Shuffling off the frump.

I’ve been putting off writing this post for a while, but it’s time to bite the bullet. So, deep breath and here we go…

Some of you may recall that last year I made an Ingenue pullover from Wendy Bernard’s gorgeous book Custom Knits. If you have no life at all, you may even have wondered why I haven’t done a proper Finished Object post, complete with a triumphant picture of me wearing said pullover. Well, there’s a very good reason why I haven’t done that.

It’s horrible.

Actually, that’s not true. Empirically, Ingenue is a beautiful garment. The pattern is lovely, with it’s 1960′s Audrey Hepburn styling. The posmerino yarn is soft as a dream, gloriously warm and slightly haloed thanks to the possum fur. The colours are stunning: I think it is one of the best dyeing jobs I’ve ever done. No, the problem is entirely me. You see, I was temporarily insane when I chose this project – I forgot that I’m not 25 anymore. I was a completely different shape before my babies: effortlessly thin, practically breastless, long-necked, long-legged, you get the picture. The ’mod’ styling of this jumper was exactly the sort of thing I loved to wear (and looked pretty damn good in, if I do say so).

Yes. Well. I am very much not that girl anymore, a fact that was brought home to me when I saw the one and only pic there ever was or will be of me in the Ingenue:

That's me on the far left, looking like an overstuffed teddy bear.

Yes, I’ve gained back all the weight I lost two years ago (and then some), but I’m sure that even if I were still slim this jumper would not work on me. Because even at 70kg I’m a lot curvier than I was 17 years ago, and the Ingenue’s basic shape is not one for curvy girls.

So, having established that this shape was wrong for me, I then had to figure out what was right. A bit of Google-Fu and a quick trip to the library later, and I had my answer: Trinny and Susannah’s Body Shape Bible. It turns out that my post-baby body is a Cello, a more statuesqe version of the classic Hourglass and, right there in the section on what to avoid:

Polo-neck jumper or shirt - you have breasts, quite large ones in fact, and anything that covers your cleavage is a big no-no. You’ll simply look shorter and wider with some sort of deformity in the middle of your chest.

Yep, that about sums up how I look in the photo above. As for what I should be wearing, there’s a whole list of “right” shapes there on the linked page. As it turns out, my wardrobe isn’t chock-full of wrong:

• Most of my t-shirts are scoop- or v-neck (or henley, which can be unbuttoned partway for much the same effect).
• The 2 or 3 dresses I do own are high-waisted, if not halternecks (they are mostly autumn/winter wear).
• My jeans are all boot-cut rather than skinny, and my very favourite non-jeans pants are wide-leg.
• I generally prefer cardigans, which create a vertical line, distracting from the predominantly horizontal nature of my shape.

So I’m not too badly off, and now I have a shopping list of styles that will work for me; both now, and as I get my weight back down (which is most definitely on the cards for this year).

As for Ingenue, it will be returned to string in the very near future, and I have already picked out the pattern for its next incarnation - Foxhollow, a brand-new longline gorgeousness from Amy Swenson:

(c) Amy Swenson 2012

Stay tuned, because this isn’t over. There will be wardrobe purges, new clothes bought and made, and all manner of fun as I figure out how to dress this version of me.

Mmmm, new socky goodness…

I finished knitting the Noro cardi* a couple of weeks ago. The finishing-finishing will have to wait until the boys go back to school and I can sit down to seam it in peace and quiet. Meanwhile, I needed another project on the needles. The Blackberry Jam* socks I was working on have misbehaved (read: too tight on the foot) and have been banished until I can forgive them enough to rip back to the heel flap and re-knit the foot. The Wollmeise Clapotis* has disappeared into the depths of the stash cupboard and I haven’t had the time to pull everything out and go digging for it.

So, I wanted another socky project, something fairly no-brain-ish (but not too boring), and the Crazy Zauberball I bought in Brisbane was still sitting there on my desk flaunting its colours at me right beside my copy of Favorite Socks*… sooooo:

They’ve been getting fairly regular love, at least one pattern repeat per sock per day (usually while ogling Christopher Eccleston watching Doctor Who of an evening). Amazing how fast things will grow if you actually work on them.

And then, just because I can, this morning before the boys’ swimming lessons I pulled out the skein of Socks That Rock Froggin’ that’s been lurking in stash for a couple of years now, and I waved the skein at Ravelry, and this is what fell out:

This represents about one hour’s worth of work, sitting poolside while the boys had lessons.

*Rav-links all.

The Cleverness of my Mother, Part 3.

Click, then scroll down.

As Amy (and probably others) guessed, the final installment of this series (for now, because I’m sure that Mum will come up with further evidence of her crafty brilliance in the future) is Sasquatch’s quilt. While we were looking at quilts to get an idea of what they would like, Boyo chose a style (log cabin), but Sasquatch fell madly in love with a specific quilt – a scrap quilt made from old green work pants and flannel shirts (see thumbnail at right*). He announced “I want that one.” I explained to him that he couldn’t have that particular quilt, because it belonged to someone else: “See there, where the owner’s name is embroidered on one of the green patches?” “Well, I want one just like it.” (he appears to be going through a laying-down-the-law phase at the moment). In the end, we agreed to send the pic to Grandma and let her use it as inspiration. Here’s what she made of it:

It’s bright and cheerful and he loves it, as I knew he would. And, as before, the back is a collaboration with Auntie Marie, this time with an over-riding chicken theme for some reason…

Sasquatch is a bit blurry here because nanoseconds after this pic was taken he fell over backwards and landed on his bum.

Hilarity ensued.

~~~

*I can’t for the life of me find the blog where I discovered the original quilt pic. At the time I wasn’t thinking about blogging, I just saved the pic to my hard drive, and emailed it to Mum. I spent a good two hours this morning looking for it, but evidently my Google-fu has deserted me. Should the owner of the quilt ever read this post, please leave a comment and I’ll be more than happy to give credit where it’s due.

~~~

ETA: Thanks to Amy for finding the website for the quilt. It’s the Peterson’s Greens quilt; scroll down for the story behind it. I think they’ve updated the site since I first saw it, because I’m sure I would have remembered this story.

The Cleverness of my Mother, part 2

During the same visit in which Mum and Dad brought down our wedding quilt, she announced she wanted to make quilts for the boys for Christmas. Obviously, I would have been crazy to say no, so the boys and I looked over some quilt books and searched the interwebs for inspiration, and decisions were made. Boyo announced he would like a log cabin quilt in blues and reds, and here is what Mum came up with:

One of the interesting things about these quilts is the back. The wedding quilt I showed you last week is backed in plain unbleached calico, but the back here is a collaboration between Mum and her sister. Auntie Marie dabbled in quilting some while ago, but lost interest before she finished anything, though not before amassing a fairly decent stash of fabric. When she heard that Mum was making these quilts, Auntie Marie took the opportunity to do a massive de-stash, and unloaded the lot on Mum, who cobbled together completed blocks, partially finished blocks, and various fat quarters and other lengths of fabric into the gorgeousness you see here:

Finally, Boyo insisted on being in the pics with his quilt. Here he is pointing out his favourite bit.

In amongst the beautifully crazy hodgepodge of shape and colour on the back are a couple of pieces of mustard-brown corduroy, and he zeroed straight in on that as his favourite fabric. It’s a texture thing.

The Cleverness of my Mother, part 1.

Back in the September school holidays, my parents came a-visiting. They live 800 kms away, so we only see them two or three times a year, which makes any visit from them something of a red-letter day. This particular visit, however, was especially special, because they brought with them a long-awaited article – our wedding quilt.

This quilt has been going in fits and starts since 1989, when Tech Support and I were newly engaged and Mum was a newish and very enthusiastic quilter. The original plan was that Mum would piece it, and I would quilt it. Over the years, life got in the way (as it does), and other projects and other crafts have taken precendence (as they will), and to be honest, I am amazed it survived the six years it spent in a wardrobe at the old (and very mouldy) house here in Blayney. Last year, Mum got excited about quilting all over again, and took it back to Grafton to finish it.

And here it is. It’s a “Storm at Sea” pattern, in which straight lines do an optical illusion thingy and appear to curve and swirl like water. It is so very beautiful that it makes me want to make the bed first thing every morning (something I am not known for), just so that I can pop in there during the day and admire it.

Thanks, Mum. I love you, too.

All Thumbs

Last night, I nicked the pad of my left thumb while chopping veg for dinner. Nothing life-threatening, but it bled, so I put a band-aid on it.
It turns out, I use my left thumb more than I realise. Right away, I noticed how much more difficult it was to slice the onions with the bulky band-aid in the way. Then after dinner I picked up my knitting. Guess what? When I purl, I push the needle back out of the new stitch with the tip of my left thumb. A band-aid really gets in the way of that. So I yanked the band-aid off and threw it across the room in a fit of temper. Bad idea. The cut is in exactly the spot where the lovely pointy nickel tip of my Knitpicks needle hits when I do that pushing manoeuvre, which took it from merely awkward to actively painful.
So a new band-aid was applied, and I struggled on.
What a pain in the thumb.

(And yes, I wrote this whole post just to make that joke. But I really did cut my thumb).

Let’s try that again, shall we?

Remember twelve months ago, when I stated my intention to post at least once a week in 2011?

Yeah, I know. Not my best work. According to the annual round-up that landed in my inbox this morning, I wrote 40 posts in 2011, and only 5 in the last six months. That’s what the kids these days might call an epic fail.

So I’m going to try again. Even if it’s just a weekly update on what I’m knitting, I WILL post at least once a week this year.

To catch you up with what’s been happening since the last time I posted, there’s been the usual frantic pace of Term 4; between swimming lessons, volunteering in the school canteen, Boyo’s 4-day school camp at Narrabeen, four assemblies, two class parties, a Christmas stall and a school dance, I feel like my feet hardly hit the ground in November-December. Then once school broke up there was the inevitable rush of Christmas prep, made more interesting by the fact of Tech Support being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, so we are in the process of completely overhauling our diet and lifestyle. He is slowly feeling better as he adjusts to his meds and a whole new way of thinking about food and his body. He has another two weeks of annual leave before he goes back to work, so we are working on various coping strategies – healthy snacks that he can have on hand, packed lunches, an insulated water-bottle.

Christmas was lovely, just the four of us at home. Lego brought us a Christmas miracle – three hours of absolute silence as the boys worked on their new acquisitions. It was bliss! There was a time I used to think Lego was overpriced, but now I tell you it is worth EVERY SINGLE PENNY!!!

Finally, I’ll leave you with this song. It pops into my head now and then, and I love it, because it’s about taking joy in the little things.