Hetty Colour Experiments

August 6th, 2010, 8:13 pm

I love the new Rowan magazine no.48.

This one

From Hetty

It’s been a really long time since I’ve been excited by the contents of a Rowan mag but this one did it for me.

I wasn’t so keen on the first “story” all big chunky yarns – we know from my Big Wool Bonfire that this stuff isn’t for me.

But it did make me laugh – how can Rowan unfailingly have a garment that looks like a couple of old bathroom mats, staped together at the shoulders and belted??

I give you Roamer…

From Hetty

(Sorry if you’ve just cast this on :shock: )

I loved the Russian doll story – mouthwatering complicated fairisles and intarsias that challenged whether I could make one – I do love drooling over things I think might be too hard!

Then there were the Kidsilk Haze garments … Ohhh – we know I have a small amount in stash don’t we?? Rowan are such pushers of their Cracksilk Haze drug…

I like them all but zeroed in on Hetty…

This one…

From Hetty

Would you believe – in my vast KSH stash – I didn’t have enough of any of the colours to make it. I couldn’t possibly justify going out and buying  KSH when I have over a hundred balls sitting in my knit-room?? Could I ?

I decided to experiment with what colour ways would work with the stash I had – although I allowed myself to buy one small fix of Jelly – the lurid green – it does get into everything!

The problem was I couldn’t visualise where the different colours would go – it’s a rather complicated colour mix – different on the sleeves to the body…

I turned to my favourite PC application,  Visio, and mocked up a garment in the original colours…

From Hetty

Then assigned each of the colours to a layer so I could change all the “Jelly” stripes and Dewberry stripes to another colour with a couple of clicks…

If you have Visio, want to play with your own colour combos  and want a copy of my file and instructions how to use it- click here to download but you do need the Visio software for it to work!

So here is my Autumnal Version…

From Hetty

And utilising some Purple “Violetta” I have…

From Hetty

And cos I have a lot of black sparkly…

From Hetty

And a pretty girly pink using a very pale peach, cream, blushes and fondant…

From Hetty

Isn’t it amazing how different they can look?

I’m still not sure if I’ll actually knit Hetty – It could take a month to decide on colours….

I showed Ben and he instantly hated it so no direction from there  :(

Which do you like??

Still….Fun playing, Huh? :D

Squeeeealll!! I’m in The Knitter!

July 19th, 2010, 11:45 am

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

Conservatory Stash Busting

July 12th, 2010, 2:40 pm

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 :D

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….

Knitted Election??!!

May 4th, 2010, 7:23 pm

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….  :-D

Tales from the DIY Dungeon

April 8th, 2010, 6:00 am

I know this is a knitting blog, but here’s the deal.

I’ll tell you about my exciting new knitting project in my next post if you humour me and listen to me brag about the DIY we’ve been up to…

This was our Utility room, just after we moved in…

From DIY 2010
From DIY 2010

There was 20 years of dirt on the walls, which never seem to have been wiped, chocolate brown gloss paintwork, knackered old cupboards and a bile green carpet that had been used as a cat toilet. We even found cans of beer in those old wardrobes that were 12 years out of date! 12 years!!

It made my flesh creep to put anything of ours out there, let alone let any laundry touch the floor. Even worse – what if Thug and Mewsley got the idea they could use it as a cat toilet too? This room quickly became out top priority to get sorted.

First we ripped up the disgusting bile green carpet and lino and found the original beige lino underneath – a thorough scrub and bleach and we could live with it for a couple of months.

The window was replaced (we had the whole house done – what a change!)
and we scrubbed and painted the walls, gloss and ceiling. The Utility room is quite a big room – 6.5m x 2.5m so this was quite a big job. This was when Ben christened it the DIY Dungeon! For weeks we seemed to spend every spare minute out there rubbing down, filing and painting.

Time for a breather while we planned phase 2!

From DIY 2010

The next big job was the floor – We wanted tiles but the cost of getting a professional to lay them was prohibitive. More DIY!!

It was a hard, back breaking, knee bruising, painstaking job but I think we did rather well! :grin:

From DIY 2010
From DIY 2010

We also needed new kitchen units to house the sink, washer and dryer… The old ones had to go…

From DIY 2010

To be replaced by these!

From DIY 2010

So much cleaner and brighter :)

And that brings be up to this Easter weekend…

The finishing touch – tiling around the sink unit..

From DIY 2010
From DIY 2010
From DIY 2010

I’m so pleased with what we’ve achieved out here I keep going to take another look to make sure I’m not dreaming – daft aren’t I?

Catching Up

April 5th, 2010, 8:04 pm

Oh Boy! I seem to have blinked and it’s been over a month since my last blog post – Sorry readers – I’ve been bad and neglected you :roll:

First I was busy with work – but in a good way. Learning new stuff, meeting new people but under some tough deadlines, doing long days and having to stay away from home.

Then we had a week off work.

The plan was to revamp the “DIY dungeon”, otherwise known as the Utility Room and celebrate my birthday. We got about half the work done then we both got hit with a really nasty tummy bug. I will spare you the detail but suffice it to say, neither of us ate or retained proper food for a week.  :shock:

(I’ll tell you more about the DIY dungeon in another post -but you can have a sneak preview in the pictures…)

Though all of this woe,  I did get some knitting done and do a have a finished object to show you!

Do you remember Catrin? I blogged about her here then found she was too hard for for a stressed out , “post house move knitter” so she was put aside in favour of Ronnie (who was supposed to be easy!)

So, to remind you Catrin is from Rowan Classic  Heartland

From Catrin

and looks like this in the book

From Catrin

I really don’t know why I put this project aside? Maybe I was just ready for a more challenging knit when I came back to it?  I really enjoyed Catrin when I picked her up again – much more than the accursed Ronnie!

I was, however,  shocked to see that I started Catrin just before I moved in October- time is flying :?

So wanna see it?

Here she is – a month’s hard labour!!

From Catrin

And one with me grinning at you…

From Catrin

I like this pattern as the cables are on the back as well as the front – I find in very boring to have to knit plain sleeves and back with all the interest going on on the front.

Here’s the back – just to prove it…

From Catrin

And the sleeves are pretty cabley too…

From Catrin

The cables are complex but once the pattern is going, I can see what comes next fairly easily. I do have to check with the pattern still but it’s a quick glance to check rather than a slavish following of every twist.

Sizing is curious – as the is from Rowan’s Classic range I decided to knit a 32″ size. I normally knit Rowan pattern, from their main books, in a 34″ but  I keep on finding that the Classic series comes up too big for me. I think you’ll agree this is a good fit – I certainly wouldn’t want it any larger. I did ask  a senior Rowan design person at one of the shows if the sizing was different between the main books and Classic but he said they were identical. That’s not my experience so be aware if you’re deciding between sizes.

I must say, I found the Rowan Silky Tweed a dream to knit with it’s a lovely yarn and highlights the cables really well. It’s 80% lambswool and 20% silk.

I love the unrefined texture of lambs wool but I know a lot of knitters find it rough (memories of Grandma knitted, wonky sleeve length, itchy, school V-neck sweaters immediately surface!) The 20% silk in the Silky Tweed softens the yarn beautifully and gets rid of any trace of that typical woolly scratch. The wool makes it incredibly warm and light too.

I will definitely be looking out for Silky Tweed in the sales!

Completed Knit Report
Name: Catrin
Pattern: From Rowan Classic Heartland by Martin Storey
Yarn: Rowan Silky Tweed
Pattern Problems: None – but did need an extra ball
Pattern Modifications: None – straight forward jumper with all the detail in the cables
Washing and Wearing: Very warm :)
Knit It Again???: Possibly
Difficulty: Medium
Rating: 4/5
Other Postings Relating To This One: Cats ‘n’ knitting – tough going

And something for the birds…

February 24th, 2010, 8:40 pm

One of the great pleasure of my lovely new house is that there is a pretty tree and some shubs in the garden, outside of the kitchen window.

The tree is the PERFECT place to hang bird feeders!

I waste an awful lot of potential knitting time watching the birds and squealing when I spot a new species.  Too many species to list here but exciting sightings include green woodpeckers,  great spotted woodpeckers, fieldfares, nuthatches, ring necked parakets and a sparrowhawk.

Here’s a great spotted woodpecker, snapped from the kitchen sink,  pecking at  a fat filled coconut on the aforementioned tree…

“Very nice. What’s that got to do with knitting?”, I hear you ask!

Well…

I buy my birdy supplies online from the wonderfuly quick and efficient

CJ Birdfoods.

Whilst reading their latest catalogue of luxurious birdy treats I laughed out loud when I saw “Best Nest Wool“…

Your eyes do not deceive you.  The catalogue offers a bag ful of chopped up oddments of wool, in synthetic, organic or mixed varieties (like the birds will have preferences!) for birds to take to use for nesting material!

After my initial shock, I decided this isn’t as mad as it might sound. Birds collect scraps of sheep’s wool from shrubs and fences to line their nests. So why not from my garden? Also,  Thug and Mewsley have donated their excess fur groomings every year from their spring moult to the birds in a similar dispenser – many a blue tit has grown up nestled in Thug fur!

You can be sure that, as an avid knitted, this is one product I don’t need to buy.

I have however, started to keep all those little ends and scraps I trim off after making up a garment, in a bag at the bottom of my knitting  bag. Chopped up to short lengths of course, so the birds don’t get tangled in the yarn.

Come March and the nesting season, my garden birdies will have the finest luxury yarn lined nests…you never know – they might find a couple of twigs and take up knitting!

Hat Need

January 23rd, 2010, 7:00 am

My sister has a hat need.

I have needles, an obscene amount of yarn and knit skills.

There’s only one way this can turn out :-)

Given that my knitting has not been going well, I plumped for an easy option that I knew worked.

Do you remember the Accidental hat? (Snug from Rowan 42)

It’s this one…

I wear this all the time in winter and love it – warm, easy to wear, goes with everything and warm (I know I said warm twice – it deserves it!)

I knew I had some creamy coloured Rowan Cocoon in my stash…two evenings later I was looking for a model :)

My old bear, Basil, didn’t run away quickly enough but didn’t turn out to be much good at hat modeling…

So I had to step in – where’s Thug when I need him?

That wasn’t enough to meet the Hat Need.

I remembered a very old, 1970′s type bobblehat in an old Patons book…

This wonderfully useful book has been republished numerous times – my copy is the 1985 bicentenary edition! (and cost a princely 95p)

The pattern picture is hillarious…

…but it is a very good, basic hat that stays on. I love the neat decreases too.

I found 100g of Sublime Merino and whipped one up in a few evenings.

Then topped if with a huge bobble (that Carol can remove if she wants to) made of the Sublime, cream and deep purple Kidsilk Haze (Well, I have to use it up somehow!)

I was getting into my stride now and enjoying knitting for the first time in ages.

Then I found the perfect hat pattern – a French Beret in Louisa Harding’s “Hats Gloves Scarves” book.

I loved the striped option (there’s a plain, picot edge version too). It was knit in Rowan 4ply Soft – I kinda have a stash of oddments and balls from various sources :grin:

I chose 5 colours I think my sister will like and thoroughly enjoyed reverse stocking stitch stripes and the pattern in general.

I loved the contrast edging..

I loved the “target” in the middle

I loved the colours and textures together.

The only part I didn’t love was sewing up the seam accurately with mattress stitch(took some fiddle-faddle to get it lined up) and sewing in a thousand ends. I did carry the yarn up the side where possible but a few times it was at the wrong end.

I could have knit in the round but felt  the inevitable carried up unused colours and darned in ends would look messier than a careful mattress stitch seam with the ends lost in the seam.

I needed a model again…and Basil wasn’t very good (sorry Basil)…

Come here Thug….

Completed Knit Report
Name: Snug
Pattern: Snug by Cathy Carron
Yarn: Rowan Cocoon
Pattern Problems: None but took less than 1 ball – pattern gives 2 balls?
Pattern Modifications: None but next time I’d knit it on DPNs and a circ rather than seam it. (Wish I’d remembered 2nd time!)
Washing and Wearing: Lovely and warm and quite versitile look by rolling the brim up and down.
Knit It Again???: Yes!
Difficulty: Easy Peasy
Rating: 5/5
Other Postings Relating To This One: Accidental hat
Completed Knit Report
Name: Family Bobble Caps
Pattern: From  ancient Paton’s Woolcraft book
Yarn: Sublime Merino DK
Pattern Problems: None (except suppressing giggle at the bobble family)
Pattern Modifications: none
Washing and Wearing: warn, fits well and stays on- a little dated though
Knit It Again???: Yes
Difficulty: easy
Rating: 5/5
Other Postings Relating To This One: None


Completed Knit Report
Name: French Beret
Pattern: from Louisa Harding’s Hat Gloves Scarves
Yarn: Rowan 4 ply soft
Pattern Problems: None
Pattern Modifications: different colours
Washing and Wearing: suits everyone who tried it (except Basil)
Knit It Again???: Yes – One for me is  in the queue
Difficulty: Easyish – following the stripe pattern takes attention to detail
Rating: 6/5 Love it!
Other Postings Relating To This One: None

The Wrong Kind of Wool

November 29th, 2009, 7:58 pm

“Wow” said Ben,

Homebase have an offer of great big bales of wool. You’d like that wouldn’t you? Get your coat – that’s this weekend’s project!!”

Sightly confused at the prospect of Homebase selling yarn, but eager to to buy bales of wool for a project, I followed Ben eagerly…

Unfortunately, he had neglected to mention he meant “Earthwool“.

Not some fabulous yarn but carbon neutral loft insulation made from recycled glass bottles.

I’ve never tried spinning but I suspect that even the most ardent spinner would have trouble making this into something knitable … might be a bit scratchier than pure lambswool…

So this is the “6 huge balls of  Wool” I ended up with…

So the weekend was spent insulating the loft and boarding an area so we can store  that “need it once in five years” kinda junk out of the way.

I won’t bore you with all the details but it did involve 2 drills, a jigsaw and a laser guided circular saw. Also a very attractive outfit for the job…

I’m the one on the left – I’ve never felt so desirable :lol:

So why did I go along with Ben’s “Woolly Deception”?

Because, I can’t move in my soon to be knit room – it’s full of non knitting junk…

This way I can get the junk  in the loft…

One step closer to my knitting paradise…  :grin:

Stash Relocation Project

November 21st, 2009, 10:41 pm

The great house move has happened!

We’re in the new house and we’re in that manic mood swinging place where one minute the house is fabulous and the next we’re despairing and wailing, “what have we done?”

We bought from an old lady who clearly hadn’t been able to manage the house for some time. It’s filthy – years of filth and neglect and DIY left undone. Not to mention the spider colonies  in need of eviction!

It’s gradually getting there – Slowly  getting cleaner.  I’ve deployed some serious power tools to slash & burn the overgrown shrubs in the garden and I’m fixing the broken stuff one item at a time – although I can’t decide if my favourite so far was the bath sealant strip held in place with chewing gum (discovered when our showering seeped through the bathroom floor and flooded the hall way) or the toilet cistern -containing a nice blue bleach block- constantly overflowing through the wonderfully sited overflow pipe right over the front door! Come and visit and get a free blue rinse anyone??

I could write all night about the new house but this is a knitting blog so I’ll tell you how the important knitty stuff has faired with the move.

Firstly, you’ll notice I’ve not blogged – lack of internet and too damned busy -  I’m hoping you’ll understand!

The only knitting I’ve  done has been on a Sunday morning with the Guilty Knitters. I have been crazy busy but I felt I had to hang on to this one island of knitting in my week – Ben enjoyed getting some quality time with his Xbox360  too.

So not much to report on the knitting front :-(

In a recent post, Dawn asked how I was moving my stash in “the great house move”.

For most of my readers , to you, that would mean picking up a basket or box or suitcase of yarn and adding it to the pile of boxes.

For me, dear readers, stash relocation became a major project.

First there were the knitting books to pack.  You’d think two boxes would do it?

Just a few books on that shelf…two boxes full maybe? ..

And my other shelf of books and leaflets in the cupboard…

And my near complete collection of rowan mags…

And the books I use a lot that are by the sofa…

I carefully labelled the boxes “knit books”…

That was a mistake – my removals men were a little flabbergasted,
“Just how many boxes of Knit Books do you have?”

Hmmm…There’s 6 boxes here

And another two in the bedroom!

Yep, 8 stuffed full boxes of knitting related books, booklets, leaflets and magazines.

Can you imaging the look on the removals men’s faces when they encountered my yarn stash?

When I packed my yarn stash up, I confess, I was shocked by the sheer volume of yarn. I bought from IKEA, some special “stash bags” like this…

They are called “Dimpa” and measure 65 x 22 x 65cm and are dust proof, damp resistant, polypropelene webbing. The zip opens across the top and halfway down each side too – making them good for stuffing big quilts in as well as yarn.

Very reasonable at £3.29!

Would you believe I filled 3 of these?

…and that was on top of my 4 usual “underbed storage boxes” and a big ikea cardboard box! Poor removals men :oops:

In case you’re wondering how I find my yarn – it’s all catalogued carefully on Ravelry along with it’s stashbag location. Each type of yarn is sealed in a freezer bag too (since my encounter with moths!)

Like this…

All that’s left now is to get my Guest bedroom/Knit room set up. It’ll have a sofa bed for the guests, giving me somewhere to sit and knit and read knit books. And some much nicer storage for my yarn.

Just the rest of the house to sort out first then I can get to the yarn room – What more motivation do I need? :-D