Jude’s Weblog

A couple of weeks ago, Lily’s school year had “meet a Roman soldier day. For this they were encouraged to dress up as a Roman. Not surprisingly, this ties in with the current learning theme of “Romans”. Putting aside the additional £2.50 we had to cough up to have the Roman soldier there for them to meet – silly me, I thought I paid for their education THROUGH MY TAXES – it seems like it was a top day.

We prepared the outfit somewhat ahead of time.

Nanna supplied a table cloth which would double up as a toga, plus quite a few bangles and the necklace we eventually used in Lily’s hair. I remembered (I think) from my own studies that Roman brides wear flame-coloured cloth, and it so happened that we have a suitable sarong in the dressing up box…

I’m not normally a big fan of the high, tight pony tail – too much Lorraine Chase in my youth – but on this occasion, I felt it was appropriate.

With suitably strung silver necklace, I give you… Lilliana Gracia Romana

Thiese were taken about a week in advance of the day itself, when we were working out what to do. On the intervening Saturday, Lily spent the day as a Roman. Unfortunately during that time, a bit of chocolate biscuit got dropped down in between the toga an under-t-shirt, which meant we had to find an alternative t-shirt and be *very* careful about how we folded the tablecloth.

Because Romans don’t have princesses, she is the Emperor’s daughter. She was pleased with this until she got to school, and discovered that one of her classmates was a Goddess.

Sometimes, you just can’t win.

*sigh*

and finally, the post header is a quote from one of my favourite films The Life of Brian. as someone who has had to struggle with Latin grammar, while being fully fired up about actual Romans, that scene definitely struck a chord…

January 27th, 2012 | Category: Kids Stuff, felicity kendall eat your heart out | Leave a comment

Just a quickie, to test something.

I was working from home today, and the cat quite typically decided she wanted to check out the view from the window next to my desk. Having pottered across the keyboard, she needed stuff moving to be able to get onto the side, then the window sill. I got my phone out to take a classic “cat at the window” pic, at which point she decided it was time to leave.

Except, she felt the direct path down from the side wasn’t clear enough.

I like to think that here, she is saying “will you just stop taking pictures, and get me down. Now.”

January 26th, 2012 | Category: felicity kendall eat your heart out | Leave a comment

This is Christmas hats, part deux, really.

So, the other two new nieces who needed hats were Lucy (6) and Sophie (0) (or kinda, nearly 1/4). Their mum seems like the kind of mum who would be up for matching outfits, so I decided to go with similar hats.

Time being of the essence, I chose to use the Big Softie yarn I acquired from a university colleague, who in turn got it in a sale. My intention in getting it from Charlie was to make felted slippers for Our Lily – given that there were 7 balls in the parcel, that’s still an option. Anyway, as the name implies, it’s a big yarn, so I got out my big needles & swatched.

For Lucy I assumed a 20″ head or so (having measured Joel’s head) and cast on accordingly in 2×2 rib. My plan was to knit an oblong, then fold it in half, but I didn’t want it to be too dull, so I made a cable develop out of the rib. This knit up really quickly, as you’d imagine, and it was done within the evening.

It fitted on my head, at least.

I made a smaller version for Sophie, sewed them together, and just for extra pizazz, added a row of fringe across the top.

They were well received by Mummy, although from the girls’ reactions, they may be a little on the snug side. Plus, Sophie was ready for a sleep/dinner/new nappy or had just woken up, so a new hat was always going to be a low priority…

January 24th, 2012 | Category: Crafty So & So's | Leave a comment

Earlier in the week, I posted about how much I was loving the Heritage DK I was making myself some leg warmers with. Steve commented on Facebook about how the yarn would make a lovely pair of socks.

This was not a comment without subtext.

I made Steve a pair of socks for Christmas. This was after the triumph of the non-valentine socks I made him in February which immediately became his “best” socks. However, even as I was making the Christmas socks, the seeds of doubt were sprouting in my head.

The problem was the yarn.

The fab socks I had made for Steve earlier in the year were made using an essentially plain yarn in dark green, but it had flecks of primary colours throughout, for a bit of interest, because I just can’t help myself. Although Steve didn’t object to the colour flecks initially from an aesthetic point of view, he subsequently described them as “distressing”. This is because he. Would look down at his feet, forget about the coloured flecks, and think the yellow flecks were a hole in the sock.

You can see how this would be distressing to someone who was experiencing the foot-hugging loveliness of handmade socks for the first time. These socks basically go through the wash and straight back on his feet, so the development of holes would indeed be very distressing.

With this in mind, I sourced different solid-coloured navy yarn from the interwebs. I was quite confident as I got it from the same auction site as the first yarn, albeit from a different seller. The seller asserted that this yarn was lovely to knit with, both in the blurb and in the note she put in with the yarn. Smooshing the yarn, I wasn’t convinced. It felt a little… Wiry.

I started knitting according to the instructions I used for the lovely-socks, using the same size needles as it was allegedly the same gauge yarn. It looked like a string vest.

Trying again with smaller needles helped, but it was still a little stringy. Nonetheless, given the reasonably high wool content, I was hopeful that they would bloom out with washing.

So, I finished them, wrapped them and put them under the tree.

Sadly, they haven’t come into their own: they have indeed become softer, but they have also sagged quite considerably. I wouldn’t say I’ve had grief about them, but it’s been made clear that they aren’t as fab as the other one.

So I’m guessing the “that yarn would make a fabulous sock” was a thinly veiled request to have some better socks.

So, I ditched the leg warmers plan, unravelled what I’d achieved so far, and cast on for some toe up lovely socks.

Frequent fittings mean that I’m confident these will at least fit at first, even if they subsequently go downhill. Having cast on on Friday evening, by Sunday morning I had this.

And I’m now half way up the foot of sock 2.

And I also got myself some additional yarn, in purple and green. Stripy or fair isle for the leg warmers, do we think?

January 22nd, 2012 | Category: Crafty So & So's | Comments (1)

I’m saying the title of this post in my head using the same voice that Fr Jack uses to say “lovely gerrls” in Father Ted. I forget which episode, but true fans will know exactly what I mean. But that doesn’t necessarily reflect how I feel about this yarn.

I was working away on the latest project – some ankle warmers – when it occurred to me just how very much I’m loving this yarn.

I’m really loving it.

I originally bought it to go with the Mirasol yarn I’ve just used to make the Tridactyl Gloves (more on them another time, when I’ve had the chance to photograph them properly in daylight), but when it came to combining them in a pattern something didn’t seem quite right. Although it picks out a colour in the Mirasol’s palette it didn’t feel like a comfortable partnership, plus the gauge was slightly mis-matched so the idea was ditched.

There isn’t really enough (allegedly) in a 100g ball to make a pair of full-blown legwarmers according to the patterns I’ve found on ravelry, so my plan is to knit until there’s about half the yarn left then bind off and make another one.

Pattern so far: using alternate cable cast on (my new favourite cast on, and it seems I’m somehow in synch with Woolly Wormhead as the day after I found it she started publishing tutorials on its various variations) and 3.75mm circular needle cast on 52 stitches. Join to work in the round and work 1″/2.5cm of k1p1 rib. Change to k2p2 rib and keep knitting until it’s long enough. Bind off using Russian bind off. This may be revised to the surprisingly stretchy bind off if I bind off and then can’t get the damn thing on.

So why am I loving the yarn so much? It’s the colour. It’s wonderful deep cornflower blue, not navy and definitely blue, but with a very slight hint of purple. Other plus points include being neither splitty nor wiry, but in between, and just soft enough. It’s 55% wool so is nice and springy but isn’t too scratchy.

As I gazed lovingly at it this morning, the thought occurred that this might be just the yarn I’m looking for to make the jumper dress Mathilde (rav link) from a Debbie Bliss booklet steve got me a while back. Because as we all know, what I really need is another year-long epic to keep me busy… Just need to check gauge, amount needed and cost and we may have a decision…

Update: the gauge is likely to work. I know how many balls will be required. Just remains to see if cost is bank breaking or merely reasonable.

January 18th, 2012 | Category: Crafty So & So's, I'm pleased about... | Leave a comment

I had a major mare taking the cake I made for dessert out of the tin yesterday…

…fortunately I had made two of them…

So was able to make a decent showing after all. I didn’t try to take this one off the base until it was dished up…

…although I briefly considered serving up Lily’s cupcakes instead…

January 15th, 2012 | Category: *sigh*, felicity kendall eat your heart out | Leave a comment

1. After two nights of not knitting, I’ve finally this evening done some knitting (tridactyl glove #2).

2. I have finally got around to rearranging the icons on my iPad so that the most frequently used ones are on the front page. It’s really quite un-nerving how long I’ll put up with mild inconvenience…

January 12th, 2012 | Category: I'm pleased about... | Comments Off

Once the Christmas knitting was done, I was free to cast on a project I’d been hatching for – ooh – several days. For two years running now my boss has generously given me a Christmas gift. It’s not outrageous, and there’s a chance it’s paid for by The Employer, but nonetheless, the net effect is that I get wine & chocolates and the conduit for said gift is my immediate line manager. Cutbacks may mean that it’s a mars bar and bottle of WKD next year, but for the record, this year’s offering was yummy.

So I decided it was payback time. Paul’s birthday is early January. With Luck, I could pass off my response as a birthday/Christmas gift. Even though I know people whose birthdays are around this time find that quite annoying.

In the brief shopping window I had before Christmas, I purchased some man-coloured if possibly overly jazzy yarn for just this purpose.

The trouble with self-striping yarn is that to the novice it’s quite hard to tell how the different colours will look once knitted up. It’s quite the shot in the dark at this stage.

I decided to knit the fit well socks I’ve made 2 pairs of for Steve now, although given that it’s very slightly got a stitch pattern in it, and this is self-patterning yarn I decided to dispense with the pattern and just knit stocking stitch.

Casting on on Christmas day (in the evening, after I cleaned up Lily’s surprise gift of sick all over the stairs) I followed the pattern and started knitting.

It looked too loose. Like the sock equivalent of a string vest.

So, I went down a needle size and increased the number of stitches to compensate for the likely smaller size. It looked like it would fit an elephant. Paul is slightly younger than me, and in similar shape. Elephant sized socks would not be appropriate.

By now we are beyond Christmas Day and we’re eating into Boxing Day. Not literally eating, I spend the morning making soup following  recipe from one of Steve’s gifts – the New Covent Garden book of a soup a day. It was a proper “I saw this and thought of you” moment. Steve loves Soup. And now I do – I’ve made 2 from this book and they were both DELISH, with only very slight substitutions required mainly because I’ve apparently lost the ability to buy cream.

In the interests of not having to cast on the same pair of socks more than three times, I decided to knit a gauge swatch.

Clearly not a big one as that would be crazy behaviour. So I just made sure there was enough to be able to measure stitches per inch.

We were only 1/2 a stitch over the gauge stated in the pattern, so I went with the number of stitches it told me to use.

By the time we left for our post-Christmas mini-break, I had maybe 2 inches of the first sock done. Gauge and circumference were looking good.

Sadly, the traffic was pants. A 4 hour journey turned into a seven hour one, and a ball of sock yarn turned into this.

This was taken around Cannock. I didn’t do a great deal more on the journey, but over the next few days ploughed on. By 30th I was grafting the toe (thanks to Lorna for the use of her darning needle. I failed to take mine away with me) and casting on the second sock.

By this time I was harbouring some doubts as the the suitability of the yarn. It was turning out some fairly… lurid socks. I pushed these doubts aside, consoling myself that Paul could always just choose to wear them in the comfort of his own home.

On returning to work, it turns out his birthday was on the 3rd. I finished the socks on the morning of the 4th, and planned to wrap & hand them over on 5th, a mere 2 days late.

Then I got ill and failed to pitch up for work for 2 days. It was a shock to all of us, not least the cat who had trouble coping with the concept of Daytime Company.

So, in the end the socks were handed over on Tuesday 10th. Paul seemed delighted, and it turns out I needn’t have worried about the garishness issue.

He did point out that the socks he was wearing were his loudest socks. I like to think mine give them a good run for the money.

January 11th, 2012 | Category: Crafty So & So's | Comments Off

It seems the trend of me giving away hats was very strong this year. Given that Gina was making fingerless gloves for her many stepdaughters & nieces, I thought it best to avoid mittens, or indeed anything too limelight-grabby. So I went with hats.

First up was Amelia, who I knew had a lime green coat as of her late-November birthday. The “Mille colori big” which I had in the stash looked like it would “do”. This yarn is quite an odd one – on the ball it looks really colourful – it’s a strand of dark grey/black wound with changing brighter colours and looked beautiful in the ball. One if those colours was a bright green which looked like it would be picked out nicely by Amelia’s coat.

When it’s knitted up, however, the main dark colour seems to take over and the item looks overwhelmingly black. Fortunately I was prepared for this by the tea cosy I made for Tom & Joyce last year.

I thought a beret style would suit both Amelia & her sister best, but didn’t want to do something totally plain as although the yarn is patterned, in that the colour changes, it isn’t *very* patterned. I have a bit of a “thing” (and I know Lorna at least is with me on this one) about combining patterned yarn and patterned stitches – it’s very rare that it’s a winning combo. So I dug out one of my several knitted gifts books and embarked upon the “petaled slouch cap” as it’s sort-of a beret but has lovely big petals on the top. Making this seemed to go remarkably smoothly, except for the yarn is surprisingly splitty & fluffy, so really I should have been prepared for what was coming…

Shortly before I finished A’s hat, I came across a pattern I’d been unable to lay my hands on a few months previously – Ysolda’s icing swirl hat – so given that time was of the essence, I decided to use this pattern as the basis for Lily’s hat.

a side note: Our Lily’s new step-step-cousin is the same age as her, and has the same first two names. We decided to go with lily-blue-eyes and lily-brown-eyes rather than resorting to surnames to tell between them, but for the purposes of this post, if I say Lily, I mean Lily-brown-eyes

The key here is “as the basis for” rather than “as the pattern for”. Given that the yarn I planned to use (because it’s the right colour) was totally not the right size, I knew that heavy busking would be required.

This is the point at which eyes start rolling and children run for cover. There’s every chance that this won’t end well.

My thinking was, knit outwards until it seems big enough, then start shaping. In retrospect I should maybe have given Ysolda a bit more credit and assumed that a bit more engineering went into developing the pattern.

The first version shaped up like it would fit an elephant. One with a big head. Lily is not an elephant. So I wripped back quite a bit and tried again. Using Our Lily as a guide, I tried again. It was touch & go and I was quite concerned she might end up with a line across her forehead, but it wasn’t clearly wrong, so I called it finished.

As another aside, I knitted quite a bit of this while watching an excellent documentary about Bill Hicks on iPlayer. Very angry, but very, very funny. And totally inappropriate for the under 10’s!

They were handed over on 2nd January and they seemed to be well received and the main positive from my point of view, they fit.

January 3rd, 2012 | Category: Crafty So & So's, I'm pleased about... | Comments Off