dry creek
August 3, 2020
after the…we’ll call it…dissatisfaction with my last shawl,
my plans to join romi’s summer shawl knit along stalled.
still. something in my decided to download the pattern
yesterday, and watch the introductory video.
naturally,
since today is
my first day off in
what is it? a week, maybe?
a day when i “get” to catch up on
all the house work that needs to be done
and, of course, plan the next semester that
will be taught face to face during a pandemic,
i decided that knitting was a much more pressing
endeavor to undertake.
but rather than a tendency toward’s procrastination,
which would be the easier, one could even say cliché scapegoat,
let’s instead lay today’s failure to be productive at the feet of romi,
whose intro video was…to say thorough would be an understatement.
it included a demonstration for the unusual cast on; a deep dive into the fiber of the sample and how wool would behave differently, giving a very different look (negative connotations); the importance of, not only knitting but blocking, a gauge swatch (see also thefiber content deep dive); there was an explanation of the charts, which was needed since, even as an experienced lace knitter, her charts are unlike ones i’ve encountered before; and of course the live chat allowed people to ask questions.
i was thoroughly impressed.
and considering there are weekly
weekly livestreams accompanying this knitalong,
i felt the $15 price tag was considerably too low
and immediately offered to venmo romi.
and so today,
after painstakingly winding
the perfect center-pull ball on my nostepinne, (kill me)
i took all of romi’s video inspiration and information
and promptly threw it all out the window,
casting on immediately
with the wrong fiber.*
fuck you! i thought
to some imagined,
unknit swatch.
i want to knit this shawl
i want to knit it now,
and i want to knit with
this yarn in this color, got it?
thus
a tiny triangle was born.
(do excuse the shit lighting;
i was too hot to go outside today).
i also completely forgot the instructions for the charts
which has resulted in many mistakes and much tinking.
but i love my purple triangle
and i even have an idea
for who i might
give it to.
maybe.
what are you knitting?
*i have strong feelings about so-called “bamboo” yarn.
mostly that it…is shit. and a gimmick. it’s just rayon!
it’s toxic to manufacture and while it may seem
pretty in some applications,i’m just
not here for synthetic fibers.
but you can knit with it.
people love it!
free to a good home (almost)
June 28, 2020
*edit: contest over. the winner will be announced soon!
i’ve given it some thought,
and i’ve decided that, though
i’m very attached, i’m going to give away
my newly-completed shetland tea shawl.
but because it is so special to me—
what with beginning it when i was twenty four
and completing it in my thirties (ugh)—
i don’t want it to go to just anyone.
i want it to live with a knitter,
artist, aesthete, etc. who has
a good soul.
as such,
i’ll be using my shawl to raise funds
for a place i believe in,
the ruth ellis center.
the rules
1. make a donation to the ruth ellis center; to be as inclusive as possible, any amount you can afford will count. i’d like to raise $500, so if you’re a person who can afford more, please donate accordingly.
2. after making a donation, leave a comment on this post.
as a bonus, if you share this post on twitter or instagram and tag me (@faiche_stiabhna on both), i’ll enter you a second time.
that’s it! just make a donation, leave a comment, and you’re entered to win! you can increase your chances by letting other people know about this giveaway and helping me raise more money for the ruth ellis center.
a winner will be announced on July 10
which i’m hoping is enough time
to reach my goal of $500.
fingers crossed!
shetland tea shawl
June 27, 2020
the satisfaction of finishing this shawl
is difficult to articulate. and as with
so very many things in my life—
degrees, jobs, opening an ira—
it also feels somewhat like
an anticlimax.
still, here she is
blocking this thing was a nightmare;
i would not have been able to do it
without the stellarly generous aid
of one ms. stacie d.
(by which i of course mean she did 90% of the work
and i tried to not fuck it up, after which
i was fed amazing hot dogs)
that said, i’m not going to do another circular shawl
until i can bribe a large group of people to do it together.
pinning on the floor is the way to do it, trust.
the only question remains is, as always,
who is going to get this shawl?
i’m thinking using it
to raise money
for the ruth ellis center.
would you make a small donation to enter to win this shawl?
aCute angle
August 17, 2012
i have a confession to make about my last post.
it was what you might call, not entirely honest.
true, that photo was takes in the nest i’d made on the floor,
but i didn’t actually stay there.
it wasn’t for lack fo trying, mind.
it’s just that,
apparently,
27 is the age at which
one is no longer able to sleep on the floor.
it’s frankly quite sad since my childhood was filled with instances of my curling up in unlikely spaces to rest. my favorite was the floor of the passenger side of my dad’s red chevey pickup.
adulthood is filled with sad milestones.
so where did i end up sleeping you ask?
well, while i couldn’t sleep on the hardwood,
i was able to channel my childhood talent for contortion,
and curled myself around the item on the bed,
covering the ends of the blocking wires
to avoid being impaled in the night.
which i suppose would be more impressive
if the item in question were bigger.
it was still, nonetheless,
a challenge.
mo upped the level of difficulty
by finding the one spot to curl up
that made any movement in the night impossible.
so here it is, the first knit i’ve ever slept with:
pattern – aCute angle yarn – luscious silk in the ‘ghillie dhu’ colorway
frankly, this item has been nothing but trouble from the start.
before i went to the knot hysteria gourmet retreat,
i suggested to my fellow retreaters
that we all do a knitalong.
i chose the aCute angle
because it had just been released
and seemed easy enough for us to complete in a weekend.
several people finished theirs in the blink of an eye,
but mine refused to even get started.
the first time, i twisted the join,
and didn’t notice for at least an inch.
the second time i cast on a number of stitches
that had absolutely nothing to do with the pattern.
(i think it was off by something like 12 stitches?)
once i’d finally got myself together,
it was the end of the second day
and my modifications* meant
i’d never finish that weekend.
i know i finished knitting it at some point,
but it sat for ages waiting to have its ends woven in.
then i let it have a nice soak and promptly forgot about it.
i don’t think silk is meant to soak for three days.
there’s something about the texture that feels . . . different now.
even this post has been needlessly delayed.
it’s been written for at least three days;
all it wanted was a final edit.
regardless, it came out beautifully,
and i thoroughly recommend this pattern.
it really is a snap for anyone whose mojo isn’t on the fritz,
(though blocking lace in the round presents its own unique challenge)
and this is one pattern where i think the yarn is perfectly matched.
(just note that, on ravelry, it’s currently misspelled as ‘a cute angle‘
losing all the fun wordplay in the title!)
now i just need to figure out who it’s for.
though, it might be perfect for mo.
tomorrow, the most irrelvant post i’ve ever written.
>glares at certain portland-based blogger<
à demain, bitches!
*aCute angle modifications: i added one pattern repeat and did seed stitch for the border rather than garter stitch.
saturdays are for blogging
January 21, 2012
i’ve made a promise to myself
that i must knit at least an hour every day
and i must blog at least once a week
because i love myself,
and i love my blog.
i haven’t been doing so well with the knitting every day promise
but i refuse to fail on the bloging once a week.
so i here i am,
setting aside my huge pile of work
to show you some progress.
for a long time now,
i have been admiring the work of spillyjane.
there’s something about her designs that i just love.
if i had to put my finger on it, i’d say it’s her color combinations.
i feel pretty comfortable saying they aren’t typical, and yet,
they totally work.
however,
it’s been pretty easy for me to resist casting on one of her designs.
for one, i have a terminal case of second sock syndrome,
which can easily evolve into second mitten syndrome.
but also, while i love her designs,
i just didn’t see myself wearing any of them.
i love them and thought they’d look amazing on other people.
just not me.
that is until i saw these bad boys.
one look and i was harassing her to publish the pattern already.
(really. i emailed and tweeted her. i was pushy)
a copy found it’s way into my mailbox
and away i went.
here where they stand:
and here are my thoughts:
1) i love colorwork. i. love. it.
2) i love this pattern. i am thoroughly enchanted with the chart. more than once, i have talked to it with a kind of cutesy voice i use to show affection to mo or other adorable mammals. i am not ashamed.
3) i’m glad i went up a needle size. otherwise the mitten would not fit.
4) this does have me worried about row gauge, however. i hope they don’t end up too long. i refuse to do them math to find out.
5) i have some concerns about the thumb construction. i have very strong feeling about how mitten thumbs should be worked. however, spillyjane makes her living on mittens. i do not. i’m gonna let go and let god on this one.
6) the lighter of the contrasting colors could be little more contrasty. however, i did that on purpose. i love the fact that there’s enough contrast to tell that those are skulls without having my mitten scream, “look here! skulls on a mitten!” sometimes my plans work out.
7) i’m knitting them two at a time (on separate needles) in order to avoid second mitten syndrome. so far, it seems to be working. it has instilled in me a kind of “race” like feeling where i can’t let the other mitten get too far ahead. weird? yes. but it’s working.
8) a while ago, i wrote a post in which i listed my concerns about shelter. i decided it was high time i actually tried it out, and the fact that spillyjane used it to knit these mitts seemed like the perfect excuse. now that i’m knitting with it, i have some opinions:
a) i love how it looks. the color is impeccable and the subtle rustic heatheryness of it speaks to the old school knitter in my heard.
b) however, i’m not a big fan of it’s hand when i’m knitting with it. yes, it’s very light, and while i usually love the feel of a wooly yarn, something about this particular blend . . . well i just don’t care for it.
c) it’s also very easy to break which makes me worry about how it will hold up with wear. it didn’t actually break while i was knitting with it. i don’t cut my yarns to switch colors, i just break them. and shelter breaks with very little effort. i’m hoping the fact that the mittens are knit at a very tight gauge will help with the ware factor.
d) i do like the fabric this pattern creates with this particular yarn. it’s knit on much smaller needles than one would normally use. i think it works because the yarn is so lofty. and quite frankly, i feel like shelter would knit more accurately to a dk gauge than a worsted anyway, another reason i think this pattern/yarn combo works with such small needles.
e) i don’t know if d) can be said to be representative of how the fabric will feel for other projects knitted at the recommended gauge.
f) my hypothesis is this yarn would be great for an old school textured sweater, but i doubt i can afford it at this point. american made ain’t cheap!
g) all that being said, when i try the mittens on, they feel comfy and warm. i plan to use them as my driving mitts. i do not regret buying shelter for this project, i think they’re beautiful, and i recommend other people spend the cash to give it a go at least once. but i just don’t see myself buying it again.
9) do you think jared flood will blacklist me for this?
10) have i mentioned i love these mittens?
(i think the back is my favorite part)
i’ve also got this little lovely going:
pattern: spruce forest by nancy bush
i have a serious love hate thing going on with this shawl.
this is the story:
for about a year now, i’ve wanted to design/knit a lace shawl in marine silk sport in my absolute favorite blue moon color way, ‘spruced’. i wanted it to be a triangular shawl and i wanted it to be a kind of ‘tree’ shaped lace pattern. the fact that i am not a designer and don’t yet intuitively understand how lace works meant that i was seriously struggling to realize this dream. then along comes fucking nancy bush and designs a perfect fucking shawl. (i am not above thinking that somehow she stole the idea using some kind of psychic probe while i was in her sock class). i hate that it’s a bottom up shawl and that, because it is, all the trees will point upward exactly as they should.
i hate the nupps that make it so fucking adorable and perfect that i can’t help but be delighted every time i purl 5 together on the ‘resting row’. despite the fact that they totally slow me down and are frustrating, i hate that i love them. (and hate that i would never have thought to put a nupp in shawl, even though they are clearly amazing) i hate that there is a solid garter border because i absolutely believe in a thick garter border and bam! there it is.
and god damn i hate that there’s a perfect looking slip stitch edge so that when i have to pick up stitches for the lace edging, it will be a snap.
god damn nancy bush and her perfect fucking shawl pattern!
i shake my fist at you in gratitude, bitch!
i’m knitting this shawl as a present for someone who i really like and i think deserves to have it. really, i shouldn’t be blogging about it, but shit, i need all the material i can get. i don’t have time for secret knitting!
so that’s what’s on the needles bitches.
thoughts?
** ps i am thoroughly annoyed with the fact that i am unable to capture the true color of ‘spruced’. it is much greener than the photo, and has a subtle blue hue in it. my guess is it has to do with the silk and sea cell content being all reflective. any help from my photography peeps?
Bitches Get Stitches 