Month: July 2014

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In which there is some catching up to do

Sorry I haven’t posted anything all week, I meant to do one on Monday and now it is almost next Monday.  The trouble with not posting things very often is there is too much to fit in and I don’t know which things to write about so then I put it off even longer and it gets worse and worse… (By the way it is almost the summer holidays so apologies in advance – I suspect the frequency of posts may become even more erratic than it is at the moment for a few weeks.)

This week I learnt to do Tunisian crochet which is interesting but probably needs its own post to explain it.

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The secret stash of Christmas presents is growing: there is a robot

and also a mouse. At Bible study the other day were talking about being made in the image of God the other week and what that meant; I am unlikely to ever breathe life into anything but I do love the moment when a pile of pieces turns into a little creature with some character.

The garden is full of life as well. I have been told I must prune the fruit trees once we have the fruit off them as they are impeding progress across the garden. The greenhouse is looking a bit jungly as well and we have had various vegetables (mainly purple, although not really intentionally) to eat from the veg bed and caterpillars (mainly green and definitely not intentionally, but did you know they go white when you cook them?) from the purple sprouting broccoli.

The morning glories have been looking glorious in the sun, they are more bedraggled this morning but I did notice this one lurking in at the bottom. I’m not sure where it came from because all the others are dark purple or pink.

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It doesn’t quite match the colour of my bottom after I fell down the stairs on Thursday but it’s not far off. I won’t show you a picture of that one, you’ll just have to use your imagination…

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In which there is the rest of the too much knitting

Having made a jumper for Tiny a few weeks ago I had to also make one for Small to keep things fair. He had his eye on the rest of the very blue wool given to me by a friend who was having a clear out so I made him this:

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Sorry about the apple, it was just easier to take the photo with it! The pattern was quite fun to do, it is called Jens and is a free one but it is in Danish. Google translate didn’t do too bad a job on it and I could work out most of it with a bit of lateral thinking – cast off two stitches rather than close two stitches and things like that (it is knit bottom up, in the round and joined for the yoke if you are interested in that sort of thing). When he first saw it he said, ‘But I didn’t want green on it!’ but by the time it was finished he was so excited about it having a zip that he seems to have forgotten his aversion to green.

I was going to give the knitting a rest as my hands were getting a bit achey but this sort of fell off my needles over the weekend:

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It’s a free pattern for another Sarah’s blog and it happened to suggest the same wool as I used for the mad cardigan so I’m doing pretty well at using up left over bits and pieces at the moment. I was going to put a picture up of her in bits as well but a man came to knock down the bathroom wall on Monday so I retreated into my cave and sewed her up without taking a photo of the parts. It’s going to be a stocking filler for Tiny which does seem stupidly early but I am mostly just putting off housework. Plus last year I was finishing a frog at about midnight not much before Christmas so I decided I would get a head start this year.

Now I’m off to crochet a robot. As you do.

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In which there is some semi-secret baby knitting

Sorry for going so long without posting anything, I have mostly been knitting instead of writing.

I’m going to be an auntie again in the autumn (for some reason being given the title ‘auntie’ makes me feel an awful lot older than being labelled as a mother) so I’ve been knitting baby stuff. I’m not big on babies, my own were rather nice, I quite like the ones that I know well and I don’t mind having a cuddle with other people’s (as long as I can give them back when they puke on me) but I’m not one for making a big, noisy fuss or thinking they are terribly cute – to me one pink, wrinkly baby looks more or less like all the other pink, wrinkly babies (my own included). Nevertheless I thought I should probably make something for the new one before it arrives, I wasn’t going to post anything about it on here but I have no reason to think that my brother will read this so I decided it didn’t really matter and even if he does then it won’t fit him… Based on past evidence my brother and his partner appear to produce immaculately presented, delicate, pink, frilly creatures (unlike my own clodhopping ragamuffins) so I looked up some suitably delicate, pink, frilly patterns, gritted my teeth and acquired some pink wool (if you know me then you will know I’m not a great fan of pink). Behold the results:

This one is a pattern called Olinda which is a lacy, reversible cardigan (I think I like the first side better), it was interesting to make because I don’t do much lace. I found the hardest part was sewing in the ends so they didn’t show on either side.  The pattern was ok once I got going with it but I found it pretty confusing to start with, it is all colour coded for the different sizes which I found difficult, it’s just a style thing but I struggled with it and I found it quite long winded – you would read all the way through one group of instructions and then at the end it would say things like, ‘As you work these rows be aware of the length required to knit to, listed on the next page, and stop when you reach that length.’ So I read a load of instructions I didn’t need to. Also it called the sizes by their sizes rather than ages all the way through, I know children aren’t all the same size so what fits one at three months might fit another at six months so maybe it is fair enough but I know I am aiming for a roughly three month sized cardigan whilst I don’t have a clue that it should measure 16 inches around which meant I kept having to double check what size I was doing. That said I am just grumpy and it is a nice cardigan.

This one is a pattern called Elsie’s Petal Dress which I think is gorgeous, the pattern is really well written – the instructions are written out in full as well as charted for the lace, the sizes go from a prem up to six years and you can do a regular skirt or a full skirt (this is the full one). The bodice went really quickly and then the skirt seemed to go on for ever but it’s done now and for once I am looking at baby clothes and thinking how cute they look, I must be going soft in my old age. Just got to wait for the beautiful baby to put in it to complete the effect, I really hope this one doesn’t turn out out be a tomboy now!

The other baby knitting I have been doing which is staying a secret (just because it will wind her up) is for my friend’s baby. It is made out of this wool (aren’t those colours fantastic?) I don’t think she believed me when I said it was all the colours, and a week or two ago it looked like this (this is the inside of it because the outside of it is still a secret and it has more colours now) just to prove I am really knitting it when she isn’t looking.

I have been doing so much knitting and so little writing that I now have a backlog of knitting to show you, I’ll save the rest for later in the week.