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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valentines card chart / surprise yarn

Ok, so I finally got round to putting up the chart for the Valentines day card I made. Possibly a little late if anyone else wants to use it! Oops. Well, er... there's always next year! Or perhaps sooner, if you love someone enough to express it in a highly labour-intensive way at a non Hallmark-sanctioned time of year.

In other news I got some lovely surprise yarn from a mate who just got back from a trip round South America. What an ace unexpected present - look at that soft alpaca-y goodness! I'm pondering what to make out of it... it's very soft and loosely plied, so i'm thinking maybe a scarf would be quite nice, if i can rocket-propel my needles and get one made before springtime...

It's really nice yarn to feel... i just wound it into a ball with minimal hand chafing. (Actually less of a ball, more of an oblate spheroid, pleasingly like the shape of the earth, with my half-arsed back of chair ball-winding technique).




Close up of glossy camelid-sourced goodness.

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no gorillas allowed

*sings*

love is in the air... everywhere i look around...

This is my valentines day effort, just finished. I think I'm fairly safe to post it here as I doubt the intended recipient will be perusing the knitting blogosphere any time soon. It's based on the end of level scene in Donkey Kong - when Mario climbs up onto the top girder you get this tender little moment. Purists will note that the Lady isn't wearing high heels in my version - I wanted the figures to be roughly the same size, and I'm more of a trainers girl myself.

I'm no cross-stitch expert but it seemed the best way of compressing a small pixellated scene from the 8 bit era into a card-sized space, so this is the medium I have opted for.


It was inspired by recently watching King of Kong, a documentary about the mad competitiveness of people trying to get the high score in Donkey Kong. Really far, far better than it sounds... it made me go on a small retro games bender. Equally pleasing, and even funnier was the South Park pisstake of it, which was on last night as I was stitching the Lady's skirt. Best not to go into details of that one in case anyone is eating or drinking as they read this, but suffice it to say that it was utter genius, in a fairly stomach-churningly unpleasant sort of way.



The inside of the card. You probably have to have seen the end of level scene in Donkey Kong to fully appreciate this. If you haven't, I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to reveal that the the titular gorilla has something of an irritating habit of repeatedly spoiling Mario and the Lady's romantic liaisons.

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rroOOAArr

Pretty scary isn't he! Pattern is norberta from knitty. At one point he was actually starting to look a bit frightening, so in the interests of not giving its owner nightmares, I left off the fangs and added a comedy felt tongue instead. The intended recipient hasn't actually been born yet so the eyes are embroidered on to improve batterability. This was the trickiest bit... I am no expert at embroidery and made a test swatch of eyes before attempting them on the actual toy. (I then left this around the lounge in unexpected places to scare people). From this swatch I learned that it's really worth spending 20p on a couple of skeins of proper embroidery thread rather than attempting to embroider with leftover scraps of sock yarn; it just stands out better against a woolly background.

Many would be put off this pattern by the amount of sewing up involved, but I didn't really mind that. It's nice to see the thing slowly taking shape. Although I would say that this was made unnecessarily tricky by my choice of boucle yarn.




It's made with two strands of yarn held throughout, and two different boucle yarns for the green bits. I thought this would make it look a bit more scaly but in retrospect just turning it purl side out, as suggested in the pattern, would have done the job with a lot less hassle.

Some things that I have learned are well-nigh impossible with boucle yarn:

• Frogging


• Seaming


• Shaping


• Pretty much making anything that isn't a garter stitch scarf

It's all my sister's fault for describing Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Astrakhan as ideal cuddly dragon yarn. It does feel nice and soft though so I can kind of see her point. The rest is all leftover bits and bobs of yarn from the cupboard though, so it was a nice cheap project. And thanks to Catr for the loan of felt for the tongue!

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finished monkey business

These monkey socks have been quietly festering on the needles for some time. They got harshly deprioritised in the run up to Christmas, and now I'm finally able to work on stuff to keep myself warm again. Hooray!

I enjoyed these very much as a nice portable background type project. Once the mild trauma of the tubular cast-on was over, they were fun to make, if not terribly original (3602 other people on ravelry making these at the moment - yikes). I very much like this yarn as well. It's Stroud SuperSock in Semisolid Chestnut. Semisolid sock yarns are quite possibly the new variegated yarns, for me. Oh yes. Good for lacy patterns anyway.

Nice and muted too. Having made lots of headache-inducing bright socks in the past, I wanted a pair that were a bit more wearable in the winter months. These can safely protrude from under a pair of trousers without confusing hibernating animals in the vicinity into thinking it's spring already. Don't do it yet bees / dormice / tortoises / hedgehogs - there's snow on the way! Stay warm in that pile of leaves for a bit longer! And my feet can also continue to hibernate happily in these socks. Under a nice warm blanket on the sofa. Everyone's a winner.

Here's a super-duper-close-up if you are one of the remaining 3 knitters on the planet who hasn't already seen the stitch pattern for monkey socks.


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slightly belated christmas present round-up

I made a load of Christmas presents for people last year. It has taken me some time to get off the sofa and post them, because a) it is freezing in the computer room and b) Santa brought me a cornucopia of Nintendo games which have been taking up much of my time. However I do need to stop playing elite beat agents now as every time I blink I see a dizzying succession of decreasing concentric circles, and if I can make these go away before bedtime I feel it would be a bonus.

So here is a quick parade of the stuff I made in December 2K7:

Snowflake hat 1

Made out of King Cole Merino blend DK, with some contrasting scraps of white from the bottom of the cupboard. I just did a plain beanie with a stranded snowflake pattern.

Snowflake hat 2

Yes, I am snowflake obsessed. This is another plain beanie that I embroidered a small snowflake motif onto. I got a bit carried away and put beads on the embroidered bit at strategic points. First time I've really attempted this and I did a pretty rubbish job. It probably took me as long to embroider the motif as it did to make the whole hat. Made out of lovely undyed Wensleydale longwool (from a black sheep, obv). The wool was left over from making:

Boring ribbed hat

For my brother so I toned down the motif-related tomfoolery and went for a more sober item of headgear. It's lovely and soft and warm though. This one is from a pattern - cashmere ribbed hat (or, not cashmere if you're a cheapskate like me).
And finally...

Crocodile mitts

I was quite pleased with these. I made them up completely - started them a while ago. Redid the fingertip bit from the original post to give them a more rounded end for a less sharp-fingered wearer. They are lovely and warm, made of Twilley's Freedom Spirit 100% wool in , er, crocodile colour. I did write down the details after the first mitt, to make the second one the same, so if anyone has a burning desire to make their own crocodiles I could probably attempt to put up some kind of pattern.


Snowflake close up..


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competition crazy

So I recently won a banner compo for ravelry british knitters group... and I had almost forgotten about it when this little treat plopped through my door! How exciting! (Thanks esmerelda!)

Apparently it's Posh Yarns Lucia. I'm quite excited by this as I am not usually inclined to buy any yarn with 'posh' in the title (i'd be more attracted if the word 'cheapskate' was in the title). So it's a real treat for me! It's 30% cashmere, 70% merino... a lot more of a luxury blend than i'm accustomed to, so I don't know how long a pair of socks in these will last... maybe to be on the safe side i'll make gloves, or save the socks for when i've got my feet up on the sofa. Haven't quite decided yet. I'm looking forward to knitting with this though! The colours are gorgeous and it's reeeeaally soft.

And as if that wasn't enough competition-related jamminess for one day, I've also somehow managed to get into the final of the mochimochiland photo comp with my rainycloud! The competition is very stiff, and i'm not sure what the prize is but it's all very exciting.
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lookylikeys (again)

A mitten i just made	Aaargh it's a crocodile!!1!!1

In a frenzy of Christmas knitting at the moment. So I randomly picked up some Twilley's Freedom Spirit the other day and thought it was time for some mittens. I think the best thing with this sort of crazy variegated yarn is to keep it really simple, but at the same I felt it needed a little bit of something going on to stop me from losing interest in the whole process. So I made up this mini-cabled mitten, and it worked pretty well. The beauty of 1-stitch cables is that you can do a dodgy manoeuvre involving some seat-of-your-pants style mid-air stitch swapping, which helps if you are too lazy to reach down and pick up a cable needle. So I've done one mitt, although I may yet unpick the fingertip bit to make it a bit less pointy. I know it looks a bit like a crocodile, but there's no need to be too scared.

RaaaAAAAAarrr! Actually you can hardly see the pattern here, when it's not stretched out on the hand. I quite like that. It's like the croc is hiding in the shadows, waiting to eat you!!! (don't have nightmares, kids)

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nimbostratus

Oh noes - what is this strange meteorological phenomenon looming on the horizon!? Sheep, you'd better run and take cover!

*whistles* Let the stormy clouds chase everyone from the place, come on with the rain, I've a smiiiiile on my face......

It's a Christmas present for my niece. The pattern is from mochimochiland. I made it from Jaeger matchmaker DK and some leftover scraps of blue wool that were lurking in the bottom of the cupboard. I can now confirm, after extensive tests, that the Jaeger yarn is machine washable and really doesn't felt. Even after battering the bejaysus out of it and putting it through a hot wash with a few pairs of trainers, it just looked slightly well-loved, so in the end i gave up. The raindrops felted nicely though after shaking them around in a large screw top jar with a bit of boiling water.

I gave it a smile because it looked a bit threatening without one.


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