Bella in the Garden, Late on a Winter Afternoon

As promised!
Had a setback on Surface today, when I discovered I had a) knit the patterned cuff in 3.25mm needles rather than 4mm and b)picked up the one ball of yarn that is in a different dyelot to knit it with! Rather elementary errors for someone who has been knitting nearly her whole life! Can't face redoing the sleeve right now. Might work on a different bit of it, or succumb to the siren call of the cast on....

A Little More on Surface

Hey do you see what I'm doing here? Blogging every day! I do actually keep a written knitting journal, so am trying to use this format more for that - and prevent those long weeks of no blogging.

Bear with me, I am trying to get my picture of Bella up, but Blogger and my computer don't want to play. It will happen, and in fact is up on my Rav page now.

So yesterday I spent a lot of the day staring at a screen at work (finishing off documents), and was brain-exhausted by the end of the day. Did not knit at all on my commute, but I did listen to the latest Stash and Burn (Episode 112). After I got home, had dinner and unwound a bit I did half a pattern repeat on the second Surface sleeve, and in doing that finished the patterned section - onto plain stocking stitch again, which lends itself much better to evenings after work.

And of course I daydreamed about things I would like to cast on - yesterday it was the Oasis Wrap from the Sept 2010 edition of Yarn Forward. I have some Lornas Laces in Clay from a long-ago yarn swap (thanks Jane!) that might just work....

Bella - Number One in the Rowan Project.

A while ago, Susan (over at Damn, Knit and Blast It) gave me an idea - to knit one thing from each one of my old Rowan Magazines, and I blogged briefly about this at the time. Unfortunately, she gave me this idea about a month before I upped sticks to DC for a year (and I wasn't about to lug a bunch of Rowan Magazines over there!). But before I went, I started the project, and now I'm back and have unpacked, I plan to continue.

I started by reknitting the first Rowan pattern I ever did - Bella, a mid-1990s Kim Hargreaves pattern. It used a then-available Rowan Chenille yarn which must have been quite fine in weight as the needle size is small. I remember buying the magazine, yarn and needles from Liberty, totally blown away by how beautiful the magazine was. Coming from Australia, and in that pre-internet age, I had never seen Rowan products before, and in the knitting slump of the 1990s hadn't been doing much knitting anyway. I had done a lot as a teenager in the 1980s, with youthful knitting-mad aunties to spur me on!

I knitted the original Bella on the long flight home one Christmas (probably my second trip home after settling in the UK), and remember having difficulty with the lacy openwork pattern, and not wearing it much after I made it.

This time I used some handpainted Aracunia chenille in stash (picked up for next to nothing at All the Fun of the Fair in London), knitted it up in no time on much larger needles (5.5 mm I think) and love the result, even though the colours are a bit too earthy for me really. In fact I thought I had gifted it before I left for DC, but found it in my box of accessories when I unpacked recently, so started wearing it with both a tan mac and my black coat.

I popped out into the garden yesterday to take some arty pics of Bella, so will post one with this. Time to choose the next project, from another 90s era Rowan Magazine!

Simplicity 9078, a Surface pic and the Importance of Lists.

Today a little more information on my newly-sewn-for-Christmas gold top (pic in previous post). The pattern is Simplicity 9078, and as I said yesterday I would date it as early 1980s. I attach a pic of the cover:

I picked this pattern up at Oxfam for the princely sum of 49p, and in fact have already tried it out once - that attempt was doomed as I used a patterned jersey knit fabric which I found I couldn't sew easily on my then crappy machine (before I got the trusty treadle running). I did however manage to centre the fabric, and ended up mostly sticking it together with hemming tape. It fell apart the first time I washed it, but I did get compliments on it that one time! My intention this time is that it will last longer, so I took the pattern's advice and used a silk-type (viscose) fabric, and actually sewed the seams.

Yesterday I was feeling rather flipperty-gibbet about my craft projects, so I sat down after blogging and wrote out a list of what I am working on. The list went like this (in no particular order):

1. Fair Isle Hand Warmers
2. Surface
3. Great American Afghan
4. Mending (I have a pile to do!)
5. Skirt refashion
6. T-shirt quilt
7. Next sewing project: elastic waist trousers

I have left the list where I do my crafting - on the sofa in the lounge, in front of the TV/radio, and so after it got dark yesterday (about 3.30pm!) I found an old mini-series on CBS Drama (The Thorn Birds - fantastic stuff) and finished the hand warmers before I had to make dinner. They are now ticked off the list (very satisfying) and in fact I am wearing them right now.  Keeping up the good work, this morning after I had finished various chores and outings I sat down to Desert Islands Discs at 11am and worked on Surface (the second sleeve) for an hour. Here is a pic of the first, finished, sleeve:

I am hoping this rich berry coloured cashmere-blend (RYC cashsoft) cardigan will become a weekend staple, particularly as I am feeling short of comfy, cozy-yet-stylish weekend clothes at the moment.

Fair isle hand warmers

A long overdue update - the winter season; fair isle and gold!

So I have been knitting, and sewing, a little. Surface is more than half done, and to entertain myself as I always get bored about 2/3 through a project, I am knitting some fair isle hand warmers. I have come to like the concept of hand warmers, and wanted to practice my colourwork. These (in the associated picture) are from a free Rav pattern. They are quick and fun to do, and I've used left over sock yarn. The GAA has been languising, I'm afraid...

But I have been sewing - I got my Jones CS Family treadle going, with a little help from a few internet sources and youtube, and sewed a vintage (circa 1980s) top out of some gold fabric I picked up at a charity shop. I am pretty happy with the result, and it is my first step towards my aim of sewing all my vintage patterns. Pic below:

The treadle sews beautifully, smoothly and at the pace I want (I dislike electric machines), and the rhythmic nature of treadling is soothing, like knitting, only the results are quicker!