Watsonesque

 

As Joan proves in Elementary, Watson can be female…. 

I am actually very pleased with this sweater. The cables pop, the fit is good and S is very very pleased with it. It was fun to knit too and the cotton I used was a nice find. It is Tahki classic cotton, I do think I will use it again some day, since it was nice to knit with and it does have a good stitch definition. A good sweater for the Autumn… I didn't make any notes though…I do feel that this one is really a modified sweater and not my "own" so to speak, so I never took real notes. Not that I have time for pattern writing these days anyways….

 

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).

 

Happy

Gabriela is finished, finally. And I am happy, it is a real good fit and goes well with loads of different clothes. S is happy as well, well not so much showing in the project photos but not on film she is…. It is exactly the kind of thing she likes to wear these days, and it really did make some interesting knitting.  Now it is packed away as we are leaving on holidays tomorrow. Last year we basically didn't do a summer holiday, the year before we were in Madrid but that was  because of combining work & some kind of holiday, the year before that we did family visits… so somehow we felt that going away for a real vacation was the right thing to do this year. We were lucky since we found some cheap tickets and I did some extra work (another reason why I don't post that much these days), so we are going far away and for a splash…. I feel somewhat decadent to write this but we will go to Japan on Tuesday… Looking really forward to it too….

 

And that big cat, he is almost always happy. As cats go, he is not the brightest of them (in fat he seems to have some wiring loose), but he is oh so happy and he loves to be carried. And really who can resist that….. And he loves the woman who will look after him and the others while we are away… which is a relief too…. to have that bit in reliable hands….

Buttons, buttons

 

Very slowly I have been knitting Gabriela the last month. I don't know why certain projects take so much time, but this one sure did. It might be  the 4-ply cotton, the small cables or the lace ladders that did it, or just everything added up…. But now I can seam, and make a choice about buttons. I have a nice stash of buttons and mu choice if as follows:

 

Small metal buttons with some black patterning., white shank buttons with a triangular pattern or grey shiny shank buttons….

 

I do like in general shank buttons as I think they can be so very neat. They also have this vintage feel to them. However in this case, I do think the metal buttons will be it, they are just too cute….