Cables ahoy!

One Rogue, finished. Never mind that somehow one arm ended up narrower than the other to elbow, then manages a little, unnoticeable mutton-chop to get the right number of stitches for the sleeve cap. I ended up having to order more yarn, since I have eight repeats in the middle of the body instead of three.



To be honest, I'm still not convinced that it's very flattering. I'd rather have another Arwen anyday. But I'm rather in love with the yarn.


And here is my ready-to-be-cast-off Gretel. Which is now reduced to two balls of Jo Sharp Silk Road Tweed. Why? I was knitting at 18 stitches to four inches, not 16. It fit nicely, if I was going for a beanie rather than a beret... I'm going to try again soon, with extra stitches and making the slouchy size to make up for the smaller row gauge. Other than my sheer stupidity it is an entirely recommendable knit. Witty, if clever use of leaning decreases and predictable, Fibonacci-esque patterns are what you think constitutes witty.

Arwen finished

There. In all her dim, unphotographable-red glory. Yes, she's very snuggly; yes, she pills like a bi-atch. I am impressed at how flattering complete shapelessness is (it is a series of rectangles). I have abandoned my plans to add toggles and i-cord loops for fastening. I just pin it closed with that awesome bunny rabbit brooch I wore in the Marie photo too.

I think she's my favourite handknitted jumper right now. Well, the only real competition is the Candygan, so that doesn't mean much.

felt is made of wool and so is this:

ta-da. It's the fronts and sleeves of the arwen cardy. I have a back too, but I'm not 'wearing' it in that photo (in case you didn't work it out, I've just put the sleeves on, and draped the attached fronts in place). Only the hood to go, which won't be started till after i finish exams (Monday...). Don't click to enlarge, it'll be blurry. I took the photo in the bathroom mirror, and it doubles images slightly. Well, that's my excuse.

'What's that on her t-shirt?' you say. Well, maybe you don't, but I wish you would because I've been trying to figure out a reason to blog this for a while. It says "Joseph Beuys". Cool, huh? It's from a series of fan t-shirts made by... some artist made for Supermart '04 (click 'program', scroll down till you you find it).

Now, to Spidersknit's meme (though I note she hasn't photographed her pantry, so I'm not sure why I'm bothering *pointed look*). I also doubt how grown up I am.
I wish I had been when I grew up:
- Bilingual. Or trilingual. I'm so embarassed by my monolingualism when I travel. When my tour guide in Morocco speaks five language fluently, but can't afford an overseas trip, y'know? When every European waiter swaps in my language because I order my food in theirs, y'know?
- A curator. Preferably a textiles curator. Preferably at the Victoria & Albert Museum. While I may seem interested in sewing 'n stuff now, sit me down in front of Historical Fashion in Detail and watch me spazz out. I'm still a little bitter that there's nowhere in Perth to study fashion history (one uni teaches fashion design, and they offer one unit on 20th century fashion only). Obviously I got partway to this, what with the art history degree and all. But um, there are few jobs in Australia, the pay is astonishingly miserable, and I saw people studying around me with so much passion and no other alternative career they would consider, and I just thought that they deserved it more than I did. So I didn't do any post-grad. I'd kind of like to go back and do my arts honours one day.
- Able to stay up late at night and drink a lot. I'm the person that leaves parties before midnight because they're too tired, and ever since an awful incident involving a bottle of absinthe on New Years Eve 2003 I'm pretty much unable to drink anything at all without waking up feeling seedy. Oh, I'm well worth inviting to a party, me.
- A writer.

Still Life with Owl and Grafted Cable

Alright, it's a pretty lousy shot, but in my defence it's overcast outside and a single energy-saver bulb lights the living room. And I have a rent inspection in half an hour, so I wasn't going to get too creative.


Owl is my Owl from Sugarloop. Framed in a cheapy Ikea frame. He lives propped against the wall on top of Badly Coloured Boy's chest of drawers, because the hook I bought to hang him off is too big to shove through the little picture hook hole on the frame clip. It's an awful photo. I promise he's amazingly crisp and detailed in real life, and I am quite the Sugarloop addict now (as is my mum. Every time I speak to her she manages to bring up how great my print is. I see a Christmas present coming on...)

The fabrics are my newest echino fabrics from Duckcloth. The green dots will pair with the Kristen Doran or the Lara Cameron to make a cushion. The other will be used up in the Placemat Campaign. I really, really love the deep red on natural colourway. It's sort of crisp and retro and rich at the same time.

And you're also looking at a completed left front/ left sleeve for the cardigan. Right side up is the point at which I kitchener stitched the cable together, and the entire sleeve. It isn't perfect, and blocking will help, but I think I did a pretty good job. The whole sleeve had a provisional cast on, because I hate picking up stitches. The instructions called for a regular cast on, then you picked up some ninety odd stitches and kitchener'd them. Figured I'd skip the picking up bit.

There may well be silence blog-wise for a little bit. I'm on study break right now and, lo and behold, am actually studying. Turning off the router during business hours does wonders for my productivity.
Oh, and I'm on Ravelery now. Same username as ever. No pictures yet, as I don't actually have a Flickr account, and the thing is set up to take images from Flickr.

Knitting and Video Art

Here is Arwen, blocking the migratory path hundreds of Lara Cameron geese. I'm more than halfway through the sleeve now, which feels nice. I've cast off the shoulder bit (the part of the front that becomes the hood is still live, then the shoulder is cast off, then the sleeve is still being knit. Weird, eh?) I think I'm going to put together a tute on fixing complex cables, as I've done nine in total now, and feel quite the expert. Contrary to what other tutes say, you don't need to drop both cables down to where they cross. Dropping one works plenty fine.

Now, for an aside. See, thing is, a bunch of units on postmodernism down and I still have trouble with video art. I just don't like it. There is an awful lot of bad video art around, and bad video art is worse than bad still art, because bad video art makes you keep watching in the hope that it will somehow turn good. The Histrionics (or here) wrote a painfully apt satire called 'Video Art', to the tune of Horror Movie. The chorus ran 'Video art, right there on the TV... and it's boring me right out of my brain.'

The worst piece of art I ever saw in a gallery was an array of of broken pallets scattered on the floor, with two TVs on top of two pallets. One TV played a loop of a shot of an empty road in the desert, the other played a loop of the artist dressed as a scarecrow dancing awkwardly in front of a bluescreen to the tune of 'If Only I Had A Brain', from the The Wizard of Oz. Short of unkind remarks about the aptness of the song, I honestly have no idea what the artist was exploring, or trying to communicate to me.

Anyway, my point is that this video (beware! movie with sound load automatically!) is what makes video art worthwhile. I don't particularly care for the song (should I know the band? Blonde Redhead?), but the clip. It's beautiful. I think it's about limitations and possibilities. It works with the limitations and possibilities of film to create the work. Just when you think you can predict the next pose, the director snatches away to something else. It explores the limitations and possibilities of the human body. It's both static and dynamic. It's aesthetically interesting and attractive. It's imperfect - the artist shakes - just like us. I adore it.

Complex Cable Surgery

I realised yesterday that I'd crossed a cable the wrong way about four rows back. To rip back four rows would mean ripping out my 92 stitch sleeve. Wasn't going to happen. So I dropped back just the stitches involved to fix them. I do this quite a bit in lace and knit/ purl patterns, but I'd never done it in cables before. And while there's plenty of great advice about fixing cables by dropping back the stitches (or cutting and kitchener stitching, or overstitching), the illustrations only ever deal with very simple cables. My mess has other cables hanging about, other crosses to make before I got back to the top, and one pair of stitches were knit on the right side while the others were purl on the right side. It took a while to work out what I was looking at.
My cable surgery took an hour or so, I think. At one point seven needles were involved. Don't you love that despite my awkward situation I still grabbed the camera? I fixed it all up so it looked fine at the front, but there were a couple of weird loops at the back that concerned me, so they all got dropped again. That lengthened the process a little. And a couple of the knit stitches are still 'open' (you know, the oppposite of twisted), but I'm zen with that, all things considered.

I also got another good mail day. Duckcloth/ Kristen Doran fabric. Nicely packaged, and I like that the care instructions were included (machine washable, yeah!).


The fabric is actually a darker brown than this. I'd almost call the colour donkey, or light cocoa. The print is that slightly rubbery kind that sits above the fabric, you know? The detail is very crisp though. The fabric is interior decorating weight - cushion cover or tote bag weight. It's got a kind of sheen to it that I can't quite work out. Different.
I'm thinking it doesn't work quite so well in the living room as I'd hoped (too brown), so I'm thinking the feathers may be part of my placemat/ tablerunner campaign (I'll explain another day); and the flowers maybe will be bag. Because I really like the flowers. And then my Lara Cameron Kawaii (I bought the red) fabric can be the cushion cover (if it isn't too brown as well... hmmm...).

Surprise mail!

I have a cold (again!) and was all cranky this morning, then I heard the parcel delivery guy's truck (he never knocks on the door, charming man, just drops the parcel and runs). Thought it might be my Duckcloth fabric, but the package was waaaay heavy. Also it did seem a little over the top to address it 'The Lovely Lupin Bunny' if it was from someone I'd never met. Turned out to be a surprise gift from Badly Coloured Boy's Mum and her partner - a Yates guide! With all the sections on organic gardening, water-wise gardening, no dig gardens (BCB's mum is a big fan of the no-dig garden) and vegie growing bookmarked! How nice is that? Cheered me right up (well, that and the cold'n'flu tablet).


There was also a copy of the film The Machinist in there for BCB.


And here's how the Cardigan for Arwen is progressing. The cabling is not so difficult after all. I've even memorised the eight row repeat! Look at the IK model peering cheekily over the top of my needle. I ran into a friend in the library at uni the other day, and while he had no problem with the knitting, I noticed a supressed smirk at the name of the pattern. I too find the name, Cardigan for Arwen, a bit pretentious and over the top. And I'm not a massive fan of Lord of the Rings either. Never made it through the whole of any of the books or the films. Tried repeatedly with the books too. Any suggestions for an alternative name for my cardigan? I wanted to call it the Little Red Riding Hoodie, but that's already taken.

things is growing

Remember this? Well, four weeks in an things have grown.


You can tell, right? Well, in case you can't here's what that wussy little beet seedling looks like now. With some garlic to the right of it.


My knitting's grown too. I've finished the back of the Cardigan for Arwen:


Instead of whipstitching up the facing I used a provisional cast on, and just k2tog'ed when the back was the same length as the facing. Neat, huh?
Now I'm onto the cables and, uh, I never thought about it before, but I've never cabled anything more complex than Knitty's Fetching. These cables are really, really hard. Not just complex, but reversible, so I'm throwing a whole heap of unexpected purls into knit rows and vice versa.

I was disrupted from photographing the beets by Badly Coloured Boy arriving home from doing the shopping. When he saw me outside he rapped on the kitchen window and beckoned for me. When I signalled 'give me a minute' he shook his head, and made bunny ears. He bought me a bunny-rabbit! Well, no. Turns out one of our neighbours has just got two biggish kittens and they were exploring our carport. He thought I might want to come and play with them (he was dead right). I love the little kitties, and to make things worse, our lease explicitly allows cats. And one of BCB's friends is trying to find a new home for his kitties Belle (old and fat) and Sebastian (young and springy). It's so tempting, but I have to keep reminding myself I'm allergic. They're fun to play with, not to keep. Whenever BCB says 'No, for your own good' when I ask for a kitty I ask him for a bunny. Today he said 'Well, you better check with the landlord. That's the first step.' That is distinctly not a 'no'. Someone talk me out of saddling myself with a largeish rodent please. Why does 'but I could cuddle it!' seem to outweigh 'food costs money, you might want to move house or even States, it's hard to go on holiday, you're surrounded by predatory cats' on the list of pros and cons?

MCY - Mystically not Colourfast Yarn

I finished the cloud skein wonder, washed it and laid it out to block. An awful lot of blue came out the in the washing (water, no soap or detergent). Shmeh, I thought. It's hand-dyed. A little excess is bound to come out.
However, I didn't expect that so much dye would come out that the front of the cloud skein wonder would look slightly faded, while the back which (being 'underneath' when blocking, and thus where gravity took what water i didn't squeeze out) would end up a much more intense colour. See the line across the sleeve?


Not a shadow. A tidemark from where the dye leached from and to. After I squeezed out all excess water. That's not a little bit of excess dye. It dyed my towel too. I am seriously unimpressed, and join the ranks of those who wouldn't buy Mystical Creations Yarn again. There's more dye movement than after my DIY Kool-Aid experiments, for feck's sake! I can't decide whether to drop them a (whinging) line or not.

Anyway, here's the finished thing. Quite pretty, if you discount the dye difference. Not that i can wear it out anywhere it might get a little bit damp. I fancy my clothes not adulterated with more blue-green dye.


In better news, I've started playing with all the debbie bliss cashmerino aran I got on sale. Unfortunately, I was unaware of its reputation for pilling. however, two gauge swatches (yes, two! i'm trying to do this proper) went through the washing machine no problem. No fuzzing, no colour running (take that, MCY!) Though the yarn does feel a bit funny to work with. My fibre research has told me that microfiber (a pretty large percentage of cashmerino) is known for wicking moisture away. So I think the odd feeling is the yarn sucking away at any sweat/ oils on my fingers. This is the start of the cardigan for Arwen, from Winter Interweave Knits. Nice and casual (so if it pills, I'll still wear it to uni), but an unusual construction that I hope will teach me to understand short rows better.


I've been messing about with combination knitting, to see how I like it and how it works with my RSI. I might have tried to knit the whole thing combination-style, but I've discovered that the yarn is so smooth and regular and I'm so skilled that I can - wait for it - read and knit at the same time! Vistas open before me! Mostly vistas of spiral-bound uni readers right now, but eventually I imagine getting through books for work while making myself a useful garment at the same time.