Adventures of a Desi KnitterAn academic juggles knitting, sewing, and other crafts in Kolkata

Appreciation

§ February 3rd, 2008 § Filed under Elsewhere on the Web, sweaters § 8 Comments

In the last week, some fellow knit-bloggers made my day by giving me this:

Many many thanks to Mel of Purling Plans, Stell of Knitknitfrog, Solomon Roggey and Orata of FeatherandFan for the appreciation! It truly made my day. All four, whom I got acquainted with relatively recently, have quickly joined my list of regular reads.

There are so many good blog-friends to whom I would like to pass on this button, but let me mention just a few, whose posts I have really begun looking forward to.

1. Ruth of Ruthless Knitting,
I love reading about Ruth’s design process and the very individual look she achieves in her original designs. Her clear, elegant writing is a pleasure to read.

2. Amy of Stashknitrepeat,
Amy’s projects and yarns are to die for, and make me want to try so many patterns I wouldn’t have otherwise considered.

3. Kelly of Kelpknits.
Kelly’s photos (especially the socks in the black shoes!) always delight me when I see a fresh post from her. Even if I don’t make that pattern myself, I find her detailed notes on her projects very insightful.

4. Lobstahsworld!
I have followed Lobstah’s knitting adventures since the time I began blogging, and love the fact that she shares stories of successful projects, and also confesses to occasional shortcuts!

5. Stella of A Cold Bright Day
Beautiful projects and a lovely sense of humour; nuff said!

To all of you, keep blogging and make my day!

In the meantime, I’ve been knitting. I started the Puff-sleeved Feminine Cardigan from Fitted Knits. I know, I know. “Puff-sleeved-feminine” conjures up all kinds of ghastly images. But something about the pattern caught my eye, and after seeing various versions on Ravelry gave me this mad desire to knit it. Fear not, I am not knitting it in baby pink. I decided to roughen up the look a bit by trying it out in the mossy, heathered Cascade I mentioned a couple of posts ago. I believe it will look more “rustic” with the right buttons, although I hate that word as well. Can you imagine something comfy+shaped+not-fussy+but-with-nice-detail? I have a feeling, or am hoping anyway, that this yarn and pattern combo will do it. No worries, if it turns out badly, I’ll share it with you anyway and we can all jeer it off the blog and out of my wardrobe together.

I wish I could capture the right shade of this yarn. It’s got some very unexpected tints of brown and yellow. I tried photographing it in natural light and under a flash, but both are somehow unsatisfactory. Above is the one in natural light, and here is the one with the flash, which is actually a truer shade:

I haven’t done a top-down raglan in years, and it’s fun. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to modify the shape at all – I thought I’d try it on as I went along and see. I also decided to knit the button band alongside the body, instead of doing it later. I just cast on seven extra stitches after the collar and am doing it in seed stitch, with a button hole every twenty rows. I got gauge at 21 stitches on Susan Bates 6 (4 mm) instead of 22, so I’m knitting a smaller size.

Last night ManDuka brought some Donegal Tweed she’d acquired in a sale over to wind into balls, and brought some delicious dinner along as well. I have this old “Mama Bear Swift” that is a flat four-bar floor swift with movable spokes, and over the last year I have had the devil of a time getting the spokes to stay in place while the swift is rotating at high speed. If I kept the swift on the floor with my winder screwed down on a shelf, I had to bend down to keep the yarn taut at a low angle so that it didn’t tug the spokes off as it sped into the winder. All in all, not a happy task winding skeins, because lots of skeins got tangled into an unholy mess with spokes flying off midway through the winding.

But wonder of wonders, after we inserted some sandpaper into the spoke wedges and placed the swift on one of my side tables instead of on the floor, everything worked like magic. No more holding the yarn down, no bending, no unstable spokes wandering off. I am so glad I resisted the temptation to break it into two and feed it into the fireplace over the last few months! Now Mama Bear is whirling like a veteran dervish. If I get tenure, I’m definitely buying a polished umbrella swift, but Mama Bear can keep twirling until then.

I have been knitting something else as well, but will post finished pictures in a few days….. stay tuned.