New in November

It seems I only wrote this update in my head, and as there is not yet a way to download directly from my brain to my blog, it didn't make it here!

The monthly challenge:

• Read a new author, or just a book I’ve been meaning to for years
• Try a new ingredient/food/recipe
• Explore a new place
• Something knittingly new

My new author in November was Alison May. I read her ebooks Life, Love and Vintage Housekeeping, and Scrumptious Treats for Vintage Housekeepers. I have also started reading her blog - which contains much of the content of the two ebooks.

My new food in November was Windrush Valley goats' cheese, which I bought from the new cheese shop that recently opened near us. It is possibly the most delicious goats' cheese I have ever tasted.

My new place was the aforementioned cheese shop - the Cotswold Cheese Company.

In knitting newness, I experiemented with some colourwork in the not-a-Christmas jumper to create snowflakes.

Plotting for 2014

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. I did and while I am resting and recovering from the last couple of days, I am thinking about 2014 and what I might do with it.

So, give me some inspiration: what would you recommend, encourage or challenge me to do in 2014?

Happy Christmas

Undone

From almost a jacket …

… to this

Unmaking

You may remember I was knitting a jacket that I strongly suspected needed more yarn than I had - this was despite using the specified yarn and starting with the correct amount of it ( according to the pattern). I did some weighing and worked out I'd need two more balls, so set out recently to my local knitting shop to purchase some.

The colourway has been discontinued.

I think I shall shortly be spending some time ripping it all out and finding the yarn a new destiny.

What on Wednesday

• What I'm reading: I'm still reading The Wonderful Weekend Book by Elspeth Thompson
• What I'm knitting: Not a Christmas jumper
• What I'm watching: cookery programmes
• What I'm eating: black grapes
• What I'm plotting: a knitting pattern

What's on Wednesday

• What I'm reading: The Wonderful Weekend Book by Elspeth Thompson
• What I'm knitting: mostly fingerless gloves and blanket
• What I'm watching: this evening I'm planning to watch an episode or two of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
• What I'm eating:pistachio nuts
• What I'm plotting: ways to beat the winter blues

A gloomy day

Today has been a gloomy damp day that has somehow permeated my mood. So to remind myself that life isn't all gloom, here are 10 things that have made me smile this week.

1. Making parcels to send to friends
2. A star-studded night sky
3. Organic, fairtrade, dark chocolate buttons - it's practically a virtue to eat them!
4. A carpet of leaves, golden in the sunshine
5. Clean kitchen floor
6. Bright red berries on a plant in the garden that was pronounced dead a few years ago
7. A phone call from a friend I've not spoken to for a while
8. A long soak in a bubble bath with a book
9. Cosy, clean pyjamas
10. Making this list - the reminder worked!

What …

• What I'm reading: in my rocking chair - The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater and Money for Nothing by PG Wodehouse; in bed - I've just finished A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey, so will be picking out something new tonight

• What I'm knitting - the jacket I definitely don't have enough yarn for

• What I'm watching - later tonight, the last Poirot

• What I'm eating - dark chocolate buttons I found in a shop at the weekend; they are yummy!

• What I'm planning - ways to get the house clean, tidy and organised

For the sake of two buttons

If I could just get around to sewing on two buttons, I'd have another finished project to show you.

While I procrastinate from that I'm knitting away at a jacket. However, I am starting to have a  sneaking suspicion that I am going to run out of yarn before it is finished. This will be particularly annoying as the pattern calls for 11 balls of yarn and I started off with 12.

It's the little things

Ten things that have made me smile this week:

1. Chats with friends on twitter
2. Sunny, blue-skied Autumn days
3. The sound of gentle rain as I snuggle down to go to sleep
4. A text message from the blanket recipient
5. Old episodes of Friends on TV
6. A gorgeous miniature tea-set in a charity shop
7. Chocolate
8. Seeing the clear space where I tidied away a pile of things that has been waiting for months and took just a few minutes to deal with
9. Making Christmassy plans
10. Playing around with pretty fabrics

New in October

The monthly challenge:

• Read a new author, or just a book I’ve been meaning to for years
• Try a new ingredient/food/recipe
• Explore a new place
• Something knittingly new

My new author in October was Kate Summerscale - I read The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House. It was interesting and for a factual book not too dry - I found it very readable.

My new food was a new recipe I tried - chocolate-covered Katie's Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownie Bites. They are easy to make and very moreish! In fact, I might make some more this evening.

I didn't explore anywhere new in October, I hoped to explore the new Cheese shop opening in a nearby town, but was not well enough towards the end of the month to go and visit it. I hope to venture there soon.

I failed again with the knittingly new part of the challenge. Mostly all my brain could cope with was garter stitch, so lots more mitred-square blanket was knitted.


Well, just look at that - I'm all up to date!

Oops!

I went to the shop to buy two buttons but got led astray by the pretties!

It's not just me that happens to, is it?


P.S. I didn't forget the buttons.

New in September

The monthly challenge:

• Read a new author, or just a book I’ve been meaning to for years
• Try a new ingredient/food/recipe
• Explore a new place
• Something knittingly new

My new author for September was Michelle Moran. I was given three of her books for Christmas last year and finally got around to reading them (actually, I only started one in September, I finished it and read the other two in October). The books were set in Ancient Egypt (and Rome for one of them) and I enjoyed them but wouldn't necessarily seek them out.

My new food in September was okra, which I can't recall eating before, although I have no idea why not.

My new place was in London, a small restaurant where I had dinner (including okra) with a lovely friend. I can't recall the name of the place now!

Again I didn't really have a knittingly new experience, unless you count knitting a whole blanket in 1 month. It should now have been received by the person it was knitted for, so I can blog about it! I knitted a similar one for a friend last year and it is basically a lot of stripes, knitted garter stitch, with each row in a different yarn - not necessarily the same weight yarn. All ends were left dangling and then tied together in groups at the end and trimmed, to give the blanket tassled edges - and no sewing in of zillions of ends - hurrah! I started it on 1 September and finished it on 29 September. I don't have a decent photo of the finished article, but here it is in progress.

Socks!

Another WIP finished. These were on the heel flap of the second sock at the weekend when I carried out my audit.

They are not quite identical, particularly around the heels but ssssh! Don't tell my feet that; I'm sure they won't notice!

Finished one!

These were so close to finished it's ridiculous! All that was needed was buttons and two button loops.

Extra motivation to finish them off was found in the colder weather and the knowledge that when I'm back to driving to work in the morning, I will need something to keep my hands warm.

Knitting audit

So after yesterday's rough count, I decided to do a complete knitting audit. This has involved going through all my projects and making a list of what's on my needles and - naturally - knitting a bit of most of them.

In total I have 26 WIPs. In February I had 28, so I think I can just about claim that I have reduced the number of started-but-not-finished projects.

The oldest project is a top I think I started in 2010. The newest is either a pair of socks or some fingerless gloves - probably the socks.

The projects can be (loosely in some cases) categorised as:

Cardigans - 7
Jumpers/tops - 7
Blankets/coverings - 5
Gloves/mittens/wristwarmers - 3
Socks - 2
Hat - 1
Scarf - 1

A few items being made for gifts, but there are over 15 potential additions to my wardrobe. I think it's time to develop that potential!

The only problem is to decide which one first!

No, autocorrect, WIPs not whips ;)

A rough-and ready count shows I have at least 25 knitting WIPs. I really ought to try to finish some of them before the end of the year.

New in August

The monthly challenge:

• Read a new author, or just a book I’ve been meaning to for years
• Try a new ingredient/food/recipe
• Explore a new place
• Something knittingly new

My new author for August was Frances Brody, and I have now read four of her detective novels featuring Kate Shackleton. I enjoyed them, although there were a few anachronisms (they are set in the early 1920s) that bothered me a bit. Kate is a widow - possibly, her husband was missing declared dead in the war but she has not yet accepted that he is dead and continues to search for him. She was also adopted as a baby, so as well as having murders to solve, there is the potential for her past family, and maybe her husband, to mix things up.

My new food was smoothies. I have drunk smoothies in the past, but in August I started making myself a fresh smoothie every morning in the hope of improving my basic health level with an intake of lots of nutrients - that way I get the benefits of more fruit than I would manage to eat in the day. There is a huge difference between homemade and what you can buy in the supermarket, and I don't think I'll ever buy a carton of smoothie again! I've found that if I start with a smoothie in the morning, I'm more likely to make better food choices throughout the day. My husband has jumped on board with this and tends to appear in the ktichen when he hears the blender going, so now I have to share them - even telling him I'd put spinach in it wasn't enough to put him off!

My new place wasn't so much fun. A very precious person was admitted to the Teenage Cancer Unit at University Collegel London Hospital towards the end of August and I visited her there.

I didn't manage knittingly newness. I was so tired most of the month (one of the reasons for starting the smoothies) that I couldn't do much more than garter stitch a lot of the time. The beneficiaries of this were my mitred-square blankets, which are coming on nicely.

New in July

(Yes, I do know it's nearly the end of September!)
 
The monthly challenge:

• Read a new author, or just a book I’ve been meaning to for years
• Try a new ingredient/food/recipe
• Explore a new place
• Something knittingly new

In July my new author was Mildred Benson. She also wrote as Mildred A Wirts, but I hadn't heard of either name before. The books I read were from the Penny Parker series - I found a 'megapack' of 15 stories at a very reasonable price in the kindle store. Penny is similar to Nancy Drew, a motherless girl, brought up by her father and devoted housekeeper, who enjoys going around solving mysteries - all in the name of providing stories for her father's newspaper. I found Penny a little irritating at times, but overall the books were an amusing, undemanding read.

My new food in July was samphire, which was part of a salad I had at a pub lunch. Definitely something I'd eat again.

My new place was Alton Towers. I did not visit the theme park, but did stay at the hotel for a night. As I was sitting knitting in the lobby while waiting to leave the following morning, a lady coming to book in came over very excited to see me knitting in public and showed me her crochet. I wished afterwards I'd asked her if she was on Ravelry!

There was no knittingly newness in July. Mostly I knitted mitred blanket squares to try to use up some of the odds and ends of yarn.

Sneak peek at a super sekrit project

This evening while I was out I cast on for a new pair of socks as I needed a small, portable project. Otherwise, for the last 3 weeks, I have been exclusively knitting this:

Eat your heart out, Joseph and your dreamcoat!

Hello again

If I don't take the plunge back into blogging, it might never happen, so here I am. Please don't expect anything thrillingly exciting.

Yesterday I returned home with a large tote of cooking apples from my parents' well-laden tree. This morning, I chopped a baker 's dozen of them and stewed them with a generous handful of dried cranberries. I usually add sultanas, but seem to have run out of those. The cranberries give a slight pink tinge to the stewed fruit and the result is delicious, hot or cold.

I froze some in portions in ramekins and have a bowlful in the fridge for consumption tomorrow - or perhaps this evening.

New in June

The monthly challenge:

• Read a new author, or just a book I’ve been meaning to for years
• Try a new ingredient/food/recipe
• Explore a new place
• Something knittingly new

My new author for June was Kerry Greenwood. I watched and enjoyed the Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries on TV, and then a friend made me aware when three of the books were available on the kindle daily deal (I have several friends who do things like that, they are super!). I had a couple of days off work with a rotten cold last month and entertained myself nicely with the first three books in the series.

My new ingredient was artificial sweetener. Not very exciting, but I had a go at adapting a couple of recipes I’ve used regularly in the past to use sweetener instead of sugar. I didn’t eat the results myself but I’m told they were good (they certainly disappeared quickly).

My new place had the potential to be very interesting and exciting as I was summoned for jury service and visited the Oxford Crown Court for the first time. Sadly, I didn’t even get a sniff at a courtroom as there were not enough trials going on for me to be needed on a jury.

In knittinglyness, I had another go at concentrating on one project at a time and was more successful this time, actually finishing off a few projects. One is a warm jumper so will have to wait a while to be worn!

New in May

Yes, I know we’re nearly halfway through June (and the year for that matter), but anyway …

A quick reminder of the monthly challenge:

• Read a new author, or just a book I’ve been meaning to for years
• Try a new ingredient/food/recipe
• Explore a new place
• Something knittingly new

So in May

·       My new author was James Anderson. I was browsing in the Oxfam bookshop and couldn’t resist the two titles The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy and The Affair of the Mutilated Mink. I started in on the first and was soon hooked. A lovely friend kindly lent me The Affair of the Thirty-Nine Cufflinks, which finishes off the series.

·       I can’t remember trying a new food in May. There have been some dietary changes in our house over the last couple of months, mostly involving a lot more salads – I like salads, so consider this a good thing.

·       I also failed to explore a new place, although before the end of the month I had June and July’s destinations lined up.

·       Something knittingly new – well I tried knitting monogamy but that didn’t work. Other than that, I expanded this to something craftily new as I attempted to sew myself a top. I might tell you more about that another day.

Thwarted!

Today, I thought I'd give the knitting equivalent of monogamy a go. Moknittingy? Monoprojectomy? Actually that last one sounds more like an operation! Anyway, I picked a project from my knitting basket with the intent of knitting that and only that until it was finished. I did quite well for a while until I got to the point where I needed to change needle size to a size I don't have.

So I put that aside until I can acquire the appropriate needles and picked up the next WIP from the basket. That also went well - until the natural light faded and I found it difficult to see the stitches under artificial light.

I'm going back to project hopping!

New in March ... no ... April ... Where is the year going to?

A quick reminder of the monthly challenge:

• Read a new author, or just a book I’ve been meaning to for years
• Try a new ingredient/food/recipe
• Explore a new place
• Something knittingly new

April’s achievements

• A new author – A lovely friend gave me Heartburn by Nora Ephron for my birthday and I read it in April. Chicklit with a few recipes thrown in – perfect for relaxation.
• My new food was buckwheat. I’ve used buckwheat flour and cooked buckwheat noodles before. This time I cooked the seeds and ate some hot with fish and then cold with salads for a couple of days. I think some even found their way to my husband’s stomach!
• My new place was The Oxford Yarn Store. As soon as Bert and I found out about it, we knew we were destined to visit. We were accompanied by a non-knitting friend who seemed quite happy to stroke yarn even if she doesn't knit it! It is always exciting to find new yarn shops – and this one has a lovely café that served gluten-free stuffed pancakes for a delicious lunch!
• I didn’t really do anything knittingly new, unless a top knitted all as one piece (only sides and under arms to sew up) counts. I did make a start on my plan to sew myself some clothing though and cut out a pattern. I was then thwarted by the fabric not being big enough but I am not letting that put me off my sewing plans. I am thinking of it as babysteps and may get as far as the sewing machine soon. I may tweak that part of the challenge to be something craftily new *strokes beard thoughtfully*

 

 

 

Me-Made-May 2013

I made a deal with KraftyKat on twitter that if she signed up, I would. She has, so I am.


I, Liz, of lizmakesit sign up as a participant Me-Made-May '13. I will endeavour to wear at least one hand-made item each day for the duration of May 2013 and, as at this time all my hand-made clothing is knitted, to have sewn an item of clothing by the end of the month.


We are hoping that as I am going to be wearing knitwear for most of the month this will provide UK folk with a nice heatwave! I've certainly got blue sunny skies today, so perhaps it's working!

Cosiness

Chatting with a colleague today

She admired my jumper

 "You are the Queen of cosy jumpers" she said.

"That's because I'm a knitter" I replied.

With our current weather, the more cosy jumpers/cardigans the better!

New in March

A quick reminder of the monthly challenge:

• Read a new author, or just a book I’ve been meaning to for years
• Try a new ingredient/food/recipe
• Explore a new place
• Something knittingly new

So in March I:

• Read some of the Mrs Bradley books by Gladys Mitchell - nearly three of them in fact. Having enjoyed the tv adaptation, I moved on to try the books and found them totally different. I'm glad I didn't go from the books to the tv adaptation because that would have driven me crazy. Even though the tv version had Diana Rigg, which can never be a bad thing!
• New recipe was too cook a ham. I have never cooked a ham before but my husband and I were given a frozen ham for Christmas and Easter with my family seemed the appropriate time to use it. My sister provided me with instructions along the lines of these are your ingredients, dump them all in the saucepan, bring to the boil and then simmer for 2.5 hours. It turned out to be very nice indeed.
• I don't think I explored anywhere new in March, but I did note down somewhere new to explore in April.
• I'm not sure I attained new knittingness either. Unless knitting myself a jumper in just under 4 days counts?

Potentially the fastest jumper I've ever knitted

Cast on on Thursday. Currently on the second sleeve.

Finished!

Pattern: Patons Ladies Edge to Edge Jacket*
Yarn: Patons Colour Works Aran

This was just waiting to be sewn up, so over a few episodes of House this weekend, I did exactly that. This was a really easy knit - it's nearly all garter stitch and I really like the mitred corners on the front edges.


*I hated typing that with no apostrophe or hyphens, but that is how it appears in the pattern book, so I resisted the temptation to add them!

Finished x 2

Having gone through my WIPs, I identified several from my list that just needed a few hours concentrated work to finish them off and therefore should easily be finishable in a weekend.*

1.     Summer holiday (2012) knitting

3.     Bolero for a young lady

5.     Glittens

7.     Edge-to-edge cardigan

10.   Wristwarmers

20.   Leafy hat

28.   4x4ply jumper

Some of them just need final finishing touches needed, others a little more work but they are all so nearly finished it seems a shame to leave them lying around with their destiny unfulfilled. So as I seem to have finished hardly anything this year, just get projects to nearly finished and then abandon them for some shiny new knitting, I decided to pick one each weekend and finish it off. Starting with the weekend we've just had.

Bolero for a young lady
Pattern: Suzie, Let's Knit Little Angels booklet March 2010
Yarn: Sirdar Calico

This project was a stashbuster - two whole balls used - and by whole balls I mean the last bit of sewing up was done with as closely matching yarn as I could find in my stash because I'd used every last bit of it!

It was also a (late because I didn't see her on her birthday and hence delayed finishing it) gift

I obviously got carried away with this finishing lark because last night I sewed in the last ends on this:

4x4ply jumper
Pattern: Banoffi, Rowan Knitting and Crochet Magazine No. 53
Yarn: Rowan Sienna and Rowan Panama

Please excuse the poor self-photography and the mess in the room behind me!

I really enjoyed knitting this jumper - it doesn't hurt that it knits up really quickly and I'm planning to knit another but with some slight differences - I'm going to have the ordinary stocking stitch, rather than reverse stocking stitch on the outside and I shall make the neckline slightly smaller. It will also be more purple as more purple knitting can only be a good thing - yes?

*Names of projects listed may not be official pattern names. I reserve the right to add more projects to this list as they approach completion and favour them over those already listed.

What I am knitting

A few days ago, I gave you photos of all my knitting projects but didn't say what they all were. So here's a breakdown of the types of things I'm knitting.

 

 

 

At the end of 2011, the breakdown of my projects looked like this

 

 

So it looks like I'm still knitting a lot of cardigans (some of them are the same cardigans - I really ought to finish some off) but the proportion of jumpers has increased and socks have gone down. I'm not sure if any interesting conclusions can be drawn from that.

Stashbusting update

Sadly, my beautiful spreadsheet, with charts, of my yarn stash that kept a record of what came in and what went out was lost in what is known in our house as The Great Computer Woe of 2012. It’s therefore a bit difficult to do a comparison with the beginning of last year, to see how my stash has grown or shrunk since then. I like to think it’s about the same size, but it is possible I am deluding myself.

I have started again with a shiny new spreadsheet. My stash grew in January – Christmas money to spend and sales in yarn shops being an irresistible combination! However, while it might not look like I decreased it from the chart as the gains and increases are in different areas, from the end of January to the end of February, my stash was reduced by the grand total of 1 ball of yarn.

Since then, it has increased again - ooops! I returned home from the yarn shop on Saturday with a bagful of mostly purple yarn. I’m intending to knit up a storm this month though, so am hoping to have balanced that out and more by the end of March.

Knitting WIPs

New in February

At the end of January, the marvellous Bert of Make and Bake with Bert told of the list of new things she was intending to do each month to challenge and entertain herself. I liked the idea (Bert often has brilliant ideas) and decided to join in. The new things to try each month are:

• Read a new author, or just a book I’ve been meaning to for years
• Try a new ingredient/food/recipe
• Explore a new place
• Something knittingly new

Although I only heard about it at the beginning of February, serendipitously in January I had:

• Read a book by a new-to-me author (Josephine Tey)
• Tried a new recipe (spicy bean stew in the slow cooker)
• Designed a cable pattern for a man sock and knitting it (second sock still to be knitted).

So the only thing I missed out was the exploring of anywhere new.


In February I:

• Read Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James. I had not read any of her books before and I'm sorry to say that this is a sample, I'm not going to be looking out for them.
• Cooked and ate buckwheat noodles. They are cooked and look a lot like spaghetti but are a lot more filling - what I thought was enough for one meal turned out to last for three!
• Explored the sweet shop in town. It has been there since sometime last year and I've walked past and thought I must look in there sometime but it always seemed to be rather full of small people. I went early enough on a Saturday morning for it not to be crowded and found lots of delicous treats. Definitely an exciting new place :)
• Knitting newness came in the form of knitting a jumper that called for four strands of 4 ply to be knitted together. I've done two strands together but never four.

 

What adventures will March hold?

 

Not New Year resolution

So today is the beginning of March and this is my first blog update of the year. Probably a bit late for New Year wishes and resolutions! So instead I have made a new month resolution to try to establish a blogging habit this month.

Let's see how it goes!