A Bluestocking Knits

“WIPapalooza 2015”, Knitting for the Home, Socks

Place-mats and Fuzzyfeet

Published by

Bluestocking

on

23rd October 2015

I finished the last random-stripe place-mat yesterday! I've been working on these for at least two years — put them aside when it was pretty clear that I would run out of some of the colors much sooner than others, and I got a little discouraged. It seemed silly, though, not to carry on and finish, especially when I had only four mats, and I wanted at least five, and six would be better, when I certainly had enough wool by weight.

These are Araucania Nature Wool, in blue, lilac, red, and green, worked in garter stitch on US7 needles, then fulled in the washing machine. They shrank rather more than I had anticipated, so they look a bit stingy even under the smaller plates that we use for regular meals, but they are wonderfully thick, and the colors are so beautiful that I must accept that — and I do have six, there is that!

These were about 21 x 16 inches (136g) before fulling, and about 14 x 9 inches afterwards — a whopping 35% loss in height!

I ran out of blue wool first, long before any of the other colors looked dangerously low, so I ripped out the mittens I made for Julia many moons ago, which she wore once or twice then left in the corner of her closet floor until they were ratty and moth-eaten. (Long-ago-grown-out-of, anyway — I'm using Laura's as pockets for my reading glasses.) But the extra wool got me quite a few more blue stripes — you can see how wretched the wool looks in the "before" photos of the mats, but after fulling they're quite indistinguishable from the others.

It's really a shame that the Nature Wool is discontinued — it's really gorgeous stuff, a pleasure to knit with, and the colors are just sumptuous, the red and green especially.

As it turned out, I ended up with at least two skeins of green left after the last mat, so I thought I'd whip up a pair of Fuzzyfeet for what I hope will be winter this year. I made a pair years ago that ended up too small, so I thought I'd err on the side of generosity, and estimated a stitch count based on the shrinkage of the place-mats.

Another reason to make them über-gigantic is that my Easy House Slippers, which I wore for a couple of years, kept shrinking with every wash, and eventually my big toe poked a hole at the end of each sock.

These are worked on US7 needles with one US8 because the set was only four needles, so the gauge is rather smaller than you usually do for fulling, but I already had a reference point from the mats, which after a couple of washes are tight and thick. David and Julia both mocked me for making them so big, but I erred on the side of caution, in fact. They are just comfy now, so I will have to wash them by hand, I guess.

(I'm using "Henry V" for scale as I am doing the FutureLearn "Shakespeare and His World" online course again, and it's this week's play …)
“WIPapalooza 2015”, Socks

Jaywalking Through Summer

Published by

Bluestocking

on

29th September 2015

This is of course the famous Jaywalker socks pattern from Grumperina, the next on my WIPapalooza 2015 list. Some time ago, I offered a pair of knitted socks as a Christmas present for my cousin — who, though not a knitter herself, is in fact the one who started me reading knitting blogs, way back when — and her only requests were for knee socks and that they be pink (her emphasis).

I did get the pink part, in Shepherd Socks' "Pink Blossom", wh. is vivid indeed. The knee socks part rather defeated me, I'm afraid, as I have found, even in my one or two adventures in knitting knee socks, that unless you're willing to wear garters, knee socks really have to be custom-made-snug. M. has very shapely calves, and lives far enough away that we don't see each other regularly, both of which made it difficult to get the sock shaping right, and I felt so bad about the years intervening between promise and product that I eventually capitulated on the knee sock part.

I'm afraid, too, that this isn't quite my finest hour, sock-wise, as it's been so hot this whole summer that my heart just hasn't been in knitting at all, and it seems to me to show a bit in these — that funny little valley you get along the bottom of the foot if you don't tug the yarn a bit between needles in the round, a slackness at the heel flap/gusset join which I managed to disguise by winkling the extra wool a stitch at a time into the instep, a general air of ennui.

But they are Jaywalkers after all, and I am not the only one by any means to be charmed by their zigzaggy joie de vivre. I've not made any before in a solid color, so this was quite fun.

So now I still have the unfinished felted random-stripe place mats, the red and white Selbu mittens, and the Setesdal scarf. Shall I ignore the pretty-but-workhorse mittens I found in a drawer last month?

This is Brown Sheep's Lamb's Pride in fuchsia and Handpaint in English Garden, which play quite nicely together. Well, the wool is kind of scratchy, and the thumbs really are too tight — so, out they go!

David took this photo of the eclipse Sunday night —

a triple event combining a full moon, a supermoon, when the moon's elliptical orbit makes it seem bigger in the sky than usual, and a lunar eclipse, which because the sun's rays have to pass through the Earth's atmosphere, makes the moon look reddish-orange. Apparently this combination has happened only five times since 1900. We could add some more rarities, actually — that it was at a civilized hour (just past supper), and that the night was unusually clear for us here in smog-land!
“WIPapalooza 2015”, Books and Reading, Needlework, Socks

Hot Pink

Published by

Bluestocking

on

26th August 2015

It's hot again today, in the 90s (30s C) with far more humidity than we really like — we want our California summers nice and dry, you know. Not a good day for knitting, anyway. I tried a few rounds of this Jaywalker, and not just the yarn but the needles were sticking to my hands. It's a nasty irony that there is so much moisture in the air and yet we're in a drought with no end in sight. ("The only way in which we know that summer is coming is by the more chilling winds, the increased dust, the tawny color of the hills, and the general dying look of things," wrote Caroline C. Leighton in June 1876. Heck yeah.)

Strangely enough, it isn't too hot to do needlepoint. I'm not sure why this is, but I suppose it's that the needle and wool don't need to slide through one's fingers.

This is another miniature carpet from the McNaughtons' book — the Khotan No. 25. I've changed the background color from the lightest gold shade in the medallions to the putty-ish white left over from the Holbein carpet. The pale gold was quite all right, but this really speaks to me.

Am also reading The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks. I'm torn, actually — sometimes he writes whole paragraphs in sentence fragments, which are generally like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, but sometimes he's quite lyrical, and sometimes I feel, with his viewpoint, that the world would be a better place if more people were able to simply do what they love, regardless of whether others think they are "wasting their lives," and that tourists are a nuisance (or worse), and from my own viewpoint that those who are blessed enough to live in the Lake District, to have lived there for centuries, regard people like me as a nuisance (or worse). A conundrum, to be sure.
Dollhouses, Miniature Needlework, Needlework

A Small-Patterned Holbein Carpet in Miniature

Published by

Bluestocking

on

8th August 2015

I haven't been knitting much, I confess, but that is because I've been so charmed by this little beauty, from the wonderful Making Miniature Oriental Rugs & Carpets by Meik and Ian McNaughton. The style of carpet, which dates from the 15th century, is named after Holbein not because he had anything to do with them particularly, but apparently just because they feature quite a lot in his portraits, such as this one —

which is "Georg Giese" of 1532.

I decided not to fringe my own carpet once I'd seen this 15th-century original, at the MFA website —

which if it isn't the inspiration for the McNaughtons' version, then certainly must be a typical example of the small-patterned type.

I tried the edging stitch that the McNaughtons use, but wasn't very happy with the result, so I worked the long-legged cross-stitch I've used on previous miniature carpets — but since I know already that in my room setting-to-be, the carpet will be laid over a table, which is how they were used in the Tudor and Elizabethan periods, it needed to be not only as flexible as possible, but to have no canvas showing at the back. The McNaughtons' plaited edging is worked on the cut edge of the canvas, thus has no extra layer of folded hem, so would have been ideal if I had managed to figure out how to work it, but alas, in lieu of that I had to deal with the hem left by the long-legged cross-stitch, which I did by whipping over and thus covering the narrow but turned-under hem. This was, I thought, only partly successful, but much of that I suspect is due to my having to fake it, instead of getting the original plaited edging to work perfectly the first time. Other than that, I'm actually quite pleased with the back, which for a first effort in wool looks nicely tidy to my eye!

(You can see that I was working the red background in the center any-old-way for a while — on the right here — then settled into a rhythm, and things got tidier!)

This carpet is worked in Appleton's crewel wool on 28-count Monaco canvas, which is a bit finer than the 26-count canvas in the original instructions. It is fairly flexible, as needlepoint on canvas goes, but it will need a bit of help to drape realistically over a table, I suspect.

I did not have enough blue wool by quite a ways, and barely enough red, so for future reference, two skeins would be safer of each color than one, especially if working it in the original scale; one skein was plenty of the other three colors. I used about half of a second blue skein, in fact. But I'm really pleased with the results — it's a handsome, well-balanced design in soberly harmonious colors.

There is an interesting article here about the Giese portrait and Holbein and Oriental carpets, filled with interesting tidbits about their history, about which I knew next-to-nothing before this!
Family

Road Trip: Pacific Coast Highway

Published by

Bluestocking

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31st July 2015

We decided this year to take another summer road trip, this time a shortish one up to Northern California along Pacific Coast Highway, the main destinations being Hearst Castle and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

We left not too early on Sunday morning, and stopped in Solvang for lunch, having a very good meal at the Solvang Restaurant on Copenhagen Dr. (where else?!), including the obligatory and delicious æbleskiver. After lunch we impulsively rented a four-person bicycle surrey, and rode around town to find ourselves at the Elverhøj museum on the edge of town, which was small but very charming — the textiles were a bonus!

The red sleeves, by the way, are a hand-knitted nattrøje, the bodice that forms part of the traditional Danish folk costume. This one appears to have a fabric waistcoat over it, or possibly the knitted sleeves are sewn to the fabric bodice, as was sometimes the case.

On the drive up to San Simeon, we stopped in Morro Bay, really just to visit the Shell Shop, which David thought that Julia would enjoy. She was in sea-shell heaven, actually — it is truly amazing, all of the shells they have, some in displays like this one, but most just in orderly bins so that you can pick and choose, and a real bargain, too.

On Monday morning, we went to Hearst Castle. Even if you know all about it and have seen the photos, or what you think of Hearst himself, it's still jaw-droppingly splendiferous. It was a beautiful day, warm and breezy but not too much of either — we did two of the three available tours that day, the Grand Rooms and the Upstairs Suites, partly because to be honest it's a bit pricy but also because it's just a lot to take in, all of that sumptuousness.

Ceremonial flags in the Refectory.

Ketchup and mustard bottles and paper napkins amidst the centuries-old furnishings and china. Apparently I am not the only one amused by this irony of the "common touch" amidst the opulence.

A still life in a corner of one of the dozens of guest rooms. Each room that is visible on the tour has a dressing case or clothes laid out, as though a house party was going on.

One of the three "guest houses" surrounding the main house — these have at least four bedrooms each.

On the way up PCH, we stopped to see the elephant seal rookery. The males come ashore at this time of year to molt, and just lie there on the beach like a bunch of boneless chicken breasts, occasionally rearing up to make a strange grating bark.

The coastline is lovely, and we stopped a number of times just to take photos, even though the air was a bit grubby.

On Tuesday, we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was very crowded, but the jellyfish exhibit was strange and lovely.

Someone had brilliantly arranged the tanks so that the light coming through the water, and the color of the backgrounds, made the jellies beautifully surreal.

This was a brilliant touch, a crowd of ceiling lamps covered with fiber optic cable, so that you felt as though you were swimming with the jellyfish, or perhaps were one yourself.

After the aquarium, we were, surprisingly, not too tired for another bicycle surrey ride, and went along the waterfront to Lovers Point, to admire the views.

On Wednesday, we stopped at Point Pinos to look around in the tide-pools and admire the lighthouse, though only from a distance, as it wasn't open that day. This is the oldest operating lighthouse on the west coast.

And then home! It was a good trip, not too long, with a pleasing variety of sights along the way, and it was good to see some more of our beautiful state!
Family, Sewing

Covington Bag

Published by

Bluestocking

on

21st July 2015

For our road trip this summer, we decided to go and see Hearst Castle, and from there up to Monterey to visit the Aquarium. I'm usually much more comfortable while museum-going with a cross-body bag, instead of my usual short-handled shoulder purse — not only for toting around the camera and guide-book, but also for hands-free walking. So I decided to sew one. I had two choices, the Covington Bag pattern by Amy Butler, which I've had in my drawer for years — so long that it is now out-of-print — or the much simpler shoulder bag from Melissa Wastney of Tiny Happy. I've made the Tiny Happy bag before, for some Girl Scout outings (to carry water and snacks on nature hikes!) and it's a fine bag and tutorial, but I wanted something with a bit more structure this time, and so I decided to go with the Covington.

You can cinch it up closely, as in the top photo, or leave it open, as below, which gives it a little more tailored look, though obviously a little less security. The opening isn't huge, so you could also just cinch it a little, and still be fairly safe.

The pattern is a fairly straightforward one, though it does get a bit fiddly in places.

I decided rather on the spur of the moment not to buy anything to make the bag, so this cost me nothing at all — not even the pattern, since if it's been in your stash for more than five years, it doesn't count, right? (I bought the pattern around 2006, at the much-lamented Tall Mouse in Yorba Linda, which never survived the move to a much-smaller location in I think 2011, and closed for good a year or two later.) I used a Moda remnant for the outer fabric, some medium-weight bleached muslin (left over from my curtain adventure a few years ago) and two pairs of worn-out Dockers of David's that I'd been saving for just this sort of thing. (I'd been thinking Elizabethan stays, but this works too.) If I had remembered in time that I wanted to lengthen the straps, I might have been able to get all of the "canvas" interfacing from one pair of Dockers, so it was actually a pair and a half. I didn't have any Timtex for the bottom of the bag, as called for in the pattern, so I used rather a lot of Pellon fusible interfacing, and two pieces of the twill instead. My bag probably doesn't hold its shape as much as the original, but I'm very pleased with being frugal instead.

The straps are now the full 44" width of my fabric, so that the bag when worn across is just about at my waist — it's a little high, but such is life. I didn't want to piece the outer fabric — I did have to piece the twill, which I did just by laying one end over the other, and sewing it down with zig-zag stitch, so as not to add bulk.

The only other change I made was on the lining, since unlike the outer bag it doesn't have side pieces, so is just two isosceles trapezoids sewn together. This resulted in a strange little pyramid pooch of fabric once I'd turned the lining to the inside — so I pulled it back out and sewed across the corners. It's not quite the same size as the outer bag now, but I think it's a worthwhile trade-off, not just not having a pooch of fabric there, but also not having the annoyance of losing coins or other small things down in a narrow corner of your bag!

The sides have a little pleat at the middle of the top, which gives just a little more room at the bottom, and add a subtle bit of glamour, I think.

The bag is a little smaller than I'd pictured it in my mind, but I think it would be a fairly simple matter to enlarge it when making it again. I didn't want a big bag, anyway — "Mom, will you carry my [insert here anything the girls don't want to carry themselves]". I would probably also put a pocket or two on the lining.

These photos, by the way, are taken with my shiny new Canon EOS Rebel T5, which I think is doing a bang-up job so far!
Dollhouses, Miniature Needlework, Needlework

Woolly Pretty Things

Published by

Bluestocking

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11th July 2015

I suppose that someone has already done a time-lapse series of a needlepoint piece being worked — anyway, I obviously didn't take a daily photo, but it amused me to imagine the piece just sort of filling itself in, as though it were being worked in the middle of the night by elves or something.

I picked up my "Small-patterned Holbein" carpet after some months of neglect (plus somehow losing the ball of red wool and having to wait for a replacement), and took it with me to a Fourth of July do at a friend's house, and worked on it while keeping an eye on the kids in the pool. The top photo is the results of that day, which was a pleasing improvement on where it had been since I'd picked it up last, but then I got into the rhythm of it and didn't have to keep looking at the chart, and got quite far. I've just now finished the first "border" around the center section — that solid line in a sort of brownish-purple. There are two patterned borders to come.

The canvas is just a little too small for this wool, as I have to tug rather firmly sometimes to pull it through, and my stitches do not lie as smoothly as I'd like, though that may just be me. I hope that a good blocking will take care of at least some of that — I'm afraid the canvas is stretching dreadfully. On the other hand, much as I'd like to, I can't take all of the responsibility for uneven coverage, when Appleton's provides this:

Oh well. The colors are a bit deeper in real life — it is already quite lovely, and will make a somberly beautiful little carpet.
“WIPapalooza 2015”, Knitting and Crochet in Miniature, Knitting for the Home, Miniature Needlework

Thoughts on the Muriwai Bathmat, and a Mini-Muriwai

Published by

Bluestocking

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4th July 2015

A few episodes — well, quite a few — of "Poirot" and I have a Muriwai Bath Mat, a pattern by Mel Clark, in her book (with Tracey Ullmann) Knit 2 Together. I started this around the middle of 2008, I'm sorry to say — my advice to anyone who wants to knit it is to have lots of circular needles on hand!

This is my usual Sugar 'n Cream dishcloth cotton from Michael's, here in Icing Sugar (white) and Strawberry (pinks and white), knitted together. I had one of the mega-balls (400g/14 oz) in white, of which I had a good deal left, and numerous regular (2 oz) balls of the pinks, so I calculate this as most of 6 balls of the latter — the whole thing weighs 630g.

It's an easy pattern, but a bit tedious, and obviously I had a bit of a problem with this, as one of the corners is quite wonky — an attention error, I suspect. Since I didn't have the same gauge as in the pattern, I worked the center section roughly as indicated, then just kept knitting until I thought it was about the right size (with a little extra to allow for shrinkage, wh. I'm sure it will do), so the center section on mine is a little "smaller" scale-wise than the original — oh well.

It seemed more and more obvious as I went that this pattern would scale down to dolls-house size very easily, and indeed it did! —

The Mini-Muriwai is in crochet thread from Michael's — Aunt Lydia's, I suppose, but I don't know which blue, though it is very pretty. I worked this mat on US000 needles (1.5mm) in a couple of hours, just dividing the full-sized dimensions by 12, and estimating the gauge. The increases are, curiously, a little awkward on the miniature version as well — I thought I was doing the increases the same on either side of the corner sts, but I guess that one being enclosed, as it were, by the corner st on the right needle, and the other exposed at the beginning of the left needle, made a difference somehow, either in how I laid them on the needle or how I worked them on the next round. Oh well!

I was aiming for about 2 1/3 x 3 in., and got 2 3/4 x 3 1/4, so a little off, but not too bad.

The picot edging is worked here by binding off 5 sts in every repeat, instead of 6 as on the full-sized mat, which reduction I thought would be better for scale, though I suppose looking at the final mat, it wouldn't really matter one way or the other.
“WIPapalooza 2015”, Knitting for the Home

Kitchen Cotton Monday

Published by

Bluestocking

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29th June 2015

Quite a lot of our dishcloths are looking a bit ratty, so I got out a bunch of the little odds and ends of kitchen cotton left over from other cloths, and whipped up some new ones. The two on the right are just Grandmother's Favorite, while the one on the left is a Quaker Ridging cloth.

I also got out the Muriwai Bath Mat to have a go at that, for my next WIPapalooza project — the receipt is dated "4/30/08" so that tells you how long it's been. I couldn't tell at all how big it actually is, since it's been scrunched up on a single circular needle for five+ years, so I ran a piece of plastic trimmer string — straight off the spool — through the live stitches, so that I could actually spread it out and see how much more I need to do. (It was much easier getting it back on the needle from the trimmer string than it would have been from a strand of yarn!) I figure the mat will shrink more than a bit with washing, so say ten more rounds, and it will be done. Of course, ten rounds is a lot by now ….
Sewing

Summer Jammies

Published by

Bluestocking

on

12th June 2015

With the completion of yet-another-long-unfinished-project in the Blueberry Waffle socks, I allowed myself a little flirt with the sewing machine, and made a pair of summer pyjamas for Julia, who is still wearing fleece and flannel in June because that is all she has that still fits. (Five-four and growing! at just a few months over thirteen!) I've had this piece of bright batik in my stash for quite a while — about a yard and a third — with the intention of actually making pyjamas for one or the other of the girls, so it's good to have that feeling of accomplishment as well!

This is actually two different patterns, and both free. The bottoms are Simplicity's Easy PJ Pants 0501, available in a wide range of unisex sizes. Since I wanted to make a top as well, and it's summer, I made them into shorts. These pants are even simpler than the original, since I omitted the drawstring ties at the waist.

The top is Colette's Sorbetto tank top pattern. This pattern seems to be quite popular on the web, partly I'm sure because it comes in sizes 0-18! quite a range. I omitted the front pleat simply by laying the pattern piece with the pleat stitching line on the fold of the fabric. I was a bit surprised that the cutting layout has you put each piece on the center fold of the fabric, thereby leaving great swathes of fabric unused at the selvedge edges, and so I arranged my piece of fabric with two folds, with the selvedges meeting in the middle and a fold each to the near and far edges (like a stapled staple, as it were), and got the two pattern pieces cut from 2/3 yard of fabric, instead of the 1 1/2 yards given on the pattern (!), and I still had plenty left over for the bias edging. I suppose that with the larger sizes you wouldn't be able to do this, but certainly for the smaller ones you can — this one is a size 0.

And I only made one stupid mistake! which was cutting the bias edging less the seam allowance instead of more, at the last prospective join, so that I had to add a measly inch or so of fabric to get it long enough. Only one stupid mistake is pretty good for me, so I'm quite pleased with myself, all things considered!