Well, that year got busy.

While I was forgetting to post, I...

... made some cards.

[top: Valentine for my best friend, bottom: birthday card for a friend] 

... made some scarves.

Fragile Heart in Malabrigo Superwash Lace

Ravelry pattern page

Ravelry project page

Malabrigo Superwash lace is the loveliest thing in the world.

Heartbreak in Hedgehog Sock (pink and navy) and Auracania Lace (turquoise)

Ravelry Pattern page

Ravelry project page

My sister-in-law has moved back to San Francisco from the wintry wilds of New York, so I can make her non-Wintry presents.

... went to Glendalough.

... went to California for my brother's wedding.

... submitted my Master's thesis.

It's a page-turner.

... posted to this other blog.

I let myself get subsumed by thesis for the last few months, and haven't really been making. I'm trying to remember what I like doing. I want to get back to knitting, drawing, and running around outside. I don't know if I'll delete this or not - if I haven't posted in a month, I think I will.

Up all night to get Loki

One of my jobs had a KAL of Vera Valimaki's Colour Affection. I had just seen Thor 2, and god damn I love a good villain*, and what better way to show that than through a scarf-based reference that only I will understand? Loki and I apparently favour similar colour schemes, too, so that was also a plus.

The green is Malabrigo Arroyo in Vaa, the grey is Louisa Harding Orielle, the black is Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino. I knit it on 4mm needles, finished it, and realised it was impractically gigantic (and that was the small size). I found the masochism to rip it out, halved the number of all the section repeats, and was a lot happier with the end result (though i could have saved quite a lot on yarn if I'd known I was going to do that.)

I worked on this while I went to visit my best friend in New York in January. (I thought I would have something to knit on the plane, but then was too much of a chicken to risk taking the knitting needles on board and having them taken away.) One evening we were hanging out with her friends in the common room, me knitting and her solving a Rubix cube as we sat on the couch at the end of the room. One of her friends' friends was a film student, and commented on the fact that both of being casually engaged in activities as we talked made it look like we were in a film - characters flatly delivering dialogue is dull, so you want to have them doing something else, as people often are. I hadn't consciously noticed that before on-sceen, and now I can't not.

What I can also take from that is that my natural behaviour comes off as artifice contrived  to appear natural.

* I actually preferred the treatment of Loki in Thor and Avengers to Thor 2. A lot of the character's strength came from the fact that the role was written a little flat, and given a great deal of depth by Tom Hiddleston. It seemed like the writers of Thor 2 picked up on what fans liked about the nuances of his performance, and then wrote it all in explicitly. I found it a bit heavy-handed. Still a fun silly film, though.

Octobirthday presents.

Like... presents for birthdays happening in October, not eight birthdays, or a birthday shared by eight people. You know a joke is hilarious when you have to explain it.

K-9! He doesn't quite balance, but he is supported by his associated on the shelf of things I have made for my boyfriend. Remember the time Giles was in Doctor Who? That was a good episode, even if Giles was not employed to best use. I used this pattern and Cygnet Chunky.

A neckwarmer for my friend Steph, who has emigrated to what will soon be the frozen wasteland of upstate New York. I used this pattern, casting on 49 rather than 63 stitches, and with an extra repeat, so it can be snug and long enough to meet the brim of a hat. It's a simple pattern, but I like it a good deal. I'd also been dying for a chance to use the yarn (Debbie Bliss Paloma) and it's so soft and squishy and lovely. I am selfish in what I choose to make and use, but I also hand-make things with love, so I feel I net at "neutral" in my gift-giving consideration.

I know I always say "Maybe I will make one of these for myself!" but the way it sits and the length my hair was when I made it put me in mind of Sheik from Ocarina of Time, who has a place in my heart, and Hallowe'en is coming... so maybe I will make one of these for myself!

My little brother loved the bobble hat I made him last year, so much that it disintegrated. I made him this replacement for his birthday on Thursday. (He also loved the Enterprise.) The pattern is Bobblehead Ray, which is about the nicest simple bobble hat pattern I've found.

More to follow, as October is disproprtionately full of birthdays.

Myself and a friend have started a knitting and crochet group in the asylum seekers' centre where we volunteer, so I am scouring Ravelry for projects interesting enough to stick with, but simple enough for beginners. Exciting times!

FO: Bowtie

A friend of mine requested a knitted bow-tie a shameful length of time ago, but it is surprisingly hard to find bow-tie clips for a reasonably price. A few weeks ago I picked some up from Maple Street Market's Etsy, and they are great and she wrote a nice note on my receipt!

If I  had a tux shirt this photo would look dapper as anything, instead of clumsy and scruffy.

The bow-tie is knit with leftover Debbie Bliss Rialto DK on 3.75 needles, and I super-glued it to the clip. Simple!

In other news, I ran the Rock and Roll Half Marathon today, because I really like free t-shirts. It took me longer than it takes some people to run marathons, and I would have been faster walking at my usual pace, but I ran the whole thing!

This week I...

... went to a Social Sketch meetup! I wasn't sure if everyone else would be drawing from memory, or if we were meant to be drawing other people in the pub (which I wouldn't be up for, they are not there for staring at), so I brought my little carved tree spirit to have something unobtrusive to draw. I was happy enough with some of the drawings, though handing around sketch pads at the end made me want to crawl into a hole. I wanted to look at other people's though, so it would have been unsporting not to though mine onto the pile, though I couldn't refrain from pointing out that I had only restarted drawing again three weeks ago, after five years of next to nothing.

I have a knee-jerk aversion to the word 'sketch'. When I was in fifth year, my art teacher told the class that from now on, nothing we did would be a 'sketch'. Sketches are rough, incomplete, not a full piece in themselves, and if that is the mindset with which you're approaching your work, you're not putting in the effort which will make you better. From now on, we would only draw. While I've drawn very irregularly since then, I've held onto that lesson. I draw roughly, lazily, badly, but I don't sketch.

... drew some other things with which I was varying degrees of happy! These were on the middle to upper end of the scale.

Reference was this illustration, but a decent-sized version in a book.

"It's what people do, isn't  it? Leave a note?"
Reference

Reference

 ... made Oreo truffles from this recipe! I can make tasty food, but I cannot make pretty food, and while looks aren't everything, I see something like this and feel shoddy by comparison. (I want nothing like I want to friendship-court that person.) On the plus side, they were delicious.

... took part in the Colour Dash! (More great photos here.) I had been under the impression that we'd be running through a constant barrage of paint dust, but I suppose in retrospect that would be terrible for people's breathing. There was a paint-throwing station at the 500m mark of each kilometre. (The figure I heard floating around as to the amount of paint was nine hundred tonnes, so perhaps my way was logistically impractical as well as unsafe.) It was only five kilometres, but I was trying to match pace with my far more athletic sister for the first two and a half, and even though she slowed down on my behalf my legs are feeling it today! The photos don't really convey the full extent of the colourful paintiness.

 ... finished another pair of Ailbhe gloves! This pair are in a DK yarn rather than aran, so the fabric isn't so stiff, with a seersucker stitch pattern.

... saw Dylan Moran at the Comedy Festival in the Iveagh Gardens! Life goal accomplished, though I'd still love to see him perform a full set. By the time the opening act had been on for a minute I was cringing inwardly and knotting my hands around each other in sympathetic embarrassment (Also, if your shtick or sense of humour revolves around making fun of people who aren't you, I don't trust you. If you think jokes about driving while high are a big lol, ha ha ha you might hit someone or injure them for life and that's so edgy), but by the time Dylan Moran had been on for a minute my face hurt from laughing. It was all new material as well, and really top-notch.

"The truth is, we are all going to die. We are all going to die. And people hate when you say that. Especially if you say it during sex."

... started my October birthday knitting! Will this be the year I'm finally organised for all of the gift-giving occasions in the latter quarter of the year? Hahaha no, Jen, that was a stupid question. But a girl can hope!

A productive week, all told!

FO Friday: Custom gloves

A friend of mine doesn't have full fingers on her right hand, so she asked me to make a set of gloves with one fingerless glove and one shortened mitten.

I used Rico Essentials Soft Merino Aran on 2.75 needles, so while the fabric is very cosy, it doesn't have a great deal of give. I'll err on the side of bigger needles or finer yarn in future.

I borrowed the cable pattern from Spruce Tree Mittens, and I think it looks quite well. I wanted something which would suit both the gloves and the mitten, which effectively limited my choices to simple cable designs.

It's always a little disappointing to finish a project in what feels like the wrong season - we've had whole days of Summer in the last week - but when I started them less than a fortnight ago it was still scarf weather, and probably will be again within the week. I finished reading The Witches of Eastwick yesterday (I realised too far in that I wasn't really enjoying it, and then had to finish it), and there's an exchange where two characters are trying to work out whether another character's paleness means she's sick. One of them says something like, "But it's May, everyone should have a little colour by now," and ahahaha, hahaha, hahahahaha. Aha. Heh. Imagine living in a place where you know day-to-day whether you will need Summer or Winter clothes. Fiction certainly transports one to fantastic realms.

The Yarn That Would Not Become a Jumper: Volume IV

This is a gripe about a specific project, and probably not interesting to people who aren't me.

Third time around, I finally turned this yarn into a jumper. I had to buy an extra ball of yarn to finish the sleeve, and didn't have enough to do hemming around the neck, but it was finished.

But.

I like jumpers to be slightly oversized, but my efforts at sizing my own clothes that way always come out larger than intended. It's possible I should enlist someone else's help in measuring myself, or at least look in the mirror to see that I'm holding the tape measure in a straight line.

I finished the jumper, and while the body is comfy, the sleeves were too baggy. For aesthetics they were only a bit too big, and I would have left it but for the fact that I wouldn't be able to wear trailing sleeves in a lab, and given the time that I've put into it, it seems silly to only be able to wear it on weekends. And it's a raglan-sleeve jumper (which is lovely and straightforward! Who knew?), which meant undoing the sleeves meant going right back to the start.

What is up with my fingers? The gods themselves, they do not know.

So my evening of rewatching Sherlock while finishing the jumper as it rained outside did not go to plan. I ended up with a bag of yarn, again,  instead of a jumper, and my heart hurt because John thinks that Sherlock is dead, and it was raining. Apparently I'm a masochist, but I was also raised Catholic, so in practise I just do conventionally unpleasant things, and the resulting joy and shame cancel each other out and I feel neutral about the whole thing.

On the positive side, for a generous definition of 'positive', I'm going to Sunshine House in a few weeks, so I can bring that down as my night-time project.

In progress

I have a few bits and pieces ongoing at the moment.

I stopped by This Is Knit's sale with a friend (I think it's fair that I don't have to be Not Buying Yarn if there's a sale on) and he bought this Debbie Bliss Winter Garden for me to make him a hat. I'm using the Hat Fit For A Fella pattern (Ravelry pattern page here), which I've made before, removing the brim and using my modification from the last time I made it. The cables have eaten the yarn and I still have a few inches to go, so while I've been failing to go back in and get some more, I've started working on...

a jumper! I bought this yarn (Debbie Bliss cotton, I do like cotton) as an end-of finals-present to myself last year, started this tunic (Ravelry pattern page here), realised half-way through that it was the wrong sized and ripped it out, re-started it, realised half-way through that it was the wrong size and ripped it out, and then left all the yarn in a bag until now, unable to bring myself to touch it. I think it was a good move, as a third failed attempt would have bred supervillainy-inducing levels of frustration and resentment, and that would be a very underwhelming origin story.

In the year's interim I went off the pattern - or at least how it would look in this shade - and decide to make this v-neck instead. I think I'll get more wear out of it than I would the tunic.

It's top-down and has raglan sleeves, both of which are new to me in a jumper, and I've already had to restart once because "At the same time" is my enemy. I like how it's turning out, and now I don't feel guilty for having the bag of yarn sitting in the corner of my room, silently judging me.

I spent Saturday and Sunday hiking some forty kilometres of the Wicklow Way with some members of my volunteer group. It's easy to forget, especially living in Dublin, that Ireland is quite breathtakingly stunning, despite the national pastime of complaining about Ireland.

The second photo is of Powerscourt Waterfall from a height and distance, and the last one is of Glendalough valley. When we were walking across the planks in the fourth picture, the wind was so strong and the hill so exposed that I had to lean into the wind to end up somewhat vertical, and still nearly got blown off into the bog a few times. (You might think bogs are for low-lying flat land, not the top of hills, but you would be wrong.) We got very lucky with the weather, and I got sunburned wearing the one racerback top I own, because of course I did. It's not Summer until I have uneven tan-lines.

I'm currently a a tech volunteer for the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival. So far this has meant moving props between shows, but they were important props. I've sat in on two plays so far, because I am the kind of very cultured and important person who sees two plays a week - premieres, no less. Bash: Latterday Plays is very intense, dark, harrowing and excellent. My Second Self is awfully sweet, quietly hopeful, and funnier than I was expecting. The program changes next week, so I'd recommend either or both if you're in Dublin this week!