Making Monday: Christmas is coming...

Winter vomiting disease has been and - hopefully - gone in our house now, so normal service is resumed. I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say the washing machine got quite a work out....

Despite it all, there has been plenty of Christmas crafting this year. I don't know why I've started so early, or been so organised about it. Who knows? But - without wishing to boast - the christmas basket is starting to brim with handcrafted goodies all made from stuff I was hoarding  the stash. So far I have made:

• three pairs of socks (one adult; two child);
• two men's hankies (upcycled from an old shirt);
• three quilts for a dolls bed (also upcycled from various shirts and sheets);
• and one pair of handwarmers.

Here are a few shots of these projects...



In the midst of all this I have also made a pair of socks for my brother's birthday (happy birthday boy!), a cowboy/Woody style waistcoat for a 5 yr old's birthday (happy birthday Digby!) and a baby hat for a newly hatched sister belonging to one of the bean's friends.

Here are the birthday socks...

pattern: generic top down

yarn: German sock yarn, bought at Peebles show in 2010.

You'll have to wait for pics of the other things. The baby hat and socks for the jelly bean will be worth waiting for - they are knit in that fab Berocco sock yarn I had for my birthday. It's gorgeous stuff and I'm just hoping there will be enough left to make some socks for me!

But, now all that's finished, I'm not quite sure what to do next. Someone at work is expecting twins in the new year and I was thinking about making some weeny jackets for them; I've got a Clothkits dress for the jelly bean languishing somewhere, and various plans for dressing up clothes to add to our dressing up basket, plus a friend that I owe a hat .... Any suggestions? Perhaps a glass of sloe gin will help? It can't hurt, can it?

Making Monday: Simply stripey sock recipe

For this Making Monday, I have been writing a recipe to share. Let me know what you think!  

I like to make the most of my sock yarn, even when there are only a few grammes left, and after seeing the grumperina knit stripey socks a while ago, I have developed her technique for my own ends to make simply stripey socks. This is how I do it:

1. Have a good rummage in the stash, and choose some sock yarns in complementary colours/shades.

2. Weigh the yarn and make sure there is enough to make a pair of socks. (I know that I need at least 50g to make a pair of plain vanilla socks in my size). If there isn't, then go back to step one and rummage some more.

2. Divide any small balls into two roughly equal portions.

3. Cast on in the usual way and knit the sock cuff using one of the yarns. In this instance, because there is a lot of green and not much of the others, then I am using the green as the 'main' colour.

4. When the cuff is the required length, start on the leg of the sock. Introduce your additional yarns/colours at this point.

A. If there are only two colours/yarns, then work the first round in the new colour and then go back to the main colour for the second round, then revert to the new colour for round three. Continue knitting in this way, alternating colours/yarns until the leg of your sock is the required length.

Joining the second yarn after the cuff

B. If you have three colours/yarns to work with (as I have here), then join the first colour at the beginning of the round, AND then join the second colour the next time you change needles. Continue knitting in that colour until you encounter the main colour again (at the end of the round). Pick this up and knit until you meet the tail of the first colour and then knit with that one.

If you find yourself with all of your yarn tails at the same point, all you need to remember is to ALWAYS knit with the LOWEST yarn available. In the picture below, this means taking the paler green yarn (on the left).

I find knitting these stripes really addictive, and once I've started it's hard to stop - although I do break from time to time to admire the effect. One of the yarns I'm using here is a self-striping one, changing from cream to green and back again.

Keep knitting until the leg is the desired length and prepare for the heel flap. I knit this in one colour - in this case, the same colour as the cuff, so I make sure that the yarns are in the right place. The spare yarns should be 'parked' just before the heel flap, as shown below.

Heel flap and yarn on left (front) needle; spare yarns parked on right (back)needle.

Continue knitting the heel flap in the normal way until you start to pick up the stitches along the side of the flap. You should find that as you come to pick up stitches on the second side of the heel flap that you encounter your spare yarns again. As always, work with the lowest yarn available and use this to pick up the stitches on the second side of the heel flap. 

Work the foot and toe of the sock in your usual way, alternating yarns as you did before for as long as you want or are able. I often use quite small quantities of yarn for my stripes, so sometimes only the leg of the sock is striped, while the rest is plain. The possibilities are endless! Here are few examples...

Slooooow progress

Grace is still on the needles. The back is almost done, but so is the yarn and my optimism about having enough to fnish it now seems misplaced. Heaven only know what I'll do to complete the collar and button bands... oh well. On the plus side, it seems pretty big as age 3-4, so it should fit the intended recipient for a while yet!

In other news, we helped a young friend of ours celebrate her 4th birthday last weekend. The bean and I made her this lovely card. We also gave her a copy of one of our favourite books: 'Iggy Peck, architect' which the bean received for his 4th birthday. It has some fabulous rhymes, and great illustrations - and is perfectly suited to the daughter of a trained (if not practising) architect. Happy birthday Ruby.

In the spirit of ongoing discussions about going off-grid and supporting the local economy, we bought the book in a real bookshop. You know one that you actually physically go to,  and where you can touch and read the books before you buy them! It was lovely, and as an added bonus DH found a lovely book for his dad's birthday - something always to give thanks for, so we heartily recommend the Edinburgh bookshop if you are ever in Bruntsfield/Morningside or Edinburgh for that matter... [As I was holding a sleeping toddler, I was unable to rifle very effectively through the craft books, of which there is a nice selection. looks like I need a return trip...]

Finally, in terms of the lenten aspirations: I have made 3 loaves of bread; been out on my bike twice; been to Pilates classes once a week and generally managed to keep myself off the biscuits, cakes and chocolate (except on Sundays of course). No sewing to report (except sewing on a button and reattaching some elastic in my pyjama trousers), and a bit more knitting. Things should get a bit easier from now on because teaching (but not marking) for this semester is now over, and some other project deadlines have also passed, so the mountain of work is no longer so mountainous. Phew. And, summer time is here to boot, so a chance perhaps to get out in the garden in the evening and continue the work sowing and growing.

Home Alone...

It's Saturday and the sun is shining weakly outside. My husband and children are elsewhere and I am all alone. I should be in the garden, trying to unwreak the havoc therein, and getting ready to plant seeds and bulbs and things to eat in the coming months. But inside, looking at a computer screen, trying to catch up with work or get ahead or somehow effect some change in my never-ending list of things to do and the blizzard of emails that fall thickly into my mailbox each day. So am trapped and free all at the same time.

I might, just might, have spent a few minutes searching in my stash for some more yarn for Grace. I found little bit more, but as I still haven't finished the fronts and the yoke seems to be eating yarn, I am more and more sure that the yarn will run out. I may even have to unravel my tension square, except that it's not very big and wouldn't help very much... The trouble is there is nothing else in my stash that I can use to make up for the missing yardage. Rats. Looks like I might have to go shopping....

Children's parties

Although his birthday was at the end of January, last weekend we celebrated the bean's 4th birthday with a proper birthday party. There were grandparents, there were friends, there were balloons, there were candles and cake and presents. And, we all had a lovely time (phew).

Much as I aspire to lead the sort of crafterly life that leads to serene parties in which calm children play party games, participate in well chosen craft activities, and take home a hand-stitched party bag packed full of homespun craft and baking goodness, my life just isnt like that (sigh).

So, this is what we did. We opted for a bouncy castle party at a local leisure centre. The room hire/charges were modest, and gave us 2 hours of fun - an hour or so bouncing/playing in the sports hall and an hour or so in a separate room for our party food. The bouncy castle was more of a bouncy assault course than a castle, so children went in one end, and after negotiating various pillars/slopes, slid out of the other end - hopped off the mat, ran round and repeated until they were hot and bothered.  

As well as that, the hall had some footballs, tennis rackets and a couple of space hoppers - and we took a basket of toys for some of our younger friends which we spread on a couple of quilts/blankets. Surprisingly some of the older children sat down to play/read after a while - and it seemed that having a variety of activities on offer worked very well.

In terms of food, we laid the table in good time, and put out bowls/platters for children (and/or their mums) to serve themselves. Everything was finger food - sandwiches, hula hoops (these seem to be very, very popular), sausages, mini cheese portions, carrot sticks, cucumber sticks, cherry tomatoes, grapes and satsumas. I worked on the basis of allowing 1 or 2 pieces/portions per child - knowing that individual preferences would mean that some would eat sandwiches/cheese and some wouldn't. I also opted for foods which would be familiar to most children - so slightly more exotic things like olives, pineapple and kiwi fruit were not included. The only exception to my portion estimation was the hula hoops. I bought a multi-pack and put them all out.

We kept the cake/sweet things off the table until most of the savouries had been eaten. Then we offered home-baked cookies, blueberry muffins and of course birthday cake. I did this very deliberately, having seen what happens when chocolate biscuits are on the table next to ham sandwiches, and when one child puts 10 chocolate fingers on their plate they all do! I was also very deliberate about avoiding chocolate and commercial cakes/biscuits - nothing moral here, I just thought there would be enough sugar/sweetness on offer without them. And so it seemed. There were no complaints. Most of the food was eaten, everyone seemed to have enough to eat and there was very little left over to take home. My last (inspired) decision was to take a pack of baby wipes for wiping sticky fingers and faces. It was a good one.

As you can imagine, the party hiatus meant that there has not been much knitting in the last few days. But the deadline for the third birthday is getting a bit near, and grace is moving slowly (but gracefully?) forwards. I started with the sleeves, which I'm knitting at-the-same-time, and last night I managed to get to the final series of shapings at the top of each sleeve, so it feels like progress is being made. I'm slightly concerned about running out of yarn though, because I'm knitting with some yarn from a charity shop jumper which I unravelled a couple of years ago. It's about a DK weight, with 50% wool, and has a sparkly lurex strand to make it just a weeny bit shiny and bling - and there should be enough - it was an adult sweater and I'm knitting a child's cardigan, but you know how it is. the internal knitting curmudgeon isnt quite convinced. To counter the running out feeling, I will of course, do the thing every other knitter does in this situation - just knit faster.

New Year New Knitting New Babies

Happy New Year!

It's been a whirlwind start to the year. I'm teaching again so there is lots of thinking and reading and preparing and photocopying and tinkering with the university VLE going on. And, there has been plague in this house. I am the only one not to have succumbed and the only one not to have antibiotics. DH is still laid low and although ordered to rest by the GP, as a self-employed person, he is inevitably tucked up with his laptop... So time to knit and blog has been small.

Anyway, there is new knitting and new babies to report. First, some old friends welcomed their second child, a girl named Zoe, last week. She was born at home, like her big brother, and on her mama's birthday! A day later - near neighbours Lorraine and Trevor welcomed a little girl called Sophia Rose. Welcome to the world little ones. We wish you much love, light and peace as you grow. And, to your dear parents we wish much sleep.

On the knitting front, I swapped one of my Christmas presents (a sock book) for something I was a bit more excited about: Rowan Winter Kids.

It's stuffed full of gorgeous projects and the bean has already requested one of the sweaters... not sure I'll manage it in time for his birthday (next week!) but I have already cast on for one project - Ava - a girl's cardigan knit in one piece in a chunky yarn.

I am using something from my stash rather than the colourscape yarn specified. It's a shame not to have such lovely colours to work with, but stash busting is *still* the challenge in 2011! I'm hoping to gift Ava to a friend's daughter, but it will depend how it looks in my tweedy yarn...

Oh yes, and one last thing, I  had some scrumptious sock yarn from my mother for christmas. It's Jenny Cook's again, and so tempting that I wound the skein on Christmas day and started knitting straight away. The first sock is done, and the second on the needles...

FREE Pattern: Baby Beanie

While the chicken stock is bubbling on the hob, and a new sock has sprung onto my needles (the twisted sock wasnt working, so has been ripped in favour of a plain sock knitted with the rest of my crazy zauberball sock yarn...), I thought I would share this with you.

It seems too grand to describe this as a pattern, but rather it's one of those unvented and unoriginal set of instructions for a wee hat.

To fit: 0-3 months

Needles: 2.25mm dpns

Yarn: 4 ply/sock yarn, you'll need roughly 25g

Gauge: 13 stitches to 5cm (knit in the round)

Instructions

Cast on 100 stitches, divide evenly between needles and without twisting, join the first round.


If you would like to make a stripey hat using the grumperina technique (e.g. stripes with no jogs), then I use both colours for the cast on, alternating colours for each new stitch. Work the first round in the colour of the first stitch, and then when you return to the place at which the second yarn is languishing, pick that up and work a round with that instead. As always the rule with grumperina stripes is to always work with the *lowest* yarn available. If you dont want a grumperina stripe then knit plain or patterned as you will.


Knit in stocking stitch until the work measures 11cm or so, then start crown shaping. You can work the decreases in any way you like (e.g. ssk), but I have written it here as k2tog.


round 1: [k8 k2tog] rep till end, 90 stitches
round 2: knit
round 3: [k7, k2tog] rep until end, 80 stitches
round 4: knit


Continue in this vein until you are decreasing every 3 stitches (e.g. your decrease round is going k3, k2 tog). From this point on, decrease on every round.


Work until 4 stitches remain.


Now work a short i-cord stalk to finish the hat. Transfer all of the stitches to one needle, and work until the i-cord measures the desired length - I normally aim for about 8 cm which allows me to make a single knot. You can stripe your stalk, or leave it plain.


Cast off and weave in loose ends. Wash, dry gently and apply to the first wee head that crosses your path. Enjoy!

 [This pattern is shared in the spirit of craftivism, stash busting and generally living a goodly life. Please do *not* use it for commercial gain or profit. Thankyou]

FO: Dolly

Finally. The finishing took a bit of time - it's such a nice little knit, but the finishing is a bit time consuming... every time I make one (I think this is the third one), I think there must be an easier way of doing this, but I havent yet bothered to work out what that is.

Item: Dolly from JB29 by Martin Storey

Yarn: Patons 4 ply (I think), 100% wool

Time taken: a while! April-July 2009

Mods: picked up and knit the stitches for the ties, rather than sewing them on separately. No other mods.

Now that's Out Of The Way, there are other things to get on with. I really need to knit a hat for a friend's upcoming birthday, but instead, I have cast on for a childrens cardigan from the Rowan Family Collection. I decided that it would be a relatively quick project, and that it would make a useful inroad into my stash, which is still overflowing - although things are easing slightly. Last night I was able to organise some of the overflow into one of the storage tables, so something must have happened!

I'm knitting the cardigan using some balls of Jaeger Prelude which I picked up in a charity shop for 50p per ball. It's washable - but has some woolliness - and should make quite a good children's garment. Hopefully it will be fairly gender neutral, although it's primarily destined for a smallish girl. I managed a few rows over lunch today, while I was flicking through the Rowan magazine and newsletter which arrived through my letter box this morning. Mmm.

Tottie Tank Tops Two

Winter is here - I'm chilly inside the house and yesterday DH had to work in the snow! I'm not sure what happened to autumn - I think it blew away in the gales. The crazy weather is no doubt a sign of the terrible things we are doing to our planet.

Regardless of the weather outside, my needles have been clacking away and I've managed to finish two stripey tank tops (age 3-4) from the Rowan Family Collection. Between the two I managed to bust almost 3 balls of Jaeger matchmaker DK (left over from DH's Celt) and 2 balls of Patons DK (I think) out of the stash. A modest inroad, but it was worth it. I love these tottie tank tops!

I knit both flat (as instructed) using 4mm dpns (not mentioned in the instructions), so that there was no need to cut the yarn in order to achieve the original stripe pattern. I also changed the shoulder shaping on the second tank - and rather than cast off 3 stitches on one row and the last 2 on the following row, I just cast them all off together. I dont think such refinements are required in this pattern or for boys of this age. The different stripe pattern on the second tank (light grey with dark grey stripes) was dictated (or inspired!) by the yarn available.

Both tanks are nestling in the gift stash ready for despatch. I tried the first one on the bean the other day - he's 21 months now - and although the tank was big on him, it was quite wearable. As a result I decided that the smallest size (3-4) would do for a 2yr olds birthday, and immediately cast on for the second tank. All in all I think the second one took about 2-3 evenings to knit and one to finish. The bean will get one too once I've got a few other things out of the way...!

Between tanks I managed a bit of WIP wrestling and finished the first sleeve on the bobble cardigan. One sleeve and one front to go, so the end is in sight (yoohoo). Yesterday I cast on for another gift project - some child's mittens from 'Hats, Scarves, Gloves'. I'm knitting both mittens at the same time, and I'm already up to the thumbs. Thumbs, is it hallowe'en yet?