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

Turbulence

§ September 19th, 2009 § Filed under sweaters § 5 Comments

My blue period continues:

This is the back of the Turbulence U-Neck pullover by Norah Gaughan, from Knitting Nature. I am using the Berroco Inca Gold for this project instead of the Sidelines Top I had bought it for.

This will be my third project from this wonderful book, the first two being the Ogee Tunic and the Spiral Scarf.

I passed right over this one when I first browsed through the book, because it is in a very non-descript colour, and the photos did nothing to make it stand out. Frankly, I came back to it because of Ravelry’s wonderful search-by-gauge function, in my opinion one of the coolest things about that site (and as we know, there are many!). It fit my 5.5 spi gauge, and so I looked the pattern over and what other people had done with it. As written it’s rather boxy and shapeless, and also a good deal shorter than I would like. So I will be modifying the overall shape quite a bit, lengthening it and adding waist shaping. This latter I have already begun for the back.

I love the two twisting cables that turn away from each other in the central motif, like serpent-headed staffs. (They reminded me of a wonderfully spine-chilling Marathi short story by Ratnakar Matkari about a serpent-shaped magician who remains immortal by periodically sucking youth and life out of unsuspecting men, and where the shapeshifting is a big part of the suspense.) But I am not yet sure about the neck shaping. I might move the entire motif down a couple of inches to sit right below the bust, and turn the neck into a V, by playing around a bit with the motif itself.

An avalanche of work has hit me this month, and I am likely to remain buried under it for the foreseeable future. Some of it is very interesting and keeps me happily occupied, especially a new graduate course on historiographies of language, for which I am reading a lot of stimulating new work that straddles cultural history, literary criticism and linguistics. I also have two papers to write for conferences, which are fun to think about when the thought of the deadlines isn’t keeping me awake at night. But there is also a lot of admin work, which is boring and tedious, but unavoidable and continuous. All in all, it’s cutting severely into knitting time. Can you believe that I have only two WIPs right now, this one and the never-ending sampler shawl? The lace, of course, will take still more time, but let’s hope this mostly-stockinette project will not live up to its name, and race smoothly to the finish line!

Ping pong

§ September 13th, 2009 § Filed under Baby things, Mittens, Gloves, etc § 2 Comments

I knit two tiny table-tennis bats, a.k.a. infant mittens.

These are also for my three-month old niece, whose tiny hands are very cold in her western Mass house, and so of course she needed some baby cashmere mittens. I modified this basic pattern, which was very helpful to get a sense of dimensions. My mods:
Cast on 48 sts on size 0 dpns,
Knit 2×2 rib for 21 rows,
Knit a row of k2, yo, k2tog all around to make eyelets,
Knit straight stockinette for 22 rows,
[k1, ssk, k18, k2tog, k1] twice,
Knit 2 rows,
[k1, ssk, k16, k2tog, k1] twice,
knit 1 row,
continued decreases every row as established, till I had 16 stitches total,
divided on to two needles equally, and grafted the top.

Then I doubled the yarn and made two chains of crochet, about 50 loops each and threaded it into the eyelets. This was specifically requested by the mum, as a way to keep the mittens secure on the tiny fists. Let’s hope that works!

They do feel like Miniature ping pong bats, sturdy and flat, despite the cashmere-alpaca blend. I have to say, Elann’s Baby Cashmere is a very soft, but crappy yarn. I bought this as a sample last year, and it had disintegrated in three different places in the skein! I had to spit-splice it together which was not pleasant and resulted in unsightly bumps. It hasn’t inspired me to buy more.

But here’s hoping my niece’s tiny, bunched up fists will soon be warm and toasty, with lots of love from her maushi.