Winding wool

Believe it or not, although I've been knitting on and off for maybe 27 years, I've just finished my very first project knitted from a skein - specifically, a skein of delicious Shepherd Worsted from Lorna's Laces, in the "Watercolor" colourway. I wound the wool ten days ago, while watching the second half of Casino Royale (see under: four-month-old baby with unpredictable evening sleep pattern; films that can if necessary be watched in eighteen-minute segments preferred).

Winding the wool took me back. I did it my grandmother's way (she knitted constantly, and was my steady source of random ends of yarn for many years - though she, and I, always called it "wool"). She showed me her winding method when I was around eleven, and I went through a phase of winding my own balls from the ends she gave me - and sometimes even from new-bought balls. They were so much nicer, with their pineappley tufts and firm thumb-holes, and so satisfying to make.

So, as James Bond suited up to face Le Chiffre across the poker table, I hung the skein around my knees, found an end, and made a figure-8 around a thumb and two fingers, winding until I had a comfortable handful. Then I laid the handful against my thumb and started winding around both, each turn slightly crossing the turn below.



As the stakes rose, the body count mounted and the question of whom to trust became steadily more open, I wound and wound, rotating the ball on my thumb, feeling it grow larger and more coherent, enjoying the softness and smoothness of the wool, the regularity of the ball's surface, and the rhythm of my progress around the skein on my knees, around, and around again.



Finally, just when it looked as though Bond had really fallen for the accountant, I came to the end of my skein, and watched the last few set-piece sequences with my hands still in my lap. Only when the credits started to roll did I pull my thumb out from its neat little burrow and admire my finished ball.



This last photo and the one at the top of the post were taken the following day, in the light. (I'm stuck with my camera phone at the moment - looking into sorting something better out soon.) To start knitting, you pull on the loopy bit at the top to retrieve your original handful of figure-8, leaving you knitting from the centre of the ball, just like my grandmother and me. No dancing, tumbling, tangling rigmarole when you want to get more yarn as you knit. So convenient!

Oysterwarmer

There's a story behind this hat. A long story.

In 2006, I bought some beautiful alpaca in an orange/yellow colourway at the Knitting and Stitching Show in the RDS. I wanted to make a scarf for my then-two-year-old, and after a bit of searching I found this fabulous Short Row Rib scarf by Ceris Morgan on Magknits. This pattern gives me serious knitting glee: it's simple enough to memorise quickly, yet complex enough to remain satisfying all the way through the project - plus, it looks very impressive. It's designed for chunky yarn, but with thin yarn on 3mm needles you get a lovely scarf for a small child.

I made the yellow scarf, and it was gorgeous, and before I could even photograph it, it got lost in the park. Oh well - these are the perils of knitting for two-year-olds. He's three now, so obviously it'll never happen again...

Anyway, as the autumn of 2007 drew near, I felt the urge to try again. I bought some yummy Rowan Tapestry at This Is Knit (Whirlpool colourway), and knit a blue version of the same scarf. As I was finishing it, I realised that it would make a beautiful and unusual hatband.

So I knit another length of scarf (I was getting pretty used to the pattern by now), long enough to go around Oisín's head, and sewed the ends together. Then I got out my calculator and did the obligatory maths, picked up stitches around one edge of the band and set off for the centre, decreasing regularly as I went. When I reached the centre I finished off with a little 3-stitch I-cord.



I'm really pleased with how this design turned out: it looks more or less exactly how I imagined it would. I love the way the pattern and the yarn work together: the short-row rib pools the colours in blocks, while the rounds of the crown make stripes, which gradually widen as the round gets smaller.

Here's a moody model shot, in which you can just see the scarf peeping out at the neck of the jacket. Yes, his eyes really are that blue.

The Itch / The Jury

It seems to be a common thread (hem-hem) in the knitting blogs I read that knitters are constantly itching to get into the next project. The actual knitting that one is doing now is somehow - at least sometimes - less satisfying than the happy contemplation of projects to come.

Fortunately, one can knit and contemplate simultaneously. Result.

This evening, as I worked on my entrelac scarf, I mulled over some of the elements in my stash and found myself itching for a big, plain project. Maybe even a stocking-stitch jumper (OK, with some nice detailing - I'm not a complete masochist). Nice, long, undifferentiated rows will be a relief after the finicky, fecky, seven-stitch-by-fifteen-row sections of the entrelac.

So. That scarf. It's Entrelac at a Different Angle, which I've been lusting after since I saw my friend Nuala wear hers about four years ago. It's my first project with Noro (having been petting it yearningly in yarn shops for years): I'm using Silk Garden, in bought in a little haste from the This is Knit stall at the RDS Knitting and Stitching Show last November.

First, let me say that the entrelac technique is BITCHING, and gives me total knitting thrills (one gets one's kicks where one can). I love this garter stitch variant, too - in fact, I possibly prefer it to the stocking stitch one. With the Silk Garden on 4.5mm needles, it gives a beautifully firm, flat fabric, which feels wonderful against the skin.

Here's the yarn (photographed this evening, so somewhat depleted):


From left to right, colours 84, 225, 8, 248.

Isn't it luscious? I love all the blue-green-purple variations, and I added the pinky one to give it a bit of zing.

Now, I decided that rather than use up each ball before starting the next one, I'd mix it up a little and alternate the colourways, giving a stripy effect rather than the more gradual colour shifts of the original. This may well have been a mistake, because what I've found is that the clear gemstone tones of the outsides of these balls conceal an often rather muddier, more autumnal interior. I've nothing against autumnal colours, but I really don't wear them.

Here's what it looks like so far:



Do you see what I mean? I'm just not sure about the juxtaposition of the tan and sage and copper with the turquoise and sea blue and hot pink. There are some lovely clusters of colour, which is what I was hoping for, but there's also more beige in there than I'm comfortable with.

My jury's out, in short, which is a bad place for the jury to be on a project in which the yarn has been broken every 525 stitches. (Hmm. I was going to finish that sentence by saying that this renders it entirely unreusable if I were to rip, but then my mind started to prance off in the direction of crazy Noro needlepoint in the style écrasement moderne.* I give up, I really do.) Let's not even think about the stupid number of ends I'll have to weave in on account of my yarn alternation decision.

The other problem is that four balls aren't enough to make this as long as I like my scarves (which admittedly is pretty long). I don't know that I want to shell out for another four balls on a project I'm this unsure about.

What I actually want to do, I confess, is to finish this out and then buy some more Silk Garden and make myself a version of this scarf that I love and will actually wear. In the meantime, the project continues to be a learning experience (I'm looking forward to the border: I like the idea of a scarf with a cast-off edge all the way around) - and as my dear friend La Glitz points out, if I really don't want to wear the result, I can always give it to someone who does.

* I made this up.

I will never be a craft blogger

I don't have the singleness of purpose to be a real craft blogger - by which I mean one who interests people other than zirself. However, I do want somewhere handy to record my craft projects, and this shall be it.