The quest for the perfect brown continues

The leaves have been quite wonderful this fall. We haven't had much rain, so there are still yellow, brown and red leaves holding on to the branches, and the ones that have fallen have faded, but not turned to rained-on, driven-over mush.

Not in focus, but very brown. I think my perfect brown yarn will have to be a semi-solid at least, if not crazily variegated to get all the texture and colours in.

Rich, rich brown!

Red and green make brown... Most of the great browns are more lovely seen against the clear blue sky. 

This is definitely yellow and not red or brown. It's a volunteer maple tree which appeared in our hedge a few years ago. We have tried to smooth its way upward, trimming the hedge away and making sure it was watered. All in hopes, of course, that it would be one of those maples with the glorious red leaves. You can't always get what you want...

Everyone needs an accessory

Well, we can't just moan and gnash our teeth about things. Can we?

After finishing my Color Craving, I have been aimlessly knitting a stitch here and there. Perhaps tomorrow I will get that mitten out and work properly on it.

Sometime next year, I will make something out of these books.  These are not egg-cosies or toilet roll covers, but hats and scarves and dickies.

That ripply set above looks kind of cool, actually.

Speechless

Where are we going?

Today's the day

All I can do today is show that the crocheters are with Hillary.

Note to self: don't forget the snacks for this evening's entertainment... I just hope I don't have to stockpile for the apocalypse.

A plan for 2017

I belong to a vintage knitting group on Ravelry, and someone came up with the bright idea for a 1880-1980 knitalong for the whole of 2017. My plan is to use my "bazaar" and accessories books and knit things like a teacosy or a stuffed penguin.

Since I have to come up with something to say for 24 more days of November, I won't show you all my booklets at once, but here's a taste.

I think the first thing I will start in January is a Gossamer-Light Lacy Bed-Wrap from this one. I'm considering a rainbow Kauni yarn! More info closer to the time.

This one is full of toilet roll covers and some pretty awful dolls. I think I started to crochet that owl in 1972, but my mom and I got mixed up with the American and English terms -- a bit vague in my mind, but of course it was either too big or too small... I have no idea what happened to it! And while I recognize the owl, I know I bought this book rather more recently than 1972! 

The third bizarre book is this, the Third Bazaar Book! 

Sometimes I think it will be a challenge to find a desirable item from each of my dozen or so booklets; I'm only doing one toilet roll cover!

So, that's 2017 settled, then. One vintage thing a month; maybe a wrap, maybe a boiled-egg cosy. And of course I'll just finish up all my works-in-progress between now and January 1!

A revolution in dishrags

In many ways, the dishrag is the perfect thing to knit. It is quick and portable, and infinitely variable. You can do a knit and purl picture, you can do a repeating pattern, you can use colours and slipped stitches and bobbles and cables. And when you are done, you can wash your dishes.

As I told you the other day, I recently bought a new kind of dishcloth yarn. It is scratchy and polyester and garishly coloured. It's called Scrubby, and has threads of twisted polyester sticking out all over.

With this yarn, it seems that any colour pattern has to be very simple because one's lines get blurred; any texture pattern would be completely hidden in the fuzz.

I made this garter-stitch striped cloth in a few short hours, and I think that despite its drawbacks, this yarn might turn out to be good stuff.

Hard for the camera to know where to focus!

Its main virtue is that it dries quickly, unlike a cotton cloth that stays soggy and gets smelly before too long. Well, that is its only virtue, perhaps, but still, it's appealing!

I still have most of two balls of this yarn, so I shall whip up a couple more of these and we'll see how they work out.

A lot of pictures

I finished my Color Craving and am wearing it as I type!

I worried about the beige, but it now seems nice and fall-compatible.

We did a wee photo shoot on this lovely fall day. Perhaps a bit of overcast would have lessened the shadows, but I'd rather have the sun!

The "on the fence" shot

The classic "on the hedge"

Big, eh?

Matches the leaves

Dangling off the shed

My photographer could have turned the camera to get it all in

Done like dinner

 My Color Craving is finished and drying on a large bath towel.

It is very large and triangular. 

And full of holes! 

I quite like it, especially the wee picots around the edge. I will get better shots when it is dry and I can drape it artfully around my neck.

It was a woozy Tuesday

Last Sunday, I broke a tooth. 

I was innocently eating toast and jam, and when I finished, I was missing a chunk off my back bottom tooth. Luckily when I phoned Monday morning, the dentist could fit me in on Tuesday, so I didn't spend too, too long poking at it with my tongue.

 Because it was awkward and way in the back, the dentist shot me full of "freezing" before drilling and whatever other dentist magic she did. I go regularly for cleaning and check-ups, but it has been a long time since I had to have a filling. That freezing not only made me think I had a bottom lip the size of a blue whale, but it made me lightheaded, tired and all-around woozy.

I walked home through the Annex thinking, "relax your jaw, relax your jaw," and taking pictures of brown leaves (as part of my never-ending quest for the perfect brown sweater) and odd architectural bits.

But I did get some knitting done, and I hope to show you a finished shawl next time!

Went shopping

Happy November.

Last weekend I went to the Creativ Festival, a badly spelled "sew show" that happens twice a year. Lots of sewing and quilting, a bit of knitting. My friend nearly bought a new iron and I was compelled to buy some pickled beets and chutney, but we were actually pretty restrained.

Has anyone used these weirdo needles? You use three instead of four or five straight double-points. Kind of cute, slightly flexible plastic... harder for stitches to fall off the ends but otherwise they seemed not special. I decided I didn't need any new sock needles!

I did buy yarn... polyester with sticky-out bits, meant for making dishcloths. I'll give it a try, because who can resist innovation in dishcloths?

Ah, Madeline Tosh. These two crazy colours were on sale, at 75% off. I now realise I should have just bought it all, but I stopped at 5 unicorn tails of each colour, about 240 meters of each.

The yellow is better in this next picture. It's called Edison Bulb, and is kind of loud! I'm thinking of something mosaic, or I could go brioche with these two... Will have to ponder.

I am almost finished my pseudo-Stephen West shawl, but it's all scrunched up on the needles and won't really be worth taking a picture of for a day or two, when I get it cast off. And I hope to show you when that happens -- it's November and I will make an effort to blog more often.

Until tomorrow, then!

Well, there goes October

It seems I haven't blogged in three weeks. Now I am thinking, "why blog now when November is coming and I can blog every day?" This is not especially reasonable, I know.

Here's a mini-post for you:

1. I started the Stephen West mystery knitalong, but after the first part of the first clue, I said, "yuck," and moved on. Perhaps that was precipitous of me, but...
2. this allowed me to start Color Craving, a Stephen West shawl I have liked for a long time. 
3. I didn't actually buy the pattern, but am looking at the old MKAL notes and videos and chat and pictures, and I'm pretty sure that my shawl will be extremely similar to one knit by following the pattern.
4. I have yet to take a picture of the work in progress, and it is now 800 stitches scrunched up on three 80 cm needles, so not a pretty sight.
5. We'll see what it looks like in a week or so when I am done. 

And a dahlia: 

Some other art thing

I don't have pictures of Stephen's art today, but a week or so ago we went to another art event I want to show you.

You could buy buttons

It was called In/Future and was held at Ontario Place. I went to Ontario Place once in 1975, I think, and it was sort of keen. People who grew up here in Toronto can be very sentimental about it, bursting into song at the mere mention of the place.

Great font, even on the garbage cans

The Cinesphere was the very first IMAX theatre. Didn't know that, didja?

The Cinesphere, with some legs

There are silos that used to have educational displays about the weather in them, and pods and bridges, and it's all a bit "modern" and concrete.

Bridge 7

Silos

Now it is temporarily empty, and looks abandoned. So, the In/Future people said, hey, empty space, let's put some art there.

You have to be this tall to ride on the Wilderness Adventure ride. We saw the animals from this ride -- not pretty!

This big parachute-like thing billowed in the wind in one of the silos.

The tallest silo hosted these hanging reels of tape. Very beautiful!

Outside, someone had found and arranged a big pile of bricks. There were blackened ones, dark ones, yellowish ones and white ones. This is an artwork I would like in my front yard. (Luckily Toronto has a big spit going out into the lake where construction debris has been dumped for generations, so there are lots of bricks available.)

This is very cool, and would have been better if there had been more wind. These are cymbals atop poles, and there are drumsticks attached to strings. When the poles sway in a breeze, the sticks and cymbals interact. They look like giant otherworldly flowers.

Ah, the tinsel building. It's nice to see a shiny, tinsel-covered building on a sunny day, even if I don't think it "hints at the power inside of the structure."

We were standing admiring the tinsel when along came a swan. I think these swans used to be available to rent, and pedal or paddle around the water surrounding the Cinesphere. This is the last surviving swan, being propelled by some friendly folk. I believe they were the king and queen of something.

Of course it wouldn't be a Toronto thing without some interactive stuff for school kids to do. I think classes had come in during the week to build a dream city. Spot the Canadian flag. 

I have no idea what this originally was. The font is all wrong! But I do like it.

There were also video artworks and lots of other installations. There was at least one stage, but I kind of suspect more. We were cool enough to go see this rather huge display of really varied artworks in a location that was familiar, yet so odd. But we were not cool enough to know one should really go at night! We saw one music act, but couldn't stay to see the Imax movie. We went on the last day, instead of getting a pass for the whole 11 days. But we did have a really pleasant day wandering around.

(I realised I didn't link all the art pieces to their blurbs... You can find all the info here if you are interested.)

Something I knitted

Well, look at this, a knitted thing.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I got some Malabrigo yarn. I made things up as I went along and at one point had a triangle of blue, with a green scarf off one side and an orange scarf growing out of another... It was going to be great...

But truly, the yarn irritated my nose so much I never knit  it -- once I realized all those "colds" had to do with knitting soft wool or mohair or Lopi or ... on and on.

This sat around for years. So, the other day I un-kitchenered this lovely, leafy, reversible scarf from the rest of it and I filled the house with wool fluff by frogging the triangle and the orange bit. (I do have a vacuum cleaner.)

Of course, this is not really long enough to be a scarf on its own. I think I was very clever to sew it up into a cowl, with the pointy bit doing its pointy thing.

It is not very snug; we will see how excellent it is in a couple of months when it gets cold enough to need such a thing.

October is here

Oh, my, October already.

This is the month of the Stephen West mystery knitalong. Last year I made the Doodler, mostly from stash, and gave it away. This year's mystery is called Building Blocks and needs four colours.

I didn't have enough of anything just lying around, and I didn't want to spend $100+ on something that I have no idea about (except it should be great...) so I got some 6-ply sock yarn from the sale basement at Romni and I'm good to go.

The first "clue" or part of the pattern is released next Friday. So I am at loose ends until then. I have another Koigu hat on the go, and I got some nice cotton someone gave me out of the cupboard and looked at it, but I have nothing compelling on the needles.

This weekend Stephen is showing his science-y art at the Queen West Art Crawl, which has meant renting a car (a giant SUV) and driving back and forth to the park where the show is. Today, after delivering him and his art to the park, I sat on hold with the "emergency roadside assistance" because there were two large nails in a tire and I wanted them to come and change the tire. It was a bit drizzly, so every tow truck and tire-changing guy was busy, but after a couple of hours and a couple of phone calls we have a crappy spare on our fancy SUV, which should last until Monday (a few more back-and-forths). I drive when I go out west, and I drove all the time when I lived in Texas, or California, but I am not a big-city driver at all. Nerve-wracking I call it... Pedestrians and bikes and streetcars all over the place!

My October goals, aside from getting to Monday without driving into anything, are to keep up with the knitalong clues and to maybe finish my Koigu hat. Anything more would just be gravy!