A Fully Clothed Troubador

Scheherazaad, thank you for providing the title for this post! Scheherazaad, my friend on Ravelry, commented on this vest as follows: "Congratulations. You will eventually fully clothe this troubador." In my lively imagination, I am the troubador of course, and I get to wear all this stuff.

The point is, after what - 2 years? The Secret Project is no longer a Secret. This is it.
It's published in Inside Crochet, the new British crochet magazine, Issue 3, which came out yesterday. So now I can release my long-endured complaints about how bloody difficult it is to design crocheted garments! Granted that it was my first, but the task of calculating this in 5 sizes was worth a doctorate degree. It has a lot, a lot, of shaping. It's supposed to be a perfect fit. Which it is, on me: it remains to be seen how good my math was for sizes XS, M, L and XL. It took me 3 months non-stop work, and the grievous neglect of my other duties to pull it off. It required me to disturb my very beloved friend Annette Pétavy 4 or 5 times a day with a barrage of whining questions and pleas for advice. Pages and pages of charts graphs etc. I felt a bit like Charlie Eppes in Numb3rs. I should have had a government research grant for this project. But pay scale for crochet design being what it is in this world, I get about a week's worth of groceries for it. So while I feel immensely the richer for having conquered the garment challenge, I don't think I'll ever design another one!

The good thing is, I get the vest back! And I get to wear it this winter! It really is the warmest, softest thing imaginable. Here's what it's like: it's made of Malabrigo Merino Worsted and worked tight on a 4mm hook. So it has no drape, but it has a very definite shape, like a leather jerkin. If I did the math right, one's body will not cause this to bulge in the wrong places. It just sits there and holds its shape. It's Top-Down which means you can keep trying it on. The shaping is done on either side of 6 columns of mini-bobbles. Then you get to do jacquard all over the place, using Silky Merino and Colinette Cadenza. Its official title is "Troubador Vest: Guillaume Dufay".
So that's my Once-Secret Project. And now I have to share this picture with you so you'll all be jealous:
Who is that gorgeous, brilliant, funny and inspiring blonde in the picture with Laracroft? It's Annette Pétavy! In my house! We had the best idea of 2009: she came to Barcelona for 3 days, then we returned to Lyon together where I spent 3 days in her house. Now that, my friends, is a Stash Expedition. With cooking, clothes shopping (yay!!) wandering on mountains and sitting around crocheting. The Extended Version of the Stash Expedition.

So that you will know how brilliant this girl is, I will share with you her theory on Stash Acquisition. Which states, and demonstrates, that it is cheaper to buy cashmere and silk than cheap acrylic. As follows: given that buying a mass-produced acrylic sweater is probably cheaper than buying and making an acrylic sweater oneself. Given that a buying a silk or cashmere garment will cost a small fortune, far more than the cost of buying the yarn. Therefore, it is more economical to buy silk and cashmere, Q.E.D. Did I score in the friend department, or what?

And she took me here: La Droguerie. That stuff I'm fondling is 100% linen. Needless to say I came away considerably poorer than when I entered!

Further Adventures

I also managed to finish another project without a deadline. This one took me about 6 months. It's the pattern for the Cloister fingerless gloves, and I uploaded it to my Ravelry pattern store yesterday. The charts are cool, look:
I made 2 more pairs, for the purpose of writing this pattern. One pair for Iolanda, who teaches violin at my school and is also my academic secretary and great friend. She likes brown and mauve. I loathe both brown and mauve, but I must say I love these.


The mauve and pale green are in a wonderful yarn that I discovered in Perpignan and spent 100€ stashing up on, Songe by Bouton d'Or. Here's a picture of my lifetime stash thereof.

I've been using a lot of it for one of my Secret Projects. It's so cool. It looks like Mithril once its crocheted up.

And then I still didn't understand my own bloody pattern, so I had to make another pair, this time for myself. I surprised myself by making them both the same: usually I need to make the left glove somehow different from the right so I can keep myself amused looking at my hands in boring faculty meetings. I did make one tiny change in one glove. But that was by mistake.


The pattern for this is done and for sale for 5€ in my Ravelry pattern store. I'm going to try to add a button for it and Veritas Equitas, here on this blog, but it may take me a while. My Blogger skills are pretty limited.

Secret Service Crochet

I'm so sorry I've been away from this blog for so long. I've been crocheting like one possessed all this time, but the bulk of it is top secret. I don't think I'll ever get used to this not being able to share my pretties with the whole world.

But not all of it is top secret. I finished Gryphon for Gryphon. What, after 3 months? Didn't you get that yarn back in October, for Chrissake? Well, the thing is this. All the other projects had scary deadlines. So I had to shelve it 3 times to work frantically on other stuff. And contrary to my assumption, it was not easy to make. Pleasant and delightful, yes, but I had a hell of a time combining the colours just right.


Gryphon sent me this exquisite note card along with a sample of yarn. It's a medieval tapestry depicting the Moirae or Fates. So I said, I'm making the cowl in these colours! Ha! Easier said than done! The wonderful woman dyed up a number of them just for me and sent them. Upon which I discover that I'm not enough of an expert to combine them correctly. As it happens, A+B+C is not at all equal to A+C+B. Did you know that? I didn't. But I do now. What infuriates me is having to achieve success by trial and error, rather than by theoretical knowledge and expertise. The next time this happens it'll have to be trial and error all over again, because I'm not knowledgeable enough about colour theory! Well, enough griping, here's Gryphon for Gryphon just before it goes into the box and off to Maryland.


It's so soft! Luckily I have one of my own to keep (one of my failed test runs!) because I don't think I could live without it. After DH took this picture I totally forgot that I was still wearing it and had it on for hours. Every other cowl I own starts to bother me after a while: either it itches, or it bunches, or it tickles. I guess cashmere and silk is after all cashmere and silk.

Since I've been silent for 3 months I'll post again today.

Veritas, Equitas pattern for sale on Ravelry

I'm not sure how the wondrous Camanomade manages to be so wondrous. She created this awesome book which boasts about 30 fabulous patterns and articles. My Veritas, Equitas fingerless gloves have the honour to be in there. And somehow she has given us all permission to sell our own patterns individually as well. I was very loth to do this for a long time. To me it seems this practice can only hurt book sales. However, seeing so many of the book's designers selling their patterns as Ravelry downloads, and the book continuing to sell just fine, I can only conclude that Camanomade is protected by angels, as she deserves to be. I asked her permission anyways, just to be sure.

She very happily gave it. So I set up my Ravelry pattern store. It costs 5€. Also I posted a tutorial which is free. Here's the link to both: http://www.ravelry.com/stores/crochet-codex-designs .

These would make a perfect Christmas gift, if I do say so myself.

Tracery FO!

They're both done at last and I'm thrilled with them. They are such a perfect fit! One day I'll try to write a pattern for them. I have to say that this is the most difficult project I've done to date. The fingers are very fiddly to make. But worth every fiddle!


Now that my hands are warm, I'm ready to start making the Gryphon Cowl out of that awesome liquid gold yarn from the Sanguine Gryphon. I worry that this may fall into the category of Pleasures Not Meant for Mortals.

Quintessence of Delight

Comparable only to the aroma of baking bread. My Gaia DK from Sanguine Gryphon arrived. No photograph can capture the magic of this yarn. Touching it is like kissing the top of a baby's head. The colours are infinitely complex, deep and compelling. And it shines like gemstones.

O come, let us adore it!

Love of Glove

I am over-the-moon in love with this glove! It has fingers! And they fit PERFECTLY! And it's pretty, and soft, and green!

Don't laugh guys, but I've been working on this for months. I've tested 4 or 5 different methods for making fingers and thumbs with jacquard before achieving this. Sideways, backwards, intarsia, jacquard, fingers-first, cuff-up...and the winner is: cuff-up, intarsia.

Holding Pattern

Well, this is the pattern for people who have no time to invent patterns.

1. Ch 108, join to form a ring. (or however many sts goes over your head comfortably)

2. Work whatever motifs take your fancy.

3. Fasten off.



And there you go, a Cowl. I got the graphics from this great book, Celtic Charted Designs by Co Spinhoven. Also a must-have for people with no time left to think.

Before I leave you, however, I have to share my greatest discovery of the decade. If you love beautiful clothes, Go Here. I haven't bought anything yet because I'm afraid if I start I won't be able to stop!

Gryphon

Here's the finished cowl, and I've christened it "Gryphon" after Sanguine Gryphon Yarns. If all goes well, I'll soon be making it again out of her incredible Gaia in silk/cashmere. And then if everything continues to go well, she'll be selling the pattern and kit on her site! I'm so impatient to get started, and having hissy fits every time the postman fails to bring my samples. This is such an exciting gig!


And here it is being modeled by my beloved Jones, who is a 1977 Sakurai guitar, the best guitar in the world.

Last Project

Tomorrow I start work, and so this is it. School starts in 2 weeks and things will go very badly for yours truly if all is not in place on the 15th. I'd better not even think about crochet. I have to finish this today or forever hold my peace.

I've made a couple of other things which will have to remain a secret until further notice, but this cowl is a prototype for many more, I hope. I love it and I foresee having to make them for all my friends and family. This is the first time I've tried to stick to one yarn for a whole project: because it's so close to the sensitive skin on the face and neck, I made it entirely out of Drops Alpaca. Who wants a scratchy cowl? Actually I'm telling a lie here: some of the red stuff is Posh Yarn Sophia, pure cashmere! If I had cashmere in dozens of colours, I'd do the whole thing in that, but cashmere seems to be a rare and expensive commodity.

Cloister Gloves

I was in the cloister of Santa Anna in Barcelona the other day at dusk. I love these gloves, but I promise the cloister of Santa Anna is more beautiful.

Homage to Blueberries

So here I am in bright, bleached Spain, but my mind is still filled with images of Georgian Bay: dark river, lichens and mosses in a thousand greens, blueberry bushes and the sweet smell of forest. And a whole month of crochet time ahead of me! Joy! I've started working on patterns for mittens to send off for submission, but this is not one of them. This is a laboratory of experiments, some of which will be used, some not - some of them were way too complicated and not worth the effort! - but it was fun to try to recreate the North.