Hello!

Kitchener, but not as we know it.

Occasionally it is useful being a knitter who prefers top down socks and kitchenered toes.

Before Christmas my neighbour came to the door with a brown paper carrier bag and a hopeful expression. He had been to a show at Hopetoun House, and had seen a bargain, a completely gorgeous 100% alpaca piece of drapey cardigan-like wrappyness, yours for the normal price of £135 and his for £30 because of this.

  

 
A nine stitch wide hole.

 

Bearing in mind that this garment was knitted in fine yarn I was doubtful whether I could repair it, but I smiled confidently and offered to try and see if it could be done. 

 

First I captured all the live stitches onto sewing thread and then repaired the laddered columns. You can see in the first photo that some went back four rows. Then I threaded sock yarn through the stitches to secure them. That's the sock yarn (toddy) in the photos above. As you can see the garment-yarn is considerably finer. The hole was not much more than an inch wide, so 9st/inch.

 

These are 2mm Kollage square dpns. 


 

I chose a 1000m/100g British wool laceweight and dyed it the palest stone colour I could manage. The undyed is in the skein above and the dyed yarn is below.

And then I kitchenered.

 

It looks a bit of a dogs breakfast. The ends were woven in to secure them.

The colour match wasn't too bad from the reverse side.

 
But I was unhappy that it was (to my eyes) so glaringly different from the right side.

 

The other problem was that it looks rather uneven. I'm not sure I could have done any better though because there were no ends! What I mean is, when I examined it at the beginning there was no loose yarn. Scroll back up to the first two pictures and you'll see what I mean. The hole is there, but there is no clue as to WHY it's there, no loose threads or snipped ends or fraying, just a bit of puckering on one side. I didn't want to poke about too much for fear of making the damage worse, but there was nothing trailing from the gap... and that's why I had to dye fresh yarn for the repair. 

So in order to make the repair secure I had to "catch" anything which might possibly, maybe, perhaps be the wisp of a loose yarn, and incorporate it into the darn.

 

Fortunately the hole was inside the beautifully draping collar and also near to the back. As David (neighbour) said, someone would have to be very, very, very close to the back of his wife's neck to see it!

n

Desert

This blog is starting to resemble a photographic wasteland.

Reasons.

1. Now that my office/storeroom is once again a bedroom (for the next 6 weeks) I can no longer leave the Photographic lights and the "tent" set up ready for action. Taking photographs isn't spontaneous any more, it requires planning.
2. There hasn't been much to take photos of. The Baktus is finished. It was fun, but I'm not sure I'd do another one, the endless garter stitch got to me about 10cm from the end when I rather lost the will to live.
3. I've been dyeing my socks off and designing new colours for the shop. Unfortunately I can't operate the camera with my rubber gloves on!
4. There is a new sock on the needles, in the new yarn which will be here next month. However I only have a Phone-photo of it and I really don't have time to get the whole shebag out and set it up to take a better one.

The yarn is an eight ply, 100% superwash merino, so it's quite different from any of my other yarns. It's exclusive to The Yarn Yard, which is very exciting. I'm knitting on 2mm needles and getting 8 stitches per inch. The fabric is smooth and bouncy with no gaps between the stitches... you know how sometimes when you knit a sock it looks wonderful, and then you put it on and you can feel all the bumps and ridges on the sole?  Not with this yarn.

There are some fabulous colourways for the Update this week on Thursday. I'll let you see them as soon as I stop the dyeing marathon.

n

PS  Have you seen the total in the sidebar fro p/hop? Marvellous. Thank you to everyone who has made a donation or told a friend about it.

Challenges

Challenge 1.

Get all Clubs in the post by Thursday.
Not as easy as it sounds, the admin and packing and all that takes ages and despite constant cross-referencing (sometimes VERY cross referencing) it seems that there is always a miscount between the parcels I think I should have and the parcels I actually do have. This is almost always in your favour, I have to say, and results in someone getting a parcel they didn't expect (and I just tell them to keep it).

Challenge 2.

The crossword.
8A, 7D, 20D, 18A, 22A, 17D, 16D, 23A
So many I'm not typing them all out today. Clearly I have brain-fug.
The grid is here.
Print and enjoy.

Challenge 3.

After much agonising (and twittering) I finally cast on for the Brainless socks from Yarnissima.
I'm using 689 which was in the shop but isn't any more (you had your chance).

These yarns, which I am beginning to call the Raindrop range, look, I grant you, like a dogs breakfast in the skein.
I simply don't have time to rewind them and prettify them, but I am working on making some of them as permanently available colourways so that will give me the opportunity to make them look a little more photogenic.

Brainless features several things which are new to me.
Judy's magic cast on.
I read this a dozen times before looking on YouTube.
I found this.
Now, I love Cat Bordhi's books and her designs are amazing, but birds flying in and biting the yarn?
Clocks with hands which tock-tock in two directions at once?
Beaks biting your thumb?
I went back to the Knitty article and just did it Very Slowly And Carefully until I got it right.

I have fudged with the pattern already and I didn't start with the side sections until I finished the toes instead of starting as I was still increasing. No point in making life over complicated.

I'm also trying to master (mistress?) socks-on-circs, and as a dpns Luddite it's not my favourite method.

And as if that wasn't enough, I'm doing cables up the sides.
CABLES!
Me?
It's not as if they will ever be seen because they are on the foot and even with sandals the leather on the side of my Birks will wrap them up and hide them.
You will be proud of me though...
... the pattern has them both twisting in the same direction - but I am making the one on the left twist one way, and the one on the right twist the other. Clever-clogs, huh?

This is a phone photo but you can just see the first twist if you look carefully.

And speaking of challenges, have a look at this.
Especially Edna and Dorothy.
And I thought MY life was challenging...

n

Time for a new project.

I need your help.

The French socks are almost knitted (I am bored with them now).

I think I will cast on two pairs of socks next which is unheard of, I am a one thing at a time knitter (apart from the infamous bloke sweater which you can search for in the search thingie on the right if you missed it).

Plain socks for Adam in dark green.
And one of these designs. I am thinking Firestarter or maybe even Spina di Pesce.

And I think it's about time I learned to knit lace. I want a rectangle, not a triangle, and I'm going for the finer sock yarn weights first, probably BFL, or maybe Betwixt if I feel brave on the day (there will be more in the shop soon). So, a pattern which will take no more than 300m but not a feather and fan type of thing. And not patterns on every row, I am not that brave.
I love Hanami but perhaps I'll do that next.

Maybe Lace Ribbon?

Over to you.

n

Out with the old.

The-freezer-under-the-stairs which defrosted itself at the end of last year has done it again. We checked the fuse in the plug and it was fine. We fiddled with the temperature setting knob just in case it had been knocked by over zealous Dyson-hurling into the cupboard and it fired into life... for about a minute and a half... before turning itself off again. We considered getting it repaired, but in the end decided that it was largely redundant anyway. It was bought at a time when there were four of us in the house, not three, and when we were both commuting, so weekend batch-cooking and a monthly Mega Supermarket Shopping Expedition was the norm. Now, with a veg box, we are using hardly any frozen veg at all and we cook from fresh most days apart from veg-box-day-soup-making-for-the-week-ahead on a Thursday. So it has been taken to the dump. I don't think there is much call on Freecycle for non-functioning ten year old mini chest freezers.

I like Freecycle.

A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to be Freecycled some knitting needles. The elderly lady who was giving them away could no longer see well enough to knit, and was looking for them to go to a new home, and I was delighted.
Gradually, as I have acquired new needles, these donated ones have been passed on to new knitters, and who knows, they may in turn have passed them on a second or even a third time.

In the box with the needles were a number of patterns. I would guess that this lady was in her eighties so the patterns spanned many years.
Despite the Bloke Sweater, I don't consider myself a knitter of large garments, but I have kept these patterns in a drawer, and now I'm wondering if they too need a new home. I am a bit of a hoarder, but I'm definitely not going in for vintage pattern collecting, so I'm offering these up for p/hopping.

There are twenty five patterns, of which these are the most venerable.

Skinny rib sweater. Look at that pocket!

Phone box not included.

His 'n' Hers matching weekend wear.

I think this one is actually quite "retro" and similar to patterns in books on vintage knitting.

 

The older gentleman obviously grew up in a pre-orthodonic era.

The rest are really 1970's and 80's patterns and probably less interesting. All are for jumpers or cardigans for adults (with the occasional mother and daughter ensemble).

If anyone would like them please let me know via ravelry and I'll pop them in an envelope in return for a p/hop donation (I think the minimum using Just Giving is £2.) I'm pretty sure there are no hidden gems, just everyday patterns (and some screamers).

The French sock is progressing quite quickly. Now that I am taking a daily Knitshot I feel that I need to make some measurable progress each day and I find myself adding a few rows here and there.

Time taken for computer to start - 32 stitches (half a round).

Time taken for kettle to boil - 2 rounds. Having five cups of tea a day produces 2 whole centimetres of sock... who knew?

At the moment I am about seven cups of tea away from the heel, so I am off to make a brew. Every little helps.

n

Reasons to be cheerful

Today, according to radio 4, is "gloomy Monday". The day in the year when we are most likely to be miserable.
So to counteract this I will show you some of my current "reasons to be cheerful".

This is a terrible photo taken in the kitchen with no proper lighting, however...

This is my current radio station of choice. Birdsong is a 20 minute "loop" of singing, whistling, the occasional cow (or maybe a horse) and bizzarely, a snatch of classical music (an oboe, I think) and a few bars of what sounds like classical guitar. It was first broadcast in 1992 and is now on all day. I find it quite uplifting.

A slightly out of focus second sock. A few rows here, a few rows there.
Nothing like Jane's epic knit-a-jumper-in-a-week extravaganza, but I am enjoying it immensely.

Yellow Chrysanthemums. These are a week old now, but the colour makes me smile inside whenever I look at them.

The amaryllis is doing what amarylli do best, growing at a prodigious rate.
As you can see, we now have a flowering bit.
Very exciting.

This is my new sock book.
Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn by Carol J Sulcoski.
These are the Herringbone Rib socks by Kristi Schueler.

And these are the Corrugated Stripe Socks by Courtney Kelley.
I'm not sure about the corrugated rib "ribs" which look a little tight, but I love the vertical striping.

Ian Dury's original list of "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3" is here.

So tell me, what are your top three reasons to be cheerful today?

n

PS  It's snowing.

Amaryllis II

There has been knitting (of which more later).
There has been spinning.
And there has been growing.

My cut-price amaryllis which has such an unpromising start is a source of daily delight.
I think that if I stood still long enough I could actually watch the cells replicating in the growth tips.

Isn't it amazing?
All that growing in just 12 days.

I also have other progress to show you.

Meet Euridice.
She is a fleece I have had stashed away for about a year, waiting to be turned into a Gavin-thing.
Originally I thought she would be a jumper, but now that he has one of those, knitted by my own fair hand, she is going to be a waistcoat instead.

She was carded on the drum carder using the no-system-at-all method and has become a rather interesting thick and thin rustic yarn. This is the first 100g, about 170m, varying from sockyarn to aran in a single skein, which is entirely intentional.

He has put in a request for a simple waistcoat, and after seeking the advice of my own personal knitting advisor I'm not going to knit it on circs, but in pieces, because the side seams will add some stability and help to stop it drooping. Which has to be a good thing, really.

There has been other knitting but I can't reveal it until later in the week because it's with the prototype sock club yarn and it would completely give the game away if I showed it to you... I can reveal the pattern, which is for the the Primavera socks, and it's lovely. I always thought that stocking stitch socks were my kind of knitting because they let the yarn (and the dyer) do the work, but these are just such fun to do. The pattern is free.
I find myself doing "just one more repeat" - which is only six rows - and they are fairly flying along. The heel is turned and the gusset decreases are half completed.
There will be photos later in the week, probably on Friday.

I will leave you with the last Amaryllis photo.

Look!
A second shoot has emerged.
How wonderful.

n

PS  Check out the totaliser in the sidebar (I am a Blue Peter kid at heart).
£308.13.
Over 60%.
Thank you so much to everyone who has donated.
Ruth is having a blogiversary raffle with excellent prizes linked to p/hop donations. Why not download the Primavera pattern and donate 50p... go on, you know you want that pattern, and every 50p will make a difference to the life of someone who really needs it.

Turning the page.

There is a group on ravelry called 52 books in 52 weeks.
I am not going to join it.
I try to limit the groups I am in because I would get nothing done at all, ever, if I joined every group which looked intriguing.

But I find myself asking if a book a week is an achievable goal for anyone who is also knitting, spinning, working, loving a family and attempting to live on something other than take-out food? No-one wants to set themselves up to do something which is doomed to failure before they turn the first page.
I'm reading Plenty (see yesterday's post) at the moment. And I have my next read lined up as well because I am joining the virtual book group organised by Karen at Cornflower. The January book she has suggested is Anne Tyler's "Breathing Lessons" and I made sure it was on my letter to Father Christmas, so it's sitting here ready for me to begin when I have finished Plenty.

So I'm wondering if a book a month would be a better target. Maybe Karen's choice over at Cornflower, or possibly something else.

We are nearing the end of the year, turning the page on 2008 and looking forward to 2009.

2008 has been amazing, but hard work. Nothing wrong with hard work mind you.

2009 is an "odd" year, and I like odd years better than even years. They seem to have more

Pizzazzz! 

somehow.

I already have plenty of things pencilled in.

• Two woolly festivals.
• A wholesale order for January.
• All the Club mailing dates.

And then there is the personal knitting. I am (fingers crossed) on schedule to get the Bloke Sweater off the needles before the end of 2008...

Still not sure which bloke it will fit, but that's a minor detail.

There is one French sock complete and just the second to knit. This will become my mindless knitting, so I'm not expecting to complete it before the bells ring out on Hogmanay.

Work-knitting-wise, the mittens I have been designing with Sally are awaiting their final chart and I am looking forward to seeing the pattern grow on the needles.

So really, I can begin to think about what to make next with a clear conscience. People are whispering the L-word in my ear. We shall see.

n

Village to close.

The 1,000 year old village of Stony Bridgeford in Oxfordshire is going to close because it is no longer viable.

I'm not big on New Year resolutions, because I always end up breaking them.

January is a stupid time of year to resolve to run 5 miles a day in the dark and the wet and the slipperyness of frosty mornings, and it is just as daft to resolve to eat salad when what you really want is pie and mash and gravy and plenty of it. (The "plenty of it" bit is my downfall, sadly, so that's the bit I'm going to try to deal with.)

However I was given Plenty for Christmas and it is an excellent read. I'm up to June at the moment (it starts in March), and I am resolving to keep using my veg box and to try to ensure we use as much locally sourced food as possible. My definition of local may not be 100 miles, I'm going to be open minded - I'll still be buying tea for example and I may use supermarkets, even Tesco, but I'll be selective.

The bloke sweater is nearing completion... and it may actually fit the original intended recipient!

Now, I need your advice.
Would you wash, block and then seam (minimal seaming as it's knitted in the round), or would you seam, wash and then block?

n

Very Clever Knitters

Just a quick post to show you a couple of things recently finished by Yarn Yard knitters.

Sue chose some yarn at Woolfest and I dyed a solid or two to go with what she had selected.
The main body of the jumper is in mauve and variegated, the sleeves are in mauve, variegated and lime green, and the collar is in mauve and lime green. 
This is knitted in bonny, my simple sock yarn.

Isn't it fabulous?

She told me
"It was cobbled together from a pattern I saw in a Noro book, an old Vogue pattern and an M&S jumper.
I used 2 hanks of mauve, 2 of multi and 1 green. 

The back and front have a welt in garter stitch and I did several trials to get a stripey pattern that I liked using only mauve and multi.  The sleeves also had a welt of garter stitch and were done in reverse stocking stitch, one row of each of three colours.  The cowl neck was in stocking stitch, 2 rows each of mauve and green and had to be made in a funnel shape to get the right look ( I did it straight first and had to unpick the lot!)  If I was doing it again I would do the neck on four needles to avoid having a seam."

I love it.

And Harriet, who won the MSF ticket to see the Yarn Harlot in August, has been knitting these.

They are not knitted in Yarn Yard yarn, she says that they could be, but that they would come out man-size knitted in bonny and these are done in 3 ply instead.
I just had to show you them though.

They are called the Sanquhar Gloves.

There seems to be some feeling that "little-and-often" shop updates would be preferable to once a week events. Check out the comments in the post below. So many people have said that they are out in the evenings or that they are tired or even (shock) that they are knitting and not computer-ing.
If I put yarn in the shop I will post on the blog and on ravelry.
Unless significant numbers of you have major difficulties with this, it will be what I plan to do for the next wee while and we'll see how it goes.
It won't be every day, but I think it will be several times a week at varying hours of the day and evening.

n