etc.

Here’s the completed Contessa Shawl (click for bigger!), the fruit of eight evenings-worth of knitting in front of the TV (what could we possibly be watching on TV during the off-season, you ask? Big Love, Meadowlands, Scrubs reruns, the final season of The Shield, Hell’s Kitchen, Entourage, CNTM, and now Big Brother 8. Bien Sur!). I had so much fun knitting this that I’ve already cast on for the Verona shawl in Fiddlesticks Zephyr (in Aegean Blue), a lovely combination of merino & silk. Yep, this knitting stuff is all sorts of fun.

Research is proceeding apace. To-day is my second last day of leave, I’m back at work next Tuesday. I can scarcely believe it’s been four weeks. I’m pleased with what I’ve managed to get done, although I haven’t done a scrap of blogging about my research, which has surprised even me. I think I’ve come to the realization that I don’t do well with in-progress-blogging: that is, blogging about things about which I am still forming an opinion. Does that make sense? I’ve generated some process-oriented ideas as a result of all the reading I’ve been doing, and I’ll probably blog those, but the rest of it is all still too amorphous at the moment. I had hopped that the blogging would stand in for a formal research leave report, but, well, obviously that won’t be the case now. Best get to report-writing.

Happy weekend, friends!

Over halfway through my leave and I’m finding myself wondering how I managed it all, when I wasn’t on leave. I certainly feel like I’m accomplishing less being home, but I know that’s because the research I’m doing at the moment isn’t as measurable as the stuff I do at work. Still, a bit disconcerting.

I have managed to maintain the balance, however. I can’t start my day without a quick walk around the neighbourhood, I usually meander my way over a few pages of a novel over lunch, and when the mister gets home, I close my laptop and don’t open it up again until the following morning. Feels a lot like the balance I’ve been coveting, lo these many years! Which, of course, reveals the inevitable: this balance is thoroughly unsustainable. But, Oh! I’ve had a taste of it now, and it is good!

Also, I’m knitting again! While combing through my archives over the weekend (in search of this recipe), I got sucked into reading posts about my erstwhile pastime and found myself asking “do I even remember how to cast on?” Do I, indeed! I’m now a good way through this shawl (in chocolate brown lace-weight merino) thanks to laptopless evenings and otherwise idle hands. My neck and shoulders seem to have forgotten how to relax into the activity, but hopefully it’s just a matter of time before they remember. It’s good to have needles and yarn in hand again! And, hey, I might have my first finished object (in, oh, a year!) to show you before long. Anticipate!

Good morning. How about I put on some Dandy Warhols and tell you about the knits languishing about me? Okay? Okay!

• Socks: towards the end of the demon sock-knitting I was doing a couple of months ago, I cast on another basic pair in lovely, lovely Cherry Tree Hill. One sock is done, the second stalled about 1.5 inches in. Will complete these before the end of the month.
• Scarf: a basic mistake-rib scarf for my sister in Australian merino that is just a joy to knit with. Here’s the shameful part: I’ve had this yarn for a year and a half and have started two different scarf patterns with it, both frogged, before casting on this mistake-rib. I’m about 4″ from the end, will complete this before the end of the week. Later: done!
• French Market Bag: love the bag, hate the yarn. I started this months ago, in Briggs & Little (Regal, I think) and when I noticed that the yarn was giving me hangnails (so itchy! so unforgiving!) I promptly set it aside. This one will not make it, sadly.
• Kyoto: begun in April, abandoned June-ish. I’m doing it in Missions Hills cotton (snagged a few bag-fulls of the stuff when it was in close-out) and as much as I have tried to love this yarn, I can’t. I simply like it, and that is all. But I still love the pattern and will forge ahead at some point, just not right now (it’s wool season, for pete’s sake).
• Wristwarmers: these are only a week or so old. They’re for my grandma and I’m aiming for completion by week’s end.
• Cabin Fever top-down pullover: I love a no-seam pattern as much as the next seam-hating knitter, but is it just me or do top-downs just get too difficult to handle after a certain point? It’s been ages since I picked this up but I do remember being distinctly irritated by the considerable heft of it. It’s in Red Heart Cozy Wool, so I’m not shedding any tears over it, although I’m still not sure what will become of it (not minding the idea of a warm, snuggly, kick-around sweater right now).
• Swank, from Rowan 29: another cotton knit I failed to complete before my cotton fixation pettered out. Fate? See Kyoto, above.

Next up? Stash cataloguing! Anticipate!

To those of you who have visited these pages in search of knit/yarn content over the past couple of weeks, my apologies. I haven’t knit a stitch since Leftovers, and the reason, as far as I can tell, is this transitional weather we have been having. I have plenty of wool and wool-related projects I could have cast on, but I’ve been a bit unsure as to whether I want start a winter project when I’m very much looking ahead to Spring. I also have plenty of cotton things I want to knit, but am I really ready to pack away the wool for the next five-ish months?

Yes, I am! I vacillate no more! This morning I decided that the time for wool has passed and the time for cotton is upon us. I feel liberated by the decision and am happy to unveil the First Cotton Project of Spring:

I’ve had it in mind to knit Kyoto for ages, I bought a bunch of Mission Falls for it last Summer but never quite got around to it. Also, Heidi just finished hers, and it looks springy and marvelous and completely inspirational, and after I read her detailed notes this morning, I realized it was time.

And so, onwards!

Lastly, have I told you lately how very much I love a book that stands up all on its own?

Thank you to all who wrote with sympathy, empathy, and advice for my computer troubles. It looks like a hard drive reformat is inevitable, so now begins the difficult and tremulous process of back-ups and data gathering. Updates here as progress warrants.

In the meantime, stripes:

This is Leftovers from the current Knitty. I’m using a bunch of Mission Falls 1824 Wool from a variety of yarn store bargain bins. I always knew I’d enjoy knitting random stripes, I did not realize that I would enjoy it this much. In every round, a new adventure! It’s hard not to love a jaunty stripe.

Pardon me, for at the moment I am somewhat bleary-eyed. It is 4 pm, this Saturday, and I am on the couch in my pajamas, where I have been since roughly 9:30 am this morning, knitting away gladly on my Clapotis. I will not say just how frequent these Saturdays are (the couch-warming, pajama-wearing ones), for it would make me seem terribly slothful, and I try to maintain a general air of slothlessness here, truth notwithstanding.

I will show you pictures of clapotis tomorrow, even though I have, in the past, promised against making such promises. There you are then, a promise. I promise it won’t be empty.

I feel obliged to tell you, since this blog is part knit-blog, that my holiday knitting hiatus served well to rest the digits and strengthen my enthusiasm for the craft (something about absense and a fonder heart, & c.) To that end, I am knitting again, and on the needles at the moment is one of these, knit in this. In fact, I have a two-generation knit-along on the go, my mum is also knitting the same pattern (with the same yarn), and oh boy! The fun.

Also on the needles is a Cabin Fever top-down roll-neck sweater that I am all but out of patience with (not that anything has gone wrong. Things are well on track with this sweater, as far as I can tell, I just find the top-down knitting experience a bit, what can I say, holistic?) Even the mister hates it when I pull out this sweater, he who is indifferent to most things knit-related has developed an aversion to the very sight of it. The whole experience has me feeling somewhat aggrieved.

And, also also on the needles is the second sock of a pair that I gave my sister for Christmas. That’s right, the second sock. I am a terrible giver of knitted-gifts and an unworthy sister.

So, raglan-sleeve seaming. I’ve done it once before but it was pretty much a hack job (look closely!). Any tips?

In the unlikely event that you have recently found yourself asking, “does she even knit anymore?”, I am here to let you know that, yes, yes I do. Proof? Remember the mitt-kit the generous Melanie sent me weeks ago? Well, I finished knitting them while I was in New York (also, weeks ago) and have been teribly lax about showing them to you. These are wonderful mitts — cozy & warm, and they’ve already come in handy (pardon the heavy-handed pun) during the cooler Fall days we’ve had (again, weeks ago. The weather has been oddly temperate lately). Here’s a bonus sideways shot of a pair of disembodied, yet appropriately-mittened, hands. Thanks again, Melanie!

And I’m not sure what sort of foolishness made me think that, admist all the birthday and Christmas knitting I’ve undertaken, this is a good time to try out a new technique, nevermind a whole new sweater. I’ve had five sizeable skeins of brown, tweedy, chunky, New Zealand wool in my stash earmarked for the Big Sack Sweater from Stitch n’ Bitch, and late last week, I pulled out the book and did a little practice-cabling to get my feet wet. I had no idea that there was so much tugging and wrestling involved in cabling, but I soon got over the bizarrely unnatural feeling of fighting with my yarn and needles when I saw the results. That picture (clickable!) is the practice cable. This one is the practice stitch pattern for the Big Sack, and this one is the completed front. I’m half way through the first sleeve and hope to have the second done this weekend. Then I’ll be back to ask you for your favourite raglan-sleeve-seaming technique.

If I had planned this properly, I would have blocked the front and back pieces of Klaralund as I finished them. I did not plan properly, you see, so the front and back pieces blocked on my one card table while the sleeves were well past done and waiting in line for blocking themselves. This is the front and back all blocked and ready for seaming while the sleeves have their turn on the blocking table. Got all that?

The other part of this Klaralund debacle is that I didn’t properly plan the stipey bits either. That is, I didn’t plan for them to match up and I didn’t plan for them not to match up. So, as you can see (did I mention that pictures now are clickable? Folks, pictures are now clickable!), the stripes are off by about an inch, which will be just enough to make the non-matching-upness rather obvious. Would this bother you? I feel like it should bother me, but it doesn’t.

And, do you get the Elann newsletter? The have this wonderfully quaint practice where they send you an actual newsletter in the post (on paper!) and every yarn they highlight includes 2.5″ samples taped right to it! It’s positively charming.