MOONSTITCHES

Wreck Washed Ashore

A little bit rough and exhausting here in the meantime... just after I thought I had more time and would be posting more frequently again. But you know, one always should be prepared to be surprised. So I do try to collect myself now and start again, once more.

I took so many photos in September, had so many postings on my mind, but none got written. No energy. Ravelry, continued to be a pleasant place to just lean back and watch "Friends-TV"... just hit the refresh button from time to time and get over-inspired by all the beautiful things everybody made... rush to your own knittings and hastily ruin a simple sweater (terribly sagging sleeves) and two ribbed hats (one way too big, one too small)... I didn't even bother to take pictures of those unfortunate efforts. Just took a deep breath and went on. I will try to make all three pieces work someday. Right now I am knitting a model from the current Phildar collection, Model 19/ 20/ 21, but I am a bit discouraged by my failures and fear, with the slightly ludicrous yarn I am using, it could look only funny in the end.
At least it will feel great, the yarn is soft and cozy. And I love the natural brown colour.

Anyway, I owe you a big THANK YOU for all your nice words about my latest cardigan!!!
Thanks a lot!
I have been wearing the cardigan a bit meanwhile and I must say, I really would like a longer version of it. Also, maybe interesting for those of you who think of making the cardigan: due to its construction it tends to slip down the shoulders after some time of wearing it. Not too badly but worth mentioning. I am still very happy with the cardigan!

Above you see my latest find. Trash from the street. Adorable, both girls of our family agreed. I have no idea how old this chair is, but I found this photo on Flickr, which implies the chair is at least retro. It's squeaking, by the way.

I hope you are all well, being creative and having a good time.
Thanks for stopping by.
Take care!

Lunaris

New cardigan for me. Why not. It's only the third in a row... but I was stash-busting, so even if it was my twentieth...

The pattern : BERROCO, Solaris, an update on tradition [...] that flatters the curves.... Well... the photo on their website had a little too elegant/ boring appeal to me. Still promising, though. For some time I hesitated but then, three weeks ago, I saw a really nice, quite similar cardigan in a shop in Shibuya (Tokyo) that was by Jil Sander and instantly made me like Solaris a lot better. So I tried.

The construction of the cardigan is interesting. Both front parts are knitted together with the back yoke in one part. I took away 10 cm of widths (description of the pattern said "there is quite a bit of wrap in the front that will accommodate multiple sizes for each size given") in order to make the collar less bulky in the back, and added 5 cm to the length. Knitted in size small after checking how much the front parts would overlap given the measurements for that size minus those 10 cm.

Love the result.

The seeded rib stitch gives a very thick yet drapy, cosy fabric which is nice to touch and wear. The texture on the inside is great.

The Longchamp Misty which stripes very subtly and smells beautiful, shall hopefully be protected by the fingering merino yarn from Munsell (Yuzawaya) and I hope with the two yarns together the cardigan will pill less than my second Hourglass Sweater (same yarn, different colourway). 

I like how the collar is warming my neck, presumably that is, because of course it still is much too warm to feel really good wrapped in wool. I'd like to make a long version of this cardigan some day. Nice pattern. Interesting yet simple and quick, too. I wonder why there are no finished versions of it on ravelry yet.

More photos on Flickr, as usual.

It seems I cannot send and receive emails again at the moment. Something is sabotaging my good intentions...! Let's knit then...
Edit: *sigh*... works again. 

Take care.

Last Week

Still hot and humid and summer vacation here, and although I thought I couldn't get any slower, I think I did... it seems to be the hottest and most exhausting summer but of course I never have been that old before...
It was my birthday last week and we had a nice family day out, went to Enoshima, visited none of the tourist attractions, just had a very lovely, slow-paced day. I might show you some photos later on... thought I would write about it earlier but the week just flew by.
I finished the little vest last week and managed to take photos yesterday... again a quite challenging photo shoot, just too hot for wearing a warm, woolen vest.
But I am looking forward to autumn and think this vest is a very wearable addition to my closet.

I am no big fan of cropped, so I made the vest a bit longer than the pattern calls for (and added a button). It's still short but I am comfortable with its new length. It's looking very rustic and not so fitted as the original. And I haven't blocked it after I did the border at the armholes, so it looks a bit tight there, especially with the rather wide sleeves of my blouse, but it really is wide enough.

To add more lovely and cute to this posting... more flowers from the walk last week.

I told you about the buttons I made for the vest. They are just sliced Christmas Tree from two years back, not much processed and with only two holes. I didn't take any measurements and didn't use a template for placing the wholes, because I did not try to make them look refined in any way. The bark I treated with sandpaper to make the buttons slide easier through the buttonholes. It took a bit from the rusticness but the things shall work as buttons after all... As a finish I used an oil based varnish.

As for the yarn I want to say I really like it. It is nice to work with and I love how all these colours come together to add to the different colourways, making the yarn look very lively. It is rough and honest. And I would not call it scratchy, but I know some would. And it doesn't break easily but it is breakable easily. I am knitting rather tightly and had no difficulties.

Hope your week is going well!

It started raining again here, hopefully it's cooling down a bit soon.

PS: I finally added a photo of the fence where the clasp for my neck warmer came from over at Flickr.

Green Knittings

Her latest look... and, when showing you this hairdresser's shop window, referring to the item seen below as curly is pretty obvious.

I frogged my Laburnum (ravelry link) socks. I think I never spoke about them here on my blog... the short row heel which I had been trying went well, but the more I got into the sock the more my fingers hurt. It literally was a pain for me to knit this pattern. I prefer tightly knitted socks but when having to k3tog this can cause some serious difficulties.
I knew I never would knit the second one, ever.

Just because the girl on top has a wooden vase to her side, I show you my latest thrift store find. A katsuobushi kezuriki, a Japanese kitchen item to shave dried skipjack tuna. The fish flakes are one ingredient of dashi, a broth used in the Japanese kitchen like chicken broth in other countries. The flakes are also often used as a flavouring garnish.
The first time I saw them as a topping on a hot meal when I was first in Japan I thought something still living was served as the meal appeared to move. But it was just the heat which moved the flakes, quite a spectacle on that plate as I remember. Today most people are buying ready made flakes, packed in convenient portions. I do, too, but I like these fish planes, and maybe I will get a whole, dried fish one day, too, to make my own flakes.

Quickly after I got my tweed from Montana I decided what to do with my three skeins of Fisherman Weight in Marsh Sedge. Three skeins didn't seem too much to me, so I was looking for a little something to be knitted. I found this pattern (pdf), nice piece to wear with cute blouses, I think. Now, having knitted a good deal of it, and although I lengthened it about 3 cm, I seem to be fine with just two skeins! Too bad for the third skein... What I learned while knitting this piece, decreasing without those large steps. I never knew there was a way to avoid these. (what I did was not knitting but slipping the first to be cast off stitches in every decrease row... you all know that - or something even better, but I am really just learning, although knitting for so many years).

I am making buttons for this vest, from our Christmas Tree from two years back... with my brand new saw. I got a pretty screw clamp, too, one tool I always liked to have. It's so helpful in many situations.

Finally, the beginnings of a new hat. Quite a simple pattern I got back in 2004, when I wasn't that much of a knitter. It's from a knitting lesson with ひろせ・みつはる (Hirose Mitsuharu), published in NHK's oshare kobo #10 from 2004. Hirose Mitsuharu's pattern can also be found in oshare seikatsu, おしゃれセイカツ―はじめてニットとあったか小物 (First Knittings and Warm, Small Things, ISBN 978-4141876717, a small selection of patterns for all kinds of crafts, sewing, felting, knitting, crochet).

Basically the hat is just one long rhombus (or diamond), knitted by increasing on one side and decreasing on the other, sewn together in the end. And although the magazine came with tons of explanatory photos and sketches, I did not understand how to do the decreases and increases until recently. The shaping seemed complicated, in a way... I was so intimidated I couldn't think. Now, finally, I got it. And it is so simple... I am almost half through now and really, really love knitting every row in that gorgeous Felted Tweed (Rowan). What a beautiful yarn.
So much for now. As I said, I hope you have a pleasant weekend, as we do have here, although still melting... Take care!

Urgencies...

Upate: Just a few hours later... the new adapter already arrived and I am back!!! So good.

Have a pleasant weekend!

Update: Things got worse, I am disconnected. This must be the longest time I was without a computer, ever, at least the last two days feel like this... no emails, no watching dvds, no ravelry, no online knitting patterns, no radio, no listening to my cds, can't look up telephone numbers... oh, how much does my daily life on this little machine?! If you want to reach me, maybe the best thing would be sending a message via Flickr, if you have an account there. I will check my inbox as often as I can. If all goes well, I will be back in a week. I ordered a new power adapter today and hope that with the new one the screen will work again.

You know the feeling, when something is inaccessible, you want or need it even more...

My little Mac seems to be falling apart, one day it's this, one day another thing that won't work. I can't access the external disc where I store my photos, yesterday I could not go online for a while, or receive emails, and switching on my monitor became a real challenge... some problem with the power supply.
Of course these are the times which make me want to actually do all those things, writing emails, blog, download photos from my camera... so I do blog now, as quick as I can, using photos I already have stored under my account, ready to be uploaded onto Flickr...

Another urgency...
For some time I had been longing to try the yarns of Beaverslide Dry Goods, but since I really do try to buying local and make exceptions only sometimes, I didn't order until... my arm reached to it... in the manner of a traveling husband. It was so tempting to finally buy it when it could make its way to me in a suitcase that would travel back to Japan anyway, so I did place an order. Like I did when I bought my Koigu last year, I let the yarn be sent to my husband's hotel... only this time it arrived a bit too late to go into the suitcase and in the end quite some people were involved in letting my purchase reach me.
And all these people now know how much I wanted to get my hands on that yarn... 23 skeins are rather a lot when they are not just numbers on an order form but actual skeins in a biiiig box...
Anyway. It was worth all the stir, the yarn is wonderful.

I started knitting with the green 100% Fisherman Weight (ravelry link) and must say, I never have touched anything like it, it feels unbelievably honest, so natural and good. All tiny bits of grass I find make smile and I certainly leave them in... it's a real treat for me to touch nature when knitting. I guess it is the having no garden and no forests nearby makes me long for green things all the more.

Besides the 100% wool Fisherman Weight in Hidden Lake and Marsh Sedge I got the mighty McTaggart Tweed (both the old 2-ply), two colourways, Wild Myrtle and Elderberry, not because many other colours were sold out when I ordered, but because I do love all shades of purple at the moment. Can't get enough of it. No, that's wrong. I do have enough of it now. For the time being, that is... The McTaggart Tweed is soft and very light. I am curious how it will be knitted up. Haven't made a swatch yet so I cannot say anything about it.

I want to thank everybody for saying such nice words about my cardigan. It really is a nice basic piece and such an quick and easy knit, maybe some of you will make it, too. I am very happy about mine and looking forward to see other versions of the pattern.
I forgot what else I wanted to say today... hm... ah, I do remember again: I started working on my quilts again! Finally. I failed finishing them in the first half of the year, but at least I am at it again... the Courthouse Steps top is finished, photos taken, but captured in my camera... I hope the technical situation here will get better soon. Until then, no photos of the top :(
By the way, what made me feel the urge to work on my quilts again, take a look at Jennifer's growing Medallion Quilt... I haven't told her yet, but what she has been doing lately really makes me gasp. It's so beautiful. I like her playful use of colour and fabrics. It so much shows how much fun she has making this quilt.
Hope you are a happy crafter right now, too!

Take care!

Strickjacke

First of all, let me thank you for your incredible response. You are too good. And I am feeling bad because I said I would get back to you after the last posting and didn't. Especially if your are waiting for an email... please accept my apologies. At the moment we are all just suffering under the humid heat that finally set in, need so much time for all that has to be done, and in the evening I am too tired to think and write and instead just knit away and relax. We don't use air condition because we think it's so silly to cool down a place that's barely insulated, such a waste of energy, also eyes get dry and hurt. So it's really hot at home and I need so much time for everything because I feel so exhausted. What helps is to write down a list of little tasks, switch on some music that sets the right rhythm to stay in motion and work on that list in units of 30 minutes... If you have some great tips to get things done, please tell me.

The cardigan. Knitted, yes, but also a cardigan for knitting, therefore I called it Strickjacke - literally translated it would be something like knitting jacket like hiking boots or sleeping bag. I am knitting a lot in public, as I said before, throughout the year. Our winters here in the Kanto plain aren't very cold and nice sweater or cardigan are sufficient for most days.
And a cozy cardigan with short sleeves that don't interfere with your knitting sounded like a perfect idea to me. I liked the DROPS pattern 109-8 from the new Fall and Winter Collection 2008 as it was, but quickly imagined a version with short sleeves, just long enough to keep my arms warm.

The yarn I got only days before the pattern came out. It's Puppy Diffusion Alpaca Roving in a very nice heathery grey, soft, heavy, warm and shedding like mad. Courtenay of raptwithfiber had been warning me... the long alpaca hairs were all over the place once I started knitting. Time will tell if the shedding will stop at some point. I think it already got less, now that the yarn got knitted.

Once again I was happy about being on ravelry, because there I recently discovered Courtenay's gorgeous Buttony (here the ravelry link, knitted in a yarn I was coveting for months... found it in early spring, on sale at Yuzawaya, it looked beautiful, felt nice, but I wasn't sure how it would hold up... looked as if it would felt and pill quickly. So when I saw Courtenay's sweater I asked her about the yarn and she said it was fine. Besides the shedding. So I finally got that yarn. And I think it is fine, indeed.

Besides the sleeves I obviously did change, I did graft the hood instead of sewing which the pattern called for. Therefore I ended knitting the hood with 2 1/2 rows of garter stitch before kitchener stitching the halves together. With a half row of garter stitch a gap of stockinette stitch is avoided. Still some kind of seam is obvious. yet it is smooth and much nicer than an actual seam, I think.
The sleeves' length is a little bit on the boring side but it is decidedly above the elbow, so it seems like a good length to be short but also warm.

I would have liked a different hood, not such a pointy one but a round shaped, something I'd like to learn when doing a hooded sweater again, some day.

It was funny to knit with such a bulky yarn, I couldn't knit quickly, 7mm needles feel cumbersome to me. But despite of it it's so great how fast a piece is growing when using bulky yarn.

All in all I am quite happy how my Strickjacke turned out, an easy to folloe, simple pattern resulting in a simple cardigan.

So much for today.
Stay well and take good care of yourself!

PS: The next cardigan is already on the needles, I am making a Forecast in plain red merino.

Organic with a little bit of Plastic

Enough time for a quick posting about my latest knitting before picking up my daughter from kindergarten...

The cardigan I am working on has become too big of a project to be carried around and knitted while standing under a Ginkgo tree on the playground. So yesterday I quickly grabbed some Hamanaka Sonomono (just as it is, organic, not coloured alpaca yarn, wrote down the pattern for the Cashmere Neckwarmer of which there are plenty of beautiful and inspiring versions to be seen on ravelry... the neck warmer wasn't even on my queue... I saw quite pretty versions just yesterday morning (when I was supposed to be blogging) and suddenly wanted one. This is how ravelry works for me. And why this is apparently becoming a knitting blog...

Almost completely knitted while waiting under the tree...and a challenge to model it while there is summer in Japan.

I loved the stitch pattern a lot, it's going so quickly and looking so nice. The yarn... love it! Last winter I had been making a beret from it that got frogged, so I am really happy it found its way into a satisfying project eventually.

The closure, not as the pattern describes. I had this slice of bamboo I once found in a park just after the park's bamboo fences got renewed. It was all covered with mud but under that it seemed to be quite interesting. (I will later look for photos of those fences and add it to my Flickr stream.) I liked the shape of the piece and thought of making something of it... or maybe just use it as pendant on a leather strip or some linen thread.
Yesterday it became a closure for my neckwarmer. I used a plastic snap button and *shush* my hot glue pistol and then attached all to the fabric just where it seemed to belong. Well, and once it's closed you don't see the plastic snap button or think of hot glue. And I still call it my Organic (neckwarmer).

Take care! Must hurry.

Wooden Finds

Hi there!
I tried to post yesterday but ran out of time in the morning... tried again in the evening because this morning I finally, finally wanted to start writing emails again... I must be the slowest person on earth, yet extremely quick to distract from whatever I am attempting to do... I wonder if I should write a note right now and put it in front of me... "Do post about your wooden finds now!"... I do. .... So I wrote the note and wish I could lock out myself of ravelry for the next hour, because that is where the devil is (besides my kitchen sink and the laundry basket which never seem to be empty since WEEKS)... and responding to your comments and emails I must save for the evening, otherwise I'll never get back to more regular blogging.

So, for a long time I didn't share any of my findings here in Japan... but I constantly stumble over nice things in thrift stores, which are called risaikuru (recycle) shops here.

My favourite corner in the nearby thrift store is the 10 Yen table. 10 Yen are about 6 Euro Cents or 9 US Cents... I really don't know why often the most cutest items get onto that table... like this here:

Or these...a little pricey ;) because each figure was 10 Yen, but still...

Or this... so lovely!

Well, and besides recycle shops the garbage on the streets is always a good source...

Once it was cleaned thoroughly (never forget there are lots of cockroaches living in this country, too) and the surface nourished a little, it was looking just fine.

I want to close this report on my wooden findings with a photo of buttons. New buttons for a new cardigan I am working on.

The cardigan-to-be is knitted after that DROPS pattern, using a wool/alpaca roving and almost finished. I really was bitten by the knitting bug.

More about the cardigan once I have finished it.

Hope you are doing well!

Artful Blogging, now for real

 

All things happen eventually and so my copy of Artful Blogging arrived about two weeks ago and today I am finally sharing it with you... my dearest cardigan friends ;) (Still not over your amazing response!!! Thank you so much. This is extremely motivating and I am on the verge of trying to knit something much more challenging than I usually dare, but more about it when I actually start with it)

I also made this scarf. 

The yarn, a typical impulse purchase, one ball only because it just looked so pretty. Rested in my stash for about a year, because I couldn't think of making anything from it that wasn't totally superfluous. An odd placemat to satisfy my need for fondling scratchy surfaces?
The simple, garter stitch scarf turned out to be a possibility. Quite wearable.

I am not crazy for Noro, somehow it just doesn't speak to me. I like its rustic character and wouldn't mind finding vegetable matter in it while knitting. What I don't like that much is that when making something from it I wouldn't be responsible for those odd, colour changes. Noro would. Knitting with Noro is like sewing a quilt with charm packs, no matter how disturbing the colour combinations in one skein of Noro are. No offence to anybody who enjoys doing so, it's just not my thing.
However, I like how this scarf turned out.

I should mention that in fact I didn't find any knots or grass in my  skein of Blossom  (Noro, discontinued).

As for Artful Blogging (new issue coming soon!), the whole magazine looks really good. Inspiring. Tons of photos and interesting stories. If I wouldn't have a blog already, I truly would have started one the day I saw the issue. I am glad having had the chance to be part of it and will keep my copy to impress my grandchildren one day... ;)

Larger photos over there...

Take care!

Blogs featured in Artful Blogging, Summer 2008

Stonesoup
It's A Whimsical Life
Zoranaland
The Ribboned Crown
Small Creations
My Creative Soul
Something Sublime
The Pastoral Dollmaker
Holly Doodle Designs
Kimberly Hurst Photography
Bella Pink Cafe
Sagworks
Scrum Dilly Dilly
Simple Sparrow
From the Inside Out
La Fee Coriandre
Secret Notebooks - Wild Pages
Elsita
R2Art Studio
Rodrigvitz Style 

Mixed Media Monday
WHIPUP
ONE World - ONE Heart

Edit: I had to come back for adding the links to the blogs and sites that are being featured in the current issue of Artful Blogging... sorry for publishing the unfinished posting, there just wasn't enough time earlier today.

Edit#2: Here I am again... After reading your first comments on this posting I am feeling a bit more comfortable writing about MOONSTITCHES being featured in a magazine... I am really not good in promoting myself and don't talk much about the things I do. And make mosaics of photos in case I think it's just too much to show them all... I am feeling confident enough now to exchange the mosaic I have been posting earlier with the actual photos. Thank you.

74-26 in a Haze

My first Hourglass Sweater did grace me with not less than nine left over balls of Diasilkombrer which I was not so happy with anyway. Given that it needed only six balls of that yarn in the first place (I sure bought enough yarn to not run out of it), I felt really bad about that part of my stash.

The problem with the yarn was that it quickly, after just a few times of wearing the sweater, looked misty or hazy. It also pilled quite diligently. About three weeks ago I thought (while thinking about my stash - you do that too, don't you?!) why not put the Diasilkombrer in a pretty haze deliberately, knitting it two stranded with some super fluffy mohair like the Hamanaka Parfait I used for the border of my Fancy Kerchief?

I did a swatch right away and was very happy with the result. Clearly a way to rescue two yarns from my stash at the same time!
As for the Parfait I should say that while I love this yarn for borders or accents when crocheting (in combination with some straight and honest unfluffy rustic wool), I clearly do not like mohair in general. I did have four balls of the Parfait because I once thought I would use it for a lace shawl, but as it seems one of the things I feel most uncomfortable with is knitting lace with light, fluffy mohair.

I then looked for a pattern on DROPS and settled on 74-26 because it looked as it would be roomy enough for my not so thin arms. Et voila! It was the right pattern. I did knit myself a nice, little cardigan. So happy and excited about it! I changed the neckline a bit, made the cardigan in size M and am quite content with all the haze around me. The Diasilkombrer seems well protected and also a bit hidden and I really like the colours together.

The shell buttons are from some piece of clothing I have been throwing out about 15 years ago, perfect size and shade, all minty-purple-shimmering...

I couldn't be happier about this cardigan!

Oh, and I start to get used to that new composer here on Typepad.

Thanks for reading!