On the move

So, I'm moving. Willie has accepted a job in Melbourne (at a law firm), and he starts in early September. Whoa, we're moving overseas!

But first, we need to get rid of a ton of STUFF, and figure out what to take and what to put in storage of what remains. Luckily various relatives are keen to take some of our furniture. And Willie has a 'Planning' spreadsheet a mile long. ;)

I've been to Melbourne once, last year, and it seemed pretty cool. A bit like Wellington but bigger, and with better public transport and funny accents. I was impressed with the NGV gallery and wished I had longer there - guess now I will! And the state library was pretty fancy. We're not sure yet whether we want to rent an apartment in the central city, or a flat further out (maybe Fitzroy or Brunswick). Here's a pic of us being touristy on Brunswick St, home of the fun op-shops and eateries:

I need to find out which choirs etc would suit me - looks like there are plenty to choose from! And brush up on my audition skills, i.e. polish up some songs that show off what I can do, and keep practising sight-singing. Hopefully I can find a good teacher over there too. Robert's keen to "make the most of me" while I'm still here, so I'll be doing some more solos at St Mary's in the next couple of months. I'd better get practising...

New pattern: INSULATE! hat

My geek-tastic new hat pattern is now available - and it's free! INSULATE!

The Dalek design is quite stylised, so that it works as a purely geometric design too. I'm looking forward to wearing it out and about and seeing who spots the Daleks. ;)

For the colourwork, I've used stranding (or fairisle) technique for some rounds and mosaic (or slip-stitch) technique for the rest, to avoid having too many long floats on the inside. Using a combination of the the two also makes it a quicker knit than if it were all stranded.

For the stranded rounds, I used my newly-acquired two-handed stranding technique, which I'm getting more and more comfortable with. I made a larger one of these for Willie, with a variegated yarn for the Daleks and a solid colour for the background, which worked really well. I still need to catch him so I can take a photo of it!

The yarn I used is Little Wool Company '8ply Pure Wool Naturals', in the colours 'Papa' and 'Pumice'. It's undyed and subtly heathered, and really softens up after a warm wash. After blocking the finished hat, I can wear it next to my skin perfectly comfortably.

I also have a matching pair of mittens planned... :)

Ambidextrous knitting

Earlier this month I attended a two-handed colourwork knitting class run by Morag of Vintage Purls, which I talked about in my Handmade: Day 1 post. It's a little embarrassing, but I finally finished the little bag yesterday! I got distracted by other projects, and because this was a practice project, it was looking a bit of a mess. The tension on the side with the birds was decidedly wonky... but with the magical tidying-up power of blocking, it now looks quite presentable:

I basically gave it a vigorous wash in warm water, and smoothed it out flat to dry in front of the heater. Voila!

Things I learned making this little project:

• learning new techniques from a teacher in person is much quicker than from books/websites
• how to knit 'Continental style', with the yarn held in my left hand
• how to knit with one colour in each hand, knitting 'English' style with RH and 'Continental' with LH
• how to 'catch' the long floats on the wrong side
• that smooth, fine, slippery yarn is not the easiest for colourwork - it was hard to get my tension right and my double-pointed needles kept escaping onto the floor
• that yarn dyed with red food colouring can run when you wash it in warm water (oops!)
• blocking cures all (or nearly all).

I've signed up for another knitting-related class this Saturday (also with Morag), on shawl construction and design. I have several shawl ideas at the rough-sketch-on-paper stage - I'm hoping the class will give me a boost to get some of them nutted out and realised.

Since the two-handed knitting class, I've used the 'Continental' knitting style to make a plain vanilla hat to get more practice holding the yarn in my left hand. The first inch or so was a pain (especially the ribbing, oh the ribbing!), but it got quite natural after that.

After the plain hat, I made a colourwork hat using the two-handed stranding technique. With thicker, fuzzier wool and more practice under my belt, I had a much easier time of it than with the little bag, and my tension was fine. Here's a sneaky peek at the hat, which I'll be releasing as a free pattern shortly... ;)

Out of my comfort zone

Yesterday afternoon my choir held an 'open day' - a concert with items from the choir, the kids' choir, and the two young organists, followed by mulled wine in the choir room. The main event for me (other than the really good mulled wine - lots of cinnamon sticks!) was singing the solo in Mendelssohn's "O for the Wings of a Dove". I don't usually tackle 19thC music - in fact I tend to actively avoid it - but the choir director Robert has a soft spot for what he calls 'chocolate box music', so I had to suck it up!

One aspect that differed from my usual Baroque fare was that I had to obey the dynamic and expression markings in the score, instead of making my own decisions about those things. And of course I didn't have to worry about adding trills etc, so it was actually a more straightforward process than I'm used to when I prepare pieces for performance.

In the end, it went really well! Luckily our organist Tom is a very experienced Romantic performer, so it was easy to really get into the music with him accompanying. And the choir sang well too. :)

In other singing news, I'm now on Day 27 of my self-imposed course of sight-singing Bach chorales. And I'm getting better! As with many things, doing a little bit each day does get results. I discussed it with Robert, and he suggested playing the bass line on the keyboard while I sing the other parts, to help give context. I tried it, and it makes the sight-singing so much easier it kind of feels like cheating. :p

I'm still having trouble with some of the larger intervals. It's pretty embarrassing, but I still can't reliably sing 4ths and 5ths! Playing the bass line does help, but I need to have another strategy so I'm not just guessing. I'm going to try 'filling in' the interval with a fast scale, out loud at first, and then in my head. Simple, and hopefully foolproof. We shall see...

New pattern: Carrot Top

My latest pattern is now live: the Carrot Top hat! It's a super-cosy cabled beanie, inspired by the awesomeness that is red hair (think Pippi Longstocking and her epic plaits). I'm really pleased with the way the cabled plaits 'grow' out of the ribbed brim:

I made one for me - extra long so I can wear it with a pixie point, or with the brim folded up...

 

And one for Willie, which he's been wearing non-stop since I finished it! :)

Cables not only give extra warmth from their thickness and air-trapping pockets and folds, they look a lot trickier to knit than they actually are. As I discovered when I made my Beatnik jersey last year, cable charts make knitting cables very intuitive - you can see on the chart which direction your cable cross will go, and the symbols tell you which stitches need to be knitted or purled. Much easier (for me) than lists of acronymns. Colour-coding the different kinds of cable crosses is also a sanity-saver, which I used in the charts for Carrot Top.

My orange hat is in Malabrigo Rios (colour 'Glazed Carrot', teehee), from Little Country Wools, and Willie's brown hat is in Three Irish Girls Galenas Merino (colour 'O'Donnell'), which he picked out from the HRYC stall at the Wellington Underground Market last month.

It's been seriously cold in Wellington lately, so new warm hats are very timely indeed!