Right Angles Are So Passée

acute and oblique - new patterns by yours truly

According to the Oxford Dictionary, an acute angle is an angle less than 90°. The same source states that an oblique angle is one that it not a right angle, nor is a multiple of right angles.  

According to RedScot's Dictionary of Made-Up Words (OUP 2018), an Acute ankle sock is a very simple pattern that creates three very sharp less-than-90° angle points. An Oblique calf-length sock, on the other hand foot, uses the same basic pattern to create four very sharp angle points that aren't right angles, or multiples of the same...

My sister is again responsible, in kind, for the advent of these super-cute new patterns, as she keeps supplying me with DK wool in a myriad of colours and types for which I can never find a suitable sock pattern.   This time it was King Cole Riot DK in the 'Riot' colourway, a 'self-patterning' yarn that was crying out for some sharp zig-zags to show it off.  But there was nothing more pointy that my own Traffic Islands pattern to choose from, so I set about making a new and even spikier pattern.   And because I loved the first one with DK so much, I set about making a version for fingering-weight yarn, using Munchkin Knitworks String of Pearls Plus in 'Hodgeberry Stain'.

Thus Acute and then Oblique were born.   Instead of a nice, calm 2x2 ribbed cuff, I thought it much more interesting to start off with some sharp angles, and to keep it from rolling down, made sure that there were some purl rows thrown in the mix.  3 points for Acute, and 4 for Oblique.

The heel-flaps, once these sharp chevrons had continued down the leg, were at once calming for Acute - a simple eye-of-partridge heel stitch was all that was required, but Oblique intended to be a little more cunning and the angles continued through to the heel-turn...  Not just because the stitch count needed to be brought down to make sure the sole wasn't too wide.

Cunning?  Oh yes, I think so!  

The angles continued down the upper of each sock and they both finished in a simple star toe.

I made the small size of Acute, for they may just be for someone whose fault they came into existence anyway (and my medium sock blockers were a tad on the large size for them, really...) but I made the Oblique in large for myself, and was so pleased with them I had to wear them as soon as they were blocked.

Both these patterns are being sold together as a pair, so you can make some angled socks for your selves whatever type of sock yarn you have!

Click HERE (Oblique) and HERE (Acute)to find the pattern pages on Ravelry (you can access the same pattern set from each page), or just click below to buy them now!  Oh, how much?  well, dang, but because they're so fast to knit up, I couldn't ask for more than a euro the pair! (Or £0.79 or $1.29 or AUS$1.23 or ¥100 or ₪5.05.)

(It says just 'Oblique' in the invoice, but both patterns are there!)

The whole world needs this kind of cute!

Possibly The Best Music In The World

Well, there had to be some kind of reference to Carlsberg advertising, considering we were in Copenhagen. ('Carlsberg, possibly the best lager in the world'...)

But what brought me to wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen?  Brahms. Brahms and a smidgeon of Schubert.  And a (non music-) student orchestra that didn't play like (non music-) students, thanks to their excellent conductor, a very dear friend of mine.

Brahms with a mix of Sir Malcolm Sargent, I should say, as I got to sing Brahms in a wonderful new version (for mezzo-soprano) of Vier ernste Gesänge (Four Serious Songs), originally written for voice and piano, in a wonderful full orchestration by the afore-mentioned Sargent.  So very lush and multi-dimensional!  

The smidgeon of Schubert was Berlioz's orchestration of Die Erlkönig.  I have a beautiful cd of Ann Sofie von Otter singing some of these orchestrations, and I was thrilled to find out the encore would be one of these glorious arrangements!  Needless to say, I found all five songs so very different to sing with orchestra than with piano.  Of course, you can still be intimate when singing with an orchestra, but I find it's such a different kind of intimacy.  Piano and voice is quite stark in many ways, but is also very present.  Just two people and their instruments creating expression and colour and their own little world.  The palette is much more full with an orchestra, and it is always fun (and challenging) to try and create equally vibrant tones with the voice.  (I suspect you can tell I've had more experience singing with orchestras and ensembles than with just piano!)  But, needless to say, any given piece, on any given day, with any given singer, using any given accompaniment will create a myriad of different performances.  It is, after all, what live music (to me) is all about.

Copenhagen is full to the gunwales with strangely out-of-place architecture.  Their city hall (Københavns Rådhus, pictured above) looks like a northern European version of an Italian Renaissance palazzo, slightly clunkier and not having quite the right glowing red brick.  And the inside is even stranger - walls, ceilings staircases all in 15th century style covered in tiles and trompe l'oeil of the early 20th century Art Deco period.  

And if that wasn't enough, there was the rather splendid World Clock - an astronomical clock designed by Jens Olsen at the beginning of last century.

But, as much as it would have been wonderful, wonderful, Copenhagen itself was not one of the places we were performing. 

There was intimacy of a different kind when we did our first concert, not in Denmark, but in Germany.  (I would have mentioned this before, but it didn't go with the title of the post!)  The lovely town of Münster played host to our fair company for a few days, and (apart from hellishly sleepless nights due to noisy incumbents of the same hotel) it was an interesting visit.  

The town itself is lovely - the centre looks very old indeed and is surrounded by wonderful churches, but in reality 90% of the old town was destroyed in WWII.  The old city has been rebuilt to look the way it did pre-war, and it is very charming, although slightly melancholy when you think of how old the buildings were before they were bombed.

We didn't, sadly, get to sing in any of these wonderful buildings, but instead were given the great lecture theatre of the university.  Complete with the acoustics of a taxidermied donkey.  The dusty and air-conditioned (and, strangely, central-heated) stuffy air of both backstage and front of house gave the impression that you were singing and breathing into an ancient velvet curtain, letting no sound resonate but instead smother it to death in a surprisingly efficient manner.  This is the kind of intimate sound all performers can do quite happily without...

But back to Denmark, where we had acoustics in cathedral-loads. 

Århus Domkirke was very generous with its sound.  Perhaps a bit too generous, but after Münster anything was delightful!  (And there was the added bonus of seeing the exterior of the rather amazing-looking theatre - found at the bottom of these five photos.)  I shall always remember Århus, however, not for being a pretty town with lovely architectural features, but for supplying me with possibly the finest cappuccino I think I've ever had.

Finally we arrived at the Messiaskirken in Charlottenlund, on the outskirts of Copenhagen, but do I have photographic evidence of this? No, because I caught a stomach bug and spent most of the time I wasn't singing, hovering around the only loo...  (And let it be noted that it was due to very greasy pizza, and not copious amounts of Carlsberg!) But Mister Google is, as always, most helpful...

I have to say that although it was quite small, it was, in comparison to the other places, happily oh-so-acoustically perfect!  And like the ending in all traditional fairy tales, the last of the three was the 'just-right' setting in the story of Goldi-Redlocks and the Three Venues.  

Possibly the worst pizza in the world, though...

Cherry Ripe

cherry garni socks by yours truly

araucania ranco solid in pt 485

the yarn side walker merino in red lentil evenings

It's about time another cocktail sock pattern was added to the repertoire, so here's something a little fruity! Cherry Garni is a toe-up, heel-flapped, cherry-lace sock, with contrasting cocktail-skewer toe, heel and cuff.

Okay, these should really, technically, be called 'Cherry Garnish Socks', as 'garni' isn't foreign for garnish, but is only an attempt on my part to sound fancy!  I am nothing if not creative in the ways of language!  Or lazy...  Either or, the cherry is a massive part of cocktail dressing, and this new patterns is a natural progression from the Twist of Citrus homage to all things zesty in the cocktail world!

So, whether you're adding a rich red Maraschino cherry to a Manhattan, a green cherry to your Blue Lagoon, drinking a black cherry Mojito, or having your tequila sunrise adorned with a yellow ground cherry, I'm sure you'll agree that the cherry, no matter what colour, is truly a worthy addition to the cocktail sock theme!

The sock begins at the contrasting toe with a simple but effective cocktail-skewer rib pattern:

then moves on to the cherry-lace pattern (a rich, ripe cherry with its stalk and a leaves) :

and for something completely different, I've added a heel-flap.  I have to say I love the final appearance of this - the gusset pick-up is oh-so-very neat, but pay attention - you have to start the increases around 4 inches from the final edge of the heel.  (I've suggested adding a life-line if you aren't completely sure of the length you need - I measured 4 inches from a sock I had previously made and worked out where I needed to start the increases.)

Totally worth it - it looks fabulous!

And another plus: it looks great in different colours!  I asked my testers to use different colours - purples, greens, yellows for different coloured cherries, and they turned out looking fabulous - check out the pattern page for linked projects!  

So, what else do you need to know?  Oh yes indeed - the link to the pattern page and a lovely Ravelry button to click if you fancy investing in something fruity!

Cherry ripe, cherry ripe, 
Ripe I cry, Full and fair ones

Come and buy.

Cherry ripe, cherry ripe,

Ripe I cry,

Full and fair ones

Come and buy.

Voice Cosy

You know - like a tea cosy, but for the voice!

Okay, it's really just an elaborate way to name the species, as it is really just a little shawl, but because it's for a singer friend, the appellation seems right!  (Family: Knitting, Genus: Shawl, Species: Voice Cosy!)

doornroosje or sleeping beauty

It's the perfect Spring/Autumn throat warmer for the discerning singer who worries about unseasonal chills!  (Or anyone who fancies something warm around their neck of a chilly Spring eve!)  The pattern was created by another singer friend of mine, Harma, and it's called 'Doornroosje', the Dutch equivalent of Sleeping Beauty!  (The translation means literally: Little Thorn Rose!)

It's almost a story-telling shawlette, as incorporated in the design are elements from the tale:  

Doornroosje is the Dutch name of Sleeping Beauty, and this shawlette represents her story. From the thorny edge, into the castle, up the stairs and past the bed curtains, you see the voyage of Prince Charming.  (Taken from the Ravelry pattern page.)

I did, however, muck-up the edging - it's supposed to be thorny indeed (you can see it on the Ravelry pattern page linked above), but the beauty of the last few rows is that you can make the edging what you want.  Just as well, really!  I still have so much to learn!

This shall, however, be an excellent birthday gift, and I know the recipient will use it well - keeping her voice cosy against the elements!

Hope On The Rocks Part II

Aka "Operation Save Bag".

So, you saw the bag in the last post.  I'm sorry I foisted that last sad, grey picture on you, dear readers, especially as I wasn't able to look at it myself for a while, but I eventually got the urge to visit the craft supplies shop (everything EXCEPT wool) and buy some fabric paints.  

Boy, those little pots are expensive, so instead of getting a myriad of purples and greens, I came back with 5 of the littlest pots they had: a green, a lavender blue/purple, a black, and white and a red.  Sadly I couldn't afford some of the more jewel tones that the yarn had been blessed with before its unfortunate baptism of fire hot water, but I reckoned these would cover all the bases.  Anything is better than grey, right?

Test one was one of the square pockets.  I know.  These poor pockets have already been through a lot, but if they survived, I knew the bag would stand a chance.  (If not, then a statue saluting our brave yet fallen yarn fellows would be... well, thought about, at the very least.)

i knew that old scottish packing newspaper would come in handy

I have to say I was a little heartened by the colours I was able to mix-up (hey, that art-school year came in handy after all!) and decided that it wasn't really being cocky to just go ahead and paint the bag.  You can tell me later that this was the point that everything went wrong, should the need arise.

colour - how lovely to see you again

After the first attempt I have to tell you, I was feeling happier than I did a few days previously.  Yes, the colours aren't (and won't be) as rich as the originals (nor will they be in quite the right places), but still, they're not bad.  Possibly a half-way point between the original jewel tones, and the grey heartbreak.  

Once these were dry, the instructions told me that to fix the dye (because I know my luck otherwise - the first sniff of rain and this bag would be bleeding colours again) by covering it with a tea-towel and ironing over it with a hot iron.  

So far so good...

I had decided that because the bag hadn't felted to the rigid fabric I was hoping for, that I'd line it in some tough fabric for strength.  So I set off for a nearby material shop (heaven - it's massive - I could lose some serious hours in there fondling all those beautiful fabrics) and came home with some lovely purple material and a few purple zips. I made a simple lining just the teensiest bit smaller than the bag, plus pocket linings and a looooong lining for the shoulder strap.  And yes, I joined the pieces up with hand-sewn blanket stitch, which may or may not have taken hours!

miles and miles of *^%&£@ blanket stitch

The first pieces joined were the strap to the bag, but before joining the main bag sections together I decided that the base needed a bit of shoring-up.  Thick cardboard sewn onto the inside of the base did the job very well...

sewing a 4-year-old would be proud of

... and won't be seen, thanks to the bag lining, complete with 2 pockets, one on each side:

note the one square I didn't paint...

Then, finally, I added the zip to the top of the bag.  And HUZZAH, although it's not the colourful, cute little shoulder bag I was aiming for, it's quite a nice messenger bag, and quite comfortably holds 3 vocal scores!  So, could be worse!

the amazing singing bag