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Here are the pins I used to block my last doily. 40 to the package. Must buy more.
And here is an in-progress shot of my latest WIP, a baby dress for my friend’s daughter. There are some errors in the pattern, but they are manageable.
I’ve now finished it, but have lots and lots of ends to weave in, then I shall wash it and try and find a proper medium (teddy bear?) to display it so that the stitches show better. The pattern is from Crochet World June 2005, but I found the stitch pattern also in one of my Harmony Guides. Ain’t that nice? I’m using Anchor’s knitting cotton (which is probably equivalent to bedspread weight). Stash thread. I haven’t bought new thread/yarn for ages (except to send off to friends).
Cordelia sent me this magazine (way back when the Post Office hadn’t yet decided to devour her mail to me) in July 2005, OMG, we’ve known each other for nearly two years now. Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.
The blogosphere is abuzz with news of the new knitting/crochet community called Ravelry, and the concept sounds quite interesting, especially the part about being able to keep track of your projects, stash and notions online. I’m a digital geek. It’s still in beta, though, which means, I can’t join yet 😦 I have sent in my name for the list, though.
In book news, I’m reading Martha Grimes’ The Horse You Came in on, which is a Richard Jury mystery, except it’s set in the US. Hmm. And the story keeps getting interrupted by a story within a story, which I don’t think I like. It’s slow going.
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 WritersÂ
I went looking for an embroidery frame at a craft shop and I struck it lucky, finding these bamboo bag handles. The upper ones were Rs 50 a pair (about a $1.10) and the lower ones were Rs 40 a pair (about $.90). Now all I have to do is make some bags. But you know, I prefer my bags to be shoulder ones, so that my hands are free. Time was, all my trousers had pockets so my wallet could be in them and my keys, and I could swing my arms freely around. Alas, now all my trousers are pocketless and I am laden with a handbag with my cell phone, keys, wallet, pens and things. Sigh.
Now I want you to cast your mind back to when you were younger, the world was friendlier and everyone loved everyone else. Remember the last time I showed you some respectable crochet? It could be this or this, neither of which were truly respectable, actually. Anyhow, I am now showing you some work in progress:
This is a baby blanket using the Offset Shells stitch pattern from one of my Harmony Guides. I seem to remember Cordelia told me the yarn is Lionbrand Woolease (she sent it to me via my uncle in Houston whom my sister visited on her way back from Hawaii). The skeins are label-less, so I haven’t a clue what colour it is supposed to be. It’s about 40 inches wide and I’m close to the end of the second skein, with one more left to go. I shall make this as big as it gets and then pop it off in the mail to one of two friends with small children. There’s another one being made, also from a Harmony Guides stitch pattern and it’s a bit er, unorthodox, shall we say? I haven’t got a picture of it yet, but I shall soon.
I am happy to report I successfully used the Russian join on this one which leaves me with two less ends to weave. I’m not quite sure how exactly to manipulate the yarns when you’re trying to join two different coloured ones, though, so as to get the join exactly at the stitch you want it.
In happy book news, a branch of Crossword has opened in this town and it’s walking distance from my house. I visited it the first day and bought Pico Iyer‘s Falling off the Map. I’ve never read him before.
But currently I am reading Alan Clark‘s (colourful chap) Diaries and it’s an interesting experience. I bought it at a discarded books sale at the British Council Library in Hyderabad, along with a bunch of Reginald Hills that I haven’t blogged about. My sister has a deep fascination with Maggie Thatcher and this book has several insights. And I’m learning things I never thought could be true outside books about how British politics work. Also Clark met George Courtauld (Travels of a Fat Bulldog) at an airport in Latin America. Now I want to go back and see if Courtauld refers to the meeting. Except I don’t know where to look for the book. I think my sister had borrowed it from the BCL on one of my Hyd trips. Sometimes it all sounds like Alice in Wonderland. Things like the Queen’s Messengers, and tea parties are actually true!
One of my favourite pieces of dialogue in Alice:
“Whose job is it to answer the door?” (Alice)
“Why, what questions has it been asking?” (the footman, I think).
Oh, and I bought a so-called bamboo cotton sari the other day at a craft fair from a persuasive Jaipuri salesman. I wonder how authentic it is. It qualifies as a party sari (for naval parties where Kanchi and Venkatagiri would be too aunty-like). Don’t know how long it will last. All glamour and glitter.
Just about a year ago, I made a hexagonish doormat/rug that was more pie-like than anything else. I remained unhappy with it, but being the lazy sloth I am, I’ve been using it folded. Finally last week I got up enough energy to frog it and remake it. Originally, a wise person suggested if I made it with one section less, it might be more semi-circular, and I was planning to follow that advice. However, trying to modify the pattern was too much for the state of mind I was in, so I simply made an sc hexagon using the same yarn, but a smaller hook. It looks much better now, even if it’s a half-hexagon rather than a semi-circle.
Details:
Yarn: Frogged from the previous avatar of the rug, hence the same yarn, probably RH SS, in a dusty rose and an aran fleck. Dusty and fleck are good for floors, don’t you think?!
Hook: I think a P hook. It’s grey plastic and a friend brought it for me from the US along with a blue Q. She couldn’t think what I’d do with such a gigantic hook. :p
Pattern: Followed the directions for the semicircle from this Crochet Me pattern. I cannot even create a simple shape without having my hand held.
Time: About 4 hours. Began it at home, but took it to the radio studio and finished most of it in between announcements.
Size: 16″ x 37″ (Shouldn’t it have been something like 16″ x 32″ for perfect symmetry?)
Extra: #1 I’m now loving it. The P hook wasn’t as bad as my memory of the Q hook was, but perhaps this was because I was careful to use the knife-hold almost throughout, only switching to pen-hold when I forgot.
#2 I have a rubber mat under it so that it doesn’t slip and slide.
#3 I’m thrilled I shall be able to wash this thing.
#4 Yay for redux!
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On a bookish note, I finished my Alexander McCall Smith, The Sunday Philosophy Club, an Isabel Dalhousie mystery, the first time I read one. You must understand that reading the Scotland-based books of McCall Smith is more for the language and literary moments than the actual mystery. So it will be a slow read, as this was, being my bedtime read for the past few days. However tired I am, I feel unable to sleep without reading at least a few pages of something. I resort to re-reading old favourites if I cannot find something new. This leads to clashes with the husband, who cannot sleep with the light on. Now he’s got an eyeshade from the hospital, so everyone’s happy. 🙂
I brought back from Hyderabad the copy of Anne Fadiman‘s Ex Libris that I had given my sister for a gift. It’s a wonderful book and I can’t recommend it enough to Readers. There’s a lot to agree with and to spark one’s own memories. She writes of how her family is a family of Readers and so apparently is her husband. The chapters are actually different columns she wrote. One of them is on difficult words, and coincidentally, I was reading a Reginald Hill which had several sesquipedalians. I shall have to reread that one (or at least skim it) and then I shall hold a mini-quiz on this blog. Someone (sorry, my brain forgot) said she likes to show a picture of what she’s reading, so you know what to look for. I seem to find, however, that most of my books have different covers which are not easily available to show. This might mean that showing the cover doesn’t really help someone not in this country. And some day someone is going to sit me down and explain why books have to have different titles and covers in the United States than they have everywhere else in the world.
Some day, also, I shall figure out how to make the text in my posts flow around the pictures so we do not have a school project type of post to read.
Wipe your feet as you leave, please.
I’ve come to Hyderabad and am going to meet some friends. There’s a kid’s birthday party today, so I finally added buttons to the spike stitch cardigan, as well as a bottom and seams to the self-lined purse that was mostly done last year, begun in June! That’s a couple more UFOs down. I’ve promised myself my luggage going back to Vizag will be lighter (got a few more things to make on my list).
Pattern details:
Yarn: Local acrylic, partly from Begum Bazaar in Hyderabad (purple), and partly from Shillong (white).
Hook: Dang. Crystalite orange…5.50 mm
Pattern: Bernat
Time: Not too long, actually, might add up to a couple of days.
Size: 28″ around and 14″ long. I’m hoping it will fit my friend’s toddler.
Extra: #1 The pattern has you make the back and the front pieces separately. I started off that way, but decided to frog and redo the entire body in one piece up to the armholes, then finish the back and fronts individually. That sort of ensured I’d actually finish the thing. I just added the different stitch counts together.
Now the other UFO (this is more of a UFO than the cardigan, really). The self-lined bag had been finished bar the seaming and sewing the button. So naturally I dawdled. Now I want to give this to the same friend with the birthday kid, so I finished it last night. I hope she likes it. It looks a bit homemade…
Pattern details:
Yarn: Unknown acrylic, probably RH or Mainstays, that I got in a recycling contest from Crochet Partners.
Needles: 3.75 mm Pony circulars
Pattern: Lion Brand
Time: Six months? (ouch!)
Size: 6.5″ x 3″ x 10″ Pretty much close to the size in the pattern. Wow!
Extra: #1 Used plastic canvas to line the bottom.
#2 Seaming is horrible, as usual.
#3 In a masochistic mood, I decided to do the I-cord on DPNs as recommended by the pattern, rather than use my trusty knitting knobby. Shudder. Unsurprisingly, it took me ages to reach the target of 20 miles 45″.
In book news (I always go berserk reading when I come here), I bought myself Alexander McCall Smith’s The Sunday Philosophy Club, my first Isabel Dalhousie book. I’ve read his 44 Scotland Street and The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency and liked both. But I’m saving this book up to read on the journey back or in Vizag. Instead, I’ve been reading some books borrowed from the British Council Library.
I read Donna Leon‘s Uniform Justice and found a gem in it about mothers-in-law. Unfortunately, I forgot to jot it down, but it seemed so apt. I find the attitudes of the Italians as described by Leon very similar to Indian attitudes. The way corruption is tolerated, accepted as a fact of life, the view taken of policemen and politicians and the inter-city prejudices. I’ve always liked the Italians for the two-governments-per-year policy they appear to have 😀 They’re fun and goodlooking! And I found Italian easiest to learn of all the foreign languages I’ve learnt. Plus I admire the ancient Romans, too (for their engineering and architecture). No idea why an American writer living in Italy has books in the British Library, though.
I finished Ruth Rendell‘s To Fear a Painted Devil, which is a murder mystery (as opposed to some of the psychological thrillers Rendell has written). Vintage, although not an Inspector Wexford story. Nobody can beat British women writers of mystery. In English, anyway.
Now I’m reading another Leon, Death at La Fenice. It’s taking me somewhat longer to read these books than it used to, because of so many diversions and the crafting and shopping and things in the background (like kids being shouted at, the TV and radio). Ah well. It isn’t a race 🙂
This time it was this one by Connie Willis.
Normally I am not a science fiction fan but I really needed a book. It was fun, very British (Willis is American), Wodehousean. But reading the blurbs of her other books, I’m not sure I’d read them. I’m not into science fiction (did I say that already?) Now I am once again new-book-less, except the Oxford Dictionary of Biography. Sigh.
Yes, I’ve been horrible about blogging recently. I don’t even have any decent excuses to make, so I shan’t waste your time and mine.
One shabby FO to show off, this tunisian crochet dishcloth, pattern from the Harmony Guides, for the Dishcloth KAL, where I shall shortly be claiming the prize for the slowest dishcloth knitter 🙂
We’ve been to Chennai to see my latest nephew (for whom I knit the diagonal blanket and the –shcloths). The first thing I did in the metropolis was to hit the bookstores. So we went to Odyssey, Landmark and Crossword. I only found knit/crochet books at the first, and I promptly bought up the Harmony Guides. So now I have 5 of the seven. I think I shall do without the Aran stitch volume and the basic knitting technique volume.
While in Chennai we made a short trip to Pondicherry and I went on a shopping rampage, buying up vials of “mitti” (smells like the first rain) and peppermint, and orange-scented soap, and handmade paper and marbled fabric (marbling is a technique where oil paint is swirled on water and the surface to be dyed is laid on it and lifted away. Each time you get a unique pattern).
I did precious little knit/crochet while in Chennai, except that thing up there. I met Viji again and marvelled anew at her work. She’s made some gorgeous drawstring bags with the silk thread, but says she cannot find a good place in Chennai to have them lined.
Now back in Vizag, I am working to finish the spike stitch cardigan I blogged about a few weeks ago. I decided to rip out the back and start afresh, working the fronts and the back together in one piece. I’m through with the body now and have begun one of the sleeves and shall probably take it in with me when I go for my radio duty this evening.
In Chennai I read Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, one of those Dan Brownish medieval/modern mythical stories. Why everyone picks on France for these medieval tomes is something I don’t understand. Do mysteries of faith sound better in medieval French?
Also read G (is for Gumshoe) and I (is for Innocent) of the Kinsey Millhone series, as well as my first Reginald Hill (A Pinch of Snuff) (What is the logic behind pronouncing D-a-l-z-i-e-l as Dee-ell???) and Mary Daheim (Bantam of the Opera). Regularly swimming in intrigue I’ve been.
On the other hand, I also finished On Beauty by Zadie Smith. It was an uncomfortable read (no happy endings a la murder mysteries – not that the victims in the murder mysteries have happy endings, but you know what I mean) and reminiscent of EM Forster’s Howard’s End (but only just, but then it’s been ages since I read the latter).
Enough of a ramble…
They say, don’t they (who?) that a picture is worth a thousand words? By that reasoning, I should at least write 2000 words in this post. But don’t panic, I won’t.
Actually I had two FOs last week, but both were patterns I tested and both designers have asked me not to share pictures until they hear from publishers. So two missing pictures (at least) should mean 2000 words…
Anyway, I can tell you this much: one was a pattern in thread I tested for Kathy, a beautiful creation as usual (her design is beautiful, I’m not saying my version of it is) and the other was in yarn, with knit, crochet and tunisian crochet elements in it for someone over at Crochetville.
Also, I see some light at the end of the tunnel that is the giant dishcloth baby blanket in cotton I’m making for a nephew. Yippee!
In literary news, I have been devouring the small mountains of the books I bought last week. Took a break from Kinsey Millhone to read some Archy McNally instead. I only had one of those, McNally’s Risk, so then I took a break from murder and mayhem to cruise through the soppy romances. I’m sending those off to one of my friends, who reads them and first enraptured me by sharing my jokes on them. Now I’m back on homicide. Just finished two by Martha Grimes (who, despite being American, brings such an authentic Brit feel-snow, rain, sleet, London and tormented Scotland Yard detectives-to her books), Help the Poor Struggler and Jerusalem Inn. I’ve read The Old Fox Deceiv’d and The Blue Last before. True Brits might find errors (what is the geographic equivalent of anachronism?), but I haven’t had a wrong note strike yet. I love British mysteries, they make me feel nostalgic, which is decidedly odd, since I’ve never even been to Britain. But I enjoy McNally, too, he sounds like Bertie Wooster (who I’m not very fond of) maybe because of his lifestyle. And all those descriptions of food (most of which I’ve wouldn’t even eat, being vegetarian-mostly).
Still in store, some more of Grafton’s alphabet series…I love books.
I went back to the book fair and struck it mildly lucky. I picked up a copy of this for Rs 495/-.
Not bad, eh? I’ve just skimmed through it and like the style.
Also got a few more murder mysteries…
And in waaah! news, how does one retract a unretracting retractable tape? I got one just this afternoon in a CAT PAC and enthusiastically stretched it out to its full length of 5 feet. Now it won’t retract! Waaaaah! Only a couple of inches in and that’s it. It’s made in China.
I know, I’ve been a bad blogger and haven’t made any substantial posts in ages. But then that sort of reflects what’s been happening generally with my knitting/crochet in general…a kind of blah-y unfinishing dullness.
One exciting (possibly) thing: someone in St Petersburg Russia has offered to send us things if we want and they will reach in a ship’s container so although I will be somewhat older by the time they arrive, it should still be fun, no? (Meaning no issues with weight/volume) So of course, I’m thinking Y A R N!!! From a link at the knittyboard I found this blog and she has a list of yarn shops in St Petersburg (Petrograd, Leningrad-we don’t mind Lenin here in India). And a list of yarns she found there. I must confess, I am absolutely trembling to read about the baby silk, cotton and wool yarns she mentions. For someone in Europe and North America or Australia/NZ, none of that might be exciting, but as I’ve found no natural fibre yarns here, I’m dying to try these (they are partly imported from the rest of Europe, I understand). So, any suggestions on amounts I could ask for that would be sensible? What might make a full project? Too often nowadays I find my stash is full of single skeins of luscious yarns, which, having little need for hats or bags, I find it dispiriting to imagine what to make with. (Maybe that partly explains why my knitting/crochet recently has been so bitty 😦 Of course my notoriously short attention-span has nothing at all to do with it. Uh-huh.)
Yesterday we went to a Book Fair (again the “American Library Surplus” thingy. I’m all for American Library Surpluses, last time here in Vizag I got Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitting Without Tears for a pittance, and then in Hyderabad I picked up a whole rash of books for cheap). I didn’t find any knitting/crochet books this time, but the chappie said they were expecting new stock this week, so a return trip is in order. The same thing happens each time, but doesn’t necessarily lead to much. I did pick up a whole bunch of murder mysteries (including 3 [A, B, & D] of the Kinsey Millhone alphabet series from Sue Grafton and a couple of others, I think one Ed McBain, maybe a Patricia Cornwell and one new-to-me writer). Also some soppy romance novels. (Yes, I can devour those even at this age, so sue me 😉 )
And the Zadie Smith is also being read. It makes for a nice dipping-into leisurely read while eating lunch, while the murder books are for read-at-one-stretch fun. So all those books for about Rs 425/-. Lovely. And I already know who I’m going to pass them on to when I’m done.
When I stop bouncing around the country behind the husband bearing dinky tin trunks retire, I shall build a house with a library, and in my library shall be entire series of books of all my favourite writers. There will be a comfortable couch and some radio/music. A window with a view and wi-fi access. I don’t think anything else will be required, do you? Some chocolate, perhaps.
swakrta.com 