Wednesday WIP

I seem to be constantly chasing my tail at the moment, and today is no exception.  The weather has been utterly gorgeous the past few days, and I completely forgot that it was Wednesday today!

First up a very quick sneak peek at some recent books…

And a quick hexipuff update… I had the huge pleasure of working with a skein of Noro yuzen last week, and it was a joy seeing each ‘puff emerge a different colour as I worked through the yarn.

I was sad to see it finish!  I’m now knitting with a gorgeous silk and seaweed yarn, more on that next week.

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Wednesday WIP

I hope you’re all keeping warm during this unseasonal cold snap – it really is bitterly cold out there at the moment!  I’ve been keeping warm indoors by spending most of my time frantically decorating over the past week, but have also squeezed in some time for knitting.

At the Spring Knitting & Stitching Show (which ran from 14th-17th March at London Olympia) I fell in love with a bag by Toft Alpaca.

Gorgeous, isn’t it?  Unfortunately it was well out of my price range, coming in at a grand total of £122.  Ouch!  However, the very helpful woman running the stall told me that they sell kits (which include the yarn, pattern, kntting needles and giant button) for £100.  That’s still pretty expensive in my book, and frankly if I had that much money to spend on a kit then I might as well spend the extra £22 to get someone to knit it for me.  Mercifully she also said that they sell the pattern and buttons on their own.  Aha!  I left the show that day and immediately started the hunt for a suitable yarn substitute.

A yarn substitute was the most important part of the planning process, as it’s the cost of the Toft yarn that’s the real killer.  It’s beautiful, and it’s proper alpaca yarn bred and manufactured here in the UK… but it’s £25 per 200g ball.  The pattern reckons you need 800g of their chunky wool… you do the maths.

So I needed to find a pure wool, suitable for felting, which was of the same weight (the Toft stuff is labelled ‘chunky’ but is actually more like ‘super chunky’).  I hunted around online and eventually found some yarn I thought would work, so I ordered some of that (more than I thought I’d need, just in case!), then went to the Toft site and ordered the pattern, button and needles.  I then waited rather impatiently for everything to be delivered.

I’ll be honest, the knitting needles scared me a bit when they first arrived – they’re HUGE!  Still, despite some awkwardness to start with I soon got to grips with them and discovered that the pattern was very quick to knit.

I did have to use a small carabiner as a stitch marker, but that just adds to the charm of the project I think.

 

When I’d finished the pattern the bag was enormous and very loose… but not to worry, this bad boy was going in the washing machine for fulling/felting.  It went in for one wash at 40 degrees, and this is how it came out:

It had shrunk a bit, but not enough, so it went back in for a second wash at 60 degrees.

Much better.  I then stuffed it with carrier bags to help shape it, and hung it over a radiator to dry, and then once it was dry I added the giant button.

I love it.  It’s turned out beautifully, and although it’s more textured than the Toft bags I do actually prefer it this way.  It was really good fun to knit, and a wonderful birthday present as my lovely fella paid for the yarn and notions for this project.  My birthday isn’t until April, but hey – if you have to knit your own present you might as well have it early!

I enjoyed the knitting of this project so much that I’ve since made and felted a second, and currently have a third one on the needles.  As soon as that last one is finished I’ll post another update, and will also be adding them to my shop as a bit of a change from notebooks

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Wednesday WIP

I’m juggling quite a few projects at the moment, and have been kept so busy I’ve not had time to blog properly, which is a wee bit frustrating!  The biggest project is redecorating/revamping my sitting room, which is going to take about a month (I need to do it in stages or it will be utter chaos as this is a very small house), and I will blog about that once it’s properly finished.

One of the things about decorating is that you inevitably have to declutter as you go.  This is no bad thing, particularly when you’re as much of a hoarder as I am.  Amongst the many, many, many random bags of stuff I found a bag of knitted blanket squares.  It’s been so long since I made them that I can’t remember when I started that particular project, but I’d hazard a guess that it was at least four years ago.

That’s as far as I got with that particular blanket, and I abandoned it because it took so long for me to knit a single square – I’m very slow with regular knitting needles (although I’m very speedy with DPNs, strange but true), and although the cream squares are just plain garter stitch, the brown ones are patterned.

Yup, that’s a paw print!  So, what to do with this bag of squares?  I could have frogged them all, but I already have too much spare yarn in the house, so I decided it would be quicker to just knit one more square (mercifully it was a cream one) and then sew the whole lot together…

It’s a teeny tiny blanket, no use to a human, but I’m going to put it away safely and hopefully one day it will be a blanket for a pup of my very own!

My hexipuffs have been shelved temporarily as I’ve been completely distracted by a brand new project.  I’ll elaborate on this next week, but in the meantime here’s a sneak peek at the tools and materials that I’m using…

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Wednesday WIP

I have a shiny new phone, so this post is as much about testing how easy it is to blog from the phone as it is about a work in progress.  Over the past few days I’ve been taking a break from bookbinding to play with my sewing machine…

… hopefully I’ll have something to show for my efforts soon!

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Wednesday WIP

It’s been a while since I blogged about knitting or crochet, and in the absence of any recent bookbinding (thanks to being on holiday for a week!) it’s about time I did a knitting catch up.

At the beginning of April last year I started work on the Beekeeper’s Quilt and was making pretty good progress as, just seven weeks on, I hit the hundred mark.  Progress sadly stalled a bit after that as I got distracted by other projects, and although I’d managed to knit a total of 160 hexipuffs by mid-October I didn’t really do much after that (although I did have a short surge of productivity in early December, when I got some new yarn…)

Last week, after I got back from the seaside, I had the urge to get knitting again.  I’m not sure what brought it on, but I’ve been knitting like fury since then and now have 178 hexipuffs… and as that’s almost half way I thought it was about time I laid all the ‘puffs out to see how they look so far.

Looking pretty good, eh?  The random ‘puffs knitted with scraps of Noro fit in well with the main colours, and I think the whole lot is broken up nicely by the flower puffs (some of which are still plain cream at the moment – I’m waiting for the right mood to strike and then I’ll spend an evening working on those!).

So, almost halfway there, and if I still intend to complete the quilt within a year then I need to get a move on!  Can I knit around 200 hexipuffs between now and the start of April?  I’m not sure if I can, as that would mean making something like thirty ‘puffs a week… hmm… quite a challenge, wish me luck!

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Blanket cape

I don’t think I’ve made an item of clothing since I was 18 or 19, when I made a velvet bodice to wear to a Romeo & Juliet ball.  Sewing has never really been my forte, and it has to be said that the bodice was beautifully embroidered but otherwise very poorly put together as I did the whole lot by hand.

This year I’ve got to grips with sewing machines.  I’m still not brilliant, but I’ve come to really appreciate how much more quickly projects can be completed, and also the range of things that can be done.  Over the past fortnight I’ve used my machine to sew paper, leather and cloth!  I’ll be writing about the leather and paper projects later in the week, but for now here’s a cloth-based one I’d like to show off.

I stumbled across a tutorial by Reese Dixon and loved the finished cape she’d made, and was quite keen on making one but didn’t have a spare blanket… until I took a wander along Portobello Market Friday before last and managed to pick up a rather lovely one for the grand sum of £4.

It really was a good blanket, pure wool and very thick.  A little too thick, truth be told, but I liked the colour so decided to plough ahead with the project anyway.

I followed Reese’s instructions, and it really was trial and error with the fitting, but I got there eventually.  Sewing it together, even with a machine, was a bit fiddly as the blanket was so thick that a double layer would barely fit beneath the foot of the machine, but I persevered and eventually got it done.  One regret is that I didn’t have any brown bias tape, so used a beige-coloured tape instead which works ok but doesn’t quite blend in.  I may replace the edging at some point if I pick up something in a better colour.

Do you want to see it?…

It looks good, doesn’t it?  It should be perfect for throwing on if I’m going out for a ride on my bike as it’s not too cumbersome, allows freedom of arm movement, but should still keep me warm when I’m stationary.  I’ve got a few offcuts of blanket left and I’m currently contemplating adding a pocket to it, just because pockets are always useful.

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Mobius scarf

Last Wednesday I ‘fessed up to having started a new crochet project, and although it was an expensive spur-of-the-moment project it was also, mercifully, a quick one.  The pattern is straightforward, and it was a pleasure to do something which came together so quickly (near-instant gratification is not to be sniffed at).

I mentioned in my WIP post that my flowers had come out smaller than the ones in the pattern, and as such I had to lengthen my rows across the length of the scarf, meaning that my scarf is made up of 50 flowers instead of 34 – but what’s sixteen extra flowers between friends?

It’s so pretty, but I’m already drowning in scarves so I will have to find a home elsewhere for it!

Yarn info: 2.5 skeins of Noro Silk Garden Lite (shade: 2048).  45% silk, 45% kid mohair, 10% lamb’s wool.

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Adventures in quilting – part 3

It’s been a long time since I did any quilting (the last occasion being a mini quilt for my bears), but back in March I decided I wanted to make a quilt for my fella’s nephew.  He’s nuts about Dr. Who so the theme was easy to choose, and I bought some great Dr Who themed fabrics from Spoonflower.  That was a while ago… the fabrics arrived and I put them away safely and as I’m off sick at the moment I finally got round to paying them some proper attention.

Having already learned the hard way that you should always iron fabric before cutting it (see here) I spent quite a lot of Wednesday morning with an iron in one hand and a frown on my face.  It was worth it though as I got the squares cut and stitched together pretty easily after that.

As you can see, I decided to use the patterned fabrics sparingly, and used a plain cotton (in a shade called 30s Yellow, from this seller) which I thought showed off the patterns nicely.  By the end of Wednesday I had sewn all the squares together and the quilt top was finished.

This morning I hauled my poorly self up to Hobbycraft in search of wadding/batting – they’d had a rush on, I was the fourth customer before 11am to buy some!  I also picked up some red cotton to use as the backing.

 

After yet more ironing I laid out the back, the wadding and the top and basted them together with pins before taking the whole lot down to the studio…

…where I discovered that quilting on a small machine, in a small space, is tricky to say the least, and requires quite a lot of faffing around.  I had to roll the quilt up so that I could get it on the machine, and keep rolling/unrolling as I went along.  Plus more faffing as my desk butts right up against the wall of the studio, so I’d get so far and have to (you guessed it) roll the damn thing another way so I could keep going.

Another problem I had was that I can’t lower the tracks (dogs?) on this sewing machine, so they kept gripping the backing fabric.  As a result it’s not quite as smooth at the back as I would have liked, but probably no one except me will notice!

Several hours, and almost 200m of cotton thread later, the quilt was finished.

Pretty quick, but that’s because there’s not that much in the way of quilting.  I stitched in the ditch across the whole thing, then sat back and looked at it for a while trying to decide what to do next… and went for the very simple option of criss-crossing each of the yellow squares whilst leaving the patterned ones alone.  Partly for aesthetic reasons, and partly because this quilt is for an eight year old, and I could just imagine him asking why the dalek has got lines all across it.  As it stands I think it works really well: the red thread shows up beautifully on the yellow fabric, and there’s nothing to detract from the Dr Who-ness of the other squares.  The edge of the quilt is simply the red backing fabric folded over the front and hemmed (not as neatly as I wanted in places, because the backing wasn’t perfectly flat).  Simple, but striking

This will now be folded up and kept safely until Christmas, and I will have to report back then and tell you what young Archie thinks of it!

I’m glad this little project is finished, it’s given me a bit more confidence with quilting, and also taught me the limitations of my sewing machine.  The quilt I started making earlier this year (see here) is still languishing in pieces, but I will have to finish it at some point, and it’s going to be a much bigger quilt than this.  I need to get over my fear and use my mother’s scary industrial sewing machine instead, as it’ll be really important to keep the backing fabric from ruching up on such a large quilt, and I’ll also struggle to get the whole thing through my little machine as I’d like to use fleece as the backing fabric for extra snuggliness and I don’t think the little machine will cope with the additional thickness.  I’ll report back in a few months as I need to shelve quilting once more and go back to some of my other projects first.

 

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Feather and fan

Way back in July I started working on a shawl.  It’s been a while since I made anything as large as that (in a single piece – blankets don’t count!), and equally as long since I did anything in lace.

When I was about a quarter of the way through I remembered why.  Knitting lace takes forever (well, for me it does!), and I only finished the darn thing last week.  I think it’s been at least three years since I last knit a shawl and it’s likely to be another three years until I even think about doing another one!  It’s not that it’s particularly arduous, I do at least have the sense to pick an easy pattern, but it’s dull.

I suppose you’d like to see it?  I’ve put work-in-progress shots up at intervals since I started it, but here’s the finished object.

I’m pleased with it, it’s been an easy knit, just a four row pattern repeat so nothing complicated to deal with, but it’s just taken so long to finish.

I found that one of the perks of this pattern is that it’s easy to fix mistakes.  I ended up a few times with too few stitches, but added the missing ones back into the next row with no discernable trace.  If you fancy giving it a go then the pattern can be found here.  I used a laceweight yarn instead of the one the pattern recommends, but for a very good reason: this shawl will soon be winging its way across the world to Indonesia.  It’s for one of my aunts, and they don’t really need woolly shawls there!  This one is lovely and light and should keep the chill of air conditioning off her whilst not being too bulky when she’s outside.

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Fibre East 2012

Last weekend saw Fibre-East come to Scald End Farm again, and I visited it on the Saturday but sadly the rain had got there first.  The event is held in a field, and although the stalls are all inside marquees the ground was absolutely sodden and standing still too long in any one place meant sinking into the mud…

… so, I didn’t take lots of photos of the event, and in fact was mainly concerned with the abundance of prettiful things.  I spent far too much money, but did come home with lots of goodies.

Lots of yarn, as you’d expect.  Most of this is destined to be turned into hexipuffs, but I may well be picking up my needles to make a shawl too.  I was also tempted into buying a Rakestraw Spinner…

… and of course that meant I could investigate the many, many types of roving available…

It was a really lovely day, marred only by the rain and mud.  It was my first trip to Fibre-East but it certainly won’t be my last!

I’ve had a chance to play with some of my purchases, and first up were these teeny skeins from Pure Tinctoria

They’re not full mini-skeins (which are usually 10g or 20g skeins), these are teeny skeins which Alison has made up using samples from her dying process.  I couldn’t resist them though, and thankfully I bought two which turned out to be just enough to make one hexipuff.

The colours are lovely, and I think it would be great if Pure Tinctoria were to offer full mini skeins of their various yarns.

The only other thing I’ve had a chance to play with since Saturday has been the Rakestraw Spinner.  It’s incredibly easy to use, and it took a very short time to spin the painted Shetland tops that my friend Dawn treated me to.

My first attempt came out quite uneven and lumpy, but my second attempt was far better.

I’ve just finished spinning the last of the painted Shetland tops, and later on I’ll wind it into a skein like the others and soak it to set the twist.  The first little skein is set and dried but is a bit too chunky so I’ll save that for later.  The second skein is drying at the moment, and once it’s dried out I shall try knitting a hexipuff with it!

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