Look what I finished!!

I still can't believe I've actually done it,  but I've finished the braided rag rug! 

Seriously, this was such a massive effort, my finger tips ache, my back aches, I'm so glad this is done. I started this rug ages ago, I can't even quite remember when, then got bored after I had done around 15" of sewing and the project was banned into the attic. I found it recently, together with a huge stack of fabric for braiding, when I was looking for something totally unrelated. I brought it down with the vague idea that I was going to work on it a bit to see where it was going.

Well, something happened then and I  got the bit between my teeth. I just kept going, and going, and when I had used up the huge stack of fabric I went through my stash and found some more... seriously the amout of fabric that has gone into this rug is insane.

I developed a routine - braiding in the evening while watching TV, sewing in in short sessions throughout the day whenever I had a few minutes to spare. That seemed to work quite well and the rug grew and grew. It outgrew the tatty old rug that we had in the living room and after several discussions with the kids it was decided that it should be a bit bigger still.

Once it finally reached a size that we were all happy with it became apparent that the very middle of the rug, the bit that I'd done ages ago, wasn't very good - it had a different tension and it was kind of baggy. I'd got better at adjusting my tension as I went along so the rug would lie flat. Even knowing that I would sew on a rubber backing I was not convinced that I could get that middle to behave, so I made the decision to undo it. I got away without having to re-do the whole lot, but I did unravel perhaps 10 rows or so and added another few hours tightening the centre of the rug. I'm glad I did, it's so much better now!

I used some rubber matting that D had in the shed left-over from another project (I think it was mats for the boot of the car) that I loosely stitched on because without some kind of backing the rug was sliding around rather dangerously - between the kids sliding around on it and the dog digging on it it was never lying flat for more than 5 minutes.

Happy Father's Day!

Hello, how are you all? 

It's been a long time again so I thought I'd report back with some updates on kitting, crocheting and other crafts.

I've got a few FOs to report!!

First of all, I've finally, FINALLY finished Black Acer. Seriously, there were moments when I thought it would never happen. A few weeks ago after I finished another project and was itching to start something new but didn't have the right yarn I thought to myself - I really want to finish this, I want to be able to wear it this summer! It coincided with the boys wanting to do a Marvel movie marathon so I needed some knitting while that was happening. I don't mind Marvel, but it doesn't keep my interest massively well, and it was just perfect to watch and knit at the same time. 

Seriously, after procrastinating with this cardi for literally YEARS I finished it in a couple of weeks or so. I even sewed the buttons on!

I've not washed it and the weather has been so bad that I've not managed to get a few good shots of me wearing it yet, so I've got to remember to get that done. 

I'm really pleased with it and I'm so excited that I finally get to wear it!!

Second FO - my Mohair Cowl. This hasn't been on the needles for quite as long, but it's been long enough that I'm happy to be done with it. Again, no pictures of me wearing it yet, as I haven't got round to it, but it fits and I've actually already given it an outing or two. 

One thing to note about this pattern - the sleeves are way too long! I knitted it just as the pattern asked me to and I could have omitted at least 3-4 inches from the upper sleeves. I was thinking about unravelling, but then I'd lose some of the ribbing, which is supposed to go up to the elbow, and I'm certainly not going to unravel and knit both sleeves again. It's a bit annoying to have to pull them up all the time (which I think is intentional, it's what you are supposed to do), but it's fine, it'll have to do.

Third FO - in an attempt to finally get rid of the scatchy never-ending olive no-name yarn that I bought years ago on ebay I decided to crochet a basket. I made it extra large (so did more increases than demanded) but I managed to completely use up the yarn and even a little bit of leftover burgundy yarn. I'm using it to store the multitude of gaming paraphenalia the boys have  (cables, xbox controllers, headphones...). 

And guess what, yesterday was my birthday and this is what I got from D:

It's a full kit for the Yellow Queen Sweater!

I'm so excited to finally knit something that isn't from stash. I wound all that Cascade 220 into yarn cakes yesterday and I can't wait to cast on! 

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Old FO - my Casual Orange Jumper

I actually finished this jumper a little while ago but then never got round to blogging about it. 

It was one of my stash-busting projects and I pretty much used up every tiny scrap of this yarn to finish it. Originally I'd hoped that this would be a cowl, but cowls take a lot of yarn and I had only three skeins of Jaeger Shetland to work with. 

This is knitted bottom-up and when I got towards the neck I made a quick decision, scrapped the cowl, and went with a simple scooped raglan neckline instead. I had kept a bit of yarn aside for the sleeves and I basically knitted them bit by bit, together, so I could figure out how far the yarn would go. 

I'm actually pretty happy with this project - I've not worn it much yet because I finished it in July and it's been so hot since, but I'm anticipating getting quite a  bit of wear out of it this autumn and possibly even in winter if I layer it with a long-sleeved top. 

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A Year of Projects - Red Riding Hood

Ah well, it's only... wait... three days late? Hardly anything!

In any case, here is my contribution to A Year of Projects for this week. It's been a bit of a step side-ways, it has to be said. I suddenly fell in love with hooded scarves on Ravelry and just had to make one. I ordered yarn, bought a pattern (which is really not necessary - they are the simplest thing to make! If only I'd known!), and off I went.

It was a very very quick project. With super-bulky yarn and a huge 10mm crochet hook this one was finished in 2 days. I did mess around with it a bit afterwards, but that was because it came out a tad small - clearly I should have gone up another hook size or two - but overall this was so very quick that I don't think I'll be able to resist making another one at some point. And boy #3 has already announced that he'd like one, so there is that...

As it was, although I followed the basic pattern I added quite a few rows to the hood and scarf and even lengthened both ends of the scarf by about 20 stitches on each side. The seams are visible, but since it's all wound round and round it's not particularly noticeable. 

I think if anyone were to make this, it's probably better to go by length rather than stitch count, because the pattern (being a scarf with an attached rectangle) is so simple and it would avoid any of the issues with gauge. 

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Fiber Tuesday

The holidays are here!!

I swear I can't recall another year when schools broke up so close to Christmas. All the schools in Hull broke up on Wednesday and some parts of the country were even earlier than that. It truly was the long slow limp towards Christmas for us - kids, parents, teachers, everyone was exhausted and barely hanging in there, lots of winter bugs were making the rounds, ... For most of this year I've felt that time has been flying, but this last week really made up for it - it felt interminable!

Anyway, it's done now. Yesterday afternoon the boys were collected from school one last time this year, a G&T was poured, Christmas telly was watched, and I'm starting to wind down. I'm so much looking forward to this break, to just spending time with the family, to just BEING.

In knitting-related news, the extra ball of yarn for boy #3's scarf has arrived, and I managed to finish it tonight.

I quite like the squishiness and simplicity of this scarf, I can't remember the last time I knitted something in just garter, in one block of colour. I may even wear it myself sometimes if boy #3 lets me.

I'm also contemplating yet another crochet blanket. After my last few projects I'm left with a whole load of odds and ends of acrylic and a whole rainbow of mismatched colours. I'm thinking of a patchwork sort of style, with little blocks of colour, because I don't want another granny square blanket, and there isn't enough of some of the colours to do long rows. I foresee a lot of cozy sitting on the sofa in the afternoon so I may get started on that over the holidays.

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Catching up...

Doesn't this look amazing?

I actually have no reason for posting this, but it made me happy this weekend. The first locally grown strawberries are always a highlight of early summer for me, and these were absolutely delicious. 

Despite this rather misleading start this post is actually not about strawberries but about catching up on all those neglected FOs that I never posted about. It's time I update my Ravelry list, so without further ado I present:

The Boneyard Shawl

The Boneyard Shawl was started almost well over a year ago (heck, make that nearly 2 years ago) when I purchased some gorgeously soft Seidenstrasse yarn at a little wool shop on Borkum in the north of Germany. I cast on for this shawl there and then, and despite slow progress I finished it in September 2016. It's an easy and effective pattern but I still found working it a little boring. Apparently I'm not much of a shawl knitter... 

I do like the finished product, though, and actually wear it fairly regularly, so I'm glad I persevered. 

~*~

The second FO is the Bias Knit Sari Silk Scarf

This was a stash-busting project. Do you remember when Sari Silk yarn was all the rage? All those years ago? Yeah, that's when I bought this skein from a little online yarn shop called Hip Knits. I think it closed down years ago but they used to have lovely hand-dyed silk yarns and I used them quite a bit at the time. 

Anyway, since I had this skein of Sari Silk languishing at the bottom of one of my yarn boxes I thought this pattern would make a good stash buster because you basically knit until you run out of yarn and presto, you have a scarf!

This was super quick - I started on 17th Dec and finished on 21st Dec 2015 in the midst of my flurry of xmas knitting at the time, but then I never actually posted about it. 

So there you go, two neglected FOs, finally documented! :) 

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FO - Olive sweater

You know the relief when you finally get an interminable, never-ending will-this-ever-be-done project off your needles? In my case this was Olive.

This sweater, knitted from the Super Birthday Sweater pattern, was starting to be some kind of nemesis. Honestly, I think I started this last September? And it's not by any definition a challenging project - it's a top-down raglan in quite heavy aran or even bulky, on fat needles. It should have taken weeks, not months, to finish, even without putting much effort into it. 

But perhaps that was the problem. It was just not a very interesting project. Not even the yarn was interesting. I was using a non-descript single-ply yarn that I got off ebay about a decade ago. It's OK, but it's a bit over-twisted and it's a little scratchy. I do like the colour, though, and I thought it might work well for a simple raglan.

I finished this jumper on Sunday, during a Eurovision marathon (recorded the night before so the boys could watch it). When I tried it on I realised that I had somehow totally messed up the waist. Obviously, as bored as I was with this project, I had never bothered to try it on. It looked loose and baggy and it was pretty clear that I wouldn't be able to wear it as it was. 

Needless to say, there was zero chance of me unravelling this to re-knit the entire body of the sweater. 

No. Way.

I decided to take the plunge and try my first ever darts. A couple of days ago the jumper was for the chop - I marked the areas to be cut by roughly sewing them together with bright yarn and sewed the sides together about 500 times on my sewing machine. Then I took the scissors to the surplus knit and then zigzag-ed the loose ends together once more.

The result, on the inside, isn't pretty, but on the outside it actually looks OK, even though I still feel that it's a bit over-generous in places...

I'm still a bit paranoid about the cut edges though, so may do some more sewing...

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Of how to end an unexpected blogging hiatus...

Hi there? Anybody here?

You can have no idea how often I've thought about blogging these past months and seriously, there must be at least 4 draft posts written that I then never got round to posting and which are now completely out-of-date and obsolete.

I can't even really say why I haven't posted. Sure, things have been BUSY, but the mad busy period led to an extended period of unpaid leave from work, so it should have been possible to get into a normal posting habit again. All I can think of is that it's a matter of routine. Once you are out of the habit of posting regularly it suddenly becomes a BIG THING and you feel you need to dedicate time that you think you don't have, etc. 

All the while I've been missing this little space in which to talk about all the things that make up my life that aren't work. It's healthy, a space like that, and it's good for the soul, because in the end, what it means is that you are taking some time to reflect and to consciously enjoy all the different little things that make up you and your life. 

So new good habits need to be established. Life continues to present us with challenges, but I also need to take time to step back, get back to the things I enjoy and that help me feel calm. 

I am still knitting, and crocheting, and pottering, albeit in spurts - sometimes not much for a few weeks, sometimes frantically, all of the time. Things have been erratic, but I'm also taking steps to pace myself more and to avoid the boom and bust pattern that has snuck in in recent months.

I do have things to show, FOs to present, developments to discuss, but it'll have to wait. Boy #1 and I also have a little photography project going which is part of his CFS treatment - the Happy Moment Photography Challenge. Every day he is supposed to take one picture of something that made him happy, even if just for that moment. In order to support him I've joined in, so I might try to post a few of our pictures here as well.

Just to kick us off and to show that I've not been entirely idle, here are some very very overdue FOs, knitting and otherwise, which I actually finished, not for last Christmas, but the one before!

First up is an oversized super-girly Cowl that I made for my stepmom. 

It was supposed to be a normal cowl, actually, but as I was crocheting this thing grew and grew until it was a monster! It's made with some very fluffy, pink and sparkly novelty yarn that my boys bought for me a few years ago, and which had been sitting in my stash ever since, waiting for the right project to come along. 

My step-mom is very girly (and lovely) - much more girly than I am - and she also likes long walks in the woods. She is also frequently feeling cold, so I thought this would be ideal to keep her warm and snug. :)

I've also managed to snap a quick picture of the finished Ripple Plate that I made for my dad. This thing is huge, so the picture doesn't really do it justice. For scale, imagine that the second ripple from the centre is already larger than an average apple. 

Although not 100% pleased with the glaze, despite re-glazing it 3 (!) times, I am quite happy with the result and it was certainly well received.

As for newer FOs - I'm so pleased with this plate:

To show the size of the plate - this time with some Regia...

This is also a gift and was given to a dear old friend who loves cats.


There are so many other projects to follow, but at least I've made a start and hopefully I can get myself into a better posting habit again. 

FOs and WIPs and such... A Year of Projects...

... Well, in my case more like half a year of projects. Not that I have that much to show for.

I have, however, steadily been working on and I do in fact have one FO. It's been a FO for some time now, but I never got round to posting about it. It's the Scheepjes CAL Dancing in the Rain blanket. I joined the CAL on Facebook and, apart from a few lapses, kept up with the pattern pieces pretty well. Some were tricky, others were not favourites in the making, but mostly they were fun to make, and always challenged my crocheting skills. It's been good to make this blanket, yes, and it's very rewarding to see it used by the boys every day. They really do love their blankets. The first thing they said when we got to our flat when we went on holiday a few weeks ago was 'but there are no blankets on the sofa!!'. I think my enduring love of blankets may be to blame. Clearly it's rubbed off on them...

Anyway, here we go - 'Dancing in the Rain', all complete and such:

The yarn is acrylic, which, considering the near-constant use this blanket is receiving, is probably an excellent thing, and after some initial teething problems I actually got on with it very well. There was a significantly more expensive Merino option for the kit, but I'm glad I stuck with the acrylic - it's soft, and light, and the blanket feels very snuggly.

I'm also slowly making progress on two projects that I've had on the needles for ages - Black Acer, and the Boneyard Shawl. 

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FO Friday

Look, fingerless mitts!

Since I'd never actually made any mitts I thought these deserved their own post. 

I used this simple pattern HERE and it's pretty much perfect. They fit snugly but not too tightly, and I adjusted the length a little because I quite like it when they are a bit longer and go up the arm under your coat or jumper. 

I'm not keeping them, alas, they are a Christmas present for one of my stepsisters. I'm making two more pairs of mitts, but I'm using different patterns for them.

 I've never really given knitted gifts before, so I'm a bit nervous. I hope they like them... 

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A very quick FO

If only all craft projects were this quick then all my Christmas presents would be already done!

Cast on one morning, finished the same evening, the Holbrook hat was a joy to complete and I am so pleased to have finally found the right project for this big and bulky monster of a yarn. 

Have you ever knitted with super-bulky slubby yarn before? It's a bit of a bear, to be honest. The needles are unwieldy, and the yarn, because of its slubbiness, does not want to pull through your fingers and continues to get stuck. It was pretty good fun for a hat, but I'd be hesitant to do a much bigger project in a yarn like that and by the end of the evening my wrists were hurting from the strain of working with it. 

That said, it's perfect present yarn, because what other project could you complete that quickly? 

I'm half tempted to keep this one for myself because it's just soooo cuddly and cozy, but I'm determined to give it to my step sister, who is studying to become a vet. She also works at a veterinary centre to earn some money and for that she works outside quite a bit so this hat will keep her warm in the winter. 

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FO Friday

It’s been a while since I’ve last done an FO post, not  because I’ve had no FOs but because I’ve never got round to photographing any of them. I normally rely on Boy #1 for this now. His  genuine interest in photography has made him into a fantastic little helper, but this still requires me to actually find the time to model the knitwear.

In the end, this morning, I just decided to take a few shots in front of the mirror instead. Not ideal for photographing cowls in particular, since my hand is sort of hiding half of them, but hey, better than nothing, right? ;)

The first set is the Cosan Cowl that I did as a testknit for Ruth a while ago. The pattern can be downloaded from Ravelry HERE. I’ve shown glimpses of this, but I never took any shots of it for the purpose of showcasing it as an FO.

I really enjoyed knitting this, and I love how lush and rich the colours of the two yarns are together.

I liked it so much, in fact, that when the boys started asking me why I didn’t have a beanie yet I decide to make one to match the cowl.

I’m quite pleased with the results, even if I accidentally knitted this beanie with a smaller set of needles, resulting in a slightly more snug fit for the hat. I’ll see how I go with this. If necessary I can always re-do it in a larger needle size…

The second one is the Alban Eilir Cowl, the most recent testknit I did for Ruth. The pattern is released now and you can purchase it HERE.

Again, I really enjoyed knitting this, although I was more than a little rusty with the colour work. The first few rows on the reverse side are a bit of a mess, but I’m not showing you that bit!

All in all I think this is a good little project for anyone who wants a gentle start into colour work. Just remember to carry those strands of yarn with you rather than cut them, is all I say!! ;)

So there you go – 3 FOs in one post, not too bad, eh?

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