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.

FO Friday: Gloves and triangle scarf

I found a mystery-purpose ball of Lamb's Pride Nature Spun fingering weight in my stash - I think I bought it for a commission, settled on a different yarn, and lost the receipt - so I made gloves. There is probably a more efficient way of clearing space than "turn ball of yarn into a garment, have garment take up space in a different bag until purchased", but it is apparently how I roll.

I got the stitch pattern from a book, and I like it an awful lot. On green yarn it looks like vines. The yarn is pure wool, so despite the weight it's the warmest thing ever. It's also more radioactive looking in real life. What's not to like?

I made the Blogathon Lace Triangle Scarf (Ravelry Page here) as a birthday present for my sister. (Her birthday is in June, so I'm doing well with being disgustingly organised for crafts this year.) It's a very nice pattern, which would work for just about any weight yarn. I bought this Louisa Harding Ondine before Christmas with a view to making her gloves, and made a failed start, but then she asked for different gloves which the yarn wouldn't suit. Oh Ondine gloves, you were so beautiful.

Speaking of the fact that there is a dinosaur on my shirt in that photo, I visit an asylum seekers' centre every week, and we bring arts and crafts supplies for the kids who live there. Yesterday I drew a dinosaur for one of them to colour in, which meant that the others wanted dinosaurs too. Another volunteer taught them to trace the existing dinosaurs onto new pages, which rapidly accelerated the rate of dinosaur production. Then they decided to Sellotape them together to make a dinosaur train, which, by the time we left, was twelve dinosaurs long. It's so satisfying to be shaping young minds.

"I'm looking for someone to share in an adventure."

When there's pretty knitwear in a film, I like to try to work out the construction of it. It's like the opposite of my "But that's not even what DNA analysis -! And evolution doesn't mean -! And you can't -!" knee-jerk, or every scene with computers for programmers, I imagine.

Gandalf's gloves were the easiest-glimpsed knit in The Hobbit! When I went to see it with my family, my mum asked me during the film if I could make them, and my brother said afterwards that he noticed Gandalf's gloves looked like there were made by me. My mum also asked whether the villains in a particular scene were goblins or orcs. She tries.

So I made Gandalf gloves out of leftover yarn! The first time I saw it I thought they were garter stitch, but on second watching I think they were reverse stockinette, so I knit them as such.

They're by no means a perfect replica. They're too dark a grey, but this was what I had (Debbie Bliss Rialto, on 4.5mm needles), and I wanted to make it into something I would get excited over. I also added a little ribbing at the top, to avoid stockinette curl. (I assume no stockinette curl means either machine knitting or a million hours of blocking. It would be awfully sad if Gandalf had no-one to hand-knit for him. :( ) But they were a simple thing that makes me happy in a silly, nerdy way to have made them, and I assume that I now get to be friends with both Gandalf and Sir Ian McKellen.*

Gandalf would have loved crosswords, I assume! (Tangent: I miss Crosaire. I wish they'd recycle his old crosswords. Crossheir has a lot more "Well, I guess it has to be ___. I can kind of see how that makes sense." than "Ohhh, that's clever!" I'm sure he's a lovely person, and he has big boots to fill, and I certainly couldn't write a clever crossword, but Crosaire 4 lyf.)

Other Hobbit-related things:

• When I was younger, I assumed that anything that could plausibly be natural (beards, hair) was. (I thought Christopher Lee grew his hair for years to play Saruman, for example.) If I still believed this, James Nesbitt would probably be my favourite person  in the world. His moustache even matches his hat! (He also had some cosy-looking seed stitch gloves that will float around the back of my mind until suitable yarn presents itself, and maybe Oin's diamond-patterned ones, and I have oddly specific problems.)

• This sequence makes my heart smile. I've never minded having a bad singing voice, but now I think perhaps I should work on it, in preparation for being whisked away on an adventure.

*Can the Queen call on the likes of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart to fight as knights in a battle? That would be the best battle.

Christmas holiday knitting

Not knowing what to do with myself with my Christmas knitting finished, I became briefly fixated on wanting to clear out yarn, or at least turn skeins of yarn into things that weren't skeins, so these came out of it!

A simple ribbed bobble hat. I made two to use up this yarn, and then crocheted a few squares for the Henry Bear Blanketeers with the leftovers. I don't know why I look so sad in the last photo, I think my face just defaults to 'sad' when it's not responding to a particular emotion.

I wanted to use up my decadent graduation yarn, but it was only 110 yards, so that was quite limiting. I didn't manage to take a photo that shows the colour and sheen of the yarn in real life, but you can take my word for it that it's nice yarn. I like this pattern - Swirling Petals Cowl - but I'm not sure that I like the length of it on me, or that the pattern suits the yarn. It also turned my fingers green while I was knitting, so if it does the same to my neck I'll look a bit gangrenous. It may end up frogged and made into something else.

My sister's Christmas gloves, which were blocking last time I posted. I'm really happy with how they turned out - muted colours and cables always strike me as looking very grown-up, and as she's training to be a teacher I thought they might be a bit more fitting than the ones I had planned to make for her, which weren't working out due to yarn weight. Vancouver Fog is a lovely pattern, and I used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran.

Fourth Doctor gloves! I've wanted to make these for a while - not for myself, just to have made - and I really like how they turned out. I based it roughly off the Doctor Who Scarf Pattern, keeping the proportions of colours similar, and changing it around when a colour was appearing to much within the block I was working from. These are mostly acrylic, and they're lovely and warm. Weaving in all the ends was a pain in the face, though.

Speaking of Doctor Who, my friend Steph gave me this shirt for Christmas

and got my Doctor right despite not watching the show. If that's not true friendship I don't know what is. (Tennant 4 lyf. You never forget you first Doctor and all, but mainly it's the kindness and joy that makes him so endearing. I agree with the point that he's probably too human for the Doctor, but I also don't care. Also, David Tennant is adorable, and that accent, and that bone structure.)

I don't have space at the moment  to work on my 2013 projects, but I've accrued a few commission in the last few days which will keep me busy. I said to myself that I wouldn't buy more yarn until I had used up at least a third of what I already have, but I don't have the appropriate weights and colours. I don't know why I stay with me after all the lies.

FOs: Christmas knitting edition!

I have finished all my Christmas knitting! I even had time to knit an extra scarf today for a family friend.

This hat was commissioned as a tribute to a hat my friend's boyfriend lost.  The only requirement was that it have a stripe of a highlighter-esque shade of green at the bottom.

It looks more yellow here than it does in real life, but it's reasonably garish anyway. I used Rico Essentials Merino Aran for the black, and some James C. Brett Supreme Baby DK for the green stripes. U have a lot of almost-neon green yarn to use up.

I had intended to make this scarf for my brother, but the stitch was coming out quite lacy for me. I'm a little disappointed, as I think it's a really beautiful pattern, but instead I knit rib 2x2 rib scarf, using the Fibonacci sequence for the striping.  It's knit with Debbie Bliss Rialto Chunky.

I didn't want to carry the yarn up the side in case it was obvious, so I cut the yarn at the end of each stripe, and joined a new strand for each new one, and sewed in all the resulting yarn tails, because clearly I hate myself.

 This isn't a great photo of me or of the scarf, but look at the tree!

Another commission! I went to visit my brother and a friend in England two weeks ago, and I thought I would get a respectable chunk of them finished on the four-hour train journey between them, but I accidently read my book for about three hours of it. I queued this pattern (Ravelry page here) a while ago, and had been looking for occasion to make it. A friend asked me to make a pair of teal fingerless gloves for her mother for Christmas, so I got to use it! It's a bit strangely written, but easy to follow, and I think they're beautiful. The pattern suggested using 4mm needles, but with my tension that would have resulted in them being far too loose, so I used 2.75mm. They don't have a lot of give in them as a result - they take a little wiggling to get into - but they're very cosy. I have another pair in pink blocking on the windowsill to give to my sister tomorrow.

My aunt asked me to make a scarf to match a pair of Willow Tweed gloves she gave to her daughter-in-law a few weeks ago. I couldn't get the same yarn, but I used the same stitch pattern and I'm happy enough with how it came out. 

I can't help taking it personally when people complain that Christmas is materialistic and shallow. I'm definitely guilty of buying a lot of materials in the run-up to Christmas, and then I spend hours of time planning and working and staying up until three in the morning knitting complicated patterns on tiny needles because I want to create something for my loved ones which will make them happy. There's no reason I can't do this any other time of the year, but Christmas is a time at which it's acceptable to make grand gestures without making people feel uncomfortable, and for me, being given something which someone has put hours of work into is a pretty grand gesture, even if it's work they enjoy. As for shallow, bet the people making that complaint don't even create. So.

That pet peeve aside, I find Christmas to be a very lovely and fuzzy time of year, and I hope anyone reading this has a great one.

FO Friday: Moone Boy hat, owl gloves, and a scarf

My favourite part of working for free is that they don't expect me to come in if there's nothing to do. I had a day off on Tuesday, so I got a commission started and finished while watching David Attenborough documentaries. A girl in the year below me in my department had asked me to make a hat for her boyfriend like the one the kid in Moone Boy wears. I couldn't find a pattern, so I kept this picture open to peer at and worked away. (Image is from this page.)

The bobble may be too big. It was hard to get no glare off it.

I used Katia Big Merino on 6mm needles for this. I could have made a more accurate hat with slightly finer yarn, but that wouldn't have been as warm, and also, ain't no-one got time for that much fair isle.

Sure it's a nice Christmassy hat, if nothing else. I haven't given it to her yet, so hopefully they both like it!

I can also post my last October birthday knit, since it's been unwrapped! I made a pair of Owlings gloves for a friend who's inexplicably enthusiastic about owls. I really like the subtlety of the pattern. (When I made it it was still free - given the reasons listed for it now being charged for, I'm not sure if I should donate. It was beautiful and I got use out of it!)

I knit these with Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton, as their person is vegan. (I need to stop getting close enough to people with wool aversions that they merited knitted gifts.) It took less than one skein to make the pair, and I knit them larger than the pattern recommended to fit man-hands.

A close-up of the owls. Hey, remember when there was sunshine and vegetation could grow?

I made this neckwarmer yesterday during my downtime at work and when I got home, to sell at a craft fair at the end of this month. I made my first trip to The Constant Knitter on Monday - one of them women recognised me by the scarf I was wearing, as we'd had a conversation about the yarn at the Knitting and Stitching Show the day before! - and bough a skein of King Cole Riot because I liked the colours and wanted to see how it knits and I'll hopefully be selling it at the end of the month anyway and it doesn't count as part of a stash and DON'T LOOK AT ME.

I'm getting a bit wary of how much Christmas knitting I have left to do, but it'll be grand so it will.

I had a productive weekend!

I graduated, and got to wear a wizard's robe all morning!  So now I'm a real zoologist!

 

I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show in the RDS! My brother was visiting and I had to catch up with friends who were back in Dublin for the weekend, so I was pleasantly strapped for time, but I've missed it every other year and was determined to go. I got there less than an hour and half before it was due to finish up (I thought I had another half hour!), so I had to zoom around and didn't see everything as well as I would have liked to. Didn't leave empty-handed though!

I don't know what the two fabrics on top will become - they both feel a bit lightweight for a skirt - but one of the stalls had a bag made out of the atlas material which looked gorgeous, so one of them will be earmarked for that eventually. This is why samples are a good  marketing strategy - I wouldn't have looked twice at that pattern if I saw it in a book. The pattern and fabrics were both from Fabrics Galore, I think. The yarn is from some very nice British men, the name of whose shop I can't remember. It's 100% silk, and a warmer turquoise than the photo shows up. I have a rule about not buying yarn unless I have a specific project in mind, but I might never see that make and shop again, and I graduated, I deserve a treat! (See also: "But it's on sale, this might be my last chance to get it," "But I sold a lot at a craft fair, I should get some nice yarn for myself", "But it's my first pay-cheque from this job, I should get something decadent," "But I just got my results," "But I just finished exams," and when I say I don't know how I have so much yarn, feel free to call me a liar.)

I finished the first of my sister's Christmas gloves! I'm using the Amy gloves pattern, knit with some Louisa Harding Ondine I bought on sale. It's probably slightly too heavy a yarn, but I had already bought it with a view to making her gloves for Christmas when she asked if I would make her a pair of gloves like these for Christmas, and it is too perfect not to use for her present. I wouldn't be concerned about the weight of the yarn only I don't know whether she wanted the gloves to have the same pattern, or be similarly snug. I made mine quite snug so that I can wear them to knit without my needles snagging, but I have child-hands, and she has normal-sized hands, so it seems like gloves which are small on me would be impractical on her. I'm worried they'll grow with blocking, but the yarn is 100% cotton, so hopefully I'll be able to shrink them in a hot wash if needs be.

I've signed up to sell at a Christmas craft fair in college (I didn't quite get around to leaving, I'm volunteering in a lab in the college where I did my undergraduate degree, though it's a different department at least) at the end of this month. After these gloves, the only Christmas knits I have left to make are toys, and they are a bit too finicky to knit on public transport or on lunch breaks, so I should have time to build up a solid stock. Now that Hallowe'en is over, I don't feel bad about feeling pre-emptively Christmassy anymore.