The way my photography for my designs usually works is that I’ll finish the pattern sample, snap a few rough shots that show the details to go to the editor and then, while the pattern is being edited, I’ll arrange a proper shoot and take the actual pictures that will end up in the pattern. The rough shoot gives me ideas for which shots I’ll need and how hard they’re going to be to get.

Sometimes the rough shoot goes well and sometimes…

And my personal favourite…

The pattern is with the editor now so should be ready to be published early next week, assuming I can manage to take some better pictures!

Someone asked for details of whether or not my vintage Singer machine folds into itself so I thought I’d take some quick photos to show how it works.

The “extra” bit of wood in the picture below usually attaches to the left-hand side of the table when not in use. Otherwise the picture shows the machine set up for use.

The machine tips back slightly so that the piece of table-top in front can be lifted.

With that out of the way that machine swings right down into the body of the table.

With the machine inside, the first piece of the top can be replaced.

Then the “extra” bit fits into the remaining space to complete the table-top.

I’m slightly ashamed to admit that this is how the machine currently spends most of its time. I did get a quick lesson in how to use the treadle last time my mum visited so I just need to find the time to practise.

Today I finished my Christmas knitting (and, yes, that’s for presents for Christmas 2011, not Christmas 2012).

I am a fairly disorganised person (my family would say “very disorganised”) and towards the end of last year, for various reasons, life just got completely away from me. So much so that I didn’t even start thinking about Christmas till about the middle of December and, as mentioned above, have just finished knitting all the presents that I decided to make. Fortunately, my family is used to this state of affairs and appreciate handmade gifts whenever they get them!

Amazingly, I did get my Christmas cards out on time:

They used my mini Christmas stocking pattern, hung on some embroidery thread using a mini clothes peg with ink-stamped text.

Next up on my Christmas crafting was my cake. (Ignore the cutting board, please, my disorganisation stretched to forgetting to buy an actual cake board.) I use Nigella Lawson’s recipe from “How to be a domestic goddess” and this year went for a simple white-on-white theme with edible ball bearings.

Starting on the presents, Steven and I used our new chutney-making skills and this recipe to make some home-made chutney. We kept a couple of jars for ourselves and I can highly recommend the recipe!

We also made a couple of jars of mulling syrup (which we failed to take pictures of) from this recipe. We didn’t keep any of this but it did look really pretty in the bottles and made a really nice gift with some wine or cider and a couple of attractive glasses.

Finally, the knitted presents.

First up, a replacement Henry scarf for my Dad. I had sworn never to knit another one of these. I love the finished scarf but the slip stitch pattern takes forever and for some reason I make more mistakes when knitting it than in anything else I’ve ever knitted. However, Dad loved the first one so much that when I found out he’d left it on a train, I knew I’d have to knit a replacement eventually. This is absolutely definitely the last one ever though!

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My Mum also got a scarf (or will when I get around to posting these) but this one was a bit of a cheat since she’s getting the sample of my Hill House Scarf.

Last but not least were some fingerless mitts for my Gran.

I was looking a quick, simple, elegant knit to keep her warm since she’s always cold and the “M is for …” mitts from the Fall 2011 KnitCircus were just perfect. Yarn details and other project notes for these and the Henry scarf will go up on my Ravelry projects page soon.

So, now that 2011 is dealt with, bring on 2012 (or at least the 11 remaining months of it)!

As promised, here is the pattern for the mini stockings. They are worked from the toe up with a short-row heel. Some experience with short rows and toe-up cast-ons would be useful but I’ve included links to good tutorials on both if you need some extra help.

This pattern hasn’t been edited or tested by anyone but me yet so let me know if you have any problems.

Materials

• 2.75mm needles
• small amounts of 4 ply yarn in two colours
• stitch marker to mark beginning of round (optional)
• tapestry needle (for weaving in ends)

Toe and foot:

Using main colour, cast on 6 stitches using figure of 8 cast-on and knit 1 round. (See this article in Knitty for details of the figure of 8 cast-on.)

Round 2: * K1, m1, k2. Repeat from *. (8 stitches)

Round 3: Knit all.

Round 4: * K1, m1, k2, m1, k1. Repeat from *. (12 stitches).

Rounds 5-10: Knit all.

Heel:

Row 11: Knit 11 stitches. Wrap last stitch and turn work. (See this Purl Bee tutorial on short rows for details of how to wrap stitches.)

Row 12: Purl 4 stitches. Wrap next stitch and turn.

Row 13: Knit 3 stitches. Wrap next stitch and turn.

Row 14: Purl 2 stitches. Wrap next stitch and turn.

Row 15: Knit 2 stitches. Pick up wrap and knit next stitch. Wrap next stitch and turn.

Row 16: Purl 3. Pick up wraps and knit next stitch.

Row 17: Knit 4. Pick up wrap and knit next stitch. Wrap next stitch (leg stitch).

Row 18: Purl 5. Pick up wrap and knit next stitch. Wrap next stitch (leg stitch).

Row 19: Knit 6 stitches (back to end of row).

Round 20: Knit all stitches, picking up wraps on 1st and 6th stitches.

Leg:

Rounds 21-30: Knit all stitches.

Cuff:

Change to contrasting colour and turn work so that you are knitting in the opposite direction.

Rows 31-35: Knit all stitches.

Cast off: Knit 2 stitches, place two new stitches back onto left-hand needle and knit these two together. * Knit one stitch, place two new stitches back onto left-hand needle and knit these two stitches together. Repeat from *.

Weave in any ends.

… which is somewhat unfortunate since I would swear November was only moments ago! A combination of illness, craziness at work and just no energy whatsoever (see points 1 and 2) has meant that I’ve done very little except work, eat and sleep for the past month.

I do have quite a lot of knitting to show you though, starting with my current addiction: mini toe-up seamless Christmas stockings.

It’s hard to tell from the picture but the stockings are about 1.5″ tall with a foot length of about 1″. They’re adorable on the tree and look just as good on a handmade Christmas card:

They’re my own design and, if my brain cooperates, I’ll put the pattern up sometime tomorrow.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the Make Lounge and the latest workshop that I attended was no disappointment. Steven and I spent Sunday afternoon at their Jam and chutney making class, thanks to a birthday present of vouchers from Steven’s mum.

The class covered the whole process of making jams and chutneys, and included lots of hints and tips on ingredients and equipment to use. We got to try our hands at making four different jams and chutneys: blackberry & apple jam, plum & orange jam, red onion chutney and a sweet chilli jam.

They all taste absolutely delicious and, since both Steven and I both went, we have plenty of each for future consumption as well as the recipes so that we can make more when we finally run out. I’m almost disappointed that we have so much since it means there isn’t much point in us making any more any time soon. Although, I can think of a few people who might appreciate home-made chutney for Christmas!

* I tried really hard to resist a pun in the post title, honest, but there are just so many jam-related puns that it was impossible not to use one.

I’ve nearly always loved buttons.* My button collection lives in two little jars.

(If you’re in the UK and interested in obtaining similar jars, these previously contained “Very lazy garlic” and “Very lazy ginger” from the English Provender Co. and have been extremely well cleaned to try and remove the smell of vinegar!)

I feel like I’m carrying on a tradition here (with the buttons, not trying to remove the smell of vinegar). My mum has a button collection, both my grandmothers had button collections, at least one of my great-grandmothers had a button collection and I’m sure the others did too. In my family, we tend to the practical side of button collecting and harvest buttons from old clothes or collect the spare buttons from new clothing. The majority of the buttons in my collection are shirt buttons harvested from Steven’s old shirts.

I spent some time recently hunting down all the unattached buttons I could find in the house to put them into the jars. The idea was that when I needed buttons in future they would be easy to find. Things frequently don’t work out the way I think they will so imagine my surprise when I needed buttons for my Lesia Loop and there were six matching buttons of just the right size and colour sitting in my jar. I love it when a plan comes together!

* There was a short period where I couldn’t stand the sight of them due to being forced to spend hours at a Brownie meeting randomly sewing them on to scrap fabric as practice.

I said I wasn’t going to post again until after my exams but I wanted to show off the packages that arrived this morning. I indulged in a little retail therapy while I was ill and everything arrived at once.

First up, some brilliant fabric from Voodo Rabbit. Steven showed me a post about their cushions on Boing Boing and, when I saw they had fat quarters of the fabric available in the their Etsy store, I just couldn’t resist. I bought a fat quarter each of ”Gingham Invaded” in white on black and black on white.

I have no idea yet what I’ll do with this. Steven is talking about getting some for himself to make another dice bag. I’m somewhat tempted to order lots and lots of it from Spoonflower and make my own cushion covers or a quilt!

On a far less geeky note, I also bought a shawl pin from South4th on Etsy. I keep seeing their Ravelry ads and had been trying to resist but being ill lowered my resistance and I succumbed.

I’ve wanted a new shawl pin for a long time but was looking for something small and reasonably plain, whilst still being pretty. The myrtlewood pin fits the bill perfectly. It’s beautifully light, the oiled finish is gorgeous and it looks great with my shawls. Unfortunately, all the shawl pictures I took were out of focus so you will need to wait for better pictures of that.

Now, back to the books!

It seems that the more I knit and sew, the less I blog. Or, is it that the less I blog, the more I knit and sew? Whichever way round it is, there has been very little blogging but a lot of crafting going on.

In the month since I last blogged, I knitted a baby cardigan, finished my Simmer Dim shawl (although it still needs blocked), designed and knitted a hat and matching fingerless gloves, finished a neck-warmer, and sewed a log cabin quilted cushion cover.

I also made quite a bit of progress on the border of another shawl, started another hat, and started sewing a bedspread.

Having written all that down, I’m starting to wonder when I had time to work, sleep and study!

Lots more details to come on all of these but the only one I have pictures of at the moment is the baby cardigan.

This is the Kira cardigan from Harumidori designs and it is absolutely adorable. I wasn’t a great fan of the layout of the pattern document, which was very cluttered and difficult to read, and there were a few typos in the text although I didn’t spot any actual errors in the numbers. I love the finished cardigan though. I knitted in Rowan Pure Wool Aran, which was really soft after washing and blocking but I’m a little worried that some of the red dye ran during washing.

It’s a bit big for the baby that it was given to since he was only 10 days old when we saw him but I had knitted the 6-12 month size.  However, he was wearing the baby hat that I had knitted for his older brother about 2½ years ago, which is apparently still going strong and is still his mum’s favourite baby hat. This was the beanie hat from Natural Knits for Babies and Moms by Louisa Harding. The RYC Cashsoft DK has held up really well with washing, is still really soft and apparently the sizing and fit are just perfect for newborns.

It’s very satisfying to knit gifts for people who really appreciate them!

Not the city (unfortunately) but the Amy Butler skirt pattern. Back in October, I attended an “A-line skirt workshop” at the Make Lounge in Islington and this is the result (excuse the not-brushed-my-hair-or-put-any-makeup-on picture).

I love this skirt. It has somehow ended up being a little big, despite fitting perfectly when I tried it on at the workshop. It’s still perfectly wearable though so I haven’t bothered trying to take it in at all.

The fabric is a red gabardine from John Lewis and is slightly heavier than the cotton that is suggested for the pattern but is the perfect weight for a winter skirt. The lining is a not terribly interesting grey/lilac polyester which I mainly picked to be a nice contrast.

I really enjoyed the workshop. The pattern is well-written and easy to follow anyway but, since this was my first time trying to make anything from a pattern, it was great to have someone there to guide me. I learned how to adjust the pattern to fit my measurements and a neat way of shortening a skirt pattern (particularly one that claims it only makes one length). As always with the Make Lounge, the evenings themselves were good fun, a couple of glasses of wine and some good company can make sewing a surprisingly social activity.

There is a guilty secret attached to this skirt though:

It’s not actually finished! There is just a very little hand-sewing left to do to attach the lining to the zip and to add a hook and eye at the top of the zip. Unfortunately, neither of these things are visible when the skirt is worn so I’ve been wearing it lots anyway and have very little motivation to do the finishing. Maybe now that I’ve admitted my laziness to the internet, I’ll finally get around to finishing it properly.