Coronet and more

I'm too tired right now to make up a witty (or witless) title. I finished C's hat last week. It's been washed, dried and shaved: this wool fuzzes somewhat with handling and pills after washing, but looks great (at least for now) once the loose bits get removed.

And here's the top.

Pattern

Coronet by Alexandra Virgiel from Knitty winter 2003.

Materials

Two skeins (approximately 77 grams) of Mission Falls 1824 wool in denim on US 7 (4.5 mm) needles at a gauge of about 5 stitches per inch after washing and drying.

Mods

I made the band using a horseshoe cable (same number of rows as the original) and worked a slipped stitch selvedge at each edge of the cable band. The hat was also knit up as a beanie, so I picked up stitches (84 stitches) for the hat body with the right side of the cable band facing out. I used C's most worn knit hat as a guide for diameter (10 inches, 25.4 cm) and depth (8.75 inches, 22.22 cm unstretched).

As you can see from the photo, C is on crutches. There was a snowboarding injury on Saturday involving his board edge and a rocky slope resulting in a fractured kneecap. It's funny, but I figured that I would get the first serious snowboarding injury around here. We spent a total of 10 hours (I'm not exaggerating in the slightest) getting him medical care; enough time for me to finish one mitten minus the thumb and start it's mate (I always have knitting when we go play outside, in case I need a break). I'll post photos later.

In other knitting news, I took the Kilim-style hot pad knitting class at Black Sheep weekend before last, and why not? I've done very little colour work and figured I could benefit from some advanced expertise. The tips I picked up will apply to stranded colour knitting as well.



The hot pad (main colour is Harrisville New England Highland, contrasting colour and backing is Cascade 220) we started as a sampler for a kilim-style mosaic knitted rug turned out fine, although it puckers a little at the sides. I'll have to carry the yarn more loosely next time. Since I did end up buying the rug pattern, I guess I'll have to practice.

Piece by piece

Eva is coming together. I'm nearly done the shawl collar, and the sleeves are blocking as you can see here.
I can't wait to try it on! I can probably finish the collar tonight if I don't go to the pub for the weekly game of darts. If I do go to the pub, I'll start swatching this
for the next sweater sketched in an earlier post. It's Rowanspun DK, color goblin. I dig the name, and I really don't wear any green, so I figure it's time to start! I figure it'll be a woodsy and rustic cardi (like ALL of my self-designed cardis ?). And this time I'll be smart at BLOCK my gauge swatch before doing the math... it's funny how these little things can make a big difference. I was lazy when I made Ingrid, and didn't block the swatch. It came out 2 inches too wide (yikes!) so I gave her to my mom. I don't want to give her all my sweaters because I need some, so I'll take the time and do this right.

Now for the late urban decay Saturday, this is a graffitied house on the main drag.
It's difficult to tell that it's actually inhabited (it is, I saw a light on in one of the windows). I wonder why so many graffitti artists converged on this building, it's not run down or anything. And, being the 'Oscar the Grouch' that I am, I think it would be pretty cool to live there!

Ivanova

Buttons, buttons

No progress pics today, Eva is a heap of sweater in my lap while I am knitting the button bands and collar. I decided to go with the bone buttons, since I thought they went best with the happiness sign motifs. And I just learned how to make a one-row button hole. Yay me! And NO ONE posted a button vote. Harrumph. Speaking of harrumph, I took yet another online quiz. Here are the results...

You Are Oscar the Grouch

Grumpy and grouchy, you aren't just pessimistic. You revel in your pessimism. You are usually feeling: Unhappy. Unless it's rainy outside, and even then you know the foul weather won't last. You are famous for: Being mean yet loveable. And you hate the loveable part. How you life your life: As a slob. But it's not repelling as many people as you'd like!

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

Ivanova

Decisions decisions

I'm blocking the sweater fronts now, so button bands will be added soon, probably within the next week or two. Which brings me to a decision I've been putting off for a while - which buttons will I use? I have two choices seen above on the blocking sweater - the upper one is from a set of bone buttons purchased over Christmas break with no intended purpose, I just thought that they were cool. I really like the way it has swirly patterns on it - like the cables. I adore button-band ornamentation, as can be found on 17th-18th century menswear like in this pic, taken from a collection from the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Styles like this can also be seen on Centauri men's jackets on Babylon 5, and to a lesser extent on King Theoden's gear in the Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers. He aso had gold braided rope-like things around the armbands of a velvet cloakey-jackety thing, which I have also included in my sweater. I wonder why the Elves had no knitwear (even though some designers have been inspired to create some), in fact there was surprisingly little knitwear visible on the Humans, and Hobbits (even though other designers have also been inspired...). In fact, the only possibly knitted garment I saw displaying celtic textures (the happiness sign) was on Gandalf, when he had become the white wizard. He was wearing a white hooded cloak, and there were some textured cables around the hood. But the garment didn't look knitted, so I'll bet it was felted, but retained the texture panels. And why hasn't anyone started a LOTR knit-along yet?

Anyways, back to my decision. The upper one is the bone button, and the lower metal one is from a set of Tudor Rose pewter buttons, actually purchased for this sweater. Which one do I pick? I'm torn! Please delurk, and leave me an opinion!

Now here I am, not even finished the current sweater and I'm planning the next one!
Here's a scan of my sketch:
OK, I know I can't draw, but I try anyways. It will be a raglan shaped cardigan, with a deep v-neck, and deep waist ribbing, made from some DK weight tweed I have in the stash. This design was inspired by Elsebeth Lavold's Fjalar, shown below from an old post.
I had highlighted my issues with this sweater. My solution: eliminate the puckered neck by making it a cardigan with hook and eye closures. And the baggy sleeves by making it a raglan sweater. I also switched cable panels because I will be continuing the cables all the way around, and I won't have to graft at the back of the neck if the panels have up-down and left-right symmetry, so the button bands and collar can be knitted in one piece. I chose a linked-ring motif from the same book, Viking Patterns for Knitting. Now to work out the details... I'm so excited I can't wait to cast on!

Ivanova

I'm seeing red...

in the red lace and cables capelet!
I think I gravitate towards the color red. Since I've started knitting (2.5 years ago!) I've made Kiri, Lotus Blossom, Shedir and the mystery project using red and burgundy yarns. I see any dark red yarn, and I think of what it could be knitted into (like the dark red Donegal Tweed I've been eyeing on eBay). Finally we've had some actual sunshine, it's like spring out there, so I snapped a few shots of one of the front halves of the Lace and Cables Capelet from Vogue Knitting Holiday 2006. I pinned it to the bed to have a better idea of how it will look when it's blocked, and I'm pretty pleased with it. Here's a detail shot...
Usually I'm not a fan of bobbles, but these are 3-stitch 2 row bobbles (not including the finishing row), so I've decided to keep them in. It's a simple enough chart to follow, though I put in stitch markers in a few arbitrary places to keep track of where I am in the pattern. And it's useful to know how to yarn over into a purl stitch properly, because there's a fair bit of that going on here, and it took me a while last year to figure that out. As we all know, to y0 into a knit stitch, you hold the yarn like you're going to purl, and then wrap the yarn over the needle and knit. To yo into a purl stitch, I used to do the opposite: hold the yarn like I was going to knit, then come over the front and purl. Wrong! (It actually dosen't look wrong, but it's not so easy to work on the next row). You're supposed to hold the yarn like you're going to purl, but wrap once before you enter the stitch, then make the purl stitch. You get more open yo holes that way, and it's easier to work on the next row.
As I mentioned earlier, I don't have enough of the Christmas Market yarn to finish, so I bought some yarn to complete the project from eBay. I'll never find that stall again (until maybe next Christmas), so I figured some black Rowan Yorkshire tweed (color Darkly, now discontinued) would fit the bill. Here they are together, and I think it's going to work. The tweed has some rusty and reddish flecks, so they'll go together. The way I have envisioned it, is that the lace will be red, and the cabled parts (the part where it joins at the shoulder and the collar) will be black tweed. Then, to resolve the color discontinuity, I will probably do a crochet chain with picots edging to tie it all together, so to speak. I figure I'll either look kind of like a Victoriana-inspired goth, or a clown. Either way, I don't care.

Ivanova

The beginnings of a coronet

This hat has been featured twice before on this blog.



C asked me to make him something knitted, and I need an easier project to do when my brain turns to jelly at the end of the day. A couple of skeins of soft superwash wool that I bought last year in Saratoga Springs fit the bill nicely.

Long projects and short

Last week was one of those weeks. I did manage to get the body of Arisaig finished, blocked and seamed, as you can see. The sleeves are coming along: I started the second sleeve with the intention of knitting both at the same time once they've reached the same length.


While going through the stash, I found a single ball of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran which was orphaned at the NPS store, of all places (it was $3 USD, how could I refuse?). So what do you do with 1 skein of this yarn?
OK, that was fast. Do I have enough yarn to continue?

My hands get cold when I'm working on our home office computer.

Some late u.d. and a sweater in progress

Here's a view of the old town wall.
I figure it was built during or after the Thirty-Years War, which would put it's construction somewhere around the 17th-18th century. Some houses were incorporated into the wall, like the one to the right, where the residents served as guards of a sort. The building on the right is still used as an actual house, and one of the residents was sitting on a lawn chair when I took these pictures.

Now others built there houses into the wall to save on bricks and stones, like the one on the left! I think that's pretty cheapskate and decayed ;). Here's a closeup.
Now this building is the only Mexican restaurant in town, and it's pretty good, just don't expect anything to be particularly fiery, like real Mexican food (no Tacos al Pastor on the menu) or even like some Tex-Mex, but I still like it! Here's the side view.
Now for the wip update. I finished one half of the lace and cables capelet, up to the part where it will be joined to the yoke. Not bad for a night's knitting! I am also nearly done the right half of Eva, and started blocking the pieces. Here's the back blocking, and sitting in the remains of today's sunlight.
I'm blocking early because I don't want the seaming and knitting of button bands and collar to take forever! I'm also blocking Shedir, and I have to say it's hard to stretch out a hat! I need to buy a bowl about the size of my head... And I definitely have to get the Vining Knits Collection Volume 2, recently completed by Elsebeth Lavold, check it out here. I love it! As soon as I found out about it, I checked internet retailers, and my only positive hit was an Ebay merchant in the US, where the postage alone is half the price of the book! I guess it'll have to wait till Christmas, so either some UK retailers will carry it (guess where I've been doing my online yarn/pattern/equipment shopping and browsing) or I can have it sent to my dad's house in time to get it when I visit.

Ivanova

Stash-busting

This was the most recent addition to my stash, purchased at a booth from the Christmas market in town. I fell for the semi-varigated red colorway, and purchased 3 hanks, totalling about 660 yards. I really should have bought a fourth, but I felt a little guilty about buying something for myself, when I was supposed to be shopping for friends and family. Needless to say, I'll never find the vendor in the next 10 months. The vendor also pulled out a gorgeous blue colorway, after the red was gone! Oh well, maybe next year...
Isin't it pretty? It sortof feels like the Manos aran weight that I have fondled in a former LYS, and bought for a friend. Similar softness, slightly thick-and thin single ply, and strong scent of vinegar. All I could get from the non-english speaking saleswoman, was that it was 100% wool, of which variety I have no clue. When I saw it, I wanted it to become this:
the Shetland Triangle Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark from Wrap Style. The original was made fom a lace/fingering weight cashmere, and I knew it was a bit risky to swap in an aran weight and size up the needles, but I figured it could be done, and that I had enough yarn to make a shoulder shawl/scarf thing. I swatched it, and it looked bad, like a puckered up egg carton. I then knitted a few chart repeats of the Swallowtail Shawl from Fall 2006 IK, also by Clark. I thought it looked OK, but the thought of making nupps, and doing a p5tog with this stuff made me cringe. Here's a craptacular photo that I took before deciding to frog.
It's kindof hard to see the lace, but blocking would have helped. After I knit those 2 repeats, I put it on hold for faster gratification projects, where I could see good results before blocking. I mean, who would want to knit for weeks, only to block and have it not turn out the way that they had hoped? So, after seeing the beginnings of a lace and cable capelet from the Holiday 2006 issue of Vogue Knitting on tweeding along, I was inspired. Here's a picture from the magazine preview.
I figure that this is the one for this yarn. It was designed for a worsted/aran weight yarn (Nashua Handknits Creative Focus Worsted), and the recommended needle size is .1 mm smaller than the needle I thought looked best for this yarn and a lacy pattern (the Denise US 10 is 5.6 mm, while a 'standard' US 9 is 5.5 mm, go figure!). I've knit a few rows, and so far so good, but not enough to photograph well. So, I found a winner, and I can get this lovely yarn out of the stash! The only problem? I'm about 220 yards short of the pattern requirements. I figure I can do the lace in the nice bright variegated market yarn, then do the cabled yoke and collar in a dark solid wool. I am clearly not opposed to mixing textures and colors in a project, and I share Carter's opinion that cables and variegated yarn don't always work well together. The color can detract away from the texture. There are exceptions, though, so this is not a hard and fast rule for me.
The other problem? I don't have the stash I used to have before moving because I donated a serious chunk of the stash to Thrace. So I have no solid dark colored worsted/aran weight yarns in the stash that would go with the red! I *could* go to the LYSs and see what's available (this isin't breaking the KFYS rules, because you're allowed to buy exactly enough to complete your project), but after surfing their web pages, I decided that I really wanted a black tweed. In comes eBay to the rescue! A discontinued black Rowan Yorkshire Tweed at bargain basement prices and free shipping. So my first stash-bust is a success in principle.

Ivanova

A resolution

It's the KFYS year, and a bunch of stuff in the stash had intended projects that didn't work out as planned (stupid gauge swatches!) so instead of drooling over other people's yarn on the internet - a major source of yarn spending for me - I will instead flash my own stash with the project ideas that accompanied the purchase, and the revised decisions about the project(s). I have enough things on the needles, however, so this will have to wait a couple of weeks, until I clear some things out of the knitting basket. I did, however, wind another ball of the blue tweed because the front's coming along, and I have noticed also that wound balls photograph better than yarn in hanks. I wonder why that is... I also wonder why my photos of knitwear suck so badly, when I'm not that bad of a photographer, and my camera is pretty decent (last year's Nikon Coolpix).
So my first photo is an attempt to accurately capture the blue tweed yarn's beauty in a digital
format.
I think I finally did it! The colors are accurate. I LOVE this stuff, and can't wait to break into this new ball. I wonder what I'll do with the leftovers... I estimate 3 hanks (of about 90 yards) will remain. I guess they'll live in the stash until I have enough leftover aran weight yarn to do something interesting with.

Here's a "snowy trees" shot to prove that I can take allright pictures!
It's been snowing and snowing and snowing over here. I love it - it's so pretty and I missed the snow when I went home for Christmas. It was my first green Christmas ever! Stupid global warming! Time to buy some polyester blouses I guess, according to a study done at Cambridge University on carbon emissions and fashion. But now it's cold, so I need sweaters!
This one's just for fun - it's the snow streaming past the neighbour's stable using a slow shutter speed. If you look really closely, you can see some horseshoes on the upper doors/windows(?).
I know, you're thinking "stable ?". Well, I figure this neighbourhood was built between the 20's and 40's, by the style of the buildings - art-deco-ish, and this *was* the boondocks of the town, and some people still had horses then, so there you go.

Ivanova

Baby kimono

The baby kimono got finished last week, but I'm just getting around to posting the photos. Haven't had a chance to deliver it yet.

Pattern notes

Finished (unstretched) dimensions: 6 inches around arms, 6 inch sleeves, 18 inches body circumference, 4 inch neck opening

I used the instructions in the Kimono sleeve chapter in Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top.

Here's a brief summary of the pattern: I provisionally cast on 127 stitches (23 stitches for the neck, 33 stitches for the sleeves) and knit down in k3p1 rib. When I reached the appropriate length for the sleeves (about 3 inches), I undid the provisional cast-on and knit one row in stockinette (in hindsight, I'd knit 2 rows stockinette instead to make it a design element) to minimize the jog from picking up and knitting a rib pattern in the opposite direction. While knitting the stockinette row, I bound off the 23 neck stitches.

While knitting the rest of the upper body (also in k3p1 rib), I formed the neckline by increasing every other row a total of 9 times, then cast on enough stitches to equal the number of stitches initially cast on. I reached a sleeve length of 3 inches around this point too. I grafted 27 of the sleeve stitches on each side, leaving 6 stitches per side (12 total) to form the underarm gusset.

The rest of the body was knit back and forth in k3p1 rib. I started shaping the gusset the row immediately after grafting the sleeves by knitting the first 5 remaining sleeve stitches, doing a centered double decrease, m1 stitch (necessary to balance out the stitch count for the remaining gusset decreases), knit 4 more stitches (for a total of 5 stitches on either side of the decrease). I continued knitting the body until the length reached 10 inches, while also doing the centered double decrease for the gusset every other row (you only have to m1 for the first gusset row).

Switching to the contrasting colour, I provisionally cast-on for 3 stitch i-cord, and applied the i-code around the bottom. I like the technique Meg Swanson writes about in Knitting, where you knit the last i-cord stitch and the body stitch together through the back loop.

I used some leftover Merino Style to sew on the buttons (I pulled the yarn apart and used only 2 plies). I figure that machine washing will felt the buttons in place and make sure that they can't be pulled off easily (hopefully).

Once the buttons were in place, I continued the i-cord up the right hand side of the sweater. After that, I picked up the provisionally cast-on i-cord stitches and continued up the other side. I formed 5 row button loops from the i-cord as described in Knitting (handy book). The shawl collar details have already been written up. Finally, I machine washed and dried the sweater a couple times to get rid of all the cat hair that usually accumulates on my knitting.

Materials

Plymouth Encore DK. The body and collar were knit on a US 5 (3.75mm) circular needle at a gauge of 6 stitches/inch for stockinette after machine washing and drying. The i-cord edging was knit on a US 6 (4.2 mm) needle and the cuffs on US 3(3.25mm) needles. Oddly, the heathered green-grey I used for the i-cord edging and button band seemed softer (at least to me) than the dark green.

The buttons came from a local fabric shop.

An old project revisited...

And note that this is a popular idea! brooklyntweed posted one a full 5 days after Kara and I discussed doing this. I think it's a great idea, because the whole world can see how the yarns we chose several months (or years) ago hold up, and we can revisit our pattern/design choices. So here's my first revisit: a scarf made a little over a year ago from Noro Kureyon using a short-row ribbed scarf pattern from Magknits. I did not blog about this at the time I made it, so it's appropriate that I blog about it know, more than a year after completion.

I was looking at the Noro section in my old LYS, and the self-stripey-goodness called out to me. A lot of the Noro Line was out of my price range, but Silk Garden and Kureyon were within the budget I allocated for a new scarf, so there I was. I found that I was more drawn to the brighter colorways of Kureyon than the subtler colorways of Silk Garden, but now, a year later, I find that my preferences go in the other direction! I asked the LYS employee how many balls I would need, and she said 4, (400 meters or so) so I then narrowed down my choices to colorways that had 4 balls of the same dyelot on the shelf. I walked away with an extremely colorful choice, with many colors present.

Once I had the yarn, I was a bit flummoxed to come up with a pattern that would work well with the self-striping concept. I didn't want a striped k1p1 or k2p2 scarf, though that is a perfectly acceptable choice for many people. I had heard of people doing entrelac with self-striping yarns (i.e. the Lady Eleanor stole from Scarf Style), but I wasn't ready for that yet.
So in my hunting on the internet, I came across a short-row ribbed scarf on Magknits, and figured that even though it was done with a variegated chunky yarn instead of an aran weight self-striping, it could work. It worked better than I expected, because each short-row section is one color block in the yarn, more or less. Here it is...
Fabulous! My only regrets: I felt I had to use every last scrap of yarn, because the cost was double that of the itchy too-short and too wide scarf I had purchased at the Gap that I wanted to replace. This scarf is ridiculously long, and I tend to wrap it around my neck many times, to not have it sit bulkily under my coat. Picture this: I walk into school, hop on an elevator with a professor who shall remain nameless, then unbutton my coat and start unwinding, and unwinding, and unwinding the scarf (to not roast in the extremely well-heated building). He looks at me and with a snicker says, "Nice scarf". I say, "Thanks! I made it myself!" He says, "oh...".

Anyways, I still love the scarf, even though it has sagged and stretched even longer. I should have knit it at a tighter gauge. And the yarn? It does pill, but not as severely as some store-bought sweaters I have purchased, and the pills are easy to remove. And the colors and ribbing really detract away from the little pills, so it's all good. I'd definitely use Kureyon again for a larger project, if the colorways were a little less like a bunch of crayons and more sophisticated like the Silk Garden line. I know there are a few like that out there, but I'm on a yarn diet, so we'll see what's available in a year or two. And I have seen other Kureyon short-row ribbed scarves out there, some made by friends, and some made by strangers in internet land. But there days, it's all about the tweed for me...
The left front is DONE! Now only 2 pieces to go... and I cast on for the right front in time for the monthly student pub night. (Okay, I know I'm not a student, but I get invited anyways.) The seed sitch hem is better social knitting than any of my other current projects, which all require charts. I'm hoping it will be done in a couple of weeks. Here's a closeup shot to view the color and tweediness more accurately.
I LOVE this yarn - Kilcarra of Donegal tweed, in a blue colorway. If it holds up well with long term use, I will always hace some in the stash for a rainy day sweater. Maybe next time... red. Or green.

Ivanova

More old U.D. ...

This is another old and slightly distorted building, but not as severe as the first one I posted about. It's from the Renaissance, about 1550 or so.
Now it's a bookstore, and it looks fairly well maintained. It's very beautiful, but if you look really closely you can see some of the horizontal beams are kindof crooked. Here's a detail shot.
If I lived in that building, I would wear pseudo-renaissance gear and handknits every day, just to play it up a bit. On a slightly related note, I saw a beautiful garment on the season finale of Stargate SG-1 season 9 (episode Camelot). SG-1 goes to a medieval town (one of the eight million or so in the show's creators' perception of a galaxy inhabited by displaced humans) in search of a weapon. Mitchell befriends a girl who pulls a sword out of a stone - I think her name was Valencia. She was wearing a bluish grey sweatery-coatish thing that seemed to have a cellular or latticed texture. It had puffy lace-up arms (similar shaping to the Stefanie Japel contribution in this season's Knitscene), fit over the bust like the lace trimmed bolero I finished last year (see my 2006 FO gallery), and the back was narrow at the waist, and long and
shaped like a skirt to 3/4 calf length. I loved it! I also dig the numerous shawls and wraps (not to mention the cinched-in waist dresses in fabulous earth tones) that Valla wears in the Ori galaxy. Anyways...
Shedir's done! Two weeks on and off the needles... a bit slow for a hat but well worth it.
Pattern: Shedir from Knitty
Yarn: Alice Starmore Hebridean 3 ply, color Erica
Mods: I only did 3 repeats of the saxon braid pattern and twisted all knit stitches like Eunny.
Yarn comments: LOVE IT. Will definitely buy again, but the price is a bit steep for large projects, so I'll wait to see how the hat holds up to decide if it's worth it for a sweater. I don't mind spending the money if the garment will last. Definitely not if the garment will pill up with regular wear and reside in the closet most of the time.
General comments: It's a bit short, it almost covers my ears. I'm hoping it will grow with a good blocking (chances are good that it will) and I'm also hoping the pointy bit will flatten out.
Any guesses yet? Come on guys! I successfully ripped back one pattern repeat, and my new yarn came in the mail, and it's a close enough dye lot match (not noticeable in natural light) so I'm going on full steam ahead.
Now I leave you with ducks:
I plan on making a cabled sweater from Vogue Knitting (inspired by this picture) in a chunky tweed (Carloway Mills Shetland Tweed) in the color mallard, and a mallard is a duck, so you get duck pictures until the KFYS period is through.

Cheers,

Ivanova

Viral Poetry

So apparently it's Imbolc/Brigid's Feast as well as being Groundhog Day (some sources say Imbolc was yesterday, but whatever), and there's poetry thing (via January One) going on to celebrate. Now I'm more of a prose girl (also the one university-level English course I took managed to put me off reading poetry for a long time), so my contribution comes from a singer/songwriter.

Dante's Prayer

When the dark wood fell before me
And all the paths were overgrown
When the priests of pride say there is no other way
I tilled the sorrows of stone

I did not believe because I could not see
Though you came to me in the night
When the dawn seemed forever lost
You showed me your love in the light of the stars

Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me

Then the mountain rose before me
By the deep well of desire
From the fountain of forgiveness
Beyond the ice and fire

Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me

Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars

Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We'll rise above these earthly cares

Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me...

Words and music by Loreena McKennitt, from Book of Secrets (2004)

For some reason, people around here (at a LYS I frequent for example) get her mixed up with Enya. If you haven't heard her before she's worth checking out, especially her last three studio albums.