School's out for summer

Ds is now off school for a two month break - why don't adults get this? Before he starts his holiday camp (at vast expense) in a few weeks, he is down at his grandparents this week so it has been very peaceful here. I've taken advantage by being out almost every night for something: Monday to the chiropractor (oh yes, we live the high life here...), Tuesday to an after-work event, Wednesday to a seminar for job-hunters, and last night I was knitting at I-Knit (my LYS). But I've still managed to squeeze in some hobbies.




I have sewn the vertical rows of the Hawaiian batik blocks that I made at last month's sewing club meeting. I used the Crazy Curves templates to cut these, and this layout is modelled on one in the accompanying book, only I have added a strip of small 3.5" blocks inbetween the 7" blocks. Working with these fabrics reminds me of the lush Hawaiian greenery amidst blue water and sky. However, they are relatively low-contrast, so the design is partially hidden. This will be a single, so once I get the rows joined I will have to think about a border.











I have made a start on knitting the Kauni cardigan by machine, the one I was winding the wool for back in March. I struggled to match the tension of 24st/30 rows for this, going all the way up to Tension 10 on my Brother 881 knitting machine without success, then moving on to my Brother 260 Chunky, so I ended up knitting about 5 tension swatches which I will probably have to unravel to avoid running out of wool. The 260 matched the tension on 1 and one dot, but when I sat down to knit I realised that the 114 needle bed was not sufficient for the required 122 needles for the pattern. After a few minutes of hair-clutching, I have decided to knit the back on 114 needles at tension 1 and two dots, which should work out at about the right width. This is pure wool so I should have some bodge room at the blocking stage. I'm a bit worried about the fronts as I won't have many spare needles to do the steek, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.


I still haven't picked up for the bands on Hey Teach as there hasn't been an evening where I felt alert enough for this make-or-break task. I have progressed on the Scandinavian pattern sock, and finished the gusset last night at I-knit. Making an effort to strand loosely has worked and the socks now fit comfortably. I fell in love with some sock yarn that another knitter was using last night, for some Cookie A socks. It was handpaint from 'Old Maiden Aunt Yarns' in Scotland, and the rich moss green was so gorgeous, it just made you think of lush moss banks under a cool waterfall. Cue bad case of yarn lust...


I've started a new project, as I didn't have any mindless knitting for in front of the television when you don't want to have to think too hard. I am using my Noro Matsuri yarn that I bought in San Francisco at Imagiknit in February. Originally I was going to knit something from the accompanying pattern book 'Joy' but got very frustrated as I couldn't even come close to matching the tension - which is very unusual for me. So now I am knitting a plain cardigan with a moss stitch border on 3.5mm circs. The bottom band is 4.5" of moss stitch, and I am knitting it all in one piece. I got about an inch and a half done last night before I got bored with it. This yarn is gorgeous, I love watching the colour changes.


And I have done some dollshousing. I had a slow day at work so visited several 'printables' or 'printies' sites on the internet, and printed off various items to fill the shelves under the sink in my office. I had two fridge magnets that looked like a photocopier and a filing cabinet, so I have doctored them up (removed the magnet, covered up or painted out unwanted detail, added accessories). And I made a little curtain to go under the sink. I will take a picture once it's finished, before I install it into the dollshouse quilt shop.


The heatwave broke with a spectacular day of thunderstorms and torrential rain which caused localised flooding everywhere, and now it is actually quite pleasant. I've got my Saturday sewing club tomorrow and we are starting our new Block of the Month. I think I've mentioned that we have steered away from any type of group project which relies on swapping blocks or other work, as somebody always ends up feeling unhappy with the quality of what they've received. So for the last few years I have been designing block of the month projects of various kinds and handing them out. This year we have gone for something different: I asked everyone to provide two blocks of their choice on a garden theme. I am then handing back two patterns (with added instructions if needed) to the group each month and people will make their own quilt on a garden theme. It can be any size (so they can size the blocks up or down), any design, any technique, any colour. The only rule is that they have to use each one of the 18 blocks at least once in a recognisable form. It should be really interesting to see what people will come up with.

It's hot in the summer

The UK is having an uncharacteristic heat wave, with temperatures soaring up to the low 30s celsius over the past week (apparently this resulted in temperatures in the 40s at Wimbledon on the courts). As most domestic buildings do not have air con, this has meant very hot nights. My office and train are luckily air conditioned (not all are), but when I get home I throw open all my windows and interior doors and put fans on to try to move out some of the hot air before bedtime. I've also been staying up quite late waiting for the bedroom to cool down. So more knitting time in the evenings, but more tired in the day time. And I don't go outside much during the day, as I burn easily and don't cope well with the heat. I hope it isn't going to be like this all summer. It's supposed to be cooler this weekend thankfully.



Thanks to the extra knitting time, I have now got 'Hey Teach' blocked and sewn together. I've also knitted the neckband, and just need to pick up for the front bands. I've tried it on, and it fits and looks cute. I will confess that I discovered that not only did the front shoulders not match the back shoulders, they don't even match each other! Obviously I have a fair way to go on the 'decreasing lace correctly' front. But we all have to start somewhere. I was able to bodge together the shoulders seams ok, and I don't think many people will notice that the lace pattern on the front shoulders is not identical. OK, some knitters might notice, but nobody likes the knitting police so we will ignore them. This is a pattern from Knitty.com and I've knit it in Rowan Summer Tweed.



I had hoped to show you my Scandinavian pattern sock almost completed, but last night at my son's school concert (yes, I was knitting, and thank god) I tried it on and discovered that the foot was far too snug. So I had to rip it back to the heel pick up. I think what has happened is that the regular stripe pattern on the foot (K1 MC, K1 CC) had encouraged my fingers to tighten up on stranding, so the knitting suddenly got tighter than the more irregular fair isle pattern on the cuff. I am knitting the foot again and taking pains to strand loosely this time.



I've knit a bit more on my lace shawl in Sirdar Juicy, it is likely about half way now. It feels lovely when I drape it over my shoulders, but as usual with lace it is scrunched together much narrower than it needs to be. I hope this yarn is going to block well, I've only really blocked wool and cotton before. It will be annoying if I get all the way to the end and find out I've knit a scarf.



I finished sewing on the binding on my big log cabin quilt earlier this week. It looks great but of course it has been far too hot to even think of having it on my bed. Even sewing on it was hot work, I had to try to drape it over the back of the sofa so it didn't cover up my legs.



And as part of my new schedule, I made myself do some dollshousing. I am trying to be more disciplined about this, because I have so many houses waiting to be 'finished' on the inside. Not too mention boxes of components and furniture waiting to be worked on to go into the houses, and meanwhile cluttering up my real house. I put together the kit I bought at SIMP in Paris, which is boxes of little cards wound with 'Anchor' tapestry yarn. They are a bit out of scale I think, but look nice as a display in my shop counter. I filled the rest of the shop counter with a gift box display I made from a free cut-out in a magazine, and with ribbon wound onto some of the reels I assembled from a kit by 'Lisa's Little Things'. I glued a tape measure onto the top of the counter for measuring the ribbons at point of sale. Now I need to make a cash register and credit card machine, and paint my plastic telephone to go on top of the counter. This is in 1/12th scale and is the sales counter for my quilt shop.

I had a wonderful weekend in France, it was much more like a mini holiday than I was expecting, with lovely weather. It's a long way to go though, it was an 8 hour journey door to door on Friday to visit my friend who runs a wonderful gite (pictured) southwest of Le Mans in Normandy. I had to travel up to London, get the Eurostar train to Paris, travel across Paris to change stations, then get a TGV train to Le Mans where she picked me up. Lots of knitting done on my Pi Shawl and my fair isle sock, and as it turns out my friend likes purple, so those will now be Anita's socks.





They've been living over there about three years now, and I was tremendously impressed at their fluency in French and how hard they have worked to achieve that and their beautiful restored farm complex. On Saturday they took me out to see some of the gorgeous medieval stone villages and towns in the area, each one with its chateau. It really made me want to work more on my dollshouse French gatehouse, which I built a few years ago but have never really finished the inside of (story of my life).


















On Sunday Anita and I got the train back up to Paris and went to the SIMP dolls house show. I'd never been before, and felt somewhat intimidated in case I couldn't make myself understood to French dealers (my French is not much better than pigdin) but I shouldn't have worried as there were dealers and customers there from several European countries and lots of people spoke at least a little English. The standard of most of the work was surprisingly high, as were some of the prices, but I did pick up some accessories for my French tower (a wall fountain, some pottery for the kitchen) as well as a tv for my Canadian house, some lovely knitting for my knitting shop, and a kit to make a sales display of embroidery silks for my quilting shop. Afterwards I got the Eurostar back to London and the train back to my house, finally arriving home quite worn out at 9:30 p.m.




So what have I been up to?

I had two dollshouse friends over for a work morning, and I turned this empty shelf, into a filled up office shelf for the sales office area of my quilt shop. The laptop and printer are from Jim's Printables site of free printies, as are some of the office products, the calculator and tape dispenser are metal minis I picked up somewhere and painted, the basket of quilting goodies on the bottom shelf came in a swap, the filing box is from Jim's site, I made the in-tray from coffee stirrers.


























And you didn't think I was going to let you get away without another garden picture, did you? The roses I blogged last week continue to expand, to the size of small dinner plates now. That is my husband's large hand in the photo and they have gotten bigger than that since then. I don't remember them ever being this big before, our wet/dry spring must have suited them.

I am on about row 8 of the Gull Wing section of the Pi Shawl - it is very slow going with 576 stitches on the needle. I have wet blocked 'Hey Teach' and am waiting for it to dry so I can pick up for the bands. The Sirdar Juicy shawl is only about 1/3 done - it is too bulky to take out and too complicated to knit on easily while watching tv, so not getting much attention. I am on the fourth side of hand-sewing down the binding on the big log cabin quilt (the one I joined from two halves). I got loads done on it last night as I watched the Season 5 finale of Grey's Anatomy, which was bundled up with the debut episode of Season 2 of Private Practice. I had commandeered the tv from 8-11 p.m., and had a real night of it, drinking Pimms and lemonade with strawberries in, eating Ben and Jerry's ice cream and stitching on my quilt binding.

Off to France so I'm blogging a day early

I'm off to France tomorrow to spend a long weekend with a friend who moved from the UK to run a gite in Normandy. On Sunday we are going to travel up to Paris by train to visit the SIMP dollshouse and miniatures show. My friend says it is a small but good show so I am looking forward to it.


I am experimenting with a schedule for my leisure time, and so far it seems to be working. I applied my work skills by making a list of the activities that I don't feel I am tackling satisfactorily, then specified how much time a week I wanted to spend on them, then broke it down by days. For example, I would like to spend on average at least 30 minutes a day on quilting and 30 minutes on knitting. That is a minimum (I spend a lot more time knitting than that) but added up over a week it would be 3.5 hours more than I am managing some weeks. I'm going to try to stick to the list for a few weeks and see how it feels (although already I am screwing it up by disappearing for the weekend - but I will take my knitting).


So what have I been up to?



I finished the socks for my husband. These are in Red Heart 'Heart and Sole' with Aloe Vera that I bought in America. The pattern is the standard Regia leaflet which I quite like.





















I've started a new pair of socks. These are the "Scandinavian Pattern Socks" from my "Little Box of Sock Patterns" that my friend Swooze sent me from America. Don't look too closely at the tension: I couldn't find my 3mm dpns and I didn't have 3mm circs at that point, so I was fumbling along on glove needles for the first half. Plus the coloured yarn is slightly thinner than the purple yarn which is the yarn I bought at the Ravelry day. The coloured yarn is a self-striping yarn Admiral R Druck from Schoppel Wolle. But tonight I visited the wonderful 'Socktopus' store in Fulham and picked up some 3mm circs there, much easier.




I FINALLY finished the sleeves for 'Hey Teach'. I have ripped these back so many times I could have knit six sleeves. My problem was decreasing while trying to stay in the lace pattern, compounded by my inability to count and, let's face it, some plain dumbness. I'm not that experienced at lace yet. The first time I managed to get to the end, I had left the partial repeats in plain stockinet, but that looked really obvious and not how they did it in the picture. So I pulled it back and tried to knit it up in pattern, but managed to really confuse myself when it came to decreasing at the same time as trying to deal with additional stitches caused by yarn overs etc. I got there in the end thanks to an article on decreasing lace in Interweave Knits, after several false tries (at least half of them due to picking up my knitting and assuming I was on a different row than I was really...) Now I need to block the pieces and knit the bands.



The Liberty's department store yarn sale sneakily started earlier than their main sale, but thanks to a chance visit to Ravelry I was on the case, and buzzed up there on my lunch hour from work. It wasn't a huge sale, as they have reduced their yarn department so greatly, but lots of good Rowan yarn brands on half price. I picked up some hand knit cotton in blue, and some kidsilk haze in pink. I was carrying around some cotton glace in pink as well, until I remembered that at least half my stash is pink of one kind or another. I instinctively pick it up, it's one of my favourite colours for clothing.




While looking for new places to hide my yarn stash in the living room, I found this quilt which I was handquilting last year - you can read about how I rescued this deformed top here. When I found it I realised that all the quilting was done apart from the border, so I just stitched in the ditch around the border on the machine then finally got to give it a good bath in the bathtub. I didn't dare wash it when it was just a top, some of the blue material is very thin and the stars are pieced onto a coarse sacking. But I was itching to do it, because the whole top was so dirty that the blue had a funny brown tinge. After many rinsings in the bathtub, I am thrilled that the blue is now a lovely 40s/50s blue. The cotton wadding has shrunk up and the quilt is lying much flatter now - even though the blocks are basically gathered to the backing, it doesn't look obviously distorted like it used to.


I hope you are not getting sick of pictures of gardens. We have one specimen rose bush which has the most gorgeous blooms - only about 5 or 6 of them, but they are so beautiful. The flowers are just starting to open up now - here is one of them. They don't seem to have any scent, but I don't mind because they are just lovely.

Ravelry day, that t-shirt, and a homemade chart stand

I don't know where the week has gone, but somehow it is Friday already and time to blog.

UK Ravelry Day last week was fantastic. I had a really good day, everything seemed really well organised and everyone was so friendly. Several times I fell into conversation with other knitters over a cup of tea or while we were waiting for something, and met loads of nice people. My friend Mishka from the London knitting groups was there as well, so we sat and knitted together for a while and attended the Meg Swansen lecture together. The day seemed well attended, I'm not good at estimating numbers but I think there must have been at least 150 people at the Meg Swansen lecture. Many of us wore badges with our Ravelry names on them.

And I wore my t-shirt! I wore it over a longsleeved t-shirt in a toning shade of dusty pink, and I received several compliments during the day. The first few times I had to fight an urge to blurt out the ugly truth about the inside seam allowances, but I managed to restrain myself and just smile graciously and say thank you. It was just the right level of warmth for wearing indoors in a big hall on a rainy chilly day. Because it drizzled steadily outside almost all weekend - I felt sorry for the c. 25 traders who were outside all day with their wares. They were at least dry as they were under plastic-roofed market stalls but they looked very cold. Hopefully it was worth it for them, they certainly seemed to be doing a busy trade for most of the day. I didn't buy very much myself: I bought one skein of soft purple British Wool sock yarn, thinking I might try one of the patterns from my 'Little Box of Sock Patterns' that Swooze sent me. And I bought a CD ROM of Shetland Lace patterns and tips from Elizabeth Lovick. I bought a pattern from Medicin sans Frontiers for some lacy fingerless mitts, and a copy of the latest issue of the Machine Knitters Guild newsletter to see what they were up to. And a copy of Debbie Bliss' Eco pattern book after hearing her lecture. But I had a lot of fun looking at all the great indie dyers and spinners, a wonderful button lady, luxury fibres and even two live alpaca shivering in a pen in the rain (the stall holder said they were perfectly fine, they live outdoors).

I enjoyed my two lectures. Meg Swansen, daughter of the great Elizabeth Zimmerman, read several excerpts from her mother's books, but the best part was an extended question and answer session about her and her mother's work. One question was whether she ever thought the February Baby Sweater and subsequent February Lady Sweater would be so popular, and she laughed and said wasn't it amazing - then she invited everyone in the audience wearing a FLS to stand up which resulted in about 7 people standing up (including Mishka). Debbie Bliss' lecture was less well attended, probably because it was right at the end of the day and daytrippers were on their way home, but very interesting. She talked about her career as a designer and held up several garments from various books including her new one which is just coming out called "Design It, Knit It", talking about how the designs illustrate some of her own design philosophies and preferences. For example, designs that are flattering to the pear-shaped figure by not cutting the figure off at the widest point with ribbing bands etc. I was very impressed with some of the designs from the new book, and also from the Eco book which I subsequently purchased plus later via mailorder some dusty rose Eco cotton yarn to go with it.

I saw a great gadget at the show: a portable chart holder made out of black nylon. It had a concealed magnet board on one side, and a pocket on the other, and snapped together so that you can take your knitting chart on the road. I was immediately interested as I've found my own magnet board very awkward, it doesn't prop up, if it gets knocked the magnet markers get dislodged, it's hard to store. But the holder at the show was smaller than my own board, and its magnets seemed even weaker in their holding power. Plus it was expensive. So when I got home Sunday morning I sat down and made up my own. It's turned out pretty well and I've already used it several times for my 'Hey Teach' chart (i'm halfway up the sleeves now).

I made it with one big piece of fabric for the outside cover, stiffened with medium fusible interfacing, and a non-interfaced pocket on one side to fit the magnet board. The other side has a non-interfaced pocket to fit a piece of lightweight perspex which I cut to the same size as the magnet board, then on top of that it has a half-width slip pocket which is interfaced with stiff interfacing. I sewed all around this construction with right sides together, then turned it right sides out and pressed the seams flat. I also caught into the seam an interfaced fabric finished-edge strip to be the snap band. And before I sewed, I hand-sewed a snap onto the front cover.

Then I sewed on three snaps: 1 to snap the cover tightly closed around the magnet board for storage/travel, one at the end of the fabric strip to turn the holder into a chart stand that stands up horizontally or vertically, and one to catch down the excess end of the fabric strip when the holder is being stored. It works great! And it was 'free' as I already had all the stuff in my stash.

Adventures in t-shirt land

I am looking forward to travelling up to Coventry tonight for the UK Ravelry Day tomorrow. For anyone who isn't familiar with Ravelry, it is an online community and resource for knitters and other fibre enthusiasts, at http://www.ravelry.com/. However, the weather forecasts are absolutely awful, heavy rain and cool temperatures, which could impact the outdoor shopping yarn market area. It's a pity because we have been enjoying some lovely summer weather the past few weeks. I'm certainly going to pack my raincoat.


I'm debating whether to wear the knitted t-shirt I just finished today, "Marble", a design by Kaffe Fassett in the Rowan 41 magazine. This has been a bit of a triumph (or disappointment) over common sense. I was at the Liberty department store yarn sale the summer before last, and they were having a huge sale on Rowan yarns including Rowan 4-ply Cotton. I was fingering the cotton wondering what I could make out of it, and the helpful sales assistant showed me 'Marble' which looked so pretty that I bought all the yarn. Even on sale it was a bit of an investment because it is knit with two strands held together.



Now if I was using an ounce of common sense I would have taken a step back and thought about how bulky two strands of 4 ply cotton were going to be knitted up. And I would have read the pattern more carefully to discover that on top of that bulk, Kaffe's design features buttoned up shoulder seams right down to the sleeve hem, and buttoned up side seams, which are all faced so that you have a double layer of this thick fabric. I might also have taken in the cropped length and thought about how the world really is not ready to see my belly hanging out below a t-shirt.

But no, I was too dazzled by the pretty colours and the 'Sale' sign.

Back home a grain of reality trickled in as I read through the pattern, and right away I decided to eliminate the double-thickness buttoned flaps and just have a one piece sleeve, and normal shoulder/side seams. I also looked at the complicated stripe sequence (120 rows using different combinations of 10 colours held two strands at a time) and decided there would be much less potential for tangling if I knit it on my chunky knitting machine.

I did a tension sample - I really did. Then last summer I started the long process of knitting. Even on a knitting machine it was relatively slow as every few rows I had to unthread the machine and rethread the two new colours. At least I was able to weave in all the ends as I went along.


Finally, last month, I finished the front, back and one sleeve. Items tend to come off the machine stretched wider and shorter than their final measurements, so I wasn't too bothered at the initial dimensions. However, even washed and pressed, it became quickly evident that my garment was far too wide, and far too cropped. And there was no way I was going to unpick all those stripes and end up with a zillion lengths of different coloured yarn. At this point, one begins to consider throwing the item out and pretending that none of it every happened.

But I persevered. I picked up the live stitches from the waste yarn at the hem edge of each piece, and lengthened it with the bird's eye stitch from page 16 of Nicky Epstein's 'Knitting Beyond the Edge'. I joined the shoulders and handknit the rolled trim as per the pattern, and I handknit the rolled trim on the bottom of the sleeve. Then I tried the garment on to see where I should mark the side seams.

About now it became apparent that I had created the 100% cotton equivalent of chain mail. This garment is as stiff as a robust dishcloth - so if I do give up on it, I can still use squares from it to scrub my dishes with. But I persevered.


I mattress stitched the side seams and tried it on again, ignoring my inch-and-a-half seam allowances. I marked where the armhole seam should fall on the shoulders, then threadbasted a matching curve from that point to mark the new armhole. I backstitched the sleeve right sides together along that curve, then turned it out and mattress stitched the sleeve seam.

That looked ok so I went back out to the knitting shed and knit the other sleeve. Did I mention I have loads of yarn left over? The requirements obviously allowed for all the flaps that I haven't knit. Then I repeated the steps for the other sleeve. Then I washed it all again to give it a chance to shrink up a bit.

Now comes the dodgy part (yes, even dodgier than all that stuff above). I hauled out my overlocker (serger), threaded up with a neutral colour, and did a four-thread overlock from the hem, up the side seam, all the way around the armhole and back down the other side of the sleeve, trimming down the seam allowance as I went with my cutter blade. This did not go smoothly as the overlocker really did not like having the folded bulk of the knitted garment under its presser foot. I had to do some fixing afterwards with matching 4-ply cotton.





Then I pressed all the seams, and the garment. And here is the finished result. It is wearable, but I'm not sure I want another knitter within 10 yards of it in case they want to look at the inside. It is extremely thick, and has somewhat uncomfortable bulk under the arms due to how the sleeve fits the shirt. It is still a bit cropped for my tastes but at least I'm not going to scare anyone.











Will I wear it? I honestly don't know. I think the problem with summer knits for me is that if it is warm enough for me to feel comfortable having my arms bare, it is likely too warm to wear a knitted garment. And this is really thick. The stripes and colours look great, but it is not a cool garment. I may try it over a long-sleeve t-shirt and see if it works as a pullover.

Lazy days of summer

We've just come back from a few days of camping in Dorset (near Dorchester), and for once we had lovely summer weather - apart from one day which was driving rain and gale force winds, which just happened to be the day I had pre-booked a day trip to the Isle of Wight as a special treat. At least I found out that my new waterproof rain mac from Land's End is, in fact, waterproof. The trouble with macs is that your top stays dry but your legs still get soaked.

Anyway, in between helping Ds with Greek, Latin and French flashcards (and I found out that I can knit and read flashcards off my knee at the same time), I did lots of lazing around in the sun (when it wasn't too hot) or in the shade. When we were younger, we used to pooh pooh the people who drove all the way to Dorset then spent the days sitting next to their caravan in a deck chair instead of going out sightseeing. Now that we are middleaged, we see the attraction of just switching off, unwinding, listening to the birds and the wind, and not feeling the constant pull of indoor chores. I didn't want to come home.

I finished the first sock for Dh, this is in Red Heart 'Heart and Sole' which I bought in Paducah at Hobby Lobby. It is supposed to have Aloe in it as well, but I didn't notice any softening effect as I was knitting. I did like the yarn, great colours and easy to knit with. The pattern is the standard Regia free pattern leaflet, which I quite like. I found this yarn a bit thicker than normal sock yarn, so even though I knit the same size as I normally would for myself, it came out big enough for my husband's foot (he is a 9.5 UK and I am only a 7UK). I used 2.5mm needles.

We spent one afternoon at a gorgeous garden in Kingston Maurward, near Dorchester, an Arts and Crafts garden laid out next to a Georgian stately home (now used as a college). Here are some of the lovely things we saw.

I'm still sewing down binding - trying to use small stitches as it is going in a show, it is taking for-ev-er.