While uploading some recent photographs to Flickr today, I came to the inescapable conclusion that visiting places beginning with B makes me happy, which is just as well since I’ve been doing such a lot of it recently! (See also: Brighton.)
Scott’s view
Melrose Abbey
Bagpipe-playing pig (at Melrose Abbey)
Beach
Beach huts
Where next, I wonder? Bath, Bristol, Bermuda?
Things have been interesting around here for the past couple of months. Not in a “would make a good blog post” way, more in a “may you live in interesting times” way. There’s been exam stress, job stress, house stress and very little knitting or crafting; all of which adds up to a very quiet blog.
Things are starting to get back to normal though, including the knitting. There’s a new sock design in progress on my needles using the wonderful Juno Buffy sock yarn in the picture above (which is actually a much lighter blue than it appears). I bought this at Knit Nation last July so it’s about time that it got used for something and, so far, it seems to be a perfect match for the design!
Before Christmas, a company selling a certain brand of Irish stout ran an advertising campaign which implied that men would much rather receive beer as a present than hand-knits. While I know that that is probably true for a lot of men, it’s not true for the men in my family — they would rather have beer and hand-knits, and these socks were my attempt to combine the two.
The socks are knitted from the toe up with a simple cable pattern that keeps the knitting interesting and makes for a snug, stretchy fit. The pattern includes 4 sizes with adjustable foot length and sock height so should fit all but the smallest or largest feet.
Irish Stout Socks are now available from Yellow Ginger Designs and Ravelry.
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!
Given how much I loved the Haapsalu Shawl book, the only real question when the follow-up was announced was how long I would be able to resist buying it.
The answer: not very long at all.
The Scarf book follows a very similar format to the Shawl book but, this time, instead of having separate Estonian and English versions, the text for both is included side by side. Like the Shawl book, there is a short section on the history of the scarves and a section with details of yarn, needles, blocking, etc. Then there are the patterns:
There are patterns for both square and triangular scarves. (Yes, that is a chart for an entire triangular shawl in the photo below!)
Other than the joy of owning something beautiful, the real value for me comes again in the form of the hundreds of beautiful stitch patterns that are included. There is very little (or possibly no) overlap between the patterns in the two books so there’s no reason not to own both!
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.
I knitted this delightful little set shortly before Christmas for a friend’s newborn baby boy in RYC Cashsoft 4 ply.
The jumper is the Simply Stripy Sweater for Baby by Rae Blackledge. The pattern comes with a huge range of variations, including alternative sleeves, and bodysuit and dress versions. The pattern is well designed and written (although, at 20 pages long, it’s clearly not designed for printing out in full). I particularly love the button placket to make it easy to get over baby’s head. The socks are just basic toe-up socks knitted to what I hoped would be a sensible size.
And, since nothing is ever simple around here, here is my first attempt at knitting that jumper in Rowan Pure Wool 4 ply.
At first glance, it looks fine but look a little closer and you might be able to see that the red dye ran really badly into the white when it was washed and then I managed to attach one of the snaps back to front. I want to try and see if I can remove and replace the snap so I’m holding on to this one for the time being with a large note saying “Handwash cold by itself!”
…of knitting gifts for my mother-in-law and then keeping them for myself. She doesn’t know that I do this but it doesn’t stop me feeling guilty about it. I decided though that last year would be different and that I would get around the problem of not being able to part with whatever it was by knitting two very similar items and then picking one to keep and one to give to her.
I’ve had this Hedgehog fibres silk lace yarn for ages and decided it would be perfect for two lacy scarves. We both wear a lot of warm browns so the colours were ideal as well.
I picked a couple of lace patterns from the Haapsalu shawl book, swatched, blocked my swatch and then started knitting. Presumably because they were intended to be knitted for sale, the Estonian stitch patterns are easy to memorise and seem to just flow off the needles. For all that these look complicated, they were actually good TV knitting.
Project details on Ravelry: Käpakiri scarf
Project details on Ravelry: Tapeedikiri scarf
The end result was two lovely, floaty, lacy scarves. I loved the Hedgehog Fibres silk – the colours are beautiful and the 100% silk is really luxurious. Not only that but the yardage was incredibly good so I still have half a skein left!
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)!
