Revision

 Just a quick pop in to show a sweater I made last year that I modified this past month. 

My Sarkle was sitting mostly unworn because I found the body too short and boxy, the neckline too tight, and overall not warm enough.  

So I cut off the body just below the yoke, got live stitches back on needles, and reknit the body with waist shaping and additional length.  

I unpicked the collar bind off and added enough length to make a turtleneck and like it MUCH better now!  

Turtlenecks are much better for me in winter because I find heavy scarves a nuisance in my daily activities, so I'm more likely to wear a cowl, but even that can be annoying sometimes, so this is a neat and handy solution!  (The three sweaters I modified last winter have gotten much more wear as a result).  I have another sweater to show soon, but I am busy gearing up for the musical at my kids' school (All!The!Costumes!) and making baby sweaters.  Seems I have a lot of friends who are expecting babies in the next six months!  I'll try to show those as I get them finished.  It is a good way to use up odds and ends, plus some of the superwash wool I collected when I first started knitting but no longer care to use for myself.  It's great for babies because you can throw it in the washer and dryer!  

Right, that's me.  Over and out.

Round About the Neck

Two posts in a week--what is the world coming to?  Ha!  I've got two little projects to share today, both neckwear.  

A few years ago, there was a pattern book floating around the interwebs that had a striped sweater and I absolutely loved the color combo and the subtle texture of it.  Took me a minute to find the pattern but it is Stratified by Tif Neilan.  I was maybe a leetle obsessed with the stripe sequence as I literally counted rows on the photo so I knew when to change colors!

I didn't really want a whole sweater of it, though, so decided to make a cowl with yarn I already had that was close in shade.  I kind of made it up but used a pattern for the shaping.  So the pattern really has nothing to do with the finished object, since it is for a stranded piece.  I admit, I don't think I got the sizing right, as it doesn't want to lay nice and has been sitting in a bin for more than a year unworn.  

How it wants to lay: 

But with a bit of fussing, it is more like this: 

I guess I can just go around with my hand near my neck all day? If I could get it to lay nicely, I would probably wear it more, but it is okay, I suppose.  I should probably frog it to reclaim the yarn.  The dress was a thrift and is a match to green one I thrifted for Ponchik.  Hers is super cute on her and she liked the idea of matching.  The dress is warm and comfortable but I can't decide if it reads frumpy 90s or good 90s.  Probably the combat boots help?  Maybe it needs a knit poncho?  I dunno.  Jury still out.

Next up is the Cowal pattern by Kate Davies.  This was similar to the Gruggle but way more enjoyable to knit and I don't really know why.  I also like how it came out a lot better.

I made it considerably shorter than the pattern calls for because I had two balls of yarn and didn't want get a third.  I was concerned the full size one would swamp me. 

I think this is a good volume and length and I've worn it a few times already.  For the record, it was FREEZING when I took these photos.  That dress and jacket are both wool and I had on wool base layers too.  We had a cold snap where it didn't get out of the teens for more than a week and I was wearing my two wool maxi skirts on repeat:

I don't mind the cold, but my circulation isn't the greatest, so I've been trying to get creative about keeping my feet and hands warm.  It has warmed up slightly this week, so most of the snow we got two weeks ago is done.

45 must be the age when One Starts to Wear Blazers.  When I was younger they felt a bit too much on me, but I'm liking them now.  They do have to be pretty fitted and only in certain fabrics, but it's a good church outfit.

Mentalist in Autumn Whirlpool

It's the time of the year where I lose time.  I've detailed before the crazy that is January and early February in our family because of birthdays, namesdays, and church holidays, but having got through Theophany yesterday, we have a brief reprieve for a week or two before the next thing.  Still a lot of basketball to get through!

I find myself in a Robert Frost sort of mood lately--two roads diverged in a wood and all that, wondering about choices made I when I was younger, etc.  I suppose it is the normal thing for this time of life.  Piglet is in the throes of college search and admissions testing and all that jazz, so it is probably natural to reflect on that time in my own life too.  How is it nearly 30 years since high school?  I just discovered Irene Smith's Substack and it is like she is living in my head, right down to the overalls.  (Well, except for the part about beauty in youth.  Eh, not so much).  

Time is weirdly elastic; it is more like the sea than a straight line, I find. It folds back on itself and stretches out past the horizon, all at the same time. I'm reading Tim Winton at the moment and he is skilled at writing about the experience of the passage of time. I've read some Kazuo Ishiguro recently too, which has a similar kind of wistful feel to it, even if the subject matter is vastly different.  

It will surprise absolutely no one that I went down another actor rabbit hole.  In my defense, (although I don't think I need one, not really), I lost a whole month in November and early December to illness, and there isn't much you can do when sick like that.  So, rabbit holes.  This one featured Simon Baker.  My favorite rom-com has him as the love interest and it was fun to watch that again.  I can relate to Kenya very much.

Previously, I had never managed to get past the first two or three episodes of The Mentalist, but I watched all seven seasons in November and early December and enjoyed them very much.  They really stuck the landing on the series finale, and ended it in a way that was both narratively and emotionally satisfying.  I then tried The Guardian, which I had also tried before and didn't get into, but I loved it this time.  The series finale was good, not quite as good as The Mentalist, but it ended in a narratively satisfying way.  

I've been watching Baker's films too, included his directorial debut, Breath.  Highly recommend that film.  It is so beautifully shot and the story is thematically one that I think everyone can relate to on some level.  His more recent work is good and thought-provoking.

 

During all this sick time, I worked on a fingering weight sweater using the Autumn Whirlpool pattern and nearly lost my ever-loving mind.  The chart was written using symbols that are opposite to the way most pattern writers notate, so I had to have the key in front of me at all times and look every.single.row to make sure I was knitting the thing correctly.  The first 8-10 rows I seriously contemplated giving up and going with a different pattern, but after that, I started to groove with the chart and it got better.  In the end, I'm glad I soldiered on, because it is a great textured yoke and I like the finished sweater very much. 

My only complaint (minor!) is that I should have sized down, but that is a common problem for me these days.  I'm probably going to make a matching cowl or convert the neckline to a turtleneck because I get cold so easily and crew necklines are of limited usefulness to me in the cold months.  I did that with my Cinnamomum sweater and like the options the cowl gives me very much!

Since my first bout with Covid in March 2020, my taste has never quite come back to normal, so I go in cycles with what tastes good (not much, to be honest) and what is not good or downright revolting.  I've had a short run of coffee being a little bit gaggy, so switched to tea.  My husband had bought some little gift tea tins the last time he was in the UK on business, so I've been enjoying that.  

My opinion is that tea should be hot, black, strong, and sweet. Fight me if you want. I learnt to drink it in Russia, and that's how it was always served to me, so there you go.  And one must leave the spoon in the cup whilst drinking it.  All else is outrage!  (Just kidding).  If the glass isn't 1/3 leaves and sugar, is it even tea?  Ha!

As for writing, I started developing a couple of stories in late December; the book is on hold at the moment.  I had great momentum on it right up to the moment I got sick, and since then, it has been hard to get back to it.  I'm not narratively stuck any longer, and I was able to write a bunch that I haven't transcribed into my working manuscript yet (I write long hand and type it later), but I'm questioning whether the story needs to be told at all.  It's probably that I just need to get back into it and I'll be fine.  I have most of a (terrible) first draft finished, so perhaps it is good to let it sit a while anyway. Meantime, I'm knitting a LOT, including reclaiming yarn from sweaters that don't fit or suit, and fixing some other sweaters with minor issues.  'Tis the season for yarn, I reckon!

Raspberry and Tomato

I'm a little stuck with the book right at the moment so instead you get a knitting post from me!  (Cue the band).  Some my stuck is that the last three weeks have been nuts.  Piglet had the end of his cross country season during tech week for Birdie's play, Midsummer Night's Dream.*  

The show was wonderful! Absolutely hilarious. I worked on altering costumes again this year and I was sewing right down to the last minute because Helena's costume ended up needing a last-minute alteration and zipper replacement.  

The spring musical looks to be a sartorial challenge, so I imagine Feb and March will be All Costume Alterations, All the Time.

After the Shakespeare madness, the kids were off school a bunch of days for various and sundry, and now we are in the slide toward Thanksgiving. Piglet made the high school basketball team and has started practices, which are pretty intense.  His game schedule starts in December and is like whoa.  It all feels a bit fast, and I wonder how anyone manages to write a novel during November.

Which is not to say I've gotten nothing written.  I've actually gotten a lot done.  But the story feels slightly stalled right at this minute.  So I'm letting it stew for a day or two before getting back at it.  In the meantime, I'm reading around it, and researching.  Which is fun!  I made an interesting thematic discovery this week that means a little bit of reworking, but I've got to think about how to best play it out.  Meantime, I always have a little book and pen with me in case a scene or dialogue pops in my head.  It's Listening To Music From Another Room time.**

I finished this sweater way back in May, just as the weather warmed up enough that I couldn't wear it.  I blocked it but didn't even weave in the ends until last month.  It is the White Lizard pattern and I enjoyed working on it.  It was just enough of a challenge to be interesting, but not so much so that I felt like I was losing my mind every other line (unlike the piece I'm working on right now...more on that in a future post).

Nothing to say about the pattern that I didn't write in my ravelry notes.  The yarn is a German one I bought on sale 18 months ago and I've no complaints about it.  I would use it again, for sure.  

The garden is almost done for the season; I'm still picking tomatoes from the one super productive plant, but we are getting close to frost, so I think it is just a matter of days before that is all done.  The pics represent only a fraction of the tomatoes I've picked off that plant.  This is probably three or four weeks' worth and I started picking in August.

The squirrels have been an absolute nuisance in the back this year and NOTHING deters them, being the hardy urban creatures they are.  I got a sonic thing with flashing lights and nada.  Doesn't even slow them down.  

Tried coffee, that worked for a day, but then they acclimated. Tried putting the coffee pods from our espresso machine, which worked for a day, but they acclimated. Tried Irish Spring soap, nothing. 

I did get packets of some kind of natural deterrent from amazon that seem to have done something. It deters them more than anything else, but not 100%. I'll take what I can get, since they seem determined to dig up all my plants back there.

In my garden plot, I got three more watermelons in September! They grew after I picked in August and assumed the vine was done. While not as tasty at the August ones, they were fine enough.

I need to plant spring bulbs, but there's not a screaming rush at the moment.  I did something to my shoulder this week and while the chiropractor was able to do some good yesterday, I'm still uncomfortable, so I should hold off on heavy work for a bit.  Maybe next week. 

On the off chance you are looking for family-friendly viewing, may I recommend the Netflix reboot of Lost in Space?  It is so good!  (And pretty squeaky clean by today's standards).  There are three seasons that form one coherent narrative arc.  I've been rewatching it with my kids and we are all enjoying it.  The production values are very high, the acting and writing wonderful.  I love the family dynamic at the heart of the show.  Highly recommend.

Right, so that's me!  

~

*I don't generally post pics of other people's kids, but these were already shared on our school's social media page, so I feel comfortable sharing them here.

**This may just be my own process, but I find there comes a point where the characters are living enough in my head that scenes and dialogue come to me in random moments.  The experience is like eavesdropping; you just listen to see what they have to say and put it down as fast as you can!  I don't always use everything I write down, but it is always helpful.

Talking Tuesday: Marcus Aurelius' Meditations

Book 4:49~

"Be like a rocky promontory against which the restless surf continuously pounds; it stands fast while the churning sea is lulled to sleep at its feet. I hear you say, "How unlucky that this should happen to me!" Not at all! Say instead, "How lucky I am that I am not broken by what has happened and am not afraid of what is about to happen. The same blow might have struck any one, but not many would have absorbed it without capitulation and complaint."

~Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Hicks and Hicks translation, 2002

NB: I have a different translation from 1962 at home, but I prefer the Hicks' rendering of this passage; it is more poetic than the one I have.

It's Alive!

Popping in here briefly to say, I'm still here, just drowning in life with three teenagers and a tween.  My life preserver at the moment is my writing and associated reading, but that means I have little time to write here.  I have some projects from the spring to share, now the weather is turning, but that will have to wait.  I had a great season with both gardens and am sliding into the fall with them, thinking about what I will do with them in the cooler weather.  Again, will post more about that later!

Eh--Seavaiger, but then, Mr. Rochester

I hesitate to show this project because it was so frustrating to me and I don't love the end result. I may end up giving it to one of my girls or frogging it all together.  That's what I get for stash-busting. 

This is Kate Davies' Seavaiger pattern, and while the first release of it did not garner my enthusiasm, a second cropped sample convinced me to buy the pattern. Samples matter, people. I was trying to figure out how to use up a couple of stashed balls of Palette yarn that coordinated and decided to give this one a go.

Everything was fairly straight forward until the body divide.  You knit straight in the round for however many inches you want (I ended up with 7" for this cropped version and think that is about right; Kate's cropped one is 5" and the full length one is 11"), then you start shaping the dolman with increases on the sides.  After that you divide for front and back and that is where the trouble began.  I decided to slip the edge stitches to get a neater edge to cast on the sleeves, but that produced a fairly firm edge, particularly on the side that I was carrying the yarn color changes on.  Mistake #1.  

The pattern has you knit 5" then start short rows.  Mistake #2, although I should have caught this one at the time.  5" on each side gives you less than 10" circumference in the sleeve, and even if the dolman is close to your elbow, 10" is pretty small.  My biceps are less than 11" at the fullest now and the sleeves are almost too snug.  I ended up closer to 6" because I lost track of it, but even that is just this side of snug.  

Then are the short rows, of which you are supposed to do 15 each side (!) before the neckline.  I noticed many people complained the neckline was too tight and high, so I did this with some trepidation.  Mistake #3.  First attempt was ridiculous.  I tried reducing the number of short rows to 11 in back and 9 in front with some neck decreases, which helped slightly, but not nearly enough.  Attempt #3 was what I ended up with (I have what ended up working as a mod in my Ravelry notes, but the short version is knit 3 short rows, then start neck decreases along with short rows until you have no more stitches).  

Mistake #4 was with the sleeve cast on, as you simply cannot pick up and knit 72 stitches in 10-12" of space at this gauge.  I had approximately 52 rows to work with, and cast on 52 stitches.  I knit one row, then increased enough stitches to get to 74 and then worked the sleeve decreases every 8 rows until I got to 52, then knit another few inches before the ribbing.  

The sleeve joins ended up asymmetrical for some reason and the left sleeve join looks slightly odd as some of the stripes sort of end in no-man's land.  Not really sure how that happened since I did the short rows the same on both sides.  

I'm trying hard to reserve judgement because I know I'm not in a wonderful headspace right now. It is Bright Week and I'm still exhausted from Holy Week and Pascha. My dad restarted chemo at the beginning of Holy Week because his cancer has returned and my FIL has had a series of unending crises the past couple of weeks that are just stressful. Oh, and my husband's cousin died quite suddenly at the start of Holy Week. And the dryer died (but has been resurrected thanks to a good repairman plus an electrician friend at church).  And don't get me started on the raging teenage hormones in the house.  Times four. Never rains but floods, amiright?

On the plus side, we finally got a garden plot in our community garden after being on the wait list for YEARS and even lucked out with a double plot that has a mature strawberry patch and other perennials! 

It is 10'x20', so a goodly size.  I put in a bunch of mulch this week and it looks a lot better with most of the thistle and other weeds gone.  The irises and the rose bush are blooming and the two peonies are about to bloom.  The spring flowers were done by the time we got the plot, but I'm excited to have lots of daffodils for next year, as we all know my feelings about the dafs.

It needed a lot of weeding and other heavy work, but I'm thrilled with the space and the opportunity to experiment with growing food that needs full sun, as the back patio light situation isn't ideal.  

I'm on a deep dive down the rabbit hole with Toby Stephens' work so am working my way through Black Sails and thoroughly enjoying his Captain Flint.  The show is conceived as a kind of prequel to Treasure Island.  I have some complaints about the show more generally (way too much unnecessary swearing, particularly by female characters, among other things) but the writing and character development is great and the production values are superb.  

In other period work, Stephens' Mr. Rochester might just be my favorite; I had thought Michael Fassbender's was the definitive performance for me, but the 2006 BBC version is even better.  Private Lives is next in the queue.

I read Dune for the first time in April and enjoyed it, although I don't think I'll be reading the other books in the series. I've been working my way through the Saxon Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell for a few years; I finished book six (of 13) in early April and have the next one teed up on my nightstand. I'm currently working on Kairos, a translation of a German fiction book set in East Germany in the 1980s. It was long listed for an international prize and while the beginning was promising, I'm a bit bogged down in the middle. The author frustratingly doesn't use grammar conventions with dialogue and it is often hard to tell who is speaking. I also started A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, which is a tough read at times, but very compelling. I keep hoping that the filmed stage version with James Norton in the main role will be released for streaming.

Right then, that's me.  I should probably take a nap or something.