Thursday, November 17, 2005

Tag from froggle rock

Well for the past week or so I have been just puddling along. Yvonne tagged me – to join this , and to do this below – so watch out Stephanie !

What is your all time favourite yarn to knit with?
Crumbs - often whichever I am knitting with, at the moment it is Blue Sky Alpaca which I spend more time stroking than knitting, Koigu runs close as does Rowan Kidsilk Haze. I'm deeply fond of 4ply weight as it is great for colour work. Rowan and Jaeger are probably favourite brands for their consistent good quality.

Your favourite needles?
I have a very bent pair of very worn metal pins that are 4mm, they are the first knitting needles I ever bought rather than just filched from my mum (in my teens), I have prettier and more exotic needles of most types but these are like part of me as I have had them so long and they hold (literally) loads of happy knitting memories. They are the perfect length to tuck under your arms and just motor through a project.

The worst thing you've ever knitted?
Cripes - which one!!! Are we talking fashion victim or just disaster knitting??? Maybe a brown jersey for the husband when we were first married is the worst knitting experience, what can I say, it was a hideous shade (chosen by him), totally plain (again chosen by him) and took forever (he is long and skinny). It must have been an act of love. In fashion-victim-terms, again a jersey for him (yeah I know, poor guy whatever did he do to deserve me?) - light grey and navy diamonds with pale grey anchors on navy and navy snowflakes on the light grey, navy and grey two colour rib, knitted when we were engaged for our first Christmas (bearing in mind Christmas in NZ is in summer), I finished it 6.30am on Christmas morning and it was 1987. He still has it but says it is like a sauna to wear, it is truly gruesome to look at....

Your most favourite knit pattern (maybe you don't like wearing it but it was the most fun to knit.) ?
Probably "Icy" from Rowan Magazine Nr 30 - a totally plain Kidsilk Haze Tee-shirt style with long sleeves that is slightly shaped to fit. It is fabulous, I have knitted it in Gooseberry green, Lord Blue and added a hood, adapted it for 4ply cottons when I have done colour work etc etc. It is a pattern I always go back to as it fits really well, and in Kidsilk Haze especially attracts all sorts of non knitters or former knitters over to stroke me. (Can you hear me purr?)

Most valuable knitting technique?
Oooh easy question - Fair Isle!!! Love it and always will.

Best knit book or magazine?
Is there a best book?
I currently like Nicky Epstein as a writer, her designs have a great sense of fun and bring in a lot of people who are fazed by big projects (her flowers and borders for instance) so I have to love her for that if nothing else, other books I treasure - Great Knitted Gifts by Shackleton and Shackleton, isbn1402713231; Handpaint Country by Potter, isbn 1893762033; Knitting in America by Falick, isbn 1885183275 and then of course Gladys Thompson and her book on British Guernsey's/Arans etc (sketchy details - can't find it as it is too deep in the knitting pile), A Shetland Knitter's Notebook by Smith and Bunyan, isbn 0900662735 bought on a trip to Shetland eons ago.

Fave Magazine?
That would be Interweave Knits - gorgeous!!!
Too many listed above? Well, I am a librarian and another love apart from knitting and textiles would have to be the written word.

Favourite knit-a-long?
Haven't done one yet, but am about to join the
curly knit thingummy that Yvonne tagged me for - does that count? And have just joined the threadybear knitalong too - hooray for knitalongs.

Favourite knitwear designer?

Kim Hargreaves maybe - great styles, lovely soft colours, Sarah Dallas and also Elizabeth Zimmerman for being outspoken and straight talking - boy does she make me laugh (often, as I am sitting there nodding my head in agreement). Alice Starmore for her passion for fair isle and related work.

The knit item you wear the most (what about a picture of it?)
Either this, which is great for winter - you can carry around your own temperature controlled habitat in a deeply unflattering way (and studied by teams of intrepid zooligists, who may be lost amidst the stitches even now) even better, in spring when you finally peel it off you look so much slimmer....



or this, which makes me look like a little fruity pudding


Which lucky knitter gets this next? ;)
How about the wonderful
Stephanie !!!


Apart from this it has been a good week – no ranting, and apart from the almost constant headaches from the weather suddenly going very cold, life has been pretty good. Yvonne sent me a knitterly treat – look yummy cone, and look scrummy skein. They are just lovely - lovely, as number3 said when I unwrapped it “Look someone has sent you your colours…” I will have to choose the perfect projects to match the perfect yarns (thank you, thank you Yvonne ).


Anyway, it has been a puddling kind of week and once you start puddling, it is infectious – you start out doing a little of nuttin and end up doing a whole lotta nuttin and eventually all the nuttins join together into one puddling kind of week involving a very big total nuttin, and anything I have done has involved undoing, so nutting is better than that. Still undoing is cathartic and frogging is not a pain, it is cleansing – as long as I repeat that I’m o.k – it’s cleansing, or if you say it often enough with enough reason behind it – its cleansing - dammit. If I keep thinking of it as a knitting detox and its o.k - almost... It’s not as though I didn’t have good intentions, I started the week with the kind of firebrand zeal I am not usually known for – heck I was going to hurtle through a pair of gloves, insert a zip into a cardigan, finish the first sock for Number3, forge ahead with the Hisdal sweater, apply ribbon to cardigan edges etc etc. However I have been waylaid by sinuses (the old head is so sore with the sudden weather twists and turns it is hard to think straight) and also I am plagued by visual dilemmas. By that I mean, everything I touch this week looks hideous (not hallucinations in case you ask) – I went off to my weaving class after 2 weeks absence and had a sketch of a vase of flowers prepared to work on, however getting home and looking at my yarns – it is so obvious these yarns are not flower yarns they are bright little fishies. The curly whirly scarf is not one shade of Kidsilk haze or the other but somewhere between the two – so it has had to be restarted with the two together, and now it is falling off the needles as there are lots of stitches already, and what if it is solid rather than ethereal froth?

The threadybear knitalong has had the yarn sent away for but now I am in a quandary (doesn’t that word make you think of camels and humps? Dromedary = ?, but Quandary should = a sort of confused camel with extra humps?) over colours.

In the meantime I am restricting myself to “safe” projects – a scarf for Madam, a jersey for a cloth Lion that is 12 years old and loosing its’ fur and belongs to Number1. I figured I had better get that done as 12year olds don’t usually commission their mum and he sidled up to me and asked me to knit a red hoodie for Loosey as she is getting on a bit and feels the cold these days, also she has cataracts and can’t see like she used to so it has to be a bright colour so we can see her. So despite the frog blip that has overcome me, I feel impelled to carry on with “safe” projects until the knitting bug is back on track.

1 Comments:

Blogger mathomhouse said...

I have ONE of the pair of needles I learned to knit with. Lost the other one, I'm afraid. Still, I'm far too sentimental to throw it away, so I use it as a stitch holder!

1:16 AM  

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