ode to Noro

Oh, your twig content is high
And your knots are many
Buggering up many a carefully planned stripe sequence
Some say you are scratchy
Although my peasanty skin doesn't mind
You have hidden unexpected colours
Which jump out alarmingly from the middle of the ball
In short, i have some issues with you
But will keep buying you
(As an occasional treat,
because you cost a bomb and I am brassic)
Basically I can't resist you
Because your colours are Soooooo Preeeeetty.

The End.


This is Turn a Square from brooklyntweed, a present for a friend of mine who enjoys a woolly hat. Noro Silk Garden colour 236, striped with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in Anthracite. Nice quick easy knit, but not at all boring with those pretty colour changes going on... sometimes we all need a bit of Noroey goodness.

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crafty balls up of the day

Heaven forbid you may, one day, find yourself in a situation where the last few projects you have done have all had Tension Issues. This sorry state of affairs may lead you to rethink your devil-may-care knitting attitude and actually, like, do a proper swatch for something.

Should this unfortunate set of circumstances ever arise, you might decide that you really are going to do what you're told this time, and wash and block the swatch.

If you do go to all this effort, it would be somewhat foolish to render it all useless by not actually bothering to wait till the swatch is dry before you measure it. This will lead you to panic, wonder why your gauge is so loose, and cast on a couple of sizes too small. It's only a day later while a stroke of incredible good fortune leads you to casually repurpose your swatch as a beer holder, that you may notice it has shrunk considerably. Wet things are bigger than dry things.

Ah well, back to the original size that I was going to cast on for anyway before I had this foolhardy swatching idea....

I suppose this whole sorry misadventure has at least given me this attractive beerholder though.

It may, or may not ever evolve into Eunny Jang's Deep V Argyle Vest. Maybe with a slightly shallower V. Having breastfed a baby for nearly a year now, I'm looking forward to putting my boobs away for a bit. Under some nice Rowan RYC Cashsoft DK.
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wobbly but finished

The lace scarf is done. No, it doesn't look like the picture in the magazine. Where others have successfully crocheted a border, I seem to have accidentally attached a hyperbolic plane to the outside of the scarf. The border was supposed to be straight, but mine ended up slightly ridiculously frilly. I think partly because I chose to use more laceweight to edge it, rather than 4 ply as the pattern suggested. A thicker yarn here may have provided more structural integrity. (I was too short on time to go shopping, and that was the best co-ordinating colour I could find in the yarn cupboard!). Also, fairly obviously, I put in far too many crochet stitches round the long sides of the scarf. Gah. I love crochet edgings but feel like I am standing at the bottom of a precipitous Learning Cliff, which I am inching up one crumbling fingerhold at a time.

Still, I don't really have time to redo it, so it'll have to remain in its current state of non-Euclidean geometry. I totally enjoyed doing this project - it was at all times engaging and absorbing and the lace pattern is lovely. With it being a fairly narrow scarf, it grows pretty quickly too. I even had time to make mine slightly longer than the pattern suggested, by about 10 cm. This makes it a nice wearable length I think, it's possible to wear it doubled and looped through with the crochet end bits showing. I may even make another one some time as I have enough of this laceweight left to knit a cosy for my house...

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speed lace

I think five days before a wedding is an ideal time to start a handknitted gift for the bride.

There's nothing particularly impetuous or foolish about casting on a project from a magazine the day it arrives in the post, before you've even finished reading it. (Lace Scarf from the Summer Interweave Knits, if you're wondering)

Not if you have the perfect yarn, that's been sitting in the cupboard for ages, a big cone of lovely laceweight alpaca that you got from a dodgy back street Peruvian yarn shop. And it's alright, look! Someone on ravelry has made it in two days, so it's totally doable. I bet she also had a small grumpy baby to look after. And it was probably also her first attempt at a proper lace thing. She probably paused to blog about it in those two days too. So it's all perfectly reasonable. No need to panic, or wonder why on earth you have such a lack of forward planning ability, leaving you with such crazy self-imposed deadlines...

Er.. might just put down this brew and get back to that knitting then...
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Trotting to Avalon

Hooray for rain. Sun, begone! Because the recent chilly murky windy weather makes it ok to wear my new hoodie. All the time. Indoors. With the hood up. I seriously may never take this off.


This is definitely my favourite thing that I've made so far for comfort value. The yarn, Sublime Extra Fine Merino, feels really, really nice next to the skin - light and soft like cotton, but warm like wool. When I die I want to fall into a big pile of this yarn, maybe with some puppies mixed in.

The pattern is Riding to Avalon, although for me it was accomplished at something of a trotting pace. I set off on the journey last autumn and dismounted several times along the way. On some occasions the horse went backwards and it only really managed to break into a gentle canter in the last couple of weeks. This final burst of speed only happened really because it was getting quite embarrassing pulling out the same jumper again and again at knitting group - the hood had only grown by about an inch during the time it took a friend to make an entire wrap cardigan out of 4 ply. So essentially the hood is knitted from Shame and sewn up with Rubbishness. And it shows! The hood is a bit wonky. Unfortunately I think this happened at the point where I picked up stitches around the neckband - I must have picked up more on one side than the other, because the centre line is a little off-kilter. So to fix it I would need to unravel a good couple of months worth of telly knitting, and now Mad Men has finished I'm not sure I have the inclination to redo it. So for now, it will remain wonky. It doesn't bother me that much - if I have to have the hood up, I'm probably out in extreme weather conditions, in which case I am not too worried about my appearance. Or doing a drive-by, and I wouldn't be too worried about it then either.

Cock-eyed hood aside, the most remarkable thing about the making of this jumper for me has been the incredible series of strokes of luck when making it. It's almost impossible to even believe the first thing. I accidentally knitted the sleeve cap the wrong way round on the first sleeve, making the buttons on the outside cuff instead of on the inside as the pattern dictated. This is not a particularly obvious mistake, and happened because I mixed up the start-of-row and middle-of-row stitch markers. I looked at it and thought about frogging but then, on reflection, decided that I actually preferred the buttons there. Later when I looked at the pattern page on Ravelry, I noticed with horror that there was an errata. (Erratum?!). But in a stroke of unbelievably good fortune, the errata suggests doing exactly what I had accidentally done. Unfreakingbelievable! And I hadn't seen the errata before so I couldn't have subliminally absorbed and processed this information. I think the gods of knitting were smiling upon me.

As if that wasn't enough, another mindbogglingly fortuitous event occurred. When I got to the hood, I was on my last ball of wool, and starting to panic. There clearly wasn't enough left to finish the thing, and I had bought a load on spesh that was probably cheap because it was discontinued or something. I was too scared to even think about what I was going to do. I mentioned the problem to, like, one person - my friend Britt, who said, Oh I happen to have a couple of spare balls of that exact yarn in that exact shade that I don't need for anything and you are welcome to have. I mean, really... how awesome is that?!? I couldn't actually bring myself to believe it was true until I had seen the evidence with my own eyes... and it was *exactly* the amount I needed to finish the jumper. Britt, you are a superstar... thankyou very very much!

The only thing that I modified (intentionally!) about the jumper was the button loops. The pattern suggested crocheting 16 button loops separately and then attaching them. The idea of this was a bit hair-raising, so I was relieved to discover this method for crocheted button loops (about halfway down the page). I basically slipstitched along the edge, at intervals doing a short chain, slipstitching it down and double crocheting back along. I really like this finish: as well as being much easier to do, it neatens off the slightly raggedy edge and gives a bit of extra sturdiness. My loops are a little twisty as I think I may have been crocheting into the wrong bit of the chain. Yes, I really am that much of a crochet numpty. But I did them all wrong in the same way so at least it's consistent! I quite like the overall effect.

Also probably worth mentioning for anyone else who attempts this is that there was a bit of a roll at the bottom of the jumper despite the few rows of garter stitch - I don't think there were quite enough there to weight down the natural curl of the stocking stitch section. Following Katie's wise advice I gave it a stern blocking and it obediently lay down. I dunno though, if I end up having to do this every time I wash it, it may end up being quicker to add a crochet edging. I am crochet edging queen now! I'm going to edge everything in the world with crochet! Really.

The fit is a little baggy. I don't know whether this is because of my inability to swatch properly, or because I measured myself for this quite soon after giving birth, or more probably a little bit of both. I don't mind though, I think with a casual jumper of this nature you need a bit of positive ease. Well, a lot in my case. *Puts trayful of pies in oven gleefully*.

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fruity

Recently I've been quietly plodding through the brown jumper, and I'm nearly there... just the hood to finish! But it seems rather unspringlike all of a sudden. I felt the need for a quick gratification brightly coloured project, and a friend is having a baby shower next weekend, so I raided the yarn cupboard. Finding two rather nice balls of Rowan Handknit Cotton sitting there sadly alone in the corner, I decided this strawberry hat was the best option for the cheerfully springy colours. Probably because I have a mild to moderate obsession with fruit, which I think derives from playing too much pac-man as a child.

Unfortunately the pattern doesn't seem to be online any more - it was once on the Lion Brand website, but there appears to be a lot of similar fruit-related whimsical headgear around for babies. Great fun to make and pretty easy, do-able in a couple of days. Probably less if you don't have to spend much of your days playing peek-a-boo.

If anyone's wondering if I managed to make something in time for Amy's birthday, who gave me the wall hanging, the answer is Very Nearly. It's finished now but I can't post photos because I've got a plan to write up the pattern and send it into Knitty. I know, it's a bold move! Am I mad? Or just skint and fearless? Or possibly all three?! Anyway you're not allowed to blog about anything you submit to them. So I'll put up photos in a couple of weeks once I get the rejection email :) I say a couple of weeks, but actually it takes quite a while to write up patterns in a non-halfarsed way, I'm discovering, so it might just about get submitted in time for the Spring 2020 issue... but now I've announced it to the internets so I have to do it!! *kicks self*
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alphabet wall hanging

Wowsers. My crafty dabblings have been recently put to shame by this gobsmackingly gorgeous cross-stitch wallhanging that my friend Amy has just presented me with. It's all done using teeny-tiny thread for incredibly detailed pictures. Thought you crafty blog readers might enjoy its handmade marvellousness!








It's a present for rubbishknitterjunior for his room, I am going to get it framed. I expect him to be fully literate by about one year old after gazing slack jawed at the loveliness of this thing. I can't decide which is my favourite letter - they are all so amazingly intricately detailed, I don't see how Amy has managed to do this and maintain a job and active social life this winter.

It's just totally awesome to receive any kind of handmade gift, but to receive one that clearly has had so much time lavished on it really does make me feel very honoured and quite emotional. And very inspired, and somewhat vindicated for spending so much time making things, when such heights of beautiful thing-making can be aspired to.

The only problem I have now is - what am I going to make for her in return? The crafty bar has been raised to a sillily high level by this gift, and she is off on a round-the-world trip in a month's time... yikes!

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crinkly elephant teething square

So rubbishknitterjunior is teething, and has one of those little comforter type things, that is basically two pieces of fabric with some crinkly sounding material in the middle. He likes the noise it makes and will sit contentedly chewing various parts of it. It's pretty useful for keeping him entertained in the pram, but obviously gets quite dribble-saturated and needs washing rather a lot. I thought about getting another one, but then I thought, but it's just a couple of squares of fabric, surely that's about as easy to make as it gets! All I need is to figure out where to get hold of some crinkly stuff to put in the middle. But what? And suddenly, in a moment of extreme cheapskateness ecofriendliness it occurred to me... that a plastic bag might do the trick! Would it be alright in the sewing machine though, and would it go through the wash? Well I thought I'd give it a go and see.

This is what I did (I thought I'd do a proper tutorial type thing, as some people found my sitting-up cushion idea useful, and I didn't really explain that very well. Also it's really easy to make and would make a nice quick handmade present for a friend. It would probably only take an hour or so if, unlike me, you were a proficient sewer and didn't get sucked into reading about the differences between African and Indian elephants on wikipedia)

How to make a crinkly elephant teething square / comforter / miniblanket / thing

• The best bit. Go through your plastic bag drawer, and crinkle them all in turn, until you find one that makes a pleasing noise. I used one of those cheap thin rustly ones like you get in supermarkets, but I am sure there are better crinklers out there. Ideally you want a Lucozade bottle from the 1980s to fall through a timewarp into the present day, complete with its crinkly packaging. You probably want to avoid biodegradable plastic in case it spontaneously biodegrades in the washing machine.


• Cut out two squares of scrap fabric, the same size. My plastic bag was sort of transparent so I was able to lie it on top of a fabric square, draw round it with a biro and cut it out that way.


• Now's your moment to add some badly done applique. I chose to attempt an elephant. (If anyone's wondering, I think it's an African elephant. Bigger ears.) You might want to put your own Favourite Animal in here. As long as it isn't something really annoying to outline like a centipede or a porcupine or something.
  
  
  
  • Draw a picture of an elephant. No laughing at mine.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Cut the elephant shape out of a suitably implausible fabric.
    
    
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Cut out some ears. I chose to add a layer of plastic bag here too so that the ear is crinklable.
    
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Using a tiny bit of black embroidery thread or scrap yarn, embroider a french knot onto the elephant's face for its eye. Cut out a tusk from white felt. (White cottony fabric might be stronger if you have any). I sewed on the tusk at one end like I was sewing on a button. It may or may not fall off over time.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Pin or glue the elephant to the right side of one of your fabric squares, then sew round the outside with a wide, short zigzag stitch (mine was 4mm wide, 0.4mm long).
    
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Layer the ears with right sides of the fabric pieces together, and the plastic bag piece underneath both of these. Sew around the ears leaving about 1/4 inch round the edge, but don't sew the bit where the ear is going to join to the body.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Turn ear inside out. Fold in the raw edges and sew the ear onto the appropriate part of the rest of the elephant with a straight stitch. (Don't be tempted to reach for the iron when folding in the edges, if you have sewn a bit of plastic bag inside the ear. I imagine this would have disastrous consequences. Squashing it down with your fingers is fine)
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• When you're happy with the picture, layer up the 3 squares in this order: plastic bag (bottom), fabric square 1 with RS up, fabric square 2 with RS down (top). Pin together. I don't reckon it matters if you make holes in the plastic bag while pinning, nobody will see and it's not going to fray or anything. About 1/4 inch in from the edge, sew through all 3 layers until you are a couple of inches from where you started. Stop and turn the comforter inside out so the nice applique is showing. Topstitch round the edge of the right-side-out square, folding in and sewing over the bit where you turned it inside out, so it is all properly sealed. Finished!
  

And it went down pretty well with the wee fella, keeping him amused for a full couple of picoseconds. It has been through the wash fine at 30 degrees, several times.

Disclaimer: don't let the baby pull off ears/tusks and eat them. If your baby manages to maim itself in some way on a square of fabric, please don't blame me.

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crafty balls-up of the day

The supremely well sewn on popper fell off and needed reattaching. So, er... can you see what I did there?

Ta-da! It's a moebius bib!1!1

Truly, I am a tool of the highest order. I can't even be bothered to fix it right now - its only raison d'etre is to be puked on, it doesn't deserve this amount of my attention... I think my need for caffeinated beverages is more pressing!
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grizzly man

There's almost nothing you can add to a picture as ridiculous as this. The pattern is Teddy Bear All-in-one with Mittens by Sirdar - one of those old fashioned leaflets they used to have before the internets. My sister bought it and sent it to me a couple of months ago. I feel such philanthropic behaviour needs to be encouraged, so I immediately cast on.

The yarn is Sirdar Snowflake Chunky, and is the perfect example of yarn that a non-knitter thinks is a good idea. It is like knitting with cheese wire dipped in prittstick then rolled in cotton wool. Now I don't usually complain about yarn discomfort - I am happy to knit with the skinniest toughest 4 ply, but this left a deep groove in my finger that you could have rolled a marble down. The outer fluffy stuff is soft but has a tendency to come off in clumps if you accidentally tug in the wrong place. It also does a superbly efficient job of masking what you're doing, so you can't actually see stitches at all. This is frustrating at first - I was too cross to even attempt to work out my gauge before starting (and consequently have a slightly chubby bear suit) but to be fair it does have its advantages too. The sewing up was really easy (I am not a masochist, so used some smooth cotton in the same colour left over from the blanket of many browns) because, well, it didn't really need to be that neat. There were loads of seams but I got that bit all done in about a day. Possibly a little too quickly if we're honest - I completely forgot about the convention of baby clothes to put poppers on the inside leg for easy nappy changing - but I guess the button down front means it's not really that much more effort.

Speaking of buttons, these rather awesome ones were a gift from catr a while ago - so I don't know where they came from but they are very lovely and, pleasingly, the perfect size for this project. There are various dinosaurs, birds and a rabbit - I tried to arrange them in approximate evolutionary order but stopped short of googling to determine whether diplodocus preceded stegosaurus on the geological time line. I think from time to time I get a little overabsorbed in projects, and should go outside and get some fresh air. Which young rubbishknitterjunior can enjoy a bit more in his new comedy outfit - for all its failings, this yarn is nice and snug when knitted up, a bit like a fleecy jumper. And brrr, that air is still pretty damn fresh out there! Wrap up warm, knitterfriends....


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sewathon 2k9

So I've been on a bit of a sewing bender, drunk on the moderate success of the quilt, which hasn't fallen apart yet. Still floundering around at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy, my first need was Somewhere to Put the Baby Down without him falling over and cracking his head on the kitchen tiles. He's sort of sitting up now, but falls over in all directions at once quite a lot. I tried precariously balancing small piles of cushions around him, but they seemed to slide out of the way all the time, and were a bit of a pain to carry round if you needed to leave the room and answer the door or whatever. So I thought a big cushion was the answer. In my mind's eye I had a doughnut-shaped cushion so you could sit him in the middle and the soft outer padding would catch his head when he falls. I went to my local parenting type store and was horrified to find that you can't actually buy the thing I had in my mind. You could buy a similar sort of thing, but it had flashing lights and played tunes and cost about 70 quid. All I wanted was a big cushion dammit! Preferably not bedecked with anthropomorphic animals that were smiling far too much. In fact I needed to get out of the shop quickly as it was full of screaming kids being dropkicked around and my blood pressure was rising to dangerous levels. Was I going to have to make the thing myself?

Yes, yes I clearly was, because the idiots in the shop had completely failed to make a product that exactly matched my mental image. So back home I went.

In a separate incident, earlier that day I had been trying to get rid of some manky old bedding in a non-landfilly way, and had put it out for the charity collection. I'd put it in the porch out of the rain, they hadn't noticed and had driven past. I had even run out of the house and chased them halfway down the road with it, but it was a bit of a charitable fail. (Not that it probably was something they would have been pleased to receive - yay, manky bedding! But I felt better doing this than cramming it into a wheelie bin). Slowly the seed of an idea began to germinate in the arid desert of my brain. A couple of hours later, I stood, scissors drawn, thread hanging out of my hair, triumphant over my big doughnut cushion. Sewing rocks. I had calculated the necessary radius of the cushion as slightly more than the head-to-arse distance on the baby. (Possibly there is a better name for this measurement in tailorland, but I am not aware of it). Then I cut 4 c-shaped pieces out of a double sheet, sewed them together to make a big round tube. Turning this right side out, I ripped open two of the old, mingingly stained pillows and pulled out the stuffing. I used polyester pillows - feather and down ones would, I imagine, have made something of a mess, and maybe got the dog overexcited with dreams of avian carnage. Inside the pillows the stuffing was just one folded sheet of wadding, so I pulled handfuls off it and crammed it into the tube so that my cushion was stuffed sort of evenly. Well, maybe a tad lumpily. Once stuffed, I sewed up the seam to join the tube into a doughnut shape, handsewing the last bit.

Then I made a removable, washable cover, as the child who sits on this cushion is a bit like Monsieur Creosote. I had to spend some money on this part which was a shame. But 15 quid got me a single duvet cover, which was exactly the right width, and I could cut the poppers off the end and sew them around the edge, so it's really easy to take on and off. Which is lucky, as it has already been washed about 999 times. I have to say it's been a really useful thing, only cost 15 quid and a spool of thread and it only took about 3 or 4 naptimes to make. And the dog is already eyeing it up as his next bed once the baby has tired of it. So there you go, feel free to borrow Rubbishseamstress's thrifty idea! (Disclaimer: no responsibility taken if your child manages to fall over on it and brain itself)

The baby seems to find it hilarious when he falls over (and doesn't brain himself).

In other sewing adventures, I made a hooded baby towel from a tutorial on the purl bee, as the wee man seems to have outgrown a lot of his tiny wee newborn towels. This was a nice easy project I thought, it didn't seem too difficult to sew the towelling. The binding was just some polycotton I got from my local fabric store, along with the towelling. And I am using the leftovers to make bibs. Yes, it is getting a bit embarrassing now, the poor child is constantly modelling things his mother made. Someone asked me the other day if I had made his pram too. I'm not even sure they were completely joking.

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desk

This site made me laugh today, despite being a bit under the weather at the moment... pictures of people's desks... go and send yours! People with a keen eye for knitting-related internets timewastery will note that I am viewing the ravelry messageboards here. (Click the picture for the full explanation of this somewhat uncomfortable setup on desked).
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there has also been knitting

In the form of this hat. From a Finnish pattern - Imitaatio BB:n Tiinan piposta
by Lauran Blogi (helpfully translated into English, and found on Ravelry). I picked up a skein of
Araucania Azapa at the Stitch and Creative Crafts Show at Manchester Central. I really, really didn't need any more yarn, but I decided it was acceptable to buy some if:

a) it's only one skein
b) you cast on for something the same day and
c) you are selflessly making a birthday prezzie for a friend.

So here it is! Nice quick knit and I like the simplicity of this pattern. The yarn is a pleasingly fat chunky single ply wool / alpaca / silk blend, nice and gentle on the fingers. A bit like knitting with roving, or a very long udon noodle. Should be lovely and cosy, and there is enough yarn left from the single skein for a small snood as well. Maybe. Or a very very short scarf.



Last year at the Stitch and Creative Crafts show, I went to buy yarn and came away with loads of sewing stuff as there was lots more of that around. This year, dizzy with the success from the completion of my quilt, I was looking for sewing stuff, but found piles of very tempting yarn instead. There were a couple of sewing stalls, I managed to get a rotary cutter as well. (And managed to cut my finger with it literally seconds after getting it out of the packet - doh!).


I'm also rather pleased with this macro lens which I have sneakily borrowed from my cousin. You can get rather a lot more close-up detail with this thing. Woooah.... look the depth of field on that! it's, like, one stitch...

Happy Valentine's Day everybody. I hope the postman brought you sacksful of cards from admiring suitors.

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lookeylikeys #0003

A quilt i just made	Aaargh it's a stingray!!1!!1

So I finally finished the quilt. I did the piecing for the top, got a little nervous of doing the actual quilting, stashed it on top of the wardrobe for a bit then got rather embarrassed when people started asking how I was getting on with it. So I gritted my teeth, bravely dusted down the sewing machine and started the actual quilting bit. And realised many things in the process.

• My quilt looks a bit like a stingray. Or a magic carpet. Not terribly flat at any rate. But it has character mmmkay.


• I understand now why people enjoy this so much as a hobby. I am pants at it, and was terrified of starting the actual quilting bit and ballsing everything up. But on a snowy day, getting out a quilt to work on is the loveliest thing. It's a bit like being a student again and deciding you can't be bothered getting out of bed that day. Just really warm and snuggly and comforting. I was sort of sad when it was finished.



• It is not a betrayal of the sewing machine to handstitch small bits of the quilt. Like the binding. Particularly if machine stitching a bit will result in you veering wildly off course, missing stuff and having to fix loads of it by hand later anyway. It really doesn't mean you aren't getting your value for money out of the big shiny machine if you have to whip out the small pointy metal thing. Hell, it could even be quite relaxing, if you are sprawling under the quilt on a comfy sofa.


• When quilting, it's really not a great idea to pick a ridiculously bright acid green colour thread. It may be the poshest looking cotton you have in the drawer but that is not enough of a reason. Inconspicuous, stealthy thread would be the thing. That spool of invisible thread, that you have been carrying round pointlessly for about 7 house moves but never found a use for, and keeps falling out of the drawer and unwinding itself all over the floor with hilarious consequences as you can't see it to wind it back up again? This was possibly the one time it would have been useful.


• Tacking is your friend. Rather than desperately trying to hold things together in front of the needle then nearly sewing over your finger. Pinning is good but not if the thing you are making is a couple of inches thick in its unquilted state. (I have a feeling there are some kind of special pins for quilting but I don't have any of these)



• However rubbish the attempt, and however wonky the seams, it is worth having a go at making new kinds of things, because you will probably be able to use them even if they are not perfect. I am very pleased that I got to the end of this and have a functional thing. (Although I haven't dared put it through the washing machine yet - there is every possibility it would fall apart into tiny quilty shards)


• You are not the sewing equivalent of Lewis Hamilton. The machine is a lot like a formula one car actually. It allows you to reach dizzying speeds, but if you try it you will just end up in a tangle. It is very tempting to put your pedal to the metal, but not a very good idea.

The fabric is Summer's Basket of Flowers by Terry Thompson for Moda. It all came in rather handy pre-cut squares, so a bit of a cheat really. The border and binding are just random other bits of cotton from the Local Fabric Store.

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Maslow's hierarchy of craft-related needs

I seem to have fallen off the bottom of it recently. If knitting things of intricate beauty, taking photos and blogging are at the top, and urgently making warm stuff to keep your family's extremities from falling off during blizzards is at the bottom. (Maslow's hierarchy is defined here if you've never studied psychology. Obviously he wasn't originally talking about knitting, more about life in general). So I've been mostly spending January being distracted from my major WIPs by small but important projects for the warmness and general wellbeing of those around me.

Like the above tiny baby socks made out of DK yarn scraps. Pattern is Socks in a box from the January issue of Knitting magazine. I've never read this before but I rather enjoyed it - I bought the mag, cast on and finished this project on the same day - don't think that's ever happened before with a magazine. They're just like normal socks to knit, but gratifyingly swift. Not quite as awesome at staying on as Christine's stay on baby booties, but they took almost no time at all and used up tiny bits of yarn that were otherwise utterly useless.

I also had to fulfil a request for head warming gear from Mr. Rubbishknitter, so made this manly muted coloured hat. It's just a plain 1x1 rib beanie from Rowan Pure Wool DK. I thought it would be a tedious knit but it is the loveliest yarn ever I have to say, so it was actually a pleasure. Really springy and light but warm merino, feels lovely against the skin. (Yes, I have stolen this hat a couple of times to walk the dog, although pleasingly it is rarely off the big fella's head.) File under boring-but-useful. Oh - and I did have something of a hat-knitting epiphany - I knitted it on two circulars. Honestly, how much unnecessary hassle have I caused myself in the past by using dpns for this? Constantly picking up dropped stitches off the ends, and wondering if it's going to fit, but not really knowing until I reach the crown because I am too lazy to put all the stitches on scrap yarn. With two circulars you can cast on, knit a couple of rows of ribbing and check fit straight away while it's still on the needles! Easy enough to start again at that stage if it isn't totally perfect... I feel like something of an idiot for my previous slapdash trial and error approach. No more giving away failed hats I had earmarked for my large-headed self to children! I can see more hat knitting in my not too distant future...

I'm also in a frenzy of activity to finish the baby's quilt, as my mother in law pointed out winter is nearly over and he might not fit it next year... and it's gone mightily cold in the nights round here... it's quite laughably amateurish looking but excitingly, I'm nearly there....

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