Weekend Knitting, Sat 29th June

Long time no blogging...

Ok, I knew it was a while since I last blogged but a year? Wow!  This time last year I was moving house and I guess it took me longer to get settled and organised that I realised!

So why start again? I bumped into a friend at work the other day and we got talking about blogging and it made me think about why I started in the first place.  It's not like I actually need another thing to add to my crafty repetoire or anything but, I always used to enjoy sharing and documenting my projects.  I have made so many things over the years and just given them away without a thought other than the pleasure of the giving. Now I know that that is probably one of the best reasons to actually make things but it would have been nice to have kept some pictures of them at the very least.  So anyway, am I going to become a regular blogger?  Hopefully.  Well, more than once year anyhow!

It's all about the blankets

Despite the unseasonably mild weather we've been having the last few days what we've been mostly wanting to do since the new year is snuggle up under a nice warm blanket.  Mum's had caught the mitred square bug and has been busy knitting away using up all my old sock yarn.  She'd not even finished it before my sister and her cat had both started fighting over who was going to get to keep it.

Lola likes blankets.  She'd claim them all if she could! She even tries to help me decide which order to assemble the squares in.  Well help is a bit of a misnomer but she does like to be involved at all stages.

She'll even wrap herself up inside them if she can.  One day I'll have to make her one of her own.  Anyhow, back to the blankets.  The little man decided he needed a blanket of his own to snuggle up in and he'd got very definate ideas of how it should be made.  

• It needed to be crochet.
• It had to be in small squares.
• Each square had to have two rows of each colour.
• Then they had to be put together and have a few rows round the outside.

This one turned out to be a bit of a stashbuster as for a change I didn't need to buy anything to add to it.  Six balls of bonus DK from the stash a 4.5mm hook and hey presto - squares.  Each colour is used as the centre and surrounded by every other colour.  I opted to add a second band of the centre colour to each to make the squares a little bigger.  Thirty squares in all. I've crocheted them all together rather than stitching them and then gone around the outside a few times using the same colours until I'd more or less used up all the yarn. 

Ta da! One finished snuggle blanket.

Christmas Swap Parcels

So here I am back at last. Christmas is always great but juggling children, babysitters, new jobs on top of it all has proved trickier than I ever imagined and far more exhausting.  Anyhow, enough with the excuses, this post is long overdue.  I took part in the We Love Lucy Christmas swap and while I've posted a sneaky peak of the parcel I posted, I've still to post about the one I received in return.  So here it is in all it's glory and it truly was a jam packed and well thought out box of goodies.

So where do I start? 

Here's the handmade part, a flannel and some locally made soap and some earrings made by Teresa herself.  The cutest little lighthouse which is hanging from my tree as I type.

Lots of yarn and all things I'd find it hard to source myself.  Some Knit Picks cottons for me to make my own flannels with and the Bernat holidays yarn, red and sparkly (my favourite colours) and some Heart and Sole Sock yarn which is nice and soft and some super squishy alpaca fleece for spinning.  Now I just need to find the perfect patterns.

Buttons, cupcake cakes, nail files and a note pad, a candy cane shaped pen.  All christmassy themed. A pair of red gloves and a handy little project bag. Finally one of the tags on the parcels was this really pretty little red heart (also now hanging on the tree) and the pattern for a cute little bear.

All in all and truly lovely package and filled with lots of things that show that Teresa had taken the time to get to know me a little. Very thoughtful indeed.

As I mentioned at the top of this post, I should have got this all documented before Christmas and I truly wish I had.  If I'd realised beforehand quite how busy and tiring the last few weeks would be I might have thought twice about doing the swap but truth be told, I'd probably have done it anyway.  I really enjoyed putting the parcel together and I've been really lucky with my swap partner this time around.  With my lack of communication recently, not sure my partner feels the same.  Having been on the receiving end of a dodgy swap myself in the past, I understand entirely where she's coming from which makes me really disappointed with myself as I should have known better!  Anyhow, here endeth the self recriminations as overall it was a great swap.

This week I have mostly been ....

knitting mice and nursing a cold.  Slightly strange combination but hey, it's the festive season and that's where I'm at.  The knitted mice are a commission from my sister for a tea cosy for one of her friends.  I said yes before I got the pattern and it's proved to be trickier than expected.  Rather foolishly I thought I'd be able to knock a tea cosy out really quickly but as with all commissions, they're never straightforward!

 Here's the body of the tea cosy and the mice .....

Oh my, all the ends!  When it comes together it should look something like this, the sack of mice pattern by Debi Birkin. As always I've made a couple of mods to the pattern mostly because it seemed she was creating extra work the way a couple of the pieces were made.

The start of the week saw me finally get my package into the post for the Christmas swap over on the I love Lucy group on Ravelry.   We had a rough winter last year with lots of family illness and ultimately we lost my grandad so I've not done a swap for a couple of years.  I have to say it's been really fun to do again and my swap partner this year has been great.  Teresa writes a great blog (far more regularly than me) and from the pictures she posts, lives in the most beautiful place in the states.  If you want to get into the Christmas spirit already, her blog's a great place to start. Here's a sneaky peak of my parcel, am just waiting for it to be delivered now to see what she thinks.

Once the Chistmas knitting is all done, I'm hoping to have a play with my new inkle loom.  Well, its new to me anyhow.  It was free to a good home via one of the ladies at my knitting group, I suspect it's been gathering dust in a cupboard for a very long time. What I need now is a crash course in how to use it!  I've found a couple of websites with tutorials that I hope will get me started but all tips and suggestions will be gratefully received. 

There's no makers mark on it so if anyone know's anything about it, I'm all ears.  It's tension peg (the sliding metal one) seems to be in a different position to the one's in the tutorials I've found so am hoping that's not going to make too much difference to the way it warps up.

 Look at me, throwing in all the weaving terms.  I've never used a loom in my life!

Buttons and daisies

Sometimes it's the simplest things that make me happy. I think I've just found the perfect buttons for my almost finished gilet assymetric.  Yet another set of wooden buttons but these are a little quirkier than you often find, all the more suprising seeing as they're "designer" too.  I almost never splurge on Vogue buttons as they're often pretty pricey but these, I couldn't resist and the bonus being - I got staff discount too.  How about that?  There are definate perks to working in a yarn shop!

On a completely different note, here's a little something I've been doing on and off this summer, daisy squares.  Cute hey?  I came across this pattern a while back and loved it but then after bookmarking it, promptly forgot about it as I had other things on the go. It's the Daisy Pattern by Krochet Krystal and was published for use in her charity blankets. Unfortunately by the time I went back to it the pattern was unavailable apparently due to some rather negative comments made by fellow crafters.  Something I was rather sad to hear. 

To cut a long story short I loved the pattern so much, I reverse engineered it from pictures and the like on Ravelry and hey presto, I made squares! I've since emailed the designer and made some to be included with her comfort blankets.  You can follow the story of how she started on her blanket blog. These ones are ready to be packed up and posted off and hopefully will end up as part of a lovely blanket that'll make somebody else very happy.  I've got another pile of them using up odds and ends in my stash that I'm going to make into a blanket of my own.  More of those later though.

It must be about time for some housekeeping

Before you fall off your seat, no I'm not about to turn into a domestic goddess and actually do some housework. Maybe I'm having one of those introspective moments where I reevaluate my life, who knows?  Either way, I have a new job that I'm starting in the morning and having had a troublesome couple of months with working, I'm really looking forward to it.  Even when the work balance hasn't been quite the way I'd like it, I never really stop the craft work, lose a bit of enthusiasm maybe.  Anyhow, I'm crafting again with a vengeance which is usally a good sign!  I even went through the UFO pile (in search of a particular set of missing needles I have to admit) and frogged a couple of projects that are never going to be finished.  I think perhaps there are a few more that need to go yet.  I am a serial caster on-er (is that even a word?) after all.

So back to the housekeeping, new job, new broom etc.  I know I've not been blogging much over the last while but I've also realised that my blog just isn't reflecting where I'm at at the moment so it's about time I had a little tidy up.  Perhaps a complete overhaul?

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.

Do you have enough fibre in your diet?

Now if i can just find an end....

It's all in a dyes work

Sock yarns for saturday

A friendly postman

Always brings treats!

Life is...... good, I think.

I'm generally not a great one for writing long introspective posts, this is primarily a craft blog after all.  However, until about a year or so ago, it also included odd snippets of my life with my little man as they so often influence the direction my projects take.  Events as always overtake us and while angry and disillusioned with certain members of my extended family, I made the conscious decision to exclude those parts of our life and make this a purely craft blog.  As always when you make decisions like that they invariably have an unintended side effect and I found that rather than blogging being a fun thing anymore, it had become a chore.  Hence the sporadic posting of recent months.

Anyhow, I digress, back to the present day.  Sometimes unexpected events happen to make you reevaluate your life and the way you look at things.  I've had a fantastic Easter away in Manchester, most of it spent decorating my sister's house but I also got a glorious reminder of what my life was like before responsibility kicked in and grounded me - I got to spend a completely child free weekend away with the "grown ups".  As much as I love my little man and wouldn't be without him, it also reminded me what I've been missing out on.  Don't get me wrong, my life is pretty full but I hadn't realised quite how much I'd allowed parenthood to define me rather than being my own person.  I've spent most of the last few days working out in the garden catching up on all the spring jobs.  Manual labour is great but it also gives your mind far too much free time to wander and dwell on things that have happened.  

So what to do now?  I have some wonderful friends here, in fact I have more female friends at this stage than I have ever had in my life.  They've provided so much support and encouragement over the last couple of years and I have definately grown as a result because of it, I am now designing more and have built a good foundation for my little yarny business.  I've also realised, I'm not angry any more and that I can be the bigger person, that I don't need to allow someone else's bad behaviour to affect how I view the world.  However, there's still something missing and I obviously need to get a better balance in my personal life. 

I need to make some changes and while they may not happen all that quickly, I've an idea where I need to be going and I think of how to get there.  That has to be a good thing right?  In the meantime, I'm going to make the most of everything going on here and look forward to a fun weekend with my knitty friends.  I can make random postings of things that have caught my eye and hopefully return to loving my blog again.  Has it helped to get all this off my chest?  I think so but I guess we'll find out over the next few weeks.

Mutant crochet?

I think i have tension issues!

Water, water everywhere