Damn, Knit & Blast It

I’ve had my attention diverted by cat toys. And string.

Why on earth would cat toys be of interest to me when I don’t have a cat. Not since last year when Thug, and in February,  Mewsley succumbed to old age?

Could it be that we have adopted new cats??!!

I would like to introduce Ziggy and Kitty.

From Kitty & Ziggy

Ben could not stand seeing me so miserable without my furries – all made worse by being made redundant shortly after Mewsley died. I felt I had suddenly lost so much all at once (except the lovely Ben, of course!)

We decided we could give a really good home to a rescue cat (or two) and after falling in love with their pictures on the Battersea Cats Home web site, we became the proud owners of Ziggy and Kitty. Ziggy and Kitty are mother and daughter tortoise shell, aged 7 & 6. Ziggy is brave, fearless and loves to have human company. Kitty  is terribly timid and spend a lot of her time hiding under the bed. Kitty is slowly learning to trust us and not run in terror at every noise and Ziggy is slowly learning that she won’t get fed every time we go in the kitchen! Especially since the vet called her a fattie-cattie and suggested we renamed her to “Piggy” !!

The day after we bought Kitty and Ziggy home – I was offered a new job (I start Thursday!!) Obviously these are lucky cats

Ziggy (renamed to Ziggy because Ben is a David Bowie fan and she has a stripe down her face like Ziggy Stardust) and Kitty are settling in but have tons of energy! We have been used to having very old cats snoozing on the sofa all day. Ziggy and Kitty pounced, batted and killed every toy we gave them – much to our delight

My good friend Judie came over to meet them and bought a lovely, handknitted gift of two catnip filled whales made with oddments of merino wool. I’m ashamed to say that my new kitties had no respect for Judie’s workmanship and set about destroying her work immediately. The merino yarn was no match for enthusiastic teeth and claws authough they thoroughly enjoyed the “killing”. (Thanks Judie!)

Judie had used the Whale Cat Toy pattern, free on the Simple Knits blog or as a free Ravelry download.

Hmmmm….What do I have in my stash that’s tough enough to match those claws?

String!

I had bought 10 balls of the finest B&Q value string at the bargainous price of 50p a ball with the (long abandoned)idea to make a messenger bag from it.

From Kitty & Ziggy

Hmmm- looks a bit “hard on the hands” doesn’t it?

Good Grief! iIf anyone every says to you, “Knitting with blah blah yarn is like knitting with string”, I would challenge them to really try and knit with string. It’s horrible! I had blisters after an hour just from where in ran though my hands!

But, for the love of my new cats, I was brave and persevered. The pattern is simple, elegant and well written. Unfortunately, I misread the instruction to increase to “a total of 19 stitches”to be “19 stitches either side of the central stitch” (slaps forehead and has a small tantrum at the knitting group). So I ended up with a giant sized whale….and a normal sized whale…and a whale with a picot edge tail (just because I could!)

From Kitty & Ziggy

Each whale has a hastily sewn pouch of catnip leaves and some toy stuffing inside…

From Kitty & Ziggy

And do Ziggy and Kitty like them? Oh yes! They are regularly savaged, kicked chewed and batted. Unfortunately though, neither Kitty or Ziggy realize that they are expected to pose with my knitting in return for their board and lodging yet. Give me time to train them – I did snap an action shot of Ziggy with the toys  though…

From Kitty & Ziggy

After my last post about knitting the Mewsley Paw Print cushion and how well Mewsley had recovered her sight, it is dreadful to have to tell you that she took a turn for the worse and was finally put to sleep on Monday.

Mewsley’s kidneys have been declining for several years and she was on daily medication. Eventually, her kidneys worsened an lead to ulceration in her throat that made her not want to eat. We had been coaxing food into her, carrying her when she was weak and wobbly and trying everything in the vet’s book of magic tricks.  When she stopped eating altogether and was rapidly loosing weight, we took our vets advice and let her go before she suffered too much. She was 19 years and 10 months old and I don’t feel like I had nearly enough time or cuddles with her.

Mewsley was always the timid, pretty, ladylike cat, often bullied in her early years by her brother Thug. She made up for that in later life once Thug went blind and was not adverse to giving Thug a well timed swipe when he deserved it (and he often  did).

Ben and I are bereft without her. After 20 years of two beautiful cats around my ankles and always available for a cuddle, the house seems cold and empty and strangely still and silent.

I will blog some knitting blog posts in the next few days but please forgive me for being preoccupied with my poor kitten’s well being for the last few weeks.

Ben was especially close to Mewsley and came up with the best daft names for her. So I leave you with some of our favorite pictures to remember her by Mewsley, Mewie and Matron-Mewsley (because she’d always sit on us when we were ill or unhappy).

Here are some of our favorite memories of Mewsley – we loved her dearly and miss her deeply.

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

From Mewsley

Where have I been? Not blogging? What possible excuse?

Errm…..

…how about ….

“We eloped to Africa on a fabulous long trip and got married”?!!

Do you remember that the lovely Ben proposed last December – I blogged it in Exciting news and a Hat…

We’ve been together a long time and didn’t want a traditional wedding but we did want a fabulous Honeymoon to remember.

Therefore, we got married in Zanzibar (big island off the East coast of Africa) and had a relax on the beach, then went on safari in Kenya!

We took literally 2000 photos of the whole trip and I could write for days about how fantastic the wedding was, how well we were looked after in the resort, how unbelievably beautiful the Masai Mara is, how astounding it is to be 10 ft away from wild animals doing their thing, how wonderful Africa is to visit. (Before you ask – no trouble, no pirates, no unpleasantness of any kind.)

So what to show you?

Well this is a knitting blog so here’s what I’ll do….a couple of my favorite pics from the wedding and the safari, links to more pictures so you can take a look if you’re interested then tomorrow, I’ll tell you what I knit while I was away…well you didn’t think I’d leave my knitting at home did you??! Tsk – you just don’t know me if you did!

Wedding photos… Click HERE for more photos if you wanna peek)
My fave photo…

From Wedding

Paddling in my wedding dress….

From Wedding

Strolling on the beach once it was done…

From Wedding

Safari photos – click HERE for more safari photos…

Hyena, snacking on a spine…

From Safari – Subset

A rather large hippo…

From Safari – Subset

Sunrise over the mara…

From Safari – Subset

The “Marsh Pride” of lions, devouring a Topi…

From Safari – Subset

Exciting huh

So what did I knit?

Hmmmm….this post is getting long so next post tomorrow for that one!

OK – teaser – It was Kim Hargreaves and it was in Denim and I have finished it…..

Excitement this week – My copy of A Stitch in Time Volume 2 arrived. Susan Crawford even signed it for me – Thanks Susan!

It’s this book

From Top Secret 2

It is a HUGE book, ram packed with 120 fantastic patterns from 1930s – 1959. All graded and made with modern yarns. Some are not to my taste but others are definately on my wish list. Even if you didn’t knit, it’s a facinating coffee table book to flick through.

Do you  remember that I knitted “To Wear in the Evenings” (or Top Secret as I called it) for the first volume? I blogged it here –>> Top Secret – Declassified

This was the garment…

From Top Secret

Well, told you in my “Where have you been?” post that I had knit a garment for Volume two and here it is!!

From Top Secret 2

It’s a fabulous lace top from the 1950′s called The Ribbon Threaded Jumper. It’s on page 310 if you have the book.  Here’s the original picture from the 1950′s…

From Top Secret 2

Do you like??

It really was an absolute pleasure to knit. Knitshop Pima Cotton and a pretty straight forward lace pattern. Very “my kinda knit”! The yoke is interesting – the back, front and both sleeves are put on a circular needle and yoke is knitted in one piece. Strangely, it’s knit back and forth with an opening at the back that you sew up later. I would knit it in the round if I wasn’t making a sample strictly to the pattern!

Wanna see some more piccies?
Here are some, just before I sent my “Ribbon Threaded jumper” back to the publishers.

How the sleeve and yoke attach…

From Top Secret 2

The completed jumper before sewing up (I send it back without sewing it)…

From Top Secret 2

Some yoke detail….

From Top Secret 2

And from the book – a cute sleeve picture…

From Top Secret 2

And that neck – all beribboned and finished

From Top Secret 2

So did I get a mention in this fantastic book?

Naturally, at the front in the acknowledgement – a list of all us brave knitters…

From Top Secret 2

So all that’s missing from this post now is a completed knit report and a picture of Mewsley, refusing to get off the knitting!

From Top Secret 2

Oh Gosh!

Over 2 months since my last blog post – you must be imagining the worst
Massive apologies

Don’t panic! There is absolutely nothing seriously or medically wrong.

I have just been struggling with a combination of my normal SKS (Summer Knitting Slump), loosing my beloved blogging muse, Thug (3 pictures of his daft antics and a blog post had written itself!), being mega busy at work and suffering from insomnia.  Knitting was starting to feel like one more pressure – something I had to do so I could blog about it. Time to take a break for a couple of weeks… (Ooops…)

So all of those are things I can’t change except insomnia…been creeping up for a while- it’s quite odd. I’m utterly exhausted by 20:30 in the evening - falling asleep on the sofa unless I am poked with sharp sticks by the lovely Ben (who is happy to oblige).  Even if I stay awake all evening, I’m  too tired to knit. I go to bed, instantly go to sleep, until about  3am. Bing! Wide awake. If I knit then I wake up too much and am knackered the next day and it exacerbates the cycle. Can you see how this is affecting my knitting huh?

The good news is my Doc gave me a full MOT and I’m as fit as a fiddle. I guess I’m just going to have to manage it.

But enough of this. Have I done any knitting at all?

Well, after a lot of frowning and swearing…

From Elizabeth

I finally finished the accursed fronts of Elizabeth. I have to say, now they are done – the design is rather good. The collar extends round the back of the neck. I have joined the collar and “three needle bind offed” the shoulders…This is how it looks right now…

From Elizabeth

I currently romping through the last sleeve so should be done quite soon (assuming I can stay awake(!))

But I have knit another entire garment while I have been absconding from blog land….
…but unfortunately I can’t show it to you!

Hideous disaster I’m ashamed of?? Au contraire!
Do you remember when I made Top Secret? The sample I made for KnitOnTheNet for the Stitch in Time book?

Well, they contacted me to see if I’d do another sample – there is a sequel to Stitch in Time on the way – Squeee!!!!

You can read all about it and pre order here – Stitch in Time Vol 2.

What did I knit???

Well, I can’t tell you much or even show you til the book is out but it was a massively enjoyable knit – I could easily reknit it for myself. A lacey design from the 50′s in a lovely pure cotton dk.

You’re gonna have to wait to see that one.

So. I had best get back to finishing the Elizabeth sleeve and try not to fall asleep face down a drooling on my needles…

Lets not leave it 2 months until the next post huh?

Squee!

News, hot off the press from the Guilty Knitters….

We have a famous knitting designer friend in out midst!

One of the founder members of the Guilty Knitters, Janie B., has been chosen to be one of the designers for the IKnit sock club.!!

We (the Guilty Knitters) have watched Janie carefully work and rework her Tantalus design until she was happy with it. More attention to detail than I could manage.

Janie announced here success to us but was a little shy.

Best shot I could get of her!

From Janie B

Janie loves working with ridiculously fine yarns, has a passion for lace and has the “sock-bug in a bad way. Janie takes her knitting everywhere with her and inspired my “commuting knitting” by telling me how many rows she could manage in the lift at Mornington Crescent tube station!!!

Well done Janie – I’m green with envy

I think someone has put a “Kim Hargreaves Curse” on me!

I love her designs but I keep on getting it wrong with stupid errors when I knit them! It’s not like I’m a beginner either is it?? They all turn out OK in the end but if I’m going to mess up it’s on a Kim pattern….

First there was Maria – a lovely favourite top of mine – but I sewed the left sleeve into the right armhole  <Slaps forehead>

From

Then there was Emily – This time I managed to get the edging different lengths and forget to do the decreasing on the sleeves…

From

The Haven scarf??? That turned out really well but I made a huge blunder and messed up the pattern (with associated embarrassing shot of me being unhappy about it…)

From

Turned out OK after some frogging  though…

From

And of course there was the memorable Ronnie – the sloppy Joe in Rowan Big Wool. I struggled with the tension, made it was too large and end up looking like a Dr Who alien and promising a “big wool bonfire”!

From

Ronnie has escaped the bonfire and has now been rehomed to a friend of mine – She looks fabulous in Ronnie – maybe because she’s a foot taller than me!

So what Kim Hargreaves related disaster has prompted this “Susan’s Screw-up Retrospective”??

I’ve had some pretty red Rowan Summer Tweed in my stash for some time – another John Lewis Rowan sale source of guilt

I had always intended to make Elizabeth from Kim’s Heartfelt book with it. With the sun shining and the air-conditioning at work blasting so I need a jacket in the office it was calling to me.

This is the piccy in Kim’s book…

From Elizabeth

Beautiful huh? Love that curved peplum I would even knit moss stitch (which I don’t enjoy much) to own that beauty!

I happily got out my swift and wound the hanks of Summer Tweed into yarn cakes – I love this stage of starting a new project

From Elizabeth

So off I started knitting the back….

….I found that the pattern was complicated and had lots of  shortrow shaping to make the curve – a common technique Kim uses…But the Knits and Purls were in the wrong place for the moss stitch – that’s not like a Kim pattern….

One ball of yarn later- looked back at the pattern, relieved I had finished the short row shaping….

A word caught my eye at the top of the page….

Elizabeth is knitted in DOUBLE moss stitch throughout….I had diligently corrected the pattern to single moss stitch. I hit myself in the face with the pattern several times to try and beat some sense into myself. I only do this type of screw up with Kim’s patterns!!

Rip…Rip…Rip…start again…

I finished the back without drama…

It did seem a bit large…..

From Elizabeth

But the DOUBLE moss stitch looked super in the red…

From Elizabeth

I’m half way up a front – the fronts and the notched collar are supposed to be the hard bits….

From Elizabeth

I was a happy little knitter….then, in a quite coffee break at work, I thought I’d show a colleague what I was working on and looked at Kim’s site…..

….and found the errata….

ELIZABETH
Back – Length to the beg of armhole shaping should read 38.5 (38.5: 40: 40: 40: 40) and not 42 (42: 43: 43: 43: 43) as stated.
Left front – Shape armhole should read as folls:
Cast off 4 (4: 5: 5: 5: 6) sts at beg of next row. Work 1 row. Dec 1 st at armhole edge of next 5 (5: 5: 5: 7: 7) rows and 2 (2: 3: 3: 2: 3) foll alt rows, and then on foll 4th row.
Size diagram – garment length should read 56.5 (57.5: 59: 60: 61: 62) cm – 22 ¼ (22 ½ : 23: 23 ½ : 24: 24 ½) in

I had knit 3.5 cms too much before starting the armholes! All that knitting wasted

So tonight I rip a large chunk of the back out and do it again.

I suppose it’s not too bad – that’s the first time in my many Kim Hargreaves’s cursed garments it’s not been my fault!!

It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago

The lovely Ben bought me choccies (not good for the figure) and a bottle of my favorite scotch – Talisker -A Peaty one from the Island of Skye (not good for the figure either!!) and a wonderful geeky gadget – a Kindle!!

What’s a Kindle?? Why are you gibbering about it on a knitting blog??

It’s this…

From Kindle

It’s an electronic book reader…but that doesn’t do it justice. There is a huge amount of detail about it here–>> Amazon Kindle page if you want the marketing blurb but I’ll give you the knitting related basics.

Apart from being the size and weight of a really good, large  biscuit (!) it can hold hundreds of books. (You kinda expect that of a book reader)

The Kindle displays them with a unique “digital ink” which  doesn’t have the glare or eyestrain potential of a computer screen and you can adjust the size and orientation of the page too. ..My woman logic immediately decided that a kindle (that can be read in bright sunlight) and can have a large font was cheaper than  prescription sunglasses which I only use while reading on the beach…

…and no paper patterns blowing into the sea…

….and the Audio function can read the books to you while you doze on the beach…

…….and it’s lighter than the average paperback and easier to hold open really important if you read in bed with a book in one hand and stoking an inquisitive, nuzzelly cat with the other…

…and it has free wireless to download books that you’ve bought from Amazon. OK – most of my “purchases” have been classics that have either been free of a mighty £0.72p each !

So all the bookiness is great (can you tell that I’m a fan yet?)- really well designed for people who want to read books – but what about knitters?? There are hidden wonders to behold for knitters!

The Yarn Harlot’s books are available to Kindle.. plus 240 assorted texts including pattern books (the Kindle does display pictures but black and white only)

And there are magazines but no knitting magazines as yet

And there are blogs!   Only 6 knitting ones but you’ll be glad to know I’ve made my blog available to Kindle

It looks like this on Amazon….

From Kindle

And like this on the Kindle ….

From Kindle

That’s the “articles” view (I’ve set up my blog to send you the last 10 articles) you then click the one you want and read.

Unfortunately Amazon charges £1.99 per month – not sure I’d pay for something I could get free on the web?? (But please do subscribe -If you all subscribe I may personally get as much a 50p!!)

My blog available here–>> Kindled Damn Knit & Blast It

And then there are the PDFs… I had no idea the Kindle could hold PDFs – I have a lot of patterns I have bought from Ravelry which are PDF. You can either plug your Kindle into your computer and drag a PDF onto it, or email it using the free email address (there is a small charge if you use the 3G connection – beware!) You can even email scans of patterns to your kindle email and get them on the Kindle – invaluable if you’re comjuting and knitting and don’t want to carry a pattern book or don’t have a printer.

Here’s a view of my Chunky Twisted Ribbon Cushion Pattern from a while ago…

From Kindle

The pictures are great quality but sadly, black and white. You can change the orientation of the page and zoom in too like this, then scroll left and right…

From Kindle

So are there downsides? Yes.

You can’t scribble on the kindle – you can add electronic notes but it’s just not the same as scribbling a row count or a modification in the margin of the pattern.

Also, my big bug bear with the PDFs – although you can zoom in and see what you need – as soon as you exit the PDF it forgets the zooming in and reverts to the full page view – annoying if you want to keep referring to the pattern and have to go through the slightly clumsy zooming in again and again.

One last major plus…it has free WiFi on it’s own WiFi network. So you can download a book whenever or wherever you are. It also has a web browser so you can browse the internet too (!). The web browser isn’t brilliant and not all sites work 100% – (it’s still “experimental” – but it’s free for goodnes sake. I can easily  send a twitter message or browse Ravelry.com although updating anything isn’t much fun.

So to wind up – I’m really happy with my Kindle and hope you can see all the knitterly potential.

One last smile – You’ll need to be a Science fiction fan to get this joke XKCD,com…

From Kindle

Knitting has a wonderful ability to change my response to situations.

My trains have been late, cancelled, crowded and generally a disorganised mess since the snow in December. MPs are now involved and there is a growing call for Southeastern Trains to loose their franchise all together. As a beleaguered daily commuter on this shabby excuse for a service,  I should be cussing, fistwaving and stamping my foot. But I’m not

Why not?

Because, after a couple of weeks of adding up the total number of minutes my trains were late, I was gaining at least an extra hour a week knitting time! So now, when the driver announces that there is congestion at London Bridge, a dog on the line or that the train has lost it’s path (Yep, we really had those and more this week !) I huff and puff a little, then think , “Great, I can get some more rows in!”

So, all these late trains mean… I’ve finished my Easy for the Train socks .

From Easy for the train

From Easy for the train

Not thrilling or challenging but colourful and fun – a success.  For me these were not all about the finished product but about de-stressing my commute – a success in that respect too!

Oh! I must be turning into a process knitter- Gasp!