One row at a time, and the ultimate WIP

I cast on the baby blanket on 1st August. I can’t quite believe it took so long to get it done, and wish I’d been a bit more dedicated and got it finished earlier, there were whole weeks I never picked it up. I used the Pine Forest Blanket pattern, found here. It uses gull lace and was really easy. I picked a yarn from Rowan – a washable pure wool worsted – in a forest green to go with the woodland theme of the nursery. It was nice to knit with and has produced quite a squishy blanket.

The reason that this took quite so long to finish was that the ultimate work in progress was finally ready! Our daughter Martha Rose entered the world a week late on New Year’s Eve. She is (of course) perfect and beautiful but in addition to the normal sixth sense babies have for when you pick up a fork, she also wakes up as soon as I pick up my knitting needles!

She’s very well endowed with hand knit items – so many from her grandma I can’t even list them, a stylish cardigan from Laura (of the amazingly handmade wedding), blankets from friends and the wife of a work colleague (knitter: “someone I’ve met once for 30 seconds is having a baby? Get me yarn right now!”) and even a blanket my own granny knitted for me when I was born. So I really shouldn’t have knitted a blanket but hey ho.

* I apologise for the fact that the photos on this blog are going to get even worse, they all now have to be taken on my mobile with one hand *

Bye Bye Han Cave

It’s been a long while since the last post, but I am making things, just not getting anywhere with them. Updates to follow if/when I ever finish anything. The main news is that the Han Cave has to achieve its true destiny now.  My mother in law has been calling it “the nursery” since we moved in (to my dismay at first!) and now that is just what it must become. Goodbye Han Cave, you were a beautiful dream…

Sorting out somewhere for my sewing stuff to go was described by Mr Han as “a cog that will allow many other cogs to turn” – I think he meant “clear out that room or we can’t do anything to get ready for the baby”.  Anyway, proof that he loves me was that he got interested in helping me find a new sewing space in the house.  We settled on a corner of what we grandly call the Garden Room (it leads to the garden) which is one of the strange rooms of the house. It is double height and has a mezzanine section which holds an office he works from home in sometimes. It’s white and light so good for sewing.

I stalked Pinterest for ideas for small sewing corners and hit the jackpot with this . Which is how we ended up going to Ikea on the first rainy Sunday afternoon for weeks, with the rest of the world. Traumatic.  I bought a bureau after some dithering about whether the drop down leaf would be strong enough when the machine was in operation. I can now confirm it will hold an operational sewing machine, and a cat. Plenty strong enough.

We spent a Friday evening building the bureau – no cross words, we are ace at flat pack. I was genuinely excited about filling it up and organising things (saddo).  This necessitated lots of purchases of nice baskets of course, mainly from the Homebase sale (luckily, this new space is adding up in cost!). I spent several happy hours sorting things into them. I particularly enjoyed sorting the yarn.

Mmmm, yarn…

There is actually more storage in the bureau than the Han Cave! The light is also very nice in there.  The first thing to be sewed at it was not at all glamorous – fitted sheets for the memory foam topper for the campervan bed made from a single duvet cover that was £4 in the sale, but I did do some proper seam finishing so they are quite smart.  I think I can look forward to some happy crafting time here, if the baby naps long enough anyway.

Next up I ordered some cork “off the internet” which was cut to size and then stuck in to the top doors with no more nails to be a pinboard.  As an aside, I am always the one who suggests the low effort version of DIY. As in “we need to fill the hole above the boiler pipe, I’ll get some plasterboard, cut it to size, then plaster over it to make it look neat” me: “no one looks in there, why don’t you just fill the hole with expanding foam?”. This type of thing is why we own no more nails.

It’s very neat right now, but it probably won’t stay that way! Top cupboards are for sewing related things, bottom for knitting and felting. It was a lot of fun putting things in, seeing what needed to go where, what needed to be close to hand… I even managed to get the wool/knitting supplies stash nearly all in here, so it’s not in three different rooms anymore!

The nursery has started to be painted, but I have had nothing to do with that. My weekend working put paid to that, and also I suspect Mr Han raised a few eyebrows when he had to go and look at prams/pushchairs/strollers whatever the hell they’re called on his own – the only man in Mothercare!

 

A moose in the hoose

So I’m a very bad blogger,  it’s official, but then I never said I was Blogger (with a capital B) just someone who tries to fit in some crafts, and writes about them a bit. I’ve been a bit better at “life” recently – feeding friends, working hard, eating ice lollies and playing with the cat. I’ve also started my first baby crafts!

Ever since I got Sarah Keen’s “Knitted wild animals” book I’ve wanted to knit the moose and I knew it could only be for MY child. We have a whole moose thing going on here. Her patterns are excellent and I think it is worth putting in the extra work to make all the pieces and sew them together because the finished article look so professional. Even the embroidering of the features went OK.

I love it. I’ve joked I’m going to withhold all other soft toys until it forms a favourite toy attachment to this one…

 

 

There’s lots more baby related stuff on the go at the moment (and some wedding related stuff for a friend, but I’d better not reveal that just yet) – more knitting, some sewing projects in the pipeline and time to say bye bye to the Han Cave as it becomes a nursery. Watch this space!

June recap – what happened to June anyway?

It’s that time of year where work takes over my life entirely.  I work on a nature reserve and do all the school visits, in June nearly 900 pupils visited so I’ve been in a constant round of bug hunting, pond dipping (no it’s not seaweed, it’s in a pond!), bird watching etc etc. It’s hot too so by the end of every day I just want to flop, and do! I think that I may have tried to have a social life in June too, but I can’t remember.

I have been busy making things for other people in my spare (ha ha) time though. A very good friend is expecting twins soon so that was the perfect excuse to get out the knitting needles.  It was soooo nice to be knitting again, I hadn’t really done anything much for a while but was very fidgety as I didn’t want to/couldn’t start a big project for various reasons. Twins obviously means two of so it couldn’t be anything huge that I might never finish, so it’s just a couple of cute pairs of mittens in alpaca, lovely and soft.  Plaiting the cord to go through the sleeves took almost as long as a mitten! I hope the twins enjoy the fluffy goodness when they come out.

 

Next up, #sewcrazychallenge for June. This one was about summer (what a surprise!) and I just thought that my dedicated beach goer of a sister might be amused to see my nephew in this. I got some cheap toweling on a rare trip to town, so it’s not going to be suitable after a drenching, but in that half dried off in the sun but wet swimming costume phase that you get at the beach it will be perfect. And it’s a shark. I sized it up by 20% as the pattern is for a little toddler.

I found the applique pretty damn difficult and had a couple of practice runs where many a bad word was shouted, but overall I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. I also learned that my machine is a total workhorse – it sewed though multiple layers of toweling easily. I hope they both like it, it’s going to be a birthday present for Rafi in August. It’s going to look a lot better on a person than a pointy hanger anyway…

 

Winning Ways

In this post I wrote about my determination to finish my Lizard Ridge afghan by the end of May so I could enter it in the village festival. Well, work was crazy in May and on 30th my LR was still awaiting about a third of its applied i-cord edging. And I got home from work at midnight.  On Saturday the 31st I put in the hours though and got it down roughly 12 hours before the deadline to take it to the marquee!

It’s only bloody finished!

I said in my previous post that I thought it deserved a rosette, but I obviously had no idea what else would be entered, and I don’t think I’ve ever won anything based on a “talent” before.  I headed down to the marquee after the judging to see the results and was very gratified to see this:

It only bloody won!

Ok, so the competition wasn’t exactly fierce, but it came first! And best in the whole craft category so I got a gold rosette too! And £20! I know what I’ll be spending that on.

I also entered the Apricot and Lavender liqueur in the homemade alcoholic drink category, the hummingbird thingy in “other craft” and a cushion I finally stitched up from the acorn printed fabric in cushions.  The cushion also got a first, but there were only two entries, ha ha ha. It was declared “very original” by the judge though.

Front

Back

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you can all excuse my excitement, really I’m most excited that I actually finished it!

 

The Five Year Knitting Project

I was reading some posts recently on The Twisted Yarn about a long term project to make a crocheted rainbow afghan (that’s a blanket to non knitters!), particularly the one about finishing it, and it made me think that I have never properly posted about the biggest project in my life.  In 2009 (yes, you read that right) I started the Lizard Ridge Afghan.  This is a very popular pattern on Ravelry, it has 2102 projects. That means people have made, or are making, over 2000 of these bad boys.  Lizard Ridge uses Noro Kureyon yarn, which is Japanese, multicoloured and pretty expensive.  Have I told you before that I am pretty tasteless sometimes when it comes to colour? I love lots and lots of bright colours together! I don’t go for tasteful neutrals, that’s why I have red sofas when everyone else has cream, brown or grey.  So you can see why this pattern would appeal to me.

I was a pretty new knitter when I started this and I knit it in squares, learning new techniques like short rows (and spit splicing, ha ha!) along the way.  Soon-ish I had 24 squares, but they sat in piles for ages because I was scared to seam them together and too lazy to wash and block them all.  Gradually I did it, and in April 2012 I finally bought some yarn to seam it. But then I decided it would look better bigger, so I knit a load more squares instead.

The first square, 2009

Getting some ideas for placements, 2010?

And then I made my 2013 New Year’s Resolution to finish it. With the aid of a class at a Knitting festival, and some internet tutorials I realised that sewing it together wouldn’t be so bad after all. Those seams are so damn neat now! But it sat around, with the newer squares still not blocked and unseamed. Sigh. I kept pretending to my self that blocking is an awkward job when you can hardly move….

Knitting a square with cat help, March 2013

Final placement, 2014

At the beginning of this year I made it my 2014 resolution to finish it and I really mean it this time! I want to enter it in the craft exhibition at the village festival at the end of May, because this blanket really deserves a rosette in my humble opinion – and there won’t be another chance until 2016.  I’ve just finished the sewing up, which took about four evenings in front of the telly, turfing the cat off the ends every so often, then I took another three evenings to weave in all the ends.  I know a lot of people hate weaving in ends but I don’t mind really, the sense of anticipation at completing a project always gets me through!

Hattie getting in the way of weaving in ends, April 2014

So now I move onto the idea of edging it.  I decided that I just couldn’t bear to learn to crochet so I looked amongst those 2102 projects for another idea, and settled on applied i-cord edging.  I am literally just learning how to do it right now, and thank God for the internet and photo tutorials.  I’m using this one and it is starting well, fingers crossed.

Hopefully it won’t be too long until I can post about it in its finished form.  I am pretty excited about it!

 

Starting again

If you know me, you know I am stubborn. Super stubborn.  I really do take pride in it.  So it is something of a radical departure for me to say this: I don’t like my current knitting project, and I’m going to unravel it.  I had been thinking grumpily that I need to set targets of numbers of rows to do per day to make myself do it when Mr Han asked me if I was a sewer and not a knitter any more.  That made me a bit sad because knitting is my first textile love! I replied that I just wasn’t enjoying my current project.  In his typically practical way he said “don’t make it then, make something else”.  The more I thought about it, the more I agreed.  Why waste fancy yarn and hours and hours to make something that will be (already is) full of mistakes and I will hate doing?

It’s going to be frogged (I would like to know why knitters call unravelling something is called frogging!) so I took to Ravelry to look for a new pattern and I found this:

The pattern is by Emily Wessel at Tincan Knits. I am excited about making this and it looks a lot easier than the lace scarf. I am too pushed for knitting time – I need TV knitting! It does help to visualise things when they are in an almost exact same colour as the yarn I have too… Wish me luck!

Back to School

I am so excited, because I am going back to school – sort of. Back in September I signed up for a 10 week textiles evening class at our local college, but not enough people wanted to go so it got cancelled. I was disappointed but last week they called to say they had enough people on the list so class will be starting on Tuesday!

I was one of those children who loved school because I just liked learning new stuff, I was quite academic so didn’t really get much out of creative classes. Not that we had many, we did art of course but because I couldn’t draw, paint or sculpt I thought it wasn’t for me. In the last six years I have realised I am a creative person and I’m not afraid of trying new things. After all learning to sew or knit is only following instructions isn’t it? What’s the worst that can happen?

The course is going to cover lots of things I haven’t done before like dyeing and embroidery so I hope these will add really nicely to the things I already do. It will be nice to meet other people who are into these things too. Of course I’ll be sharing all the experiments here too, so watch this space!

Another long term WIP…

As part of my knit-from-the-stash resolution I pulled out both a pattern I’ve been thinking about for years and a yarn I have had since 2012. The yarn is Fyberspates Gleem Lace, which is just such an appropriate name for this shining skein, the pattern is Flowers in the Rain which I got at a knitting event from the p/hop stand. If you’re a knitter and at all charity minded I encourage you to find out more about p/hop. It translates as “pennies per hour of pleasure” and is a fundraising endeavor for Medecins Sans Frontieres.

However, this pattern is not giving me “hours of pleasure” so far. I’ve got my stitch markers in place, I knit carefully with the chart on my lap but I keep messing up! I think I am starting to see the pattern come out but I am not enjoying this. I think I am really in the mood for TV knitting (you really cannot watch Borgen and knit lace) or just the instant gratification of sewing. Cold fingers due to my Victorian house (at least I hope it is just cold and not the arthritis) are also making is project unappealing. Still, I’ll keep going, but it’s going to be a while!

 

Apologies for the flash photo, but I am never in my house in daylight. It is a fairly good reflection of the colour.

I’ve done a little baking too, but nothing worth showing. I tried a “healthier” muffin recipe from one of the Saturday magazines from Lorraine Pascale – yuck, I’ll never bother with that again! Maple syrup is NOT a suitable substitute for sugar in a cake. The other was lemon curd jam tarts with the curd I made, not pretty, but tasty.

The secret project revealed…

So now Christmas has come and gone (I was even at work yesterday! Running a children’s bush craft party, oh yes denbuilding and marshmallow toasting is the best thing to do with hyped up children) I can reveal one of my favourite projects.  It was for my long suffering husband, luckily he is creative too so didn’t mind all my crazy crafting.  His long time nickname was Moose so I decided to go for a fair isle hat, with a moose pattern.  There aren’t many out there on Ravelry, but I found one by Holly Marie Designs – which then sadly seemed to be unobtainable.  I was gutted so more in hope than expectation emailed the designer.  She gifted me the pattern!  What a lovely lady, and she didn’t want payment so I will be donating to a charity instead.

I knitted this on my days off on Mondays, and in any spare moment he wasn’t looking.  He did see me buy the yarn though at Cafe Knit in Lavenham but I know him too well – he’d forgotten all about it by Christmas. I do think if I did it again I would use more contrasting colours though.

Here is is looking cold (and cold-y) on Bacton beach in North Norfolk where we spent Christmas.