Who Even Has a Blog Anymore?

I’ve been meaning to update Ye Olde Blog for longer than I care to remember, a sign that it has perhaps run its course. The blogging glory days have, of course, been over for years but I’ve been reluctant to let go because I liked the internet best when it was all blogs and message boards and I’ve reached the point in life where I contemplate making a new account somewhere and start to think, Oh, actually, I’ll pass. A phrase which here means I’m not on Tiktok or Twitter and don’t really want to be.

I’ve somewhat reluctantly caved and made an Instagram – a sure sign it’s on its way out. Which here’s hoping opens some space for a photo app that sucks less. (Not that that would help me, since I’ve outgrown making new accounts but y’all have fun.)

So I doubt I’ll be around the blog much anymore unless I’m struck by renewed enthusiasm. (Which, who knows? The last few years have been … a lot. Perhaps one day we’ll all recover and want to read paragraphs on the internet again. Or be replaced by robots who do.)

Anyway, let’s go out with some mitten pictures, shall we?

For obvious reasons I rarely make men’s mittens, but it’s super fun because the extra stitches give you more room for detail. I made these for a friend and mostly followed Herrevott Pål-Innbær * Pål-Innbær Selbu mitten (rav link) from the Selbuvotter book by Anne Bårdsgård. I made plain ribbed cuffs mostly out of laziness but followed the charts for the rest. For a fun change of pace the thumb gore increases are at the centre rather than the edges and I kind of like the effect.

Sick Note

Always late to the trends, I got Covid in October and have been running behind ever since. No one cleaned the place or renewed my drivers license while I was sick and I had a pair of mittens that were finished except for the ends I couldn’t seem to bring myself to weave. (That was a Covid symptom, pretty sure.)

Now that I’m better I’ve got new mittens:

I had Nordic Knits with Birger Berge from the library and stole the palm pattern and thumb from the Sunnfjordvottar (rav link) pattern but wasn’t really feeling the back pattern. I had contrast with my yarns, but not CONTRAST, so I wanted something bolder. After some tinkering with charts I picked a cuff pattern that was simple and crisp enough to work and used the star from a pair of gloves (rav link) in the Terri Shea’s Selbuvotter book.

Yarn is Moondrake Co. Corriedale Fingering which is smoother and less woolly feeling than most of the standard mitten yarns but still nice.

I have one more pair of mittens left in my pile of ‘summer’ projects; I duly wound up the yarn and then … cast on for a vest instead. It’s always summer in our hearts, right?

Not Really Summer Anymore

Seems I’ve fallen a little behind on my scheme of summer stranded projects. I always meant to take a somewhat expansive definition of summer stretching into September but the equinox has passed my mind has turned to thoughts of pumpkin spice.

I blame these socks:

I started them back in August and thought they’d be pretty quick – no thumbs to trip me up – but they seemed to drag. I wasn’t sure the pattern was turning out like I wanted, the fit seemed maybe a bit tight and I kept worrying about running out of yarn.

But I kept at it and perseverance was rewarded. I did end up swapping the CC for the heels and toes given how I seemed to be burning through the MC. It looks a bit stupid that the cuffs don’t match but as long as I’m wearing pants it shouldn’t show too much. (And if I’m not wearing pants we’ve got other problems.)

Pattern is Kyrönniemi (rav link) by Tiina Kuu, yarn is Garthenor Organic Sock. Since it’s a natural no nylon kind of thing I knit the bigger size on smaller needles in hopes of adding a bit of durability. Which is probably what gave me yarn chicken trouble so hopefully it pays off. They are pleasantly warm and woolly now that it’s, y’know, cold.

This leaves me with two more pairs of mittens to go – one of which is mostly done, the other yet to be started. But I guess it can still be summer in our hearts.

Still Not Romantic

I like to think of myself as a well rounded person who can appreciate different genres. I can find something to like on the sci-fi shelves, in the mystery section or on the shortlist of a pretentious literary award. But then there’s romance – just doesn’t do it for me. More often than not I find myself skimming though romantic subplots (why are there so many gratuitous romantic subplots?) rolling my eyes at characters who are obviously going to get together and are just dawdling about it.

Anyway, every now and then I decide to give it a shot because who wants to be one of those snobs who looks down on Romance?

I happened to see A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall recommended somewhere, which is a regency romance about Viola, a trans woman who joined the army with her buddy the Duke of Gracewood, was presumed dead at the battle of Waterloo and took her chance to start living as a woman. Meanwhile, Gracewood thinks she is dead and is busy being depressed and drinking laudanum. She goes to visit him and … it’s a romance, we all know what happens next, yeah?

In theory I’m here for the idea that Viola can come back from the dead and find love. Good for her! (And him – he’s got his own stuff going on.) But in practice I kept thinking “Just hook up already! How do you have so many pages left?” (There’s a sex scene that takes up a few of them, FYI – this is not a fade to black affair.)

So, still not into romance, but would consider reading a sequel where they, I dunno, solve a murder or follow a treasure map and I can skip the mushy bits.

Matchy Matchy

My scheme for the summer was to work on a bunch of small stranded projects, which naturally ended up being mostly mittens. But I threw in a hat to change things up. It was worsted weight and knit up super quick, then sat sadly in a corner waiting for a pompom. But finally, destiny achieved:

Patter is Goldenrod Hat (rav link) by Karolina Adamczyk, yarn is Sweet Paprika Designs Winfield – a hand dyed wool that’s not superwash merino, always fun.

Then, since I had 100g skeins there was a lot of wool leftover and I ended up back on the mitten train:

In my mind it was a simple exercise to slap the chart onto a pair of basic mittens but, as always, the universe had to slap me down for hubris and it took several rounds of ripping out to get them how I wanted. Pleased with how they turned out in the end and looking forward to yellow mittens on gloomy days.

The next thing is socks, though.

Girl, Serpent, Socks

I’m back from summer vacation and, in addition to a giant pile up in my work inbox, I have some new socks:

I’m still working on my summer of stranded things, but socks this time (also there’s a hat that just needs a pompom – more on that anon.) Pattern is Flower Garland (rav link) by Aud Bergo which has been languishing in my queue for a while. Yarn is Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock in Oxblood and Peachy. Only mod I can think of is swapping the 1×1 rib for 2×2 rib.

It’s the kind of pattern that has a left and right sock which is fun for a change:

My vacation read was Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust which, despite feeling like a working title (sure, just list some things in the book) is a fun read. It’s about a princess cursed to kill anyone she touches, so naturally she has to hide alone in her room for safety – and post lockdown can’t we all relate? She sets out to break the curse but makes everything so very much worse and has to fix it.

Then things take an unexpectedly horticultural turn (although not that unexpected, I guess, since Thorn is right there in the title if only I had been paying attention) so it conveniently matches my socks.

There’s enough of the Peachy to knit a whole other pair of socks. I’m thinking I’ll save it till some gloomy day in November. Know any peach related books that would go with it?

Spinning Silver

‘Tis the season when you can work up a sweat just going outside. So I’ve been trying to avoid doing that too much, which for me means some reading and knitting. I still haven’t really recovered my reading mojo but did get through Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, which is delightfully wintry. This is a world where there are spooky winter faery types called the Staryk and also the tsar is an evil sorcerer. The narrative bounces from one point of view to another while our heroes take them both on and feels like a fairy tale. So good!

The characters are concerned about ending the winter and of course I see their point – we all want crops to live on – all those mysterious icy roads sound pretty appealing on a heat warning day. How about you just send some of that snow over here?

And since winter is coming (I hope) I also knit up a big scarf to wear with my inconveniently low cut coat. Check it out:

Helpfully modeled by my desk chair – business in the front party in the back.

I’ve been in the knitting game for a long time and I’ve accumulated a bunch of stuff that I never wear/don’t really like any more but am reluctant to just get rid of. This yarn used to be a little short sleeved cardigan I made to wear to a wedding a decade ago and turned out not to have much place in my regular wardrobe. Seemed a shame for it to sit unloved in a box, so unravelled (past me really did a good job on those ends) and remade into something that hopefully gets more use.

Yarn is Madelinetosh Pashmina, pattern is inspired by Fichu Bleu (rav link) by Orlane Sucche but I just used the textured stitch pattern on a top down triangle until I started worrying about running out of yarn. Simple enough to work on when it’s too hot to concentrate.

Now I’m inspired to take a look through the closet and see what else could use a new life.

Mittens are Hard

Over the last couple of years I seem to have acquired a bunch of yarns to try. I keep thinking I’ll just pick a couple of colours and make mittens or something. But then … don’t.

This summer I’ve decided it’s finally time. Here’s the yarn, spread out on the carpet:

I started with a pair of mittens from Selbu Mittens by Terri Shea, which I’ve had at the back of my mind for probably a decade and never used. Made quick work of them until the thumbs which gave me a bit of trouble. The book expects you to be smart enough to figure out the palm side if the thumbs on your own. Turns out I’m … not. I knit a thumb, realized belatedly the pattern didn’t line up right, tried to fix with duplicate stitching, still couldn’t get it to look right, tried to unpick it, got the yarn in a giant snarl and had to cut the whole thing off and start over.

There were a few minutes with scissors and gritted teeth where I reconsidered the whole plan. But it worked out and, look, mittens!

Yarn is Tukuwool Fingering, perfectly nice and not to blame for any of my troubles.

Next up I cast on Julenatt (rav link) by Skeindeer and made quick work of them, including the thumbs. I was feeling quite smug about being back on track as I blocked them and then I saw it:

Do you see it? The right mitten is missing a plain row of white and grey before the trees chart starts. The worst part is it had been nagging me that the transition from the cuff looked kind of messy. I thought it might be because I’d tweaked the pattern to only use two colours but alas, turns out it’s because i didn’t read the instructions.

While I waited for them to dry I thought about being the kind of person who could embrace the imperfect charm of handmade things and let this go. But I don’t think I am.

So I got the scissors again, cut the one plain white row I had, put the top and bottom stitches back on the needles, knit the missing rows and grafted it back together. Picking up some of the raw stitches in colourwork gave me some trouble and the grafting is a bit wonky but hopefully it won’t make my eye twitch every time I wear them:

At least I’ll have lots of time to forget about it before it’s time to wear them. Here’s hoping I don’t even notice that graft in a few months.

Here’s the palm pattern:

Yarn is Daughter of a Shepherd Ram Jam Sport. Nice in a rugged woolly sort of way.

Next up is a hat. Fingers crossed it doesn’t give me any attitude.

Bandwagon

Seems like over the last couple of years sweaters with a strand of lace weight mohair have taken over the internet. While I wouldn’t say I dislike mohair, my enthusiasm for it is a bit limited – it’s expensive and sometimes itchy. But I guess I’ve had those sweaters on the back of my mind because when I happened to see some Shibui Knits Billow on sale – which is also fluffy but in an alpaca sort of way – I thought maybe I should give the fluffy sweater a try.

I’d been slowly working on Synchestra (rav link) by Skeindeer but it’s the kind of thing that takes attention and following the charts. See:

I was more in the mood for something simple, so I put it down, wound up my new yarn, and scrolled through some of those simple fluffy sweater patterns. Ended up going for the Sunday Sweater – Mohair Edition (rav link) by Petite Knit. I’ve never knit any of her patterns before but once again I keep seeing them everywhere so I guess that’s what the cool kids are up to. Now that I’ve finally joined the bandwagon it’s probably about time for some new trend to pop up.

Anyway, it was simple enough that I made short work of it:

Lazy selfie – it looks fuzzier in real life.

The pattern suggests a lot of positive ease and I wanted to go with a bit less but yet again my gauge somehow tightened up and I wound up with a more fitted sweater than I intended and half a skein leftover. It did occur to me that maybe I’m just bigger than I thought I was, but I’ve measured myself and the sweater several times and the culprit is clearly my swatch. (And also the denial where I convinced myself it would relax with blocking.) Were I to do this again I’d cast on a few extra stitches at the underarm.

Besides the ease thing I mostly followed the directions other than adding some short rows at the base of the yoke. Since the pattern is just rib there’s no reason to leave them out IMO. I also added a few decreases to the sleeves to make them a little less voluminous at the cuff.

Really hoping to finish up that cardigan before it gets too hot to think about sweaters.

Hey, Books

You know those hand-wringing articles that make the rounds every now and then about how the internet/social media/modern life is destroying our attention spans? Inevitably the writer bemoans how they used to read so many books and now they can’t any more because they’re too busy playing with their phone or whatever. I didn’t relate at all and merrily carried on reading big ugly books on the bus and perhaps feeling a bit smug.

Then the pandemic happened and I get it. I would have always thought that being stuck at home for months on end I’d read so many books and watch so many movies. But then it happened and I’d find myself reading the same page three times and giving up, or realizing I wasn’t paying attention to the TV for the past 20 minutes and have no idea what’s going on.

But I’ve picked back up reading lately so I hope that means things are starting to turn around. Some recent books:

The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Pirate adventure which has its moments but I’m kind of over pirate/pickpocket/con artist characters. Should you be selling people into slavery? No. Do better. Interesting take on mermaids though.

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden: Russian fairy tale about a girl with mysterious powers. It’s slow to get going- she spends a lot of time hanging out with her family and various household and woodland spirits but eventually she has to fight evil. And at the moment surely we can root for someone in Russia sorting shit out.

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson: A religious community that’s very interested in fire and sin – not so much the kind of sins about mistreating people, alas, but the ones about having sex. Naturally the authority figures shoot past Very Concerned into Pervily Interested, because isn’t that always the way? There are forbidden woods inhabited by impressively spooky witches and a series of plagues (think the Plagues of Egypt – darkness, water turns to blood.) Our heroine Immanuelle tries to figure out how to stop the plagues, which of course is a worthy aim but there were moments I couldn’t help thinking the only solution is to burn it all down and eat cheese. (It doesn’t actually end in a cheese feast but if you’re stuck for an ending to your novel maybe everyone gets the cheese they deserve?)

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson: This one has pictures! Graphic novel where one day a shapeshifting girl turns up to be a villains sidekick. Then there are wacky shenanigans and tragic backstories. If you must be a villain, be the kind that lives in a spooky looking castle and does extravagant and esoteric crimes. Good times.