crochet catastrophe

On the Blanket of Many Browns, I ran out of yarn this close to the end of a stripe. Aran weight yarn disappears so quickly when you're used to socks! As the yarn is at least twenty years old I doubt I would be able to get more. So I think my only option is to rip back this stripe and end the blanket before it starts. I guess this will give a reasonable sized blanket for a baby, but I am slightly disappointed to finish it now. Mostly because that rather unbelievably leaves me with no other crafty projects that I can currently get on with! Having failed to decide on a sock pattern for my Regia Landscape yesterday, I thought I'd cast on regardless and start a generic toe up pattern. Inspired by reading Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles, I determined to give this method a try. Unfortunately, the circular needles I used have a large, pointless lump betwixt cable and tip, which operates much as a speed bump in a road might. This meant that my socks weren't so much soaring as flying too close to the sun then falling Icarus-like in a singed heap to the ground. In despair, I gave up and scoured the internet for Addi Turbos. Finally managed to find some in stock in the UK, but from a shop which is currently in the middle of moving premises, so I have to wait for them to unpack all the boxes and play find-the-needles-in-a-haystack before they can post them out to my troubled sock. Gah!

But why don't you just get on with the quilt you started? You may think. Well, unbelievably my sewing machine is also playing up. The presser foot has started raising and lowering itself at its own whim, rather than when I press the button. I think it might be haunted. So it is in for repair / exorcism, but won't be fixed till at least the weekend. In the meantime, I need to try and learn how to control my twitchy fingers! *Opens beer, drums fingers repetitively on tabletop*
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highlander - there can be only two

So I finally finished the Highland Schottische Kilt Hose [ravelry project link], from Folk Socks by Nancy Bush. This is quite possibly my favouritest sock pattern I have made so far - I really loved knitting these. There are so many intricate and engrossing details; the picot hem, the lacy tops. And yet just when you think the socks are going to take forever to make, you get to the straight bit on the leg, a fairly basic lacy wide rib that zooms along at hyperspeed in comparison. This bit is easy to keep in your head and churn out in quantity and yet so pretty in its simplicity, that it never gets boring.

The yarn is Regia Heather 4 ply in Linen. It took just over 3 balls. There is a slight tweediness to it which I like, and it has that almost indestructible feel to it which suggests that your foot would probably fall apart before the sock did. I toyed with the idea of a supertraditional 100% wool, as I'm guessing they will just be used for occasional wear, but it's a lot of sock knitting to be doing for something just to develop holes immediately and I couldn't quite bring myself to risk it.


The socks did take me quite a while but that's because I've had a lot of other stuff going on this summer, and I've picked them up and put them down many times. I actually rather miss them now. I may well even make some more, as I am giving these away. They're supposed to be sized for a bloke although that's me wearing them in the photos and alarmingly, they seem to be about right. I'm hoping the rib will stretch enough to accommodate an ampler calf! Hopefully it will. If not, I have instructed his missus to steal them. The calf shaping is quite lovely in this pattern, it's my favourite bit I think.

They are mindbogglingly comfortable as well. Sooo snuggly warm... It was difficult to take them off after these photos, but I managed it, and they are on their way to the intended recipient now...

Now I seem to have a lot of empty sock needles. What to do with my Regia Landscape? Jaywalker or Charade? It's a tricky one!

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multicoloured dreams

I think it's the weather... I must have mild sensory deprivation from exposure to perpetual greyness. So without really even noticing what I was doing I seem to have bought some lovely bright stripy sock yarn. Yes, I too appear to have succumbed to the delights of the Kaffe Fassett for Regia sock yarn series. This is Landscape Celebration - a new colourway.

Mmmm pretty. And a good incentive for me to hurry up and finish the Highland Schottische Kilt Hose, which have been occupying my sock needles since forever - but I'm nearly at the heel on the second sock so the end is in sight!


In other colourful news, I have started to make a quilt for the wee man, from the wodge of patchwork squares I picked up at the Stitch and Creative Crafts Show. Somehow, even when I cheat outrageously and everything is cut out exactly for me, I still don't seem to be able to get all the corners of shapes to match up exactly neatly. I suspect this is because I sew like a drunk person walks. That mitred corner in the border at the top is all over the place too - I will have another go at that before I take a deep breath and start doing the proper quilting bit, where you attach the warm stuff. Incidentally the big piece of warm stuff under the quilt top in the picture cost me the princely sum of £1... it was the end of the roll. I love my local fabric store. That means the whole quilt will have cost approximately one bargainous tenner to make. Which makes me feel much better about the prospect of potentially ruining it during quilting...

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rainy day hat

Irritatingly, Elijah the elephant used 1.000001 balls of Rowan Wool Cotton, so I thought I'd use up the remnants on another baby hat. I made this one up as I went along. It struck me when I was making the elephant that this yarn has a soft shininess with very clear stitch definition, so would probably be well suited to cables. This stitch pattern has one-stitch cables in a braided pattern across a 1x1 rib. The idea was to keep some of the stretchiness of the ribbing for a fast-growing small head, and it kind of worked. It was also partially inspired by the British summer - the blue-grey pattern reminded me of the rolling raindrops on the windowpane. And now I've finished it, the sun has come out. So apologies to my compatriots if my knitting this hat brought the rain gods out of hiding.


I did the cabling without a cable needle, because I am a daredevil who likes an element of risk in her knitting. The yarn colour suits a blue-eyed boy, and I was going to try and get a picture of the young gentleman wearing it, but before I could, he had vomited on it approvingly. Fortunately this yarn is machine washable.

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joy division oven glove

With apologies to Half Man Half Biscuit. We moved house recently and my trusty oven gloves went walkabout somewhere between residences. Consequently I now have an array of angry looking burns on my thumb. (I took a photo of these too, but decided it was a bit too minging to post). As I also had a set of fat eighths from the Stitch and Creative Crafts show last weekend and some polyester wadding lurking in the cupboard, I decided enough was enough, and a home-stitched solution to my pain and suffering was needed. Then the titular HMHB song came on the radio, making me laugh rather a lot. So I couldn't resist making this. Now while cooking, I will smile instead of screaming in flesh-searing agony. Or setting fire to another tea towel.


I used this tutorial to make the oven glove. Not too hard for a novice seamstress. The writing is reverse applique, done rather terribly on the machine. I ran out of the burgundy thread after doing this bit and couldn't be bothered going out in the rain to get some more, so finished off the seaming in green. I know! I've literally ripped up the sewing rulebook with my devil-may-care attitude!! The best bit was the quilting on the palm, I am rather proud of its neatness. The rest of the seaming is a bit higgledy piggledy but it appears to do the job of holding stuff together.

It used up 3 fat eighths of fabric. Probably could have had a bit left over of the flowery stuff if I hadn't accidentally cut out the palm piece the wrong way round first time. I very nearly had to do all my baking left handed. Even now, as Mr. Rubbishknitter kindly pointed out, the writing is upside down if you are wearing the glove and holding your hand vertically. Ah well, it was an entertaining learning experience that has resulted in a useful thing. Right, off to bake some scones... :)

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elephant in the room

Look out! What's this, emerging from the depths of the savannah?! It's Elijah the elephant. I enjoyed making this, although if I made it again, I think I would make the limbs separately and sew them on. Making it in one piece is nice in some ways but the picking up of stitches involves levels of contortionism and wrist acrobatics that isn't really my thing. I know it's not really fashionable to say this, but I'm not sure I subscribe to the anti-seaming-at-any-costs school of thought which appears to be the general consensus amongst knitters these days. Don't Phear the Needle, I say. I'm a bit old skool, I know. Retires to rocking chair with pipe.


In other news, I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show at the GMex Manchester Central at the weekend. I had intended to buy yarn but there seemed to be a preponderance of variegated and/or sock yarn, and less of the dk solid colours I was after. Or massive bulk packets of the stuff, which I am not really looking for right now. Well, not the the stuff I saw anyway. Ah well. Instead of buying yarn I appear to have been sucked in by the many patchwork / quilting type stalls. Bit silly as I live next to a really cheap fabric shop. But look! Mmmm... pretty... colours... I just need to learn how to make a rubbish quilt now. Lordy!

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enter the rubbishseamstress

So due to a misunderstanding with a utility company, I ended up suddenly and unexpectedly having some spare money. Hooray! The obvious thing to do then, rather than paying bills or buying sensible things like groceries, was to run to my nearest sewing machine emporium and spend it all on a shiny new Brother. I had a mild feeling of guilt about this as I'm not good at spending large amounts of money. This soon dissipated though once I'd had a go on the new toy. So much fun! Even breaking a needle almost immediately didn't dampen my enthusiasm. I have no idea what I'm doing here obviously. I've never done anything with a sewing machine before. Don't even remember doing anything useful with one in school. But anyway, I skipped along to the fabric shop that's conveniently situated about 2 minutes walk from my house, and bought some fabric scraps from the bargain bin for £2, partially mitigating the guilt of forking out a rather larger sum for the sewing machine. I then attempted to make myself a bag using this tutorial from craftster. And I sort of managed it!

Cockily, I even added a zip, even though this wasn't part of the tutorial (living in one of the rainiest cities in the known universe, bags that have the top open to the elements are pretty useless). I didn't make a particularly good job of this - the ends of the zip are a little untidy. And the appliqued flowers are falling off a little. I did them first, before I could really sew in a straight line, which was ridiculous overambitious. But hey, it was all part of a 'learning experience', and now I have a fally-aparty slightly-bigger-than-a-handbag bag that nicely accommodates purse, phone, books / magazines, nintendo ds and a small knitting project. Ideal!!

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rubbishknitterjunior

I know I've been a bit quiet, but I've been busy! So here are some of the things I have been making recently.

• A son, born last Sunday


• A slip stitch hat for newborns

The former was 8lb 12oz and quite cute.

The latter was made up out of scrap yarn during a sleepless night last week while I pondered whether I was in labour or just having indigestion (with hindsight, I suspect a combination of the two). I have never really done much with slip stitch patterns, so was quite surprised to see how it's not just the pattern but the texture that is affected - it looks kind of like ribbing. The hat's also actually been very useful. Amazingly, it fits perfectly! And newborn babies seem to be a bit rubbish at regulating body temperature, even in summer - any bits of baby that aren't under a blanket generally feel freezing. So if anyone else is interested, here is a quick attempt to write up the pattern (it was reaaaally easy, takes approx. one sleepless night to make)

Newborn slip-stitch hat

Yarn: Oddments of Rowan 4 ply cotton in leaf green and purple, scrap of Debbie Bliss Cathay in turquoise (I know, this is a slightly thicker yarn, which is a Knitting Crime, but it was the most suitable scrap yarn i could find in the cupboard at 1 am!)
Needles: 3 mm double-pointed
Size: Large-headed newborn

• Cast on 100 stitches over 3 needles, join to work in the round.


• MC (leaf green): Do about 10 rows of k1, p1 ribbing


• CC1 (turquoise): repeat around: [k1, sl1 purlwise]*


• CC1 (turquoise): k


• CC2 (purple): [k1, sl1 purlwise]*


• CC2 (purple): k


• MC (leaf green): [k1, sl1 purlwise]*


• MC (leaf green): k


• Repeat last 6 rows another 6 times (or possibly 5 would be enough if the intended recipient is blessed with a more normal head size!)


• Start decreasing, maintaining slip stitch pattern:


• CC1: [[k1, sl1] 4 times, k2tog]* around


• CC1: k


• CC2: [[k1, sl1] 3 times, k1, k2tog]* around


• CC2: k


• MC: [[k1, sl1] 3 times, k2tog]* around


• MC: k


• CC1: [[k1, sl1] 2 times, k1, k2tog]* around


• CC1: k


• CC2: [[k1, sl1] 2 times, k2tog]* around


• CC2: k


• MC: [k1, sl1, k1, k2tog]* around


• MC: k


• CC1: [k1, sl1, k2tog]* around


• CC1: k


• CC2: [k1, k2tog]* around


• CC2: k


• MC: [k2tog]* around


• Break MC yarn and pull through remaining stitches. Break other yarns and weave in ends. Place on baby.

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meme

Slightly delayed reaction (have just moved house and haven't managed to unpack the internet yet), but i got tagged by brittunia, so here goes.

• What I was doing 10 years ago:
  1998. Er... I had just got my first Proper Job in the dot-com boom era, so I was probably playing network Quake in the office.
  


• What 5 things are on on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
  
  
  
  1. Go to the library and hunt down some internets (done!)
  
  
  2. Unpack some stuff
  
  
  3. Cut toenails (harder than it sounds when 38 weeks pregnant)
  
  
  4. Pick raspberries and blackcurrants from the allotment
  
  
  5. Make more jam
  
  
  
  (Although realistically, I have very little energy for these things at the moment so I suspect many tasks may be delegated till tomorrow. A more likely list would have 'lengthy afternoon nap' in there.)
  


• Snacks I enjoy:
  At the moment, fruit, fruit and more fruit. My dream meal would be like one of those spreads they have in films about ancient Rome, where the table is groaning with big plates of grapes and figs and stuff.
  


• Things I would do if I was a billionaire:
  Sort out world peas and save the planet and that. Pay off my mortgage. Get another allotment with some bees and chickens. If I had any money left over, buy a sofa, a piano, a sewing machine and Family Ski for the Nintendo Wii.
  


• Places I have lived:
  Only in England, rather boringly. Southport, Cambridge, the wilds of Cumbria, various bits of Manchester. As of last week, a shiny new house on the other side of the allotments.
  

If anyone else is reading this and wants a go, consider yourself tagged!
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what did the postman bring?

Sock yarn! hooray!

Some lovely heathery regia 4ply, colour 2143 (linen), courtesy of woolly workshop. I realised when making the rainbow booties how much I had missed making socks. My other ongoing project is a big crocheted blanket so it feels more interesting to make something intricate and fine gauge again. So I've already cast on for Highland Schottische Kilt Hose from Folk Socks. Which is an awesome book, but I haven't actually made anything from it until now. I am making them as a surprise present for a very nice kilt wearing gentleman I know. This may well turn out to be madness as I have no idea if they will fit or not... I may have to recruit some other male sock models with similarly proportioned calves to test my progress!


Check out that picot hem! I am ridiculously overpleased with this... impossible to convey in a photograph how tactile this is. It's a double thickness, like, er, most hems are i guess, so it feels lovely and solid and nubbly.
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bootie call

So I finally found a use for leftover sock yarn! These only used about 20g of zitron trekking xxl i had left from making these ages ago. Here they are in ravelry - for the unravelled, the pattern is Christine's Stay on Baby Booties. A nice fun quick knit. Living life on the edge as I invariably do, I decided to risk running out of yarn halfway through by just using the leftovers from one 100g ball. There are plenty of options really if you do run out - it would be easy to use stripes or do a contrast sole, or do the laces in a different yarn. Or even if you end up having to frog the whole thing in despair, really there's not that much work being lost there. Just a couple of train-journeys-worth (from Manchester to London, interspersed with gentle snoozings). Interestingly, if you are 8 months pregnant and knitting on the train I've noticed you tend to attract fond, approving glances from fellow travellers - like, phew, there's another stereotype reaffirmed - rather than the usual head-craning intrigued stares from people who can't quite work out what's going on and haven't quite got the nerve to ask.


This maternity leave malarkey is great. So much knitting time! Hopefully the postman should be delivering more yarny treats any second now... *drums fingers impatiently*. Good tinkering time as well, I have spent the morning playing with xubuntu on an old laptop, so I can now blog / ravelry / generally waste time from the sofa rather than having to walk upstairs. (Yes, I am getting that lazy.) So if this post looks weird, it's because I have shunned all software usage conventions for the day. Take that, establishment!

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the acceptable face of pink

Check me out, with my pictures of knitting and flowers - I am the new yarnstorm!! (although a slightly less classy version with a woodchip background).

I hate the colour pink. Too much of a tomboy I'm afraid, and I get really annoyed when you go to the shops and every electronic appliance you look at has a Ladies Version in pastel pink with a few useful buttons removed. But I'm trying to overcome my aversion. I've decided that pink is acceptable when:

• It is given to you in the form of a pretty birthday orchid


• It is a muted dusky rose-type shade, like in this hat


• It comes in the form of free cashmere


• It is used as an accent colour with a tasteful grey

So a friend was having a yarn clearout (friends like these are definitely worth cultivating!) and I was unable to resist this lovely soft cashmere, in what I guess you would describe as fingering weight, although it has no ball band so I can't really tell you exactly what it is. Thinner than sock yarn, it's slightly over-delicate - it broke in a couple of places, so I hope my spit splicing holds up to the trials of baby headwear. But it's the kind of stuff you want to hold to your cheek.







There was only a really small amount of this lovely yarn, so I made it into an earflap hat for the scarily quickly expanding bump in my abdomen. I actually got the idea from a picture of me as a baby wearing a pretty awesome handknitted earflap hat. (I'm not going to post this one! too embarrassing). I couldn't find a similar pattern so I made it up. I've written down what I did, but I have no idea whether it'll fit or not yet, so I don't know whether it's worth putting up full instructions. I kept meaning to buy a grapefruit and test it, as this is supposed to be about the same size as a newborn baby's head. But grapefruits are quite big aren't they, and I don't really feel I can look at one at the moment with terrifying myself. So I'll just knit happily away, try not to think about grapefruits and hope the hat fits someone or something.

It's a pretty simple pattern. I made two earflaps knitted flat, then joined them to knit in the round, casting on a few stitches in between for the front and back. For the first time I attempted Meg's Jogless Jog to handle the stripes. This does look a bit better I think, although you can still tell where it is (look at the photo on the right, at the back of the hat - just on the right of the left hand earflap). To stop the stocking stitch rolling at the forehead I crocheted a border all the way around the bottom edge - just one row of double crochet (single crochet if you're from the USA) in grey. Also blocked it gently to encourage it to calm down a bit.
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bearz in the hood

So I've been a bit rubbish with the knitting recently, as my name might suggest. Due to a nasty inflammation of the tendons in my wrist. Partly brought on by overhammering a computer keyboard, partly brought on by an easter knitathon, partly too much Mario Kart Wii. It's a bit better now. The GP fobbed me off with some paracetamol but it did seem to help a bit. I suspect this may be the placebo effect, but would that work if you suspected it existed? Or possibly moving to a Wiimote + Nunchuk combination instead of using the Wii wheel. Anyway. Look, I finally finished the woolly childHood! Don't have a proper model for it yet (the foetus for which it is intended is still a WIP) so George the bear kindly stepped in for this shot.

It's made from wensleydale longwool, which is lovely to knit with - really soft and lustrous. I picked it up at the rather awesome wensleydale longwool sheepshop. It's size 6-12 months. I did enjoy making this despite the wrist issues.

Things worth pointing out for other people who might make this pattern:

• The button band is knitted in garter stitch, then sewn on to the stocking stitch front panel. I foolishly assumed, as the stitches were lying the same way, that they would line up in a 1:1 ratio, so this is how I seamed it. This wasn't the case: my garter stitch is a little bit slacker of gauge than my stocking stitch. Leading to a very slightly frilly looking button band. I didn't fancy unpicking the seam so I have left it like this as a 'feature'.


• The hood is comically large. Like, about as big as the body. I can't decide whether this is a good or a bad thing.


• I modified the button band to have buttonholes, rather than the suggested snap fastenings, because I felt it went better with the rustic feel of the yarn.


• I didn't block it because I couldn't be arsed felt it went better with the rustic feel of the yarn.

FYI, George is actually a bit of a connoisseur of hand knitwear. Here is the jumper he usually wears. Knitted by a friend of my Mum's when I was a small child. It has withstood many years of battering. And yes, I was born in the 70s.

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easter woolliness

I bet nobody else in the UK thought of taking this Easter daffodils-in-snow shot... pretty original hey?!


Well, as you can see, where I was this weekend it was pretty damn parky. Brrrr. Good job then that I had just finished the butterfly
cardigan Seaming Procrastination Project - a nice warm stripy scarf for my fella.


I love wearing scarves, but I've always had a bit of a phobia of making them - I just find the endless linearity a little tiresome. But this was the perfect antidote to all that finger-chafing white 4 ply acrylic in the butterfly cardigan - a big soft colourful lapwarming thing of lovely posh yarn, and I didn't get bored at all making it.

It's made of 4 balls of grey Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk Aran that Santa was kind enough to bring me, striped with the obligatory Noro Silk Garden - 2 balls worth. Just a plain 1x1 rib, 35 stitches, with a slip stitch edge to cunningly hide the yarn being carried up the side. Idea stolen from here. I also discovered the delights of spit-splicing with these yarns - a bit minging, but no ends to weave in - hurrah! Definitely a good thing for a scarf, where there is no wrong side to hide my woeful weaving efforts.





I also made a small pilgrimage on Friday to the Wensleydale Longwool Sheepshop. What an awesome place... so many nice things to stroke! Piles of soft lustrous curly fleeces! I obviously couldn't leave without a small haul of some lovely wensleydale aran. 2 balls of natural undyed (from a black sheep), which is already a rubbishknitter hatmaking favourite from christmas present time. And some of a nice calming grey-green-blue colour ('fennel').
It was snowing outside, how could I not?! I'm afraid in a rather unknitterly moment, I also succumbed to a pair of woolly lined baby booties. But I defy anyone else not to, having stuck a finger inside on a cold day. If only my feet were about 5cm long! (Although actually, this might make me look a bit silly, and make walking somewhat problematic. If any genies are listening - scratch that wish please - cheers)

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seamfest 2k8: the good, the bad and the ugly

Is now over! *small fanfare*

So I tackled this fairly uninspiring looking baby cardie as a kind of learn-how-to-seam project. I've always been the top down raglan type up till now, but I thought a small seamed project might help me lose some of my trepidation in this area.

In the interests of experimentation I did each seam in a different way. Look, this is for a newborn baby, it's not going to be too bothered about consistency of finishing techniques is it?!. And if it is... well, it's going to be a few years before it can sue me. So here is my appraisal of various seaming techniques, each executed with my customary mixture of brute force and ignorance. Hopefully I and other blog readers can apply these lessons learned to other garments. More important ones, like ones for ourselves :)


So first of all, here is The Bad. The button bands were, rather weirdly, knitted at the same time as the front pieces. Then there was a stepped cast-off at the shoulder, then you are supposed to keep knitting the button band on its own until it is long enough to go halfway round the back. When you've done the other side, and seamed the shoulders, these two halves of the button band should meet magically exactly in the centre, where you somehow invisibly join them.

Mine didn't. One side was longer than the other, and I had a slight surplus of fabric where they overlapped. I thought I'd cunningly sew this down flat but it didn't work terribly well. Hmm. Should probably have frogged back a bit, but I was nervous about stretching the ends of the neckband across a gap and distorting the way the back hung. I think I prefer picking up stitches for button bands...


The Ugly... Well I attempted to crochet the seam at the shoulder, just for a bit of a laugh. And because it looked pretty awesome when Yan Tan Tethera did it. I think this would have worked fine if it weren't for the stepped edging. There was just enough of a verrrry gentle slope to make this shoulder kind of unseamable really. There was a good article in the Spring issue of Interweave Knits about finishing that suggests that stepped cast offs should be generally avoided like the plague for this reason. It suggests doing short rows and a three needle cast off instead. Maybe I'll try that next time. Ho hum!


On a more positive note, I think the other slanty seams on the sleeves, where I went for a good old fashioned backstitch, worked a bit better. This was a bit of an easier angle to attempt I think. I did a slip stitch edge and backstitching under this was pretty easy and possibly the swiftest line of attack.

And to end on a more upbeat note, to leave you with a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside, The Good: I think possible candidates are the backstitched seam where the sleeve meets the body, and the mattress-stitched side edge.






Mine looks nothing like the pattern of course. It looked a bit boring to make with all that plain stocking stitch and purl ridges, so I went for a basic butterfly stitch lace pattern. The baby is due in July so it only needs lightweight clothes. Also I don't like the mawkish cutesieness of a lot of baby knits, so the hearts on that bottom cardie made me feel a bit queasy. I'm glad I don't have to look at them any more!





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