Just give me a nudge if I’m expected to stir

At midnight last night I awoke suddenly feeling decidedly unwell. I’d been heading towards ’something’ for about 4 days, and thought it was just a cold I was fighting off. Oddly, all the intitial symptoms of that ‘cold’ magically disappeared yesterday, so I was lulled into this foolish sense of having defeated the thing before it had even started, and even took my little fellow (pictured) out for a walk in the howling winds and rain just before dark. I was absolutely fine when I went to bed last night then, just an hour later, all things had changed. 

It’s the sort of thing that my mother might have labelled ‘gastric flu’. Which is probably as valid as her advice to ‘wrap up well or you’ll catch a cold’. (Did she really believe that’s how colds were caught, I wonder?) Anyway you get the picture: I’ve got aches & pains, a slight fever, sniffles, a monster headache………and the trots. At times like these I’m thankful that I work from home. 

The fellow above is B4 (actually it isn’t – that’s just an assumed name to protect the innocent). ‘B4′ because he’s my 4th beagle. I have a ‘thing’ for Beagles. The last three have all been rescue dogs, only the first one did I bring up from a young pup, and I still have all the chewed LP covers (‘vinyl’ to those too young to remember) and semi-devoured books still on my shelves. I suspect the person who first coined the phrase ‘dog eared’ must have also had a beagle that ate their books. 

‘B4′ came to me at 3 years of age, a full TWICE the recommended weight for a dog of his breed. 23.5kg instead of around 12kg.  He was a barrel, with a tiny head propped on the end of this great lumbering body, and he couldn’t even bend in the middle enough to be able to bite his own bum. Jump? Run? You must be joking.

Because his previous owners couldn’t control him they just fed him, and fed him, and fed him. And then they fed him some more. If someone came to the door, they’d throw him biscuits so that he didn’t root the visitor’s legs. If he started barking, they’d feed him because he couldn’t eat and bark at the same time. They’d give him a large marrow bone EVERY day, just to keep him out of mischief - and he, of course, would eat the lot at one sitting.

So, having accepted the challenge to adopt him, I plotted a course of diet and exercise that should have achieved his goal weight in about 12 months. A kilo a month was my aim; any faster and it might cause harm. As it turned out, it took 9 months, though I suspect that it wasn’t just the diet & exercise that got him into shape, but some strange sort of psychic weight transference. You see, in the time it took to shed his 12 kilos, I’d actually gained around the same amount.

Ironically ‘B4′ is the best behaved beagle I’ve ever had or known, so heaven’s knows how his previous owners would have coped with a dog with more typical beagle characteristics. And it’s the very beagle qualities that I so love that cause so many of them to be cast off at an early age. Independent spirits, headstrong, the bellowing voice of a hound, the love of exploration. It would help if beagles weren’t so damn attractive – so many people seem to acquire them on the basis of their looks alone, and then find that they have an untrainable monster on their hands by the time he reaches adolescence. Just look at the websites for the lost dog’s homes and such, and you will usually find a significantly higher number of beagles needing rehousing than most other breeds. There are now even dedicated beagle rescue services. That it has reached this level in Australia makes me wonder whether there should be ‘vetting’ procedures in place for potential beagle owners. If the truth be known, I’d be very much for a suitability test for every potential dog owner; there’s just so many dogs even in my own locality that aren’t adequately cared for. Don’t get me started on irresponsible dog owners, that’s a very BIG issue that’s close to my heart.

Anyway, I’ve sorted the mail, done the post run and now I’m heading off to a cosy spot on the sofa, hot drink in hand, right alongside a good friend of mine.

Feeling ever on the edge

Much against my better judgement, I’ve cast on for several new projects over the last week or so. I’ve still got Lahaina on the go, but have set myself a goal (perhaps unachievable?) of finishing 4 new sample knits before the Sydney Craft & Quilt Fair:

I’m usually a one-thing-at-a-time type person, so it’s quite out of character for me to have multiple projects on the needles, but I thought there could be some sort of psychological advantage to attempting so many things at once. If I did one at a time, each right through to completion, I know I’d have no hope of finishing all four by the deadline - yet having all of them around the house in varying stages of progress is a constant reminder of the urgency of the situation. I can pick up a different project depending on my mood at the time and, if I get bored with one, well I can simply put it aside and work on another. Likewise, there’s car knitting, television knitting, work knitting, and so on  - each requiring a different degree of concentration.  One particular project may be more suitable than another, depending on how fit and able I am at the time.

The Banyan is proving a delight to work with. It’s a cotton blend, which produces a soft, drapey fabric and feels so comfortable against the skin. I’m betting this will be a popular yarn here in Australia (hence my urgency to get a sample knitted!). The yarn is made up of a dozen fine threads softly twisted together, and my initial thought was that it might be a bit temperamental to work with. However, I need not have feared. Once I got my cast on row done, I was away! It really is lovely as it moves across the needles, and is knitting up so quickly on 4mm needles. Here’s a section taken from the beginning of my first piece:

The cast-on I chose for this was a cabled one – knitting between the stitches. It dawned on me when I selected it that I hadn’t used this style of cast-on for decades! It was always useful back in the times when we wore (horror of horrors!) those knits with firm ribbed bands, that clung determinedly to the (then more youthful) body. But for this edging, with so many more stitches than the body itself, it’s ideal – it gives a well defined edge with a bit of body to help maintain the dimension of the stitch pattern. Instead of knitting the design as written, in stripes of 2 colourways, I’m going with one colour only, in Lichen, which may even save a hank on the given quantities.

Next to show is the Millais pattern from the Nostalgia booklet, which is worked in Parisienne kid mohair and Tao pure silk: 

I’ve actually progressed quite a bit further than the photograph shows, so I’m not really ever on the edge!  I suspect you’ll have difficulty seeing just what’s going on here: the pattern is essentially stripings of the two yarns, but the Tao (silk) has a row of a type of twisted drop stitch. Yet another cast on was used here: the regular knitted cast on, as I needed a flexible edge to allow the silk to ‘give’ enough when  the sweater gets put on or pulled off.  This sweater has proven ideal for the ‘I’m not really wanting to watch this TV program, but I’ll sit here with you and pretend I’m interested’ type knitting. I find I need to look at my work  with the fine kid mohair otherwise I sometimes knit off the stitch in a row below by accident, so it’s quite a useful project when there’s something mindnumbingly boring on TV (imvho) that Mr Knitterly Notions wants to watch, but I don’t. Definitely wasn’t Spooks type knitting….more your Robin Hood style (a declaration that may produce outrage from the Hood fans).

I’ve also started the short version of the sleeveless pullover in JitterBug – no progress pics as yet, but it’s in the gorgeous Velvet Bilberry colourway. The sizing in the JitterBug book is pretty good, with most of the patterns to suit up to a chest/bust 117cm, so I’m doing a Boogie Woogie that might possibly end up being worn by me.

So there we have it, 4 knits, each in varying stages of progress, targetted to be finished in just over 4 weeks from now!  I wonder…….?

It’s actually proving to be quite refreshing to sit down and follow an already published pattern. Most of my usual knitting is high stress stuff – designing and patternwriting for other people or organisations – and it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to sit back and….well… just follow someone else’s instructions for a change. It’s when I do this more ‘recreational’ mode of knitting that I better appreciate just how therapeutic and relaxing handknitting can be. It’s just a pity there’s a deadline attached.

Too Old to Rock and Roll…..

It was my birthday last month and, as I’m oft inclined, I treated myself to a book or two…..four actually. I got yet another great deal through the Book Depository but, oddly, their prices on some of them have changed quite substantially in the short time since I purchased. I snared No Sheep For You for a mere 9.23 UKP, and Runway Knits for 11.67 UKP. Yet today, the same titles are listed there as 15.51 and 12.29 – in the case of No Sheep, that’s an increase in price of over 65%, so steep that it makes me wonder whether they got it wrong the first time round, and it was just my good fortune to be there in the right place at the right time?

So how do I like my purchases? Well I do have some problems with No Sheep For You. The first hurdle is overcoming the language style used by the author, Amy Singer: she’s clearly not directing her book at a target audience of 51 year olds like myself (but nor should I expect her to). While the ‘twittering & chatter’ is quite irritating to this particular Grumpy Old Woman, I’d go so far as to say that it’s quite likely that she may well offend the intelligence of many twenty-something knitters too. I really do feel that she’s speaking down to her readers as if they were some kindergarten aged group.

Yet this book had the potential for excellence. The first part of it is meant to be dedicated to the ins and outs of the various non-wool yarns, how they are made, what are their qualities, how to overcome their shortcomings etc. But has she told us the full story ? I think not – and there would probably be a few disgruntled yarn producers has she busted the  likely myths surrounding these products that currently imbue a sense of eco-friendly and new agey-ness. I’m talking about the bamboo yarns, soysilks and such. Okay, I admit I don’t know  exactly how they are produced but, to my mind, they are all just rayon: mushed up cellulose (more usually twigs and leaves) that are combined with acetic acid to produce what was the first man-made fibre. And that could well be one of the reasons why, as Singer found, the manufacturers of some of these newer yarns are unwilling to divulge the production specifics. Rayon is a dirty word in many circles – most likely because it is one of the most misunderstood fibres. Some people wrongly label it as a ’synthetic’ – it’s not.  It’s never seemed to have shaken the slightly downtrodden image that people can associate it with  - cheap, poor quality, artificial.  That last word reminds me of the occasion that I saw a reputable shop selling rayon embroidery threads as ‘Pure Silk’.  Because rayon has been known as artificial silk (its sheen and drape etc can mimic silk very well) some thread  manufacturers compacted the name to ‘Art Silk’ and, whilst I’ve never been sure whether it was done to intentionally mislead the consumer, it certainly had that effect.

But back to No Sheep, I feel that the first part of Singer’s book wastes a good few pages of space telling us…well ….nothing much at all. And when she resorts to filling a quarter page with stuff & nonsense about imagining how bamboo yarn just might be made (the story involves pandas and spittle)…….what is clearly intended as a skerrick of light hearted banter, just falls flat on my mature aged, world-weary shoulders.

However, for the pattern section in this book – three quarters of the book is dedicated to knitting patterns – I give Amy Singer much greater credit for her choices. There’s only one or two in the whole bunch that made me recoil.  One being  the misplacement of a motif, drawing (undesirable?) attention to a body part which, in my case, needs no further ‘enhancement’. There were also one or two charts that looked so confusing at first glance that I suspect some knitters might be frightened to even tackle the project.  These could have been simplified without losing any of the required information. But for the rest of the projects, you get the full range of realistic sizings that we’ve come to expect from Singer, and most of the designers have produced classy pieces that work well with their chosen non-sheep yarns.  Most are very wearable – yes, even for those in their fifties and beyond.

As a postscript to this, the latest copy  of Yarn Market News arrived here a couple of days ago, in which there is an article about ‘green’ yarns. The article states that it takes about one third of a pound of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides to produce enough conventionally grown cotton for just one tee shirt. Extrapolated globally, cotton production uses 25% of the world’s insecticides and 10% of the world’s pesticides.

Later in that article it tells us to take care in our choice of ‘green’ knitting yarns, because Soybeans use even more pesticides than cotton in the US.

Now there’s some food for thought….

Wallowing in wool

I made one of my correspondents somewhat envious when I described to her how I was wallowing knee-deep in yarns at present. I’ve recently had a huge shipment in from Colinette – boxes & boxes – which has taken me days to get sorted out.

The JitterBugsock wool we’ve now got in 35 different colourways, and I’ve been photographing the hanks to get our website updated. But I’ve also been playing! (I do a lot of that every time I get something new in.) I take over just about every available spot of floorspace, spread out the booty, and have a good look at how which yarn works with which, and how different colourways can be combined. My ‘thing’ of the moment is combining different textures, but of the same colourway, and I’ve got a few garment sketches down that have the JitterBug combined with Parisienne - just as you might combine two different fabric weights when sewing. Think something like a fine wool crepe top with silk georgette trims. Get the idea? 

The JitterBug, being a 4 ply, is a really lovely weight for garments, particularly over here in Australia, and the extended colour range means that there’s a few more subtler shades for those that want something other than a pretty memorable pair of socks (though my partner surprised me the other day & said he’d happily wear a pair of outrageous socks if I knit him some for the shows he helps at!).  This next picture is when I gathered together one hank in each colour during my play session – though you can’t really see all 35 very easily.

Next there followed a lot of shuffling and discarding, as I got an idea of which colours might work well together. I’ve always fancied a pair of modular knit socks – there’s quite a nice pair in the Ginger Luters’ book of modular knitting - but it does concern me that my (extremely delicate) feet would find the little bumps and ridges, where the modules are picked up and built upon, just too uncomfortable for practical use.

Ah well, dream on……I must get back to the sorting, now that I’m down to the last 30kg or so left to unbox.