Catch up post

Well, it's been a while, for various reasons, so here is a post laden with some yummy knitting goodies. I am in the middle of furiously knitting christmas gifts for various family members, and in fact the only thing I have on my needles for me is my second baudelaire sock. Sigh. Still, this will be remedied after christmas, when I shall knit myself lots of goodies (he he he).

My christmas pressie list is currently running at 6 WIPs, all, for some reason, in really muted colours. Perhaps this is because I am knitting for men, but it really is no excuse. Dad's scarf (don't look dad) is the closest to being finished, as I am running out of yarn. It's a zig zag pattern I picked out of Jan Eatons ripple book, and is turning out lovely, although I am still struggling with the whole 'carry yarn loosely up side of work' aspect of things - it always ends up looking messy so I think I will have to fold the edge under and seam it before I am satisfied.

Secondly, I am in the middle of making warm things for my little brother, who is off to Iowa in January to visit his girlfriend, and where I am reliably informed it will be -23degrees. Thus, we have the very warm hat (Zimmerman)
The outside (or inside) is Freedom Spirit wool in pale grey, blues and a little brown (not really shown in the photo, oddly enough it was rather too bright!). The inside is some lovely silky Wensleydale DK in a very dark navy. For DK it is rather thin, which mean that the knit lining will be quite loose gauge, but I think this will work nicely - don't want his head getting too hot. I do hope this fits - its quite a tight fit on me but I do have quite a large head. Blocking will be the order of the day methinks.

I have also decided (perhaps misguidedly) to make him some thrummed mittens. Thrumming is the process of knitting in bits of fleece (in my case combed Shetland tops) into a fabric See the yarn harlot for comprehensive information.

I'm using the Manly Mitts pattern from knitty.com as my basic mitten pattern, but have added a few extra stitches to accomodate the thrums and the fact that the wensleydale needs smaller needles than you'd think for a DK (not that it isn't lovely, just slightly uninformative - no gauge or needle guide whatsoever on the ball band). So far, it looks like something from another planet, but rest assured I have not murdered some small space creature for the sake of my brothers paws.
We shall see. It could end up huge and ridiculous, but then, I don't think I have made the equivalent of Mark Darcy's cringeworthy jumper in Bridget Jones yet so something had to go pearshaped.

I also have a Kiri shawl (pdf) on the go for my nanna, in some glorious Drops Alpaca, but it currently looks like an crumpled mess so pictures will have to wait until I have blocked it.

Not knitting

I've been saving my blog entries recently, as I think I've been rather knitting obsessed and I wanted to wait until I had something else to tell you about. Well, on Wednesday I took the day off work, ostensibly to clean the house, actually to get some crafty things finished and phone up for Mark Ronson tickets.

Last thing first, I spent literally hours phoning the Roundhouse in Camden (amazing venue - its a converted railway turntable shed) and trying to get through to their booking line, and then once I had got through, I spent half an hour on hold, muttering through gritted teeth about what I would say to the booking lady if they had sold out. Fortunately, and remarkably for me, they hadn't sold out (guess everyone had trouble getting through) so in October husband and I will be bopping along to lots of rather funky cover versions. I'm just not going to look at the next phone bill!

Cleaning the house is better not mentioned. Small cat helped me clean the bathroom by sitting on the floor exactly where I wanted to stand and cleaning herself, but at least I'm not afraid to wash my face in the sink anymore.

Speaking of puss monsters, I had a rather large panic on Sunday, while husband was in Edinburgh on conference. All had been quiet on the cat front for a while, so I went to find big cat. He was fast asleep in the sun room, but with the distinguishing feature that his left front paw was twice the size of the right one - eeek! Now, I haven't had cats for a while, but even I know that this is not a good sign. He couldn't walk on it, and was a bit dozy (but this is not unusual). A frantic phone call to mother ensued, who advised soaking it in hot salty water and a swift trip to the vet, as she suspected it was a bite.

Of course, I do not drive, and was supposed to be at work on the Monday, and we had never quite got round to sorting out the pet insurance, so after spending some time getting very wet and salty, and being punched in the face by the good paw, I spent a troubled night waiting to see if the paw was better by the morning.

Fortunately, it was better, although obviously a bit tender, so I kept the mogs in all day (they were very affronted) and he seems right as rain now. Typical. We think he had dislocated or sprained his thumb by getting it caught in something (he does that a lot, and falls off things - sigh).

So here is the protagonist of this tale with a happy ending - he looks sweet as anything doesn't he?
And here is small cat, as she plots to take over the world (she gets jealous if we give big cat too much attention). Needless to say we may have to make some modifications to the bird table this year ...
Finally, crafty things ...

I've made a start on this year's Christmas pressies (yes, I know it is september). My first attempt was this advent calendar / bunting.
I'm thinking about doing a tutorial for this, as they are dead easy to make. But the next one won't have gold thread - the front looks pretty but the back is horribly horribly munted.

I'm going to make/persuade husband to make some little stamps out of wine corks, a la Craft Chi with Christmas themes to put in the pockets, with room for a chocolate or two should you be that way inclined. So far my tentative list includes (bearing in mind my drawing/carving skill level):

• Christmas pudding
• Angel
• Christmas tree
• Present
• Glass of wine
• Star
• Holly
• Mistletoe
• Christmas bauble
• Stocking
• Penguin
• Santa
• Snowman
  

Any other ideas?

Christmas in August

We went over to St Albans on saturday, and I managed to persuade husband that it would be a good idea to walk out to a fabric/knitting shop in the suburbs - Fashion n Fabrics. I did spend some considerable time in hi-fi shops to compensate for the long walk and dreary session in the shop though (I'm not entirely heartless).

I was absolutely amazed at the number of patchwork fabrics they had, all at reasonable prices, and I managed to get all the Christmas fabrics I needed for present making.

 

It was slightly odd to be buying snowflake fabric on the hottest day of the year, but I'm glad that I am at least trying to be organised this year.

It was the kind of shop that sells all those little things that you have either been looking for for years but can never find, or never realised that you needed. So I also got 50 embroidery spools, which will go a small distance to organising this little lot. Note - if anyone else makes the journey to St Albans, which I highly recommend, it is useful to note that the shop doesn't take cards. Serendipitously, I had written a cheque that very morning to Jamieson & Smith for their shade cards, and had for some reason shoved my cheque book in my rucksack - phew! Of course, then I botched up writing the cheque as I haven't written one for at least a year, but the ladies in the shop were very nice about it!