KnitLust

The baby hasn’t given me much opportunity to knit this past week.  I was doing my knitting whilst breastfeeding her but, just lately, she’s realised there’s something very exciting going on behind her head and started flailing her free arm around behind her to try to grab it.  That messes up my knitting either because she gets hold of it and I drop stitches or else my tension just suddenly goes all over the place …and it darned well HURTS when she pulls away like that.  So, I haven’t been doing much knitting lately.

But I have been craving it.  Even when I’m too busy to pick up my needles, when I’m cooking mini-lunches and folding laundry, I find myself knitting in my mind, allowing my subconscious to relax into that nice rhythm of needles and stitches.  That’s when I know I really need it.

I treated myself to some nice wooden 12mm Brittany needles from Yarnsmith for the maroon cardigan, and that alone inspired me to go back to it with as much gusto as time will allow.  It’s lovely to knit on wooden needles — makes all the difference in the world.  The cardigan has grown surprisingly quickly, despite how little I’ve been knit, and it’s quite exciting to see it take shape.  It deserves more time than I’ve been able to give it, but I am determined to put that right as soon as possible!

It’s killing me, but I’ve missed every one of the Knitting and Stitching Shows this year.  This weekend is the Harrogate show — the last one — and last year, we were THERE!  I didn’t think we’d still be in the country, so I didn’t organise for us to go.  How I wish I had!

It is so worth the trip.  Miles and miles (so it seemed, anyway) of pure knitting heaven.  There were fashion shows, knitting-as-art exhibits, classes and workshops, the graduation pieces of fashion students from universities all over the country.  And the retail booths — hundreds of retail booths — selling the best stuff from knitting shops up and down the country: yarn and needles and bags and on and on and on.  It is packed, it is tactile, it is colourful, it is bliss.

If you get the chance to go next year, GO!

Everyone knows that knitting English is inefficient: you hold the yarn in your right hand and have to grip both needles with your left while you let go with your right to throw the yarn around the working needle. The fact that it’s not nearly as quick or tidy as knitting Continental is obvious at first glance. But it’s how I was taught, so it’s what I can do. I can knit while watching telly, I can knit in the dark, and — when I’m very very tired — I can knit with my eyes shut, half asleep, only awake enough to keep that lovely rhythmic movement going. Click clack, click clack…

Every now and again, I decide I’m going switch and start knitting Continental, but I’ve never had any success. I go from flying through my knitting to feeling like a complete beginner again, taking each stitch slowly, having to really look at every move as I try to pull the yarn through, whilst my tension descends into chaos. I get incredibly frustrated, give up, and go back to throwing my yarn with speed and ease from my right hand.

I tried again today and I did nearly a whole row in Continental. I was very pleased with myself! I got through probably 100 stitches before I gave myself a break and switched back to English — a good start I felt… maybe I’d try again on the next row. I turned the work and purled back. When I hit the stitches that I’d knitted Continental, I discovered all the loops were backwards and I had to turn each one before I could work it. My progress slowed to a crawl, and I wondered why I’d even bothered.

I must be doing something wrong. Is it worth trying again? I’ve been knitting English in inefficient bliss for nearly 20 years. Maybe I should just stick with what I know…

Only a few days ago, I lamented that Vogue Knitting’s website has been down for months and months and — voila! – it’s suddenly back up again. I can only conclude that the powers that be at VK read my blog and, realising my distress, set to work immediately to rectify the situation.

A power like this could be a pretty exciting prospect! Do you think if I mentioned that I really want some lovely wooden needles for Christmas they might magically arrive at my door? A girl can hope, can’t she?

It’s every knitter’s secret fantasy, isn’t it? To run your own yarn shop… to be surrounded by all that wool and silk and cotton… and lovely wooden needles and all those fun bits and bobs that go along with knitting. To make your life’s work out of your life’s passion — what joy!

Here’s your chance: Yarnsmith is up for sale. Brooke is having her second baby soon and will be focusing on that for the time being. Here are all the details from her email:

Many of you may already know that yarnsmith is for sale. I’m expecting another child next March and have decided that I don’t have the mental or physical space for it any more. This is a great opportunity for anyone who is interested in a viable business that will allow them the flexibility of working on their own from home.

The sale includes £3,500 worth of stock, a fully functioning website, a recognised brand including electronic logo, stationary, and advertising designs, and an existing customer base and mailing list. The asking price is £6,500.

If you are interested, please contact me by e-mail on brooke@yarnsmith.co.uk.

In the meantime, we are still taking orders on remaining stock by e-mail or phone. Everything is 20% off of the website price and payment is by cheque or paypal.

Thank you,

Brooke McConochy

www.yarnsmith.co.uk

For those of you who aren’t in a position to buy your yarn-shop dream right now, don’t miss that 20% discount tucked in amongst the details above.

Brooke, I wish you the best of luck with the rest of your pregnancy and with the birth. You are in for quite a ride, but it’s a wonderful one!

I hate working on circular needles! You’d think I’d love it, with my shoulder problems and the fact that circular needles reduce the weight of the knitting pulling on your back and shoulders, but I don’t. They drive me nuts. The needles never sit straight for me; the circular bit is always kinking; the needle bit is always too short so I have to keep my hands bunched together to make my stitches; the ball of yarn keeps migrating into the center of the circle and then out and then in. For me, kills the joy of knitting …and kills the knitlust.

I knit all the pieces (back, sleeves, and fronts) of the Classic Baby Cardigan as far up as the armpit and they are now transferred onto a circular needle to that the yoke can be knit as one piece. I really enjoyed knitting each individual piece on my lovely wooden needles with the bobbly tops. Now that the whole thing is on circulars, I find myself avoiding working on it. I will persevere — not least because with each row now the number of stitches decreases and so goes that much faster.

But it just goes to show how important good equipment is to whole knitting process. It helps me to justify my ever-growing collection of wooden needles and my mountains of unused-but-beautiful yarn. It’s about quality, people, QUALITY!

I joined Ravelry the other day and have been having a whale of a time exploring it!!! What a fantastic site it is, and what a lot of fun its going to be in the future, as it grows and gets better.

Already I’ve made my first “friend” (Abigail of Abigail Knits) and put my first project in my notebook. I’ve discovered a map of knitting shops in the UK and that led me on to KnitMap, which is a map of knitting shops throughout the world.

Unfortunately, I don’t seem to be able to log in using Firefox and I have to keep switching to IE, but I’m sure that’s a bug that they’ll fix soon. Other than that one little glitch, Ravelry seems to be a wonderful place …and someplace that I could lose far too much time in!

Come see me!

Well, yes, she loved the snood.  But she loves it so much that she’s stretched it out by half again, so it doesn’t fit nice and snuggly round her neck anymore.  It hangs down over the top of her coat and leave her neck exposed to the cold wind.  So, I’ve bought another ball of wool and cast on to knit it over again, this time a bit shorter (smaller).

I don’t mind — it’s a chunky yarn and I’m knitting on 8mm needles, so it won’t take long.  And I wasn’t really happy with the seam on the last one, so I’ll get it right this time and not have to go and re-sew the other one.

It’s the knitting I enjoy, much more than the finishing, so it’s not a waste of time…  it’s a chance to enjoy the knitting again.

No, honestly, it is!

I picked up the Holiday issue of Vogue Knitting magazine* yesterday. Mmmmmmmm… now, that gets the knitlust flowing through my veins. It’s a joy just to page through.

VK reviews a local yarn shop every issue and, this time, it was Tricoter in Seattle. It just looks like such a welcoming place for a knitter. How I wish I’d known about it before — I’ve been to Seattle several times visiting family, and I could have disappeared to there for an afternoon when all that family-ish-ness got too much! The trouble would be, of course, that I would return that evening poor as a church mouse and with enough yarn to fill another suitcase.

I know I have a reader or two from Seattle. Have you ever been to Tricoter? Is it as nice as it looks?

.

————————-

* The Vogue Knitting magazine website is down at present, and has been months. I used to check it regularly for previews of coming issues, pattern corrections, intriguing discussions, and just plain inspiration. When oh when are they going to fix it?!?!?

I finished the snood the other night, washed it, and presented it to my daughter. That’s always a nervous moment for a knitter: that moment when you find out if your creation will be loved and your efforts worth it, or if you will get that stiffly polite but transparent “thank you”. No danger of that with a toddler, however — if she didn’t love it, she’d just drop it on the floor and walk away.

But, she loved it. She popped it over her head and wore it all day the first day. Today, she popped it over her head, then kept taking it off and pushing her fingers through the stitches appreciatively — well, appreciatively or mischievously — and then holding it arms outstretched and stretching it as wide as it would go. It’s not the best treatment for a hand-knitted item, but it’s a toddler’s way of showing love.

I’m not happy with the seam: I did it in haste when the baby had just gone to bed and I knew I really ought to get my head down as soon as possible, so it’s very sloppy. I may tidy it up at a later point. You know, in some of my two-small-children spare time.

But for now, it doesn’t matter. She loves it. It looks great with her coat, and it keeps her neck warm. I am happy enough, and so is she.