I've mentioned that I my next knitting project involves stranded knitting - that's something that has intrigued me for a while now, but I hadn't had a project for it. Until now. There is something that, design-wise, looks like a lot of fun to me; there is suitable yarn for what the final product is intended for, and there's a good reason to knit it. So.

The thing about stranded knitting is that you have two colours in one row, and they are used more or less alternatingly, so to work efficiently (which, we all know, is something that I tend to be rather obsessed about) you have to hold both yarns at the same time. In a way that makes each one easily available for knitting... and the nicest and most efficient way to do that, it seems, is to hold one yarn in the left hand and one in the right. Which means that you are knitting both Continental style (which is my usual style), picking the yarn from the left hand with the right needle, and English style (which I had not done yet), throwing the yarn on the right hand around the right needle tip.

This was... awkward. It still is, though I am getting better at it. I had the knit stitches sort of mostly down when the first purl row started, though, and it was awkward times eleven again. Which I found vastly, vastly enjoyable in some weird sort of way - the joy of learning something new, and with this, looking at the old things you are doing in a new way. It's a whole new finger dance to get into muscle memory (preferably in a way that is ergonomical and, yes there we are again, efficient right from the start). Since knitting is one of my non-work-related textile techniques (and for me counts as hobby only, even though there are a few slight digressions into work-related spaces), I have all the time in the world to learn this, and I can stumble and fumble as much as I want to, which is somehow delightfully fun for me.

Also - colours! Motifs! Great fun!

I love knitting. It's a wonderful pastime, it makes beautiful things, and since most of my knitting is modern and just for my own pleasure, it is a nice way for me to play around with yarns without feeling it to be work-related in some way.

I am not a very fast knitter, though - in the sense that it often takes me a long while to finish a project. Not because my actual needling action is so slow, but mostly because things tend to lie around for a while between stints of knitting frenzy. So I'm always quite happy to have a project finished, and it feels like a Big Thing. The latest one was finally bound off on Saturday morning, and it has now been blocked, and I am utterly delighted to have this done just in time for the cold season:



My Arabian Nights shawl is finished. I didn't knit it all to the end, as I want to have it more like a scarf than as a shawl, and since I used lace yarns, not sock yarns, it is a good bit smaller than the pattern states for the original - but I'm happy with the current size, and it definitely is very fluffy and very nice and warm.



Yarns were a two-ply fine wool yarn, dyed by Micky in a wonderful shade of grey, and a silk yarn, dyed with indigo by Margit.



It was my first venture into brioche knitting, and I did like it. The knitting itself was rather mindless, apart from doing decreases, which were a bit tedious, just the thing that I was looking for, though now I'm happy to have this finished and do something a little more exciting next. (Stranded knitting, just in case you are wondering. Time for some colour shenanigans.)

 

To my grand delight, I will be part of the Knitting Symposium taking place in Leiden on November 2 - which includes an adventurous train trip there (with a night train! Yay!). The symposium itself features a number of very interesting topics, including information about current research in knitting history, dye experiments in regard to the silk stockings found in Texel, the experience of wearing such (reconstructed, obviously) stockings, and Citizen Science (which is why I have gotten the opportunity to join in, as I've been involved in Citizen Science before that was a term, it seems).

In case you are in the area, or can get there, and want to join, it looks like there are still tickets available. The Symposium is organised by the Textile Research Centre; you can read more about it (and download the full programme) on their website. You also find instructions for registration there.

 

After figuring out the letters, and how much space to leave between words, and how far the lines should be apart, one more thing remained to do: the layout.

Measuring the ratio between height and width of the knitting, and counting the individual letter width, and cutting strips of paper with the appropriate measurements, and some more fiddling later, I finally had this:



which was my super-sophisticated knitting plan for actually making this. Including a plan on how much to cast on.

And then came some swatching:



Which only left one thing to do - the actual um knitting. That took some time, especially as I managed to botch in a few instances. That's proof that one should not knit things that require brains while tired!

I finally finished this knit, though. There was a stint of late-night-blocking, and it came out like this:



Now I only need to turn it into a button - and hope it will amuse other people just as much as me. That's how it will look, approximately:



 
The buttons have a diameter of 55 mm, which means that it will be possible to see a bit of the knit texture in the background, or so I hope. It's not blatantly clear that this is knitted text, I think - but it wil have to be good enough, as there's no way to knit letters across fewer stitches.

So. What do you think? Should I go for it?

While at the topic of buttons related to knitting, well, there's one utterly classical phrase that lots of people find funny, or appreciate, or want to use as a heads-up for their environment.

Which, of course, needs more letters than k, n, i, and t. So I sat down and started to figure out the tricky complex letters - s, e, o. And then other stuff. The first tries were, um, rather wonky:



But eventually, there was progress. And something more like actual text:



Have you guessed the text of the classical slogan yet?

Let me tell you about buttons. Not the kind to close your garments, but the kind with a pin on the back that you pin to your clothing, or backpack, or whatever, to make a statement.

Though I rarely wear these, I very much like them. I like the way you can easily add them to whatever fabric you want to, telling people something about you, or your mood, or to amuse them with a funny quip or picture.

As with so many things that I like, and where I think the world needs more of, after a while, I'm getting an itch to have it made, and offer it in the shop. (Yes, I know, it's not medieval at all. That's why I have the "miscellaneous" section, and I'm actually pondering making a "This Is Not Medieval but Fun" section in the shop. Though I might call it "Modern Shenanigans" instead - much shorter.)

There was one teeny tiny problem, though. To have a nice button, you need a nice design - and I wanted something more than just a random selected font centred on a round button to write stuff. That's just... hm. Well.

It is, of course, technically possible to make a button design like this with hand-lettering. This could even be enhanced with a bit of a drawing, where it suits, here and there. Which would be a spectacularly wonderful thing, but unfortunately, both my drawing skills and my hand-lettering skills are, at best, mediocre.

And then it somehow struck me. I could knit the button design. Because... well... that's how my brain works, sometimes, when I wake up early on a Saturday morning.

So I sat down, and I cast on some stitches, and I made this:



and showed it to the Most Patient Husband, and he said "maybe do it with smoother yarn", and he suggested some cotton yarn that I had lying around, so I finally got to use my very small needles as well, and I made this:



and this could actually already be turned into a button design, and it would look like this:



or, with the first version, like this:



and I must admit it amuses me no end. It's knit and says knit. Knit knit. Ah. (Yes, I'm easy to amuse.)

So. Should I do this? Get these printed as buttons? And if so, which version?

I've finished Vodka Lemonade a while ago, and I'm finally getting around to blogging it.

It took me about half a year to knit this. Yes, I am a slow knitter - not when I am actually knitting, that is actually, I think, about medium speed. Most of my knitting slowness comes from having other things taking higher priority, and thus letting the current project(s) lie in some corner for a while. Which can be a significant while.

By now, though, it is finally finished, blocked, all ends woven in and snipped off, and I have already worn it a few times.

The yarn - "Understatement" from Zitron, dyed in the colourway "Honigtopf" (honeypot) by Margit from Alte Künste, really is lovely to wear. It has a silky smooth feel, a nice shine, it warms when it is cool outside but feels rather cool when it is warm.

Regarding the pattern, I'm mostly happy. Even though I took great care to make the sleeves exactly the same length, one sometimes feels like it's longer than the other. The cardi also tends to slip off one of my shoulders when I wear it. Both these things may be due to how I move or stand - I tend to sort of twist my upper body sometimes, and that skews all my clothing, so this is nothing completely surprising, though it can still be annoying. Unrelated to this, though, it drapes in a way that makes the front look longer than the back - which, to me, does not seem optimal, but I can live with it.

I'm thinking about adding some way to wear it closed; I might do so if I can figure out something unobtrusive, to have that option for when it’s cooler (or to have less slipping off the shoulder, maybe). I have thought about adding a zipper, but I'd need to find one in a matching colour. Or maybe some unobtrusive press buttons? Some kind of hook-and-eye closure? I will think about it. Fortunately, there's no rush!