Minimalist mini vest

Here it is

As we continue living in Canary Islands, my need for knitted garments is minimal. On the other hand, I still have some balls of yarn bought years ago, purely because they were beautiful. The knitting process pleases and soothes me, so I keep making stuff I don’t need.

This time, I decided to make a one-ball project with the last remaning Schoppel-Wolle Laceball. At least I think, I may even say hope, it was the last one. As the name indicate, it is lace-weight self striping yarn, 100 grams per ball.

The project itself was extremely simple — knitting in rounds, ribbing 1x1, till I had very little yarn left. I divided the remains in two to make straps. I still have about 10 grams worth of yarn left.

Things I learned while making the project:

1. Cast off with i-cord, which you can see on the lower edge of the vest. Note to self — i-cord needs to have less rows than the ribbing has stitches, otherwise it creates a visible ruff effect. Maybe next time I will try to work out the correct ratio.

Casting off with a needle

2. Cast off with a needle, which I used for the straps. Creates very neat elastic edge. The edge is flat, unlike i-corded one.

Finished edge

Details were joined together with a crocheting hook.

Possible styling

As the vest is just a cylinder with some straps attached, it can be worn as a circular scarf.

And that’s all for now.

I still have a few balls of yarn left, so stay tuned.

Knitting pics on Shutterstock — here.

circular ribbed scarf

How cute is my model? Well, he is of unbearable cuteness, if you ask me.

I can't explain why I keep knitting those scarfs. We still live on the Canary Islands, and this winter, for example, presented no reasons to muffle up.

One possible reason is that I still have some Schoppel Wolle Lace Ball yarn. I still have some left, btw, so there might be more scarfs coming up, who knows.

In process.

As before, the tendency of stockinette stitch to curl in and the reverse stockinette stitch to curl out was used to create ribs of different colors. The scarf was knitted in stripes of stockinette stitch and reverse stockinette stitch from two different balls of yarn. One has a gradient from cream to very dark brown, another bright teal to grey. Each side of the scarf has its own main gradient but I can twist it so that they both show.

Like this.

Height of each stripe is 7 rows. Two 100 g balls were almost completely used and I ended up with 27 stripes altogether. The circumference of the scarf is about two meters. It can go quite a few times around my neck.

Our teddy is wearing it wound three times around his.

Just a couple more pics

And here I stop

Knitting pics on Shutterstock — here

How to publish a book

Any idiot can publish a book, I thought, so why not me then.

For ten years now, I’ve been posting language-related observations on my blog, sólo algunas palabras. Then, last summer, I had a brightish idea: to collect all the posts dealing with various aspects of Russian in one document, to add some extras and then publish it as a book. Tamara supported the idea and provided the “extras” in the form of illustrations. The manuscript started to take shape in June 2019. However, with this and that, I returned to editing it only in December.

I like the idea of self-publishing as well as that of print-on-demand. The latter means that only those who want your book will buy it, and the book will never be out of stock. While there is no shortage of e-book self-publishing services, only a few companies will make a physical book for you. And in terms of worldwide reach, it’s hard to beat Amazon. What other company would print your book in demand in the USA, Canada, Europe, Japan, Mexico or Brazil? So we decided to give it a try.

Avocado seed flotation device

This one is even less serious than the previous project, but here goes.

More or less at the same time as Kirill finished writing his story Flor, I’ve started an avocado seed germination project. The illustration in the story was drawn from life. I was really surprised how fast it went – the seed cracked next day already, and a little root appeared within two or three days. We, along with all of Spain, were in quarantine situation, so a lot of attention was paid to small things. The speed may have something to do with the fact that the pear was local, ripe and that we live in appropriate climate.

Knit your fears, quarantine knitting project

It is still drying. It has been drying for a day now.

I can’t explain why I made this model of the virus that brought the most of the planet to a standstill. Maybe it is an attempt to domesticate the wild and fearsome, sort of like like what we do with bears, having teddies in our houses. I thought about making at night, and when I woke up, went and checked, and yep, some people thought of it first. Made it anyway, ибодабы.

The pattern is simple and based on usual 6-ray symmetry knitted ball. Ball is knitted first, and then the tentacles are crocheted on. I will record here the process and numbers, so that my next attempt, if any, has better proportions.

Lemon marmalade

I am not a huge fan of marmalade, but Kirill likes it. So we had a go at making it. The recipe came from this page; I will post it here with my remarks lest the page disappears. First remark is that is should be called marmalade, and not “jam”, as it contains peels.

Ingredients:

4 lemons (ours were medium-sized)
Juice of one lemon, strained (recipe says 2 tablespoons, but lemon I used only gave about 3, so it all went in)
1 cup sugar (my favorite cup holds 260 ml)
4 cups water

Sea glass project

There is a stretch of El Confital beach full of sea glass. Every time we go there, we end up bringing a few kilos home.

Playa del Confital

Sea glass is beautiful and just begs to be collected. Now we know one more use for it. We’ve created some images and an alphabet out of sea glass.