2 rows a day

SSSS (Sari Silk Sideways Scarf) is slowly growing. I've set myself a goal of two rows a day, which doesn't seem very much, but I'm a slow knitter, I don't have huge swathes of time in which to knit, and they're very long rows. Over 6 feet long, in fact.

I bought 2 skeins each of Sari Silk Solid colours in Spice, Russet and Deep Red. The deep red was so lovely that I bought 6 more skeins and squirrelled all of it away. Spice and Russet together, while pretty, lacked something. So I dyed one skein of the Spice with Grape Kool Aid (plus a little Tropical Punch) and one skein of the Russet with Tropical Punch Kool Aid (Plus a little Grape). The result it better: although the Russet and dyed Russet are very close in colour, I think it's still OK. The Spice dyed well and I'm happy with both colours.

I'm hoping to get it finished in time for my next trip: Boston, leaving Friday 23rd in the evening. And since I'm staying there two weeks I've been working out what to order from Knitpicks. I may not get another opportunity for a while...

Creeping Clapotis

Clapotis creeps on. I've now got 5 dropped columns and moved her off steel and onto rosewood. I won't post a photo, because there are only so many pictures of a clapotis that one blog can take but... it's very satisfying to knit.There are a couple of things I'd like to note, though.
Firstly, it has taught me to purl continentally in a way that doesn't torment my hands. Purl and I now have a tentative friendship, and plain purl rows are relaxing. This is an achievement.
I have fragile hands, and I depend on them for a living (computing) and for my sanity (cooking and sewing and knitting and weaving). Not tormenting my hands is something I worry about. My father has weak wrists and suffers a little from RSI (or whatever it's called these days) and my mother and grandmother both developed arthritis of the thumb very early in their lives. My mother seems to be managing it quite well, but it crippled my grandmother, and for a while there it was causing my mother a lot of pain. Pouring from teapots was difficult, opening jars impossible. That kind of thing.
Secondly, I was initially worried about the way this yarn was knitting up. The combination of colour (lighter and more pink that the photos show) and the texture were making it look... obscenely biological. Nothing like knitting something that makes you think of diseased human tissue, is there? Thankfully, when the columns are dropped all this seems to go away. Clapotis, she good. I like her long time.
I know everyone else knitter her ages ago, the proof is here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/50123132@N00/pool/ but this bothers me not at all.
She's going to have to be put aside for a while, though, because what I really need is my SSSS. Now I have a needle which I think will work for Russian joins in this yarn, there is no excuse...

Shopping madly in Copenhagen

Saturday was exhausting. First, I got up at 6:30 because I needed to tidy up the apartment, do a bit of cleaining and pack before 9:00. My suitcase was already over the limit on the way over, so it's not light. I packed it and packed all my food etc in plastic bags. Dragged the suitcase over cobbles to the new place, dragged it up 3 flights of stairs. Emptied it, catching my finger between the suitcase and the bed as I did so. Took emptied suitcase back to old apartment, filled it with plastic bags full of stuff, repeated exercise, this time swearing about the olive oil and bottle of red wine.
Put fridge stuff in fridge, ran out of the apartment because I had shopping to do and most of the little shops only open from 10:00 or 11:00 to 14:00.
On Friday night I had managed to get to Sommerfuglen before it shut at 18:00: a shop selling knitting, embroidery and patchwork supplies. I ended up buying a few balls of wool for the idea that's been wandering around in my head, and some needles. I've been knitting Clapotis on what I thought were 4.5mm steel needles. I bought some Suzanna rosewood to replace them and a pair of ebony for my new project. On getting them home I realised that I was actually knitting Clapotis on 4mm, so back I had to go to exchange on Saturday. It's going to take me a while to get used to the rosewood as they're more grabby than I expected, but they'll wear with use anyway.
I went to Ulstedet again and seriously contemplated some 4-ply cotton in purple and in a yellow/brown marble (Cotton Baby from Gepard), but really couldn't think of anything I would do with it and actually wear. Then I went to Strikkeboden, fully intending to look at their home-brand alpaca in different colours again to see what I could make of it. What I got instead was six 100g skeins of black dk-weight alpaca, an unplied single (I think). I'm having thoughts of a jumper, possibly a shapely tank or tee with the neck and sleeves then finished off in a different colour (I'm thinking bright green, for some reason) for a long-sleeved garment: a bit like wearing a long-sleeved top underneath a t-shirt.
And then I went back and bought two more skeins, one in a brown, the other in a grey-brown because they remind me of a jumper my father used to wear, and he might get a scarf knit for him. I'm worried that I might need more skeins of the black... maybe I'll have to go back there. There weren't many left, though, so I may just have to improvise when the time comes.
So since I'd done my indulgent shopping, I then went looking for presents for people. Brother and sister-in-law's birthday were solved at Illums Bolighus, and extraordinary shop with an enormous collection of designer crockery, cutlery, cooking implements and homewares.
The first thing I gravitated towards was Piet Hein's Great Bear Candelabra. Then I looked at the price and ran away. I did end up buying this for them instead. Nice.
And then there were toys and children's clothes. Denmark must be a lovely place to be a child. danefae makes me laugh.
I came home and had an afternoon nap. Dragging that suitcase around broke me.
Now I have to work for the rest of the day. Grumble.

Denmark is still pretty...

but not as pretty as last Saturday: no snow. The other half got all excited about the snow and went and frolicked in it at 1 am because it was falling (we're both Australian, all right? We don't get to see much snow), and then when she came in she was so excited that I put on my boots and my coat and went and frolicked with her. There was snow. There was a frozen lake. There were disgruntled ducks and swans. What more could one want? Our (British) guest very sensibly went to bed.
It has turned out that I need to stay here another week now, work got stuffed up a bit. I was originally going to go home Friday and return on Tuesday... but the thought of losing either a full work day (it takes 6 hours door-to-door each way) or 10 - 12 hours of my weekend filled me with dread.
Stupid company reduced its QA resource on a particular product to 1 person, put out a new patch and a) didn't test some fairly basic things and b) accepted the existence of a bug which they should not have released it with. So I'm wandering through the validation scripts for a company, should have been a straightforward exercise and... I'm stuck in Copenhagen for another week. And I feel bad for the client, for whom it should have been a straightforward, no-angst exercise.
Never mind. I have to move apartments on Saturday morning, but the company I'm renting from have very kindly allowed me to move in a 9am instead of 3pm - so that I can do some shopping!
Yes, there may be yarn-related purchases, and if there aren't there will be other purchases.
I am under strict instructions from the other half to do some present shopping for family/friends based on what we saw last weekend... Such lovely things. Not cheap, but lovely. And I've got my eye on a couple of things for presents too. We need to buy things early, it takes so long to send things to Aus. Hey, the way I'm going at the moment I think I could send some of them sea-mail, which isn't a bad idea considering the cost of postage! I'm being unusually organised for me - in the last year or so I've been sending things on people's birthdays (or, memorably, actually after Christmas day) and apologising. I'm trying to do better this year.
I have made a little progress on the SSSS, just 4 rows but I think it will look lovely. I just need to remember to buy a needle with an appropriately large eye this weekend for russian joining: the yarn has quite a few breaks, and I can't stand weaving in ends. Russian joins seem so much tidier and more sensible.
I have an idea in the back of my brain which needs a few different colours of yarn, some circulars and some double-points. These supplies are one of my goals this weekend. Work can pay the baggage fine if it's overweight, damn them.

Denmark is pretty

So. I've spent the last week in Copenhagen, Denmark for work. I'm staying in a rather astonishing place: I decided that since I would be here for nearly two weeks, I would try to find a self-catering apartment rather than a hotel. I wanted to be able to do my own laundry and cooking.
What I did find in the same price-range as the hotel the client would have put me up in was a corporate let. Well. It has two bedrooms, a dining room and a lounge room, all white and light a spacious. It's slightly larger than my flat in Sydney... and I've been enjoying it very much. Not that I've actually spent all that many hours here not working, but it's still nice not to have to live in one room mostly occupied by a bed for two weeks.
My partner came over for a few days and a friend came over for the weekend. All very satisfactory and Copenhagen is a lovely city. I would love to live here. It snowed. Pictures will follow. We are happy little Australians and we frolicked.
Did I do anything textile related? Well, Clapotis comes along slowly but steadily.

I've just cast on for my Sari Silk Sideways Scarf, and I did find a couple of yarn shops:

Uldstedet - Very nice basement shop. Lots of yarn for fair-isle, some very nice felt slippers and buttons. A good range of the usual suspects like Debbie Bliss and Rowan as well.
Strikkeboden - Lovely little shop, has a good general range as well as Noro and its own brand of 100% alpaca. Lovely. I nearly broke and bought some, even though I can't wear it. Maybe someone I know can...

I also came across a couple of unexpected fabric shops, and bought a length of fabric which was probably the most expensive thing in the shop: a wool felt, almost thrummed. Picture to follow, it went home with my other half due to my already too-heavy suitcase. In another shop, which was full of the most beautiful silks, I found some viscose jersey remnants, some in purple, some in black, which I hope to run up into a shirt of some sort. The silk. Mmmmm. The range of wool fabric here is also superb.
In non-textile related news, we went to Georg Jensen. When I was a little girl in Sydney, if we went into town with my mother, one of my treats would be to visit the Georg Jensen shop. We never bought anything, just wandered around and drooled. This time bought ourselves a tree-topper from their christmas range: essentially just a star on a spring, but exactly what I've been looking for and it will add that extra niceness to every Christmas.
Due to the present-like nature of the other things I bought they shall not feature here.
Shopping is not cheap here, but due to the fact that we're earning pounds, it's not horrifyingly expensive, either. Not the way it would be if we were earning Australian dollars...

Weaving

I'm travelling this week and also seem to have a permanent headache. Clapotis is coming on steadily, just a few rows shy of the point at which I get drop my first stitch. The colour of the yarn is lighter when knitted up than I expected, so I'm not sure it's something I would wear, but I can probably find someone who would.
I bought an Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom 6 months ago, and I've been doing a little weaving every now and then. I like weaving: it eats yarn and I feel that less of it is Voodoo (you know, you're following a knitting pattern, it says 'put pointy stick through the loop in this way, do something complicated with the working yarn, say an incantation. Do this umpteen times and voilà! suddenly you have a garment).
My main issue is warping. I warp on the loom, and it's not really that difficult, but it is backbreaking and requires a lot of thought. Plus, in this flat I don't have a weaving post... I have a cabiner attached to a door handle with some string. Not ideal.
I did manage two cushion covers both in Paris yarn from Texere. Unfortunately I don't like the feel very much, but they were interesting experiments. Dicontinuous weft, while slow, does produce interesting results.



I am in the middle of a bag made out of Paton's Symphony yarn. I love the way this stuff works in weaving. It seemed the perfect yarn out of which to make a shoulder bag: comfortable, washable and casual.

I've done the bag body, now I just have to warp the loom for the strap. I've needed to do that for the last 4 months.

One Row Scarf

I'd been looking for a scarf pattern for a while, and stumbled across the Yarnharlot's One Row Handspun Scarf. It looked like fun, and I thought I might want to use it for a silk scarf I had planned (plans have since changed). So I grabbed some yarn I had lying around, cast on and started a swatch.
Things may have got out of hand. I now need to order two more balls of Patons Symphony yarn so that I can have a scarf.
It's not handspun. It's not even a natural fibre. But I like it.