Moth Heaven

How Often Does This Happen Around Here These Days?

Finally, after messing around in things I shouldn't have been messing around In (also known as math) I refined the collar problem I suffered at my own making, and have triumphed in the finishing of Paula:

The Mister is off scavenging at the last Flea Market of the year, so the Mannequin will have to serve as my model for now. Care to take a closer look at the collar?

I've so many irons in the fire needles in the yarn — knitting wise — but I've cast on for a party sweater that must be done by the 11th of December.  I'm knitting Pas de Valse by Marnie MacLean in this delicious little sparkly yarn I found at Stitches: Dream in Color, Stardust., color, Marooned.

I read through the pattern last night and had about two inches on the needles by lunch today.  It's a sea of stockinette, but I bet it will fly by, once I get into it for real. It's a deadline I must keep, so if you'll pardon me, I have some knitting to do.

Another Day, Another Collar

I should know better by now, having served as one of the midwives for almost 100 Twist patterns, than to second guess Fiona Ellis. I've spent my whole life second guessing and recalculating patterns, and I will continue to do so when I'm modifying, but I should trust Fiona and Sandi Rosner (the Twist technical editor) to write a pattern that actually delivers the sweater as it is pictured.

I finished the body pieces for Paula when I decided that I wanted to have the turtleneck maybe be a little more generous than as written. Plus, the finished opening looked huge, and I couldn't imagine picking so few stitches as the pattern suggested to get this result, so I used the pickup numbers for the next size up.

I was insecure about the collar while knitting it because of the stockinette portion which I feared wouldn't support the cable, and I worried I would have to rip the whole thing out eventually because it was doomed to collapse under its own weight.  So I added extra cabling rows to make up for that, and lengthened the chart so I would have more collar to cover the joining row, just because. When I cast off this morning, it looked like this.

 

Looks fine, doesn't it?  However, it sits poorly, and the edge of the collar curls up  because (get this) it's. too. long.  Everything I feared about the collar was all for naught, and if I had just trusted Fiona and Sandi in the first place and knit it as I was told, I would be wearing the sweater by now.

So I'm ripping.  And next time, I'll listen.

Mimico Polyvore Collage

I spent most of my knitting tme last night playing around instead with a site I just found.  Polyvore is like paper dolls for the internet age: you grab images, or use ones they have already, and make collages. Once I jiggered around with it a little yesterday, I figured out how to add Twist images to the stewpot.

Mimico Vest by Barbara Gregory by juliafc

so I'm trying this out to preview what it looks like, and if it will fly as a tool for some future Twist blog post. And boy, can I waste a lot of time playing around with this one. If you don't hear from me for a week, send a rescue party. Thanks.

Wardrobe Functions

More outfits I want to knit for.

A simple (but not too simple) oatmeal coloured cardigan (like maybe Audrey in Unst by Gudrun Johnson) to go with menswear trousers (image from Cabbages and Roses).

Elsewhere on the same site, I love the stripes in this cardigan, but I especially love the candy buttons on the tweed blazer that pick up the colours. Must find a jacket I can do this to.

This great scarf, with stripes. Mine will be in green and gray with the black and white. I forget where this came from, but I've had it in my favorites file for about  a year now, still burning bright in my want-to-knit list.

 

Meanwhile, I can't help but be seized with gratitude when Scott Schuman photographs girls who aren't leggy models in stiletto heels, girls more like me yet who have great style (it's rare, but worth waiting around for).  I borrowed this shot from The Sartorialist in the spring, thinking about the Chanel jacket on this woman, Violaine.  I love everything about what she's wearing, all of it already in my closet, except for that jacket.  I think of Teva Durham's Tartan Jacket as a possible solution, or at least, the woven stitch she used in it.

 

But I am conflicted, because I have an unnatural interest in Cowichan sweaters lately.
I'm seeing their influence show up here and there (like these designs by Jared Flood or Mary Jane Mucklestone) , but I haven't seen the one for me quite yet. This blanket comes closer than anything else I've seen, but that would mean math stands between me and the sweater (or one sweater) of my dreams.

 

(image from Soko Magazine)

That's just some of the things keeping me up at night.