Not Just Any Tam, Dick or Harry

... a very special Snapdragon Tam, in some very special gift yarn.

I am really enjoying the pattern so far, and indeed knitting in general - I hadn't realised just how much I'd missed the soothing, soul-salving stitching. 

Hipstamatic (G)love

I have finally succumbed to the lure of the iPhone, and have been playing around with the Hipstamatic app to photograph my Farinelli gloves.

It's been making me think about photographing knitwear. There is the urge to produce a faithful, true-to-life document, and visually to convey technical details about the pattern and the yarn (one of the most common notes on Ravelry project pages is 'the colour is most accurate in x photo'). I wonder, though, if being too anal about these aspects sometimes makes for boring photos...

The colours in the above photo are wildly inaccurate, but maybe that's ok - to my mind, it captures more of the evanescent 'spirit' of the glove. What do you think? Are they annoyingly misleading?

Pyjamas and Opera Gloves

I have just finished one of the Farinelli Gloves (I'm tempted to make a castrato joke, but I haven't got the balls) by Ysolda. I have never knit gloves with fingers before, and I was so proud of my first completed one that I decided to model it in my pyjamas. I hope you don't mind.

Gretel Beret

I have some new headgear to keep my brain warm while it strains to produce historical thoughts - Ysolda's Gretel beret, from my seemingly never-ending stash of Fyberspates Scrumptious DK.

Don't look too closely at the shameful glimpses of backpack in the two photos above, though I must admit, it has proved invaluable on the long walk to the archive. 

For the third time (after my Liesl and Crofter's Cowl), this yarn was blissful to knit - barely spun, slippery-soft udon noodles of silk and merino. It was surprisingly easy to cable without a cable needle, and I think the glisten of the silk content  throws the lattice motif into relief.

As with all of Ysolda's designs, this is an extremely well produced pattern. My only minor quibble is that the symbols she uses for cables are a little unorthodox; I found them rather confusing, and for once worked from the written instructions.

It's not easy taking photos of the back of your head...

Liesl

Yesterday I finished Liesl, an airy feather-and-fan cardigan by Edinburgh knitting goddess Ysolda Teague, and today I got my friend Simone to take some pictures of me wearing it around various Emmanuel College vegetation.

This was fairly straightforward knit, marginally marred by a minor mare I had with one of the sleeves. The pattern is excellent, and provides so many different options - such as whether to make a bolero or cardigan - that I could see myself making a Liesl for every season. For a full-on Liesl experience, I listened to The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (where the inspiration for the name came from) on audiobook as I knit it.

The yarn is Fyberspates' aptly-named Scrumptious, in royal blue. It winked silkily out at me from the shelves of the marvellous k1 yarns in Edinburgh, and I snapped about 800 yards. I then worked myself into a bit of a tizz over what to make with it. It calls itself a dk, and I thought initially I might make this with it. It quickly became apparent, however, that it behaved much more like an aran or worsted weight yarn, trying to pass itself off as its more slender cousin.  I considered making this, a pattern I had been lusting after for a while, but worried about the high silk content (45%) of the yarn, and thought that this heavy fibre might cause a fitted cardigan to sag and stretch.

I eventually chose Liesl in the hope that if the silk did descend any further, it might look intentionally drapey. In the end, I think all my ruminations were slightly counterproductive, and I overestimated how much the yarn would stretch with blocking, with the result that the cardigan is on the small side. I haven't added buttons yet (that's my grandmother's cameo brooch fastening it in the photos), but I suspect that if I do, those little buttons are going to have a tough job keeping it closed!

Despite the size issue, I am very happy with my Liesl, and am sure I will get a lot of wear out of it. It's the perfect thing to have in your bag as insurance about the vagaries of the British climate. I love the subtle shimmer of the silk that makes every rippling purl ridge glisten like ocean waves, and I am very fond of the nubbly picot edge.

I have gone a little bit Ysolda crazy, and have two other projects designed by her on my needles at the moment, which I'll try and post about soon