Author Archives: Heather

Handspun leaves waistcoat

Finally after only two and a half years (!) I have finished my handspun leaves waistcoat. As you can see I am quite happy with it 🙂

I actually finished at the beginning of February, but finding a time when both I and the resident photographer were available, and it was actually daylight and not raining (or hailing as it has been today) proved to be something of a challenge.

This has been a fun opportunity to use up some of my early handspun. I stuck to the theme of dyed reds and natural browns to try to give it some kind of cohesion. The pattern is fortunately very forgiving of different thicknesses of yarn!

Those of you who have come along to the Patchwork Knitting Workshops in Marlow will have seen this in progress two years running! It is the difficulty that it is something for me, but not a City and Guilds piece, so always keeps getting put to the bottom of the priority list. It feels very good to have finished it and be able to wear it. It is turning into a very wearable item too, and I wore it quite a bit before the weather turned cold again.

I am planning to write up the pattern, but that might well take me a little while.

Unravel 2012

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This weekend was the annual Unravel festival at the Maltings in Farnham. It is great to have a woolly festival so close to us, and this year there was even more fun stuff to look at.

As in previous years I was helping out with demonstrating and teaching spinning and knitting with the West Surrey Guild of Spinners Weavers and Dyers, and with the Surrey Knitting and Crochet Group. Members of both groups lent a wonderful selection of things they had made for our display table. We had our usual corner of the Cellar Bar which was handy as we knew the lie of the land beforehand. Here it all is on Friday afternoon after we had set it all up:

A good number of members of both groups volunteered so we all managed to have a good look around the show too which was excellent, and I also managed to hear Lesley Prior‘s talk about the Campaign for Wool which was very interesting.

This year’s January competition at the knitting and crochet group had the theme of sheep, and we had all the entries on display for the weekend. I made a Shetland Sheep out of some natural black handspun Shetland, although I didn’t manage to finish him in time for the competition:

He is made entirely out of bobbles, which nearly killed me. He wont be having any friends! I find bobbles very hard on the neck and shoulders, and had a headache for a week after finishing him! Luckily I am pretty much better now.

Sue made the most wonderful life-size model sheep which was then covered in knitted squares by members of the group, and hung in the entrance of the Maltings:

He is called Norman, and will be coming out with us to more exhibitions later this year.

And there were even real live sheep, I think from Well Manor Farm in a pen outside:

There were even more stands at the festival than in previous years. A great selection of things to see and have a go at. There were workshops and talks on both days, and a lot of enthusiastic people.

I had a fabulous time 🙂 It was great to see loads of friends, and to meet lots of new people too. I spent a lot of Saturday extolling the virtues of knitting socks with one long circular needle, and Sunday talking about spinning and different wheels and helping new spinners get started. They were all sickeningly tallented, and grasped the principles very quickly, even those who were rather tired after having a long day round the show 🙂 We had a lot of families around on the Sunday which was fun, and we did some great team spinning. My little victims got the hot seat (although some of them were a little short to sit on the chair and reach the pedals so had to stand up), and they were in charge of the treadle, with their accompanying adult in charge of checking that the wheel was still going in the same direction. Then I did the hands, and when they had had enough I did a little ply-back of the yarn we had been spinning so they would have something to take away with them. I think there will be quite a lot of orange merino featuring in show and tell sessions at Surrey and Hampshire schools this week 🙂

I was also thrilled to win the Best in Show exhibition with my Autumn in Anatolia jumper.

I am looking forward to the prize which was a subscription to Selvedge magazine. Our knitting and crochet group were well represented in the Best in Show competition, Kim came second with her crocheted Dalek Tank top:

Sue also entered her wonderfully witty knitted sheep portraits,and Mary entered her Noah’s Ark.

A show would hardly be complete without a bit of stash enhancement and there were lots of lovely things available to buy.

The first things I bought on Saturday morning when the show had barely opened were Knitting with Two Colors by Meg Swansen and Amy Detjen, from Tricia Holman, and an Unravel bag (which came in handy to put things in all weekend). Here they are with my first issue of my prize Selvedge subscription:

It took me all weekend to decide on which colour of Deepy Wicked sock yarn (100% superwash Merino, 100g, 400m) to buy from EasyKnits – too much choice! Too many lovely loud colours! They humoured my indecision, and in the end I decided on this lovely semi-solid green called Astro Turf 🙂

It is a bit grey and gloomy here today so the yarn is actually even bright than my photo suggests 🙂

I also had a lovely time at John Arbon‘s stand, squishing all the lovely tempting fibre. It was nice to see John and Juliet and catch up with them too 🙂

I bought 200g of white 70% Exmoor Blueface, 30% Bluefaced Leicester fibre:

I am planning to dye this and then spin it into socks. We were using some of this fibre for spinning demonstrations and for the new spinners to learn with, and it is very nice to spin, it drafts very smoothly without being too slippery.

I also bought a kilo of chocolate 80% fine alpaca, 20% merino fibre:

This is a gorgeous colour, very reminiscent of a good milk chocolate. I think this will be a jumper or cardigan but I haven’t thought much further than that.

I also got some lovely Cappuccino Alpaca and something, but I now can’t remember whether it was Alpaca and Merino, or Alpaca and BFL, or Alpaca, Merino, and BFL, or something else entirely. I think my brain may be a little full.

I’m not sure what I am going to do with this yet. I think not lace, because the colours are quite strongly contrasting. Perhaps a 4ply kind of a weight, and then maybe mittens or something. Or I may mix it with some other fibre I already have to eke it out a bit.

All in all a very good weekend 🙂 I woke up at 5.30am yesterday and couldn’t get back to sleep because I was too excited, so I have been enjoying a bit of a quieter day today. Roll on next year, but I shall try and catch up with my sleep before then!

A not-Christmas present for my niece

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In the flurry of excitement of an impending niece in September 2010 I bought rather a lot of yarn for several projects, and didn’t actually have time to make all of it up before she was born. Luckily I had bought enough of the Knits Picks Stroll, 75% superwash merino, 25% nylon in Rouge, to make a cardigan a bit bigger than newborn size. However while I thought I might be able to eek out an 18 month size I wasn’t convinced I had enough for a 2 1/2 year old so thought I had better make something with it this winter.

I decided on the Child Surprise Jacket, it is fun to knit and would be a bit different to a shop bought cardigan. I did actually manage to get most of the knitting done before Christmas, but stalled on the choice of fastening. After having found some suitable buttons in January I actually finished it a couple of weeks ago, and posted it off, and it arrived a few days ago. Last heard it hadn’t been tried on yet, but Jenny was carrying it around like a security blanket, so even if it doesn’t fit it might have its uses 🙂

A fun cardi to knit, but I think it demonstrates that I don’t knit quickly enough to keep up with growing children! I might be sticking with hats for a while.

French treats holiday

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Hello and a Happy New Year! I hope that 2012 will be a fantastic one all round.

At this time of year as the outside is relentlessly dark (though luckily less cold than last year, and at least the rain has stopped) one’s thoughts often turn to summer holidays. This year I am looking forward to being sidekick and knitting helper to Fiona Morris on her French Treats Holiday at Le Vieux Monastère, near to La Rochelle in France, from the 10th to the 17th of June 2012.

From the blurb on Le Vieux Monastère website:

“In 2012 we will be looking at a variety of Patchwork/modular knitting techniques, Bavarian twisted stitch patterns, textured stitches and different edgings” says Fiona. “For those of you who prefer to make projects rather than just knit samples, the stitch patterns will include a beret pattern and a fingerless mittens pattern and the Patchwork knitting can be made into a cushion cover or bag.”

There is detailed information available on what we will be doing each day available in the pdf infopack available on Le Vieux Monastère website. A good balance I think of learning, fun excursions, and time spent knitting and chatting with like-minded new friends.

Fiona has booked our plane tickets and I am already thinking about how much knitting I can get into 20kg of luggage allowance 🙂 I think my clothes will have to be very light 🙂 Places are booking up fast but I think there are still some left at the moment. I am really looking forward to it, I think it is going to be a lot of fun, and it would be lovely to see some of you there if you fancy a knitting holiday this year.

Bonnes vacances! (my French is very rusty – and not that good in the first place – so please feel free to correct me if I have wonky spelling and / or conjugations 🙂 )

Leaf Lace Triange Shawl

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Another finished project which had been on the needles rather a long time.

I started this shawl in May 2010 at Chris Williams’s lace knitting class at Fleet Library. It languished for a while after the small leaves section while I tried to work out how I wanted the rest of the shawl to go.

It halted again for a while towards the end of the beaded leaves while I thought about how to finish it off.

In the end I went for a simple sideways knitted garter stitch edging so that it wouldn’t detract from the rest of the shawl.

I used 3mm needles and 2ply machine knitting soft cotton from Uppingham Yarns. The beads are CC180F – TOHO BEADS 3MM TRANSPARENT RAINBOW FROSTED OLIVINE from E-beads, and I used about 30g altogether. The beads are added using a crochet hook so you add them as you go rather than having to thread them all on the yarn before you start. I managed to lose my 1mm crochet hook while waiting for a dancing class while I was working on this shawl. It was a bit irritating as this hook was part of a set I have had for ages, but luckily I managed to find a replacement fairly quickly which is not a bad fit for the set too.

I need to create more occaisions to wear shawls now 🙂

Devon Fibre Weekend 2011

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On the first weekend in November I picked up Joanne and we trundled down to Devon for a very fun (if somewhat muddy) fibre-y weekend. This year’s weekend was run by Emma rather than Terri and was in a different location to last year, and didn’t include any outings.

On our way down we popped into John Arbon‘s shop in Lynton. John and Juliet were very kind and put up with us despite being in the middle of packing for a big show up in London. Juliet had also measured out some fibre for me before we arrived. I bought 1kg of their organic merino which I plan to dye and spin for a jumper or cardigan soon:

And I couldn’t resist 500g of 75% organic merino, 25% silk.

This is lovely soft stuff.I plan to dye it as well but I am not sure whether to do it in one go, or do several smaller things.

The main reason for going to the shop though was to pick up some more alpaca / merino fibre in Cappuccino to add to the stuff I bought last year, and hopefully give me enough for a cardigan. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of this as I have started spinning it already 🙂

After the shopping we trundled up to the farm to meet everyone. It was lovely to see some familiar faces and meet some new people too.

As well as a healthy amount of spinning, knitting, chatting and cake eating over the weekend we also did some dyeing under the excellent tutelage of Bex, and some people did some felting too.

I dyed 100g of superwash Bluefaced Leicester fibre in a mixture of blues with a bit of purple:

I plan to spin this probably as a 3ply and then knit socks.

And some rather orange silk fibre:

I used red, orange, and yellow dye on this one and was expecting there to be a bit more red. It has come out very orange 🙂 I’m not quite sure what I am going to do with it, but I’m sure I shall think of something 🙂 I haven’t spun much 100% silk yet either, so I am looking forward to that.

Bex also brought along some of her shop stock so I treated myself to a couple of braids of fibre. They are both 150g, 70% superwash merino, 30% nylon:

and

I think these are both destined for socks. Goodness I do seem to be going through a sock phase. I think it could be now that we are into wintery weather, and that my sock drawer is getting a bit depleted. It would work better if I actually got round to knitting the socks though, not just buying yarn and fibre 🙂

All too soon Monday morning came around and we packed everything back into the car and said goodbye. One advantage of leaving on Monday rather than Sunday was that the drive home wasn’t too busy and was all in daylight.

Roll on next year! (I might even try to use up some of the stuff I have bought before then!)

Ally Pally 2011

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I am making good inroads into the catching up and have now got to October!

Mummy came down to stay for a few days and we had a trip over to the Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandra Palace. We went for only one day this year, which was a bit of a push to see everything. I would have liked more time to see the exhibition, and we were very tired at the end. Perhaps two days next year? It is always hard to know in advance how much time will be needed to see everything, it depends so much on who has brought what.

It was a lovely outing as always, great to catch up with people and to see what is new.

Unsurprisingly I came home with a few goodies:

A ball of Jawoll Magic from Lang Yarns:

This is 4ply weight 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon. It is only a singles so I am not sure how well it will stand up to wear. I am planning to make some socks with this so we shall see.

Jawoll Magic Dégradé, another Lang yarn, the same weight and blend as the last, and also a singles.

Admiral by Schoppel Wolle, also the same weight and blend as the other two, although this one is a plied yarn.

I am clearly going through a sock yarn phase 🙂

As well as the lovely yarn I found a few other useful bits and pieces:

Some beautiful buttons from Textile Garden:

Some fun buttons (I think these will be destined for something for my niece who has dual British/US nationality):

And stitch markers from Bev at Knitting 4 Fun:

A beautiful shawl pin from Art Yarn:

Some more pins to use for blocking (I never seem to have enough):

And a daylight bulb which I have already installed in the light fitting above my seat on the settee:

I also bought a stick pin for Mummy for her Christmas present, she chose it so she knows it is something she will like 🙂 but I had wrapped it up and sent it on its way before I remembered to photograph it.

A good day out, and great to catch up with everyone.

Cashmere concertina cowl

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I started this cowl back in October 2010, and it has taken me more than a year to finish despite being a very simple pattern!

It has been my dedicated bottom of the bag knitting that only gets worked on when I am out and about and haven’t brought any other knitting, which explains why it took quite so long.

I’m glad I have finished now and can be wearing it, it is lovely and snuggly and warm, just in time too as the weather has been getting colder.

The yarn is DK weight cashmere from Devon Fine Fibres – it was rather fun to be working on something where I had actually met the animals that produced the fibre! I used 4mm needles and a very simple combination of stocking stitch, reverse stocking stitch and 3×3 rib.

A Christmas hat for Jenny

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I am on a roll with this finishing things! Well at least with finishing small things 🙂

I had some grey yarn left over from when I knitted my niece Jenny a blanket last Christmas, and though that it would be nice to have make her a hat for this Christmas.

The pattern is Limpetiole by Woolly Wormhead. It was a very enjoyable pattern to knit.

The yarn is Knit Picks Swish DK, 100% superwash merino wool, and I used 3.75mm needles. I made the smallest size, and it only took one ball of yarn.

It is now all wrapped up and put in the pile of presents. Hopefully she is still young enough that she is not going to see it here before Christmas 🙂 (she is only one).

A knitted breast

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Back in October I knitted a rather unconventionally coloured breast for my friend Meg to use when she teaches antenatal groups about breast feeding.

She very kindly took its photo as I had managed to post it to her before I remembered to photograph it.

I used 4ply weight acrylic machine knitting yarn, and 3.25mm needles. The pattern I used is here, but I made it in the round so I didn’t have to do a seam, and also did a provisional cast on so that I could easily pick the stitches up to work the back. I think if I made another one I would alter the rate of decreases on the back as the fabric did pucker a bit, but overall it was good fun and will hopefully be useful.