Finished!

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

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!!

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

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!

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!

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

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.