Butter Cross (Shepherd's Cross)

I had a few lovely friendly responses to my request for information on that stone over on the Megalithic Portal. This stone in particular isn't very old at all, a few hundred years or so. It was suggested that it had been moved to be used by cattle as a rubbing stone (ever seen cows having a scratch on random objects in fields?); on James's farm videos you see a modern equivalent for the cows to have a good scratch, a large spinning brush at back height. It feels good to have an answer to this query and also to be learning more about the ancient sites local to me. I picked up a copy of Stone Circles of the Peak, felt a little daunted by the lack of pictures and all the diagrams but the writing style is very accessible and extremely interesting. This interest has been percolating for a while, ignited due to my reading Alan Garner's book Thursbitch last year.
As previously mentioned, I'm continuing with a period of creative block and complete ****ed off-ness with everything ART and art selling related. I can't quite let go of my arty side or the feeling that I want to make pictures, so I'm going back to basics, slowing right down, not accepting commissions and basically just taking some time off to read, research, visit places and start to enjoy the process of painting again. I have considered getting a proper job again but with childcare and also the trapped feeling it gives me I think I'd prefer to scrape by for a while.

Here are some photos of the Butter Cross on the outskirts of Biddulph. It's on the road near to the Talbot pub. You turn right (out of the Talbot carpark) and walk up the hill a little way and it is situated on the left hand side, recessed from the road (the hedge wraps around it). Opposite is a stone trough (can't remember if it's a pair, looks as though one has been removed).
The people who know about this sort of thing reckon that it might be an older stone which has been Christianised at some point. If you look at the first photo you can see what look like the features of a face.

From my reading last night I learnt that due to the more modern ways of thinking (in the last 300 years or so) the superstitions surrounding the stone circles of England largely died out and this led to stones being moved and removed and sites being damaged or lost. Local to me, the Bridestones was thought to have been a much larger site but has been damaged and many stones pilfered over the years. Rumour has it that some stones were taken to my favourite park (Tunstall Park - Noooo!).

Stones

I've become rather pre-occupied with standing stones lately. I've been completely shutting down all my painting (I'm at a brick wall with it and have no focus), and I want to start painting the stones that I find and the places that speak to me. This stone has puzzled me for ages; it's located in a field opposite the Foxhound pub (currently closed & for sale by informal tender) on Biddulph Moor. There is a path along the edge of the field and the stone is in the middle of the field. There is a lightweight fence alongside the path (the type you could duck under), and horses sometimes graze here.
The markings on the stone suggest to me that it might have been part of a pair, possibly for putting bars in? Looks as though they would sort of slot in - can you tell that I know absolutely nothing about this type of thing!? I'm hoping to rectify this with some beginners reading material on the (vast) subject. The only problem with this theory is that logically a person would be much more likely to build fence posts and horse jumps from wood, the work that will have gone into this is far greater than the equivalent in wood, and where is the other half of it?

If you're knowledgeable about this type of thing then please feel free to enlighten me.

Acquisitions

I didn't mean to post this yet, I'm clearing pictures from my phone and found some yarn I had added to my stash. There are skeins of Hedgehog Fibres sock in an old club colour (Brick Layer - I LOVE these). Then I have some Merino Aran in the lovely speckled grey Construct colourway, these are just fab and did you know, Hedgehog Fibres source their Merino from farms which do NOT employ the vile mulesing system. I thought 'mulesing' was a word for those joins you get in yarns (dodgy logic from me there!), turns out its a barbaric practice of stripping the skin from around the sheep's backside. Makes my stomach hurt thinking about it.. Another good reason to think before I buy yarns and woollen goods.

This last pair is lovely LITLG, the last instalment of their Winter yarn club. I was offered a second skein as a swap by a lovely Raveller (I was delighted!). The colourway is First Flower and is destined to be a cropped lace patterned cardigan.

Crochet

I have been crocheting a blanket for James. I started it months ago and ended up putting it to one side, I think as I was making it in single crochet it was proving to be very dense, and frankly it was fairly boring to make, despite the lovely yarn (all Hedgehog Fibres). I'm quite bad for starting things and then hiding them away... 

I'm following the Spice of Life crochet pattern, a free pattern which encourages you to learn new stitches. It was originally released in sections as part of a CAL (crochet along). I love that it's broken down into sections, I feel that a massive single pattern would probably be quite daunting for me. I'm nearly on to section 4 and am adding in small stripes of single crochet for continuity as there is such a big strip of it along the bottom of the blanket. I will finish the blanket with a large matching strip at the top and then the edging, of course.

I'm planning on finishing this before moving on to another WIP (probably my Kate Davies blankets). That said, I am going to cast on a small shawl, more on that later though - I dyed some yarn (naturally), which I'm very excited about.

Watching the rain

I'm sitting in my studio just watching the rain as I do a bit of procrastinating, James is watching a programme about the history of the diesel engine (on BBC4 last week, it's fascinating!). He turned 5 yesterday and we had a nice quiet day with the family. James had asked for a fish after seeing them used as props in Sweaterspotter's Pengiun knitting book.

Couldn't find an image via google so I did a screen shot. You can look at and buy her lovely wares here - Jo Waterhouse. I'm very taken with her beautiful lino prints and her cushions. LOVE.

I recently finished a pattern from the Penguin collection, the Aptenodytes Cardigan. I still haven't repositioned the buttons, I do need to do that as it's pulling because of where I placed them in haste, also they make one side appear longer than the other. Here are some dodgy photos of me wearing it, dodgy because I took them myself and my self-taken photos don't often come out very well. The garden fences look so rough but just imagine them as they will be in a few months' time when all my flowers have grown (hidden!).

It's so pretty and was a really interesting garment to knit, I loved its construction. I'm back to working on my small WIP mountain, there are 4 blankets which Will Be Done. I mean that, I'm doing it. I'll post some photos of these soon.

Ásta Sóllilja

It's a Finished Object. Over a year in the making (most of that time it was hidden away), but it's finally finished and I'm so pleased with it.
Last year, or perhaps it was in 2014 (when Kate Davies first published teasers of the Yokes patterns prior to the book's release), I had decided that I wanted to make a dress version of this design. I'm not sure what possessed me, it certainly would make a lovely tunic dress with short sleeves but the fitted version I was dreaming of might not have worked very well. Clearly it didn't, as this is where my tinkering ended up! I had gauge problems and a serious reluctance to go down the several needle sizes I should have in order to knit the dress nice and fitted and not get a 'saggy bottom' - the knitting version of Paul Hollywood's famous saying on the GBBO.
I have quite the terror of a saggy bottom after something Rich's mum Jane told me years ago when I had bought a lovely knitted pinafore dress from TopShop. I wore that dress to death and was so affected by Jane's warning that I used to hoik it up whenever I could as I sat down in it (company permitting). I'm going to find a picture of the TopShop dress in my photos actually, I quite fancy reverse-engineering it, it was so versatile. A bit itchy as it had some alpaca in it, I'm ok with wool but find alpaca gets me a bit squirmy.. Not a good look!

I hadn't blocked it here and the edges were rolling in a little in that delightful stocking stitch way. They've settled down a bit now.

I was planning on knitting a version of Miss Rachel's Yoke but I can't find the spark of 'must knit this right now' that I need to cast on, I did try but I unravelled my progress. I think I'm going to continue with my plan to finish my WIPs because they're still doing my head in (that phrase makes me sound like my 14 year old self).
What's on the list? There are 4 blankets... I am slightly appalled that I have 4 blankets on the needles!! I'm certain that one of these was cast on in 2012.
Then there is a grey cardigan that was going to be a dress but I changed my mind and left it to languish. There are two sleeves and a body piece. I have reinforced the front ready for cutting and will knit the bust area in pieces, separating from the fronts and the back. I was going to edit this so it could become an Effervescence cardigan but the ribbing/waist/pattern placement will be ridiculously off. I might add a lace bib to it like the Audrey in Unst cardigan (I want to make another of these but WIPs first!).
What else? My Bohus yoked cardi (Blue Flower) which had been edited by me in an attempt to fit the pattern to Coraline by Ysolda. This worked (or it would have done if I was the size of a 10 year old), the yoke depth I ended up with was far too shallow and while it was wearable it really wasn't right and did no justice to the original design. I spend an evening ripping it all out and picking up the live stitches and have begun to knit it as written, albeit in the wrong direction.
A surprise addition to my WIP pile was the Aptenodytes cardigan by Kristen Blom and Anna Maltz, I had seen a two-colour version of this pattern on Instagram and I had to have one. I am on the final section of ribbing after ripping it back this morning because I had lazily picked up too few stitches - not like me, I always pick up extra for ribbing. I think I was having a lazy evening.

So, that's 7 items, 4 of those are large items. I will hopefully have another FO post very soon as I'm hoping to get my Aptenodytes finished today. That is the plan!!

 Here's that dress I was on about, I'm musing on it now...

Windy day!

Made a proper shawl. I'm not much of a shawl knitter but I liked this one for its simplicity (also the fringe). It's seen a lot of wear since I finished it even though Rich teases me about looking like a granny in it. It's so soft and was knit in Hedgehog Fibres Merino Singles (Opalite), this was held double with some Orkney Angora yarn and Hedgehog Fibres Kidsilk Lace. These extra strands give the whole thing a lovely fuzzy halo - so pretty. The pattern is by Stephen West and is called Fringed.
I think I should have done something with my hair before taking these pictures! Ha ha.. And yes, it was very windy, I found the second and third photos quite funny so I've included them here.

Alice cardi

Made myself another Alice Cardigan. The pattern's by Amy Twigger Holroyd of Keep & Share (a handknit clothing company).
It was a fun knit, would have been more fun if I hadn't underestimated my yarn needs/amounts. I did run out but luckily had used a strand of Hedgehog Fibres Blue Faced Lace (Pheasant) along with the sparkly long discontinued Rowan main colour (Sot Lux, Clover). I had to graft the centre back stitches together with about 5/6 strands of the BF lace!

Anyway, it's warm, chunky, swingy and quite pretty. I'm really pleased with this one. I knit this pattern in 2012 but used a really stiff bulky yarn (I think I knit it up at too tight a gauge in retrospect), the end result wasn't particularly comfy to wear so I gave it away.

Another dress

I'm making good progress with my Christie Johnstone dress! The hem is curling like crazy but I plan to do some applied i-cord all around it to stop it doing that while I'm wearing it, it shouldn't be so bad after a good block in any case.

I'm currently resisting the urge to watch Downton Abbey, I fancied collecting a few episodes in the box and binge watching them... Not sure if that's going to happen though!

Other than knitting I'm nice and busy in the studio with some commissioned work.. There's a load to do in fact, I have all these pretty circular paintings that I need to get photographed and uploaded. I'll chip away at it :)

September

Sorry if all the photos here are crammed in, I'm on my phone writing this, in the bath as it happens... Rich always tells me I'll drop the phone in the bath one of these days but I like to court that risk.

So! Since my last post I have been doing a slightly weird lone KAL to the Great British Bake Off (knitting a pair of socks a week), I've had to call time on that this week however, as I'm getting pain in my wrist from the dpns and tight gauge. I've amassed a small collection of socks though and intend to continue, albeit at a slower pace because hand knitted socks really are the business.

I made 'Sprouting' by Beata Jezek - gorgeous pattern and gorgeous Hedgehog Fibres yarn. Knitting these made me realise that while HF sock yarn is super soft and amazing, I actually prefer a more sheepy yarn to knit with. True to my impulsive form I sold my stash of HF sock (very quickly!) on Rav, folk LOVE that yarn, it is super easy to move on if you change your mind. I used the proceeds to secure another round of HF Twist Club. The Twist is Blue Faced Leicester, a lovely breed of yarn to knit with...

Hey! I finished my vintage inspired cardi!!!

Much excitement here about that. It turned out absolutely perfect, I love it and couldn't be happier with the result. Only took me 4 months... But it's not all about speed is it? It's the journey or something like that.

Rose City Rollers socks in HF Twist, the pink's a club colourway, the lighter CC is Monet Light. These were the pair of socks which really made my wrist pain flare up. I knit them on 2.25mm dpns, the tighter gauge makes them snug and comfy but like I said, it hurt my wrist to knit!!

Sea glass, sea pottery, sea shells!!! The boys and I went to Wales last week with my family (poor Rich had to work). We had a lovely time, my sister Sam and I got a bit addicted to sea glass hunting though. I also got a bit hooked on a funny LOTR video from YouTube (Taking the hobbits to Isengard), I'd never seen it before and it made me cry with laughter, it was played many times while we were away - only watch this if you have a silly sense of humour, I showed it to Rich and he was not amused!

Oblique the third. Yes, I have knitted this pattern 3 times. Is knitted even a word? Anyway, it was a great project, the yarn was so much fun to knit with, I am a little addicted to HF yarns at the moment. Colourway is Birthday Cake, two different dyelots.

Last week's Bake Off socks. HF yarn and unknown cream coloured wool. 

Till next time, I'm going to work on my Christie Johnstone dress for the time being, possibly with some socks on the side. 

August

I'm acquiring yarn a lot less rapidly at the moment, a couple of pretty club skeins and a couple of impulsive buys. It's so easy to buy and hoard yarn and I'm finding that it's not for me, that I feel guilty for wasting money and bad that I haven't the time to knit my stash! 

To be fair, this stash of mine isn't too bad (I think I'm around the 50 mark) but I'm going to work on it, particularly rediscovering yarns I've been holding on to for years. I'm not imposing any purchase bans, just trying to exercise restraint and good sense. I can buy yarn if it helps me knit up some stashed yarn too (I'm planning a big Rowan knit which will use some super old stash!).

I've become very nosey on Ravelry in terms of looking at peoples' stashed yarns, some people have hundreds! One lady had over 1000!! I say, whatever makes you happy - less seems to work for me at the moment.