Thomasina knits

Greetings from Prague

2012-01-23T09:06:00.000Z

[photo credit: Hélio]

Having a lovely time with Jenny and Nadine in Prague - home tonight. Liz x

o w l s sweater

2012-01-19T21:30:00.003Z

I finally finished my first* o w l s sweater the week before last and I love it. It's like a great big cuddle from the wool fairy (to paraphrase Greg Wallace) and I've worn it several times already. Before I finished it I was worried that it might be too warm, thus limiting opportunities for wear, but it's perfect - just the right amount of cosiness for the office and it will definitely keep me warm during my Prague trip** this weekend. I've left the owls eyeless as I tried about half a dozen different buttons in John Lewis and none looked better than without buttons.

The sweater is knit from almost 600 grams of Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds chunky weight yarn in grey Suffolk. I really like this yarn, it's soft enough to be wearable next to the skin but is sturdy enough to be characterful and it has excellent stitch definition - very important for making those owls pop out. It's the same yarn which Kate Davies used to make her original owls sweater and in fact the yarn was a gift from Kate when she was destashing before Christmas. It seemed like there was only one sweater which I ought to knit with it!

Pattern: o w l s by Kate Davies
Yarn: Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds chunky in Grey Suffolk (600g)
Needles: 6mm and 6.5mm circs
Size: Medium to Small (i.e. started off knitting the medium but realised at the yoke that the number of stitches I had was nearer to the small - not really quite sure how).
Modifications: missed out short rows below the yoke
Location: Somerville SCR - I must do more photoshoots here, I love the decor
Ravelled: here

* note there is another one on the way.
** of course if Jenny is also planning to take her sweater too we may end up looking worryingly matchy matchy.

Wee cardigans

2012-01-13T23:55:00.000Z

I got a commission over Christmas to knit two more of these wee short sleeved cardigans for my little niece Kate. Apparently she's nearly grown out of the last two that I knit due to (i) her growing and (ii) my sister achieving what I thought was the near impossible feat of felting Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino.

The pattern is (once again) the snappily titled 0-684 Baby Cardigan with Short/Long Raglan Sleeves. The first one is knit in Artesano Merino dk (I only just found out they do wool as well as alpaca) and the second is in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in a rather fabulous red.

The buttons are from John Lewis and are clear plastic with a tiny flower design which makes them very easy to match to any yarn.

I'll try to get pictures of Kate wearing these once they're delivered. In the meantime here's a shot of her with some of her bunny friends.

Favourite things

2012-01-13T23:40:00.000Z

I seem to remember that Maria von Trapp sang about warm apple strudel under this category but that's probably because she never tried rhubarb sharlotka.

Earlier in the week I made apple sharlotka following the recipe on Smitten Kitchen. Given that I was down to my last slice of that and that my husband had brought home rhubarb from the supermarket there was really only one course of action.

I loved the apple sharlotka but I think this might be even better. The tart rhubarb contrasts wonderfully with the sweet meringuey sponge and visually the pink rhubarb is fantastic. I ~~served this~~ wolfed this down with a dollop of half fat creme fraiche (because there is absolutely nothing that doesn't taste better with a dollop of creme fraiche on the side).

Somehow three sticks of rhubarb don't seem to bulk up quite the same as 6 Granny Smith apples so rather than making a single 9" cake I made two cakes using 5" ramekins and two thirds of the mixture. Obviously if you have more rhubarb then feel free to make the full size cake following Deb's directions over at SK.

Ingredients:
3 sticks rhubarb
2 eggs
2/3 cup/133g sugar
2/3 cup/83g plain flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
ground cinnamon and ground sugar for powdering
butter to grease ramekins

Directions:
Line two 5" ramekins with buttered greaseproof paper and pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C.
Chop rhubarb into half inch slices and divide between ramekins.
Beat eggs and sugar together until thick and moussey then beat in vanilla extract.
Stir in flour until just combined then pour batter over the rhubarb.
Stir rhubarb and batter mixture around a bit so that some bits of rhubarb poke out of the top.
Put ramekins in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until top of cake is golden brown and a skewer comes out clean.

5-a-day

2012-01-10T21:35:00.002Z

It still counts if it's in cake form, right?

As soon as I read this recipe on Smitten Kitchen (my absolute favourite cookery blog) I knew I wanted to make it. Actually I have that response to most of the recipes on Smitten Kitchen but this has so few ingredients and looked so straightforward that I picked up some apples on my way home from work and a couple of hours later had my very own apple sharlotka. It's delicious with a dollop of creme fraiche.

Christmas knitting

2012-01-01T15:59:00.002Z

Hi everyone. Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and Happy New Year! I had a lovely time over Christmas - presents were given and received, we had a lovely Christmas dinner, and my nieces were little bundles of Christmas joy (well most of the time anyway). More of my most exciting new toys (including a new pasta maker and ravioli tray and some gorgeous fibre) in the next post. In the meantime here are some of the things that I made as Christmas gifts.

Christmas tree biscuits - made from a recipe in Nigella's Domestic Goddess with added Christmas spices. It's funny I only added a few gratings of nutmeg but it's the most dominant flavour in them. Obviously 'tis the season to make Christmas cookies as I handed a bag of these over to Ellen in exchange for a bag of yummy homemade gingerbread and chocolate covered marzipan.

Next up a Damson shawl knit from less than one skein of Malabrigo laceweight in Snowbird. No modifications other than going down a needle size as I was using a finer weight yarn than specified.

Mum was very pleased with this. It even came as a surprise despite the fact that she picked out the yarn for it in Manchester a couple of months ago.

And finally two pairs of Ritzy mittens for my cousins. I came across this pattern when Liz G. brought a pair that she was knitting to Bluestockings a few weeks ago and we all raved about them. I then forgot about them again until Liz brought another pair to our last meeting before Christmas and this time I remembered for long enough to make a note of the pattern name.

Cousins also very pleased with mittens which makes it almost a clean sweep. The only bit of Christmas knitting that I've had to make adjustments to are my niece's cosy bedsocks. She was happy enough with them but they kept slipping off so I had to retrieve them to add an extra half inch of length in the foot to each one. Although I measured her feet myself I still didn't really believe they were 6.25" long!

More knitting to come. I've just sewn in the ends on my o w l s sweater. It's fantastic and I love it but it's also grey so I need to wait for a less grey day to photograph it. It also needs blocking and eyes. Luckily I'm off to London on Saturday so I can visit Button Queen in search of some lovely buttons.

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

2011-12-18T23:36:00.001Z

I've made three batches of these Christmas biscuits to give to friends and family. The recipe is Nigella's butter biscuits from Domestic Goddess with the addition of a teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, ground ginger, and a good grating of nutmeg, plus a zigzag of chocolate with orange oil. The bonus for me is that it makes the whole flat smell like Christmas.

DIY update

2011-12-11T12:53:00.001Z

If you follow me on Twitter or happen to know me in person (actually I think that's more or less the same group of people) you'll be aware that casa del thomasinaknits is undergoing a bit of a revamp. It started back in June when we got new carpet for the hallway and spare room and like a set of dominoes this triggered a series of renovations throughout the flat. Once we had the carpet we needed some new doors which would close over said carpet and the doors had to be painted. And once I'd started painting I realised it wasn't as scary as all that and decided that the rest of the flat could do with a lick of paint too. Which brings us up to today.

I now have a green bathroom.

It's a somewhat blotchy, streaky green bathroom as yet as the paint's still drying and it's only the first coat. The odd thing is that I'm rather disconcerted by the fact that I now have a green bathroom. Despite buying the paint and painting a swatch (which has been on the wall for the past month or so) I don't think I was ever truly able to realise (or visualise) the fact that once the paint started going on in large quantities the bathroom would be a completely different colour*. I expect to be doing a double take every time I go in there for the next week or so.

Right, must get on now as I have a whole list of things to do whilst the paint is drying none of which include blogging, checking Twitter, or generally messing about on the internet.

* Previously it was blue and I'm afraid I don't have any before pictures because I didn't think to take any this morning and it wasn't such a nice bathroom that I would have taken any in the past.

Serendipity (or a last hurrah for Wovember)

2011-12-07T00:49:00.001Z

After a very jolly evening knitting and eating Thai food with the Sticks'n'String knitting group in Reading I was walking back towards the train station with Felix, discussing the merits of tweed for skirt making, when we came upon this display in the window of Jackson's department store.

You can't quite read the tiny label on the equally wee jacket but it says "Not for sale". Presumably in response to or anticipation of the hordes of people enquiring whether they could buy said jacket for their wee tot or teddy bear (it's like a 6 month old size!).

Further up the display there's a rather splendid picture of the current Doctor with the slogan "He chose Harris Tweed, why don't you?".

The display even references the sheep whose wool is used to weave the tweed. It's a far cry from all the fake woolliness to be seen elsewhere on the high street.

Starting them young

2011-12-06T23:49:00.001Z

At the weekend my 4 year old niece said the words that all knitters want to hear. Not "Lizzy, can you make me some cosy bed socks?" (although she said that too) but "Lizzy, how do you do your knitting?". It's not quite an outright request to teach her how to knit but it's close enough for me to pick up some chunky yarn with a decent amount of pink in it and suitable sized needles to have on hand should she express such a wish again over Christmas.

She's already got the hang of baking (at least she knows about stirring and licking the spoon afterwards) so I think she's ready to start playing with yarn.

FO - Peerie Flooers hat

2011-11-26T13:21:00.001Z

Finally I get to reveal the genius that is the flooers. I was so excited when Kate released this hat pattern that I instantly began working out how soon I could get to John Lewis, get my sticky mitts on some Rowan Fine Tweed, and cast on in order to have the hat ready before the weather turned.

And turn it has. In contrast to the scorching October day when I bought the yarn it is cold and wet outside now and I thoroughly appreciate a hat that can be pulled right down over my ears. For this reason I cast on for the medium size*, which Kate describes as a slouchy beanie, and it's just perfect.

The crown is a little tricky to work after the simple flooers pattern but it's worth it - it's like a sunburst of colour on top of the hat.

Pattern: Peerie Flooers by Kate Davies
Yarn: Rowan Fine Tweed
Needles: 3mm circulars

The only change I made to the pattern is to use Skipton rather than Muker for the darker blue and that was only because John Lewis were all out of Muker.

* full disclosure - one of the reasons that this took so long to make it to the finished objects pile is that I originally and accidentally cast on for the small size and didn't realise until I'd worked about three repeats of the flooers pattern.

Wool on the move

2011-11-26T09:01:00.001Z

I just found another candidate for the Wovember gallery!

Stampeding sheep in Stonethwaite in 2009. Photo taken the day after one of the wettest walks I have ever taken, to Scale Force with my parents.

Hardy souls that they are, my parents plugged on through solid rain I think mostly to humour me (I hate turning back with a walk half done). Besides, you can't really appreciate afternoon tea in the cosy lounge of a traditional lake district hotel with a crackling fire and a pile of weekend supplements unless you've been soaked to the skin for three hours first.

The Langstrath Valley (in case you're not familiar) is the prettiest valley in Lakeland - photos really do not do it justice.

100% wool

2011-11-25T22:36:00.001Z

It's pretty late on in Wovember (if you're not up to speed on Wovember please do pop across to Kate and Felix's fabulous site, and then pop back again) but I've finally got around to picking out the contenders for my contribution to the Wovember gallery which features many amazing photos (mostly of beautiful sheep) illustrating the idea of 100% wool.

Contender #1

Taken at the Oxford Guild of Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers fleece day back in 2010, this is a fabulous Oxford Downs fleece - that's local fleece for local people.

Or we have this series of photos from the OGWSD's fleece to blanket day in 2009. Held at an idyllic smallholding in Bledlow the guild took the fleece of a dearly departed sheep, graded it, spun it in the grease, and knit it (also in the grease) into blanket squares.

Here, Carol is showing us newbies how to skirt a fleece.

I'm not sure anything says 100% wool quite like 15 or so industrious ladies all spinning away at the same time. You can see that pile of fleece on the floor has got quite a bit smaller.

The finished-ish product. You can see how crisp those square are with all the lanolin still in them.

Also from 2009 we have a photo of freshly shorn Kendal Rough Fell sheep at Woolfest which was just the sheepiest knitting event I've ever attended. Not only were there a high proportion of breed specific vendors there (it was the first time that I came across Garthenor and Blacker yarns) but there were rare breed sheep actually in the same space as the finished yarns. It was fantastic to see the connection being made between the sheep breeders and the end users in this way and I know that Felix, Kate, Lara and I all came away feeling very inspired.

More recently I even managed to find some sheep whilst on honeymoon in Australia. I know I shouldn't be surprised to come across sheep in Australia, the place is swarming with them, but I felt pretty lucky to find a herding and shearing demonstration quite by chance at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary (we had gone for the koalas after all).

I love watching sheep being sheared - it's an amazing skill to be able to manhandle a couple of hundred pounds of sheep in such a way that the sheep is entirely docile throughout and the fleece comes off in one beautiful piece. I prefer the character of Shetland yarn for knitting and spinning but there's no denying that merino is soft.

Any thoughts on which of these I should submit to the Wovember gallery?

Birthday princess

2011-11-24T21:08:00.001Z

My most recent culinary commission was a birthday cake for my four year old niece who had a very clear idea of what she wanted. The creative brief which I received via my sister specified that it had to be a chocolate cake with chocolate icing with pink smarties around the edge and a pink ribbon and a ballet dancer on top. Think I fulfilled it?

She looks pretty pleased doesn't she.

The dancer and candles are from The Cook's Cupboard. There was a sharp intake of breath at the postage and packing fee (which was the same amount as the cost of the items) but they came really quickly and wrapped in lovely pale aqua tissue paper - almost as if they knew they were for a VIP (that's very important princess) birthday cake.

From scratch

2011-11-24T20:45:00.001Z

There's something very satisfying about the words "from scratch" and it's something that I've been doing quite a bit of lately. I think I've got more use out of the pasta maker in 3 weeks than my parents did in 3 years and today I finally got around to trying my hand at ravioli.

I still aspire to owning a ravioli cutter but in the meantime I've found a use for my smallest scone cutter.

Ideally I would have used fresh leaves in my sage butter but I couldn't find any in the Co-op, Marks and Spencer, or even that out-of-season-produce giant Sainsbury. I must start growing my own.

I was so pleased with these, they're not quite as amazing as the filled pasta I had at Eataly in New York but they're well up to Strada standard. They are, I'm afraid, a right faff to make but good fun and well worth it.

2011-11-08T20:15:00.003Z

Last night, inspired by the start of the new series of MasterChef The Professionals, I brought out my new-to-me* pasta maker and made lasagne from scratch** with homemade pasta. The really lovely thing about making my own pasta (aside from the fact that that always gets you bonus points in the MasterChef kitchen) is that I could cut individual sheets fit the round baking dishes rather than having to create a kind of crazy paving lasagna by breaking the corners off the rectangular sheets from the supermarket.

Perfectly round lasagne.

The next challenge is ravioli. Maybe I can make a few to accompany tonight's episode.

* bought some time ago by my parents and never used
** full disclosure - husband made the bolognese sauce yesterday but otherwise I made it from scratch

Wee flowers

2011-10-16T21:20:00.002+01:00

The only thing more utterly charming than these little cakes of Rowan Fine Tweed is the hat that I'm knitting with them.

I am completely in love with the way that the yarns look together and how the main colour in one shade is picked up by the tweedy flecks in another. The hat is, of course, Kate Davies' Peerie Flooers and I have enough yarn to knit the hat plus matching mittens and then maybe another smaller hat when I'm done. The only colour that I've substituted is the blue for the flower petals - John Lewis, Reading were completely out of Murker so I've used Skipton instead. I did toy with the idea of using a different colour scheme (I think grey with pinks and purples would look completely fabulous) but I just love the perkiness of Kate's original design. The other thing I love is how quickly this seems to be knitting up. The temptation to knit "just one more repeat" means you whip through the rows really quickly.

And that's your lot

2011-10-13T18:47:00.000+01:00

So if you count the hats in these mosaics and add them to the 32 in this post and the 20 in this post you get the grand total of ...

... 90 hats!

Favourites this time are of course the pink sheep in the top mosaic and all the little Fair Isle hats. I started making the Fair Isle hats last Friday and just got sucked in. I think I might have been missing 'real' knitting and I was definitely feeling the colourwork urge (maybe because I have these hats mentally lined up to knit as soon as I get the yarn).

In the meantime I'm doing some Finnish colourwork.

These are Rovaniemi mittens and I've got the full yarn kebab going on.

They're knitting up surprisingly quickly given that I'm working on 2mm needles. Of course it was helped by a mammoth knitting session in the pub last night. I thought it was going to be a quiet night but we had three new knitters - autumn is obviously the season for joining the knitting group.

Hats off

2011-10-11T08:41:00.000+01:00

I've just parcelled up the little hats to send to innocent for their Big Knit 2011. And how many did I knit in the end? Well you'll have to wait for the final round-up post to find out but the parcel weighs just under 500 grams - that's nearly a whole sweater!*

You can see one of the latest batch of hats in the middles of the photo. I got a bit carried away with the Fair Isle in the end (which I think is a sign that I'm ready to get back to some 'real' knitting now).

*Although I suppose a fair amount of that is pom-pom.

Perfect pompoms every time

2011-10-02T23:02:00.000+01:00

In response to Lynne's comment on my last post here's my quick and easy recipe for making pompoms. I came up with this method the first year that I started knitting Innocent smoothie hats when I realised that the traditional technique was just going to drive me insane.

1) Cut out two 1 inch circles (I draw around a 2p piece) from a piece of cardboard.

2) Fold each circle in half and make two cuts to cut out a small square from the centre (life's too short to be cutting out tiny circles).

3) Measure out three arm lengths of dk weight yarn, tie the ends in a knot, double the yarn and then thread the doubled yarn through the eye of a large yarn needle and pull through so the ends are even (i.e. you will be pulling 8 strands of yarn at once through the hole).

4) Sandwich the two card circles together and wrap the yarn around them until the hole in the centre is absolutely filled (this is the real secret to a properly plump pompom).

5) Cut a 4-5 inch piece of yarn and thread the yarn needle. Pull aside the strands of yarn and insert the needle between the card circles and out the other side (don't go through the centre of the pompom). Repeat until the yarn goes all the way around the pompom then tie the ends in a single knot.

6) Taking care not to snip the ends of the yarn you're using to tie the pompom use a pair of sharp scissors to snip through the strands of yarn wrapped around the card circles.

7) Pull the single knot tight around the centre of the pompom and then tie another knot to secure it.

8) Trim any long strands until the surface of the pompom is even and then use the two ends to secure your pompom to your hat.

More wee hats

2011-10-02T12:14:00.000+01:00

I had thought that I was running out of steam on the wee hats but it turned out that all I needed was a fresh injection of stash odds and ends into the project bag and another seven hours on trains this weekend to get me going again. Yes, it turns out that I am that easily amused that simply knitting with different coloured yarn is enough to enthuse me. In addition to the twenty hats featured above I've got another ten knit up and simply needing a pompom - the pompom-less beanie is not a good look on an Innocent smoothie it transpires - plus one more where the pompom completely blended into the wall behind when I took the photo.

Favourites from this batch include:

The ladybird spot hat

Another sheepie hat - this time with added loopiness (loops made every other stitch rather than every fourth stitch).

and all the hats featuring Harris rib stitch (as it's called in my Harmony guide).

Afternoon tea at Hughenden Manor

2011-09-25T22:44:00.000+01:00

On Saturday we visited Hughenden Manor in Buckinghamshire, former home of Benjamin Disraili and now a National Trust property. We'd been to John Lewis to drop off our carpet offcuts for whipping (we're nearly at the end of that particular saga I hope) and decided to make an afternoon of it in High Wycombe.

This was the dining room set out for afternoon tea. Our own tea, taken in the stable block, was slightly more modest but the cakes lived up to the National Trust's reputation.

Today I made my own afternoon tea - Nigella Lawson's Banana Bread - this is an absolute classic from Domestic Goddess but the recipe's also online at nigella.com. This is what you want to bake if you have someone coming to view your house. Sadly the husband is not at all keen on banana bread, but at least that means all the more for me.

Leaping on the bandwagon

2011-09-23T00:44:00.001+01:00

After reading Lynne's post last week I was suddenly inspired to get a move on and join in with the Innocent Big Knit 2011. After spending the last couple of months working solidly on Deco and the Garter Yoke Cardi it's really nice to be churning out these tiny little finished objects and (which is the main point) I've worked through 150 g of odds and ends in my stash.
No surprises that my favourite so far is this guy:

I'm very pleased that Mikal ~~badgered~~ persuaded me into knitting him. I also knitted a Lynne-inspired Kermit hat.

Here's the full roll-call so far. I plan to keep knitting until a) I reach 100* or b) I run out of time before the deadline or c) I get bored - whichever happens first.

One of the things I really like about this is it's like a yarn-y trip down memory lane. For instance the second hat from the left in the bottom row above is knit from the end of a skein of Socks That Rock in Moonstone which I used to knit a pair of lace socks for Felix; the very bottom right hat is knit in Artisan Threads yarn bought at Woolfest 2009 in the company of Kate, Lara, and Felix. That was such a fabulous trip and it's lovely to have a fibrous reminder of it. The wee sheepy above is (appropriately enough) knit from Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds yarn (cream) and some brown that I used for my eldest niece's Baby Sheep Yoke cardigan. Kermit (also below) is knit from Jo Sharp yarn that I bought in Australia on my honeymoon and which I used to knit a Debbie Bliss cardigan for my baby niece Kate. I could go on for ages here but I'll just do one more - the third hat from the left in the top row below is knit from the hand dyed (by me) yarn which I used to knit the Bonfire night mitts that got devoured by moths (not the same as these hand dyed mitts that got devoured by moths - it's obviously a recurring theme round here).

* I have a strong competitive instinct and six years worth of leftovers to work through.

Due to popular demand*

2011-09-22T08:19:00.001+01:00

I am knitting the sheep hat (last week's pattern of the week) for Innocent's Big Knit. More wee hats later today folks.

* that means you Mikal

Done Deco

2011-09-15T00:19:00.000+01:00

Meet my new favourite item of clothing:

I really need a photoshoot director to give me notes on posture

Pattern: Deco by the immensely talented Kate Davies
Yarn: Cascade 220 Heathers in #9322 Silver Spruce (4.75 100g skeins)
Needles: 3mm circulars
Modifications: I started the neck shaping at the same time as the armhole shaping for extra "scoopiness" and knit all parts of the cardigan with a 3mm needle (as I didn't think that I could use a smaller size needle without breaking it).
Ravelled: here

so that's what my hair looks like from the back

if you look carefully you can see the photographer

As those who know me will testify, this has been a bit of a slog. Nothing to do with the pattern which is completely joyous to knit and contains some of my very favourite techniques. Nothing to do with the yarn either. This was my first time knitting with Cascade 220 and I love it - it's soft, sturdy, felts beautifully (very important for spit splicing) and comes in a cracking range of colours. The issue really was with trying to knit a yarn with a recommended gauge of 18-20 stitches per inch on 4.5-5mm needles at a gauge of 26 stitches per inch on 3mm needles. It's lucky that KnitPros are so sturdy. If you do try this at home I warn you in advance that it will be tricky and there will be a lot of soul searching about drape and whether, when finished, your cardigan will be able to stand up on its own. However, if you stick with it the reward is a wonderfully soft, structured cardigan that keeps you toasty even on a nippy September morning when you're wondering whether footless tights (as opposed to ones with feet) are such a bright idea.

Now for the details:

The buttons (which complement the design of the cardigan splendidly) are from Darn it and Stitch as is the ribbon (of which I hope Kate approves). I probably could have done a more invisible job with the blind stitching but when you're using vintage Sylko threads it seems a shame not to see them.

Local yarn for local people

2011-09-14T07:56:00.000+01:00

When I popped into Darn It and Stitch yesterday after work I was thrilled to see that Jo is now stocking the beautiful pure Ryeland yarn from Blacker Yarns. I have knit with this stuff before and it is lovely. However, I was even more excited when she told me why she was stocking that particular line - it is from local sheep! Sheep, in fact, that I have seen in Wolvercote whilst out running. I was so excited that I nearly gave up my plans for a laceweight lace cardigan (a la this one from Cath Kidston) and bought DK yarn instead.

Jo also has new yarn in from Oxford Kitchen Yarns (another local supplier). Sadly there wasn't quite enough of the sock in Sunflower which would have been the perfect shade to mimic the yellow cashmere used in the CK cardigan.

There's not quite enough time** to show you what I actually purchased but it did come one of Jo's lovely new paper bags.

* apologies for the quality of the photos - I was rushing to catch a bus!** rushing for another bus

As I type

2011-09-09T23:09:00.000+01:00

My Deco cardigan is blocking on my living room floor. I really hope it will be dry by tomorrow morning as I'd like to take it up to Bolton with me to work on the finishing (buttons, snaps, and button band facing to sew on, ends to weave in). Yep, I'm finally ready to commit to weaving in some ends after trying it on earlier this afternoon (albeit in a somewhat damp state) and deciding that it does fit as well as I'd like it too. Ideally I want it finished for Monday so I can wear it with my favourite summer dress before the good weather goes away entirely. Then I'll just have to settle for wearing it with my favourite autumn dress (really also a summer dress but can be worn with thick tights).

Teatime at the museum

2011-09-06T22:42:00.001+01:00

Inspired by my gallery outing with Lara last weekend, this Sunday I headed into town for a spot of 19th century art and tea and cake at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Once I'd made my way around the Pisarros on the third floor mezzanine I headed down to to the basement to investigate the cafe which, despite its subterranean location, is bright and airy and a lovely place to relax after wandering round the galleries (or indeed the gift shop).

Although it was lunchtime and although the soup did look really nice I'd gone in there with the idea of having tea and cake and I stuck to my guns.

I had a really lovely pot or Earl Grey tea and a magnificent slice of chocolate fudge cake whilst I put in some more work on my Deco cardigan - I'm very happy that I've found another lovely place to drink tea and knit.

Bank Holiday outing #2

2011-08-29T22:24:00.000+01:00

I had another lovely Bank Holiday outing today, this time to London to meet the lovely Lara for tea and a catch-up at Yumchaa. Once we'd finished exchanging all our news we headed off to Liberty for a browse round the haberdashery department. Like Kate we too found the lovely new Rowan fine tweed yarn. I'm very glad now that Lara prevented me from impulse-buying any yarn at the time as now I can buy the yarn in the right amounts and colours for Kate's lovely hat pattern (once it's published).

Once we'd pulled ourselves away from Liberty we went for a wander around the National Gallery followed by more tea in the lovely new Peyton and Byrne cafe (recently reviewed here). I had the Bakewell tart and Lara had the peach and honey tart and they were both delicious.

[Bakewell tart]

Of course there was plenty of time for knitting, both at the cafe and on the train to and from Oxford. I finished the second sleeve cap on my Deco cardigan but I'm afraid I'm not really further on than I was yesterday as I had to rip back about half of the first sleeve after realising that I had interpreted the instruction to knit rows A and B then repeat 6 times, as meaning knit rows A and B 6 times in total, and then executed them to knit rows A and B five times in total. The nice lady sitting opposite me on the train on the way back was somewhat distressed by my undoing so much of my knitting but as I explained, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right. Still hoping to finish Deco by the end of the week but sadly I don't think it won't be blocked in time to wear to my dad's birthday dinner at the weekend.

Bank Holiday outing #1

2011-08-29T21:30:00.000+01:00

The husband and I took advantage of our brand new National Trust membership and the half-decent weather forecast on Sunday to pop over the border and visit Charlecote Park in Warwickshire.

[even the gatehouse is fancy]

We arrived just as the house and outbuildings were being evacuated after a fire alarm but we were allowed into the park to eat our sandwiches and pork pies and by the time we'd finished our picnic the alarm was over and we were able to look round the house.

The park had been home to the Lucy family since the 1200s but was decorated as it had been in the mid-19th century by Mary Elizabeth Lucy.

[orange bedroom]

The grounds and gardens, set on the banks of the River Avon and River Dene, are beautiful with a herd of fallow deer roaming about them.

[cascade into the Avon]

Luckily the weather stayed fine for long enough for us to wander round before heading into the cafe for tea and cake.

If there are two things the National Trust does well it's gardens and cake.

A present from Charlecote

2011-08-29T09:16:00.000+01:00

I came away from our visit to Charlecote Park yesterday with something much better than a box of National Trust shortbread. Dahlias from their garden. Not picked by me I hasten to add - they were selling them for £2 a bunch in the plant and flower centre at the exit.

What a gorgeous souvenir to be able to take away. And much better for me than shortbread.

2011-08-28T20:30:00.000+01:00

I was going to write a flip post about how great it is when male drivers lean on their horns when I'm out running as the resultant adrenaline boost makes me run much faster, but it turns out that having simmered about this all the way home I'm still much too angry.

Do these morons realise that their behaviour is intimidatory? Do they think it's fun to threaten women? It would appear so from the way that they were laughing afterwards. Personally I find their behaviour sexist, offensive, and utterly reprehensible.

Crunch time

2011-08-24T00:03:00.000+01:00

With the button and neck bands of my Deco complete I was finally able to check on the size and fit of my cardigan. I'd been a bit worried that it would be rather on the small size but when I tried it on with one of the dresses that I plan to wear it with it looked just perfect (yes, I know I'm not wearing a dress in the picture above).

It's such a relief as I was really dreading having to rip the whole shebang back and rework the gauge. I lightly steamed it before trying it on to relax the fabric and it really helped. I'm hopeful that a proper blocking will really work its magic.

The next step is to work the short rows for the sleeve caps. I've going to have to make another tiny modification here as there's no way that I can work this yarn in the smaller needle size specified (much less pick up stitches with a 2mm needle) but I hope this won't be too much of an issue.

I can also get onto the fun business of picking out some grosgrain ribbon and fabulous buttons for it - I think a trip to Darnit and Stitch is in order.

Snake in the grass

2011-08-22T19:33:00.000+01:00

We had a fantastic treat when we went for our usual evening walk around Blenheim. We hadn't got more than a few metres along the path when we saw a 3 foot grass snake basking in the middle of it. It slithered off incredibly quickly but I managed to get one half decent photo.

You can just see the white band on the back of its neck and I was able to get close enough to see its tongue flicking in and out. I was so excited - this is the first snake I've seen in the wild since I was very little.

The rest of our walk was less eventful but very lovely. Blenheim looked so beautiful in the evening sunshine - even the algae on the lake was a stunning iridescent green.

Wedding cupcakes

2011-08-21T00:05:00.000+01:00

Today we went to our fourth and final wedding of the year, that of Ruth and Paul in Great Malvern. We arrived just before the exit of the newly married couple from the Council House in Malvern and had a moment of wondering if we were at the right wedding until I spotted that all the bridesmaids were wearing Damsons. It's usually a sign that you're in the right place when you recognise the knitwear.

Of course Ruth had also knit a shawl for herself - pretty fabulous, no?

My own contribution to the day's craftiness was baking a batch of cupcakes for the cake table.

Chocolate cupcakes with creme fraiche icing decorated with raspberries and mint leaves

It took a little while to get the creme fraiche* icing right and the kitchen still looks like something exploded in it but I think it was worth it. And, I got the sweetest compliment. As I was taking a picture of the cupcakes I heard this angelic little boy behind me saying "Mummy, that lady's taking a picture of my favourite cakes".

* it was meant to be soured cream icing but creme fraiche was what we had in the fridge

NY knits

2011-08-14T11:00:00.001+01:00

I got a lot of knitting done on my trip to New York. The great thing about knitting on holiday is that the project becomes a souvenir of the trip, every time you wear the finished object you remember the holiday.

I knit on the plane* (it's allowed now!), and at the hotel, and on the subway, and on the train and when I came back I had this.

The only reason it's not already finished is that I ran out of yarn. The pattern estimated 950 yards for the size that I'm knitting and I had 952 yards so I'm really not sure how I've ended up 2 balls short - either the estimate or the yardage on the ball band is way out. I've ordered another couple of balls from Blacker Yarns. I hope it's the right shade - it's not always the easiest thing to match up the information on the ball band with the information on the website.

So in the meantime I'm working on this.

I bought 5 skeins of Cascade 220 from Purl Soho (another souvenir from New York). Purl Soho is a lovely shop.

The only problem is there's too much choice. I managed to spend a whole hour browsing before Richard lost patience and made me make up my mind.

I suspect that the Cascade still isn't the perfect choice for the Deco pattern. Not completely surprising since the only test I applied was to check that it was thinner than the first yarn that I chose. I even had a long conversation over tea in Headington (at the lovely Jacobs & Field) with Felix about knitting a new gauge swatch and trying to knit a smaller size on larger needles but whilst I was waiting for my bus I realised that the more I knit the more drape the fabric seemed to have.

And I love the colour, which doesn't show up well in either of these photos but it's a deep jade.

* no problem taking wooden interchangeables through security screening at Heathrow or Newark and the only comment I got from United staff was on the colour of the yarn.

ETA: As this is always a hot topic amongst knitters I thought I'd add a little extra detail. Although there were no signs prohibiting knitting needles at the United/Continental desk I took a couple of precautions anyway. I used KnitPro interchangeables with wooden points and I unscrewed the points before we went through security screening and put the end protectors on the cable so that if there was a problem I wouldn't be faffing around in the queue trying to unscrew my needles. I then put the points in my purse with a couple of pencils and the bag went through fine. I also had a spare set of points in the case that I checked in, just in case.

Share a Disney memory and raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital

2011-08-09T21:59:00.000+01:00

Please click on the link below and help raise £1 million for Great Ormond Street Hospital. They do amazing work for so many children including my little niece Kate.

You don't have to give any money, just give a few seconds of your time to share your earliest memory of a Disney film.

Kate says please click the link: http://www.facebook.com/disneyjunioruk

A postcard from New York

2011-08-01T13:13:00.002+01:00

Having a splendid time. Took the Circle Line tour yesterday - hopefully heading up one of the tall buildings today for a different perspective on the city.

Love from Liz

Greetings from New York

2011-07-29T11:20:00.000+01:00

Times Square (woot!)

Central Park with skyscrapers in the background.

How much money the US owed at 17:25 yesterday!*

It's just a flying visit at the moment - we arrived yesterday afternoon and this morning we're catching a train up to Norwalk for my sister-in-law's wedding - but we'll be back on Sunday for a few more days. I'm really looking forward to checking out the New York yarn shops! I should have enough knitting to keep me going in the meantime. I'm currently knitting Melissa LaBarre's Garter Yoke Cardi (originally published in an issue of Knit1 but now available as a download from the Vogue Knitting Store) and I've nearly reached the point where I need to divide for the body. I'm knitting it in the Blacker Yarns Shetland DK which I bought at Knit Nation with the intention of knitting a Deco only to find I had insurmountable issues with gauge**. Entirely my own fault for not double checking the needle size used in the pattern before buying the yarn, if I had then I would have known it was far too heavy - despite having the same weight and yardage as the Corriedale which Kate uses. Anyway I trawled through Ravelry until I found another cardigan which I could knit with around 950 yards of DK yarn and came up with the Garter Yoke Cardi. It seemed vaguely familiar and when I looked at the projects tab I realised why - Megan had knit one back in 2009 and I remembered it looking really great. So far it's going really well and I've already had one compliment on the colour (natural light grey Shetland) from the one of the flight attendants on the plane. Yes, I knit on the plane! Knitting needles weren't mentioned in the list of prohibited items at the check in desk so I unscrewed the points on my interchangeables, put the end caps on the cable (just in case there was a problem I didn't want to be doing all that in the baggage screening line) and put the points in my handbag. In the event there were no problems whatsoever and I got a good six hours of garter stitch and stockinette in whilst watching the Twilight saga back-to-back (United does not have a good selection of recent movies compared to those on Singapore Airlines). My only slight worry is whether I'll have enough yarn. I should be OK, the pattern gives 918 yards for the size I'm knitting and I have 952 but I seem to be going through the balls awfully quickly!

I'll post a picture of progress so far once I've divided for the body, at the moment it's so bunched up on the cable that you can't really tell what's going on.

* This might just be me but I would find this incredibly dispiriting if we had a similar "clock" up in London. It's not really the way to make people feel good about the state of the economy.

** I actually got stitch gauge with the recommended needle size but the density of the fabric was such that it would have been a kevlar cardigan.

Sunday crumble

2011-07-24T22:14:00.000+01:00

Sunday is a good day for country walks, following the cricket, and proper puddings.

Crumble is definitely a proper Sunday pudding especially when served with a dollop of cold cream and it's so easy to make. Just fill an oven proof bowl with enough fruit to fully cover the bottom, sprinkle with sugar, spoon over enough crumble mix to hide the fruit, sprinkle some more brown sugar on top and then bake at around 200 C for 25 minutes or until it looks done.

Crumble mix recipe (makes enough for 2 people)
4 oz plain flour
1.5 oz butter
2.5 oz demerara sugar

Rub the flour and butter together (similar to making pastry) then mix in the sugar.

This crumble is made with yet more cherry plums but later in the year it will be apple and blackberry.

Whilst watching the cricket I spent most of the day on a secret sewing project - I'll have pictures to show you in a couple of weeks once the recipient has received it.

New tricks

2011-07-17T21:22:00.000+01:00

I just got back from a very long day at Knit Nation in London with a bag full of yarn and a new skill. I took the very cool Lene Alve's class, Mittens of Rovaniemi, a class that I'd wanted to take ever since I read the Yarn Harlot's post (linked to at "of").

We started off by knitting a wristlet in four colours, one main colour, and three contrast colours.

From the front it looks like regular stranded knitting (although no sane knitter would attempt to carry four colours in one round).

Turn it inside out however and where are the strands?

The answer is there aren't any, the yarn is carried up the work, rather than around - it's pure genius. For each area of contrast colour you have a separate mini-skein of yarn which are skewered on a straight knitting needle in order to keep them in order. This may seem like overkill when dealing with just five mini skeins but it's just enough kill (as Spike once said) when you have eleven mini-skeins as we did when we switched to knitting proper mittens after lunch.

It's a yarn kebab.

It may look like chaos but it's controlled chaos. I didn't get a great way into my mittens - knitting with 2mm needles at tight gauge is a very slow business when you're not used to it - but I got far enough to know that I will be doing more of this (possibly at a slightly looser gauge until my fingers toughen up).

Lene kept circling the class to give us pointers and amaze us with a bevy of samples of astonishing Finnish knitting and crochet techniques. Did you know that you could do colourwork in crochet? And that you can do it without leaving any floats or ends showing (apparently they are hidden away inside the stitches).

Now that's another class I can't wait to take.

Meanwhile during lunch I ran into a few friends.

Jenny, Amy, and Ruth were there to take Franklin Habit's class on lace edgings.

Judith and Jaq were both on duty as part of the Socktopus team and as soon as I walked into the Knit Tea Salon I saw Mel (or rather she saw me). It was lovely to sit an have a chat with Mel over lunch before hitting the marketplace.

I was also very happy to see the lovely folks from Blacker Yarns as I had a voucher from last summer to spend with them. After a bit of dithering I picked eight balls of light grey Shetland DK to knit a Deco and then after another circuit of the marketplace came back to get four balls of Shetland, Corriedale, and Hebridean in different colours for my Rovaniemi mittens.

Jam tomorrow

2011-07-16T15:59:00.000+01:00

Or rather jam today since I made the jam late last night out of one pound of cherry plums picked near the Water Eaton park and Ride on Monday (always good when you can incorporate a bit of fruit picking into the commute).

Recipe:

Wash and stone the cherry plums. I have to tell you that this is tricky as cherry plums are as small as cherries but their stones are as fiddly to extract as those of plums. It's the best of both worlds!
Weigh the stoned fruit, place in a saucepan with the juice of 1 lemon per pound of fruit (i.e. 1 pound of fruit = 1 lemon, 2 pounds = 2 lemons, etc.), and simmer until the juices start to run.
Add just over 1/2 the weight of the fruit in sugar and bring to the boil.
Continue to boil (stirring all the time to prevent burning) until the mixture goes thick and jammy*.
Pour into sterilized jars (I just put mine in a pan of boiling water and get them out using tongs and a tea towel) and leave to cool and set.

Eat!

* it might be that we need a better thermometer (rather than the one we use for milk frothing) but I've never had any luck with either trying to get jam to the setting point of 104 C or doing put-it-on-a-cold-saucer-and-see-if-it-wrinkles thing.

New carpet!

2011-06-30T20:41:00.000+01:00

Before:

During:

After:

You may be thinking why would we want to cover over the wood flooring with carpet? Trust me the boards are not as nice as they look in these photos. Beside the terms of the ground lease don't allow us to have bare boards. Granted this is the same lease that forbids us from playing a pianola after 11:30pm but still it wouldn't be fair on the downstairskes.

Now we just have to build our bookshelves, move the cardboard box fort containing all the books from the living room back to the spare room, oh and find someone to trim and rehang the four doors which wouldn't clear the carpet. I have to say that I'm a little narked that the estimator from John Lewis didn't tell us that the doors would need trimming when he came last week but it's a small gripe.

Now do you want to see something really horrific?

I was really excited this morning when I finally found where my original Berry Hill mittens had been hiding all this time. Sadly something had found them first. This is why I now keep all my knitwear in plastic boxes with cedar blocks in them. Can we all take a moment to mourn the sad passing of my wee gloves? At least they're immortalised on Ravelry. Also fallen prey to the moths' tooth were some Louisa Harding fingerless mitts (one of my earliest knits), my bonfire night mittens (in the same yarn as the Berry Hill mittens - that stuff must have been tasty), and a non-handknit hat and scarf. Sigh!

Domestic upheaval

2011-06-28T22:37:00.000+01:00

The spare room is nearly empty, the front room is full of boxes, I can't reach my spinning wheel and the TV will have to stay on stand-by as we literally cannot get close enough to it to reach the on/off button. We're not moving (thank goodness) but we are getting new carpet in the hall and spare room which means that everything that was in them must be stashed elsewhere. The biggest challenge is the huge desk (plus pc and monitor) in the spare room. The plan at the moment is to move it into our bedroom at the last minute on the morning that the carpet fitters are due to turn up and then just hope that we don't want anything out of the bedroom until they've gone away again.

Despite the upheaval and the vague sense of panic associated with the fact that there's still a lot of stuff to move before I can start vacuuming and cleaning I'm very excited. The flooring in these two rooms (bare scuffed boards plus trip hazard rugs) has annoyed us for over three years - it's going to be so lovely to have beautiful clean carpet in there instead. Then once that's done we can put up the new bookshelves - it's all going to look so much nicer.

A walk in the park

2011-06-26T08:57:00.000+01:00

I still can't get over how lucky I am that this is my local park.*

We went for a late afternoon walk round the lake after I had got back from a lovely afternoon watching The Way at the Phoenix Picturehouse. I've made a resolution to go to the cinema more often. I think we got a bit out of the habit (what with the Odeon charging through the nose for what are often not-very-good films) but watching a film (a good film at any rate) at the cinema is a much richer experience than watching at home on tv or a laptop with the ability to pause and break the spell at any moment. I very much recommend The Way - it's heart-warming without being being overly cheesy or sentimental and Martin Sheen is great.**

My afternoon was absolutely made up though when I popped into Darn It and Stitch to pick up some buttons for Kate's cardigan and received a wonderful present from Jo as a thank you for entering a cake in her competition - apparently it is the taking part that counts. Jo had mentioned that there was a small thank you waiting for me in the shop but I was completely amazed when I opened the parcel and found a £10 gift voucher and a skein of Fyberspates Scrumptious 4 ply (apologies, just got completely distracted on Ravelry wondering what to knit with it).

Anyway, back to our walk.

I love these views from this side of the lake where you can just see Woodstock in the background. It's hard for me to believe that this isn't a natural landscape when walking round here - these guys did an amazing job.

* and that their ticketing and access policies are so enlightened as to allow us to enjoy it as frequently as we do.

** although frankly I could listen to Martin Sheen reading out the phone book and enjoy it.

Another cardi for Kate

2011-06-23T19:18:00.000+01:00

Just finished another of these little cardigans for my niece Kate - she looked really sweet in the first one. I just need to pick up some buttons. I have plenty in the button bag but there aren't four which match either each other or the cardigan.

I even like the back - if it weren't that I'd been commissioned to make a cardigan I'd be very tempted to knit this as a sweater.

Pattern: 0-684 Baby cardigan with short/long sleeves by Drops design
Needles: 4mm circulars
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino (1.25 balls)

Here's a pic of Kate in cardigan #1 - it's not the photo which shows off the cardigan the best but it is the one in which she has the least grumpy expression.

Wee Drops cardi for Kate

2011-06-18T23:08:00.000+01:00

One of the lovely things about being a knitter (or indeed about being generally crafty) is that you can make things to specification when required.

In this case my sister wanted a couple of raglan (easier to put on) short-sleeved cardigans for my little niece Kate to sleep in. I scoured Ravelry for suitable short-sleeved patterns and came up with the snappily named 0-684 Baby Cardigan with Short/Long Raglan Sleeves from Drops design.

Pattern: 0-684 Baby Cardigan with Short/Long Raglan Sleeves by Drops design
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino (1.25 balls)
Needles: 3.5mm and 4mm circular needles
Ravelled here

The yarn is from the rather delightful Burford Needlecraft shop which is handily situated on the direct route between my place and my sister's new house. I've got two more balls in the cream so I just need to decide whether to knit another one just the same or search out another short-sleeved pattern.

Happy Birthday Darn It and Stitch

2011-06-18T22:17:00.000+01:00

It doesn't seem like a year since Jo opened Darn It and Stitch (Oxford's only haberdashery) but she celebrated the shop's first birthday today with cakes (both crafted and real) and a drop-in workshop and book signing by Mary Jane Baxter. I didn't have time to stay for the workshop but I had a lovely time browsing round the newly refurbished shop and picked up some very cute bits and pieces.

I'll show off the rest of my haul on another occasion (when there's better light for photography) but I couldn't resist this sequinned motif.

Which is now adorning this vest.

It's almost instant crafting gratification. A £1.99 vest from the Gap sale, a £7.50 motif, half an hour of stitching and I now have a snazzy new top.

I took a few shots of the birthday decorations and the new layout in the shop.

Check out the amazing crafted cakes in the window. Mine is the knitted cake with the pink "icing" in the bottom left photo above.

I love how Jo has arranged everything together by colour and the way that she's used vintage suitcases for shelving.

On my way home

2011-06-04T13:09:00.000+01:00

On my way home yesterday evening I noticed that it is almost hollyhock season. Hollyhocks seem to grow all over the place in Oxford and Woodstock, often just seeming to pop out out of cracks in the walls and pavements. At the moment they're mostly still in bud but I spotted the first flowering plant yesterday evening.

I think that hollyhocks are rather triffid like - they definitely have an air of lurking in wait.

Rose coloured socks

2011-06-01T22:20:00.000+01:00

There's been a bit of debate about what these socks most resemble - sherbert, tropical sweets, rhubarb and custard - but personally I think they're rose coloured.

Raindrops on roses

2011-05-31T23:18:00.000+01:00

I felt a wee bit cheated when the Bank Holiday dawned cold and drizzly (especially since today was so lovely by comparison) but I made the most of it. After some traditional Bank Holiday viewing I headed up to Blenheim Palace to investigate whether the rose garden was in bloom yet.

The plus side of the rainy weather was that the gardens were lovely and quiet.

The flip side of course was that the tea rooms were heaving when I went in there later for a quick scone.

So, were the roses out?

Yes, they were. It's extremely bad form to pick flowers in other people's gardens so I picked them with my camera instead.

The raindrops are all very picturesque but I still can't wait to get back there when the sun's out.

FO - Hurricane hat

2011-05-21T20:49:00.000+01:00

From this:

To this:

And I only have two metres of yarn left over so that counts as a win on my mission to use up yarn.

Pattern: Hurricane by Andrea Goutier
Yarn: My handspun from fibre bought on my honeymoon (yay!)
Needles: 4.5mm
Mods: I only knit straight for 4.5" (rather than 5") - good thing too given that I only had 2m yarn left at the end.

This is a very cushy, cosy hat and I look forward to wearing it in the autumn - but more than that it's a lovely souvenir of our wonderful time in Australia.

Very big house in the country

2011-05-19T22:53:00.000+01:00

We had a lovely visit to Tatton Park in Cheshire last weekend for Jenny's wedding. I don't want to pre-empt any post that Jenny might write about her big day - suffice it to say that bride and groom both looked lovely.

Check out the amazing shawl.

The weather wasn't fantastic but it cleared up enough for Jenny and Chris to have some photos outside and for Richard and I to take a good look round the gardens after dinner.

One of my favourite blogs is do you mind if I knit? I always enjoy the photos from Vanessa and Hugo's wanderings around various open gardens so I thought I'd emulate her and show a few views from Tatton.

View from the balcony.

Facade of the mansion.

Ornamental chives!

Rhodedendrons.

Fancy topiary.

Deer park.

Very ornate gate.

Duck topiary.

All dressed up.

One of the highlights (apart from the wedding) was the chance to see some of the rare breed sheep which roam around Tatton Park.

Hebridean sheep.

Hebridean lambs.

Soay sheep.

It was really great to see the next generation of these very rare sheep.

All the H's

2011-05-19T22:10:00.000+01:00

Introducing my Honeymoon Hurricane Handspun Hat*:

I finally managed to break the cycle and cast on for something which is not a Spring Garden Tee (3 and counting). I wound this skein of yarn (spun from fibre bought on my honeymoon in New South Wales) into a cake on Monday and have been trying to find a good one skein pattern since. I originally cast on for a cowl but then I spotted the Hurricane hat pattern on Ravelry. The spiral pattern is formed by a very simple but very neat bit of maths which continues all through the decreases into a very cunning swirl at the top. I just hope I have enough yarn.

* btw I am personally taking credit for the gorgeous weather today having cast on for a woolly hat last night.

Cooking doesn't get tougher than this

2011-05-12T00:12:00.000+01:00

A couple of firsts:

I am entering a baking competition.*
I have just made Italian meringue.

Italian meringue (for those of you who haven't watched every episode of MasterChef (all formats) for the past couple of years is the foamy soft type of meringue which you get on top of lemon meringue pie (rather than the hard type of meringue that you use to make pavlova). You make it by whisking your egg whites until they form stiff peaks and then continuing to whisk them as you pour a thin stream of boiling sugar syrup into the mixture and the meringue turns stiff and glossy. You can then pipe it onto your cake or pie and finish it with a blowtorch until it turns a lovely golden brown.

That's the plan at any rate. In my case it all went swimmingly - cake came together, meringue whisked up, meringue actually sticking to the sides of the cake (I wasn't at all sure that it would) - until it came to the blowtorching. I bought a new blowtorch specially for the job but when it was time to fire it up it just wouldn't produce any flame. I suspect that I may have misunderstood the packaging and that I needed to buy the gas separately (although I have to say that that's not implied by the words 60-70 hours burning time) but however it happened I was left with a cake covered in Italian meringue that needed to be browned at 11 oclock at night with the cake competition the next day.

My lovely husband was very supportive in helping me investigate various solutions (luckily we had a great deal of meringue left over to experiment with). Holding a lighted match near the meringue did brown it but also left a sooty residue and the attempt at flambeeing just resulted in a wet, sticky, mess. Eventually we just stuck it under the grill, closed the door, and monitored its progress with a torch, and .... hurrah!

It's a little anaemic on the sides but this is only an aesthetic issue as pouring the boiling syrup into the meringue actually cookes the egg whites.

Fingers crossed my colleagues like this (it's an inter-office baking competition) - I really want to get through to the next round.

* actually this isn't really a first I guess as I vaguely remember entering a couple of cake decorating competitions at Bank Top church when was a wee nipper, but still

Yet another Spring Garden Tee

2011-05-07T11:55:00.000+01:00

Turns out this is the perfect pattern for using up all those balls and half balls of yarn which currently make up the bulk of my stash. It's also great in that it's a good mix of "interesting" knitting (neck shaping and lace sleeves) and straightforward round and round knitting (which means it knits up quick).

This one is knit in a ball and a half of Rowan Cashsoft DK that I had left over after another baby project from a couple of years ago I think. So happy to be finally using this up at last.

I knit most of this on the train up to Bolton last night whilst watching season 3 of Merlin on my laptop (I heart my laptop) and eating M&S chocolate biccies - it was all very pleasant.

More cute baby stuff

2011-05-02T09:29:00.000+01:00

Pattern: Itty Bitty baby dress from Made by Rae
Size: 1-3 months
Fabric: Thrifted from an old Red Herring dress.

I took fabric from a dress which was a bit on the small side for me (the sign was when one of the straps broke) and turned it into an even smaller dress for my wee niece Kate. Hope she (or rather her mummy) likes it!

The only modification I made was to exchange the ties which fasten the straps for press-studs (a bit easier to fasten on a wriggly baby).

Olympic fever

2011-04-28T23:45:00.000+01:00

I'm getting very excited about the Olympics over here. I went online on Tuesday evening to apply for tickets to the tennis, athletics, and canoeing, and I fully intend to watch the marathon and cycling road races (hurrah for free sport).

However, I hope there'll be time between all the sport to take part in Mark and Felix's Walk2012 project - an epic 180 mile walk from Weymouth to London over the duration of the games. Mark and Felix are mad-busy at the moment finalizing the walk route and trying to raise money to fund the walk. If you want to support them you can do so via their Crowdfunder page and you can sign up for the walk itself here.

Spinning up a storm

2011-04-25T10:55:00.000+01:00

Whereas I knit every single day my spinning wheel only comes out to play every once in a while. I'm not quite sure why this is as: 1) I love spinning - so satisfying to be actually able to make yarn; 2) it's not like I'm short on materials, whilst the fibre stash is nowhere near the size of the yarn stash (thank goodness) at the moment I have one braid of bfl/silk from Old Maiden Aunt, one braid of bfl from The Thylacine, and a goodly bump of Shetland left over from my sleeveless Arisaig; and 3) my spinning wheel is not tucked away in some obscure corner where I can forget about it, it's on full view next to the telly in our living room.

When I do start spinning though it's like I've flicked a switch and I can't stop. This week I finished spinning the third ply of a braid of blf/silk blend from Old Maiden Aunt which I bought at Knit Camp in Stirling last summer (and which has been on the wheel for almost that long) and plied it.

Fibre: 70% Blue Faced Leicester/30% Tussah silk from Old Maiden Aunt in (I think) Sherbert
Yarn weight: 3 ply fingering weight
Yardage: 347 metres/100g

Once I finished that and got it soaking I moved straight on to a 50g bump of hand-dyed merino that I picked up in a lovely knitting and quilting (plus a load of other crafts) shop in Bellingen, New South Wales. The fibre was dyed in Coffs Harbour (where we had stayed the night before) so it was as local as you can get (and a bargain at AUS$4!).

I tried to spin this up a little bit thicker, more of a dk weight. In retrospect this wasn't such a smart idea as it means that I ended up with only just under a 100 metres of yarn - not completely sure what I'll do with it but I'm sure I'll think of something. I don't have a picture of the spun yarn but I'll put one up when I start to knit something with it.

Fibre: 100% merino, hand dyed in Coffs Harbour, bought in Bellingen, NSW
Yarn weight: heavy dk
Yardage: 97 metres/50g

Once I'd finished that I dug out a braid that I'd almost forgotten I had (to be fair I've got married and been on honeymoon since I bought it).

I'm spinning this up in a similar style to the bfl/silk above. The fibre is from The Thylacine and the colourway (I think) is Wild Dog Creek. Should be very pretty when done.

Easter treats

2011-04-24T13:00:00.000+01:00

I have a couple of mitten patterns underway - one fingerless and cabled, the other a pair of closed mittens with colourwork.

I can't show you the cabled ones as I'd like to try to submit them for some sort of publication, however, if anyone would be interested in a sneak preview, then I am looking for a test knitter!*

The colourwork mittens, on the other hand, are aimed at using up some of my stash (which mostly consists of odd balls and half balls) and I'm more than happy to show off how they're coming along.

Although I'm just using up colours from my stash they're somewhat inspired by some of the spring flowers that have burst out everywhere - especially the wisteria which looks and smells amazing.

I hope you're all having a lovely Easter weekend! I'm continuing to work on my mittens whilst watching last week's Lewis and munching on Easter egg then later we're off to the Reebok to watch the Whites take on Arsenal. Hoping (probably somewhat naively) for a backlash after our 5-0 tonking against Stoke last weekend.

* you can get in touch through the comments.

Some other stuff I did on my honeymoon

2011-04-10T21:58:00.000+01:00

So I didn't just hold a koala for the entire three weeks I was in Australia (I might have done if they'd let me though). We did lots of other amazing things too.

We went sea kayaking in Byron Bay and saw bottle nose dolphins and turtles.

The coastline around Byron Bay is just stunning (to be fair this can be said for most of south east Australia).

Mainland Australia's most easterly point - next stop South America!

We saw kangaroos and wallabies in the wild!

We went wine tasting in the Hunter Valley.

We visited the Blue Mountains. I was completely blown away by how lush Queensland and New South Wales are. Rainforest as far as the eye can see.

We had four fantastic days in Sydney. It was amazing to see icons like the Sydney Harbour bridge and opera house and I loved looking round the weekend market at the Rocks. There were some great craft stalls and I bought a fabulous dress to wear to the three weddings I'm going to this summer!

After Sydney we drove down the Sapphire Coast via Kiama, Merimbula, and Metung to Phillip Island where we saw the penguin parade. This was just an amazing experience - I feel so lucky to have seen these wonderful birds in the wild and I have to say they are beyond cute. We weren't allowed to take any photos but just look on You Tube for little penguins and Phillip Island.

It's called the Sapphire Coast for a reason!

Right, now it's back to the serious business of yelling "Come on Rory!" at the TV.

Finished object - Spring Garden Tee

2011-04-10T07:43:00.000+01:00

Pattern: Spring Garden Tee by Alana Dakos at Never Not Knitting
Size: 3 months
Yarn: Rowan Calmer (1.5 balls)
Needles: 4mm and 3.5mm circulars

I am such a fan of Alana Dakos' knit designs but this is the first (though definitely not the last) that I've actually knitted. I downloaded the pattern on Thursday evening when my current colourwork project ground to a halt and I needed something to knit for the weekend. It's now Saturday evening and the project is done and blocking and ready for my parents to hand over to my sister on Sunday. It's destined for my new niece (who is just now over 2 months old) and hopefully will be a useful and pretty addition to her summer wardobe (yes, I know it's only April but it was 22 degrees C today!).

I used the two balls of Rowan Calmer that I picked up at the Sticks'n'String yarn swap in Reading back in March. I was originally planning to make the 3 year old size for my older niece, Laurie, but was worried i wouldn't have quite enough yarn. It's all fine though as I can always pick up some more Calmer for a t shirt for her when I'm in London for the FA Cup semi-final next weekend.

The only downside to whipping through this project so quickly is that I'm now a bit stuck for what to knit on my journey back home tomorrow. After spending an hour or so trawling through Ravelry I'm still none the wiser so I might just have to improvise.

Mystery diners

2011-04-04T19:06:00.000+01:00

Just after Christmas this year my lovely dad bought me a bird feeder and some seed balls. When I got back to Oxfordshire in the new year I wanted to put them up straight away. The trouble is we live on the second floor and there's no space on the balcony to put up a bird table and no trees or other projections from which to hang a bird feeder. However, we do have some fairly stout railings around the balcony and I figured that in a pinch they'd do.

So the bird feeder went up, the first lot of seed balls went in and we had lots of little feathery visitors. We had blue tits and sparrows, long tailed tits and coal tits, robins, even the odd gold finch - it was fantastic. And as well as the birds on the feeder itself we had blackbirds and wood pigeons picking up the stray seeds from the edge of the balcony. Before we went away to Australia I filled the feeder up so that the birds would keep coming whilst we were away.

[sorry for the blurry pic - they tend to fly off when I get too close to the window]

I was a bit surprised when we got back to see that all three seed balls had vanished during our absence (they'd not been going down that fast before) but we bought more feed and filled it up again.

This time three seed balls went in as many days - we refilled it and again the seed balls diminished bizarrely quickly. I couldn't think what was going on. Were the RSPB seed balls just much more tasty than the first lot we'd bought?

Then on Sunday morning I got the answer. I woke up to a dull, low, irregular clanging sound from outside the living room. When I went to investigate I found two cheeky jackdaws* clinging on to the balcony railings and pecking away at the feeder (resulting in it repeatedly swinging against the metal railings) whilst a very plump wood pigeon hoovered up anything that fell onto the floor.

They flew off as soon as I came into the room so I didn't have a chance to take a picture but I came home today to find the three of them at it again and this time the jackdaws didn't take off until I tapped on the glass.

I've now moved the feeder to a new station hanging from a nail below the guttering so we'll see if that foxes them. I'm not confident they're beaten yet as jackdaws are famously smart birds.

* btw I have nothing against jackdaws - I love them - but they're a bit big for the balcony and it's not really fair on the neighbours to have them ringing the dinner bell first thing in the morning.

Crafty hens

2011-04-03T18:08:00.000+01:00

I had an amazing crafty time yesterday afternoon at the Make Lounge in Islington where Amy had arranged for us to have a bath and body products class there for the lovely Jenny's hen day.

The cupcakes were made by your truly btw - I was very flattered when Jennifer from the Make Lounge said she thought they were professional. I still need to brush up on my piping skills before MasterBaker starts though.

After lunch at the Candid Art cafe we were met at the Make Lounge by Jennifer and Emily who set out all our eatables and showed us how to make massage bars, bath bombs, shower scrubs, and lib balm from cocoa butter, shea butter, beeswax, almond and rape seed oil, honey, sugar, and various essential oils. There was lots of sniffing, melting, stirring, blending, and pouring and we each had a goodie bag full of lovely stuff to take home at the end of the day.

Clockwise from top left: Jenny, Anna, and Jennifer from Make Lounge making massage bars; Jenny and Cat making bath bombs; Emily smelling essential oils; Emily, Claudia and Zoe making bath bombs.

My favourite activity was making the massage bars and lip balms as there's lots of melting and mixing involved but my favourite products were the bath bombs - they just look so cute when popped out of their little heart shaped moulds.

I made the following:

1 x massage bar with sweet orange and ylang ylang essential oils.
1 x massage bar with cocoa powder and black pepper and sweet orange essential oils.
12 x mini bath bombs with lavender flowers and lavender and black pepper essential oils.
12 x mini bath bombs with rose petals and rose geranium and ylang ylang essential oils.
1 x lip balm with rape seed oil and honey.
1 x shower scrub with grapefruit and black pepper essential oils.

The flat smelt like a branch of Lush this morning when I unpacked it all!

Clockwise from top left: Claudia and Zoe melting cocoa butter; Anna and Janina making bath bombs; Amy making bath bombs; Tash melting cocoa butter; Jenny making bath bombs; Emily making bath bombs.

Clockwise from top left: finished bath bombs and massage bars; massage bars poured into moulds; bath bomb mix; finished lip balm.

I had lots more fun today packaging up the various things as gifts - there's far too much for me to use up myself. I can really recommend the Make Lounge for a lovely afternoon out. It's a fantastic crafty space and we were made to feel really welcome there.

Now it's time for another left over cupcake and maybe a soak in the tub with some of my products.

Friday cupcakes

2011-03-25T22:21:00.000Z

I was very excited today when I came home to a mystery parcel on my doorstep.

I was even more excited when I saw it was a mystery parcel from Felix who is pretty much queen of amazing presents.

I opened it to find a quantity of packing.

I took some time to enjoy the sonic properties of the giant bubblewrap (I felt sure Felix would approve).

Then peeled back the tissue paper to reveal ...

... plates with holes in?

Ah, now it makes sense!

Of course my first act, even before ringing Felix to say thank you, was to get out one of my trusty cupcake cookbooks and work out what I could bake with the ingredients at hand.

After a little thought I came up with chocolate cupcakes with chocolate fudge topping. Very yummy.

Happy Friday to you all. I wish you flowers and cupcakes and beer and whatever makes the weekend joyous for you.

Yarn swappery

2011-03-20T23:22:00.000Z

Check out my pretty yarn swap table.

We had a lovely time at the yarn swap, knitting was done, babies were played with, cake was eaten, and indeed, yarn was swapped.

I put in my 5 balls of Blacker Designs Cotswold Yarn and got out ...

Three balls of Louisa Harding Glisten which Jenny thought I could turn into something sparkly for Laurie.

And ...

Remember this? It's some Wensleydale Longwool which I bought back in 2007 and put into the swap last year. It was picked up by Ellen who knit a Selbu modern from the blue and white and brought the rest back this year. I think I might knit a little Sheep Yoke cardigan for Kate.

Talking of cardigans for Kate ...

Pattern: Sweater with set in sleeves from Baby Knits for Beginners by Debbie Bliss
Yarn: Rowan Wool Cotton (2 balls)
Needles: 3.25mm and 3.00mm
Modifications: As you might have noticed I turned it into a cardigan! And I knit the sleeves top-down.

At the swap I looked at what I'd knit so far and realised it would be much nicer as a cardigan than a sweater. Sadly by then I'd already sewn the shoulder seams and attached the arms. Luckily I have the skillz to deal with that. Ideally I should have done this at the swap with everyone chanting "steek! steek! steek!", instead I waited until everyone had left, put in four lines of reinforcing stitches using my sewing machine and then cut the steek.

[position of stitches marked by green and purple lines]

I cut the steek between the purple lines and then picked up stitches to knit the button bands to the left and right of the green lines.

Once I'd knit the button bands the stitches either side of the cut were looking a bit raggedy so I folded the edge of the steek under itself and stitched it down neatly.

The buttons (which are a great match) are from a little selection of grey and black buttons that I bought at the knitting and stitching show at Ally Pally back in 2005! Just goes to show that you can find a use for anything if you hang onto it for long enough.

Whilst getting yarn out of my swap for the stash I came across this.

It's a very nearly finished Trellis cardigan which I started in September 2007 and just never got around to finish seaming it and adding the collar. I think I was just put off by how lumpy the seams how curly the edges were looking (this was before I discovered the joys of steam and blocking) and gave up on it. Sadly it's a bit on the small side for Laurie now and far too big for Kate but I think I know a baby for whom it will be just right.

Elevated fairy cakes

2011-03-20T00:04:00.001Z

So when I signed off last night I was just about to make some cup, sorry, fairy cakes for the yarn swap which took place today.

Do you want to see how they turned out?

I love the cupcake stand (borrowed from Jenny). I may have to get one of my own. Nothing like a good cake stand to elevate your afternoon cuppa into an event.

I love the little orange and lemon slices which I found in the Co-op and I'm pleased with my buttercream piping which, after a bad start with the wrong piping nozzle*, was pretty consistent. It's good to get the practice in as I've just signed up to a company-wide baking contest at work and I know (from sampling the output at various recent cake sales) that the competition will be stiff.

More on the yarn swap and the knitting that I got done tomorrow (or rather later today as it's now past midnight). Time now for a bit of Patrick O'Brian and then sleep.

* too narrow a star which meant that buttercream started to ooze from the spaces between the stitches in the seam of my piping bag rather than coming out of the nozzle as intended.

Friday flowers

2011-03-18T19:59:00.000Z

I've got some of the other Bluestockings coming over tomorrow for the annual yarn swap and wind-off so I had the perfect excuse to visit my favourite flower shop (this is where I got my wedding bouquet) for some delicious spring-time tulips.

These are adorable - can you see the pink stems at the top?

I love the Friday feeling you get from buying flowers at the weekend. I was very happy walking from the flower shop to the bus stop in the sunshine through one of the prettiest streets in Oxford. I wish I'd had my camera on my so I could show you a picture of all the differently painted houses with the sunlight and shadows on them.

Now I'm off to make lemon fairy cakes* and continue tidying for tomorrow.

Have a lovely weekend all of you!

* all my (four) cupcake recipe books refer to them as cupcakes but fairy cake is a much prettier term!

btw I've got one eye on MasterChef (still catching up from whilst I was away) and I'm going to have to rewind to check exactly which top London restaurant it is that's serving squirrel liver quenelles. I suppose it's one way to cut down on the greys in London's parks.

Sweater for a February baby

2011-03-14T19:01:00.000Z

Not the February baby sweater (though I will of course now be knitting that pronto) but a sweater for my new niece Kate who was born on 8th February (and so shares my and my twin brother's birthday).

Pattern: Jacket with moss stitch bands from Baby Knits for Beginners by Debbie Bliss
Needles: 3.25mm circs
Yarn: Jo Sharp Silk Georgette (2 balls) in ... you know, I can't quite remember what the colourway was but it was something suggesting a light, springy green.
Modifications: Knit 5 sts of moss stitch for the button bands instead of 6 (to make them the same width as the top and bottom border of the jacket). Picked up stitches along the armhole for the sleeves and knit them top down (rather than knitting them separately and sewing a seam at the armhole).

Since I knit this from yarn I bought in Australia at a very nice yarn/quilting shop called (I think) Pins and Needles it's technically a holiday souvenir as well as a new baby gift. Anyway, I hope Kate likes it as much as her big sister likes her pressies from Australia.

*I like my new koala t-shirt so much I just can't stand still!*

For everything else

2011-03-11T21:15:00.000Z

Entrance to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary AU$30.

Price of photograph AU$16.

Getting to cuddle a koala...

...priceless!

More from our Australian trip soon. It's good to be back.

Just married

2011-02-09T21:44:00.000Z

I hope I'll be able to write a full post on our lovely wedding day when we get back from the honeymoon. In the meantime you can see some of the photos from the day by clicking on the photo of my wedding flowers (above).

Because I don't have enough on my plate already

2011-01-31T23:01:00.000Z

I decided to knit a little pillow for my little niece Laurie to carry at our wedding on Saturday. I chose knitting over sewing as my sewing machine and all the wedding dress fabric are still up in Bolton and even though Mum could have posted the fabric to me I didn't fancy sewing satin by hand - or rather I didn't fancy my chances of sewing it in a straight line.

Plus it meant that I got to knit this lovely cable from my Vogue cables Stitchionary.

Sneak preview of the rings if you're interested.

Pattern: Ring bearer (pattern forthcoming when I have a moment)
Needles: 3.25mm and 3.0mm
Yarn: Rowan British Sheep Breeds BFL DK
Notions: crochet hook and waste yarn for provisional cast on, ribbon to tie on rings.
Ravelled here.

I was very pleased with how this turned out - as with so many things the applied icord makes all the difference.

Feeling the knitted LOVE

2011-01-31T22:35:00.000Z

I read Kate's lovely post about her scarf earlier and I knew exactly where she was coming from. I too was a recipient of the knitted LOVE last week at my hen day when I was presented with over seven metres of amazing knitted wedding bunting created by Felix, Judith, Gabrielle, Emmylou, Ruth D, Ruth V, Mel from Scotland, Gemma, Jenny, Mikal, Carla, and Mel from Reading. When I opened the tissue paper package I couldn't believe what a beautiful and thoughtful gift all these knitters had created for me so thank you so much all of you.

Each flaglet is knit in a different shade of white, cream, or natural coloured yarn and they are decorated with buttons, beads, lace (including lace from Judith's wedding dress), and embroidery.

The icing on the cake came when, after I'd admired each flag, Felix handed me my very own flag-making kit, complete with vintage Aero needles, pattern, yarn, ribbon, and buttons, and pointed out the spare foot of icord at one end of the bunting on which I could thread my flags if I wanted to. I've already knitted one flag and I'm just about to cast on for a second.

I can't wait to hang up my wonderful bridal bunting in our reception venue on Saturday. If you want to knit your very own amazing bunting you can see the pattern and mood board (so impressed that my bunting had a mood board) here.

More on the hen day

2011-01-29T15:58:00.000Z

Felix has writted a lovely post about the fabulous hen day which she organised for me here. Do click through to see more pics of us dyeing yarn, the amazing knitted bunting, and Felix's very clear definitions of what does and does not constitute cheesy hen do crap.

Happy Monday

2011-01-25T22:25:00.000Z

Going back to work on Monday after my lovely hen day might have felt like a bit of a come down except I was only in the office for half a day before catching the train to London for shopping, tea, and opera. I love the train journey between Oxford and London. There are some lovely stretches of countryside around Reading and it's great to see the fields changing back from brown to green after all that snow and rain.

First stop in London was John Lewis where I did some very organised card shopping sorting out two weddings, two birthdays, a thank you, an anniversary, and Valentines day before heading up to the haberdashery department to spend my Christmas vouchers on yarn. It took at least half an hour for me to look at the yarn, pick a colour, check the yardage, check the recommended gauge, wonder about choosing a different colour, wonder about choosing a different fibre content, lust after the new Amy Butler yarns for Rowan, get distracted by the fact that my hands appear on the first page of the new Rowan, wonder about stripes, go back to the first yarn, decide that stripes would look good, pick colours, pick different colours, finally make it to the tills and resist the impulse to break out of the line to change colours again (and I didn't even mention the part where I started looking at the felted tweed and wondering whether I should just knit something for myself rather than a dress for the new niece that's on her way). btw this happens every single time!

Anyway - here's what I ended up with. Four balls of Rowan Wool Cotton in dark brown and very pale purple to knit this. Should look cute I think.

After all that I headed off to Yumchaa on Berwick Street as recommended by the lovely Lara. It really is a little oasis of calm and delicious tea just minutes from Oxford Street-not that I don't love the John Lewis tea shop but I'm so happy to have found a lovely tea venue in central London.

More tea drinking tomorrow as I'm meeting up with my future sister-in-law, who wasn't able to make it to the hen day, for tea and cake after work. I will be at Bluestockings but not until a little bit later (around 7 or 7:30).

You know you want to see it

2011-01-23T23:23:00.000Z

I finally took the plunge when I got back from the hen day and pinned out the Aeolian shawl for blocking. It should be dry by the time I get back from the opera tomorrow - so looking forward to unpinning it and seeing how it drapes.

(ok that left edge could be a little straighter but I think it will look fine when it's unpinned)

Hen day

2011-01-23T23:00:00.000Z

Just got back from an amazing hen day with my girl friends masterminded by the amazing Felix. Felix arrived this morning to whisk me away on my mystery day out. First stop was the Jam Factory in Oxford to meet up with Ruth (Great Malvern), Ruth (Chichester), Jenny, Mikal, Kirsty, Lara, and Ellen (plus baby) for coffee. We had a fantastic Yankee swap in which I ended up with Amy Butler's Sew It Kit and the girls presented me with the most beautiful hand knitted wedding bunting which deserves a post all to itself.

After coffee and the swap it was time to head off to the second mystery venue of the day. I was completely in the dark as to where we were going, even after we arrived in Wantage I had no clue until we walked around the corner from the car park and saw the sign saying "Fyberspates this way"!

The girls had brought bubbly, sandwiches, scones and cake so after we'd all enjoyed a spot of lunch and Jeni had explained the basics to us we set about dyeing some yarn. We each had a skein of Sheila sock, one of sparkle lace, and one of merino silk to dye. First of all I tried dyeing some of the Sheila sock - I wanted to recreate a skein of smoothie sock that I bought from Artist's Palette yarns a couple of years ago and I think I succeeded.

This is going to look fabulous in a pair of socks.

Then I switched to green and dyed a lovely skein of merino silk as a semi-solid.

I'm thinking either a scarf or maybe a hat and mittens.

Finally I dyed two beautiful skeins of sparkle lace in pink (far left) and silver (second to left). I love this yarn - it has silver in it!

I'm especially happy with the silver. I think it's possibly the prettiest yarn I've owned and I'm blown away that I dyed it myself.

I can't tell you what a lovely day I've had. I was so touched by the nice things my friends said about me and that they went to so much trouble organising this for me.

Thank you so much all of you! And to Jeni for letting us loose in her workspace!

Here are some photos from the day.

And here's all the yarn we dyed!

Wee pea jacket

2011-01-21T21:50:00.001Z

More lovely stockinette in more lovely wool. This is Debbie Bliss' Jacket with Moss Stitch bands in the splendid grass green Corriedale from Blacker Yarns. This is going to be so cute when it's done. I thought I'd fancy it up with some of the little sheep from Jen Little's Sheep Yoke Cardigan.

Wee sweaters

2011-01-19T22:50:00.000Z

The Aeolian wedding shawl is done. I finished the bind-off at Bluestockings this evening with much fanfare and I'll be blocking it over the weekend. Hopefully I'll have blocking pics for you on Monday.

In the meantime I'm up to my neck in baby knitting. I've been knitting for friends' babies and I've also got a second niece* on the way hence this little thing:

I just need to attach the sleeves and sew the side and arm seams. The pattern is Debbie Bliss' Boat Neck Sweater from Baby Knits for Beginners of which I must have knit about an umpteen gazillion by now (to the extent that I have the, admittedly simple, directions for the smallest size committed to memory).

I'm not sure that Sirdar Sublime Angora Merino is an ideal baby yarn (it's a wee bit fluffy to say the least) but it's definitely soft and warm and I had it in my stash. I've got plenty more baby things that I want to knit like this little sister's dress (very appropriate) and I can do those in a more suitable yarn.

* as far as they can tell from the scan

Are we nearly there yet?

2011-01-18T22:26:00.000Z

Phew just two and a half weeks to go to the wedding and everything's nearly in place. I just need to talk to the caretaker of the Assembly Room about tables and chairs and the caterers about sandwich fillings and cake flavours and there are a few jobs to do on the day before the wedding and on the wedding morning itself but it's all in hand.

I'm getting very excited about my hen do which is this Sunday. It's being organised by the amazing Felix and I have absolutely no idea what we'll be doing - it's all very intriguing.

I'm also very excited about the Aeolian wedding shawl which is nearly done - just the bind off to complete and the painstaking process of blocking. I can't wait to see it after blocking, I really hope it lives up to expectations because I fell seriously out of love with knitting it by the time I got to the last chart. It was like running 25 miles of a marathon and then discovering that the final mile is all uphill. It's a beautiful shawl but I cannot recommend knitting the beaded version as a fun experience.

OK - must get up and make coffee and sort out yoghurt for pudding before I fall asleep on the sofa. I'm feeling very sleepy after a very satisfying run this evening - a whole 5 miles which is a good deal further than I've managed lately.

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T17:11:00.000Z

New Year celebrations somewhat muted after Liverpool's jammy win over the Whites (a shout for handball denied and an offside goal allowed? feels like déjà vu to me) but I've got my knitting, a glass of champagne and a box set of the first series of House to catch up on so it's not all bad.

I wish you all a happy and peaceful 2011 - it's going to be a very exciting year for us with the wedding and honeymoon (5 weeks today!).

Dancing on Ice

2010-12-30T19:21:00.000Z

I've been fitting in my knitting around my current job of full-time children's entertainer. I've been playing hide and seek, reading books, and I've watched more episodes of Peppa Pig than are strictly good for me. And today we went ice-skating. After seeing another little girl skating about on the "ice" rink at the soft play centre we visited Laurie wanted to give it a try. We were worried that she might last for only a few minutes before deciding that she was wasn't that keen but she lasted the whole half hour!

She was pretty good too! She got a compliment from another little girl who was very impressed that it was her first go. She even let go of my hand occasionally.

I'm keen to do some more ice skating on real ice (rather than a plastic rink) when I get back to Oxford - I need to get some practice in for the next time I go with Laurie.

Post-Christmas knitting

2010-12-29T20:15:00.000Z

I'm taking a break from the Aeolian shawl, only because I'm just about to run out of yarn. Again! I've got another skein back at the flat but I only brought the current skein up to Bolton with me. It's a shame because it would be great to be able to block it and try it on with the dress whilst I'm up here but there are only 14 rows* to go so there should be no trouble about finishing it in time for the wedding.

In the meantime I've been playing with two of my Christmas presents from my parents - my deluxe set of KnitPro interchangeable needles (all the sizes from 3.5mm to 7mm and cables from 40cm to 100cm) and my Vogue Knitting Stitchionary: Cables v. 2 (btw whilst searching for the link to that book I found that you can access some of the Vogue Stitchionary patterns free online here - there are cables, knit and purl, and colourwork patterns).

The result (so far) is the beginnings of a reversible cabled rib scarf in the Blacker Designs pink Cotswold yarn that I bought at UK Knit Camp.

I love this cable - it's going to make for a really thick squooshy scarf.

* Although admittedly those 14 rows add up to about 13,000 stitches!

Update

2010-12-27T00:41:00.000Z

THE DRESS is finished. I finished the hems earlier whilst watching various bits of Christmas TV online (Poirot, Dr Who). There was one very nasty moment when my sewing machine decided to choose the last two feet of stitching on the bit of the dress that shows to start spewing bits of oily fluff up through the stitching plate leaving one very distinct black spot and one black smear on the hem at the front. Which leads me to a couple more wedding dress "DO"s.

DO clean your machine before you start work on your dress.

and similarly

DO de-scale/clean your iron (or buy a new one) and make sure the cover of your ironing board is clean (or buy a new one). Ask me how I know this is a good idea! Luckily the pieces which the iron spit brown water on are completely covered by the drapes.

Tomorrow I'll be braving the Christmas sales in search of a bra that will go under the dress before awaiting the arrival of my sister, brother-in-law, and my niece in the afternoon. We're all very excited about seeing L open her pressies.

I meant to say ....

2010-12-25T22:56:00.002Z

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you had a joyous and peaceful day.

Liz x

One wedding dress and a partridge in a pear tree

2010-12-25T22:44:00.001Z

The dress is as nearly done now as makes no difference, just the hem to do now. It's a lot of sewing but it's straightforward. I was so pleased to get the zipper in yesterday - it's the trickiest bit so I put it off all morning whilst we did the lining. In the end it took the entire length of Don Giovanni (absolutely cracking production - *love* Gerald Finley - still available on iPlayer) from Glyndebourne on BBC2 on Christmas eve to get it in but I made a pretty good job of it. I had a try on earlier with the necklace and earrings that the boyfriend bought me for Christmas and it looks great. Now I just need to get cracking on the edging for the shawl.

I've got a few make-yer-own-dress "do"s and "don't"s

DO have the odd glass of champagne whilst sewing. Steadies the nerves if not the hands. I'd steer clear of red wine though, especially if you're going for white or ivory.

DON'T try to make alterations (especially involving cutting) whilst you're actually wearing the dress. I learnt this one from the lovely Jo who had a horrific experience with her wedding dress and a seam ripper. If you do have a disaster try to keep cool - Jo did manage to salvage the situation by re-fusing the fibres of the silk fabric back together using pins and fusible interfacing.

DO buy new pins and needles and DO ask the people at the haberdashers for advice on which needles to use. For silk and satin really the finer the needle the better, I'm using size 9s. I'm also using bridal pins to avoid making holes in the fabric.

DO make sure you've got plenty of spares - I'm on my third needle so far after I bent two when I hit a pin. Talking of which, if you do hit a pin whilst stitching check if it's been nicked at all when you take it out. I tend to bend any nicked pins in half and put them in the thread bin. Talking of which...

DO use a thread bin. It makes it so much easier to keep tidy.

DO snip threads off as you go. If you wait till the end of the project you'll be there for hours searching for threads to snip.

I'm so excited about finishing the dress tomorrow, yay!

Ready, set, go

2010-12-22T22:13:00.000Z

The presents are wrapped, my bag is (almost) packed, and tomorrow I'll be venturing onto the trains in the fond hope of making it up to Bolton for Christmas. At the same time the boyfriend will be setting off in the car in the opposite direction for Kent. Since we won't be spending Christmas together we've already exchanged gifts - the boyfriend seemed very happy with his (non-hand-knitted) sweater and I'm very chuffed with my necklace and earrings which the boyfriend very sweetly picked out to match THE DRESS. He gets top marks for thoughtfulness.

I really hope that I get a seat on the train tomorrow. If I do I should have a very comfortable journey, I've got a bunch of DVDs packed and my new legwarmers to work on. I found a fabulous pattern on from the Spring '08 Knitty on Ravelry called Mosey - they should be just what I want. Pictures when I've got something a little more interesting to show you than one inch of 2 x 2 rib.

Cabin fever

2010-12-21T23:09:00.000Z

After four days snow bound in Woodstock the boyfriend and I are very much hoping to be able to get into work by bus tomorrow, not least so that we can buy milk. Although we suspect that milk was delivered to the local Co-Op this morning it had all gone again by the time we got there.

The other thing we need to sort out in town is a little bit of last minute Christmas shopping. It seemed a really dumb idea at the beginning of last week when I was staggering round town doing Christmas shopping whilst carrying a whole weekend's packing in a hugh rucksack on my bag but after four days without a bus into town it's looking smarter by the minute. I only have three gifts left to get thanks to my earlier mad dash and a stint on Amazon last week.

Today it's been all about the icicles. As the snow has melted off the roofs the display has got even more spectacular.

Who needs those icicle Christmas lights, eh? (Sorry, Dad.)

We were a bit concerned about how well the guttering would stand up to the weight of the ice and it seems we weren't alone. I snapped the picture above just before a couple of chaps in hard hats came along with a paint roller tied to an extending ladder to knock them down. I hope they got hazard pay, one or two of those icicles were about a yard long.

There are icicles everywhere, not just on the buildings.

It looks like this tree collapsed under the weight of its own icicles.

Indoors there's been successful work and not so successful knitting. The cabled legwarmer which was almost up to my knee yesterday is back to being a ball of yarn again.

It was a goodly length but not enough ease around the calves, at least not when worn over any of my multitude of winter tights. I do love how these cables look though so I think I'll reknit along similar lines.

Let it snow, let it snow, ok it can stop snowing now!

2010-12-20T22:15:00.000Z

We've only had three days of snow here in north Oxfordshire so we shouldn't really complain, not when some parts of the country have been putting up with it for weeks. I was very thankful when the lovely men from John Lewis delivered our new washing machine promptly at 7:50am on Saturday morning, before the snow started and our road looked like this.

We're very happy with our new toy - we've not quite worked through the mountain of laundry but we can at least put the lid on the basket now.

So now we're just holed up in the flat, waiting to see whether we'll be able to get away to our respective families for Christmas. At the moment we're still hopeful that things will be a bit clearer by Thursday when we're due to travel but we'll see.

In the meantime the snow certainly is very pretty. I think this year's photos of Blenheim are even more spectacular than last year's.

We went out to enjoy the scenery in the amazing afternoon light yesterday before heading home for tea and comfort knitting (cabled legwarmers).

RIP

2010-12-15T22:42:00.000Z

The washing machine died last night. Not with a bang, nor a whimper, more of a sinister rattling noise. The boyfriend was so alarmed that he stopped the program halfway through the cycle to investigate. Once we'd got the thing out of the little cave in the kitchen where it lives and got the back off it we didn't find out what was causing the rattling noise but we did discover that in addition to rattling it was also leaking! At 13 years old and having been repaired once already we felt that the washer had reached the end of its natural life.

Of course it would happen when there is an absolute mountain of laundry to be dealt with. Luckily those nice people at John Lewis are able to deliver a new machine to us some time on Saturday - I should have enough clean clothes to last me until then.

Early night tonight (after staying up late with the ailing washer yesterday) in preparation for tomorrow's Christmas party when I'll be giving the wedding dress muslin its first outing.

Crafty weekend

2010-12-13T22:47:00.001Z

Lots of making and doing this weekend. It started off with some baking with my niece - even at age 3 she's showing a lot of flair for cake decorating.

Then there's been lots of knitting on the wedding shawl in the car from London to Bolton and then on the train this morning from Manchester to Oxford. I was so happy to get onto the relatively bead-free edging set-up chart. Without the beads it's going along quite nicely and I had a lovely time knitting away on the train with an M&S picnic and season 2 of Buffy on DVD on my new laptop.

I didn't get too much knitting done whilst actually in Bolton - just a few rows whilst watching all that Strictly - as most of the time was spent getting started on THE DRESS*.

I'm afraid there will only be snippet views of the dress until the big day so as not to spoil the surprise for the boyfriend but I can tell you that it's going very well so far. We've sewn together the pieces for the front and back bodice and attached all the drapes and it's looking lovely. The next step, when I go up to Bolton for Christmas, is to work out the fit and then start on the skirt. Very exciting.

* with props to Charlotte Bronte (see Villette).

So what's going on?

2010-11-28T21:28:00.000Z

A lot, that's what's been going on.

I've just finished the first skein of yarn for the Aeolian shawl. 400 metres down 600 metres to go according to the yardage amounts given in the pattern. It's a shame I can't have a similar countdown on the bead situation. I thought I was going to run out of yarn on the way back from Bolton this weekend. I got loads done on the train on the way up there to the accompaniment of the latest episode of Cast-On* and an Audible download of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It's a somewhat bare-bones abridgement to get it down to 7 hours of audio but I *heart* Lisbeth Salander and the audio book brings the huge bonus that I finally know how all the Swedish names are pronounced. The only one I was getting vaguely right was Salander (sounds like Elmander you see). Anyway, back to the knitting, the only reason that I didn't have to break into the emergency yarn (bought at Hobbycraft on the way to the station!) was that I rather messed one row up in the car on the way to Manchester and had to spend around an hour sorting it out on the train. You can tell how long the rows are taking now by the fact that I only discovered the problem on the next right side row by which time I was in Stafford!

I had a very productive weekend in Bolton. Between the football and Merlin** and with the sterling assistance of my Mum I got all the pieces for the wedding dress cut out. I can't wait for my next weekend up north when I can make a start on the sewing.

* Squee! Whilst Googling for "cast on" to get that link I just discovered that the cast of Glee are going to be on the X Factor semi-final on Dec. 5th. I'm usually a Strictly girl on Saturday nights but that's definitely worth flipping the channel for.

** I'm so pleased for Morgana that she's finally come out as evil. All that surreptitious smirking over people's shoulders must have been wearing.

You wait all year for a craft fair ...

2010-11-25T23:18:00.000Z

... and then it turns up the weekend you're out of town! There's a handmade craft fair on at the town hall in Oxford this Saturday between 11am and 4pm. If it's anything like the one I went to last year it should be fabulous. I won't be there however as hopefully I'll be up in Bolton watching the football and getting started on cutting out the pattern pieces for my wedding dress. I say hopefully because, as the boyfriend helpfully pointed out, there is BIG SNOW forecast which makes getting on a train up north, especially a train which is eventually headed to and from Newcastle (where most of the BIG SNOW seems to be) a somewhat perilous adventure. Really, missing the craft fair is the least of my worries.

However, things are coming along nicely on the wedding front. We met with the caterers on Wednesday and had some tea and cake (very good Victoria sponge) and decided that they would suit us very nicely. We're just waiting for an official terms & conditions email now. So with the caterers ticked off that just leaves the rings, and organist, and flowers, and alcohol, and wedding cake ... the list is getting smaller, believe me.

You wait 5 years for a nupp ...

2010-11-24T23:41:00.000Z

... and then 30 come along at once.

Earlier this evening I knit my very first nupp* (pronounced /n-oo-p/) with the advice of Lien and Sara who are experienced nupp-ers. Two rows later I felt like an expert myself after knitting 30 of the little things in quick succession. I've now knitted my first out of three sets of Agave motifs and according to Sara, who has knit the Aeolian shawlette, it's downhill all the way (in a good way) from here on in.

We had a lovely evening at the pub made even better by unexpected visits from Ruth and the newest Oxford Bluestocking accompanied by Ellen. I was very proud to see my garter stitch cardigan being modelled. It fits just perfectly now which probably means that it will be too small next week! I'll have to see what I can whip up in the next size up.

* a little bobble created by knitting alternate stitches and yarn overs into the same stitch and then purling them together on the next row.

Emptying fast

2010-11-23T21:51:00.000Z

It's a good thing that I stocked up on beads at the weekend as the level in the original pot is going down at an alarming rate.

I'm well into the transition chart now (where I switch from the yucca to the agave leaf motif and I'm starting to resent the beads a tiny bit as I can just tell how quickly I'd be racing along if I didn't have to do the fiddly bead threading thing twice per repeat. They'd better look nice after all this!

I'm going to drag myself off to do one more row before bedtime in a minute. Early night tonight, partly because I went for a 6 mile run this evening after two weeks off and I am shattered (exercise is only energising when you're fit), partly because I'm heading into work early tomorrow so the boyfriend and I can visit our prospective wedding caterers at lunchtime to sample some tea and cake. I'm really excited at the idea of getting the caterers booked. It's the last really big piece of the wedding (after the church and the reception venue) to be sorted. Everything else on the "to do" list (including making the dress and finishing this shawl) is much less scary.

The real thing!

2010-11-21T22:48:00.000Z

Squee! I bought my wedding dress today. OK, it's still in its constituent parts but it's still pretty exciting.

I had a very jolly afternoon in John Lewis looking at fabrics and notions and eating cake.

Well if you're going to have a gateau you might as well have a gateau!

I also stocked up on beads for the Aeolian shawl.

It's coming along nicely now after a bit of a hitch when I realised after starting on the second chart that I was a repeat short on the first chart - Argh! Ripping back beaded lace is tricky. I suspect it might be karmic retribution for me pooh-poohing the idea that a life line might be a good idea last Wednesday at knitting. Maybe I should put one in now.

Dress progress report

2010-11-15T23:47:00.000Z

So the skirt is finally attached to the bodice and ... it's a bit on the large side! It's not easy to tell accurately with one side pinned together and no straps to hold it up at the correct place but I think I could probably take it in by an inch either side and maybe even use the smaller pattern size for the real thing.

I feel like I'm back on track with the dress to a certain extent and it's really reassuring to know that I can make and line the skirt in an evening.

The length at the front is great - the length at the back is OK although I think that I'll be at the head of a long queue of people lining up to tread on it.

I'm also making good progress on the wedding shawl. I got a lot of knitting done on the Eurostar, at the hotel, and at various cafes around Brussels. I've just got three repeats of the first chart to go. The beading hasn't slowed me down as much as I feared thanks to a rather neat little device that I made although it is taking about half an hour to get through two rows at the moment.

I heart BXL

2010-11-14T23:29:00.001Z

Just got back from a somewhat damp but otherwise delightful trip to Brussels. Whilst the boyfriend was attending sessions at a conference I spent time exploring the city on foot, window shopping, and drinking more hot chocolate than is really good for me. I really like Brussels - it's such a pretty city and every other shop sells either chocolate or waffles (yay!).

Brussels highlights included:

exploring the Cathédrale Saints-Michels-et-Gudule including a photography exhibition by Jean Revillard.
drinking tea and eating berry meringue pie whilst knitting in the museum cafe at the Musees Royaux des Beaux Arts. The pictures were good too.
seeing rose necked parakeets in the Park de Bruxelles - so cute.
wandering round the Grand Place whilst eating a gaufre de Bruxelles - nom!
drinking hot chocolate in Laurent Gerbaud chocolatier whilst knitting. I even managed a short conversation about my knitting in French.
buying birthday presents for my niece in two really nice shops - the children's section of Tropismes (very browsable bookshop) and Grasshopper (lovely toyshop). Buying children's toys is so much fun.
drinking more hot chocolate in Cafe du Vaudeville in the Galeries Hubert with the boyfriend. Sadly I'd already consumed my recommended daily allowance of gaufres so couldn't justify ordering one of the very exciting, plate sized waffles on the menu.
finishing the Millennium Trilogy (halfway through the chunnel on the way back) - just in time to see the third film at the cinema.

Scrap of lace

2010-11-09T22:05:00.000Z

I've started the wedding shawl!! The yarn is Manos lace in baby alpaca, silk, and cashmere and the finished shawl will have around 2000 tiny pearlised beads knit into it*. I think squee is the word I'm looking for. I'm making it extra hard on myself by using the really teeny beads - I suspect I won't find a crochet hook small enough to go through these but I'm using a length of beading wire with a short fold in it. Seems to be working OK so far. Of course the reason that I'm using the tiny beads is that those are the ones I happened to have to hand. I'm not actually sure that I have enough beads to see me right through the shawl but in the unlikely event that I can't match them I'll use slightly larger beads further down and call it a design feature.

* assuming I don't go insane first.