Adapting

 

I am not really back to work yet. I am doing some work , writing and reading but on purpose only 50%. As D is away (really working, doing an experiment in France), S is visiting friends about 400 km from here, I am alone with M at home. So I do bits and pieces but not yet full scheduled work. And that feels just fine. August and September will be very very busy (4 conferences, two of which I am partly involved with organisation), so a bit of an easy period is just good. But it also gives me some time to do a bit of knitting and a bit of fiddling around. I finished Umeko (japanese for plum blossom) and it is a good small easy to pull on cardigan. According to M it is very soft, it is, lovely soft. I am still thinking of attaching some I-cords to it to have a fastener, but for now I think it is fine.

Since I am not full speed with work I also started some other biggish project. S is really into COS-play these days. She can plan months in advance, tinker with shirts and getting me to make "Dave Strider" capes. So while in Japan she said one day, could you knit a cotton Dr. Watson sweater… It shouldn't be exactly like the Dr Watson one, but just a nice sweater with cables like that in that  colour and in cotton. So yes I do like to knit for good recipients (S does wear her sweaters a lot) and a cable sweater is a nice thing to make. So I checked out Dr. Watson sweater and an adaptation on Ravelry and I am now doing my own version:

Here the cables are symmetric, some different motives at the side and it will have set-in sleeves. I do like set-in sleeves so much more, I just cannot make a drop shoulder sweater anymore it seems….

 

Edgings

Just before leaving on holiday, I had a quick look through my stash in order to have a second easy piece of knitting with me in case I finished Brise early. My intention was to knit a Wispy cardigan for M as a kind of easy project and a good layering cardigan for her. I found some unmarked heavy lace yarn that I knew came from Posh yarns and I thought well this might be good. But while I was travelling I got doubts (mainly over the amount of yarn I did have and whether it would be enough) so I changed my plans. Well it was also prompted by some purchases I did while I was away...

I was very restrained and only bought a little bit of yarn while away, but I did get some Japanese knitting books. I do love these books, there are beautiful projects in there and with a bit of deciphering one can make them too! They are also much cheaper to buy there then trying to get them on the internet. So I could not resist and I have spent some happy time browsing through these books at bookshops and alike. The one that gave me the idea of doing something else than Wispy was a book on Lace knitting:

This is mainly a stitch pattern book, with some projects. I think it is a combination of some stitch patterns from 3 "European" books on lace knitting, one Danish and two Latvian sources, and there are some really nice patterns in there. It is a bit focused on "edgings" which makes it a bit different. And that gave me the idea to make the cardigan such that it could have nice knitted on edgings at the front. I first thought of using a pink yarn for the edging but as the left-over TML I had proved to be too heavy I used some lace weight Prairie instead. Quite a number of the clothes I did see in Japan did have these kind of lace edgings, so it seems to be an appropriate item to make :-)

Brise was a breeze

 

As we did travel a lot in Japan, I did have some time for serious knitting while comfortably sitting on  Shinkansen trains. But I also wanted to enjoy the views from the window, so some easy knitting was required. For that reason a plain sailing stockinette item is the best. Brise fits all these requirements and as I do love linen cardigans, it was an easy choice. I almost completely followed the pattern as it is but linen can bias though and although I have used Sparrow before without problems in a stockinette item, I was slightly worried for the sleeves. I also know that knitting flat (with the alternating knit and purl rows) helps at least me, to counteract bias. So I knitted the sleeves flat as well and seamed them later on. result, no biasing and a nice flowing cardigan.....

 

Digesting

I am back home, jet legging…. So a short post (at least text wise) since it is hard to really write something clever on a day like this. I am also still getting all the impressions in line, we did travel a lot and did see a lot after all. So I just will post some pictures of places we've been and things e've been doing…. (in a very random way).