Composing Knits

I've discovered something kind of interesting. To me, anyway. You see, I'd decided I wanted a hat to go with my Fetching wristwarmers. This meant applying the stitch pattern and cables used on Fetching to a hat. Well, with a couple of small variations - aren't there always? What I've discovered is, I approach knitting designing in the exact same two ways I have of approaching music composition.

Usually when I make a hat (or scarf or bag or whatever), I almost completely improvise. Often, I don't even swatch, I just rely on the fact that I know that I'll get this approximate gauge with those needles and that weight yarn, and base my number of cast on stitches on that. I'll keep to approximate guidelines - just like staying within a key (or its relatives) - but otherwise I'll wing it from there... sometimes even in terms of stitch pattern, although not always. If it works out well, I might go back and record what I've done on paper later on.

This time, I used what is actually my other method of writing music: I take a motif that I've worked out on an instrument beforehand, then decide on a key, key sig, and orchestration, and write everything else straight down onto paper out of my head. I'm pretty sure I know how it's going to sound, but there's sometimes the odd surprise *g*. Along very much the same lines, I started the design for my "Tête à Fetching" hat by taking the motif of the Fetching wristwarmers cables / ribbing which I have already knitted and therefore am familiar with the look of it. I swatched, I calculated, and I wrote out the provisional pattern on paper, including variations which didn't occur in the original motif. Now, I'm knitting it:

I'll let you know how it goes, and with luck put the finished pattern up when I'm done!

The elephant sneezed and fell on his knees, but what became of the monkey monkey monkey monkey...

I'm listening to / watching the Last Night of the Proms at the mo. Ah, Last Night, I luff you! One of these days I'll actually go in person. I've actually been a completely rubbish Prommer this year and not been to a single one. I was just too broke to get up to London. Next year! I'm determined. I've enjoyed listening on the radio and catching the odd one on telly, but it's not the same as being in the Hall yourself. I've loved the Albert Hall since I first sung there when I was 10. There's just no atmosphere like it for me. It's my all time favourite concert hall in the world, no contest. Even the Sydney Opera House, fabulous as it is, just doesn't have the same emotional attachments I guess. So yes. Go the Proms!

*break while I sing along to Jerusalem*

But what I was originally going to post about was my Monkey socks. I finished them! I like them lots. They're all comfy too. I'm gradually getting faster at the knitting of socks - I spose it's more that I'm picking the sock up to knit it more often rather than physically knitting them faster.

Did I mention that the foot was way faster than the leg? I think I did. I ended up with quite a lot of yarn left over - maybe even a third of a ball. Anyway, here they are:

An evening off.

I don't do this often enough: I tend to do my knitting at the same time as other things (watching TV) or at the very end of the day. But this evening, I'm going to designate myself an official Evening Off from the computer. I'm going to go and sit on the sofa (actually I think one of the reasons I don't do this all that often is that my sofa isn't fantastic for lounging on) and listen to podcasts or music - I might Listen Again to Mark Lamarr's God's Jukebox from Saturday... I missed it again! Or, huh, maybe I'll listen to Radcliffe and Maconie and then Masters of Rock first. But mainly, I shall knit!

Aaaaaaaaaaand since it's almost nine o'clock already, I really should get off teh internets and get on with it, shouldn't I? TTFN!