Make

 I went to a little craft fair on Saturday. There was some lovely photography, lots of knitted corsages, some funky embroidery and pretty evening bags. I came back with a couple of brooches and some buttons in colours that will be unlikely to feature in any of my actual knitting, but will be pretty to look at and fiddle with. Vendor blogs here, hello Sally!


Inspired by the concentration of crafty efforts, I spent the afternoon making a jewelry stand (incorporating some of the buttons obtained earlier). I don't wear much jewelry but my small collection of bits and pieces needed some order imposed on them. It was quite satisfying, though would have benefitted from some more forethought. Primarily, sewing the ribbons and buttons to the felt before attaching the felt to the backing board... Looking at them gathered here, nearly everything I wear is from handmade, most of it from etsy.

Very, very tired

Seven days of intensive learning and socialisation is great, but also knackering.

Leicester University campus is lovely and green.
Strongly suspect that distance learning museum studies prospectus photos may feature knitting (I took notes simultaneously).
The Old Horse pub has an owl, and a tardis, and a coffin, amongst many many things pinned in proper pub fashion to the beams and ceilings.
All the horse chestnut trees had leaf miner - I had not seen this before (I have not touched any HC trees up north after closely inspecting some down south).
I did not get to try thali, but I did finally get to eat carrot halva.
The Arts Council actually pisses me off, for real.
Just because something looks awesome on paper, does not mean it makes a good lecture.
If you're in Cambridge, go to the Whipple museum (website not working properly, so no link)!
I can sew a dart, and put in a zipper, both with a decent balance of caution and confidence.
Putting in a facing is alright, but arm holes require not rushing.
I have felt very concious of being surrounded by people wearing crosses and Jesus fish for the last 7 days. I need to assert my beliefs in wearables. Some will be arriving shortly.

Progress

I ordered some beads online, in that slightly delirious way when you're not sure what you really want and forget which colours might be the ones you'll ever use rather than just being gorgeous. Buying beads in person would have been preferable, but I trogged around Manchester yesterday without success. The Bead Shop at Afflecks was disappointing: staff member helpfully pointed out that the labels on the jars might not necessarily correspond to the actual size of beads it contains currently and she didn't know if they had any beads of the size I was after. I haven't yet knowingly encountered a size 8 seed bead, so wasn't about to guess. Abakahns had miniscule packets of nothing I wanted, Fred Aldous had plasticy packets of beads that weren't for me either. The postman is eagerly awaited.

One small skein of laceweight is wound into a ball. My enthusiasm dissipated rapidly, although I have to say the skein was immaculately wound without tangles and had the ends tagged. Well done Knitspirations. I am thinking of methods of mechanisation. Drill or electric beaters will be investigated, to see if they can go slow enough. I don't really wind that much yarn, can I really justify another tool that will be so rarely used?

On the fear of cutting fabric front, I altered a dress I got in a sale. At home I thought I'd better investigate the underwear situation, but found that, when given a more critical look, the perennial problem of being short was realised. The bust darts were somewhere midsection-ish, giving a rather peculiar appearance. There was umming and ahhing, repeated checkings and pin stabbings. The sewing machine came out and I tried two different methods of removing a couple of inches from the straps, neither of which seemed particularly efficient or orthodox. Anyway, I hacked and altered, then when neatening up the joins caught sight of the materials/care label. Not rather nice heavy satin, but 100% silk. Ignorance, in that case, really had been bliss.

Slogging on...

Desperately wanting to start something else, but also really wanting to get Maude finished soon! There was a bit a stall when I wondered, rather a long way into the ribbing, whether I should have done a bit more lace. I continued with the ribbing, hoping that it was the subtraction of a bra that had altered the appearance of the bosom region. I constantly mis-estimate the space filling ability of my anatomy. So, a few more inches of garter rib (which I've decided I like) and the sleeves.

At the forefront of my mind are these yarns, destined for some kind of shawl:

Been looking longingly at millions of beautiful shawls - went on a bit of Ravelry favouriting rampage! I veer between wanting to do something fiendishly complex looking or something fairly simple. I can do both... maybe even at the same time. Gasp! I am such a monogamous knitter. Sort of. I don't count the sock yarn/ 4ply blanket /cushion cover in progress because it's so intermittent. I also need a project for travelling a bit as I've got a few train journeys lined up. Probably not best for train trips, but I desire an attempt at beaded knitting. Also I want to try tatting, after a small flurry of tatting exposure. And I'm booked on to a quick dressmaking course when I get back from summer school. Hurrah for the internet inspiring craftiness!

Making progress on Maude

Making progress on Maude
Originally uploaded by schlo0p.

Slowly, slowly. The pattern is good, think I'm going to hit the ribbing shortly. My tension has quite obviously changed as the garter stitch button band shows, but I expect that can be wiggled.

I'm mainly being hampered by my own muscular skeletal set up, which has been thrown into turmoil by inappropriate sitting and mousing positions. I've now got a variety of 3 different mousing options and I once again have grip in my right hand again that doesn't result in my triceps seizing (immediately anyway...).

Plants, Knitting and a Bit of a Whinge

I'm doing tomatoes again this year. These came home with me on Saturday instead of food. I usually do food shopping on Saturdays, but just felt overwhelmed and indecisive. This counts as future food, though.

There has also been knitting. This is Maude, and looks a lot greyer here than in real life. So far it's been very pleasant, though I haven't actually checked up on gauge yet. I'll try it on in another repeat (this picture is 1.75).



There has also been much procrastination and study. Things are a bit better now that I have diagnosed myself as not having late onset dyslexia, but that one of my contact lenses is out of whack, causing the text to swim around on the page. I now wear my glasses for reading books. Despite the content being generally very interesting, it's actually very lonely doing distance learning. After a short course with the OU a while ago, I thought I knew where I was at, but I think their forums were rather more lively. I don't usually count myself as very much a people person and totally regret being so antisocial while actually at university, so this was something of a surprise.

The university online forum is unusable (Ravelry has spoiled me so much...) and as such, is deathly quiet. There is some facebook activity, and I've joined twitter to see what museums do with it, and hopefully gang up with some other students. I posted about it on the forum, but unsurprisingly haven't managed to hook up with any museum studies twitterers. I have started tweeting my responses to readings though, which I quite like because it makes me think a little rather than just sighing relief and moving onto the next one. Plus if anyone responds, they have to do it concisely. The type of verbose and obfuscatory responses that I've seen a few of on the forum will not be tolerated by 140 characters.

Socks and Stuff

 These are the Primavera socks that I've been knitting for the past few weeks. The yarn is J. Knits Superwash Me sock, Providence colourway and was perfectly pleasant to knit with. The colours reminded me of mini eggs, which was apt as they were started around Easter, at the height of the mini egg munching season. The pattern was very easy to follow, but I substituted a linen stitch heel. Although the transition between leg and heel is abrupt, this heel should be tougher and I quite like the effect this yarn gives.

I've started a sock yarn blanket. This is potentially foolish, but I'm bearing in mind that it could easily become a sock yarn cushion cover. Much more achievable. I kept sending off my sock yarn scraps to other people, then rather jealously wondered why I shouldn't also have a sock yarn construction of my own.

Shalom was finished quite a while ago. There is a button hole that was out a row which bothered me, but I haven't fixed it. When asked whether it looked alright, R described it as "brutalist". We talked it through, I'm trying not to be put off wearing it because it is comfy and warm. I think maybe he is focusing on the effect of the garter stitch around the yoke, which I prefer to think of as sort of Jetsons-like futuristic. Haven't got around to taking a picture of it being worn yet, because I never remember when the light is halfway decent (feeling remotely photogenic is another matter).

Excitingly, (for me anyway) I did a spot of proofreading for RubbishKnitter. It made me realise how much I ignore certain instructions or parts of patterns. Fingers crossed!

Last night I cast on for Maude, from the Inside Loop. It's in 4 ply yarn rather than laceweight held double. This is Jaeger Matchmaker in a colour that isn't what I was expecting but didn't send back because it was such a pain getting in the first place (if I say Angel Yarns, I don't think it needs further explanation). Despite the colour being a bit insipid for the project it was originally intended for, I think it'll be fine for this type of top, which can be layered over.