We spent a most wonderful and deliciously lazy long weekend, and I am a little sorry that it is over already - since the weather is still fine and warm and sunny, just like during the last three days. And it is amazing how much like a holiday it can feel if you are hanging around having breakfast and coffee with friends, sitting out in comfy garden chairs and seeing green all around you.

And for the first time in what seems like ages, I have found the leisure to take up the knitting needles again, starting to work on the "Skew socks" with a delightfully teal-coloured variegated wool.  Unfortunately that sock is not designed to work on feet with a very high instep like I have - so after working the heel on the sock, I found I had to rip back to the beginning of the instep, and I will now try stretching the gussets with extra plain rows and starting them much earlier.

But data doesn't mine itself - and that means back to the computer, and nose back to the grindstone. And today, in addition to data mining, an update to the Textile Forum website is due - so hop over there later today or tomorrow to find the preliminary programme!

Here are the promised pictures of the Fibonacci knit - first the after-blocking shot:

Now the double-Fibonacci spiral is clear to see. Blocking this form was easier than I had expected - I just blocked each section between the decrease lines, beginning from the middle and working towards the thinner ends. The resulting form means that the wide back piece will drape nicely across the shoulders, and when then hang freely, the ends fall in a pleasing corkscrew spiral:


And then there's a multitude of other ways to wear it - wrapped loosely or tightly around neck and shoulders, draped across back and chest, symmetrical and asymmetrical. And the best thing? It keeps back of neck and shoulders nice and toasty warm, and if you wrap it loosely around and tuck in one of the spiral ends, it will stay on and on and on.




  
I am absolutely delighted with how this turned out! It is comfortable, nice to wear, lightweight yet warm, and not as large as a full-size shawl. I put it on yesterday once it finished blocking and I haven't wanted to take it off since then - I guess this will see a lot of use!

With knitting being so much more communicative and so much better suited to sitting at a table than sewing a tent, I got a lot more knitting done on the weekend than tent-making - even though we took the tent with us, there was somehow no getting around to sit and work on it.

On the plus side, that means I finished the secret weird knitting thing and made a good start on the next project. Both are scarf-like objects, but with a twist - or should I say spiral?

I won't show you the one in progress (yet), but here's the finished piece, happily blocking along.


I'm sorry for the hard-to-discern lower bit, but I ran out of blocking mat and had to continue on the carpet.
The thing is part scarf, part stole, and part cowl, inspired by the Fibonacci spiral. It will not slip off if you simply drape it around the back of neck and shoulders, leaving the front ends to hang; it will tuck up warmly and securely around your neck and shoulders for some extra warmth, and it will always look like something else than a humble, normal scarf. More like a fancy, shaped stole. If you hang around with maths freaks or other geeks, you might even find it a wonderful conversation starter - or a great present for the colder half of the year!

While it looks somewhat lace-like, only the very short, simple and easy-to-remember bamboo stitch pattern is used, and the lacy look comes out in the blocking. There is a fair bit of counting required, but it's easy counting, no squinting and swearing needed. It is worked from the outside edge inward, so lots of stitches to cast on, but less and less to work with every row. The decreases are a bit special and absolutely fascinating - have you ever heard of the bunny-ear decrease before? This piece is worked with bunny-ear decrease and bamboo stitch, a match made in knitting heaven, making it nigh impossible to tell where the decreases take place.

The pattern works nicely with variegated yarn, showing off the colour changes, but will also look stunning in a solid colour (especially if blocked vigorously to enhance the lacy look). I will post some on-person photos tomorrow, and then get the pattern written up and test-knit as soon as possible.

In case the answer is yes... here are some.

The tent (sans the side walls still) went up again yesterday, for another test standing in the garden. While I am able to pitch it single-handedly, it is certainly much, much easier with somebody to help. I danced with the tent on my own once in the afternoon, and we put it up again together in the evening to measure for the side walls again (measure thrice, cut once, or something like that) and check which constructive details needed some more work or a twist. There are quite a few of them (that's the bad news), but the good news is that the tent seems to be moderately stable already in its not-quite-finished state, without the side walls in (which will add stability) and without any pegs and lines (which I hope not to really need, but we will add them just to be sure for good weather and to keep things from flying away in bad weather).


That's how it currently looks. The front still sags (something which I hope to remedy today), and the rolled-up front flap needs some fixtures to serve, half-rolled up, as a projective roof.

And another, very important piece of good news: I seem to have found the right dilution for my waterproofing venture of the cloth - I will be going with water-based sanitary silicone rubber, since I finally found out how to get a testing scrap absolutely waterproof after one application.

And something totally not related to the tent-making saga: We had a friend visiting us yesterday evening, and I made good double use of our chat during the evening by knitting along. Which means that I got a good bit further on the thing on the needles - and here's another teaser pic of it.


I love this structure!

Contrary to how it commonly goes, I actually did manage to finish the long tunnel, completely sew in the second short tunnel, and make another waterproofing test run yesterday. I wouldn't have thought that I really would get all of this done! In addition to that, the most patient and helpful of all men started on the front hem yesterday and thus took a bit more load off my shoulders concerning the stall.

And all that meant that yesterday evening I found the leisure to take out my knitting again for two rows, for the first time since Sunday the week before last. The thing seems to turn out just like I planned, but I don't think I can get it into the testknitting stage before Freienfels, even with the rows now getting shorter and shorter quite fast. I'm a bit sorry about that - I would have liked to finish off that knitting-design project and tackle the next one, but the market stall (and then preparing the things to sell - my gold thread has arrived) has to come first.

Here I am, in reading land, working my way through the thesis again. This is the second proofread in preparation of print, and I do hope that nothing untoward will happen with the text when those last corrections and layouting tweaks are done - it would be heavenly if the next step would be for me to happily say "Yes, that's all print-ready, I found nothing more!"

However, I am glad to report that this time around, reading goes much, much faster, since I don't double-check things anymore. And maybe I was utterly out of proofing practice, too. I'm not so sure that I can finish all within the week, but at the moment I'm already a very good way into the stack of printed paper (and I hope that it will go a little faster in the catalogue part, too - with all the pics taking up real estate on the pages).

In other news: I have made the newspaper - there is a little snippet about me in the arts & entertainment section of the regional paper, the "Erlanger Nachrichten". Newspaper articles - or journalistic articles in general - are always an exciting thing in two ways. For one thing, it is of course exciting to be able to tell or show more people about what you do, and maybe why it is so great/important/wonderful, but the second part of the excitement is that you can never be sure if the article will actually sound like you tried to sound.
Well, in this case, I am more than happy with the little piece. I love the writer's voice, and I think he did a wonderful job in writing it. The article is online, and you can have a look at it here. If you don't read German, there's at least a photo for you.

In other other news: I'm still bitten by the knitting bug, I now have more knitting needles thanks to my parents (and splendid ones, too) and I have a new brainfart that is being translated into knitting. With an allover stitch pattern, lots of delicious maths*, beautiful curves and an almost-totally-invisible decrease that mesh together perfectly, I am totally excited about this. The knitting is coming along nicely, the pattern is a tingling mixture of relaxing and interesting, and I hope to have it up for testknitting soon. For those really obsessed with symmetry, there will even be a "perfect symmetry" option. (Which I am not using for the prototype, by the way: For once I actually decided to not do everything at once and in the hardest possible way.)

*Maybe I should mention right here that knitting the finished pattern will not include maths. Just counting. Easy counting.

The spirally hat pattern is now live and can actually be bought - for example by clicking this little button:




which will bring you to a Ravelry shopping cart with Paypal paying option.

I have thought about pattern pricing quite some time, and have finally priced the hat at 5.00 Euros - I believe that with the quite uncommon hem construction of the hat, that is still a fair price. The pattern is done in a "chatty" style, because I myself like to be told what will be going on in a pattern section - that helps me to understand what I am knitting and why, and also helps me to avoid or at least correct mistakes more easily.

Apart from that, I seem to have caught a bit of a cold, so it's honeyed tea and reduced thinking abilities for today...