Mouton-cadeau + Mouton-Cadet = Mouton: Cadet!

I thought I was having a grown-up day. Not entirely grown-up; but we bought furniture, and didn't buy too many pink things, and most of the pink things weren't for us... (and do pink Pyrexes count? I think not...)

BUT then I went to Ely (despite one of Stagecoach's better moments, where the bus driver went straight past me despite my being at the stop, with my hand out, in broad daylight... and the subsequent dash for my bike and to the station...); and although I was meant to be giving presents (and EJ, can you take a photo of Miss M in the jumper when it fits? I've just realised I have no record of it whatsoever), I also received one... After an evening comprising wine, cider, deep-fried goats' cheese with onion marmalade, some very good chips and some extremely bad punning, I introduce Cadet the sheep...

Here, in "across the bonnet" Motor Show pose.

Here in relaxed "I'm glad you asked me that, Jeremy..." mode

And I think this is some sort of homage to Dolores.

A bit of a sort out

Thanks to a very kind friend (thanks, Suzanne!) I made it to the glories of Dunelm Mill at Huntingdon this morning. They didn't have quite what Suzanne was wanting, but they did have a lot of other interesting things - her girls are going to love their PVC ice-cream-pattern aprons when they're done - and when we eventually found it (having given up), the chest of drawers on their website looked as good close-up as it did on the site. After an unnecessary amount of to-ing and fro-ing, we got it into the car and brought it home... I am a bit of a fan of the FLYLady, although you really wouldn't guess it from the normal state of my house; but I do like her dictum that you can do anything for 15 minutes. I went for 15 minutes on that, and 15 minutes on finishing up something urgent... and it seemed to work - here are the stages starting from 0 minutes...

And because this sort of thing always fascinates me; the things in the drawers...

1: the ballwinder, underneath that is a spindle. When I find my yardage-measuring-thing, I'll put that in there as well...

2: a purple box (thanks, Jan!) containing my smaller DPNs and a small number of circular needles which haven't made it to the Big Purple Circular Case, which is squished underneath it (thanks, Nina!)

3: the next half dozen sock projects

4: skein of laceweight (Cherry Tree Hill in Fall Foliage) I can't bear to consign to the lace box in the loft; three balls of DK weight self-patterning - maybe a Baby Surprise Jacket?

5: the current Guilt-Inducing WIP bag, and a bag of oddments of sock yarn...

6: the next two blankets. The Hemlock Ring Blanket hit me hard...

7: St Brigid. She will be finished this winter. She will, she will...

Anyway I'm really pleased with it; and it was as a result of a bit of a windfall (thanks, parents!)

The question Not To Ask around here at the moment, though, is 'what happened to all that crap you took out of that corner'? Because I'm going out to knit at the Lamb with EJ (who is living rather than blogging at the moment), and I still have a very belated birthday present to sew up, and I've only got an hour, and I'm not listening, anyway!!

The aim with the chest though is to finish up the WIPs which are out in the living room in baskets, and start on the ones in the chest, and gradually getting to store WIPs in the chest. Bwaahahahaahahahaha, I hear you cry. But I have an ulterior motive for this. Have for some time. I just can't tell you.

August knitting II

The second finished object in August was another Pink Lemon Twist stole, the famous Mystery Stole 3.

It was a lovely thing to knit and these blocking photos really don't do it justice... I fell behind for a couple of weeks in the middle because I was teaching at the Summer School, and that also coincided with the 'pas de chat' lace in the middle section (on the left here);

but I was ready for the last chart when it was released, and short-rowing the wing at one end was lovely...

Then the poor thing sat around for a week or so waiting to be blocked...

The whole enterprise seemed more than a little mad, particularly once I'd roped myself in for proofreading Mrs R.'s Special Charts and was having strange conversations about abbreviations at odd hours of the day! But it was great fun imagining all those people knitting along at approximately the same time; and Melanie providing the beautifully-charted pattern, and an immense amount of support, to thousands of knitters, was a superb act of generosity...

I used Knitpicks Shadow in the Vineyard colourway - would have got away with two skeins but I lengthened it during Clue 4 so needed a small amount of a third skein... and 3.5mm needles. I started off on Bryspun straights, but couldn't resist the urge to spread the thing out and look at it at every opportunity, so ordered myself an Addi lace needle... The yarn was utterly beautiful to knit with - spongy and fine at the same time...

August knitting I

Some knitting did get done in August - and was blocked - just not blogged. Both were designs by Melanie Gibbons





First up, Hanami - in a not-exactly-cherry-blossom colour. I was puzzling over this one - I wanted to make a birthday stole for my mother, but she's not a pastel person. Then I noticed the pierced-wood wastebasket by the PC, and wondered if it would look like that at one end,
and like lotus-wood at the other...



I was pleased with the results, anyway! The only modification I made was right at the end - somehow the frill didn't feel extreme enough to me, so I did an extra set of increases to give 4 times the original number of stitches, and beaded the cast-off. You can just about see that here, but it's pretty subtle.

I did have one small disaster - half-an-hour into blocking really isn't the time to find that dropped K2tog a couple of hundred rows back!!

But ten minutes with a crochet hook and some judicious darning have rendered it almost invisible...

Happy Birthday, Bug

The Bug (officially Jarrahkatt Aimee, unofficially Jarrahkatt Amelia Peabody, Amelia, Mealybug or Bug) is 6 today. Which means, I believe, that she's (just) overtaken me in cat-years... She wears them well...

The fun thing about Norwegian Forest Cats is that they change so much with the seasons. Here's Amelia in full winter fig in early March ...



... and here she is in the Summer Short-Haired Version, this evening.


Some of my neighbours are convinced I have two similar cats...

Happy Birthday, Bug.

Small shopkeeper

I kept thinking of Reg Ingley, the original small shopkeeper in On the Town with the League of Gentlemen, while finally setting up my Etsy shop this weekend. I've got some DK and some sock yarn, and a skein of laceweight for sale... and it all fits in two baskets.





I'm at http://knittingonthegreen.etsy.com/ - do go and have a look and tell me what you think (and what I'm missing)! A very nice lady in Texas has already bought some DK from me...

Going over to the dark side...

Not my phrase - one of Jan's...

Look - crochet!!



The pattern's one of Jan's too, from her Encyclopedia of Crochet - the lace scarf has always fascinated me, and I managed to order Shepherd's Sport rather than Shepherd's Sock in an Internet order, so this seemed like the opportunity. I'm not sure the yarn's right for the lacy pattern, but it's gorgeous to work with, and I'm almost incomprehensibly actually having the right number of stitches in the rows so far...

I have various other things to show, but am completely shattered at the moment - something to do with this cold, grey weather probably, along with a weekend away - so I'll catch up at the weekend. After the Peterborough beer festival on Saturday, anyway...

A plea...

It's National Moth Night.

All week, there have been the usual radio news reports about moths as these pesky beasts which just gnaw on your stuff. Woman's Hour has done it; the Today Programme did it this morning... (although Carolyn Quinn did say moths just gave her the creeps, rather than that she'd beat them to death for the sake of her cashmere sweaters, which is, frankly, one better than Woman's Hour).

As the nice entomologist on Today this morning said, there are 2, or maybe 3, species of moth in the UK which chew yarn/clothes; and we have 2-3,ooo species of moths harmlessly flying around, day and night, minding their own business; some of them will come in to see what we're doing if we leave the windows open and the lights on... Strangely, so will local teenagers, but we don't instinctively try to slaughter them with a rolled-up newspaper...


Let's have a look at a few I've seen flying round the village this summer (not my photos)...

A Hummingbird Hawkmoth [seen feeding on the trumpet vine on the guesthouse opposite]

A Silver Y - dozens in the garden any fine night. No prizes for how they got their name.

A cinnabar moth; another day-flier and seen at the station yesterday morning.

Let's hear it for the other 99.9% which give us colour, and beauty, and biodiversity...

Here endeth the lesson.

The kindness of (relative) strangers

So, I taught a course last week, and in the main it went very well... If I'd had the energy over the weekend to unpack my bags, I'd have some samples to show you; another time... Here - look - pretty cat!

I had to advertise for lifts to and from the college at short notice, but thankfully I'm a member of CamLETS; and Judith and Anna stepped up and were wonderful about not only driving me around but also helping with boxes and bags... And my neighbour Ian was on a drawing course and gave me a lift back on the Thursday; and completely beyond the call of duty, drove me there on the Friday despite his course having finished...

Meanwhile Sue has good news on her prospective new flat/house (Sue needs a blog; she's crocheting up a storm these days...) and I went to London and ticked another box in my Unbloggable Non-Knitting Project...

(This is the statue of Oliver Cromwell outside the Houses of Parliament - there's something of the Snape about him...)

And these arrived from Art Van Go

in the usual good time, for this Saturday's second KTog dyeing session.

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...