Wednesday 26 December 2018

Christmas dress

It's been a busy, busy couple of months, possibly the most stressful months I've had in ages. I had two exams, an interview for university, double work experience and two assignments to do.
I decided to try to channel all my nervous energy into my knitting, in particular, a Christmas dress to wear when it was all done.

Here it is..





The pattern is a Drops one I have wanted to make for ages (Winter Fantasy), the yarn is J&S jumper weight and was a DELIGHT to knit with. I have enough left over from my cone to whip up another dress! ErickaEckles sent me a copy of a vintage dress pattern I'd like to have a go at at some point. For now I'm working on Peerie Clews and have some fun plans for a very colourwork-y 2019! Also a skirt, and some hats as I got the Millarochy Heids book for Christmas.

Wednesday 7 November 2018

Frosty Doocot

Kate Davies recently published a super duper top-down jumper pattern called Doocot. I downloaded it immediately and cast on the same evening. The pattern calls for dk yarn and I had some but it's earmarked for another project and I'd bought this Kid-Silk yarn (and sparkle thread), but changed my mind about knitting it into a cardigan. I thought I'd try it out and see if it would work.
3.75mm didn't work, it looked a bit yuck actually! After a little unravelling I got out my favourite size needle, 5mm, and cracked on. The fabric is LOVELY on 5mm needles, all fluffy and drapey. Time will tell if it's going to sag and pill, hopefully not, I find mohair's a good tough fibre.


This oversized trend is something I wasn't at all sure about at first, also the cropping! Turns out they're fab for layering and are generally very nice garments to wear - I definitely like a lighter weight cropped jumper rather than a heavy weight one.
It's strange knitting with such fine yarn at first, but as the fabric develops it becomes such an enjoyable experience (I spent a lot of time squishing the fabric...). The thread was a pain to knit with, it needs tensioning else it supercoils (I've been learning about DNA!). Really, it just twists itself up and can knot really easily.


What else? Oh! The construction. So, I always disliked top-down after a few bad experiences with patterns involving a lot of counting, stitch markers and general faffery which really put me off (contiguous!). This one couldn't be simpler, the back neck is raised with knitting back and forth, no nasty short rows (I also hate those), the sleeve increases were logical and easily memorable.
I did lots of knitting on this one at college and then over half term. Finished it in time to wear to my genetics exam for luck, fuzzy sparkly luck. The exam was a bit of a stiff one, managed to answer all the questions but know I mucked a couple up. Onwards though!

The Big Marl

The Big Marl popped up in my Ravelry pattern highlights the day it was released. Sent me straight to my stash, then to my swift and ball-winder. This project absolutely eats yarn; I can see why Beata designed it, it's fun, simple and great for single skeins of hand-dyed yarn.



I haven't used a single scrap of Hedgehog Fibres in mine. I've used nearly all the yarns I bought at the Wool@J13 knitting/yarn festival earlier this year.


I feel as though I'm getting over hand-dyed yarns right now, so I can appreciate them but I'm becoming less impulsive with buying them (almost). It's funny, they're lovely things to own but they make me feel a bit wrong when I have a LOT of them, it feels so excessive to me. A few years ago I think my stash was pushing 70, it really was getting to the point where it was making me feel greedy, there was yarn stuffed and stacked everywhere and I would still have to buy more for certain pattern releases...
Then there is the small matter of changing taste in yarn, so I found that my taste was changing faster than I could knit my stash.
EBay has been brilliant as I've gradually worked through my stash (selling it), eBay is a great place to sell yarn, unravelled Shetland Spindrift, unravelled Lopi, scraps of this and that, even my own hand-dye experiments - all sold, gone, money recouped.

I have a guilty pleasure on ravelry, I like to look at yarn collectors' stashes, real collectors. I simultaneously marvel at and recoil at the crazy amount some people have.

Sunday 23 September 2018

Ranunculus - Sort of...

I decided I needed a jumper to wear while sitting in bed and I'd noticed Raveller DutchJacky had made one fairly recently in a lovely ochre shade. "Ooh, lovely!" I thought.

The idea percolated as I finished up my St Catherines cardi (which I've not blogged about yet). I decided to re-use this Hedgehog Fibres Silk/Merino Singles yarn (discontinued base) which is a vibrant and very pleasing shade of yellow called 'Pollen'. I'm not sure if they still dye Pollen, they have a few newer yellows, none of which are quite my cup of tea, this one just has such a richness to it!



Yes, I butchered the poor yoke. I was away for the weekend, no internet access and I didn't understand the instruction for making the pretty stitch pattern so I just went into yarn-over mode.
I omitted the short row shaping because I really hate short row shaping/shaping in general. So much piddling about!


Because I love i-cord cast offs.




It's oversized but not too oversized. I'm not at all on board with the current oversized trend, it often just creates bulk and then Rich says to me "You look like you're wearing a bin bag". Probably there's a lot to be said here for yarn choices, some are more skimming and drapey, also, it really depends on a person's general style.


One other thing, I separated the sleeves/body earlier than instructed because I really do not like the poncho/penguin arm style. I want to be able to move as I wish, unencumbered by my jumper! Arms in the air without the jumper rising up as I lift.

Anyway, I love it. It's cosy, colourful and hasn't the yarn re-knit well? It was unravelled from a pair of well-worn cardigans and while it does have bobbling here and there, it's nothing major, they pull off really easily. One other note about re-knitting frogged yarn, I just wind it directly into a ball and knit it straight back up, no re-skeining/washing or anything. It's never been a problem for me but I'm very much an "it'll do"/bodge it kind of a knitter.
Probably worth re-skeining/washing if you need to know how it will behave and have a bit more control over it, especially if you're a swatcher!

Peerie Clews

Blimey, Peerie Clews... I started this project back in April, and no, I haven't finished it yet!
For any knitter who is unfamiliar with Peerie Clews, it's a pattern from the Vintage Shetland Project, a fab book of Taschen proportions, and by that I mean that the thing is heavy and feels like more of a coffee table book (that said, Vol. 2 of A Stitch in Time was big too). The pattern for Peerie Clews was scanned immediately as I didn't want to spoil the book! Below are a couple of photos I snapped of the original garments from the archive (I had to re-sell my copy of the book as I'm low-income at the moment).



The book is beautiful, it's a real labour of love. Here's Peerie Clews (the original). I love the collar, the length and the big sleeves. My sleeves have come up a little small but I've bodged a fix for that. I'm not casting on anything else till this one is finished.


Figuring out colours. This took me AGES, I started and re-started and after I think 3 goes I got just what I wanted, using hand-dyed singles/strands of kidsilk mohair and a little coral coloured Spindrift. I needed the colourwork to have just enough contrast and also enough 'stick' (no superwash sock yarns in sight).

The cuffs are my favourite, they're a beautiful grey hand-dyed merino single yarn held double with an even more beautiful Hedgehog Fibres Blue Faced Lace yarn in an extremely subtly flecked fawn colour (Sparrow's Egg).




Knitting outdoors in May & June this year. Sitting on my lovely old quilt which was made for me as a going away present when I went to university in 2002.

Anyway, my first task is to complete the sleeves. I'm then going to complete the ribbing for the bottom of the cardi and take each little section at a time until I'm done. I really do hope I'm able to finish it, I keep putting it off. Probably the knitting will speed up once I'm knitting the colourwork in the round. Wish me luck!

Tuesday 18 September 2018

College

I mentioned in my previous post that I had started back at college as a mature student. I decided to enrol at Leek college as it's the closest to home and also I really like Leek as a town, it's full of old buildings and is all wonky/higgledy-piggledy. By some miracle it retains many of its original cobbled street surfaces - I love cobbled streets a lot. It's always a source of enjoyment just visiting Leek and now I'm at college there I get to explore even more!

As my class is so small we occupy smaller classrooms in the old building (part of the Nicholson Institute). I was quietly delighted on my first day inside this new (to me) space, it's full of architectural interest. Sadly somebody at some point has decided the glazed/unglazed interior brickwork ought to be painted over with thick stippled masonry paint, presumably to 'brighten up' the corridors. Madness.

This clock! The surround! I bet a horologist would love to get their hands on this clock, give it a going-over, a service and a clean. It's the nicest clock I've seen in ages. On the clock face it says "I mark time. Dost thou?". I surreptitiously snapped some photos on my phone during a tea break.

I think I'll lug my proper camera in next week or at some point anyway. Honestly, this building is fantastic, it's such an inspiring place to be learning in.
Here are some photos of the rear of the building. It's a very solid, imposing structure from behind, classic Victorian really, reminds me of the viaduct* near to my parents' house.



The 'sticking out' section is a window seat if I remember correctly, that said, I think there's another on the other side, higher up. 

 I believe the large glazed room on the ground floor is the art studio. The space right at the top is the Nicholson Gallery and in the middle is the public library. I've never been into the library so I'll add that onto my list of Nicholson Exploration.


A scholar? (Looks like he/she's wearing a mortarboard). The mason's child? Who knows, what a lovely little face though.



A couple of lovely display cases as you enter the building, I believe Leek was a textile town much like Macc and Congleton were. There are lots of embroidery examples in the gallery upstairs and here we can see spinning... I need to do some Leek history research really.

Cast iron radiators!!!!!!! Lovely to sit on, I used to like it at school when they'd been glossed, they used to smell incredible.

*The viaduct impressed and scared me in equal measure as a child. I'm not sure if it was the sheer size of it, the thought of men up so high laying the bricks, that coupled with the melancholy feeling I always got down there at the edge of the woods with the damp smell of the brook running under the viaduct and alongside the field/wood edge. It certainly made an impression.


Monday 17 September 2018

Autumn

Well, it's been a lovely year so far and wow, what a fantastic summer! I love summer best of all, although each season has its own charms. We have a tree in our garden which is always the first to drop its leaves come September, and in the spring it is always the last to sprout them! The garden is currently sprinkled with leaves from this tree, it looks like yellow confetti or little petals; I like how the wind gathers them into piles and spreads them about the place. They float past my studio window, looking a bit like snowflakes and they make me smile.

I made 3 hats when it was very hot, all the same pattern (Beloved Aran), all using variegated yarns. The one above is Oliver's, brown of course. I made it using Kate Selene yarns held tripled.
Below is the wrong side of my Granny's Paperweight crochet blanket, a delightful pattern that I'm making for fun, for me really but I'll share with the family of course! Oliver wasn't too keen on it when I showed him my progress, he had requested a blanket and so I've started working on a brown version (larger gauge).


Lots of knitting plans flying around. One certainty is that I am knitting a dressing gown (pictured below), it's from a book called Romantic Style and has a fair few projects on Ravelry.
I know that I will be shortening it, I don't want it trailing behind me, it'll still be full-length though. The dressing gown is knit using Rowan's Kid Classic yarn, rather a lot of Kid Classic. Luckily I impulse-bought a LOT of Kid Classic last year from a Raveller who had a worsening mohair allergy. She was selling it all off very cheap (£3 per ball) and so I ended up with 20 balls of the colour 'Dashing' which is a lovely oatmeal shade.



Non-knitting-wise it's all change here, both my little boys are now at school and I have decided that it is time for me to do the same. I started my lessons at college last week, doing an Access course in preparation for my return to university (hopefully) next year.The college is lovely, old and very, very interesting. I'll take some photos this week!


Here are the RAF parachute team, we saw them at a family fair a couple of weekends ago! I think I enjoyed their bit the most, it was very exciting to watch although I don't fancy having a go at that EVER.

Saturday 12 May 2018

Wool @ J13

I was in two minds about booking tickets for Wool@J13. I've never been to a yarn festival before but I've seen footage of many and they always look too busy for me. I'm the kind of person who will go to the supermarket in the evening and who has driven to the supermarket on a Saturday really needing an item but turned around in the car park because it's packed with cars.
Anyway, last night I made up my mind that I'd give it a miss this year because of my yarn budget. Woke up this morning and decided to go after James asked whether we were going to the wool festival. I am so glad we went!


It was very easy to find once off the M6 and heading towards Wolverhampton. We parked up and although the show ground was nearby there was a tractor/trailer ride to take us there (the boys' eyes were on stalks!), it was very fun to have a little ride up and excellent for spotting knitwear. I saw a beautiful mitred square cardigan and so many lovely outfits. The queue moved quickly and we were soon into the grounds! I had one stall I really wanted to visit (the knackered psycho) as she was selling Lollipop Guild Yarn. I bought a copy of The Knackered Psycho's shawl book too, I can dream of one day being able to crochet a shawl...
The selection of exhibitors was really impressive, I think there really was something for everyone. If I remember I'll write a second post to share some of my favourites tomorrow. The food area was fab, wood fired pizza, fresh samosas, a vegan van, also lots of drink options including a fully stocked bar or 'Baaaaa' as its sign stated (had to explain  few sheep-based jokes to James!).



If you turn right and walk that way (after the entrance but before the food area) you will come to THE BEST playground... It was so good it gave me happy pangs of nostalgia, lots of recycled items, creatively put together. They had an old fire engine the children could get inside and play with, reminded me of the pub up the road from my mum & dad's which had old vehicles in the beer garden... It was lovely and hot, there were farmland birds singing their hearts out, I had a bag full of yarn dyed by dyers new to me. There are also animals just next to the park, lambs, alpaca, pigs, all sorts. Oliver loved the 'baby lambs' and watching a sheep be shorn (sheared?).


Also! My stripey dress was a definite success. It proved to be cool/warm simultaneously, I'm very glad I didn't put sleeves on it in the end. Yarn was bought with a plan to knit another! People were so kind about my dress, so friendly and lovely.

All in all, it was a woolly joy, a festival with a festival feel to it and a really good vibe. Wellies recommended if it's rainy, otherwise flats. I wore chunky heels and got sore feet. The price of vanity.

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Mrs Darcy

I had a fit of nostalgia recently and had to cast on the Mra Darcy cardigan pattern (a popular pattern from way back when - 2008!). I used my Scheepjes Stone Washed yarn held double and added a strand of HHF Merino Lace 1200m in a discontinued colourway (Granny). I'd been feeling the need to use this yarn up, but also to do it justice because Granny is a favourite colourway of mine and I'd sold my second hank of it last year (I got seller's remorse badly!!). I only had a small aount left and striped in a strand of HHF Blue Faced Lace (Whisper - a pale pink/beige mix). HHF means Hedgehog Fibres if anyone doesn't know :-)
The Merino Lace is funny stuff, it's lovely, takes the dye really well and of course, it's super-soft. It doesn't bloom much when washed and blocked though, it's not got much fuzz and that puts me off knitting with it for lace projects. The Blue Faced Lace on the other hand, it's grabby, soft and fuzzy, takes the dye in a beautifully subtle way too. I'd not hesitate to use it for any lace pattern.
The Merino Lace works best for me if held alongside a neutral thicker yarn, it gives such a subtle variegated effect.


Lovely flecks of colour from the lace-weight yarn. The Scheepjes Stone Washed was absolutely lovely to work with, really squeaky and super soft.


Finished it very quickly! I was delighted not to have any of the problems I had had with my original attempts at knitting this design back in 2008. I'd only recommend the original pattern (not the re-written one) to experienced knitters, I had to make judgements whilst knitting and slight changes to make it fit.




Equal Night

Wow, I knit this one up so quickly! The yarn is from my Xania dress, it's by Pickles (it was a bit of a splurge at the time) and it was making me feel very guilty sat there half unravelled in my basket. I made myself finish unravelling it and then started to mull over what to do with the yarn, sell it on or figure out something different to make with it.


Anyway, I decided on Equal Night, a blanket pattern by Soft Sweater (Sylvia McFadden). I'd seen this on the Coffee & Craft podcast and really liked it but thought I'd not be able to make it as it uses super-bulky yarn and 15 mm needles and really I can't be buying more yarn/needles at the moment. I decided I wouldn't mind a smaller-sized blanket though and cracked on with the yarn and needles I already had available. Glad I did!
It was such a quick and simple knit. I took 3 of my unravelled balls of yarn with me to Rich's parents' house when we visited and managed to finish all 3. There was an odd morning when I had no knitting left to do, I'd put heels in all 4 of James's socks and finished my blanket wool. I was feeling a bit lost (with no knitting - sad but true) and a little poorly. Went for a walk with the boys and Rich's mum Jane and Jazz the Collie dog - that was fun.
Picked up the blanket again in the evening when we had got home and some washing was in the machine and I'd settled back in. The edging is fun, it's knit-on and you're casting off as you knit your way around. Took me an evening as I kept putting it down to admire it and enjoy the curve which was emerging (it had been so bunched up on my needles it looked like a big sack!).




Folded in two, a nice semi-circle, thick and warm.


Super-drapey! I like wearing it this way best. Cropped my head off as I looked like I'd got a crick in my neck.


What am I looking for?

Still haven't found it... Ah well.

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