Laughing Yaffle

Yarn on its way...

2012-01-17T11:26:00.001Z

A sneak preview! It's all taking a bit longer than usual as I've been wading through treacle with a wonky thyroid this past couple of months, so please bear with me! Lots of new colours and some more Fledgling due at the end of the month. See you soon :)

Cabled dog blanket?

2012-01-10T13:20:00.001Z

Well, I was going to post something about all the knitting I've been doing while I've been on a bloggy holiday, but a little something got in the way. This just proves that what I suspected is true: I only ever knit or crochet for the dog!

A square-free zone

2011-10-17T10:00:00.000+01:00

During the summer I made great progress on a quilt I'd had in mind for a while. It started life as a piece of unfinished patchwork I found in a second-hand shop years ago. I loved the vintage fabric in the patchwork, and couldn't bear to cut it into pieces, so it stayed as a metre-long (ish) piece and I left it in a cupboard for years, not knowing quite what to do with it. It sometimes got lucky enough for an outing, where I'd stare at it thoughtfully, admire the 70s patterns, fold it up and put it back. And there it sat, waiting for the muse to arrive (on the number 76 bus I think, that's usually how it arrives).

This is part of the original bit of patchwork. It's equipped with a charming degree of wonkiness! Whoever made it struggled with the different weights of fabric and in trying to get the seams to match up. Or, well, who knows, maybe the person didn't struggle - they just didn't give a hoot! anyway. Back to the story. The muse got off the 76 bus, walked down the lane, into the house and slapped me roundly about the chops whilst proclaiming "you should make a quilt in the style of the original bit of fabric! Equipped with a degree of wonk!" It was like a quilter's game of Whose Line is it Anyway. A quilt in the style of.......a wonky quilt! So about it I went. And after a few days of slicing and dicing, I had this.

Well, that's part of it. It's about double bed size. I haven't finished the quilting yet. I've decided upon a scribbly circle for the quilting, I think you can see a bit of it in this...

How I love those vintage bits of fabric! I tried to keep within the theme of the original with the colours and 70s styles. I put in old shirts, skirts, sheets, duvet covers, old aprons, in fact any old bits of vintage fabric I'd been collecting over the years. Not that it's made much of a dent in the shameful stash! To make up the size I slipped in a couple of new fat quarters too.

As you can see, I haven't bothered about lining up the seams. I wanted it to be totally randomly pieced. I didn't want matching perfect squares or lined-up lengths. I love working without a plan or a sketch! (possibly why I don't get on with knitting patterns...). So that's how it turned out. The scribbly quilting needs finishing, then it needs binding (urgh). But I'm nearly there. And here's the ultimate test: does the dog like it?

I think that's a yes!

Non-wonky knitting!

2011-10-07T11:30:00.000+01:00

After showing you the horror of my sock knitting the other day, (hahah, there really ought to be a 'Real People' style magazine for my knitted horrors... I could fill it with tales such as 'Evil Twin Knitted Sock Ruined My Life!", "I Knitted Some Socks Without Knowing I was Knitting!", "I Left My Knitting in the Lurch!", "I Knitted a Jumper With Three Arms and no Neck!" "Double Pointed Drama at 30,000 Feet!" etc) I thought I'd share a success story. Aaaw. Everyone loves a happy ending, right?!

This is another one of those Nearly Finished objects! Just the one sleeve to go. Here's hoping I manage to get the sleeves the same length. After all, there's no hiding the dodgy sleeve inside a wellington boot (unless...no, wait, even I can't carry that off as a fashion statement) The pattern is Cadence and I've managed to knit this far in about a fortnight, which is unheard of for me. It's knitted in Sirdar Bonus Aran, in a rather fetching shade of purple. For me, of course! It's not blocked or anything (not sure I'll bother as I have no patience) but it's meant to be an off-the-shoulder number so the yoke looks a bit more like this when it's on.

The funniest thing about this though, I think, is the size of the ball of yarn. It's a hilariously huge 400g ball! I feel like Dougal in Father Ted. Near, Far Away, Near...etc...

So if you happen to read the headline "I was Savaged by Huge Ball of Yarn!" in the knitting edition of Real People...well, that'll be me...

Object in Nearly Finished shocker

2011-10-06T10:30:00.000+01:00

Oooh, a Nearly Finished Object. Rare in this house, let me tell you. Well, I started it a while back but in a late-night frenzy, I decided to chip the entire design off the bath and start again. Insanity!! After lots of swearing, banging, crashing and regret (regret isn't quite as noisy so my husband didn't mind that one), it metamorphosed into this.

Had to do a bit of a David Hockney to get the photo to show properly because it's a curved bath and the design is too big for my lens! I've no idea how many square feet I've covered, but it's a lot. About a squillion trillion, something like that. I think you can see it on Google Earth. Anyway, it's all done bar the grouting. (sorry).

I'm going to make up a cobalt or turquoise grout for it, as I'm not keen on white. There's no getting up late at night to rip it out once the grouting's done though so I've been taking my time deciding (well, that's my excuse for not quite finishing anyway. I haven't finished the grouting in the kitchen on the plain square tiles either. ahem).

This is one of my favourite bits. It's like a puzzle - there are lots of little motifs I've cut out that take some finding in the general mêlée of the design. I've been really lucky in scoring shards - Polly Polkadot's mum has been very kind in collecting bits and pieces for me when she has been digging over her allotment (thanks Gill!!)! A lot of the mosaic has been found in the ground or in the river, but I did have to do some in-filling with 'new' plates and cups found at car boot sales and charity shops. I prefer the 'found' bits though as they have more character.

Now that my bath is officially a Nearly Finished Object, I'd better go and get some more objects to nearly finish...!

Why I don't knit socks for anyone else...

2011-10-05T10:58:00.000+01:00

Because this happens when I knit socks. In fact, I don't think I own a pair that aren't in some way, er, wonky. Or saggy. Or impossible to get on. Or unfinished. So I tend to make them just for myself (to hide inside my dog-walking wellies) or for my husband (to hide completely and pretend he loves them really). I love knitting them though...and surely that's the point...? I wouldn't embarrass you by giving you a pair for Christmas though. Or would I? Ha!!

In other news: blog neglect! Sorry for not being around during the summer. Thanks for all your comments - hello to Lou, Picto, Helen and CrazyJane - some of you I think popped over from Polly Polkadot to say hello and some of you from Pinterest (love your pins, CrazyJane!!) thank you for reading! - and sorry for my absence. Been so busy dyeing, seeking out new yarn for the shop (exciting times, stay tuned folks) knitting bad socks, etc etc. And of course the biggest time-stealer of all (aside from pinterest, haha) is this:

Ironing the dog. No...I mean, just the dog! Love how she picks the clean clothes/ironing basket to sit in though...typical pet behaviour I think!

Pedal power

2011-06-07T17:13:00.002+01:00

I dusted off the treadle machine the other week and started quilting. Well...I mean, it wasn't quite as simple as that. I tacked all the layers together (with much 'assistance' from the dog), and started quilting on my old Jones electric machine. After about half an hour of solid sloooow free-motion stitching, the controller foot got really hot...and I found it had melted the carpet underneath!!! eep. So...rather than risk a trouser leg fire I thought I'd try to find some way round it. I thought about electronic foot controls and stuff but it turns out that they cost more than I spent on my machine. So I'm not sure it's going to be worth replacing the pedal. But...after a lot of thinking...I realised the answer was in front of me. (well, to the side actually)

ooh, nice radiator...

My Singer 15k Treadle! Sure, it's not as pretty as some treadles out there but it works just fine. The pretty bits on this model all seem to be located where you can't see them:


Engraved face plate

And then there's this bit which sits at the back covering the oiling thingummybob:

I've removed it and sat it ontop of the machine to show you. I think it looks like part of a shawl pin or something! It's very elaborate for just sitting on the back of a thingummybob, that's for sure.

Anyway, after a few backwards treadles and a bit of a practice on some spare fabric, it all seemed to go okay.

that nice radiator again!

I've chosen to quilt around the pattern of the fabric or be inspired by the shapes - it's much easier than trying to draw a pattern and follow it. I've always enjoyed free-motion stuff but doing it on the treadle has made me obsessed. I try to do a bit each morning when I get up, and before I walk Trixie! Mind you, I don't recommend treadling when tired. I have made a few sleepy mistakes...

If you accidentally pedal backwards, this is what happens. A big ugly loopy mess on the back. It's easy enough to pick out and get started again though. Well, as long as I remember not to treadle backwards again...I wonder if I could do all my sewing on the treadle...? Maybe when I am a bit more practised at it. Only 3,00000000000000000000000.142857 approx square feet of quilting to go - I think I'll be ace at it by then...

After last month's post about my rubbish craft organisation skills, I thought I'd follow up with a pic of my rather different yarn organising capabilities. I don't have much mess when it comes to my actual work/business room, just in case you worried that your Yaffle Yarn would reach you with Trixie paw prints or bits of random fabric in it.

I impressed myself with how tidy I keep my work yarn! :-) One day I'll have one of those nice box-style shelves with lots of 12x12 cubby-hole type things (I'm struggling for words today...! Quilt brain!) but this will do for now...

Craft rooms of the real world unite!

2011-05-19T17:48:00.001+01:00

Today, I present, Ladles and Jellyspoons, the Perfect Craft Room. You know, the one you find in all those 'oh so Martha Stewart' craft magazines. The rooms with twenty thousand (approx) perfectly white IKEA storage units and Farrow-and-Ball painted furniture in which to store immaculately folded fabric. Yep, just like mine, as you can see here.

(yep, the wall behind the shelf is ugly brown. and beige. More of which later)

Well, the equivalent for me is three old kitchen drawers, shoeboxes (I don't own that many shoes, that's my husband's habit, lol) and old quality street tins (stolen from recycling boxes up the road. Shhhhh). And maybe the odd basket and plastic IKEA box ("so cheap! let's buy 20 and get some tealights and a washing up brush too!"). I did try folding up bits of fabric (see bottom of picture) but as you can see it's not easy when the pup's around. Oh, and I lost the will to live halfway through folding the fabric...

Some handy hints for your craft room (if you have one, let alone a Martha version) are this. 1. Collect lots of dust. You know, for posterity.

This isn't through lack of use of the sewing machine - it's just that I never have time to put things away and therefore keep them dust-free. If I put things away I would never get things out again, and nothing would be done. Tip number 2 for your craft room: If you really want to find things, keep your 'thrifted antique' drawers open, missus!!! At all times!

(object identification - bendy ruler for pattern drafting, box of sewing machine feet, old tins with stuff in. With their lids on, I have no idea what's inside, sorry. Anyone who knows why my hair elastics are in there wins a prize. Of hair elastics.)

Seriously, how would I find anything otherwise? It's all very well having pretty bits of old sh!t in your craft room, but how on earth can I remember where all my bits are, so to speak? I don't think I'll ever be featuring in your Mollie Makes or your Marthahahaha, but I am happy with what I have. I wouldn't change my little mess for the world (well, that is, apart from the brown and beige which I'm going to have to turn purple at some point).

If you click on the pic, you can see a bigger version, for use along with this handy cut out and keep guide!
1. Scissors. Magic scissors. With a zig zag pinking edge. wooo.
2. Scissors my husband uses and shouldn't because they're ONLY FOR FABRIC!!!!!
3. Horrid beige coloured wall left over from previous occupants. 5 years ago. No, I don't like decorating.
4. Tin of sh!t - ie, all the stuff that covers my workspace as I go gets stuffed into the tin which is why the lid won't shut, which is a shame as the lid has a kitschy picture of roses on it and I'd like to see it more often
5. Ironing table. Covered in a luxury assortment of stuff that doesn't need to be ironed. Such as double sided tape.
6. The table itself is a treadle sewing machine. Seemed like a Good Idea at the time.
7. More Scissors. Not magic ones. Ones that are stuck together through cutting double sided tape. Ah well.
8. Pincushion (note: it's not in a teacup) and threads ready for dyeing that day.
9. Inevitable Cath Kidston Mug. This one contains a brew which was freshly made - others have been known to be er, 'vintage'.
10. Festival of Quilts leaflet that came in the post. Nope, I'm not going.
11. Smaller Scissors.
12. Machine of Joy and Fun! Cost about £30 and it sews like a dream, and hasn't an ounce of plastic in it. (A real tip: Don't be afraid of vintage machines - they're way better than modern ones, don't go for a big brand, and don't pay more than about £50 for one!)
13. Old duvet cover used as tablecloth to cover a grotty freecycle table - turns out this is not a Good Thing because when I want to move the sewing machine all 6ft of duvet cover joins it for a ride
14. The wall was a darker shade of brown when we moved in. So this is an unfinished attempt to cover it up. Inspiring, no? The colour is this:

cost: about £3,00000000000 per tin from the internet and when you open it there are angel choirs singing. This shade is called 'Rock on Tommy'. Ahem. No, really, one day I'll be painting it B&Q purple. Because I can.
15. Anglepoise lamp. "The original" it says on the side! Which is why I've re-christened it the Angle-Flop lamp. Springs are a bit dodgy. Can't complain for £7 from a boot sale though...
16. Trixie. Every craft room needs one. She's available on request...

Bah to perfect craft rooms ;-) you'd be so scared to make a mess in them you'd never do anything! Let alone have a dog and her paws in there. If you're suffering from 'perfect craft room' syndrome, I can heartily recommend a dose of Trixie paws to make you re-think that shade of Farrow and Ball...;-) Let's rejoice in our messy craft rooms and start a backlash! A craftlash?!! xxx

Pottering about

2011-05-12T14:10:00.000+01:00

I've been busy 'pottering' again. Well, I have to find something to do with the bits of pot I ~~collect like an obsessive crazy lady~~ find on my walks, other than my usual habit of leaving them in a pile in a saucer on the windowsill.

I may have bitten off (or merely nibbled) more than I can chew with my latest project though. I've chosen to cover the entire side of our bath in mosaic. I know. A squillion tiny bits of pique assiette to cut out and stick to the side of an enormous bath panel. Hmmm. What was I thinking?! It's left a fair bit of mess. Here's a bag of offcuts:

And here's the general mess of pots and bits of found china that goes into making the mosaic.

And here's the not-even-nearly-finished bath!

I ran out of tile adhesive part way through - possibly because of the amount I dropped on the floor before I could get it onto the piece of pot. As you can see it's not exactly the Sagrada Familia so I am sure I will finish it eventually (she said - wooo, wait what's that over there, some socks to knit? let me get on with that!). In the meantime, it just adds to the general eccentricity that pervades our house... something you may euphemistically describe as a 'conversation piece' eh?!

Wardrobe enhancement!

2011-04-04T14:05:00.002+01:00

Fings wot I made earlier! I had a couple of winter weddings to go to earlier in the year and needed something nice to wear that wasn't my usual uniform of dog-walking jeans and jumper, so I took this bit of Philip Jacobs fabric...

and with some help from Simplicity 6776 I made this:

(yes, that is a patch of tester paint on the wall ;-) it's been there for 4 years now, almost to the day!)

Definitely my favourite dress, but it's useless for dog-walking and clambering over barbed wire when retrieving the dog! I spend most of my days in muddy non-glamour so it's nice to dress up occasionally, even if it is in Philip Jacobs quilting fabric! My next project is more 1970s:

I've been collecting Gunne Sax patterns to turn into a kind of folksy-franken-maxi-dress (catchy!) using different elements of each pattern. Won't be using Kaffe or Philip (first name terms, man!!) for this one either since it needs about 6 metres of the stuff! forget that!! I've chosen a vintage-looking purple fabric and oodles of lace and red ribbon. I'll post some work in progress pics (featuring a new olympic sport, the 100 metre frill-gathering race) when I can find a tidy corner of my room. I am going to end up looking like a wench from a medieval battle re-enactment. Or 'folksy', 'boho', or simply 'Wendy Craig', depending on what your view of the frilly side of the 70s is...;-)

Quilting with dogs

2011-03-29T20:05:00.000+01:00

Oh good grief, I'm terrible at keeping this blog up! I've not been well (again) lately for one thing. I've become the reluctant curator to a collection of revolting chronic chest infections, one snotty grotty mess after another - so I've been really enjoying that. This has made every task akin to walking through treacle so I've not had the energy to write much or dye much, although things are getting a bit better.

I managed to get some photos done of my latest creation - I finished this strippy quilt top a while ago but only just got around to a) getting the camera out b) getting some sunshine and c) being well enough to get out!

It's a 'can't be arsed' quilt. No measuring, no pins, no neat assembly, nothing. I don't think there's a straight line in this. I used to sit for hours, years ago, measuring and cutting out squares and making perfectly formed quilts to other people's directions, but I felt really restricted, and very bored. So I stopped. I like to think one day I'll write a book myself, "Can't be Arsed Quilting"! "Can't be arsed to quilt? I couldn't either! That's why I sat down and wrote this book rather than finish that quilt!"

The other book I'm going to have to write is entitled "Quilting With Dogs".

For instance, imagine plain white sashing around those strips. And now imagine your beautiful quilt, the brilliant white contrasting with the pretty rainbows and how cheering on a rainy day, too - whenthedogcomesrunninginfromthegardenandjumpsuponthebed-aaaaaghtrixienooooooo!
You get the picture. So I chose a purple floral number. Florals - great for hiding a multitude of muddy sins!

Phew, well all that uploading of photos (with steam-driven broadband) and fighting with blogger has left me exhausted, a bit like Trixie! More quilting-with-dogs adventures later :-)

woof. woof woof woof yap. woof.

2011-02-17T12:02:00.000Z

Woof, arf. Wuf arf yappy yappy raaaaoooooowf. Yap. Yappy yap yap. (this goes on for a bit, usually in the back garden).
Loosely translated as:
My owner is a Very Bad Blogger. I've had so much to tell you about tennis balls, the dogs in the village, sticks, yaffles, chasing birds, eating yarn etc. and it's not like I can post here. Look at these paws! You can't expect 60 wpm typing, can you? anyway, I've had a word and my owner says she'll be blogging soon. She's had a lot on. Busy, apparently. Too busy to play ball with me sometimes! outrageous! Woof.

Making a note

2010-10-16T13:14:00.000+01:00

After a summer without much sock knitting (too hot for socks!) I've finally got round to finishing some of the things I started before the temperature rose. I put an end to the monkeying around (I'm here all week, folks!) with these:

(sorry about the blue-ish light, the sunlight isn't reaching my room today!)

and I managed to finish a pair of Green River socks which I started a while back. A bit of a complicated pattern for my little knitting brain to get its neurons round, but I seemed to get on okay. Until this happened.

I was sure I'd remember how many pattern repeats I'd done on the first sock. So confident, in fact, that I failed to keep a note. Well! Keeping a note is boringly efficient! I always lose the paper the note is written on, and then when I inevitably leave the near-finished pair of socks in a dusty corner for six months, they don't know how many repeats they have either.

So I have a pair of great socks for walking the dog. Hidden in wellies they'll be okay. Moral of this story: a rolling stone gathers nine stitches in a watched pot boiling. I think. I have it written on a piece of paper somewhere, hang on!

Blogging heck!

2010-10-15T13:41:00.000+01:00

...it's been a while! I am still here though, honest! I've just been a bit quiet lately. Especially on the blogging side of things! You know how it is. Life gets in the way. As in, suddenly, Ken Loach gets hold of your scripts, re-writes them and decides that's your life for the next few months. And then, as if nothing had happened, hands the scripts back to the writers of Corrie, and it's all back to normal again. (at least, I'm hoping there won't be a fatal tram crash in Clutton). Agh! Anyway, I am back for now at least. She's back too:

And pretty much fully grown! Still officially a small (yappy type) dog though. A mere 5.5kilos of fluff and woof. She's 11 months old now - what's that in dog years? nearly 7?!

Well, since I've been quiet, I've still been doing stuff. I started a quilt.

This started life as an attempt to tidy up. Ages ago, thinking I might become a tidy person, I moved an old glass cabinet into my room and put fabric in it. "great" I thought, "now I can have my fabric permanently on display, and simply select the precise fat quarter as and when I need it!". About a week after that, the cupboard looked like it had vomited onto the floor. Oh yes, pretty Kaffe-Fassett coloured vom, but still looked like a pretty bad case of regurgitation. I don't have a picture to hand of that. Anyway. Rather than tidy the whole lot up, I grabbed a pizza-wheel cutter thingie and got cutting strips. And then sewed them into blocks, which are now sat on my floor. I think I'll leave them there for a few months until the dog makes her bed in them. Then I might think about re-ironing and sewing them together to make an actual quilt. Sound familiar, this process? hmmm.

Also, I've been getting out a lot. As usual.

Just bits and pieces from walking every day with Trixie. We've been exploring a lot around here lately, the weather has been fantastic for going further afield and getting to know new places.

We also went here. No, not Provence, but Somerset Lavender in Faulkland.

We went back in July, just before they 'harvest' the lavender, and it was beautiful! I did some embroidery of lavender fields when I got home as I was so inspired. I'll show you that later...if I can find it beneath the piles of STUFF round here.

I've been digging around in bottle dumps too, for bits of broken crockery. I found a great stash which I struggled to carry home in one bag...

No idea what I'll make from it all, but I'll find a use for most of it. Treasure! I particularly love this cup I found half-buried:

It's badly cracked inside so can't drink tea out of it - I think the crinoline lady is going to become part of a rather bonkers mosaic at some point. I just love finding pottery treasure buried in the soil! I know I'm not alone in my strange hobby either as people like Candace Bahouth go round doing similar things. Heck, it's free pretty stuff, I can't not come home with it! I have a couple of flat mirrors I bought from boot sales so when I get chance I shall be showing you my new mosaic efforts.

Thanks for your comments on the last post! Yes, the cardi is a Liesl - it's made from re-gurgitated Noro. I mean, Noro that was once another cardigan. I hated the cardigan too, so I spent a couple of days unravelling it (unravelling Noro "now! with added bits!" in it is not easy) and a few weeks knitting it into a Liesl, which I like but I'm still not sure it actually goes with any other clothes I own! I'm sure Trixie will find a use for it. The poshest dog blanket in the world, perhaps. So she can do this.

Ok, enough waffle and gratuitous dog pics, I'll post up some more STUFF soon!

Bloggus Neglecticus

2010-07-07T16:07:00.001+01:00

I've been suffering from a bad case of Blogger's Neglect. Truth is, I've been trying to avoid the internet! Well, not entirely of course. I mean I've been avoiding those sites like FaceTwit, Betsy, DoomTube, Rabblery, etc etc. - the ones that suck you in before spitting you out in an exhausted heap seven hours later, minus your self-esteem, entire day, sanity and money. So here's a brief snippet of what I've been doing instead (click for bigger):

I knitted, went for walks, embroidered, joined the Cloud Appreciation Society, tidied threads and fabric, and read a lot of library books (not pictured. You know what books look like) and lots of other things I forgot to take pictures of! I got so much done, it's been like a holiday. All the stuff I used to do before the internet came along! Trixie's been doing a lot more too, since she's not been on Dogblog, DoggySpace and DogBook:

It's been a lovely 'holiday' from the internet! Try it, go on! :)
I've updated the shop (I did have to use the internet for that, hehehe) - have a look! This is my fave from this month's selection...

It's called Marsh Mallow. Named after the flowers I've been seeing on our walks! See you soon! A xxx

Just a quick post...

2010-05-07T17:13:00.000+01:00

.... to let you know there's a shop update if you fancy popping over to look! There are delicious colours like this one (Flowers in the Rain it's called. Although I'm not really a fan of The Move...!)

and this one, which was inspired by the Greater Spotted Woodpeckers I sometimes see on my walks with Trixie:

Speaking of which...look at this innocent face:

and now look just a little bit closer:

The very definition of a Mucky Pup! She's a terrier...ergo she loves to dig...it was only a matter of time, and now the garden looks like a flippin' Miniature Golf course! Good job I'm not a fan of immaculate lawns anyway...worms, daisies, moles (we haven't had any visitors yet) and moss are all welcome. Trixie trenches less so but...ah well!

Thanks for your nice comments on the last post. Glad you liked the book recommendation - it was a great read, did you got round to reading it, Josie & Minniemoll? It was on the antiques roadshow, yes! years ago I think? Alexandra, moving buildings sounds amazing, just like the book. I'll look out for those documentaries! Ooh thanks for nice photo comments Ros and Alexandra...I'm no real photographer but I like a good blue sky :) there's some blossom in the garden now...so expect a slideshow of that soon, lol :) see you soon x

Spring Stitching

2010-04-15T14:18:00.001+01:00

Ah, nothing like the bursting forth of blooms to make you realise spring is here. (That, and the rude awakening due to the arrival of British 'Summer' Time). In the garden the forget-me-nots are out...

...and I quickly picked these daffs before the slugs got to them. I love the contrast between blue and yellow. Although this pic does have the 'Windows Desktop' feel about it!

All this got me inspired to stitch. I made a little embroidered card (click for bigger):

and an unholy mess:

When I cleared all that up I made an even bigger mess with fabric and thread, and here's a sneak preview of some rather nice new knitting accessories that will be going up in the shop soon:

Over the Easter hols I also got around to tinkering with an old sewing machine. I got this one from freecycle - it didn't work, it had no foot control or accessories, so I stripped it back for its parts. I am a savage!

It's wearing its Halloween skeleton fancy dress outfit. ha. I couldn't believe how many screws held the thing together. Sixteen to get the front panel off; plus another dozen keeping the back panel on. It was a modern plastic thing (bah! yuck!) - my old model Jones only has two screws to keep the access panel on. Eeee by 'eck, modern stuff just in't like it used to be!

(good old Quality Street tin again. I have a few, mostly donated...my fillings thus remaining largely intact!!)

Here are the sewing machine's innards. I'm going to mend another old machine with the new motor. Recycling at its finest!

I've been inspired this week by reading (this week, I have been mostly reading...!) Miss Savidge Moves Her House - the tale of a lady who, upon finding her house was to be demolished to make way for a by-pass (not an hyperspace one I don't think) decided to dismantle the house (and next door) and have it moved, piece by piece, a hundred miles away, where she then set about re-building it, without any help.

I'm not going to re-build my sewing machine 100 miles away :) But taking things apart and putting them back together (or re-using them somewhere else) is something which fascinates me, and I love to breathe new purpose into things that would otherwise go to landfill. I'm not an evangelical Greenie or anything like that; I just like making use of old stuff like bits of broken pottery...old fabric...old sewing machines...old cardigans... (coming soon: a patchworked mosaic of knitted sewing machines)! The book is a really good read if you get the chance (don't be put off by the only blurb being from the Telegraph and the Daily Mail - no idea why the Guardian review didn't feature). I borrowed mine from the library (recycling, haha). I think it's her determination in the face of bureaucracy, the elements and ill-health that is so inspiring. And her eccentricity - the characteristics that make me like Hannah Hauxwell...or the Lady in the Van, Miss Shepherd. (one day I will tell you all about my late, crazy, mum...but not just yet!) Here endeth the book recommendation. I don't usually shout out about books on this blog but I liked this one so much I thought I'd tell you all about it!

Hmm, I think my waffling might be testing someone's patience:

I think she's saying "play with me!!"

"...pretty pleeeease?!" How can I resist a face like that...!

Thanks for all your lovely comments about the mosaic mirror! It's really not technical - you could have a go - it's just incredibly messy and you need a tolerant other half who will put up with a) the banging and b) the disappearing tea-cups. Oh and the missing hammer. And tile cutters :) Glad you liked the end result! x

Cracking piece of work, Gromit!

2010-04-05T15:01:00.002+01:00

I got messy this week, with my mosaic mirror. Annoyingly, it's not one of those crafts you can do sitting by the fire, watching telly, with the puppy on your lap. You need a dust mask, industrial strength gardening gloves (which make holding anything like trying to grab on to a wobbly jelly) your working area (and yourself) wrapped up like a Christo artwork, a plastic bag to work inside to stop shards flying everywhere, goggles, and strictly no puppies.

I used a few of my stash of found pieces - a collection I've hoarded over the years and just knew it would come in handy for something. Argh, our house is full of things both Paul and I think 'will come in handy for something'! It means we have a lot of things that haven't yet found their purpose in life (Thinks: ooh, I can now mosaic most of them though...).

The sticking bit was really addictive and I stayed up late to finish it off (impressive, believe me. I never stay up late). The challenge of finding the right smashed-up piece to fit in the gaps was fun. No, really - where are you going, come back! It was fun!!!

The tricky bit: waiting for 24 long hours for the glue to dry. Grrrrrr. Not good for a crafter like myself, who is used to rushing headlong into the next process. I really had to sit on my hands to stop myself moving the pieces of china - I kept wanting to re-arrange or even go back and fill in some of the larger gaps. argh!

Enter stage left: THE BLUE GROUT! White grout? No way. I like colour too much so I added some blue pigment and got mixing. Well, I thought the cutting bit was messy - but this turned my work room into a building site. Blue grout everywhere. And when it dried it went all powdery so there was blue powdery mess, (like lines of a Smurf's recreational drug or something...)!?! Not to mention my hands, which were blue, as I'd dispensed with the jelly-gloves at this point. All that done with, I had to wait another 48 long hours for the grout to dry to its finished colour. I gave it a lick of acrylic paint round the edges and then...ta-da...that was it:

Finished! Shame the bathroom wall isn't quite as finished :) There's a bucket of B&Q's finest 'Turtle Seas' waiting to go on the wall - I just have to get round to doing it. However, there may be a problem because these caught my eye in a charity shop:

And I might just find smashing these to smithereens slightly (ever so slightly) more interesting than decorating.

The Tale of the Giant Granny Square.

2010-03-25T09:00:00.012Z

Yep...it's stash blanket time again! I've supplemented the by now, rather folorn-looking stash basket with a few balls of acrylic yarn.

Stylecraft acrylic has some gorgeous jewel colours that I love (teal, violet and bright pink...hmmmm!)! I know, not everyone's a fan of the old synthetics but when you have a dribbly puppy and one heck of a messy (read: lazy) owner, it's quite good to have something super-washable. My favourite ripple blanket I made a while back was full of lovely cashwoolmerinoalpacamohair type content, but it's felted a teeny bit because I stuck it in the washing machine. (gasp!) Life's too short to stuff a mushroom and all that...at least it has, um, an 'interesting' chunky texture to it now...!

The blanket I'm working on now is a monster of a granny square. It started off okay, and I was enjoying it. Until about round 16 when I realised that each round was only going to get longer...and longer...! It's the trade-off for not having to sew squares together, though. I'll probably end up doing rows-within-rounds, changing colour every so often to stop me going spare! It's not grown a huge amount, despite 16+ rounds... It's the perfect Trixie size though:

And here she is proving that acrylic yarn is FUN!!11!!1! and rather delicious, too:

Maybe the lack of enthusiasm for the Biggest Granny Square in the World will spur me onto finishing the second Monkey sock...you never know!

Smashing!

2010-03-23T12:26:00.005Z

I spent Sunday afternoon doing something absolutely *smashing* (hohoho)! I've been dabbling in mosaicking (that verb looks wrong...but it needs a K in there, right?). I've already accumulated a sizeable collection of blue and white shards found out and about on my walks, but I need a bit more. So I started on my huge collection of dust-catchers.

Take one Royal Albert china cup and saucer. Apply hammer liberally to its backside (if you can bear to!), covering with an old towel and a plastic bag...

I'm sure if you found its point of resonance you could hit a high note and smash it that way but my soprano days are over so the hammer has to do! It looks awfully destructive, doesn't it? But it was just sitting there on my shelf and I never got to see the pretty pattern - which is inside the cup. Presumably as some sort of surprise to spring on your guests whom you were having round for 'high tea'? Once they'd imbibed their cup of Earl Grey they found - but o! - a most beautifully delicate posy in their cup and said the 1920's high-society equivalent of "OMG! OMG!!". Oh I bet that was such fun to do in those days. Without television. Or the internet. Or the Wii. (Wii Surprise China Teacups. Ever played that?) (Aside: I just tried reading Virginia Woolf's diaries. Unreadable because she comes across as a snob of a woman. Most of the time she spent lamenting that there weren't any suitable 'Tea-Shops' in Manchester or anywhere else she visited Oooop Noorth. I wouldn't be surprised if that is why she put stones in her pockets and ran out to sea. The lack of tea-shops...)

A whole Sunday afternoon of this sort of thing:

...and I amassed quite a little collection. (yes, I know, she gets everywhere...it's unavoidable).

A word to the wise: it's good to follow health & safety rules when you're doing this kind of thing. I found this out to my cost. GLOVES next time woman!!

Apart from mucking about with pots, I put some YARNNNNN on the website too...go and have a look
here! See you in the shop soon :)

Monkeying around!

2010-03-15T16:27:00.001Z

Astonishingly, I finished one of my Monkey socks! I loved knitting this. Although, according to addled brain, not quite enough to start the other one just yet, as is always the way...as per usual brain and hands wandered off into a crochet-stash-blanket reverie. No sign of them yet...(or the other sock for that matter).

Being the matching accessory type, I thought I'd team the solitary sock up with a different type of knitted monkey:

The other accessory available for this wardrobe is, of course, this perfect Little Monkey:

Monkey-tastic! Now I just have to ~~finish~~ start that notorious Second Sock. I wonder how long the other sock will be in coming...what's the record, do you think?!

To finish up, here's an aptly-themed pop quiz, pop-pickers! Which band is this...?!

(it's all in the head-gear)...

How to knit with your puppy! A handy cut out and keep guide!

2010-02-26T16:00:00.001Z

1.Take your puppy and place it well out of the way of knitting.

2. Knit smaller.

3. Don't start ambitious projects.

These are Monkey socks. Bearing in mind the word sock and the phrase 'pattern other than stocking stitch' have never appeared together on the same playbill in this house, this is ambitious on a grand scale. I may regret this.

4. Get other people to knit for you.

These lovelies are from my kind and talented friend Elle. She made them with Hummingbird colourway too! (I love them, Elle, thanks :D ) Hmm, these were a surprise...I wonder how much a commission would be?!

5. See (1) - a reminder for all those not present at the beginning of this lecture - keep puppy away from knitting!

6. Accept fact that Monkey socks may not see completion until 2011.

Oh, yeah, hilarious!!

Dog ownership is bad for your knitting!

2010-02-14T14:00:00.000Z

It's true and I can prove it! Here's what I knitted/finished off during the time we were without our Dylan:

And here's what I've managed to knit while we've had Trixie.

I've also managed a paltry amount of dyeing this week, and I think some of this lack is attributable to a certain little minx.

I swear she's laughing at me in the picture below - right after I've cleaned up the chaos of tangled yarn and dog-spittle covered knitting and skeins (don't worry, that's my sample skein you see there, she doesn't get to clamp her jaws around the Good Stuff for sale, kept under lock and key. Imagine the complaints I'd get!)

In between picking her off the box of mis-dyes (tasty, apparently) and getting her out of the box of dyeing pots, I managed to dye a few skeins. My fave this month is definitely Festival:

I was thinking of Glastonbury tie-dyed outfits (some of which I am partial to myself. In fact, it's probably better to call this skein Ali but there you go) when dyeing this I think! I do crave colour in the winter months. It makes me wear brighter clothes - not quite in the Zandra Rhodes league, but getting there. I'd love to have pink hair, mind. I find it fends off the winter blues! Another favourite this month:

Always up for a terrible pun, I called it 'Crocus Pocus'! I haven't managed to grow any crocuses (crocusiiiiii?) but got crocus envy when I saw a beautiful patch of purple and orange the other day in someone else's garden. When gardening fails, dye yarn instead I suppose!

A 'tail' with a happy ending!

2010-02-01T17:10:00.000Z

Thank you so much for all your comments and thoughts on my last post, you're all very kind :) It was so sad for a while back there, but we are OK now, thank you, and life in the Yaffle house is already looking a lot happier. You see, we couldn't cope without a dog around the place (what? No-one to babble onto while I'm working? No-one to listen to me play piano and appreciate it? No one to chatter inanely to while dyeing? Nah, I couldn't cope). So we now have this little mite to keep us company.

Her name is Trixie, and she's 9 weeks old. If you're a doggy person you'll understand just how empty your house feels after a dog has gone...and how you can't replace your beloved pet but you can, somehow, if you're feeling up to it, replace the 'dogginess'. (if only you could do that with dear departed humans. I'll rent out Michael Palin for a dad, and possibly Maureen Lipman for mum please. A side order of Tony Benn as a replacement grandad would be ok too, when do you think you can deliver? Tuesday? oh that's great! thanks!)

Trixie is already showing an early appreciation of handmade blankets and cushions.

And enjoys the occasional cotton reel too.

She's really quite tiny. Here's our remote control to give you a sense of scale...

Her favourite foods are old, knotted socks

And of course hands and fingers - nomnomnom!

Expect more gratuitous pup pics soon...I've yet to find a way to do the dyeing while she's on the loose so that should make for interesting images...!

Taking the 'Ruff' with the smooth in life...

2010-01-22T09:38:00.000Z

We had to say goodbye to a dear friend yesterday. The house feels very empty indeed. If I'm a bit quiet for a few days, do forgive me, I'll be in a basket somewhere licking my wounds.

New Yarn!

2010-01-18T14:51:00.001Z

I've just updated the shop. Here's my fave for this update...

It's called 'Bazaar'! It just reminded me of the beautiful colours in the Bazaars we saw on holiday in India. It also made me think of the Hindu festival of Holi, where you have lots of fun throwing brightly coloured pigments at each other. Would you get, perhaps, cake-throwing at a C of E party instead?! bah, our holy-days are so dull by comparison!
If you missed out on 'Carnival' last time, there's a similar one I've just dyed up:

It's called 'Northern Lights'. I've never seen those, except on the telly like. I'm not about to get all Joanna Lumley and go in search of them either. The cold was bad enough during the snow we had lately, never mind sleeping in a cave full of the stuff! brrr! Anyway, enough wittering. See you later!

Knitting, flitting and wittering

2010-01-16T15:12:00.002Z

Hello Blogger-readers! Thanks for joining me. I've changed from TypePad because *deleted due to the Boredom of Readers act 2010, clause 3* If you're stranded over at TypePad, I'll send a search party over later! Let the waffling re-commence!

I succumbed and snaffled myself a skein of 'Carnival' (see previous post). I dyed up a rejected skein (underweight, poor thing! but sufficient to make a pair of socks) and cast on. I love it so much it's going fast for me.

Yes, that's fast. I'm usually still in the ribbing stage for two weeks after casting on. I love the skein in its cake-state:

Yum. I love the rainbow of colours sitting inbetween the turquoise. I'm a sucker for colour. Although as an old school-pal on Facebook pointed out to me the other day, it is hard for her to imagine me in anything other than black - I was a hardcore Goth during my teenage years. All crimped hair and thick black and green Siouxsie Sioux eyeshadow ("what were Goths like in the 80s Gran?" - "Well my dear, sit down and I'll see what I can find in the dressing up box. Here's an armful of 5p bangles from the market. Ooh there's a pair of torn black trousers with stripey tights to wear underneath. But most importantly, look at this. Harmony Hairspray! You'll need lots of that after you've backcombed your frazzled, crimped black hair!"). I'm sure you don't want to see those images so here's a closeup of my sock instead.

Apart from knitting when I've had chance I've been making gradual progress on a new dress. I think I've had this fabric for about 6 months...and I've not had a minute to make headway into the pattern. Time is such a luxury don't you find?!

I managed to get the bodice and the skirt done. And added some puffed sleeves!

I love puffed sleeves - they are so pretty. A pain in the arm to execute but the result is worth the fiddling with elastic and seams and safety pins. I've been using my old Jones...but for Christmas my dear husband bought me a project to keep me busy. Here it is:

Ahem. Another. I love fixing sewing machines, and this was being nearly given away...so now I have it to mend. And keep me out of mischief. Well, not exactly, as I've already tripped the electricity twice by using it. Dodgy foot control, which is a cinch to fix! I have an inkling that it's this man who is to blame for my mechanical fascination.

They're both pictures of my Grandad, hard at work maintaining the engines (and boiler I think, not so sure!) in Manor Mill, Oldham:

When I visited him as a kid, he used to take me round the mill with him while he worked. I was fascinated by the machinery but terrified at the same time. To a 5-year-old the engines are frightening! The noise of the machinery was overwhelming and I can still smell the cotton dust to this day. However, it's left me with a very real fascination by machinery and all things oily so I am very grateful to him! I only wish he could see me now and lend me a hand with my gears and cams ;-)

Right - I'd better go and re-skein some yarn. There are some new colours on the way. I got a bit behind this week with one thing and another so the update's scheduled for next week - I'll send out a newsletter when it's all ready!

Miles and miles of squares.

2010-01-11T12:24:00.000Z

Admitting that a particular Idea is not of the Good variety is hard. BUT, rising like a phoenix out of the ashes of the Different-Sized-Squares-Blanket-Idea comes...bingo! Same-Sized-Squares-Blanket-Idea! After working out that I'd need to do, um, a lot of working out in order to make the different-sized granny squares fit together into any semblance of blanket-shape (and not Abomination shape) I decided to add a few rounds to each and be dull and practical.

I can't bear sitting and working things out when it comes to knitting or crochet. I like mindless, therapeutic, stress-free yarn craft. Hence I've never managed to graduate past Grade 1 sock knitting (I passed with a distinction in Stocking Stitch). I can't concentrate on the inimitably witty dialogue in Corrie (sadly bereft of Blanche of course) if one of my lobes is wrestling with the 'beauty' of symmetry and other mathematical horrors. I can't follow subtitles if I'm fiddling about with cables and counting rows. So same-sized squares it had to be.

Excuse the poor light. (brought to you courtesy of the last tungsten filament bulbs in the house). Even the dog is unimpressed. ("I'm positively sallow! The horror! Get me into Make-Up now!")

After hours and hours of crocheting squares, I then had to find a way to join them together. I couldn't bear sewing (a bit like: never mix the grape and the grain. Never mix the sewing needle and the crochet hook) so I hooked them together. It took me right through the Christmas holidays and into the New Year but here it is, finished, looking more like itself than it did under the tungsten light (hmm, I know the feeling):

It's in the snow in our back garden, although it looks like a magic floating blanket due to my impeccable skills in photography. Talking of snow, (and poor photography!) the only good thing I've found about it is that it's brought these into our garden:

It's a redwing! I usually only get to see these and their pals Fieldfares out in the distant fields in winter, but the snow's covered up their usual food supply and both have been forced to the Hamnett Bird Restaurant (an extensive menu featuring niger seeds and apples. Book a table early to avoid disappointment). I've been transfixed. My dyeing table is right next to the window so I've been spending lots of time bird-spotting in the warmth (the best type of bird watching!). Here's my fave from this week's dyeing session:

Carnival. It's so bright and cheerful...I want to cast it on now! The dyeing table is calling again so I'd better go and get some more bird watching more dyeing done now...!

Happy Christmas!

2009-12-24T09:49:00.000Z

I hope you're all finding time to snuggle beneath your knitting or crochet...I'll be hooking a blanket to keep the cold out over Christmas anyway. Pictures to follow when I can locate the camera... Here's wishing you all a very Happy Christmas and a fab New Year!

(just behind our house looking towards Clutton Church. Brrrrrr!)

An artist's canvas. Or a box of shreddies?

2009-11-27T09:05:00.000Z

Uh-oh, I've been experimenting again. Like a mad creative scientist.
What usually happens is a kind of creative mania where I grab anything
and everything in the house to do with the particular idea and just
pile it up in the living room (where I do most work in the evenings)
and then sit with it. Or sit on it. (and eventually even work on it. ha!) Take this for
instance.

It's Frankencanvaswerk! Ooh I have grand plans for it. Trouble is, the grandiosity of the plan didn't quite match the nature of the fabric.

This
is 25 count evenweave, hand-dyed by yours truly. And then painstakingly
stitched on, for what seemed like hours (through the Friday Night Play,
and two episodes of Mark Steel's Solution no less) only to send me
spiralling into eyestrain and a humongous headache. Thanks, evenweave,
I love you too! I was a little over-ambitious, I think. I wanted to
create spirals as well as squares, you see, and I chose a teeny tiny
thread count so the spirals would be more, um, spirally when worked in
tent stitch. Mishtake! The sample below that looks like a box
of run-over shreddies, well, that's about a 10 count. Easier on the
eyes, anyway. But very very brown of background.

You see, I fell in love with these Ehrman kits but I wanted to design my own (I
know! why choose the easy option marked 'add to basket' when you can
spend hours giving yourself a headache over 25 count evenweave?).
So I am really having a go, but haven't quite cracked it. I'm sure I'll
get there, and my wrapped-thread shreddie wallhanging will be ready for
the living room wall!

Having time to
experiment is such a luxury so I took full advantage of it and got the
Procion dyes out for some cottons and velvets:

I love the results. The velvet is cotton-based so not quite as shiny as I wanted it to be:

I
think I need viscose velvet for the shiny-shiny effect, but apart from
that I do love the other bits of cotton fabric I scrunched up and dyed.
(glamorously, in a plastic cup!)

I managed a (warning! lame pun alert!) stab at needle felting too :) An embellishing machine is just a distant dream for me, so I've been using a Clover Felting Tool which is surprisingly quick. And it's good therapy if you've had a bad day, all that punching ;)

Not a great pic but you get the idea (the problems of early afternoon darkness!!). This piece has a bit of gold free-machine embroidery on too. I didn't bother with the special Clover felting brush - I used an old nylon bristle hairbrush! One day I'll have saved up for a posh machine then I'll be felting everything in sight. I for one can't wait to see the results of that particular experiment... ;)

Canvas

2009-11-23T16:56:00.000Z

Uh-oh, I've been experimenting again. Like a mad creative scientist. What usually happens is a kind of creative mania where I grab anything and everything in the house to do with the particular idea and just pile it up in the living room (where I do most work in the evenings) and then sit with it. (and sometimes work on it. ha!) Take this for instance.

It's Frankencanvaswerk! Ooh I have grand plans for it. Trouble is, the grandiosity of the plan didn't quite match the nature of the fabric.

This is 25 count evenweave, hand-dyed by yours truly. And then painstakingly stitched on, for what seemed like hours (through the Friday Night Play, and two episodes of Mark Steel's Solution no less) only to send me spiralling into eyestrain and a humongous headache. Thanks, evenweave, I love you too! I was a little over-ambitious, I think. I wanted to create spirals as well as squares, you see, and I chose a teeny tiny thread count so the spirals would be more, um, spirally when worked in tent stitch. Mishtake! The sample below that looks like a box of run-over shreddies, well, that's about a 10 count. Easier on the eyes, anyway. But very very brown of background.

You see, I fell in love with these Ehrman kits but I wanted to design my own (I know! why choose the easy option marked 'add to basket' when you can spend hours giving yourself a headache over 25 count evenweave?). So I am really having a go, but haven't quite cracked it. I'm sure I'll get there, and my wrapped-thread shreddie wallhanging will be ready for the living room wall!

Having time to experiment is such a luxury so I took full advantage of it and got the Procion dyes out for some cottons and velvets:

I love the results. The velvet is cotton-based so not quite as shiny as I wanted it to be:

I think I need viscose velvet for the shiny-shiny effect, but apart from that I do love the other bits of cotton fabric I scrunched up and dyed. (glamorously, in a plastic cup!)

What I did during the (blogging) holidays

2009-11-23T15:44:00.000Z

Phewph! well, that was a bit of a blogging hiatus, wasn't it? I've been busy in a whirlwind of creativity though - honest. Firstly, I've been knitting lots of these:

They're Fetching gloves and I keep knitting them for anyone and everyone...they could turn out to be the equivalent of that jumper which granny or auntie knits them and they don't like...but I can live with that! Mr Yaffle calls them 'Milkman Gloves' although I've not seen a milkman wear them...yet...

With the arrival of winter and hideous weather, the urge to crochet! blankets! Now! has come upon me, as it is wont to do. Trouble is, I usually end up not finishing them until the summer, which means I have to stick the blanket in a drawer until the following winter. Ahem. Exhibit A: a new collection of granny squares.

I know. They are of uneven size. That's deliberate. I have in my head an uneven, hotch-potched mosaic of a blanket, and I have no idea how it's going to work out. Plan it on graph paper? Where's the fun in that?! I prefer the plunge right in, mess it up, abandon the project and be left with a bunch of pan-holders approach myself. Wish me luck!

I've managed to finish one half of the Neverending Socks:

The yarn is similar to this one but it's not quite the same as mine's a mis-dye...(oh, and there's meant to be more yellow in there but the light is terrible here). Speaking of winter and knitting, does anyone else suffer from a lack of knitting in the summer months? I can't seem to get going on anything when it's the hot (scrub that: I mean mildly sunny) weather. But come the winter months - I can't get enough. Sock-tastic!

Apart from that I've been making small embroideries for greetings cards...

...this is something I've not done for such a long time as I lost a lot of confidence in my designs and didn't really have much time to get over that (*woes* teh agoniez) and get back into it (!!!). But I'm back on track now! They're made of recycled sari scraps, with shisha mirror and freestyle machine embroidery. Well, except the owl in the right-hand corner, who's made from appliqued bits of fabric :) When I get my act together I'll put some up in the shop or start an Etsy shop...but these four have already found a home!

And finally, it's been a long homecoming for Johnny the tortoise. I'm sorry, I'll read that again: And finally, in shop news...ta da!...I can now offer Gift Vouchers ! So you can get someone to treat you...or give someone the 'gift of yaffle yarn' this Christmas...:D The best thing too is they're E-vouchers, so you simply email them to your recipient, thus avoiding the nightmare of the Christmas post! Full of Win!

Bags, scraps, legs and turnips.

2009-10-31T17:55:00.000Z

I've been chained to my old pal Jones again this week. Mostly making bags for the shop (they're up now, have a look!).

When I sew, I have very bad habits. There's the not putting the spare sewing feet back in the tin, not putting the sharp snippety scissors back where I can find them, leaving stuff on the floor (more about that some other time) ...oh, and this:

Pincushion, meet pins. Pins, here you go, it's your friend the pincushion. Now why can't you two get along nicely? Why can't you pins find your way back to the pincushion instead of a) dropping inside the sewing machine b) dropping onto the floor point-up so I step on you c) drop onto my dress so I stand up and drop pins on the floor and then step on them while they're point up d) disappear. I swear I must go through a pinmaking factory's entire output for a year in this house. I have no idea where they end up. Oh, except when I stand on them.

Another bad habit is this:

Can't. Throw. Things. Away. Which is how I came to have this (oh wonderful 35p IKEA plastic) box of scraps. Oh, there's more. There's an attic full of similar boxes of scraps. There's a floorboard-groan-inducing curator's dream of a fabric collection in this house. "But!" I say. "It might come in really handy!" And I keep it. Even if it's only big enough to fashion a gnat's loincloth from.

Apparently, I am capable of some good sewing habits though. There aren't many of them. But I like my threads organised. It's chaos enough round here without having to hunt under endless boxes of fabric for the right thread. So I use a set of old transparency/slide drawers with the dividers taken out:

And the spare dividers (the numbered bits of wood you can see in the picture) I put in the top drawer so I could use it for bobbins:

The numbers don't mean anything! I am not that organised!! I love the drawers. I think they were old medical teaching slide drawers because when Mr Yaffle brought the treasure home, in one of the drawers at the back there was a slide of some poor unfortunate soul's leg...! Bleargh!

Apart from all these high-jinks I've managed to get my camera out on some walks. Doesn't happen that often because I haven't mastered the art of simultaneous lead-and-camera holding. Maybe there's a course I could go on :) Anyway, here are some fields that had caught my eye during this week's walks.

I love these stripy turnip fields. The colours! The stripyness!! The undulation! It's just asking to be turned into embroidered form! Isn't it?! I think I'm going to have to make a few more bags and get dyeing before I can justify the time spent on such a project but we'll see...Right. I'm off to dislodge a pin from my foot...

Yarn update coming soon!

2009-10-14T14:10:00.000+01:00

Yaaarrrrrrrrn! Here's a sneak preview of this month's update...they're drying on the line in the garden:

There are some scary bright orange and black ones too, but they're cooking in a cauldron at the moment. I'm hoping the update will go up some time next week unless there's an attack of the Thyroids, in which case, send help!

When not dyeing, I've been sewing quite a bit lately. I love sewing! I can't get enough of it at the minute. First there were the cushions (strip patchwork. No straight lines, no measuring, no stress!):

Then there was the embroidery...(click for bigger)

This is another one of the hogweeds I've been embroidering (not quite finished!). It's all done on the sewing machine and it's a bit bigger than the ones I did last time, about 10cm across. I'm hoping to get an exhibition together one day, or get a gallery to start selling the pieces. Hmmm. Eventually!

Meanwhile, autumn continues apace out there in the garden...

Sigh. Lovely lovely autumn! Right, better go and check on the skeins in that cauldron before they boil dry! eep!

Autumnwatch

2009-09-28T16:00:00.000+01:00

We all went for an autumnal walk in Priddy Mineries the other day. Here's the view from the top of the hill:

We usually stick to the paths, but you don't see much wildlife up close that way (the Mineries site is an SSSI and has so much stuff to see), so we went for a little diversion and waded through the knee-deep grass. Look what we found...

This is a fox-moth caterpillar (I think!). I've never seen a caterpillar so furry! We found that in the grass, along with some Devil's-bit scabious:

and then, as I was leaping (urgh, bit energetic, that!) from one tussock to the other, I looked round and saw this:

An Adder! I'm rather glad I spotted it before Dylan decided to sniff/lick/paw it. I've never, ever seen an adder before in my life. This one, I think, is a female, resting in the grass...not that clued up about snake habits, but I'm guessing the warm spell had brought it out to bask. I got fairly close so I could take this pic, but the moment she heard the shutter go, she turned round and hissed at me, unsurprisingly!

It was like all my birthdays had come at once, spotting that. (yikes, that phrase, when you think about it, would make you really old. I've just turned 'old enough' thanks)

After Priddy, I got around to experimenting with some reverse lens macro techniques with my camera. Basically, if you can't afford a macro lens, you can (literally) reverse the lens on your SLR (thanks, Mim for telling me this!!) and take close-ups that way. I'm not really an expert, but this wasn't bad for a first try. There are poppies out in the garden at the moment, and this is as close as a normal lens will get me:

But when I reversed the lens, I could get a little bit closer:

Then I thought I'd have a go at the flowers on the mock strawberry:

OMG, that's all I need, another hobby to get carried away with. Watch this space for some more fascinating yet ultimately pointless macro photographs :D

Finally in today's Autumnwatch, here's a squirrel visitor, who's been busy burying his/her stash of cobnuts from our tree. Believe it or not we don't get squirrels so often in our garden so I'm always way too over-excited (along with the dog) when we get one!

I have yet to find a way of turning my existing camera lens into a super-zoom lens. Damn!

Ooh, anyone been watching the Tweedy documentaries? [the link is to all three: watch them if you missed it, it's great] Very interesting...but I do wish they'd make a documentary on Welsh Tapestry. Tweed's nice enough and all that (and the programmes were fascinating)...but I'm desperate to find out more about Welsh Tapestry. Maybe I'll start a fan club and make my own programme :)

Thanks for all your nice messages and emails by the way. I'm getting better thank you! Hurrah, now I can stop discussing thyroids at great length and get back to craft blogging :D

I'm back!

2009-09-17T12:48:00.000+01:00

That's right, folks! I've won my own invented sad an award because I've been a neglectful little blogger. From Twee Cereals, the cereal that has a Lovely Personality! I don't know about you but I can't face That! Much! Lovely Personality! from a Sodding Cereal! In a Morning! Once your cereal starts talking to you, you know it's time to go back to Blandflakes...(Imagine a world where, eventually..."Hello! I'm your morning cup of coffee! I get the feeling you're a little angry this morning! Aw, Don't Be! life is so beautiful, don't you know! Look! I have no dust! Look! I'm so organic and fairtrade I even make myself feel a bit sick with my own self-righteousness! Drink Me!" ...continued on p.899, appendix II. Where's my sodding coffee?)

During this month or more of absence, what have I been up to? You might well ask. Well, I have been struggling, sysyphus-like, against the mighty Thyroid, mostly. If you've ever struggled beneath the weight of an elephant whilst trying to walk through treacle, wearing lead-lined boots, and waving ten copies of Flora Brittanica in each hand, this gives you a good idea of what an underactive thyroid does to you. Ha, it makes you really, REALLY weird! Ahem. Anyway, I'm a bit better now. Earlier on in the month, due to elephants and stuff, I was confined to the sofa though so I did quite a lot of this when I could lift the needles :) :

I frogged the orange one because it was just too curly. I can't make stocking stitch stay straight. I love it for making tubes (socks, jumpers, cardigans) and things that need to curl (um, curly things), but for scarves, well, I just can't make it work. The pink scarf also curls like mad (despite rigorous blocking) so I've just hooked a load of heavy crochet round the edges which at least makes it wide enough to shelter my neck from the prevailing winds. Before that you could've used it as a hose pipe.

No matter how crap you feel, the dog always needs walking, so we've been on some slow walks! However, it's forced me to get out and about and see a bit of nature, and I've been collecting umbellifers - hogweeds and wild carrots and all that - and drawing inspiration from them like countless embroiderers before me. When I had a few days of energy I even managed to do some actual embroidery...

The Two New Pence is just there as a scale guide. Unless you're into 2p pieces, in which case then, it's a part of the embroidery. I've dyed some silk for a few embroideries I have in mind. I haven't dyed any fabric since my (abandoned. Sob.) City & Guilds so this was fun!

Another inspiration has been trees and landscapes of course...

And here's what I came up with.

Ha! nothing like the photos but that's not quite how I work :) Again they're about the size of your two New Pence. I was always reprimanded at school for working in miniature (I mean in Art lessons. I don't mean I tried doing rounders with a subbuteo ball, although tempting. Nor did I work with a teeny tiny dolly's chemistry set. Miniature essays in history were a surprising failure also), but it was how I worked best. All I've used is embroidery thread, hand-dyed silks and my old Jones machine. You can drop the feed dogs inside it instead of having to use a silly plate thingy so that makes life easier. I used felt as a stabiliser, and worked without a hoop - I can't work with a hoop but have to watch my fingers like a hawk! Anyway, I might cobble together a collection of stuff and sell it on Etsy or in the shop or something. I haven't really done any free-motion stuff for a long time, mainly due to having a crappy modern machine which had an inaccessible bobbin tension system (tech fans!) so it's a relief to be up and running with it again :) Watch this space for more miniscule embroidery. I think I'll leave the miniature out of the yarn side of my creative endeavours though!

Winging it

2009-08-08T16:53:00.000+01:00

Butterflies! Nooooo not the Wendy Craig sitcom (btw - if you know it, I am as good a cook as Ria if ever you fancied popping round for tea. No? oh. shame that.) - these pretty insects! (click to see it bigger like)

For fact fans: L-R starting with top left: Common Blue, Small Tortoiseshell, Painted Lady, Cabbage White, Peacock & Small Tortoiseshell, Common Blue, Small Copper, Red Admiral, Peacock.

I love butterflies. Can you tell? We have a massive, overgrown buddleia in the garden, and every time Mr Yaffle goes out with his pruning equipment I always run across the lawn flapping about and yelling out for him not to chop it. At all. It's covered in butterflies every year and I love it. I don't care if it's grown over the path, through the shed roof, over the allotments and into Council Complaint territory, the butterflies love it. I think they must get drunk on the nectar, as they stay still long enough for me to get really close with the camera. Unlike this creature which I snapped when I was out on the dog walk this morning:

A deer! You can make it out, can't you? I know I'm no Simon King but the zoom on my point-and-shoot seemed to capture it. Ish...I must've been 200 yards away (hey! that's nearly half a skein of yarn!).

Away from naturewatch and in yarny news, I've been busy crocheting (non-crochet fans look away now!).

It's for my pal Rosie (helloooo!!) who's expecting a mini hooman bean fairly soon. I've almost finished it, just a few more rows and all the ends to weave in. It's a ripple pattern from this book - I think it looks like a helter-skelter!

And here it is just before the dog came and lay on it. (only joking...it'll be free of Dylan hair, honest). Although keeping my dog off the best drapes, the newspaper, an open book, the naked sofa (get a cover on it! get a cover on it! it'll be covered in paw marks!!), new bedclothes, new jeans, new clothes, best suits, new doormats, fabric laid out for pattern cutting - well, keeping him off anything is an art in itself. With treats for bribery and a cunning plan known as 'putting my work back in the basket' I've managed to keep him off this blanket so far...paws crossed I can keep it up!

Incredible! Finished Objects! (IFO's!)

2009-07-29T14:43:00.000+01:00

Look! I actually finished stuff!

Here's the blue flowery thing that used to be a skirt. It's billowing in the wind here so looks a bit crumpled, but it's a dress, honest! One day I'll get a mannequin thingy so I can show things off better. Oh and probably sew things better.

And here's the finished Broccoli dress! I'm pleased with how both these turned out. Dresses, not pictures that is (look at this dress's sloping shoulders! ha! I think it's a dodgy coat-hanger...) I'm making a start on another one in this Kaffe fabric, which I possess thanks to the wonder of Ebay. I sold a whole load of Crap From The Attic on ebay, and spent the resulting paypal cash on two metres of this:

What's that you say? An Iron? Pshaw! it's not that kind of blog! I'm not ironing stuff 'til I have to lay out the pattern on it :) Then I might think about it.

Meanwhile in Nature News...here's my favourite tree from my daily Dylan walks.

I think it's an oak, but there it stands, all solitary like. Love it. It's not just any old tree though. This tree is famous. Look closer:

Yes, that's right! It's a famous BBC TREE! He's also a star in the US:

sigh. Loltrees. A whole new genre of internet fun! No, really!

Thanks for all your nice comments and emails and stuff after the last post. I'm feeling a bit better thanks...getting there slowly - ha, how else could I get there?! arf arf :)

The 'roid to happiness...

2009-07-14T13:30:00.000+01:00

I don't usually blog about illness and misery but hahahahaha I'm going to do so today! lolz!! Well, there I was, tired all the time

inexplicably emotional

and generally on a bit of a

Doctor says 'oh, that's ok, nothing to worry about. You're just mental. Have some pills'. After a while the pills didn't seem to work. So I ask for a blood test (doctor: 'Are you sure you want us to do this test? You don't really need it?') and it turns out I've actually got thyroid problems! Now then, say the word Thyroid and being a Yorkshirewoman I think of Thyroyd as being, perhaps, a small town near Huddersfield (Welcome to Thyroyd! You'll never leave! er, because you'll be too tired to) or something. Or worse, High Royds, an infamous psychiatric hospital/former asylum (kind of fitting, given how I feel!) But it turns out that my Thyroid is actually a

shaped gland in my

which is too bloody lazy to make enough of some hormone or other (ie, it's hypothyroid, fact fans!) so it leaves me feeling like a

unable to do basic tasks such as

let alone

or even

Anyway. I have some Levothyroxine pills to take every morning, and apparently they should be working soon (I just love the jovial uncertainty of medicine. 21st century and things 'should start to work soon') so normal service should be resumed in a few weeks, with any luck. I hope you'll forgive my blog neglect, stitch'n'bitch absenteeism and email pants-ness in the meantime :) Right...I think I need a lie-down...

Sewing and knitting. What else?!

2009-07-06T19:36:00.000+01:00

I've been raiding my wardrobe and slashing everything into pieces again :) I'm stuck for summery tops so over the past few evenings I've been sitting unpicking some old skirts and then turning them into dresses.

This dress which I'm just hemming used to be a maxi skirt - I think it's a 70's fabric. As a long skirt it was a bit headache-inducing. But if you thought that was bad - take a look at these...

Yikes! Pass the Imigran! Look at those patterns! I wonder if they were curtains even before they were made into skirts...! Needless to say the effect when spread out over 3ft of lower body is, um, like being hit in the eyes by a big flowery THING. And no-one wants that. So they're going to be transformed into pinafore dresses. And if that fails, special dusters :)

Enough of all this sewing malarkey, anyone would think I couldn't hold two sticks and some yarn and call it knitting! Here are my wips:

An Odd Couple! The one on the left is for Mr Yaffle, who looks disapprovingly whenever I pick up the one on the right, which is for me. Mine is in Bowl of Petunias, and Paul's is in one which I'm thinking of putting in the shop. (both a bit brighter in real life - that's me not using my f-stops properly like) I often mess around with the dyes to see what happens. Sometimes, er, sludge happens...so I don't tend to knit with those skeins...but sometimes I get a happy accident, which is what the red and yellow is. I like the way they're spiralling - it fascinates me how it can spiral in my hands, but give it to another knitter and it will turn into stripes. I'm just waiting for the face of Richard Dawkins to appear in one of them and invite his followers round to worship it. (oh ok, so I saw that joke on Mitchell and Webb - but theirs was in a Melon, not a sock) Let me know if you get a skein which does that, ok??

Sewing, vintage style.

2009-06-30T13:50:00.000+01:00

Over at the Sew, Mama, Sew! Blog they've had a 'Sewing Machine Month' so, right at the end of the month I thought I'd witter on endlessly about my sewing machine(s). If you don't want to see the results, look away now!

I have three sewing machines. Shocking really. I do feel a bit guilty. But they all (well two of them) do different jobs, and if you sew as much as I do, you need at least two so that when you've burnt one motor out or broken the drive belt, there's still a machine that works! I suppose you could call me a bit of an enthusiast, which is the new, more polite name for 'sad person in anorak'. It's quite hard to go out spotting sewing machines though, have you ever tried?!

This one is a treadle machine, from the late 1920s, which Paul bought me :) (click on the pictures to make them bigger). It wasn't expensive either - you can buy them for about £30 these days. I've had a go at sewing with it but I think treadling and me need to spend time together and get to know each other. Ahem. It's like trying to rock back and forth with your lower half, while keeping your arms still enough to feed fabric through the machine and not keep waving about like an utter fooool! So helpful when trying to sew flat-fell seams!! How did they do this in the olden days?? Do you think they had Treadlerobics classes? Hmm...I think I'll stick a motor on it, then I might get more use out of it - at the moment it folds into its neat little table shape and serves as an extra desk...(sorry Paul)...

These two Jones machines are my favourites, and they are the machines I use all the time. For everything! (go here for a history of Jones machines...it's fascinating, she said, in a geeky voice)The brown 1970s one (they loved their brown in the '70s, didn't they?) belonged to my late mum, and all my clothes as a kid were made on it! Oh boy, the Terylene, Crimplene and Bri-Nylon that machine has seen...! I love sewing with it, it is so mechanical, smooth-running and such a heavyweight old girl. The only problem is it gets hot really quickly and I think it really needs a new motor. So I have the other one for back-up (you know, like shoes?? or spare yarn??) I found the blue one (1960s I think) on eBay - it was £35! You can't buy a decent dress for that these days! I do like vintage machines though. They do free-style embroidery so well, and free-motion quilting - I don't need a modern computerised one (luddite!) or indeed a particular brand of Swiss machine they're always recommending (paying £500 for a second hand machine makes me feel queasy) But that's just what I'm used to. You have to be prepared to get the screwdriver out and adjust the tension if you want to use a mechanical/vintage machine but I think it's worth it for the stitch you get from it. I'd love to hear about your machines - do you use vintage or modern ones? There's lots on the Sew Mama Sew Blog about all that, it's interesting to see what people are using...Right. *rolls sleeves up* I'm off to find my oil can :)

Springwatch!

2009-06-24T10:43:00.000+01:00

We've had our own Springwatch in the garden this week. There were blackbirds nesting in the hedge, and I'd been checking on them periodically from a safe distance to make sure everything was ok. When I checked this weekend, look what I found:

An empty nest! Yikes! I was crossing my fingers in hope that nothing bad had happened. And then I heard a little "cheep cheep" from the bottom of the garden so went to investigate...

A dumpy little fledgling, no tail, all beak and fluff...so cute! I've heard it in the garden since then, so I think he's doing ok so far and hasn't fallen prey to the local cats :) Oooh I'm all Kate Humble with enthusiasm! Shriek! a baby blackbird! Will it survive?! Oh the drama!!

In non-Springwatch news...I'm busy dyeing a small batch of yarn for another update. You should see my hands this time...I'd also better get on with sewing some more bags since I've cut out all the pieces and they're waiting patiently by the sewing machine. Bah, not as fun as crawling around in the undergrowth looking for fledglings though!

Finished!

2009-06-10T23:10:00.000+01:00

Should've chosen a smaller coat-hanger perhaps. This one provides 1980's pointy-shoulder-reinforcements as you may have noticed...it's quite a stretchy cardi, so it does fit after all. Which comes as a relief, as I spent hours on it. You know, the kind of hours where you're enjoying knitting and it's going well, but at the back of your mind there's a tiny niggling little knitting voice going 'it won't fit you...it's tooooo small! bwahahah" and rubbing its hands gleefully. If a voice can rub its hands. (Well, if knitting having a voice, then it really can rub its hands...in fact it can make itself a sandwich and get a beer for me too while it's out there) Yep, that knitting voice. The one you ignore and Carry On Knitting (starring: Kenneth Williams, Jim Dale, Barbara Windsor, Sid James and Hattie Jacques) despite overwhelming evidence mounting in front of you...

Well, knitting, this is a poke in the eye for you! it fits! And I'm pleased with it. Maybe I'll wear it to Knit in Public Day. So I can be knitting in public while wearing 'knitteds' in public also!

Oranges and Liesls

2009-06-09T16:09:00.000+01:00

I finished the Purple Liesl! I have just to weave in some ends and add buttons. Trouble is, it's come out a bit small.

Hahahah! Oh, OK, you got me - slight exaggeration on the 3 inches front...but trust me. This is small. Well, it's done now. It just needs some hefty blocking (= steam iron, swearing, glass of wine) and it will fit. it WILL.

Meanwhile, new stash arrived (*guilty face*) to make another one. Still life with oranges:

Any excuse to get the 60's pottery out!

Anyone doing a Knit in Public day on Saturday? I'll be at the one near to us in Bath, hope to see you there!

I just wasn't meant to fly!!

2009-05-27T17:53:00.000+01:00

I'm back in one piece from Ireland! Although I nearly didn't get there, on account of a small surname problem. Not as tiny an infringement as the Yarn Harlot's but an infringement nevertheless. A classic: my maiden name is on my passport, and my ticket was in my married name! And yep, I left my marriage certificate at home...Now to me, I'm both people. But to Ryanair I am not both people. I am actually a Security Risk (or some floozy Gibbins woman masquerading as Mr Hamnett's wife, who knows what they thought?!). Now then folks, do you think I was more of a risk than a) taking your cucumber sarnies wrapped in foil, with a banana, on the plane; b) taking your knitting on the plane; c) taking a thermos of tea onto the plane; d) taking an inhaler onto the plane; e) taking a bottle of pop onto the plane? But risk I was, so we had to change my name on the ticket, and be grateful that they only wanted 3,000,000,000,000,00zillion flanian pobble beads, (and that's a low estimate) for that little service. Gah.

Anyway we got there, and this is what we saw. Pull up a chair. Got nibbles? Drinkies? We'll start the projector then and show you my amazing crop of slides wot I took on my holidays. Skip to the end for the knitting content if you're allergic to holiday snaps :)

We were in Clare, and obviously there are plenty of pubs (which look like people's houses!)

And even a pub that doubles up as an undertakers, which is handy (and more for the comfort of the living than the deceased. Although my Dad might have liked that I think);

We didn't drink in that one, but we did have the obligatory Guinness in a Tavern:

We needed lots of Guinness for strength against the prevailing wind and rain. Look at these clouds...

They really make everything look so green in contrast! Lots of colourful inspiration for new dyeing, even if the skies did bring rain...
The rain held off for a little while, long enough for us to meet a stray dog and throw stones for him (no not at him!!! it wasn't some weird local custom!!) to play with:

It was lovely to borrow a dog for an hour or so, as we really missed ours!

Ireland is a bit more expensive than the UK, or it seems that way. A sure-fire indicator of inflation and the economy (Evan Davis eat your bike helmet) is a country's own version of a pound shop. This was Ennis's pound shop:

That's TWO Euros, if you can read it. If you put the exchange rate as really being one pound to two Euros...I think you just about have it!

As it was raining a lot, we spent a lot of time in our cottage, which was unfortunately one of the most cold cottages ever. And a lot like Craggy Island Parochial house, without the inhabitants (well, by day two I was beginning to resemble Father Jack on account of the nerve-steeling Guinness and general irritability). We eventually decided to move to a hotel instead, and spent the last day in glorious sunshine, as sod's law would have it!

We managed to explore the nice beach but it wasn't flip-flop weather (hey, it's always Doc Marten weather as far as I'm concerned!) and it was a bit blustery (angle of head indicates Trying to Keep Wig On hahahah) -

Aside from the name change, the freezing weather, the cold cottage, the hire car breaking down during our holiday and a snotty cold...well, it was quite lovely :D

When we got home I thought I'd treat myself to some new knitting. (shock: I never knitted during the holiday. It was too bloomin' freezing!) No new yarn; I'm currently experiencing the joy of Stash in the Attic. Some Debbie Bliss Cathay, which I have so much of it's already done me one purple cardigan. Since that cardigan had holes in it, there was yarn left over, see! (holes in cardigans = percentage more cardigan proportionate to size of hole. Perhaps there's a scientific research post connected to ironing this out?!) This time I'm making another Liesl (I could knit this in every colour...I love it!)

Apart from that, I'm planning some dyeing this weekend, and maybe a spot of bag making. Football being on tonight means I have ample sewing time in my little room...huddled from the weather we seem to have brought back from Ireland with us!

Woman, 35, in knitted pants horror

2009-05-03T18:27:00.000+01:00

I'm knitting a shawl. A perfectly pretty shawl. It's Lehmus and you'll notice it looks beautiful on the designer's blog. But mine looks like this so far.

It looks like a pair of frilly knickers. Well, I mean, probably not the sort you would have in your underwear drawer of course. But a pair of BIG, LACY PANTS nevertheless. Got to love lace knitting, haven't you? For the pain, frustration and utter helplessness you feel in its holey little hands. Dear Lace, please stop torturing me and turn into something beautiful. Now. Before I lose the will to knit...

Hmm, okay. A bit more like that and I might consider picking up the needles again. Lace. It's not for the terminally lazy. I like a garment that I can knit, iron (yes, IRON) to the right proportions and then wear. Lovely lace. It likes a lot of hard work. Spraying and blocking, with special fancy-schmancy pins and a spray bottle (last seen in this house when the steam iron stopped steaming). Lace, O, demanding lace. Lace whose intricacies I only just learnt to keep track of by using stitch markers:

(thanks for the tip, Rosee, it's saved me a lot of headaches). O Lace! I curse thy holey knitted face of horror! ahem. Cup of tea, anyone?

The dog finds the whole thing very uninteresting.

He was more interested in what he'd spotted.

A teeny-tiny toad in the garden. A baby I suppose. A toadlet! Look how small he is. And I don't have gigantic hands, in case you were wondering.

Toads, lace knitting...and here are some pretty forget-me-nots and a dandelion for your viewing pleasure. I love my forget-me-nots as you know. I like how my patch of them looks like a fieldful...

Hey, who said "weeds" at the back?!!

In other news: YARN! I've dyed up a few skeins which will go into the shop this week, with more dyeing planned next week. I'm also busy making some bags - they're sold out at the moment, so I'd better stop gallivanting around in the forget-me-nots and get back to the Singer! I hope you are all having a lovely bank holiday weekend :-)

Skeins! Blossom! Sky!

2009-04-21T20:01:00.000+01:00

The sun is shining, the flowers are out, and the skeins are drying...or the skeins are out, the sun is drying (apparently it is, sort of) and the flowers are shining...?

And there are new yarns in the shop! Here's a preview...

They're posing on the bed of forget-me-nots (my fave bit of the garden and the bit that never gets strimmed, much to Mr Yaffle's chagrin). Skeins are a notoriously vain species, preferring to be shot against perfect backgrounds. Causes me immense trouble! Demanding as film stars, skeins! Anyway, see them posing for real in the shop.

Also out posing today is the cherry blossom. Warning: for those of a cliche-averting disposition, ubiquitous blossom-against-sky shot follows. If you don't want to know the results, look away now:

I like this picture - it reminds me of a really kitsch photo in a 1960s book about flowers. Or a seaside postcard! I put the flash on and upped the contrast - don't try this at home, folks, or you too will have a picture this bright...!

Sewing, skeining and STUFF!

2009-04-16T13:29:00.000+01:00

Here's what my floor looks like after this weekend's frenetic sewing activity.

I've been making a patchwork dress! Inspired by these amazing dresses, I thought I'd make my own. I used the bodice from a Simplicity pattern, and made up the rest. Mind you, after a few days of sewing patches together and struggling with seemingly endless gathering, I did think more than once, "hmm, I could buy one of hers and save myself the agony", but once I'd worked out the import duty on something from Australia I made a cup of refreshing tea and carried on stitching and gathering.

And here it is. I just have the hem to do and a belt to add. Crazy dress! Mind you if you know me you'll know this is completely in character. In fact, it's made from offcuts from other dresses I've made (padded out with a couple of FQs I bought with my vouchers) so you'll have seen all of it before! I'd take a pic of it outside in the garden with me prancing about modelling it, but I can't take a self portrait properly, and my assistant is temporarily indisposed.

He likes sitting under my desk while I work. (I am reminded of the fantastic under-deskness of my last job - we all had a treasure trove of stuff under there, but never a dog! I still carry on the tradition of Crap Under Desk, you'll be pleased to know!) Except it's not great when I'm sewing as I need the foot-room for the machine control (in the right of the picture). He doesn't like that and sulks on the landing instead. Anyway. I'll get round to making Mr Yaffle take a picture of me wearing the dress of craziness one day :-)

Shop news!
I've got a dyeing day tomorrow and over the weekend so there will be some new colours going up on the site by early next week. Also, I've been re-skeining some existing colours to give you a better idea of how the colours work with each other.

This one is Paintbox

And this one is Stargazer. I've re-skeined just one of each colourway so you can see how it looks. The pics will be up on the website today and tomorrow.

And finally. I hope you're not eating your dinner. Here's today's mystery object...

Yup, folks, it's raw wool...! There was loads of it strewn across the fields yesterday when I took the dog out, so naturally I picked it up and put it in my bag. No-one was around to look apart from the odd sheep so I saved myself some face ;-) Trouble is, I have no idea what to do with it really. Or why I picked it up. Mr Trebus strikes again...I think, given the abundance of mud and vegetable matter in there, I can't see myself washing, carding and spinning such a small bit. Hmm. If only it was more attractive, or sweeter smelling (and if only you too could enjoy the aroma!) I'd be half-tempted to spin it...but for now it's on the bird table!!

Not what it seams

2009-04-08T14:34:00.000+01:00

The neverending purple cardigan is nearly finished! Look!

(needle plonked into knitting. it's not really doing a stitch, cuz that would be doin it rong)

I'm sewing it up. And I'm really not enjoying doing that. Do you find that you knit beautifully and neatly, only to really botch things up when you sew the seams? Hmm. I do. I don't really like all-in-one garments either because I end up over-estimating how wide my underarms need to be (I think that's the seamstress in me. Allow for seams! FAIL. It hav no seams.) and the last one I knitted deserves to be in an 80's treasury of batwing cardigans. Gah.

Franken-cardigan! Ugh! I can sew, I can knit. But combine the two together and it's a disaster! I'll carry on and just keep my arms by my sides so no-one can glimpse the seams when I wear it. I could start a whole new fashion. Maybe I should take up Irish dancing. And wear the cardigan to that.

Heaps of Happy!

2009-03-22T15:47:00.000Z

A few heaps of happiness* for you today:

They're my winter coats! I was putting them in the wardrobe ready for the next cold snap and thought the colours were amazing in the spring sunshine. I have eight different colours of these Welsh Tapestry coats. They're so cheap in the charity shops ("because they're horrid!!" I hear you cry), I can't pass up on one if I see it. Even if it's oversized and in a funny colour combination. I love them. They're made so well - made to last, unlike today's mass-manufactured coats which barely last out the winter. These have been going since the 60s and 70s, and will probably outlive me! Most likely they'll end up in the hands of one of my descendants, appearing on Flog It!, saying "I can't believe anyone used to wear this stuff!!"

Here's another heap of gert lushness:

A pile of Kaffe Fassett fabric. Yum. I'd like it to come and join my stash but it's a work purchase :-( which is great news for you, of course!! I am busy making sock knitting bags (bags for your sock knitting as opposed to bags which knit) for the shop. And - BIG FANFARE!! - the shop is going to be open on April 1st! It's not an April Fool's joke either. I kid you not! You can find the shop here. I'm sure I'll post between now and then. But to keep you going, here's the final heap of loveliness for the day. Yaffle Yarn!

*heaps of happiness and heaps of gert lushness are subject to subjective opinion and cannot be objectively guaranteed. The rate of lushness and happiness can go up as well as down. Resemblance to lushness either living or Ted is purely coincidental. Remember your gert lushness is at risk if you do not keep up payment of gorgeousness or other loans secured on it. Mices correct at time of going to bed.

Tiredknits.

2009-03-08T13:51:00.000Z

I've rustled up this sign, and it's now going to stand 3ft high, on steel legs, in front of the television. Because without it, I'm doomed to spend more hours fixing my mistakes than actual knitting. (Or can I claim Un-knitting as a new craft? Because I do it to really very high standards)

It's the purple cardigan you see. I'm getting there, really I am. This is my most favourite purple cardigan in a long and distinguished line of attempts to knit purple cardigans. I only have the sleeves to knit now, so I'm not giving up.

It's got lacy bits in. Not complicated, mind-bending lacy bits, just evil, slippery lacy bits which lull you into a false sense of "hey! I can knit lace" and then turn around and spit in your eye as you forget one row of crucial yarn overs eight rows down and have absolutely no way of fixing it without ripping the whole lot back. gentle, manageable lacy bits which are a bit of a challenge but really quite simple.

Simple, see - I mean, 30% of this cardigan is made of holes and therefore, air! Easy! Except when I'm tired. Because it's at that point my Inner Knitter fails to remember to k2tog or SKPO or YO and instead, Inner Knitter thinks 'ooh I am now knitting a sock!' and makes hands carry on knitting every stitch. And Inner Knitter doesn't remember to check if I've done every row correctly until it's too late and poor, tired, brain has to make hands go back and try to unravel and put stitches back on needles without twisting, and then make hands re-knit with exactly the same mistakes in, but four rows up! I think I am in need of a nap...

Books wot I hav red

2009-03-05T12:24:00.000Z

Something is wrong with this picture. Click to have a closer look. It's because I'm fed up of seeing that 'meme' floating round with a list of 100 books on it. Here's my alternative version for those of you who may recognise some of the more oft-read titles, along with whether I've read them or not. Do suggest your favourites, so I can add them to the list too. Fun for all the family!

1. The last book in the series, which had great reviews, and which you waited for ages to come out in paperback so you could afford it, but which turned out to be disappointing – yes. Damn you, author!

2. Book with pretty graphic matt-and-spot-varnish cover that looked lovely on the Waterstone’s display but
turned out to be convoluted and pretentious – no

3. The one that had bad reviews in the newspapers but you loved the author so bought it
– yes

4. One you got from the library and forgot to return - always meant to read that one, the fines are shocking by now though so I've hidden it under the bed and every time I see it I feel sick with guilt and shame

5. Book that you knew you should have read, but couldn’t get past the first page –
no

6. Book you're secretly ashamed of reading but read anyway - I wouldn't own up to that if I were you

7. Complete works of some midlands-based dead bard or other – I’m going to say I’ve read them all even
that really obscure one no-one except the Emeritus Professor of Eng.Lit at Oxford has read

8. A book that’s really for children but you keep re-reading with some guilt – yes, and I know my brain is regressing because of it

9. The depressing one where everyone dies at the end but it won some prize or other so you bought it
– yes I read that one and needed counselling afterwards

10. The Science fiction one that the critics make fun of all the time – yes, laugh at my choice of reading and I’ll kick you into hyperspace

11. Really worthy one with bonnets in with a sad ending that makes you cry – yes, I read it every Christmas

12. Massively fat book which the author was paid by the word for so no wonder it’s big enough to prop up the rest of your books – yes, eventually I will get through that before the moths and bookworms do

13. Post-modern novel written in a fabricated language which should exclude most of the reading population it's so damn clever - No.

14. The one that won a ManWomanBooker prize and you bought to kill time at the airport – no, and I left it on the plane

15. Book that you’ve read but it was re-issued in a pretty hardback foiled edition so you had
to buy it again because it looks pretty on the shelf – never read that version, it’s
too beautiful to open

16. A book a friend lent you and you didn't get past the first page but when you returned it you
said you’d read and enjoyed it and did things like nod and say "hmm yeah that bit was great, great, um, yeah oh I can't remember that bit, oh but the rest was fab, the bit with her and him and all that" when they asked you about it– no

17. Book your friend lent you that you subsequently spilt coffee all over and you
had to buy a replacement copy and you’re sure she’s sussed you out but you
never speak of it – yes

18. The book the same friend gave you and you dropped into the bath while reading in the bath – yes and this time my friend hasn't spoken to me since
19. Book that you really want to read but can’t get into and is now under the bed
gathering dust – no

20. Book with ridiculous crime plot in it that was so gripping you stayed up all night to read –
twice

21. Heart-wrenching True Life tale that felt like tragedy-voyeurism when you read it – yes

22. Book you want everyone to read but no-one else likes it so you form a fan club of one for it - yes, twenty times

23. Book you had to read for the book club you joined so you could meet like-minded
people and eventually you stopped going because they all suggested such weird stuff
– no

24. All the books you read at school – I only went to school for my dinner

25. Book that you should have read at school for A level but got bored halfway through and did your
essay about the Merchant Ivory film
instead– no

26. Book about knitting – lots of them, all the time, why aren’t they on the list?

27. Chick lit book you felt so guilty about reading but read it anyway and it took
about 3 minutes to read then you got hooked and read the rest of the series in a weekend - yes

28. Another worthy tome they all say you should have read and you pretend you’ve
read but haven't – no yes, of course I've read that

29. The one with the attractive cover that would look good with your decor - no but it looks really pretty on the shelf
30. A book you bought just to make up numbers in a 3 for 2 offer - no
31. Two books you bought as the other two thirds of that 3 for 2 offer - no
32. Impulse buy at a train station - I got so into that book I nearly ended up in Penzance instead of Gloucester
33. The book the critics said was 'unputdownable' - It was so good I couldn't pick it up
34. I’ve had more fun reading the Yellow Pages than this book - no
35. Who decides this stupid list anyway and isn’t it just another way of making you
feel thick and inferior – yes

36. This list makes me want to punch whoever came up with it – oh yes!

Rite of Spring

2009-02-19T11:49:00.000Z

Like most of you I am looking forward to the end of winter and the proper beginning of spring. In fact, looking forward so much I may a) fall over on my face or b) my eyes are going to pop out from looking forward with such enthusiasm. I was out with the dog today trudging through the mud and drizzle, but noticed the birds are already singing and there are small hopeful changes afoot...

There are buds on the trees...(this one, I think, some kind of maple)

Flowers on the winter jasmine in the (considerable) undergrowth in our garden (Monty Don, get your arse round here, there's stuff to be done);

Catkins on the Filbert (sing this to the tune of 'Tiptoe through the Tulips' and you can pass hours of otherwise idle time in musical joyfulness!);

Snail-eaten primroses...(our garden would make Kew's head gardener blush).

So - spring. Big deal. Stuff's growing. Well, it also means this.

Time to spring-clean the horror that is my craft room floor. And of course, most exciting of all, soon it will be warm enough to wear my (shock!) finished Liesl:

I'm getting frighteningly good at actually finishing things. Hmm...with the possible exception of cleaning up rooms and knitting purple cardigans :-)

Diversion

2009-02-17T09:03:00.000Z

Bonus points if you have spotted that this is not knitting. This week, I have been mostly stitching and sketching:

If I don't know what to embroider, I'll muck about with pastel or paints for a bit, to a) procrastinate a bit longer and b) to try out ideas. In the City & Guilds courses (a grand total of two courses I took but never finished. That's another story), they taught us to use the sketches as starting points. I've been afraid of drawing for years, ever since I left school with a miserable excuse for a qualification in Art. When I did the C&G, I learnt that sketching and drawing were just a means to an end, and that your sketches weren't supposed to look like Dürer's. Which is just as well, really.

Knitting vs stitching: well, of course, you can't watch Corrie and stitch simultateously, so I can only say that I've heard but not seen recent episodes...whereas I can enjoy the full spectacle when knitting.

I'm not sure if I've finished this or not, so it's sitting in a frame but isn't on the wall yet.

I think I'll keep going back to it. But there is the small matter of a purple cardigan that might just get in the way...

Something for the weekend

2009-01-30T15:07:00.000Z

I am such a fickle knitter. I have the attention span of a caffeine-fuelled flea so have to have two or three projects on the go (purple cardigan, socks, some crochet and now this...). Here's what I'll be working on this weekend.

It's Liesl, by Ysolda Teague. I was looking at it longingly on the website the other day, and after a few checks on yardage and whatnot, realised I had enough wool in my stash for it! Ah, the benefits of needlessly and endlessly buying and stashing wool...I'm using the Cascade 220 that I originally bought for this hat - a lovely hat which my tiny mind couldn't figure out how to make! But wait, I seem to be knitting lace of all things...how can this be??

Nope, I don't know either...it's like knitting magic though. And there are enough rows of straightforward knit and purl without pesky counting, so it seems that this knitter of little brain can actually do something more complicated than stocking stitch after all.
Apart from knitting, I'm going to try to work on what's inside these tins...

Berries Beads!! They're Czech glass, so they're a bit on the heavy side, so what better thing to string them together than:

Barbour's Shamrock Linen CARPET THREAD!! I was rummaging around trying to find something that wouldn't leave me embarrassed in public by a snapping into a shower of beads, and this old thread I found in a biscuit tin (well, what do you keep in your old biscuit tins? This is a much loved tin full of stuff I inherited from Mr Yaffle's Aunt. Nearly all of the stuff has come in useful, I'm amazed at how handy it's been), will probably do the trick. Why waste it on the carpet, I say!

Rip it up and start again

2009-01-29T09:00:00.000Z

I have one thing to say on the subject of purple cardigans, and that is AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH. I've started two, and neither are making me happy. So it is with pain and humiliation (steady on woman! God knows what Google search will bring you to this blog) that I am doing this.

Unravelling. Both of them. There's no-one to blame but myself, either. I couldn't face another vast tract of stocking stitch in the first cardigan, and for the second one, I just couldn't make the wool from my stash work with the pattern. Ho hum. So here I am, unravelling (in more ways than one, hahaha).

I'm unravelling it onto a niddy-noddy so I can make it into a nice skein. The sodding stuff is then going to get a good wetting, followed by a severe heating on a radiator, then I'm going to wind it all back into a big purple ball, ready for the next cardigan. But I'm not bitter *grinds molars*. I've chosen this as my next disaster pattern - Lacy Ribbon-tie Cardigan by Erika Knight (I can't find a non-ravelry link! Sorry!). It's from the 'Baby Bloom' book, but don't panic - I'm not even remotely 'blooming' - I just liked the pattern :-) It has lacy bits in it, so it has to be more interesting than stocking stitch! Oh, and I refuse to unravel next time. It's going in the loft if it doesn't work, the yarn must be cursed!

Colour therapy

2009-01-28T14:26:00.000Z

I was the lucky recipient of some vouchers for our local quilting shop, Country Threads (no proper website sadly) last year as a leaving gift from my work (thank you everyone!) and I only just got around to spending them yesterday - spectacularly tardy of me, I know. I wanted to be sure that I made just the right selection of things for something special. I never make anything too posh for the house because I don't want to see it destined for the sole appreciation of arses, spilt beverages, melted chocolate and mucky paws! So...this time I'm going to make a wallhanging so none of the above can reach it (unless...oh no, don't go there!)

They're batik fabrics, mostly by Hoffman, I think. I'm such a hippy at heart. When I was 14 I did my first tie-dye experiment and never looked back. Nothing in my wardrobe escaped. I even wore tie-dyed socks to school...(can you get ASBOs for fashion crimes?). The lust for tie-dye and batik has to be fulfilled somehow though, so this is the socially acceptable way of getting my fix.

Love or loathe them, they certainly add a bit of colour to a grey day. I have a little pile of my own hand-dyed fabric (not tie-dyed, mercifully) which seems to fit the bill too.

oh..., plus the *cough* considerable stockpile of other batik fat quarters I've had squirrelled away for a rainy day. I'm so glad I don't pass the quilt shop on my way for a sandwich at lunchtime any more (actually, it was more like: obtain sandwich, then wander round the corner, away from the direction of work, up the cobbled street and - oops! - I appear to have stumbled into Country Threads, as if in a tuna-and-sweetcorn-induced daze! Well, now that I'm here..., etc)...or this pile would be even bigger.

Like all things I start, it will end up in the huge 'wip' pile of course, along with the eleventy billion other projects I have 'on the go' as it's euphemistically termed...!

Bodice-ripping

2009-01-20T17:19:00.000Z

I have unpicked, re-sewn, unpicked, gathered, sworn at, hacked at, and re-sewn the bodice of this so many times this weekend. I couldn't get the gathers right at first, so had to undo it. And undo the wretched thing again when I found that, after gathering it, it still didn't fit my non-existent bust. (Summed up by my experience of first buying a bra in Littlewoods in Barnsley, at the age of 11. The shop assistant laughed: "You what, love? What size???! you might as well wear a piece of elastic!!" Oh how I miss Northern candour) After all this ripping, the poor bodice is beginning to look like the dog chewed it.

I also had to undo the interfacing I'd lovingly sewn at the top of the dress too, because it gave the neckline all the softness of an Elizabethan ruff. So as I'd figured out how to gather things, I added some more round the neckline.

Now I'm just sewing the sleeves - with more gathered bits! This dress has more puff than all the pastries at Betty's Tea Rooms put together!

That took most of my energy (cold still apparent) so the rest of the time I've been sitting on the sofa finishing off my crochet blanket. That's right - something has actually been finished in this house!

I had to take it outside to photograph so the dog wouldn't sit on it. He is rather fond of the blanket, possibly more keen on it than I am...(it's primarily a leftovers blanket, and like most leftovers, it tasted much better the night before.) Right - after that Herculean effort I think I shall slump onto the sofa with the heavy crocheted monster and not move for a few hours...!

House of Idiot fashions

2009-01-16T13:40:00.000Z

I've prescribed myself a short course of dressmaking to beat the post-viral blues and encourage me out of my tissue-strewn hovel. I've been inspired by watching repeats of fashion-house costume drama House of Eliott (on UKTV History every Monday if you want to join in) although my attempts at dressmaking are rather more like the French and Saunders version, House of Idiot and there's nary a bugle bead in sight, sadly :-)

Profuse apologies for the dark pictures. I don't believe the sun has risen today. If it has, someone show it the way to Somerset?

It's Simplicity 3807 dress pattern, a short dress with cute puffed sleeves. The fabric is two metres of Kaffe Fassett stuff. It's just too good for cutting into patchwork pieces so it's going to be a crazy dress instead. It's become the 'broccoli dress' in my head as they look like stems of broccoli to me. And that was before I was taking the decongestant tablets. Let's take a closer look.

Definitely broccoli. Hmm, with a hint of puppy-dog tail, I think?

Inevitable, I suppose.

The pretty tin of pins I'm using is inherited from my late mum and gran. They made all their own clothes (and mine) and passed their skills onto me, so there's always the pair of them at the back of my mind (and in this case they're shouting "£9 a metre? Bloomin 'eck! what's wrong wi' stuff from th'market?") when I'm sewing. I blame them for my sense of fashion being a bit wacky too.

Right, better go and do the boring bit of ironing, pinning, cutting...and see if I can get round to any actual sewing today...

Notes from the dusty archives

2009-01-14T18:07:00.000Z

Forgive me! Another non-yarn-related blog posting. I've not had any creative energy since the Man Cold arrived, so I've been pootling around with another hobby: family tree research. I don't do it much, as it can work out expensive if you haven't any firm leads and your family name is really common! However, the 1911 census went online yesterday and I was able to find a bit more about my maternal great grandparents...

(click to embiggen!) There they are. Harriet and George, with a baby called Harry (I think he may have been cast out into the unknown as I can't remember him. Mind you we never spoke about that kind of thing), and four lodgers, all crammed into 4 rooms (eeh, that were luxury when I were a lass, I lived in an armpit, etc, etc). They've yet to have my gran, Nellie. Here are some faces for the names.

That's Harriet and George, my great-grandparents.

And there's my great-gran and my gran, Nellie (marvellous boots. I wear Doc Martens to this day, with everything. Wonder where I got that from?) Funny how Harriet, George and Harry as names, have come back into fashion, but 'Nellie' has yet to resurface.

My family were all employed in the cotton industry in Oldham, Lancashire and since we were the kind of family that never spoke about anything, and everyone's dead now (careless as well as tight-lipped!), I have to do my own sleuthing! I only wish I had the researchers they get to do the work on Who do you Think you Are, because I think this is all I'm going to have time to find out for now...possibly a good thing for you though, else I'd be raking through the archives for hours and this would be a family history blog. Hmm. Where's that yarn gone?

ah, that's better!

This post is brought to you by...

2009-01-13T17:09:00.000Z

...the healing power of Olbas Oil, Savlon and Andrex tissues. Sound familiar? Yep, I finally succumbed to the hideous cold that's going round. Try as I might to hide away from people, germs, civilisation etc somehow it managed to track me down and stick me in bed for 48 hours. My husband says I'm the only woman he knows who gets Man Colds. The cheek!

Since I've not been up to anything creative (other than finding new places to hide soggy tissues) in the past few days, and I didn't think that an entire post about my symptoms would be very interesting (but a full list is available on request, for the mere price of a stamped addressed envelope), here's a random selection of stuff from around my room...

I've been designing and making some cute pouches for double-pointed needles. They'll be available in the shop (it's on its way - honest - we are having a few teething problems!) soon when I've made enough to sell! They're made with Heather Bailey fabric, and are fully lined, and they close with a cute button. DPNs, jug of threads and basket not included :-)

I made this chap a while ago now, but I haven't blogged about him yet. He's from a pattern by Ysolda and her elephant is called Elijah. I knitted him in some Regia cotton sock yarn (colour 4184, knit on 3mm) and I love how his stripes turned out! It is a genius pattern - I heartily recommend it as a fun knit. You won't want to give him away once you've knitted him though...I didn't!

Since I couldn't figure out how to do his eyes properly, he's got a bit of a wonky right eye, but I think it gives him a bit of character. (mistakes in my knitting = giving something character. Try it for yourself! "what's that weird flappy bit at the back of your cardigan?" "oh, it's character! I did it on purpose!")

This view is right in front of the computer where I type. (and just look at the dust, eek, at least it proves I didn't stage the shot...) It's part of a ridiculously large collection of useless useful tins and retro pottery, hailing from places as far away as Barnsley, Keynsham and the metropolitan borough of E-bay! When does a passion for collecting turn into a sickness, anyone?

And no post would be complete without gratuitous dog pic.

He wants to play ball. Or eat. Or go for a walk. Or eat. Or play ball. Or go for a walk. So he's sulking in this picture. I suppose I ought to go and play ball with him...in between sneezes and tissues!

Cardigan infidelity

2009-01-08T11:19:00.000Z

I don't know. You're busy knitting one purple cardigan...

...and desperately trying to stay awake whilst knitting stitch after boring stitch of dull, purple monotony...when out of the blue, there arrives this, from Knitty.

A much nicer, more exciting purple cardigan! Look! it has Other Stitches in it, like garter stitch and - oh my! - twisted rib. So there was only one thing to do.

Ahem. I cast it on, and cast the other one into the big fiery pit of unfinished objects. I can't help it if a prettier cardigan comes along and turns my head! It's Knitty's fault, anyway!!

I'm back!

2008-12-30T14:11:00.000Z

What a neglectful blogger I've been...in my defence, I have been busy banging my head against all kinds of virtual brick walls in an attempt to get the shop up and running online. Payment gateways, SSL certificates...merchant accounts, FTP sites...but hopefully soon you'll be able to buy some of this lovely stuff:

Hmm. Sock yarn. Lovely. Doesn't try to confound me with gibberish. Hasn't got a payment gateway to get up and running. Doesn't understand HTML. Lovely, lovely yarn! Yarn is my friend!

Of course in the interim, Christmas has been and gone, and I hope yours was a lovely one. Mr Yaffle and I spent some of ours in Glossop, just outside the Peak District National Park.

This amazing view was just outside the flat we stayed in. It would've been positively churlish not to go and see what was at the top, so we did. Now, my idea of walking is as follows. 1. get into the car with dog and wellies. 2. drive somewhere pretty, and flat. 3. get out of car with dog and wellies, and walk for a bit. 4. drive home, unexhausted, dry, and not aching. So this was a departure. We climbed a bit, and found a 'clough' (no, not that kind of clough) which I think is a kind of ravine:

and right at the top we found lots of these!

We told him about the sock yarn and everything, but he didn't look too impressed.

Main surprise of the festive season was that I did. NO. KNITTING. whatsoever! Unprecedented. I spent Christmas watching this, this and a bit of this. And then I got incredibly twitchy and yesterday couldn't resist casting on a new hat, and trying to start the sleeves of the Big Purple Endless Cardigan of Dullness. So that'll see me to the New Year and beyond...!

Dyeing to spin

2008-10-30T11:54:00.000Z

Mine's a pint, landlord!

What a good night out that was. And it resulted in a pile of dyed roving, strangely enough.

The colours were inspired by a gorgeous scarf in a copy of Spin Off Magazine which my pal Rosie kindly gave me (thanks Rosie!!). The pattern is Morning Surf Scarf which is designed for handspun yarn. Even handspun yarn with lumps, bumps and dog hair in it.

I've made friends with my spinning wheel again (we had a chat about the Itchy Yarn Incident and agreed to put it behind us) so here goes...

Watching skeins dry

2008-10-27T16:41:00.000Z

The inclement weather at the weekend forced my skein-drying activities indoors, so the radiators were festooned with colourful hanks of wool (makes a change from smalls, eh?)

I've been experimenting with some paler shades although from the pictures you'd think I was my normal, neon self! It's hard to get the proportion of dye just right for pastel shades but some have turned out quite well.

After watching all that yarn dry, it was time to do something more interesting, such as knitting the Cardigan of Staggering Complexity^TM. You know, the purple one with the inconceivably complicated pattern of (gasp) knit one row, purl one row. It's reached the limp, curly waistcoat stage, so I'd better carry on and knit the sleeves. Before I do that, I'm mucking about with the idea of adding a different colour:

No, not greensleeves (how we laughed) - it's for the edging when it's finished! I've been crocheting up a sample to see what it would look like.

Turns out it looks like a frilly purple anti-macassar. If you're short of one for your settee, do let me know!

Through a lens dustily

2008-10-22T17:57:00.000+01:00

Dog and I popped out this afternoon to take some Through The
Viewfinder shots with a new (old) toy. You strap a cumbersome old camera like
this one

to your digital camera (mine's a cheap point-and-shoot
affair) and you take pictures through its viewfinder to create vignetted
images. It's the photographic equivalent of having an ipod, but hooking it up
to a recording on 78 rpm vinyl, and then listening to everything through the
scratchy track, next to a whirring food processor and if possible, on a tractor...but I think it's pretty.

Here's some of my latest yarn batch (hmmm...dusty black bits through the lens, on my yarn!!)

And some trees on our walk

Enough already! More, and better, can be found here.
I'm off to listen through my ipod to a spectacular mono LP recording of some
fireworks from the BBC Sound Effects department circa 1967...

Rippling yarns*

2008-10-17T22:48:00.000+01:00

Thanks so much for all the votes and suggestions about the stripes! I had no
idea so many of you would like it. When you're working alone and only have the dog as a focus group (one woof for 'yes', two woofs for...oh, there goes a squirrel, forget it) it really helps to have some input from you all! I'll dye some stripey yarn up and stock it in the
Laughing Yaffle shop when it's up and running. Not long now, just a few
tweaks to the website, and some of yer actual yarn for the shop and it will be ready!

I've been working on the ubiquitous ripple blanket this week. I pick it up during the winter months as it's at least 30 degrees warmer underneath it, so it's impossible to work on even in the English summers...

It's one of the patterns from the Jan
Eaton Ripple Book and I'm using up yarn from my (shameful) stash. It's
mostly DK yarn leftovers from other projects, plus some really soft Sirdar Blur which
makes the blanket really comfy and fuzzy (and no itchy and scratchy in sight).

Oh. And let's not forget the 1% dog hair content. Wouldn't be quite the same without it!

*PS if you haven't seen Ripping Yarns as part of your Great British Comedy education then you must. Them's the rules.

To stripe or not to stripe

2008-10-12T20:25:00.000+01:00

There aren't enough pairs of DPNs in my house to accommodate all the 'sock' swatches I'm knitting! (I say 'socks' - I dispensed with ribbing pretty early on in the show and now I'm just knitting truncated tubes. Handy for all those occasions when you just can't do without a truncated tube!) It looks like a nasty bout of startitis, I know. But I'm testing out some of the skeins I've dyed (honest), just to see how they knit up.

It's really surprising and exciting to see how they turn out (did I mention that I don't get out much? And anyway, it's a welcome relief form of procrastination change from the mono-colour cardigan). I think these are my favourites so far.

I experimented with stripes, too. First I tried making a really long skein, like in this tutorial, only I got into a terrible tangle. I had to tie one end to the back of a 376 bus in order to wind the impossibly long skein, for starters (I'm assured that this is how Opal have done it for years. What's that bus doing, Granny? Well, dearie, it's winding yarn into special stripes!) On its return, I eventually managed to hoik the hank off the bus, down the lane, and straight into the bin, cutting out the middle-step of dyeing it altogether! Clever, eh? Hmm. Maybe self-striping yarn isn't the way forward... I stuck to the smaller skeins and tried to get some semblance of stripe into the yarn that way, instead:

(Do not adjust your set...)

Would you knit with this yarn? I mean, if it was in a different colourway, more to your tastes, would single stripes be something you could live with? They start to overlap a bit at the back (the pink and blue go purple and it zig-zags a bit) which is the nature of most hand-dyed yarns. But if that wasn't a problem for you would you knit it into socks? Here's your chance to vote one of the members of Yaffle Yarn out of the Yaffle House...

Online Surveys & Market Research

Yarn Yawn

2008-10-09T10:51:00.000+01:00

Whoever coined the phrase "I'll be glad to see the back of that!" clearly never knitted a cardigan.

It's the one thing I'm never glad to see the back of, because knitting the back of a grown-up sized cardigan is an activity so unremittingly tedious it's a wonder I ever go on to finish the rest. And this explains why there are so many WIPs in my stash. And crazy cardigans made of frightening, self-striping (but so very interesting!) yarn in my wardrobe.

Mile after dull, purple mile of stocking stitch. With no prospect of an exciting colour change on the next row. In fact the only. Relief. From the tedium. Of the back of this. Cardigan. Is the occasional

Dog hair. Debbie Bliss Cathay. 50% cotton, 35% Viscose Microfibre, 14% Silk, 1% Dog Hair.

PS. The camera also thought this cardigan was dull so it is displaying it in three different shades for your viewing pleasure!

The itchy and scratchy show

2008-10-05T15:48:00.000+01:00

It seemed like a good idea at the time. To dye some roving that was a wool/nylon blend, then spin it up into lovely, strong sock yarn (just like the real thing!) Such a great idea.

And all the while I was dyeing this, and spinning it up, there was this weird, soundtrack-like background noise. A bit like a foreboding, sinister Bernard Hermann score. I couldn't work it out. When I stopped spinning, it stopped. And when I started spinning again, it carried on. I oiled my wheel, turned the telly up a bit and put it down to over-tiredness and too much wine. And then after the sample was all plied up and ready to knit with, it dawned on me as the yarn revealed its true self (and the soundtrack reached an alarming crescendo. Or it could've been the same moment the dog chose to knock the vase off the window-sill, not sure).

Horror-yarn that has all the softness and light fluffy texture of a used Brillo Pad. I can't spin fast enough or give the yarn enough twist so that the nylon lies flat. It just pokes itself out and sulks, refusing to make friends with the wool. Big machines can spin so fast that this doesn't happen, presumably, because the manufactured 80/20 I've been dyeing is perfectly soft and lovely! You wouldn't want to knit anything apart from a hair shirt with what I spun yesterday. Anyone know of a 'Knit Hair Shirts for Lowly Ascetics and Bald Hedgehogs' campaign I can participate in? argh!!!

Season of socks and mellow knitfulness

2008-10-02T14:20:00.000+01:00

My yarn dyeing turned all autumnal and dropped off a tree this week. I dyed up a red and green combination after glancing over the wall and seeing Mrs Virginia Creeper in a back garden.

She gets into a lot of back gardens round here. We had to get an injunction out on her to stop her getting into our shed through the roof felt. Anyway. I dyed this.

Still life with apples, yarn and more stuff off the ground! The apples are Red Devils from our local farm shop (the best farm shop in the world because it has a fibreglass cow coming out of the building).They're pink inside too, which because I am pleased by small things, pleases me immensely...

And now for something completely different.

That's Terry Gilliam's autumnal animation from The Meaning of Life. (any opportunity to crowbar in a bit of Gilliam. Apologies). Moving swiftly back to knitting:

I think the Foliage 'n' Fruit combination's a winner. Watch this space for colourways inspired by: Spotted Laurel and Banana; Filbert and Pineapple Chunks (on a bed of wilted Daphne); Mugwort and Cling Peaches...or maybe you have your own favourite fruit'n'foliage medley (don't we all, folks?) you'd like to see expressed via the medium of knitting? Answers on a tin of fruit cocktail to the usual address...

Entertaining Mr Trebus

2008-09-30T13:00:00.000+01:00

The ghost of Mr Trebus lives on. Through me!* This time, it's worse than just a routine root in a charity shop with the resulting hoard of fashion-backward fabric. It's the irresistible urge to collect bits of stuff off the ground.

Some of these china shards (sounds perfectly acceptable if you say, "china shards", doesn't it? Almost curatorial) come from the knee-grazing slag-heaps of Stoke-on-Trent but most of the stuff hails from our garden, or from walks with the dog (who has perfected a withering look for such lowly activities as china-hunting). In order to justify this weird behaviour I tell myself that I am scrabbling around in the dirt and putting bits of it in my pockets in order to make something like this:

It's a Table Mosaic, by the amazing Candace Bahouth. Do have a quick look at her website, if only to see the fantastic mosaic shoes she made...One day I'll be able to retreat to my mosaic-covered grotto in my own china-encrusted shoes, shouting blue (and white?) obscenities at the council officials knocking at my door waving their notices...*sigh*.

I was playing with pots of a different kind at the weekend. This is completely out of character as usually the only time I do anything that could be described as gardening is when I run out across the lawn shouting and waving at the dog to stop eating Mr Yaffle's plants.

They didn't come with instructions, but I suppose that if I a) remember to water them and b) remember where I've hidden them so I can water them, I should have some hyacinths by the spring. Or earlier. Or the whole exercise might just turn out to be an extremely fancy way of rotting some bulbs. At least I can cover the pots in bits of broken china while I'm waiting.

*and a number of other crafters, for certain!

Nip and tuck

2008-09-22T09:00:00.000+01:00

Have a look at the Wardrobe Refashion blog. I think I stumbled upon this via Needled's blog (let it not be said that I spend all my time reading blogs! Nay!) and it's a great idea. You take a pledge to stop buying new clothes, and instead repair, re-fashion or just poke more holes in clothes that are languishing in your wardrobe or that have been 'pre-loved'. I'm starting with these second hand things which have been sitting in my Mending Pile of Doom* for a while now.

From top to bottom: untidy skirt; broken skirt; shapeless sack of a dress. In the case of the sack-dress: I couldn't resist the fabric. Love the fabric, don't suit the dress. But I thought I'd get it anyway and see if leaving it on a pile with other, ill-behaved fashion objects would make it think about changing its ways.

After, oh, about six months, this hasn't happened, so I'm going to make a belt from some ribbon, and nip it in a little bit to make it look like I'm not 4 months pregnant back and front. Which is what it looks like at the moment. With any luck I might end up looking like I'm wearing a cassock instead. This just in from Vague Magazine: "Cassocks are the latest news in separates this year! Clerical is just the hottest look for AW/08! You need a key piece like a surplice (try this one from Reiss, £399) to accent your look, or if you want the ultimate in ecclesiastical, snap up an embroidered chasuble (this one from Whistles, £429), and ensure you're the high priestess of fashion this season!"

The skirts just need a bit of TLC where the previous owners have spilt things on them (red wine? paint? hmm, I'm getting notes of creosote from this stain) and/or trodden on their hems and the seams have come away. Easy, right? Won't take six months? The best mending job ever? You've got it! If you spot some ecclesiastical-looking vestments in your local charity shop in the next few months, you know where they have come from.

*abandon hope all ye who enter here...

No sense of UGH!

2008-09-20T10:00:00.000+01:00

Oh dear. I've been rummaging around the charity shops again.

I seem to lose all sense of 'UGH' when I go in there though. I mean, look at this.

It's an UGH, right? But behold! Add Photoshop electrickery and ugh becomes...

...a bit less ugh? I couldn't resist buying it though. It's the ugh-blind bit of my brain. That same part of my brain which says 'one day, the boffins will invent Real Life Fabric Photoshop and then I CAN change the colour! and world fabric domination will be mine!' (Seriously, there's a bit of my brain that is rattling about saying things like that. The nurses say I should take meds to stop it, but why bother when you can have so much fun?). And so it is that I now have a fabric stash (yarn stash later. Trust me, that is just too upsetting pre-watershed) ...which looks like this:

In the spirit of Felix's Messy Tuesdays concept, here's my Messy Saturday. Except it's like this Monday to Sunday. I've tried being tidy and ordered, but it goes against all my instincts. I like to see fabric in its natural state, not in ironed piles inside a cruel duck-egg-blue cage! Orderly bores me. As would ironing the sodding lot of it, too. So there it is. Can I find stuff? Yep, course I can, it's in here somewhere! Is it an ugh you're after? No, wait, don't go, come back! I know it's here somewhere, honest! Wait a minute, I know it's here...

Lolknits

2008-09-19T09:00:00.000+01:00

By popular request... in the spirit of Lolcats and LolVogue here comes Lolknits. There's more where this came from. It deserves a whole blog to itself really. Oh, come on, it was asking for it. Srsly.

Cabling. Ur doin it wrong.

2008-09-18T13:53:00.000+01:00

I've become well-acquainted with my charming inner knitter this week. I've been knitting this lovely hat which features lots of cables. Lots.

My inner knitter is having a good go at making this hat, despite all the odds stacked against her. My imagined knitting self is a glamorous, fashionable woman whose elaborate, yet easily-cabled hand-knits make people swoon when she walks past. "Oh, this old thing? Whipped it up it in a day!" In reality, my inner knitter is actually Julie Walters in this sketch. "Two Purls? right away, sir. Cables? I'll just go and check...um...nope...I've forgotten." Honestly, I can't hold a pattern repeat in my head. If it says p2, C4B, p2, you can bet your life I'll go and p3, C4F, p5. And that's on a good day.

An evening's hat-knitting chez Yaffle goes something like this:
7pm purl, knit, purl, cable etc, drop stitch.
7.05 in fixing dropped stitch, realise there are other errors further back, go and fix those.
7.35 chuck dog, blankets, throws, cushions, knitting and self off sofa in attempt to find cable needle.
7.50 go upstairs to find alternative cable needle.
8.00 go back downstairs and put sofa back together. P2, cable a bit, p4. cable some more, purl, cable.
8.05 get glass of wine.
8.15 woohoo, look at me, I'm cabling! this is so easy. p2, cable, p2, cable, p3, cable, p2, cable, p5, look I am cabling like never before, just look at me! I could do speed cabling, me, I am great!
8.35 top up wine glass to celebrate. This cabling malarkey is hilarious.
8.40 start new round, purls and knits. Easy.
8.45 hmm, the purls and knits don't seem to be matching up here. hmmm. what happens if I knit 2 together, ah that's better, that matches up. purl, knit etc, whoa, that's not matching up either. Hang on.
8.50 look at progress. weep.
9.00 pour more wine and un-knit previous four rows.
9.05 get dog, blankets, throws, cushions, knitting and self off sofa in attempt to find cable needle.
9.10 find two cable needles, a pound coin from Gibraltar and an old rawhide bone chew. Put chew in knitting bag and give dog a cable needle.
9.15 put dog, blankets and cushions back on sofa. find knitting partly unravelled underneath a cushion.
9.20 Despise knitting. Howl. Laugh maniacally. Weep. Stuff knitting down side of sofa cushions.

Can't wait for this evening's instalment. Personally I'm hoping for more loot from down the side of the sofa (as is the dog!).

Fun, with added procrastination!

2008-09-09T10:17:00.000+01:00

When Knitter's or Spinner's Block (or any other kind of Block for that matter) takes hold, fear not! Try making a Wordle. Nothing will be as important for the rest of the day. Here's one I made earlier. I'm upset by the prevalence of the word 'sausages' - I had some airy notion that I was more erudite than that. But if tubes of processed meat is where my career's headed, so be it...thousands of clever talking dogs could be thinking the same?

The joy of socks

2008-08-29T13:00:00.000+01:00

I'd love to say to you that I was inspired by the townscapes of Egon Schiele, or that a beautiful crocus flower leapt up and spat at me 'Dye! Dye! Dye!' and that such things propelled me into a frenzy of creativity in which I came up with this:

But it's actually the fact that I couldn't find any orange and purple sock yarn. Anywhere. Ever. In the universe. At least not one that could be posted to me without it being stopped at customs and questioned by officials. So I dyed this skein. And it knits up like this.

I love orange and purple together. Although knitting this as a passenger in the car yesterday did make me feel sick. I like to think that it was knitting in a car per se, not the colours that did it.

Having dyed this, I found a use for at least one of the pieces of junk in my house:

*sigh*. The beginning of a beautiful friendship. Sock, meet book. Book, this is sock. You look like a great couple. (have I read this? have I heck as like. Sorry Mr Lawrence, it's not your writing. Shamefully, I bought it for the cover. Hands up who hasn't done that? Book as desirable object in itself regardless of writing contained therein, discuss and hand in your essays later. I'll be setting a test on Tuesday.) This could be the start of a whole new website full of socks that match my dusty old books...imagine the possibilities...The Richard and Judy Sock Club. Socks and Lovers. Lady Chatterley's Socks. Miss Pettisock lives for her Endpapers!

Note to self: introduce Iron to Tablecloth before taking next batch of pictures. And hide books as far away from socks as possible.

The Swatch that Stood up by Itself

2008-08-22T16:27:00.000+01:00

...and Other Stories.

Tired of your handknit garments fitting well and being full of pesky drape? Fed up of your knitwear eliciting compliments from people every time you wear it? Does sporting the same hand-knit cardigan week in week out just because you love the way it hangs and the fact that you made it really get to you after a while? Well, ladies and gentlemen, try knitting with:

Frankenyarn! This is the yarn I spun in yesterday's post knitted up into a swatch. Which, as you can see, has a life of its own. Knit with this and all your garments will be alive, I tell you, alive! This swatch walked off the needles and into the garden all by itself where I found it sobbing quietly and muttering 'I didn't ask you to create me'. Good lord, what have I done?

I know what the problem is. I plied it too tightly. A "beginner's mistake", apparently. Pah! Anyway, here's my attempt at plying more loosely, or Navajo plying.

I daren't even knit that up for fear of creating a sibling for the Living Swatch.

I cheered myself up with the prospect of knitting Ysolda's Gretel hat with this yarn, which looks even greener than bits of our garden (ha, not difficult):

Not shown in picture above: the bit where beautiful yarn gets covered in mud after dropping off the leaves. Yarn: Cascade 220 in shade 7814. Mud, model's own. Model: Montebretia at Percy Thrower models.

Seconds later, but without yarn, this fella visited:

Which more than makes up for the Frankenswatch, don't you think?

I told you so!

2008-08-20T14:49:00.000+01:00

That's what the Yarn gods are saying to me today as they wag their fingers at me and my sad pair of deflated, shrunken, felted, £9.99-and-two-weeks-of-knitting socks. Told you so.

There's a normal, healthy sock in the same yarn right behind them, for comparison. Big sock Good, tiny felted sockettes, Bad. The yarn gods had it in for me the moment I pledged never to hand-wash my knitted socks. It went well to begin with: a carefully selected 30 degree wash and a pillowcase, and I was laughing when they came out OK. "Bwahahahah! Stuff you, handwash only yarn!" I cried in a final act of hubris. Well, next time to wash them came along, and I forgot the pillowcase. And then I wasn't concentrating and after getting them out of the washer they were bundled with the rest of the washing, straight into the - gasp -TUMBLE DRIER. Anyone have any ideas what to do with them now? Answers on a felted postcard.

In other news:

Spinning. Here's my attempt to stab the fabled yarn gods in the eye with some spinning! There's my first go at spinning roving, there on the bobbin, and the yarn plied against itself is on the right. I've only had the wheel since Sunday, and after a lot of swearing and persistence I finally came up with that little lot. I don't think you'd want to knit anything with it. Perhaps a tea cosy. Something where you won't be bothered by the weird bobbles and bits of dried grass that somehow worked their way in there. I tell you, dried grass yarn, it's the future, I've seen it!

Later on I'll be spinning around with this yummy stuff from Fyberspates, colourway 'Tooty Fruity':

What could possibly go wrong...?