Purple Tailored Cardigan

Purple Tailored Cardigan, a photo by Linda McK on Flickr.

I'm so glad to get this one finished. Fuzzy yarn in a dark colour does not make for easy row counting. Throw in a lot of evening knitting and the fact that I'm very close to needing varifocals and it all adds up to not a very enjoyable knitting experience.
This is my second one of this pattern. This time I made the same size but in a slightly heavier yarn so it is bigger. I also made it longer, added 4 buttons instead of 3 (they were already in the button box no point in leaving one as it'll never get used). The sleeves are also longer but I've made them too long this time. I should have made the bottom garter bands bigger but I got bored doing garter stitch.
I like how it's turned oiut and can see myself getting lots of wear out of it.

Went to the library on Saturday

Ghost ship, a photo by alancleaver_2000 on Flickr.

I managed to finish my last 2 library books within a week (with a day to spare). Though one of them was a PG Wodehouse and they don't take many hours to read.
I decided to decrease the number of books I borrow from the library so this time I took out 4 instead of 5. Of course, 3 of them are quite long books so sort of defeats the purpose. I got 2 historical, 1 thriller and 1 fantasy.
I haven't started reading any of them as I've got to read and finish the next installment in the Richard Bolitho series by Alexander Kent by Saturday. I'm on book 6 of 24, so along way to go. The books are set in the late 18th Century and are set on British naval ships (hence the photo of the tall ship). It was my mum who suggested I read them - I'd been re-watching the Hornblower and I'd said to her that I was going to read the books when she suggested Alexander Kent as an alternative and did I want her collection of his books. Of course she only had books from the end of the series so I'm having to buy all the ones from the beginning. My mum used to be an avid reader but she finds it difficult to concentrate for too long but she's enjoying rereading these books. I'm reading them and then passing them onto her to read and as I'm going to visit her at the weekend and as she's finished the previous book in the series last week I've got to go with the next book.

See it here first

Vine Lace Vest, a photo by Linda McK on Flickr.

Finally got around to putting the finishing touches to the vest with the addition of 3 crotchet loops and 3 buttons. The only other mod I made was to lengthen the vest by a couple of inches. I think another couple of inches would have been even better. I didn't want to block it too heavily as the yarn is an wool/acrylic blend.

This is a knitting blog

so I guess I should talk about knitting. Or rather how I've slowed down in my knitting output as I have to get through one library book a week. I do have a FO to show you which has been finished for about a month now but I still haven't got around to recharging my camera battery to take photos. I haven't even worn it yet - it's the Vine Lace Vest and I don't have a thing to wear with it. I like to have long-sleeves at work as I tend to get cold if I'm in short-sleeves but of my long-sleeved tops they are either the wrong colour or have the wrong neckline or are a bit on the cropped side for work. Guess I should get out there and buy a new top.

Oh, and I've also knitted an infinity scarf which I've worn but not photo'ed and it's been put away for next winter.

I am also nearly 3/4 done with a plain cardigan which hopefully I'll get finished in the next fortnight.

You can't beat a good book

Focus on Books, a photo by Kamal H. on Flickr.

I used to be quite an avid reader until my job relocated and I could no longer get to work by public transport. Losing those 2 hours a day for reading reduced the number of books I read in a year. I must have restarted knitting about 2002 and that impacted my reading even further.

I knew that I was reading less but I had no idea how many books I was actually reading so in November 2004 I started keep tracking of the books I was reading. It’s just a simple list of book title and author and then I tally up the numbers read at the end of each year.

2005 :: 31 books
2006 :: 26 books
2007 :: 23 books
2008 :: 10 books
2009 :: 23 books
2010 :: 15 books

I must have done a lot of knitting in 2008. 2010 would have been even less but I got a Kindle in November and I managed to read 7 books while knitting.

I have so many books on my shelves sitting unread and I keep adding to them. This year’s resolutions were - read more books, try different genres and only buy books for the Kindle. So far I’ve managed 2 out of 3. Yes, I haven’t bought a single book for the Kindle this year even though it’s ideal for knitting and reading at the same time. My excuse is that in light of all the council cuts I’d better join the library and help their usage statistics.

This year I have read 19 books from 18 different authors, one of them has been a reread, 5 have been on the Kindle and 9 of them have been library books. I have also only read books from 4 of the authors before.

I try to set aside Wednesday evening and late afternoon Saturday and Sunday for reading and if I don’t have anything arranged for weekend mornings I’ll read in bed for an hour before getting up. Having library books is also helping as I like to finish them before they are due back.

Ridiculously excited about the arrival of a DVD

«In Flanders' Fields» - published & illustrated in 1918, a photo by stoixeia on Flickr.

Back in 1979 the BBC produced a 5 part series based on Vera Brittain's book "Testament of Youth". It was a superb piece of drama that made quite an impact on me. It wasn't until reading the book that I realised how young they all were and how young the platoon leaders were - Roland was straight out of boarding school and was put in charge of 60 or so men. I have reread the book a few times over the years but the series has only been repeated once or twice. I happened to notice last week that it was released on dvd in 2010 so I just had to order a copy and it finally arrived today.

Also worth watching is "A Woman in Love and War: Vera Brittain" which was a BBC docu-drama.


I have also read "Letters From a Lost Generation - First World War Letters of Vera Brittain and Four Friends" which gave even greater insight into the personal tragedies caused by the war. It also gave some insight into the thoughts of well-off, privileged young Edwardians. Some of them are quite disconcerting:


In a letter from Flanders,  Roland writes to Vera about 2 graves close by to where he is sitting writing the letter - one of a private and one of a Major:


I cannot help thinking of the two together and of the greater value of the one. What a pity it is that the same piece of lead takes away as easily a brilliant life and one that is merely vegetation.


With statements like that no wonder there was great social reform after WWI.

I've never reread the book of letters perhaps now will be an ideal time to reread both books. Despite "Testament of Youth" being one of my top 10 books I have never felt the urge to read the next 2 autobiographical volumes "Testament of Friendship" and "Testament of Experience". The last 2 volumes are out of print so I'll have to buy them second-hand as they also don't have any of the books in the local library.  "Testament of Friendship" should be a good follow-up to the recent watching of South Riding" as it's about her friendhip with Winifred Holtby.

Here's a youtube snippet of a "Testament of Youth"

I even thought about podcasting

microphone, a photo by timsnell on Flickr.

which if you knew me you'd find hilarious as you'd definitely not describe me as a talker.

I know in theory what would make a good podcast (or rather I know what I enjoy listening to) but putting it into practice would be a different matter and would take a lot more time than blogging. Spare time is something that I don't have a lot of currently.

There's a lot of knitting podcasts out there but I only listen to a handful. If I don't like a podcaster's voice then I won't listen to the podcast no matter how good it is. I do prefer UK podcasts but there's not many of them of around and I've certainly not heard a Scottish one.

My current favourite is the imake podcast. It's more of a multi-craft pod rather than just a knitting pod. Martine has a very pleasant voice and the podcast is very professionally produced. She's based in Guernsey so she differentiates her podcast from the others by including a regular section about all things Guernsey. She's only been podcasting since August, has produced 19 episodes and has covered a number of different crafts. I'm working my way through the back catalogue and I rather like the sound of working with precious metal clay. I've even looked up classes but I couldn't find any in Edinburgh or Glasgow.

So, what's your favourite podcast and do you listen to any non-craft podcasts?

The return of the blog?

Four years and a day since I last blogged no reason why I can't start again. I've been mulling over the idea of returning to blogging for a while now driven mainly by my increasing ambivalence towards Ravelry. Don't get me wrong I think Ravelry is a great site and I have spent waaaay too much time on the site since 2008 but I've been feeling for the past six months or so that alot of that it's become a time suck and that time has been wasted and could be better spent doing something else. The patterns and projects side has become an essential tool and I'll keep on using them but I should keep out of the forums. It's not as if I was posting, I've just spent a lot of time reading threads and thinking of posting comments but hardly ever doing so. So, whenever I feel the temptation to go into the forums tab I'm going to start a blog post instead. The cardigan in the previous post is still in existence and has never been worn. It sits (or to be more accurate) is half falling off a shelf in the wardrobe waiting to be reknitted into a Saroyan.

Not sure

I think it really makes me look abnormally long and lanky - almost as if I'd changed the proportions of the photo. Do you think it's the sleeves? Maybe if I shorten them to just before the elbow and then make them flare out? Or should I have shoert sleeves and put an extra couple of rows onto the body? I have no spare yarn - what you see is all I have.

4 times I've started a new project....

....and I've got nothing to show.
I've had these 17 balls of Garnstudio for 3 years or more so I thought it was about time I sat down and knitted them up. I had in mind Sheringham from the Denim Knits Magazine so I cast on for that. I decided that there wasn't enough stitch definition and the pattern was not obvious so out it came.
I decided to go for a more obvious pattern - Tree of Life (again from Denim Knits). Couple of inches in I decided that there was still not enough stitch definition and that I didn't like knitting with such a thread-like yarn. So, I doubled it and went back to Sheringham. The pattern was looking good, I'd done about 2 pattern repeats when I thought I'd better measure the width - yes you've guessed it was going to be too big - about 6 inches too big and we know how much cotton can stretch sideways after a couple of washes.
Doubled Silke Tweed was giving me 18sts by 24 rows the perfect gauge for Tuja (which was doing the blog rounds in 2004) so I cast on for that. I'd done about 12 rows when I realised I'd actually twisted it while joining it so out it came again.
Will I give up? No. This bloody yarn is going to be knit into something whether it wants to or not.

Three Weeks Since My Last Post

Surely, it must be time for another finished project:




Pattern: Boatman from Denim Knits Magazine.
Size: 8-9 years
Yarn DK 100% wool from Yarn Warehouse

Look at the size I knitted - all the patterns in this book have alot of ease in them. The 8-9 year size came in at a 42 inch finished bust size!

I adapted the pattern using the Grand Plan Pullover chart from Interweave knits. I think the sleeves could be a bit slimmer but otherwise it's a good fit.

This is a great pattern book - I'd rate it the second best in my collection. There's so many patterns that I want to knit from it but I wouldn't want to do them all in denim yarn. Patrick is the only one that I want to knit in denim, the othes I'd do in wool but first of all I think I'm going to have to find another template pattern to use for my adaptions - one with slimmer sleeves.

Slouchy Socks

Pattern: Smith from Noro Knits Book (the one with Butterfly)
Yarn: Yarn Warehouse naturally oiled aran plus Rowan Magpie aran for the toes

A bit on the baggy side for my liking around the ankles and foot but I've always intended wearing these socks for lillinging about the house and I can still get my slippers on (added bonus)!!

Mittens On Kittens

This seems to a never-ending hank of yarn. I think I bought 1.1kg of this natural oiled aran weight yarn from the shop at New Lanark about 3 years ago and so far I've knitted an aran jumper, a hat,a pair of legwarmers and now these mittens and I still have enough left to knit a slouchy pair of socks. All this for only £10.

Friday's Favourite Five

This week it's DVDs that I like to rewatch and rewatch and rewatch:

Persuasion starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds
Jane Eyre starring Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke
How to Make an American Quilt starring Winona Ryder
Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle
Anna Karenina starring Helen McCrory

Guess who likes TV Period Dramas especially the ones made by the BBC?

Still in the land of small projects

Another hat for someone who very rarely wears a hat:




Pattern: Lake Park Hat by Marnie MacLean
Yarn: sock yarn by Curious Yarns (whose website has been offline since the beginning of January)

Might just have been me but I got a bit lost among the decreases at the crown but I managed to fudge it and as it's variegated yarn you have to really study it to notice that the pattern goes a bit off kilter. It's on the crown of the head so as I can't see it while I'm wearing it I can forget that there's a mistake there. Out of sight out of mind - works for me.

There's matching gloves so guess what I'm making now.

Friday Favourite Five

Is that another week gone? This week it's going to songs that make me stop what I'm doing, sit down, sigh and then hit the replay button.

"Everbody Hurts " REM
"Perfect Day" Lou Reed
"Bus to St Cloud" Trisha Yearwood
"Unloved" Jann Arden
"Deep Inside" Glengarry Bhoys

What's yours?

Two For The Price of One

Yep, not one but two finished items. I have finished the Besotted Scarf from Hello Yarn:

I still had enough yarn left over to knit up Swell from Knitty:

and I still have enough of the blue and gray to knit another earflap hat but with the colours reversed.

FRIDAY'S FAVOURITE FIVE

I'm not very good at sticking to new year's resolutions - I find I stick better to them if I set them later on in the month or in February. Two of those resolutions are to do with the blog. The first is to post more than I did in 2006. As I only made 17 posts in 2006 this should be a cinch. The second resolution was to put more of my personality into the blog - the problem with that is that I'm quite a private person and even though I love reading about other people's daily life on their blogs I just can't write about mine in an interesting way so i always just stick to the knitting.

So, the only way I can think of putting some more of my personality into the blog is that every Friday I'll list five things that I like (let's see how long this last)!

FRIDAY'S FAVOURITE FIVE: FLAVOURS

1. Cinnamon - love it in sweet breads, cakes, pastry, porridge, tea, with bananas in a sandwich and in sweets ( though I can only find cinnamon balls I love those Hot Tamale jelly sweets you get in the States)
2. Vanilla - best flavour for ice cream, yoghurt, custard, coffee. I buy "So Good Soya Mik" because it's got a taste reminiscent of vanilla. Crabtree & Evelyn also sell a good body lotion that smells of vanilla.
3. Tomato - best tinned soup is cream of tomato. If I make a casserole from scratch I always shove in a can of chopped tomatoes and tomato based past sauces are the only way to go.
4. Lemon - definitely a taste I've acquired as I got older. It used to be strawberry but i find that too sickly now so when it comes to sweets I'll usually pick lemon flavoured ones - love lemon cheescake, lemon meringue pie, lemon & lime marmalade, lemon curd, lemon boiled sweets and lemon chicken is my favourite chinese dish.
5. Pepper - actually this was a toss up between pepper and garlic - I seem to put them in everything but pepper wins out as I like the cracked black pepper crisps from M&S.

There you go that's five things you didn't know about me - what's your favourite five flavours?

Scarves are so tedious to knit. i'm not even half-way through it and i'm bored already. I'll keep on knitting it until it's about 60 inches in length and then weigh how much yarn I've still got left. If it's enough for a pair of legwarmers or for a hat then I'll cast off. If there's not eneough left then I'll just keep knitting on the scarf until the yarn it all knitted up.

I've decided that the first quarter of the year is going to be spent on knitting up the odd balls of leftovers. I expect the two baskets I keep my scarves in will soon be overflowing but I've also decided thet the 2 long skinney scarves are not getting worn and it there is not enough matching yarn in the leftovers to widen them without disrupting their striped sequences then they are getting ripped out and recycled into my log cabin blanket (which I haven't started yet but is in the planning stages).

2007 is turning into the year of the makeover. Out goes the curly hair, in comes straight hair and make-up. One photo is hairdresser/beautician version and the other photo is of my efforts. I don't know what's more difficult - using the straighteners or putting on foundation evenly !! I think I'm getting there with the hair at least it doesn't look like scarecrow hair anymore when I do it.

Never mind the makeover I'm wearing my own knits in those photos.

I'm still working away on using up leftovers. I'm knitting the besotted scarf which everyone and their granny seems to have knitted