Pottering around...

It's been a strangely busy week or two. I thought I'd be a lot less busy at the end of July this year - the Cambridge Folk Festival has gone by without me this year, due to Kevin and Kate's imminent new addition to the family; and there was this book I wanted to read last weekend - three dribble-cloths and a baby bib's worth, as it turned out.

No spoilers - I know Nic for one hasn't finished it yet - but I enjoyed it immensely.



This weekend I'm knitting up samples for the course I'm teaching next week - it was extremely good fun last year. (There are still places, so if you're at a loose end Wednesday-Friday next week, do follow the link and sign up!)

Have also been finishing the latest Unbloggable Project and contemplating what to do for the next one...



And as a random but pretty image, I was given a phalaenopsis as a present from friends, in honour of something else I can't blog about yet... Looking it up, it turns out to be a Moth Orchid! Nice. I love moths, apart from the tiny minority of UK moths which enjoy yarn as much as I do... one of these appeared on the window on a very rare pleasant evening a couple of weeks ago, and I saw one of these fluttering around near work last Wednesday evening...

And now I need to go and proofread Mrs R.'s written directions for Chart F of MS3...

MS3, stage 3

There's quite a lot of knitting going on here, but most of it of the 'move along, nothing to see' variety. Apart from Mystery Stole 3. Here's Clue 3 roughly blocked. The "shadow of the Cross" effect is slightly creepy, but the light was really bizarre and that's the window-frame in the way... At long last there was enough light to take pictures of the beads, which are subtle but lovely.

The resident inspector seems to approve, anyway.

I made a present for a friend a couple of weeks ago, which has now been handed over, so here's Sue's Pot, drying upside down over the glass jar I use for holding balls of yarn so they don't fly around the floor while I'm knitting. It was made of felted Paterna tapestry wool, a present from Jan a couple of years ago - the colours are gorgeous and it so nearly didn't leave the house...

And this is Sunday night's production - a friend came round with a couple of kilos of jostaberries, and I had a bag of birds' eye chilis left from my Chinese supermarket trip the weekend before, so jelly was made...

A reveal...

This year's first Unbloggable Project has found its home - the baby it's intended for isn't due for a month or so, but Kevin and Kate's baby's shawl has been delivered, opened and oohed and ahed over.... The Cork and Bottle isn't perhaps the most traditional venue for a mini baby-shower (and certainly not a great place for taking photos while people are having a quiet pre-dinner drink)... But here are some in-progress photos - in Big Bag of Washing mode:

The details: the Summer into Fall shawl from Goddess Knits (scroll down this page); knitted centre-out in KnitPicks Bare laceweight (about 150 grammes) using a 4mm/US 6 Addi Turbo (I didn't have my lace needle then).

The finished size was about 52" square after blocking. The second time I've run lifelines in a project, and I'll be doing that again, because I needed to pull back 4 rows at the beginning of the 5th chart, and having to tink them would have been soul-destroying. Apologies for the quality of these pictures - it always helps if there's just a little sun around, and these were being taken about a month ago, when sun was in extremely short supply....

The Christmas-present blocking wires from my parents really came into their own here - no idea how long it would have taken with the old crochet-cotton and pins method, but it was very pleasant to do with the wires...

So, all the very best to Kate for her maternity leave which started yesterday, and to both of them for her house-move which happens today!

A second kiln

So I was walking to the station on the way back from buying the steamer, with it perched precariously on my bike basket, when I bumped into an ex-colleague; after the usual pleasantries he asked what was in the box and I said 'oh, I'm doing some dyeing and I need a second steamer'. And suddenly remembered that awful Barclays ad with the woman who took out a loan for her second kiln, and cringed inside...

But it is a very beautiful steamer; made in Thailand, which you can guess from the jaunty angle of its handles... and a double-layered one, to boot... you can get an idea of the size when you realise that's one of the larger Le Creuset kettles, but thankfully it's extremely light. And pretty, did I mention pretty?

So Anne, Carole, Claire, Debs, Jayne, Rosie and Sue came over in the afternoon, and we dyed; in several phases as there was really only enough space for three to work, but we're all grown-ups


(in theory at least)... If you want to see what Anne has in that bowl, go here...

Here are some skeins drying out (and yes, that is blue sky out there! after a downpour as people were arriving, it all dried out quite nicely)



And here's Jayne posing with her mad laceweight - watch this space for what that might eventually turn into:



I did my usual and mopped up a bit of everything that was left with a skein (of laceweight BFL in this case): here it is hanging on the line in an attempt cunningly to disguise that Garden Design casa Knittingonthegreen is brought to you this year by Tomasi di Lampedusa.


Here it is in Exhibit A mode on the patio table
and lurking in its natural habitat in the honeysuckle/bindweed combo by the washing-line...

After all that, Sue, Rosie, Debs and I went off to Helen's Open Studio, just down the road (my Serene Face pot came from there - here's a pic of it a couple of weeks ago:



We were chatting - and she was talking about her... second kiln... (she is not, I hasten to add, anything like the Dreadful Barclays Woman...)

After that, Sue and I went to the pub for gin and tonic while waiting for our Thai takeaway (thanks, Sue!)

I finished MS3 Clue 2 - but the sheets are washing at the moment - I'll pin it out and admire it later on when they're ready to put back on the bed! I'm probably mad, and wrong, but I'm thinking 'dragon' for the theme at the moment...

The sock has fared less well.

I don't know whether it's knitting lots of lace, or just the 'mediumweightness' of this yarn, but I seem to be knitting socks for the Three Bears at the moment. The first one was at least 12 stitches too big, this one was at least 6 - so I'm now working on 2.5mm needles on 48 stitches, and fully expecting to have something that even Baby Bear couldn't get his foot into... It is, thankfully, not only gorgeous yarn but also very forgiving of repeatedly being ripped out... This time I did at least entertain two yoof at Cambridge station with the frogging...

Socks, steamers and lace addiction

I went down to London on Thursday and needed train knitting for the way back. My visit included an X-ray of my briefcase; the security guy was amused by the sight of a hardly-started toe-up sock in the monitor...

This is the Tequila Phoenix variation of 'Vog on from this time's Knitty. Happily it is actually that variation - I printed out the toe-up version without noticing that I hadn't included the lace pattern, and had to work it out by squinting at the photo (the thought of an 80 minute train journey without knitting being... unappealing), so I'm pleased I got it right! The yarn is Socks that Rock mediumweight in Chapman Springs; previously seen lounging about at the British Library but ripped as I'd managed to make something yeti-sized by accident... This time round it's pooling, but interestingly; I'm hoping that will continue or replicate itself on the other sock, or I may be ripping again!

I'm also finding the second part of Mystery Stole 3 completely addictive - sat down last night to knit 'just a couple of rows' and ended up wrestling myself to bed at the end of row 18 some time later... Whatever it's going to be, it's going to be pretty. And it looks as if there were 6,707 knitters in the group at closing time; huge last-minute surge in membership when the Yarn Harlot and Bonne Marie joined the fun and blogged about it! Sometime in the next day or so I'll get the written instructions for Clue 2 to proofread, but for the moment I'm just really enjoying the knitting... More than the other stole I'm doing, by the same designer, and I'm still trying to work out why...

This morning I'm going out to buy a new steamer (from the Chinese supermarket) and a new supply of latex gloves - members of the Cambridge KTog are coming over to do some dyeing this afternoon!

Good news...

Wet, wet, wet

It's been yet another weird day of bright sunshine and torrential rain: at about 7pm, one bright streak of light appeared on the green... (The brown stuff on the road is lime-blossom, floating in the puddles)



Finally finished something - the ripple-stitch sweater for my colleague Richard's new(ish) baby. One ball of cotton/wool sock yarn (from Jan) with a satisfyingly small amount left over - I wasn't panicked too much about this one now I've got a scale which goes down to 1 gramme increments... (3 grammes left).

The rest of the day was spent at the Fibrefusion (no website yet) summer "do" (the Fitzwilliam Museum and Loch Fyne), and buying clothes for a Thing on Thursday. And trying to stay dry, of course...

And as a final random thought, I'd just like to point to this week's a softer world - it's generally pretty excellent, but this one stuck...

Rainy Saturday

Quite productive, though... I did my library shift, proofread Chart B for the Mystery Stole project, went to Ely to do my shopping (and spent quarter of an hour or so in a pub with smokers, reflecting happily that this was the last time I'd have to air out my knitting when I got home!); armed with new audiobooks, I finished Clue 1 on the stole.



This isn't a great picture - but I'm working it on short straight needles (they're Bryspuns, the points are wonderful, but they're only 10" needles). I have an Addi lace needle on order, but it's probably caught up in the postal backlog...

Back to the baby sweater - before she grows out of it...

Oh, and the Bug clearly approves of the Irish Diamond shawl...

Strange days indeed

I thought I'd be doing the stuff in the middle today now that MS3 has released its first clue; the stuff on the outside, not so much, but it's been immense fun!

MS3

Finally did my swatch for Mystery Stole 3; this is KnitPicks Shadow in Vineyard, a heathery dark purple, swatched on 3.5mm (US4) BrySpun needles. This photo makes it look too orange...






This picture gets the colour more accurately, and has both lots of beads on it. The raku one at the bottom (what I originally thought I'd be using) looks pretty, but doesn't catch the light, and there's not enough sheen on the yarn to make up for that; the two amethyst ones are the same colour as the yarn but glow slightly...





I'm also using these for the Irish Diamond Shawl from Folk Shawls; they're slightly too small for the yarn, so I'm going to try and get some 6/0 in the same colour to finish that one. Here's a picture of the yarn which gets the colour better than the last one:

- on Saturday I went to London and knitted at Stash with Jan and other people I hadn't met before, as well as seeing Michelle and Nic again; and Brigid commented that the last photo made this yarn look much more purple than it is. So does this next one, and the beads don't show up too well, but it's looking good so far, and a present from Jan of an Addi Lace Needle has it whizzing along nicely...




Am working from home today - the pips have just gone to signal the end of my lunchbreak so I'll stop now!

Bit of a find

I've stuck faithfully to the Knitting from my Stash idea all year, apart from my two Official Occasions for Sin at Textiles in Focus and SkipNorth. But when I was in Bury last week with my brother and SIL, I sneaked into the local Hospice Shop. For some reason, Hospice shops seem to be very good for books; but I was confronted with this :
pack of 10 balls for a fiver; and could not resist - I fell. I'm not a great fan of orange, but it is the most beautiful yarn... so I dyed it; and here it is: 2300m of 3-ply - I'm thinking Big Shawl...

Now with knitting content!

I started a new thing - little baby sweater for a colleague's baby, Bethany. To both parents' surprise, this one's a girl; so I thought laciness and pinkness might be in order... It's a feather-and-fan type pattern over a 12 stitch repeat (I'm never sure whether f-and-f has to be over a certain no. of stitches or rows, or whether you need to K2tog all the way along rather than doing half of the decreases as SSK for it to count) , using measurements from the unfailingly good Tadpoles and Tiddlers (I'm not generally a Rowan groupie, but if you buy one pattern book when friends start having children, this really is the one... Looking at my scribblings in the front, this is the 30th jumper I've knitted from this book, whether it's just taking the measurements, just taking a motif or knitting the whole thing as written. Looking at the Rowan site they're doing a special offer, which generally means that's the end of the stock. Most of the yarns are now discontinued, but they're standard DKs, 4plys and arans. OK, enough of an advertisement.)

Yarn for this one is some Meilenweit cotton/wool blend which Jan didn't get on with; in the background, a thankyou note from Lorna for the green jumper with the flower on it - they always send thankyous, and I always keep them...

A couple of photos from last week: my sister-in-law Hazel and brother Dom on the bridge at St John's college during our wander around Cambridge last Monday afternoon;

and St John's Street in Bury St Edmunds last Wednesday lunchtime. We were stunningly lucky with the weather all three days.

And to top and tail this post with knitting; The Unbloggable Project Has Left The Needles.

It's now been replaced by... another Unbloggable Project. It's going to be one of those years...

Long time, no blog

I've been busy. Work has been as insane as it usually is in the middle of June; and I taught all last weekend, and then had my brother and SIL to stay. I'm really looking forward to an evening in, and a weekend where I can sleep late - and at least the house is nice and tidy...

Most of the knitting has been for the course, or the Unbloggable Project (now a very large piece of washing indeed, and 20 rows off the end...). Here's the room during the course last weekend - I was teaching at White House Arts, a lovely venue with extremely friendly owners/organisers and very nice course participants!

Here's one of the samples I produced for the course - short-row circle, two ways of attaching beads, shaping on the needles...

... and here's the very beautiful handmade pendant Caroline Amory, White House Arts' owner and artist in textiles, glass and all sorts of other things, gave me... isn't it gorgeous?

I did a little spinning - there's 88 grammes of this Jacob yarn, and about 100 metres... not the most evenly spun yarn in the world, but I'm reasonably pleased with it and keen to do some more at the weekend...

I also signed up for the Mystery Stole 3 KAL which starts on June 29 and have had fun sorting out yarn and beads for it...

And finally I was really pleased to see that Jan's book 200 Ripple Stitches turned up on the Knitty Cool Stuff page this time round! It's a gorgeous book...

Finished...

I forget that knitting a birthday jumper for a 6-year-old is actually a reasonable-sized undertaking... so I left it way too late, and got sidetracked by an Unbloggable Project, and was still sewing in ends at at 1:30 this morning. But at lunchtime I finished sewing, and made the neckband, and this evening neckband and buttons were sewn on; and if we can co-ordinate, it'll get to the birthday girl on The Day, tomorrow...

I wish I'd had time to wash this - stranded stuff (I wrongly labelled this as intarsia last time, but actually it's more Fair-Isle) usually 'sits' better after a wash. But it's not as if it's going to be worn more than a couple of times before washing, anyway...

It's been a hell of a week at work, so a Nice Bright Finished Object with matching card is a cheery finishing note... full speed into the weekend now!

Drying out...

... briefly, before the next lot of forecast rain ...

About the only advantage of having Tuesdays off (it's a daft day, really) is when there's a Bank Holiday Monday - the extra day always feels very decadent. I've been sitting drinking tea, thinking about all the housework I ought to have been doing, but actually listening to a rather fabulous Georgette Heyer romance on CD, sewing in ends on the front of the sweater

and knitting sleeves (keeping them in step because some of the yarns are in short supply...)

and spinning up some of the Jacob fleece I washed at the beginning of the month.

Not expertly spun, I know, but it was fun to do, and practice makes perfect and all that... this is the first bobbin, and while it does still have some bits of straw and so on in it, a satisfying amount came out during carding and spinning...

But there's no pleasing some - Bug has sat around disconsolately waiting for the rain to stop...

Some spring colour

... in the absence of anything other than green and grey out of the window. It's been chucking it down steadily here for two days, which is traditional for a Bank Holiday but still...


Avant le déluge, I went off to Kings Lynn and had a lovely morning full of bargains; I bought stripy things...

Two towels I couldn't resist; a sheet of fancy paper for making book covers and the like...

I bought flowery things:

My favourite perfume, usually all-but-unobtainable here, in special edition and ridiculously reduced in price, and some more pretty book-cover paper (if only this had been fabric...)

And there's a lot of knitting going on round here but most of it's both secret and unexciting to photograph (pictures of a Slightly Larger Heap of Crumpled Stuff not being guaranteed to rivet the attention). But look, a Pretty Thing!

More flowers, for Lorna (for a change, the colours are pretty accurate here). I took the Marigold chart from the tote-bag recipe in IK Summer 2006 and it's looking very pretty, although it's reminding me of why, although Intarsia sounds like an attractive Mediterranean island, it's not one I'm keen to visit too often. I did some more last night after taking this picture and am over halfway there now... Stripy sleeves to go, which should be fun DVD-watching knitting...