six and a half stitches

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MAX #003

LUNAR ECLIPSES ACCORDING TO MAX:

+ The world will turn upside down and all the people will be in the sky mummy!
+ What will happen to the moon when it turns into the sun?
+ Will the moon catch on fire like the sun?
+ Is the moon lonely?
+ Please can you watch the moon for me when I go to bed?
+ I hope the moon doesn't come straight down with fire (ie to the earth in a blazing glory)

Bless his little cotton socks. The magnolia blooms have nothing to do with eclipses. I just liked the photo.

I + E = BREATHE

Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb...
Mary had a little lamb it's fleece was white as snow...
And everywhere that Mary went her lamb was sure to go

Inhale: Rowan 4ply soft in a periwinkle blue grey, a little wrap top to replace one that got shrunk in the wash "outgrown". Mr6.5st "outgrew" it. Garnstudio baby pattern 13-3. Simple and easy.
Exhale: The first week back at work is over. I can't say it was great, and I can't say it was terrible. Pia had a wonderful time in daycare. Let's just leave it at that for the moment.
Inhal: You guys bought the pattern! I am completely at a loss - I hadn't expected the response I got, and indeed am still getting. Gosh. Wow....thankyou! The wool seen here is being used to make a 2T size for a friend.
Exhal: The One In Ten auctions are now on and will be running for another day - there are some beautiful things in there, so please take a look.
Inha: Simple sewing from the pile I acquired while out walking.
Exha: Simple cooking for Pia - not the best of eaters: fresh ricotta + tinned tuna (in oil) mixed together with fresh cracked pepper stirred through pasta. The quickest meal, so tasty even for adults, and always a hit with the children. I should do a regular children's meal recipe thing shouldn't I?
Inh: New architecture books - coast houses, box houses, Iberian houses.
Exh: Max has become the human Fire Engine Siren - as well as the human Police Car Siren, Train Engine noise, Train Whistle and Rocket Ship Booster Flame noise. Pia has worked out she has teeth, and gnashes them together all of which are a little like fingernails on a blackboard to me.
In: For the first time since it was planted 3 years ago the magnolia tree in the front garden is blossoming at the same time as all the other trees in the neighbourhood. Until now, it has blossomed later. I love magnolias. It is a relatively new love. It only started when I moved to Sydney. The colours! And the petal shapes.
Ex: Enough with the rain. I know we need it. We should all have rain water tanks. But enough now.
I: The Stainless jacket is on the home stretch.
E: Time to sit and knit.

THE VERSION THAT WORKED

Over the years, there has been one project alone which has always, and continues to, receive the most feedback, and the most requests for a pattern. I’ve made it numerous times, out of various wools, and with various fabrics. Thin, thick, fine, floral, graphic. It works equally well with any combination, and is such a great little piece for boys or girls. I’ve always been very clear about not giving out the original pattern (which was published in the Australian Family Circle June 2005, and is no longer published), but this version has been so heavily modified it barely resembles the original, which was for an all knitted cardigan (Clementine's Shoes has a great version all knitted with additional variations available here). At some point it was inevitable that I would cave to public pressure and write this version up, and so I am taking my first steps into pattern selling. Soon to follow will be the Sumidity Pattern, when I get my head around the maths of converting the sizing to match the pattern shaping.

The pattern is now available here: it covers sizes 0-3yrs [3m, 6m, 12m, 2T, 3T] and was written based on using the wool I've used above, Jo Sharp Silk Georgette. From experience it works with a wide variety of wools, and as long as you don't get too hung up about measurements, it's pretty flexible sizing wise. The pattern has no schematic measurements, but as it is knit from cuff to cuff the width is measured through the knitting, and the length can be blocked and steamed out as required. I hope I've caught any bugs in the system, but if you need any help with it, just email. And I'd love to see finished items! [why do I feel like I just stepped into the unknown?!]

BE STILL...

Well that was a productive afternoon walk.
Coffee, my baby, my favourite clothes store - which has now become my favourite fabric store too.

LET ME WRAP YOU UP CLOSE

Soft, fluffed, felted, cloudy puff of wool linen swatch.
When the mega cone of this arrived from Habu, I wasn't sure how it would go, it felt tweedy, slightly harsh, perhaps, and it came right when I was having a little bit of an altercation with the Rowan Yorkshire 4ply Tweed, and I was wary.
I figured I'd do a little swatch...just to see...just to test...
This fibre is beautiful. It is very, very soft, wrap you up in cotton wool fluffy, felted enough to be tweedy without the harshness, and light as a puff of cloud. I'm staring at it, wanting to desperately take needles and wool and cast on and feel it's softness wrap around me.

I feel a little like I'm constantly working in extremes at the moment. On the one hand there is the Silk Stainless Steel jacket which is moving along nicely but is ever so fine and open. To start on this kit with much larger needles, in a much thicker yarn would be quite an antithesis to the stainless. The photos I take daily on flickr are getting grittier and rustier, which is quite the extreme to the things I pick out to have around me which are usually crisp and clean, polished, monochrome or exact in some way. I like these dichotomies. I like extremes and opposites, and I like to twist things to be something else, interpreted another way - to see other things.

But there is another extreme which is causing angst and frustration, and which I cannot reconcile, even at 1am as I type and try to find complete tiredness to sleep. In a weeks time I return to work. This time round I have so much more concern about leaving and seperating the mother from the worker. It seems a much bigger deal this time round. My baby is growing up, no longer a baby but rapidly becoming a toddler as she strikes out on her own two legs and starts walking [this weekend's trick], and I am so conscious of this time moving far too quickly, never to be repeated. I am pulling part of myself away from her for part of the week to work, and I feel so sad for the time I no longer will have exclusively with her. The pulling and tugging of heart over mind over practicality are the hardest extremes to manage.

I need the softness of a puff of wool linen to wrap me.

REVEALED

Thanks to Patricia, I can reveal a few things about me, 8 things, to be precise, random acts, habits, quirks, you name it, as part of another meme doing the rounds.

i. I rarely show my face on the blog, or on Flickr. Part of it is a privacy thing, part of it is that there are many more fabulous faces to look at than mine, and I am incredibly self conscious.
ii.  I am currently wearing my favourite outfit: Black Justine Taylor Made skirt with pleats, kilt style, and a large kilt pin and raw hemline. I like raw hemlines. They annoy the hell out of everyone around me though. I am also wearing a simple fine wool knit cardigan that I live in, and black leggings. I always wear my hair up at the moment because Pia pulls it and it hurts. A lot. This outfit makes me feel like Me. As seperate from mother, wife, cleaner, cook. It is a Real outfit. I can be a grown up person in this outfit.
iii. I have a soft spot currently for Torte di Ricotta from a lovely patisserie in Haberfield. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water. Soft fresh ricotta between layers of cake with cinnamon and icing sugar dusting the top.
iv. I would love to do a lithography course. Or a silver smithing course. I would love to combine all of this with architecture somehow. Right now I feel very disjointed from my profession - working part time and being on maternity leave haven't helped, and I'm really feeling 'left out' of the architecture world. I haven't worked out whether that is a good thing, or not, or whether I care enough to make a difference to the outcome. I do, and I don't. Compromise. Balance. Teetering.
v. I love cooking. I throw myself into cooking when I'm stressed. Cooking feeds the soul.
vi. I seriously need to reorganise (ok, just 'organise' would be a good start) my box of ribbons which are now all tangled up.
vii. I have a little obsession for edges. Raw edges. Finished edges. Precipices. Junctions. Smooth and rough.
viii. I have been taking my camera with me everywhere I go lately. At the moment I am very up and down - from day to day even, and while no-one else would ever notice the difference between today and tomorrow or yesterday, it takes an enormous effort some days to maintain equilibrium. Taking photographs has been a way of grounding myself in the here and now, and making sure I look at things and see them for what they are, or to find something beautiful in even the most mundane of activities we do. It forces me to see.

Now I must tag: Shula : Heidi : Ali : Fee : Kirsten : Martine : Julie : Amisha

WHEN IT HAPPENS

#24 : A20-2/22 : 3mm-80cm : 161 reduced x 44 : 1 - 154 : 80%

I could technically leave that as it is and continue on my merry way, but I'm sure I would leave behind a lot of confusion.

Numbers are clarity. Control. Legitimate definitions of conclusion. You cannot argue with numbers, and I find a lot of solice within the mathematical process of putting things together. Numbers make sense. Anyone who has read a Setsuko Torii pattern, and in turn japanese knit patterns, will know the entire knitting process is reduced down to numbers seperated by hyphens. Extraneous detail stripped. It makes for a very neat, legible, and for me - highly visual - way of pattern writing, and in turn, pattern recognition/materialisation. Allow the process to manufacture itself. I love that.

To Clarity:

Habu Kit 24 Silk Stainless Steel Jacket in 2 threads of black and navy silk wrapped stainless steel. Knit on 3mm needles, 80cm long, Addi Turbo Bamboo [switching to bamboo has made a huge difference to the statistical weighting of Speed:Fear Of Loosing Stitches ratio]. 161 stitches now reduced by 44 with clever shaping. Currently working on the 1st piece, the back, and now on row 154 which means I am approx. 80% complete on this section.

And enjoying that connection of intimacy I have with something for me, that I have wanted to make for years, made out of a product I love, and from a company and designer I have enormous respect for. That place where your head seeks ahead the next stitch:row:pattern:marking and you find fluidity and rhythm and everything begins a low hum of concurrence - a place of zoned participation hand:eye:heart. And now I just want the molten fibre to melt and drip from my needles - because that's exactly how it feels and photographs, as a molten metallic fabric.

More beautiful posts about Process and Connection here and here.

FINISH AND BEGIN

For the first time in months - ok, revise that, in years, I have only one project on the needles. The Habu Kit#24 meanders away in the background, and I am making progress on it at a reasonable rate. But I like to alternate projects and be able to pick and choose the project that best suits time and mood. Habu I like to work with when I have a stretch of time and I can get into a rhythm. Baby/children's knits fill short spaces of time when I can pick up a few rows and not have to think about things.

The end of a couple of small projects means I can start another project - and there is nothing better than pouring through stash and finding yarns which meet a need. In this case a fantastic ball of wool from Rohrspatz and Wollmeise which I got, oh, ever so long ago now after drooling all over Suzanne's blog at Krawuggl and her amazing collection photos, but has sat waiting for the right project. Originally intended as sock yarn, it will now become a child's jacket for a friend. The colours of these yarns are incredible (I have a few skeins) however I didn't feel right using them as intended for socks - it feels much better being used for something more substantial. Especially if the more substantial involves a pattern I've re-written to accomodate larger sizes, and I can justify knitting it as 'research'. [the pattern will be available, I'm just running very, very behind].