Knitting on Impulse

Leafy Hat

It's published!  Really, truly. This is the companion to the Leafy Mitts, as suggested by (sadly blogless) blog reader and test knitter extraordinaire, Johanna. 

 

 

The pattern is available for download via Ravelry; you can also find it on my website here.  It's a fun little knit - I'm particularly proud of the way the crown shaping creates "negatives" of the leaf motif.  I've been saving up some double sized skeins of Essential Merino Aran just for this - a single skein would be a bit of a squeaker for yardage (though technically do-able), but a double skein will comfortably make a matching set of the Leafy Hat and Mitts.  I put a couple of skeins up tonight and there's another six to go up tomorrow.

Making Progress

Towards Spring:

 

 

Towards getting my body back.  First BSG and now this - the antithesis of everything I ever believed sound, sensible, and good value for the money - a workout video, based on a reality TV show, no less,  complete with ad laden website and tricky 30 day "free trials" that aren't.... But Steph and Laura said it was good - that knitblogger effect again.  This morning was day 1 and honestly, I think the exercise bit is very good.  It is based on constant motion, a balance of strength and cardio, and the principle of working as many muscle groups as possible at the same time.  Reminds me of the hard core class I used to go to at the YMCA in St. John's 18 years ago (I can't believe that's a 2 digit number) before aerobics got all fancy pants low impact and useless. However, Ibuprofen will be my friend for a while. 

Towards balance. (Though I think we've agreed that it's not a destination.)  Latest mind-blowing epiphany: a stopwatch (or failing that, an eye on the clock.)  Turns out that writing down and cataloguing how long stuff actually takes me and then planning my finite number of kid-free hours accordingly, works.  And is also a bit depressing, when item 1 on my To Do wish list promptly fills up all the available time for the day.  I think though, that it's better to know going in how little you're going to accomplish, rather than being perpetually disappointed at day's end. 

While we're on that topic - no new colourway this week.  Taxes took that time slot, and I'm also feeling the weight of all those rainbow sock pre-orders. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for my nightly BSG fix....

Crocus

 

So many shades and permutations of purple here - from nearly-blue to sweet lavender, fading out to pale rose at the crisp petal tips...

 

Summit sock:

 

Merino-Silk:

 

BFL fingering:

 

BFL sport:

 

BFL worsted:

 

Merino worsted:

 

And mohair-silk:

 

Sweet.  I haven't ruled out doing a second colourway of the centre - titled, perhaps, Saffron?  I chose not to combine them in a single colourway, but that tiny burst of pure hot-blooded joy in the centre rather makes it, don't you think?

Eye Candy Friday: Peak to Peak

 

 

 

 

 

 

April showers bring...

 

Never mind. Don't want to talk about it.

How about some random stuff, instead?

1) The knitters are right.  We rented Season 1 of Battlestar Galactica and... it's good.  Really really good.  Mind-bogglingly good.  I pretty much quit watching TV back in the early 90's; there were still plenty of shows around then that were, if not exactly gripping, pleasant enough ways to kill an hour, but I had very few hours to kill, lots of other interests, and we kind of got out of the habit.  Then, in 2003, I was stuck on hospital bedrest for 3 months with threatened premature labour, and TV (accompanied by knitting) became a vital way to drown out a) my room-mate's large and vociferous family and b) my own fears and frustrations.  I don't know where BG was then, but it sure as heck wasn't on any of the 100+ channels I had access to.  What I did find was apparently conclusive proof that intelligent storytellers had deserted the American television industry for good; once I'd eliminated the morass of vulgar and exploitive voyeurism labelled "reality," the pickings were pretty slim.  I left hospital with a healthy babe and a fervent desire to never again subject my neural circuitry to that crap.  In recent years, I've relented a bit with TreeHouse and PBS kids on Saturday mornings (and I am not ashamed to admit that I rather enjoy Arthur and the Magic School Bus), but we stuck with DVDs of British television when we wanted grown-up entertainment.  Until last Friday, when Rob and I were wandering through the video store with Scooby Doo in one hand and a vague hope for something more cerebral after the kids went to bed.  I said, "you know, the Yarn Harlot is always going on about Battlestar Galactica, and so are other knitbloggers - couldn't hurt to try, could it?"  Rob was dubious (despite the fact that the original Apollo is likely directly responsible for my choice to marry a fighter pilot - you'd think he'd be grateful for that, at least), but we picked up Season 1, disc one and.... stayed up, riveted, until it finished at 2 AM.  Since I am (as usual) seriously late to the party, I won't bother going on about it (and no spoilers in the comments, please), but let's just say our evenings are booked for the next while!

2)

I know there's a lot of backlash out there towards self-esteem promotion for kids (though I suspect the worst excesses may be happening in a country / culture that is not the one I live in, because the things I've read don't ring true with my own experience) but I do think our school does a good job with it.  Primary (grades K-3) assemblies are held periodically throughout the year, and at each one, a few children are recognized for something they have done well.  Over the course of the year, each child eventually gets their turn for recognition, and the awards are explicitly and realistically descriptive of an actual achievement or talent.  This was the science assembly, and Liam was recognized for taking a keen interest when the class studied penguins, taking the initiative to learn a dizzying array of extra penguin facts.  A child might be recognized for their conflict resolution skills at the Social skills assembly, or the weakest reader in the class might be recognized in the Reading assembly for exceptional hard work and perseverence in catching up a full grade level. There's no hype, no "best" or "greatest" or "most" terminology, just a quiet recognition that everybody has things about them worth noticing and celebrating. I think it's a good thing.

Does two things count as random?  How about one more: we made the best Split Pea Soup EVER on Tuesday.  Slow cookers rock, especially when the kitchen is fully committed to a dye day.

Transformed

The snow is leaving, albeit reluctantly, skulking off all grimy and disheveled, like an over-long couch crasher.  The skies are grey, the grass is brown, but the magic IS happening.

Dark red leaf buds, that held the whisper of spring through the cold dark season, are unfolding slowly, their ruddy pink skins blushing pale as they transform into the newborn leaf's golden glory.

 

Bluefaced Leicester fingering:

 

BFL sport:

 

and BFL worsted:

 

Merino-silk:

 

Merino Lace:

 

Essential Merino worsted:

 

and Summit Sock:

Balance

It's such an elusive thing in daily life, you know?  I think I've spent much of my 40+ years trying to achieve it, and most of that absolutely certain that I was one of the few who hadn't.  I thought all those wobbles and lurches were a humiliating sign of failure... to mature, to get organized, to get the whole Life thing nailed down properly.  I created Systems, filled bookshelves with five and seven and ten simple things that would make me normal forevermore, pored over tomes on the 101 dumb mistakes I was indubitably making, tried Thing after Thing, and not one of them transformed me into the immovable, failure-proof rock I longed to be.  And every thing that proved not to be The Thing was just further evidence of my flaky inability to get it together.

But what if being alive IS change, and plasticity, and movement?  The physical internal self is a busy place, maintaining body temperature, pH, blood pressure, keeping the nutrients circulating and the toxins off to the waste, reacting in a thousand ways to a thousand unpredictable inputs to keep the body healthy and functioning.  Why should our conscious presence in the same crazy world be any easier to maintain?

Either I've reached the age of giving up, or some sort of experiential wisdom has kicked in, but I've finally decided that a state of flux and figuring stuff out is an OK place to be. I've worked out that I need checklists, pre-arranged reference points to remind me what to do next when I emerge from a creative fuge state disoriented and vaguely nauseous, with no idea when I last ate.  I'm also starting to accept that aspects of those checklists are going to change from day to day - that dealing with the reality of fluctuating demands is not the same as failure to achieve consistency.  I've worked out that there are considerably fewer hours in the day than I would like to think and pretending it isn't so does not alter the space-time continuum in any meaningful way (though I'm still a ways from accurately assessing what I'm capable of achieving in a day.)  I'm beginning to accept that regardless of ingrained belief guilt systems, being harsh with myself in no way enhances productivity, and work happens much more efficiently when it follows, rather than fights, the natural flow of my inner and outer environment.

Mostly, I'm starting to accept that balance is not a static achievement that neutralizes external input so you never have to change again.  Balance is a process, an activity requiring constant mindfulness, engagement, and adjustment to life's surprises. 

I'm also rediscovering that amazing things can be solved and created with a fresh journal page, a great pen, and a few minutes of peace and quiet.  Lately, I've tried to sit down every morning with my journal  - not following any systems or steps or plans - just letting things happen as they will.  Sometimes I write a bit in a stream of consciousness fashion, and sometimes I tackle a question or a challenge or catch the fleeting germ of a design.  Sometimes I sketch, sometimes I write burning thoughts that aren't quite ready to blog.  Often I look at yesterday's checklist, and rather than berating myself for the absent ticks, I look for patterns, clarify and sweep away a little more unnecessariness, and think creatively about ways to make what I want to do and what I actually do more like the same thing. Fine-tuning. Balancing.

Design time has been one of the beneficiaries of that process:

 

Yup - it's Little Knight, well on its way to becoming a published pattern.  Really!

Aubergine

Somewhere in the last few days I meant to have a cool Spring photo post, but the long weekend flew by in a whirl of kid stuff and work (tucked awkwardly around kid stuff) and...... here's yarn instead!  I'm going to cut the number of photos down a bit today - not because anything turned out poorly, but out of consideration for readers and in grudging deference to Bloglines, which takes forEVER to pick up extremely picture heavy posts.

This is a somewhat non-traditional interpretation of the colour, which is usually rendered as reddish-purple... but that's not primarily what struck me here:

 

The inky black has definite purple undertones, but its surface reflects sunlight as a luminous blue. 

Like so (Summit sock):

 

This colourway, and the techniques I used to obtain it, showed up the differences in dye distribution between the superwash and untreated yarns more definitively than usual. 

You can see the distinct layers of colour in the sock yarn above, whereas yarns such as the BFL sport show the black as a sort of an inky glaze over a luminous blue core, with the purple subtly shading the black:

 

Both very pretty, but quite different effects.

There's some of everything (excepting the Cruiser sweater pack, which is spoken for now):  

Essential Merino Lace, Essential Merino Fingering, Merino Silk, Bluefaced Bliss, Bluefaced Bliss Worsted, and Essential Merino Worsted.

Announcing... Custom Dyeing

Done - at last. Website work never ceases to amaze me by its propensity to create a time sucking black hole out of a pretty basic task.

I've set up a category under yarns called Custom Dyeing, which explains the process, and under that, a category for each colourway I'm offering - Dark Water and Blackberry, thus far.  It works exactly as I blogged earlier: email me with your choice of colourway, base yarn(s) and number of skeins.  I'll keep a running tally of the no. of reserved skeins on the page for each colourway and when it reaches or exceeds 40, I'll set aside a dyeing day for it and let everyone know. Payment is via Paypal invoice, which is generated after the yarn is dyed to my satisfaction.  I figured the running tally would allow folk to check back and see how close their colourway was to Dye Day.

The other development is the beginning of pre-ordered Socks of Fraternal Happiness.  I've only designated one colour sequence thus far, just to get an idea of how smoothly it will go and the kinds of numbers I might be dealing with. The first colour sequence will be the challenging but popular full rainbow. 

In other news, St. Brigid is well underway again, working the body in the round. I'm still in love, and I'm a little torn between wanting to wear it and not minding at all if the process prolongs because it is such a pleasure to knit.  The BFL was so right for this. Besides, in the mountains, there is always an early morning chill that's sweater-worthy for an hour or two, and standing at the market on a rainy day most definitely calls for wool.

 

Blooming Heather

The sun is shining, the snow is trickling merrily down the road, woodpeckers are pecking, robins are sucking fat worms out of the newly revealed earth, and I feel like Colour!

Heather is another of my favorite flowers, found mostly in the high alpine here, carpeting the rocky slopes with breathtaking colour.

 

For this colourway, I was particularly intrigued by the juxtaposition of the rich fuschia pinks with the equally intense brick red.  I find warm and cool variants of the same primary colour to be a very effective combination - in this case, the yellow-toned red lends an air of fierce maturity to what could otherwise be an overly saccharine pink.

Being a new colourway, I experimented a little with depth of hue on the pinks - some yarns at full intensity, so as to be on par value-wise with the red, others emulating the lighter pink hues, with a little more contrast.  I think they were all successful, though I do have my favorites!

Essential Merino Fingering:

 

Bluefaced Bliss:

 

Summit Sock - I permitted more contrast on these, because socks are meant to be bright and fun (the red highlights are short and random, so there shouldn't be pooling).

 

And the merino-silk - pulling out the purple undertones, as it inevitably does:

 

BFL sport is all gone, but there is some lovely worsted weight in a particularly intense mix of hues:

 

The Essential Merino worsted has more defined highlights, as is characteristic of the fibre, but is also very intense:

 

The Cruiser Sweater pack has been claimed...

I've settled on a new merino laceweight to replace Merino Mist.  Due to economic factors, my base cost for both of my mainstay laceweights suddenly jumped by 25%, which I couldn't see either passing on or absorbing, so lace has been scarce of late. Silken Mist will also be phased out as I dye up the last of my stock, but I have a potential replacement on order that may be even better.

So... introducing Essential Merino Lace - a lovely 2 ply merino with a great hand and excellent yardage:

The reds are distinctly present, but very close in value to the pink, as befits the purpose of a lace-weight. 

And of course, the Glowing Hearts - I went a little hog-wild on the reds because this yarn has a tendency to go pale and wispy if you don't really saturate it...

 

Perhaps not perfectly true to the original flower, but satisfyingly magnificent nonetheless.