End of year round-up 2022

Posted on December 31, 2022 by knitigatingcircumstances

It’s the last day of the year. I traditionally post a review of the year’s knitting on this day. I have finished 7 projects this year. The beautiful Caravay sweater for Emma (blogged here):

Two hats:

A very long shawl (the Gresham Wrap, blogged here):

And three tops for me: a t-shirt I designed myself, a tank top modified from the Myrtle pattern by Kate Davies, and a linen t-shirt designed by eri shimuzu (finished projects blogged here, here, and here, respectively).

I am very, very nearly finished with another project, which I should be able to show you in a week or two. I have been thinking “How little I have knitted this year; this review will be quick.” However, I have just checked out last year’s post and realise that, in knitting terms, I am actually on the way up from the knitting nadir of 2021.

This year was marked by Covid. Doug and I became ill in June and it really knocked us flat for 4 months, followed by another three months and counting of continuing long Covid. We are still struggling with some long-lasting impacts, although we are much improved. But I would rather end the year thinking of pleasant things. We had two fantastic and rather long visits with the girls. We spent a month with them in Vancouver at the beginning of the year, and they spent a month with us here in September. We enjoyed lovely family time together (and lots of snow). Doug had his 70th birthday in August, and we found him the absolutely most perfect birthday present ever. I started travelling again for work, and went back to teaching in person instead of on-line! We had a wandering trip through Wales, spent time with old friends, enjoyed the ballet and museums, and I went on another knitting retreat in the Lake District.

And now a New Year is upon us, with new opportunities and adventures awaiting. Best wishes to all for a healthy and happy 2023, filled with good friends, good food, music, knitting, and sunshine!

Christmas Knitting: Mission Impossible

Posted on December 27, 2022 by knitigatingcircumstances

No doubt I’ve tricked you with the title of this post. Tell the truth: you are expecting a tale of monumental slaving away to try to finish a knitted gift in time for Christmas. This tale would end either in triumph or failure, but in either case would mean missed opportunities to spend time doing things other than knitting (yes, these do exist!) and sore shoulders, wrists, and eyes from pushing too much.

It’s not like I haven’t done just this before (many times). A case of triumph can be seen in 2016, in which I knitted cowls for Doug, Emma, and Leah for Christmas. (This was documented in the post called Cowl-a-bunga!, which has some of my favourite photos on this blog). Another race to the finish was last year, in which I was frantically knitting a sweater for Emma, while throwing in a hat at the same time, which while producing beautiful results, also led to me stressing out during a holiday and screwing up my shoulder. When you have a child whose birthday falls the week before Christmas, you can have the same result for a birthday gift, as with this sweater I knitted for Leah in December 2017. Clearly, this race to Christmas knitting has been part of my make-up for a long time; here I highlight a sweater I finished literally on Christmas Day, in 2006, which was not only pre-blog, but pre-Ravelry as well. Sometimes I plan well in advance which allows me to have fun with a Christmas gift, like when I knitted a hat with penguins (by which I mean that I knitted the hat while sitting with penguins, not that the hat was festooned with penguins). And sometimes, I am determined and steadfast about not knitting any Christmas gifts, only to change my mind at the very last minute: I knitted the West Wind mittens for Doug because we went for a walk and he had cold hands. This year was cold, too, and Doug stole my hat! So, did I decide at the very last minute to squirrel away behind a closed door, knitting like mad and being anti-social in the lead-up to Christmas?

No, I didn’t. Instead, I picked out a lovely hat and cowl pattern which I thought Doug would like:

I bought the yarn to make both hat and cowl:

And I wrapped up the yarn with a card that said this:

Volia! Christmas Knitting, Mission Impossible-style! (And no jumping out of airplanes required.)

The hat and cowl are designed by Maxim Cyr, who was one of the fellow knitters at the two retreats I attended this November and last. I really like his design style. These are the Opus Hat and Opus Cowl. The yarn is Walcot Opus, which I purchased as a kit from A Yarn Story in Bath. They have put together kits in at least 11 different colour combinations of Opus, which you can find here.

I frequently receive knitting-inspired gifts for Christmas. (Fancy that!) I had expressed an interest in Garthenor Preseli yarn and Doug bought me a lovely array of colours:

I also received a fantastic book from the girls, which is a collection of historical photos of people knitting.

We spent this Christmas in England, while the girls remained in Vancouver. We originally decided on this due to the very high cost of flights this year, combined with the fact that both girls were here for a long visit in September. In hindsight we made a good decision. The storm in North America knocked out the Vancouver airport and caused general chaos and misery across a wide stretch of Canada and the US, and here we are experiencing the winter of strikes: nurses, ambulance drivers, baggage handlers, customs agents, railroad workers, postmen, among others. It is a good time not to be attempting international air travel.

It is quiet now. Outside it is rainy and grey. Inside I have lots of yarn in pretty colours. Guess what I plan to do now? Best wishes, everyone, from my home to yours!

Frigid weather, warm hat

Posted on December 18, 2022 by knitigatingcircumstances

I finished my Oslo Hat – Mohair edition (pattern by Petite Knit) in time to keep my head warm during a very cold week.

How cold was it? This cold:

Yes, I know that it is not Ottowa cold, or Edmonton cold, or Wisconsin cold, or even Boston cold, but it is most definitely England cold, and my poor system isn’t used to it.

The resulting hat is pretty, but I must say that I had some issues with this pattern. It is written in a Scandinavian style, which is spare compared to the very precise and articulated patterns we have become accustomed to in the download era. I have commented before about this with respect to Danish patterns. As someone who knows how to knit, I don’t really have a problem with the spare style, but there are a few more serious issues here. First of all, there is a mistake in the pattern. In the directions for the decreases, she leaves out a critical K1, K2tog at the beginning of Round 1. If you’ve knit lots of hats, you can just scratch your head for a minute and say “huh, something’s missing here” and figure it out. But if you are not practiced at this, it will mess up your decreases, and thus the crown shaping. I ended up substituting a “ssk” instead of a “sl1, k1, pass sl st over” in the decreases as well; I think it is neater. The finished crown is nice, but beware the directions!

More critical for me is that the pattern has a odd construction. The bottom portion of the hat is doubly folded, meaning that the brim has three warm layers. The first fold is knitted in, that is, the fabric is folded over and knitted together. Then, she has you knit for a few rounds on the wrong side before reversing direction with a short row and continuing to knit on the right side. She gives no reason for doing this, and no photos to show what it is supposed to look like. This, by the way, is what it looks like:

When you wear it, you fold up the brim again, to get the three layers. I still can’t figure out the purpose of the purled ridge. It means that the fold is not neat. There is no clear fold line. Every time I wear it, I have to fiddle with the fold so that it doesn’t look weird. I don’t know why this annoys me so much, but suffice it to say that it annoys me. I notice that there are over 4000 of these hats posted on Ravelry, so I think I may be in the minority here, but next time, I would just skip the pattern directions and wing it.

I knitted this with some old Malabrigo fingering weight yarn from my stash together with some mohair, also from stash. I always keep yarn labels, which drives Doug crazy, and literally yesterday I decided to just toss away the labels on my desk, and of course they were these ones! There is a reason to my label-keeping madness, Doug! I think this shade of Malabrigo was called “paper”, but in any case, it’s white. I have enough left over to make another hat.

I’ve noticed this last week or two that Doug seems to have confiscated my red hat. I have finished this one just in time. I hope that, wherever you are, you are keeping warm and dry, and keeping hold of your hat.

Frosty weather knitting

Posted on December 11, 2022 by knitigatingcircumstances

I was going to show you a finished project today – a fluffy white hat which would be quite warm and pretty shot against the frosty foliage. The hat is still damp, however, even though I blocked it over 48 hours ago. Never fear, it seems as if the frosty weather is here for the long term and I am unlikely to miss a frosty photo op.

Instead I will show you a progress shot of my Hirne pullover. This is a lovely Kate Davies design, knitted in Ooskit, one of her signature yarns (I bought the kit from Kate here.)

I am really happy with the design and the yarn, and am looking forward to wearing this one very soon. I have had to be very patient while knitting the yoke. The pattern stitch is really very easy to knit, but it takes concentration, and I am still finding it hard to concentrate for long periods.

I’ve been searching for a project which will be super easy mindless knitting, and I think I’ve settled on the Felix Cardigan by Amy Christoffers:

I have some soft pink worsted weight yarn in warm tones, with I bought last year. I started to knit a pullover with it, only to frog it (I blogged about it here and here). I decided the yarn might work for the Felix cardigan if I combined it with a strand of mohair, and took a chance on ordering the right shade online. I bought some lovely silk mohair by Knitting for Olive from A Yarn Story in the colour Plum Rose. They look lovely together:

I have knit a few swatches. With a US10/6mm the gauge is too loose – 11×22 – and with a US9/5.5mm it is just a bit too tight – 15×23 (the pattern calls for 14×20) but I think the latter (shown on the bottom below) will work out well with a bit of judicious math. This is a bit outside my colour comfort zone, but the texture is gorgeous and I think the yarn will suit the pattern. (And a cozy cardigan will not go amiss in my wardrobe!)

I leave you with a lovely photo featured in The Guardian today. It was taken by Kieran Dodds on Fair Isle. It’s part of a continuing feature where photographers choose their best shot; the article is called “Two fluffy lambs playing Twister: Kieran Dodds’ best phone picture”.

Fair Isle Twister, 2015, shot on iPhone 6. Photograph: Kieran Dodds

Keep warm, everyone!

Mittens galore!

Posted on December 4, 2022 by knitigatingcircumstances

It is that time of year again: time for my annual mitten post! This is the post in which I shower you with some great pattern ideas to keep your needles busy and your hands warm. When I started these posts, I tended more towards fingerless mitts than mittens. That trend is reversed here, perhaps due to the fact that like many others we are keeping our house colder this year. All the more reason to cast on a pair of mittens. I hope you find a pattern here which strikes your fancy.

Argyle style mittens by Lisa K. Ross

I thought I would start with a bang of colour! If you think argyle is old school and a bit staid, think again. Knit yourself a matching hat while you are at it and you will be set for anything winter throws at you.

Ruffletopia by Lisa Granick

I don’t often feature patterns with crochet, but these ruffled, colourful cuffs are hard to resist, maybe even enough for me to pick up a crochet hook. The ruffles are crocheted onto the knitted surface, and add a touch of fun to an otherwise understated glove.

Rabbity mittens & muffatees by bunnymuff – Mona Zillah

These are just too darn cute! I am sure you know someone who would be enchanted by these lovely rabbity mittens.

Jetson by Jo Shaw

I like the bold graphic of this design, and I’m particularly drawn to the purl welts around the cuffs and fingers. Can you see how the cuffs reference the old cartoon The Jetsons? (I am assuming this cartoon is in re-runs because you need to be at least as old as me to remember it otherwise.)

Underwood mittens by Virginia Sattler-Reimer

Over the years, I have featured quite a few of Virginia’s mittens. She never fails to make beautiful patterns and her use of colour is inspiring. Pair these with the fantastic matching tam and you will look super stylish for winters to come.

Timber by tincanknits

I am not sure why tincanknits chose to photograph their new collection in black and white. Yes, it looks cool and sophisticated, but this year I am yearning for colour. Use your imagination to supply the colour, however, and you will see this is a fantastic mitt pattern, which will be quick to knit and warm to wear.

Snowdrift Mittens by Wool & Pine

I just love this photo! There is something about the lovely rust-red mittens against the pine tree which shouts “holiday” and makes me think winter-y thoughts. (Good ones, like these mittens wrapped around a mug of mulled wine at a sparkling, snowy Christmas market.)

Jorvik mittens by Outi Kater