A little here, a little there

The scaly iPod case is my current commuting knitting and I'm about half-way through it. I really only get about 1/4 hour of knitting a week now, as the train part of my commute is only about 15 minutes and I rarely get to sit down. I get most of my knitting done standing on the station waiting for the train. I'm not complaining about the shorter commute, though. Not at all.

Scaly and protective of iPods

The case is turning out pretty well and I'm pleased. I'm toying with the idea of textured i-cord for the cord, but I suspect by the time I finish knitting the main body I will desperately want to finish it off with a twisted cord. Maybe in black for contrast. The main colour is darker red than the photo would indicate.

I played with much of the fabric I washed and dried a few weeks ago. I drafted the pattern of a shoulder bag I want to make and cut out some if it, but the plain blue cotton I bought was such terrible quality that I need to buy something to replace it. It doesn't make sense to put a lot of work into something and use materials which will give me no pleasure at all.

The hemp tea towels are cut and the edge seams ironed, I just need to sew them. The hemp-cotton pillowcases have been cut to size, but I need to edge and embellish them before taking an existing pillowcase and figuring out how to fold the fabric in order to sew it up. I have plans of using black linen thread for both the tea towel edges and the pillowcase embellishment. We will see.

I've been reading lots of blogs where people spin, so I bought a spindle (from

Caroline) which came with some corriedale and made my first handspun. It's pretty bad - I think the singles are overspun and I under-plied, but I look forward to doing better. I understand why people like spinning wheels, but I can't justify it right now. Maybe some year in the future...

Over-spun and under-plied.

Today I am unpacking some of the boxes of things from Britain which have been sitting unpacked in our living room since they arrived, since we have nowhere to put the contents. I get to unpack all my indian fabric! I haven't seen any of it since before Christmas, so I am planning to take my time enjoying it. That's why I have these things.

Why is it May so soon?

This year is going far too fast.

It's whistling by and I seem to be running to catch up on all fronts. So far I have managed precisely one creative thing: in January I knitted and fulled an i-Pod case for one of my partner's friends. I finally got around to sewing it up on the Easter weekend. This weekend I took a photo of it and hopefully I can send it winging on its way to Britain. If we get our collective act together and write its accompanying letter.

Next weekend I have a 'me' weekend booked, so this weekend was spent doing some prep: washing and drying fabric for a couple of sewing projects, and getting some knitting projects set up.

Firstly, I fulled a sample of Karaoke (two-row stripes in Copper and Intensity) in order to calculate the specifications for a replacement PSP case (the hastily-put-together polar fleece one is getting rather ratty).

Secondly, I knitted a swatch of 'tiny scales' from the Vogue Knitting Stitchionary volume one in Jo Sharp Classic DK, Scarlet. This will become an i-Pod cover for my other half, who chose the stitch pattern herself and requested it, so I need to measure it up and cast on.

Karaoke swatch specifications:

Stitch: Stocking

Needles: 4.5 mm addi turbo

Pre-fulling: 10 stitches: 5.5 cm, 10 rows: 3.8 cm

Post-fulling: 10 stitches: 5 cm , 10 rows: 3 cm

PSP in hard case is 24 cm in circumference widthways and 42cm in circumference lengthways. Finished fulled fabric should be 27 - 30 cm x 42 cm. I'm thinking vertical stripes could be the way to go, with maybe a two-color twisted cord.

JS Classic DK specifications

Stitch: tiny scales

Needles: 3.5 mm unbranded bamboo

10 stitches: 4 cm

10 rows: 3.2 cm

i-Pod is 16 cm in circumference widthways and 24 cm in circumference lengthways. I need a piece of fabric 18 - 20 cm x 24 cm, and then a twisted cord. I may do this like a simple toe-up sock: no finishing to speak of, then. Casting on 40 stitches sounds about right if knitting in the round.

And thirdly, I washed and dried (but did not necessarily get around to measuring).

Hemp Gallery Mid weight canvas - 705

Pre-washing: 0.96 x 1.01 m

Post-washing:

Hemp Gallery Hemp / organic cotton sheeting - 02

Pre-washing: 2.87 x 1.05 m
Post-washing:

White Muslin

Pre-washing: 1.51 x 2.74

Post-washing:

Cotton wadding:

Pre-washing: 1.54 x 1.33 m

Post-washing:

Plain blue cotton:

Pre-washing: 1.10 x 2.20 m
Post-washing:

Blue and white printed cotton:
Pre-washing: 1.13 x 1.08 m

Post-washing:

Orange indian cotton:

Pre-washing: 1.17 x 1.54 m

Post-washing:

Blue striped indian cotton:

Pre-washing: 1.24 x 2.70 m

Post-washing:

Mottled grey flannel:

Pre-washing: 1.20 x 3.46 m
Post-washing:

In household news, my partner and I have decided to commit to staying in the current abode and buying my parents out. We discovered that the only place we could afford a house was the Blue Mountains, and while we both love the idea, the practicalities of commuting to North Ryde and Redfern would mean that we would never see the house in question in daylight, except on the weekends, when we would spend most of our time sleeping, anyway. There would be severe and prolonged grumpiness, which is not exactly the idea.

And then I stand on the front balcony on a day like this Sunday and think we've got it pretty good:

We have both taken deep breaths and given each other major concessions: I have decided that the living room can become her gaming space and can be decorated with small comic-book-character figurines, dragons etc. She likes to game socially, so it make sense. She has conceded that the double bed can be stored in the garage and the small bedroom can become my workroom plus clothes storage (both of us would prefer less furniture in the main bedroom). It will take a while (over a year, I imagine), but I should eventually have a dedicated room for textile activities! I already have my eye on an expensive (but obtainable) sit-stand table which should help my back and make it possible to carry out a number of different activities in comfort.

Meanwhile, I need to go and see a solicitor to figure out how to get us both owning this property outright.

protecting the toys

As partners of those who buy portable electronic gadgets must know, it is important to protect the toys. They're sensitive to dust and knocks and scratches and a whole host of other ills. And they're damned expensive.

Earlier this year I ran up the following bag for a PSP. Said PSP already lives in a hard case, but the case has open sections which, I have been informed, let grit in. This cannot be. Enter a garish bag constructed out of sample squares of fleece and a ribbon left over from a Georg Jensen present. The materials used can be explained by the fact that I ran it up in a hurry the night before I left for a two week business trip.

The household then acquired a DS Lite. It acquired a hard case, with similar open sections. It's taken me a couple of months but...

	Knitpicks Memories in Redwood knitted on the Bond (previously shown on 19 05 2007)
	felted
	folded
	given a cord
	sewn up the base and sides
	and put to use
	can you tell the light was fading? Detail by lamplight.

The twisted cord was made using a couple of metres of yarn, a doorknob, a ball-wider with the cone removed and the brief participation of my patient partner:

• double the yarn
• hook the middle around a doorknob so that you have two ends each of doubled yarn
• start twisting manually
• realise it's going to take several millenia
• investigate the ball-winder, remove its cone, stick the yarn ends through the convenient slits in the bit that goes around, tie ends under base
• turn the wrong way for a while, swear and turn the other way
• at the point at which the cord doubles up on itself twistily if you walk toward the doorknob, yell for your partner
• ask her to unhook the yarn from the doorknob
• grab the yarn at its approximimate midpoint and then hand the free end to your partner to hold with the other end
• massage the yarn by smoothing it from the free ends your partner is holding towards the folded end you have until all the little twisty bits give up and you have a nice flat cord
• tie an overhand knot in the free ends and snip the ends to even them up

Gosh. It's an FO.