Habu Paper and Cashmere Spring Shawl

I started working on this shawl and its burgundy twin two years ago, but was stymied by instructions that appear to be full of mistakes and miscalculations, and ran out of cashmere required for the six cashmere-only "Ears of Grass" panels, and to strand with Shosenshi paper on the stockinette panels. 

The cashmere is A-34 in colorway 1305, discontinued by Habu because of inconsistent production. It has a more greenish cast than pictured here.  I hoped to find some somewhere else on the internet, whether a retailer or owner with extra, but no luck.  Habu owners tend to hold on their yarn even if they don't know what they want to do with it.  No criticism here - everyone knows that I hoard Habu too.  Finding a substitute yarn has proven difficult too.  Even the other yellow-greenish Habu cashmere isn't quite right.

So since I can't calculate exactly how much I'll need because the gauge estimates in the pattern appear to be wrong, I've decided to knit a panel with two plies of cashmere instead of three to see how it looks. If I like it, I'll knit all the panels until I run out.  Hopefully I'll have enough to to complete all six.  Then I'll strand one of the substitute yarns with the Shosenshi for the stockinette panels.

I'm using a US4 and 4.25 needles instead of the US2s called for to get six 4 inch cashmere-only panels, and US6 instead of the US3 for the seven 7.24" stockinette panels.  That should create a 20x74" shawl. 

Let's see how this goes...

Habu Hempathy Skirt

I always start things a bit late.  I didn't know there was a Ravelympics 2010 until two days into the Olympics.  Without a second thought, I jumped up and grabbed some yarn out of my stash and began knitting this skirt.  To be fair, the concept for this skirt had been stewing in my mind for a while.  It was inspired by a Ralph Rucci collection and Habu stainless steel.  And I needed a black skirt.  I quickly knit a swatch, determined the gauge, then cast on, using US4 Addi Lace Weights. 

The body of the skirt is knit with black Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy.  (I don't know why it looks blue in the photos.)  I will probably use Habu Tsumugi Silk next time.  The transparent bands are Habu Silk Stainless Steel.  They are placed to create the effect of a short skirt, offset by the below-the-knee total length.  I wanted somethiing conservative for work but not matronly.  It also had to be modest when sitting.  The skirt is knit in the round, has a provisional cast on hem, and an elastic waist band.  A simple and quick knit, completed within the two weeks of the Olympics.

I am pleased with the outcome.  My model/knit-sibling Deb makes it look even better.  I'm grateful that she agreed to model it for me, and had the patience to endure the twenty or so shots I made.  Thanks, Deb!

Fall 2010 RTW

Issey Miyake's Fall 2010 RTW collection, shown at Paris Fashion Week, looks electic to my untrained eye, ranging from unusually long and unusually styled infinity scarves to classic designs.  No pleats.  I suppose  he hasn't done pleats for a long time.  All photos from Style.com.

Here are a few that caught my eye:

This jacket/cardi made me wish that I like to sew.  It's so elegant and modern.

Immediately reminds me of Habu stainless steel.

Finally here's an interesting knitted sweater by Yohji Yamamoto.

Braised Short Ribs, Gourmet, December 1975

I've been on a bit of a pursuit of a good short rib recipe similar to the one that used to be served at Butterfield Nine, that wonderful restaurant downtown DC that had the temerity to close. This recipe doesn't have the same flavor, but it's still good. It is from the December 1975 issue of Gourmet Magazine.

The posting here is a tribute to the now defunct (and already missed) magazine. Gourmet Unbound organized this tribute in which fans can choose a recipe from a Gourmet issue that was published during the same month, any year.

The interesting thing about this recipe is that the ingredients aren't listed at the top of the recipe, but written into the cooking instructions.

Lists are definitely easier. Other than that, the cooking instructions were pretty straightforward. And delicious.

Sautee onion, carrot, and garlic in 1/4 cup of bacon fat. Tranfer to bowl. Season, dredge in flour, brown the shortribs, add veggies back, some red wine and beef broth. Braise at 300 degrees for two hours. I served them with roasted rosemary potatoes and spinach sauteed with garlic.

Knit Siblings, this will still be a knitting blog, but I hope to post a Gourmet recipe once a month! I'm happy to share recipes, just shoot me a message.

Japanese Avant-Garde Fashion at the Textile Museum

I had a chance to see 35 articles of Japanese avant-garde fashion from the collection of Mary Baskett at the Textile Museum a couple of weeks ago. The weekend symposium began with a reception a Friday night, which I missed, because it was rainy, cold, and by 7:30 I was fried. Saturday's session was held at the Phillips Collection, one of my favorite art galleries in DC. The theme was from "Kimono to Couture: the Evolution of Japanese Fashion.” The Museum brought in experts to speak about the kimono in early Japanese history (which I missed because there was bike race through NW Washington which brought traffic to a standstill. Many of us were late.); the geisha influence on kimono fashion; the modern kimono; Japanese avant-garde fashion; Japanese youth in fashion subcultures; and Japanese textiles, in which the speaker described a number of ways to create textiles. I wish they would give classes on the latter, especially shibori.

The Sunday session began with a guided tour of Japanese textiles developed by Nuno, a Tokyo-based corporation. It included fabrics created with stainless steel thread, some felted pieces, and some that were hand-embroidered.

ETA: You can click on any of the images for a larger view.

Nuno Stainless Steel Fabric

Then Ms. Baskett conducted a guided of her garments. I know it’s lame to scan the exhibit pamphlet as I have below (and I hope the Textile Museum doesn’t mind, I’m not affiliated with them), but I took few photos and they’re not great. I dutifully left my camera in my handbag as we were not supposed to take photos, but when Ms. Baskett posed for a few shots, everyone whipped out camera phones. It was like we all had our hands on our photographic equipment just waiting for a chance…

I won’t go into detail; the pamphlet covers it all. Most of the garments were designs by Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake, and Rei Kawakubo, designer and owner of Comme des Garcons. It’s an entrancing collection that really showed the genius of these designers.

Ms. Basket is amazing too. She is a Japanese art historian, who was a curator at the Cincinnati Art Museum, then opened the Mary Baskett Gallery in 1977, which features contemporary Japanese artists. The pieces in the collection are part of her wardrobe; she wears them everyday.


You can view larger images here.

Mary Baskett in front of Rei Kawakubo exhibit

If you missed the symposium, the Textile Museum will conduct some evening lectures early next year.

Kinokuniya, Seattle

I actually made it to Seattle despite my employer's every bureaucratic effort to prevent it. That's a bit of an exaggeration, maybe, but it seemed so at the time! I went there for work, but stayed on my own dime over Memorial Day weekend. Seattle is one of my favorite cities for many reasons, not least of which are all the wonderful yarn stores. As soon as my delegation returned to Europe, I rented a Zipcar Saturday morning (thanks for turning me on to Zipcar, Deb!) and, with my friend GPS, headed to Kinokuniya Bookstore, Little Knits, and Hilltop Yarn in the Queen Anne district. I spent Sunday on Bainbridge Island at Churchmouse Yarns and Teas.

Kinokuniya is cool Japanese bookstore in Seattle's International District. It appears to have every book and magazine published in Japan including a healthy selection of knitting and other craft books.

I picked up Vivian Hoxbro's Advanced Domino-Knitting and Three Crochet Plants by Knot.
I haven't been able to find an English-language version of Advanced Domino-Knitting, but it has enough English in it to decipher the patterns, and like other Japanese craft books, it has excellent charts. I've posted photos of a few projects I haven't seen on Ravelry.

From Three Crochet Plants:






Kinokuniya is attached to Uwajimaya, a very large Japanese grocery store.

I bought lots of green tea,

then headed for Little Knits in West Seattle.

Waiting and Waiting

and waiting and waiting. And spinning. I won't bore you by whining how work has overtaken my life at the moment. I'll just say I've spent endless time waiting for callbacks and return e-mails instructing me on how to use the new travel software that was designed to make my life easier, but has actually messed everything up. And that's from someone who likes new technology, hard and soft.

I do like my new Bluetooth enabled Jawbone, one of those wireless earpieces that allows me to talk on my cell handsfree. (I have a new cell phone too, a Samsung Omnia, a touch-screen mobile device on which I actually spend more time texting, e-mailing, surfing the web, and taking photos, than talking.) I spun tonight while talking, I spun while watching Keith Obermann. After getting past the dreds in the locks - corny, but true - the fibers easily slide against themselves as I pull them into the spin. It is possible to achieve small moments of flow in a way impossible for me while knitting. While it's possible to achieve flow in any activity one does, I think spinning is the ultimate. I can imagine it's more intense on a wheel, because you don't have to stop and wind.

I hope to get good enough to spin this soon.

I bought it at Nancy's shop, but I want to be able to spin with some consistency before I touch it.

If I can get past the technology blocks to get an airline ticket, I will take spinning as my travel project. Maybe a sock to knit on the plane because I don't have the courage to spin in public yet, but I will definitely spin for at least a few minutes at night will I watch the news. I think the public has gotten used to seeing knitters in public now. I get smiles in airports now, rather than those "what the hell are you doing?" looks.

Back to sliding fibers, the locks make spinning silk seem easy. On a spindle at least.

No, I have not given up knitting though I haven't done since the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.

And, no, you cannot have my yarn.

The locks are spinning up nicely. In absence of spinning tools, I separated them a bit by hand at first, and with the advice of Kitty Kitty and Javajem, brushed them with hairbrush. Actually they recommended a flicker and a dog brush, but I don't have those either.

I barely pre-draft now. I tug at an inch or two, then start spinning right away. Almost all of the curly bits disappeared. I'm learning how to retain some of them when I attach a new piece. They will probably disappear in the final knitted project.

It spun up really fast until I had all this on the spindle. It seemed like it was getting too full, so I wound it on the ball winder. Indeed, it was beginning to felt on the bottom where I set spindle in motion, so now I know to wind it off a bit sooner.

Felting's going to be a factor in the knitting project I choose because these locks are not superwash. I'll probably knit socks. Who cares if they'll wear like Russian felted boots?

How will I keep it from felting when I wash the plied hanks? A question for the experts.

I just learned that it's possible to freeze whole citrus fruits and tomatoes, and lots of other food too. Read Mark Bittman's article in last Wednesday's New York Times.