Sitting around with my feet up

I thought once I finished work that I'd have loads of time, and pictured myself crafting away whilst catching up with TV, updating my blog and reading my way through the huge pile of books sitting in a wobbly pile next to my bed. Well, it's now a month since I finished work (still another month before the baby is due!) and I haven't done that much crafting, or that much reading really. It's not particularly comfortable to sit still for large amounts of time, so I haven't been! I have done an awful lot of Sorting Things Out in the house, and boring but necessary tasks like organising people to service the boiler, clear the guttering of leaves and service the car. I'm kind of presuming that December will be a bit busy, so I've almost finished my Christmas shopping (should be completed this week!) and getting things like presents and cards ready to post.

This is what I have been doing, craft-wise:

Another Beyond Puerperium, this one in 3-6 month size to use up the oddments of sportweight yarn I had in my stash (I worked out that this was the biggest size I could make with what I had leftover). The yarn is a mixture of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, and MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino, both of which are lovely to knit with and have the same gauge. I pulled the yarn a bit too tight whilst changing colours at the ends of rows, so it's slightly skewed at one side, but I don't think that will matter (and the baby isn't going to mind, is it?!). I ended up buying a couple more balls of the MillaMia for the due date swap group I participated in, as I thought my swap partner would enjoy knitting with it just as much as I have. I also seem to be addicted to this pattern - that's the eleventh one I've made! I've now made newborn and 3-6 month sizes for my baby, so I will next be aiming to make the next size up. Some more stash yarn is earmarked for this.

I've finished another pair of children's socks for a birthday present. The yarn is My First Regia again, cos it's machine-washable and nice and soft. I initially started off with the Toots pattern, but this nearly drove me mad with bizarre lace patterning that wasn't particularly intuitive, so I switched to the Garter Rib socks pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, which I've made before, so know I enjoy knitting and that it works!

My latest project, only cast on last week, is a pair of slouchy bedsocks in DK yarn, Sirdar Crofter DK. I received one ball of this in last year's knitting group Secret Santa, and found the pattern in a yarn shop on holiday in June, and it only needed another ball, so it seemed a good way of using the yarn up. The socks are knitted flat and then seamed, and I'm now regretting not altering the pattern and knitting them in the round, as knitting them flat seems awkward. The heel instructions weren't very intuitive, so I had to do a lot of checking on other people's experiences on Ravelry forums before I could get anywhere. Does anyone else find this, after knitting indie patterns that are pdfs and so there is less limitation on space when providing instructions? Everytime I've used a bought printed pattern recently it seems to be a bit deficient in the instructions department.

I've also sewn this dress, for my swap partner in the due date swap group. The fabric is 100% cotton, and I was really pleased to find it in the closing down sale from our local haberdashery, as it was the perfect amount, and in the colours (pink and grey) which she said she preferred!

This is part of the present I received from my swap partner - a sheep baby hat! Isn't it cute?! There were also some other goodies in the parcel.

And, finally, I was given this baby blanket last night at my knitting group meeting - all my knitting group friends had made squares, which sounds like it needed a lot of organisation as they were apparently passing balls of yarn backwards and forwards to each other! Isn't it cool?!

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll get another update in in the not to distant future!

Fair Isle sheep

Knitting tiny sizes certainly goes quickly! This is the front of the Milly tank top in size 3-6 months which only took a few days to do. I have realised that, whilst I like doing the regular type of Fair Isle with repeating patterns, I'm much less keen on the ones where you have to do lots of counting and it isn't regular, or you have to carry long floats behind the work to twist in every so often. It would probably also have helped if I hadn't also been watching 1864, which is in Danish with subtitles at the same time! Still, it was fun knitting on this size garment. I think for an adult size garment I'd want to stick to regular Fair Isle, as I learnt the holding-the-yarn-in-both-hands technique a few years ago.

This is my mitred square baby blanket made out of (machine washable) sock yarn oddments. I've finished all the mitred squares now and am planning to crochet a border, just had to wait for a 2.5mm crochet hook to be delivered as they don't have the Clover soft-touch ones at my local Hobbycraft.

And I finally got around to cutting out the pieces for a dress for the impending niece. This is the fabric I bought on holiday back in early June so it's been handing around for a while! This is the wrong side, the right side is much brighter. The local haberdashery is closing down at the end of this month, so I am going to have to be organised about going somewhere to buy buttons for the dress, as I'll have to get the car out and go further afield for them now.

An explosion of projects

So, in my last post, I'd had to start a new sock pattern so that I had some train knitting to do whilst I was away. The first of those socks (Wise Hilda's Basic Ribbed Socks, in Bergère de France Opal)
is now complete and I'm pleased with the fit- my heels are very narrow so this is a great pattern. If you have wider heels you might want to knit the heel on more stitches.

Then I've been working on my Not Nautical or Striped Nautical Striped Jumper. You might remember that I was working out whether I could get gauge or not. Well, I didn't, but I decided that I'd try knitting the smallest size and it should work out at about the right size for me (this is already sounding ominous, isn't it?). So, I'm knitting away. It's 100% cotton, so quite hard work to knit with, although beautifully soft.

The slight flaw with this one is that I then discovered my 15 balls of yarn are two different colourways - they were all in a bargain bin at a massive discount, and I suspect were also seconds. But the colours aren't drastically different so I'm going to do alternate rows and call it a design feature. On the left in the photo below is one colourway, and on the right is the other. So the difference isn't huge...

But, of course, then I got intrigued by another pattern, as Iris (whose blog I've read for years, and who I'm really pleased to see back on the blogging scene) inspired me join in the Garter Yoke Cardi Knit-Along, as I'd admired the one she was starting, and she was using Rowanspun DK, which I also had in my stash. And which also counts towards this year's target as I needed an adult sized garment in DK to knit for this year's challenge. The pattern is Melissa LaBarre's Garter Yoke Cardigan, which should hopefully produce a practical cardigan that I can wear for work once it gets colder. I got gauge on 4.5mm needles, and am knitting the smallest size (I hope that was the right thing to do, but I didn't want positive ease with this pattern as I'm intending to wear it mostly unbuttoned).

And, of course, I still have my leftover sock yarn blanket to get on with! 

Still, that's only four projects on the go...

Cables and elephants

A lot of the knitting I've been working on at the moment is for presents, so I haven't been able to post pics. But it was my god-daughter's second birthday yesterday, and I'd knitted her an elephant (this is the Elijah pattern by Ysolda). Apparently she's very pleased with it and has called it "Elephant". An elephant takes exactly one ball of Sirdar Country Style DK, using 3mm needles to make the fabric firm enough to stop the stuffing appearing.

I got an iPhone for my birthday, and have been playing around with pictures and knitting apps (I've never owned a smartphone before), which is why some of these pictures may look stranger than usual. I'm loving the Yarma app, which lets you take a photo of your knitting or stash and upload it straight to Ravelry.



And I've been knitting a cabled hoodie for my nephew's birthday in December, but had to get it finished last week as they were coming to stay on Friday night, en route to Heathrow.

This is it a week ago, almost finished, with just the hood to do. That's the point when I ran out of yarn (John Lewis Heritage Aran, which comes in huge 400g balls), which wasn't available online. In the end I had to ring John Lewis on Oxford St (where I bought the first ball) and they tracked down another ball at the Brent Cross branch, which someone then posted to me. Can't beat the John Lewis customer service...

Some frantic knitting this week got the hood finished and sewn on, then I blocked it overnight on Thurs/Fri, and wrapped up on Friday, about two hours before he arrived! The colour below isn't very accurate, it's more of a royal blue as in the picture above, but by the time I finished it there was no daylight so this was the best I could do.

Hopefully he'll like it. This is the 9-10 years size, which is almost big enough for me to wear!



After leaving it blocking I went off to one of our "extra" knitting group meetings - in the daytime several of us who work part-time/are SAHMs sometimes meet up for an extra knitting group - and had to quickly grab my sock yarn blanket as I hadn't got anything else to knit at that point! A strange feeling.

This is coming along well, considering I only knit it when I haven't got anything else on the go. Despite it being a leftover sock yarn blanket, I did buy a couple of balls of My First Regia to get the bright orange and yellow colours I needed at one end of it.

And yesterday I cast on a scarf to give to my BIL for Christmas. This is just a simple k2p2 ribbing, using Patons Colour Works Aran, which is lovely and soft to knit with, but a bit on the splitty side. Still, I like the way the colours work out in it. Despite being aran the recommended needle size is 6.5mm, so it's growing fairly quickly.

And then there was a knitting update

Two blog posts in one weekend? I'm on a roll.

I seem to have got quite a lot of knitting done since I last did an update (OK, so that was back in June, so hardly surprising).

My Fantastic Purple Cardigan is nearly all knitted, I just have to sew the seams and knit the edging. I blocked it on the spare bed one week and it took up loads of room, as it seems to have come out rather large. That's a good thing though, as it's meant to be a baggy cardigan.

I got frustrated with the Mini Mania Scarf and ended up frogging it. I'd wanted to knit it to use up odds and ends of sock yarn, but found that linen stitch was hurting my wrists if I did it for too long so decided to give up. Plus, all my machine washable sock yarn leftovers seemed to be variations on mud colour (have I really knitted a whole pile of mud colour socks?) which didn't make for an interesting scarf. Instead I have started a Sock Yarn Leftovers Blanket using mitred squares. The pattern is more of a recipe into which you add in whatever weight yarn and needle size you want. It's very easy to follow, and this is a great project to pick up when I need something fairly mindless to knit, such as at knitting group where I'm busy talking and drinking wine, or when I'm at home watching TV with subtitles (anyone else enjoying Les revenants?)

My Aeolian Shawl is coming on well, I've just started the edge pattern, although there still seem to be a LOT of rows to go. I've really enjoyed knitting this and, apart from a blip last week when I did four rows wrong, it's been fairly straightforward knitting. It is quite time consuming, as it's now at the point when it takes about 45 minutes to do a knit row.

On a trip to our nearest proper yarn shop, Mrs Moon, with a friend back in May...

I bought a couple of balls of Rowan Cocoon to make a scarf as I wanted a nice straightforward pattern for TV knitting and to take on holiday with me. I finished knitting this in the hottest week of the year - because what more could you want in 30°C than a chunky knitted scarf?!

Not sure why my ribbing looks a lot more even in the photo than it is in real life.

That was a really good shopping trip, as I also found in the sale a copy of a book I'd wanted for ages, Little red in the city, which has lots of info inside about knitting to fit your size and shape.

Think that's all for now.

Beyond Puerperium

I can finally post a picture of a project I finished a few weeks ago, but which was for my Goddaughter's birthday, and as her Mum reads this blog, I couldn't post any pictures earlier. It's another Beyond Puerperium, but in a larger size this time. I really enjoy knitting this pattern, it's very portable, there's enough going on to keep it interesting and there's virtually no sewing up to do! The pattern is very clearly written, and I love the way it's written for multiple sizes of babies as well as different yarn weights. The yarn is 4 x balls of Patons Australia Merino Deluxe DK, which is 100% merino wool and  lovely to knit with.

And I also realised I'd forgotten to post a picture of the blanket we made over the summer at knitting group. It was for a member of the group who was moving into a flat of her own.

Various members of the group made squares, I made four of them (the four in variegated yarn) and I knitted/crocheted it all together and did the border. It was surprisingly hard to organise, as for a while I didn't actually know how many squares there were going to be, and whether we'd be making a cushion rather than a blanket. It actually turned into a pretty big blanket - it covers the queen size bed we've got here. It was also quite entertaining sitting joining it all together and covered in blanket during the hottest month of the year! It was well worth doing though, as she was overjoyed to receive it!

Knitting and daffodils

I've been going a bit mad in the garden recently, including taking a day off work to catch up with some gardening (!), and we had a lovely afternoon out today to see some daffodils, so I'll put some gratuitous daffodil photos in this post, but leave most of the garden update for garden-at-the-beginning-of-April, to make room for the knitting update.

A couple of people have messaged  me to say they've had trouble leaving comments, and I know I've struggled with some other Blogger blogs in the last week or two. If you want to leave a comment and are having trouble, please let me know - my email's in my profile on here or my Rav profile is here.

A couple of projects have been finished this week. I finally finished the KAL blanket from last year (!), just in time as I will be seeing the lucky recipient who's having it as a birthday present next weekend and want to take it with me, as it's a bit big to put in the post.

I'm pleased with how it's turned out. The squares aren't quite all the same size, but the crochet edging helped even it up a bit.

And I produced another tea cosy. Last year I knitted one for an old-lady-at-church, who wanted one to match her kitchen. Well, it turned out that old-lady-at-church thought her friend would like one too, so I ended up knitting another, identical, one! It's the Terrific Tea Cosy pattern that I've made a few times now. I am kind of hoping that old-lady-at-church hasn't got any more friends who would like tea cosies though...

And I'm trying to find some yarn to knit a jumper for my nephew's birthday in May. He apparently would like an Auntie-knitted jumper (thought he might be getting a bit too old for these things) but it has to be soft and bright red. I've settled on the Intrepid Pullover pattern from Interweave Knits, now I just need to source the yarn. I'm thinking either Patons Smoothie DK, or Sirdar Baby Bamboo (but without letting on to him that the yarn has "baby" in its name, as he'll be 6 and would be Totally Mortified).

How did I get so old and wrinkly that my youngest nephew is 6?! Although I now have three grey hairs, so it's obviously downhill from now on.

This afternoon we went for an afternoon out to Valley Gardens, as I'd heard rumours of some amazing daffodils at this time of year. And we weren't disappointed.

Some bits were very familiar. I went to university very close to here, so I've walked past this pool many times (usually whilst avoiding revising for exams/with an essay deadline looming etc)

 But I hadn't ventured into the gardens themselves before, and they're spectacular. With a lot of rhododendrons (we later discovered that it's the home of the national collection of rhododendrons, which would explain why there's rather a lot!).

 And beautiful swathes of daffodils as far as the eye could see!

These are some of the daffodils out at home. I planted the same varieties together, so they group into different coloured clumps around the garden. Apart from at the far end, where I obviously forgot to plant any at all.

Think that's all for now. I'm away next weekend so I'm not sure when my next blog update will be.

Zoom

I've done a fair bit of zooming around in the last 10 days or so, plus had a throat infection for a few days, so haven't done much knitting (or blogging)!

I worked one Saturday at Who Do You Think You Are Live - promoting family history resources, which was fun, if a bit intense. It was something like 8 hours on my feet, with a short break for lunch when I sat on the floor as it was so busy I couldn't find any spare seats. It took place in one of the halls at Olympia. I was very hoarse by the end of the day, I thought from so much talking, but it turned out to be a throat infection!

Then the next week I went off to Cambridge for a conference, spending the night before at a friend's house. On trotting off to get something to eat I was delighted to discover how close they live to the new(ish) Sheep Shop! I'll be back. It looks lovely inside.

And, no sooner did I get back from Cambridge, but I was off again to the theatre this time, to see someone from work appearing in their local dramatic society production - which was very good but a bit of a late night on a work night.
I received this cute picture of my friend's baby wearing the jumper I knitted last year, which she has just grown into. Cute or what?!

A parcel all the way from Wisconsin, containing the three balls of Grignasco Gold merino DK I need to finish my cardigan. My generous swop partner (I sent her some sock yarn and British yarn) had also enclosed a Wisconsin Badgers mug, and postcards of the wildlife where she lives.

And another squishy parcel from Celticove, after I discovered a 50% off sale, including Araucania Toconao yarn. I wanted three contrasting skeins to go with the purple skeins I bought at Norfolk yarns a while ago, so I can make the Velvet Morning cardigan from Knitty, and I'd been keeping an eye open for a yarn sale for this. I love Celticove, I've been ordering from them every now and again for years, and they always have good sales, and speedy delivery.

And finally, some knitting, or rather crochet. I finished all the squares for the (2011) KAL blanket so have been crocheting them together. It was slow progress at first as I haven't crocheted in a while, but I got faster towards the end. Now I just have loads of ends to sew in and then I need to block it.

I've also been knitting another tea cosy for a friend of a friend, but have been mainly doing the blanket whilst I waited for the yarn for my cardigan to arrive.

Room by Emma Donoghue

When you read the synopsis of this novel, it doesn't exactly encourage you to pick it up and start reading. It sounds massively depressing for a start - the story is of a five year old boy and his Mum who are being held captive by a man (who also fathered the boy) in Room. And it's narrated by the five year old. Both of those things made me thing that it wouldn't be very good, and that it would also be very dark to read.

Not a bit of it. I soon got into the style of the writing, and, coming from the child's perspective makes it an entertaining read. This is a kid who has never been outside the room he was born in so how he views his world and what happens in it is highly interesting, and amusing in places. Plus, because it's from his perspective, there's nothing graphic actually in the book, although cleary some horrendous stuff has been going on. Yes, there are some dark parts, and some thriller-like parts that had me on tenterhooks, but there are also many heartening cheerful parts. I was overwhelmed by the ingenuity of the Mum, who has managed to bring her son up in as healthy a way as she can manage and educate him with the limited resources available to her. And by the ingenuity of the author, who had obviously put a massive amount of thought into both the circumstances of the main characters' lives and also what it would be like for the boy once he is outside the room. And I'd better not say any more, else I'll give the plot away! ;-)

I read this very very fast, in slightly over a day. It's one of those unputdownable books.

I had a busy week last week. The new job is fantastic. All I had hoped it would be and I've had a lovely time. Even the daily commute wasn't too bad, although I was quite tired by the end of the week.
It was nice having extra time for reading and knitting on the train (about 1.5 hours a day now!) and so far I've had a seat on every train and tube I've been on.
I'm currently reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and A vintage affair by Isabel Wolff, so I'll review those once I've finished them. Wolf Hall is taking a while as it's really too heavy to take on the train so I'm only reading it at home.

Knitting-wise, I've finished some more blanket KAL squares, and am actually waiting for next month's patterns to be released instead of frantically trying to get squares finished before the end of the month!

I managed to forget to cross one of the cables over in the cabled square and then also forgot that I have the Knit fix book which tells you how to fix this...

That's all for now. With the new job I'm finding that I have less time for blog reading and catching up with Ravelry and Facebook, so bear with me!

First sign of Spring?

Something is beginning to come up in the garden - it still seems far too cold and early for anything though. I'm also perplexed about what they might be. I definitely don't remember planting any bulbs just there and am wondering if it's grass seed gone AWOL from an attempt to re-seed the lawn?!

 Meanwhile, I've enjoyed watching the first parts of Alys Fowler's The edible garden  and Carol Klein's Life in a cottage garden. Both are on BBC HD and the Klein one is on BBC 2 at the moment as well as being available to watch on the website. I think I like the edible garden  best, mainly because she's gardening in a relatively small space, more like my garden - although her garden is quite large for in a city! And I already enjoy reading her weekly column in the Guardian Weekend magazine.

The amaryllis progressing slowly. It has grown a microscopic amount and turned green. Maybe I should stop staring at it and it'll do things a bit quicker?

Tina, whose blog I've been reading for several years, posted about how she was going to take a picture of her garden from the back door on the first of the month every month this year to show how the garden develops. I really like this idea so have decided to have a go too, although obviously a bit late for this month. And until it gets lighter in the evenings the pictures are going to have to be taken at the nearest weekend as I don't see the garden in daylight on week days at this time of year! It also might spur me into action as last year I mainly concentrated on the front garden (i.e. people see it!) due to all the other stuff going on, and the back garden was a bit abandoned. Hmm. It does look rather bleak though! Especially with the washing line across the front of the picture - maybe I should have hung some washing on it to hide the garden?!

 So, after my spectacular failure at Iron Knitter, I have, of course, signed up for something else. But this is just a mystery blanket (I refuse to call them afghans, they're blankets or throws to me) knit-along with one square a month. Surely I can fit that in?! There's a group on Ravelry for it here. Of course, all I've done so far is join the Ravelry group, not thought about yarn, knitted a swatch or actually done something productive about it.


Someone has asked me to knit a tea cosy for them. I'm going to use the terrific tea cosy pattern by Martin Storey, which needs 2 x 100g balls of DK but I'm struggling to find some suitable DK in a terracotta colourway (she wants cream & terracotta) so if anyone has any ideas for cheapish DK yarn please let me know!).

 And I received my final Christmas present. The Amazon delivery chaos caused by the snow in December meant my present from my brother's family hadn't arrived with them before they set off to see us before Christmas, so it arrived in the post this week. It was actually quite nice getting a present this week when everything was dank, damp, miserable, grey and we went back to work (surely getting up when it's still dark should be illegal?). It's Gwen Bortner's Entrée to entrelac, which I had read a few reviews of and been wanting to read it for a while. It looks really good, with plenty of detail and diagrams about how to do entrelac, as well as some lovely patterns.