Continuing with the leafy embroidery on the table runner. The first leaves were all pure fantasy, but then I made an oak leaf, and now a maple, and now I’m wondering if the combination of real and fantasy leaves looks odd.

The rest of the day I spent on various errands. Threw out all the packaging from my IKEA trip, took some old stuff to the charity shop (including a children’s bicycle that was Ingrid’s first and that nobody can have used in the last 10 years at least) and other old stuff to an auction house. Also spent several hours angsting over which bushes and plants to buy for the corner I’ve dug out this summer, and finally clicked the Buy button for two Hydrangeas, plus some Rodgersia and Actaea.

This seemingly simple project is turning into the most challenging thing I have ever knitted. I have never had to redo this much of any other garment.

New roadblock: tension. I have knitted numerous sweaters and cardigans and shawls never, I mean never, had trouble with tension. My stitches are even and smooth, no matter whether I’m knitting flat or in the round, stockinette or ribbing or lace. Until now. Apparently I am unable to maintain even tension with this yarn. My purl rows are looser, the fabric is looking sloppy and uneven, and the gauge doesn’t match so the armhole sizing is entirely off. (The bottom part was knit in the round so there were no purl rows involved. Switch to knitting flat, and boom, a mess.) So – rip it back again and redo it. I guess it’s back to two different-sized needles for me, 3.5 mm for knit rows and 3 mm for purl rows.

Attempt #5 of the knit top is progressing well. It was on hiatus for a while, waiting for armhole and neckline calculations, but I did the math this weekend and now I’m on track again. Just using a single circular needle, not having to switch between two different-sized ones, definitely helps the work go faster.

From my mending pile, a pair of Ingrid’s jeans, with a broken zipper. The jeans themselves are still in good shape, but with a missing tooth, the zipper isn’t usable.

Annoyingly, I won’t be able to fix it. The zipper is attached to a placket of fabric that has been sewed to the rest of the trousers with a serger, and I can’t get at the zipper without ripping that serged seam. The other half of the zipper is likewise blocked in by a double-needle seam, which I’d need to rip. The ripping is doable, but reattaching everything in a decently tidy way would be really hard. I would almost be reconstructing the whole fly from scratch, without the special machines that were used for the original.

There’s a new EU law enforcing consumers’ right to repair, applying to electronics and household goods. I do wish there was something similar for clothing. Maybe in another decade or two.

The Thursday embroidery group is arranging an exhibition. I haven’t been too interested – it’s not why I’m participating in the group – but I’m happy to help fill the walls. The Stockholm embroidery, the green skirt, the black cardigan, the print + organza swirls – and the black/white/red triptych. Which I haven’t properly finished, even though the three constituent parts have been complete for months.

The ladies in charge of hanging the exhibition are doing it on Tuesday at 10. Yesterday I bought unbleached linen fabric, and today I spent the morning on putting it all together. Covered a piece of foamboard with the linen fabric, stitched the corners of the pieces to it, and attached a piece of wire for hanging.

I had hoped to find the same brick red fabric that I used in the embroidery itself, that would have looked quite dramatic. But of course the shop didn’t have it in stock anymore. Maybe it actually looks better this way.

I took the train to work today, too tired to bike. And since I was in town, and actually have a monthly SL card, I took a detour on my way home to see a small embroidery exhibition. It was nice but much smaller than I had expected. Like, this is two of the four walls of the room, and behind me, out of view, is the other half. That’s it.

I do enjoy looking at other people’s embroidery, but also not. The finished piece is often much less interesting than the work of making it, the process of getting there. It’s more fun to look at what the others in the embroidery club are working on, to hear them tell about their choices and decisions. Even though this is the work of a professional and we’re hobbyists of no extraordinary skill.

This feels nice. Just going with the flow, using whatever stitch happens to feel right at that moment.

I might need to buy some more green embroidery floss to get a bit of variety.

My embroidery club starts up today, and I have no project to work on. I haven’t been doing any embroidery at all during the summer. It’s a hobby I enjoy, but it’s not in the top three, so quite often it’s only the club meetings that remind me about it.

Spontaneous embroidery project time! I grabbed a linen table runner that I rarely use because it’s kind of boring. I like the fabric, but it could be more fun. So: let me make it more fun. It will get a scattering of random leaves, at least a bunch at each end, and maybe more if I feel like it.

I made another attempt at the lacy top, still using a smaller needle for the lacy part but with slightly looser tension this time. and it didn’t take long for me to see that it was not going to work out this time either. Same gauge issues as before – the lace has the right stitch gauge but not the right row gauge.

Then I made a fourth attempt. Gave up on the whole diagonal, asymmetric design, and just went for a lacy back and a stockinette front. This way I can use the same needles all around. The lace will have the same row gauge as the stockinette, so I won’t have any skewing or pulling going on. And I can easily adjust for the difference in stitch gauge by allocating fewer stitches for the lace (back) section.

That’s what I was working on at the knitting club today, and explaining to the other ladies there. As I explained the difficulties I’d been having, and my thoughts about how I could work around them, I worked up my courage for a fifth attempt. The current version is a cop-out. It’s missing the key element of what first caught my eye about this top – the asymmetric design. That was the reason for choosing this pattern. If I’m giving up on that aspect, then why even make it? There are definitely more interesting garments I could make than this simplified version.

I’ll put this one aside – the yarn has been through four attempts already, so I’ll give it a rest – and start on a fifth version using another ball. If it fails again, then I can still come back to this one. If it works out, I can rip this up later.

Went to an exhibition. Was a bit disappointed.

“En svensk klassiker”, the Swedish Classic Circuit, is the challenge of performing a 30-km run, a cycle race around lake Vättern, the Vasaloppet ski race, and a 3-km swim, in one year.

Some years ago, the wife/partner of a man doing the Swedish Classic Circuit wanted something similar for herself. A challenging, limited-time project within her area of expertise, that she could really invest time and energy in, and afterwards feel a true sense of accomplishment. Instead of sports, she had knitting. Thus was born “En svensk stickklassiker”, the Swedish Knitting Classics.

In one year, participants knit four specific projects based on traditional knitting patterns and techniques from different parts of Sweden. There are two sweaters/cardigans, and two glove/mitten projects. I’m not going to go into detail – you can read all about it on their website. Side by side with the main Knitting Classics, there’s also the Mitten Classics, within which people knit five pairs of gloves/mittens from five countries around the Baltic Sea.

Today I went to see an exhibition at the Almgren silk workshop, showing off the creations of people who have completed the Knitting Classics. I was looking forward to admiring their craftsmanship up close, and maybe learning something along the way.

A lot of sweaters and mittens were on display. While they clearly all arose from the same specific traditions, there was also individual variation.

Unfortunately, the works were displayed in a way that made it really hard to appreciate the craftsmanship. Most of the knitted objects were hung way up, close to the ceiling. Some that were at eye height were on a far wall, with old weaving equipment or other furniture between the viewer and the object.

The Mitten Classics were literally hanging from the ceiling, metres above our heads. All you could see was that there was a bunch of nearly-identical mittens, but it was impossible to appreciate the details. Look at these visitors craning their necks, trying to see the mittens! Just… why?

There were some sets of sweaters hung in a way that you could see them up close. The knitting was incredibly fine, and the quality very impressive. On the whole, though, just as with the sports Classic Circuit, it’s impressive in a way that holds no temptation for me. I love knitting, but I am most certain that I would not enjoy knitting these projects – neither the process nor the result. I’ll stick to my admiring.