MOONSTITCHES

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!

Glowing

A little bit of glowing before I tell you about the latest knitting.

We've just returned from a　花火　hanabi (lit. translated flower fire) (fireworks) here in the country.

Hope, you have a lot to smile this weekend, too!

signs of summer

Every year the same... when the cicadas made their way out of the ground, up into the trees, it really is summer. And besides the atsui desu ne (it's hot, isn't it?) this can be heard a lot.

Today we went on a walk, but not far from home we met a man who had just picked two watermelons from his field (it's not rural around here but at the outskirts of our little town there is agriculture, here and there are some fields between the houses). He gave us one! Just like that. I wasn't sure if I really could accept it but then... when people are only being friendly what's there to protest? And what would we have missed out if we hadn't taken the melon... it's super juicy and sweet. The best I have eaten this summer!

Last week I have been to Ebisu in Tokyo, an absolutely not rural area... I was looking for the Rowan store to finally get some Felted Tweed into my hands. What shall I say... I am so much used to walking greater distances from living here in our little town, 40 minutes (by train) from Shinjuku, I had a hard time adapting to the smaller scale of a busy area like Ebisu. I must have passed the shop about ten times, always thinking not having gone far enough... But I must say my sense of direction isn't well developed, so five times of missing the shop may have been caused by that...And it was so hot!
But it was worth it, the yarn feels and looks so good and we had a nice time in the shop.
I have been starting to knit a hat with the Felted Tweed (in Avocado), which I will show you later, with all the other green knitting that's going on here. Knitting for autumn... because summer will be over some time.

Take care and enjoy your weekend!