Knitting, flitting and wittering

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.

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!

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?

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

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!)

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 :D

What I did during the (blogging) holidays

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.

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...