Now, finally, after hanging out for a while, they have been soaked and patted in form and stuck with pins:


My very first sweater. Once it's dry, I get to sew it together (exciting!) and then I'll get to find me some nice buttons for it. Yay!

(It's Vignette, modified a bit regarding the fit.)

I'm not spinning today, for a change - the yarn is still in transit, and once it has arrived (the two-ply to be woven together with some variants of the yarn for the next batch), we can discuss what I spin next, and how exactly regarding thickness and twist.

So instead, today there was finally time to sort out some paperwork, pay bills, make some space on the desk and now I will have to do the beloved (hah!) book-keeping and tax stuff. One day I will be rich enough to have somebody do that for me. (Maybe. Probably, by then, I'll have come to terms with it and have become so efficient at dealing with that stuff that I won't need somebody to do it for me anymore...)

Anyway, while I am doing stuff that is not spinning and not knitting, here's a picture of the current state of the knitting (which I'd rather be doing):

I have a Pirate Roberts on the needles, and I'm halfway through the pattern bit, so almost finished. Here it is only a few rows into the pattern part:


Also, the Vignette cardigan is almost finished. It needs blocking now - though I have discovered that one of the sleeves, due to Weird Yarn Shenanigans, looks much more pink than the rest of the pieces, so I'm considering knitting it again (from a different skein, obviously):


Aaaaand that being blogged, now I'm finally out of excuses not to get started with the bookkeeping stuff!

Here's the other kind of progress report - from the knitting front:


This is the front left panel of "Vignette", which means I am approaching the day of having made a non-sock and non-hat garment. It knits up rather quickly, and I'm all happy about that! (There's the sleeves still to do, though. Those will probably take an astounding amount of time...)

I really like the pattern so far - having the little simple lace panel does add enough interest to the thing, especially in combination with the increases and decreases for the shaping - I have modified the pattern a little bit to be more hourglass-shaped, by mashing the original Vignette pattern up with one for a fitted plain cardi in the gauge I am knitting, so it's all rather exciting, especially since a thing knit in parts is hard to try on... soon though, soon I will be able to see how it turned out!

Continuing from yesterday, for your amusement wants and procrastination needs - more links! To things!

The Atlantic has a piece about how the current incentives and structures make science worse, not better - The Inevitable Evolution of Bad Science.

Textilis has a post about Appliqué embroideries on medieval textiles.

If you're looking for a bit more to read, Isabella von Holstein's thesis "A light stable isotope (C, N, H, O) approach to identifying movement of medieval textiles in North West Europe" is available online here.

A Scottish lacemaking company is using modern computer technology to keep their looms running - CAD instead of punch cards.

If all that makes you want a sonic screwdriver, here's a knitting pattern for one. Functionality not guaranteed - unfortunately!

Among the things on today's list: Spinning. Which is what I shall do now, amused by some nice audiobook (The Princess Bride, just in case you're curious. As opposed to my usual rule of consuming English fiction in English, it is the German translation - but the reading is very, very entertaining).

Meanwhile, here's a link for you about how knitting needle material may affect your gauge.

While we're at that topic, here's the Knitting Reference Library from archive.org... which shows, nicely, that tastes in shapes have changed quite a bit over time!

Occasionally, I am knitting things that require some row-counting. I'm usually not in a state of mind to go down a list of rows without some aid to help me keep track of which one I'm in, so I have been using dice to keep count for me.


Usually this was a special die, though - it's a countdown die, which means the numbers are arranged in a way that you can easily find the next one in sequence. (It also has 20 sides, which is enough for most sequences.) Normal dice have the numbers arranged differently, and I was using a normal D10 (a ten-sided die, for those of you not familiar with this) which always meant some searching for the next face to move up.

Recently, though, there was the Spiel fair in Essen. And, as usually, I went there and had a glorious time and looked at lots and lots of games and game-related things... which includes stuff meant for roleplaying.

Now when you are roleplaying, it can happen that your character gets into a fight. You throw some dice, someone else throws some dice, and suddenly, your character gets hurt and you need to keep track of its health points... and while you can do so with a sheet of paper and a pen, or some other way of counting, there's a new gadget around for this: a life-counter ring.

As in: something you can wear on your finger and use to easily and conveniently keep track of which number you are at.

Are you thinking the same thing I was thinking?

[caption id="attachment_2685" align="alignnone" width="640"] This knitting action is obviously missing the hand I need to hold the camera. Also, the ring should be turned to another spot - it has a clearly marked area for the current numbers somewhere behind my index finger.


Right. New counting thingummy for knitting. I haven't used it in earnest yet (my current knitting project is not in the row-counting part yet), but have tested it, and it works fabulously. There's a little spring wire between the two numbered rings that makes sure the count only changes when you want it. For that, you gently press the ring towards the middle and then turn it. It's made from stainless steel, about one cm wide, and comes in blue (my colour), rainbow, gold, or black. It will also count up to 99, which should be plenty for all knitting purposes.

If you want to have one, too, the company making it is called CritSuccess, and they do ship worldwide. They also have a lifetime exchange policy - if your ring gets damaged, doesn't fit anymore, or you have any other issues with it, you can exchange it for a new one.

Now if I didn't have such a heap of work waiting to be done, I could go do some knitting...

The lovely colourful skein of wool which originally started out as this:


has turned into a ball now:


I'll have a good, long think about what I will do with 745 m of this fine two-ply rainbow. Currently, the thing that sounds most attractive is to take some dark yarn in a similar thickness and eventually knit something wearable in a mosaic pattern.

In case you don't know mosaic knitting - it's a slip-stitch technique where you work with two colours, making incredibly complex-looking patterns that are fairly easy to knit. There's a nice tutorial in a back issue of Knitty to get you started, and if you want more patterns, Barbara Walker has published a whole book called "Mosaic Knitting".