Tag Archives: Anne Ventzel

Time goes on

Posted on by
3

Happy New Year, everyone! I had a vivid flashback on New Year’s Eve to 25 years before, Doug and I walking through Potsdam with two young children, watching the crazy excess of fireworks that the occasion provoked, surrounded by speculation of whether Y2K might crash the computer networks, and thinking how utterly weird it was to have a year that didn’t begin with ’19’. And now, here it is, 2025, the children are grown, I can barely stay awake to welcome in the new year, and I fear that my weird-o-meter has been blown to smithereens. Things change so quickly, and yet, here we are.

I missed most of the end of the year stuff that I usually post here, like my annual mitten post and the round-up of knitting projects. The last year ended on a sad note for us. My step-father, Stuart, died on the 24th of December, 2 days before his 91st birthday. Stuart was a lovely man, a hugely supporting presence in my life, and a great grandfather. We will miss him.

In the interest of completeness, and because they are terribly cute, I do want to show you my final finished project of 2024, a pair of mittens for Leah.

These are the Robinia Mittens by Anne Ventzel. She published the pattern just as I was finishing up my Anne Ventzel knit-a-long project, showcased in my last post. I liked the pattern instantly, and this was confirmed on my trip to Aarhus in mid-December when I was able to try on a sample pair at the yarn shop, Yarnfreak.

I purchased the yarn, Filcolana Peruvian, a worsted-weight wool, in a lovely blue and yellow combo, and cast on as soon as I returned. They are not only super cute, but they are fun and very easy to knit.

I realised after I took these photos that Leah is posed in a “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” tryptich. And have you noticed how well they match her coat?

Tomorrow I go back to work after a strange and stressful Christmas break. I was very tired and feeling burned out before the break, and then we had a lot of sadness to deal with. Not surprisingly, I ended up getting sick. Doug has been suffering from knee and hip problems. Emma was not home, which was also sad. On the other hand, Leah has been home for a month which has been lovely. Here we are in Henley-on-Thames:

And here we are (with dinosuar!) in London at the Natural History Museum:

I am busy planning out my next knitting projects. I have a few things still on the needles which I hope to either finish or frog, and I intend to cast on some new things soon. Kate Davies announced a new knitting club yesterday, which I imagine will spark some ideas. I am planning another pair of mittens or two. Leah has managed to co-opt one of my shawls (see above photo), and since Doug also adopted one, and Emma managed to go home with two, I think I may need to cast on a new shawl for me. So, life goes on, with a New Year in front of us. There are certainly some weird things coming our way, and many challenges, but also there is family, and craft, and intellectual pursuits to keep our hearts and hands and heads engaged.

Mixed results

Posted on by
14

It’s been a while since my last post, and in the meantime I started and finished a jumper:

That is pretty fast knitting, by my standards. From cast-on to cast-off was exactly six weeks. The design is Bella Blocking by Anne Ventzel. I knitted it as part of a KAL (knit-a-long) organised by Carmen Schmidt of A Yarn Story. The KAL was for any pattern by Anne Ventzel and we were a really nice bunch, about 30 knitters who met on-line once a week to knit and chat, while learning new techniques (for some of us), comparing yarns and colours, giving encouragement and advice, and just hanging out. I’ve had mixed results with KALs but this one was nice, very low-key and not too big.

Carmen had brought her Bella Blocking to the retreat, which she knitted with her own yarn, Fluff by Walcot Yarn and Les Garcons. I tried it on and was impressed with the fact that it wasn’t itchy (it isn’t mohair), and weighed next to nothing. She had brought along bags full of Fluff in every colour, so I grabbed some in Cinema and Shadow, and signed up for the KAL.

I have mixed feelings about the resulting jumper, however. There is a lot to like and also things I don’t like about it. To start with the good things, I am crazy about these two colours in combination. They are really my colours, and they look great with this pattern. The yarn doesn’t itch (I already said that, but it bears repeating). The sweater is amazingly light (it weighs 220 grams) and is also very warm. It is comfortable.

The fact remains, however, that the jumper is pretty shapeless. I am unhappy with the dropped shoulders, the extra bunching under the arms, and especially with the sleeves, which just don’t sit right. I have tried to use artfully curated photos here so that I show off its best features, but you can see what I mean with the photo below.

I actually re-knit the sleeves multiple times trying to fix them, but I never got them to a point where I really like them. I also tried very hard to knit this with the 2 skeins of each colour I had purchased, but in the end needed more of the Shadow. I could totally have made it with only four skeins if I had made it an inch shorter and made the sleeves shorter, but after trying it on and ripping, and re-knitting umpteen times, I ended up with this. I think the root of the problem is the drop shoulder. The pattern calls for significantly more ease, which would have had a much greater dropped shoulder. I didn’t want all that ease around the chest, so I knitted a size 5, which with my slightly tighter gauge, gave me about 4 inches of ease. I ended up with a shoulder that was dropped enough to look sloppy and totally un-shapely, but not enough of a dropped shoulder to look intentional.

Doug’s comment on this jumper was: “I think the fact that it’s shapeless is kind of a feature.” Hmm. Enough said.

The result is a lightweight, easy, slouchy sweater in beautiful colours that looks and wears like a sweatshirt. Not a bad choice for lounging around the house, or going for a walk in the woods. It’s not something I would wear to work, though, or when I was trying to look put-together. Cosy is not a bad thing, so I am going to enjoy slouching around in this, while trying to pick patterns which suit my shape and style better.