Hello from Edinburgh

The move went well, and we are settling in. Still no internet connection: 5-7 working days, my foot. Free wifi in the pub next door, though. Awesome.

Seeing the flat again for the first time in a month, I immediately noticed all sorts of things that I hadn't noticed at our viewing. For example, lack of right angles. Ah, character.



We picked a great/terrible time to move to Edinburgh, depending on your point of view: it is festival season, and the Edinburgh Fringe has taken over the whole city. We knew that going in, but it's still a pretty weird atmosphere to form first impressions in. I've been here as a tourist before, and I sort of still feel like a tourist. Maybe when the Fringe-goers go home and there are fewer tourists around we'll get used to living normal life in Edinburgh.


The Scottish parliament is a frankly confusing building up close. I think it comes together rather well from slightly further away. Art? Or monstrosity? You decide.

Not a whole lot of knitting going on between unpacking, assembling flatpacked furniture, and going to Fringe shows, but we did get out and climb up Arthur's Seat the other day. I've been up several times before when visiting Edinburgh, but every time the views of the city startle me. The spires in the centre of town help form an impressive skyline.



I love that there's a huge hill right in the middle of the city.



So far so good.

One last foray on Dartmoor

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently spent a day out hiking on Dartmoor. Hiking, or walking as they tend to say here, is pretty much the only athletic activity I feel any good at. During the time I spent in Devon a few years ago, I took advantage of the proximity to beautiful hills, tors, and moors: I joined a walking society and went hiking most weekends. My boyfriend and I met on one of those walks, and the rest is... geography? Har har. In any case, we both like to walk, and this is a great place to do it. We set out for a final walking daytrip before moving to Scotland.

We started out in Okehampton, followed a proper trail for a way, and then struck out onto the moors to clamber up and down some tors.


For a while, all the views were like this. Nice. Luckily the weather is very changeable. Over the course of a short walk between tors, we might lose sight of our goal completely, even if it was less than 100 metres away. And then it would reappear. And maybe disappear again in the fog.


Blunt enough.

We wandered into the danger zone which covers a large portion of Dartmoor, but there were no military exercises going on. Remnants of past military activity cropped up every so often in the form of shell casings and rusted bits of metal, but nothing big and scary.



It's hard to capture the extremeness of the landscape in a little rectangle. The scrabble, gorse, and tumbled rocks give the whole place a bleak look in the fog and rain, but shine out starkly in the sun. Groomed fields contrast the wildness on all sides of them. On occasions when the fog did lift, the views from the top of the hills and tors were startling and beautiful.


And yet, it all looks so piddly when I try to take photos of it.


And of course there were lots of sheep about. These rams looked like they were having some sort of meeting. A Conference of Rams. New collective noun?



This is my last post before moving to Edinburgh - lots to be done around here, and I'm not sure when I'll next have a reliable internet connection. Exciting times, though! See you soon, blogosphere.

FO: Herbivore

Two FO posts in a row? It may never happen again. Or maybe it will.



Pattern: Herbivore, by Stephen West

Yarn: Sweet Paprika Messa di Voce

Notes:
This scarf/shawlette took far less yarn than expected. The pattern calls for 430 yds / 393 m, so I figured two skeins of Messa di Voce would do it. In fact, the scarf was full pattern size after one skein, but I dipped into the second skein because I was nervous it would be too small. I only knit about an extra inch before the bind-off - about 13 inches deep instead of 12. It's a good size and blocked a little bigger anyway.

The colour is a bit brighter and slightly yellower than the photo shows. It's exciting to use indie hand-dyed yarn! (And Canadian indie yarn, no less.) The yarn bled quite a bit when blocking, so I will probably avoid this yarn for colourwork. I really enjoyed knitting it, though, and it's super soft.



I wore Herbivore while hiking on Dartmoor yesterday. More on this in another post: it really is an astounding place. I hoped to use the landscape in some suitably dramatic FO photos, but none of them really show off the knit or the landscape. Ah well. It kept me warm!


Herbivore's test-run on Dartmoor: photofail, warmth success!



This deserves blocking wires. It would look so much nicer with crisp straight edges than my straight pins can provide. Wibble wobble. Also, after one wearing, the edges are already rolling, so I think I should have blocked more vigorously. One day I'll get proper blocking wires!

FO: Noro socks of pinkness

The noro knee-sock saga has come to a close, and it's so exciting.

Pattern: Delicious Knee Socks by Laura Chau

Yarn: Noro Kureyon Sock

Notes:
As previously noted, I ran out of yarn 1.5 socks in. The pattern's handy yardage chart is great, but you have to actually use it for it to help you. *headdesk*. I decided to order more yarn after all, and I'm glad I did.

I did not attempt to match the two socks, instead deciding to see where the Noro took me. The tops ended up nearly matching anyway, through no extra calculation of my own.



My gauge was much tighter than the pattern required: 32 sts / 3.5 inches rather than 32 sts / 4 inches. Even so, I still ended up going down a sock size, knitting for foot circumference 8 instead of 9 inches. I think if I use this pattern again, I will go up to a 2.25 mm needle, instead of 2.0 mm. The fabric is really dense and warm.

These socks are super fun, but now that I've completed them I can't imagine ever wearing them in public. And yet, they are too fabulous to be hidden under trouser-legs.

Olive bread success

I have a long-awaited FO to show-off in the next few days, once I can get some decent photos when it stops raining, but in the meantime, I made bread. It was delicious. I have been baking more bread lately than in my whole life, since bread is something the whole family will eat - my boyfriend's family includes a vegan who eats almost no fat, so cookies are out. In any case, half my attempts at cookies here have been horrible failures. (I blame the oven's mad vendetta against me and the surprisingly lack of baking trays.) My bread attempts have been moderately more successful, but this one is the best-received offering yet.



My lacklustre photos on dirty counter top do not do it justice. The thing was devoured in minutes! Or maybe hours, if I'm honest. Luckily, I made the two loaves at once, so there's a whole other loaf hidden away. It will disappear by tonight, though.

I used the recipe for Sun Dried Tomato and Olive Bread on the BBC, but left out the sun dried tomatoes. I didn't use as many olives as required, either, but I should have used the full amount. I also used loaf pans instead of making round loaves since there were no flat baking sheets to be found. I also used active dry yeast instead of fresh yeast, using this conversion chart. This was my first time baking with a recipe that called for weights as opposed to volumes. I used a kitchen scale and everything! I still have all my North American volume-measured recipes and have meauring devices suitable for those, but I'm excited to venture into these British recipes as well.



Not going to lie: this is my second attempt at this particular bread. The first attempt looked promising until I cut into the middle and realized the centre of the bread was still doughy, even though the outside was very brown. It never cooked, despite hours and hours more in the oven on low heat. Fail. Reasons for failure are probably two-fold. 1. boyfriend's oven is a temperamental beast that hates me; 2. I tried to make it as one loaf rather than the two called for in the recipe. Bad idea.

Anyway, the second attempt was a resounding success. Fluffy, moist, olive-y, crusty, mmmm.

Fall Twist: best issue ever?

I think this is my favourite issue of Twist Collective so far. The photography and styling in Twist is always beautiful, so I love looking through it even if the individual patterns don't appeal to me. In this issue, the photos are gorgeous but I also want to make practically everything, so it's all a bit overwhelming!

I can't pick one favourite, but as it turns out, many that jump out at me are from Mary-Heather's colourful story.

Orange Pop is awesome. I've never considered using the "wrong-side" of fair-isle as a pattern in itself before, but leave it to Norah Gaughan to come at knitting from all sides. So cool. I would leave off the turtle-neck on this, probably, and I suspect I would use less popping colours, but still. Cityscape is adorable. I would add waist-shaping if I made it for myself, though. And socks! Manolo is so elegant. I've never been attracted to designer shoes, but I would totally make these socks, even to hide them in my unfashionable footwear.

I also like the soft, muted colour palette of "Une histoire comme les autres" - extra bonus points for Montreal and French!

Acorns is pretty and looks infinitely wearable, as does Metro.

Finally, I've always wanted to make a coat, even though I'm not sure how practical it would be. Maybe Red Oak is the one.

I'm so glad fall knitting is around the corner.

from the beach to the metropolis

Last week we went up to Edinburgh for a quick two-day tour of rental properties, criss-crossing the city on foot and seeing it in several different lights.


Edinburgh emerging

When we got into town from the airport, it was early morning, and the spires were shrouded in mist.

By the time we left in the evening the following day, the city was glowing. The few times I have visited Edinburgh, I have always admired how the light hits the stone, so I was excited when the sun finally came out.



We found a flat, and paid a deposit, so fingers-crossed everything runs smoothly from here! I am beyond excited that I get to live in this city I've admired so much as a tourist -- I know there are many more interesting things to see and do that the tourists never find out about. But now I have to find a job.

Adventure!

The other day we set out for a great adventure. (All my adventures are great.) We went to Bantham beach, and enjoyed a sunny day by the sea. I swam in the Atlantic ocean for the first time! The water was pretty cold, which probably goes without saying, but I had so much fun.



From Bantham, you can see Burgh Island, the real-life inspiration for Agatha Christie's island setting of the book And Then There Were None. I find that kind of exciting, since I grew up on Agatha Christie, and always loved that novel in particular.



Getting there was an adventure in itself, since we got lost and had to ask for directions 4 times. We also encountered a tidal road that floods and becomes impassable during high tide. Luckily, it turned out we didn't have to drive down that road to get to our destination. Fun times.

FO: Shrug thing

Pattern: Top-Down Shoulder Warmer, by Laura Chau

Yarn: Cascade 220



Mods:
I knit the sleeves in the round instead of flat, since I didn't see the point of doing the seaming. When I knit the sleeves, I thought they were turning out too short, so I did 3 inches of sleeve ribbing instead of 2.

I only knit 3 inches of collar ribbing since I was running out of yarn. Be aware that although the pattern says 430 yards is enough for the 36 size, my 2 skeins of Cascade 220 (440 yards) was just barely enough to knit it with my mods. The shorter collar ribbing works just fine, though.


It bunches a little in the back, but I don't really mind. I think that's what raglan increases do naturally.

Notes:
I want one in every colour. I love it. It is so simple and brilliant. This was (gasp) my first project in the ubiquitous Cascade 220, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Maybe I have inexpensive tastes after all? Haha. I will use it again if the opportunity arises. I look forward to seeing how it wears, since it was so cheap.

Catching up

Before I left Ottawa, I did one last fit of yarn dyeing to distract myself from packing. I'd bought some Wiltons Black months before and hadn't tried it yet, so this was a good opportunity.

I overdyed this gray sock yarn with streaks of blue and green from a previous dyeing experiment that I eventually decided was too subtle for me.

Before:


After:

trying to do a Madelintosh style yarn-pose

It's still gray, but I like it a lot better this way. Knowing that Wiltons Black tends to do unpredictable things, I decided to let it break and see what happened.



I'm pleased that the gray has more depth to it now, because of the red and blue that separated out and stuck. The blue is more obvious in the photos, but there are so reddish streaks as well.

Made it.

So many roses in these parts

The first leg of my big journey is complete, and I'm sort of settled in the sunny south west. At least, it has been very sunny and warm for much of the last week. Today there were some thundershowers interspersed with warm sun - I had forgotten how quickly the weather changes here. The flowers and trees need the rain, since it has been so dry.



I've been having a lot of fun taking pictures of the plants and flowers that I haven't already photographed a hundred times. Fruit trees are so exciting!



There is a massive thistle growing in my boyfriend's backyard. It's practically a tree! Kind of fitting, since the next leg of our big moving journey will end in Scotland. Exciting times, but lots of organizing ahead.

Aerial word... Saturday

I've fallen behind on my word-learning since coming home from Quebec. Must get back into it. Since I have flying on the brain, here are some airplane words.

cabotage

1. navigation or trade along the coast.
2. Aviation. the legal restriction to domestic carriers of air transport between points within a country's borders.

~Dictionary.com

aeropleustic
pertaining to aerial navigation

~Dictionary of Difficult Words

I'm losing the battle with my suitcase and the airline weight limit at the moment, but I will prevail. My next post will be from England - I will see you on the other side!

Happy Canada Day!

Yesterday was Canada's 143rd birthday. Since I still live in the nation's capital for a few more days, I went downtown to take in the celebration. This may be my last Canada Day in Canada for a while. Canada Day in Ottawa is always a bit crazy, but this year the crowds were particularly huge and crushing.

I saw a lot of this and not much else.



Everyone was clamouring for a glimpse of these tiny blobs on stage, but who could they be?


Excuse the blurry zoomed in shot

That's about as close as I got to Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. Later I was stuck behind a barricade unable to cross the street until their motorcade passed. The extra security presence in honour of their visit impeded crowd movements and made the crush worse, I think. The excitement surrounding their visit was overwhelming, and honestly a bit ridiculous, but it definitely showed the power of symbol and celebrity.


Despite the crowds it was a beautiful day and night.


And later it rained gold sparkles.



I hope everyone, Canadian or not, had a fun day!

Difficult decisions

I mentioned a while back that I'm moving to a land far away.

Turns out that the move is now less than a week away. Holy crap, how did that happen?


Turns out I like blue, green, and purple. This wasn't a mystery to anyone.

In preparation, I've been going through my possessions and trying to minimize. This includes yarn. The above shows the final cut: this is the stash I'm bringing with me to the UK. If it fits. If it doesn't fit, I'll have to cull a bit more. Since I've been diligently trying NOT to stash for the last while, I don't have that much yarn, but I have enough that I'm leaving some behind. The fact that I can still store stuff in my childhood home is comforting in this situation, but it's also a bit of a crutch. It is stopping me from doing a total purge of my belongings. Really, I'm just putting it off. But for now, I'll settle for gradual simplification.

FO: Lavalette

Pattern: Lavalette, by Kirsten Kapur

Yarn: Classic Elite Silky Alpaca Lace

Mods:
Added one more repeat of the openwork section, and a few more rows of stockinette at the end. I very nearly ran out during the bind-off; in fact, I did run out binding off at least twice, and had to rip back a bit. The final bind-off finished with about 5 cm of yarn. That was a close one.



Notes:
Shawl measures 70 cm from point to top edge, and 150 cm along top edge.

I love this shawl. It was so much fun to knit, and never boring. The alternating sections of lace and stockinette kept me interested, I think. This one is for my grandma, but I'll definitely knit this again, maybe for me! This counts as my tenth knitted gift for my 101 in 1001 list, so technically I don't have to knit any more gifts. Haha, but I totally will. :)

Lavalette was my first project in laceweight yarn, and it hasn't scared me away. I count this as a good sign, or perhaps just a lucky mistake to prolong my naivete. Eh, in any case, I enjoyed knitting with the Silky Alpaca Lace, although it was difficult to manage the garter tab cast-on with such slippery, fiddly, tiny yarn. Next time I'll do better. I am a little concerned that this yarn will shed profusely. When I cam back inside from taking the photos, my tank top was covered in fuzz. I didn't notice any shedding when I was knitting, however.

Quake!

There was an earthquake of magnitude 5.0 this afternoon. The epicentre was about 60 km away, and it shook for a long time. The internet says 15-20 seconds, but it felt like longer.

I've felt tremors before, but this is by far the most dramatic and longest I've ever experienced. When things started falling off shelves, I ran outside and heard things cracking and crashing. After a while I couldn't really tell whether the vibrations I felt under my barefoot were still earthquake or just my adrenaline rushing. I don't think I could handle living in California where the earthquakes are serious business!


This soapstone sculpture had a lucky save and somehow didn't fall off the mantle.

Nothing big broke in my house, but some pottery slid off the shelves and shattered. Plenty of books, cds, and miscellaneous other clutter also ended up on the floor. Ah well, I needed to clean my room anyway. The mess in my room was pretty extreme afterwards, but to be honest, I had piles of things on the floor to start with: I'm in the middle of packing to move.

FO: Unicorn Barf Fraternal Twins (Skew)

Pattern: Skew by Lana Holden
Yarn:Elann Sock It To Me 4 ply, handdyed with Easter egg dyes.



When I handpainted this yarn, I laid two skeins side by side, attempted to paint them in the same way, and hoped for the best. As you can see above, the right sock is very different from the left sock. One sock ended up much more purple/gray than the other when the dyes blended. These would have been good candidates for alternating skeins, but I enjoy mismatched socks, so I like them. Ultimately, it was super fun watching the colours knit up. Next time I knit this pattern, and there will be a next time, I'll use a yarn with longer colour repeats to take advantage of the neat construction.

My gauge was tight, so these are pretty snug, but they still fit. I think they'll stretch. As noted by most ravelry users, they are a bit tough to put on because of their construction, but it's not so bad. I had to add about 10 more rounds in the foot to get the right length, which seems to have worked. Next time, if my gauge is similarly tight, I would add length in the ankle as well.



I could gush about the wild construction, but all that has been said. A super fun and surprisingly fast knit! Will knit again.

Anatomy of Fail

I've been sort of quiet about my noro knee socks these last few months, but it's time to come clean.


(some day I'll remember to clean the porch before I do a photoshoot)

I have very little yarn left, but only 1.5 socks. How did I let it come to this? Bad planning and a series of oversights. I should have known better. Don't be like me: here's what I did wrong.

1. Trusted others without thinking
Ravelry is brilliant, and I get a lot of useful information from other knitters' project notes. This time, however, I neglected to consider the differences between my circumstances and those of other ravelers who made the same socks using only one skein of Noro Kureyon Sock. Namely, I have average-to-large sized feet, and large calves. As such, I require bigger socks, and making bigger socks requires more yarn. There is a detailed yardage calculation section in the pattern, but because I assumed I would have enough yarn, I didn't even bother doing the calculations until it was too late. Dumb. Won't happen again.

2. Did not pay much attention to gauge.
When I started the first sock, I did take note of the fact that my gauge was much tighter than called for in the pattern, but since things were othewise working out, I didn't do anything with this knowledge. Tighter gauge = more stitches required. More stitches = more yarn.



3. Unfailing optimism / denial
So deep was my trust in those ravelers who have come before that I didn't even start thinking something was amiss until I was well into the second sock. At first, I thought I would only come up a little short, and so I could unravel the top of the first sock to make the two even. Alas, my optimism turned to despair when I finally realized I wouldn't have nearly enough.

4. Unwillingness to frog
I am not a committed frogger. Sometimes frogging is necessary, and I fear that is the case with this project, but I usually try to find a way around it. When I make mistakes in my knitting, I usually just live with the mistakes. I am not a perfectionist. In this case, I kept going, even when I started to have my doubts...

I guess I have a few options.
-rip back the first sock so it matches the second.
-buy more yarn and finish the socks
-frog the whole thing and make something else
-frog the whole thing, buy something to stripe the noro with, make striped knee socks

To be honest, I'm sick of looking at this project, so it's hibernating. I'm seriously considering buying more yarn since I like how the first sock turned out, but I don't know what I'd do with the leftovers. What do you think?

New acquisitions

A few weeks ago, the French school organized a trip to Montreal, and I took the opportunity to meet up with old friends and explore some yarn shops. I've been to Montreal many times, but I think I'll always enjoy going back and discovering new things.


Tanis Fiber Arts Blue Label Fingering, from Mouliné, and Projeckt B Superwash Sock from Ariadne

First, I went to Ariadne Knits, and was immediately charmed. It was pouring out, so escaping the weather for a cozy, warm, dry, yarn-filled space was ideal. I tried not to drip all over the stock. I wandered round and round the small space, absorbing colours and squishing skeins, while chatting with the woman there, who was very friendly and helpful. Eventually I decided on the yellow/orange skein of sock yarn, pictured above. I didn't realize until later, when I looked it up on Ravelry, that Projekt B is the Ariadne Knits house brand, but I did notice that it was handdyed in Montreal. A fitting souvenir. I'm in love with the colour, and I hope it holds up well for socks. Finally, I'm going to make yellow socks!

Then, I wandered over to Mouliné, and I was surprised at how large the store was inside, since it doesn't look that big from the outside. Especially after the tiny coziness of Ariadne, the place seemed massive, although in reality it isn't huge. The selection was pretty broad and impressive, but I spent a lot of time gazing longingly at the Tanis Fiber Arts yarns. Mmmm more handdyed in Montreal. I picked up a skein of Blue Label, pictured above, in Mallard. It was a very difficult decision, especially since I gravitate towards blues, teals, and purples: Tanis' colour palette is biased heavily towards cool colours like those, and they are all gorgeous.



In the end, I also took home two skeins of Cascade 220 in aubergine to make a Top-Down Shoulder Warmer. I can't get enough aubergine, apparently. Also, it was the cheapest I've ever seen Cascade 220 in a brick-and-mortar shop. Wow. I suspect it was on sale.

All in all, a fruitful yarn exploration. Nevermind the fact that I'm moving to another continent in a few weeks, and I need to start purging rather than acquiring...

A Master at last

Bad blogger. Bad! In my defence, I've been busy. There are a few things I need to photograph before they can feature in posts of their own. But first:

I'm back from Quebec. I'm also back from London, ON - I finally graduated with my MLIS. I'm so glad to be finished this degree. It was really stressful, but hopefully worth it. Convocation was long and boring, as convocations tend to be, but it was also worth it. I had lots of fun catching up with my former classmates - officially qualified librarians, all!

Got hooded in a screechingly bright yellow colour, described in the programme as "lemon." Purple and yellow are fun, though.

(Hey, at least I didn't do an MBA. Their colour has the inspirational name of "drab.")

The procession at the end of the ceremony was totally the best bit, and I have some video to prove it. The university seems rather attached to traditional trappings - we even sang God Save the Queen in addition to O Canada - so I never expected this untraditional musical choice for the procession out.



Brilliant. Made my day.

Back soon with yarny goodness!