Saturday 18 April 2015

The sage sweater

I'm known as somewhat fanatical knitter - and a slow one.
To be exact, I do not knit slowly, on the contrary. It just takes me time to finish a given piece, the main reason being that I have several on the needles.
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I tried to count but the result was inconclusive. Around six unfinished sweaters/tops and similar amount of shawls, scarves, cowls and the like. One is missing a bit of sleeve, I run short of yarn and now I'm undecided whether to order the one or two balls I may be needing or a whole bag because the yarn is nice (and discontinued). The other needs some measuring done and possibly ripping. Another one was a bad yarn choice and now I wonder what to do next. I did finish one in 2015 though. I got the yarn, it's from the family of Katia's merinos (Merino Sport or Merino Soft), I got ten balls plus some nicely matching angora blend from Anny Blatt, knitted the body and thought about making something creative with the sleeves. At the end, after at least two years elapsed, I tossed said angora aside and substituted it by a Bluefaced Leicester yarn from somewhere-on-fleabay dyed using alum mordant and St. John's Wort.

It's the
Dither pattern, a bit tweaked on the go and I'm sure to use it again someday soon.

And obviously, an unfinished picture. I fail to get finished ones, even less so pics of someone wearing the stuff. May work on it in future.

A new hobby

Around a year ago, I got a loom. I started without ambitions so the option was Ashford's Knitter's Loom - small, portable, easy to deal with even if one is a clumsy semi-moron.
It's magic because it works. I made fabric.

A still life with folded loom, storage box and The Thing I Wove

I meant it for a skirt but it ran some 10 cm short for my girth and I'm very positive that my dressmaker would tell me to go to hell with this because the selfedge is too tight and the fabric is not dense enough for any serious sewing. I'm untouched by education, practice and skills so I'm not hindered by any of those pesky right ways to do things. The plan is to do the darts on the outside, hand-quilt it to some visually inert interlining to hold the shape and hope that it works. Or maybe I'll lose patience before I lose those 10 cm of girth and I'll leave it as a fringed scarf.
Which is not that important because I made fabric!

Friday 17 April 2015

Hoarding cats would be worse, right?

And faithful readers know that I'd love to have at least half a dozen of them.

When it comes to perfume collecting, I have a few preferred brands for reasons that are not always rational. Lancôme because it brought me to vintages, albeit randomly (I think I liked the Kypre box back then, Gueldy, just because, and Shiseido for similar reasons.

I did a bit of shopping and here's the loot.

One Lorenzy-Palanca because it was for a pittance along with Conquête and the rest is Shiseido: Rose Royale in the blue bottle, Camellia Superieur in the box, some other Camellia in the green bottle and a 2012 anniversary thing in the orange-ish flacon.