Green Tweed

This cardigan was a luxury splurge that I only indulged in because my sister gave me a voucher for her local yarn shop. Of course, I went way beyond the budget of the voucher but I had been meaning to knit a nice, basic tweed cardigan for ages so I wanted good quality yarn with a softer feel to it.

I decided to go for the Debbie Bliss Donegal Aran Tweed which I liked immediately and I chose green because ... well, I don't have any green cardigans yet. I found a pattern for a simple top-down cardigan on the Drops website, a resource that I still like after so many years because all the patterns are well-written and of course for free. Especially for basic garments they have a huge choice and their sizing always works well for me. I know that a lot of people prefer more independent pattern writers, which I also like of course, but sometimes I have the impression they are also just re-inventing the wheel because most cardigans have a very basic structure and you can easily modify it yourself.

Otherwise there was nothing special about the knitting process - a very straight forward knit and it fits like hand-in-glove. I took the cardigan on holidays without blocking it because I just finished it the night before and I was dying to wear it immediately. It needed a good wash after the trip anyways, having been dragged around dusty "marshrutka" Minibuses and train stations quite a bit.

The result is good and I now have a very versatile and sturdy cardigan. Tadaaa!


******

Pattern: Drops "Winter Wine Cardigan", size S
Yarn: Debbie Bliss, Donegal Aran Tweed, green

First spinning results

I'm trying to make the most of the Brussels lockdown and I've taken the time to finish spinning the first batch of yarn on my new spinning wheel. Still not a masterpiece but already much better than the "rope" I made in my first spinning attempt.

I've also made some good progress on  my tweed cardigan. I'm working on the second sleeve now and I'll only have to sew on the pockets after that so I will hopefully to finish it by the end of this week.

Brussels today

Usually I only write about things that make me happy, or at least I try to. But today this is very difficult. Having lived in Brussels for almost 6 years, I love my city. It's my home, the centre of my life, the place where I live and work and what happened today makes me sad. Sad and angry.

Sad for the loss of lives - people that could be my friends, colleauges, or family. It hurts my heart to think of those that have been injured and the families of the victims whose lives have changed from one day to the other to take such a horrible turn.

 Sad also for what this means for our city: increased security, a feeling of fear and suspicion between neighbours and fellow Brusseleirs, the negative image in the international media. And also sad that this will probably increase the xenophobia and racism towards refugees, muslims, and immigrants in general.

Angry that there are people who think that violence will bring any kind of solution or make them achieve their goals; the contempt for other peoples' lives and humanity in general. But also angry about how these events are used in the media to increase their profits, creating panic and showing an exaggerated picture of the situation and of our city.

Of course there are many feelings involved and I'm sure anyone who has been in London on July 7 2005, in Paris on 13 November 2016, or in Madrid on 11 March 2004 or in any other place that has been targeted in this kind of terror attack can relate. We already had our first taste of this last November when Brussels went into "lockdown" for the first time.

One feeling that I don't have, is fear. I don't WANT to start worrying and limit myself in what I do or think because of a threat which is of course real but also impossible to avoid or mitigate by something I do. Has the increased security and military presence in Brussels since November stopped the attacks today? No. Could I have stopped going to work, shopping, meeting friends in cafés, using hte public ransport system? No.

For now I don't have much of a choice and I'm staying at home, trying to work remotely. But I really hope that Brussels can soon get back to "business as usual", of course without forgetting the victims and their familities who won't have the luxury to move on that easily. But still looking forward instead of withdrawing and isolating ourselves even more, becoming also victims of our own fear.

And suddenly ... a spinning wheel!

From previous posts where I wrote about the spinning workshop last year this will probably not be much of a surprise for the regular readers: I got a spinning wheel!

It's second hand (third hand, actually) and needs a bit of touching up but it's a spinning wheel, hooray. My mum gave it to me as a Christmas present and now it has finally moved in with us in our still slightly chaotic spare bedroom/craft room/office space. For now I'v only tested it once and despite being a bit wobbly I have not forgotten how it works.

I can see more hand-cramps and wrist pain coming up but it's so much fun - totally worth it!

Mini bunting

This mini-version of the Pickles' "Vimpelgenser" is actually closer to the original pattern than my first cardigan. I only added the button band at the collar to make it easier to put on and take off. Again, I opted for a bigger size and not for the newborn size because it will probably be more useful for next winter. I have no clue if that will fit but thankfully the yarn is quite stretchy.

I have now used up most of the leftover yarn from my "Marius" jumper but it might still be enough for a pair of mittens or a hat if I collect all the scraps. I prefer having an extra skein just in case after annoying past experiences hunting for the last skein of the exact colourway of a yarn that you need to finish the last 2 cm of a sleeve!

 I like the final result, simple but classic.






*****
Pattern: "Vimpelgenser" by Anna and Heidi Pickles
Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool Superwash Worsted

Lighter times ahead

Things are finally starting to look a bit brighter again.

For one thing, the leak in or roof is fixed and we have electricity again. That also means I can finally start decorating our flat properly and feel "at home" - until now this thought was mainly connected to stressful thoughts about landlord, insurance, contractors, wet ceilings and full water buckets. But now I can start seeing the potential and all the possibilities of this flat. A blank canvas that we can now start filling up with (mainly my) stuff - long live the hoarding mentality.

We also managed to find a solution to compensate for the big holiday disappointment. After intensive searching for a few days we decided to go to Georgia and Armenia instead. As close as you can get to Iran without getting into potential trouble. Also, I'm an expert on flight searches and holiday planning websites now.

Work is still crazier than ever but I feel I can cope better. Maybe I'm just getting used to this unhealthy level of stress. Or I have grown into my responsibilities. Usually I'm too tired to find the real answer to this question and the only thing I manage to do in the evening is cooking dinner (I find this suddenly strangely relaxing) and watching stupid TV shows.

And lastly, another positive note: the days are getting longer again and even though I technically don't rely on it as much anymore since the electricity is back on it just gives a damn good boost to my mood. I definitely feel like going out more and a walk in the woods is long overdue. 

A knitting revelation

Going through my blogroll I recently stumbled upon this article by Andi Satterlund about twisted ribbing. I had noticed this in her "Miette" pattern but basically ignored the instruction as I couldn't figure out how to do it - I thought it was just regular ribbing. But reading through her post now, it suddenly struck me: I didn't understand it because...

... I have been purling the WRONG way all my life!!!! It was one of those moments when first of all you just cannot  understand how it is possible that I just didn't learn to purl properly and I haven't noticed for about 20 years. But when I started thinking about it all suddenly made sense. Why my stockinette always looked a bit wonky if I didn't knit in the round and my grandmother even said a long, long time ago: "It looks almost like a different pattern the way you knit.". And especially in my "Miette" I noticed the weird definition when stretching the garment which looked different to the sleeves that were knitted on DPNs.

If you look very carefully you can for example see it here:



I'm just completely baffled that I never, ever realized this myself and only when Andi described it so well in her post I recognized my own mistake. To be fair, I also knit most of my cardigans in the round so I only noticed it in certain garments (this is not an excuse but  maybe partly an explanation).

Just so you know, it might be worth checking your own purling technique and maybe you can still fix some mistake even after 20 years of knitting!