Swatch

"For swatching in the round, make a sleeve." That is what EZ said (at least I think it was her). Soft and gorgeous alpaca from Scandinavian Knitting Design. I am more than pleased with it, especially the colours.

 I have not abandoned the Kauni cardi - since the weather cooled off I am more than halfway down the first sleeve.

Last week we had a hedgehog appearing in the daytime. It is pretty late in the year, although it has not been cold enough yet to force them into hibernation. Then last Friday, this one kept trying to sleep in the sun, and we got worried enough to find out where the nearest hedgehog rescue place was. By the time we had sorted that out, she had disappeared and was nowhere to be found over the weekend. Then yesterday she reappeared, and Roy was able to scoop her up and weigh her - she was less than half the weight she needed to be to survive the winter, so, one quick phone call and we were off with her in a cardboard box. She has been booked into a care home for the winter and, if she makes it we can have her back next spring. If she doesn't, we can have a new one, since they are always on the lookout for places to release them.

Wish her luck!

From the sewing machine

I didn't buy that material just to make a shirt for the Grandaughter - in fact her shirt was the by-product of over estimating what I would need for one for myself.

And there was just enough left in the off-cuts to make a dress for Katie Morag, to be worn under the Hebridean Jumper.

Good food

I found this book in a charity shop last week. It appears to date from 1950, and is full of super recipes, especially the baked goods. Reading the introduction to the chapter on pickles and relishes I found the following:
"Great-grandfather never allowed any of his brood to leave food on their plates at the table. Even the fat meat or "speck" had to be eaten. Great-grandma once more rallied to the need of filling her place as a "helpmeet", this time for her children. She made all kinds of sauces and relishes to pour over the fat meat, and thus to help it slide down easily!"


I can't help thinking with sympathy of those French schoolchildren who have had their tomato ketchup taken away. That was an action of snobbish spite - everything in it my own Grandma would have regarded as wholesome  ingredients. Children go through many phases with what they can find palatable, and are best indulged a bit the sooner to find themselves able to try the foods that they once regarded as poison - and if ketchup helps it to go down, so be it!

Here is a challenge to the lovers of "interesting" foodstuffs. If you can manage to decipher my Great-grandmother's handwriting, you can treat yourself to Tapioca Meringue Pudding. On some of the pages in her book she has written "We like this" . Not on this page.

Thanks to . . . .

Yarn Harlot for finding the most delightful little baby hat.
My daughter for finding how to do it on Ravelry and the Riita Rautio  for setting it out.
My lovely Saturday Girl in the bookshop, for giving me a ball of scrumptious wool in exchange for some knitting needles for her sister. I knew there was a reason why I had kept it intact for so long - it was perfect for the job.

  Thanks to Monique for acting as a model.
 

I have been sewing as well - found some lovely cotton twill  locally and just knew what I needed to do with it.

Good things

There were a couple of Red Admiral butterflies on the sedum the other day. They were so busy sipping the nectar and disinclined to move that I wondered if they might be slightly drunk! This one is the neater of the two - the other one had some very tatty patches on its wings. There were a couple of Small tortoiseshells around as well, but they were not willing to sit for portraits.

  
We have a lot of self seeded Cornflowers, and this particular plant has turned up with very pretty variegated flowers. I have taken some seed heads and will make a note of where they get sown next year - I have no idea if they will produce the same effect in the flowers, but it is surely worth a try.


Walking past a charity shop in one of the little side alleys in Boston, my eye was caught by a basket of yarn in the window. Not something I would have wanted, but I went into the shop and found plenty that I did! It would appear that there had been a yarn shop in Skegness, which had closed. This was a way of disposing of the last odds and ends. Some good guernsey wool. some lovely mercerised cotton (DK) and lots of Sunbeam St. Ives - this last one in 25g balls which makes it seriously vintage. Happy Bunny!

Now she can have a cold.

One of the things I keep my eyes open for at Car Boot Sales is handkerchieves. It is surprising how often the gift-boxed ones lurk, all grubby and unloved. This haul for a pound last Sunday - and the reason I fell on them is because the grandaughter's initial is E. Not that she is fully up to speed on the technique yet, but she may as well have something nice to practice blowing into. 

They were pretty old, and I had to use my jewellery pliers to get the rusty pins out - some of them still have little rust spots after washing, but there is nothing wrong with that. What is so very very wrong is the set of three underneath the nicely ironed ones. They had a little label saying "100% Nylon". Imagine blowing a nose into one of those - no absorbency at all - the snot could go anywhere - it hardly bears thinking about.  Still, I will hand them over - they will be perfectly alright for wrapping around dolls. Interestingly, there was no rust whatsoever on the pins in that box, and the pins were as bright as new.

One off the needles, one on.

One little nearly-guernsey for a little girl finished. And I still can't take a decent photo of it. It will have to wait until I can put it on her and try and make her stand still(ish) outdoors.

I have cut my steeks! It was nowhere near as frightening as I had thought. I machined a zigzag down either side of the centre stitches and cut between. Now that garment is put aside, since it is still way too warm to work on it, especially since it gets larger every time I do.

Yarn Harlot has a lot to answer for  - I am knitting the Kauni cardi because I remember her doing one - and that was a long time ago. It is quite a while since I first saw and handled Kauni yarn - in California, so that was 2008. Now she is responsible for the one I simply HAVE to do right now - Catkin. It is absolutely delightful. Best of all, the yarn is from my stash.
 

I went out today to take a couple of snaps of our Japanese Anemones . One of my favourites from way back, and they flourish in the shadiest corner of the back garden

I had to take a picture of this as well - pass me a Runcible Spoon.

 

I

Been working.

 Went shopping for thread and buttons the other week. When I get to the shop, I find that I have forgotten to bring my snippet of fabric. Ah, well, I didn't do too badly then. I have always been able to carry a colour in my head. It is a useful ability, but can be a bit of a curse when I want to put two colours together and they are not close enough to be a match, but too close to be a contrast.

 This is what it was for - some fabric that has been in the stash for so long that I can't remember where I bought it. The pattern is even older, but I love it - roomy and comfortable, and so easy to work in. It came from the Burda magazine, back in the early '90s, and I have always thought of it as "The Hungarian Shirt" although to be truly authentic, I think it should not have the collar - just the band.

Meanwhile I have reached a crisis point with the Kauni Cardi - body finished, and ready to cut the steeks. Am I ready for this? I am going to let it have a little rest before I tackle the task. It has been a bit of a pig to work on lately anyway, it gets larger and the weather doesn't get any cooler. It is the wrong time of year to have a lapful of lovely rough wool!

Two photos of the same piece - it will be a Nearly-Guernsey for the grandaughter, but neither daylight not flash seem able to produce the intensity of the colour - it is the fullest deepest purple I have ever found. I remember there were dubious comments when I chose a fairly deep purple to knit a sweater, in my teens. It was not regarded as suitable for a young lady. What I really wanted was black. I was able to swing charcoal grey, a year or so later, and was much envied for it. There is a lot less dictating these days. Sometimes it is bad - you see some strange sights, and wonder if the wearers have actually looked in a mirror with honest eyes, but, in general, there is so much more freedom from censure.

Shades of brown

 Another project finished, and I like it. Lilleput by Lene Alve, and this one is knitted in King Cole Zigzag and Stylecraft acrylic 4 ply. Less wool than I usually like to use, but it has a nice soft feel, and will be very accommodating when it comes to laundry!

How about this for a monster!

Caterpillar of the Elephant Hawk Moth. Note the clothes peg as an indication of size. I would love to be around when the moth itself was around - I've never seen one of those.

Coming along nicely

 I am very pleased with the way the colours are turning out. The two blue balls were rather different - one dark and light, and the other much darker overall, and I had to do a bit of a manoeuvre to avoid losing the purple in the lower half. This has produced the much darker overall appearance of the top half of the body since I want to save the lighter ball for the sleeves, in order to prevent them looking too different from each other. (Does this make sense? It does to me)

One thing I shall not be doing is going back to correct the stitches where I picked the yarn up in the wrong order, back in the corrugated rib. It is on the inside. If Teacher is looking to mark me down I shall do up the buttons and stand at the back!

We have had a raptor day today. This morning there was a juvenile Hen Harrier cruising round the recently reaped field at the back. It didn't appear to be catching anything, and certainly had the look of a bird that wasn't quite sure how this hunting thing was supposed to go.

This afternoon I was sitting in the front room with the curtain across a little way to keep the sun from dazzling, when a sparrow hit the glass. When I pulled the curtain back, there was no sign of the sparrow, but the Sparrowhawk which had been chasing it was sitting on the garden fence. And it continued to sit there until my other half went out of the front door and told it that it's parents had never married.

Full story

I did get more than just the one prize; the one I have already boasted about. To be precise, two firsts, one second and two thirds. The item I am slightly disappointed about was the collection of doll's clothes - I thought I might have done well with those, especially when I had worked out how to display them to advantage.

Ah well, they were defeated by a bit of really exquisite knitting for dolls. (Or it might have been premature baby size)

I am still so pleased that Caller Herrin got a first, even if it does mean I have been, once again,  afflicted with the earworm. Only those of a certain age and over would remember "Singing Together" with William Appleby - a programme for junior schoolchildren. That is where I learned the song.

Now: what am I going to do for next year;s show?

A word of thanks.

It was the village show this weekend - Heckington, in Lincolnshire. It is reputed to be the biggest village show in the country, and I have certainly seen smaller full-grown agricultural shows. 

I like to do my bit by entering the handicraft classes, and thanks to a super design, my work won the first prize in the 4ply or finer knitting class. So thanks are due to Kate Davies Needled  for Caller Herrin'. A project that was a pleasure to knit, and an even greater pleasure to see adorned with a red card

A few little wonders

 I do appreciate being able to press the macro button on my camera. There is so much to be seen with it. I have only realised in the last couple of years how complex and delightful cornflowers are, with their little wheel of trumpets for petals.

This year's nigellas are all fairly pale in colour, and showing the veins on the backs of the petals as they come out.

                                                      So delicate.

Dining on aphids. A couple of Ladybirds being really useful.

 I said to him " You really didn't have to use the sewing machine to join up the split in that tomato!"  Quite a few of that variety , Black Russian, have been splitting on the vine, but that particular one must have thought better of it and refrained (but only just).

Finally, in keeping with our not-so-good-thus-far summer, our first dwarf sunflower is dark brown. Or shall I call it chocolate, since that sounds more cheering!

And again

Second attempt- there were issues of gauge! Going nicely now, and I think I struck lucky with the colours.

I have also been photographing my entries for Heckington Show, which is next weekend, but I had better keep them under my hat in case I put myself out of the running for a prize by showing too soon. Wish me luck!

Going Baltic

It has been a long time in the gestation, but I am finally up and running on a cardigan in Kauni wool.


Of course, nothing is simple. When I go to choose the yarn, Scandinavian Knitting Design don't have a very large stock, so instead of using one yarn with big contrasts in the colour changes, I have decided to use two colours - one blue/grey and not very variable, and one mainly red/orange with added lime and purple. So it will not end up looking like the one in the pattern but I hope it will be good in a different way. There is so much variation in the colours that it is impossible to predict what I am going to get. This is the main attraction!


I am using the squares pattern by Ruth Sorensen. There are some delightful, more complex ones about, but this is not about the pattern really, it is about the yarn. The pattern needs to be simple. This will be my first attempt at steeks. Or should I call them Eeks! I don't anticipate any problems - the yarn holds fast to itself; I can almost hear it peeling off as I pull it from the ball. One thing I don't recall seeing mentioned anywhere: it is quite smelly! Definitely a reek of the rural when I opened the bag. Also I can feel the lanolin on my hands after a spell of knitting. This means it should bloom when it gets it's first wash.


Of course the little bit of corrugated rib you see above is the second start. Guess who twisted the cast on, first go!


 

A welcome guest.

Sitting on the gatepost, a Privet Hawk Moth (Sphinx Ligustri) our largest moth, resting for the day. I was able to use a grass blade to lift it's wing without disturbing it, and so show the girl next door the pink and black stripes on it's body.

Yes, we do have a privet hedge.

My muddle (and I like it)

Sunday morning and we have been to a car boot sale. Starting at the front - 

Some pretty tins, for keeping sewing bits in.

Some books - The Family Knitting Book, by James Norbury: dates from the 1960's:

Collins Field Guide to the Seashore: both 50p.

If you look at the front left hand side of the dresser, there is a flying shuttle. On the table is the one I found for sale - a baby brother. The large one was made in Bradford, so I assume it was for wool. The new smaller one is from Lancashire, and is labelled for silk - it even has a bobbin with some silk still wound on it.

Not part of the morning's purchases - the flowers were picked to support the couple of sprays of Sweet Peas, which he brought in, and which are scenting the house with very high class air freshener. Beside them, a couple of blouse patterns that have been used so heavily that they need re-tracing before I attempt to cut them out again. The Sweet Williams have been wonderful this year, even though they were not planted last year - they are hangers-on from the year before.

And finally, I have finished my "Torshavn" Faeroese shawl and it is blocking.

Some more handwork

Another of those little pinnies with the wrapover back - the cheerful farmyard print reached out and tapped me on the shoulder while I was buying something much more boring. She will love all the animals, and her Mum's verdict on the shape is "excellent - no ties to be done up, so it slips on easily, and protects her clothes around the sides as well as the front" So that's a hit then.
Only one thing - the title says hand work - there isn't a single hand stitch in it. Years ago I got some boaster's labels saying "Hand Made by Jean Humphreys"and, after sewing them (by machine) into the things I made, it occurred to me that I was labelling everything with a lie - my policy for everyday dressmaking has long been to do absolutely everything by machine if at all possible. Hand stitching took leisure time that I didn't have. The next lot of labels said "Home Made . . ."


If I say Katie Morag, how many people will think of the lovely little girl who lives on a Hebridean island, and who was created and pictured so beautifully by Mairi Hedderwick. Well, the granddaughter has a rag doll who has red hair and a tartan skirt, so, not unnaturally, she has been christened Katie Morag. Only one thing though: she doesn't have a white jumper with a patterned yoke. Well, with the help of some random bits of leftover 4ply from the stash, that little matter has been put right.

 I am feeling smug again!

Foxglovvey Weirdness

Has anybody ever seen a foxglove do this before? They were grown from seed, and planted out in the shade of the front hedge. There are two plants which have done this weirdness, and they are approximately the same colour as each other. They look perfectly normal, with the flowers progressively opening up the stem, and then at the top they have come out with someplant else's flower.

Something pretty from the garden

We have been living here for two years now, and I am beginning to be thoroughly satisfied with the garden. We have beaten a few green thugs into submission, and filled a lot of the gaps with plants that are much more to our taste.  Pictured is the result of five minutes wandering about with a pair of scissors in my hand. My Mum would have been pleased with us.