Essential luxuries

A new Lilyflame candle for the bathroom.



A Maison Blanc cake for tea.



An exciting new sewing project.



I'm just off to transfer my dart markings!

The stitching hour

I'm posting this at around midnight, a little later than planned, having just spent half an hour taming the stash in anticipation of the boyfriend's return from Egypt tomorrow. Who knew there was a coffee table under all that yarn? And I somehow seem to have acquired another dozen or so circular needles since the last time I had them altogether in one place. I suspect that they're hermaphrodites and are breeding.

I meant to start the tidy up when I got home from knitting this evening but I couldn't resist getting the sewing machine out to try the zipper tutorial that Ellen pointed me at on Monday. I also wanted to finally try out the iron-on plastic film from nid-noi.com that I bought at the Festival of Quilts last year and I'm afraid that I was as disappointed with that as I was pleased with the tutorial. The stuff seemed to iron on quite satisfactorily and it was OK to sew but the plastic came away from the fabric as soon as I turned the piece right side out and the whole thing looked so awful that I ended up unpicking the right side seams and picking and peeling away all the plastic film.



Much better now. I'm currently using the pouch to store all my spools of thread. Maybe if they're all in the same place then I won't buy any more black cotton until I've used up the three full spools I currently own.

Whilst we're looking at sewed stuff I never got round to posting about the pincushions I made a few weeks ago inspired by the one I saw over at needled.



These things should come with a health warning! I ended up making four pincushions over a Sunday lunchtime and only stopped when I realised that I now had four more pincushions than I could sensibly use. It is fun to stitch little things though and I think I'll make a few more little pouches and cushions in readiness for the gift giving season. If I fill them with nice things they'll even do for non-stitchers.

FO - Minimalist cardigan

This has been finished for a week now but I only just got me, the cardigan, a camera, daylight and a photographer together in the same place at the same time.



Pattern: Minimalist cardigan by Ruthie Nussbaum
Source: Interweave Knits Fall '07
Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool DK in Pomegranate; 7 balls
Needles: 4.5mm circs
Ravelled: here

The mural at the Royal Oak will be getting a lot more backdrop action now that I know how fabulous it is for FO shots. Thanks to Ellen for wielding the camera.



*love* this cardigan

Inspired

I had a great time at my first Oxford Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers yesterday. There was a really interesting talk on Shropshire sheep by Pippa Geddes and some gorgeous coffee cake with tea and it was just great to see lots of other people spinning and to get ideas for projects and tips on better spinning.

I'm already very excited about the Guild Artweeks competition for which entrants have to weave, spin or dye something inspired by the William Wordsworth poem Daffodils. In fact I was so excited that I got out the Supercook bottles this morning and set to work dyeing sock yarn.



The sock yarn didn't turn out quite as planned as when the dye hit the yarn it resulted in purple rather than a navy blue. This is what I get for being too lazy to trek up to the Co-op and buy black dye and instead trying to darken the blue with red and green. I'm not too disappointed as I really love it, but as it didn't really fit in with the "stars in an evening sky" sock pattern that I'd planned I had another attempt, this time using orange, yellow and green dye and the cream silk which was left over from the Kiri I knit for Aliki's sister's bridesmaid.



This one is much more like I intended and I've already started swatching for a small shawl with daffodil lace motifs.



I've been doing quite a bit of designing in a low-key way this week. I've been swatching in the Artist's Palette Buttersoft that arrived last week and I've nearly finished the first sock in a new pattern:



All it needs is the ribbing and a name.

Bumps-a-daisy

Finished object: Bump sweater



Pattern: my own
Ravelled: here
Size: 1-2 years
Recipient: Laurie
Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool in blue (2 balls), white (1 ball), black (1 ball)
Needles: 3.75mm and 4mm circular needles and 3.75mm and 4mm dpns

Who ate all the pies?

That would be me, or at least a goodly proportion of pie, maybe (πr²) x ⅓. My lemon pie turned out very well. I'd been a bit worried that I'd made the filling too frothy as a result of whisking the cream in on the high setting but it was fabulously smooth when I cut into it. The only place that the froth had stayed was right on the surface, just enough to give it a bubbly golden brown finish. I want to try a lime pie next (as suggested by Kate) and I'm pretty sure that you could make a fabulous coffee cream pie along the same lines too (maybe with liqueur and dark chocolate shavings). Somehow I find pie much less stressful than cake - there's no pressure to have it rise evenly, or at all. In fact one of the main aims is to keep the pastry flat.

I had a lovely time at Ellen's pie day. There was lots of knitting and Katie turned up with W and the baby, who is just gorgeous and very cuddly. I got loads done on the sleeve of the Minimalist cardigan and I'm now nearly up to the armhole shaping on the left fron which is the final piece. If I knit (and block and sew) like the wind I should have it done for the weekend.

Most of Sunday was spent spinning, either at the Wingham Wool Works fibre sampling workshop at East Hendred or afterwards when I got home and couldn't wait to try out the new fibres and tricks I'd picked up.

I sampled lots of different fibres on my lovely new Ashford drop spindle (stupidly I had not brought mine along - any excuse eh).



From left to right we have: chestnut alpaca, green merino and tussah silk, dark grey Shropshire blended (rather unevenly by me) with lilac merino, white Falklnd, humbug Jacob, white Shetland, black Welsh and silk, red merino and silk, rainbow merino, beige cashmere, cashmere and silk, camel and tussah silk, and Wensleydale. The observant amongst you will have noticed that I have thirteen labels there but only twelve skeins. I'm not quite sure why, but I suspect that I plied the cashmere together with the cashmere and silk (oops). I should have been a bit more organized about alternating light and dark colours on the drop spindle I think.



Between all the sampling and shopping there were two really informative demos by Ruth Gough, one on spinning different thicknesses of thread and using gears and the other on Andean and Navajo plying and on making rolags and long draw spinning.



I learnt loads and tried out some of the things she'd talked about, like counting treadles to get an even twist and the long draw technique when I got home.



My rolags aren't quite as impressive as hers but it's a start and I was able to spin a very little bit of yarn using long draw whilst watching a fabulous version of the Scarlet Pimpernel starring Anthony Andrews and Ian McKellen on ITV3 when I got back. I do love the Scarlet Pimpernel novels - they're a wonderful guilty pleasure.

There were quite a few people there that Ellen and I knew. Obviously Megan was there and also Sara and Ruth from the Sticks and String knitting group in Reading. It was really nice to see everyone's wheels and chat about spinning.

No spinning this evening as I cycled home in order to counteract my exertions in the pie-eating field on Saturday and my treadling leg's a bit tired.

Short-cut pastry

[Lemon tart for Ellen's housewarming]

I'm afraid I skipped the step where you're meant to chill the pastry in the tin for 2 hours or overnight but it doesn't seem to have done the pie too much harm. I did remember to leave a good overhang of pastry around the edge of the tin so that I could trim it off neatly after baking. I took a finished pie photo before doing the trimming just in case it went hideously wrong but I took it nice and slowly and it looks very neat.




The recipe is from Green & Black's chocolate recipes. Obviously in the book it's a chocolate crusted lemon tart (because a plain lemon tart would be a bit out of place in a chocolate recipe book) but I just left out the cocoa powder and made it up with extra flour. Now I just need to transport it 10 miles on public transport without any sort of pie disaster befalling it!

Spring has sprung

[daffs in the graveyard]

I love daffodils - I love the white narcissi and the big floppy yellow ones which make me think of yellow labradors and the fancy double ones and the especially the miniature daffs which look like tiny fierce little dragons*. Of course I can't think about daffodils without thinking about Wordsworth and there's not so much a host as a veritable horde of golden daffodils about to make their appearance outside the gates of the 'big house'** opposite the bus stop. I'll get a pic as soon as they're in full bloom.

So, did everyone else know that Spring Knitty is up and if so why did no one tell me? I really love Cachoeira (obviously Cookie A. is not the only sock genius blogging over at Knitters Anonymous) and I think Hanne looks like great fun to knit and wear. Given its free-form nature it might be a good choice for all that BFL handspun I have hanging around.

The other pattern which I think is gorgeous but which I don't think I'll be knitting just at the moment is Shipwreck. The photos of this piece are just fabulous, I especially love the shot of it all spread out on the sand like a beached man-o-war.

* what, you don't see that?
** also known as Blenheim Palace.

Pretty

I came home yesterday to a gorgeous parcel sent by Juliet of Artist's Palette Yarns. After I'd finished performing the dance of new yarn (where I bounce up and down squeaking "yarn, yarn for mee!") I opened the squooshy package and discovered not only 4 skeins of purply blue Buttersoft DK but also this beautiful little case for my Knitpicks dpns - so much more chic than the clear plastic sleeve they came in. Thank you Juliet!



I have big plans for the Buttersoft DK and I'm already swatching away.

Semi-rethatched cottage

You know you're living in the country when you get a demonstration on rural crafts on your way to work.



[taken from the top deck of the bus]

The thatcher was really making a lovely job of it, smoothing out each bundle of straw as he laid it down and then adding the straws that he'd plucked out to the next bundle. I'll try and get another progress shot tomorrow.

I was hoping to have a finished object shot of the Bump sweater but ... I left my yarn at the pub, a fact that I only realised when the bus was halfway home. Luckily Ellen had already noticed it and picked it up by the time I texted her so I've been spared the shame of traipsing in there tomorrow and asking for it. I did make a mental note to pick it up shortly before I left but then I got distracted when I dropped one of my dpns down the back of the banquette. Maybe I should lay off the beer on knit nights. Anyway, here is the sweater at the point where I ran out of black yarn.



I've just measured the sweater again because it looks very short-waisted, despite measuring nearly 7" from the underarm to the cast-off edge, but I think it's just an optical effect caused by the stripes. Still, the stripes are meant to go right round the middle and it's not like a 16 month old has any figure to be distorted by the apparent position of the waist! It has, however, made me think again about the position of the waist ribbing in the short-waisted vest top that I've just started swatching for. Am I right in thinking that layering over a longer shirt would negate the distortion that a short-waisted top can create? Thoughts please!

Dough on the go

Just a quick post while I'm waiting for the breadmaker to go "ping!". I'm making pizza for dinner, a task which is immeasurably more straightforward using the dough setting on the new breadmaker. No flour encrusted bowl (or fingernails), no washing up and hardly even any rolling. Next time I might even be organized enough to put the ingredients in before work and set the timer delay so that I can come home to pizza-ready dough.



I might have mentioned (once or twice) how much I love the near instant gratification of baby clothes. In my view they rank way above accessories like hats and gloves as they're way more usable. You really only do need one or two pairs of fingerless mitts whereas baby* always needs a new sweater having grown out of the last one about 3 minutes after you blocked it. On Friday night I just had a neck band, it's now Monday evening and I have the best part of a sweater, the best part in this case being the ultra cool stripes round the middle. I've made them nice and deep, partly because they were looking good that way, partly because I don't want to run out of yarn, I only have three balls in the blue and the yoke took a whole one!

Having said all that I am craving a new scarf - actually two new scarves. One needs to be tweedy and rugged as I decided last week that my bright pink lengthways scarf doesn't really fit in with the rural aesthetic when I'm fell walking. The other has to be smart and glamorous and I have the perfect match up. The boyfriend and I went to see The International on Friday evening and whilst Clive Owen is pretty hot and the action is very tense the movie was completely stolen by Naomi Watts' 1x1 rib grey scarf. It's early in the year but I'd say it's a shoo-in for Best Supporting Knit on an Actor in a female role at this year's KNIFTAs.

* sorry Aliki!

Spring flowers

I'm really happy that in the midst of all the March winds and April showers (which have arrived way ahead of schedule) we're being rewarded with some very pretty floral displays.



We passed whole banks of snowdrops whilst driving around in the Lake District last weekend. I would have snapped the ones we passed near Loweswater village on our way to the Crummock water car park but we were far too wet by the time we got back to the car to consider anything other than dry clothes, a real fire and afternoon tea at the Borrowdale Hotel where we were staying.





I'm not sure whether these photos convey just how wet it was but the only way that my top half could have got any wetter was if I'd stuck my head under Scale Force (pictured behind me).



It was much drier the next day when we went for a quick walk up the Langstrath valley which contains the Langdale beck which, against some pretty stiff opposition, is maybe the prettiest river in the Lakes.



Every stretch of it is charming, there are foaming cascades and rapids, smooth glassy curves of water over boulders, deep green pools with big round stones at the bottom. I so want to go back and swim there in the summer!

I'm taking a break on the Minimalist cardigan whilst I waited for yarn reinforcements to arrive from Get Knitted. I was expecting my yarn to arrive on Thursday or Friday but got an email today to let me know that they didn't have any in stock and it would be two or three weeks. Rather dumbly I confirmed that I'd like them to order in the yarn before realizing that I'd most likely be in Reading on Tuesday so could pick some up there. Hopefully they'll read my second email cancelling the order before they send off for some more!

Anyway, in the meantime I'm working on a new sweater, also in Rowan Pure Wool, for my niece Laurie.



It's a top-down raglan with white and black stripes a la Mr Bump - very fitting for her nearly toddling state.

Just a peek

Can you tell I bought my new shoes specifically to show off hand-knit socks?

Pattern: Monkey by Cookie A.
Yarn: Merino Chubby Sock in Minty from The Knittery
Needles: 2.5mm
Ravelled here

If I were to knit another pair of Monkeys in this sock yarn (and it's not beyond the bounds of possibility) I'd try going down a needle size as these aren't quite as snug as they could be. Other than that they're just perfect and immensely cheering on an otherwise rather stressful work day.

Luckily I had the perfect relaxing evening at the Sticks and String knit night in Reading chatting with other knitters, eating delicious coffee and walnut cake and making good progress on my second Minimalist cardigan.



I'm not going to make predictions about how fast it's going and how soon I'll be finished as I did that the last time and a lot of ripping back ensued. Still I'm 7" into the back and I don't think I've done anything wrong yet.

Hex

This isn't my sixth photo or anything but this is the sixth pair of Monkeys that I've cast on.



You might wonder why, when there are 295 pages of sock patterns on Ravelry, I've knit the same pair of socks 6 times but it turns out that, when it comes to socks, I'm a product knitter. It's very difficult when I go to my sock drawer and feel that I need more socks to cast on anything else when I know that I can churn out a pair of perfectly fitting geometric lace socks in under a week. And that's why I've already got the yarn lined up for pairs number seven and eight as soon as I'm done with these.

The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn.

Actually the snails seem to be on peapods rather than thorns and it was nearer 2am than 7 when I finished stitching the binding on Saturday morning but it was totally worth it in order to have Felix's quilt finished in time to give to her at the opening of Love is Awesome on Saturday night.



The quilt is a stash buster so the fabrics were bought at various times and places. The sashing fabric is leftover from the Amy Butler skirt that I made last August, the blocks are a mixture of fabrics from the Quilt Room bought at the FoQ last year and the year before and from Hobbycraft in Reading and Bolton, some are even leftover from the quilt fabric that Felix herself bought for me. The backing fabric, which I adore, is yet more Amy Butler this time from Liberty.



I really enjoyed making the sashed blocks, they're very simple but very effective, it was very satisfying to use up all the bits and pieces leftover from three quilt and one skirt, and it was lovely to be able make this for Felix - it's made with love (which is awesome btw) and I hope it brings lots of joy!

Rather a barrow-wightish look

Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be sleep under stone:
never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

On Saturday lunchtime I went on a fantastic walk on the Ridgeway near White Horse hill and Waylands Smithy longbarrow. We reached the Ridgeway via a very overgrown path and a snowy field where the only footprints were from the deer, hares and foxes.

The barrow itself looked very eerie and desolate in the snow and I couldn't get Tolkien's rhyme out of my head. Apparently you can go inside but I'd be much too worried about being grabbed by a barrow wight.



It was pretty hard going on the Ridgeway as the snow had drifted upto a foot deep in places and then frozen so we didn't push on to White Horse hill itself. It wasn't really the best day for viewing the horse anyway due to the snow.



I had to check against the pub sign in the village before I could work out which bits were snow and which were horse!

The boring part

There seems to be a boring part which has to be undergone before I can get to the next fun bit for nearly all the crafts that I practise. In knitting it's the swatching, in spinning it's setting the twist, in lace knitting it's the blocking. In quilting it's pre-washing the fabric and batting (especially the batting which feels really rough against my winter-worn hands). In fact there's a pattern here as all the boring bits seem to involve waiting for something to dry overnight (and often the next night too) before I can stitch with it. This is why, despite buying the backing fabric for the sashed quilt on Saturday I didn't manage to get around to any actual quilting until last night. The quilting flew by* and so now I'm onto the next 'boring bit' (OK, it's more meditative) which is hand-stitching the binding. There are compensations though as I get to sit under the quilt whilst I sew.

There are no pictures of the quilt yet as it's (hopefully) going to be a surprise for the recipient so lets have some yarn candy instead.



I ordered this from Socktopus on Monday night and it arrived first thing on Wednesday morning. The yarn is Merino Chubby sock in Minty (left) and Merino Slim sock in Merlot (right). The chubby is only really chubby in comparison to the slim, which is very slim. Time to break out the 2mm Knitpicks I think.

* thanks to some advice from stitchers at Felix's knitting group before Christmas I sorted out my bobbin tension and there's nary a missed stitch or tangle.

Is that like some sort of black pudding kebab, then?

Spotted this week at work inviting people along to one of the regular blood doning sessions. Given that I work for a fairly well-known academic publishing company I really hope that the NHS brought their own signs.

I really need to get back on the blood doning horse. I used to give twice a year until one of the nurses got a little too enthusiastic one time and I ended up with a huge dark red bruise in the crook of my elbow which meant that I wasn't able to pick up anything heavy with that arm for a week. It took a while to get over that, it wasn't so much the ow factor as the fact that the nurse strongly hinted that it was all due to my flimsy veins rather than her heavy-handedness*, and after I did get over it the sessions have always seemed to be at a time when I'm running a heavy cold.

Which is why I restricted myself to taking a photo and smirking.

* I know, I know, they're fine people doing a sterling job.

Schoolboy error*

Can you see what I've done there? No, it's not a trick of the light, one sock really is longer than the other. I cast off the second sock at lunchtime, held it up for Aliki and Cathy to admire and promptly realized that I'd missed out an entire cable repeat. If it was a matter of a miscrossed cable or two I'd leave it but even a knitting novice like the boyfriend can tell when one of his socks is too short!

* as Motty would say.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

The upside to me and the boyfriend waiting nearly an hour in the cold this morning for a bus that never materialized* (apart from my almost finishing his second sock) was that by the time we gave up and got back to the flat for coffee and to pick up the car keys the postie had dropped off three or four more birthday cards and a very exciting looking parcel which turned out to contain some gorgeous Spindlefrog roving from Lara and Katie. It's sooo pretty.



The cards contained vouchers for John Lewis from my aunt and uncle and for Socktopus from my twin brother. I've just used the voucher to order a skein each of Merino Slim Sock in Merlot and Merino Chubby Sock in Merlot and Minty respectively from the Knittery.

There was even a reward for making it into work as I was very excited to find a Crabtree and Evelyn bag on my office chair and even more excited to discover that it contained fat quarters rather than handcream - cheers Aliki!



I'm torn between making another quilt (because two on the go at once just isn't enough) or something else that I don't have a superfluity of like place mats or cushions.

* whilst I quite understand that a big smash on the A34 might delay a bus running on the A44 I really don't understand how it can make it disappear entirely.