And then I played with self-portraiture, wherein I learned much.

1. Timers don’t work if the camera hasn’t got a reliable balance point and needs to be propped up on something.

Photobombed by a tripod-stand-in

Here we see the edge of the black plastic thingo I balanced the camera on while the timer counted down. Note the flailing arm indicating lack of preparedness or poise.

2. Holding the camera at arm’s length only works for people with normal-length or longer arms.

Not pictured: arm length.

But at least this photo illuminates my concern with the collar of Black Coffee, vis possibly too big and gapey. Rather than swaddled luxuriously around my neck, it hangs open so I look like a turtle looking out of a bucket.

3. This doesn’t work:

The view from here.

Time spent learning is never time wasted, I have heard. Black Coffee needs armhole tidying (pick up sts around each armhole, work a row or two, bind off neatly) and some Serious Thinking about the collar. Options include:

• ignoring it
• ripping back and making it a snug turtleneck instead of a cowl
• …

The truth is much less exciting than the tabloids would have us believe, but ultimately more satisfying. Black Coffee Tunic is very very close to being done, as in finished, as in getting about on my fine person. I’ve finished the body and tried it on: it fits like a beautiful cabled dream. Heavy and warm and sexy, and I’ve bought some black tights specially to wear with it. Because my clothes sense was forged during the mid-80s, where every piece of clothing I owned was either tights, stirrup pants or had pompoms on it, I have, until now, avoided the tights-wearing thing everyone seems to be doing. But Black Coffee is long enough to be almost a dress, so I’m willing to give it a go. Not promising anything.

Anyway, I’ve picked up the stitches around the neckline and have commenced the collar. You pick up 104 sts, work in 1×1 rib for an inch, then KfB into every stitch to double the number of stitches and then knit until the collar measures from here to the FREAKING SUN. Nine inches? Bloody hell.

Subtle lamington effect created using a delicate merino/cattledog blend.

Tell you what, Coffee Tunic: I’ll knit until you look right and have a collar that works, and then I’m stopping. I promise not to sell you short, but I’m not making a collar longer than my femur just cos the pattern says so, okay? Libertyknittin’, that’s what we’re about here. I also think you deserve some stitches picked up around your armholes to tidy up those edges.

Christ, I hope I finish this soon: conversations with in-progress knitwear cannot be a sign of a healthy mind.

What have we here?

Today, a gift. Of the most random kind. My Dadini’s Mum was a craftsperson par excellence. Everything she turned her hand to, she turned it well. When she died in 2004, Dadini and I were among the Clean Out The Craft Room Committee. Butter my butt and call me a biscuit, it was astonishing. We found samplers and practice shots of just about every craft under the sun, from weatherwork to candlewick to felting and weaving. She had skills. And books. And supplies galore. She was also very frugal, which lead to a lifelong habit of stockpiling in times of plenty against times of want, which lead to a craft room groaning with spare supplies, unopened kits, surplus galore. A lesson in balance, blogfans: there’s a fine line between stocking up for retirement and acquisition exceeding life expectancy. I took home a few kits, some unfinished work, and a few additions to my library.

So many POINTS

I think it must have been around 2004 I had my first disappointment on eBay. I ordered a set of Boye Needlemaster interchangeable needles after hearing about them on the KnittyBoard: paid up $80 and never got them. Bummer. Seriously disappointed. Took me a long time to heal. But time moves on.

I think I went camping there once...

My Dadini’s sister visited the other day, and brought these. They probably emerged during the Clean Out The Craft Room project, but God knows how they flew under my radar. They’re the same kit I ordered and never got on eBay. I mean, not *literally* the same kit; but they’re another set of Boye Needlemaster interchangeables, identical to the ones I tried to get off eBay.

Karmic circle, yo

Cosmic. I’ve been using a set of KnitPicks interchangeables for years and they’re pretty sweet, so it’ll be interesting to compare the two sets. I’ll keep you posted.

Long black is looooong!

Not much to say, really: I keep on knitting, it keeps on getting longer, eventually I’ll finish and the sound of needles clicking will be stilled.

This is such a straightforward knit that I’m a little embarrassed to even blog about it — well, maybe not embarrassed, exactly, but I sort of feel like there’s not a lot to say. I’m hypnotised with the unvarying, ongoing pattern; I love the springy, sturdy, reassuring wool; there has been no disaster, no horrific error uncovered, nothing but simple, stepping progress as it grows longer and longer. I love it, but I admit it doesn’t make for interesting blogging. Far more exciting if I were to discover a fault in the pattern that lead me to accidentally knitting open a portal to Hell, or if the unique combination of my hands, needles, wool and posture lead me to knit something that resembled a treasure map, leading me to undreamt-of glory and adventure. But t’ain’t gonna happen. Just me and Black Coffee, sipping quietly together over here, the occasional wry chuckle as I nearly forget a cable row, and that’s about it. Details as/if they come.

Black Coffee, in repose

Like all black knitting, it’s tricky to photograph with any detail, but the light this afternoon was ideal, so snap snap. The pattern’s simplicity is satisfying: it means a lot of repetition and a lot of patience. But it’s also what makes the design so good. That’s cool. Right now, I like how far I’ve got to go: I’m totally in the zone with this pattern. It’s simple enough to memorise, not so simple to bore me.

Good lighting makes happy knitting (probably)

I fiddled with the pattern so that the front and back are symmetrical, so now the side decreases slowly eat into the nearest cables. It took me a bit to figure out how to preserve the cable strip as the decreases eat into them, but I think I’ve figured it out, so hooray and STAND BACK.

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading old issues of Twist Collective. Man, someone should give their photographers a big ol’ hug and a free pumpkin. Their pattern shoots are always beautiful.

Update!

I had the camera out anyway and it was a beautiful day for photographing black cables.

Left: Black Coffee; Right: Roasted Coffee

There’s not heaps to report: it’s a good pattern, but there’s not a lot of variety. Not something you write home about, know what I’m saying? It’s rib, round and round in rib, with a cable row every 12 rows. It’s not exciting to focus on, but it’s great if you’re in the car, hanging out, talking or reading. If I couldn’t do those things while knitting it, I definitely wouldn’t progress as fast.

A tilt to really hook the readers.

I’m working in Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic: an old favourite, I’ve made a couple of jumpers out of it. It wears well, it’s springy, colourfast and has great stitch definition. Its biggest flaw is that it’s a bit on the splitty side. It’s a cabled yarn (if I’ve correctly understood what a cabled yarn is) and I found it too splitty to cable without a cable needle. At first this annoyed me, because it’s with pride that I have gone so long without needing a cable needle: but then I figured, who gives a fuck? This shit looks good and I’m not about to foul it up by pretending I don’t get a better result with an extra tool. Fuck that noise. So cable needle ahoy and sexy cables result.

Charging along merrily, congratulating myself on not fucking up the cast-on/join-do-not-twist stage, and then admiring some of the nicest ribbing I’ve don, I decided — casually, if you will — to check yardarge requirements. Smarter knitters check before casting on, or at least before making a significant emotional investment in the project. My logic: I had three balls of black wool (Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 8ply: super big balls) (teeheeheehee), made a jumper (Gytha) and now have one (1). The Coffee Tunic is a sleeveless jumper and therefore requires less yarn than Gytha. I have less yarn than I had for Gytha, therefore I can make the Coffee Tunic. Give three (3) cheers, pass Go, collect $200. Noop. I neglected to consider the following:

• Cabled jumpers, sleeveless and otherwise, use a lot more wool than I usually think they will.
• Jumbo turtlenecks use more wool than I usually think they will.
• The bulk of yarn consumption in a jumper is arguably in the body (unless there’s a unique design feature like a massive hood or a kangaroo pocket build to carry actual kangaroos)

Since the Coffee Tunic has many cables — and rib, which also uses more wool than I usually think it will — and a jumbo turtleneck and a long body, the chances that I would squeeze it out of the single ball of wool I had were never high.

Options:

1. Unravel and turn the single ball of yarn into Sexy Vesty, also in my queue.
2. Order more yarn to go with my remaining black ball and charge ahead to triumph.
3. Use the single black ball I’ve got to make Sexy Vesty and order three more balls to make the Coffee Tunic, thereby ensuring I get both projects and that each comes from a single dye lot.
4. Pout a bit about how unfair it is to have to buy wool just because I want to knit something, pull Black Coffee off the needles, measure it against myself, photograph it for the blog, sulk a bit, have an iced tea, and decide to buy the goddamn yarn anyway and put the project back on the needles. Realise option 3 after ordering the yarn. Swear a bit.

Guess which one I chose? Well, not chose. Guess which one is the most accurate description of events?

Fit of pique captured with macro setting.

I have something of an aversion to unnecessary acquisition. This usually manifests itself in healthy ways, but every now and again I let it shoot me in the foot/yarn basket by resisting expenditure at all costs. So even though getting the extra yarn cost me just $24.00, even though I seriously like this pattern and want to wear it as soon as I can; even though I’m going to have a hoot knitting it, like the finished product, and can afford that expenditure, I still had to spend an hour mulling over it. I don’t think cautiousness in spending is bad — especially since I wasn’t holding up traffic or anything, just wandering about the house with a daft look on my face — but I may have lost perspective on the matter. I started weighing up ways I could rearrange the pattern, like economising on cables and increases. Then I yanked it off the needles and realised it was already a really good fit and would make a super nice top when I’m done. I don’t want to change the pattern. I want to make this top. So I’ve bought some more yarn.

I think the fundamental irony that I tried to resist is that I cast on the Coffee Tunic as a reminder that I didn’t need to shell out the big bucks to knit. The cost of the yarn for the dresses I wanted kinda gave me a jolt, and now I have to buy more anyway. Oh well. Rock’n'roll.

Pause for applause.

To recap:

1. Got 10 balls of red cotton for an Xmas present: the balls turned out to have 48,000,000 metres of yarn each, so I made two tanks and an Everlasting Bagstopper.
2. The bagstopper rocks on; the two tanks shrank in such a way that they no longer fitted. BOO. I wore them anyway, persuading myself Nobody Will Notice.
3. Eventually wanted to make a dress: decided the red was perfect and the tanks were dead in the water anyway. UNRAVEL PARTY!
4. Unravelled, washed, loosened, reballed.
5. Cast on! Made meself a dress, with the enchanting name of
   111-3 tailored dress in ”Safran” with lace pattern and crochet borders.
6. This took me 8 weeks and was waaaaay too big. I was swimming in it. Before I had a chance to start convincing myself It Was Fine, Nobody Will Notice, I unravelled. I like knitting, I like knitting, I like knitting.
7. Cast on again, January 1. Cast off January 27. BOOYEAH! That’s some wicked fast knitting right there, dudes.
8. Block, dry: wear to brunch.

Look! Look at this!

Holy cow a porch mushroom!

Cavorting with delight about dress and mushroom.

Is that another mushroom?

Action shot

Then I started seeing other dresses on Ravelry. Oh, man, there’s some sexy stuff out there. I have a serious knitty-boner for this black dress by Gudrun Johnson. (Here’s the Rav link, if you want to lose hours.) Ravelry seems to be groaning with knitters who have made this dress and are deliriously happy with the results. Ludicrously happy. And rightly so: they’re beautiful.

Then I found Sparkle! (Rav link and sorry about the exclamation mark, it’s part of the pattern name), a resurrected Vogue Knitting pattern. I can’t explain my crush on this dress but I LOVE IT. It resembles nothing I own and I can’t imagine picking it off the rack in a shop without anything but a derisive sneer. But it completely arrests me and I want to make it. I think I would probably make it plain. At first.

So the next thing I know I’ve spent an hour comparing reviews, doing maths to calculate yardage, weighing up prices and filling online shopping baskets only to abandon them in online aisles for the online staff to put back on the online shelves (I’m not proud). I haven’t bought yarn in a really long time: a few years ago I took a bit of a look at my stash and thought “yeah, that’s enough to be getting along with”. So I forgot how seductive and slippery online shopping is. One minute you have a clear goal and a budget: the next, you’re dancing on the shredded pieces of your shopping list and singing your credit card number to the tune of “High on the Hill Lived a Lonely Goat Herd”. I got to the checkout and had a “HOW much?” moment, and walked away.

I sat in the yarn cupboard for a while. It started as a “Yeah, this yarn’s okay for now. Maybe when I’ve worked through it I can buy some more yarn…” visit, a sort of gloomy reminder of all my current yarny commitments. Grump grump grump, no new yarn for me. Then I got into the cupboard and it was like meeting old friends. And remembering all the other things I want to knit. YEAH!

I can knit EVERYthing! AHAHAHAHHA! Coffee Tunic! Sexy Vesty! Kilt Hose! Hats! More skirts! Oooh dear. It’s been a while, but I know the Startitis boogie when I feel my heels shuffling. If I didn’t move quick, I’d come to my senses surrounded by half-finished terrible ideas and that would just be annoying. So I grabbed the nearest yarny chum and needles, and cast on the sexy Coffee Tunic in black. That took the edge off. Digging out a couple of socks that are soooo close to being done it’s silly helped, too.

I don’t need to order dress yarn. I don’t need to knit another dress. I am excited about my socks and the Black Coffee tunic. But butter my butt and call me a biscuit if I’m itching to make more dresses.

A quiet sprint

About 25cm along, almost ready to start the skirt decreases. Zoom! I bet I can do better than eight weeks. I mean, I’m making it a size smaller, and I’ve pretty much memorised the pattern, so it should fly along, right? Logic!

When I tried it on and announced to my admiring public that I would have to unravel and reknit, my fans assured me such steps were unnecessary — that it looked fine, could I shrink it a bit in the wash, and so on. This is a really cool pattern, and I’ve got no qualms about unravelling and reknitting: I’m not bored with it at all, so it’s no burden. At the same time, I’m really surprised at how good it looked (once I pinched the extra foot or so of fabric at the back with a stegosaurus spine of clothespegs) : the fabric had a good drape, the waistline and hem looked good. In short, it’s a super good pattern and I can see it’s worth making in a size that fits. If the badly-fitting practice run had looked wonky or seriously wrong, I wouldn’t have bothered and would now be blogging blithely about the pros and cons of working with shallot casings or something.. But no! Knit on!

The recent acquisition of several gazilion ebooks is helping progress considerably. I can sit and read and knit and demand cups of tea in a demented bray from time to time (with varying degrees of success), and if there’s a finer way of spending a weekend, I’ll bet it involves picking blueberries and frankly I don’t care.

More knitting to do. BBL.