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

Why yes! It's....

Urban Decay Saturday! I have some old u.d. for you today...
This is the oldest standing building in the city - it was built in the 15th century. It was the city hall from 1789 to the late 1800's. Now it's a very nice restaurant and pub. And yes, your eyes are not decieving you - it's crooked! The inside is equally distorted. Check out the bulging on the side of the building.
Hee hee! I love it! It's pretty AND decaying. I believe they are planning to do some restoration work in the near future. Now for the mystery project update shots:
It's gotten bigger and much more quickly than I anticipated. Can anyone guess what it is yet?
Here's a gratuitous close-up shot as a clue
The stitch pattern is very pretty, and a bit complicated, so it needs my full attention, as well as decent light. You can see a bit of the yarn's tweediness in this shot. I think I prefer my yarns tweedier, but it's still very pretty. Unfortunately, this yarn is kindof driving me crazy. It is a 2 ply (why they call it a 4 ply still excapes me) and sometimes one of the 2 strands gets really thick and thin. And when they both get thick, it makes my stitches bulge and look kindof distorted. And it splits on my needles sometimes - I shudder to think what would happen if I were using bamboo or wooden needles with more grab to them. But it may be my fault for going below the recommended needle size but I just couldn't get gauge on a US 3 needle, and the US 2's are not available here so I had to go down by 0.25 mm and ended up with a 2.5 mm needle. Also the yarn is scratchier than I expected, but I'm sure a wash will fix that up. It's not intolerable or anything.

Now I leave you with some eye-candy:
I love the shade of green of the building in the background. I want yarn in this color! Maybe next year...

Ivanova

Sock yarn is OK to buy, right?

According to the rules of 'knit from your stash', anyways... Well, I was concerned I didn't have enough of the Rowan 4-ply tweed that I bought over the holidays, for the intended project, Shedir from Knitty. And, since I bought the wrong weight of yarn (stupid jet lag!) I would have had to hold it doubled. So now I have cast on for a new (mystery) project, and I still don't think I have enough. So... I broke down and bought 2 more balls. This way I won't have to make it shorter, or anything like that. Here's a decent photo of the yarn. Finally, some decent natural light was streaming in the bedroom window.
The yarn in real life is a touch more purple, but this picture gives you the idea well enough. The
color is claret (013). Here's a much better detail shot, but it's only half way through I pattern repeat, anyways.
I like it so much, I want to make it full length, hence the extra sock yarn purchase. Now, I am NOT a color knitter (no fair isle here, posted by me), but I don't dislike the look of it. For example I find most of Alice Starmore's work, not to mention Eunny Jang, among others, color work absolutely stunning. I guess that I am just intimidated by dealing with many strands of skinny yarn on tiny needles. But it's so beautiful! Well, since sock yarn is OK, I purchased enough sock yarn (2 ply) from Virtual Yarns to make Eunny's Endpaper Mitts. I figure a small project that is practical and wearable (and relatively inexpensive compared to a whole sweater, like the Venezia pullover) is a decent way to start color knitting. I saw the Venezia pullover in the Winter 2006 Interweave knits, and I thought it was absolutely stunning. And I would look fabulous in it. But colorwork AND steeking? Well, let's see how I feel next year, when I've completed my first colorwork project, and I'm off the yarn diet. Oh, and BTW, for those of us on this blog who are interested in aquiring tweedy 4-ply yarn in sweater quantities, Virtual Yarns offers free shipping for orders larger than 12 pounds anywhere in the world. So their yarn might not be the best deal pricewise, but shipping a pound or two worth of yarn across the atlantic might make a reasonable difference in pricing a project. I will report on the yarn when I recieve it.

So what about the hat which prompted my decision to purchase a sock yarn? Well, as I was investigating my Rowan options, I found out that not all of the colors available in the 4 ply are available in other weights. Count on me to gravitate towards one of them. Harrumph! I found a very similar shade in the Virtual Yarns 3 ply (approximately DK weight), so I got enough for the hat. I don't consider it a breaking of the yarn diet, because it's a small quantity, the color I liked would never have been at the lys in the right weight (or anywhere in the world), and I planned this project well before the New Year anyways. So there.

Now for the blue tweed sweater progress shot:
Here are the back and the left sleeve. The colors are quite accurate in the picture. At first, I was
a bit worried about how the sleeve would look with only one cable panel (okay, surrounded by a braid on each side) because it's so wide, but now that it's done, and can be viewed with the back, I think it looks good. And it's a quick knit, I finished the sleeve in less than 2 weeks, because of all the reverse stockinette. And, holding up the sleeve up to the back, I figure I don't have the sleeve cap problems I had with the purple sweater. So for the time being, the mystery project will be my thinking knit, and the blue sweater left front will be my easy knit.

Ivanova