Ursula

When I first started working from home, I realized I needed a pair of fingerless gloves of my own--and then the weather got warmer, and they no longer seemed like a priority. Now that it's fall, though, I've started layering up again, and I finally sewed the ends in.

The yarn is Millefiori Light. It's not very tightly spun, which made it a bit of a hassle to work with, but the color changes are gorgeous. I have another ball in peacock colors, earmarked for a friend.

( pictures under the cut )

Michigan winters can be cold, so this cozy cabled hat has two layers and a turned-up brim. It's also fully reversible!



The pattern fits a small to medium adult head. The multiple layers make the fit tighter, so if in doubt, increase needle size or add a round of increases.

Yarn

Two skeins of superwash merino in worsted weight in contrasting colors. I used Lichen and Lace 4-ply in Soot and Urth Yarns Harvest Worsted in Indigo.

Equipment

Set of 5 double-pointed needles, size 7
16" circular needle, size 7
Cable needle

Gauge:

11 sts/2 inches on size 7 needles

( Pattern )

thistleingrey asked me to post something about fibercraft. (If you'd like to request a last-minute January journal post, you can do so here.)

I've been working on a cardigan for one of my nieces (hopefully the larger niece), using Kristen Rengren's Barberry pattern. ( Here are some progress pictures... )

I made stockings with clocks for holyschist:



I used a naturally dyed Malabrigo sock yarn. The dye was a little bit uneven, so the stockings have some natural striping. My needles were size 2 bamboo needles. I usually prefer metal needles for work this fine, and indeed I broke one needle while trying on the sock. However, this was travel knitting-- I started the stockings at a conference in Kentucky, made significant progress at a conference in Toronto, finished them in Providence and Seattle, and sewed in the ends in Minneapolis-- so I wanted to avoid pointy metal in my luggage. My gauge was about 19 stitches to 2 inches, and about 14 rows to the inch.

The stockings are designed to come just under the knee, and to be worn with garters. They're meant to fit a short woman. For general proportions and shaping, I followed the 1655 stocking pattern in Natura Exenterata, which is quoted in the appendix of Richard Rutt's History of Hand Knitting. My pattern wasn't an exact copy of the Natura Exenterata pattern, in part because I was making a stocking to fit a woman my size and using a different gauge, and in part because the directions in Natura Exenterata are genuinely obscure. I know xrian is working on a closer interpretation of the pattern; I'm curious to hear how her interpretation differs from mine!

( knitting notes )

This is a bag made from recycled rayon saris and a bit of black linen. It was livejournal art for betzle.

This scarf is for rivendellrose, as part of the art meme. It is based on a scarf that Romana wears in a classic Dr. Who episode. (According to IMDB, Lalla Ward, who played this incarnation of Romana, has written knitting books and married Richard Dawkins of angry-biologist fame after they were the only two people to show up on time for one of Douglas Adams' parties.)

. . . I'm posting as myself. Questions from rivendellrose follow. As always, comment if you want five of your own.

1. How did you decide to go into math as your primary focus?

One answer is here, in a previous interview. Earlier influences were Halmos' Finite-Dimensional Vector Spaces, which I worked through with a professor at Reed in the spring and early summer of my junior year of high school, and The Thread, which is about a math professor who travels the world looking for people named Pafnuty. I don't think I was terribly impressed by The Thread the first time I read it, but it grew on me slowly.

I should note that I don't think of myself as especially mathematically talented-- I think of myself as a generally smart person with a bit more patience for mathematics than many other smart people. This made me slow to make up my mind about math, and it means that when I angst about grad school I angst about whether I care enough, rather than whether I'm smart enough. One of the conclusions from the latest round of philosophizing is that the clarity and inevitability of Finite-Dimensional Vector Spaces and its ilk are achieved by art (formal linear algebra isn't always beautiful? who knew?), and that one of the things I want to do when I grow up is write math texts.

2. What's your favorite (or just plain wackiest) memory from the SCA?

The strangest memory is Border Raids in Kentucky, on a gorgeous site among rolling hills. I sat by myself watching the fighting. Behind me, a woman in a lovely green cotehardie and a lot of eyeshadow argued with the man next to her about which of them was the most authentic hillbilly.

My favorite SCA memories are sitting around the campfire listening to my friends singing (yes, hanksan, that includes "If all the young lassies were little white rabbits . . .")

3. I don't think I've ever heard you talk much about music - what singers/bands/groups do you like best?

Er, yes, uh, notice that I didn't say "sitting around the campfire singing myself." If you asked me this question at a party, I'd tell you that I've always had a soft spot for "Lithium", and then name some subset of the Velvet Underground, the Beatles, the Magnetic Fields, Belle & Sebastian, and the Bats. Lately, though, I've been more curious about stuff in the blues/bluegrass/folk/early country range.

4. What knitting project have you been the most proud of to date?

I'm proud whenever I finish something at an insanely fine gauge-- the Egyptian socks I made for glasseye long ago seemed impressive to me then, and the relic pouch for alaric and thechemgoddess still feels like a major accomplishment. In terms of design, my favorite project is a pair of black merino gloves I made for my sister, with cuffs of angora I'd found on sale, one blue-gray, one blue-purple. Those gloves are lost, alas, but gwacie should have a similar hat.

5. Which of Ursula K. LeGuin's books is your favorite, and why?

I like Tehanu and The Dispossessed and any number of short stories (you could probably map my childhood by determining which parts of Compass Rose I understood on any given reading). I might pick "Another Story" from Fisherman of the Inland Sea.