It's been ages since I wrote a blog post so I thought I would write one now. It is Boxing day 2020 and I have been having a nice relaxing day, although I have two big mouth ulcers which are extremely uncomfortable. They hurt so much that I don't want to talk. One year, just after Christmas, I came down with the most horrendous lurgy, I may have written about it at the time, I don't remember. It is probably the most ill I have ever been (can't get out of bed ill) and after a quick google it turned out to be Herpangina, which is caused by one of the Coxsackie viruses. Why am I relaying this story? Well, herpangina causes mouth ulcers to form on the soft palate, around the tonsil area and the pain was incredible. I remember lying there with my eyes shut just thinking about all the people who'd had Smallpox in the olden days and thinking to myself how much worse that would have been, that at least I was in a centrally heated house (with decent painkillers that my nana had sent), with Corsodyl and the other green throat-numbing mixture you can get at the pharmacy.  I did similar each time I gave birth, just feeling so thankful that I was doing it in our time and not in the past and thinking of all the women who died in labour after their babies became stuck or their labour failed to progress for whatever reason. It must have been utterly terrifying. There was a programme on BBC2 called History Cold Case which looked at unusual archaeological findings (skeletal), attempting to understand what had happened to the individuals whose remains had been excavated. It's well worth a watch, I think someone has uploaded most of the episodes to YouTube. Most of the cases they examined were sad, but one stuck with me and it told the story of an Iron Age woman who had died during childbirth, that one was really very very sad. Also, Sue Black is awesome, I loved the programme even more because Sue Black is fascinating and brilliant - interestingly, if you read her book All That Remains, she mentions that she did NOT like filming the series at all. 

A late-summer washing-line picture because I love seeing the washing hanging out to dry. Also pictured, the hap blanket I knit for my mum's birthday this year. She liked it a lot!

I am now back at university as a mature student studying Diagnostic Radiography. I am enjoying my course and I'm not getting much knitting time but hey ho, that's just how it is at the moment! I am the oldest of my cohort but there are plenty of other oldies like me on Twitter where there is a great community of student radiographers and qualified radiographers, all are so welcoming and helpful. I had a wobble one day and posted about it on my Twitter page, subsequently finding a huge outpouring of support and "you can do this"-type messages. I will not forget that and will make sure I pay it forward if I do manage to qualify and in turn work with other future radiographers. 

I have bought far too much yarn this year and am thinking of trying to only knit from my stash during the coming year. We'll see how it goes as I'm a sucker for yarn, it's utterly ridiculous! I am also terrible at sticking to knitting plans.

Coofle Jumper

'Coofle' by Kate Davies was released at the beginning of UK lockdown and it got into my head a little, I spent some time looking through my yarn stash to see if I had anything suitable. I found some gorgeous green Felted Tweed yarn that I'd chosen as one of my Christmas presents. It's one of the Kaffe Fassett colours and is called Vaseline Green, an odd (to me) name because surely Vaseline is sort of white in colour? Well! It turns out that Vaseline is also a type of glass, a lovely green glass, also known as uranium glass.

Can you spot the mistake in my corrugated ribbing? Ha ha, I didn't spot it till I was halfway up the sleeve (the contrast colours should be purled not knit).
 

The whole project took months, I simply lost steam with it and had many other things on the go that I wanted to finish first. The above picture was taken after I resolved to take a weekly picture of my knitting projects to document their progress and to spur me on a little

I was dreading reaching the yoke, it wasn't appealing to me at all, I just wanted to knit plain stocking stitch and that was it! 

Finished! I'm really pleased with this one, the fit is good, the colours are LOVELY and I've worn it a lot.
 

Granny Square Blanket

This was another lockdown project, started in place of my Spicier Life blanket which was unravelled. It was an impulsive make, started after watching some of HG Designs Crochet's videos on YouTube - her granny square enthusiasm is infectious!

Lovely project to work on, I decided recently that it was the project in my WIP pile which was closest to completion so I focused on it alone (I have a lot of knitting plans and want a clean slate). Next in line is my Coofle jumper, then Mum's blanket (Moder dy).

I used mohair and various hand-dyed yarns, tried to be a bit free with the colour palette and really enjoyed working on it, granny squares are so fun to work on. I think I've mentioned before that I only learnt how to crochet granny squares fairly recently (via YouTube of course), they're very easy once you've got the pattern memorised (it took me a few tries). I've said this before but I find granny squares to have a lovely homely feel to them, welcoming and cosy.

Robyn was pulling on the blanket at this point! 

Blankets

I've been making quite a few blankets this year so far. I started off crocheting the Spicier Life blanket (Cherry Heart Designs) but really wasn't 100% sure of my colour choices and so 3/4 of the way through making it, I unravelled it. It's ok though! I hooked another! I'm currently working on a granny square blanket inspired by the lovely HGDC podcast and her wonderful granny square mania.

 

This one is the Cherry Heart design, it's lovely and really fun to work on, I was mixing up yarn types though and I didn't like it, perhaps if I'd used only sock yarn + mohair it wouldn't have been unravelled (those were my favourite bits), hey ho.

Granny squares! Lovely granny squares :-) I have enjoyed these as they're bitesize and I can complete one a day if I've a mind to. I've started joining them all together this week and I'm really pleased with how they look, granny squares have got a friendly rustic look to them. 

The other blankets are a third Moder dy hap (Kate Davies) and the Arne & Carlos Quarantine KAL colourwork blanket. The Moder dy I am knitting for my mum's birthday this September and the A&C blanket was an impulse cast-on and was so enjoyable during those first weeks of lockdown. It's on pause at the moment as Carlos got Covid-19, was quite ill with it, and is now dealing with the dreaded post-viral fatigue syndrome. It should be a fun project to work on later this year when I start university again (I'm starting to get nervous!!!). 

Here's my Arne & Carlos blanket, a few of the patches are patterns I've taken from different designers or from google, the yarn is all gorgeous naturally-dyed Norfolk Horn I bought from the Fibre Workshop. And now Robyn is crying so I should go! 

New Arrival

I never finished my short blog about the arrival of our new baby. I'd had to pop in for a visit to the assessment unit the week before her arrival as I'd panicked that her movement pattern had changed (it was fine). The assessment unit was so reassuring, everyone so kind, after I had cried down the phone... I sat in the waiting room for about an hour, as the unit was so busy, luckily I had brought my crochet project with me (below) and I finished it a couple of days before Robyn was born.

My finished cushion. Next time I think I would use a smaller hook and try to make it denser so less of the cushion pad is visible. Rich did suggest I stitch a coloured cushion pad prior to covering it with the crochet but I was feeling very lazy about the finishing and didn't want to. It would have looked better if I did. I love the cushion, it's so jolly and has inspired me to begin another project once I've finished my current crochet blanket WIP. I have a sweet little Ikea chair which was bought 10 years ago in the run-up to James's birth. Its cover is well worn, has holes, has been dyed to cover stains, has faded... It's very tired! New covers are available from the Ikea website but I thought it would be nice to crochet a cover for it, it will have to be fairly dense to prevent stretching and sagging but I'll mull it over... Perhaps I'll rope in Rich's mum to help me sew a new cover instead.

Once Rich suggested the name Robyn I was very sure that was the name and didn't waver at all. My mum and nana both loved the name (hooray!), mum bought this sleepsuit for her and I hung it up next to the bed. It's an odd time because you are very aware that nothing is set in stone until your baby is safely delivered and for some reason this was playing on my mind a lot. I liked to look at the tiny clothes and wonder what our little baby would be like when she arrived.

Here she is, wearing another robin themed sleepsuit I found on eBay. The birth was very straightforward and happened overnight in the midwife-led unit at the big university hospital in Newcastle Under Lyme. I was bowled over by how fancy it was, big room with a huge bath for hydrotherapy (if you fancied). The labour was a little erratic and much slower than Oliver's, however it soon sped up after my waters had been broken by the midwife and Robyn had arrived an hour later. I remember being near to the end, knowing I needed to push and I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to have to push! They could tell though and push I did.

Robyn and I at the hospital, not long after the birth. None of the hats I had packed fit her, they were all too big for her little head. I was run a lovely deep hot bath by the healthcare assistant who followed this up by bringing me the most incredible plate of toast I have ever seen (8 rounds!). I think the toast was to be shared between me, my mum and Rich but I ate most of it cold after I'd had a nap.

We were discharged at midday, me with a revolting 10 days' worth of subcutaneous injections as a parting gift which I did not want. The scene the following morning as Rich got the boys ready for school and I sat there with this uncapped injection, trying to muster up the courage to administer it was ridiculous. It took me about 20 minutes to psych myself up to do it (I think we all have something which makes us a bit silly, mine is injections). In the end I found that doing it very slowly worked for me, firmly pressing it against my skin till it went in - I found this tip online. The injections were to prevent DVT, which has been found to be a leading cause of maternal death (who knew!), so obviously I had to be a brave woman and crack on.

Here is the other crochet project I had cast on or hooked prior to Robyn's arrival, it's the Spicier Life CAL by Sandra Paul (Cherry Heart). I managed to crochet my way through the first 4 sections before setting it aside in order to finish a cardigan which I will write a blog about soon. Having pulled it out today I am very dissatisfied with the combination of yarns I used, yes, I wish I had used sock yarn and mohair only ;-)

I may write a post about the wonderful knitted *things* I was given too! So many wonderful things!!! To end this post, a couple of pictures from when it finally snowed after a fairly mild and disappointing winter.

Matisse cardigan/Granny's Paperweight Blanket

This cardigan project was the product of my idle browsing of Instagram. I'm still not so keen on Instagram, especially since they changed the order in which they show you posts from people you follow, I also dislike how you can no longer whizz through a person's page if you're not signed in - thanks Facebook. I spotted the Matisse cardigan design via one of their algorithm's recommendations, a good example of an algorithm working well (rather than showing me SELFIES and wedding photos - I do not like these).

True to form, I ended up not finishing this cardigan, instead it was re-purposed into a blanket for the new baby (it's the perfect size for a cot bed). I had completed the body of the cardigan and having tried it on I realised I wouldn't wear it when it was finished. It had a bit too much going on and was a little clown-style for me, not at all like the original design which looked great with its colour palette. Crafty chic! I'm always drawn in by good garment styling, in this case the model in the garden with her floaty dress really appealed to me (and still does, I love that cardigan!).

The little hexagons are quite (very) addictive to crochet, I absolutely LOVE them. Each was made using scrap yarns, hand-dyed yarns and kid-silk, so double-stranded. I found it nice to have the neutral blue colour as a final single crochet edging. I hand-stitched the blanket together rather than joining as I went, it looked a little neater.

See! Cot bed size really... It's laid on our double bed here. It was lovely and warm to work on, I did a lot of the finishing during a cold spell when our boiler had broken and took days to fix.

Little Robyn is a lucky girl, I might have to start another of these at some point for me, it's definitely my most favourite crochet project ever and something I hope she will treasure.

Christmas Dress

 Earlier in 2019 I cast on a Christmas dress, nice and early so that I would have the time to ensure I finished it. The base pattern is House Dressing by The Flying Yak on Ravelry (here), I knew I could get just the right fit if I used this pattern rather than the disappointment which was my 2018 Christmas dress. I really like Christmas hand-knits and plan a jumper for 2020, I'll probably knit a little cardigan or dress for the baby too (once she's here safely).

The dress was picked up and put down at various points during the year, I drank many mugs of tea as I knit and many tins of flavoured coke/lemonade as I found I'd got quite a taste for those during the summer months. The reindeer-y chart I used on the hem of the dress was one I found while I was browsing google images, I pulled it (creditless) from Pinterest. I've noted this on my Ravelry project page but if anyone recognises the chart and knows its origin then please let me know if you have a minute spare, thank you!
I struggled with the fit of the bodice when knitting my original House Dressing - looked like a shapeless sack when I'd finished... I re-knit it following the instructions for Ruis by Jatta Pauliina, an incredibly flattering dress I really would like to knit again at some point.
I gave my red Ruis dress away in the years following the birth of my second son Oliver as I felt it was too form-fitting particularly as I'd put on weight... Vain I know but you've got to feel good in your clothes!!!!
I tried and tried to lose that weight, I remember pounding the pavements up and down the hills of Biddulph Moor at night, getting those 10,000 steps in (at as high a speed as possible) under the cover of darkness. Nothing doing. One morning I happened to read an article in the paper about sugar - here (it's LONG!), it made sense to me, I ordered Sarah Wilson's I Quit Sugar book from ebay, a book I had in the past stuck my fingers up at because she looked so smug on the cover and WHY would anyone in their right mind give up lovely SUGAR!?
Ha! I found out why... Interestingly, after I stopped eating sugar the weight gradually just went away, as did the spots, the mouth ulcers and all sorts. Re-visiting A-level biology last year certainly helped me understand all the science a little better, just in terms of how the body uses/stores sugars and why. Anyway, I'm not hungry all the time like I used to be, although I probably eat a little too much in the way of butter... I LOVE buttered toast.

True to form, the photos are a bit overexposed, but you get an idea of the dress on and can see there's plenty of room for the baby too. I'm a little concerned that I'll have to re-knit the bodice at a later date as my bust is usually naturally nowhere near its current size. We'll see how it looks either next Christmas or Christmas 2021 and I'll go from there. It's only a few days' knitting in any case. Also! I have no idea what went on with my sleeves but they're quite generous in size, probably a little too much information here but I do tend to run fairly hot and find that I perspire accordingly! I always mean to buy dress shields to protect my knitted dresses, then I forget to and have to resort to wads of folded toilet paper which is great till they become dislodged! Bane of my life while I was at school and college... I do find that Driclor helps if I can stand to fall asleep with it applied, but I can rarely withstand the awful itchiness it causes and I end up rinsing it off too soon.

I did knit the under-bust rib (which cinches the dress in) a little shorter than I did for my blue House Dressing (below). I'd intended to wear this one on Christmas day and was trying to accommodate the bump but also to reduce any likelihood of the garment stretching out of shape.

I do wonder whether this will be the last time I knit this pattern combination (House Dressing/Ruis). I love the big skirt and the fitted bodice