Knitting oddments

I am crazy about knitting at the moment - I think because it's an easy bit of creativity to fit in whenever I can: sitting at ballet waiting for Olivia, for half an hour in the late evening before I collapse into bed, for twenty minutes during my break at work.  I love knitting for its pick-up-put-down qualities.  Little by little it grows no matter how busy I am.

At the beginning of this week I finished a slouchy beanie hat made from sock yarn, and almost immediately felt bereft and cast on something new.  Holding the tiny little ball of yarn I had left over from the hat, I was reminded of this shawl which I knit eighteen months ago and wear constantly.  I obviously use more sock yarn than I realised because since I finished the shawl, I have once again built up enough yarn oddments to make something with them.  This time I've decided to make a simple cowl.  I just cast on 160 stitches on 3.25mm dpns, did a few rows of alternating knit and purl to stop the bottom edge from curling, and then switched to stocking stitch.  I'll keep going until I run out of little balls of yarn.  Easy, mindless knitting - with the added excitement of not being quite sure how it will look when it's finished.

Winter fairisle hat

The temperature, even in inner London, was minus two at half-past eight this morning when I took Olivia to school.  If I'd been working I would have left the house at ten past six, when I suspect it would have been even colder.  It is even getting a little bit too cold for my liking now.

But of course the redeeming feature of this teeth-shuddering weather is that I can layer myself up in shawls, hats and armwarmers until I look like a woolen Mrs Tiggywinkle.  Last night I came home from work to find a parcel from my Mum containing the most wonderful hat which she had knitted for me.

Tired eyes, happy smile, new hat.

It is a slouchy fairisle beanie hat, knitted from Kate Davies's Tantallon pattern, with a few size modifications.  You can see all the details on my Mum's Ravelry page, here.  The extra rows make it more of a slouchy shape, which I love.  It is incredibly warm, and comfortable, and I don't think you're going to see me wearing anything else on my head for a very long time.

I bought Mum Kate Davies's new book, The Colours of Shetland, for Christmas.  I love every single pattern in there, and even if you weren't going to knit anything from it, the book would be worth buying for the glorious photos alone.  I've not attempted any fairisle knitting myself yet.  It baffles me in the way that sock knitting once did; but I got the hang of that, and now love making socks, so perhaps it won't be too much longer before I give fairisle a go.

For now though, I need to curl up on the sofa with my new hat on, a shawl around my shoulders and a quilt over my knees and have a nap.  All this caring for other people is quite exhausting.

Embracing autumn

It's my very favourite time of year, but this time round I've barely been outside to enjoy it.  This weekend I fixed that, and headed out with Graham early on Sunday morning for a brisk walk through Epping Forest.

 

The colours, the wind, the chill, the colours, the damp smells, the leaves, the colours - they're all still there.

 

 

I breathed deeply, turned my face towards the sky and my camera towards the colours.

 

 

I came back home and knit a few more rows of my autumn hurricane hat.  Then without realising it, the hat was finished.  I feel like this hat knitted itself without me really noticing.  Surely the sign of a good pattern?

 

This means I now need to go back to the forest and photograph my hat (and my autumnal scarf) amongst the leaves.  Maybe this weekend.  Autumn's nearly over, and I've barely noticed it.

10 things

• The University is a 7 minute walk from Loop.
• I have been running errands to Loop for my Mum.  She needs some nice projects to knit whiles he recuperates from a second hip replacement operation.  Nice projects need nice yarn.  Loop has verrrrrrry nice yarns.
• Mostly I have been terribly well-behaved and just bought what Mum wanted, but yesterday my resolve crumbled and I bought myself a skein of Malabrigo Worsted in  the Rhodesian colourway - a wonderful burnished orange - to make myself an autumn hat.

• I don't really have time to knit, as I am too busy practising my aseptic technique, writing biology notes and submitting my first essay.
• My first essay in eighteen years.
• That makes me feel even older than saying 'my son is thirteen'.
• Olivia has decorated the chimney breast in the kitchen with A5 sized manga portraits of everyone in the family.  It looks wonderful.

• Some of the likenesses are uncanny - Uncle Richard and Granny are particularly good.

• I am still cooking - almost as much as I did before I started my nursing qualifications.  I am still baking all our bread, and making yogurt, and making midweek suppers and packed lunches.  Olivia's doing most of the baking though, and Graham is cooking on weekends.
• It is not easy to let other people have their turn in the kitchen.  Doing the cooking is what I do best.

New things

Short hair

Yesterday was full of new things:

• a new haircut (I had a whopping 25cm cut off),
• a new mustard-yellow hat,
• and a new little niece. 

All these things are making me very happy indeed.

Mustard-yellow hat

Cold weather knits

Goodness me, it is cold.  Here in London we've gone from balmy, no-need-for-a-coat, blue-skied autumn to full-on winter,with icy winds, cold toes and hot water bottles, in less than 48 hours.

Last night (curled up under my quilt, in a corner of the sofa) I finished the second of these fingerless gloves.

They are made from Kaffe Fassett sock yarn using a free pattern from Ravelry, and are incredibly warm and comforting to wear.  They do come up quite short, and when I use this pattern next time, I will add more rows to the length of the palm.  These ones have an additional four rows to what the pattern specified, but next time I think I would add 12 rows.

I had to learn how to do a stretchy cast-off, so that the top of the mitts wouldn't pinch my hands, and from the plethora of online tutorials and videos, I found this one explained it all particularly well.

I love sock yarn with a passion, and have quite a bit of it - looking beautiful in a basket in the corner of the sitting room.  I enjoy knitting socks, but I am so pleased to find another quick and easy pattern for this fine, warm yarn. 

I do always get in a tangle with the Rowan sock yarns though, and this time was no different.  I don't know why.  I don't think I do anything different with them, but I am learning that I need to rewind the entire ball at the start of the project to avoid a frustrating evening of untangling messes like the one below.

So now I have warm hands, I decided I would like a new hat too.  Finishing a piece of knitting always makes me want to start something else right away, so I stayed up until stupid-o'clock last night rummaging around on Ravelry for a hat pattern I like, and deciding which of my yarns I wanted to wear on my head (whilst wearing my fingerless mitts, of course - the house gets cold once the central heating turns itself off).

I ended up casting on with this Rowan Cashsoft Baby DK in a beautiful shade of pink.  I am going to make a slouchy beanie hat, but given that my head is freakily big and I can rarely find hats to fit, it may end up more snug than slouchy.  No matter though - I shall be warm, which right now is my only aim.

You can find more details of both these projects, including links to the two patterns, on my Ravelry page.

Hot weather sewing

The hot weather we had last week turned my mind to hot weather sewing.  First on my list was a sunhat for my littlest nephew.  A proper floppy-brimmed, tie-under-the-chin sunhat to shade him in the sunshine.

The pattern I used was Butterick 5056, which I bought from here. I liked this pattern very much.  There are always a great many pieces to trace and cut out for hats, which is a little tiresome, but the sewing part was very quick.  The pattern has nine different styles and five different sizes, so if you've got babies and toddlers to sew for it is good value.  I didn't get a picture of Leo modelling the hat (too busy exclaiming at how sweet he looked) but the hat looked even better on him than it did on the bear.

And then I was hoping to make a tiered skirt for O, from McCall's pattern 5310.  But I completely failed to check the fabric requirements.  Tiered skirts require a great deal of fabric - even for 8 year olds!  Despite having shelves and shelves of fabric, it turns out that I didn't have the necessary quantities of three fabrics which go well together.  I really can't justify buying any more fabric at the moment (yes, shelves and shelves...) so I made her a simple Lazy Days skirt from the free Oliver + S download instead.  I have made nearly a dozen of these skirts over the past couple of years, and they take me less than an hour to rustle up, from start to finish - very happy about that.  I cut up the Amy Butler Anna tunic that I blogged about here because I really wasn't happy with the fit, and O now has a gorgeous green William Morris skirt with a pink ribbon hem.

All of which meant that I really needed another summer dress to replace the Anna tunic.  This time I made the Trapeze Sundress from Heather Ross's Weekend Sewing.  You can see a whole load of inspirational sundresses and tops made from this pattern here.

The brown mark is on the mirror, not the pristine white dress! 

I still haven't got a remote control for my camera, so I've squeezed myself up against the hall wall again for these photos.  The sundress is long - long enough for me to be happy wearing it as a dress in hot weather, although it's over jeans today.

Trapeze sundress, front on

Trapeze dress, back pleat

I put two box pleats in the front of the dress and one pleat in the back.  The pattern is unclear about how many pleats to put in - the picture differs from the instructions - but as long as the dress panels fit the bodice, it doesn't really matter how you approach the pleats.  Next time I would probably stick to two pleats in the front, but replace the back pleat with a few gathers.

Trapeze sundress, back view

I really love how the dress fits.  You attach the straps inside the front bodice, and then try the dress on, pin the straps where you want them at the back (you need an assistant for this) and sew them in place.  This means you can fit the dress to be as high or low, at the front and back, as you like.  The other wonderful thing about this dress is that it has deep internal pockets, which you can just about see in the last picture above.  I do love a pocket.

For this first attempt at the dress I used some more of the thick, white cotton sheet I used for a summer blouse here.  Now I know I like the pattern, I'll make it again in a patterned fabric.  The trim on this dress is a Phillip Jacobs one from Rowan.  I do love a bit of Phillip Jacobs too.  The pattern didn't specify the bias trimmed hem, but with so much white I think it looks better with some extra contrast.

So as with all the other Heather Ross patterns I've made, I really love this dress.  Its shape, its versatility and its simplicity all appeal to me.  I think I'll make a shorter hip-length version of it to wear as a top next.

10 things

1. I love this article on yesterday’s Magazine section of the BBC website. I commuted both yesterday and today, knitting socks. This is much easier than commuting with my regular needles – nobody got accidentally poked as I finished a row.

2. At the weekend, I received a parcel from Driftwood – my prize from her 200th post giveaway. She has excellent taste in chocolate and ribbon, and the felted flower is just beautiful. Thank you Tess!



3. I made two more of the Oliver + S skirts on Sunday in this summery turquoise and pink print, for O and her cousin. Every time I make them I am delighted with how quick and pretty they are.

4. I am feeling bad that I can’t make something as quick and lovely for C. But I bought a simple pyjama trousers pattern on Saturday, so I am sure I will soon.

5. He wants a bandana like mine (except I call it a headscarf not a bandana) instead of the pyjamas. He thought a black and red gingham would be good, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen black and red gingham.

6. He may get a bandana AND pyjamas. But in a blue Amy Butler print, not black and red gingham.

7. Carrot cake with a lime icing was a suggestion from Garden Girl. She is a genius. Do try it next time you are making a carrot cake.

8. I really want to go and see the V&A exhibition on hats. I love hats and this just looks so cool.

9. I am reading A Ragged Schooling by Robert Roberts. It is an immensely readable and entertaining book that I just lose myself in.

10. Lady Grey tea is even nicer than Earl Grey tea. Try it, I insist.

Adding to lists

The Isle of Wight is my new favourite place to go on holiday. I have added it to my list of Places I love to visit the most in the UK. We spent a happy five days walking along cliff tops and beaches, taking photos of seaweed, rocks, stones, birds, waves and views. It was warm and sunny, with just the right amount of mist and mystery in the early mornings.

I've added to a few other lists as well.

A favourite list of mine at the moment is Things I am Going To Do When I am Retired. At the moment this list mainly consists of loose travel plans involving long distance hikes, but it is growing rapidly and by the time I am retired (at least thirty years away) I will need a great deal of energy to work my way through it. This week I added Walking around the Isle of Wight Coast to that list. The Isle of Wight is a walker's paradise with hundreds of marked trails, views around every turn and plenty of tea rooms and pubs for mid-walk refreshment.

My Best Smells list has two new additions to it: seaweed and espresso-made-by-G-to-cheer-me-up. My children claim to hate the smell of seaweed - how can this be? It is the essence of a seaside walk. This week I took deep lung-filling breaths as I walked along the empty beaches. Espresso-made-by-G-to-cheer-me-up smells even better than normal coffee does, which is already pretty good. Coffee made with kindness and love (in the face of grouchiness and scowls) is a wonderful thing indeed.

My Things I Can Knit list is coming along nicely too. I finished some mittens for C before we left for our holiday, and while we were away I knitted myself this hat. I love it - mainly because I knitted it, but also because its comfy, looks pretty funky, and ACTUALLY FITS. For any of you out there who also have oddly sized heads, knitting your own hats is the way to go. No more weird red stripes and indentations on my forehead when I take off my hat - hoorah!

Experiments in sewing

The first part of my week - at work - was madly busy, tiring and draining. Long hours and late evenings at the office.

And when it came to my days off, yesterday and today, I couldn't face any kind of to do list or busyness. After I'd taken the children to school yesterday I just headed straight back home and immersed myself in fabric, thread and ribbon. The very best de-stressing treatment there is!

One of the things I wanted to try and make was a suffolk puff - one of these:


I love the look of them, but never had any success with the cunning gadget from Clover that is meant to enable you to make them. But then I found a tutorial on Whip Up showing how to make one by hand - easy peasy.

I had ideas about turning the suffolk puffs into some kind of Christmas tree decoration for my swap partner in the 2008 Holiday Traditions Exchange. But I haven't come up with a way of using them that I am happy with yet. More experimentation (or inspiration perhaps?) is required.




However, I then went off on a tangent with some applique, inspired by this great book, and I now have one Christmas tree decoration for Christie that I am happy with. I just need to make a few more for her now.

Today was a non-uniform day for the children at school (in aid of Children in Need) and O wore her Clothkits funky chicken skirt. As I waved her off at the school gates I remembered that when I ordered the kit for the skirt, I also ordered the kit for a matching hat and bag. The kit had been languishing in my sewing box ever since and it was about time I made it up.

For some reason I was very nervous of this one - I think because I couldn't quite visualise how the hat (lined as well) was going to fit together. I imagined it to be very fiddly.


But in the end it was fine - it came together in under two hours and I'm really pleased with it.

So I've had two days of no work and plenty of sewing. I can't tell you how much of a treat that seems. And this weekend I'm going to have supper with old friends on Saturday, and then lunch with my extended family on Sunday. Work feels like a world away now. Enjoy your weekend!