Fluffbuff

<rant>Yes, I have a bad case of blog fatigue, Facebook fatigue, Ravelry fatigue, turkey fatigue… enough already. And no more virtual pets; what the heck… I got real ones and they are awesome. No more invitations to FB apps, fling food, virtual hug, virtual you name it… I'm done with it.</rant>

<update>Minor knitting going on. Bought some lace weight cashmere from Colourmart.uk that for now I am simply winding into balls, and it's taking several TV evenings to do that.

In less than two weeks I'll be up in San Francisco taking the first of several bread baking workshops at the San Francisco Baking Institute.</update>

<happy_turkey>To those of you who do turkey… Happy turkey day!</happy_turkey>

Posted by Francesca at 5:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

To answer a couple of questions about the cashmere sweater…

Q. Why spend months knitting a plain gray sweater that you could have bought at a store?
A. Because I couldn't have bought it at a store exactly the way I wanted it: tight fit, extra long sleeves, rolled edges, the exact shade of gray…

And beside all that, because I enjoyed knitting it, at least for 80% of the time. :)

Q. Can you show pictures of the seams?
A. Not the best pictures, but here they are.

Q. Any seaming tips?
A. Ha! Seaming tips from the queen of seam procrastination?
I don't know if this will be any help, but I knit the sides of the sweater with a selvedge, just a single purl stitch at the end of each stockinette row. When Ivar sewed the pieces together he inserted the needle into the first stitch *after* the selvedge stitch. I think there is a name for this technique, but I don't know it.

Maybe someone else can fill in the blanks?

Posted by Francesca at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBacks (0)

One friendly kitty outside…

One grumpy kitty inside…

Thump

Argh

Phhfftt

Hiss

One of these days the glass will give in when Kelvin throws himself against it with all his might. For now it's holding.

Posted by Francesca at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

I can get used to this: knitterly afternoons eating good food, sipping Lapsang Souchong, listening to Cassandra Wilson and Ella in Berlin, all the while learning something new (twined knitting) with the sweetest Italian greyhound leaning against my leg or using it as a chin prop.

Isn't Luna the cutest?

Of course she knows it and has all the boys wrapped around her little paw, starting with Doug who has furnished his apartment to reflect who's in charge. Sofa pillows with reproductions of renaissance tapestry with exquisite images of Italian greyhounds… drawings, paintings, photos and a beautiful poster of a 1912 Frankfurt dog show.

You can't blame a girl for letting it go to her head.

Almost forgot about the knitting…

Ivar taught me how to set up a ball of yarn and cast on for twined knitting, and how to twine knit stockinette stitch with two colors. He also showed me how to purl that way, but I didn't actually get to do that, so most likely the information won't stick.

Twined knitting is slow — I mean, sloooooow — and it may not be practical for LA weather, but it sure is an interesting technique that yields beautiful results. I'll try to practice in the next few days to fix things in memory and worry about possible applications later.

Posted by Francesca at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

What do you know… I finished the cashmere sweater that had been languishing there forever. It took a friendly hand to get me out of a rut. After spending about three months knitting 3 strands of superfine cashmere with #0 needles, I botched the seams, my constant nemesis, until Ivar quietly picked up the sweater, undid the seams and redid the whole thing properly — or I should say beautifully — and now I also know how to do it myself.

For now the sweater is drying on a rack and given that it's finally turned a little cold, it might take a while to dry completely. Wouldn't it be great if I could keep those leaf shadows in the sweater?

I decided to finish the neck, cuffs and bottom by keeping the raw rolled edges. I'll see how I like that when I wear the sweater.

Pipie is supervising the drying while enjoying a little bit of October sun in the dining room.

Unfortunately the orange cast is due to the fires in the San Fernando Valley. Let's hope they get completely extinguished soon.

Posted by Francesca at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBacks (0)