I'm back - windows and other things

Or not :) I have found a job (as a DTP technical designer) and so all else has taken a back seat. Or a trailer seat. I am be off for a while after this too. Of course I have many things to post about and I won't just not to make it too long ;)

I guess the routine will take shape and my energy levels will soon be back up so that I can pick up some other projects as well. First in our mind of course is the house, but since we don't have the keys yet (that will be the 25th of this month), there isn't much we can do yet.

We have been shopping for windows. The current windows are single glass PVC and must be from the 90s or thereabouts - extremely bad insulation, and why not say it, extremely ugly as well. Let me show you the façade again:

Ok, this is the lower story only, there are two more windows on top, and more windows at the back of course, those have a shallower arch:

So on the façade there is the original door, and the front window with a roller shutter. This window (and the one in the kitchen and another in the back room, on the photo above, with the white wall) doesn't open.

All windows will be wood, the windows in the façade are going to have a fixed top sash in the same shape than the door, here they call it "napoleon hat", you can see why I guess. This is a house in our city with new windows, placed by our contractor, in this shape, recreating the original ones:

They will also be fully curved following the arch. The windows at the back, due to the much shallower arch, will follow the arch on the outside but be rectangular on the inside (all windows in the house are now rectangular). We will not put any roller shutters.

The contractor we are going for doesn't offer two different colours inside and outside, so we are going for oak (oak finish, the wood itself is FSC afrormosia), which we like and goes with our furniture - the pretty pieces anyway ;) The door is now white on the outside, but it is solid oak and on the inside it is just varnished.
We may paint the outside a different colour later on, since the oak doesn't go too well with the brick (well... see above! that house has more stone, though). I have been keeping an eye around for options. I really like this green colour, I think it looks very nice with the brick, but Pim doesn't seem to like it much:

***

Last weekend we got a few cheap gardening books in the local store. I have only ever had balconies (and that in a completely different climate), and house plants (granted, my apartment is littered with them), so I really have no idea whatsoever what I am getting into, and want to read about it.

Plant thing I got the other day for 7€ - many
of my orchids are in bloom, including a cambria!

Two of the books are Dutch and another is perhaps English, translated to Dutch. This later one was a bit of a mistake, we got the wrong impression from browsing in the shop. But there are a few very inspirational photos (even if totally useless to the purposes of the book... which is useless to me). One of the Dutch ones I am liking a lot, it is a very tiny guide on "nature friendly gardening", I took it because it has a lot of information on how to attract animals to the garden (insects, birds, amphibians, etc) and I am very interested in this. Turned out to be a nice book, with no holier-than-thou attitude whatsoever, and lots of info per square centimetre. The last book I am not liking much at all. Written by some maybe popular? gardener in the Netherlands, the guy is opinionated, which I don't necessarily have anything against, provided the person is likeable (I know, subjective), such as Elizabeth Zimmermann, but this guy I find quite insufferable! at least I do not have to hear his Dutch accent to top it off ;) anyway, some info may be salvageable.

So perhaps I should just look for English books. I love English gardens and the cottage/informal style, plus the climate is very similar here, so I think that may be the way. I see a lot of Amazon-review-hunting in my future.

***

I've picked up knitting during the train commute, as I used to do (one of the reasons to get started!). I think this is my favourite time and place to knit. It is a regularly scheduled occupation (when I get to sit, I am still getting the hang of the train schedule), which strangely enough helps a lot. I do not stress so much about my project or when or how I'll write the pattern (this may also have to do with actually being employed and not feeling pressure to publish patterns).

I've been knitting a pair of fingerless mittens -little accessories are great to knit on the go- for Pim. I know, Pim with fingerless mittens? I am selling this as "driving gloves", we will see if it takes.
I am using the most amazingly gorgeous tweed yarn in yellow and green, which makes the pattern quite sporty (in the old meaning of the term). I am afraid he will need an English convertible car to go with them, though.

Here are they a couple of days ago, picture taken in the train:

I am very advanced now, I think I will need another project for the train tomorrow. This should be the shawl I started a while ago. I got a bit discouraged about that one but that has probably washed away with this agreeable little project :) I showed some similar mittens some time ago, I have two other projects started with this same pattern I am writing, a hat and mittens. Cowl should come as well, I love this fabric. Still not tired of the linen stitch!

In the works...

Happy with these cuffs so far!

Project progress

So, finished and blocked the shawlette. Happy with it!

And work on the russety mittens continues:

I want to make hat and cowl to match these, but wonder if I'll have enough yarn. I think not. I am also tempted to get another colourway (greys?) and knit a bigger size for Pim. Perhaps he would find it too "busy"? this one is a very plain man ;P

Silver beads

So this shawlette has actually taken over the orange mitts... it is finished!

Blocking now. I want to knit some beaded cuffs to match :)

Knitting and sewing

I have been working on the mittens I posted about before, but I am now debating if I should change the top. It may be too pointy.

Meanwhile, as usual, I could not resist the urge to... cast on! For a scarf and some cuffs in red, with silver beads! perhaps a hat too :) I may have enough yarn. The yarn is Drops Baby Alpaca Silk, which I love.

I started with the scarf... lette? It has some shaping via short rows:

A very simple thing, as it should be in this case! It is going fairly fast. I got quite a few beads and at first my idea was to bead it all the way along the length, but then I thought this would be a little too much and decided to do just one smaller motif, not centered.


Yesterday I tidied up my sewing nook. It is so, so challenging to keep it tidy!

That furry thing there? a fake fur collar I am making for my coats!

It is really tiny, everything except my "portable" 40's Singer 306K, which sits under my vanity, is in there, plus inside that closed (the door on the left) which is quite shallow. Everything being all the fabric, notions, haberdashery, ironing implements including the board (I had to move the iron itself to another shelf though) polyfill... it is really very stuffed in there.

The cabinet to the right is my beloved Singer 15-88, with the original bill from 1953 (it costed about 8000 francs, which is about 200€, which was a lot of money back then! it still works like the first day though*).

The basket on the left contains the most likely to ever be finished UFOs, and on top of it sits my vintage Bernina overlocker.

For the first time in my life, I decided to let go of some UFOs. They were just hopeless. That was only just enough for the other UFOs not to overflow :D I decided that I really have to work on these. Many are no-brainers, simple things like band t-shirts that need smallifying.

Started yesterday already. I had a shirt and a long-sleeved t-shirt from Pim that needed elbow patches. He had these sandpaper elbows for a while there, I guess.

These have been in the basket for possibly years, shame on me!

I also hemmed a nearly finished dress I made some time ago. Over a year ago I think ;P I found these woolen knits in the fabric store and I made two dresses. One was a very fine fabric and I made a long-sleeve reversible dress (not that I ever wear it with the wool on the inside, which is itchy and not actually warmer, but it felt like such an accomplishment at the time!), lined with viscose jersey, that I have worn a lot, so that one at least was successful. The other, this one below, is sleeveless, shorter and more fitted. The fabric is thicker, fluffier and has no drape. It was a mistake to make a dress at all, it should have been a cardigan or so. But it is so very warm so I should wear it at least on cold days.

The neck and armholes looked awfully weird, but picking up sts and knitting three rows or so with a rayon yarn really did fix that nicely. I now have to steam it a bit and hope it is wearable outside the home.

*Ok, I admit I wasn't there to see it ;P

Russet-y

I cannot get enough of these rich, orangey-browney reds lately. Is that russet?

And I always liked linen st so much, how come I haven't yet designed anything with it? well this will be my next and I have to say I am in love with the fabric, the yarn and the colours:

Signs of life at innerShelter

Oh yes, I am not dead... yet ;)

Life gets in the way sometimes. I have been doing my internship at Boondoggle, which was great.

I still have projects in knit-land, though. My next pattern is another shawl, one that was inspired by the yarn itself (Lana Grossa Bingo Solid). It will be named Cognac and have big, fat tassels. I am writing it down as we speak, and have already been wearing and enjoying the sample since November. Meanwhile, a teaser :) This shawl features a continuous i-cord all around. A loop of i-cord serves as cast-on, and from these live sts the i-cord edging is knitted at the same time than the shawl. The bind-off is also carried on from live sts, and to end the six sts are grafted together. It is a bit tricky to imagine, but rather easy to knit, really, so I made a video explaining it:

You can view it in HD!

And here is a fat tassel in action. I love fat tassels!

Grote Markt

As promised, here is my newest cowl pattern:

Grote Markt, this time named after the main square in the town I live. The pictures were taken in the monumental square and modeled by my beautiful friend Anna, also happy recipient of the cowl! doesn't this purple suit her so well? it had to be hers :)

This cowl is also knitted in the round, and I already have published it as an eBook together with Grand Place. The matching mittens are a free pattern!

I decided to add a drawstring to be able to tie it closer if it gets very cold, but of course this is optional:

Grand Place

I have recently published my latest pattern, Grand Place, but due to blog mishaps I could not post about it!

It may not be nice of me to say this, but I love this cowl ;) I finished knitting it last March, so I still had plenty of weather to wear it :) and boy, did I wear it! it is warm (so warm when folded down around the neck!), fluffy and versatile. It deals with everything that annoys me in cowls, scarves and hats! No drafts percolating through the gaps of my looped scarf. No gaps between the bottom of my cowl and the lapels of my coat. No drops of rain somehow finding a way between my hat and my shawl, then down my nape... nice :D

I bought the yarn, which I LOVE, on a whim when I saw it at my LYS, and this cowl/capelet/hood/whateveryouwanttocallit is entirely inspired by it. Or, may I say, the yarn reminded me of the stonework you see in the pictures (taken in the same Grand Place of Brussels that gives it its name), and of cobbles, and I took it from there.

Being as I am a little OCD when it comes to matching my accessories, I knitted a pair of matching mittens with my leftover yarn:

I waited all summer to publish this pattern in more appropriate weather, and finally here it is :) available in Ravelry, as Cowl, Mitts or all together in an eBook. Also available in my Etsy store: Cowl, Mitts. I have also just uploaded all the info to Patternfish so it will also be available soon!

And loving this yarn so much... when I saw these 4 balls in purple in a YS in Germany, I could not resist!

And so I am knitting another capelet/cowl, for a friend. It is somewhat similar, but has a turtleneck instead of a hood. 

More colour-accurate

I am planning to also release this pattern soon, and I will probably crete an eBook with everything together, so stay tuned!

Shawl #2 finished!

In a bit of a fever these last days, my hands are sore!

I finished the shawl (it looks orange on the top pictures since it was still wet). I had to run to the LYS to get an extra ball of yarn just for the bind-off, annoying! however I couldn't leave all that leftover yarn lying around. I did not plan to make any matching item this time, but you see, I am cursed. I knitted these mitts too. They are not even blocked in the pic, and the lace definitely needs it. This is a modular design, so the top edging and cuffs can be mixed and matched as desired. I wanted fraternal twins so they are quite different. I am off to block these now and then on to much neglected chores!

I am having these two shawls and the mitts test knitted now so if you are interested let me know!

Mint green

Mint, eucalyptus, this sort of unsaturated, sometimes slightly grey, sometimes more juicy green, I've always liked it a lot but never thought I could pull it off much. I am after all a recovering metalhead* of the may-be-confused-for-a-goth variety.

I guess one of the best side effects of growing older is a very distinct "who the fuck cares" attitude :)

I particularly like these green shades with peachy pink and coral, and I've been pinning lots of those examples in this Pinterest board. I also used it years ago for this necklace I often wear (yes despite all! it is small ;) where I combined eucalyptus green and teal (it depicts eucalyptus leaves and blossoms after all) with the pink of the blossoms and the setting in copper - I love copper and I wish it didn't stain skin green!):

Eucaliptus - Necklace and earrings 2008
Enamel over copper, copper, aventurine, amazonite 

So, last Friday I went to the local yarn store with my friend. I am happy to say she may now have been bitten and irredeemably infected by the knitting bug ;D while there I was having a look at the new spring/summer yarns. I do have a clear objective this spring/summer which is to overcome my knitting curse: ever since I started knitting just now 4 years ago, I haven't been able to pick up the needles during the spring and particularly during the summer months. Probably a failure to pick up suitable yarn and/or projects. So yeah, I thought I should pick a decidedly summery yarn. Here it is:

Katia Mykonos

My original idea was to knit a Coachella which has been on my queue for a long time, and I wanted to knit it in black or dark grey. Yeah I know... but for that more casual look I always must revert to the metalhead of the may-be-confused-for-a-goth variety, nothing to do about it. So I had my doubts I would actually get much use of a sleeveless top in this shade. Shawl it is:

I am making it up as I go. I quite like the fabric produced by this yarn (I am using needles slightly bigger than recommended). The yarn itself is quite cool as well. Bunch of darker green matte threads + 1 golden thread wrapped in a light and shiny thread, which gives a stiff silk/papery look. The yarn however feels deliciously soft and knits very drapey. We'll see where this goes! I have so much yarn (5 balls) that I may make a fully fringed shawl. Shock, horror.

I probably should have kept this yarn for later in the year when it gets warmer, at this rate it won't last long, and these last two days we have had to put the heating on... but I guess there is more where this came from ;)

*Recovering in the fashion sense, into which I very happily relapse when I feel like it. Never "recovering" in the musical sense though!

Busy day :)

Today I finally published my Esporòfits eBook with all the patterns! also on Etsy and Patternfish (to go up soon, this goes to my pattern page meanwhile).

I revised the patterns thoroughly yet again, and decided it was about time I published the mittens' pattern in Spanish. I had a nearly finished translation around for ages and today I finished it up, laid it out in the new landscape design, and published it in Ravelry as well.

Yesterday my featured pattern add started running on the Ravelry pattern page so I am hoping a little more exposure these 15 days :)

Chordata eBook and hat are up on Etsy as well. And I suppose that is all for today! Messy kitchen here I come ;P

Hair and two new hats

Yesterday, I went to the hairdresser. I had not gone to one since 2004 or thereabouts. Before that, very long stretches of time passed in between visits, too. Simply, it has been a very rare occasion that I have come out of one satisfied (and a few of those where happy freak accidents).

One such time is when I got a haircut in an Afro salon (to fix a disgraceful haircut I got talked into). This woman actually knew how to deal with curly hair! I have always wanted long hair anyway so I switched to cutting my hair myself every many months or years. It is actually very easy if you want a simple haircut (which is always advisable for curly hair anyway!). I follow this technique. If you Google that you will find more info, even some videos. I cut my boyfriend's hair this way as well. His is very loosely wavy which is less forgiving than mine (which curls up and you wouldn't see hem imperfections anyway), but this has always worked beautifully.

But I digress. Yes I went to the hairdresser to get my hair lightened. I have become quite bored with my appearance of late. I blame this on a recalcitrant eyelid eccema due to which I can't wear makeup, not in the way I like anyway! So hair it is, I decided to sacrifice my "virgin" (all of it was not chemically treated and only very seldom I briefly bring a hairdrier near it) hair in the altar of boredom.

Basically I wanted to lighten slightly all over, evenly, and gradually lighten more and more later on, then have a warm coppery tone all over. I did want lighter tips and darker roots to avoid high maintenance of roots, and because I just like lighter tips.
I chose a salon because they use Elumen hair dye which I wanted to try, and I am very happy with the actual colour. Not the bleaching though. I was advised against all over lightening since this supposedly damages the hair too much. I said I just wanted this effect, do it any way you like, but please no stripey highlights. Well, I got, you guessed it, nearly the opposite of what I asked for :D Got some stripey highlights on my crown, with to high a contrast with my very dark natural colour, and the tips of my hair look nearly the same, much darker. Sigh? I also don't understand why burning a few strands a lot is better than burning them all just a little, especially if this is not at all the effect I was looking after.

Quick phone snap my friend took

Again, I think this happened due to my hair structure. Even when dyeing, curly hair doesn't behave in the same way. I have a great taper from roots to tips (which resulted in a much smaller volume of actual hair being highlighted at the tips than the roots when done the usual way), and once it dries it behaves very differently from straight hair (the curls make deep shadows, but the crown lays flat). Will I ever learn?

I am left with two choices, throwing away more money to apparently not get what I want, or trying to do it myself. We'll see...

On to more positive things! I have published two hat patterns this month :) both match other patterns because I am perhaps a little bit obsessed with sets!

First came my Esporòfits Beret. I have mentioned it before. I had it tested by some great ladies and now it is published too!

It is now available in Etsy, Ravelry and Patternfish!

For this one I also took a video illustrating the cast on method (alternate Twisted German and Long Tail COs):

Next in line is the Chordata hat. This one was designed quite organically. I wanted the hat to cover my ears without coming down too low over my eyes, so I made a piece of ribbing for the back, and then two flaps picked up from there and joining at center front, from which stitches are (partially, since the ribbing is continued uninterruptedly) picked up for the body of the hat. Once finished I realised I could also wear it backwards in a similar manner. I went for a slouchy hat but the pattern includes directions for a more fitted one as well:

Already available in Ravelry, soon also in Etsy and Patternfish :)

As I was writing this entry, I received a wonderful package from the amazing artist János Gábor Varga: Etsy shop, Website, Flickr, Boticca interview. I love the clever ways in which he manipulates simple chunks of iron! His progress pictures are always fascinating. Finally I own one of his pieces :) I couldn't pass this beautiful one up, originally titled Medusa from Italian (such we call jellyfish in most latin languages), it does indeed look like one of these fascinating creatures, and my screen name being Medvssa in many places, I couldn't pass it up! 

Work in progress and finished piece, pictures by János

Together with this one, I received a collaboration piece he worked on as well. I sent him two enamels and he sent one of them back set in a beautiful riveted copper box (it was admittedly a rather big enamel for a pendant!) with cute matching spoon. His pictures are better than any I could take so here it goes:

I have to see what I use it for, I wouldn't be able to decide which enamel to place in it!

So that will be all for today. For the next day or two I want to work on an unfinished jersey dress I started long ago, hopefully so I can wear it to the Exhibition opening this Friday. I have opened a Pinterest account, and I have found myself pinning lots and lots of jersey dresses with details I like to one of my boards (aptly named "jersey"? haha). Those will be ideas for dresses to come since this one is already cut and partially assembled! lot of ideas though, but very difficult to find the right shades of fabric! There is only one local fabric store with limited choice. I have to find out which stores to visit in Brussels or Antwerp :)

Phew that was a long post :)

Relaunched Website!

After a computer incident and finally upgrading to Windows 7, and again with the invaluable help of my personal Code Monkey, Mr. (or should I say DHR?) Pim Volders, it's finally up!

All merged together :) I simplified and streamlined as much as possible... as much as I could anyway! Finally integrated Google Analytics into it, we'll see!

Meanwhile in Knitland, I am having the beret test knit by some great ladies. 

Esporòfits Mitts was my first pattern, published January 2011. More than a year later the Esporòfits set is finished! When the beret pattern is ready, which should be soon, I will publish it, and I will also publish an eBook with all the patterns of the set (so mitts, cowl and beret). I have been working on it the last few days, and it is all ready, minus whatever adjustments need to be done to the beret pattern, and adding written instructions of the cowl charts. The mitts already had them, and it was requested by one of my testers to do this as well for the beret, so for consistency's sake I guess I will have to do the same for the cowl! 

Sigh. I love charts, hehe.

Sneak peek!

Beret teaser there!

So I decided for a landscape format this time. And know what? I like it... It views much better than portrait on screen, and in case of printing, well it just prints landscape :) the ratio is not a DIN. DIN is great but... I wanted something different ;) I took a vintage, or perhaps antique? paper size called Antiquarian, and scaled it down proportionally. I think it is a pleasing ratio :) Not yet sure if I will continue to use this ratio, but I will probably switch to landscape for good. I think it is more handy, and I think it has more design possibilities.

I still have an embroidery post pending, be back soon!

Website and beret

Yesterday evening I started working on a project I had in the backburner for a very long time:  a matching hat for my Esporòfits set, I decided for a beret style.

 I continued working today, and have the ribbing and the increase/wrapped stitch section done, but then my elbow started giving me grief and I had to stop. It appears I am not as recovered as I thought form my last job...

So I stopped knitting and moved on to redesign my website. I have decided to "merge" knitting and enamelling websites (after a fashion, since I never got to make a knitting website proper) as I mentioned in my previous post. I decided to simplify and streamline everything as much as possible, and I also decided to change to a light palette for my website (right now it is a dark taupe). I have already changed the design of the blog which will be integrated as it was before, this reflects the new colour palette of very light desaturated green and very dark reddish purple and petrol.

I have several pages done and the menu too. Screenshot of my new intro page: