whats next?

This post, is a sort of quick tidy up, the latest knit video, staring again my own two hands and a reasonable approximation knitting in continental style, a minor frog report, together with a news of the next sock. Thinkings on the fish afghan and how it fits into my knitting life. I'm missing images today, and you know how I like my photos, but its late and photos taken at night never show the colours well. The upside is these pages will load fast. Knitwise, next weekend is the lace weekend, and I'm all set, already. Today and tomorrow is a work thing, writting for academic publication workshop - so I will need the knitting next week.

Firstly the video
Again thanks to Bear and my postitively ancient minolta digital camera. This isn't new, it was around a few days ago - but one at a time seems right. someone asked how long it took to knit this smooth. Around 3 sweaters on 3mm needles or smaller. Thanks Silvie, Suzane for the postive feedback, muchly appreciated, I'm not saying this way is better, just it works really well for me and the things I like to knit.
So do I knit like you knit? Let me know, I seem surrounded by Lever, English, Scottish and Throwing knitters here with the exception of the lovely Tania, collector of looms.


I've cast on for my Fana inspired cardie, in petrol and dk red silk merino on 2.5mm needles. She is knit in the round, with two rows K1P1 rib then 5 cms corrugated ribbing. After the first two rows I discovered the horror of horrors, a twisted round. And how many hundred times have I read that very specific and clear warning "make sure the knitting is not twisted before joining". Well the yarn is fingering, the rows were few, the centre steeked, so I just twisted it right way round and that twist dosn't even show. My plan was with the steeked front any twist could/would be cut out latter.

I've done nearly 3 cm so far. Two things have slowed me down. First is I would like Bear to make one more video of my technique for corrugated ribbing - but for that we need daylight - so not tonight. I have not seen this stitch being worked, and sort of worked it out from photos, on line reports and other mythical sources, I played with this in my swatch for Poppys pink merino here, and got some informative replies to KR post which lead to Nanettes blog which is great. It appears that we both came to the same fix to prevent the cast on edge curling - a row or two of rib in one colour. So far I've only worked out how to do this in the round - does it, can it exist in flat knitting? This is a sort of 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours" video - I'd love to know if I got it right.

Second is that I called into my LYS to collect more yarn for the Fana project, and see if they had tracked down more balls of the dark red for me. When I put it on lay by, I was thinking of only the blue, not fair isle. There is no more matching in their sister branches, so they need to order from the rep next tuesday, and might have to get the full 16 in another batch. Seems silly to knit much more knowing the yarn might be replaced by another batch. I promise progress images Sunday.

I went to knit group last night and meet another Dunedin Knit blogger, Bessie-S, who was lovely but has not time to update her blog in ages. Being in the middle of a library masters and working. She did mention closing the blog, but I think she should just note it is infrequent. She was knitting an amazing hot water bottle cover in vintage yarn - cool. At the meeting I started some socks for Toby in the same Stripe Regia that Bears last socks were in. Initially I cast on on 2.5 mm, but soon decided that I really do like a firmer sock, so frogged the 4 cm and started again on 2mm dpns - thats the frog report. I'm using my current fav sock modified widdershins pattern, but with a ribbed instep leg. Brooke has posted more info on the workings for these socks on her blog.

I've been pondering the fish blanket, and have recieved many many nice coments - Thanks very much to all for those :D
I have a lot of knitting books, at times I wonder if knitting books is part of the knitting hobby or another entirely different hobby that feeds this knitting one. One book I return to often is mindful knitting: inviting contemplative practice to the craft by Tara Jon Manning. This is a peaceful little book, and full of nice calm, easy things to knit for others (it took me a while to work that one out) Other than that a lot of the book is about being at peace, feeling without responding, being still and connecting. Tara writes of the meadative aspect of knitting. I like that, the process of making each stitch, thats my time, my me time. I have linked this to another suggestion by Benda Dayne from Cast-on in one of her previous podcasts. Brenda suggested maybe knitters are able to see the value in small incremental steps to achieve good or progress in community work and action for change because thats how knitting works. No one ever thinks of the 1000's of stitches to create a sweater, we see only the needles, the quite space, and the possibility of the finished project.There is a peace and a lack of urgency, and a sense that things grow one stitch, or one fish, or one row of fish at a time.

I think the fish blanket is my incremental project, the one that lurks in the back of the knit basket, not haunting me, but rather confirming to me that life is fine, and yes, I have time, I can do this, there is no hurry. It makes me feel good to know that I am in a position to take on a project that has no end date, no child will grow out of it before it is finished, no baby will be born to soon, no season will pass with the project not done in time. In our family we have a themed conversation, where in the middle of a moan we stop and say - if the bus being late is the worst of my week - life is pretty good. If the front page of the local paper is full of a resident having a moan about rubbish collection, or a tree falling over and needing cleaning up then the world is pretty much ok today.

On a work note : I got some really really good news yesterday - so I'm off to Australia soon. A few months ago, knit-blogging was put on the back burner for a few days while a paper was finished and submitted to here. So this year I'll be spending my birthday in Australia, away from home family, in the company of strange academics and possibly giving a paper. There better be good yarn to buy some-where close. My current thoughts are what will I take to knit? Those thoughts should be 'what will I put in the power point to impress all those designery professionals?'

Well work promised travel, conference and accommodation funds as long as my paper was accepted, and yesterday came news that it was. Yay, fantastic, and of course with the always present standard 'subject to reviewers comments being addressed'. So what do the reviewers want? Well reviewer 1 wants a few spaces, full stops, and a minor typo fixed. Easy peasy - I can do that, in fact I'm embarassed that I sent the paper away with such errors. Reviewer 2 - now they are a whole different story. That person wants me to 'rewrite the conclusion stronger'. Huh? I've got a few weeks, but if I knew how to do that I would have done that already!