Venturing into the fabric stash...

I got home from London last night completely shattered and was in bed by 10pm. Not that I've done any better all week; the course was hard going with a lot to take in... On Wednesday night, I was practically falling asleep while trying to knit!

I stayed at the Jury's Inn, Islington and can report it was OK. Nothing special by any means, but certainly nothing to complain about...

Except maybe Friday morning, when they'd had a private party stay over the previous night which meant that going down for breakfast was hectic. At one point, the staff were stopping guests going into the restaurant while they waited for people to finish so there would be enough seats and you could get near the food!

Today has been a fairly gentle day. I've done a little (and I mean a little) housework. Tried to catch up with email and this afternoon, I was very brave and ventured into the fabric stash, mostly to see what is actually in there.

Here is approximately half of it, which was all I could face digging through in one session.



Once I'd laid the previously heaped fabric on the bed, I was pleasantly surprised at how little there was. Heaped in a corner, it looks far larger, although I'm going to admit there's still a lot of material there... And I've absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with it.

Natural fibres dominate my stash and in this particular heap, we have wools in various weights...



Including some very nice suitings.



Cotton canvas, mostly in a suitable weight for either robes or coats and varying colours.



I'm a sale shopper, which means I end up buying left over lengths of fabric rather than buying specific yardage with a project in mind. Or rather I used to. These days, my fabric acquisition has tailed off dramatically as I've come to the conclusion that I already have far too much of the stuff! I've had a tendency to buy fabric with future, potential projects in mind, mostly costume, semi-period and fantasy based. My eye is drawn to neutrals, reds, burgundy, plums, maroons and rich browns...

Two meters of each colour here which I remember buying intending to make a short summer jacket for me for normal day to day wear, rather than costume. Only I couldn't decide on the colour, so naturally I bought both!



You can see why I have a fabric problem perhaps?

I also have a loving for cotton moleskin and brushed cotton in all it's variations. I just love the feel and before you know it...



Again, not bought with anything in particular in mind. I just liked it and the next thing you know, it was mine!

Then there are the fancy fabrics.



Silks, silk mixes, even cashmere. Not a lot of each and with the exception of the cashmere, bought with linings in mind. The pink silk/cotton I was thinking would be a fantastic lining for Georgian waistcoats for example.

The cashmere... It sparkled... Other than that, I have no excuse.

All these fabrics have been duly noted and sorted so they're at least bagged up with similar fabrics now. I've put them into Ikea bags so they're easier to stack and move, with the eventual aim to get shelving in upstairs to hold them. Then of course, I need to make them into something...

And then there was one...

I can officially state that I now have only one spinning wheel in the house. My original wheel was passed on a couple of weeks ago; finding a new home with someone I hope will get along with it better than I did. Meanwhile I finally took the borrowed wheel back to its rightful owner yesterday, leaving just the wheel I own in the house.

The corner housing the wheel definitely looks more corner like and less cluttered now. Charlie (the cat) has yet to notice that I've stolen one of his favourite hiding places, but I'm sure he'll cope... And yes, Charlie does consider sitting behind a collection of spinning wheels to be a great hiding place.

I plied up another two bobbins of the Blue Faced Leicester and finished the yarn on Saturday evening, washing it and setting the twist. As my second go at plying, I don't think it's turned out as well as the first with some areas of the finished yarn remaining overspun. A lot more practice is required I'm thinking.

On a related note, the lady at work with the small holding decided against giving me a bag of fleece from her attic. She checked it over and reported that it was a bit manky and asked if I minded having fresh fleece instead. Naturally, I assured her that fresh was good and in fact better than stored fleece, and hopefully a bag of freshly shorn Shetland will come my way in June.

In the meantime, the bag of BFL Humbug continues unlimited and is perfect for my practice spinning... Although I hope that I can use the resulting yarn and turn it into something. Eventually.

Finally, by way of a warning, real life continues to be busy at work, with even finding time to read email presenting difficulties. I'm off on another training course this week, so I don't expect much in the way of internet access...

Piratical goings on in Derbyshire

The past couple of weeks since I last wrote have been busy ones, with last weekend seeing us travelling off to Shining Cliffs again, for another closed AscendancyLRP event. I'd mostly written this one, so last week, what spare time I did have was spent preparing for the event. Kit needed to be gathered, specific plot details thrashed out so they made some sort of sense and folks needed briefing. Dave contributed a couple of scenes and AndyL did his usual excellent job of throwing in a few extra scenes so that this one off event tied into the main campaign.

We had loads of crew, which meant the speaking named parts could be divided up amongst us making it easier all round. There was the usual amount of lugging stuff around the woods though and we had a some of complete newbies to LARP, both on the crew and playing. Another Dave, who was experiencing his first ever LARP as crew seemed bemused by the whole thing, especially when I donned dreads and facepaint, to become a voodoo follower of The Baron.



Don't I look... distinctive?

More photo's here if you want to take a look.

The plot itself was aimed at beginners. I kept it as generic and easy to relate to as possible, rather than going for something that was going to require lots of gameworld background knowledge to understand. It seemed to go down well and the couple of experienced players who't tagged along to show the new players how it's done seemed to have fun too. So all good methinks.

In the evening, we went back to Richard's for supper, before driving home.

Sunday was spent mostly doing housework and unpacking from the day before. I did get the spinning wheel out for a couple of hours in the afternoon and plied up the two bobbins of Blue Faced Leicester I'd spun the previous weekend. Again, I kept going until I ran out of bobbin, leaving a small amount of singles unspun... I'm beginning to think I need to put less singles on the bobbins in the first place, so I can ply the lot in one go.

More fluff and my first wheel spun

I've discovered Babylonglegs and I think I'm doomed. I'd glanced in her direction before of course, having been pointed there by both Claire and Mandy, but I've managed to resist her charms until today. What can I say... I blinked and some very pretty fluff had fallen into my shopping cart and the next thing I knew I'd paid for it as well.

With more fluff on order, I also spoke to the lady at work who has a small holding this morning. She promised me some fleece from their flock a few months back but I put her off as it was the middle of winter. I see washing, drying and dying fleece as very much a spring to summer activity. When I caught her this morning her reaction was to say "Just the one bag?" with a hint of disappointment in her voice. They've been having trouble getting rid of it, although I think they found a co-operative to take some of last years sheerings.

Anyway, I've said to bring me one bag of fleece to start with and I'll take a look at it and may arrange to take more off her hands later. I've no idea of the quality of the fluff at this stage (or the going rate for raw fleece for that matter), so one to wait and see on really.

In the meantime, I've plied up my first every skein of wheelspun!

This is Blue Faced Leciester in Humbug, from Wingham Woolworks and this picture is of the yarn straight from the wheel. I'd quite literally just plied it and you can see it's twisting back on itself.



Plying was a new experience for me. I've tried plying on the spindle before, but didn't see very good results possibly because I was working with my first singles and the quality was very iffy. I also didn't know how much twist you need to put into the singles to get them to twist into each other properly, which having worked at plying on my wheel (which I still need to name) I can now say is quite a lot!

Plying took me a long time for three reasons. Firstly, I have this tendancy to spin relatively skinny singles and a full bobbin of such singles is an awful lot of yarn!

Secondly was the aforementioned lack of understanding of just how much twist needs to go into plying two singles together. It turns out that if the singles are tightly spun as mine are (being relatively skinny) and have been allowed to rest for a variable amount of time, by which I mean a couple of days to several weeks in the case of one of the bobbins, there's an awful lot of countertwist needed to even out the yarn. Even so, it was a bit hit and miss as I tried to find my rhythm and eventually discovered I needed something in the order of fourteen treadles to adequately ply about eighteen inches of yarn.

And finally, my wheel fought me! Or at least she did at first. I'd spun on her only a couple of days before with no problems but when I tried to ply, she refused to play ball. The yarn wouldn't take up and when I adjusted the brake band so the bobbins would wind on, the flyer wouldn't turn. Raising the whorl which tightened the drive band was good, only suddenly the yarn wouldn't wind on again. Rinse and repeat, until the tension was so tight I couldn't keep the wheel moving.

A cup of tea later and I referred to my now to be considered bible of spinning, Start Spinning: Everything You Need to Know to Make Great Yarn by Maggie Casey, turning my attention first to her chapter on plying and then back to her introduction to the wheel. After a good hour of tweaking, I had a much better understanding of how the tension between the drive band and brake band compliment each other and I learned the benefits of tiny, tiny adjustments while spinning. Suddenly, I was plying.

I stopped about three hours later when I ran out of room on my only free bobbin and my shoulders hurt. I let the newly plied yarn sit overnight and then wound it into a skein straight from the wheel. I don't have a niddy-noddy, so used two chairs back to back, which while a bit fiddly did the trick. I tied it, photographed the skein draped across a bush in the garden and then washed it as directed by Maggie Casey. Here it is hanging up to dry in the bathroom.



After wrapping the wet skein in a towel to get rid of most of the water, I snapped it between my hands to even out the yarn after which it hung open all by itself (which it didn't do straight off the wheel) so I didn't weight it as it dried.

And the final result...



That's approximately 145m of something like a sock weight yarn. I haven't done a wraps count yet and the yarn is of variable thickness, so I'm not sure how accurate one would be anyway. In places it's underplied but mostly, it looks exactly as it should and I'm very pleased with the result. In fact, I keep picking it up, squishing it and grinning a lot.

Easter scarecrows

Happy Easter to anyone reading this!

Dave has headed off to Maelstrom this weekend and reported in this morning, so I know he is still alive. He hasn't been eating though and was duly told to take time to have meals, preferably with proper breaks, involving a kettle, sitting down and actually stopping to catch his breath. Whether he'll take any notice of course is another thing, but at least he's not in danger of keeling over from heat exhaustion or sunstroke this weekend.

With Dave out of the way, I drove up to Derbyshire yesterday to crew for a closed event being run by Ascendancy LRP. A closed event is one being run for a specific group of players, rather than an open event which anyone can book onto. We were running around Shining Cliff Woods (also fondly known as Shining Death), which involves a lot of hiking up and down hills over rough and boggy terrain. It isn't always boggy, but there has been a bit of rain lately and indeed, there were some heavy showers while we were there yesterday.

Crewing also meant lugging heavy bags all over the woods and I even threw myself into combat encounters. Suffice it to say that today I ache; however, I'm fairly happy as even though my limp had returned by yesterday afternoon, I am moving fairly well today. Or at least I am so far.

I spent Thursday sewing up a few scarecrow masks for the event, which came out something like...




Or to show them in situ and dressed with suitably scarecrow like kit...



I'm pleased with the result and think they look pretty effective.

The masks themselves are simple bags (of linen/cotton) with holes cut for the eyes. I then crudely over stitched the eyes and seams with a linen thread, making the stitches big and obvious, to give a hand sewn effect. The over sewing also stabilised the fabric around the eyes and seams, making the masks easier and more comfortable to wear - I hope, as that was certainly the idea.

Not bad for a few hours work.

Finally, a group shot of some of the crew kitted out as dwarves.



Admittedly there are some very tall dwarves there, but look at the cool steamtech gun built by Richard!

Not a bad way to spend an Easter Saturday, but today and tomorrow will hopefully be more relaxing!

Of obi and mittens

I've taken a few days well earned rest from work this week, using up days I'd otherwise lose, although it hasn't exactly been relaxing.

The first part of this week was spent making Dave an obi for his polymorphic character in Maelstrom. Polymorphic means lots of costume changes and the character doesn't distinguish between genders when it comes to attire, so I made him a woman's obi at his request.

This means I spent a day and a half, ironing, cutting, pinning, sewing, ironing again, more pinning, sewing, ironing... Repeat until I have a sash consisting of two layers of fabric, sandwiching a length of cotton inside to give it the appropriate body or stiffness. Said stash being five meters long by thirty centimeters wide! The chosen fabric for the obi, while very nice to look at was not well behaved, it frayed at every touch, slid about like it had a mind of its own, would not hold a decent crease and scattered little bits of blue thread throughout the house.

Including edging (absolutely necessary or there wouldn't have been any fabric left by the time I was done) I reckon I must have sewed some fifty five meters of seam on that one sash. Fifty five meters of very boring, tedious sewing with far too many pins for my poor fingers to cope with. So if you see Dave wearing his new blue obi this coming weekend, admire it lots and tell him he owes me cake!

Last night I headed out to the Wednesday night Knit-Wits meeting and a new venue, the Britannia Hotel in Fairfax Street. All was good, with the bar manager having reserved three tables in a secluded corner for us.

We had table cloths rather than sticky tables, flowers, comfortable seats and good lighting. Prices at the bar were comparable to those in the Town Crier and food and drinks arrived on a tray! No loud music to compete with meant we could actually hear each other speak as well. There was even decent food, served all night, for those who wanted it. We're certainly intending to return there next week and hopefully we've found ourselves a new home.

I showed off my new mittens, which I've finally got around to putting thumbs in and sewing on the buttons.



These are 'Easy Mittens' (Ravelry Link) from 101 One Skein Wonders. I've knit them as per the pattern in size 'large' which as previously mentioned isn't really large enough for me. These are not intended for me, so no worries there, but if I used this pattern for myself, I'd need to scale up a bit.

The yarn is a discontinued Patons With Wool DK. It's definitely a girly yarn and I still have quite a bit of it, so it may be cropping up again in future projects. The buttons cost 6p each from the local yarn store (Busy Fingers) and I think they really make these mittens into something special.

Or maybe I have no self control at all...

I think I may have fallen off the wagon...



On Saturday, I headed up to Lee Mills for a Knitting and Crochet Guild open day, with fellow Knit Wits - Jane, Claire and Jeanette. We set off at a ridiculously early hour, lured by the promise of a Yarn Mountain and were greeted at the door by the sound of a kettle boiling and very delicious home made cake.

I think my self control may have evaporated right there.

I'm blaming the yarn fumes, I was after surrounded by the yarn mountain which made it impossible not to see the stuff. Or stroke it. And the next thing I knew I'd picked up quite a bit of yarn and just could not put it down. I was not alone - all of us succumbed, which makes me feel a little better. It was definitely the yarn fumes that got to us.

In addition to yarn, the warehouse was home to KCG Trading's stock and I got to see Addi needles in the flesh (I talked myself out of buying some - see I did have some self restraint) and all manner of knitting accessories. I also found probably the best selection of knitting and crochet books I've seen in one place ever. I was very tempted by several titles, but in the end made myself pick out just one book and refused to look closely at any of the others.

Doris Chan's Everyday Crochet called to me, mostly because as I flicked through it the designs were ones I could imagine myself wearing, which is actually unusual for me. I tend to pick up books for things I like the look of and want to make, but don't necessarily want to own as a finished item. I guess this is why I tend to give most of the things I make away. Richard gave me Amazing Crochet Lace by the same author for Christmas and I was impressed by her work then. Now I just need to find some time to make something.

There was a white gloves, show and tell type thing where we were allowed to view part of the Guild's collection. The theme chosen for the day was undergarments, which meant we got to admire lots of very delicate lace.

Jeanette and Jane tried out square knitting needles and reported they were actually quite good. I think they were tired and hungry by that stage, so managed to resist buying them. I tried to take a photo of Jeanette knitting but she was too fast for the camera.



By this time, it was nearly 2pm and we arrived at a nearby pub looking for lunch just after he stopped serving. Some sweet talking later, four hungry knitters tucked into some very tasty baguettes before heading home.

A good day out... I just need to find time to knit more now as I'm busy cultivating my own personal yarn mountain behind the sofa!

This is what self control looks like...

I went into town yesterday for the first time in weeks and first on my list of shops to visit was Busy Fingers, the local LYS (Local Yarn Shop). I went in specifically for tiny, girly, pink buttons and came out with...


Exactly what I went in for and nothing else.

True, I stroked the yarn and I hovered by the bargain bucket for a good while, but I was good.

These sweet little buttons are intended to embellish a pair of simple mittens I'm working on at the moment. The pattern is Easy Mittens (Ravelry Link) from 101 One Skein Wonders using stash yarn. So far I've made one, minus it's thumb and cast on for the second one.



The mittens were started as a portable and easy project, acting as light relief for the lace shawl, which still lumbers on (21 repeats of the border and counting). They're intended as a Christmas present, which is just as well as while I'm knitting the large size, they're turning out a tad small for my liking. This isn't exactly surprising as I have large hands with long fingers and shop bought gloves never fit. Ladies gloves always being too small and mens gloves always being too big.

The mittens are turning out nicely though and I'm happy with them so far. This is a plain mitten pattern, no fancy bits and all stocking stitch so I thought I'd lift them a bit by adding some little buttons to the cuffs, something like...



Pretty, girly and pink, just what I'm after.

Jaywalkers at last

We've been having a spot of bother with drunks of late at the Town Crier, which is the pub where our Wednesday night knitting group meets up. The past few weeks, we've drawn unwanted attention of one kind or another, almost as if the boozy-er patrons think we're some sort of entertainment the management have laid on.

Last night we had a couple of potential new members to the group and I hate to think what they thought... And of course, dealing with drunks is not exactly something any of us are keen on, most of us being quiet types at heart. This is a recent development and an unwelcome one. I mean, sure, we've had the odd encounter with the tipsy - we are in a pub after all - but they used to be few and far between, now it's beginning to feel like a regular thing.

All of this means it may be time to move again. If we did decide against using a pub again, what are our options? Where can a group of knitters gather of a midweek evening and not be harassed? Our requirements are simple enough, we need light, minimal stairs, toilet facilities and refreshments should be available... Time to put on the thinking cap methinks.

Moving swiftly on, a finished object that I would have posted about last week had I not been locked in a classroom without internet access.

These are my finished Jaywalker Socks (Ravelry Link), designed by Grumperina and knitted in Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett (colourway 04259).



Aren't they pretty?

I'm very pleased with the way they finally turned out, but it was a long, hard road getting there.

After reading dire warnings about problems with fit on Ravelry, I swatched for this pair of socks before starting. The pattern calls for 2.25mm needles, but I used 2.5mm to meet the stitch guage.

The first sock I knitted was far too big at the cuff and so, it was ripped out and I started again. This time I knit the cuff on 2.25mm needles, using a K1b,P1 rib rather than a K2,P2 rib as specified by the pattern. I switched to a 2.5mm needle for the main body of the sock. My hope was that the smaller needles and the K1b,P1 rib would pull the cuff in a bit so it clung to my calf the way it was supposed to.

As you can see here, it worked a little at least.



What you can't see is that I pulled the rib up just before the photo was taken which is why it's sitting right. Having worn these socks, I can attest to the fact that the rib doesn't stay like that. It falls down... Fortunately, the main pattern itself is clingy and keeps the sock up - meaning that you don't actually need a rib on the cuff and that it's purely decorative rather than functional. If I make these socks again, I'll drop the ribbing from the cuff, other than maybe a few rows just to get the edge stabalised and past that wrestling with a hedgehog stage common to casting on with DPNs.

The rest of the fit wasn't great either. I didn't have problems with the heel being too tight (something which seemed to be an issue for others) and there is no problem putting the sock on. If anything, I'd say the heel flap is marginally too long, but not enough to make the sock unwearable.

The other worry was that I'd run out of yarn. Due to the chevron pattern, you need a good few more stitches per inch than normal which means that the yarn has to travel further to complete each round. This in turn meant that the sock was eating yarn at a prodigious rate and was the other reason I ripped out that first sock... At the rate it was going, I couldn't guarantee I'd have enough yarn for the pair. My second run through, I shortened the leg of the sock by two inches to compensate and finished each sock well within 50g of yarn.

I also reworked the numbers for turning the heel as the numbers didn't work for me, but that was pretty elementary stuff, so all good there.



In all, it's a very pretty sock, I love the chevron affect and I particularly love how it worked out with this yarn/colourway. It's not one I'd say never again to, but I may need a few months recovery before I'd be happy to give it another go.

Quick update

Last week was spent locked away in a little room, absorbing information about the httpd daemon, which didn't really leave much time or brain power for anything else. I did see the internet briefly; twice at lunchtime for a few minutes at a time as a wireless hotspot flickered into being as the wind blew in the right direction and once for about half an hour at home as I dealt with necessary bills.

Incidently, am I the only one who went into shock after receiving her gas bill this quarter? I was so stunned by the sum being demanded I checked gas used against last year, only to find that we've been really good and nearly halved the amount we've used, but the bill was up by approx 75% on the same period last year. Ouch!

But I digress.

Friday, freshly released from training, I packed Dave into the car and headed to Murton Park for the first Ascendancy LRP event of the year.

We were lucky with the weather as it stayed dry throughout, but it was very cold at night and even with my four season sleeping bag and six blankets, I couldn't get warm in bed. The gas cans for the stove were problematic first thing in the morning as it was too cold to get any decent pressure, which meant it took half an hour to boil water for a cup of tea!

Fortunately, once the sun got going the day warmed up nicely to the point where I reached for the sun block.

The hut we stayed in was in the process of being refurbished by the volunteers who maintain Murton's dark age village. They'd already replaced a lot of the boards and added a huge loom, as yet not set up but just leaning on the wall. The couple working on our hut showed up around nine in the morning to work on the fence and garden and didn't go home again until it got dark. They also had the cutest ferrets with them.

The event itself was based around a diplomatic meeting so was relatively low combat, which is always a good thing as Murton Park doesn't lend itself well to full skirmishes. None the less, there were combats, including a dawn raid on a 'neighbouring encampment' or the on site Roman Fort at about 10:30am which equated to dawn in LARPer time! Lots of new plot was introduced, which was good for there were a lot of first time players as well, so they didn't have to rely on a lot of background knowledge.

Which about rounds up the weekend I think.

Spring and new acquisitions

This weekend, spring appears to have arrived and I hope it's here to stay! Brighter mornings, the sound of birds chirping away, the squirrels are risking their lives playing chicken with the cats and the rhubarb is sprouting.



I just had to post a couple of photo's of my favourite felines enjoying the morning sunshine... First up, Missy who is taking in the delicate fragrance of a stick.



And Charlie who as usual has taken a more casual position on the whole spring thing, lazing at the bottom of the steps.



Yesterday we headed over to the Re-enactors Market in Ryton-on-Dunsmore for round two of the fabric hunt. As before, we were on the hunt for a suitable fabric for a bright yellow frock coat and a naval jacket, both to fit Dave. This time, while there was nothing for the frock coat, we did score some nice red wool for the jacket so that's a win.

I also found a wheel on the Mulberry Dyers stand.

Sadly, they'd forgotten to pack the flyer but after thinking about it for a bit, I arranged to go back today and try it out.

The wheel in question is a much travelled (and a bit battered) Ashford Traveller, with a single treadle rather than the two which seem to be standard these days. While she wasn't as smooth to use as the Traditional I'm currently borrowing, I put a lot of that down to being under pressure (I had an audience) and tension issues on the wheel herself. She did spin OK, I just wasn't very good...

To cut a long story short, I bought her and spent a good part of today oiling and then tweaking her tension, before...



By three this afternoon she was spinning fine and with good old familiar Blue Faced Leicester, I was home free. The original tension was way too tight for me and once I'd swapped to a different ratio, she wasn't snatching the fibre faster than I could draft it and we got on soooo much better. I'm a very happy bunny.

I've also been working on the borrowed wheel and have nearly a full bobbin of BFL to show for my efforts...



I'll give it a few weeks to transition across to my wheel and free up the bobbin, then I guess I'll return her with many thanks. She is a good wheel and had I seen a Traditional rather than a Traveller yesterday, I'd have snapped it up there and then.

Slippery needles and cobweb woes

Last night, I headed out to knitting group as usual where we were having a spinning workshop. I took along my ongoing spindle project, the merino I started spinning back in January which has been a bit neglected since the arrival of the borrowed wheel (which is still great, I just need more spare time).

I was wielding the camera, so no pictures to prove I know how to use a spindle, but I was relieved to see that my hands seem to know what they're doing now. In fact, if anything, I'd say my drafting has improved dramatically in the past couple of weeks, possibly due to successful drafting at the wheel.

This weekend is also an anniversary of sorts, with the Re-enactors Market or TORM coming around and marking my first attempts to use a spindle, one year ago!

At home, I'm still working on my lace project. I finally finished the centre panel, comprising the main part of the shawl and I happily started the border, sensing the end was in sight.

Sadly, I'd underestimated how difficult and fiddly it is to knit a border onto a shawl in cobweb weight yarn on fat needles. The pattern isn't difficult, it's just a few stitches but getting the length of the shawl untwisted, preventing the still attached circulars from tangling and stopping the cat from grabbing the whole mess is proving tricky.

Worse, I was sabotaged. After struggling to do the first five repeats of the border, I put the shawl away very carefully, only to get it out the next evening to discover the DPN holding my stitches had somehow detached itself from the shawl...

No lifelines, far too many yarn overs and cobweb yarn made the stitches hard to see... I couldn't even be sure how many stitches had accidentally ripped themselves out, so there was no choice but to frog the whole thing and start again.

The lessons I learnt from this were to continue using lifelines in the border, no matter how silly it might seem. And to implement 'stitch stops' in the form of a couple of hair bands on the DPNs to discourage the live stitches from leaping of the needle while the project is sleeping on a shelf.



A close up of the border pattern as it stands with a little contrast... Here you can clearly see lifelines and hair elastics attached to the DPN.



I'm currently standing at eleven repeats of the border down one side, a week and a half after starting knitting. There are four sides to this shawl, two with twenty eight repeats and two with twelve repeats, plus another six at each of the four corners. Somehow, I don't think this is going to be done any time soon!

Blocking does happen

I've just sat down and updated my work diary, mapping out my life until the end of December and it's scary stuff. Add in personal commitments, such as trips to the Knitting and Crochet Guild, holidays and Woolfest, along with the odd spinning guild meeting and LARP related event and it looks like I'm one very busy lady again this year. I'd made a deliberate effort to free up some time this year, but it seems that as quickly as I make spaces in my diary, other things leap in there to fill the gap. Bizarre.

Saturday, Dave abandonned me for the weekend as he headed off to Nottingham for some ork related fun at Games Workshop, otherwise known in our house as the WAAAGH!!! (already documented by Richard).

Dave, for those who do not know him, is rather ork obsessed and he's spent the past couple of months on a painting marathon requiring me to pass comment on a multitude of shades of green as I've admired ork after ork that has been waved in front of me. I'm hoping the orks are out of his system a bit now, as there are weapons in the shed that need latexing, masks that need painting (and undoubtedly more latex) and plotting that needs to be done!

With Dave off engaged in his war game, I was left to do what seemed to be a huge amount of housework in his absence. I also set to tackling the outstanding pile of paperwork, which I'll admit had got out of hand. I was firm with myself and the chores, plus paper pushing got done... I have a fine collection of papercuts (which sting mightily) to prove it!

All this industriousness on my part meant that I didn't have much time to do fun stuff over the weekend... But I did try to deal with a couple of hurdles to 'finishing' that have been hanging over me.

Weeks ago, in the middle of January, I started to crochet a pair of mittens. I actually finished making up all the pieces a while back, but as the mittens are worked in flat pieces and then sewn together, they've been waiting for me to get my act together.

Before I can sew them together, I need all the pieces to be approximately the same size as it kind of helps to match up the edges, which meant that blocking was essential. I've crocheted the mittens in a superwash wool, but wasn't taking any chances and with the brief showing of the sun on Saturday, decided that now was an ideal time for wet blocking.



This wasn't a particularly onerous task. I filled a wash basin with warm (not in any way hot) soapy water using a liquid wool wash and gently placed the mitten pieces in the water. I left them to soak for about half an hour then removed them from the soapy water, replacing it with similarly tepid clean water. The mitten pieces were left in the clean water for another half an hour, then I put them on a folded towel. The towel got rolled up and I stomped up and down on it for a while (a great stress reliever) to get the water out.

I keep hearing about using the spin cycle on the washing machine for this and when I graduate onto sweaters/jumpers, I may well opt for technology rather than stomping, but for my little mitten pieces, stomping was good.

Once I'd got most the water out, I pinned the mitten pieces out on foam boards stretching them so they were all about the same size. Then I put the boards outside to dry.



Sadly, the sunshine only lasted for Saturday but the pieces were dry by Monday morning. I wasn't taking any chances though and left them pinned to the boards until yesterday morning.

Now I just need to persuade myself to sew them together.

A not so successful shopping trip

Yesterday we headed over to the Living History Fayre at the Warwick Exhibition Centre and I was very good. I did not buy wool. Nor did I impulse buy an example of every lucet on sale, or pick up any of the spindles I spotted for sale. I even resisted the charms of Wicked Woolens (AKA Sally Pointer), albeit only by pointedly telling myself that I haven't knitted up any of the yarns I picked up from them in November...

I did look at books and was very taken by the range of Janet Arnolds on sale, plus various other primers on how to make historical costume and stage costume.

A few years ago, finding books on costume or with sample patterns was hard going but there seem to be quite a few out there now, even if you only see them at specialist events with very focused booksellers, such as Felicity & Warnes (who incidentally also do a very good range of crochet, knitting, lace, beading, millinery, bags and general needlework books). This was the first time I had seen so many of the Janet Arnolds in one place and were I actively making much costume at the moment, I'm doubtful I would have resisted.

Dave and I were on the look out for fabric. Dave has been after a new frock coat for his Maelstrom character for ages and as we were heading to the fayre, he told me he wanted a new naval jacket for Ascendancy as well.

Sadly we were out of luck.

We did find some pillarbox red fulled wool which would have been perfect for the naval jacket, but with only just over two meters left on the roll, there wasn't enough.

The frock coat was proving to be more difficult. It has to be in exactly the right shade of canary yellow. Not too creamy, not too pale, not too green or too lemony, nope it has to be bright yellow, possibly hinting towards orange but definitely not orange. Can you hear me sighing?

Suffice it to say we looked at yellow fabrics and none of them would do.

Previously, Dave has eyed up a piece in my stash but I didn't have enough of it for the style of coat Dave was asking for. He did spot and try on a yellow frock coat at the Historical Costume Company, but it was too pale and washed out, as well as looking a bit worn for what Dave had in mind. What I did note was the cut and style, which was very different from everything Dave had described as wanting and therefore completely changed how much fabric might be needed. I pointed this out to Dave, saying that we may have enough of the previously eyed up brocade only to be told it was a bit creamy.

Imagine more sighing at this point.

All of this meant that I came away from the fayre without fabric and we'll have to wait for TORM (The Original Re-enactors Market) in a couple of weeks to try again.

I did buy some ginger and whiskey fudge (yum) and some traditional gingerbread from Angela's Pantry. Dave bought some epaulets and that was it! Admittedly he did try to buy other things, but they were either the wrong colour or far too expensive for his budget.

I also helped Richard to buy a hat.

Who knew!

Saturday morning I abandoned Dave and headed off to Coventry's Spinners, Dyers and Weavers Guild for their monthly meeting. This time, I took along my spinning wheel to ask the ladies at the guild to look at it for me.

I've had this wheel since May last year, but I've not really made much progress with her. I have managed to spin on her, but it's a bit hit and miss for me - although Christina borrowed the wheel last summer and reported that she 'rocked', so things obviously came together for her. With such a glowing report from Chris, my continued struggle to spin has becoming rather disheartening and the act of spinning very frustrating. I decided it was time to get another opinion and the combined vast experience of the guild seemed to be the place to go.

Three ladies had a look at her for me and their prognosis wasn't good. Two ladies tried spinning on her, neither of them getting very far. One lady even went so far to blurt out that it was 'awful' after struggling to get anywhere for ten minutes.

The verdict was that while the wheel was lovely to look at and well made, the spinning action of the wheel wasn't smooth, but juddery. They said that the wheel doesn't turn smoothly on it's axis and has a distinct wobble as well as moving in an elliptical fashion, possibly because the uprights are twisted. The double drive was a problem and adjusting it didn't seem to help, while it would spin it took in the single too quickly making it impossible to get enough twist in it and meaning you need to draft very quickly or the single snaps. These dear ladies tried, but what they were saying matched my own experience and proved that it wasn't just me being not cut out for spinning on a wheel.

The prognosis was that it really needed to be taken to a spinning wheel expert for some serious TLC. I had tales of how some wheels are tempermental and only work for specific people (explaining why Chris got on so well) while some perfectly good wheels will not behave when certain individuals go near them. Choosing a spinning wheel is a very personal thing, so I am told and sometimes a wheel chooses you - which sounds awfully like a cat to me!

In some ways these words of wisdom and advice were a relief to hear but in others, disappointing. After all those months of struggling to get anywhere, I was hoping the guild ladies would wave a magic wand and the wheel and I would suddenly be on the best of terms.

Sadly, it was not to be so.

My wheel sat in the room, surrounded by dozens of other spinning wheels all whirring away while people tutted over my poor baby and then a lady called Alice offered to lend me a wheel. Needless to say I jumped at the opportunity and yesterday morning (Sunday) I headed off to collect my soon to be borrowed wheel.

Alice had got the wheel, an Ashford Traditional, out and dusted her off ready to use. She showed me how to set her up, demonstrated how a wheel should turn on its axis... i.e. no judder, no wobble, no up and down movement, it should just go around and around. She showed me now easy treadling should be (really, it should be) and then, sat me down and told me to have a go.

I picked up the fluff she put in my lap, a piece of washed, raw fleece rather than the tops I'm used to, with a much shorter staple and drew through the leader with some trepidation. I started the wheel, it rotated... In the right direction, never once trying to reverse itself for no good reason... And I treadled, smoothly, no problems as I allowed the leader to start moving through my hands...

And then I put the fluff near the leader, joined it as if I'd been doing it all my life and started to spin.

And that was it. It worked. My hands obviously knew what they were doing. I was drafting without problem and perfectly spun single with just the odd bit of blobbiness was feeding through onto the bobbin.

I was shocked!

I knew I could spin on a spindle, but it now turns out that after month after month of struggling, I also know how to spin on a wheel but my results were so poor that I hadn't realised it. Half of spinning is muscle memory, that is your hands need to learn how to draft and hold the fibre, how to keep the tension in the spun single and how to stop the spin travelling into your fibre store... And my hands know how to do this. Who knew?!!!

I took the wheel home and some hours later I repeated the experience and in less than one hour I'd spun this...



Compare it to this...



My most successful single spun on my wheel in about two and a half hours. If you compare the quality of the single, the one from my wheel is no where near so well spun or even as the one from the borrowed Ashford.

There was no battle. No fight with the borrowed Ashford. I just sat there and spun. Who'd have thought it would be so easy?

Cycling craziness and crossed stitches

Today got off to an auspicious start with not one, but two incidents worth remarking about as I cycled into work.

The first heart stopping moment came when I was cycling through the back streets and a BMW swerved to a halt in front of me. Having skidded to a stop and wondering what he was playing at, the driver in question wound down his window and asked if I knew where the football ground was. Apart from having been guided far off route by his SatNav, I'm not sure of the etiquette for scaring a cyclist witless by nearly running them off the road because you're lost.

Directions politely given, I went on my way only to encounter a crazy woman in a motorised wheel chair who tried to run me off the pavement as I walked my bike past a particularly busy bit of road. I'll admit to be momentarily confused when she started weaving her chair from side to side across the pavement as she approached, before the penny dropped and I realised that she was trying to force me to step off the pavement, into the road... In front of oncoming traffic.

Ignoring the fact that I was on foot, pushing the bicycle, which made me a pedestrian and legitimate user of the footpath, what this lady was doing was dangerous in the extreme. If she had managed to force me into the road at that point, I'd not be sitting here typing this today.

So a word of warning, watch out for excitable lost men in BMW's and crazy women riding motorised wheel chairs, they're the kind of danger the highway code doesn't tell you to look for.

Back in the distinctly less stressful world of crafting, I've been continuing to play with Tunisian Crochet.

Next up for me is looking at crossed stitches and here we have a sample of Front Crossed Simple Stitch (FxTss).



The idea here, as with crossed stitches in standard crochet, is to work the stitches in pairs, working the second stitch and then the first stitch, so they cross over. I've crocheted this swatch in a DK weight wool using a 6mm hook and since the foundation stitch is a Tss, I'm working the front loops throughout so there is a bad case of curl going on here. It's pretty though and the the resulting fabric is dense, with the stitches pulling in from the sides narrowing the swatch quite a bit compared with previous samples done on the same number of stitches.

I was feeling adventurous, so I decided to try this again, but this time I extended the foundation stitch to see what would happen...



Extending a Tunisian foundation stitch means adding an extra chain once you've worked the stitch. i.e. you put your hook through which ever bit of the previous row you're picking up from, yarn over and pull through forming the standard foundation stitch... Then yarn over again and pull through a single loop, creating an extra chain and lengthening the foundation stitch you've just made.

In this case, I've made a swatch of Extended Front Crossed Simple Stitch (ExFxTss). I've no idea if this is featured in the excellent Encyclopedia of Tunisian Crochet as I made it up on the spur of the moment, based on the previous swatch. Extending the crossed stitch gave the piece more drape, eliminated curl entirely and changed the pattern from little 'x's to inverted 'v's.

I like it.

Finally - it's been published by the Beeb, so that makes it official - knitting is good for you.

Youpunkeroo and lazy, crafty Sundays

Saturday morning I made my way over to Coventry's Canal Basin to check out the new shop called 'Youpunkeroo' that I talked about in my last post. I was met at the door by the owner, a lady called Lisa who recognised me from my avatar picture.

It turns out that Youpunkeroo is a craft workshop and drop in centre, rather than a shop exactly. The idea is that you turn up and try out crafts, with Lisa and her husband on hand to teach you the basics. Website is here and blog here.

Thursday nights is craft night, intended for knitting and other needlecrafts but Lisa said they had the pottery wheel going last week as two ladies wanted to have a go. The group meets from 7pm to 9pm and it's currently free, but a nominal charge (or kitty) may be introduced to cover tea, cakes and heating, depending on how things go... Which sounds fair enough to me.

Good luck, Lisa - hope things go well for you!

Sunday, I drove over to Helens for a 'lazy, crafty Sunday'. The venue was originally Helen's house, changed to Lorna's house and then back to Helen's house at the last minute. Personally, I wasn't confused because I only know where Helen lives, so I was going to drive to hers and then follow her :)

As it was, I arrived first so got my pick of spot on the comfy sofa. I had tea and did some spinning. There were crisps/chips and excellent dip and Lorna's famed 'wet chicken' soup which sadly never got sampled. Then there was more tea, cupcakes and knitting as I started on the second (third) Jaywalker to match this one which I finished last week.



Good company and a pleasant afternoon, doing needlework - what more could I ask for. It also turned out I knew more about how to fix knitting which has gone wrong than I thought I did, even if the knitting in question was defying the laws of physics and knitting!

More Tunisian crochet

In the past few days I've heard news of a new craft shop which opened up in Coventry's Canal Basin last week. I've been messaging back and forth with the shop's owner on Ravelry, who says it's open Wednesdays, Fridays and weekends. The shop's called 'Youpunkeroo' and is aiming to be a sort of workshop, with drop in and do as well as group sessions and classes. She's also starting up an evening crafting group on Thursdays, starting this week. I haven't checked the shop out as of yet, but it's on my to do list.

Knitting has been continuing apace, with the Jaywalker sock accompanying me on our trip to the Royal Armouries on Saturday. It didn't get much of an airing though, only coming out so I could knit a row or two in the evening. The first sock is finished and fits. I'm still not 100% happy with it - the ribbed cuff is more decorative than functional for example - but I've decided that it will have to do as I'm not sure I'd have the heart to rip it out and start again. If I did, the Jaywalker may never happen and the yarn would be reknit into a different sock. It is a pretty sock, which is why I've persevered so far, but there are limits to how many times I'm willing to rip out and reknit the same sock.

An ongoing theme since Christmas has been Tunisian Crochet, which is what I wanted to write about today. I'm still slowly working my way through the book (Encyclopedia of Tunisian Crochet) Dave bought me and having great fun in the process.

I decided that rather than continue crocheting little squares, I'd up the stitch count to 30 and make slightly bigger pieces, which I'll keep and eventually join together to make a blanket. This is by no means a quick project and I'd expect to keep plugging away at it throughout the year as my fancy takes me.

I've worked through the standard foundation stitches and skipped the more exotic or unconventional ones. Then I started looking at combining standard crochet stitches with Tunisian foundation stitches.

Remembering that the book is written by an American lady, it talks about using Double Crochet with Tunisian foundation stitches. Double crochet (our Treble) is a stalwart of the crochet world and gives a lighter, less dense fabric than is typical of Tunisian foundations. It's executed by forming the Tunisian base row in the normal way, then working forward along the row crocheting through your chosen foundation loop, but doing a DC (tr) rather than a SC (dc) and failing to pull through the last loop (so the stitches accumulate on the hook as normal). The result is a very loose top to the stitches when you do the return row, reminiscent of broomstick crochet/lace - which can distort the work with each successive row.

To get around this, I took one of the suggestions from the book and alternated rows of DC with standard foundation rows...

This for example is a sample of alternating rows of Tunisian Simple Stitch (Tss) and Double Crochet Tunisian Simple Stitch (DcTss).



I've gone up to a 6mm hook for this in my ever continuing quest to conquer the curl and looking at the fabric I think that's about as big as I should go for the yarn I'm using, which is a superwash wool in DK. The recommended hook size for this would be 4mm, so that's an increase by four sizes! It still doesn't lie flat, but the bigger hook combined with the taller stitches is giving a fabric with more drape to it, so I reckon that if worked into a blanket and after a bit of blocking it might flatten out.

Next up, I tried the same thing with a Tunisian knit stitch. Again, I've alternated rows of Tunisian Knit Stitch (Tks) with Double Crochet Tunisian Knit Stitch (DcTks).



The photo doesn't do this justice and it's actually quite pleasing to look at. The main problem I had was keeping track of the stitches with this one and I took to counting at the end of each row. Somehow I was regularly managing to decrease which wasn't what I was after at all. What this sample did do was teach me how to read the work which helped no end in spotting where a mistake was once I'd figured out that I must have made one!

Finally, I had a go with the same thing using alternating rows of Tunisian Purl Stitch (Tps) and Double Crochet Tunisian Purl Stitch (DcTps)...



This one lays flat without any trouble at all. It also ends up with very distinctive rows of purl bumps across the front - not exactly unattractive, but very obvious. With this one, rather than having problems with accidentally decreasing, I was increasing! Working the back loops could be quite difficult on the DcTps row, with the extra stitch height pulling on the previous row and distorting things so it was hard to see where I was supposed to put my hook. Bearing in mind I haven't read how you deliberately increase (or decrease) I think this is something of an accomplishment!

A day out up north

Yesterday we were intending to go the Foreign Fields, LARP Fayre in Bristol but unfortunately it was canceled at the last minute by the venue's Health and Safety people. With all the snow and ice, they decided it was too dangerous for the event to go ahead and pulled the plug. This caused quite a bit of disappointment in our household, especially since it's Dave's birthday today and the trip was part of his birthday plans.

After a bit of head scratching, Richard suggested we go to the Royal Armouries in Leeds, which Dave has been angling to visit for a while. I briefly weighed it up against a Butterfly Farm and a Sealife Centre, but lots of swords, guns and armour won out. So yesterday, we headed off to Leeds along with Richard and Nat - after carefully scrutinising the weather forecast, which promised the day would be cold but fine (it was) with no expected snow (they were right this time, thank goodness).

The building didn't look like much from the outside but once we reached the stair case and looked up... All I can say is wow, I have never seen so many guns, swords, bayonets, knives, maces, armour and miscellaneous weaponry in one place, let alone hung from the wall as it was.

So started a day of looking at more and more weapons and absorbing information about the history of warfare. It was a long, bloody history and the european section made me feel rather sad as it does seem we've spent a long, long, long time working out the best way to kill one another. Thought provoking, sobering and very interesting stuff.

After lunch we headed into the Oriental section (the birthday boy's choice and a good one) which was more of a feast for the old eyes. Impressive diorama's had been set up like these...







And can you imagine this War Elephant charging towards you?



I was particularly intrigued by the craftsmanship that had gone into making the items on display. Faded and worn they might be, but each piece of armour was as much for ceremonial purposes as anything and were works of art in their own right. Each piece was carefully decorated while the armour was covered in heavily embroidered and beaded fabric, so that what you had was clothing which happened to contain armour.





I'd have liked to have seen more costume on display, but that could just be my costumer's eye needing to be satisfied. I did take lots of pictures, but the lighting and position of the cases meant that if you took one photo, you also got reflections of everything else nearby.

It was good nonetheless, although by the end of the afternoon I was exhausted, not just from all the walking around but from information overload.

To sum up, the museum is definitely worth a visit and don't expect to see everything in one day. Pick which exhibits you'd like to see and plan accordingly. If you like history and have an interest in events which shaped the world we live into today, I think there'd be something here for you.

When we were done, we headed back to Richards before going out for a bite to eat. I think we may have bored poor Richard when we unexpectedly started frothing about our time in the Cam. While the bureaucracy may have sucked the life out of it for me in the end, there were definitely good parts about the game before it all went sour and last night, the good memories flowed. It hasn't been mentioned in our house for years, so I've no idea where all the enthusiasm came from but gosh did we froth. Sorry Richard!

The journey home was very quiet and I do mean very quiet. The M1 at 11pm on a Saturday evening is not usually busy, but last night there were sections of the journey when we were the only car on the road. When other traffic did pass us (I'm a slow driver who observes the speed limit) it was one or two cars and that was it. Wierd. Perhaps the snow had scared all the other drivers into staying at home!

Snow!

As I near the end of a week which has been dominated by the weather, I thought I'd post the obligatory picture of our garden buried under a respectable amount of snow.



The last time I posted a picture like this was nearly two years ago and if you compare the two photographs, taken from the same spot, they do look remarkably similar!

Snow has been the focus of pretty much everything this week as the white stuff has been falling on and off since Sunday. Things have kept going, until today that is when the local Councils started to run out of Grit, which means they've taken to rationing it.

This is bad.

Coventry's council and the highways agency still have grit, but they're prioritising which roads to treat.

This morning, none of the side roads had been treated, or at least none of the ones I drove over had been. Fortunately, most people seemed to have stayed at home - as evidenced at work by the number of empty desks, closed cafes, nursery and cancelled lectures on campus today - so the traffic was light, but if it hadn't been, I dread to think how bad the roads would have been.

Still, I made it in to work. Albeit very slowly and tentatively, all the while warily watching out for children dicing with death as they sledged on plastic sheeting down the slippery, ice/snow covered roads I was trying to drive over.

Hopefully, things will be a bit clearer come the time for the journey home tonight. I shall be watching the forecast closely.

No surprises in London

The temperature has dipped again, reminding us it's full on winter out there as it's been snowing on and off since yesterday lunchtime. Reading the news, it looks like London has pretty much ground to a halt, so perhaps last week and not this week was the time to be on that training course.

The trip itself was OK I guess as these things go. My hotel was in Tower Bridge, while the training centre was just around the Corner from Bank tube station. I hate traveling on the tube, so I hiked over and back each morning, with each journey coming in at just under two miles... Which all went towards canceling out some of effects of living out of a hotel and restaurant all week!

I got lost quite a bit too. This is the first time I've been on a training course where I haven't also had a streaming head cold to deal with as well. I was surprised at how much more alert it made me feel and willing to wander around the streets of London when the class was done. Nothing spectacular, I just sort of explored looking for any worthwhile shops really; Dave tells me that despite my efforts I missed a book shop. :(

The course itself was pretty much as expected. There were only six delegates, all experienced sys admins and the course material was heavy going, with some sections rather like pulling teeth. The instructor was very excitable and obviously enthusiastic about his subject, which (for those who like to know these things) was the Solaris OS. I was on a 'delta' course for experienced systems administrators, i.e. a course to highlight what has changed in the latest version.

As planned, I took the much lamented Jaywalker sock with me to plough on with in the evenings, making a couple of changes this time. I cast on on 2.25mm needles and did a K1b, P1 rib for the cuff which will hopefully pull it in a bit. Once past the cuff, I returned to my 2.5mm needles for the rest of the sock. About half way down the leg (which I've knit considerably shorter) my fingers were incredibly sore, so as an experiment I switched from the metal needles back to my Clover bamboo DPNs at which point the going got a lot easier. Having knit this sock leg twice on metal pins, it seems that I've adjusted enough to the pattern that I can cope on my much blunter bamboo's. This meant much relief for my poor fingers.

Nothing to see at this stage, but the sock returned from London at approximately the same point I ripped it out last time and I've worked on it some over the weekend, so that it's now past the gusset and I'm knitting down the foot towards the toe.

The moment of truth when I try it on will come at some point soon... Unless of course I get distracted by lace in the near future.