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I've been away since just after the Cookie A sock design workshop, which I will write about in more detail in the week, but for the moment, a few photos to let you know where I've been.
A different kind of preparation. I love OS maps.
The bank of hillside cottages, all of Cumbrian slate. You don't want to know what the narrow, winding, steep and rock-walled path up to here was like. I think the car is still slightly scared.
And I've not been idle.
I know I've mentioned somewhere before that I'm an academic at heart. I'm rubbish at being at actual academic, but I love nothing more than finding out more about, well, more. So, needless to say that when Alice told me that the fantastically talented Cookie A will be having sock design workshops at Socktopus, I tweaked all my plans for my holiday next week so that I could attend.
And so:
Stitchionary with chosen design motif: Check.
Lined notebook: Check.
Smaller, squared-lined notebook: Check.
Tin of knitting tricks: Check.
Needles of choice (2.5mm 80cm): Check.
Sock yarn (Dream in Color Smooshy in Virtual Purple): Check.
I might throw in my DPNs, but I don't think I'll need them. Might bring them anyway.Oh, and find a proper big pad of graph paper, like I used in school.
I chose the yarn based on a couple of things. I knew I was going for cabling, so I wanted a gently variegated yarn that won't interfere with the pattern too much. Also, after my attempts with the sock club's Fiori di Zucca socks several months back, I knew that this yarn would hold up well to repeated ripping, which I'm sure will happen.
And crazily enough, the knitting academia doesn't end there.
June will see me at Jared Flood's Plan Your Own Aran workshop, also at Socktopus. I wasn't going to go, but Nathalie and Michelle had signed up and they were so happy and excited that I thought it'd be fun to go and learn with them. I promised Nick he might get a jumper next year for Christmas out of it...
And then September I'll be sitting in the Yarnissima sock design workshop - toe up, this time - at the I Knit Weekender
Am I going to grow up to be a sock designer? I don't know. I mean, I did Film Studies and Mark Kermode still won't give me his job, so nothing's ever said and done. But I will have armed myself with tons and tons of ideas and the ways and means to execute said ideas.
People often ask for classes that teach you to make specific things. People often also limit themselves in what they can do because they claim to not know any other way. People sometimes also simply refuse to learn.
All of these things make me really quite nuts, sometimes, because I don't understand them. I don't understand why you wouldn't want to learn anything new.
Give a knitter a pattern, some yarn and needles, and she will make socks. Give a knitter every technique under the sun and she will design them.
Or something. I wouldn't want fish anywhere near my yarn, if I'm honest....
If the name of the project is familiar to anyone, it's because this was the very first club sock offering from the Socktopus Sock Club in December 2007.
I've only just done them now. Yeah, I know.
What was really funny was that I was really, really wishing I'd made these when we had that fantastically cold winter. All I could think of was, "Goddammit, I should've knit those." Thus it was with odd ambition that I started these thinking they might still come in handy.
The sun that's bathing them, of course, proves the contrary.
Typical, really. But I guess what matters is that I've done them, and that means another badge earned for the soc club's first year. I've got another three pairs from last year to go, but I'm nearly done with the first sock from this year's first offering, so I may yet catch up.
Pattern: Karenina Socks by Jane Lithgow (Ravelry link)
Yarn: The Knittery 4-Ply Sock Merino/Cashmere in Karenina Purple and Gold
Needles: 2.5mm on 80cm cable
Sadly The Knittery is closing down, and there may not be any more of this yarn. It's really gorgeous on the feet, and the colours are very reminiscent of Christmas decorations, Fabergé gold-on-enamel. Luckily I have stashed some of this yarn, so I'll get to enjoy it for a while more.
The pattern is actually dead simple. I don't know why I didn't just knit the damned things when I received them because, really, I should have known better. The photos don't show the picot edges on the cuff, but they were simple enough. Knitted-in cuff? No problem. Slipped stitch pattern? Got it.
I mean, really. Sometimes, I am such a dope.
Another happy pair of socks on a pair of happy feet.
Well, maybe I'm lying a little bit about the happy feet.
Going by the rule of 'Three Out of Four Ain't Bad', three of us from Team Geek set off back to the South Downs yesterday morning to tackle 20km: from the starting point at the Queen Elizabeth Country Park to Check Point 2 (CP2) at Hilltop Farm. We got to CP1 at Harting Down in 2 hours (9.6km), and then took 2 hours and 50 minutes to get to CP2 (10.4km), which was pretty good going.
There was one big fuck-off hill in the way between CP1 and CP2. Beacon Hill rises to 242m (793ft) rapidly enough that some makeshift steps were carved into the side of it. There was a lot of swearing on my part. Initially convinced that I was going to be the 'grumpy old one' of the team, Chantelle and Mark diplomatically decreed that all I was doing was vocalizing the team's true feelings.
So if you ever hear an "Oh, FUCK" somewhere out in the Downs, that would be me, on behalf of my team.
We made very good time with our walking, and the weather was glorious, thus yielding spectacular views. I don't know if I've ever been so high up before. I'm sure when I remember how my legs work again and my arse stops hurting, I will appreciate how good it is to have such stunning countryside within my reach.
... is the accidental kind.
It is Red Nose Day 2009, and Alice decided that the funny thing to do for money was to have a bingo game with lots of knitterly prizes. So lots of people donated yarn and fibre and other goodies, and last night Alice and I parcelled them up into separate prizes, and soon we were off.
I'd never played a proper game of bingo before, so it was good fun for me. Alice had a list of all the bingo calls, and we all had a great time learning all of them so that we could get ahead somehow. I was not so brave and only had one bingo book, but most everyone else had two.
Let it be said that all those little old people in bingo halls are sharper than they seem. It was hard enough keeping up with one book; I hear tell some hardcore bingo ladies have anywhere between two and five books going at once. It is not for the faint-hearted.
At any rate, it came as a great surprise to me that I won the first round, and therefore the first prize that was up for grabs.
And when you see what it is, you will understand why thereafter, I was playing rather half-heartedly, because I really didn't feel like I needed to win anymore.
It is gorgeous, isn't it?
The label says it all.
I have always said that the only way I would ever get any of this stuff is if it were gifted to me. I am no good at camping out for updates with the vague hope of ensnaring such a prize. I always miss, I always lose.
Not this time.
And I did honestly spend the rest of the evening only vaguely putting the dabs on my book, vaguely making some attempt at winning - though to be honest, the thought of winning a dozen of Arianna's cupcakes nearly snapped me back into some form of competitiveness - while gazing lovingly at this incredible skein of yarn.
I have more stuff to write about, but I think I'll collect them together with a finished pair of socks. Yeah, you heard me. A finished pair of socks.
I'm going to go cuddle this yarn some more now.
... so do I.
Okay, well, not quite.
I spun up the above - Southern Cross Fibre Polwarth in Cairns - yesterday evening. I decided I really needed to make new yarn, and so I began.
This is exactly the stuff I got for the first installment of the Socktopus Fibre Academy aka SoFA, just in a different colour. I am loving this fibre. I've never spun polwarth before and it is lovely. I'm doing an odd sort of short forward draw; I say odd because it's now slightly informed by my lessons in long draw combined with my lessons in low-twist singles, so essentially, I'm short drawing forwards, but rollling/flicking the yarn instead of squeezing it, and letting twist get past my forward hand, and drawing my fibre hand back, all at once!
The result is perfect: a soft but light, strong single that is currently measuring at 24 wpi. There's a lot of boing in it, too, and I can't wait to spin the next bobbin and ply it up.
In the meantime I am half a foot - by that, I mean half the length of my foot - away from finishing my Karenina socks, after which I can happily get back to Lindsay's late birthday gift (I'm figuring, the yarn is half silk, half merino, so it's more of a spring item) and the Om Shanti socks. I know it doesn't seem like there's a lot of knitting happening, but there is.
Well, there was that one crocheted dishcloth. But we don't talk about that one.
I nicked this from Alice's blog. I think it's kinda cool.
| Your Word is "Think" |
 And sometimes you feel like you don't have enough time to take it all in. You love learning. Whether you're in school or not, you're probably immersed in several subjects right now. When you're not learning, you're busy reflecting. You think a lot about the people you know and the things you've experienced. |
Think. Ruminate. Contemplate. Reflect. I like all these words. It does encompass a lot of what I do. It's the reason why I can never read a book properly; I start thinking about the book. And then outside the book. And then I kinda forget about the book.
Back at uni I was considered a cavalier, mostly because I always handed in assignments within minutes of deadline, but also because I always had to compensate for the fact that I very often never got to finish the theoretical reading before seminars. So I had to think. I had to reflect. I had to work out what all of it meant in my own words so that I could either agree with whatever theories we were meant to be studying, challenge them, or just turn them on their heads.
Really, among the few proud moments of my life was the look on my senior lecturer's face when, to answer the question, "Why is the alien in Alien so frightening?" I had said:
"It's a giant bug."
Forget all the other theories; tell me you don't immediately find a weapon or jump for a chair when you see a bug in your immediate vicinity.
It's funny having to think about this now, at this moment, this very day, because I spent most of yesterday afternoon ensconced in the giant Waterstone's at Piccadilly Circus. A whole day surrounded by books. And I got so excited I could barely believe I was feeling the emotion.
The knitting sent me to the craft section. My photography work sent me to the photography section. My degree and love for film sent me to the film section. My recent walking sent me to the travel and map section. I wanted to write again and I bought a notebook in the stationery section. I scoped out books for Nick in the sci-fi/fantasy section. I looked for children's poetry in the children's section. Grown up poetry in the proper poetry section. I picked up books and regarded them and put them down and just the smell of the books made all the gears in my head turn.
Crafting. Photographing. Reading. Writing. Exploring. Choosing. Making. Figuring. Inventing.
Thinking.
I like it.
