Category Archives: Knitting

Still knitting…

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Yes, I’m still alive, despite the lack of blogging evidence to the contrary in the past few weeks.

On Wednesday March 31st, I started a new Brangian shawl… while sitting waiting at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney for a procedure on my aneurism. A gorgeous 50/50 silk/merino yarn, a pattern I’ve knitted enough times to have memorised – definitely good hanging around hospitals knitting.

The plan was that the procedure would go fine, I’d be in hospital overnight, and then I’d have a week in Sydney, followed by a few days with my family in Canberra. Well, the plan worked… up to a point. I was out of hospital on the Thursday (although I had to wait to do some scans, and wasn’t discharged until evening) and then had the Easter weekend with DH and my sister, enjoying the shops and cafes of inner Sydney. DH flew back home on Sunday afternoon, and I was looking forward to a few more days in Sydney…

Monday morning, I was back in RPA hospital, where they found a blood clot in my groin (right next to where they’d accessed the artery for the procedure). I was in RPA for a week, while they put me on to blood-thinning meds and eased me on to Warfarin. After a week, I was able to be transferred by air ambulance up to Armidale hospital, and I had another two nights there.

So, 9 nights in hospital, feeling relatively fine = much knitting and reading time. I confess I did more reading than knitting, because it’s a bit easier for me to block out the noises of a busy ward while reading, and canulas in the hands make knitting a bit tricky, but I did make a fair amount of progress on my shawl, and it was lovely to pick up when I needed to focus on something beautiful.

Now I’m home, and fine, although I’ll be on warfarin for another month or so, until the blood clot has cleared up. My shawl isn’t finished yet, but I only have a few more rows of pattern before I start on the edging chart.

I’m varying the pattern in a couple of ways this time:

1) In the stocking sticth section, instead of working the centre spine as yo, k1, yo, I’m doing it as m1R, k1, M1L – thus not having the line of lace ‘holes’ down the centre. I quite like the effect – a small ridge, but not as prominent as the holey spine.

2) I’ve done an extra repeat of Chart 1, but will only work the first 8 rows of Chart 2. This will mean that there’s only 1 line of offset ‘buds’ between the main body of the lace and the edging, rather than the 3 lines of alternating buds.

Here’s a little preview of how she’s looking so far:

Brangian Shawl in progress

And now, in totally not-knitting-related news, I shall just mention shout from the rooftops that just before I went into hospital, I found out that my second book, Dark Country, is a finalist in the romantic suspense category of the prestigious Romance Writers of America RITA Awards… and now I’m finally celebrating by having a book giveaway over on my writing blog. So, if you might like gritty romantic suspense, set on the edge of the Australian Outback, do hope over and enter. (Sadly, my characters are so busy dealing with bad guys that they don’t get time to knit, so there is little yarny content  – but my heroine in Dark Country does spend some time wearing a handknit Aran cardigan.)

FO – Large beaded Brangian

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This is the large version of Brangian, knitted to the pattern but with added beads (‘cos I do love the sparklies!) I finished it during the week, but it took me a few days to organise myself to block her, and then another day or two to get some photos outside. It’s not the best photo – the sun was bright – but it gives an idea of her, anyway!

Pattern: Brangian Shawl. Yarn: Bendigo Luxury 4ply

I added beads to Charts 2 & 3 – I didn’t have a close match in colour, so I used the Dark Amethyst AB mix from Empire Beads – I think it gives the colour an extra lift!
Brangian shawl Beadiing detail

This is the fourth Brangian I’ve knitted this year – I think I can say the pattern is well-tested now! I’ve got another one in laceweight on the needles, but it hasn’t progressed very far yet. I’m going away for a week or two on Tuesday, so I’ll take that one with me and aim to make more progress. And in the meantime, just for a change, I’ve been trying to finish a Shetland Triangle that I started on January 1st – only one or two more pattern repeats to go on it, and the edging, and then I will have liberated an Addi circular, and can cast something else on to it!

Art, craft, and yarnosophy

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Having been involved in textile crafts in various ways for many years, I’m very aware that ‘Craft’ is rarely valued as much as ‘Art’, sometimes to the extent that the very notion of ‘craft’ is often derided – especially if it relates to women’s activities. When I was writing the new ‘About’ page for this blog, I included a quote from Japanese philosopher Yanagi Soetsu that I’d come across some years ago, and always loved. It really captures for me the essence of craft and its importance, and I think it makes an effective differentiation between the arts and the crafts, while placing value on both:

“The special quality of beauty in crafts is that it is a beauty of intimacy…. The beauty of such objects is not so much of the noble, the huge or the lofty, as a beauty of the warm and familiar. Here one may detect a striking difference between the crafts and the arts. People hang their pictures high upon the wall, but they place their objects for everyday use close to them, and take them in their hands”.

The beauty of intimacy… of the warm and familiar… I was contemplating this morning how art could, in a general sense, be regarded as being a public practice. While the creation may be a solitary process, it is often with the goal of a statement, a performance,  a display, aimed to challenge and provoke thought, a reaction, or to provide a perspective on an idea. Whereas with craft, the creation is generally more personal, indeed more intimate, the item usually crafted to be used by individuals in daily life.

Perhaps art has the potential to take us beyond ourselves – the catch in our breath as we see an idea in a new light; the awe of something so beautiful we cannot help, for a long moment, simply being still and admiring it. I remember, at age 20, sitting in a small, dim room in London’s National Gallery for half an hour, just gazing at Leonardo Da Vinci’s cartoon of The Virgin and Child with St Anne & St John the Baptist:
Leonardo da Vinci: Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist

It’s a beautiful work; what caught me most, and what still captures me every time I see the image, is the expressions on the faces of the two women; the young mother, absorbed in maternal wonder, watching her child, and the other mother, watching her, her expression full of shared understanding and empathy with that maternal wonder.

I don’t know the name of the potter who made the mugs, sugar bowl and milk jug I bought in New Zealand, on my first trip overseas, back in December, 1980. But almost every morning for 29 years, when I wrap my hands around my mug of morning tea, and in the evening when I drink a mug of chamomile tea, I appreciate the work of the unknown potter, the perfect shape of the mugs for my hands, the smooth texture, the beauty of the deep blue glaze against the dark brown base.
Pottery mug, made in New Zealand, 1980

But the value of crafts often goes beyond that of a beautiful, functional item.

When my DH wears his hand-knitted cap in winter, with his name knitted in binary code into the cable pattern, he knows it is a practical expression of love and commitment.

When my niece, then a toddler, insisted on putting on her Christmas gift dress immediately, she already had some concept of handmade gifts.
Lauren in her Christmas dress

And as she and her brother grew up, the various items that Mum and Aunts and Grandma knitted, embroidered and sewed for them were worn with pride, the kids’ self-esteem boosted by the knowledge that they mattered enough for us to spend time making special gifts.
Cross-stitched kite waistcoat Cross-stitched zoo waistcoat
Cross-stitched butterfly pinafore

And each time my sister wears the beaded Aeolian shawl I gave her for Christmas, she knows I spent weeks knitting it, thinking of her, and feels wrapped in love.
Beaded Aeolian Shawl

All around the world, millions of people every day hand craft items for daily use; some to earn a living, some out of necessity, some for pleasure, some to give as gifts. While an attempt could be made to estimate the value of those crafts in simple economic terms – cost of materials, cost of production, cost of distribution, value at sale – no economic measures can ever hope to convey the personal and social value, and the richness and beauty that crafts can bring to our lives.

Dark red beaded Brangian

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Last weekend I finished my third Brangian, in a deliciously rich dark red sock wool from Saffron Dyeworks. It was a bit of an experiment – I’ve put the yarn requirements for the small size in the pattern as 440yds (400m) but I wanted to see if the revised small size could be knitted with just 400yds (365m) of yarn. The answer? It can’t! I ran out of yarn two rows from the end, so had to cast off early without doing the picot row.

However, the other experiment with this one was to bead it, and I used dark red clear glass beads – and I’m very happy with the result!

Pattern: Brangian Shawl Yarn: Wasabi from Saffron Dyeworks

Pattern: Brangian Shawl (bead detail)

Beading instructions:
Use the crochet hook method to place beads.
Chart 2:
On rows 3, 11, & 19: Add a bead on to the K1 between the K2tog and ssk (ie at the beginning of each bud.)
On rows 5, 13 & 21: Add a bead on the 2 & 4 stitches of the k5 section. (ie on ether side of the bead in the previous row).

Chart 3:
On row 3: Add a bead on to the K1 between the K2tog and ssk (ie at the beginning of each bud.)
On row 5: Add a bead on the 2 & 4 stitches of the K5 section. (ie on ether side of the bead in the previous row).
On rows 7, 9, 11 & 13: Where there is a yo, K1, yo to form the columns, add a bead on the K1. Also add a bead to the centre K1!

Beading Brangian

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Brangian wasn’t actually designed for beads, but I do love them, and I’m always looking for ways to incorporate them. Last night I knitted a sample swatch to see how beading might work on Brangian. I inserted beads in chart 2 – the alternating buds section – putting three beads at the top of each bud, with the idea that it might emphasise the way the buds alternate in this section. Then I also added beads in the same place in chart 3, and also in the yo, k1, yo columns in the last rows of chart 3. I’m quite happy with how it turned out:

Brangian shawl beaded swatch

I’ll be beading my next Brangian!

(ETA: Instructions for beading in this manner are now given on the Brangian page. )

However, in the process of swatch knitting, I did discover, to my horror, an oops! in the pattern. Prior to publication, I’d altered Chart 2, starting it with an non-column (‘B’) bud and reducing it by 8 rows so that there were only 3 ‘rows’ of buds – B, A, B. I did check that Chart 3 still fitted – but I overlooked that, because I’d reduced the design by the 8 rows, and this impacts on the placement of the buds relative to the edge, while Chart 3 fitted fine, it didn’t alternate with the last bud row in Chart 2. Not many people would actually notice at all, but I knew it wasn’t perfect.

Sigh. Cue panicked re-do of Chart 3, working out how to do the edging correctly, fixing up charts, uncharts, updating pattern files, proof-reading…. I uploaded the revised pattern to Rav this morning, and sent out a notice to those who’ve bought it so far, and to my test-knitters. Fingers crossed that everything is now fixed, and that no other errors have crept in!

Brangian now available

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My shawl pattern, Brangian, has been knitted up by several test-knitters, the pattern tweaked on the basis of their feedback, and it’s now available in the Ravelry store. It’s been a lot of work – but an enjoyable challenge! – getting charts right, creating ‘uncharts’ and checking them, playing with the layout, making sure the instructions are clear.

I incredibly grateful to my wonderful test-knitters, most of them from the Aussie Shawl Knitters Hangout on Ravelry, who have, in a few short weeks, knitted shawls and provided feedback on their experience – along with enthusiasm and encouragement! Thanks, Sue, the other Sue, Rachel, Tara, Kelly, Margaret, Bel and Ellie!

Extra special thanks to Tara, who lent her photography skills to the project and took some great photos, and to her friend buyambienmed.com Bella, who modelled the shawl.

Brangian Shawl detail

Photo copyright Tara Mitchell

I’ve created a page with more info on Brangian, a link to the Ravelry pattern store (you don’t need to be a member to purchase it) and answers to what might be Frequently Asked Questions. There’ll be a few more bits of info added to support knitting the pattern in the next week or two.

Oh, and I’ve knitted a second Brangian, this time in Handmaiden SeaSilk, and in the medium size. It’s currently blocking, and taking an age to finish drying, as we have wonderful rain today:
Brangian Shawl blocking

I’ll take some better photos when it’s dry, and the sun is shining!
ETA:

Pattern: Brangian (medium). Yarn: Handmaiden SeaSilk

Introducing: Brangian Shawl

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Brangian Shawl Pattern

I’ve designed a shawl 🙂

In the old tales of Tristan and Iseult, Brangian was Iseult’s faithful companion, who travelled far from her own land to serve her Princess. This shawl, with its textured lace columns, subtly shifting to form a border flowing into the scalloped edging, is not as stunning as some lace shawls, but like Brangian the handmaiden, she is quietly beautiful.

I’m very happy with the shawl, and have written up the pattern – it’s now being test-knitted by a few friends. Once that’s been done, and their feedback incorporated into the pattern, I’ll be making the pattern available through Ravelry (and possibly through this site).

Brangian Shawl - detail

I’ve thought long and hard about whether to make it available for free, or to sell it for a small cost… and I’ve decided not to give it away. One of my concerns over the years in the textile/fibre arts is that traditional ‘women’s’ crafts such as knitting, spinning, weaving, etc are constantly devalued – and that often, we are party to that devaluing. It’s for this reason that I don’t sell what I make, because the going prices for hand-made items do not reflect anywhere near the expertise and time that goes in to the making of them. I’m always saddened and frustrated when I see a pair of handmade socks selling for $20, or a beautiful woven scarf for $60. Subtract the cost of materials, and divide by the number of hours of (trained and skilled) work that goes in to the making, and you come out with a very low number. Try telling anyone else in an independent business – a plumber, or a computer technician, or your hairdresser – that they should work for $1 per hour!

I do give things away as gifts some times, to people who appreciate the value of the making and the giving. I’ve designed my own patterns before for various items, and there’s a lot of work and experience involved in making things work – and even more in doing it and writing it up in such a way that the pattern is repeatable by others. I don’t mind paying a few dollars for a pattern in recognition of that work, and I hope others don’t either. I don’t think anyone’s getting rich selling knitting patterns 🙂  (Okay, maybe Kaffe Fassett…)

Don’t get me wrong – I think it’s great that there are free patterns available, too. But I think that the choice to give away a pattern is each designer’s to make, for whatever reasons they choose to make it, and should not be an expectation. A design does have considerable value, whether bought or received for ‘free’, and that should be appreciated.  If ever I design more patterns, maybe some will be free, as a gift to a community that I enjoy being part of.

Anyway, the Brangian pattern will be available, probably in a couple of weeks, in both charted and ‘unchart’ form. It’s designed for fingering-weight yarn, and will be in two sizes, a small shawl, and a larger shawl. Now, I’d best get knitting and finish the larger version!

FO – Aeolian Berries Shawl

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I haven’t been able to post about this finished shawl, as I made it as a gift for my sister, and I’m not sure if she reads this blog or not! However we had an early family Christmas celebration today, and I gave her the shawl.

It’s the lovely Aeolian Shawl pattern from knitty.com, knitted in Handmaiden Sea Silk. It’s a great pattern – it’s not particularly difficult, and quite intuitive to knit, as it’s easy to ‘read’ the pattern, but it looks so impressive! Here it is blocking:

Aeolian Berries shawl

And here’s my lovely sister wearing it:

Andrea wearing her Aeolian Shawl

Andrea wearing her shawl

I think she likes it 🙂

Knitting for sanity

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November has not been a good month for me. I headed down to Sydney on the 9th for surgery on the 11th, hoping I’d only be in hospital a night or two, but planning to stay in Sydney a few extra days afterwards, so I took some knitting with me. Unfortunately, the surgery (attempting to insert a stent inside the existing stents in my cerebral aneurysm) did not go well, and despite the best efforts of my wonderful doctors, I ended up with multiple complications – a small brain hemorrhage, some damage to the retina in my right eye, an abdominal bleed, and a tear in my femoral artery which gave me a large bruise/haematoma on almost my entire upper right leg. So, as a result, I was eight days in hospital, and had to have further surgery to repair the femoral artery.

Boy, was I glad I had my knitting! I did try some lace knitting on an Ishbel in the first couple of days, but my brain/eye coordination wasn’t that great, and I had difficulty relating the knitting to the chart, which is something I usually find easy. My lovely sister fixed up the row I stuffed up, but I put Ishbel aside for a day or two and instead worked on some socks, which were much easier. Many of the doctors, nurses, cleaning staff, fellow patients and their families expressed interest and asked me about my knitting. One of the young doctors mentioned several times that he’d love a pair of handknit socks 🙂 After I finished the socks, I picked up Ishbel again, and my brain and eyes were working much better so it went more smoothly – except a number of times I was one stitch short at the end of a pattern row. I fudged those bits, adding a stitch reasonably seamlessly in the pattern – and so the scarf, in a peppermint green wool/silk, got renamed the Peppermint Fudge Ishbel.

I finished her a day or so after I got out of hospital, but as I stayed on in Sydney for a few days as a precaution, I didn’t get to block her until today. Here she is, all pinned out:
Peppermint Fudge Ishbel

The pattern is, of course, the popular Ishbel by Ysolda Teague, and the yarn is a merino/silk fingering weight yarn from Lush Yarns. I used size 4mm needles, and made the small size in the stocking stitch section, and the large size for the lace section, working charts ABABACDE.

The socks are the Harris Tweed pattern, knitted in Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 4ply. The pattern was nice and easy to knit, so I could knit while writing – the knitting keeping my fingers from being distracted and clicking all over the internet, but easy to drop the moment any words came to mind. I suspect I’ll be casting on another pair soon, because I love these ones, but I’m giving them away as a Christmas gift. Sorry that the photo isn’t that great – taken in a hotel room, rather than my usual photography space at home!
Pattern: Harris Tweed. Yarn: Bendigo Luxury 4ply

Now I’m home, I’m working on my two Aeolian shawls. The blackberry one is getting closer to finished – I’ve only got about 10 rows to go, but as they’re looonnngg rows and beaded, there’s still a few hours’ work in it. I’ll post pictures when it’s done. The sea green/blue one is still only in the yucca section, so it has a lot more to go yet. But I’m thankful that, despite the medical problems, I can see, and knit, and I figure there can’t be too much brain damage if I can knit lace! It could have been so much worse, so I’m grateful that it wasn’t. I have to take things easy for a bit, and will go back to Sydney in mid-December to see the neurosurgeon and the vascular surgeon. There is likely to be more surgery on my aneurysm in the future, since this lot wasn’t successful. I’m not looking forward to that, as it’s always risky, but I’m determined to pull through it okay. After all, I’ve got a lot of stash waiting to be knitted up into beautiful things!

Knitting, weaving, dyeing…

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I seem to have multiple WIPs happening at the moment.

There’s an Aeolian Shawl, in Handmaiden Sea Silk, on which I’m only 24 (long!) rows from the end. I’m really enjoying the pattern; it’s well-written, intuitive, and it looks stunning. I’m doing the version with the narrower border, as I’m not sure whether I’ll have enough yarn. I’ve stil got just under 50% of the yarn left, but the edging does consume a heap of yarn, so I’m keeping m fingers crossed (and I’ve order another skein, just in case – because who can have too much sea silk??)
Pattern: Aeolian shawl. Bead detail.
(The colour is actually not quite as bright, and there’s a bit more purple overall than in this little sample).

I’m enjoying the Aeolian so much, that I cast on a second one, so I could knit the shorter easier first section rows when I don’t have time or concentration for the first Aeolian’s long, beaded rows. I chose a KnitPicks alpaca and silk fine lace yarn from the stash, in beautiful turquoise colours. I’ve ordered beads for it, and they should be here tomorrow.
Pattern: Aeolian Shawl Yarn" Knitpicks Shimmer Alpaca/silk

The Harris Tweed socks are 70% done – just have to turn the heel and knit the foot of the second one. No updated photo of those, but there should be a FO post soon.

I also cast on two other pairs of socks yesterday, as part of the Ravelry Sock Knitters Anonymous October Challenge – which includes socks designed for men. Since the menfolk in my family could do with some more hand-knitted socks, I started the two pairs before the challenge deadline of October 31. Now I just need to finish them before November 30!

The weaving has been slowly progressing. Because the warp has been on the loom for so long, and it’s very fine, I’m having a few broken warp threads. Here’s the view of the back of the loom:
Replacement warp threads

Yes, that’s 6 film cannisters tensioning replacement threads – and there were two more earlier on that I’ve already woven back in. I’m running out of film cannisters to use!

Yesterday, I bought a small camping hotplate on special at Big W – and today I used it to dye some yarns. I didn’t get quite the colours I was aiming for; partly because of my very un-scientific approach to dyeing, and partly because I simply didn’t have the dye colours I wanted. But I’m still happy with the outcome:
Dyed skeins

The little stove worked very well. The gas cannisters were on special for $5 for 4, and I only used 1 and a half for close on three hours of ‘cooking’ – so I’ll be dyeing more regularly. But I’ll need to order some more dyes in the colours I want!