Gilet Assymetrique pt 1

Well, the knitting is done. Actually it has been for some months. Yes, it's my troublesome french cardigan, the Gilet Assymetrique.

It's a little further along than these pictures show.  The assembly of the piece is now done, I've knitted on the button bands all it should require is the purchase of the buttons.  However, months later I'm procrastinating.  Still.

I should have been wearing this months ago but I have to admit I'm struggling a little with the pocket.  Mostly to be honest I'm putting off the inevitable.  All that remains now is for me to undo the provisional cast on and catch the stitches down and hey presto, finished cardigan.  So simple you'd think?

FO - Purple Circle Socks

Circle Socks, a photo by Bearium on Flickr.

Pattern: Circle Socks by Anne Campbell
Yarn: King Cole Zig Zag
Needles: 2.5mm (magic loop)
Size: UK 7

Lovely pattern, pretty straight forward and definately a good one for variegated or patterned yarns. A really good fit with plenty of stretch too.

This is the second time I've used this yarn and it's definately one of my current favourites. Good value and plenty of meterage - there's still a fair sized ball left even after knitting for my big feet.

Tension issues and other ramblings.

The sun is shining, I should be out in the garden being busy but instead here I am inside balancing both a cat and a laptop on my lap. Not all that easy a feat as it happens.  Anyway here I am, back blogging after an extremely long hiatus.  Where on earth has the last year gone?

It's funny, looking back at my last post, I never did finish that blue cushion off.  The two panels are sat upstairs waiting patiently.  In the meantime, I have been busy as always although perhaps not as productive craft wise as I usually am over the winter. I don't know how those uber women do it,  Anyone who tells you that you can have it all, a job, a career, a beautiful home etc etc...  Personally I'm just not cut out for it, I've discovered I'm far happier working part time and actually enjoying life and everything it throws at you.

So the tension thing.  After spending the last few months dicing with my Gilet Assymetrique - (that's a Rav link btw) fabulous looking cardigan, my first French pattern, total pain to understand (even with the handy translation), and I'm still not done with it.  I don't think I've ever spent so long knitting one pattern. So I thought I know, I'm going to try something new that doesn't need any fiddling around with.  I'll get tension straight away and bingo, I can have a brand new cardigan in a couple of weeks or so. Well, that was the plan anyhow.  I found the most beautiful cardigan pattern -  Talamh by Stolen Stitches, purchased it, found a suitable sub yarn (King Cole Moods Duet in a Kingfisher blue colour).  After the total nightmare of running out of yarn with the G.A.  (yes, I know, total school girl error, more explanations another time), I bought an extra ball and have done a tension square.

Now the pattern calls for a 3.5mm needle, the smallest size on my Knit Pros is a 3.75mm.  UK needles of course don't come in a 3.5mm.  I can't get tension with the 3.75!!!  Ahhhhh.  Insert much swearing.  I put it all back in the bag and sulked.  Still, not to be defeated, I'm going to have to dig out a set of 3.25mm straights and see if those work then it looks like I'll be ordering a new set of circs!

crochet crazy?

I have been on a bit of a crocheting bender recently, perhaps a little inspired by Lucy of attic24 fame or maybe it's just that time of year.  When I look at all the things I'm working on, I keep adding new crochet projects.  It's not like I don't have enough things on the go already!  I've dusted off a couple of old projects and finished them off too which is always a bonus.  So how about some pictures then?

 Always a sucker for all things mathmatical, I caved in and bought the "squaring the spiral" dishcloth pattern.  I've been pretty disparaging about people that make dishcloths in the past, I probably will be again in the future if I'm honest.  Still, I just love this pattern.  Not sure I'll use it for a dishcloth though, it just seems too nice!  I think I might do some more and make another cushion.

 Now for something I've drag out of the UFO pile and also expanded on.  My pile of squares from Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks book.  This square's called Willow.  It started out as a stash buster as I'd no end of bits of blue yarn after everyone I knew (including me) managed to have boys.  As much as I love blue, you can really go off it after a while and this languished with the other UFOs until I said I'd teach a Granny Square class at our last weekend meet up.  I dragged this out to use as an example and thought, you know, I rather like those.  I finished off enough to make up for a cushion side and then decided to make something different for the reverse.

I noticed this pattern on the back of a magazine and fell in love with it.  It looked completely different in multicolours but I knew it'd work in the blues and hey presto, the reverse side.  The pattern's called Pokey Dots and is available on the Coats/Red Heart site for free.  My sister moved back home at around the time I started making this and fell in love with it.  It's supposed to be for me but the little man has his eye on this so "we'll see" as I seem to say so often around here.  Anyway, here's pokey dots mark 2 which is destined to brighten up Hazel's office chair.

It's not exactly subtle, but she loves it already!

Out and about part 2

The thing about living near to the sea is that you have this wonderful free resource that to be honest, we really don't make the most of.  We actually spend more time at the beach in the winter than we do in the summer as that way, we avoid the tourists! So anyway, in the spirit of trying to find lots of (cheap) things to do to fill up the half term holiday we decided to try out something new.  Crabbing.  So last week the little man and I headed off to our favourite seaside haunt (Brightlingsea) armed with a crabbing line, a bucket and a slice of ham pinched from the fridge.  

I thought it would be a much trickier operation but popped the ham in the bag unwound a bit of line and lobbed it off the steps.  Waited a few mins and reeled it back in to find this monster trying for a meal. A crab on the first strike.  Admittedly not big enough to eat but certainly feisty enough to snap at our fingers.   Next time we'll have to take a bigger bucket as there was only space for one crab at a time in it and we actually caught loads.  Brilliant fun and a wonderful way to spend a sunny afternoon. We were as they say, hooked.

Fibreholics spoilers

I finally collected all the cameras and phones today, scrabbled round and found some cables and hey presto, we have photos to share again.  So here's my contribution to the latest round of Fibreholics.  Can you believe it, the round went live on Sunday morning and sold out within 7 hours!  The parcels are all beginning to arrive now so its hardly a spoiler but hey shrugs.

So, at the top we have BFL tops dyed in 'SkyBlue Pink' and here's the yarn content, 'Rhubarb Fool' on BFL sock yarn.  I've got one of each to add to the shop in the next update.  Actually, my dyeing mojo has been a bit m.i.a. for the last few weeks but dyeing the fibre again for this round has really given me a boost.  I still have plenty more fibre to get dyed and a couple of new blends too but have some great ideas for colours.  I've been updating the shop a bit today but still have a huge pile of stuff to get online including some new laceweights that so far, only the local crew have had their hands on.

Out and about, part 1

What did I say the other day about being a more regular blogger?  Anyhow, we'll gloss over that and get back to the business at hand.  With the return of the sunshine of the last few weeks, we've been able to get out and about and what better thing to do that introduce one of your old childhood haunts to your own munchkin?  So the other weekend on the way to visit my grandparents, we stopped off at Hylands Park.  These days it's probably best known as one of the venues of the V festival but when I grew up, it was my local park and where we went most weeks to walk the dog. 

 There are acres and acres of grounds to walk round and apart from around the main house, it's allowed to stay pretty wild.  What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than wandering through all the wildflowers?  When I was little, the house was just a wreck although the formal gardens were always kept up and they're still beautiful now.

 The house looks fab since they've done it up, the white stone really glows in the sunshine.  Nice cafe in the stableblock too, secondhand book stall, obigatory plant stall and touristy shop.  In fact, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were at a National Trust property.  Still, the cake was nice, the tea pot was huge, the sun was shining....


Found some rather cool art work in the grounds too with little animals and plants carved into all the nooks and crannies.  We were all very impressed. It's by a local artist Michael Barter, you can check out his website too.