A gentleman's nightcap

I'm way behind on my blogging, but with holidays out of the way, I can finally reveal the top secret project that I've been working on for the past couple of months. Well, when I say 'top secret', those who know me in person saw me working on it, but I've avoided blogging anything as the intended recipient reads this blog.

Last year, I spied this pattern on Knitty for a 1840's gentleman's nightcap.

If you look at the link, you'll see that this pattern was originally published in The Workwoman's Guide in 1838, by an anonymous author who signed herself 'A Lady'... Franklin Habit (who's blog often features the adventures of Delores the sheep) reworked the pattern for the modern knitter, suggesting it as an example of 'manly' lace. From his blog entries on the subject, he thought of it as a historical curiousity, possibly of interest for the lace brim or as a baby's bonnet...

But there are those of us who do know potential Victorian gentlemen who might have a cold head, hence the reason we might want to knit it.

This is Richard, who likes hats.





Richard also has the LARP bug and is something of a re-enactor, which means he has a reason to collect hats of all sorts for costume purposes. I saw this pattern last autumn and immediately thought of him. Sadly, my Christmas knitting list was already very full with items for my numerous relatives and I didn't see me managing to make it in time for December, so I decided to try to make it for his birthday which was earlier this month.

I queued the pattern on Ravelry and watched carefully as other knitters attempted to make it, with mixed success. The main problem seemed to be gauge, with quite a few people's efforts resulting in a hat of elephantine proportions. Franklin himself commented on the problems on his blog, reminding people that this was a lace weight project intended for tiny, tiny needles and that if you made it from a heavier yarn, you'd need to gauge up.

This seemed sensible, but after thinking about it (and after all, I had plenty of time to knit it) I decided the thing to do was to find the right yarn, find the size needles it knit up well on and then re-gauge accordingly. i.e. work out the correct gauge for the yarn I wanted to use on the needles which suited it best.

I had a plan.

After much thought, I decided on a crochet cotton I'd seen Steelbreeze using for her Blusa Queen (yes, the pattern is in Portuguese - Steelbreeze is a brave lady), a sort of lacy cardigan she's been working away on. This cotton is very soft and wearable, not like many crochet cottons that I seem to see for sale which while shiny, are a bit scratchy.

The cotton in question is a No. 10 called Clea 1000, from Circulo, bought from Yarnstick who is a small trader based in Birmingham.

After a bit of playing around, I decided it knitted up in stocking stitch nicely on 2mm needles, to a gauge of - 38st x 60rows = 10cm.

Next, I needed Richard's head measurement and despite sneakily trying to measure his hats at events, I wasn't doing very well. I discovered that Richard often buys hats because he likes them, rather than because they fit him very well. So, I guestimated that I'd need to size the brim at about 60cm, working on the basis that if I'd sized up, then a loose night cap was much better than a very tight one which would cut off the circulation to his head while he slept (yes, I kept its original function very much in mind).

The lace border on this hat has a 13 stitch repeat, meaning I needed to cast on a multiple of 13 stitches to make it work. So I cast on 221 stitches on my 2mm needles, bought specially for the job, which gave me an expected brim circumference of approx 59cm.

I started to knit, only to discover nine rows in that while I'd checked and double checked that there was no twist when I joined for circular knitting, somehow I'd managed to knit one in. I ripped the whole thing back and restarted... And did exactly the same thing again!

The third time, I became paranoid, checking there was no twist at the end of each round. I was using a very long (150cm) 2mm needle, with the magic loop method and the only thing I could think of was, that I must somehow be pulling the needles up on the wrong side of the knitting.

This time it worked and the brim knitted up fairly quickly... Then I entered some sort of weird temporal dimension where no matter how much I knit this hat, it never seemed to grow at all.

I plodded on determined to finish this hat and after starting it on 14th April, I finally cast off on 12 June! There followed a hurried scramble to add a tassel (my first ever) and wash and dry the hat, finishing it mere hours before I handed it over to the birthday boy.



I am happy with the result and think that all things considered it came out well, but I am relieved that it is finally done. And I do not want to make another one any time soon!

Our first proper holiday, ever...

Dave and I are back in Coventry, after a week on holiday with Richard in the North Yorkshire Moors. We had rented a little cottage in a pretty and isolated location and were looking forward to a restful week. In my case, this was my first proper holiday since I was seventeen, so my expectation levels were high!

The weather wasn't great, with only one really nice day and I was ill for some of the week, but otherwise it was a nice break and we did our best to take in the sights.

On our one sunny day, we visited Robin Hood's Bay, taking in a walk to Boggle Hole where Dave indulged in some fossil hunting. He persuaded Richard to help him, but the latter backed off when part of the cliff face came crashing down... Dave of course, rushed over for a closer look.





It was very pretty, with clear views out over the bay and lots of dogs and people playing in the water. Very hot too and after lunch we climbed slowly back up through the village, looking in the little shops.



Eden Camp was well worth a visit and definitely worth the £5 entrance fee. There was so much to see, we didn't get time to do the whole museum and the nature of the place meant that even when the heavens opened (and boy did they open) there were lots of huts to shelter in.

Whitby is another town built on a hill, with a serious trend towards New Age or Goth type shops. Dave tells me this is because of Dracula's connections with the town, but I just marvelled at the number of shops selling spell lists!

We walked the 199 steps, Richard said there was one missing as he counted 198, which seems to tally with the debate on Whitby's website. At the top of the steps, is St Mary's Church, which looks like a mish-mash of at least three churches stuck together.



Very odd looking building, which looked much prettier from a distance than close up.



There were also some very weird corrosive effects going on with some of the gravestones.



Despite searching the town as thoroughly as I could, alas I did not find a yarn shop in Whitby, despite the tour guide saying there was one.

We also visited the Danby Moors Centre, which was very interesting and had a tea shop I'd definitely recommend, if anyone is in the area. No photo's I'm afraid, but while out on the moors we did see plenty of wild life. There were rabbits and lots and lots of sheep, of so many different kinds that I lost track. Richard bought a book - Know Your Sheep - but I still couldn't identify the many breeds we saw ambling along the side of the road, or munching away on grass verges.

I did manage to get this picture of a moorland bird and chicks of some sort. I'm afraid I don't know what she was, but we'd pulled over to let another car pass and I noticed some bits of fluff moving in the verge. It took me a few seconds to realise I was looking at a hen and chicks, which she quickly rounded up and hurried away from the car as Dave tried to find the camera. I took this picture at maximum zoom, seconds before the whole brood disappeared into the grass.

A new fireplace

Yesterday, I took this picture of the 'fireplace' in my living room just before setting off for work, as we had workmen coming in to fit its replacement.



The fitters arrived around 9:30am having rather optimistically saying they'd be gone by 1pm... I think perhaps they underestimated how much work was involved as they didn't escape until 5:30pm! Dave was in charge as I couldn't stay home all day and reports they worked steadily all day, but he was shocked at how much tea two men could drink and how much sugar we got through.

The problems started when they removed the old fire and realised just how tiny the original fireplace was and that it wouldn't house the new fire. This meant they had to enlarge the chimney, which highlighted problem number two, namely the chimney breast had no lintel. A lintel (as I understand it) is a reinforced crossbar which is inserted into the chimney opening so that it doesn't collapse into the fireplace. Fortunately, the fitters had one in the van and work continued.

After drilling out the bricks to fit the lintel and more drilling to enlarge the fireplace, they had to dismantle the living room so they could roll back the carpet. Which was when they discovered they'd need to cut through the floorboards to get to the gas pipe. Then, they had the fun of discovering the original hearth which needed a channel drilling in it before they could lay the new gas pipe for the fire.

I'm imagining that by this time, they were sighing heavily.

Ah well, they plodded on. Dave helped them where he could and mucked in with removing wallpaper (discovering probably the best bit of plaster in the house in the process), keeping them topped up with tea. They seemed happy enough.

By the time I came home from work last night, the fireplace had been transformed into this...



Doesn't it look all grown up?


ETA
For those who might be interested, we bought the fire and new fireplace from The Heating Centre in Coventry, who have a large showroom of such things. They were helpful, reasonably priced and arranged the fitting. Even though there was far more work in the fitting than originally thought, the price for the fitting itself did not go up, although we did have to pay extra for the lintel.

Has anyone seen my mojo?

Things have been rather quiet on the blog front the past week or two, mostly as I haven't really had anything much to report. Or at least nothing suitable for public consumption... Not that this blog has a huge readership of course.

The big news is that in the two weeks since returning from London, I seem to have lost my knitting mojo. This is a great shock to me and is very inconvenient since I'm knitting to a non-negotiable deadline at the moment on a project I'm not going to write about because my tiny readership includes spies!

But seriously, my knitting mojo has gone. I sit down to knit and I don't want to. Plain and simple.

Weird and very frustrating.

To top things off, I've been off sick for the past week recovering from minor (but excruciatingly painful) surgery which has meant that I've not been able to spin as it involves too much movement. Today I feel much better and tomorrow I'm intending to back to work, so hopefully come next weekend things will be back to normal!

Work itself is also weird and stressful at the moment. The financial situation is hitting everyone and academia is no refuge. Doom and gloom is abounding at the moment in unreasonable amounts. Workloads in the meantime are not abating and I had to put my foot down again last week as some were pushing to get me to commit to working weekends through to summer 2010. You have no idea how guilty I felt for taking a few days off sick.

Otherwise... I've ordered a new fireplace and fire for the living room, which will hopefully mean the house is slightly cosier next winter than last. With my extremely low tolerance for cold, two weeks of snow just about did for me this year! I'm intending to take Before and After photographs for posterity...

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.