Knitextravaganza: intentional Moebius and Montego Bay tunic!

I guess one could say it's official: Brouhaha is back off the knitting wagon!

Here are some concoctions over the past two days:

1. Moebius Capelet


I bought the yarn for this while on an unsuccessful quest for Handmaiden Flaxen at the LYS - but this project seemed fated in light of a dramatic error I made in sewing together my last knitting project, the Brioche Man's Vest...
And here is the back of the Moebius:

As usual it looks far better on Aphrodite than me. This is likely because Aphrodite, although Greek like me, does not talk with her hands. After the first fifteen minutes it was on, here is how it looked:

Finally, halfway through the day I gave up on it and started wearing it like this:

Good perhaps for bad hair days - but as you can see it doesn't necessarily work to hide anything. All I wanted to become was a classy capelet-wearing doyenne (is that too much to ask?!?), but I guess it wasn't to be! So, it will be going to a better home very shortly.

Specs:

Yarn: Fleece Artist Grande Godiva, two 100g skeins (174 metres) - 50% silk, 50% wool
Pattern by: Cat Bordhi (sold with the yarn)
Needle Size: 9.0 mm with 47" cord
Time spent: 3 hours approx.

Notes: This was rather fun to knit - that is, after I got over the initial hurdle of casting on for the thing. This involved casting on 75 or so stitches over the coiled cable attaching the needles, then stretching them around enough to knit the first round. This took me about an hour to figure out and by the end of it I was just about ready either to wrap the addis around my neck or fling the whole thing over the balcony.

Patience won out though... and the rest of the knitting was surprisingly easy. It didn't hurt that the yarn. And I think I have finally exorcised my little "stupid, stupid knitter" voice by making an "on-purpose" moebius. Goddess knows I've made enough of them inadvertently when trying to knit in the round!

Highly recommended - and I will be picking up one of Cat Bordhi's books. I'd like to make a hat with a Moebius brim and hope she has a pattern!

2. Montego Bay Tunic

This is a reconfiguration of my first lace project, the Montego Bay Scarf by Amy Singer.

The scarf was beautiful - but I just have to face facts. I am scarf challenged and could not manage to wear this long slim scarf without it getting all tangled around my neck (I detest those who can carry it off - but they could make some money giving people like me a seminar).

This is how it used to look (damn and blast Aphrodite!):

...and this is what it morphed into.



From this:

...to this:
The original scarf was made out of Handmaiden Sea Silk (swoon...) on 4mm needles. To put it together, I measured it around and marked off 16 inch increments. I then crocheted two thirds of it together in a tube at the edges, then brought the end edge over the right shoulder and crocheted it into place with some raspberry sea silk I had lying around. The right shoulder strap was crocheted with some old Fleece Artist stuff I had hanging around.

I'm thinking of doing a trim all around - but got lazy last night and want to wear it today. (It looked fine last evening on me - even better than on Aphrodite for once, I would say! But I suspect it will stretch badly. Having said that, I like it.)

I should note that JJ is concerned that I am going to wear this to work (or, for that matter, the staff holiday party) without any undercovering. This, I intuit from him calling me Barbarella last night when I pranced around with it on. I reminded him that the average temperature is -4 C these days, but he didnae seem convinced. Oh well.

And, finally: here is my progress on the Tilted Duster - I managed to complete this much of one sleeve during my commute!

I will never dread sleeves again. I would never have thought I'd find anything that would make me stop abhorring slowdowns during rush hour on the TTC....

Happy Tuesday! And, any proud Canadians visiting should be happy to know that today marks the 76th anniversary of legislative freedom from (and equality with) the United Kingdom. Why anyone thinks it's a good idea to make laws from thousands of kilometres away, I have no idea (but then I guess half of Canada can say that about Ottawa...SIGH).

Cheers,

Kristina

just call me Lady Godiva...

(and no, you're not going to get any pictures of me on horseback. My hair is not long enough, yet - and I'll probably be taking the scissors to it any day now.)

I made a sortie to my work LYS, Romni, at the lunch hour yesterday in search of Handmaiden Flaxen. Alas, they do not carry it! In retrospect this is probably a good thing - although the ever-helpful Jonathan said "Why don't you try [another place in the east end - I have blocked the name from memory because I really do not need to know about any more yarn stores in Toronto!!]".

So, instead, I saw this:




Chunky half silk, half wool!

The actual reason for buying this was... well, do you remember this?

Check this out!

Now I can learn Moebius knitting for real! (Although having said that, I will probably manage to mess it up and it will turn out straight. Sigh.)

On the way back to the office, I stopped into a deli called Prague on a co-worker driven quest for cherry cheesecake. I do not myself like cheesecake, but have a look at this:

Czech smarties!!!

Which I had to get because it goes so well with the book purchase I made this morning at the newsagent:
I love these books that talk about the history behind common foods. They jump all over the world with one unifying theme: salt, cod, chocolate. (If you haven't read "Salt" by Mark Kurlanski, it is highly recommended.)

But the festivities did not stop with shopping. After work, a couple of us repaired to an old favourite pub for a couple of cocktails:


But it was closed!!! For good!! One of our favourite spots is no longer.

Perhaps it was "condo-mned?"

The Lady Tenant Advocates then met en masse for a big Indian dinner at Dhaba. Sadly for me, this is another partial casualty of Condoland. What used to be my favourite Indian buffet place has morphed into a high end pretentious indian fusion place, offering such bounty as seafood samosas and venison curry. My favourite dish, chicken vindaloo, was nowhere to be seen. I will say that the chairs were rather cushy. This somewhat softened the blow of the price increases of standard items on the menu - one samosa for $5.00! The food was great in quality as ever, I hasten to say. But I won't be back.

(Hmm... maybe had I stripped off all my clothes and wrapped myself in Grande Godiva I would have had a discount? Or at least a free ride home in a police cruiser instead of a $20 cab).

Well, I'd bet get off my lazy @$$ and get JJ out of bed so that we can head out into the day - a trip to the Yorkdale Mall for necessary holiday shopping. Grrr. The parking lot there of a Saturday in December reminds of the Colesseum in Rome on gladiator day.

In parting, JJ will surely be chuffed to hear that Mary, Queen of Scots was born on this day in 1542. I wonder if he knew her...??