5 Random Things

Tecrin of Tecrin Tries tagged me share 5 random things about myself.  Normally I'm not that interested in joining in this sort of thing, but as I am a touch on the incapacitated side and photography is non-existent I thought this would be an ideal way of posting a blog that isn't necessarily craft related.  So here are 5 random things about me

Number 1
When I was 16 I went to boarding school in Surrey for 2 years.  It was a full scholarship and it was one of the hardest, most challenging and fun things I have done.  It taught me that I could cope with far more than I had previously imagined.  It was only a small boarding department of 30ish boys and girls, so it had quite a family feel to it, but as a sixth former I had quite a lot of responsibility on top of just studying for A'Levels

Number 2
My degree was in Media and Performing Arts.  I hadn't planned on going to university but going straight into trying to find work in a theatre production.  My mum persuaded me I should do a secretarial course so that I would never go hungry!  All the other people on the course were mature students or graduates who were using the course to help them get work.  All the graduates told me if I could do an RSA Higher Diploma in Secretarial and Adminstrative Procedures, I could do a degree standing on my head!  I was persuaded to apply for two courses.  I was declined for the course on the south coast, which was to do with media production as that was more television and radio based.  I got accepted for the course in Leicester and decided to go.  I'm glad I did get a degree, but I am a bit sad I never got to use it.

Number 3
Before I got sick, I worked in financial services, specialising in research on pensions and investment advice.  I didn't give the advice, but I produced the research on which the advice was based.  Some aspects of my job were really satisfying, but my creative side was a bit stifled.

Number 4
I used to sing.  I had lessons and everything!  I think one of the most fun singing experiences I had was playing Katisha in The Mikado.  Just to give you an idea, here is one of the solos I sang.

I preferred more jazz and blues singing though.  Sadly I cannot sing properly anymore because I haven't got the control or lung capacity.  I can't practice because it hurts too much sitting or standing for any period of time and singing well requires practice.  Because I can't sing well, I generally don't sing.  It is the one thing I really mourn the loss of.

Number 5

I don't drink tea or coffee.  I never have.  I can't stand either of them.  I've tried to like tea and have tried it several times over the years.  The closest I've come to not hating it, was Earl Grey without milk.  I still didn't like it enough to want to drink it regularly though.  The smell of coffee no longer makes me heave, but I still can't bring myself to drink it.  I believe this makes me a freak in many people's eyes!

I hope that these things are random enough!  I won't tag anyone, but I'd enjoy it, if any of my followers did something similar on their blog and let me know so I can find something random about them.

A Gift for Me and a Gift for You

I have had rather an interesting week.  It's been a bit of a roller-coaster ride but I think everything is going to be ok.  Basically my new nephew, who was due at the end of May, was delivered rather unexpectedly on Wednesday morning in the very early hours.  As you probably know, I live about a hundred miles away from my family and it was very hard sitting on my own, a long way from my brother and his wife while they were going through scary things, especially as my other half was on another Continent with work.

However, my nephew, though tiny, seems to be doing well and his mother also seems to be recovering well too.  As you can imagine, the gift of my post title is a new nephew who is small but determined.  With a much earlier arrival comes the requirement for much smaller baby gifts.  I have, of course, been knitting like fury on teeny hats, that can be either used by my nephew or for other babies in NICU, if they don't fit him.

You may be wondering how this all ties into a gift for you?  Well, the nice people at The Aurum Publishing Group have offered up a chance for a reader of my blog to win a copy of one of their latest book releases; The Knitted Home: Creative and Contemporary Projects for Interiors, by Ruth Cross.

I haven't been given a copy for review, so I can only tell you what the blurb, I received, says about this book, which is:

Ruth Cross draws on her experience of designing organic and freeform collections to guide you through the process of making and creating your own items. Taking an experimental approach, Ruth combines traditional stitches with new stitches she has devised herself. She creates desirable fabrics that can adorn many different items around the home, from easy chairs to footstools, a doorstop to a table runner, vase covers to wall hangings. 

Throughout the book there are complete patterns for you to create these beautiful projects. But Ruth also encourages and gives advice on how to experiment for yourself to produce your own designs. Starting with the very basics – simple knitting and purling – and progressing to add further texture and embellishment she guides you through a range of different stitch patterns and techniques. As she goes through she shows how you can adapt these patterns to different sizes, scales and shapes so that they can be widely applied around the home to create completely personal pieces.

I am afraid that this competition is only open to UK Residents, as the prize will be sent directly from the publisher, rather than by me.  However, the publisher has arranged a discount on this hardback book, which normally retails at £20.

To order The Knitted Home (9781906417727) for £16.00 including p&p*, telephone 01903 828503 and quote offer code JS188. Or send a cheque made payable to: Littlehampton Book Services Mail Order Department, Littlehampton Book Services, PO Box 4264, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3TG. Please quote the offer code JS188 and include your name and address details. *UK ONLY - Please add £2.50 if ordering from overseas.

In order to win a copy of this book, click on the +1 button on the Rafflecopter box and enter a suggestion for making a baby gift for either the baby or the parents, after logging in to Rafflecopter.  Quick projects are the ones I'm searching for!  The winner will be drawn randomly from the eligible entries.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The competition closes at midnight on Tuesday night, UK time, so that I can do the draw on Wednesday morning and announce the winner in my regular Wednesday post.  Plus I want to get cracking on any suggestions you can make.  I am sorry that not all my readers can join in with this contest, but I didn't set the rules this time.

I'm hoping that next week will be a little more normal as my other half will be back home and everything starts to settle into a new routine up North.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and that the snow due to hit the UK this weekend, doesn't inconvenience too many people.

This post's for me

I haven't been blogging much over the last few months.  You probably don't notice that much, because you probably have a feed reader full of other blogs to read.  Speaking of feed readers if you use Google's Feed Reader you may be part of the mad scramble to find another reader to replace it.  I am trialling Feedly as it has an app for both Android and Apple.  It's ok, but if anyone has any other suggestions for replacements please let me know as I rely massively on my feed reader.

Anyway back to my original point.  I haven't been blogging much because my health is not great at the moment.  Someone at my surgery decided that as they couldn't find explicit instruction in clear language in my notes about why I should be taking a certain medication, which I've taken for several years, I needed to be referred back to a Consultant.  They did not refer my back to my original Consultant who I saw for nearly 10 years, but to a stranger.  So for 6 months I have had my meds messed about with and as a result my hormones have been all over the place and my endometriosis has been kicking my butt.  Six months down the line and I am back on my original meds and my hormones are still not stabilising.  I feel RUBBISH and as a result I've not been blogging as much.

I think my blogging has taken a back seat as I didn't have any energy to take pretty pictures, nor the brain power to write lucidly!  I've always subscribed to the school of thought that if you can't do something well, then don't do it at all.  It's a stupid way of doing things, especially if you are ill.  If I stuck to it rigidly I'd never do anything and all my crafting would never have got started, because no one can do anything perfectly at the first attempt.  So this blog post is just for me.  It is to remind me that just because it's not perfect I can still write a blog post, especially as there are things I want to tell you about.

Thing 1

I finished knitting Melia!!!  It is gorgeous, but it isn't blocked yet, and it might not be for a couple of weeks, because of health issues.  I haven't sewn in the pockets yet as I want to block it first.  When it is blocked, the pockets sewn in and a zipper added I will take some photos and I will blog about it properly, but I just wanted to crow in triumph that the first CTM and KTQ2013 project is pretty much finished.

Thing 2

As I have finished my first CTM project, it was time to start the second one.  I dived into box number 2 and pulled out 2 skeins of Debbie Bliss Angel, bought in January 2011.  (I'm beginning to detect a Debbie Bliss theme here, first Fez and now Angel?).

I am currently searching for the right project for this yarn.  I have narrowed it down to two fairly straight forward projects, one was a free pattern I got when I bought some Rowan Kidsilk Haze last year and the other is Just a Whisper Wrap/Scarf by Tonia Barry.  I am currently leaving towards the freebie pattern I got called Wiggly Edge Shawl, as I think the wrap would be lovely but would be a touch boring to knit..

Thing 3 

As I have also finished my first Knit the Queue 2013 project, I thought I'd cast on for another project from my queue, a Woolly Wormhead pattern called Sumner.  The pattern is from Classic Woolly Toppers and uses a 4ply yarn.  The pattern specifies Semi-Precious by BabyLongLegs, but I have some really nice BooSock from BabyLongLegs in stash that I want to use instead.  BooSock has 80% merino and 20% bamboo, content.  It has some of the sheen and strength that Semi-Precious has, so I think the replacement will work.

This hat will hopefully be a nice Spring weight hat, though knitting it in sock weight yarn might take a while.  I have caked the yarn and will start swatching this weekend.

END OF THINGS

I'm looking forward to tackling a few smaller projects for a while after the big project that was Melia.  I also like that I am ticking off two more items from the "things I want to do this year" list and I'm using stash yarn for both.

I'm hoping in the next couple of weeks my health will settle down a bit and I will have more pretty pictures to show you, but until then I will keep on blogging for myself, trying to write down the things I want to remember and hope you don't mind the shoddy writing and lacklustre photographs!

Big Squishy Cowl

I started my Decibella Cowl.  It didn't work.  I was so sad, but I wasn't going to progress with something that didn't look as gorgeous as it could.  Basically the fat and thin nature of this yarn meant that the yarn being carried behind the front stitch was showing through quite badly.  It ruined the neat and tidy look of the pattern.  I ripped it out, but of course once I had the idea in my head of a big squishy cowl with stripes using 4 skeins of Colinette, I couldn't get rid of it.

Decibella has vertical stripes which look like stocking stitch, so I cast on and did 4 row stripes, in stocking stitch, but, once again, it didn't look right.  I decided that this particular yarn would only really shine as stripes, if done as garter stitch.

I think I was right.  Garter stitch makes the colour changes in the brightly coloured yarn really zing.  I cast on 20 sts provisionally, using 10mm needles.  Each row is knit and the yarn is changed every 2 rows, carrying the yarn up the side.  I alternated the two brightly coloured skeins with the beige skein in between each change.  The two brightly coloured yarns have enough splashes of colour in common to tie them together, but still give a difference.  I think the colours of the stripes worked really work together, with the beige making the brighter hues really pop.

The yarn carried up the edges doesn't really show that badly.  If it did, I would have picked up the stitches all the way round the cowl and knit a border in a contrasting yarn, but it is fine.  It think it is neat because the yarn is 100% wool, so everything sticks together.

I knit these stripes until I started to run out of yarn.  I finished the last stripe so it lined up to alternate corectly with the provisional cast on.  I then picked up the stitches held provisionally and performed a three needle bind, off using the provisional stitches and the live ones. I did the bind off with the wrong side facing, continuing with the teal yarn that I had just used to do two rows.

It does look a bit clunky from the wrong side, but from the right side it looks like this:

The box shows the three needle bind off from the right side.  It is almost invisible.  The resulting cowl is 9" wide and has a 30" drop.

I haven't really worn it like this, so far.  I tend to double it over and wear it up around my neck.

It is easy to arrange it so it comes right up around your ears and keeps you cozy in a cold wind.  If it gets really cold you can draw it right up around your head, because it is broad enough to not leave a big gap at the back, the way some cowls would.

This cowl may not be Decibella, but it completely fits into the gap I wanted that pattern to fulfill, and it used up yarn that was held in un-loved projects.  I love it when a plan comes together, even if it takes a couple of detours along the way!  I just wish I had thought of this project at the start of Winter.

If you want to see other finished projects, click the button.

Socks and Blocks

This week I have mostly been knitting my socks.  As I said last week, I wanted to knit another pair of socks in the same style as the ones I've just finished, but with a few tweaks to the stitch count further up the foot.  I decided to cast on straight away with another yarn from stash.  Once again it is my very favourite Regia yarn, which is comfortable, hard wearing and machine washable.  It also comes in lots of different colourways.  This one is rather bright!

This colourway is discontinued, which is why I got it cheaply.  The range of sock yarn it came from is Flusi Das Socken Monster.  Isn't that a fabulous name?  I also used this self-striping yarn as not only was it from stash, but it is one of the last of my collection of self-striping yarns.  These striping yarns are fantastic at bringing interest to plain stocking stitch socks, but they do tend to hide stitch patterns.  I have one more set of striping yarn and then I will only have sock yarn that is variegated or has very long colour changes.  Once I get this basic sock sorted, I want to start adding stitch patterns to make the knit more interesting again, and I'd rather used up the striping yarn on these plain socks first.

As you can see from the above photo, I am continuing with the spiral toe, as it really is the most straight forward method of starting the sock.

I've actually got quite a long way through the foot.  I went out to meet some old friends on Monday afternoon and I just knit round and round in circles for 4 hours.  It's amazing what you can achieve when you aren't really looking!

In addition to going round and round on my socks, I've been going round and round in blocks - of crochet.  I've been working on a gift, which I wasn't really going to talk about but I just wanted to tell my fellow crafters of a way of doing a fairly solid crocheted block, which looks neater than the way I've been doing it for the last few years.  Here is the block that is done the way I have always done them (but usually in a granny square style which has gaps in the construction).

Then I found this pattern.  This pattern has the round beginning and ending at a corner (where the holes in the material are).  It's much neater, in my opinion.

This is the last I will probably show you of these little squares until they are assembled, but I wanted to share the method for anyone else who wanted to do a more solid crocheted square.

To see other people's work in progress, click on the button.

A Question.....

I have decided to pick your brains.  I have recently begun to listen to knitting podcasts.  It's taken me years to get into them, but over the last few weeks, I seem to be listening non-stop, rather than watching tv whilst I craft.

I found a few podcasts that I enjoy, but I would like to add more to my collection.  These are the ones I have found, and liked, so far:

A Playful Day
Electric Sheep
iMake
Knit Knit Cafe
Knimoregirls' Podcast
Never Not Knitting
YarnGasm
The Yarniacs
Yarns from the Plain.

I have a few British 'casters in that list and I like them, especially, because they talk about yarns and events that are relevant to me.  I also like the International podcasts because I live within a greater knitting world and like to know what is going on in it!

I would be very grateful if you could recommend your favourite Podcasts, so I could give them a try, and maybe if you haven't tried any of the above podcasts, you might give them a go.  I'm also looking for podcasts that deal with sewing and quilting as I haven't got any of those so far, and I'm sure they must exist.

Sock Quest

My quest for perfectly fitting socks moved along this week.  I got both sock heels finished.

I have worn them for a day now and can confirm the following:

1. I still love hand knitted socks even when they don't quite fit.
2. I need to increase the stitch count in the sock 5.5" AND 6.5" up the sock
3. Afterthought heels are the bomb
4. I really like these new Sweet Tomato Heels
5. I really like dig 'n' lift as a method of dealing with short rows
6. I shall probably never stop searching for the perfect sock pattern.

Evidence for item number 2 is as follows:

Adding extra stitches will mean less pulling around the ankle and less rollover at the cuff.  I have been writing up a basic sock pattern based on the techniques used in these socks and have added an extra 6 stitches just before adding the waste yarn to hold the heel opening stitches.  This should not only stop the ankle pulling but make the leg fit better.

After completing the second heel, my dig 'n'  lift technique improved significantly.  There is no weird puffiness around the turning point in the second sock.

Also my grafting improved as the end of the graft didn't look too bad this time either.

I do admit that the heels look a little odd done in self-striping yarn, but as they are rarely on view I don't care, especially as it is the best fitting heel I've ever worn.

I am still undecided about the toe shaping.

Increasing in a spiral at the toe gives a nice smooth start to the toe, it is also pretty easy to remember the directions for increasing, but it doesn't look as neat as the short row toe, like I used in these socks.

I stopped using the short row toe because it was a bit more of a hassle, using a provisional cast on.  The wedge toe I used in these socks fit nicely but don't look that smooth.

Maybe I'll go back to trying the short row toe once I get my stitch counts sorted out, as it does look really smart.

I wonder if the quest for perfect socks ever really ends?

To see other finished projects, click on the button.