A Hat For a Boy or Yarn Is A Funny Thing

I knit this watch cap for my guy as a Christmas gift. Well, I knit this pattern. the gift cap was navy blue and worked in Cascade 220. He loves it and looks surprisingly smashing it so he wanted another in a second colour. He requested gray to match his good overcoat.

This charcoal gray version is also Cascade 220. Here's the funny thing. You'll notice the gray is slightly heathered? Well the short white fibers used to create the heathering differ from the main wool. They are coarser and slightly straighter. Consequently, the yarn of this cap behaves entirely differently from the first, navy blue, version. It is spongier, less springy. The finished product feels thicker. Both hats are very nice but isn't it remarkable that the addition of one small element makes them seem as if they were knit from completely different yarns?

Contradictions

15.

You who think I find words for everything,
and you for whom I write this,
how can I show you what I'm barely
coming into possession of, invisible luggage
of more than fifty years, looking at first
glance like everyone else's, turning up
at the airport carousel
and the waiting for it, knowing what nobody
would steal must eventually come round -
feeling obsessed, peculiar, longing?


Adrienne Rich
Contradictions: Tracking Poems
Your Native Land, Your Life, 1986

It Turns Out That...

...casting off in twisted rib produces a delightfully angular edge.

They are done!
The Flemish Lace Socks by Naomi Herzfeld from Lace One Skein Wonders.

...and getting your bike tuned up can be an aesthetically pleasing experience.

The bike shop in my new hood.
Nice staff and a beautiful brick wall next to a large window.
Mark one on the positive side for this place.

Easter Egg Colours In The Sun

A sneak peak. Notice how one sock is so much more colour saturated than the other?
The result of an unevenly dyed skein.

I made a ridiculous mistake joining the round after the heel turn. This was followed by another, sillier, mistake. So I had to rip back and start the section again. What this means of course is that the sock is not done as I planned it would be.

The bright side of this, and I mean bright is that I got to sit in the brilliant sunshine of this Easter Sunday morning working away on the colourful sparkly loveliness that is this yarn. Just delightful.

Imagine When Spring

Inspired by Glenna's post about showing up for your knitting, I sat down and committed to getting something done. You know what? Glenna is right. If you just show up and knit the darn thing, it actually gets done. In fact, the shawl came off the block several days ago but the weather has been conspiring against photography. Finally the sun came gloriously out for the first day of spring and I got many lovely shots; happily so, as this Imagine When shawl is off to its gifting recipient soon.

I am delighted with my work. The decisions about where to place the solid areas among the short rows seem to have been the right ones. I love the asymmetry of this pattern and the open work rows are delightful. 

In the spirit of showing up, I have also been progressing well on the sparkly socks and they should be ready for their own photo shoot by tomorrow.

Yarn: Sweet Georgia Sock and Koigu KPPPM
Pattern: Imagine When

Not So Vintage

What exactly is "vintage"? I often find myself wondering about the definition of this particular word as it applies to clothing. More and more I see 80`s style referred to as vintage. I have a problem with this simply because I was alive and wearing the clothes of that time. As a child of the 60`s and 70`s, fashion was then for me what the "grown-ups" wore, so yes, that feels nostalgic to me. But the eighties? My first adult personal wardrobe choices (sometimes unfortunate ones) were made in the mid-eighties. How can my own fashion evolution be historical? How can items possibly be vintage when I still own and wear one or two of them?

We are, as they say, none of us getting any younger.

Well, vintage or not here is a beauty from an old Pingouin Ete. Isn't it perfect and light and summery? It's one I've been eyeing for several years. I have a crazy fantasy that it would look cute on me. However, this I know from experience to be highly unlikely. I've tried on many dresses of this shape in the past. I even tried to knit something similar about ten years ago. Loose fitting A-line dresses just don't suit me and no amount of wishing will change the fact. 

The yarn used in this pattern is Pingouin Nacre, a DK cotton/rayon blend long since discontinued. This meant the dress could happily live on in my fantasy world. Then the other day, I happened into Americo and saw their oh-so-lovely Bebe yarn which is almost a perfectly exact yarn substitution. Suddenly, this dress really wants to become reality again. 
Damn.