Knititude

Vi raccomando una visita

(Or:  what I did on my vacation.) 

(Oppure:  che cosa ho fatto durante la festa della Liberazione.)

Last week I finally got around to visiting Villa Carlotta, further down the lake in Tremezzo.  The garden is renowned, in particular for its azaleas and rhododendrons-- and right now they are in full bloom!  Azaleas the size of tour buses and  rhododendrons as tall as houses-- unbelievable.  With Lake Como and Bellagio as a backdrop, and behind them a line of snow-capped mountains-- you must go there. Go there now. 

La settimana scorsa sono finalmente andata a Villa Carlotta, piu lontano sul lago a Tremezzo.  Il giardino e famoso, innanzitutto per le azalea e i rhododendri-- ed adesso sono in piena fioritura!   Azalea grandi come  pullman e rhododendri alti come case-- incredibile.  Con Lago di Como e Bellagio in sfondo, e dietro le montagne nevose-- dovete andarci.  Ci andate ora.

And then go to Venice, but not to Venice itself (yes, okay, go, it's a must, even though Piazza San Marco is chock-a-block with pigeon shit and tourists):  take a water taxi across the Venetian lagoon to the island of Torcello, have lunch at the Locanda Cipriani, and gaze across their garden at the centuries-old churches of Santa Fosca and Santa Maria Assunta.  Mamma mia.

E poi andate a Venezia, ma non proprio Venezia  (va bene, si deve andarci, anche se Piazza San Marco e piena di guano di piccione e turisti):  prendete un vaporetto attraverso la laguna veneziana all' isola di Torcello, pranzate alla Locanda Cipriani, e guardate le chiese antiche Santa Fosca e Santa Maria Assunta attraverso il suo giardino.  Caspita.

Bentornata a Como, Primavera!

(Welcome back to Como, Spring!)

My other obsession

I believe in a multi-pronged approach to language learning-- hence not only do I have a weekly Italian lesson, but I listen to Radio Italia ("solo musica italiana") and Italian talk radio in the car (having exhausted all of my language lesson CDs); watch subtitled movies, both Italian- and foreign-made/dubbed; visit LearnItalianpod.com; read "parallel text" short stories (with the original Italian on one page and English translation on the opposite page); and probably most important, try to make conversation with the dry cleaner, the waiter, the landlord, the kid who helps out at the gym, the other mothers at the bar*....  So I must be fluent by now, right?

To understand why my answer is "no", one need only glance at the photo:  my constant companion, the compact Webster's, has "over 30,000 entries," while that coffee table beast under it contains over 2800 PAGES!  Even taking into account that half of those entries and pages are English-to-Italian, mamma mia!  (Yes, Italians really do say that.)  What's that?  Aren't many English and Italian words virtually identical, with common Latin roots, you ask?  Excellent/eccellente question!  Aggression/aggressione, incredible/incredibile, irritable/irritabilita', persistent/persistente, etc./ecc.  However, many words are completely different, and some which seem similar (and may even have a common Latin root), are nevertheless completely different in meaning:  genitori does not mean genitals, but parents.  Not to mention the verbs...that Barron's is invaluable, with all 14 tenses of 1st, 2nd, & 3rd person singular and plural fully conjugated.  +Sigh+...I love that book.   

A few errors that my, uh, friend has actually made:

• Ordering spaghetti with dick (spaghetti con cazzo) instead of with mussels (con cozze)
• asking a saleslady in a shoe store if they have any whores (zoccole) instead of clogs (zoccoli)
• telling someone "See you in nine years (nove anni)" instead of in the new year (nuovo anno)
• ordering a cow (vacca) instead of a vodka (properly pronounced "vohdeka" with emphasis on the "oh")

*Conjures up visions of knocking back a shot or two after dropping the kids off in the morning, no?  While it's true that the bar is just up the street from the school, and does contain a few slot machines and perhaps a drunk (ubriaco, not ebraico) or two, for the moms it's just caffe' e chiacchiera (coffee & chitchat).

A rare look at the lake.

Un sguardo raro al lago.

Every day I look out my window at Lake Como, but I think this day was the only time I've ever seen it calm enough to reflect the mountains.

Ogni giorno guardo Lago di Como attraverso la finestra, but penso che questo giorno fosse l'unica volta l'ho visto abbastanza calmo di riflettere le montagne.

Putting the "Isle" before the "Fair"

It's been a long time--years--since I've done any stranded knitting, and since last fall the urge to try it again has been waxing and waning--but mostly the former.  Late last fall, I paid a visit to the Educational Silk Museum of Como (Museo didattico della Seta); Como was a major center of silk fabric production, from the early 1800s until just a few decades ago.  Although the silk throwing machines ("throwing" is the process which combines individual silk filaments into usable thread) and the damask weaving looms, with their punch-card controlled jacquard mechanisms (the cards reminded me of the punch cards for an old player-piano), were fascinating, my imagination was fired by the printing blocks and rollers on display.

And then there were the paintings I saw on the interior walls of a church we visited in Budapest, with gorgeous combinations of colors and simple- to-complex repeating motifs.  So over a period of several months I worked up a few stranded designs; although I want to stick to the Fair Isle custom of only using two colors per row, and will probably follow some of the traditional Fair Isle principles for using color, it probably wouldn't be accurate to call them true Fair Isle designs.  And then they sat on my computer for more months while I worked on other projects.

Finally, over the summer, I noticed that WEBS had put Classic Elite Skye Tweed on sale, and I remembered that I had four balls of that yarn which I had purchased with a design in mind, but never used--the orange, burgundy, brown, and deep green balls in the center of the photo.  So, with the idea of using Skye Tweed for a stranded tunic-to-boot-length vest (buttoned?  zipped?  belted?--  haven't got there yet), I bought a bunch more discounted Skye Tweed, just picking colors I liked on the WEBS website, and purchasing fairly random amounts of each.  Was this putting the "Isle" before the "Fair"?  Should I have used colored sketches and worked out which colors I might want to use, and then how much of each I would need, before whipping out the ol' credit card?  Should I have paused to think that I find most wools itchy, and chosen a superfine merino like Louet Gems instead?  It does come in a slew of tasty colors, after all, and I even have the color card.

Ah well.  I have what I have, and as long as Italian customs doesn't confiscate my Skye Tweed (I shipped it from the U.S. to Italy),  I'll be swatching with what I have, and seeing how it goes.

Back in the U.S., um, A.

Apologies to any Beatles fans out there.  Anyway, we are Stateside for the summer; I can already see that this entire Italy experience will be fraught with mixed feelings--glad to be back/sorry to be leaving, glad to see old friends & family/sorry to leave new friends behind, glad to be rattling away in my native English, sorry to be losing my hard-won gains in Italian a little more each day.  And sorry to have left behind what must be one of the best photo-shoot locations ever; do you think I can Photoshop myself into these rooms modeling my future knit projects?!

At least my item (is that vague enough?) for the winter IK is done and I can blog easy:  work in some loose ends, write up some long-promised patterns.  I'd also love to knit Lutea for myself this summer, but  I'm having a helluva time finding any Classic Elite Sundance.  (Anyone know where I can score some of that stuff?)  I may have to substitute a similar yarn, or--more entertainingly--a completely different weight yarn.  Whee!  (I know, I probably need a margarita or a mojito or some new shoes--my fun meter appears to be in desperate need of recalibration.)

Speaking of working in loose ends, I finally did that with my Dayflower Lace top, and even wore it in public!  Sometime in the next few days I'll post for the Create Along and cross-post here.  (Recognize the earrings?)

   

Clarification for Lutea knitters

I'm afraid my sketch of Lutea's architecture will have to be put off for a post or two; without going into tedious detail, I will say that I've been uber-busy with both non-knitting matters (above:  the view from my new home office) and non-bloggable knitting.

But, I've had several emails from knitters working on Lutea (and congratulations to them for finding me:  does anyone know why Interweave did not put any email addresses or websites at the end of the patterns in this issue?), and I wanted to address their question (yes, they all had the same question) here.  Karen wrote: 

"The first row of the lace pattern says: K2, *yo, k1, yo, k3, repeat from * to end.  I do not have enough stitches for this to come out even.  Is there a typo somewhere?" 

Well, either Interweave edited my original pattern for space, or they simply made an error, and omitted  "end row with k2 instead of k3."  Anyway, they now have corrections up on their website, and have essentially restored my original directions.

Felicia also emailed me about the same paragraph in the pattern; she brought up the fact that the number of stitches changes on some of the rows of the lace pattern.  IK does mention this in a note just before the directions for working each row of the lace pattern; in my original pattern submission, I added this note at the end of the directions for rows 1 (when the sts are increased) and 3 (when the original number of sts is restored).

So read your directions carefully, knitters!  But if you find this part of the "Lutea" pattern confusing, know that you are not alone.

Some notes on Lutea

Have you seen the Summer 2007 interweave Knits, which contains my Lutea Lace Shoulder Shell pattern?  I haven't!  My subscription goes to our U.S. address and my copy hasn't been forwarded.  But a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the roses on the arbor in our yard are a light gold-yellow--just like the Lutea rose!  I posted this photo partly because they are gorgeous, and partly because in my haste to send the completed sample in to meet deadine, I neglected to take any photos.

I did save the swatch, however, which shows the nice stitch definition and the warm, buttery color of the yarn.  (It also shows how much the lace spreads compared to the stockinette).

When I originally sketched the idea for this shell, I thought it would be cool to use short rows to shape a triangular area at the chest, and then have angled shoulder sections coming from the upper sides of the triangle, forming a V-neck AND slight cap sleeves.  Well, the reason that I note in the pattern that larger sizes may require a crossback or strapless bra (unless you don't mind having the straps exposed), is that when I started working on the mechanics of how to accomplish this, I realized that (A) the larger sizes increase much more in bust circumference than in shoulder width, and (B) the "cap sleeve" really had to end at the point of the shoulder, because it didn't curve to follow the top of the arm, but rather stuck out straight, due to the garment contruction, and would otherwise look like something from Star Trek, or maybe "Dallas" (the TV show, not the city).

And this meant that the shoulder section in the larger sizes had to start farther away from the side seam, meaning a more deeply cut armhole.  I've just realized that this is a case where a picture would be worth 1000 words, so in my next post I'll sketch what I'm talking about.

Funny Friday

Eye Candy is all very nice, but sometimes what I need on a Friday is a good laugh.  What we find amusing is perhaps even more revealing about us than what we find beautiful...but if we didn't want to reveal anything about ourselves, then we wouldn't be blogging, would we?

Anyhoo, the Italian post has a terrible reputation for delivering mail on, shall we say, a relaxed schedule--if they deliver it at all.  Here is one of their delivery guys, with mail stacked in front, mail piled behind...gosh, if that was my stuff, I'd be nervous about it falling out....

LYS in Parma, Italy

A couple of weekends ago we took a little trip to Parma, ostensibly for my son's baseball tournament, but really, unbeknowst to my family, it was all a ploy to find a certain LYS that Connie had spotted.  Well, I don't know if this is the same store, but when I asked at our hotel for a "negozio dei filati," this is the one the concierge suggested, on Via Mazzini.  And it was a pretty good one, so in celebration of the find, I bought some Egyptian cotton yarn, a brand I'd never heard of--Ormaghi Filati Red Dune--in a grassy green, and some Filatura di Crosa Brillante, a cotton/viscose blend, in a light, subdued gold.  As you can see, I wasn't the only one to be drawn in by the shop window display.

Unfortunately those yarns went straight into the stash, because I just received this yarn in the mail--a lovely bamboo/merino wool blend.  The photo doesn't really do it justice; in real life it's less blue, more palest violet, with a subtle silvery sheen.  More like the color of the blossoms on the wisteria I spotted the other day.  How old is a wisteria vine, if the trunk is nearly a foot in diameter?!  And yes, this yarn is destined to become my next project for Interweave Knits, so I'd better get to work!