began to sketch out some sweaters I would like to make. This snowballed, and I have a pile of sketches to work from now! Between completing these, and the City and Guilds Distance Knitting course, I think I will be very busy indeed these next 6 months.
It's good to feel less transient and more grounded.
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