Damn, Knit & Blast It

Gosh! I’m expecting to be mobbed for an autograph and and be asked to open a shopping centre the next time I go out amongst my public….

Why am I deluded into thinking I have achieved such superstar status??

The Guilty Knitters and I have made it to the National Knitting press!

This month’s (July 2010, Issue 21) of The Knitter has a two page gallery spread about us.

That’s this mag if you’re searching the Newsagent for a copy…

From The Knitter

I do enjoy The Knitter, lots of challenging interesting patterns and articles. So many of the other British knitting mags are full very simple patterns and assume the majority of knitters knit for their grandchildren! No problem with that if that’s what you want – but I’m not that market.

If you have a copy, check out page 84 to find my grinning face…..

From The Knitter

…and some fabby knits by my friends…It’s easy to see where my inspiration comes from and why I have to keep the standard of my knitting up, after see how great  their projects are.

Of course, my biggest fan and helper had to check out the article too,

“Not enough cats!”  was his only comment!

From The Knitter

I can’t believe I started Halcyon back in April.

It’s taken me two and a half, very dull and uneventful months. To be fair, it has been delayed by my usual attack of SKS  (Summer Knitting Slump) – there were a couple of weeks there I didn’t knit at all – shocking!

I’ve also been distracted because Thug hasn’t been too well. He suddenly seemed to loose a lot of weight and meow even more. I was worried sick. The good news is that he’s had every test the vet can think of – stopping short of opening him up! The vet can find nothing wrong and I’ve changed his diet to fatten him up. He seems OK now after a couple of vitamin and steroid shots but he is 18 . He’s an old man. But enjoying all the extra meaty treats and so is Mewsley

Just in case  you’ve missed his appearances, here he is in a favourite picture of mine, inspecting the conservatory..

From Halcyon

On top of all this – more DIY – This time we restored a dilapidated greenhouse from badly weathered wood, green algae covered glass and doors hanging off to this, my potting Tardis!!

From Tardis

Love the view from inside looking up!

From Tardis

Enough of this – you really want to know about Halcyon don’t you? The pattern is deceptively easy and became quite boring to do. I don’t normally knit such voluminous garments so I’m not used to the sheer amount of knitting this took. Nothing at all wrong with the pattern, easy to sew together- It was just a long slog.

But was it worth it?? I think it was!

From Halcyon

From Halcyon

Do you remember how we painted the Conservatory a striking shade of green?

Well, we’ve now put some furniture and plants in there and created a favourite snoozing spot for Mewsley!

From Double Vision Cushion

Do you like the cushion on the chair behind Mewsley? It was bought on a whim from Ikea.

Here’s a better look (right way up too!!)..

From Double Vision Cushion

We really wish we’d bought a second one we liked it so much but they have discontinued it – Bah!!

There was only one thing for it – Knit a matching cushion!

First I gathered all my likely green and yellow stash wools together in a big heap…

From Double Vision Cushion

Then I had a couple of disastrous attempts at randomly combining them – You can laugh at these attemps if you like – I did

The random stripe disaster…

From Double Vision Cushion

Then the random colour blocks using the Ten Stitch Blanket pattern.

From Double Vision Cushion

This is a clever pattern that spirals out from the centre. The problem was my attempt at random colour blocks! Looked like something a very old beginner knitter might do to use up oddments…

The pattern is better suited to random dye yarns and when done properly, looks like this…

From Double Vision Cushion

So enough of laughing at my failures…what did I choose?

I’ve always gasped with amazement at the beautiful Afghans designed by Pat Ashforth and Steve Plummer of Woolly Thoughts.

I was thrilled to see their Double Vision Afghan technique as a Cushion.

From Double Vision Cushion

The cushion uses 4 colours and blends them in all possible combinations (with yarn doubled) to give the 16 squares.

I chose my 4 colours and some ancient black mohair (left over from a long dead 1984, cropped mohair jumper) and got carried away….

What do you think so far? I really trying to mirror the colours and proportions of the Ikea cushion…

From Double Vision Cushion

From Double Vision Cushion

I am so pleased I can’t wait to finish!

Of course, that is just one side…

I like having the back of a cushion different so I’m knitting diagonally (so I can easily get the right size) and repeating 4 rows of each of the 10 possible colour combinations.

Like this so far…

From Double Vision Cushion

Hopefully, this will be finished a bit quicker than Halcyon….

…which has taken a shamefully long time to knit….watch this space for an update….

The paint fumes probably are the reason….

…I seem to keep seeing knitting  where I shouldn’t….

…even in the election coverage!

This strange and slightly worrying tenancy started when I was in Israel in 2008 (When I made Geno, and Hedera on holiday)…everyone else saw a sculpture dedicated to world peace…I saw…a giant ball of wool!

From Geno

So why the paint fumes?

I’ve been at the DIY again. Up til now the only person using the grubby, tired, sick-green conservatory was Thug.  Occasionally for it’s acoustic properties for a good long “Meowing Opera” but mostly for his afternoon nap, on a thoughtfully placed blanket, when the sun was out…

From DIY 2010

I was jealous. I really wanted a comfy chair out there for knitting in the sun.
A quick tidy up, lead to a quick clean which lead to a total inside and out scrub complete with Ben and a water powered death laser (pressure washer to you and me)!

From DIY 2010

Once we had gone that far we kinda had to paint it – there’s not much wall so we chose a brave, strong green to bring the garden in…

From DIY 2010

Yep that’s my garden knitting chair through the windows. The chair I restored a while ago – one must have a choice of knitting venues, suitable for all weathers 

So that explains the fumes…what about a knitted election?

Have you watched the BBC coverage? Have you looked at the BBC Election website?

Seen the BBC election logo at the top of every page?

From Election

Am I obsessed or are those a bunch of knitting needles??

Once you’ve seen it – you can’t un-see it…. 

The observant among you may have noticed I’ve not posted much of what I’ve been knitting recently-there’s a reason for that.  It’s not been going so well.

Thug and Mewsley have been having a tough time settling in to the new house and they haven’t been up to writing their usual contributions to the site or helping me with the knitting.

So. First the knitting update.

Before I moved…when I was hyper and frantic to, ‘just get on with it’,  I started Catrin, from Rowan Classic Heartland.  I chose a glorious choccie brown flecked Rowan Silky Tweed.

This pattern

From this book

Firstly, the choccie brown – I’m not sure the complicated cable pattern will be done justice with the dark colour and the flecks confusing it. My knitterly friend (whom I trust) said it’d be fine – I carried on.

Here’s a progress shot – I’m up to the armholes on the back…

Secondly, this pattern is charted needs good eyesight, to see the chart and to see the knitting! This is a problem – I’m at “that age” where I’ve suddenly started need my glasses. And I need to have my glasses upgraded.

Even my close up is blurry!

On top of this slight hiccup, I managed to bust my favourite lamp in the move. The new living room has poor ceiling lights so I’m knitting in the dark. With out of date glasses – if I remember to put them on 

Can you understand yet why not much has happened???

I’ve now got a new lamp and bought some snazzy new stronger glasses

But in the mean time, while sorting out those little issue, I started another problematic project…but that’s for another post !

On to the kitty cats.
Several of you have enquired about the furry beasts and how they are doing “post move”…
On the day of the move, we had cleared one room completely and put all their favourite toys, blankets, cushions and food by a nice warm radiator for them. They also were treated to anti-anxiety drugs, on advice of the vet, as they are rather old and set in their ways (18 years old in April!!)

Mewsley was terrified and spaced out and hid in her “Migloo” like a good cat. (thats a fabric cat Igloo …. Mewsley + Igloo = Migloo) .

Thug went hyperactive and wrestled his way out of the bedroom (with much meowing) and tried to investigate what was going on. He chased several removal men around the flat. My heart went out to him – It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve seen him really frustrated with being blind and not being able to see what’s happening. Eventually he wore himself out and sprawled in the middle of the living room floor and went to sleep. Luckily my removal men were cat lovers and they tiptoed around him

In the new house…
Mewsley:
Mewsley was terrified. Mewsley crept into our bed, under the duvet and hid…for 2 days. At night she came out and slept on my pillow – or cuddled me in the bed. She hadn’t eaten so, worried, I bought food and water upstairs and put it just outside the bedroom door.

After a huge scoff and an hour’s sleep she was a new cat. Wanting cuddles, exploring, scampering up and down the stairs (that’s a novelty if you’ve been living in a flat).

She’s still happiest in the bedroom, but now it’s beside the radiator or on the bed. Downstairs is still rather scary….

Thug:

Thug was his usual brave, fearless self. He set about stomping around mapping every room. Unfortunately, his elderly, walnut sized, post brain tumour brain got a little confused by the scale of the change. He got lost and confused. I could see him trying to walk the same route he’s had in the flat. Heartbreaking

We’ve had a lot of sleepless nights with Thug too. There has been meowing. Lots of it. At 3am to 4am to 5am. And a bit more during the day.

I suddenly have sympathy for parents of teething toddlers!

First, he wanted to go out – I taught him the route through the utility room, out into the conservatory, out a second cat flap into the garden. Where he drinks some rainwater from a muddy puddle and comes back in again – I do change his water bowl daily but muddy rainwater is clearly superior.

Then he was meowy because he was lost and lonely, I taught him how to find us (half asleep) in bed.

Then he was cold overnight… again, he’s got the hang of cuddling up on the bed , usually around my feet (handy that – I get cold feet!)

Now we’re down to “I’ve just come in from the garden and I’m gonna meow-ow-ow to let everyone know I own this place” type meowing – 5 or 6 yowls then it stops – sometimes I can sleep through it!

I have been seriously sleep-deprived over the last month and was starting to have most uncharitable thoughts about my furry ginger companion.

He’s settling now and  has started to discover we have a big garden, and a pond, and fish – exploring is high on his agenda for the summer.

Right now he’s happy that his Mum is nearby on her computer and he’s found his basket, thoughtfully placed by the radiator next to his Mum’s desk so he’s available to for a 30 second head scratch at short notice.

Thug and Mewsley have promised they will help me sort Catrin out,…once they’ve had a little nap….

(Yes they are lounging on my denim blankie!)

Thug has been very busy preparing to move house. Fortunately he has still found time to help me with the finishing of Cheer.

I would get mad at him sitting on my freshly blocked knitting but how could I resist this face?

I did say Cheer wouldn’t take long but pressures of work, preparing for  house moving (Probably in October) and study for a work related exam in November have slowed knitting to a crawl.

The work exam is the “Version2 to Version3 ITIL Manager’s Certificate Conversion”  – it’s about as thrilling as it sounds an involves me knowing this little pile of books…

So please forgive me if I’m a bit quiet over the next month!

Back to Cheer.

She was a quick, rewarding  and easy knit but…I did have a little problem with the pattern when I knit the sleeves. Here’s the piccy first so you can see what I’m rambling on about…

Above the vent in the sleeve the basket weave pattern continues up the sleeve in a triangle. A nice design touch. Unfortunately I could not get the instructions in the pattern to match reality. The basket weave is a nice easy “K3,P3,K3,P3…”. The pattern would have me knit either side of the vent with 2 knit stitches one edge and 2 purl stitches the other edge with one increase in the middle where they join.

That makes the basket weave pattern wrong.

If I increased 2 stitches the stitch count was wrong.

Maybe I put the 2 pieces on the needle in the wrong order? Then the instruction for the decreasing triangle were wrong??!!

In the end I fudged it together and my decreasing triangle above the vent is a little smaller than the design intend.

This wasn’t too much of an issue for me to sort out, as an experienced knitter, but this is otherwise an easy pattern a beginner might try and get seriously disheartened with – not good enough, Rowan!

Enough of the negativity, want to see the finished Cheer?

I think she goes with the outfit rather well.

Here’s the back shot, not exciting but I always thing I have to show the back for completeness!

Of course, the problem with those shots is you can’t see the lovely shoes which inspired this knit…

…a point Thug was keen to have me pose to rectify!

Do you remember Katia?  The “Holiday knitting that didn’t make it“?

Now the swine flu is completely gone and Ben and I have both recovered (thankfully) and the house move is steaming ahead (yipee) I was so ashamed of myself for having so many WIPs on the go, I’ve whizzed though and finished Katia!

Katia was not without problems. Unfortunately, they all seemed to be me being careless!   Not like me at all…
…I blame stress, swine flu, Tamiflu and anything else I use to shirk responsibility!

I’ve already told you in my last Katia post how I frogged a front then realised I’d done it right first time round.

I also managed to end up with random numbers of stitches to knit together at the shoulders (I always use a three needle bind off).

I was supposed to have 4 sets of 20 stitches – I had 20, 19, 20 and 21! Of course, I didn’t notice this until I’d tried to graft 21 stitches to 19 stitches and wondered why I had 2 left over at the end. Have you ever tried to unpick a three needle bind off, – back onto 2 needles? Swearing was involved

Another part of Katia that isn’t quite right is the back of the neck…

It’s one of those patterns where, when you’ve finished the front you knit an extra long strip to sew around the back of the neck. I can never get that neat and some how, rushing to get her finished , managed to get an ugly join that’s not central – I’m not sure if it would be any less ugly if it was in the middle but at least it would have symmetry! Maybe my hair should get a bit longer???….

After all these issues you could be forgiven for thinking I’m not happy with Katia.

It fact,  I’ve worn her all day today and I’m really please with her!  She’s easy to wear and looks great with the linen trousers I made her to go with. I think Katia will prove to be a versitile favourite.

Enough chat – more pictures!

Here’s the single button that fastens her – one I had in my button box – not sure where it came from!

I should also tell you that I  had some problems getting a shot of Katia…

…Somebody thought it was called CATia and had a diva, hissy fit, complained her brother gets more internet exposure  and insisted on being in the photos…

That was not a face to argue with so we let Mewsley have her close up, then she was happy…

Finally, we got a shot of me in the finished Katia!

It was inevitable that I would get Swine Flu

The only good thing about regularly being hit with the sniffles is that I am well prepared and know how to make the best of it.

My survival kit consisted of :-

• Ultra balm tissues
• Lemsip
• Scotch, lemons and honey – to make hot toddies
• An attentive, food preparing, fevered brow mopping boyfriend, Ben
• Tamiflu -abandoned after icky side effects
• Dozens of recorded episodes of Stargate
• Comfy sofa- with optional blankie
• 2 Cuddly cats – loving sitting on their unusually warm human
• Huge pile of  half completed knitting!

The good news is that during my time in isolation,  I made fabulous progress with Iris!

The sleeves were long and boring (aren’t they always) but that was just the kinda knitting I needed. Once done I just had the edging and sewing up to do.

The edging of Iris is quite interesting. Simple but effective. Pick up a gazillion stitches on a small needle and it’s just stocking stitch.

The interesting part is how it curls over itself and makes a firm, stable and pretty edge to the garment. I’m not so sure about the spacing of the buttons though – it’s 2 – space-2-space -2 . It works but kinda looks like there are some buttons missing. LOVE these buttons BTW – 40p each in John Lewis! Bargainous!! Just as well as this is a new colour for me and I was forced, yes FORCED to go and buy and matching necklace, earrings and eye-shadow to go with my new Iris. (That’s the story I’m telling Ben if he asks…

The downer of this for me was my choice of needle. I had used an Addi circular for the main part of Iris but couldn’t find the smaller size Addi to take with me on the plane so I bought this…a  “Square Circular” needle (by Kollage Yarns). Yep, that’s right the actual needle has a square profile – Of course there is not technical reason why a needle must be round is there?  Apparently kinder to the hands – but I found the corners dug in a bit!

Some friends of mine swear that Kollage yarns’ square dpns are great for socks but I have yet to try them.

I was warned, helpfully, when I bought the Square Circular that some had been returned because the cable had pulled out of the needle so I shouldn’t be too rough with it. This was duly noted. I was careful and this didn’t happen to me.

The cable on the Square Circular was very flexy and worked ok with a few stitches on it for the lower edges. However, when I had 400 stitches on the needle and was trying to do the neck edging it was VERY frustrating! The stitches didn’t want to slide along the cable. The join caught the stitches. The cable was too short so the stitches were scrunched up (OK that’s not the needle’s fault…). I was in quarantine so I couldn’t go out and buy a different needle!

The edging, under these conditions was an exercise in patience!!

You can see what I was working with here…

Fortunately, as I was off with swine flu and had nothing else to do,  I persevered.

The sewing up was a pleasure. Even when not feverish – I quite like seeing the garment come together!

With this type of stitch pattern it’s easy to match up as you go along. Just match up the holes.

It also gave Thug an opportunity to demonstrate his camouflage skills

I was even pleased with the strange symmetrical shapes that appeared along the sleeve seams as I drew them together (it might have been the drugs (Tamiflu mixed with the hot toddies at this point!!)

So do you want to see the fabulous finished Iris??

Here she is..

This has been an absolute pleasure to knit and I am immensely proud of Iris. She has draw compliments wherever she has been worn (which of course, I lapped up!)

One of the nicest compliments was that my friend Jane, from the Guilty Knitters, was so taken with Iris she is about to make one for herself

OK. I admit it….my resolve has failed me and I got bored with the flower blanket. It has been put away, pending winter.

I’m a bad, naughty knitter and a bad, delinquent blogger

It’s my sister’s fault really….she went and had a birthday right when I was struggling to apply myself – she distracted me….

The gift I had in mind for her was knitted so I had to stop with the blanket to make sure it was finished in time…. didn’t I??

So what did I make Carol for her birthday?

There’s a story here….

Once upon a time,  in a long lost century, around an era some might call “1992″ , my big sister bought knitting kit from Good Housekeeping Magazine. It was by a company called Knitwits (who I can’s find a trace of now).

It was for a lovely bobbly, lacy  cushion cover. The pattern doesn’t specify the yarn but I suspect strongly that it was Rowan Handknit cotton.  Carol decided the best way to complete this kit was to ask her little sister to knit it up for her! I happily obliged and the cushion has adorned Carol’s livingroom ever since.  Still looking like new…

…and I stupidly don’t have a picture of it!

About 6 years ago I made another version of this cushion (I got pictures this time!!) in fabulous Rowan Chenile Chunky. This version was beloved by Thug before it even got off the needles. It has become his personal cushion and a favourite snoozing spot.

Aww….

Hmmm – Can’t see the pattern there can you?? Kinda obscured by the ginger lard-boy…
Try this…

and this… (I apologise for the matted, fur encrusted tatty nature of this cushion. It does get washed regularly when I can prise it out from Thug’s paws)

(I apologise for the matted, fur encrusted tatty nature of this cushion. It does get washed regularly when I can prise it out from Thug’s paws)

I tell you – those bobbles, especially with chenille, are a bitch – I had “bobble finger” by the end of this cutie.

So what of Carol’s birthday present? I knew Carol was hankering after a new cushion cover for her living room and was sure I had the perfect colour yarn in stash….

This is what I came up with…

And I learnt a useful trick about bobbles too!

A good thing because this cushion has 234 of them!

You know how you do a bobble -(k,p,k,p into a stitch to make 4 stitches, knit back and forth on those 4 stitches a few times the decrease back to 1 stitch and carry on.)- That involves a heck of a lot of turning your work around – it wastes time and involves flailing limbs, tangled balls of yarn and, if knitting on the train as I planned to do, ticked off commuters.

I thought I’d try my hand at backwards knitting for the purl rowls of the bobbles (backwards knitting is where you don’t turn the work at the end of a knit row but work from left to right with the right side facing you).

I’m not very even when I backwards knit but what the hey – it’s in a bble – eho’ll see? It worked like a charm and made the dreadded “bobble rows” much easier to handle. It also had the advantage of not causing and loss of eyeballs to my fellow commuters!

So did Carol like her birthday gift?

Well yes – she loved it, but only after I’d convinced her it wasn”t a rather eclectic hat!