The Frog Princess

2011-08-10T23:26:00.002+01:00

Oooh, not posted in ages, terrible I know!

And now I'm posting when I really ought to be in bed!

A quick recap of the last few months:

Kiddo is nine and a half months old! She's as old as a pregnancy! She keeps me busy.

The knitting I've been doing? Well, it's all gonna get ripped out. No point in knitting something in two colours if they're impossible to tell apart except in bright sunlight.

Sewing? Now we're talking!

Baby trousers: (Big Butt Baby Pants pattern)

A tutu for my niece: (I did make it bigger in the end, the niece is three!)

A sunsuit from the Made By Rae pattern: (Sadly it's been too cold for her to wear this!)

Pyjamas, which I didn't manage to photograph together:

T-shirt and shorts for a swap: (t-shirt "happy animals" from Ottobre 3/11, shorts BBBP as above)

I'm so proud of my twin needle hem! Non serger knits sewing FTW!

My knitting group was featured in UK magazine The Knitter, and this was my contribution:

And I won a giveaway! Thanks Ali from VeryBerryHandmade!

Phew! And that's me mostly caught up!

Project Selvedge!

2011-03-21T16:29:00.002Z

It's almost the deadline for entries into Project Selvedge - the opportunity to post a fabric on Spoonflower and eventually become a designer with Michael Miller! Oh to dream...

I decided I HAD to enter this contest, for which the first challenge is to design a "baby boy" fabric. Now, as the mother of a very small child, I can tell you there is nothing I hate more than simpering pastel blue and pink baby outfits. Oh no, not for my child, and not for my fabric! I'm drawing my palette of inspiration from these colours, which always get read as "boy" on my girl-child.

Of course then I turned around and saw this on my bookshelf:

I'd say it was a colour combo that was meant to be!

I've slowly been whittling away at my design, which is going to be northern North-America nature themed. (If you are in the top 10 of the first round, you move on to design four more coordinating boy fabrics.) This will include a fox fabric (probably foxes from above, perhaps combined with pin stripes?) and a polka dot with paw prints as some of the spots, oh yes.

Anyways, here's my entry in progress. I still need to finish the trees and the shadows, but the bears are pretty much done.

I'll let you know when voting opens! (On the 24th)

Charming scraps, oh my!

2011-02-27T17:15:00.002Z

I've become very interested in sewing lately. I think my knitting has hit a bit of a rut, and sewing is almost instant gratification.

I'm starting a half-square triangle quilt. (Let's see if I can find a CC image for one of these, ah, here we go:)

By Flickr user Jessyroos

And mine will have zig-zags like that and oh so much more.

With that in mind, I joined Very Berry Handmade's scrap swap, since I love having as many different fabrics as possible in quilt.

Here is what I sent to H.J. of no-known-blog, a scrap bundle which I called "stormy seas":

And here is what I received from Sew Quine Stitches:

A Fantastic selection of prints & solids, plus an assortment of riches in the form of zips, ribbons, and buttons. Awesome, thanks swap buddy!! :D

I have already cut into some of the scraps to start on my charm square-sized pieces for the HSTs.

I "only" need 172 (!) coloured squares, and the same again of white. I just wish I didn't have a compulsion for every square to be a different fabric/pattern. Yikes.

That being said, I'm collecting small pieces of quilting fabric, 5"x5" or bigger. Got any to share, especially in the above palette? :)

Wedding Guest Dress

2011-02-27T12:46:00.003Z

I had the honour of attending the lovely wedding of Liz a few weeks ago, and as I am a fan neither of pink concoctions nor their prices, decided to create B's frock myself. (I am a fan of party frocks!)

This is based on the Itty Bitty Baby Dress (free pattern!) from Made By Rae, somewhat enlarged and with different straps. All of the dress materials came from our lovely local shop Darn It & Stitch, including these fantastic vintage glass buttons.

The shoes were one pattern combined with another pattern's idea. I used the Pleated Ballerina Shoe [pdf] pattern from Homespun Threads but added lacing loops like the ones at Me Sew Crazy, resulting in something that looks a bit like a highland dancing shoe!

Little minx unlaced them. :D

I think I must like these colours. Before B was born I knit a 1-year size baby cardigan. Here it is, it still needs a zip though!

It's a basic round yoke cardigan, knit in Lana Grossa Meilenweit Mega Boots Stretch and some other random red sock yarn. No real pattern, just made it up to suit the measurements. :)

Month-Old Cards

2011-02-04T22:46:00.004Z

When my niece was born, her parents were gifted with a set of cards, one for each month in the first year of the baby's life. The deal is that you take pictures of your baby with the cards.

I always loved the pictures of my niece that resulted, and before B was born, searched for a set to buy but couldn't find them. What to do but make my own!

And then share them with y'all.

A 6-page PDF with 1 month through 1 year on half-sheets. It's probably best printed on heavyweight A4 stock. It will probably do just fine on US Letter size paper as well, there is plenty of white space on the cards.

Download the cards

Enjoy, and let me know if you get on with them. :)

Baby Trousers

2011-02-04T11:31:00.004Z

These are fun to make, and pretty darn quick once you know what you're doing. Excellent for covering those cloth-nappied bubble bums.

Big Butt Baby Pants, pattern from Made by Rae

Pair 1, in some insane striped jersey. (The pattern is written for wovens, but seemed to worked fine with this cotton jersey.)

Pair 2, made from a pair of old shirt-sleeves plus a bum panel of fun fabric. :)

The pattern goes way into the toddler sizes, so I'm certain to be making more of these!

And that was Christmas...

2011-01-13T17:39:00.004Z

...Which I'm only now managing to post about.

I made a few things this year, in snatched bits of time, as B still refuses to nap anywhere but on a person.

I decorated a couple of hoodies for my husband:

And made potholders for my two SILs and MIL: (Lacked in thematic material for FIL. Next year?)

Also, I recieved some faboo Urban Zoology fabric from Ann Kelle, for winning a giveaway at Fabric Rehab. Wahey! I feel lucky. :)

Mostly, however, I just took care of this one:

Look what I made!

2010-11-15T17:25:00.003Z

OK, it's been four weeks now since she was born, but I think I've got the valid excuse of busy and tired!

It's a girl! 8lbs, 2oz, born October 18th. :)

A finished quilt!

2010-10-08T18:09:00.004+01:00

I am ridiculously proud of this quilt, especially as it's only the third one I've ever made.

I had a bit of trouble photographing it, between the auto-timer, the sun, the wind, and my well overdue bump. Plus trying to avoid all the enormous spiders and spiderwebs which are everywhere in the garden at the moment!

You can see the back of the quilt there, in all its chartreuse-ness.

Here are some close-ups of the quilting, which I did in a swirly zig-zag, with accents of stippling and swirling.

I used 7 colours to quilt with, because I couldn't stand the look of light thread on dark fabric, at least for this project! I also could use a machine with a stitch regulator, I've got horribly uneven stitch lengths. For my first go with a free-motion quilting foot, however, I think it's pretty good. :)

If I were to do this over again, I would make a narrower road, with no white dashes - these were boring to sew and a real pain to get lined up around the middle bit!

Finished dimensions: 44" x 59"

While I'm waiting...

2010-10-07T09:50:00.004+01:00

My version of nesting seems to consist solely of a) cooking and b) crafting. The freezer is chock full of yummy eats (the fridge is particularly empty however. Oops.) and I am sewing to fill the time when I'm not too tired.

I knitted this hat-and-bootie set while at my antenatal classes. (Seemed appropriate!)

That's a modified-for-DK Sweet Norwegian Baby Cap and some Oh Baby Booties. (Picture taken before I realised that the tops of the booties fold down. :) )

And some sewing:

In the background: A simple swaddle blanket from My Longest Year. Behold the power of variegated thread!

Then a little crinkle square (that's the one with bees on), crinkle provided by Oreo packaging; a tiny taggie blanket, idea shamelessly gacked from OxfordKitchenYarns; and two soft fabric balls (in medium and small), pattern by Grand Revival Designs.

I should really be making more useful things, like reuseable baby wipes, but that's much boring-er! :)

Also, the quilt is finished, so a seperate post about that if it stays sunny and I get a nice photo of it....

All the fun of amazing, crafty people

2010-09-21T11:46:00.003+01:00

I had some people over to help me decorate baby clothing, and just look what they turned out! Some people have asked where I learned the freezer paper stencil technique from. I used this tutorial, but there are lots out there!

L-R from the top: 1. Toad, by Mikal 2 & 3. Boom box and Film camera by Abstar 4. Ducks in a row by Mootthing 5. Sun and Moon by S* 6. Tulips and Black Cat by Ruth 7. Owl by Liz 8. Ninja and Random Pattern by myself and my partner* 9. Die net and Totoro by C* and J*

*Let me know if you want your real names published or not!

Additionally (I am such a lucky girl!), two of my best buds in the states Jacicita and Kat sent me a care package with even MORE painted (and geeky!) baby clothes in! Woo! (Can you get all the references?)

And also got me this awesome baby book from Nikki McClure and made an amazingest nubbly bunny which I'm sure baby will love chewing on. :D

There is more baby-crafty goodness coming from me and friends. I just wanted to say, THANKS EVERYONE!!!

The quilt top is FINISHED!

2010-09-20T17:52:00.003+01:00

It took what seemed like forever (although in reality I had a week off while waiting for interfacing... more on this later), but the quilt top is finished. Today I bought wadding and curved safety pins and three (!) different colours for quilting with. I just need to sew together the back and away we'll go...

Here's the whole quilt top (click thru to get a bigger picture on Flickr), measuring 47" x 62", pretty good considering I was aiming for 45" x 60". Yes, it's going to be a floor quilt at first, although it's going to need a lot of floor space!

The light blue sky fabric was problematic: I picked it up from my local stacked floor-to-ceiling fabric shop, and it was in with the solid quilting cottons, so I didn't think twice about buying it. Almost straight away when I got it home, I realised that it was a MUCH lighter weight cotton than quilting cotton is. I had visions of it tearing to bits under baby's bum scootching. Oh dear.

I ended up getting the lightest weight fusible interfacing, which seems to have worked really well. Its somewhat heavier than the rest of the fabric, but the seams press down nicely and it looks good, which is really all that matters.

Oh, and a bit about design: I thought very carefully about which colours I was going to use, and I settled on a palette of true red, green, and blue. I was not allowed to use purple at all, so periwinkle blues were out, and I also kept out teal. There's a limited amount of yellow and pink, just enough to add a bit of splash and verve. :)

Every house is in a different fabric, stretching the resources of my very small stash! There's only so much fabric I can justify buying for any one project, though. Most of the fabrics are fairly new but two came from my mother's stash and are at least 25 years old!

Here are some detail pics of some of the trees and houses I sewed since the last post.

Terraced Housing:

Shotover Park (a big foresty park near to our house):

A barn on a hill:

A castle and the sun:

The school, post office, and shop, which will all eventually have embroidered signs on them!:

Maternity Wrap Top

2010-09-02T14:46:00.004+01:00

I made this top ages ago. It's a knockoff of an Isabella Oliver top by Megan Neilsen. Here's her post about it.) The pattern was free when I downloaded it, but it looks like it's $5 now.

Anyways! I was determined to make this top, even though I'd never had success sewing with stretch fabrics in the past. I did my research, bought the right needles for my machine, and had a go. Good thing it worked, because the only place I could find 4-way stretch was John Lewis, and it was a bit spendy. (I have enough left over to make a pair or two of baby trousers though, so win!)

And here's a side shot of the bump. 35 weeks! And I totally need a haircut.

Bank Holiday Weekend

2010-08-30T16:26:00.003+01:00

What I've been up to this bank holiday weekend: I started a massive mission to create a quilt for the child-to-be, something I dreamed up a while back. Since it will definitely be a floor quilt to start, it made sense to make a quilt that would be interesting to lie on and use. I thought about those car mats, whiere there are lots of roads and buildings and things to interact with, and went from there.

Here is my current rough plan:

Not too many roads, no. My first plan was much more literal, an attempt to reflect our neighbourhood. This one's a bit looser, but still includes our house, one of the semi-detacheds in the middle bit. Each square represents 6 inches of quilt.

I finished the middle bit today, which is very pleasing, as it involved a lot of brain-rending piecing. I had to be extra careful, because I only had a fat quarter of the green-with-daises-and-snails. I made it with a small bit leftover spare. Phew!

Here are some other houses, plus a church, which I've completed for the project:

I feel like I've completed the most difficult bit. Next up I'm going to create lots of road!

We Are Two Mariners

2010-08-24T11:02:00.003+01:00

When I saw this fabric, I knew immediately that it should become a bag for Jaci, who is ever interested in all things seafaring. I bought the aqua green fabric at last year's NEC quilt show, picked out a pattern... and then did nothing to it. And then I got pregnant and tired and busy blah blah blah, you know how it goes? And finally, this summer, when I was ready to sew the bag (Lickety Split Bag), I found that I needed a full metre of fabric for both interior and exterior, not the meagre half-metre I'd bought.

Cue frantic searching on internet for more fabric. Cue finding out that Tula Pink is one of those crazy sought-after design lines that gets snapped up and hoarded. I was lucky enough, though, to find the same undersea-themed fabric in dark blue, and the coordinating chains-and-anchors fabric and two different UK vendors. *phew!*

OK, not the best photos ever, but here's the bag!

I fussy-cut the pockets because I wanted to show off the coolness of the fabric. You can see the lining in the first shot, too.

Happy birthday half a year late, Jaci!

Freezer paper stencling

2010-08-18T12:49:00.003+01:00

Today I am posting off my package for the Ravelry October 2010 mums swap. (I received mine the other day, full of such lovely things!)

I got to try out a technique which I've been dying to do for ages: freezer paper stencilling! I didn't get process photos, but here are the results:

I even liked the hedgehog so much that I made a second one for myself. It made bringing back all that freezer paper from America worth it, even if I did then discover you can get it here. :)

Clapotis (from handspun)

2010-08-17T14:50:00.004+01:00

About a year ago, I spun up some gorgeous fibre that my friend Felix gave to me, and then in a last-minute snap-decision, decided to knit it into a Clapotis scarf. (Ostensibly for the Clap-o-tea at Knit Camp, but let's not talk about that...)

I knit two repeats of the increase rows, which was just enough to get me a decent-width scarf. I used 110g of my 115g ball, which was originally around 225 metres. The dropped stitches both allowed the yarn to shine really well, and forced me to have a good look at my uneven spinning. Oops.

But I still like it, and it'll be nice to have another scarf around; I generally hate knitting them, but this one only took four days!

Knit Camp!

2010-08-16T17:36:00.003+01:00

I am back from a week in Stirling, Scotland. I went up to take classes at Knit Camp, and to stay with friends. I had such an amazing time and met so many wonderful people. (You know who you are!)

The first class I took was with Ewa Kuniczak, an absolutely brilliant teacher and practitioner of various methods of felting.

In the morning, we did needle felting. Ewa wanted us to use a painting as inspiration, but I was stubborn and went my own way, coming up with a very moor-ish landscape.

I loved how you could get real subtleties of colour given plenty of shades to work from, and I challenged myself to work from a very specific palette. You can see all the crazy colour blending in a close-up.

In the afternoon, we did some wet felting. Here, I DID use inspiration, a painting by the architect Hundertwasser, although I challenged myself by looking at it once and then going my own way with it. :)

I love how this one came out, and it was great wet felting and actually (gasp!) having the colours all stick together.

I will totally use both techniques again. It's really a good thing that I already have a fibre-y hobby to share materials with!

Portrait of Asherah

2010-08-06T13:27:00.005+01:00

My husband is in serious love with our cat. He always points out to me when she's in a particularly cute sleeping position. This gave me inspiration for his Christmas present, a portrait of our kitty Asherah, all curled up.

I made this using the aforementioned thread sketching, although this really stretched the limits of the medium because I used, and overlapped, SO MUCH THREAD. In some places the needle didn't want to go through all the layers!

Here's a close-up so you can see some of the detail:

I'm really pleased with how this came out, and I'm gaining a lot of confidence in the medium. It's also a lot more fun than embroidering by hand!

Where I've Been

2010-07-31T15:03:00.004+01:00

OK, I know I haven't been around a whole lot. What I can say? There's been a lot going on!

This Frog Princess is expecting her own little Froglet, come October. I was pretty much too tired to do anything for the first four months, and then my camera was broken, so it's been a while since I thought about blogging!

I've knitted the Froglet a baby blanket, of pretty much my own design, but incorporating leaf motifs. It's knitted in Contanini by Mirasol. I might overdye it, but other people seem to like the colour a lot. Hmmmm. Undecided. :)

(And displayed on my favourite bush in the garden.)

Just keep going...

2010-02-17T10:05:00.003Z

I'm still knitting like crazy, trying to get ahead in my half-term week off. I estimated that I have to knit about 50 grams worth of yarn every day (about 110 yards, or half a skein of Cascade 220) and for the past two days I've come out well above that - 64 and 70 grams respectively. I've also estimated that I can knit 16 grams in an (uninterrupted) hour, so if I'm able to keep that pace for the duration of the sweater, it will take me approximately 44 hours in total.

Enough geekery, here it is in progress:

I'm looking forward to knitting more while I watch real, actual (on telly yes, but I mean not in a film) curling for the first time in my life! Hooray!

Olympic Fever!

2010-02-14T20:55:00.003Z

It's been two days since the beginning of the Knitting Olympics (also the Ravelympics), and I've been knitting like crazy to get a good head start on a pullover for my husband. Knitting for boys is easy, since they're just long tubes. Thus, I have a short tube which I felt was maybe a bit boring to show off.

Instead, you can (finally!) have a look at one of my Christmas crafts. I discovered the art of thread sketching and decided to have a go at it for Christmas gifts. (There are more of these where this one came from, but I can't show them yet.)

Of course, it's another magpie. :)

I know it's not black and white... I felt it wouldn't have enough depth or character if I used a black fabric for the contrast, so I used most of the rest of my Kaffe Fassett shot cotton, which has lovely colour-shifting qualities. I stuck it to unbleached cotton using Wonder Under, which worked beautifully.

Here's a bit of detail of the head. It was fun to make!

I made another thread sketchup recently for Liz's birthday. She likes owls, so I thought, why not an O RLY? owl?

You can see the finished project in the mosaic here.

Finally, I am pleased and flattered to have been declared the winner of the Snowcase Contest.

Hey look ma, there was a point to dressing up and making a fool of myself on my blog! Now, I don't mind winning to be sure, but I wish some more of you out there had decided to ~~make fools of yourselves~~ show off all your handknits as well! Warmth loves company! :D

Anyways, many thanks to Felix for running yet another fabulous contest! :)

the WOOL-FACTOR

2010-01-17T11:33:00.003Z

This is my entry to Felix's Fabulous January 2010 BIG FREEZE Ravelry Projects Snowcase Contest™, (AKA WOOL-FACTOR**). I am wearing ten lovely handkitted items and carrying another. I know, four knitted tops, but I'm really comfortable and not squished at all. I'd probably wear a pullover instead of the UKtanktop/USvest on a very cold day, but otherwise it's accurate. :)

And it's not overkill, I swear! I almost made a shawl into a skirt, but decided that WOULD be overkill, and besides which, not warm enough. :)

Everyone go enter before all the snow melts!

Snow Day Bag

2010-01-07T14:23:00.003Z

That project I told you about yesterday? Conceived, researched, and completed within a week, a mini bag for my brand-new iPhone. I'm pretty precious about the phone, since it's expensive, and I needed a way to carry it around the house while I do housework, so I can still listen to the iPod-ness of it.

I followed this mini-wallet tutorial, but made mine about twice as big. I'm so proud of it, it's just about the first thing I've made that looks like it might have come from a shop. (It doesn't look at all bodged - and it wasn't!)

It fits my phone, wallet, and keys, should I need to pop out to the shops. I'm quite pleased with the box corners which make it extra roomy.

And here are the linings. The front flap and pocket with have a popper (snap) at some point, but it stays well enough closed itself for the moment.

Finally, I must say I got the knotted strap idea from here.

I've already used it today, and for extra measure, it means I can really feel the phone vibrations! The school was polling everyone to see if we could make it in tomorrow, so perhaps this is my last snow day. :)

2010-01-06T21:07:00.004Z

So, over Christmas I went to visit my family in the States. I had lots of time to knit, when I wasn't chasing my niece around, or getting her tangled in my knitting.

I finished my Knotty Gloves while I was there, but I didn't get the chance to photograph them until last night when my husband and I went out to enjoy UK Snowpocalypse 2010.

We particularly enjoyed these snow-coated telephone lines reaching up into the darkness.

Of course, I am still recovering from (and continually re-injuring) a sprained ankle, so I didn't go out today. (Day off of work- best for everyone, I think!) I completed a whole sewing project, so I'll try to post about that tomorrow, when I have another day off!

I'll leave you with our obligatory garden shot from about noon today - about 7 inches at this point. (We had a bit more later too.)

Happy Christmas!

2009-12-25T00:30:00.003Z

My Christmas knitting this year consisted of one thing: my niece's stocking. It took hours of charting, days of poring over tiny swatches on the internet, and weeks of knitting. Happily, I finished it well before Christmas, and now it is blocked and beautiful and ready to hang.

The charts and colours are my own design. The foot of the stocking was a combination of the Falling Snow Stocking and the Royal Christmas Stocking. The wool is all Jamieson and Smith Shetland Jumper Weight, in a variety of pretty colours. It took less than a ball of all the colours save the light blue and the green.

This very pretty type is a free alphabet for knitting from Little Cotton Rabbits.

I am quite pleased with the dogs and the horses too. Check out this fuzzy little Jack Russell.

The horses are duplicated stitched on. Handy, since I had the flu and not much else to do.

And the hanging loop? I wanted it to match the latvian braid so I did some fingerloop braiding, which I learned at summer camp years ago. I used this lovely tutorial and video to remind me how to do it.

It's lined with a pretty robin-and-holly print, but I don't have a photo of that. I just didn't want little fingers getting caught in all that stranding!

I wish everyone a happy Christmas. May you eat and drink well, be warm and cosy, and enjoy yourself!

2009-11-20T15:20:00.002Z

I had the 'flu this week, and it really did a number on me! I was pretty ok when I was resting, however, so I got lots of work done on the Christmas stocking. (Duplicate stitch takes forever!)

Winter Woollies

2009-11-16T16:10:00.003Z

November in the UK is blustery and cruel, the nights drawing in, the storms off the Atlantic battering us down. My brain cries out for warm things! I've been working on my Knotty Gloves, which are all finished save the fingers of one hand.

Here's the completely-finished one:

I've also been chugging away at designing my niece's Christmas stocking, an assignment passed to me from my mother, who had originally planned on doing it. I wanted a nice fair-isle-y challenge, so I've been working very hard on charting dogs and horses.

Here's the whole colour plan:

The bottom of the foot is based on the Royal Christmas pattern. (Ravelry link.)

Here's the chart:

And the stocking in progress:

Stranded knitting is fun! I've been using a strickfingerhut (knitting thimble, but isn't strickfingerhut just so much fun to say??), and I'm having a good time with it this time around, it seems to strand just enough and I don't need to worry about tension except on long sections.

And that bit with the horses? You'll notice it's not there. After thinking through all the intarsia in the round options, I decided to just duplicate stitch it!

a bit of spinning

2009-10-23T21:46:00.004+01:00

Spinning seems to have taken over as my favourite post-dinner television-watching activity, because the wheel is right there, and it doesn't take any thought to get into. I have bee practising various techniques, as I know I can do an effective short draw (worsted spun), but I dislike the rock-solid yarn it produces. I've been practising woollen-spun techniques in two different ways...

First, the longdraw. Having acquired hand carders at the same time as my wheel, I set to carding this luscious pile of fleece into rolags.

That's Jacob fleece (black and white), merino (blue), various purple woollies, and greenishpinkish silk all gifted to me last Christmas (or the Christmas before that??) by my friend Felix.

I spun it long draw as best as I could (still can't do it unsupported, and I think the silk didn't help but it was too pretty to leave out) and got this lovely blue stuff.

225-ish meters and completely uneven. But it was lots of fun to spin!

My other woollen attempt is from 110g of superwash BFL dyed by The Natural Dye Studio.

This one I spun over the fold (sort of - I spread out small bunches and rolled them up, like an uncarded rolag) and really tried for evenness, the result being that it's at least somewhat consistent!

I really love the colour of this, a bright acid green. I think I got about 150 meters of this, and it is soooo squooshily soft, vacillating between DK and worsted weights.

I'm now working on a sock blend (wool and nylon) but forgot to use the macro setting on the camera, so no picture of that, yet. Oops! :)

More cards

2009-10-12T20:50:00.003+01:00

I swear I'm knitting, and spinning, but it's just not very interesting at this juncture, and all my pictures cam out blurry. What, you wanna see anyways? OK, here you go:

Tempest & Joy (cardi); Knotty Gloves; Monkeys

I think all these cards have been received now, so I'm going to post them. They're the next round in my birthday card project. Wahoo!

First, another magpie card for my friend Catherine.

This may be the last magpie for a while!

I then bought a bottle of liquid frisket, oh what fun!
A roller derby card for Julie:

And a Snakeshead Fritiallary (flower of Oxfordshire) for Sarah the plant addict:

Finally, my first sewn card, which I've been meaning to do for ages. This was so much fun, and much easier than I expected. It also features my Favourite Fabric Evar, the bright yellow with red and black printing.

There may be more of those in the future...

Next batch in a month or so!

spinning

2009-09-27T15:15:00.004+01:00

After many months of deliberation, I chose a spinning wheel to buy. After many more months, it actually came back into stock again, and I became the proud owner of a Majacraft Susie Pro.

My first project was to spin up this gorgeous Bluefaced Leicester from Krafty Koala, which I've had for almost a year and a half.

I did it in a worsted style short-draw, and it's about worsted weight. I tried for long colour repeats by splitting the top into half lengthwise. I did pretty well keeping the repeats for most of the length.

Almost as soon as it was finished, I knit it up into Headigan. I'm not certain about the buttons, but I've had them forever, and they do match the hat wonderfully.

And a better shot of the short rows and colour repeats.

intermission

2009-09-22T22:19:00.003+01:00

We interrupt your irregularly scheduled crafting content for a little illustration.

I've started a project to send out lots of birthday cards this year. August was a bit of a dry month, but late September is picking up and I've got loads in the queue to send out. Thus, I'll start with what's already gone to the recipients!

You might notice that I've got a *bit* of a magpie thing going on. I don't know where it came from, but I love them both for their graphic qualities and their mythos.

It all started last winter when I sent this card to a friend:

That's the Mr. Magpie of mythos. You're meant to salute a magpie if you see it on its own.

This was another birthday card, once the project was actually started.

Then I took a break and made a large painting which really only started out as a card, but turned out A3 size. This was a wedding gift, and titled with a line from the poem about magpies, "Two for Joy".

Finally, this was another birthday card, but it hasn't been delivered yet. Thankfully the recipient doesn't know it's coming, so it doesn't matter if it's late?

Next time there's ones without magpies. Promise!

Fourth Plinth

2009-09-20T16:28:00.002+01:00

Some backstory here. Of course there's Anothony Gormley's project One & Other for Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth. The gist of it for those of you who don't know is that participants get an hour to do whatever they want up there. And anything they do, from just standing there enjoying the moment, to getting naked, to promoting political causes, making art, throwing things out out to the crowds below... anything really.

Then there's Brenda Dayne of one of my favourite podcasts, Cast On. I've been listening to this podcasts since close to when it began, and knew I'd found something special when she played some (of the most crass) Da Vinci's Notebook. (Other favourite musical notables include Peter Mulvey and Josh Woodward.)

And even though I couldn't convince anyone to come along with me, I went along to see Brenda on the plinth on Saturday. I quickly found the knitters in the shadow of the plinth, and happily knit and spun the hour away (had to help promote International Spin In Public while Talking Like A Pirate Day, eh?) while Brenda knit on gigantic needles up on the plinth. (You can see the video here.)

Here she is:

And this is for Jaci, who asked how much you can see:

That's from maybe 20 metres away. The tour guide was saying something like "Here we've got a woman knitting. Yesterday's tour had a woman naked but for a g-string."

There was also an enormous chess game in the square put on by the London Design Festival. There were two women competing during this match, and they got to sit on thrones above the game. The ~~peons~~ helpers escorted the pieces around.

Some of the pieces were very striking.

After the hour on the plinth, many the knitters decamped to a pub. I had this fabulous beer, and had to get a pic of it for my friend Kat, who's a big Lemony Snicket fan.

There were very cool beer mats:

and fun conversation, where I met some people who are friends-of-friends here in Oxford. It's a small little town!

Close to the pub I found a place which sells onigiri OM NOM NOM.

And before I caught the bus back to Oxford, I stopped by the Selfridges food halls (ostensibly to have a look around at which American foods they carry) and got this amazing Oreo cupcake).

Which was a delicious end to a fun day. And I'm so glad it stayed dry and warm, as I wouldn't have bothered to go out otherwise!

Deja Vu

2009-09-10T21:40:00.002+01:00

What, this old thing? Yeah, I totally finished it.

The vital stats, for those who missed them:

This project is a reknit of the Salina sweater which I knit a few years ago.

I ripped out the whole sweater reknit it - not only at a smaller size, but also with major modifications.

Shaping: I am using the gauge and body shaping of Tangled Yoke.

Styling: I am using Salina’s styling at the collar, hem, and sleeves with some modifications.

Collar modifications:

*Moss st 26 stitches on either side of the neck placket. (To balance out being a larger size and a smaller gauge.)

*Three-needle bind off at shoulders. (Left all the stitches live save the middle/neck set.)

*Six short-rows at the back neck to help the collar roll over.

Sleeve modifications:

*Sleeves are knit from the top down, as per instructions in Wendy Bernard’s Custom Knits

*Sleeves are knit to full length

*Cuffs are knit as part of sleeve and not done separately. Cuffs do not fold over.

a quilt for baby rachel

2009-08-29T11:35:00.003+01:00

A quilt for a baby who happened to be born before I got the quilt finished, but ah well, she's only three weeks old, she won't notice the difference.

I based it on the Amy Butler pattern Thea's Puzzle quilt (pic) (free pdf), but when I looked at the instructions, I realised that it was more of a string quilt, and I wanted more control over where the colours went.

So I turned to the idea of a string quilt crazy nine patch mashup.

I had my fabrics,

and to make certain it would work they way I wanted it to, I made a paper mock-up.

That's making a cut then taking the left side fabric from the bottom to the top, after each cut. Following the cut I'll stitch each layer then cut again.

So here's cut number one. The blue fabric was on top, but after I made the cut, I moved the left side fabric (currently purple) from the bottom to the top.

Here it is after the fourth cut. I kinda forgot to take pictures of those other cuts, but if you look at the paper diagram you should get the idea.

After I sewed all those, time passed. I'd originally planned to sash with the purple, but I decided to include it in the blocks instead, so I got the spotty olives-with-pimentos type one and did the border in purple instead.

More time passed, until earlier this week, when I quilted the whole darn thing, having finally got a walking foot. I'd wanted to stitch in the ditch, but also pressed my seams open instead of to the side, so they got outlined instead.

Then I bound it. I followed these tutorials with pretty much 100% success.

I just love that lime green and purple combination.

And here's the back. That's all folks!

Salina Take Two

2009-08-25T16:58:00.003+01:00

I've been working on SalinaTwo for what seems forever now. It was going really well, however, and seemed like it was going to be the Best Sweater yet. And then I noticed that I had a lot less yarn than I thought I did. Sure, I was knitting a smaller size, but I was also using a tighter gauge. Sure, I had leftover yarn, but when I weighed it, it was only 20 grams. Oh dear!

I got to this point.

Which is about where they want you to end the sleeves on Salina, but I couldn't do it - because I work in a primary school, I'm in a variety of temperature zones all day long and when it's cold I need those full length sleeves!

I was down to working off the swatch.

My colourway of Rowan Felted Tweed (Whisper, shade 141) is discontinued so I didn't have the option of popping down to the shops and comparing balls to my jumper. There was still an online shop selling my colourway, however, so I took the plunge.

And, it didn't really go.

A bit more green, I thought!

Which was then a bit bright. Harrumph!

I am giving up, striping as much as I can with the remaining bit from the swatch, and the cuffs will just have to be bright, and blue.

Crumpets and Clotted Cream

2009-08-24T10:40:00.003+01:00

I saw Crumpets not long after it was published in 2004, and I always knew I wanted to knit it. Oh, but that skirt, and the miles of stockinette I'd have to endure... not for me.

No beads or ribbons, either, nothing that could bother my one year-old niece. The skirt is eyelet cotton with a cotton organza layer so that she doesn't have to show her nappies to the world. :)

If we're lucky, perhaps Grandma will get a picture of her in it sometime!

Booty

2009-08-21T20:54:00.004+01:00

Today I went to the quilt show and met up with OxfordKitchenYarns (plus FB who is not FB because he is First Born), LittleGreenBees, RuthCrafts, and Confessions of a Slack Knitter.

I got Stuffs. I was inundated by colour and technique and sell sell sell!

I seem to have renewed obsession with lime green, now with added pink! (Say what?)

But look at the Cee-ute oliphants! (From Fiddlesticks Fabrics, her shop had probably the best prices at the whole show.)

And then four from that place with "button" in the name that's got all the awesome Japanese stuff. (I didn't get the Japanese stuff however, because I'm cheap.)

And three metres of this amazing shirting fabric from Fabrics Galore. I think this is destined to become a Duro dress (Scissors for scale)

And finally some stuff I got last week at Purl Patchwork in Soho, NYC. They didn't sell fat quarters, so I had to buy half yards. ~~Boo hoo~~ Whahoo!

KnitPicks needle holder

2009-08-20T13:39:00.004+01:00

Oh man, my KnitPicks (KnitPro in Europe) interchangeable needle collection was getting a bit out of hand; all stuffed into one bag, I was forever having to stick every needle into the sizer every time I began a new project. What a pain. I was never interested in the cases that KnitPicks sells - they always seemed a bit klugdy or wouldn't suit my lifestyle. (I'm a bit tough on things, they need to be sturdy!)

I started this project in March or so and would've been done a lot quicker if I had a fabric pen. For some reason I thought a decent solution to needing the needle sizes on the case was embroidery. Yep. Of both US and metric sizes. Hmmm.

Well, at least the embroidery looks halfway decent. :D

This is the needle tip section shown with the zip open. I chose zips because when I am throwing this case in my bag the needles won't fall out.

I needed a pouch on the other side to hold the end disks, the needle keys, and the needle sizer. On my recent trip to America, I got this savvy bag on the aeroplane, which I cut up and turned into a pouch. I kept the plastic double layered for extra durability, which means the see-through properties are mostly lost, but damn do I love the pattern.

The central section is a four-pocket pouch for non-interchangeable circulars and for the cables.

I very nearly made a separate pouch for each circular needle but it seemed like too much trouble.

Here's the whole case sewn up. I found the crazy upholstery fabric in an old rented house. (It didn't match any of the furniture.)

The left side featuring the needle tips.

And the right side with the notions pouch.

Hopefully this will help me keep track of all my bits. Leading to greater efficiency and more knitting...?

Sugar Bowl

2009-08-10T15:37:00.004+01:00

This is a gift made for a friend who is greatly enamored of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events books. There is a mysterious sugar bowl which is said to contain the answer to one of the book's many mysteries, but it is never found. Thus, my friend gets a felt sugar bowl pincushion, which may never be opened...

It was pretty easy to sew together the wool felt. I adapted the bowl pattern from an apple pincushion pattern that I found on the internets. I made the top bit triangular instead of pointed, which helped to make the top of the sugar bowl nice and flat. The lid was the apple base, smaller. I ended up somehow needing only 5 pieces for that one.

I'm very happy with it and will definitely work with wool felt again. If you only make small things then the cost isn't prohibitive!

Re-Fashion

2009-08-05T11:03:00.003+01:00

Lately I've gotten quite interested in reworking and refashioning things from my wardrobe. Here's a top which I got for £1 from a charity shop, but which would never do, as it didn't suit my shape, nor did it suit my profession.

Sorry for the blurry photo.

I chopped off that whole bottom band, cut it in half lengthwise and trimmed the side seams, which were sloped. I took three of the resulting rectangles and sewed them to the bottom of the wrap, then hemmed everything with my most serger-like stitch. Added some ties in a nice location and voila!

Now a sensible cardigan. Hooray!

I've got plans to refashion a whole bunch of things in my wardrobe, but this was the least tricky (and least sentimental) of the lot, so it got the scissors first.

Half a Jumper

2009-07-19T16:04:00.004+01:00

My frankensteinian combination of Tangled Yoke's gauge and shaping plus Salina's styling has resulted in a very nice torso hugger. (Of course it still needs the sleeves.)

For once the magic combination of gauge and size seems to have yielded the proper results. It's even long enough!

Some of my normal crafting tome has been taken up with the C+ program at school, where teaching assistants such as myself team up to teach on various topics. I chose to do textiles and dying and so ended up with scenes like this, a bathtub full of tie-dye in my lovely faux-pink-marble bath.

Half of those are being dyed for the second time, hence the green. The results of this one were faboo, and the children were pleased, which is the best bit.

swimming in gorgeous fleece

2009-07-11T14:46:00.003+01:00

I swear I've been knitting (just boring stuff), but what I've really been doing is enjoying some of the most fabulous weather the UK has thrown at me since I moved here three years ago.

Also, last week I went to Devon on residential with 46 nine year olds. It was fun, but phew! Am I ever knackered. :)

As soon as we arrived at the farm, I noticed that there were two lovely alpacas. I got up the nerve to ask the farmer about the fleeces and he said he just gave them away to whomever wanted them! I am now the proud owner of five half-full bin bags of alpaca fleece from two lovelies named Inca and Aztec.

I haven't checked in all of the bags (they are very dusty, having been in a barn for a year or two!) but I think I've got more of the brown than the white. I sense a jumper coming on...

Speaking of fleeces, I also bought a sheep's fleece at my guild's fleece sale in June. It's an enormous black Zwartbles. Just check out the crimp on this baby!

I just need to start washing all this, and get a wheel, and some carders...

Shed Cake

2009-06-05T19:43:00.003+01:00

A couple of weeks ago, it was requested of me that I make a cake in the shape of a shed as a surprise for a friend. Now... I've never made a layer cake and I've not got that much experience at cake decoration, especially with fondant. Oh well, I thought, what the hell...

Ok, I must admit, I cheated and used Betty Crocker for both the cake and the frosting, but I didn't want to have some crazy disaster because I'd chosen the wrong recipe. Also, Betty's cakes are pretty damn tasty.

So, two pans to start, and a pattern based on the size of the bread tin:

A Stack of Cake, which was a bit wonkier than intended (the square cake didn't rise evenly), although of course once the fondant was on it didn't really matter. Much.

The Window Side. I ran out of green food colouring, it was really intended to look darker! The shed was coloured by marbling chocolate and white fondant.

The Name Side. Complete with Roman numerals so as not to shock one when thinking about one's age.

Fondant is a bit tricky to work with, and I'd definitely use a marzipan layer underneath next time to smooth it all out, but generally the decoration was fun!

Little Things

2009-06-05T19:22:00.003+01:00

I've got lots of little crafts from the past while that don't deserve their own posts, so I've saved them up for y'all.

My first felting project! I got a bag full of rainbow-coloured merino, and a bunch of white Cheviot ('cuz it's cheaper!) and did my best to turn them into felt sheets. They weren't really holding together, so I threw them in the drier for 20 minutes, and oh boy presto-change-o, beautiful thick felt... a bit thicker than I'd planned, but oh well! I sewed them together different than originally intended and got a great needle book anyways.

Outside:

and Inside:

A pair of Jaywalkers, using the same shaping as my last pair, yet somehow coming out slightly bigger. (Oh well.)

New buttons for Forecast, making it actually wearable:

And a great charity-shop find!

new-old skirt

2009-05-23T17:39:00.003+01:00

Years ago, when I lived in Boston, I had this skirt. It was black with a black flowery organza overlay, and I bought it at a thrift store. I loved it, even though it had a tear and I had to pin up the waistband because it was too big. I had a grand plan to remake it, and found some fantastic back velvet burn-out for the top layer.

Then I moved to Vermont, and then Seattle. The fabric, and the dream, came with me. The old skirt fell to pieces and was thrown away. In Seattle, I laid out the fabric on my expansive hardwood floor (the cat always loves this) and cut it. I taught myself to do a French seam, masterfully attached the waistband, and put in the best invisible zipper I've ever done.

And only then did I bother to try it on. It was too big. WAY too big.

So it went into a box and got shipped across the Atlantic to me, where it sat for another three years until I got to feeling like if I screwed up resizing it, I'd at least be trying. And it worked! I even redid the French seam. The waistband has a seam in it now, and that's the only evidence that anything was done to it,

I did the hem using the rolled hemmer foot on my machine. It's not perfect, but you have to look pretty close to see that, so I count it as a win. And just look how it spins! Made of win.

in a mad spin

2009-05-17T11:28:00.005+01:00

The guild of which I am a member (The Oxford Guild of Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers) is running a context, and naturally, I had to enter it. (Longtime readers will remember that the last contest I entered resulted in this.)

The theme of the contest was to create something based on Wordsworth's poem Daffoldils, so I chose to base my work on these lines:

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretch'd in never-ending line

My never-ending line being handspun yarn!

So I got to work, first dying the wool (using food dyes and tea), felting daffodil heads, and spinning green "stem" yarn.

I then sewed together the trumpets and petals of the daffodils using vintage embroidery thread (that's a whole 'nother post), and plied - three plies of spindle-spun and one of embroidery thread bearing the daffodil heads - four plies altogether.

Here's the result, of which I'm fantastically proud!

And other of it all piled up:

selbu modern

2009-04-14T11:39:00.003+01:00

Finally, a stranded knitting project! Sure, I'd done a bit of stranded knitting here and there, but nothing big. I picked up a strickfingerhut and this helped a lot, as I could carry both yarns over my left hand. It's also a bit of a pain, however, and caused me to pull my floats too tight sooo... not certain I'll use it again.

The contrast isn't very strong, and the yarn was smaller than that called for in the pattern, so the hat is a bit small and needs re-blocking with a larger plate, but at this rate, it can wait until next winter, when hopefully I'll have a pair of mittens to match!

Pattern: Selbu Modern (free)
Yarn: Wensleydale Longwool 4-ply
Needles: US 1.5, 2.5 mm

turning japanese i think so

2009-04-10T13:38:00.004+01:00

Moving on on the whole "everyone's having babies" thing, I've made some baby kimonos, for another coworker. I may give both or I may not, but they certainly didn't take long to make! I'd two linen skirts, one old, one new, and neither fit but the material was nice so I cut them up for this project!

I know, the ties go different ways. I couldn't remember which was the "boy" way, so I just made one of each. :)

Here's a picture of the back, showing where the centre seam on the skirt was:

And here they are together:

The pattern is the Simple Kimono by Habitual: well written with lots of clear pictures. I'd make it again!

baby-plosion

2009-04-06T19:24:00.003+01:00

I have reached that stage in my life where it seems as though everyone is having babies. Thus, my baby-crafting list is growing by leaps and bounds.

First off the block is a sleep sack - knitted, in part, to use up some of my neverending stash of cotton-ease.

I have to photograph this one about 4 minutes after I finished it, just before I wrapped it up. So close to the wire! It was originally meant to have a ducky embroidered on it, but it was looking wonky, so I settled on the contrast stitching at the shoulders, instead. Fairly easy, but man, do I hate applied I-cord.

We apologise for the interruption

2009-03-21T18:09:00.003Z

Oh, so I have been crafting this last month or two, and I've plenty enugh to blog about, but I've also been buying a house and moving into it! It's the ultimate DIY and crafting project! But none of that, yet.

Spinning first.

I borrowed a friend's spinning wheel while she went off on a long holiday to the southern hemisphere, and while I wasn't moving, I came up with some stuff.

First, an attempt at woolen-style spinning, complete with handfashioning "rolags" and such. It came out incredibly squishy, if not actually that even. But who cares? Squishy wins.

It's a 2-ply in Merino which I bought in Seattle, 5 ounces or so. Nice colours mixed into it.

Second, a hand-dyed number. I took Supercook food dye and Lemonade flavour Kool-Aid and a Lot of tea, and dyes 100g of Bluefaced Leicester to look like this.

And then spun it up as a 3-ply.

I'm very happy with both! The first is going to a friend and the second is going to be slippers, I think.

T-shirt quilt - finished!

2009-02-09T22:29:00.005Z

If I had more energy, I'd have an artful shot of it draped around me or something, but I'm lazy, and our chip wall paper (as a backdrop) isn't very attractive.

So here it is, hurrah! All my favourite t-shirts of yore, carefully stowed for years and finally brought out to shine all together.

You might notice that I've arranged the blocks in a sort of checker(draughts)board between white/light and black/deep coloured tees. I think it came out subtly enough, anyways I am pleased with the arrangement.

I knew I was either going to use fleece as the sole backing or the batting, as my quilt would be tied every 16 inches - I don't think any normal batting would stand up to that! Of course, I forgot to actually measure said quilt and said fleece, so it wasn't *quite* as wide as the quilt. Nevermind, I sorted it out with the binding.

All in all, it's lovely and cozy and exactly the size of the top of a UK King/US Queen size bed, pretty impressive! The sashing fabric is shot cotton from the Rowan Kaffe Fassett line, and the binding is something random which was cheaper and happened to match. ;) If you'd like to know the meaning behind all the tees, click on this picture to take you to the flickr page, with notes!

icarus by night

2009-02-07T18:35:00.003Z

Inspired by “Icarus By Night” by Vance Gilbert (excerpt)

I only go up at night
When the moon is full
And the evening breezes blow
I go only high enough
To see the ground below

I was so much younger then
And blinded by the beauty of the sun
It looked so lovely
I just had to touch it once
Then tumbling down into the sea
Now I know, now I know

It "only" took me a year and a half, knitting on and off! I love it so, and it has kept my neck nice and warm at work on these icy chilly days.

Yarn: Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace in colourway "Irving Park"
Pattern: Icarus by Miriam Felton

Let's have another shot! It's bigger than fingertip-to-fingertip on me, but it was too cold to get a shot with it on me. :)

cat cozy

2009-02-02T21:19:00.003Z

Once upon a time I had this lovely jumper, which got an un-lovely hole in the elbow.

So I felted it in a nice hot wash, cut on the dotted lines (as shown)

and sewed it into a delightful cat bed. (She sleeps on all my jumpers, might as well give her one that's hers alone!)

Here's a view from the top. I cut pieces 1 and 2 out then whipstitched them together. The sleeves are folded over for more stability.

Quick 'n' Warm

2009-02-01T17:27:00.003Z

Just a small thing now, a lovely hot water bottle cover to keep me from burning me toes at night on my very hot water bottle.

Pattern: Rachael's Hot Water Bottle Cozy
Yarn: Sirdar Click Chunky in "Indy"

re-use, re-make

2009-01-31T16:19:00.003Z

A couple of years ago, I got these lovely knee-length socks in the Sockapalooza sock exchange.

Problem was, however, they were knit without negative ease so perfect fit quickly became feet too big and socks falling down. Oh no! What to do?

A little ingenuity, a littel elastic at the top, some careful unpicking and re-knitting of ribbing, and I've got legwarmers instead. Yay!

Second Most Popular

2009-01-01T23:27:00.004Z

I've been been slowly working away on the t-shirt quilt. My previous post about the quilt is the second most popular on this blog after the one about flapjacks. Kinda makes me wonder why two of my non-knitting posts are the most popular? I won't dwell on it... really.

So, I've been slogging away on my quilt, which has involved attempting to measure and cut the t-shirts into reasonably rectangular pieces using only a plain ruler and a fabric pencil.

And dealing with t-shirts which, once they'd had their interfacing ironed on, weren't quite square.

Thankfully, a friend lent me a rotary cutter, self-healing mat, and see-through ruler. I cut all my t-shirt rectangles out at her house, then painstakingly calculated the sashing so that each square would be 16" - plus seam allowances. See, usually when you make a t-shirt quilt you cut all the t-shirts the same size. I have been randomly cutting out t-shirt fronts for the past six years without regard to their size, so I had a bit of a pickle to deal with.

I cut and cut and cut. Booring. And finally, last week, I began to sew.

good

ungood

*rip rip rip*

Today I ran out of thread, but I got this far:

And all the squares are sashed. Time to start thinking about backing fabric...

turning through the year

2009-01-01T15:41:00.002Z

Happpy new year to all the blog readers out there...

I haven't been doing lots of spinning lately, I've been dreaming of getting a spinning wheel, which will have to wait until we've bought a house, which should we any day now...

Anyways, I've been taking this pretty machine-blended merino

and have been turning it into a very fine single.

I'm hoping when it's plied to get a nice heavy laceweight. Eventually. Did I mention I have 200 grams of the stuff, and since I started it on the spindle, it'll end on the spindle too? Expect to see the finished product in about an eon or so.

tea-green scarf

2008-12-31T17:17:00.003Z

In more recent knitting news, the sort which I am finally able to post about, I knit a scarf for my mother-in-law. She is very sensistive to scratchy fibres, so I chose Rowan Cotton Luxury DK in two greens which, on a computer screen, looked as though they would match. When they arrived, I was dismayed to find that they didn't match at all. Tea to the rescue! I overdyed the darker of the two greens in a bath of old earl-grey tea, and it subdued it perfectly.

Pattern: Skinny Scarf, a lengthways linen stitch scarf
Yarn: Rowan Cotton Luxury DK in Cabbage and Pistachio
Needles: US size 10

And a close-up:

dye a bundle

2008-12-30T18:12:00.002Z

I seem to have joined the guild of Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers recently, and I was intrigued when they were running a Christmas competition called "dye-a-bundle", so of course I had to enter!

I received a square of cloth in which was wrapped up many different short lengths of yarn plus a "mystery colour" of Dylon. (Which, as I expected from its greenish hue, turned out to be green.)

After the first pot, I dyed up a second pot in a lighter shade - more fabric, more yarn.

When all had dried I made this:

He's got a woven ridgeback of all the different yarns I'd gotten, which I then sewed and steeked. (Probably not the right term for weaving, but oh well.) This bit took far longer than designing the stuffie himself, he practically threw himself together.

Hooray for me, though, when the voting day came I'd tied for second place out of all the lovely entries. Hurray!

Does anyone want a lizard stuffie? Probably not suitable for children under 3!

not quite the world's most expensive fibre but close

2008-12-27T22:45:00.002Z

Then there was this hat, made out of a Oomingmak Cap Kit, which my parents bought in Alaska year before last.

Qiviut is surprisingly inelastic for an animal fibre, feeling more like cotton in the hands than wool. (It may have just been this yarn's properties, however, as I have seen very graceful, fuzzy Qiviut.

I made the cap for my husband, who wore it on a couple of very cold hikes we took in the Peak District in late October.

The darn thing has grown so much that I will be forced to pull it out and re-knit it smaller. This has been a problem with all the hats knit for my husband, I think he's starting to think all hand knits behave this way...

red sky at night, sailor's delight

2008-12-27T15:12:00.003Z

I completed these mittens ages ago. Then I lost them, wah! Then I found them, and there was no sunlight. But, I have a light box, and now I can post.

So, I dyed this roving with kool-aid.

And I spun it all on my spindle.

And I used a top-down mittens patterns to knit my mittens. Easy-peasy lemon squeezy!

nesting

2008-10-05T14:02:00.004+01:00

It's once again autumn weather here (not that it was ever really hot this summer) and the nesting urge has kicked in once again! Yesterday my friend H came over, and we baked bagels, which I've wanted to do ever since I bought the King Arthur Flour Cookbook years ago. (I also want to make the crumpets, but that'll be for another day...)

The bagels were good, and not difficult to make at all! I thnk they needed a little sumthin' more, so next time I will try this recipe, which has malt in. Yum.

----

In knitting news, I have finally finished Bottoms Up!, which was supposed to be my Ravelympics project - knit entirely during the Olympics. And now that it's too cold to wear it alone, I've finished it! Ah well, there's always cardis and next summer...

I really enjoyed both this pattern (by Alice Bell), and the yarn (Chelsea by Lily Chin. I'm also really pleased that it's not see-though and I dont have to wear anything underneath it. All the better for that warm weather!

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I have also whippe dout a few more Innocent Smoothie hats, so send off with last year's batch, which never quite made it out the door. (oops)

These are fun ways to try out new techniques and colour combinations. :)

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Oh, and one more thing! If you read this blog in a reader, you should click through and see my new header! It's what I envisaged all along, so it's lovely to have it done.

a duo of warm accessories

2008-09-27T17:56:00.004+01:00

As soon as the weather turned chilly I just knew I had to bulk myself up with some new winter woolies. (After all, standing outside with the wee ones can get quite chilly!)

First up, I sourced some gorgous Misti Alpaca Chunky in a bluey-greeny-purpley colour at the iKnit day in London. It is so incredibly soft, knit up in a flash (the only thing that took a long time was blocking it in our damp English house) and I love to wear it, as it doesn't look like a scarf and therefore can pass as indoor wear, too.

The pattern is The Fidget and it is free!

Then I whipped out a hat with some Debbie Bliss Merino Aran that I scored off of Liz in our last Oxford Bluestocking stash swap.

The cabling is a bit funny and random. I probably could have done something clever with it, but I was more interested in having a warm hat!

This one is Star Crossed (also free, on Ravelry), and my only mod was to knit the body of the hat with a 7mm needle instead of an 8mm/US11, after I snapped another cord join on my Denise set. (sigh) It is considerably less slouchy than other ones seen one Ravelry. (I am quite OK with that.)

making a rub-off pattern

2008-08-30T11:51:00.003+01:00

How to go from this dress:

to this dress:

without taking the original apart!

First I laid the dress flat onto the floor. This was originally an "easy" pattern, and I knew that the grain line of the dress was straight up and down. I matched the grain line of the muslin to the dress and pinned the two together. Then I carefully rubbed over all the seams with tailor's chalk, which is what you see here.

I did this for five pattern pieces, the four that made up the body of the dress, and the sleeve cap. I didn't bother with the belt as it was just straight and long.

Then I sat down with the dress and made extensive notes on construction.

I bought some pattern paper and dressmaker's carbon and worked to fix the details of the rub-off,

before transferring it to pattern paper.

You can see above that this is where I added in separate pattern lines for the contrast hem. I folded the pattern vertically for the front and back pieces so that the pattern would be symmetrical. I made certain that the pockets and the neckline were the same shape and would line up.

Then, it's just like any other pattern: transferring it to fabric, and sewing it up. My biggest problems were with the sleeve caps, which had been hard to make a rub-off of. I fought with them for two and a half hours before successfully sewing them!

Now I have a dress pattern which I can copy or modify to my heart's content.

(The original dress was sewn in 1980 by my mother, of Marimekko fabric in the "Dombra" pattern. Despite all my efforts, I have never been able to locate the pattern.)

many years in the making

2008-08-30T11:41:00.004+01:00

It's finished! After first hearing about a "rub off" pattern a couple years ago, I have finally completed mine!

It fits quite nicely, and I'm happy with the weight of the fabric and with my sewing. The only thing I would have changed is to make the both the belt and the contrast hem wider, but alas, I ran out of fabric. I may change the topstitching on the collar to red, but otherwise it's pretty darn near perfect. (And it's what I wanted, a good comfortable outfit to wear while teaching!)

For comparison with the original:

green finch and linnet bird

2008-08-21T18:18:00.003+01:00

This skirt I made last year had a stain, a rather unsightly grey paint stain and primary-school table level, a consequence of after school club teaching!

Rather than get rid of it, why not revamp it?

I am quite pleased! I used bird silhouettes off google images for reference, machine stitched and then embroidered for a final touch.

What I've Been Up To

2008-07-06T17:30:00.003+01:00

Not knitting, not much, not really.

I have been doing a rub-off of my favourite dress (which my mum made back in the 80s) so as to make a copy of it:

I got some fabric to make a new dress/copy:

I also got fabric to make a new version of the skirt from last summer:

I have been tearing apart my best-fitting trousers to re-create them:

In this fabric which, from the bolt notes, is a Jaeger remnant:

I made two Wee Bunnies for the school festival's tombola:

I have been spinning, while watching a lot of Big Brother:

I made a lazy kate out of a box and the huge needles I borrowed from Liz to make the bathmat. Hrm, I may have to figure out a different solution of she wants them back. :D

And I plied some of my singles into yarn! Very art-yarn thick and thin etc and no idea what I'm going to do with it, as I'm already spinning more evenly and thinner. Still, nice.

And finally, some knitting - baby socks with the self-striping easter-egg-dye yarn:

cushy-but-ugly bathmat

2008-06-20T10:23:00.004+01:00

Well, it only took three hours or so, and now it's off the needles and next to the bath.

I won't pretend like I planned out the colour scheme! There is one colour in there that made me feel like I was knitting with an elastic ankle wrap, and the orange-white-orange was supposed to look like a "racing stripe" but turned out not so much!

2008-06-18T23:16:00.003+01:00

I haz the pow3r!

To turn t-shirts into a pretty swank bathmat.

I got all that finished (just over a foot) in an hour and 20 minutes. Rock! It makes a nice change from knitting lace...

kip

2008-06-15T18:00:00.004+01:00

Yesterday was a lovely day highlighted by sitting in the sun with a bunch of peeps for Worldwide Knit in Public Day.

Liz brought this crazy quiz with 10 swatches and ten different fibres and made us match them up for prizes. My swatch-rubbing retentiveness paid off, I got 10 out of 10 and won a fa-habulous skein of Manos:

I finished the baby kimono by adding some ribbons:

And started a newborn hat to go with it:

I also started spinning, but the results aren't terribly attractive, so no picture yet!

This hat is also nearly finished, but I might rip it back due to the crazy brim curling. Augh!

I've also been plugging away at Icarus, but unblocked lace is pretty boring to look at, so none o that for now. ttfn!

baby stuff ahoy!

2008-05-25T22:43:00.005+01:00

I have a niece on the way (my first! how exciting!) and I finally get to knit baby things! First on my to-do list was Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Surprise Jacket.

I am a bit anal about stripes, so first I chose three colours of Rowan Wool Cotton, then I sat down with a spreadsheet of all the rows and worked out how many I needed of each colour to achieve a perfect striping pattern of delight.

After that, knitting it was a breeze! Ignore the part where I ran out of green on the last stripe and had to cut it two rows short. :)

Edited to add another project I've been working on but have neglected to blog about. :)

These are my Spice Girl Snocks, nothing to do with the band, and everything to do with Yarnissima.

The pattern is Firestarter, but quite obviously without cables! I always admired Yarnissima's basic sock pattern, which shows up in her Spice Boy pattern, and I sort of un-vented the Firestarter pattern to reproduce it. It makes it look as though you have a hole in your foot! :D

it's all about the self-striping yarns

2008-05-18T15:06:00.003+01:00

Let's jump straight to the point, I made self-striping yarn on Friday. For more thorough tutorials on how how actually calculate how big your stripes will be, check out Ysolda or Eunny.

Of course, I've attempted this before in my rather haphazard unscientific way, making a big loop on my coat tree, dying it in four kool-aid shades, and knitting it into lovely socks. Luckily for me, I got almost exactly one round out of each colour.

This project isn't for socks, but rather for the Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap (free pattern). When scoping the house for something easy to wind a large loop on, the warp frame used in weaving came to mind, and so my easy version of that was this:

I didn't actually measure the loop, but I think I got a circumference of between 20-24 feet! The yarn, by the way, is Jaeger Baby 4-ply.

I used the microwave dying method with easter egg dyes, using about half a tablet each for the blue and the purple, and letting everything else hang out in the plate. 1/2 the yarn is blue, and 1/3 is purple, overlapping partly with the blue, and the rest I've left white.

Then I crushed up some of the remaining blue and purple as well as some teal, and sprinkled it on top of the piled up yarns.

Success! Here's what it looks like hung up to dry:

Baby cap to come...

Planning a T-shirt Quilt

2008-05-02T10:32:00.005+01:00

Man, if planning a t-shirt quilt is this difficult, I shudder to think of the planning involved in a normal quilt. But nevermind that, I have selected my blocks and laid them out and such and tried not to be swept away by memories.

Now I need to buy scads of interfacing and some sashing and backing fabric...

see also:

Cutting and Sashing
The Finished Quilt

Snocks!

2008-04-29T23:05:00.008+01:00

A photo I took of the starting point in the colour pattern (so I could precisely reproduce the stiping pattern on the second sock (GEEK!)) says that I began this pair of socks last year. On the fifteenth of May.

OK, so I made it to slightly less than a year, which is good, right??

I've been wearing them for 24 hours straight, with just a break for a shower. COMFY AS HECK. (Which I was informed today, is a swear. Crap, now I'm not allowed to say heck?)

I will wear these socks forever and ever. I have more wool to make another pair already. Such comfiness must be repeated!!

Remind me to post on how to do a short row heel with a gusset...

Pattern: Jaywalker
Yarn: Opal Traumfänger/Dreamcatcher

not a mermaid, a selkie...

2008-04-18T12:28:00.005+01:00

Ever since I saw the pattern for DROPS 106-1 pleated jacket, knitted from side to side in garter st in “Alpaca” and “Cotton Viscose”, I knew I wanted to knit it. It's a lot like Hanne Falkenberg's Mermaid, but less fussy AND I can choose the colours AND it won't cost an arm and a leg. Except, the name is much too long and not descriptive, so I've decided to call this project Selkie, after the women/seals of Scottish lore. Except I want it to be red, so it's nothing like a seal. Let's ignore that fact.

The hardest part of the project has been choosing yarn. I've trolled the internet for everything in the appropriate weight, and it was all either too expensive or had the wrong colour range; I've come full circle to the DROPS Alpaca.

Then there's planning how to use the colours - three reds and a light grey. Here are my choices...

A:

B:

C:

Any preferences? I was leaning towards C, but now I might be keener on B. Hmmm....

I've just added option D which goes ofr both the optically slimming and the colour prgression angles...

D:

2008-04-15T15:25:00.004+01:00

Messy Tuesday has been interrupted for a few weeks by a few important things. Most important is the end of my Montessori teacher training course (a year and a half in the making) in just a couple weeks' time. This means crazy amount of exams, which my belly is already in flip-flop tumbles about! I have been spending a lot of time revising (studying for you USians, although I suppose Harry Potter made us all learn about revising), several or more hours a day. Look! I even have a crazy revision schedule, plus all the "Montessori Theory" terms I should know how to define!

Nevermind that that doesn't include the child development stuff I need to know, or the materials stuff for the practical exams. Oy vey.

I sat outside in the sunshine today, surrounded by index cards, trying to collate the same information I put into essays oh so long ago into easily digestible tidbits of information. I've got a hefty binder with the Montessori Theory text in it, plus notes, more notebooks, and the index cards, which I had to put in an untidy pile under my plate to keep them from blowing away.

The garden is out of sun now, so I'll be inside... booo...

Remind me to have a big party when this is all over, yes?

2008-03-25T22:41:00.006Z

I may have not managed to post about my most recent FO, but I will produce a Messy Tuesday post!

My home is less-than-perfect, to be sure. Sometimes it's real mess like last week, and sometimes it's comfortable, cluttery mess like this:

our mantlepiece. I think it rather reflects our personalities, right down to trying to get a doomed orchid to grow. :)

Speaking of FOs, here it is:

photographed from the little camera on the iMac, because it's been so bloody cold and gross over the past week.

The pattern is the Flower Basket Shawl from Interweave Knits Fall 2004. Ravelry link. I knit it in one skein of Cascade Eco Wool which my mum brought me from the US. Lovely stuff, I'll have to get my hands on some more. :D

I'll end with a most flattering picture drawn of me today by a student. Make note, I'm wearing Flicca!

2008-03-19T11:21:00.005Z

"there'll always be dishes in the sink,
too much to do, too much to think about,
there needs to be more time for you and me,
come waste some time with me"

-The Paperboys, "Waste Some Time"

I missed Messy Tuesday so I've got a Messy Wednesday.

On the bureau underneath the stairs, everything that's labelled actually has a place to be put. Except the pink one, which is the elephant in the room...

(click to view bigger)

tiny dancer

2008-02-26T20:54:00.004Z

When the Teeny Project Runway contest was announced, I just knew I had to enter. After all, I had designed stuffed animals at one point, I had a rubbermaid tub full of them, and gosh darnit, it wouldn't be that bad to be Famous On The Internet while I was at it. :)

So I went and dug through the toy box ans came out with one of the flip flops, an elephant. I knew right away I wanted to give her a 50s style skirt with a flirty petticoat. The skirt is Cascade 220 left over from Forecast, and the kidsilk haze in the rufle is from the Bluestockings stash swap. The vest is artesano alpaca (from the snood) and the shoes are leftover black acrylic from the dalek.

In all, I'm pretty pleased. :D

make sure al gore don't cry

2008-02-21T15:23:00.004Z

The whole Al Gore thing is my husband's fault, his is very adamant about shutting off the lights and turning down the heat so that we don't make Al Gore cry.

Well, I had 10 balls of lime green cotton burning a guilty consumer's hole in my stash, so what better way to use it than an eco string bag?

Of course, I only used a ball and a half, so there might be a LOT more of these. (I'll do them in different patterns, though, so that I don't die from the boredom.

Pattern: Elisa's Nest Tote, with the bottom from the Everlasting Bagstopper. (Both free!)

Oh, and I did the top a tad differently: my i-cord bind off goes all the way around, then separate i-cord handles were sewn on.

small projects are fun!

2008-02-14T17:39:00.004Z

Look, a project that only took me three evenings, how fantastic!

Belle Beret, free if you subcribe to the (free) online mag Cut Out + Keep. (I haven't found much other knitting content there, but I also haven't looked very hard!)

Of course, I made lots of mods.

- The wool is some unknown DK from a charity shop

- Knit 10 rows at the base instead of 8

- Used 2 wraps instead of three to reduce the size of the dropped loops (except on the first row, I was seeing how it looked and was too lazy to pull it out again.)

- Knit four repeats of the 180 stitch section instead of three

- Knit two repeats (instead of one) of both the 150 stitch and 120 stitch sections

- Ignored the bit about repeating from the asterisk as I was running out of yarn! Instead, repeated the three rows: 1. wrap, 2. dropped loops 3. k2tog all the way around.

I also had fun taking photos in the moody foggy cemetery, but I won't torture you with a zillion of those. Just one.

my friend flicca

2008-02-10T14:56:00.002Z

If only the horses had been down at our end of port meadow today, the title would've been perfect. As it is, the sweater-coat is perfect! I knit a size smaller than the pattern told me to, because I don't like a baggy fit - I made the 40" finished bust size (to fit 36-38" bust) to fit my 39.5" bust.

I also changed the sleeves dramatically, opting for a 1x1 rib for the majority for the circumference, but following the 3x1 to 2x1 to 1x1 rib pattern for the three centremost ribs.

Finally, I added these big wooden buttons because belted jumpers and I don't get along. I love the button holes I used, the three-row vertical (although horizontal) buttonhole on this page.

I've been working on Flicca since October and put it away to do NaKnitSweMo - which was the disaster that never ended - so it's grand to have this done!

In which I explain more about Tangled Yoke - substitutions and gauge change

2008-02-01T00:30:00.002Z

I knit a sweater in Felted Tweed last year (Salina) and though I loved working with the yarn, I didn't want a whole sweater out of it just yet. For some reason, I also knew wholeheartedly that Tangled Yoke, for me, should be a pullover. Before I started knitting it, I found this henley version, which is truly lovely, but again, not for me.

I was originally eyeing up Cascade 220 for my version, but couldn't pass up a gorgeous bag of Jaeger Matchmaker Merino DK in a deep lime green, which I scored for £20. Well, by scored, I mean, wiped a small tear from my eye as I paid for it, because it's been discontinued. Woe.

So here I am, different gauge, pullover, etc. The swatch gave me 5.75 sts/in after being knit in the round and washed, a fairly significant difference form the original pattern, so I struck out on my own, basing my stitch count on a schematic I made of a favourite pullover.

Those are my measurements, should you ever care to knit something for me. *wink*

I knit and everything was lovely. I was knitting the Tangled Yoke for NaKniSweMo, way back in November. Remember that? I knit like the wind, like a fiend, I was in love with the yarn, with the pattern, I struggled through the cabling and persevered, and then? This.

See all that buckling? This is when I learned it was WAY too big at the top. Like, handfuls too big, at least 20 or 30 stitches too many from the bust up. I wailed and gnashed my teeth, but went ahead and finished the sweater as best as I could, basically running out of yarn in the process.

Then two days later I ripped out the yoke to the armpits and the body to the waist, determined to make everything better...

Tangled Yoke Pullover or, a multitude of modifications resulting in a delightful sweater

2008-01-31T17:50:00.001Z

This is not a post about my trials and tribulations of getting this sweater to fit me properly, not yet. Instead, we'll cover the fun part, dissecting and modifying the cable - if you'd like to change your gauge, or change the cardigan into a pullover - or do both, like I did.

Of course, the hardest part of modifying this sweater is getting the appropriate amount of stitches for the yoke. Lucky for you, dear reader, I did all that work and will give you the formula.

The basic formula for the number of stitches needed for the cable yoke section as charted is as follows: multiple of 20 stitches plus 36. Use this formula if you’re knitting the cardigan version. For the pullover, I added an extra 5 stitches, to make up for the lack of a button band, so my formula was: multiple of 20 stitches plus 41 stitches.

Want to see how it all breaks down? Here’s the schematic I used:

The four stitches at either side of the 5-stitch centre are written into the pattern, and the cable chart starts (and ends) at the 12-stitch section. Since it's in the round, you don't need to purl the non-cabled rows, but watch for the increases and decreases which are between the cable-knit rows.

I decided, based on my gauge, how many stitches to go with on the cabled section, which worked perfectly both times I did the cable, despite messing up the actual body measurements the first time.

(Version One
was much too large at the upperbust, resulting in me pulling it back to the armpits of the sleeves and the waist of the body. I added shortrows for the bust which worked a treat. I also decided that I wanted the cable ON my shoulders, instead of around it, resulting in modifications and major short-rowing that I'll talk about next time...)

How to make really awesome flapjacks

2008-01-27T20:14:00.002Z

Also known as "this is a cooking post" designed to teach y'all in the rest of the world how to cook one of the easiest and yummiest UK treats: flapjacks!

I used this recipe as a base, but I've made the necessary UK-US translations for you all, and I've done it all Pioneer Woman Cooks style, because, well, why not?

First, gather your ingredients: (UK peeps can go to the recipe linked above and follow from there)
* 3 cups quick (but not instant) oats
* 6 T Golden Syrup (look for it in the "British" aisle of your supermarket, or in a specialty-foods shop)
* 6 T sugar
* 1 stick plus 1 T butter or margarine

Bung your butter in a medium to large saucepan

and put it on a heat high enough to melt it but low enough to not brown it.

Add to that the sugar

and the Golden Syrup

to the butter.

(and I may I just say? mmmm. Golden Syrup.)

Melt everything together,

then add the oats.

Turn off the heat, and stir to mix.

While you're doing that, butter the pan.

(or use cooking spray)

Dump in the oaty sugary goodness mixture in a 9x9 inch baking pan (I used a 7x10 inch pan)and pat it down.

Keep pressing down firmly until the oats are all packed together. This will prevent the dreaded crumbly flapjack.

Cook at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Remove from oven, wait 5 minutes, and cut into squares or delicious bar shapes. Wait another 20 minutes or so (if you can) to let the molten sugar cool and harden a bit.

Mmmm. Delish!

is this thing on?

2008-01-03T22:16:00.002Z

OK, see? Sorry about the whole not-blogging thing. I can blame it on NaKniSweMo, because I was knitting ALL the time, and because it's boring to be like "here's yet another picture of a boring green sweater in progress. Of course, said sweater turned out to be way too big and needed to be frogged and re-knit anyhow. More on that when I finally finish it in a few days.

Then there was Christmas knitting, which I also couldn't blog about, because the recipient, my partner A, might find out. I wasn't having none of that!

What did he receive, you might ask now that Christmas is done and gone?

We welcome our Dalek overlords.

Knit from the extremely well-written and easy to follow Extermaknit pattern.

I made the following changes:
* Made smaller, 3-stitch bobbles
* Did vertical striping in all stockinette, instead of 1x1 rib
* Eliminated extra rows of main body colour between the vertical stripes and the horizontal stripes.
* Added an odd combination of slipped stitches and stranded work to add vertical vent lines to the horizontal stripes
* Used beads instead of bobbles at the top of the head

A full body shot...

At Christmas I also made a pair of handwarmers for my sister-in-law, using the deservedly popular Fetching pattern. You can see a gusseted thumb there: she has really big joints due to childhood arthritis, so I added 12 extra stitches for thumb room. :)

Finally, my Christmas booty. The big surprise was this:

which my parent picked up in Alaska! This will probably become a hat for A, who is cold but doesn't like itchy wooly things.

I also got a Bosworth mini spindle

and some lovely Spunky Eclectic BFL roving

and now I just need to learn to spin. Hrm. (I've heard that these spindles are hard to learn on, but I will persevere. Oh yes.)

I should finish Tangled Yoke very soon, so more then!

I've finished the leftovers!

2007-10-21T16:50:00.002+01:00

OK, well I finished some of the leftover wool that I've got. But hey - I love my new sweater vest, toasty and warm! (Even if it didn't use all my leftovers)

(That's me and some lucky person in the Virgin hot air balloon. Who knows, it could even be Richard Branson!)

Let's see. Leftovers, knit inbetween the two smallest sizes (plus some tweaking - vertical underbust darts (using this tutorial) for the win!) with aran-weight wool singles.

Our cast of characters:
Purple... Debbie Bliss Maya
Dark Blue... Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride
Teal... Manos Del Uruguay
Black... Unknown! Maybe Peace Fleece?

Taking photos is fun, if cold. Made warmer by my lovely vest!

Ally Pally update

2007-10-15T22:57:00.002+01:00

Sunday brought me to Ally Pally and all the wonders of the Knitting and Stitching show. I was reletively restrained, however, buying only £40 worth of yarn! But, I'm rather happy with what I got, so I suppose that's all that matters.

Sock yarns: Cherry Tree Hill (in ??) and Jitterbug in Lapis

and ten balls of Jaeger Matchmaker DK (Why did this have to be discontinued? Woe.)

Made good progress on my Leftovers vest (That's the back, just about to start the shoulder shaping.

And worked on the second jaywalker. No pic. Too tired! :)

sick day stitchin'

2007-10-10T12:06:00.002+01:00

Well, I'm not really sick, just bloomin' fatigued! I was off work yesterday and did nothing but lay on the couch attempting to relax and sleep. Went to the doc today and she said it's probably just some crazy tired-making virus that I picked up from the kids. So I'm home again today, this time watching telly and working on my Leftovers vest. (Tho the crazy UK kids would call it a tank top.)

Of course, I'm doing it in aran weight singly-ply wools*, so I'm going to completely have to recalculate the neck and armholes. Maths for the win!

This is the (heavily modified in photoshop to reflect colour changes) sketch I did of it in my notebook before I started.

In progress! The measurements were running a bit small, so I tired it on a few minutes ago, and it's perfect. Hooray for negative ease!

And here's your bonus photo today, taken a week and a half ago in London:

* The teal is probably Manos del Uruguay but was without a label, the purple is Debbie Bliss Maya, the dark blue is lamb's pride, and the black is, I think, Peace Fleece.

2007-10-07T22:31:00.002+01:00

Last weekend I was going into London and decided to take a small, easy project with me. Three hours later, and I was finished! Calorimetry is an awesome pattern - and fast!

That's two strands held together - one of debbie bliss alpaca silk that I got in a swap, and one of felted tweed left over from Salina.

Then with the rest of the alpaca silk, I made another Innocent hat:

Have you noticed lately that I've got these lovely light-infused photos? Well, with a few handy dandy art materials and a really bright lamp, you can too!

I can't remember where I first saw the instructions for it, but it's pretty simple:

(It fascinated my cat, and I couldn't get her out of the photo.)

Find a box (mine could be bigger, but is OK for small things), cut out the top and cut holes in three of the sides. Tape tracing paper over the top and two of the sides. Drape a large sheet of bright white paper from the top back to the front floor. (mine is two pieces) Take a lamp and shine it in the top. (That's my sunlamp - sun spectrum, which is handy.) Voila!

(Or you can go here for a tutorial with photographs.)

I don't know if this is common, but I still have to do some levels-tweaking in photoshop to white out the background. Oh well. Still great results!

in fits and starts

2007-09-23T21:43:00.002+01:00

Ohhh, where have I been?

Swatching for Flicca, but the swatch says that I need to get 7mm needles to continue.

Knitting more tiny hats:

(two in my own dyed self-striping sock yarn, one in the same koigu as the pomatomuses.)
I built a light box to make the photos pretty :)

And a few ones that I'd made earlier, but forgot to photograph:

Finally, after several snafus (size 4 needles too tight, size 6 needles too loose, size 5 needles just right!) I have started the Icarus Shawl. It's mindless and easy, for the first bit, which is nice. It's Lorna's Laces' Helen's Lace, in the Irving Park colourway.

That's about the level of sunshine we got midafternoon today, hence building the lightbox for winter phototaking.

stripey skirt

2007-09-21T17:07:00.001+01:00

This is how happy my new skirt makes me.

The pattern is Burda 8954 (in the middle length), which I picked up years ago when my flatmate recommended it. Of course, she also said it had pockets - which it doesn't - although they could be added without too much trouble. (I didn't bother, this time.)

I figured out what the problem was with it coming out too big the first time": my sewing machine is set up so that the seam measurements on the presser plate are only accurate when the needle is in the "left" position, and not the "centre" one. Bad planning, Elna! I pulled back the seams about 8" then gradually decreased to the proper seam allowance, and I also re-set the zipper (much more poorly than the first time, bummer).

But still. Skirt! I would make this one again, for sure. :)

2007-09-19T23:08:00.002+01:00

Well, first off, finished socks!

Hurrah!
I'm wearing them today, and they are very comfortable. I think I need to knit more socks simply because then I can go longer between handwashings!

Also, tonight I finished the Tracery Snood, which was both a tale of happiness and of woe.

Happy, because I designed the lace decreases myself and came out with a very appealing star pattern. Woe, because the thing is a bit too big and makes me look like I'm wearing a giant purple sock on my head. And I'll have to rip it back. (Or maybe I'm just wearing it wrong? Either way, A. didn't like it. Of course, he's not a knitter and has never seen a snood before. What do YOU think?)

I apologise for the bathroom mirror pic, but it just HAD to be blogged!

2007-09-02T00:06:00.001+01:00

I'm awake! I'm really behind on blogging! Can I blame Ravelry?

Remember the Jaywalkers from the angst post? I finished Sock One. Purdy, eh?

It's the best-fitting sock I've ever worn... which means I should finish it!

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When I was in Spain, I finished off the first mini-Pomatomus. (Toe-up, as usual, with limited colourful koigu hence the contrast heels and toes!) I am quite pleased with it! The second one is near to finished - such a fast, well written pattern!

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Finally, there's the big crazy project (well, not that big, but it feels that way), the snood!

I want to claim the name Tracery Snood as a pattern name, before anyone else jumps on it! *shifty eyes* I'll be posting this pattern free, once I actually finish it. It's a bit tiring because it's lace every row in the round, but I love working with the Artesano Alpaca. Yum!

I want it to be just above shoulder-length when pulled down by my mass-o-hair, so while I've still got a ways to go, soon I get the fun of writing a lace pattern for the bottom. Eek!

2007-08-28T12:26:00.001+01:00

Whew!

I got back from my holiday to Spain on Sunday, but decided to wait until I was awake enough (the Spanish never sleep!) to properly acknowledge and post about my Sockapalooza package!

We'll take the story back a week, wherein I had been biting my fingernails, hoping that some idiot postman hadn't ditched my package in a canal, but presuming it had just gotten slowed down in the myriad postal strikes. I called my husband one evening, who was pleased to report that he'd picked up my package from the depot. Immediately I pounced with questions - "did it come from the states?" yes... actually Canada "really? because I saw this one pair of knee-high socks on a blog... is it from Nova Scotia?" er.. is that what NS stands for? then yes!

That's when I was pretty damn certain I knew which socks I was getting - I'd been scanning the KnitPligg for days after my pal said she'd sent them out. Hee!

And I was right! My gorgeous socks were knit by the incredibly talented and generous Valerie, who was fantastic at keeping in touch and sent me a cute little poll about my calf size. I told her she was welcome to knit me knee-high socks if she dared... and lo and behold! :D

I can't wait to wear these to school in the winter, when I have to stand outside while the kids have outdoor time.

I also got a bevy of other fun things, all wrapped in paper to match the socks. Awww. :)

The snail thingy is soap, strange HIYA mints (which on the back are called "cinnamon conversation pieces"), fun stickers, a mini sweater keychain, a SNB journal (coooool, and exactly the same size as my Moleskein, for easy transport) and lil pink ribbon which makes me wish I has a sproglet to knit for!

Phew! Thanks!

2007-08-17T22:02:00.000+01:00

Hi there! This is a message for my Sockapalooza Secret Pal!

Your package has been recieved, but I´m on holiday until the 26th!!

Expect a full update then.

TTFN!

2007-08-08T13:06:00.000+01:00

Wow! I'm so behind on this due to the busy busy, but then I saw that the CRAFT blog had scooped me, oh noes!

Felix, one of the lovely members of the Oxford Bluestockings, has started the Knitted Walking Stick Cozy Competition, and you, all five readers of my blog, three of whom already know about it (I knid, I have no idea who reads this blog!) are about to receive the info!

The Knitted Walking Stick Cosy Competition 2007
WIN £40 IN YARN VOUCHERS!

Inspired by the dignifying powers of health-related knitting projects everywhere, The Missability Radio Show is organising a walking stick cosy knitting competition. With your great ideas, knitting skills and visionary powers, we can create a richly diverse collection of variations on the standard appearance of an ordinary grey walking stick.

Go here to see the superfantastic website, and to read all about the competition, which I get to be a judge of! meep!

2007-08-07T16:32:00.001+01:00

The flood, and the move, have no internet, and being far too tired from work all didn't agree with me... but hey! It's summer hols now, so I can relax, kick back, and finish posting about Sockapalooza. :D

I finished the socks. They're now winging their way to somewhere on the Continent. No picture of the package, but here's the finished product!

When I unpack and get less tired, there will be a lavender alpaca snood, and pomatomus anklets to post about - yay!

spiral not-boot socks

2007-07-16T20:17:00.001+01:00

I've been so busy that I haven't had time to post at all, plus the projects that I've been working on are difficult to photograph!

Luckily I've got a small-footed friend here for the weekend, so I was able to photograph the Sockapalooza socks in progress. Yay!

This is sock number one: Judy's magic cast-on, sort-row toe, and extremely unsucessful self-designed lace cuff that will be ripped out and turned into ribbing. :)

Here are the two socks together - I changed the pattern to make the spiral go the other way on this sock. I think it makes a nice effect!

So I'm mostly on track for finishing these, and despite breaking one needle, losing another, and being forced to use a needle .25mm smaller, these seem to be okay!