best laid plans

I like lists, cataologuing. I am secretly a librarian at heart. I make lists for everything: packing lists for weekend vacations, grocery lists, lists of clothes for the kids. To-do lists so that I can understand the full extent of my procrastination, or stupidity. For future reference, of course. Here, for your edification, was my to-do knitting list this winter:


This is all the yarn I had in my mental queue for the winter — which is to say, this is the yarn that I have bought (mostly this winter) with the intention of knitting this winter. Looking at this pile, I can only come to two conclusions:

1) I have obviously vastly overestimated how fast I can knit and the amount of time I would have, and

2) I really like the colour blue.

Clockwise from the top left: Artyarns cashmere sock. Love. I wanted really warm socks this winter, and I would have made excellent use of them ... if I had had them. Next, two skeins of Shalimar Breathless (in Ore), with a ball of A Verb for Keeping Warm Floating. Also dreamy. These were going to be some sort of colour-block sweater, although I might have to revisit that: those two skeins of Ore are not the same colour at all. (Yes, I know about dye lots, and no ... I did not apply that knowledge. The second skein was sort of an emergency buy.) Tanis Fiber Arts laceweight, from one of her one-off sales on Etsy; this was going to be something "relaxing." Ha. I am thinking perhaps a large Orchid Thief ... I am also thinking, perhaps not right now.

And finally, the big pile of robin's egg blue is Quince & Co. sparrow, which is pure linen. The colour is actually "Birch," but I know robin's egg blue when I see it. It's a bit of a cheat; it's the only thing on here that's not really winter knitting and so, consequently, also the only thing that I particularly want to knit. I am most of the way through the body of Kirsten Johnstone's Hane and I am really looking forward to wearing it. It's been a long, cold winter. I need spring.

heartbreak (and some small consolation)

The problem with being a knitter is that it makes you very, very picky about buying commercial knits. I appreciate machine knits as much as anyone — I love very fine knits, which are impossible to do by hand — but then I see an aran-weight cashmere blend for $400, and decide that, screw it, I could make that for under $200. (That's coming, by the way. Although probably not until next winter. But it's a layering piece, fisherman's rib, raglan: simplicity itself.) Similarly, when I can't find exactly what I want, I tend to try to figure out if I can design it, and make it myself.

Pregnancy is particularly bad for this. Most clothes don't fit me (even the maternity ones) so if I want something particular, I almost have to make it myself.

For the past three weeks or so, I have been working on a cardigan. Something with a hood, at least fingertip length, and a lot of drape so I can cover up my bump when it gets cold. (This is what is lacking in most of my other cardigans.) Something light and lustrous. The yarn is Manos del Uruguay Fino (yes, again), in a cream with tawny-grey-pink highlights (the colourway is "Ivory Letter Opener"), 2.75mm needles. I decided to knit it from the bottom up, so I made a schematic, I made calculations, I wrote everything out before I started.

Last night, I got to the shoulder seaming and the start of the hood — which, incidentally, was the first time I could try it on with any accuracy.

It was drapey.

It was fingertip length.

It was too small.

The shoulders, back and armscye are good. I just underestimated the amount of "front" I would need for the shawl-like drape. So if it had been a sweater, I would have been fine. There was, in fact, no gauge accident. But the way I'd made the front lapels meant that picking up the stitches and knitting an extra inch or four was out of the question — well, no, but it would look ridiculous. And there's no point in doing all this if it's not going to be perfect.

So, into the frog pond and back to the beginning.

There is some small consolation, though — and it's a good one. I'd originally given myself until the end of November to knit this cardigan, before I would have to move on to Christmas knitting. I'm still going to do that, but the Christmas knitting I've got lined up is this:


I know it doesn't look like much, but wait: this is 100% cashmere (from Handmaiden). I'm going to have to give it away, true. But half the luxury of having something beautifully soft like this is being able to handle it and play with it, and that's the best part of being a maker — I get that part to myself.

straights vs circulars

We had a cold snap yesterday! It's still cold today, but yesterday it was positively winter — the temperature actually went into the negative and everyone scurried around in winter gear: coats with fur-lined hoods up, chunky scarfs, mittens and boots and bright red cheeks from the wind.

Of course, by March this selfsame temperature will feel positively balmy, but we're still in the onset of winter, here, so everyone is bundling up for the long haul.

I had been delaying knitting a new neckwarmer/cowl for the Spanish Inquisition. (Her daycare requires it, in that they prohibit scarves — a strangulation hazard. I'd like to tell them that my daughter is hardly Isabella Duncan, and there's a subtle difference between a short chunky knit and flowing silk beneath spoked tires, but I doubt anyone will listen.) I'd meant to knit it out of Dream in Color Starry, or some other kind of sparkly yarn, but I hadn't had time to buy it yet — so I kept putting it off.

Until it got cold, and I felt guilty that her neck would be unprotected. So I grabbed some leftover baby alpaca sport (which, don't let the name fool you, is actually a bulky yarn) and knit one up right quick. Because time was of the essence — I had about two hours to knit the whole thing — I decided to knit it on my 6mm straights instead of DPNs.

(I wish I'd taken a picture for you. But I finished it and went straight to bed, and now it lives exclusively at daycare, so I lost my chance. Just imagine a purple tube in 2x2 rib about the size of a toddler's neck.)

And ... it turns out that straights are so cumbersome! I never used to think this before. I learned to knit on straights — these particular ones, in fact. And I'd loved them. I only stopped using them because I've been knitting things that are bigger than I'd feel comfortable putting on a straight needle, and Pd had given me a set of Addi interchangeable circulars a year or two ago. But now, I kept noticing how the straights would bang into my elbow. Or the table. Or how I would have to really arc my knitting wide when I changed sides. And heavy! And I would think, really? I actually preferred this?

I will probably still use my straights when I can, or when it's convenient to do so. I want to rediscover my old habit. I have some lovely bamboo and rosewood pairs, the latter of which are so lovely that I will actually pause my knitting just to look at them. They're warm, and supple, and feel so much more personal than aluminum. And I firmly believe that tools get better when you use them.

All that being said, this is my current knitting obsession:


Manos del Uruguay Fino (yes, again), in "Ivory Letter Opener," on, yes, Addi Interchangeables. I had something very specific in mind, so I'm designing it myself. Miles of stockinette — again — but broken up just enough by the texture of the seed stitch. Creamy and lovely for cold days and nights.

(The picture at the very top is technically Christmas knitting, which I have abandoned in favour of the Manos right now. Luckily there is still some time. I loved the gradients so much when I spread the skein out that I had to take a picture. It is SweetGeorgia's tough love sock in "Shipwreck," and it knits up in a reasonable stripey fashion.)

FO: Roo

Here, finally, is the Spanish Inquisition's new purple sweater-coat:

The penguin buttons/bribe totally worked; she loves them, and they don't disrupt the pattern too much (and the button band makes the jacket close fully, which is good).  I originally envisioned it as an early fall jacket, but it's too cold for that now, so she gets to wear it as a cardigan. Which is fine. She's worn it a couple of times since Thanksgiving, and it fits perfectly — which makes me feel a bit better for insisting on re-knitting it in the 24" size, as this means that the original (22") really was far too small. I would have preferred a longer length, but it's hard to adjust on the fly.

This coat has a garter border at the bottom of the coat and somehow, I managed to knit a different number of rows for the back and the two fronts — and not notice until seaming. This means that I even blocked it without noticing the discrepancy. Luckily the fabric is very dark (this photograph was taken in nearly-full sun), and the Spanish Inquisition moves around a lot, so I don't think anyone will notice. But I'm a little appalled that I managed to do that. It's not like the pattern doesn't give me the exact number of rows I should be aiming for.

The only other problem was that the penguin buttons are very, very skinny, so they kept slipping out of the buttonholes as knit. (I used a simple double yarnover-k2tog). I sewed the holes tighter when we got home after Thanksgiving, and now they're fine.

The yarn is Berroco Ultra Alpaca, which is 50% wool and 50% alpaca, in the imaginatively named "Deep Purple," between 2.5 and 3 skeins. 4.5mm needles. The pattern is Roo from Twist Collective, by Kate Gilbert.

fly-by update

What a week. Work has been busy, not least because I've had to take some time off because home has been busy — various members of the family (including me) had various appointments that couldn't be shifted, and so we've started earlier, stayed up later, and paradoxically worked less, time-wise, than usual this week. I wrote a very simple, fairly irrelevant post earlier this week; Blogger ate it, and I've had neither the time nor the inclination to write it again. (It really was negligible. It was about the Spanish Inquisition's hats.)

We took the Spanish Inquisition to the new aquarium last Saturday! And the picture above is the only photograph I'm ready to show you. I know: there are sharks in there, and sawfish, and giant Pacific kelp, and I'm showing you ... jellyfish? But they were beautiful. And they photograph well; always a plus.

Meanwhile, this is what I have been doing this week:

This is roughly how much of a fingerless mitten one can get through when forced to sit still (more or less) for three hours or so at the doctor's office. The pattern is Sherbet Lemon by Ysolda, and the yarn is Alisha Goes Around, Richness of Martens in the "Genevieve" colourway. 2.75mm needles. It was a sock club yarn that I've been saving for something special; I love the colour but I thought that it would be wasted on socks. These are much more fun.

I aded an extra half-repeat so that it goes (roughly) up to my elbows; that's why the beginning of the cable looks slightly different from the original pattern. If I had to do it again I would sit down and plan the tessellations a little bit better, but this isn't bad, and I was anxious to get started. I actually finished them today; in fact I'm wearing them now. And oh, they are so lovely; there's 15% cashmere and 10% silk in the yarn. It's been getting down to the low single digits here in the mornings, and so these will be perfect.

I have also the never-ending sweater (doesn't it seem like I have one of those every fall?) and the Spanish Inquisition's Olivia Petit, which is almost done. I really only have about an inch and then the sleeves to go, but sleeves are never terribly fun, so I'm finding it a bit of a slog. (Also: the alpaca, while lovely, sheds as I knit it, and I am big enough now that my knitting is generally resting on my bump ... which means that, every time I knit it, it looks like I went and rubbed up against some particularly-hyperallegenic cat. So I have decided that they are not really good as subway- or work-knitting.)

And then there is also this (although technically this is cheating; I did these last week):


Yup. (Canadian) Thanksgiving is over, which means it's time. This year I am attempting to be rational about it all and to do a little bit frequently, instead of trying to create 60 cards in the span of a week. So far I am only averaging perhaps a few cards every two weeks, but even then, that puts me ahead of where I usually am. These are being left for now; I've got my eye on a stamp I want to emboss on the top, but I have to wait until the One of a Kind Show in late November to actually get it. Perhaps this year will be the year I actually learn to use the embossing gun effectively.

cold hands call for desperate measures

I am usually a very ... obsessive kind of person. (A small strain of OCD runs through my family. It was such a relief when I heard that.) I am the kind of person who can have the same thing for lunch every week. I change up my clothes, sure, but practically everything in my closet is either black, grey, a shade of white, or a shade of blue. I have very recently begun branching out into — wait for it — purple. (By "branching out" understand that I mean I have one cardigan, one shirt and one dress.) I listen to the same album on my iPod over and over until I am finally sick of it. That usually takes a few weeks.

The only exceptions are books and knitting. I am usually reading two books at a time. I don't know why; maybe it's a remnant from grad school. And I usually have a bunch of knitting projects on the go. I have two blankets — a Moderne Log Cabin, and a mitered square (made out of remnant sock yarn) — I've been working on both for three or five years, respectively, and they're too big to be portable anywhere, so they stay at home and get worked on during long winter evenings.

Actually, I thought the sock blanket would be done by now. I'd say I'm about a third of the way through. Part of the slowdown was that I'd stopped knitting socks for a while, so I didn't have any new yarn to add, and I have a thing where the same yarn can't be too close to each other (OCD, remember?) and the problem-solving was driving be mad. I am really hoping that it's not going to take another 10 years to finish.

I don't really count those as "projects." They're just ongoing things in the back of my mind. Actual projects right now are my Fino sweater, which is coming along (but also not, because it's a full-size adult tunic in fingering yarn; I'm small but not that small) and another sweater for the Spanish Inquisition.

I may have panicked a little when the cold weather came. She had a big growth spurt in July, and I think she's having another one now, the upshot of which is that none of her old, pre-summer clothes fit. Which is fine, but I wanted to make sure she had sweaters. This is Olivia Petit, by Connie Chang Chinchio; she got one last year, too.

(Her father destroyed that one in the wash. Fun fact: Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend felts like a dream. The thing went from fitting a one-year-old to practically doll-size. The buttonholes were so small that there was no physical way the buttons could get through. Pd felt bad about it, but it really was awesome, in the traditional sense of the word. And anyway, she'd practically grown out of it by then. But she'd loved it, and it was well used; that's why she's getting another.)

This one is Cascade Eco Duo, an undyed 70-30 merino-alpaca blend that's also not machine washable, but Pd says that he's learned his lesson now. I discovered it last winter and it's become one of my go-to yarns for toddlers — super soft and warm.

All this is to say that I'm not big on knitting monogamy, although right now even I am having a little trouble juggling all of my projects. I keep my number of projects in check by keying it to the number of available stitch counters. This is feasible because I very rarely buy knitting notions; I tend to feel guilty about the amount I'm spending on yarn, and the easiest way to lower my total at the cash is to drop the knitting notions.  Right now, I have three. Two are being used in the projects above, and the third is with a shawl project that's been ... "resting." (It begins with an 8-stitch lace border that's repeated 70-odd times. I crapped out around repeat number 40.) I can't remove that marker because there really is no way to recover if I lose the number of repeats I'm on.

So I shouldn't start anything, is what I'm saying. No stitch markers, no new projects. I only have two hands, Christmas is coming; I want these sweaters done before the snow hits. How much knitting time do I even think I have?

But it's starting to get cold now, especially in the mornings, and I have this beautiful skein of Alisha Goes Around Richness of Martens that I've been saving up, and I finally found the perfect fingerless mitten pattern for it, and ...



Oh, screw it.

Happy Thanksgiving weekend, everyone!

naptime is for cooking

(nb — I started this post two days ago. That's kind of what my life has been like recently.)


In honour of Marcella Hazan — although, truth be told, I have no idea which book or class this comes from. This is her bolognese sauce, more or less (perhaps even her "famous" one, according to the New York Times obituary), though I doubt she would acknowledge it as such. My knife skills, patience and available time being what they are, I utterly fail at making a proper soffritto — and anyway, I rather like the rustic look that identifiable chunks of carrot and celery give. So: diced onions, yes, as small as I can stand to make them, and fine for the home, but it would probably make a true gastronome weep.

Anyway, this has by our go-to bolognese sauce for years, since my brother-in-law made it for us many winters ago and I cribbed the recipe from him. (I have no idea what the state of his soffritto is — although, knowing him, it is probably meticulous and excellent.) We make it all the time, almost always only in winter, and the first one of the season always feels like the start of something — an acknowledgement of the incoming cold season, maybe. Just the smell of it makes me think of snows outside, the smell of frost, the comfort of the warmth indoors and the quality of winter light.

It's the sort of food that is deeply, almost sacrilegiously out of place in the warm months, and its reappearance made me happy — even though it also meant, inevitably, the reappearance of woollies and cold and being able to see my breath in the morning.

(Pd says that we've been having a mild fall. I say we haven't been experiencing the same season at all.)


I've finally finished version 2 of the Spanish Inquisition's Roo coat. (The above picture was taken yesterday, when I was about 20 rows from the end of the second sleeve.) It's going into a Eucalan bath and getting a wet block tonight. Then I'll knit a button band and put those penguin buttons on it. The toggle closures were actually one of my favourite parts of this coat, but ... I've knit this coat twice now and I want her to wear it. I am not above petty bribery, and the kid loves her penguins.

things undone

Last week was a bit of a doozy. It started out fair, if tiring — why I no longer remember — and ended with a small medical emergency in my family and a lot of dashing back and forth. Rest assured, everything (and everyone) is reasonably fine — but it didn't leave a lot of time for getting on with things. In fact, everything that could be dropped, was (and so were some things that probably shouldn't have been, probably).

For instance, I have not really knit. I have my traditional fall sweater:

I'm a few inches farther along now; I've divided the sleeves from the body (it's a raglan), but fundamentally it looks about the same. I am loving the yarn, though: Manos del Uruguay Fino, 70% merino and 30% silk, in "Silhouette." It looks like a lovely green darkening to turquoise in artificial light, and exactly the colour of wellworn denim in the sun.

It is also an adult sweater-tunic knit in light fingering with 3mm needles, though, so I wouldn't expect this to be finished any time soon.


Another example of things undone: garlic. I'd meant to plant garlic this year. I didn't get around to it last year; the year before I had merely plugged some conventional garlic into the ground (it may have been locally grown, but I honestly don't remember), but this year I was Going To Do It. Growing garlic is ridiculously easy: you plug the cloves into a plot of ground in the fall, then summer comes and you harvest. The demands on the soil are light; there aren't really any required amendments, no trimming or deadheading. And the more harvests you make, the better garlic you get.

The devil, of course, is in the details. I'd meant to buy order proper garlic online (likely 'Music,' which seems to grow well in Ontario), but the growers didn't take orders until late summer. Ah, but I was sick throughout August. I checked last week and they had stopped taking orders for 2013.

Okay, I thought. I can probably get some at the Garlic Festival. Which is a great idea and would absolutely have worked if only the Garlic Festival hadn't happened two Sundays ago.

I want to plant tulips this year (that got missed last year, too), but we were too busy this weekend to buy the bulbs, so we'll see. I do remember one year that I actually put them in the ground on my Remembrance Day holiday, so there's time. But there's also the distinct possibility that the universe is trying to tell me that salvaging the fall is pointless; I might as well skip directly to winter — for these came in the mail last week:



... which is a little discombobulating, even for me. (And I am sharing it with you so that you may be as freaked out as I.) I read them, of course — I always do — but it still feels a bit wrong. Like starting to cram for finals in February.

royal purple princess rabbit

The Spanish Inquisition's favourite colour is purple. Consequently, there's a lot of that going around our house right now.


The matching wasn't actually on purpose, although I don't think Pd believes me. The dress on the right is from Roots, which so far she has refused to wear, but I am harbouring hopes. (The upside of having a toddler with definite opinions is that she changes her mind like a toddler — which is to say, like the wind.) The knit on the left is  Roo, from Twist Collective.

I have had this pattern queued since before the Spanish Inquisition was born — since before I was even pregnant. I even waited patiently until she was old enough to really do it justice (it's not really a pattern for babies, is it?). She had a growth spurt earlier this summer, and it's become obvious that not a thing from her spring wardrobe is going to fit her this fall, so it was the perfect time. The yarn is Berroco Ultra Alpaca in "deep purple," which was surprisingly ideal; I was worried that the alpaca would be too drapey, but the merino and tight twist firm it up and it has the proper coat stiffness.

And ... it's too small (and she hasn't even worn it yet!). I'd measured her chest; it's about 20" (which, yes, is like the 18-month size, but she's a skinny bean). I knit the 22" size, to be safe, and for once I cannot even blame gauge because — and I never do this, really — I made a gauge swatch and I blocked to measurements. To measurements! And yet, it's too small. I tried to see if we could repurpose it as an open-front cardigan, but the armscye is too tight to be comfortable and she wanted it off right away.

So, no go. It breaks my heart to have to take it apart — it's a beautiful coat, it really is — so we're going to keep it for the kidlet, or give it to someone if the kidlet turns out to be the kind who doesn't like purple. It won't go to waste. And, meanwhile, I had a lot of the same yarn left over, so I am going to knit another one. A bigger one.

(I told my mother all this, and she laughed at me. It's all her fault, really: when I was growing up, she would buy or knit things for me to "grow into." Except I never grew as fast as she anticipated, so things were always baggy or too big — and now I hate baggy clothes and knit almost all my sweaters with negative ease. She's still at it, though. She likes to buy the Spanish Inquisition clothes, but this fall she's decided to up the ante to 3T so that she can "grow into it," and I've had to tell her that, yes, she will ... next year. I've now started a drawer full of 3T clothes that we can pull out when she's big enough. It's actually very useful, given the Spanish Inquisition's sudden growth spurts. But there really isn't a way to make snowpants that are three inches too long "work," and yes, we tried.)

Anyway, I haven't started yet, because while the knit itself was enjoyable (the first time), the second time 'round it's just ... demoralizing. And I've got all this to give my attention to:



Maybe I should consider doing the 3T thing after all.

when a finished knitted object means an unmoveable force

A close member of my family got married last week, and even though it was a very simple ceremony at the civic centre, the Spanish Inquisition still needed an outfit (read: not her beloved overalls, definitely not her cargo pants — is there anything cuter than a 2-year-old tomboy?). Since it was going to be a cool-ish spring day, I decided that she needed a cardigan to go with her dress.



The pattern is Kitty (Rav link), the yarn is a sock-yarn something, from Lettuce Knit, and the colourway is (I think) "Kitten Whiskers." It's not what I would have chosen. It's a bit too twee, the cream and the pink and the name, and in any case the Spanish Inquisition is the kind of child who insists on feeding herself soup, so generally speaking I know better than to put her in white. But this was a last-minute thing — they announced their intention 8 days before the deed — and the cardigan absolutely had to be white so that it could match a variety of dresses, in case the one I'd ordered didn't arrive in time. So, "Kitten Whiskers" it was, and a green satin ribbon from Mokuba to rescue it from cutesy-ness.

In the end, though — not so much with the wearing. You can see it bunched up in my lap, instead. (Notice how the ribbon matches the dress exactly, though? I'm very proud.)



She just flat-out refused. She's been having a bit of a difficult week; we think her molars are coming in, and so she's been more opinionated, more irritable. And when I asked her to put the cardigan on, she said NO.

Multiple times.

And then grabbed it out of my hands and tried to throw it to the ground.


So, no pictures of the Spanish Inquisition in the cute cardigan. I had, in a fit of cover-my-arsedness, also picked up some pink ribbon that exactly matched the pink splotches in the yarn, so while I vastly prefer the green, I'm going to replace the ribbon and see if she'll change her mind.

Otherwise ... well, I have a couple of neighbours who either have or are expecting girls. And they don't knit.

family knitting

Busy, busy week. The Chinese new year is this Sunday, and it's traditional to wear something new for the visiting day. So I've been finishing things up for the family:


Socks for my sweetie. New handknit socks have become a sort of tradition around here, which is really just me shooting myself in the foot — who wants more deadline knitting a month after Christmas? Nonetheless, here they are, self-striping yarn from the turtlepurl (colourway: "Burberry"), purchased at The Purple Purl. The pattern is a simple 3x1 rib to show off the stripes. Which I find fascinating, actually, because usually I knit with hand-dyed variegated yarns, whose pairs never look the same. Sometimes they don't even look related. So this thing about having a pair of socks that are identical? It's kind of blowing my wee mind.

These have progressed significantly since I took this picture — there are only about 10 more rounds before the toe decreases. I should be able to do them in plenty of time.

And for my other sweetie:


A sweet little dress with Noro stripes. (The Purple Purl had a massive markdown on one of my two favourite Noro colourways in Ayatori. How could I not?) I blocked this last night, so it is all ready for the day; luckily my mother knits so hopefully she will appreciate my handiwork.

Alas, I myself do not get new socks this year.  I decided to prioritize Pd, who got ... well, three. (Two for Christmas, one for the new year.) This is fair because I've kind of stiffed him in the sock department for the past couple of years, and he's been very patient about it. (Last year, he got his socks — his cushy, warm, 15% cashmere socks — in July. And he was happy. The man is a saint.)

I did start on a pair, on Monday, but honestly, I wasn't going to be able to start and finish a pair of socks while finishing another pair and weaving in the ends of a toddler dress and doing the button bands and buttons of another toddler cardigan ... inside of a week. (The latter is a birthday gift. You'll see it once it's been gifted.)

Besides which, this arrived in the mail on Monday night, and kind of put all other yarn on hold:


Fyberspates Elegance Lace, which is 65% silk and 35% baby camel, in "plum 3" (nominally a little darker and richer than in that picture). It is gorgeous. It has the sheen of silk but the camel keeps it from catching on the needles the way silk often does. This will be yet another cardigan for me — justified because it's been several months since I knit anything for me, one, and two, because it's been frigidly cold out and I've proven that I do wear my handknits, if winter gives me a chance.

Although, mind you, I wouldn't exactly say no if winter stopped given me any more chances to do so until, say, next December?

but what about the kitchen?

I have a small tradition of gardening on Remembrance Day (or, this year, its weekday substitute). I get the day off, and because it's not a family-themed holiday — usually, not even a long weekend — I have no plans except puttering at home. (This isn't a problem. I quite like puttering.) So, gardening.


It's mostly just a matter of raking up the leaves from the path (I leave the leaves to decompose over the winter in the garden itself) — our neighbourhood is full of mature oak trees; absolutely lovely in the summer, but it's paid for in the fall — and weeding. A couple of years ago I planted the spring bulbs, but this year I was not nearly that organized and so, no bulbs. I neglected the garlic, too.

But what about the kitchen? you ask.

Did I mention that the roses are still blooming? The yellow 'Graham Thomas' has come and gone — it was lovely, perfect, bowl-shaped like a peony, which of course meant that I loved it — but 'The Fairy' and 'Amber Rose' are still at it, despite my ceasing to deadhead sometime around September.


They are so lovely, and so surprising, that even Pd has commented on them. Not that he doesn't notice them in August, say, but they are so exceptional right now, in this cold, that they drove him to comment.

And the kitchen? you say.


Also, I've been knitting. I finished my cardigan; it hasn't been blocked but I've worn it at least a dozen times. (I finished it right before a cold snap, so it got pressed into service right away. I'm too impatient for blocking; what if I want it, and it's still wet?) I made little striped leggings for the Spanish Inquisition.

They were leftover yarn from the stash — the white is Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino, and the grey is (I think) some BMFA Woobu in (again, I think) Valkyrie. Anyway, they are soft, lovely and warm, and you have to imagine them slipping over little black boots; they are absolutely adorable.

And yes, that is absolutely a (defunct) cell phone in her wee little hands. She kept trying to grab ours, and playing with them, so in the end we gave her one of Pd's old ones that was going to go into the donation bin. She is perfectly happy with it. She's too young to actually play on the smartphones, so she just likes pressing the buttons and holding it up to her ear; the lack of interactivity doesn't faze her. It does make me wonder, though, if we spend too much time on the phone with her around.

 And what, you say, paragon of impatience that you are, about the kitchen?

What, the adorable picture of the baby wasn't sufficient distraction for you? (Obviously not.)


I was going to blog about it, but then things got busy, and complicated, and tiring. We've been working on it on weekends and most weeknights. It's amazing: what feels like a treat at the beginning (take-out every night!) begins to feel more like an interminable purgatory of the stomach (oh God, please oh please can't I just cook?). I can't wait until 100% of our kitchen appliances are inside. Right now we're running about 50-50: the fridge and the dishwasher are in, but the stove and exhaust hood are not. (And in case you think we prioritized the dishwasher — well, yes, we sort of did, but also mostly because it's one of those built-in ones, and so we had to build the cabinets around it; it couldn't wait until we were done.)

The tentative schedule was this:

Week 1: Demolition (of everything — cabinets and floors)
Week 2: Tiling (and between weeks 2 and 3, grouting and sealing said floor)
Week 3: Construction

There were small things in between, like electrical work and painting. We didn't finish sealing until the last day of week 2, but that still hewed to the schedule. And then, I figured — how hard could it be to build Ikea cabinets? We're pretty handy and can run up a Billy bookcase right lickety-split. So how hard could it be?

In case you ever need to know this: Ikea cabinets are not Billy bookcases. Billy bookcases, for example, do not need holes for plumbing. Also, the ease of building a kitchen is directly proportional to how straight your walls and floor are. This is not a problem in condos, or new builds, or old houses that have been taken down to studs and then rebuilt. Unfortunately, our house is none of those. We did think about levelling out the floor — but then, as Pd pointed out, our walls would look crooked.

As for the timeline ... we are currently in week five. Week 6 starts tomorrow.

Into the fall

Fall is my favourite time of year — the crispness in the air, the deeper, darker colors, the clothes. I'm not a great fan of what comes next, and November is never not depressing (much like March) — but the transition time, right now, the still-hot days and the cool nights, is perfect.

Fall knitting, too, is deeply satisfying. It's the timeliness of it. Mid-winter, all you want to do is knit fast as you can, before hypothermia sets in — and Christmas knitting is only gratifying after it's done, not during. I never knit sweaters in the spring; there's just no motivation. And summers are for socks or shawls or other small things, something to take the edge off and keep your hand in, but small enough that you aren't sitting with a pile of delicious alpaca in your lap — because, trust me, nothing woolly is delicious in 40-degree heat.

But now! I am already well on my way. Before August ended, I had cast on a small cardigan for the Spanish Inquisition — Olivia Petit by Connie Chang Chinchio. I love the back detail.


It's lovely in the original cream, but I had quite a bit of Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend left over from another sweater project, so in it went. It's 70% merino, 30% silk; super soft and warm but not, unfortunately, machine washable — I'm less picky about that in my own sweaters, frankly, and as I was anxious to get started and the yarn store had yet to get their fall yarns in, I decided to overlook that small deficiency — and it is super adorable. I knit the 12-month size; the Spanish Inquisition is on the small side. It's a little bit big on her, which means that it's perfect.

The super cute buttons are dyed mother-of-pearl from Fyberspates. I happened to be on their web site (investigating their yarns, of course), and they were, simply, perfect. One thing I have not been able to source to my satisfaction, in Toronto, are buttons. I'm sure that perfect buttons — perhaps even the perfect button store — exist, somewhere, in this city, but I have been unable to find them. I even deputized my mother — so far, nothing. I have lucked out, here and there, but these are the only buttons I've used so far that are both perfect for the project, and perfect by themselves.

It's been very cold in the mornings this past week, and particularly this weekend, so we've already put the sweater to use. I would say that she loves it, but honestly? She doesn't really have an opinion about clothes. Shoes, on the other hand, she definitely has an opinion on: they belong in her hands, or in her mouth, but not on her feet. Never, ever.

And now, something for me. This is a sweaters' worth of Fyberspates Scrumptious 4-ply in "Water."


This is a yarn I've been meaning to try for a while, but haven't been able to find in North America. (WEBS carries it now.) It's 55% merino, 45% silk — do you sense a pattern? It's because I love things that drape, and nothing drapes like silk (or bamboo — but that's another story).

It is going to be a Pas de Valse — actually, it's already most of one; I've only got most of one sleeve and the crochet edging to go. It's a surprisingly fast knit. (I know, this isn't the best in-progress picture ever. I just wanted to capture the beauty of the silk stockinette. This colour is perfect for a blue-grey obsessive like me — incidentally, the colour in the photo above is slightly more accurate. It's getting harder to take photographs in natural light, now.)


I originally knit this pattern when it was first published, out of some BMFA Wooboo (which is 40% bamboo). Unfortunately it hasn't held up very well — the yarn was a bit thicker than called for (it had originally been for another project), and I had had to do some re-calculations on the fly, and so it was always a bit on the larger side. Now it's a bit misshapen and droopy. I love it, though; it's a staple of my fall wardrobe, so this year I decided it was time to knit a new one. I'm very excited.

I haven't decided yet what I will knit after this is finished. Socks? A shawl? (A lace project in the winter is never remiss. I may knit shawls in the summer — but fall-winter is when I start them.) It's too early to think about Christmas, so this knitting time is all about me, me, me. It's not often that I can say that anymore, so I will revel in it while I can.

epic knitting

Last week, during the long weekend, I finished all of the squares for the patchwork blanket.


I seamed them all together — I had decided to knit individual large squares, rather than knit every little square on, so that I could get a specific grain on the pattern, which in retrospect was extraordinarily prissy and stupid and I don't want to talk about it any more — remember how I said the ends would be epic?


I wasn't kidding.

I finished off one or two of the large squares — which is something — but then I got extraordinarily bored and needed pre-bedtime knitting, so I decided to pick up the stitches for the edging instead and knit on that.


It's going a little slowly. Each side has around 145 stitches in it — I wasn't terribly fussy about how many I picked up — so it's not fast knitting by means. Also, the longest circular needle I had was 80cm, so the blanket is all bunched up and I can't spread it out to show you what it looks like. Nor is it commute-friendly knitting because, while it is sufficiently brainless, I generally don't want to haul 144 teeny mitred squares on the streetcar with me. So it's at-home knitting, exclusively, which is slowing it down even more.

And by the time I finish, I will still need to weave in the ends.

...
I also finished the Aeolian shawl, which Ravelry tells me I've been working on since July 12, 2010. Granted, it was never meant to be a fast knit; I had wanted a challenge and Estonian lace shawls don't tend to be transit knitting (although I made an exception last week), but still. It's a well-travelled shawl, too: I brought it to Las Vegas and Iceland (where I did not knit on it once. I may have knit a row on the plane — but really, only one).


It wasn't just the knitting that was epic, though. I finished it on Saturday — in the end, it took me over an hour to cast off. We were at a friend's house, and the only thing big enough and flat enough for blocking in my house right now is the bed, so I decided to block it on Sunday morning.

However, I slept in a little, and by the time I had soaked the shawl and had had breakfast, a friend had come over to help with the renovations. I didn't want to leave him to work while I fiddled with a shawl, so I left it soaking in the Eucalan and went to paint, planning to block it later. But then Pd pointed out that it wasn't going to have a chance to dry properly before bed if I did it after work, so I woke up early this morning, and:


It took me an hour. I was kind of late for work. It's not like I could just stop. I even ran out of T-pins, and had to dig into my sewing kit for the dressmakers' pins. Each point had five pin points:


... which I didn't even stretch out properly; some of them overlap each other. You see how the nice rounded bays between the main points are bunched up instead of laying flat, as they're supposed to. I couldn't stretch it out any more, though; the thing has taken over the whole bed.


The yarn is Fleece Artist Saldanha, a limited edition yarn I got at the Frolic and, as always with Fleece Artist, I have no clue what the colourway is. Whatever it is, I don't think they make it any more; none of their 2011 colourways have this much pink in them. I have no idea how big it is, exactly; just that it's gigantic (obviously). I think I love it. Everything hinges on the blocking at this point.

...
And now, I have no knitting. This is so weird. I underestimated how long it would take me to finish all the squares for the blanket — or maybe I just didn't think it through. But I am supposed to be knitting from stash, exclusively, and it's been put away because of the renovations. Also, I don't have a pattern lined up, and the needles are underneath a drop sheet right now. I had been knitting on a laceweight Whispy Cardigan (Rav link) until recently, but that's been finished, too. Actually, I'm wearing it right now — I finally got around to blocking it last night, but it didn't dry completely, so for the first part of the day I've been walking around smelling like eucalyptus-scented wet wool. Nice.

photoblog: victoria day weekend

Our long weekend: rebuilding a room; stopping to play with flowers; knitting for the future; long walks on the beach; and relaxing with my love.










How was yours?

shh. reading in progress.

I've been on a reading jag. If you average my reading over a year (or whatever), it's a reasonably decent but not excessive amount; the thing is, though, that my reading tends to be very sporadic. I will got for weeks or months being perfectly content to read the same thing over and over, or to read only magazines and not books, but then I will get on a kick when I read three or four different things at once. I don't mind this — I think I enjoy books more on these flights than when I'm simply plodding along — the problem is that this particular one was unanticipated. And started after I had already begun packing up the library in anticipation of the Reno 2.0.

The room used to look like this, more or less:




(I realised halfway through my packing that I should have taken a picture; these are from last year, when I was setting up the room, so the boxes you see are actually the result of unpacking. It's roughly accurate, though.)

Anyway, as you can see: the majority of my books were in this room. I'm not completely unknown to myself, though — I had put away several books so that I would have something to read during the next month or two. The problem is that I was still on the slow road when I did this, and so in the last two weeks I have gone through almost all of the books I had set aside: Dracula; The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel; At Large and At Small (several times) — Anne Fadiman's book of essays; Anna Pavord's book of gardening columns, The Curious Gardener, also several times; Buying In, by Rob Walker; Jane Eyre, and I've started on The Museum of the Missing, about art crimes — that one is going much more slowly because it's too big for me to commute with, or snuggle on the sofa with; it lives next to my bed right now. (I had also put aside Pride and Prejudice — of course — but I'd reread it too recently for it to be enticing.)

Of course there are two more bookshelves downstairs, with plenty of books in them — including my beloved European histories and books by Bill Bryson — but this pile was supposed to last me at least a month. I thought I was being so smart! And of course the books that I'm craving are the ones that are packed up.

This is why I will never be able to declutter my books. I mean, I do weed through them — Goodwill did a sweep of my neighbourhood in March or April, and I put out a whole box of books — but I can't get rid of books for which I don't have a scheduled rereading plan (in the next three months, or otherwise). I love rereading things, and it's enough for me to know that I will want to reread it, because as long as there's that, I know that I will, eventually. But man, these things take up a lot of space, so it's nice to have a partner who understands. (Pd is on a reading jag of his own: he's reading through Agatha Christie — all of Agatha Christie, alphabetically. But he has an e-Reader, so I can't even poach them after he's done.)

When we haven't been reading, we've been watching hockey, and while we've been watching hockey, I've been knitting this:


It will be a patchwork baby blanket made of mitered squares — nine squares to a big square (that's a stack of them above), and four such squares on each side — sixteen big squares in total, so 144 small squares, plus an eventual border. I've done the centre four, and five and a half of the edge squares, so I'm about halfway.

Looking at it now, all I can think is: working in the ends in on this thing is going to be epic.

yarny, socky goodness

I finished my first sock club socks (but not in sock club yarn)! Actually, I finished them last week, but didn't get around to taking photographs. (Also? Taking photographs of one's feet is kind of weird. I'll never get used to it.) They are Cookie A.'s Haleakala socks, in Handmaiden Casbah. (Handmaiden doesn't list their colourways on the label, sadly, so officially I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure it's "Glacier.") My usual go-to Addi 2.25mm metal DPNs. The actual socks are a little bit lighter, and more turquoise, than the picture. The dark turquoise vein in the skein didn't come through as much as I'd hoped, but I still love these. In fact, I am wearing them right now! They are soft and cushy.

A close-up of the cable pattern:


These were surprisingly quick to knit up, which is not what I can say for all of Cookie A.'s patterns. These took just under two weeks of reasonably-paced knitting (and I don't knit socks when I'm at home, ironically — I knit on the big blanket projects that don't travel well).

I'm knitting a lightweight spring cardigan right now, which should tide me over until the next sock club installment.

It's going to all small projects, all the time for the next little while. Due to the whole baby needing stuff (like, oh, furniture) thing, I am going to knit primarily from stash for the next little while — sock club, having been already paid for, counts as stash, damn it — and what I have in the stash is individual skeins of sock yarn. (Mostly because I never know how much yarn I will need for a given sweater, so I almost always buy yarn at the start of a sweater project. Sock yarn is much more transferable.) The exception, though, is this:


A good friend brought three skeins of gigantic wool back from Chile and gave it to me for my birthday a couple of years ago. I've put a skein of Socks That Rock lightweight next to it for comparison. It's really very lovely — so soft, and so thick that it's practically felted — but I have no idea what to do with it. I don't even know where to start. I mean, what size needles do I even try with this?


The labels don't have any gauge information. My own needle stash goes up to size #15 (10mm), and that's not going to be nearly enough. I think I used those for some superbulky yarn which, ironically, is about a quarter the width of this stuff. I really want to use this yarn, though. It's really soft, the perfect shade of grey — I think it would make a lovely throw. But how? And with what?

the beginning of something good

Look what came in the mail for me!


Yes, sock yarn. But it's special sock yarn, because it's the first (of six) installments in the Cookie A sock club! Pd gave me a membership for my birthday, and it really is a gift that keeps on giving. For the rest of the year, anyway. (Sock Club, for non-knitters: you pay a certain amount of money, and they send you sock yarn and a pattern to go with it on a bi-monthly basis. Like any other kind of club, really.)

I had been considering other sock clubs, but I chose this one in the end. Most other sock clubs are run by dyers, not designers, so they emphasize exclusive colours on (generally) the same yarn base, with surprise designers. On the other hand, this one is run by a designer, and the accompanying yarn is a surprise (we were promised "good" yarn, though). Since something like half of all the socks I've ever knit were designed by Cookie A, and the idea of discovering new indie sock yarn is exciting, this one won out in the end. Also, this one comes with cookie recipes. I'm serious! And I like cookies.

Anyway, no regrets so far, except that the yarn took a long time to get here (and that wasn't her fault; that was Canada Post. The yarn was shipped in the middle of February). I like the pattern (like I said, I like practically all her patterns), and it really is good yarn. This one is really nice and snuggly — there's 10% cashmere in it, so there's a nice loft and I anticipate the stitch definition will be good, too. I'm not knitting with it yet, though — I noticed the other day that I had barely touched the sock yarn I acquired at the Frolic last year, and that my skein of cushy Handmaiden Casbah (also 10% cashmere — even when I don't pick the yarn, I'm predictable) had started to come undone.


Handmaiden Casbah, back when it was still tightly skeined.
It was like a sign from the universe that it was time to ball it up and knit. So I did. It's making me very happy — even if it's likely that the weather will be warmish before I finish.

Another sign: I finally finished my German stockings! These were started, I kid you not, in October 2008. They are so old that they predate my flickr account. I think they were something like my second pair of socks, and they were seriously cursed: I broke two bamboo needles (I think this is when I switched to Addis, because at least it's harder to break metal), I kept reading the pattern wrong — twice! On both feet! — and it was just a mess. I neglected to get a finished object picture, but here's a progress shot of the second sock:


Come to think of it, these were designed by Cookie A, too
Sitting on my Icarus shawl at the lacrosse game we went to last week.

Oh! Yes! We went to a lacross game. I don't really know anything about lacrosse, but I thought it was interesting that they kept the music playing throughout the game (and not just during breaks). The atmosphere is very different from a Leafs game. For one thing, the seats were a lot better (and a lot cheaper). For another, we actually expected the Toronto team to win.


(I am a total Leafs fangirl, but come on. I'm not stupid. Just a sucker for disappointment.)

(Oh, and yes. We did win. It was touch-and-go when the other team evened it up in the third quarter, but then we stormed back in the fourth and took the game. And at some point the goalie took it in the nuts, which ... I know it's horrible, but it's actually kind of funny when it happens to pro athletes. All I can say is that he took it like a man — he went straight down.)