The second half of 2008 has been very frustrating and depressing for me, professionally. It is one of those times when you’re given a mountain of lemons, and asked to make lemonade. In my case, I was given rotten lemons and um, let’s say, a manual lemon juicer. Given the state of the economy and the rounds of layoffs that I’ve survived, I should be thankful. Yada yada yada.. but in truth, I wake up almost everyday wanting to scream at unnamed individuals and tell them to shove the work to where the sun don’t shine.  So here’s to hoping that the next year will be an improvement on the last, and that next year’s end-of-year post will end on a much brighter note.

This little gem was completed in November, made up from a skein of red cashmere that was gifted to me by Joy before she moved to Hawaii, and 3 skeins of leftover Rowanspun 4-ply in the colorway Squirrel. The top-down yoke sweater is inspired by MissLemon’s stripey version, and all it took was just a simple gauge swatch, some head measurements to make sure the sweater will fit through my noggin’, and try-as-I-knit top-down fun.

The edgings for the roll neck, sleeve and the bottom bands were finished off with an applied icord, a la Purl Bee’s tutorial. I played around with jogless stripes and centered the beginning of each round at the center on the back of the sweater (traveling down the spine). It’s not completely inconspicuous, but it’ll do for now.

The result is a feathery-light garment that I’ve dubbed : Candy Cane. If you’d like to knit one for yourself, please drop me a comment and I’ll go dig up my pattern notes. Of course, it’ll only be in the size that I knit, which is 36″ around for 2″ positive ease. (editted to add additional pictures)

Pattern: Garter Sideways Hat from Drops, Sz 58 cm

Materials: Noro Sock Yarn (Colorway S164), 0.5 skein, Sz 3 needles

There isn’t a thing that I don’t love about this hat. The garter stitch, the slouch, the colorway, and the simplicity of the pattern. You should all knit yourselves some. Trust.

Happy Holidays.

Last month, during a phone conversation with my mom, she finally asked me when I was ever going to knit her a sweater. I thought about it long and hard, and finally narrowed it down to two patterns: Toledo from Rowan 37, and also Ilga Leja’s Fluid Linen. I emailed her images of both patterns, and even before she responded, I cast on for Toledo. 12 inches into the pattern, she called back to tell me that she liked Fluid Linen. Oops. How presumptuous of me.

Nevertheless, yarn had been bought, and I was not about to let it go to waste. I ended up ripping out most of the sweater and modified it to suit my measurements. Realistically, this tank only took me a week to knit.

The tank wasn’t fully complete without its accent ribbons. And since I didn’t have the Rowan Linen Print called for in the pattern, it took a while before I settled on Berroco Suede and finally called it a FO.

Pattern: Toledo, Rowan 37, Sz L hips modified to Sz XS for the rest of the bodice

Materials: Sz 6 and 8 needles, 5.5 balls of Rowan All Seasons Cottons (Shade 192) and 0.5 balls of Berroco Suede (Shade 3764)

Notes: All Seasons Cotton is a lovely yarn. Quite unlike the ropey feel that I have come to expect of cottons, it is springy, smooth and quite spongy. A delight to wear and also to knit with, very much to my surprise. I used 12 strands of the Suede yarn per plait, in lieu of the Linen Print. I think this blue/gray combo turned out quite nicely. In all honesty, I have always liked this pattern and wondered why I never see more of them on the web. In hindsight, I think it would fare better for a DK-weight yarn instead of an aran weight cotton, to minimize potential chunkiness. But all in all, a great pattern.

Now that this one’s out of the way, I better get cracking on that Ilga Leja Pattern.

Since the last time I picked up a spindle kit in May 2008, I must admit, I haven’t attempted spinning since. I can say that I’ve been busy with other knitting projects, but deep down, there is only one reason: the home-made yarn was lumpy, frumpy, and down right ugly.

Fast foward to the Fiber Festival in Torrance last Sunday, and all of a sudden, I was swayed once again. This time around, I picked up a new spindle from the Custom Handweaving booth, and was determined to give spinning another go.

Enter Exhibit A - the bird’s nest.

The darn bird’s nest is so ugly that I don’t even want to show it “big”. Frustrated by the fruits of my labor, I started reading up on every single handspindling post on Ravelry. It seems that the general consensus is to keep at it, until one day, lightning strikes you up side the head and you’ll just “get it”. Really? Well I must be horribly dense because you know what? I’m not getting it. Fortunately, the advantage of reading Ravelry forums is that people keep posting beautiful pictures of their spindle collections (I’ll explain how this is a fortunate turn of events in the next few sentences). And in particular, the awesomeness of Golding spindles. So I called my friend Bobby, who unfortunately has moved away from California to DC, telling him that I would like to collect the winnings of our bet. You see, back in September when we attended the Beck concert at Hollywood Bowl, he and I had a little bet on whether or not Beck would perform “Debra”. He was adamant that he would, and I said no. We agreed that the wager would be around $70 — the price of a new pair of earbuds from Mac. Suffice to say that I won, and I want a new Golding spindle.

Within 30 minutes of its arrival since Friday, I was spinning thin strands of yarn. Hello? Thin, improved-uniformity strands of yarn. Then I realized in that very moment that I, self-proclaimed enemy of spindling, has “gotten it”. 2 days later, my little Golding is full. My friends, it’s all in the spindle. Quality tools make for quality spinning. I believe that firmly, and it is with this belief that I will justify all future purchases of additional Golding spindles. And to prove that I really really got it, I went back to the other spindle and tried it with a different fiber.

Enter Exhibit C - mystery spindle from Custom Handweaving, much much heavier spindle.

By golly, spindling is FUN! Unforunately, I did find that the 2 fibers that I have at home (both corriedale — cheaply bought from etsy) are somewhat felted in various spots, making the drafting and spinning process somewhat less pleasurable than it could be. My ultimate goal is to advance to spinning enough merino for a pair of socks. Of course, this means that I will need to learn how to ply… but we’ll talk about that much later because I haven’t the slightest clue what the difference is between Navajo plying and just normal 2-ply.

And lest you think that I have gone over to the dark side and abandoned knitting, you are sorely mistaken. But we’ll save that for another day, because it’s so very close to being a FO.

Preface:

I spent yesterday in San Diego hanging out with a friend that I haven’t seen in a year. During the much anticipated catch-up story-telling session of everything that has transpired in our lives, I realized that alot of the punchlines and “oh-no-you-didn’t” moments have escaped my short-term memory. This is definitely no bueno  in my book, because you see, I need instant refreshers to all things funny and tragic that have occurred in my life.  

And so, encouraged by my Life in a cubicle commenters, I’ve decided to incorporate more of the funnies that have happened to me. My friend Bobby calls it the “Human Interest” section of the blog.

Date: August 7 2008

Location: Cubicle

Anonymous Person within my hearing range had been groaning in pain all morning. The story was that he fell off a horse and injured himself. But as all things go in life, there was more to the tale.

*crack*

Truth is, he cracked his rib on the shitter.

Moments later, the same person suffered a bout of non-stop sneeze-fest. In the midst of his sneezing, all I heard was:

Merde! Merde! Merde!

That must have been some merde indeed.

You know those times when you’ve finished your knitting and because of the lack of a decent camera you never got to post the FOs? Well that’s the case with my knitting these days. And then you put off posting the pictures because you think someday you’ll take better pictures and write a post about them? I’m sure you’ve all been there. (Ha ha.. October 4th update: Situation amended)

My sister called me up in mid-September and said that the weather conditions in Toronto already required winter coats. And then she requested for a scarf.

“Sure, of course. Let me email you some patterns so you can pick which designs you like. What color are you thinking of?” (imagination goes wild with heavily cabled patterns in reds, pinks, and other jewel tones)

“Oh, black, brown, or dark gray.”

“Seriously? But if your clothes are already in that color scheme, don’t you want your scarf to have some color to punch up your outfit?” (I mean, seriously, knitting with black yarn ain’t fun)

“Yea… but if the scarf is black then it’ll go with everything I own..”

“Well, I’ve got really really dark purple. Like, grape. It’s almost black. How about cream white? Can we settle for cream white?” (hello? color? hello?)

And then, before she told me which scarf designs she liked, I went ahead and knit her the Circles Scarf from “Knitting New Scarves”.

Then I sent her the link to Lynn Barr’s “Knitting New Scarves” and she liked it.

“I really like the Gathered Scarf too” (and also the Boteh scarf, but I don’t crochet, so that automatically disqualifies)

“Oh really? Then you’ll get that one as well. Color choice?” (thinking now that I’ve shown her that cream and gray looks well together as a neutral color combo, she may want to be adventurous with her second color choice)

“Black.”

Well, I guess in the end, she wants what she wants.