FO: Dia

Some days, I'm just too impulsive for my own good.  

A trip to browse the haberdashery department at the local John Lewis led me to see a beautifully knitted sample of this:

Oh! Oh! Oh!  What a lovely pullover!  Never mind that I dislike working with linen and cotton (although wool would have done quite nicely) and I didn't bother giving the pattern a read-through to figure out just what doing color work would involve.  Sign me up!  Oh, and the Creative Linen yarn is on 60% off?  I always wanted a boxy summery sweater!  I'm be lounging around in my harem pants in my riad in no time.

Off to the races I was.  I knocked out the sleeves first and soon realized that the flawed logic of this design.  The Creative Linen was terribly splitty, meaning it was painfully slow to do lace work without it looking sloppy as ice cream on a hot tin roof.  

Once the sleeves were done, I started the body.  Like all Rowan patterns, it is written to be knitted flat, but I merrily joined it together in the round until the arm pits, where I switched to the color work.  

Have you ever tried to do colorwork that wasn't in the round?  I hadn't before this.  

It was terrible.  In fact, I had to walk away for a few months.  

I picked it back up again, only to give up again.  Another couple months passed.

Finally, I made a deal with myself.  Two rows a day.  I have to complete two rows a day on this.  I didn't even know if it would fit, never mind look good, but I kept up my personal bargain, and in a few weeks I was sewing in the ends.  

Ta dah!

I am so sick of looking at this thing, but here it is.  I don't have it styled at all here, but it is in my "not bad at all" category.  It's boxy, yes....even though I did three repeats of the lace to lengthen the torso a bit and there's not waist shaping at all.  I'm not really good in boxy things- it makes me look too stout and barrely and I just don't need that.  Halfway through I decided this would be gifted, so it doesn't have to look good on me anyway, ha!

This thing was a BEAST to knit.  I would not recommend it.  The way Rowan patterns are written are not for the faint of heart, either.  Although I did see someone leave the sleeves out and turn this into a vest, which looked just fine.  I think that any time you do any sort of color work, it should be knitted in the round, even if this means steeking (slicing the sweater carefully to make holes for the sleeves).

 I'm glad it is over with- I was getting so very sick of seeing this day in and day out, just taunting me.  I've learned my lesson- stay out of John Lewis.  I practically sabred a bottle of Champagne to celebrate.

Happy that it turned out okay- about halfway through I was overcome with despair that it just wasn't going to hang together right once it was sewn up.  Relief: it looks just fine.

However, I am so very sick of it that I no longer want it.  There's nothing wrong with it, but I feel as though someone else can lounge around their riad in harem pants more effectively than I could.

The deets: After my gauge being a little lose, I decided to knit the smallest size as written.  I used 5 skeins of Creative Linen in ocher and just 1 of salmon pink.  The pattern is Dia from Rowan 55.

Bayeux is a Great Place for Textile Nerds

A weekend away from Paris is never a bad idea.

I had wanted to go to Bayeux for ages. It's one of the only towns that didn't get demolished in that part of Normandy during WWII, leaving a quaint medieval village to wander around. Nearby cities like Caen were almost completely reduced to rubble, leaving a blank slate to be rebuilt into sprawling industrial and port cities in cold post-war architecture. It's kind of a tourist town, but it wasn't so busy where you felt mobbed or like you couldn't get a dinner reservation.

The city is crowned with an enormous thousand year old gothic Cathedral.

They don't grow grapes here, so cider becomes the Champagne drink of choice. It's usually very cheap- $3-$4 euros for a bottle, and it's very drinkable. It goes nicely with the fresh oysters and the savory buckwheat crepes called galettes that you can get pretty much everywhere.

I badly wanted to visit the Bayeux Tapestry. It's a very unique work of art from the 11th century. It's not a tapestry at all, but a long linen cloth stitched together and embroidered with great detail and embellishment.

(All tapestry images courtesy Wikipedia since photos were not allowed and I tend to take the preservation of these things seriously. It annoys me to no end that some vistors decided to perserve their memories via their Iphones despite getting yelled at by security.)

It used to hang in the nearby cathedral, but it was moved into a special museum where it could be in climate controlled perfection.

It's basically a comic book for the illiterate, which, in the 11th century, chances are you weren't spending too much time learning how to read.

It tells the story of William the Conquer. Well, he was actually known as William the Bastard when the story starts, and ends up becoming William the Conquer. He was the Duke of Normandy, and he decided he was the rightful heir of the throne of England as well and went off with his troops to give the usurper Harold a royal ass kicking. The battle of Hastings is portrayed with much violence and detailed stitching- blood and severed body parts and gore.

It's basically a propaganda piece to convince the British populace that William was the good guy in all this, and despite the fact that the dying heirless King Edward said the crown should be passed to Harold.

The museum itself is fantastic. The whole tapestry is laid out in a long, unbroken arched hallway. You are given an audio guide that explains in detail what is going on, scene by scene. It was so amazing, when we were done, we went back and did it again. The boats, the battles, the quicksand in front of Mont Saint Michel, the laughing horses...it deserved a lot of your attention. Upstairs, there is a museum explaining the techniques used in the tapestry and the history of the events, and a film that shows a really convincing reenactment.

Yes, natural dye was used. Three kinds: Woad for blues, Madder for reds, and Weld for yellows, all used at different saturations to get the various shades. Here's a great website talking about the dyes and techniques used.

My favorite scene:

Hayley's comet, appearing ominously in the sky to fortel the demise of Harold, ages before people knew what a comet might really be. It's the same comet I saw in 1986 and caused me so much childhood angst about the kind of world we would live in the next time it paid us a visit.

Here, in a rather old-school web page, is the entire thing, scene-by-scene.

FO: Jordan Lace Tank

I have a huge backlog of knitwear to show you. It's embarrassing, really. I made all these cute summery tops and it's been too hot to wear anything but the barest of barely there garments. Most of them require a bit of an undergarment or cami underneath- lace knitwear can be quite revealing and, uh, I just don't want to draw that kind of attention to myself. So camisole layer it will be!

Here's the first one I finished.



It's the Jordan by Wendy Bernard. It's a fun, easy lace knit. You make a tube and then attach two sleeves. Voila! Instant shirt. It's the same front and back, and aside from seaming up the sleeves to the top edge, there is no finishing.



I used 2.5 skeins of Louet Euroflax Sportweight in Aqua for the medium size. Linen is interesting to work with- you get such a nice, crisp lace pattern with really perfect stitch definition. It does show unevenness in your stitches though- any plain stockinette sections irked me. It does work perfectly for lace. I used size US4 needles to get gauge.

It did tend to hurt my hands a bit- it has no give or bounce at all, so I couldn't work on this for long stretches of time without taking a break. The yarn could also be quite slippery. You do not want to drop a stitch with this stuff...you'll find it somewhere near the bottom every single time. Curses.




It did soften up quite a bit after a wash and it's drapey and swinging nicely. I really enjoyed making this and I want to wear it all the time. I have a few more skeins of this in my stash and I'm trying to decide which cute linen top to make next. Ahh, maybe next year. I've already had my non-wool fill.



Linen looks great with a little bit of a tan and a cocktail in hand. I love the way this turned out. The only modification I made is that the sleeves are slightly shorter than as written- I just did one less lace repeat.



Also- the necklace can be had from my Etsy shop. It's a double strand of Garnet gemstones and simply gorgeous.

I did get some Knitting In...

...Just not very much.



Most of it was while I was sneaking out to sit by the pool for a few minutes. I was working, after all. That's the beginnings of a lace linen top. Perfect for summer, or summer-like climates.



After such a long NYC winter and a rather cool spring, I was pretty psyched to be absorbing as much Vitamin D as possible- with as much sun screen as possible. I went through several bottles. Also, several bottles of tequila.



Margaritas are alway a great way to spend a day, especially after hiking around the hills nearby.

Here's some more gratuitous scenery. I have too much real work to catch up on to have a coherency to my thoughts, so all you get is pictures.
















(I thought that was a Wallaby, but later was told it was a jackrabbit. Derp.)

FO- Pucker

Instant Gratification comes in many forms. This one just happened to be a feminine Norah Gaughan sleeveless top.



The aptly named "Pucker" from Norah Gaughan's Volume 4 collection. It took me just a couple weeks from start to finish.



I made the second-smallest size- the 38"- and I have plenty of room in there. It gave my heart the pitter pats when I was seeming it up because it looked enormous. All that extra fabric just hangs around and gracefully drapes and swishes around when you move.



It's a lot of stockinette and then some interesting detail at the front to create the namesake pucker.



The yarn makes this pattern. Seduce is a really unique yarn. It is composed of 47% Rayon, 25% Linen, 17% Silk, 11% Nylon. It appears to have two strands of yarn spun around a thin core. It's very slick. I had to change to bamboo needles after about 5 minutes of trying to work with metal and having the entire project fall off the needles. It's a bit thick-and-thin, which helps hide stitch inconsistencies, and it blocks out lengthwise quite a bit.



It was kind of cold on picture day so I had it layered, but this will be nice in July with a thin tissue tank or cami underneath.



The Specs: I used almost all of 9 skeins of Seduce- 900 yards- for the 38" size. I used size 6 needles, which helped control the stretching issues I had when swatching- this could easily turn into a mini-dress if your gauge is loose.

I didn't modify the pattern at all- it's simple and fast to knit up. I might try and do this in the round next time, but I think the side seams give it weight and help with the drape.