Posts

Showing posts from September, 2012

New toys for the weekend

Image
It's a bright and sunny morning here in Oxford and I've got some bright and shiny new toys to play with this weekend. I gave in to my scissor obsession (I want these one day, you know the lottery winning type day!) and bought some beauties from Posie along with this year's felt ornament kit and then was delighted to receive another, very reasonable quality pair, free with the latest issue of Mollie Makes . My pincushion is stuffed and ready for action so it promises to be a happy, crafty weekend.

My hat

Image
Knit in my beautiful Squam yarn and ready just ahead of SquamItalia (next week!!); here's the hat I had the urge to make for me after finishing up the Mr's . Pattern: Butterfly Hat by Sofiya Cremin Yarn: Jill Draper Makes Stuff - Superwash Merino - Squam colourway: Deepest Depths Needles: 4.5mm DPNs and 16in Circ Started: September 2012 Finished: September 23rd 2012 Ravelry page While the s omewhat abrupt arrival of deepest autumnal weather yesterday here in England means it'll see some use straight away, that very same weather makes it even more delicious to note, that you could say it's not likely to be the most  essential item for my suitcase given the current weather where I'll soon be knitting. Weather  for  Abruzzo, Italy 24°C |  °F Mon Tue Wed Thu Partly Cloudy Wind: E at 4 mph Humidity: 78% 33° 18° 28° 18° 28° 18° 31° 18° None of these photos does any justice to the really amazing shade of this yarn. It's the most indescribabl

From one weekend to the next

Image
A week ago now I had a great trip down to see my Mum and Dad and brought a Pa back with me for a couple of days of less fun for him as he had a course close by. I took so many photos, mainly of my Mum's beautiful garden. We had some lovely sunny days and I relished that feeling of start of term freshness that comes with September still. Newness in the form of two beautiful puppies for my auntie. Train and car time made for plenty of knitting and I reached a momentous point of GAAK when I actually remembered how to do Judy's magic cast on without looking at the instructions! And so we're nearly ready for the next weekend, more lovely memories to be made, but oh why is time flying by so fast?

Nice work if you can get it

Image
Seldom are work afternoons quite so full of fabric and stitches. We have a lovely tradition of recreation days at our place. Different volunteers organise a whole range of activities to take place on different days over the summer, a list gets circulated and everyone signs up for what they fancy. This year with a introduction to patchwork on the list the choice was easy for me. All afternoon I've been piecing together cheery coloured hexagons which will soon(ish) become a splendid pincushion. I like my job most days but some days I just love it!

Stitched in

Image
My embroidered wedding gift is making good progress towards a revised deadline of the first time I'll see the bride since the wedding. This is the second of the pillowcases and I still have a couple of weeks to go. I might even have time for washing and presenting these properly - unlike my outfit for the day - the dress and shawl - which I must take proper pictures of to share here. The shawl needs a reblock after it had a hasty few hours with minimal damping and the dress was literally still being hemmed half an hour before we had to leave, thank goodness I wasn't kidding myself I was going to get these done as well. I made great progress yesterday when an entire afternoon was spent relaxing in the shade in a Watford garden. This past week has been full of clear blue skies, sunshine and fresh, crisp breezes; just my favourite sort of days. We took full advantage of the warmth to just sit and be, doing very little. Memories of a lovely afternoon spent laughing and chattin

The Mitten Machine

Image
When I started out on these mittens I had my normal castle in the sky level of expectations for the project. These were to be the first on a happy production line of mittens to keep the paws of all my dearest peoples warm this winter. Christmas gift images flashing before my eyes I searched for a pattern that was written for sockish weight yarn given the amount of that hanging about these parts. I found this Patons one but really wanted to do the thumbs in the way that the Owlie lovelies are . So I embarked on a mash up and I'd like to have tens of mittens to show you by now but there's been a little sand in the Machine. Caused both by the general lull in creactivities and a wondering whether close fitting four ply mitts are actually what I (or indeed they) want to see adorning the hands of all around me. Different ideas are fluttering around as I'm getting that sand out. Fiddling around with numbers and notes as I work on the second mitten and have some suitably ambitio

And we're done

Image
One week, one hat. I could have made 35 hats already this year if the flame of creativity wasn't such a flickery one! Pattern:  Christopher by Jane Richmond Yarn: Rowan All Seasons Cotton in Cheery and Cement Needles: 4.5mm DPNs and 16in Circ Started: August 26th 2012 Finished: September 1st 2012 Ravelry page There might be no sign of his jumper yet but I'm doing my best to compensate with a hat for every season! The idea of using cotton was supposed to make this autumn appropriate though the fact that it's reversible and so double thickness means that it's actually very snuggly. With many hopes around these parts for an Indian summer maybe the fact that it's probably good for all but the very few super cold days we tend to get is a good thing. This was a total delight to knit. The whole sensation of pulling loop through loop and finding a growing item on the needles felt so fresh after so long since a good stretch of stocking stitch. This ya