On all things juicy

This blog is about life as creative process, and how knitting, living, and creating modifies awareness.

Knitting, food and cooking, herbs and gardening, poetry and writing, music, tea, health and awareness, good wine, tarot, astrology and all things witchy: anything goes!

In English or in French (a WIP) - welcome to everyone on my knitting and creativity blog.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The Latvian Mittens Riddle

I’m stuck.

Stuck with too many options and too little time. It’s not like if this would be something unfamiliar, isn’t it?

So, yes, I still didn’t have any chance to cast-on yet for the Nordic Mittens KAL, and it’s driving me crazy!

Yes, things could be worse by far, but still, I feel behind but mostly not fair to my fellow KAL-ers, and of course not as proficient as I would like to be.

It’s not the ideas or the material that are missing. It’s just time and the commitment to invest myself in “one” project and not wander away and be lured to cast-on yet another side project. Like this one!


How could I resist building a knitted Dodecahedron! Everyone needs one, don’t they!?!

***

I do have a pair of Amaryllis Mittens already on the go since past October. My first pair; from me to me with love. And they are just gorgeous! The output up to know gave quite impressive results, in part due to the very detailed and precise pattern instructions of the designer, Mary Ann Stephens. And of course, the’re very endearing to knit as well: I just love them. So, if push comes to shove, this is going to be my KAL project. And that’s going to be it.


That’s already what I KIP at the latest knitter’s event I attended, this being the 2nd mitten. The project is going along fine and maybe I could “succeed” at finishing it during the allotted KAL time. That would be a first.

But I was initially planning to make the graph 19 District of Vidzeme Latvian Mittens by Lizbeth Upitis from the Schoolhouse KAL.

I worked on adapting the charts, but have not yet finished to make a mirror image for the 2nd mitten (yes, I’m picky this much), and to calculate the needed number of stitches to cast-on, because I fear they will be too small.

I had trouble with the swatching, and went from 2.5mm flimsy bamboo needles to 2mm spiky vintage metal needles to 2.25mm Knit Picks Harmony dpn’s. This is my latest choice, considering that the Rauma 2-ply I chose doesn’t have any give and that I nearly broke my bamboo as well as nearly speared myself on the spiky metal ones.


So here is my “puny” little swatch buried in the chosen skeins, as seen in my latest post. I do prefer to plan everything ahead in order to be satisfied with the results and get a pair of “wearable” mittens in the end. As you can see, the bottom third is the actual color combo as per the pattern, but I was wary of the light blue not being enough visible on the medium blue background, due to my yarn substitution. So I replaced it with gray in the middle third. And then, I toyed with the idea of using and the light blue and the gray as well, in succession, as seen in the top third of the swatch. And I kinda like this idea. I left everything lingering due to a disastrous attempt at making a loopy fringe. I needed to recover from this first mishap first. And that led me to the later.

So then I begged for some “new material” to attend a Latvian Mitten course last October, promising my bf that I would make a pair of mittens to match Maxime’s hat.

Beth Brown-Reinsel’s workshop was very instructional and proved a great investment. There I learned valuable techniques that helped me a great deal with my Amaryllis Mittens. I’ve been lucky in my yarn choice. I ordered some Telemark from Knit Picks and the colors are blending in just fine. See!


Now, I’ve got to design those mittens from scratch. I do have an idea, yet I have to chart it and swatch it first. And this is what is keeping me for starting altogether because I’m afraid I will all do this in vain. By the time I will have finished the mittens, winter will be over already. So, we’re talking next winter for their completion. And I anticipate for the worse then, the likes of “maybe his hat won’t fit him anymore by then”. Argh! I have growing children issues since day 1 of my comeback to knitting. I can’t knit fast enough for them!

And of course, I need to knit my MIL a pair of mittens for Christmas… …2008. When they where away in Florida for the holidays, I thought I could make them in time for her comeback by mid January 2009, but yet again I failed a dreaded deadline, due to a bottle neck induced by my ever growing Christmas list. This selection does match her coat though:


I had first thought of knitting her a pair of Amaryllis Mittens, since she fell in love with mine, but I’m not convinced that the red and dark gray color combo will do justice to the delicate flower motif. So I then thought of making her the Postwar Mittens instead, with their more abstract geometric motifs. But I just fell in love with the Camellia Mittens upon seeing them and I do think their Japanese influence will be just right with the color combo.

Now, in conclusion, is there such a thing as a reasonable and manageable queue?

Monday, February 2, 2009

In celebration of mathematics

It could have been a wonderful and knit full week-end: some freezing weather but tampered with a nice fire going in the stove, absolutely no need to go out and some nice crock-pot meal slowly stewing away its many layers of homey goodness and filing the air with all its irresistible aromas. Heaven. And yes, to top it all off, Superbowl XLIII!

***

I use to hate sports (well, the kind called “sport” by those who just “watch” it) with a great dose of dedication, if not even sheer passion, maybe even tinged with a tad of intellectual superiority. I should have known better. For I have offended the knitting goddess, I fear. Through offending the sports god, I mean.

Because now, blessed be, sports mean more knitting time for me. So I embrace them all, all those many sports my beau is fancying, however far fetched, weirdo or plain boring. I don’t care, as long as I can knit meanwhile. And merrily knitting I am. But not this week-end. Darn. It would have been the perfect week-end for it though!

***

They say football is all maths. Well, not unlike knitting, I ponder to myself. Same with mazes and labyrinths. And cathedrals. And music. And computers….
…daydreaming…

***

When you offend the gods, there is usually hell to pay, at least that’s what men of Antiquity use to think. There was a natural order of things not to be tampered with: Hubris. And as a consequence to disturbing it, a tribute was in order to reestablish peace.

Where am I going with all this rambling you might think? Well, for starters, I would have really liked to cast-on my Latvian Mittens for the Nordic Mitten KAL held jointly by the Effiloché/North-Shore Knitters groups. But I’ve been stuck working on an urgent assignment for the past 6 days. All work and no play make Nathalie daydream of chili…. and Latvian mittens… and statues of Greek gods… but mostly of knitting. So this post constitute my Mea Culpa for not casting on, albeit having everything on hand.

Mind you, I still didn’t make up my mind on the final choice of yarn and pattern. Incorrigible I tell ya’!

***

The assignment had the upside of making me travel back to Greece’s Ancient Mythological times and make me forget my little sore spots. So, upon doing research for the assignment on Labyrinths, I’ve been loosing myself in the modern maze that we refer to as “Wikipedia”. One maze to another. Funny how life is sometimes so humoristic in a twisted kind of way. Click-click-click! One hour gone. Click-click-click... Hey, don’t blame me; it’s as bad as a drug as knitting!

I felt sorry for my beau, all abandoned by me while I was supposedly all absorbed on my laptop, but actually secretly browsing on Ravelry and/or obsessively clicking from one Greek deity to the other. Mind you, I did sweat a lot on the assignment too. “Are you finished yet?” “Yes, darling”, I replied. “It’s coming along just fine, but you know how hard it is, all this weird and ancient Greek terminology… It takes time to verify everything”. And me, subtlety: click-click-click-clicking away!

That’s why I decided to pay tribute to him (and the Gods) with a big pot of chili in honor of this very meaningful and waited upon day. Superbowl day, I mean! Honored by my tribute of a super bowl of mighty chili. I devised that maybe the agreeable scent would appease the knitting goddess as well. Or at least make her wait patiently without unleashing all her fury on me, at least until I would find those precious minutes to cast-on my project. Well, you know, it doesn’t hurt to try.

Mind you, I would have been better without loosing myself in that lengthy preparation that made me cut by hand a pound of poultry in the finest dice ever. All sticky, all tacky, all pulp. What was I thinking? Argh!

But the pungent smell of roasting garlic laced with the sweet herbaceous accent of summer savory and oregano, in stark contrast to the hearty tones of cumin and coriander, made me forget my woes and sorrows. Just so heavenly. And add to that the citrus zing of the tomatillos, the slight punch of the jalapenos, the refreshing and subtle perfume of cilantro. And let’s not forget those irresistible plump chewy nuggets of hominy…. We where in for a major treat!


But now, what do Greek Gods with their mazes and labyrinths, Tex-Mex White Turkey Chili, Latvian mittens, the knitting goddess and football have in common? Hell, how could I know!? I’m the one who got lost in Deadalus labyrinth, without Ariadne’s thread, because my knitting gear has been stashed away for the past 6 days!