nog even nadenken

Yes, I’m still knitting, but this weekend I’m also doing other crafts, mainly sewing. How can you not when you have these fabrics at your disposal, from Carol Cox in Utrecht. Her fabrics are quite expensive, inspiration is free.

And for someone with very little experience in sewing, I think this hem turned out pretty neat:

Normally I’m not a very accurate worker, but yesterday I discovered what a delight tidiness and accuracy can be, and how it can make the results so much prettier. It was really worth staying up so late until every seam was totally perfect.

I finished my first real project of 2008 (apart from the Norwegian Stockings which turned out too precious to wear), a sweater called Thermal, by Laura Chau.

This baby has been on the needles since our great escape through India, China, Mongolia and Russia. I ran out of projects in the second month already, having been much more prolific than expected, and so I needed a new project and, more important: new yarn. This yarn I found in Tunxi, China, the nearest town to Huang Shan, a very beautiful but touristic mountain range we climbed. This town had a yarn shop, to my delight, and without me speaking much Mandarin, and the shopkeeper any English, we figured out how much of a certain yarn I needed to make a sweater. I had Thermal in mind, but I hade no clue of the needle size or gauge I was going to need. I decided the needle size through educated guessing (”okay, if the yarn is this thin, I probably need these ultra-skinny needles over here”), and, praise me for my carpenter’s eyes, the gauge came together impeccably for the pattern.

I cast on in the train from Tunxi to Nanjing and already I felt that this would be something I would tell my hypothetical grandchildren about when I would be giving them the sweater. The Chinese women in the train came over to show me how to knit correctly, meanwhile knitting way to tight for my project so that I would smile while they showed me, and, as soon as they left, I would rip the part they had done. Then I would start from where I had left before they started to lovingly correct me.

I loved knitting this pattern even though it was so painstakingly slow. The best part about it is that it took hardly any seaming. The bodice is knitted in the round, so no seaming there, and so are the sleeves. I had forgotten that setting in sleeves was this simple, so I went from worryingly starting the setting in to being overjoyed with my new sweater, in a matter of minutes.

That’s why I’m happy today. I also bought beautiful fabric a couple of days ago but this deserves it’s own post. So here is one more picture of my latest FO with my smiling face complementing it.

Very little words in wordpress this time. No meaningful comments on the time between now and my last post, and then I think you should just keep quiet.

Some things that I think are beautiful however can always be posted, as stated in the ‘nog even nadenken’-regulations, ch. 5 p. 1.

This is a picture I deliberately uglified by using flash to try and imitate the style of some magazines (like Volkskrant Magazine in the past) that want arty pictures and think that this is the way to do it. I think it looks quite the same. Kind of artificial.

Fabric gifted to me on my 23rd  birthday, last monday, to be made into curtains covering up the various black holes in our house, between ceiling and second ceiling.

I have a new hobby, I think I can say that after spending the entire day on embroidering the tiniest little shitty bit on a chair yesterday. If it wasn’t supposed to be my new hobby I would’ve quit after half an hour probably.

It turns out that embroidering is cool, omnipotent and infinitely expandable. The downside is it’s habit to eat more time than you’re willing to feed it. Because it seems like you can get results very fast you don’t want to quit when no result has been achieved yet, and results actually take a LOT of time. Not as much as with knitting but at least with knitting you’re prepared for it. I made this design on a chair with a great tweedy texture that screamed for decoration, even though the chair was very pretty in it’s own right. This is the chair.

Hmm, I didn’t notice the yellow stain near the head area yet, the ultra flash on my camera must have detected them. Well, it’s a second hand chair, and sometimes they come with stains that you see when you take a picture of them with flash, so be it.

Stitch markers are little rings you put over your knitting needle in between stitches to form a reference point, for instance halfway through the total amount of stitches you have on your needles. This helps in remembering where you have to do special moves like yarnovers, decreases and the like.

I never used stitch markers in my knitting, I just counted, lost count, cursed, started counting again. And then I ran in to stitch markers, dull little plastic rings that had the personality of a… well of a piece of plactic. I grabbed some pieces of yarn from a previous project, started twisting them some, and ended up with actually a very useful and also potentially decorative thingy. It only takes a minute to make and has lots of possibilities. If you don’t feel like buying heavy beaded metal wires (fancy stitch markers) to hang on your needles and losing them, then maybe you will like this too. If you loose these you whip up twenty more in the blink of an eye.

1. Get any piece of scrap yarn, or a couple that go together well, that is at least a couple of centimeters long. Also get a knitting needle.

2. Pull the strings tight together and start twisting the endings in opposite directions. Keep twisting until it’s a tight unified string with a diagonal pattern.

3. Place one finger somewhere in the midpoint of the striped string and take both the endings in you hand, tighten. I did it with one hand, you can use two if there’s no need to take pictures of what you’re doing.

4. Release the finger holding the middle of the string, hold on to the endings and watch the magic happen! The string spirals up on itself with the middle that you kept with one finger as the top loop. This loop will go over you needle when the stitch marker is finished.

5. Make a something of a knot at the bottom where the loose ends are so that the spiraling strings don’t twist back and tug a little at your result so that the twists are nice and even. If you’re using all wool scraps (not superwash) you can also felt the bottom together, I guess. Get your needle and put it through the top loop of the marker and there you have it: a decorative, quick, lightweight, easy and versatile stitch marker!

As you can see this one is fairly large and not very practical, but this made the pictures clearer. You can make them as big or small as you want. Here’s a smaller one.

The nice thing, in my opinion, about this stitch marker, is that it is flexible and fits over any size needle. The spiraling makes the top loop want to close up, but you can open it as far as the twisted string go down by untwisting them. This way the marker will cling on to your needle and won’t slip off. Once you remove the needle it will just twist back up. I illustrated this with my pinky playing the part of a 10mm needle, because currently my chunky needles are elsewhere.

You can also make really fat ones by using a lot of strands, preferably in lots of colours of course, make ‘em pretty while your at it.

Hope this will be of use to someone!

It took some convincing, but I finally managed to get an order of yarn (the infinitely popular Rowan Kidsilk Haze) at a nice sale price and with doable shipping costs sent to me from across the big pond. Hopefully within a couple of days I will own my first batch of this soft, thin yarn that is mostly used to knit lace, and I too will knit a stunning stole (less yarn than hole) in a colour that is nearly black. I choose this project, called Muir:

Right about now is the time that being in The Netherlands just doesn’t quite cut it anymore, that stupid appartment isn’t benevolently smiling at me like it should, working days don’t pass quickly enough, and the big trap of melancholy is set wide open. The trap of mesmerizing over the days in India, China, Mongolia, Russia. Which actually reminds me of a guy who was recently in the news for digging holes in forest lanes, placing large metal spikes at the bottom and covering them up with branches and leaves so people would fall into them. Prince of Persia-style.

Makes you wonder, is he just a big fan of the videogame, is he sadly deranged, or is it art? Probably if suddenly Madonna would proclaim that she finds it a very artistic way of expressing yourself and that she wants to buy one of the holes to put in her backyard, it would be considered art.
Actually I think it would make a nice sculpture, a sculpture of a hole, below it a see-through tube in which are steel spikes at the bottom. The top is covered and around it is a layer of cheerful green grass. Put it on a pedestal and bring in the connaisseurs.

In the meantime, my melacholy trap looks like this:

1. Hostel, 2. Hostel with canal, 3. food, 4. Chinese train and apple juice, 5. Why centipedes are healthy, 6. Squid, 7. Snakes, 8. Mushroomies, 9. Prasad, 10. Lobsters and shrimp in a little coat, 11. W and squid, 12. Schemy get-together, 13. Mister M. himself

When footballmadness rises, your urinary tract inflammates in the middle of the night and your man leaves town to head for the island for twelve days, it’s time to strip the walls, take down all the white trash, have confidence, patch up all the holes, cover bare brick with new plaster, and pick up the pieces.

This wall was bleeding red brick.

And the pieces:

I feel like cursing because this stupid inflammation isn’t over even though I have antibiotics, but I’m also proud of my hard work. My sinuses took in quite a bit of dust today and they’re wining about it, they don’t know what’s yet to come, poor babies…

Sad, I really hoped I would be admitted, but I wasn’t. I made a nice portfolio, but when over 50 people turn up even on the second admission day, you know your chances are getting slimmer. Especially when you look at the drawings and designs other people have already made. Actually it’s unfair, because they can already draw and paint. They should leave room for people who actually still need to learn something, which is what a school is for.

Now I’m a little frustrated, but spending some time on my stuff (like drawings and doing an assignment) was very nice and it sparked my imagination quite a bit. I have really no idea how the next year is going to look now that I’m not going to go to art school, maybe I should have kids. Finally I would have all the direction and confirmation in my life that I keep begging for, and no time left to worry!

The good thing is that after a little suggestion to not forget about me, the Rowan-secretary sent me the newest issue of Rowan Magazine.

I hope you don’t take offence, and start saving money instead of loaning it. Especially the Americans. And governments should start raising those interest rates.
For an explanation of this bold statement, watch the following documentary, in Dutch and English, about and titled ‘the day the dollar crashes’. And I mean it! You should watch it! For the people who speak Dutch there are also loads of backgrounds and comments that were added after 2005 when the scenario given in the documentary started being reality, that is the euro being worth more than one and a half dollar.

For some light entertainment and a peek into the sometimes kind of sad human psyche, I recommend this documentary, about people who furiously collect ‘kinder surprise’ toys. Tiny toy figurines that come in a chocolate egg and of which there are millions of different ones. Nice hobby? I don’t think so, but hey, not everyone likes knitting, right?

The last docu is also about the designer who made the figurines without being able to get the recognition for it because he had to remain anonymous. His story is also amazing.

Other:

And:

update from the underworld