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Again courtesy Cordelia (it does appear as though half my stash belongs to her, doesn’t it?).
Yarn: Lion Brand Jiffy that Cordelia sent me. In colours Kitty Hawk and Denver, I think. Used up most of both skeins.
Needles: Denise #10 ½/6.5mm circular
Pattern: A truncated version of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Baby Surprise Jacket from The Opinionated Knitter, Knitting Workshop. It’s also available separately at the link above from Schoolhouse Press.
Time: 3 days?
Size: Toddler? 22″ around the chest, 10.5″ from shoulder to bottom, 21″from cuff to cuff.
Extra: #1 Nothing much. Did only two buttons this time. I thought I had a recipient for this, but perhaps I don’t.
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Having finished Queen Camilla, I am now bookless. Please send good thoughts my way.
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While on the subject of books, Sara has a contest for her Summer of Giving. She’s giving away a book on felting and a few knitting magazines. Do go over and jump in. And don’t forget to mention I sent you over? What are friends for, after all :)?
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Here’s the back: (since you asked so nicely).
Quick, grab those sunshades…If the previous FO was a bit bright, here is something even worse brighter.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you. This is a truncated version of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Baby Surprise Jacket. It’s a great pattern and truly surprising! When I was making it, I thought it would end up like this:
When I finished knitting, it looked like this:
And when sewn up, it looked as in the first photo above. Here’s how the back looks:
Here are the pattern details.
Yarn: Bernat Softee Chunky that Cordelia sent me. I was wary of what to do with such lively colours, when Rosi suggested I make a Baby Surprise. See, that’s why I like associating with creative people: they take me out of my uncreative, dull thinking.
Needles: Denise #10 1/2 6.5mm circular
Pattern: A truncated version of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Baby Surprise Jacket from The Opinionated Knitter, Knitting Workshop. It’s also available separately at the link above from Schoolhouse Press.
Time: 3 days?
Size: Toddler? 23″ around the chest, 10″ from shoulder to bottom, 21″from cuff to cuff.
Extra: #1 I’ve already almost finished a second one. This is such fun to make, and with the large gauge yarns I’m using, it works up very fast.
#2 I want to try this in stockinette, crochet and Tunisian crochet.
Sent this off with the Tomten and the Blocks and shells afghan to Hyderabad, where aunty (my friend’s mom) will collect it and take it when she goes to the US.
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In books, I just finished Naked in Death (Eve Dallas murder series) by JD Robb (Nora Roberts). Futuristic police procedural with some er, hot scenes. I read just about anything, so don’t turn up your noses at me!
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Catch-22
I went to my bank today to see if I could apply for a credit card (yes, I don’t have one and have been managing fine, but I need one to make bookings for my UK trip online). They told me I couldn’t get a card because
a. I don’t have an office address
b. I don’t have a credit card!
Dang, but this almost made me cry a third time in public. I’m blaming it on my need for sleep. Don’t want to think it’s anything else. Stoopid procedures. I know exactly what I’ll tell them next time I get a spam call offering to sell me a card.
This will go to the same friend I’m sending the block and shells afghan to. She has a toddler and is expecting another baby boy in July.
As usual, don’t look too closely at the thing. The colour is patchy and the workmanship just passable. Dirty Deets follow.
Specifications:
Yarn: Local small-ball acrylic Santhi from Oswal “Woollen” Mills, 25g x 9
Needles: Denise #7
Pattern: Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Tomten Jacket from Knitting Without Tears
Time: About a week.
Size: Toddler? 22″ around the chest, 15″ from shoulder to bottom, 10″ hood and 11″ on wrist to armhole.
Extra: #1 Patchy!!!
#2 I wonder if this could be done in stockinette (although of course the point is to avoid the purling)
#3 Rosi helped with a question I had on ridge counts for the hood. Got help from Sue on knitty chat on what to do for the closures. For the loops I did a row of sc around from right bottom corner to the left, adding 10ch loops whenever I encountered a button. Otherwise I followed the pattern to a T (except for a slight misunderstanding at the sleeves, leading to 4 extra ridges each side).
And now for some sad news…I do not have any works in progress (UFOs abound, of course, but they don’t count). Sad but true. I want to try my hand at a version of the Baby Surprise Jacket by Ms Zimmermann, but in pinks and related colours, and there aren’t too many baby girls on the horizon. I need specific victims targets.
My reading currently is Queen Camilla by Sue Townsend. Always surprising. And I don’t have any other books lined up after that. Help!
On the domestic front, the husband has been successfully disposed off has gone off by himself to Cochin. Accommodation is uncertain, so it is also uncertain when I will reach there. For now it’s just me and the other inlaw. I have plans to visit the UK in July, more of which in a different post. I shall leave you with a close-up of the wooden buttons I used.
I got my invite for Ravelry yesterday and spent a few hours there browsing and adding some of my projects and stash. In one fell swoop, I managed to lower the tone of the place by an immense quantum 😀 Most of my yarn is acrylic, my projects are odd and my photography is terrible. Let’s hope they don’t throw me out for bringing the site into disrepute! My favourite feature is the hooks & needles database, the result of which you can see in a new page I have ———->
In other news, Cordelia tells me she has received the shipment of some afghan hooks which Michelle was giving away at Good Yarn Karma, and which I asked her to send me care of Cordelia, so she could save on postage. I love reading the posts at GYK, even if I can’t ask for swapping most of the stuff. I think it’s a wonderful idea! Thank you folks of Good Yarn Karma, and thank you Michelle! Hope you have lots of good karma.
I know I’m doing too many posts in one day, but this one has to be shared. (The aptly named) Wiseneedle has a very useful post up about an archive maintained by the University of Arizona which contains textile craft books of the past. Check out her post for specific links.
Thank you everyone for your responses so far on my sappy (soppy? sloppy?) question in my last post. Let me be clear, I am not at all the sort of person to keep it all in, as those who have known me for any length of time will testify. Rather the opposite, frequently latching on to unsuspecting passersby to upchuck all my current troubles. Oops.
But sometimes no one is handy, or you feel you need to give your current recipient a break. Or sometimes it just feels as though things are the same, although troublesome. Then I feel like I need a Scream Room™. Do you have one? Or any personal space where you know you won’t be disturbed (intruded upon)? Let me know.
Meanwhile, here is a bag I rescued from UFO-dom and finished to send off to my Crochetville Notions Swap partner. This picture was taken with my last bookhaul in it. Amazingly, both of us have received our packages intact and promptly. Only, mine has gone to Hyderabad in anticipation of our moving from here. So no pics.
And guess what? The husband’s transfer has been deferred indefinitely for two months. The boss at the other place, who was on leave until a couple of days ago, returned to office and realised he’d lose his deputy if the transfer went through (the husband is too junior to fill that particular position). So they’ve asked for a postponement of the move until they figure out what to do about a deputy. Ha. Suspended animation. It’s nice, have you ever tried it? Anyhow, I present to you, The Frugal Bag.
This was a pattern from Frugalhaus.com, but I can’t find it there now. Googling produced a pdf link whose legality I’m not confident of.* Since I forgot to measure this before sending it off in the Crochetville Notions Swap, let’s get the details in an ugly format. The yarn was GUM and unknown (probably RHSS) purple, with Denise 10 1/2 circulars. I started this bag so long ago, I don’t even remember when. Some time last year. Nice and sturdy. For the bottom, instead of using the garter stitch recommended, I used linked dcs (US) (this link shows a linked treble (US) but the principle is the same). Also try this Crochet Me tutorial. The stitch produces fewer holes than simple dc (US).
You could use either of the bag’s sides (inside or out) and in fact the stockinette side looked interesting, like fairisle or something. However, the purl ridges defining the sides weren’t clear enough so I turned it this side out (according to the original pattern). And now the sides of the bag are well-defined. Ugly but functional. That’s me 😀
* ETA: Heather very nicely found me the link to the pattern from archive.org. Thank you, Heather!
Someone on Crochetpartners linked to a hexagon bedspread at Elann, so I went over to look. It’s beautiful, but me and motifs and/or large patterns make a very bad combination. So I admired the pattern, and spent some time drooling over the yarn, before surfing over to look at the other free patterns at the site. I noticed most of the patterns are different from the last time I visited, which would have been quite some time ago, since I don’t recognise many of them. Here are some of my thoughts. (I am not pasting photos here because I’m uncertain of the legality of that, but with the handy Snap feature WordPress has, you should be able to hover on the links to see a teeny preview.)
First off, I’m delighted Elann doesn’t call everything which covers the torso a “sweater”. Maybe it’s an American thing? Somehow “sweater” conjures up winter and full-sleeved “woollens” (actually acrylic in India, but all yarn is wool here). So I always find it funny when patterns talk of “summer sweaters” (thank you, I sweat quite enough already without wearing sweaters in summer) and call bitsy sleeveless tops sweaters, including some made of cotton! I’ve seen every imaginable variation of a top being termed a sweater and it’s something I shall never get over, I’m afraid. (I’m funny like that.)
Ahem. Anyway, I had to scroll down quite a bit on the index page to find familiar patterns. So let’s talk about the unfamiliar ones. I know I just talked of sweating, but even that wouldn’t make me willing to wear this, I’m too prudish! I wouldn’t mind making it in a child size, though. The next one‘s nice, and this cardigan is interesting, too.
Whatever, though, I cannot like variegated yarns for wearables. And some of the patterns just appear to be the same one done in different colours (three varieties of the Pacific Waves shawl). But this cardigan is nice, this top is huh?! The shawls are lovely, but I seriously doubt I’ll ever make one (can you imagine me, The Slothful One™, making a garment that needed to be wet blocked every time it got damp?)
This pattern uses size 12mm and 10mm needles!!!
I always like looking at bags. The varieties of this wrap, not so much. I was too distracted by this model’s hair to look carefully at what she’s wearing. Oh, and Desi, this hat has a top similar to your Rangoli hat.
I shall remain heroically silent on the patterns using fancy/novelty yarns. Here ends my free unsolicited pattern review.
Almost all are granny square patterns and I seriously doubt I’ll ever make any of them, but why look a sale book in the mouth?
This book has some non-granny square patterns, but ditto ditto.
Then this book full of “designer knitting” (how unexpected!) which again ditto ditto, but might serve as good swap/Bookmooch fodder.
But this booklet, which I’m hoping will be very useful, as it covers a wiiiiiiiide range of sizes from 9 mos to size#50 in seamless raglans. It sounds too good to be true. It only gives instructions for worsted weight and sportweight, which means I might have to do serious swatching before ever using the patterns, but you never know! It covers both cardigans and pullovers. You work out your gauge and choose your size from a table and plug in the values that the table gives you into a pattern format, and hey presto, you have your pattern! What could be simpler? Only Rs 10.
One booklet on plastic canvas cat things, one for “full figure” sweaters (I haven’t got there yet, but the rate I’m going, I should reach there pretty fast), another with two patterns for men, and one for larger sizes, each at about Rs 5 or 10. A good haul, might serve again for swap/mooch fodder.
Also a fair amount of British mystery writing. Just finished PD James’ Unnatural Causes, and am in the middle of her Shroud for a Nightingale. A couple of Martha Grimes (she’s American but writes with a Brit detective) and one Ruth Rendell, I think. A nice haul from a book sale at YMCA Secunderabad.
Also in Hyderabad, I managed to finish my first Anthony Berkeley Richard Sheringham and the Vane Case (not too impressed with it, seemed laboured somehow, without the ease of the BWW*). And my first Priscilla Masters, Endangering Innocents. Much better, maybe you have to be female to write the good stuff. In this particular genre anyway. Not very uplifting, though. I think I prefer older victims. Both from the British Council Library.
My train reading on the way to Hyderabad (since the baby sweater only needed sewing and seaming) was this book:
I picked it up at Crossword and it was a good read, but after finishing I was wondering if perhaps it counts as (oh the horror) “chick fiction”? Interesting, but it was the end that raised my doubts on its classification. Too M&B-ish. Not that I haven’t read my fair share of those (and still will, given a chance) but not if I have to buy it for Rs 415! 4 strangers are named in a will by another stranger and they spend the book trying to discover why. I’m thinking I’ll use this to try for my first-ever exchange at a bookstore.
So, about 4 or 5 books in a week. That’s my usual speed (I spent a large part of one day at an annaprasana (first solid food feeding) for the niece of my last post, and another running some errands including the book sale and checking out the new Fiat Palio Stile with my sister). Would that be your usual speed too? Or do you think I lose something by devouring the tomes at such a hectic pace? (Sort of like yo-yo dieting, feast and famine).
Come on, I want to hear what you think.
*BWW = British Women Writers
– We will be moving by the end of May to Cochin. The husband’s been transferred. We came here in October 2004. So just over 2 1/2 years in Vizag. Cochin is exotic for me because I’ve never been to Kerala.
– Today I made a curry of the inside of a banana plant’s stem. We call it “doota”. The inlaws call it oocha, but they don’t use it (they don’t use a lot of vegetables we do). I have a photo of the fibre for you.
It is very fibrous. It is a peculiarly Telugu (or perhaps South Indian) delicacy. The photo is clickable to my Flickr photostream where there is another photo, with my forefinger for scale. I believe yarns made of the fibre are available in the West. I’ve also heard of banana fibre saris here. This particular banana plant (actually a plantain) was in my parents’ house in Hyderabad. It had fruited (!!! what is the right term for that?), and the fruits were harvested, therefore the plant was cut down. They only bear fruit once, you know. The inflorescence is also used in cooking, making a delicious curry.
– Yesterday I made Paatholi which is another Andhra specialty, made of chickpea/bengal gram paste and beans.
– I started making a baby sweater from Australian Woman’s Day Summer Handknits 1986, called Lotsadots, and finished one and a half sides before accepting it was turning out too small. It has since been frogged, but I like the pattern. I want to convert it to working in the round (it’s piecewise now) and use different colours. Will there be a problem maintaining the pattern in the round? I’m afraid there might be a jag. Yasmin will recognise the yarn, she sent it to me. It’s a mix of German and Taiwanese acrylics.
– Currently I’m reading Pico Iyer’s Falling off the Map and find it less funny than I’d hoped. Also he has some peculiar usages for words and phrases. Unwealthy. Commemorated to. Overbroods. I wonder if being a successful writer gives you the license to coin new things. No fussy editors standing over you, red pencils in hand. Or maybe it’s just me. I can’t claim to be an authority on the English Language.
– Today is a sneezy day. My phus-phus (nasal spray) failed again, despite two puffs per nostril last night. I’m giving up.
– Could someone help me place the pictures so that they are not all lined up military style one beneath the other?
Sorry, I didn’t mean to throw a whine-fest and vanish. My internet gave out on me on Wednesday afternoon and was only restored last evening. I had to reprogram my wireless router after a year and that took me some figurative hair-pulling before I managed to hit just the right keys. We changed our internet plan from dead-slow unlimited to promised-fast limited. Let’s see how good that is, and whether having a limit on the downloads will reveal just how much flotsam I accumulate each month.
Thank you everyone for your comments on my last post. Ordinarily I would respond by email to each commenter, but this time since it’s been a while, I’m doing this wholesale. Thank you for all the offers to swap. Let me hasten to add that most of my swaps have been excellent and deeply satisfying (for me). Even the ones on Knitty where people haven’t bothered to comment on the swap satisfaction thread.
Also, I think I might have, even with my comparatively measly stash, reached SABLE (Stash Accumulated Beyond Life Expectancy) status, purely because I often sit on my bed (which is my knitting/working on laptop spot) and just stare bemusedly at the general one-skeined, rainbow-hued, variedly-weighted and grossly-mismatched collection.
If it were all cotton, for example, I might open a store for handmade dishcloths (this might not be such a bright idea, because my aunt whom I bestow my works on thinks they are way too beautiful to be used as intended and instead drapes them on her telephone or in the showcase. There’s a limit to how many surfaces can be draped).
If it were all wool, I could neatly pack a few essentials and get myself admitted to the nearest mental hospital for thinking of wool and this climate in the same breath.
I have such things as two skeins of this yarn, two of this one, assorted Indian fun fur and acrylic, two disparate skeins of “Jiffy” and so on. What could I possible make that would reduce this stash? I do like just possessing these things, but in the interests of space and marital harmony, I’d like to diminish this stash before acquiring any more. As it is, the husband makes snide remarks about my “handiworks”. Mustn’t give him any more fodder.
We are waxing really eloquent once again today, aren’t we (and how often, Mrs S, do you find yourself unable to stop this verbal diarrhoea, he asked kindly as the tape recorder whirred in the background and she lay on the black faux leather couch in the sound-proofed consultant’s office. The brown fan had lashings of dirt, she noticed and worried it would affect her allergies. She’d have to weigh the benefits of the weekly shrink visit against being rattled by sneezes the whole of the next day, she decided.)
I thought I’d show you some bright things today. More dishcloths! In yellow! So here goes.
Click through for more views of the lacy diamonds and the cables. The dishcloths are both from the Monthly Dishcloth Yahoogroup. In my forays into these and other patterns, I have rediscovered Judith Prindle. She used to be active on one of my crochet mailing lists. She now has a collection of free patterns for dishcloths and other things up. Nice stuff.
Here’s something a little bit different.
That, me darlings, is a swatch of Crochet on the Double (or Croknit), with standard issue acrylic and a double-ended hook. I love the drape of this, so different from the can-stand-up-by-itself nature of my other Tunisian trials. I must see if the drapiness will transfer productively to a garment or a slip-on potholder or something. For garments, nothing less than thread will do, I should think.
I have lots more to tell you, but I shall spare you for this post and come back later. The ‘more’ will involve screwdrivers, sewing machines, ugliness, books and cats.
Check out this link for one (my) interpretation of “All this and Heaven too”.
swakrta.com 