Monday, March 01, 2010

St David's Day

This is the anniversary of the day in 1966 when my husband was appointed to the job in Leicester which was to take us away from Glasgow. We farmed the children out somehow – Helen was only three – and I went along with him to Leicester for the interview. I saw a man there wearing a leek. I have not seen that before or since, anywhere.

Knitting

I finished knitting the hat, tidied it up a bit, got started on hemming it. Bobbles and braids loom. But today I return to the Grandson.

I thought about it during Mass yesterday. This time (second sleeve) I’m going to start by getting the live shoulder stitches off their waste yarn and onto needles for Kitchener’ing. There’s no steek, of course – hence all this angst. That means that the initial snip goes directly between the last stitches of the front and back shoulder. They are vulnerable, and would be I think even if they had been cast off.

So this time I will try to fortify them with needle and thread before I snip. I think I will want to have the new sock handy for some actual knitting at the end of the evening.

I’ve spent the last few minutes looking for “King Olaf’s soup” on Google – I suspect I’ve got the phrase wrong. I finally found this, from my own blog, written five years ago:

“My sister told me once that the wine you find left in the bottle when you've had your pudding and coffee is called "King Olaf's Soup". That's how I feel about the knitting left over at the very end of a project like this one that requires a lot of tedious finishing.”

I’m tremendously looking forward to the Grandson’s deep, patterned neckband.

Other knitting

Thank you for the pointer to Vogue Holiday Knitting, rosesmama. I had completely forgotten that pattern. The side panels look like the kind of ribbon effect I’m currently thinking of – but I don’t understand the instructions for producing them at all. “[Lay B on top of A, k1 with A] 6 times,” is how it begins. Never mind explaining – I’m not going to knit Fair Isle with Koigu.

The front panels, with simple mitred squares of different sizes, each level in a different colour, is an idea to remember if I return to mitres.

[I do like Kaffe’s dolman pullover, no. 4 in that magazine. Perhaps it could be a bit longer? And do the colours really work as brilliantly as in the photograph if you just tuck in, as per the instructions? Or do you need to wind on and start at a suitable point in the colour sequence?]

FiberQat, you do well to remind me to try Ravelry for Koigu patterns. I did, just now. I liked Nadine Shapiro’s Mandarin jacket, but couldn’t figure out how to get the pattern. I liked her Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, but that seems to be available only as a kit, for more than $200. I’ll return to the fray when I feel stronger.

4 comments:

  1. It was King Oscar, not King Olaf. The point, though, was that the bit of red wine, which had to be carefully saved (at least by us) is particularly delicious drunk at the end.
    The friends who taught us the tradition are long dead, though, and I can't find anything on Google--too many canned sardines named King Oscar.

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  2. Anonymous5:43 PM

    And if people don't, for some reason, drink King Oscar's Soup, a friend taught me to keep a container in the freezer into which I poured the lees from everyone's wineglasses when tidying up. Those are the bits I use in soup or gravy, on the theory that: 1) red wine is said to have antibacterial properties; 2) boiling will kill any bacteria the wine itself doesn't kill.
    - Beth in Toronto

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  3. Wait, a leek? The veg that you use for potato soup? How on earth does one wear a leek? I am missing something, I'm sure.

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  4. Anonymous3:55 AM

    It looks like Nadine Shapiro's Mandarin Jacket is sold only as a kit by the designer through her shop, Woolplay, or at one of the Stitches events.

    Beverly

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