My only handmade present

This year I am slightly ashamed to admit that I only managed one handmade present. Not very ashamed, but a little bit. Normally I manage more than that, but the last few weeks have seemed very hectic and I have hardly had the inclination to think of things to make people. That has always been the problem - when I have an idea then it is all easy and I just have to figure out a way to make it, but actually thinking of that perfect hand crafted present is the real challenge.

I did manage one thing though. My housemate from University, who I visited in London not that long ago, is also a knitter. Sadly, neither of us were knitting at the time we lived together (now nearly 8 years ago, which makes me much older than I would want to admit) but since then we have both developed the habit/addiction/hobby....

And this year she is getting knitting related presents - some lovely luxuries from Purlescence and I have fashioned a needle holder for her (having duly noted comments and her discovery of 3 pairs of needles the same size, in different parts of her house, and the total loss of the size she wanted).......


Once I had conceived the idea (it took 3 weeks of deliberation and shopping and frustratingly not finding anything before the memories slotted into place and the perfect solution presented itself) it took me about 2 hours to make. And at least 30 minutes of that 2 hours was spend rummaging in boxes for the material and then searching everywhere for a pair of at least sharpish scissors. The material is an old length of silk that I bought about 4 years ago in a fantastic sari shop in Bradford, and has been waiting for a use ever since. I used some plain cotton calico to give everything some structure, and just got sewing without any particular plan.


The basic method of attack was:

2 pieces of silk and one of calico - a bit taller than my needles and about 1m long. One piece of silk needs to be about 3cm bigger in each direction so that you can make a hem at the end.
1 of silk and 1 of calico a bit shorter than my needles and the same length.

The shorter pieces were sewn together along one of the long edges, turning a nice neat hem over the top of the calico and stitching all the way through. Trim the bottom so that it all lines up nicely.

These were then sandwiched together with the longer calico and 1 piece of silk. I sewed a line along the bottom of the needle holder through all 4 layers, and then up each edge.

Then sewed a series of vertical lines to create the pockets - I did some quite wide (about 1.5 inches) for larger needles up to 15mm, and then made them smaller as I went along. There are about 20 pockets in all. Then all the edges got trimmed so that they were square and neat with no mad cotton ends everywhere.

Then I just pinned the final outside piece of silk to the pockety sandwich, made nice hems round the edge (ironed and then lots of pins) and merrily sewed round the edge.

A nice piece of ribbon sewn onto the outside makes a lovely fastening, and you have one nice and sleek and useful handmade present for a knitting friend.

I actually think every knitter needs a set of coordinating holders - 1 for dpns, 1 for straight needles and one for circulars. Maybe I'll save the rest of the material and make her another one for her birthday!

I am so enjoying being finished with work for 2 weeks with no particular plans. Not only did I get this sorted out this morning, but managed to go into town for lunch with my Other Half, clean up quite a bit in the dining room, cook soup, go shopping for chrismas treats (mmmm stollen) and purchase and decorate the christmas tree. I would be so productive if only I didnt have to work.

Not much knitting

My life feels somewhat taken over at the moment. Darn christmas! Every one at work seems to have decided that christmas is a good time to have deadlines. I have to have so much done by the end of next week it is untrue. On the plus side once that is done I have 2 weeks holiday, at home with my lovely other half. Then one week at work, then two weeks field work in the outer hebrides (I love it out there and my work involves looking at the beaches which are divine). I have booked a lovely cottage with sea views and a wood burning stove, which I am going to need because statistically it is a very bad time of year to be working out there

Yesterday was my first proper knitting time for about 2 weeks. Man flu was nearly deadly, then there was hall plastering to be done (one little bit of the ceiling left). We are trying to finish the hall and the spare room in time for our hoards of visitors at new year. It is going to be great to see some old mates but a bit tiring to get enough rooms sorted out to manage to find beds for 7 people.

But I have digressed from knitting - I about 1.5 balls of rowan 4-ply soft into a swiss cheese scarf, and having knitted the heel of my jaywalker about 5 times I finally am progressing up the end. But I had 6 hours on the train with only a little bit of work to do yesterday, so that was enough time to scheme and try different things out. It was definitely a learning experience and iI have come to understand a lot about how heels are made. Short row heels don't fit my fat ankles, I have a small gauge so there are no patterns to follow, but now I have a method and it fit's really well round on the foot, and I am made up.

My stash has also been enhanced - a couple more skeins of 4-ply soft to make a beret/sloppy garter stitch hat to go with my scarf, maybe some mittens too. A few skeins of sock yarn to go with certain new shoes in my possession, an order for some jamiesons DK in a lovely apple green so that I can make a tangled yoke cardigan, some really nice tweedy wool for something, and I have every intention of getting a large cardigan's worth of brown cashmere in the sales so that I can have a go at making a version of that gorgeous cabled cardigan out of the holiday movie.

Bring on those long dark evenings in front of the fire! I really need a holiday.

Re-united!

I am back from staying with my mother! In the end, it was all ok - my 5 days without my knitting. There was plenty of creating - my brother had a mad hatters tea party, and so we raided my mum's dodgy linens chest and made some truely outrageous hats. It was great fun. And then I made my mum get out her knitting because 3 days in to the stay I was getting very itchy fingers. My mum has been knitting this tulip cardigan for almost as long as I remember. At least 20 years anyway. The colours are really lovely (tulips are different shades of pink on a blue/grey background) - but having devoted an evening to finishing a sleeve I can quite see why it has taken her so long. It is all fairisle, and knitted in this doubled up very very fine wool she bought from a weaver. Nightmare. She only has one more sleeve to go, so on current projections should be finished sometime in 2012.

The first thing I did on returning was to get onto the knitpicks site and order some needles. I am now the proud owner of an options set AND quite a lot of their finer circulars. They are great. I am knitting socks with them. Long live the magic loop and death to DPN's! I am experimenting with making toe up jaywalkers.... the colours are lovely, the pattern is lovely, I am about to get to the bit where i have to turn the heel so it might all cease to be lovely by the time i have worked it out wrong a few times.

Other than that work is totally hectic, I am plastering the hall in our house, my husband is possibly dying of man flu....... which all means that half a sock is pretty good progress.

I've goofed

I am staying with my mother for a long weekend (she has been gifted the harebell lace scarf and love's it). I came down on the plane yesterday, and she came to collect me from Bristol Airport, which is lovely because it is about 3 hours drive each way. Because I am away until Sunday, and then going to a conference next week, I decided to spend my last night at home for a while having some quality time with my husband.

We went for a lovely meal, picked up a programme for the theatre/nice cinema; our arts centre has spend the last 2 years shut for renovation and opened last weekend. I am really exited about having 2 cinema screens less than 5 minutes walk from my house, and being able to watch lots of foreign and interesting films. Then we spent the rest of the evening sitting by an open fire in our sitting room, marvelling at the newfound warmth. Given that I have finally nearly finished the curtains (they are still pinned at the bottom and I need to take them down and do the hems on 2 of the pairs) and have insulated under the floor finally, this is a relativly exiting activity.

I did a couple of round on the entrelac bag. It is much bigger than anticipated, and I am on the 4th ball of kureyon. I have one more left, and I think that will just about finish it off. A nice bit of stash completion if ever there was one. It is going to make a fantastic bag - lined and given handles - great for shopping.

I purposly didnt bring it with me, thinking that I might still give it to Mum for christmas so I didn't want her to see it. Instead, I have swatched in my olive and lettuce coloured malabrigo worsted weight, and washed them (learnt my lesson from Meagidh, which has grown considerably on washing and needs re-knitting - it is ok for one wear but then grows - and I think I want to alter the neckline). I wound 3 of the skeins onto balls, sorted out the needles, remembered my tape measure and knitting design sketch book. And left the swatches pinned to the spare bed - so I have everything ready to do the maths for a new cardigan, but no idea of the gauge. I could ring home tonight and get my husband to measure it for me, but quite frankly I am so worried about it not being right that I don't think I can really trust him.

But not to worry - I had a backup plan. I have a lovely skein of sock yarn - one of the october specials from Violet Green. A lovely mix of burnt orange, terracotta, reds and browns. Just perfect for some socks for me, and given that I have newly discovered the magic loop techinque, just perfect for doing a little bit more of that. But I looked through the needle collection and found that the smallest circular I have is my 3.75mm addi turbo lace. But still no peturbed, I calmly chat to Mum and determine that Get Knitted isnt so far from Bristol airport, and we have an hour to spare. And they sell Knitpicks needles. By this point I am formulating a long and complicated shopping list - possibly a set of Knitpicks options, and certainly one of each of all their smaller needles. And they have Cascade 220, which i am seriouly thinking of getting to make afghan mark 2 so that I can occasionally have a go under one; my lizard ridge has been claimed and I almost never get to use it. And Malabrigo laceweight - I could get a skein and make me one of these. Oh - it's a frustrated rural knitter's dream - especially as I have no local yarn shop.

But the plane was late and mum had to go to an art class in the evening so in the end there wasnt time. So I am stuck here with not knowing the gauge for the project I have needles and wool for, and not having needles for the other one.

I have goofed. I am facing 5 days with no knitting - will I make it? Who knows. Wish me luck!

It's quite hard to take photos of your own head

A better knitting week for me this week. I seem to have rediscovered some of my mojo anyway! Mostly I decided to raid the stash and see what there was in it that I could make presents from, or at least small items that would give some sense of instant gratification rather than the rather daunting task of starting a sweater.

So I present the Koolhaas hat copy that is destined for my brother for his birthday. This is the only photo out of about 50 that actually came anywhere near having my whole head in!


Pattern - it's a rip off of Brooklyn tweed's Koolhaas hat, which is included in Interweave holiday gifts. I didn't buy the pattern I just saw the pictures on his blog and copied it. I totally love the way it is so architectural (being an engineer I relate to clean lines and symmetry) and interesting though suitable for a man. I cast on 132 stitches, worked in P4,k2 rib for a bit and then started twisting stitches every other row. Decreases were worked by doing a K2tog instead of a twisted stitch once every set of diamonds. I had to play around with the crown a bit to get it to lie flat, but once this has been through the machine it will be pretty good.

Yarn - some random 100% machine washable DK weight wool/acrylic mix that came from the old lady next door when she moved out. But it's machine washable, which is important for my brother, and one of the only things that I have in the stash that is man coloured.

Needles - Addi turbo lace 3.75mm - 100cm long, meaning that I worked on the magic loop for the whole hat.

Cast on - last thursday - 18th october
Cast off - Monday - 22nd october

So for this week's challenge I am experimenting with entrelac. I have never done it before, though it's rather fun. I am utilising some of the balls of kureyon that I have left over from making my lizard ridge blanket. It is a total of suck it and see really...... but fun! I am going to felt it in the end to make something nice and sturdy, that will either be so fantastic I keep it or will be a christmas gift for someone. We have a tradition of only ever giving home made presents so I really do need to start thinking about christmas now.

The other great thing that happened is that I finally managed to get my KTS4 package from the post office......... I am drinking a cup of tea from it as I type, and have just finished a chocolate from the world's most northern chocolate company!


It's been such fun swapping with Else - a fantastic match if ever there was one! Check out her blog to see the great mug I found for her!

I got all sorts of things.... drops alpaca in a fanstastic burnt orange, the most delicious cloudberry sweets, lots of cute chocolates, a great mini tea filter so that I can brew the (very lovely) loose leaf tea! A tea tin with a massive variety of different tea bags in, some norwegian snacks and more chocolate. Mmmmmmm. Thank's Else!

Mojo - lost

Well, the title says it all really! Not that much productive knitting going on here at the moment. I spent last weekend in Carbisdale castle doing a tai chi course - we learnt a lot of stuff about meridian theory, some chineese medicine stuff and did loads of push hands. I came back so chilled out that I could barely function - looking out of the window wondering at the beauty of the world and how nice all the leaves looked and didnt the river smell lovely and clean was about the pinnacle of my intellectual capability!

I want to knit, but nothing seems to be working. I am planning 3 things:

Desert sunrise - I have decided that this is going to be a cardigan, a couple of inches rib round the bottom, cute little round neck, a couple of inches ease, fitted, clean lines and nice and simple. The object of the swatching (There has been a lot of swatching, even though all of them were wrong and ended up getting ripped) is to get the colours to look right (background is staying mid -dark brown, with the contrast varying between dark red, burnt orange and into yellow), maintaining the proportions so that I have a chance of using the yarn I have and not having to buy more and still have some sort of flow. I need to rejig my chart to have 3 less rows in it and then I think it will work.

Man jumper - the sweater curse is live and well. Only it doesnt seem to be killing our relationship, just my desire to knit a jumper that is black and in 2x2 rib. I need to think of a way to make it more interesting while maintaining enough simplicity that my husband will actually wear the thing when I am finished.

Green jumper - I have enough skeins of malabrigo worsted weight to make me the desired green jumper. But I have no inspiration as to how it should work. The wool is so lovely and soft, and looks so fantastic that I want it to be just right, so I am almost afraid of starting!

And then I found this post on Brooklyntweed's blog about the koolhaas hat and thought that I just had to make one. Seeing as how no-where had the pattern in Inverness (I am TRYING to convince somewhere to sell in Interweave stuff with no luck) and I dont really like the other stuff in the magazine enough to justify buying it mail order, I just sort of set about copying it. I'm not totally convinced about the yarn I used (some random stuff I have inherited, which is some sort of wool/acrylic blend I think in green/blue) or the decreases, but overall it worked pretty well. I am rather proud of myself, and it will do perfectly fine for my brother's birthday, which is in a couple of weeks time.

On the other hand not having that much time dedicated to knitting, means that I have got my parcel all wrapped and ready for my KTS-4 swap partner, Else, so that can go in the post on Monday. And it means that our new window has had a coat of paint, there are two more curtains in the sitting room (only 2 to go, but I have lost extra red cotton so had to stop), our stag antlers have finally been put on the wall (a "quick job" that took 2 hours) and there has been plenty of exiting and interesting baking this week! Obviously this is what other people do when they dont knit.

Photos another day - the husband is out with the camera!

New Project Fortnight

I have been hatching a plan today at work - and drawn a HUGE chart.

And tonight I didn't get any knitting done but I did get to wind some wool into balls. I have decided that it is about time I got a ball winder, because I really really wanted to start a swatch but instead I have just been winding, winding and winding some more!

So here we have several skeins of Jamieson shetland jumperweight wool. This was a fantastic deal - I had to spend a few days in Lerwick for work in the spring (I only meant to be there one night but it got foggy and so I was stuck there for an extra day, and then had to get the ferry which takes 15 hours and leaves me in Aberdeen which is still basically 3 hours from home, rather than an hour or so on the plane) and I was soooo bored until inspiration struck and I went looking for the wool shops. There are lots and lots of shops selling boxy fairisle jumpers, and then finally I found one that would sell me wool and needles. Problem solved!

This selection came in a bag called Desert Sunrise or something similar, and I added a couple of extra yellow balls to the mix for some brightness. There were 2 skeins that didn't quite fit with my intended colour scheme.......

This is my first new project on which I am going to be experimenting. I have done a couple of fairisle things, so happy with the techniques, but this will be the first proper jumper I have done. Or maybe cardigan. Who knows - first I have to swatch.

But this is going to be the first of several casting projects over the next wee while, because it is going to involve carting round many balls and lots of concentration, so I am going to start a couple of easy things as well for in between times.

The other thing I have done is sign up to the knitters tea swap...... shopping soon so that I can post to my partner, Else, who lives further north in Norway than I previously realised existed. They already have snow up there so knitting season has well and truly arrived!