Happy New Year

Well, it is nice to finish out the year with a photo of a finished object (there are still projects in the wings, but hey, let's celebrate the small victories!). Only one sock is showing here as this photo was taken at the airport in Houston on our way home from a week on a cruise. My niece Jennifer is the recipient (and Harry Potter fanatic) and she is modelling and displaying the sock here for out viewing pleasure. The first sock is packed somewhere in her bags as she actually received it on time - Christmas day... What can I say? We were all laughing at the fact that this, the second sock, was begun the night before the flight left for our vacation and was unaccountably narrower than its fraternal twin. Could it be that the stress of vacation messed with my tension just a little??? In fact, our trip down was harrowing and exhausting - delays at every step of the journey. Not surprising that the tension shifted. A perfectionist would have frogged the whole thing and started again. However this sometime perfectionist had to get the socks finished before we came home, and they will both still go on her feet.


So pleased to report that Jennifer, along with her sister Kirsten and Stewart participated in the Harry Potter trivia quiz aboard ship. After correcting the judge on his pronunciation of J.K. Rowling's name, and asking for clarification as to whether he was referring to the British or the American version of the film of book one, HP and the Philosopher's Stone, it became rather obvious who was a front runner to win - and indeed they did win, missing only one question, and that by only a small error! Yes, these socks knew who they were destined for - the greatest HP geek on the planet. So a little Weasley error like differing tension on the two socks is no big deal. :)

Happy New Year!

Gryff 'n' Dor

These lovely little mittens are winging their way east to the Bronx. Our Knitting Guild sends mittens to a kindergarten class in the Bronx, and for my pair, I decided to use some leftover yarn from the famous Quidditch sweater and build some Harry Potter mittens. Gryff and Dor are red and gold coloured mittens in honour of Harry's house, Gryffindor! Very easy to make, I whipped these out over a weekend and am very happy with the way they look. I tried to figure out how to do a jogless round with the colours as I changed colours; it is not perfect, but I managed to get the colours somewhat aligned. Though I like knitting in the round, this is one drawback that has always frustrated me. The magical mittens should be cosy; they are made with superwash wool, and doubled yarn for extra thickness. Hope they go over well in New York!


Kate Gilbert is a very talented Canadian designer of knitwear and this little sweater, which she called the Pea Pod sweater, is absolutely adorable. My mother will be horrified at the choice of colour for a baby, but I think it is charming. The leaf detail on the sweater is lovely and I think the off-centre closing is so creative. The buttons I chose reminded me of the shape of a pea pod, and I tried to alternate the direction they lay as I sewed them on down the front. Like all buttons, however, they have some wiggle room, and don't stay neatly aligned where I placed them.


I made the little beanie to match, and searched through Zoe Mellor's bootees book to try and find a bootee that might look good with the sweater. I found one with a leaf design on it, and was going to make it, but then realized that I could make the bootee and place the leaf design on the legging part. Topped off with a band of the distinctive ribbing, the bootees look like they were designed to match. They just need some stitching up and then a length of ribbon to tie at the ankle and the set will be ready to go. Most of Zoe's bootees are designed to be knit flat and then sewn up. I understand that you have to start flat, but I reasoned that once you got to the leg part there is no reason why you can't begin knitting in the round. So, once I knit the sole and the ribbon eyelets, I transferred the stitches onto DPNs and joined the bootee together at the back of the ankle. I like the look of it much better when there is no seam on the back of the leg. Take a look at the detail on the lace leaf band; isn't it beautiful?

Armistice Day, Martha Stewart and winter coats

OK, so Armistice Day (or Remembrance Day) is of course significant to the world at large, but I have never thought of it as anything more than a day of remembrance (and a bonus day off!). Apparently, however, my aunt thinks of Armistice Day as the day you make your Chirstmas Cakes. Not wanting to mess with what has obviously become a tradition, my sister decided that yesterday was a good day to try out her new Martha Stewart recipe for Christmas Cake. One pound of butter and five eggs... wow it had better be good. (Actually, I personally don't even really like Christmas Cake, but that's another story.) So Stewart and I hopped into the car yesterday morning and headed for Chilliwack to visit and see if we could help out.

Turns out, the best way I can help is by cutting out my niece's winter coat (on the floor, no less - my sister lives in a 500 sq ft appt with no kitchen table) and instructing my niece in the importance of measuring to the selvedge to ensure your garment will lie on the straight of the grain. I had received the fuzzy impression that this coat was a two piecer with sleeves - so I blithely told Taryn we'd have it whipped out in 20 minutes. In fact, it is a princess seamed coat with two-piece sleeves; ok so 20 minutes was a bit optimistic.

Kerry fed us a wonderful vegetarian lunch (spicy peanut butter soup and killer black bean dip with whole wheat chips) and we all settled down to work, Taryn and I on the sewing project while Kerry and Taryn's boyfriend, Matt, worked on creaming the butter in the food processor. Alas, Taryn is also a student with exams and papers to write, so she and Matt abandoned us early on in the endeavour. Matt's last task was to turn on the oven to 300 degrees. Fahrenheit or Celcius, they joked... Once the infamous cakes were mixed and divided into two loaf pans, we popped them into the oven for the 1 hour and 15 minutes specified by the recipe...

"Are these golden brown?" Kerry enquires of me as she pulls them out of the oven. Look good to me, I reply. The toothpick test reveals completely doughy loaves, however. We return them to the oven for another five minutes (Hey we were optimistic!), and it quickly becomes clear that five minutes does not have a hope of helping these beasts. Fifteen minutes later, still no go. Another half hour, Kerry bravely suggests. Still no go. Another fifteen minutes and Kerry takes them out, and tests them one more time. Still not perfect, but she had had enough. The liberal sprinkling of sherry over the next several weeks will take care of any lingering problems, I am sure. This is the point I found out it was a Martha Stewart recipe - hey Kerry! I said - the yarn harlot had problems with a Martha baking recipe just a little while ago! We sat down and read and laughed at the challenges.

On a knitting note, I managed to line up Taryn and Kerry together and take a picture of the finished Pomatomus socks and the finished Kitri socks - looking good!




Here is the update on Kerry's Norah Gaughan sweater. Still needs a long way to go, but it's past the halfway mark. The second sleeve is coming along slowly, but surely. I took these shots without flash on this gorgeous sunny day, because I notived that the flash is burning out all the knit detail. I love the way this undulating bark pattern looks, but am not crazy about all the 'knitting into back of stitch' that I have to do for it.













Finally, here is the update on the wee dark purple baby sweater I have been working on. Again, not too much progress, but life is like that sometimes...

Ah! How weary is this workaday world...

Ok, three weeks since I posted and all I can think of is I have no finished objects to show and I have not followed through on plan A: to complete the projects on the list of UFOs and to do a sleeve for Kerry's sweater. I have, however, purchased some (eek pricey) yarn for a sweater for me, and some more Orsetto to make another white baby sweater - this time with trim in blues. I feel exactly how the Yarn Harlot must feel when she eyes her basket of overflowing projects and cannot remain true to any one of them... the very flimsy excuse of returning to school occurs to me, but it is not worthy of me to plead working full time. I made a committment to follow through, now let's see were I got to... Devan sweater, check. Lucy sweater, check. Pomatomus socks? Oh, look, second sock 3/4 of the way done! Yay!

Crazy scarf, check!! Wow, three out of four, so far. Purple multi-directional scarf? Hey, was that lightening? Did you hear that thunder? No? Hm, I could have sworn... Where were we? Oh yes, sleeve for sister's sweater. I'm sure that was lightening. It was hailing in Surrey, today, did you know?

Ahem. Did you ever see anything so cute as duck booties? How could I resist? I just received Zoë Mellor's Fifty Baby Booties to knit and it is full of too cute to resist booties.





And look, the back of the dark purple sweater is complete - only the front and two sleeves to go!





Now to quit messing about on the computer and get back to the needles, and maybe I'll have something to post about!

A room of one's own

Sneak peak at the completed Lucy!


During the 70's, in my idealistic youth, I subscribed to the feminist literary publication, A room of one's own. The title, I believe, came from Virginia Woolf's assertion that in order to write successfully, a woman needed a room of her own (and money - critical!). The review featured unknown authors - it gave women a venue for their writing which did not previously exist. I was reminded this morning of what I read during that era, and why I read it, during an interview I was listening to on CBC. Connie Watson, of The Current, was interviewing Katie Roiphe, Cathi Hanauer, and Leanne Delap on the topic of "mommy lit", which has evolved from the genre "chick lit". Roiphe is scathing in her assessment of this genre; she believes that the romanticization of the 'stay-at-home-mum' harbours a political agenda of a return to the values of the 50s, wherein women would be financially dependent, once again, upon their husbands. Hanauer was critical more of the quality of the writing than of the content of the genre, and Delap felt that the portrayals of the difficulties of parenthood were not overdrawn. Bear in mind, while reading my thoughts, that I have not actually read a novel of this genre.

I must say that my initial reaction to Roiphe's comments was anger and indignation. This was not due to the suggested political agenda, but because of the subtext of her arguments; that is, that for a woman to be of value, she must be employed outside the home. Recently, I have been reflecting on our society's values, and what the measure of success is. Most equate success with financial success, or fame. There is little room in this schema for a woman who chooses to stay at home with her children and participate fully in their childhood. One can argue, of course, that a life lived vicariously through one's children is the reflection of the children's success, rather than the parent's own success. However, I don't believe that. I believe that our children are a very precious resource, and we value far too little the caregivers that are raising them, be they mothers, fathers, or childcare workers. That being said, I have never had the financial independence to allow me to stay at home with my own child. I don't feel guilty for that; it was a financial neccessity. I also would have stayed home with him if it had been possible. But here's the rub. Those women who do have the financial independence to make the choice to stay home with their children almost all experience that financial independence at a cost, being financially dependent on a spouse. And yes, here we are, back at Roiphe's concern over the political agenda.

Once I had done my oh, so circular reasoning and concluded that Roiphe is right on target, I began to think about that romanticized vision, the Cinderella story, the Pretty Woman story. I have become increasingly concerned over the last few years about the number of young female colleagues who continue to embrace that vision in both subtle and blatant ways. Did the 70s actually happen? I sometimes find myself wondering. Maybe it's time to start raising a few consciousnesses again. Maybe it's time to start reading 'A Room of one's own' again.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled blog...

Here is the completed view of the Lucy sweater. The colours on this one are so vibrant! I chose some little iridescent buttons that pick up the pink beautifully. The finishing took longer than planned. I had some repairs to do once I discovered I had put the buttonhole band on the wrong side - see! I am prejudging that this should definitely be a girl sweater!!! I had also picked up too many stitches and the band went all wobbly. This was because though the tension on the machine was almost spot on, I had not actually knitted enough rows in the body of the sweater. It's all right, though, as I simply made the button bands a little smaller and it looks fine.



And here's a peek at what is on the needles right now. I am knitting an old pattern I have done before in cotton. The first time I did it, though, I used navy blue, hot pink, bright jade green and purple. This one, though the purple is very dark, seems somewhat bland in comparison. I don't think there is enough contrast in the colours to make it jump out at you. However, it is an easy knit and the colours work well enough together to make a nice looking sweater.

On the needles: Lucy

OK. Here's the thing. I love these two kits from Bees Knees Knits. I showed you the completed Devan sweater last post, and I really love the way it turned out. But here's me with this completion stress and there is that other sweater in sock gauge yarn and I have to go back to work in a week and... Besides, I have been wanted to try out my knitting machine. Well, it has been fun, but I have made tons of mistakes, and the machine has screwed up a few times too. There seems to be a disproportionate amount of time dedicated to correcting mistakes as opposed to the amount of time it takes to knit 60 rows. I suppose that is the price you have to pay.


In any case, each mistake I made has been a learning experience and I now understand my machine a lot better. I would still like to take some lessons to learn all the ins and outs of machine knitting, but I'm happy with the progress I have made so far. Increasing, decreasing, casting off. All are now under my belt. I was going to try to figure out how to do intarsia knitting for the back (there are two different colour blocks on the back), but when I saw how invisible a seam mattress stitch makes, I decided to knit the two back pieces separately and then stitch them together. I will put them back on the machine at the end to do the roll up hem in pink. Finishing by hand will take the same amount of time, but that's ok.



Completed so far: two fronts, one half of the back, and the other half mostly done still on the machine. The sleeves will be a bit trickier as I have to increase every four rows, but it is amazing that, even with all the mistakes, I should have completed all the pieces for this sweater in about 3 days!

Best mistake: After carefully removing a piece of knitting from the machine, pulling back a couple of rows to the mistake, and then painstakingly replacing each stitch on its needle, I realized I had the carriage on the wrong side of the knitting. Well, that's ok, I thought, there's no yarn in the carriage yet, so I will just slide the carriage to the other side and then add the yarn and carry on knitting. I moved the carriage over - and - all the knitting fell off the needles on to the floor!

Off the needles: Devan!

I don't know why, even when I have seen a sample of a sweater made up, or photos of the completed object, but I can never get the "finished picture" in my brain from looking at the different pieces. The finishing completely changes the look of any individual piece for me, moving it from two dimensions into three. I always experience a wonderment when the garment is complete, assembled and all the ends are worked in. (Even if I hide the ends from view, I get a different feeling from the garment - weird, I know). So, Saturday, I used the three needle bindoff to join the shoulders, then worked on the button band. I don't like picking up stitches, not because it is difficult or challenging, but because I don't feel I do a good job of it. This garment was a bit challenging on the first edge, because I couldn't get the number of stitches right. Next time I do this, I think I will do as I saw suggested somewhere; divide the edge up into even sections with strands of yarn, and calculate how many stitches need to go in each section. That way the distribution of stitches is even. I started to sew the seams, and though I used my usual backstitch for the sleeve to shoulder assembly, for the underarm and side seam I used mattress stitch as specified by the pattern. I had never tried it before, because I couldn't conceive of holding the two pieces together and stitching at the same time. (I have always used pins to hold the seams together.) In any case, I am very impressed with the way the seam turned out! Today I found some little abalone buttons that set off the colour really well, and attached them and the label Holli included in the kit. Voilà!

I include the back view because I really like the little contrast detail on the back. It is now blocking again, very slightly, to take the shape of the shoulders.

The Pomatomus sock is advancing slowly; I have about two inches done. I am in a conundrum, though. I realized, as I was doing this sock, that I had not knit two together through the back of loops for the first sock when I was decreasing. I like the way the sock looks, but I like the way it looks done correctly even more. What do I do? I am damn well not going to take the first sock apart and redo it. I ahave tried to do the second sock with the incorrect stitch, but it looks so much better the right way! I am tempted to do it correctly and see if anyone notices!!! However, I have put it down for the moment while I mull it over. I have purchased some new cotton to make another little baby sweater, and am tempted to cast that on while noone is looking...