A Bluestocking Knits

  • Thoughts on the Pulsvarmere Blonde

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    Pulsvermereblonde

    All in a rush this afternoon, I finished the Pulsvarmere Blonde — lace wristwarmers — from Marit of med pinner, which I found through Guro at rett og vrangt. (You can get to the PDF version of the pattern down where it says "klikk her".)  The pattern is in Norwegian, but it shouldn't be terribly difficult to figure out for those who have done charts.

    legg opp = cast on
    maske, masker = st, sts
    strikk = knit, work
    rettmaske = K
    kast på pinnen = yo
    2 masker sammen = K2tog
    maske løst av = slip the stitch [wyib]

    So cast on 30, knit 1 row, work 22 sts before beginning lace chart. (There is a little mistake on Row 17: the row should be "Sl 1, K2, (yo, K2tog) 3 times".)

    I wouldn't recommend a multicolored yarn for this — I tried it with some Malabrigo, and while it was deliciously soft, the lace pattern simply disappeared.

    With the Jaeger Alpaca, I cast on 35 instead.  I also used a provisional cast-on and grafted the seam, to avoid bulkiness.  The wool was a real bother to work with at this gauge, I must say, very splitty; I thought I'd caught them all, but I'm seeing some rather embarrassing gaffes as I type.  Oh, well.  I am, on the other hand, cozy-warm!  Whew!

    "Blonde" is a faux amis — it does not mean "blonde" but "lace".  That took me a while to figure out, actually, although perhaps it is a little joke.  I have made only one joke in Norwegian, wh. I have quite rightly kept to myself, my Norwegian being rough as I am only learning from books and making comments on Guro's blog, who is nice enough to tell me that I'm doing pretty well.

  • Don’t Laugh

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    IMG_4369small

    I am freezing.  I am actually shivering, I'm so cold.  It's all of I think four degrees cooler here inside the house.  I am thinking longingly of the three pairs of mittens and wristwarmers that I've started this summer and haven't finished, and now I'm too cold to knit.

    In my defense, this is Southern California — it just doesn't get cold.  And it was well into the 90s on Monday!  We were all in shorts and sandals just the day before yesterday!

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    When Bad Things Happen to Good Knits

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    I knitted a pair of mitts for Laura this past spring, with some leftover Koigu.  I have learned by experience not to expect careful treatment of handknits from the girls, even if they are as delighted with them as Laura has been with the mitts, but when Julia came to me the other evening with a mitt in her hand and said, "Mom, what's this?" I tell you my hair stood on end. 

    I couldn't think what it was, a solid, flexible plastic-like mass some inches in diameter, with curiously cratery edges a little harder than the rest.  "Oh," Laura said, suspiciously nonchalant, "that's putty," some gacky stuff from a Mad Science workshop she went to late in the summer.  Apparently she and a friend had been playing in the girls' room and were, I regret to say, throwing the putty at each other, and when it disappeared, they simply shrugged and went on to something else.  I could not seem to pin her down as to how long it had been missing, but it was at least a week.

    And so, well, Mommy got a little science lesson of her own.  The first step, of course, was to research removing putty from wool, both in my indispensable Home Comforts reference and online. Helpfully, the (now-empty) putty container listed the ingredients — sodium borate solution, polyvinyl acetate, and diluted paint — which David tells me is much the same ingredients as white glue.  Most of the sources I found recommended Simple Green cleaner or isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, but warned that stains were almost certainly likely, from the dye in the putty.

    I didn't think to take photos until I was well into it.  This first is after a soak in plain water.  The putty had, curiously, lost most of its color in the water, and gotten rather revoltingly glutinous.  It felt slimy, but was still quite firmly attached.  I managed to pick off some of it at the top left, but instead of coming off in rubbery strings (or, I should be so lucky, in one big mass), it was only tiny anticlimactic bits.

    Eeuw1 

    The next thing I tried was Simple Green.  The wool felt stiff and squeaky in it.  ("Koigu!" I thought mournfully.)

    Eeuw2 

    I scrubbed the putty with an old toothbrush, and picked at it a bit,and it did have some effect but not much.  It might be that I was not patient enough to let it soak longer in the Simple Green, though.  The putty seemed to come off better down in the purl ribs, possibly because it had either not adhered as thoroughly there or because it didn't have enough surface area to cling to, with the shape of the stitches.  

    Eeuw3 

    The last resort was isopropyl alcohol.  I was concerned that it would bleach the wool, but by this point I figured that I didn't really have anything to lose.

    The next picture is after a few short soaks and rinses.

    Eeuw4 

    Yuck.  After this, I thought, "oh well", and just left it in the sink in about a half-inch of alcohol, and went to bed.  Perhaps half an hour later, David looked at it, and the putty had dissolved completely, and so he rinsed the mitt and left it to dry on the edge of the sink.  The mitt was, from all of the picking at it and scrubbing with the toothbrush, I guess, nearly an inch longer than it had been, but I tossed them both in the delicate wash cycle as usual, and it went back to its original shape.

    The color, alas, will never be the same.  You can still see the shadow of the putty — which was purple — and the effects of the rubbing alcohol, although luckily the stain is not quite so obvious in real life as in the photograph.  The texture of the wool is a little different, with not so much body as before, as though it had been through a number of rough washings.  I am resigning myself to a soak in alcohol for the other mitt, to make the colors more like between the two.

    Mittsafter

    Oh, well.

    (Still very comfy and warm, though, I must say.  Hurrah, Koigu!)

  • , , ,

    Catching Up

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    I finished knitting the last few inches of a Fibert Trends' Versatility Vest for my aunt, who wasn't up to it these days, in exchange for an even less-finished project which I have recycled into eleven or twelve balls of Cashsoft DK in Mist.

    Versatility

    After swatching carefully, I thought that my gauge was spot-on — ha-ha!

    Versatility2

    Luckily this came out in the wash, as they say.

    The vest is in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Superchunky, very nice to knit
    with, I must say, even though I tend to like finer yarns generally.  The color is more accurate in the photos below, a soft baby-blue.

    I was secretly hoping that there would be enough left over for a scarf, but it was not to be.  I had a little felted project in mind for Laura's dolls' house, and so I did some research online and read that Cashmerino will not felt, because of the microfiber content.  Feeling experimental anyway, I knitted up a rather loose swatch, and tossed it back and forth between hot and ice-cold water, where it sort of tensed up, but did not really felt.  After six or eight washes in the machine with my cleaning rags — hot water, heavy-duty cycle — it has become a rather interesting sort of bouclé texture.

    Cashmerino_felted1

    Cashmerino_felted2

    Bathmat

    The edges don't look particularly sturdy, but I roughed up the trimmings to almost no effect, so perhaps little dolls' feet will not be too hard on it.

    IMG_4348small

    One ball Red Hart Heart & Sole 70% superwash wool, 30% nylon (213 yds/195m per 50g ball), in "Watercolor Stripe"; 2mm needles.. Julia hates them — "too scratchy".

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    Would You Lie?

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    From last week's Booking Through Thursday —

    Two-thirds of Brits have lied about reading books they haven’t. Have you? Why? What book?

    Oh dear, oh dear.  I'm afraid I don't see the purpose of lying about what I've read.  To impress people?  Far more likely to be thoroughly mortified by being caught out when someone asks "What about that glass paperweight, eh?"

    Here's part of the original article from Reuters:

    The study, carried out on the World Book Day website in January and February, surveyed 1,342 members of the public.

    Those who lied have claimed to have read:

    1. 1984 – George Orwell (42 percent)

    2. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy (31)

    3. Ulysses – James Joyce (25)

    4. The Bible (24)

    5. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert (16)

    6. A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking (15)

    7. Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie (14)

    8. In Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust (9)

    9. Dreams from My Father – Barack Obama (6)

    10. The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins (6)

    I admit that I have read none of these except, as it happens, 1984, which I was forced to do in high school.  This, along with Animal Farm, may have been the beginning of my dislike for post-apocalyptic totalitarian-world science fiction.  To be honest, though, what I have read of Orwell as an adult — Keep the Aspidistra Flying and his essay "Why I Write", for instance — intrigue me for his writing style.  (No, really, I just read him for the prose.)

    I have read parts of the Bible, but not the whole thing.  Have never even heard of The Selfish Gene! that's embarrassing.

  • Polar Knitting

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    I've had "The Last Place on Earth" in the DVD player this week, in the hopes that watching something really cold will make me forget how very hot it is outside. The added benefit of this series — aside from the general polar-geekiness and the Norwegian accents, I mean — is of course the knits!  I don't know that I've ever seen this much in one series.  Every knitter, I suppose, has moments of knitwear-spotting.  I thought it would be fun to post some of mine, and so here is the inaugural post on "Knitting in the Movies" —

    Obviously any movie about Norwegians in cold weather is bound to include knitwear, and "The Last Place on Earth" is no exception.  There is a charming little farewell scene in which Betty, Amundsen's housekeeper and former nanny (played by Astrid Folstad) comes with a goodbye present for the expedition members, a generous basket of knitted socks.  I loved the little touch that the socks she has knitted for the men are thick, sturdy, sensible grey things, but at the bottom of the basket are these fabulous black-and-white ones for Amundsen himself.  It is times like these that you wish the character would stop and say, "Oh, Betty, how thoughtful!  Look, Leon, etc. etc. etc." and examine the socks for a minute or two.  This glimpse is tantalizing.

    Polarknitting11

    The scenes on the Fram itself offer the most opportunity for knitwear-spotting, as once the ship gets to the polar ice-pack it is cold enough for heavy wool but not so cold for the men to be in their full sealskin gear.  Here, in the scene where Amundsen (Sverre Anker Ousdal) informs the men of their "detour" to the South Pole instead of the planned trip to the North as they had intended, we get a sight of three sweaters at once.

    Polarknitting8

    Bjaaland (Ståle Bjørnhaug) has a wonderful red-and-black gansey, obviously handmade and well-worn.  It has a basic boat-neck opening, fairly roughly finished or mended, probably with crochet, and a plain ribbed waistband and sleeve cuffs in red.  The construction of this and the other garments in the series seem to be the standard Norwegian type, with the body knitted in the round and steeked for the sleeves.  The all-over pattern of Bjaaland's is fairly simple but has a nice little lines-and-zigs effect from a distance.

    Polarknitting9

    Polarknitting10

    Polarknitting2

    Stubberud (Hans Ola Sørlie) has on a typical Setesdal lusekofte that appears to be in fact an off-the-rack Dale.  It is rather unusual in not having the slit-neck and colorful embroidery of most Setesdal pullovers.

    The "expedition sweater" for the series was obviously the one seen in this scene on both Johansen, in the background behind Bjaaland, and on Prestrud, beginning to appear as the camera pans to the right.

    Polarknitting5

    Polarknitting7

    It has a two-colored version of the slants-and-sticks pattern so often found in Faroese sweaters, and a rounded neck with a slit at the front.  The one worn by Prestrud (Bjørn Skagestad) has a neck apparently bound with a narrow cream facing, but Johansen's looks slightly different.

    Polarknitting3

    Polarknitting19

    Helmer Hanssen (Jan Hårstad) wears his in the ice-pack scenes and later in the near-disaster of the first attempt at the Pole.  You can see here that the waistband appears to be a simple rolled stockinette

    Polarknitting15

    Here it is again on Johansen (played with wonderful harsh dignity by Toralv Maurstad):

    Polarknitting12

    The same sweater pops up, interestingly, with a different neck treatment here on Beck (Erik Bye):

    Polarknitting22

    Polarknitting14

    The expedition cook Lindström (Jon Eikemo) has a plain wide-ribbed grey pullover with a
    loose turtleneck, possibly machine-made, which I was — considering the rivalry between the
    Norwegians and the British — quite amused to see was exactly the same as one worn by a number of the British, here for instance by Oates (Richard Morant):

    Polarknitting16

    Polarknitting17

    Who knows at this remove what was going on in the minds of the costume folks ("bloody hell, we forgot something for Lindström! here, we've got masses of these!").  Only a knitter would notice, I suppose.

    Polarknitting23

    Hassel (Erik Hivju, second from right) has the only textured sweater in the series, a heathered brown or olive-brown boatneck sweater that is, frustratingly, never seen quite clearly.  The one on Amundsen is my personal favorite, and not
    just because Sverre Anker Ousdal is wearing it.  (Yes, he really is a good half-head taller than the others.  So was Amundsen.)  I love the combination
    of smoky-grey and black, the simple all-over cross pattern with
    interesting shoulder detail. 

    Polarknitting1

    Am tempted now to pick up my own Norwegian gloves — oh, if only there was a cool breeze!

  • ,

    Booking Through Thursday: Recent Sadness

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    9780307430816

    Booking Through Thursday asks this week: What’s the saddest book you’ve read recently?

    Sometimes you just come across things accidentally at the library or bookstore that you pick up and think, "that sounds interesting".  I don't know why it caught my eye at the public library, but a month or so ago I came home with Cliffs of Despair by Tom Hunt, about the cliffs of Beachy Head in the south of England and the people who go there to commit suicide.  The author, an American whose brother-in-low shot himself, felt drawn to the cliffs in an attempt to understand not only why people kill themselves, but why Beachy Head?  What is it about the place that draws people there?  He interviews families of victims, taxi drivers who have unwittingly taken suicides to the spot, rescue workers, and coroners, acknowledging that he might seem something of an ambulance-chaser, this American come to ask such deeply personal questions, and so he takes care to remain gently unjudgmental throughout. Cliffs of Despair is certainly not a self-help book, either for those tempted by suicide or for families touched by it, nor does it even answer many questions.  Some questions have no answers.  But it does leave one somehow with a profound feeling of sympathy towards those who, for whatever reason, have found themselves on the edge of Beachy Head and either turned away or took the last, fatal step.

  • Mother, I Cannot Mind My Wheel

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    Negitive-13

    Mother, I cannot mind my wheel;
        My fingers ache, my lips are dry:
    O, if you felt the pain I feel!
        But O, who ever felt as I?

    No longer could I doubt him true —
        All other men may use deceit;
    He always said my eyes were blue,
        And often swore my lips were sweet.

    Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)

    Photographer unknown (Collector's Quest).

  • Thoughts on the Primavera Socks

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    Crumbs, it's been a while.  I keep thinking, "dear oh dear, I really should post — I even have a few actually-finished knits!" and then, alas, nothing.  I thought that once both of the girls were in school all day, I would have loads of time, but it seems to be quite the opposite. 

    Primavera1

    But here are some Primavera Socks by Natalja of s(t)ockinette.  This pattern has apparently been around for a while, but was new to me when I saw it this past spring — can't remember where now, unfortunately.

    Primavera4

    I like these socks very much.  It's a nice pattern, simple but just enough interest to keep it from being a dull knit, and the results are very pretty.  You can hardly ask for more from a pattern, really.  (I should have gone with my instincts, though, and made my usual generous toe.  The one as written is too slender for my extra-wide feet.)

    Primavera3

    I didn't care much for knitting with the ProNatura, as it was quite splitty, but now that it's done — and worn several times — I put that pleasantly behind me.

    Love the acanthus-like bas-relief effect —

    Primavera2

  • Reading “The Hobbit”

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    The girls and I finished reading The Hobbit last night.  Reading it aloud was quite a different experience from reading it silently.  Certainly I found myself aware of the pronunciation of names, and how often I'd gotten them wrong, and still do.  I read so much as a child that I often pronounced words the way they looked; I still do this with "sword", for instance, including the "w".  It's hard, reading The Hobbit now, not to say "biffer, bohffer, and bom-ber" especially, partly because the habit is so ingrained after all these years, and partly just because it's funny.  This led to my thinking last night that I would write notes (in pencil, of course) at the bottom of a page where the name appeared, and so this morning I made a list, then started here at Tolkien Geek, and travelled to far corners of the Tolkien internet universe, especially to Wikipedia and The Encyclopedia of Arda. I did not actually find one single list of pronunciations, and so I post it here, willing and ready to accept discussion were someone with greater knowledge to comment.

    I puzzled over "Dáin son of Náin" quite some time.  "Dane son of Nane"?  "Dine son of Nine?"  Alas, there is yet no consensus.  I found "An Analysis of Dwarvish" delightful in its very thoroughness, although, surprisingly, given that thoroughness, nowhere are the acute-o as in Thrór and acute-a as in Dáin mentioned.  Possibly this is because Dáin, Glóin, etc. are use-names in Westron and thus translations from the Dwarvish ….

    Also rather surprisingly, no one seems to divide these names into syllables.  I have seen the occasional phonetic spelling that differed from the usual, and included them below.  (A deeper study of the root words would be useful here, but, well, I haven't got the time.)

    "Bilbo" should, I suppose, strictly be pronounced "BEEL-boh".  I have never yet heard anyone say it like this.

    The "r" should be a lovely rolling sound, which most Americans don't or can't do — listen to a Swede saying them at Tolkien Pronunciation Recordings, or even better, to Tolkien himself reading some excerpts from The Lord of the Rings.  I've written this below as double-r.

    Balin = BAH-leen

    Beorn = BEH-orrn or even BAY-orrn, not BEE-orrn; compare Beowulf

    Bifur = BEE-foor.

    Bofur = BOH-foorr

    Bombur = BOHM-boorr, with the “o” long as in “go” not short as in “bomb”, or possibly BOH-mbur

    Carc = KARK

    Dáin = DAYN; probably not “dine” as in “nine” and “line” as that would be the Elvish pronunciation

    Dori = DOH-rree

    Durin = DOORR-een, with the “u” long as in “boot”

    Dwalin = DWAH-leen

    Fíli = FEE-lee

    Gandalf = GAHN-dahlf, with a short “a” sound as in “father”; or possibly GAH-ndalf; not "GAHN-dalv"or "GAN-dalf/v"

    Girion = GEE-rree-ohn, with a hard “g” as in “go” and “get”

    Glóin = GLOH-een

    Golfimbul = GOHL-feem-bool

    Gwaihir = GWY-heerr, with a hard “g”, and a long “i” in the first syllable as in “eye”

    Kíli = KEE-lee

    Nori = NOH-rree

    Náin = NAYN; see above under Dáin

    Ori = OH-rree

    Roäc = RROH-ahk

    Smaug = SMOWG.  There is quite a lot of discussion about as to whether this is pronounced "smowg" or "smog".  I started out with the American "smog", pleased by the association of dragons with nasty, smelly air pollution, then later evolved to a more RP "aw" sound.  Technically, the vowel should be "ow", as in "town" and "clown", and in the interjection you use when you bump your head, which, not coincidentally, is the same as the equivalent modern Norwegian interjection, "au".

    Thorin = THORR-een

    Thranduil = THRRAN-doo-eel

    Thráin = THRRAYN; see above under Dáin

    Thrór = probably THRRORR; it is unclear why the vowel has a diacritic, or how this affects pronunciation

    Óin = OH-een; it is unclear whether the letter “ó” is merely an “o” with a diacritic, or if it is a separate letter and therefore should take a separate place in the alphabet as does the Norwegian “ø”

Knitting, reading, other stuff.

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