Home run for homespun!

Posted on January 19, 2018 by knitigatingcircumstances

Do you ever wonder what to do with little odds and ends of homespun yarn?

In the fall of 2016, Doug and I spent a few days in Wales (blogged about here) and included a stop at The Lost Sheep Company in Colwyn Bay. There, in addition to chatting with its charismatic owner, Chrissy, and wading through waist high bundles of fleeces:

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We purchased four tiny skeins of homespun yarn from Welsh bred sheep. In the below photo, the yarn on the left was un-labelled, followed left-to-right by Jacob, Welsh Mule, and Black Welsh Mountain.

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I had differing yardage of each yarn, and they were of different yarn weights. I wondered for a long time what to do with them, and one night shortly after the New Year, I just picked up the first skein and started to knit. I didn’t do any gauge swatches or fuss with measurements. I didn’t do any math. I cast on 180 stitches with a size US 11 needle and started to knit in 2×2 ribbing. When I got to the end of one skein, I added another, and kept knitting until my yarn ran out.

As Doug was the one who picked out the yarn, I made the cowl for him. I think it suits him well.

It is amazingly plush and cozy, and has a fantastic hand. With the exception of the small nups of colour in the un-labelled batch, it is all un-dyed. I hadn’t knit with handspun in some time, and really loved having it on my needles.

Emma was still here when I finished, and she had just finished knitting her own cowl (blogged here), so I tried to get a photo of the two of them. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get Doug and Emma to cooperate and not be silly?

Photo attempt #7:

Photo attempt #13:

Photo attempt #312:

Photo attempt #2,397:

This is, of course a slight exaggeration, but they delight in being silly, especially when I am trying to get a photo for the blog.

If you are trying to find a use for small bits of homespun yarn, I recommend this fun and easy solution.

You can’t make this stuff up

Posted on January 16, 2018 by knitigatingcircumstances

I am in South Africa at the moment with a super busy week of teaching on my plate. I had no plans to write a post, but noticed this little tidbit in the Guardian, and couldn’t resist. Apparently, there is a new fad going around (by that I mean in places I don’t normally navigate like Instagram and Pinterest) which involves shelving your books with the spines facing backwards, in order to maintain a neutral colour scheme. For your enlightenment, a photo:

Photo from The Guardian, online International version, January 16, 2018; see link

You can’t make this stuff up!

The article, with the fantastic title, “Shelf effacement: how not to organise your bookshelves”, notes:

“Back in October, design blog Apartment Therapy shared one of these backwards bookshelves on its Instagram account, with advice for emulating the look. (“Books don’t match your decor? Don’t fret … Flip them for a perfectly coordinated look.”) US morning show Today called it “a beautiful thing to try”, and, naturally, it’s all over Pinterest.”

Perhaps I am the last person on earth to have seen this trend (alas, I have failed at Trends R Us), but surely this is a scam perpetrated by a blogger on a slow news day? This is so ridiculous I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

News alert: There is no single prettier thing to have in a room than a bookshelf filled with a riot of books. (Dare I say it? Even a bookcase full of YARN cannot match up to it. That’s how much I believe this!) Who needs order and bland beige-ness when one can have disorder and colour and BOOKS!

The whole joy of a bookshelf is in reading the titles (hopefully followed by reading the books). What do they say about the owner? How many fantastic conversations can you start by examining the shelves? How can you make a rainy day lovely? Will you discover a kindred spirit? How can we make your heart go pitter-pat and your fingers start to tingle just by the proximity to the lovely written word? And, far more importantly, what little treasures are there just waiting for you to read, or at the very least, drool over (figuratively, of course)?

And now, rant over, we return you to your regularly scheduled entertainment. Tune in again soon for some knitting news (guaranteed to not match your colour scheme).

The knitter’s guide to holiday enabling

Posted on January 11, 2018 by knitigatingcircumstances

For Christmas, I gave Emma a get-back-to-knitting kit. Emma is a fantastic knitter, but suffers from lack of follow-through; her attention gets distracted by all of the other things she does well. I had hoped that she might be tempted by having yarn and needles at hand. My ploy seems to have worked:

I purposely picked a project that could be finished quickly; Emma knitted it in a few days. It is called the Cecilia Cowl. The gift consisted of a photocopy of the pattern (it is a free pattern designed by Rachel Atkinson for Loop, which you can find here), a skein of Freia Super Bulky Ombre in the colour Nautilus, and a US size 17 circular knitting needle. I had thought that I would be around to give a hand if needed, but Emma knit the whole thing on her own, mostly during the wee hours (she arrived Christmas Eve so was very jet-lagged).

This is a great project for beginners – the pattern is easy but is also engaging enough to keep your interest. Best of all, the constantly changing hues of the yarn make it hard to put the project down: it is a “just one more row” kind of project.

Emma is flying back to Canada tomorrow, but I am hoping that her interest has been snagged enough for her to take advantage of all of the great knitting shops in Vancouver. I am a great enabler, am I not?

I hope that you have all had a lovely holiday, and enjoyed some relaxing knitting time.

End of year round-up 2017

Posted on December 28, 2017 by knitigatingcircumstances

This was a slow year in knitting for me. I only completed 7 projects in 2017: 2 sweaters, a shawl, two cowls, a pair of mitts, and a baby cardigan:

Clockwise from the top: my Acer cardigan, the Madita cowl, a wee baby cardigan, a SnowFlower for Leah’s birthday, a chunky cowl, my Cool Boots shawl, and a pair of rainbow mitts.

While I enjoyed knitting each of these, the absolute standout for me this year was my Cool Boots shawl. I have worn it nearly every day for months. I made it to match a favorite pair of funky boots in red and pink, and later bought a fabulous handbag to match. All I need to do to brighten my mood this winter is to throw on this shawl. It is lots of mindless knitting – garter stitch with light fingering weight yarn on tiny needles – but well worth it.

Despite having only seven finished projects, I spent a lot of time knitting on two items that didn’t make it on this list. The first was a linen T-shirt which I half-finished before deciding that the fit was all wrong; I have since thought about ripping and re-doing it, but for the moment it sits in the bottom of a bag. Despite it being resigned to the frog pile, it led to one of my favorite photographs of the year, which is me knitting it while sailing a schooner off the coat of British Columbia:

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The other project is one which is just not finished yet, and which will end up being on next year’s round-up. This is Sofi, a cute mosaic stitch jacket designed by Hanne Falkenberg. It is a lot of work, but will be fantastic when finished. Here is the latest progress shot:

This is my 48th post of the year and finished up my sixth full year of blogging (I started in October 2011). According to the stats provided to me by WordPress, these are my top posts this year:

A pattern to celebrate my 300th post
Business Class Cowl (written in 2016)
To gusset or not to gusset (written in 2016)
How to make your knitting habit appear cost-effective
Pretty much perfect in every way
Vintage knitting patterns: the men’s edition
I am the Switzerland of sweater construction

I have listed the seven most-viewed posts, in order to give you the top five of 2017, as two of the seven were written last year. It is gratifying that the top two posts are for my designs, the Cool Boots Shawl and the Business Class Cowl.

Which were my favorite posts? When I drew up a list, they included the five listed above (with Pretty much perfect in every way topping the list). But here are five of my other favorites this year:

The opposite of startitis
Failure, resilience, and knitting
Kathy Bear says: “Knit another one for the baby!”
The power of quiet
I KNIT TWELVE SWEATERS IN TWO WEEKS!! (This one can only be fully appreciated in the light of its context: written shortly after Trump’s inauguration in response to his comments regarding the size of the crowd – note the use of all-caps and exclamation points.)

This year saw a marked decline in my knitting productivity. Why? First, a demanding new role at work means less time to knit. Second, the unrelentingly depressing political news this year seriously interfered with my knitting mojo.

I’ll end with my favorite photo of the year, one which hasn’t made an appearance on the blog before now. I was sitting and knitting and enjoying the view, on the roots of a giant toppled tree, on the beach of a small island off the coast of Vancouver Island. Emma decided to sneak up on me:

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I remain optimistic for the next year, at least with respect to knitting. What’s up next chez Knitigating Circumstances? Stay tuned for a look-ahead to the next year. I thank everyone who reads and enjoys these posts. It makes me happy to jot down my thoughts and it’s nice that people like to read them. Best wishes to all for a healthy and happy New Year!

Birthday SnowFlower

Posted on December 26, 2017 by knitigatingcircumstances

Given that it is Boxing Day, and I am about to show you a finished project, one might reasonably assume that this project was a Christmas gift. But you would assume wrong! Leah’s birthday falls the week before Christmas, and I knit her a SnowFlower for her birthday.

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SnowFlower is a pattern by Heidi Kirrmaier, which is a yoked design using worsted weight wool. One of the interesting features of the design is that the sweater is cast on just above the armholes at the beginning of the yoke, and knit up. Afterwards the provisionary stitches are picked up and the body and sleeves are knit down. This seemed like an interesting technique, and in this case, it worked out great: the yoke was shaped with decreases instead of increases (which I think have a better look to them) but the lengths could still be determined at the end by trying on the sweater.

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I knit it in De Rerum Natura Gilliatt, a worsted weight 100% merino wool from France. It is a very lofty yarn with 250 metres per 100 gram ball. The yarn is very reasonably priced, and with this excellent yardage, it comes in at just over half the price, metre for metre, of Brooklyn Tweed. (Note that I live in the UK, where it is likely that Brooklyn Tweed is more expensive and De Rerum less expensive than in the US.) I found it to be a very nice yarn to work with and produces a great, soft, lofty fabric.

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I am very happy to put it on my list of great workhouse yarns, as it is nice to sometimes knit things with reasonably priced yarns. The only complaint I have so far of the yarn is that the colour palette is limited. I would have loved to have a bit more choice.

There are many great examples of this sweater on Ravelry. I was particularly inspired by two beautiful examples knit by SmashingPuffin. I am glad that I followed through because it was a delight to make, and very quick.

I wrote a few blog posts about trying to pick the right colour combination for this sweater. I really think I nailed it in the end. I am totally pleased with these colours. I think that it looks very Norwegian. The combination of the cheerful snow flowers of the pattern and the lively pop of red, make for a beautiful winter sweater. It is both warm and cozy, and sunny and bright.

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I knit the sweater exactly according to the pattern. The only change I made was to add an additional 4 stitches under each sleeve (picking up 18 instead of 14 stitches). The knitting took no time; I finished in about 5 weeks. I managed to finish it in time for Leah’s birthday, but then she decided she wanted it an inch longer, so I ripped out all of the ribbing on the body and the sleeves, knit an extra inch of stockinette and then re-knitted the 3″ of ribbing.

Doug said “Why didn’t you just make the ribbing 4″ long? That way you wouldn’t have had to rip and re-knit all of that rib.” The truth is it never would have occurred to me to do that. One of the things I like about a hand-knitted sweater is that you knit it so that it is exactly right. If you wanted a sweater that wasn’t exactly right, you could buy it. Ripping and re-knitting, so that your garment turns out exactly how you want it to, is one of the joys of knitting. Call me crazy, but that’s how I feel!

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We photographed this sweater today, on a fairly grey, wet Boxing Day in the beautiful village of Turville, which is frequently used as a film site. Can you see the windmill up in the top of this photo? It is the Cobstone Windmill located in the adjoining village of Ibsden, and which was used in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. (It was the home of inventor Caractacus Potts.)

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This photo shoot was a family affair (just like old times!). Emma is home and so she took the photos for this post. Here is a shot I took of her doing the photo shoot:

We took some silly shots:

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And here is a picture of me, pushed to the sidelines by Doug, Emma, and Leah (in a bid to keep me from micro-managing the process).

Happy holidays! And happy knitting to all!

Time to stop and watch the geese

Posted on December 15, 2017 by knitigatingcircumstances

Today, I raced into a meeting only to discover I had the time wrong – I was 30 minutes early. I was in a big conference room all by myself. I spent a few minutes deciding whether to sit and answer email, or whether to take advantage of 30 minutes and run around taking care of some of the many tasks I had lined up for the day. The latter won, and I raced out of the door, plotting in my mind how to get as much packed into 30 minutes as possible. Then, my head came up and I looked at the view. This is what I saw:

For the record, this is where I work. I have this view every day. When I first took this job, I thought I was the luckiest person on earth. I would spend a bit of time every day walking along the river and taking in the view and the fresh air. Today, I realised that I had not even looked at the view for months. I work there every day and spend my days running from meeting to meeting, or teaching all day. I talk to my MBA students about how important it is to have time for reflection. I tell them to take care of their mental health and to think about how they balance the various parts of their life in a holistic way. Somehow, I had forgotten to practice what I preach.

You might not notice in the above photo the line of geese walking across the lawn. Here is a close-up:

I spent twenty minutes standing outside in the brisk, cold, sunny morning watching the geese. I then had a very productive day getting all of my tasks done.

December can be a super stressful month. We put a huge amount of pressure on ourselves during the holidays. If this is true for you, let me offer up a piece of advice: take some time to stop and smell the roses. Or, as in my case, to stop and watch the geese.

December stealth knitting

Posted on December 9, 2017 by knitigatingcircumstances

Today it is cold outside here in England. It is nearly noon and it is still below freezing out! Luckily it is Saturday, I am on my own all weekend (Doug is on his way to sunny Australia), I worked like crazy this week at the office and actually accomplished some things, and I have enough food, wine, knitting, and books on hand to let me hide away for the entire weekend. As I am typing this, they are broadcasting snow warnings on the radio, and I say “Let it snow!”

I am knitting away like mad on a project I am trying to keep a bit under the wraps on the blog. Why? Because it is December, and that means that it is time for December stealth knitting! I will show you just one sneaky photo (because I can’t resist). This is designed to give a little peek at what I’m up to, without giving away too much.

How many of you are busy with some December stealth knitting of your own this weekend?

The sartorial equivalent of wrapping paper

Posted on December 3, 2017 by knitigatingcircumstances

A few days ago, the headline “The Christmas jumper is out!” jumped out at me (!!) from the online pages of The Guardian. What I had expected to find when I clicked on the article was something like “The ugly Christmas jumper is out! The tasteful Christmas jumper is in!” Sadly, this was not to be. The article claimed that the Christmas jumper is now “out”, and the Christmas suit is “in”. As illustration, here is the Christmas suit:

The Guardian December 1, 2017; Photograph: Handout

From the frying pan into the fire, dear Reader! At least the article states clearly that the Christmas suit is “the sartorial equivalent of wrapping paper”.

I know that the novelty Christmas jumper has been very trendy (at least here in the UK) for some years now. Instead of escalating the trend with ever more garish Christmas clothing, why don’t we adopt a more lovely Christmas jumper tradition? We hand-knitters can lead the way! Here are a few ideas.

Birkin by Caitlin Hunter:

Julgran by Andi Satterlund:

Skógafjall by Dianna Walla:

#05 Selburose Pullover by Lena Skvagerson:

Are these not doing it for you? Well, there is always a Christmas suit with your name on it:

The Guardian December 1, 2017; Photograph: Handout

A lot of work, a little fun, and not much knitting in South Africa

Posted on December 1, 2017 by knitigatingcircumstances

We have just returned from two weeks in South Africa. We both had work commitments there – Doug in Cape Town, and me in both Cape Town and Johannesburg. It was meant to be a mix of work and holiday, with a few days just for us at the end, but as often happens with us, the work spilled over on the holiday time. Nonetheless, the important thing to know is that IT IS WARM AND SUNNY DOWN THERE!!!!

We left the UK on a cold, grey, windy day and arrived in Cape Town to a glorious, sunny day. The first thing we did when we arrived was to pick up a rental car and drive to the beach. Here we are, straight from the plane:

See those would-be surfers on the glass-smooth ocean behind Doug? What you can’t see is the film crew on the beach, and the film producer walking back and forth while shouting into his phone “I have the film crew! I have the surfers! I have a fantastic bloody day! What do I not have? Surf!”

These photos were taken on the beach in Llandudno. I think this is funny because last year I wrote a post called “In which I get whisked off to Llandudno and have a wooly adventure.” Now I can claim to have blogged about Llandudno, Wales and Llandudno, South Africa!

After this lovely morning spent on the beach, we spent the next nine days working. In fact, things got pretty intense for a while (my new job is very demanding), so I spent a lot of that time burning the candle at both ends. I also flew back and forth to Johannesburg, where I was teaching and holding meetings.

At the end of the trip, we tried to put the work aside and have a few days of relaxation. We spent two of those days at the Spier Wine Farm in Stellenbosch. Spier is acclaimed for its sustainability efforts – it is one of 29 WWF Conservation Champions, is organically certified, and is renowned for its eco-tourism. It is also fantastic in every single way! I loved it! I want to go back tomorrow!

I can’t say enough about how great it was, but I will show you a few little glimpses. They have a 5km and a 10km trail, designed for runners and walkers (guess which we did?), which take you right out into the spectacular countryside. Here is the start of one of the trails:

The light is so beautiful there, and the air is fresh. We walked for 5km, in the early evening, and didn’t pass a single soul for most of the walk. It was so gorgeous and peaceful. Doug took this shot of a protea flower against the backdrop of the mountains:

Everything at Spier is beautiful and the landscaping is lovely. I like this shot:

The thing I enjoyed most at Spier is the artwork. They have art everywhere, representing many contemporary African artists: sculpture, ceramics, painting, textile arts, beading and mosaics. I loved their mosaic garden, a very contemplative space which contains some beautiful mosaics commissioned by Spier from African artists.

One of the things you will find in South Africa, is that the sun is very strong. After our first day on the beach in Llandudno, I insisted that Doug buy a hat. In fact, I made him buy a baseball hat, despite his comment that wearing a baseball hat lowers your IQ by ten points. Not so, I said!

This owl clearly liked Doug’s baseball hat. However, perhaps wearing it had some effect on Doug’s IQ after all; I present the following exhibit into evidence:

After two lovely, peaceful days at Spier, we drove down to Kalk Bay, where we once again stayed at the fantastic Chartfield Guest House. We stayed here once before, and I was determined to go back. If you are ever in Kalk Bay, this is the place to stay; it is funky, has great staff, a fabulous view, and has the best breakfasts ever! Here is the lovely terrace where you eat breakfast:

I would love to show you lots of charming photos of Kalk Bay. It is a charming place. However, work interfered while we were there, and I was up all night sending off emails and fretting about things. We did have fun there poking around in the shops and galleries, but it was not as care-free as I would have liked.

So that explains the “a lot of work, a little fun” from the title of this post; what about the knitting? I took only one project with me – the Falkenberg jacket I am knitting. I hardly had it out at all, although I did manage a bit of knitting now and then. Here is a progress photo I took there. I knit up to where I separated for the arm holes, and then I finished knitting the right front. There is still LOADS of knitting to do on this one.

I will end this post with a photo I took from the car while driving back to the airport yesterday morning. We took a long, twisty route back from Kalk Bay, driving along some fantastic beaches. This beach had a number of wind surfers seemingly flying through the air.

Now I am back in the cold, grey, UK winter. It got dark today just after 4pm. But, I am happy to have spent some more time in the beautiful Western Cape.

Worsted is for winter

Posted on November 15, 2017 by knitigatingcircumstances

All of you long-time followers, brace yourselves: I’m long past due for a Wearability Wednesday post. This (for those who are new-ish readers) is a post where I look at a knitting project from some time back and check on its wearability. Do I actually wear it? If not, why not? If yes, how do I wear it? How do I style it? How has it held up? Would I knit it again? The subject of today’s post is Arleen. I knit Arleen in less than two weeks in March of 2013. Here is a photo from back then:

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Since that photo was taken, four and a half years ago, I went through empty nest syndrome, gained a post-graduate degree in an entirely new field, and started a third (or is it a fourth?) career. This has meant (among lots of other things) that I have done less and less knitting and gained more and more weight. But my Arleen keeps looking good. Here is a photo from Monday morning:

And here is the back:

As you can see, the fit is still good. The yarn is Cascade 220, a workhouse worsted weight yarn which is not expensive, comes in lots of shades, and is virtually indestructible. This is not a yarn which is going to sag after a few washes. It also won’t pill much and it won’t bleed. It is a good, solid, dependable yarn. I never thought of it as a next-to-the-skin yarn, but in fact I do not find Arleen to be at all itchy or uncomfortable to wear.

Arleen is an interesting example for a Wearability Wednesday post because it originated as the result of a sweater I frogged and detailed in one of my earliest WW posts, Goodbye Levenwick. The new sweater was blogged in the follow-up post Hello, Arleen. The fact that the yarn was frogged, and then re-knit without steaming or straightening, and that it looks so good, is another testimony to the Cascade 220.

All of this is good, but I have to tell you there is one serious potential downside to this top: worsted is for winter! Whenever I see a short-sleeved or sleeveless worsted weight sweater I always have the same thought: If it is cold enough for a worsted weight sweater, then it too cold for sleeveless. But herein lies an interesting fact: a sleeveless worsted weight top works really well on a cold day under a blazer.

I sometimes think that we women go through four stages in life: first, we are always cold (this stage begins in childhood and lasts a long time), then we are always hot (this comes with being ‘a woman of a certain age’ to speak euphemistically), then we are either very hot or very cold usually in quick succession, and finally, we end up being always cold. In these middle two stages, where overheating happens frequently, it is very nice to have a sleeveless but warm top under a removable jacket or blazer.

On Monday, we woke up to weather that was just above freezing. It was cold. I was debating what to wear under a jacket: a sweater could lead to me roasting in the middle of a meeting but a blouse may be chilly. What to do? While rummaging through a drawer, I came upon Arleen and an answer presented itself: grab Arleen and top it with a jacket! And just to show you that it works, here I am trying it with a number of jackets. (Please note, I only changed the jackets, keeping my black jeans and boots on throughout, so I have not bothered to coordinate my whole look here. Also, it was cold out, I had not put on makeup or otherwise gussied up, and Doug had about 2 minutes before he had to leave for work – thus, we took only a few shots instead of the 40 that I would normally take to get one good one.)

With a retro, 80s, black jacket complete with shoulder pads and gold buttons:

With a rather boring, grey business suit jacket:

With a cool, cropped jacket in an interesting geometric pattern:

With a brown, flannel sporty jacket:

With my Escher cardigan:

I think they can all work pretty well, and give you an idea of Arleen’s versatility. The neckline is a bit funny with the geometric jacket, although the colour works well. I like it best with the Escher but think it works well with the blazers. (If you are interested in my Escher cardigan and have the fortitude to read two very long and technical posts about knitting and modifying the pattern, you can check them out here and here.) On Monday, I wore Arleen to work with the grey blazer, and sure enough, I took the blazer off when I got warm and put it on when I cooled off. A good solution. Clearly this is the exception that makes the Worsted is for Winter rule!

Knitigating Circumstances

Because knitting is excuse enough

Home run for homespun!

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You can’t make this stuff up

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The knitter’s guide to holiday enabling

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End of year round-up 2017

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Birthday SnowFlower

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Time to stop and watch the geese

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December stealth knitting

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The sartorial equivalent of wrapping paper

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A lot of work, a little fun, and not much knitting in South Africa

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Worsted is for winter

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