Getting warmer

Ruby, my walking companion

2011-11-01T14:34:00.000Z

New blog

2011-08-30T15:34:00.000+01:00

I know some of my old knitting blogpals still have links to this blog, though I've let it go to rack and ruin.
Although I'm still knitting, I've become more interested in taking pictures of the countryside. Not high-end photography, you understand - just snaps with my rather fancy new phone. So in case anyone's interested, I've started a new photoblog. It's also an exercise in web development - I'm hoping to start a little business building sites for some of my friends and neighbours, and need to build my skills up.

Hay stacked

2011-08-25T21:37:00.001+01:00

Knit me, knit me

2010-08-23T09:08:00.000+01:00

Hello blog, long time no see. I've done quite a bit of knitting over the past two years, but at a more relaxed pace than previously. I've even got to the point where I can make a train journey or go away for a night without taking any knitting with me.
But now I can feel it all coming back. Possibly inspired by an unexpected delight. I had 500g of alpaca dk and did a circular shawl (Elizabeth Zimmerman, Knitter's Almanac). I made up the stitches as I went along and because it was on a circular needle and in a dark colour looked like a big soggy bag. Until I cast it off and blocked it when it metomorphised into the most beautiful thing I've ever made. (My camera isn't working unfortunately so can't show - hopeless.)
On Thurs I was driving past Colinette during office hours, and found myself pulling in. Bought 600g of Graffiti from the sale and by Sunday morning I'd finished the sweater. Nothing at all fancy, raglan sleeves, knit in the round, but I felt that driving desire to be knitting.

More countryside

2008-09-19T14:46:00.008+01:00

Just a few more walkies pics. I know to other people who have lived in the country for years these probably aren't very interesting. Sorry.

Fruitful walking

2008-09-19T14:46:00.006+01:00

I seem to be blathering away to myself, but I'm excited to be living here so it's nice to take pictures and post them. The hedgerows are full of fruit, most of it inedible unless you're geared up for making wine or jam, which I'm not yet. Even so, it's a lot lovelier than the (very nice) London park I'm used to.And here are a couple of pictures from the bedroom window, taken this morning.
Going to Julia's 50th tomorrow, in London. Bought a basket and some Shropshire-made stuff to put in it from this lovely deli, down the road. It's got some painting on the wall which is alleged to be medieval.
Nearly time for another beautiful walk, and the sun's still shining.

Lions in the high street

2008-09-16T20:26:00.023+01:00

It's the Michaelmas Fair this weekend. Unfortunately we won't be here (Ellen needs to be moved to her new student house in Canterbury, plus a 50th birthday party and 40th wedding anniversary party down there in the south). But Trevor has been helping with the preparations. I only took pictures of a few of the banners, but they're all the way up the high street. I don't know why so many houses have flag poles - including ours.

We're both working quite hard, but have to take our doggie out for a walk each day so we're discovering all the beautiful possibilities. It's a good time of year too. Today I found these windfalls. They'd fallen in some nettles so hardly any bruises and no maggots.
Also couldn't resist doing a bit wool-gathering out there in the fields. I can't spin but thought I'd have a go with a drop spindle. Also got some black Welsh tops because I thought it would be easier to be a beginner spinner with professionally prepared fibre, and a pair of mini-carders to prepare my gathered wool. I've made a start with the tops and got a little ball of about 3 meters - I'll take a picture when I've done a bit more.
I've been doing some knitting too. Rose liked her Cozy and has taken it away to Edinburgh.
Anticipating cold weather I've made some reversable (and double layered) hats, from Elizabeth Zimmerman. I did this one in sock wool so it took ages, but it's not as bulky as the others.
Finally here's my latest passion - an Anglo Concertina. After Shrewsbury Folk Festival I decided I really wanted to learn an instrument. I've been practising fairly regularly and I'm quite pleased with the way it's going. It's called Rochelle and it's a cheap Chinese job but it makes a good sound, and I love the way it feels when you push and draw the bellows - as if it's breathing, and giving voice.

New home

2008-09-01T14:05:00.006+01:00

We've moved - now living in beautiful south Shropshire instead of less beautiful north London.
So far, so good. We are renting our house in London and renting here for now. The house feels great at the moment but it's huge, and probably very drafty and expensive to heat in winter. So I've been knitting busily - chunky sweaters, reversable double layer hats etc. In fact I'm wearing the chunky sweater today, and it's only Sept 1st - in Colinette graffiti. Knitted in the round, with Raglan sleeves, from Ann Budd's sweater pattern book.
Another FO is this - minimalist cardigan from Interweave Knits (photographed while still in London). I had to knit the sleeves twice, 2nd time with smaller needles and fewer stitches, as they came out much too loose the first time. The cuffs still aren't tight enough to stay up, but it's ok. I love the look of moss stitch but it's a bit tedious to knit.
I also finished Cozy in some red Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk aran from my ebay stash. No pictures yet - it's for older daughter Rose who is moving to Edinburgh later this month. She's travelling back from Spain today and due to arrive here tomorrow - her first visit. Hopefully I'll get a shot of her draped in it before she takes it away.
I know I've been a hopeless blogger lately, but it does seem to be something people come and go with. I've got right out of the habit of taking pictures, which doesn't help. But perhaps now life is a bit less stressful I'll feel more inspired...

2008-04-15T08:10:00.012+01:00

I've been exploring Ravelry. I think it's brilliant that you can look up a pattern, and see dozens of examples of how it has been knitted up by different people in different yarns. And you get people's tips too.
I got past the first pattern repeat on the back of the tweedy aran cardi and then saw the minimalist cardigan on Knitting Daily, and felt it would give me a nice rest. I'm using Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk which I bought from Jannette's on ebay ages ago. It's finer than the yarn in the pattern, so I'm getting the right gauge but the fabric is a bit airier.

Finished one of Rose's jitterbug socks. I tried to do the toe up socks from Interweave Knits, but just couldn't decypher the cast on instructions. Anyway I've got more than half the yarn left by weight for the second sock so it shouldn't run out.

Also cast on my first lace project which is the Cat's Paw scarf from Northern Lace. I thought I'd be kind to myself and do my first project in 4 ply rather than lace weight.

And I've invented something! I liked the look of the so-called scarf and started knitting it up. But the fabric it made was very thick and cushiony, and I didn't think it would drape well. Also it had a distinct right and wrong side which also seems to me to be a disadvantage for a scarf. So I converted the stitch pattern for knitting in the round and made a headband. I loved it, so I made another, and another and another. Now I have five, and Ellen has already snaffled one.
I think it would also work well for a hat. It's very substantial but also stretchy in all directions.

Just back from another little trip to Bishops Castle. I really like it there, and we're now looking for somewhere to rent as we're not optimistic about being able to sell our house quickly. Ellen seems to have come round to the idea, and the girls will still be able to stay at their dad's who lives about ten minutes walk from where we live here in London.

2008-03-05T17:30:00.015Z

Been busy knitting and frogging if not blogging. I succombed to temptation on ebay recently and bought 800 grams of sock wool from Germany. I'm really pleased with it - unlike most self-striping sock wool I've tried this actually feels and smells like wool. I like the colours too.
Here are Ellen's socks

And mine.

There's a bit of yarn left over so I've started a baby pair.

I like knitting socks, and wearing them, but for some reason I don't feel at all tempted to branch out into fancier sock patterns. I suppose this yarn is so fancy, anything other than a simple pattern would be too much.

I've just started a new pair in Colinette Jitterbug for Rose. The colour is Blue Parrot, which will match a jumper I knitted for her a couple of years ago and which is still going strong. Have read all the warnings about this yarn running our before the toes are done, so will do a short cuff - 4"?

I used up a lot of scraps on this shawl for Ellen. As you can see we're all quite into loud colours in our family.

This is Rose in her Wavy scarf and matching hat. You can't really see the waves in this picture, and because the yarn was thicker and I knit loosely anyway the design isn't as obvious. But I still like it and so does she. The yarn was from Handpainted Yarn.

The latest project is the Tweedy Aran Cardigan. I've got a few rows further on since I took this picture - now into the pattern proper, beyond the edging. Much harder than anything I've attempted before I think it will take me years and years to finish and I may well go mad or die in the process. I'm using Rowan Yorkshire Tweed which I got on ebay a while ago. It's thicker than the yarn suggested in the pattern and I'm a loose knitter so I'm knitting the smallest size hoping it will come out about 20% bigger. So far the measurements seem roughly ok.

I've also acheived closure on the project I was finishing this time last year - TC's cartridge ridge jumper. It never really fitted him properly and it has just been sitting on a shelf waiting for the moths so I frogged it. Read on Knitting Daily that the best thing to do was wind the yarn into balls as you rip it out, then wind it into skeins, then wash and dry it to get the curl out.
This was made in two yarns held together, and there's about a kilo of it altogether. I'd like to separate out the two yarns again, but can't think how to do this. Would very much welcome any suggestions.

Finally, first socks I ever knitted which were kind of bulky bed socks got accidentally put in the washing machine. Disaster. But the other day I was wondering how to keep the coffee in my mini-cafitiere warm while it brewed - and lo, my dear felted sock came to mind. With a slit for the handle, and a hole for the plunger, it's almost perfect for the job.

2007-11-17T10:20:00.000Z

One of the reasons I haven't been blogging much is that I keep forgetting to take pictures of my projects. I've finished three projects and given them away without photographing them. The most recent was a lacy scarf made from Debbie Bliss silk which I posted this week to Georgia (the place in a state of emergency). It's a real shame I didn't take a picture as Rose, my daughter, said it was the most beautiful thing I'd made so far - and I don't even know if it will ever arrive at its destination! It's for Ketevan, a woman I stayed with in Tbilisi for a week in October.
I've been messing around with a couple of other things - one is a fairisle sampler which I'm making up as I go along. It's a tube, and the original idea was for a tubular scarf as Elizabeth Zimmerman suggests. It will be an extremely warm scarf though, as on the patterns bits there will be four thicknesses of wool. The yarn is jumper weight from Jamieson and Smith. I ordered it online but used Schoolhouse website to choose the colours. Schoolhouse distribute Jamieson and Smith in the US and the colours are much clearer on their site.
This is another tube, which I'm calling a legwarmer. It's plain and unshaped apart from a 20st lace panel, called Staggered Fern, from The Ultimate Sourcebook of Knitting and Crochet Stitches. Now, faced with the choice of chopping one of my legs off or knitting another, I've started a second. The yarn 4 ply is from Natural Dye Studio.
The third wip is a crocheted blanket for my little Ellen (please don't tell I called her that!) Based on a pattern from Simple Crochet it's in strips of staggered (more staggering...) blocks of colour. I'm putting in the odd granny square at Ellen's request. The idea was to use up some of the Latvian wool in my stash. It's not really soft enough for a blanket though - especially in this knobbly triple crochet stitch - feels more like a string bag. I suppose it will be ok used as an afghan, draped over the back of a chair or something.
Another piece of knitting news is that we had a knit-and-sing evening here. Eight knitting friends came round including daughter Rose (who has moved out and now shares a house with a couple of friends) and her friend Alice. The group included someone who wanted to learn how to cast on, someone who brought a jumper she'd started for her son when he was two - and he's now 25, and one very accomplished knitter who was working on a beautiful entrelac blanket for the baby she's expecting. The cast-on-learner, Lucy, taught us a couple of lovely songs. It was difficult to concentrate on both at once though, so I think maybe next time we'd need to do the song-learning before the knitting, then could sing them confidently as we knitted. We're planning to have another session in the new year.

2007-09-19T08:10:00.000+01:00

Another long posting gap - sorry to anyone who has visited me in vain over the past two months.
We had a lovely holiday camping in Shropshire. The original idea was to go to Scotland but we decided to go via Shropshire because it was on the shortlist of places to move to when we leave London. A friend had recommended Bishops Castle, and Foxholes, the campsite we found there was so lovely that we just stayed - for nearly three weeks.
Bishops Castle itself is great too. No yarn shop, though it's got everything else you could wish for including two pubs that brew their own beer. When we move there I thought I might take a stall in the weekly indoor market in the town hall and try selling a bit of yarn - not to make money, just for fun and because I'm sure it's a place with plenty of closet knitters.

We're planning to go next year. Two years ago I gave up my job and we launched a little education magazine. It's done well enough to support us both with a bit of help from TC's teacher's pension, and happily we can do it from anywhere. I'd move straight away, but I don't want to pull the rug from under my daughter Ellen's feet. She's lived in this house all her life, and started university this week, so I want to wait till she's settled there before selling her home here, although she says there are plenty of friends she can stay with in this area, and she's enthusiastic about the idea of a home in the country.

I've been doing quite a bit of knitting, and have also joined Stashalong. I needed to - I've got at least 13 kilos of yarn under my bed and no room for any more.

I've got two good friends, who don't know each other. They both have the same name and have birthdays within a week of each other, and are both currently having trial separations from their husbands so are naturally a bit fragile. Quite strange, uh? Anyway I knitted a pair of socks for one, and a mobius for the other and they were both really pleased.
I'm also crocheting a blanket for Ellen in an effort to get my stash of Latvian dk down. And I'm doing a Fairisle sampler in the form of a tubular scarf.
I finally made it to Colinette while we were in Shropshire, and spotted Wye Sue sitting on the floor surrounded by 4-ply. Sue's was one of the first blogs I visited when I started knitting, and I think it was actually from her that I discovered Colinette, so it was quite an event for me to arrive there and meet her.
I bought some ribbon yarn from the bargain bins, and after a lot of experimenting made a scarf in garter stitch, on 10mm needles. Pretty basic, but I love it. It looks like chain mail and it's got a wonderful drape. I've worn it to a couple of partyish events, and had it much admired. Don't know what I'm going to do with the other 800 grams though!
After Shropshire we spent a couple of days in north Wales with my father and step-mother Jean who is in the Lleyn branch of the spinners and weavers guild. It was lovely to see them, and she'd just finished knitting a gansey for my father. It's always great to see what she's been up to. She's very creative and hardly ever uses patterns, and she also does lace (not knitting - the kind you do with pins) , tapestry, felting as well as spinning and natural dying; I'm in awe of her. She's been very encouraging since I took up knitting as a beginner, age 51, having been completely uninterested in textiles of any kind until then.
I've also just cast on the first of a pair of legwarmers, with some sock wool from the Natural Dye Studio. I work at a desk in front of a very drafty window, and the recent drop in temperature has reminded me of how cold my legs get in the winter.

2007-07-10T07:06:00.000+01:00

Thanks for the commiserations about the train incident. I hope that's something you do only once - I've been very careful since.
It's been very exciting reading about Woolfest. It does sound wonderful, and I'd love to go next year. Couldn't do it this time, partly because Ellen was returning from her three months of travelling round South America on the Friday. She came back safe and sound with hardly a negative experience to report and I think really benefited from the trip. It's persuaded me she can look after herself too, so I try not to worry so much when I'm not sure where she is. (Well she is 19.) Here she is in the Atacama Desert in Chile, in a hat knitted by mum. Apparently it was dawn, below freezing, and the egg she's eating was cooked in a hot water geezer spouting out of the ground.

I've got a few knitting projects on the go. First, I finished another pair of socks. They're getting better every time, as you'd hope, but they're still a little on the saggy side. I know Elizabeth Zimmerman suggests 2x2 rib and I've done that right down the cuff and on the top part of the foot on the pair I'm currently knitting. I like to think these latest ones are the sort of socks that could be found in a peat bog in a million years time (yes I know it's rather optimistic to assume the planet will still support intellegent life then..). They're made from some robust Latvian wool I bought from Inita on ebay. I'm really pleased with this wool which is great value at £1.75 per 100g, and have been back twice for more already. I held a thread of nylon with the wool for the heel and toe, as suggested by E.Zimmerman.

I'm also making a cabled cardigan from some yarn bought from the Knitting and Stitching show last year. It was advertised as wool, and I naively assumed that meant pure wool. It's not, but it's OK. This time I'm trying to do some waist shaping. Here's the back.

I've nearly finished a mobius in Colinette Sky. It's for a friend I've known since we were at school together 40 years ago who is having a challenging time at the moment. Hope she likes it.

Off to York on Thursday for Rose's graduation ceremony. It's funny - in my day we shunned that sort of thing completely but apparently it's de rigeur now, even the among the rebelious ones like Rose. Must try not to leave the knitting on the train...

Clickety click

2007-06-21T11:08:00.000+01:00

I hate this picture, despite the cherries and hollyhocks - I look like a mean (and shapeless) person. But felt I had to show you that I'd done some knitting and finished the jumper . I hope one day I will graduate to proper, designed garments knitted from real patterns but for now I still enjoy just making a back, front and two sleeves from interesting yarn and sewing them all together.

I suffered a severe setback when I left my knitting on a train last month. I was on the second sock of a pair, and also had a half-finished scarf in the bag made from Debbie Bliss silk yarn. I got off the train at Euston and left it under the seat. I hoped it would turn up in lost property but it didn't which made me think the train cleaner must have thought it was rubbish and binned it!
I made another pair of socks though, which I'm wearing right now.
I'm beginning to see why so many people knit socks - they are very satisfying aren't they? the main problem in the past has been dropping stitches but I've now swapped my short Britannia birch needles for a pair of Surina 2mm which are 7" long and easier to work with for me.

I've been busy with singing. My choir (I don't mention its name on the blog any more because I'm shy about people I know reading it - and the choir has such an unusual name that anyone doing a search ended up here) took part in the Singing River performance to mark the reopening of the Royal Festival Hall in London. We were on the pontoon - it was really good fun but very tiring as we had two weekends of rehearsals followed by a dress rehearsal and two performances, all ending at midnight.

Anyway while I was on the south bank I found a really interesting old book on traditional fairisle knitting (by Sheila McGregor) on one of the second hand book stalls. I think the next project might be a simple fairisle something - probably a hat. I've also started a cable cardigan using some yarn I got at the knitting and stitching show. It's a lovely colour, but I'm pretty sure it contains acrylic, though it was sold as wool.

If you happen to see the film Taking Liberties, which is around now, I'm in it!. There's a little interview in our kitchen with my daughters, my ex and me about the girls' arrest and treatment by the police after their climate change protest last year.

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer.

More stuff

2007-04-22T07:06:00.000+01:00

I keep putting off blogging because I think, "I must take a picture of that first" or "I must wait for that to arrive". And then there's so much to say, it's a bit off putting and you stop visiting other people because you feel a bit guilty about your procrastination.
Anyway I'm fine, and thanks for enquiring. Lots of things have been happening. My 18 year old daughter Ellen flew to Rio de Janeiro on March 28th to go travelling for three months - due to return from Lima, Peru. Before she went it was crazy as she'd left everything to the very last minute, and afterwards I was missing her too much to think about much else.
Before that was TC's birthday. I finished the jumper the night before, and I thought it was fine but he was a bit uncertain about the fit. Then I wet-blocked it and although I was incredibly careful not to let it stretch, it kind of "relaxed" and got about six inches longer, and looser all over.
He doesn't like it, says it feels too big. And if I'm honest he's right. I'm pissed off because I was really careful to measure his favourite jumper, and adapt the pattern etc. I can of course shorten it but I'm not sure he'll want to wear it even then as it is a kind of chunky sloppy-joe-ish style, and so can't quite face the job. Afterwards, I read this in Stitch'nBitch

Here's a legend known to all knitters across the land: it is bad luck to knit a sweater for a boyfriend as it guarantees that the relationship will end...Like most myths, it holds a good amount of truth. If you've spent a month or two working long and hard on a sweater for your guy, only to have him not appreciate it enough or not wear it very often (and this happens all the time), you might catch a lingering resentment and wind up dumping the ungrateful lout. The theory, I suppose, is that if you're married to the guy and make him a sweater he never wears, you're still stuck with him.

Perhaps one day - maybe before next winter - I will feel inspired to try and fix it. If not I guess I could find someone who does like it, or put it in the washing machine and cut it up to make felt bags or something ...
I had another failure with this shawl but in the opposite direction. It's got a lace panel down the middle, which you can just about see, and I love the yarn (from handpainted yarn), but I knitted it on too small needles so it doesn't drape properly - it falls off.
I haven't finished the second sock yet, but I haven't abandoned it. And I'm still working away at my Colinette jumper, which is a real delight to knit because it's so simple and I so love watching the colours pass by.
I made a decent-sized dent in my stash when Rose, my older daughter, asked for yarn for her 22nd birthday last month. So I've been busy replenishing. I was down in the south west over Easter, and visited Mandy Wools shop in Wells, a huge emporium of a yarn store. I was fairly restrained - I got some bottle green dk merino by King Cole to go with some cream I've already got - one day to become something stripy. Also some Regia sock yarn, and a couple of small balls of cotton for trying fancy crochet stitches.
I've also been visiting Jannette's on ebay, where she's doing a great deal on Debbie Bliss silk and alpaca dk. I've never tried a really luxury yarn before so this was a bit of a revalation. I'm trying a simple lace pattern for a scarf but I'm a bit puzzled by it.
It's diagonal, so you move along a step for each right side row. At one stage a k2tog moves from being the first stitch in the row to being the last. So you effectively shift two stitches along, which means the diagonal lines go out of alignment every 16 rows. As a lace beginner I don't know whether this is a mistake in the pattern, or normal.

I also paid another visit to the irresistable handpainted yarns, and bought some lovely stuff including sari silk. You pay a flat rate shipping price of $12, so it makes sense to get a decent-sized parcel! (Well that's my excuse. I love their yarn, and the prices, but feel uncomfortable about the air-freighting)

Despite the setback with the birthday jumper, and the shawl, I'm generally feeling quite good. My shoulder is much much better - I can even do up my bra strap if I stretch it down a bit. I've put on half a stone, but actually a lot of my clothes fit me better now than they did before so I don't mind too much. And I've got a new haircut. This picture was taken by me with a £14 web camera which I'm going to be using when I start a remote class in Georgian (the language) next week.

We had a really lovely Easter weekend in my friend Catherine's family's holiday house on Dartmoor. She's a very keen walker and took us out every day for wonderful walks. One day we went to Ashburton. I walked into a second hand bookshop, and laid out on display on the table by the door were these.

The Kaffe Fassett book is interesting but the designs are very 1980s and way over the top for my taste. The mindful knitting book though has been a revelation. I'm now trying to put all my attention on making each stitch (which I certainly need to do with the lacey scarf anyway) as a way of occupying the present moment - as opposed to being constantly pre-occuppied with something else like what x said to y, what I need to do next week, etc.
Sorry this post has been such a long haul, and thanks for reading this far!

2007-03-10T07:59:00.000Z

Hello, I'm still here. Work has been very busy, and I've also joined a gym after the physiotherapist suggested I did something to strengthen my arms and shoulders. He suggested yoga, pilates or swimming and as this women-only gym at the bottom of my road does all three it seemed a good idea though a great big extra expense. I already get quite a lot of exercise walking the dog, and now I'm going swimming most days as well.
I've also had a couple of weekends away. TC and I went to Aldborough, got a bargain room in the very nice White Lion hotel, and went for long walks along the beach, and on Dunwich Heath.
We also had our choir's annual weekend away at the Ridegeway youth hostel near Wantage in Oxfordshire. 48 hours of singing fabulous Georgian folk songs and feasting on Georgian food, cooked for us by two Georgian women. Lovely.
Knitting is going OK. I made two moebiuses, one for Rose - matching her hat. The other one I made from my favourite yarn, One Zero from Colinette, in my current favourite Colinette colour Venezia. I've been wearing it a lot, indoors and out, and it has been getting lots of attention from non-knitters who know about moebiuses.
I've also got to the final sleeve of TC's cartridge ridge jumper. It's his birthday on March 22 so I have got a deadline, and there is quite a lot of making up to do because it's big (and heavy).
Last but not least I've (almost) made a proper sock! When I first started knitting, last year, I ordered a sock kit from Web of Wool and have had numerous frustrating and failed attempts at knitting it up. What made the difference this time was that I finally bought myself a pair of reading/knitting glasses so I can actually focus on the work. I really like the look and feel of it and have been thinking I'd like a hat made of this sort of fine, self-striping yarn. Still got the toe-grafting to tackle though - and the other sock of course...

Back in business

2007-02-08T09:19:00.000Z

BBC NEWS | England | Merseyside | Knitted breasts help new mothers

This is going to be a rag bag of a post. First, I didn't knit these but aren't they sweet?

I am knitting again though. My frozen shoulder seems to have gone into the second phase, which is stiff but much less tender than the first phase. I picked up the needles to have another go at TC's jumper - cartridge rib in dark green on 4mm needles. He's a tall man too, so there was a lot of it. I'd already negotiated to downsize it from a jumper to a waistcoat (partly because I wasn't sure the yarn would last out) and managed to knit the back. But when I cast on the front I knew I'd never finish it. It was so boring. He was nice about it, but I could see he was a bit disappointed. And then I had an idea. I frogged back the hours and hours of work on the back and started again with 7.5 needles, using the same yarn but knitted together with some black Rowan Yorkshire Tweed from my stash. I love the look of these two yarns together, and the chunkiness of the fabric. And it's growing so fast! It's a saddle shouldered sweater from Ann Budd's Handy Sweater Patterns book - I've done the back already and this is the first sleeve. A bonus is that I now definitely have enough yarn for the whole sweater.
I'm also knitting my first Mobius, having read about them on Anne's and Kath's blogs. I bought Cat Bordhi's book about knitting Mobiuses, then looked far and wide for a long enough circular needle (120cm - from Heirloom Knitting) and after several abortive attempts finally acheived the special moebius cast on last night. It's really strange - you're knitting in a spiral, outward from a central spine, so you never come back to your starting point as you do with normal circular knitting. She explains why the result (a Mobius shape) is different from deliberately twisting a piece of circular knitting, but my poor brain hasn't been able to grasp it yet.

Finally here's a picture taken this morning from my bedroom window. Quite an unusual sight here in in Hackney.

Small steps

2007-01-26T16:16:00.000Z

Still quiet on the knitting front. Rose, my student daughter who lives in York, has had her hair cut short. It really suits her, but her hats no longer do so I made her a short hair hat - small enough to show off the new hair line.
Also finished the tea cosy. The knitting was done ages ago but I finally get round to measuring the tea pot and sewing it up with the right sized holes in the right places. The pompoms look very jolly, but I didn't find them much fun to make - threading a very long piece of wool through a doughnut-shaped piece of cardboard lots and lots and lots of times. Does anyone know a less tedious method? Importantly this tea cosy does really works. Because of all the strands of wool across the back it keeps the tea hot for ages.
Ellen, my younger daughter, asked for a sewing machine for Christmas. Unfortunately the one we bought turned out to be broken and we didn't get the replacement until half way through January but since then she's been busy re-structuring most of her clothes.

I have almost no sewing skill but I do have an old machine, and as I can't do much knitting I dug it out, inspired by her. I've done a few little jobs like making a sausage shaped draft excluder from and old curtain, and I've bought a 12 yard bolt of cotton fabric (£10 from my local market) and a little "how to sew"picture book, and I'm now making an ultra-basic top from a pattern.

2007-01-08T16:12:00.000Z

Not much blogging going on because not much to blog about - I'm still doing very little knitting, because of my shoulder. I have finished my Lizard Ridge cushion cover though.
It's 26x26", with four squares on each side plus a crocheted border. I thought about lining it, but I think it fits better without a lining. I also took the easy way out by leaving one side loosely stitched for washing purposes instead of trying to put in a zip.
I know it looks a bit much on the Turkish rug but it is nice to lounge on beside the fire.

Knitting hurts

2006-12-24T09:28:00.000Z

I've reached the sad conclusion that my frozen shoulder may have been triggered by doing too much knitting, and is certainly exacerbated by it. So I've had to be very self disciplined and knit only in short bursts. I'm also trying to remember to do some stretches before and after I knit - sounds crazy I know but it's better than lying awake in agony for several hours. When I started knitting last new year I bought "Knitting for Dummies" - highly recommended for beginners, but I wish I hadn't ignored the chapter on unkinking exercises. I suppose it's not surprising that if you suddenly start spending several hours a day crouched over the needles concentrating hard on very small movements, your body is likely to protest.
I did manage to knit a few hats for Christmas presents though - including Woolly Wormhead's Whirly Rib Cap. It's a good pattern, very enjoyable to knit. Though I do recommend treating the advice to use a stitch marker after each repeat as an instruction rather than suggestion. I had to rip back a few rows because I got muddled after failing to do this.

We went to Wales with Rose and Ellen this week for a few days to visit various friends and relatives. It was a lovely trip - we were very lucky with the weather as it's been horribly wet there recently. Did plenty of walking on the beach, in Borth near Aberystwyth and in further north. My step mother Jean who is a very experienced spinner, dyer and knitter, donated lots of oddments of her handspun and dyed wool to Rose. Rose also started knitting this year and is still at the scarf stage - and living in York, she needs them. On the way home on Friday we came along the A458 from Dolgellau to Welshpool hoping to visit Colinette. I didn't have the address though - only a memory of where it was from the website. Couldn't find it so got the phone number from directory inquiries but no reply so presumably they had closed for Christmas already. Disappointing but perhaps just as well as I'm not exactly short of yarn.
Thanks for the kind support with my daughters' court case. They went to court just before Christmas and both got a conditional discharge. Hooray.

I hope you all have a great Christmas. xxx

Horses for courses

2006-12-01T07:29:00.000Z

I've been thinking about why different people are attracted to knitting different sorts of things. It doesn't seem to be just to do with skill, or with what you like to wear. For example I don't really understand why socks attract so many people. For one thing, you have to knit two of them. For another, they take a long time because they have to be knitted in such fine yarn on skinny needles.
And - I may be wrong here - but can hand-knitted socks really be more comfortable to wear than Marks and Spencers stretchy cotton jobs?
Anyway this is a digression from my main point which is the obvious one that what you knit reflects your personality. I am an impatient person, and in my brief (not yet a year) knitting career I have discovered that I don't have much perseverence and do get bored quickly. I love beautiful stitchwork, and would love to have a garment like the one on the front of the Winter issue of Interweave Knits. But I don't think I have it in me to make such a big investment of time and effort - even if I had the skills, which I don't. And I really honour and admire people who do. I have made some jumpers and a cardigan, but they were all with chunky wool so grew rapidly. Three were in Colinette Graffiti, which was exciting to knit because of the interplay of the colours - you didn't know what it was going to look like until it rolled off the needles. Poor TC's jumper is still languishing in a bag upstairs. I haven't even finished the back, and have now negotiated with him to make it sleeveless... Even though I love him to bits, it's just too dull to do more than a few rows at a time of the same old stitch pattern in this dark colour on 4.5 needles.

Having finished eight squares of Lizard Ridge I've copped out and decided to make two big cushion covers instead of the throw (which will take 16 squares instead of 24, leaving me with quite a nice leftover stash of Noro Kureyon).
This isn't pure laziness as we actually do need cushions more than a blanket. But it is partly that I know I am going to get bored with it, and I've been itching to get on with other things.
To keep myself amused I have made a few more hats, some for Christmas presents. I love hats, both because I love wearing them, and because they are so quick to make! I had an inspiring encounter with Woolly Wormhead and several dozen of her hats at a local craft fair, and I'm now making her Whirly Rib Cap.

Return of the hat

2006-11-07T10:18:00.000Z

We went to the climate change protest on Saturday. I was wearing my Woolly Wormhead beret, the one in the profile picture. I bumped into a friend, Hilary, who asked if I would make her one - but she wanted autumn colours with lime green. This is not a colour I would ever buy for myself, but miraculously when I got home and had a look at my stash I found that Handpainted Yarn had sent me a free gift of worsted weight merino which fitted the bill. I remember thinking when I opened it that I'd never use it, so there you go. And here it is, the first hat I've made for a couple of months. Really enjoyed it and will be giving it to her in exchange for some Icelandic wool she gave me when she cleared her parents attic recently. I used some on Sunday to make this hat for Ellen (sorry the picture is a bit blurred). She specified the details and I made up the pattern as I went along. It's a bit messy, but she seems to like it.
On the way back from the climate change demo we went through Regents Park which for anyone who doesn't know it is the most urban of city parks. I've been amazed before to see herons there - and managed to get a picture this time.

Lizard selection

2006-11-03T07:58:00.000Z

Haven't posted lately because not much of interest has been happening. Tea cosy, TC's jumper and my jumper are still confirmed wips and growing very slowly. I knew Lizard Ridge was going to be a long job, but I'm nearly a quarter way through.
I've been pretty busy with work, especially with my work web site which I do myself with occasional advice from a techie friend. I'd like to show it off but it's got my home address on it (which is also my business address) and I would feel vulnerable if all the personal information about me here was linked to an identifiable person, name and address and all.
The frozen shoulder is quite painful. I went to see someone last weekend for a session of Bowen Technique which I'd never heard of before. She hasn't cured it but it definitely has changed in some way so I'm going back tonight. Clutching at straws possibly, but conventional medicine doesn't seem to offer anything much.
Sold my car yesterday to the son of a friend. We bought an oldish camper van in the summer which we've converted to LPG which is more environmentally friendly and cheaper than petrol, and as I almost never drive in London anyway there was no point in having two vehicles. We took the van to Dorset last weekend, put up the awning for the first time which was exciting, and walked on the coastal path near Corfe Castle which was beautiful.

2006-10-17T08:52:00.000+01:00

I've done the first Lizard Ridge square, complete with several mistakes. (no-one could accuse me of being a perfectionist!) It now seems odd that this pattern is in stocking stitch both because it curls up and because it's not reversible - and you kind of want a blanket to be reversable, don't you? Although perhaps an Afghan is different - I don't really know what an Afghan is. Can anyone advise? Anyway I suppose I could back it with something - even possibly something knitted.
The film crew turned out to be not from Channel 4 at all. They were an independent film company making a feature film about civil liberties in the UK - I got the impression the director saw himself as an English version of Michael Moore. Anyway they sat us all at the kitchen table and interviewed us for about an hour. We all had to avoid having words put into our mouths eg. "So do you think your daughters were treated like terrorists?", and as we didn't say exactly what he hoped we may end up on the cutting room floor. Either way it was interesting because I learned more details from the girls about what happened. This report on the BBC this morning underlines the point they were trying to make.
The Knitting and Stitching Show at Ally Pally was huge, hot and heaving - I don't know what I'd imagined but it wasn't that. Perhaps late morning on Saturday was the busiest time. Anyway I saw some lovely things, and bought some wooden straight needles for the Lizard Ridge, and this yarn at a very good price from a man who only sells at exhibitions. Only spent £25 in all though, so not too wild.
Organising exhibitions seems to be almost a license to print money. All the organisers had to do was hire the venue and publicise it. And set up a few workshops. Then they just wait to collect the money from the exhibitors (I bet it was expensive) and the thousands and thousands of visitors.

New arrival

2006-10-13T12:50:00.000+01:00

It's here - already! I'm really pleased with the colours.
Have postponed my visit to Ally Pally to tomorrow morning. I won't be able to stay long because we've got to go to Sussex for a wedding in the afternoon, but felt I had to be here today to tidy up for the film crew - and of course to make a start on Lizard Ridge.
Glad I did my experimental swatch with odds and ends - I'm sure I'll make plenty of mistakes but hopefully not as many as I would have done.
The biggest problem is going to be persisting with TC's much-needed rib jumper when this glorious thing is waiting for me!

Wips etc and big splurge

2006-10-12T10:43:00.000+01:00

TC's jumper is making slow but steady progress - it's not exactly a fun knit but a few rows every couple of days is manageable. My circular jumper is also progressing rather slowly - but then I didn't take either of them to Georgia. I took the tea cosy, and finished the first side.
I couldn't understand why such a small project needed so much yarn, but of course the reason is that you have to carry it across the back when you are not knitting with it. Should mean the tea stays good and warm, as the cosy has a thick lining.
I've also started experimenting with Lizard Ridge. Being a tightwad I was horrified at the idea of buying 21 skeins of Noro Kureyon so I thought I'd have a go from my stash from Handpainted Yarns. It's fun to knit because there are lots of colour changes and short rows, and I'm now having a go at backwards knitting which is interesting.
But I've realised my efforts will not be fully rewarded without Kureyon's colour pattern, so last night I made a trip to ebay and splurged £75 on 22 balls in five different colours from magimade. Oh dear. And tomorrow I'm going to Ally Pally for the knitting and stitching show, so will doubtless succomb to more temptations when I probably should be saving up for the fines. Thanks so much for the messages of support about this. We are hoping the worst is over. The publicity for the case has made the girls feel the protest was worthwhile, and now Channel 4 wants us to take part in a film about the erosion of civil rights in the UK so that will be interesting.

2006-10-11T19:34:00.000+01:00

Oooh - I've been tagged. By Alice, to list five things feminism has done for me.

1. Gave me much more confidence about my place in the world than my mother had. In particular freed me of much of the self-hatred women felt in the 50s and 60s and gave me positive images and words to replace all the negative names and stereotypes she was hemmed in by.

2. Gave me a community - the women's movement - and a cause to fight for when I was in my twenties.

3. Gave me choices - expanded the spaces within which I can live. Being single was a choice for me for a long time, and I enjoyed it. I shunned all domestic crafts for decades. Now I knit!

4. Made it possible to talk about sex from women's point of view which in turn dispelled some of the shame and confusion of my mother's generation.

5. Gave me pride in being a woman, and respect for other women.

Georgian socks

2006-10-09T08:04:00.000+01:00

Didn't managed to photograph these before they'd been worn and so look a bit misshapen. They are knitted from scratchy wool - you have to wear cotton socks underneath them. But they are really warm.
I bought them in Tbilisi's enormous market at Vagzali Square from a beautiful old woman who was selling them from a basket. Unfortunately I can only say hello, thank you, sorry, yes and no in Georgian so was unable to talk to her much.

Adventures

2006-10-08T10:57:00.000+01:00

Back from Georgia - had a wonderful time. Knitting is very big there, but more as a necessity than a hobby. There are wool shops everywhere. I bought three pairs of hand-knitted socks in a market from the woman who knitted them. Have posted a few pictures here, some of interest mainly to members of my choir.
Meanwhile things were happening at home: the girls were arrested on a climate change demonstration and held in police cells for 36 hours before being released in the middle of the night and charged with three offences. I knew nothing until I came home on Wednesday evening, and spent Friday at the magistrates court. I was very shocked to start with, but now I feel proud of the girls.
Thanks very much for the advice about my shoulder. I was prescribed anti-inflamatories which certainly seemed to help, and it's not as painful as it was.

Slog

2006-09-14T07:01:00.000+01:00

TC's jumper is progressing very slowly. In fact I'm barely half way up the back which is the first piece. Took it to Cambridge last weekend where my choir were rehearsing for our forthcoming trip to the Republic of Georgia. Combination of not enough light and too much talking and wine meant I kept having to rip it back which was very tedious. I'm going to persevere though. Someone described the stitch pattern as hunky, so Hunky is the jumper's name now.
I've started another very simple sweater, again using the Anne Budd book. It's circular, with rolling edges, so it's just knit every row. Not boring because you don't have to concentrate - being on a circular needle it's in a very confined space and stitches don't drop off much. I've even been experimenting with reading while knitting.
I finished the beret. So at last know how many stitches to cast on with 5mm needles in Colinette One Zero to get a hat that fits me.
Have also started a tea cosy - the same one that used to grace the front page of yarnstorm though mine certainly won't look as perfect as Jane's.
So I'm off to Tbilisi, Georgia for eleven days on September 23. It's very exciting - I've been singing Georgian folk songs for nearly seven years now and this is my first visit to the country. (I've linked to an example of Georgian polyphony on the sidebar if anyone's interested!) Not sure what to take knitting-wise. We'll be sitting round listening to other choirs quite a lot so there should be plenty of opportunity. I suppose Hunky is the obvious choice, but it's not very pretty. Unfortunately I've developed something called Frozen Shoulder - apparently it can take three years to heal and there's not much you can do in the meant time. It's not too bad during the day (though I gather it might get a lot worse) but really hurts at night, and wakes me up. Poo.

Long haul

2006-09-06T13:23:00.000+01:00

Fetching is finished, and a new big project has begun. It's a jumper for TC. He finds it difficult to find jumpers to fit - in fact none of his jumpers do fit properly - because he is very slightly built and thin, but he's tall with very long legs. So they either swamp him around the shoulders or they look much too short. This is in cartridge rib and the pattern is from Anne Budd's book of basic sweater patterns. I really like the book because you can pick whatever yarn you like, knit it to whatever gauge you like, and customise the jumper in any way you can think of. I got the yarn from Ebay. It's pure wool and came from Ireland in a great big 600 gram hank - bargain for £12 I thought. Just hope there's going to be enough of it to finish the jumper - if it starts to look doubtful I suppose I can do a stripe round the chest or something.
I like the cartridge rib because it doesn't involve purling - just knit 3, slip a stitch purl-wise. (I'm a "continental" knitter and purling is fiddly.) Even so it is too boring to do all the time so I'm making another (you'll be amazed) beret. It's in Colinette One Zero - I love this colour and the way the yarn looks when it's knitted up.
Thanks to Kendra I've been listening to Pride and Prejudice while knitting. She told me about Librivox where you can download recordings of books that are in the public domain - i.e. old enough for the copyright to have expired. They are read by volunteers which is quite fun. So one chapter might be read by a woman from Alabama, the next by a bloke from Scotland and the next by a woman in Tokyo. In fact most of the readers are from the US. I thought I might have a go if I can avoid sitting in front of the computer while I'm reading.

rollin' again

2006-08-30T12:21:00.000+01:00

The concert on Saturday went really well. (Maybe next time Alice?) We had nearly 100 people, most of whom didn't know anything about us and had just seen flyers around the neighbourhood. And they seemed really enthusiastic which was great. We made a profit of nearly £400 which we'll be giving to a charity in Georgia.

Ruth aka Woolly Wormhead was my inspiration and guide when I started knitting eight months ago. Not only do I love her hats, but the links on her blog took me to so many places I needed to get to. My second hat was from her Rollin' Beret pattern, but I was a tight knitter back then and it came up too small. So I just knitted a second one in the same size as before, but it came up bigger, presumably because my knitting got looser. TC (the OM) took some pictures of me in it for Ruth's Owners' Gallery and I like them so have stuck one on blogger profile.
I'm struggling with the yarn habit.. I've just moved bedrooms and as a result explored the stash. The thing is I don't really want to have to find space to store any more yarn, so it does make sense to consume what's there, especially as it's all lovely wool. But woke up in the night yearning for a nice warm jumper for the autumn in my current favourite Colinette colour Venezia.
I'm having a go at cables for the first time at the moment, and using some more of the gorgeous merino from Handpaintedyarns on Fetching. I get cold hands when I'm working at the computer in the winter, so these should be really useful.

And to return to the hat subject, this is rather wonderful.

Bounty

2006-08-26T08:49:00.000+01:00

My elder daughter Rose has been staying this week. One day we went out to the Stour Valley for a walk. The landscape was a bit flat for my taste, but we had a sensational tea at the National Trust teashop at Flatford. And also found lots of wild plums and sloes.
TC and I had already picked 4lbs of blackberries on Walthamstow Marshes and made 2 litres of blackberry whiskey. The sloes are destined for sloe gin. Not sure about the plums - I made pork with plum sauce this week but it hardly made a dent in them. Any ideas?
More hats have also been made, replenishing my winter supply. Berets and cloches seem to be my thing at the moment. I've got quite a few books of hat patterns now, but I seem to prefer looking at the pictures to following the patterns.
The beret on the left is from Noro Iro yarn.
the others are from Handpainted Yarn so they cost about a third of the price to make, though in my view the wool is softer and the colours are just as lovely.
Tonight some friends and I are putting on a concert of songs from the Republic of Georgia. We've booked a local church as the venue, and we got it into Time Out (nothing much else going on in August so they had space) but we've no idea if we'll get an audience. (In case you're at a loose end in north London tonight it's at St Mary's Old Church, Stoke Newington Church Street, N16. Doors open 7.00, concert starts 7.30, tickets £5.) Haven't decided which hat to wear yet...

smokey days

2006-08-14T12:01:00.000+01:00

Home from the Voice Camp - our annual singing, campfiring, socialising, sun and moon-enjoying week in Dorset. Made new friends, learnt new songs, and even sold some hats! There is a 90 minute Market in a big marquee once during the week where everyone hauls out their beads, and candles, and home-made cds etc. I sold four hats, and another five at other times during the camp. I also offered to knit someone a hat in a promise auction for Wateraid - it went for £27, but in the event the bidder chose a hat I'd already made and I gave her another to go with it. I found the crochet hats were the most popular - probably because they are denser and hold their shape better than the knitted.
My first customer was Vicky - and here she is in one of the two hats she bought. It was so good to see people wandering round the camp in my hats!
I thought about doing a knitting workshop but someone else had already got it organised. She ran a "late-starters" knitting class and taught several men as well as lots of kids.
But I was no knitting slouch during the week either. Finished a pair of mittens and knitted three new hats. I was pleased with this one - crocheted from Noro Kureyon, pattern made up as I went along.
I bought the yarn before the voice camp in Fishguard - thanks to Kendra for discovering the shop. We had a great week camping in Newport, just north of Fishguard. Did lots of walking on the coastal path as well as hanging around on the campsite in the sun. We also went to the 149th Fishguard Agricultural Show which was really fun - lots of beautiful animals on show but also a massive produce show which included knitting and crochet items. Very inspiring, but unfortunately I didn't have the camera.

Before Pembrokeshire we went to North Wales to deliver the dog to my father and stepmother (no doggies allowed at voice camp sadly). Jean is a very expert spinner (and knitter) and had recently been to a dying picnic with her Spinners and Weavers Guild. I don't know anything about dying (or spinning) but she told me everyone brought something to make a natural dye bath, and made up the dyes in buckets in someone's garden. Then they all were able to use all the dyes to dye their own wool and fleece. Here's what Jean came home with. And here's her spinning wheel and chair, which was made by my dad who is a woodworking genius. (Jean did the seat cushion)

So having made about £100 on the hats at voice camp I feel fully justified in having a big yarn splurge. Very busy catching up with work now but as soon as I can I'll be frantically blog-visiting to see what tasty stuff is being devoured.

Socks!

2006-07-24T17:46:00.000+01:00

... well, something vaguely related to socks anyway. It was this that gave me the confidence to tackle my first pair. The instructions allow for knitting them in worsted weight wool, but I'm such a loose knitter that even though I went down a needle size they are still, as you can see, rather roomy. Fine for cold nights in bed though.

We had a little tea party this afternoon with the new tea set. Ellen has just returned from Spain, and Rose and Susan are down from York for a few days. They made cucumber and egg and cress sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and scones with jam and cream. Notice the chintzy cake stand and teapot - I should have been born 200 years ago.
Talking of which someone lent me an "audio book" of Jane Austin's Emma which I listened to while knitting the socks. I've really missed reading since I took up knitting and have decided the answer could be more books on tapes and cds. Must visit the library and see what they've got.

Just one more thing

2006-07-12T15:58:00.000+01:00

I went to north Wales last week to visit my father on his 84th birthday, and we got to talking about afternoon tea. We'd both read this . Anyway his talk about the pleasure of drinking tea out of bone china planted a seed of yearning in me. And when I got back I had a look (a close look) on ebay for some kit.
This morning this came. There are six of those little cups, saucers and tea plates and two of the big plates - to me they are exquisite. Of course I had to go out and buy some special afternoon-blend tea and have been drinking little cups of it since lunchtime. The cakes were supposed to be rock cakes but as you can see they came out more like paving slabs. Still tasty though.

I've been hat-knitting and forgetfully gave one hat away to my daughter Rose's girlfriend Susan without taking a picture first. But here's one I did in Colinette One Zero. I've also been reading Elizabeth Zimmermann and had a go at knitting the hat on the cover of Knitting without Tears which is in Brioche stitch. Certainly more fun than k2p2.

Over and out

2006-07-11T08:36:00.000+01:00

I'm wishing a fond farewell to this blog for the time being - not enough time to maintain it properly - but I'll still be visiting other peoples. And I'll keep my photo gallery updated.
Thanks for visiting - see you soon on your blog.

Shawl

2006-06-27T18:17:00.000+01:00

Here it is - and as Alice says, blocking makes all the difference when you knit lacey things. I just washed it in warm water with a bit of soapy stuff, squeezed some of the water out by rolling it up in a towel, and let it dry flat. It has opened up beautifully and in fact is about 20% bigger both ways than before I wet it. I'm really pleased with it and will wear it smugly tonight at a meal with some anti-knitting women friends.

Sock block

2006-06-25T12:20:00.000+01:00

Very little progress to report on the socks I'm afraid. I've got as far as the heel flap and may get even further before the end of the World Cup - and one day this sock will be perfect for someone with one leg.
I've done quite a lot of the shawl though. Made a few mistakes - usually too many yarn overs - and have sometimes just sneakily decreased a stitch somewhere or sometimes ripped back a bit. But the yarn is so lovely, even ripping it back is a pleasure.
I know it's easy to find nice looking flowers at this time of year, but believe me I'm no gardener so I'm very excited by this crop of hollyhocks which has appeared in our front garden. They've all self-seeded and some of them are growing from the tiniest cracks in the paving stones. Incredible.TC has been very busy in the back garden. And a fox has stolen one of his gardening gloves!
I was awake (and knitting) at about 4.30 this morning when I heard someone or something bashing around in the garden and when I looked out, saw this enormous fox with something in its jaws. Then this morning one of the gloves, which used to be his motor cycling gloves when he lived in Canada, had disappeared from a chair. You can see its forlorn other- half in the picture.
We also had to harvest all our not quite ripe cherries this morning because the blackbirds are eating them. We live in the middle of very densely populated Hackney with a dog and two cats so don't really expect to have these kinds of struggles with nature!
I need to confess that I ordered more wool last week, completely unnecessarily. Yesterday I worked out that when it arrives I will have enough to knit six long sleeved jumpers plus at least 16 hats. Which is enough to be going on with really isn't it? I also ordered some under-the-bed storage boxes and more vacuum storage bags to store it in.
So I'm pledging not going to order any more woollen yarn until I've used at least half of what I've got. i.e. until I've made three jumpers, and eight hats. Honestly.

Birthday breakfast

2006-06-21T12:40:00.000+01:00

Today is Ellen's 18th birthday. She's the younger of my two daughters, so it feels like a special day for me too - two children now officially grown-ups. She's got an A level psychology exam this afternoon unfortunately, so we had a special birthday breakfast. Her dad, who lives a few streets away, came round and took these pictures. Tonight she's celebrating with her friends.
And here she is on a previous birthday. (Sorry Ellen.)

Chuffed

2006-06-15T09:50:00.000+01:00

My soon-to-be scarfy-shawly thing has just appeared on Knitting Pattern Central - it's the "andean treasure shawl". Just when I was worrying that it wouldn't work because it has got a right and wrong side - now it's a "real" pattern so it must be OK! Though of course I'm doing it in a fatter yarn so mine won't be as delicate.
I had to go to a meeting yesterday and knitted it all the way from Seven Sisters to Victoria and back on the tube.

World Cup plan change

2006-06-14T10:35:00.000+01:00

I had to abandon the Knitting World Cup project when I found I didn't have the right sized dpns for the socks. Instead I decided to have another try at the Sock Kit which has defeated me several times before. As you can see I have at least got it started and I'm getting used to the little needles, but to be honest although the self-striping yarn is very clever I don't find it very inspiring to work on. I think that's mainly because I don't enjoy following patterns.
I found this "fisherman's hat" a bit tedious too - partly because it was someone else's pattern and partly because it involved knitting 9 inches of 2x2 rib. But it has a three inch turnover at the brim so it will keep someone's ears warm next winter.
I was so pleased with my cotton sunhat I decided to do another, in some more yarn I bought on ebay.
I've also taken my first faltering steps into the world of lace knitting. This is my fabulous worsted weight merino from Handpainted Yarns - I've got a kilo of it. The stitch pattern is from Debbie Bliss. I think it's going to be a scarfy sort of thing.

Angels and footballs

2006-06-07T11:55:00.000+01:00

Went to Angelknits last night for the first time. Really enjoyed myself and met some very nice and obviously very skilled knitters. Even the beer was good.
Then this morning I found out about the Knitting World Cup and as I am doomed to football widowhood for a month thought I'd have another go at knitting a pair of socks. But I'm not going to use those spiky little 2.5mm needles - oh no. I'm going to knit them in my incredibly soft worsted weight merino from Handpainted Yarn and use a basic sock pattern from Ann Budd's Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns.
Better start limbering up for the kick off on Saturday. (Or is it Friday?)

Sunshine

2006-06-06T07:07:00.000+01:00

We went walking in Herefordshire and the Malverns for a few days over half term with some old friends of TC. (That's me in the pink jumper - also a Getting Warmer creation.) The new sunhat was great - it never blew off, never felt too hot, and I didn't get at all sunburned despite being out all day in full sun.
I've done a wool version of this hat but the brim is too floppy so I'm going to redo it before posting any pictures.
I'm knitting a "fisherman's hat" now from the Vogue book of knitted hats. Not especially interesting - miles of 2x2 rib - but it should be warm as it has a three inch turned up brim. I'm doing it in the larges size thinking it could be for a bloke. Probably not TC as he doesn't like woolly hats.

Hat glut

2006-05-30T10:21:00.000+01:00

I'm not a very good blogger. Because I edit a magazine for my day job, it feels like a bit of a busman's holiday to be thinking about how to make this interesting and investing time in doing that. All I really want to do is show off my knitting efforts, and now I've got a gallery.
I was shocked to realise that all these hats have been made since mid-April. What did I do before I started hatting? Can't remember.
I'm pleased with this cotton cloche, crocheted from lovely yarn from ebay. It feels very light and flexible. I made it up as I went along, but had to rip it right back when I realised the diameter of the crown was enormous.

Felt funny

2006-05-25T11:11:00.000+01:00

I sentenced this baggy thing to a hot machine wash having read a bit about felting at Knitty
The trouble is my washing machine can't be stopped mid-wash so I couldn't keep checking, as they suggest. But when I was looking covetously at a copy of Debbie Bliss's book Home in a bookshop this week I saw that she just chucks her stuff in a hot cycle and hopes for the best.
So that's what I did, and got this.
I had to block it on my own head as this mannequin has a smaller head than mine (even less brain). I'm a governor at a local primary school and this morning had to do a little talk in assembly about the Walking Bus which we're trying to get going. I wore this hat and took a few others with me. One of my lines was 'I'm the bus driver and you can recognise me by my driver's hat' but of course every time they looked I was wearing a different hat. (And some of them even laughed...)

Rasberry ripple

2006-05-24T16:01:00.000+01:00

There are people in my family who follow football clubs whose strip is red and white. Hints about hats have been dropped, so I ordered some red and some white wool and started knitting. Nothing was said until a few stripes had appeared, at which point it was made clear that "rasberry ripple colours" were not appropriate for an Arsenal or Charlton supporter. Instead I was advised to look for a Bristol City supporter, who apparently go in for a different shade of red...
The colours actually are rather like rasberries and cream - delicious - so I'm quite happy to hang on to my hat (as they say).

Heavy headed

2006-05-22T20:17:00.000+01:00

My first crochet hat. It was improvised - I started from the top and used four different oddments of wool.
I wore it to the supermarket tonight because it's cold and wet - it felt very cosy.
Crochet seems to be fast compared to knitting (my knitting anyway) and you don't have to worry about dropping stitches because you've only got one live stitch at a time. But it uses a lot of yarn - double crochet (called single crochet in the US apparently) is very substantial. This fabric feels almost as solid as a rug.

hook books

2006-05-19T13:01:00.000+01:00

I bought woolly wormhead's mushroom hat pattern and decided I'd better learn to crochet. So ordered the Happy Hooker and while I was there found Crocheted Hats which is a lovely little book. They both arrived yesterday and I've had a go with some cotton yarn I bought from ebay and some leftover Colinette One Zero.

Talking of leftovers I started using up some leftover yarn on a hat, and realised half way through that I wasn't going to have enough to finish it. So I did a stripe in some other leftover yarn. Still not enough of the original yarn, so I did another stripe but then the second yarn ran out too - so the top stripe is thinner. I just got to the end as the ball of blue ran out, which was kind of satisfying to my frugal instincts.

I've also done another hat based on rollin' beret but with an extra 2cm before the decreases. I really like it.
I feel indebted to Woolly Wormhead, because she's introduced me to hat knitting, and to my favourite yarn supplier handpainted yarn, and now she's got me crocheting.

2006-05-11T08:54:00.000+01:00

I love the colours of this. It's called Toscana, and reminds me of this fresco in the Palazzo Publico in Siena - the effects of good government in the countryside.
The pointy bit on the hat was unintentional - next time I'll cast off sooner.
But it's less obvious on a flesh and blood head.
I may have to branch out to making tea cosies soon - inspired by yarnstorm. What a beautiful blog (why do those words sound so incongruous together?) - but it did make me realise that you need a lot of time (as well as creativity, which Jane obviously has in abundance) to be a top blogger. A lot of the best blogs are done by people who don't seem to have full time jobs, which is great for the rest of us who can enjoy the fruits of their labour.

2006-05-10T08:13:00.000+01:00

Not much blogging going on - snowed under with tedious admin. TC works one day a week doing the business side of our magazine (and the other four days in his day job) and he's finding he's spending most of his weekends keeping up so we've started looking for a part time administrative assistant.
Done a bit of knitting though. Did another ear flap hat which for some reason has come out smaller than the others - perhaps my tension was tighter because of work pressure...
Also another creation of my own - inspired by woolly wormhead's hats, though she'd probably be horrified to hear it. It's got moss stitch round the brim, which I like. The tail was knitted on straight needles in stocking stitch which seems to work ok because stocking stitch curls. I got the stitches mixed up when I tried to do an i-cord, knitting three stitches on circular needles.
I'm planning to do a simple, round cap with this Colinette One Zero in Toscana - but who knows how it will end up.

My daughter E has her photography A level over the next three days - it's more of a workshop than what I'd call an exam (not like in my day, blah blah). Anyway she took a lot of pictures yesterday which she left on the camera - here are two of the least weird.

Mudeford, more hats and stash report.

2006-05-03T07:41:00.000+01:00

We had a bracing weekend by the sea and saw some old friends too. My stripey creation kept me warm, though I did get some curious looks from the style police.
I was as good as my word about not taking the knitting - and I've made up for it since.
I did another rollin' beret, modified a bit. And the other hat, which is currently my favourite and welded to my head, was inspired by woolly wormhead - but designed by me! Well, "designed" isn't quite the right word but I did make it up as I went along. As you can see I got a head mannequin so I didn't have to take any more pictures in the mirror.

The worsted weight marino has arrived from handpainted yarns as has the Colinette order.
I do have general plans for all my yarn (and having only begun knitting after last Christmas I don't have a massive stash). I've got lots of ideas for the single skeins - mostly involving headwear.

I've got a jumper in mind for this blue yarn.

I've started a fourth ear flap hat with the Colinette Jay. I really like hats, and love the idea of having a big choice of beautiful (to me!) handknitted hats for me and my girls to wear. But if I've got a hat glut I thought I'd try to get rid of a few at the Voice Camp which TC and I go to every summer.

sockblock

2006-04-29T07:08:00.000+01:00

I went on an Introduction to Photoshop course yesterday here - great fun. Here's my first attempt at a collage. (I'm hoping members of my family don't take offence at being called "things" and compared to a slice of cake ...)

I've decided that knitting socks with skinny, sharp little needles is not one of my favourite things. I admit this may be partly because at my advanced age my eyesight is not quite up to it (and I haven't stooped to getting reading glasses yet). Anyway I'm going to sell my beginners' sock kit on ebay. So there.

TC and I are going to Mudeford in Dorset for the weekend and I've promised not to take any knitting. Before we go I'm off to the sorting office to pick up a couple of parcels, at least one of which should be six single skeins of One Zero from Colinette, all in different colours - how exciting is that! But I realised I haven't read a book since I started knitting just after Christmas - apart from knitting books of course. I used to be an avid novel reader and I'm starting to miss it a bit so will perhaps catch up with Donna Leon as we lounge around here, having got a bargain here.

rollin'

2006-04-27T08:04:00.000+01:00

I finished it at 11.30 on Tuesday night so did it in two evenings. I love it, even though I messed up the pattern of decreases so didn't get the nice lines on Woolly Wormhead's . Also I was impatient and didn't do enough rows between casting on and starting to decrease - it was a very ungenerous five inches. As a result it's more of a "tam" than a beret - i.e. if I pull it down to my ears the wide part kind of disappears.
The dpns were terrifying, but I got a bit better at it by the end. I used bamboo needles which were much easier than the plastics I've tried before.

Broken promise

2006-04-25T07:49:00.000+01:00

Didn't manage to wait till tonight to start new project (but did get lots of work done yesterday as well. Only ten more pages to check!) Started Woolly Wormhead's Rollin' Beret last night. It's my first circular project, and I've started it on a circular needle which Woolly says is OK - but you have to change to dpns as you do the decreases for the top. Yikes.

My older daughter Rose is a student in York and we don't see her very often. But she and I had a great trip to Florence by train before Easter, then she spent a few days at home - and picked up the knitting bug! When she left she took some pins, wool and my copy of Stitch'nBitch. The following week she was travelling round Scotland with her friend, Kate, by train and bus. Not only did she teach Kate to knit, but they stopped off in Glasgow to buy wool - and Rose has finished her first scarf...

2006-04-23T11:12:00.000+01:00

Another crap picture, but the hat is better than the last one. Though the danger is when you're using the same pattern for the third time that you think you remember it and don't bother to check. There are several unintended customisations here, but I still like it.
I must not start another project until I've written 10 news stories for issue 6 of my magazine - we go to press on Tuesday and I've got five pages to fill and 32 pages of proofs to correct.
No idea what I'm going to do with all that worsted merino winging its way to me. I think it's going to involve slightly fancy stitch patterns though - they're wasted on this slubby stuff.

Guilty excitement

2006-04-20T07:45:00.000+01:00

Last week I had a parcel from handpainted yarns. All of it gorgeous, but the most beautiful was the gift they enclosed - it's worsted weight merino and really the softest thing I have ever touched.
It is so lovely - lovely to hold and work with, and lovely to gaze at too because the colour is fabulous.
Anyway I emailed them to thank them and ask if it was possible to buy more as I couldn't see any on their web site. The reply explained that they could no longer sell it from their web site because they've got an agreement with some stores to supply in the US only through them. But they can sell it to Europe, Asia and Australia. So I've ordered a whole kilo at $7.50 per 100g hank! I don't really like the idea of air-freighting yarn (or anything else) and T doesn't approve either of dumping a ton of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere when Britain has plenty of its own sheep. But now I've had a taste I just can't resist. To compensate I hearby resolve to take showers only - no baths - for the next month!

Hat 2 and waistcoat

2006-04-18T17:32:00.000+01:00

Hat 1 is in the same pattern but with lots of mistakes. I forgot to do the last purl row on the lower band of stockinette stitch so it's a row too short, and I did 2x2 rib instead of 1x1 on the top - didn't read the pattern properly.
Got it more or less right this time though, and I plan to make a few more before I'm done. The pattern is from Colinette Artyfacts and the yarn is Colinette Prism, in Lapiz.
The waistcoat thing has no fastening at the front. A bit impractical, and I might crochet an edging with at least one button. Adapted from Anne Budd's pattern book, yarn is Colinette One Zero in jewel.
Can't get the hang of how to arrange pictures in a single posting. (I wanted the waistcoat to be below the hat)

TC and I crewed for our friend Joan on her shared narrowboat last weekend. If I say so myself I wasn't a bad tillerwoman for a beginner. We also had to go through nine locks and back the next day. I'm proudly wearing my first ever knitted garment.
We were on the Oxford Canal. First rainbow I've ever tried to photograph too.

With buttons etc.

2006-04-14T13:55:00.000+01:00

I got some leather buttons from ebay. It actually looks quite good - even my coolista daughter likes it - though in this picture it looks like a shapeless, frumpy old disaster.

On another subject here are some pictures I took last week at our excellent local Farmers' Market.

Cardigan

2006-04-10T09:09:00.000+01:00

I finished this - well nearly. It's a bit of a funny shape but I'm still proud of it. There are no buttons on it yet (and yes I'm still in my pyjamas). It's very warm and I like the colours and the length but wish I'd had the courage to continue with the stripes while shaping the top of the sleeves. I used superbulky from handpainted yarn and adapted a pattern from Anne Budd's book, the Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns. I only did stripes because I thought I hadn't ordered enough of the green or the blue to do the whole cardi but it took less wool than I expected.

I'm inspired by the blogs of experienced and confident knitters but I also wish there was a web ring for beginners. I would love to find other people who are just starting out. If I wasn't so snowed under with work I'd start one.

2006-03-14T08:13:00.000Z

I finished T's scarf, and got quite fluent at doing the rib stitch by the end. (He wasn't here when I took the picture to model it himself)

Object

2006-03-10T08:19:00.000Z

I have this yarn in a colour I love. But I don't know what to do with it. Haven't got enough to make a jumper and not sure I'd want a jumper in it anyway. I've knitted the same ball up four times in different tensions and widths and then tried to learn to crochet with it. This was the result. I figured quite soon that if you crochet in the round and go only once into each stitch you end up with a cup shape, so I tried crocheting twice into each stitch for the first few rounds. You can't really see from the picture but it's a sort of floppy flowery shape. Not much use for anything but it looks quite pretty. Not sure what I'll do with the rest of the wool (another 550 grams). Maybe cushion covers etc. for presents. I was thinking of a tea cosy, but it would be a tragedy to get tea stains on it.
The long size 10 needles have arrived so I've started the back of the stripey jumper. I should have researched stripey knitting before I started - I expect there will be all sorts of unforeseen complications when I try to sew it together.

Stuck

2006-03-08T09:08:00.000Z

This is the front half of a cardigan - my first attempt at colour. I can't do the back yet because I've only got 30cm needles and the stitches keep falling off, and I can't finish off this piece till I know how long the back is going to come out. I'm waiting for a 40cm pair of 10mm needles to arrive from Textere.
I used Ann Budd's book the Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns. I decided to go for set in sleeves even though it's not the easiest method because I'm short with narrow shoulders and look silly in bulky clothes.

Right and wrong

2006-03-02T09:14:00.000Z

I bought a bag of knitting needles on Ebay and picked them up from the sorting office yesterday. Fabulous - I can now experiment with different needle sizes on the wool I've got.
I'm doing a ribbed scarf in Saphire Magenta wool from HandPaintedYarns. It takes longer to grow (obviously) when you knit on smaller needles, but it's easier on the hands. They sent the wrong colour but I won't be sending it back - I think it's beautiful.

Proud mother

2006-02-27T19:01:00.000Z

The mittens are finished. The different thumb lengths are not deliberate - E has two thumbs of a similar size. She can always use the extra space for storing secrets.
I knitted most of the second one at a wonderful weekend workshop with my choir. Most of the time I wore my first knitting project, my purple Colinette jumper, and much comment was passed about the wondrous colours.

The thumb

2006-02-21T21:10:00.000Z

More wool has arrived, from HandpaintedYarns
Beautiful, but not quite as beautiful to my mind as the Colinette. Luckily the vacuum bags also arrived today so I was able to store my growing stash in more safety from moths.
I knitted up a swatch of the superbulky (in my coffee break, you understand) and found there are nine stitches and 14 rows to 10 cm on 9mm needles which are the biggest I have, but possibly not big enough for that wool. By mistake I had ordered some lace wool, so I'm sending it to Jean my step mother who is a lace maker among other things.
I've started E's mittens, in Colinette Prism. Amazed myself by managing to figure out what the pattern meant, and actually knitting a thumb! I had to pick up cast off stitches from the base of the thumb afterwards which I didn't manage very well, and consequently there is a little hole there. I can't face going back though so thought I'd try darning across it when I've finished.

Bedazzled

2006-02-20T13:48:00.000Z

More wool has arrived. How beautiful is this? It's Colinette's One Zero, in Jewell. I'm knitting a swatch to check the gauge. Then planning to look for a simple cardigan pattern.
In the meantime I'll be tackling E's hat and gloves, in Colinette Prism which is half cotton, half wool

Knitting and relationships

2006-02-20T08:37:00.000Z

Finished making up the pink jumper last night. Today I'm hoping to wash the first jumper I made which I've worn almost non stop for a month. My friend Ruth who loves woolly jumpers and can't (yet) knit has asked me to knit her a jumper. This means I get to knit up more beautiful Colinette wool, at her expense, which is great.
I've reviewed my knitting habits after T said he was feeling cut off from me by the clicking needles. It's true that I have been knitting all evening, every evening we've been at home since Christmas, and that as a beginner I have to concentrate very hard on the work. So I'm going to ration my knitting to only half the evening until I get good enough to be able to look at him and chat occasionally.
I wonder if this is a problem for other people. T's mother did a lot of knitting and T thinks that as a child he felt she was sometimes unavailable to him because of it. Can't be an unusual scenario I guess...

Latest jumper

2006-02-14T19:16:00.000Z

This is my third jumper to this pattern and in this wool (different colours of course). My excuse is that we're short of warm jumpers, and I'm a beginner gaining confidence.
I've noticed that people seem to write about their pets on their knitting blogs so I thought I'd let you see Jimmy with his squeaky newspaper.
This is a brand new toy, bought today to replace his very favourite.
It was another squeaky toy which he'd treated incredibly gently, almost with reverence, for more than a year but chewed a hole in on Saturday when in a state of great excitement over a visitor.

Out as a knitter

2006-02-14T10:35:00.000Z

My step mother Jean is a textile maestro (maestra?) - she's an expert knitter, spinner, felter, tapestry weaver etc etc, and does most of her own beautiful designs. As far as she knew, I'd never knitted a stitch and I'd decided to wait, rather than tell her the moment I'd got my first pair of needles. So I was quite excited to be able to send her the picture of Rose's new jumper (below).
This morning I got a lovely, and very excited, message from her. I know there's masses she can teach me, and I'm really looking forward to learning from her. Trouble is they live 250 miles away in north Wales. But now I know train journeys can pass quickly when you're knitting, so perhaps I'll go more often...
My new knitting habit is turning out to be quite expensive. Yesterday I ordered nearly £90 of wool from handpaintedyarn.com. The post seems to be so slow though - by the time it arrives I'll have had time to save up for it! I'm also waiting for some yarn from Colinette - two hanks of Prism to make mitts and a hat for my younger daughter Ellen, and six of One Zero in jewel. Don't know what I'm going to do with that. I'd like to try a simple jacket but haven't been able to find the right pattern yet. I also want to make one of Woolly Wormhead's berets.
I got a book about crochet last week and have learnt to do a chain and double crochet stitch, so I'm looking for nice simple crochet patterns too.

2006-02-12T19:23:00.000Z

Tried knitting on the tube for the first time, en route to my ex-boss's birthday party in west London. At first I felt very self conscious, especially as there was a group of young people speaking an eastern European language sitting opposite me who were very obviously discussing what I was doing. I'm not a fast knitter, and can't yet look away from my work, so was imagining people thinking what a clutz I am. But then I thought it was a good thing if they guessed I was a beginner - if you only ever see knitters whose needles move at the speed of sound, it's a bit intimidating. So soon I relaxed and was able to concentrate. The half hour journey passed in no time.

2006-02-11T08:58:00.000Z

My daughter Rose will be 21 next month. This is the first garment her mum has ever made for her, poor thing, but better late than never. (She's a student in chilly York so needs it more than ever).
I learnt to knit as a child, was hopelessly clumsy and impatient, and gave it up for 40 years. For the last couple of years I've been feeling a yearning to do something creative with my hands, and just after Christmas 2005 I decided to give knitting another go. Then I found the Colinette web site and realised it was going to be exciting. I also found www.KnittingHelp.com which has really helpful little demonstration videos, and I bought a couple of how-to-knit books too.
I started off knitting squares - garter stitch, then stocking stitch. Made lots of mistakes and tangles but slowly they got better. Then I bought some cut price but very scratchy yarn ("storm") from Textere and knitted a bag in garter stitch.
Next came my first Colinette order - six hanks of Graffiti wool, together with the Graffiti pattern book. I couldn't believe how beautiful the colours were, but I knew my first jumper had to be in"florentina" (and not only because I love Florence). I picked the only pattern with just one page of instructions, figuring it should be the easiest.
Knitting the jumper was really enjoyable - I just couldn't stop gazing at this beautiful fabric appearing in front of me - and took less than a week. The tricky bit was making it up. One of my knitting books went on about something called blocking, but I couldn't be bothered with that so I steam ironed it (gasps of horror) which the book also suggested. The side seams went OK but I had no idea how to get the sleeves into the holes. I undid and redid them three times, and now they look OK. But the steam ironing definitely took the spring out of the wool. I still love the jumper, because of the beautiful colours, and because it's the warmest thing I own, and because it's the first thing I've knitted.
I then bought some more Colinette wool, this time from Loop which is a wonderful knitting shop near my home, and knitted a scarf forTrevor (my husband). It has stripes - not colour stripes but stripes made by switching from knit/purl to purl/knit for a few rows. I found it quite a struggle to remember where I was with my stripe pattern, but it came out OK.
The next garment was Rose's jumper which I finished this morning. It's the same pattern as I used for my own, but in "blue parrot". And it's much better than mine - which is very encouraging as it shows I'm improving. It's going up to York on Monday, tucked into a big box which also contains a computer monitor she needs.