Your knitting and crochet time.

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week.

Day seven: 3rd April. Your knitting and crochet time.

Write about your typical crafting time. When it is that you are likely to craft – alone or in more social environments, when watching TV or whilst taking bus journeys. What items do you like to surround yourself with whilst you twirl your hook like a majorette’s baton or work those needles like a skilled set of samurai swords. Do you always have snacks to hand, or are you a strictly ‘no crumbs near my yarn!’ kind of knitter.

My 'crafting' time is dependent on what I feel like doing. If it is something complex then I will wait until I have peace and quiet (a fairly unusual occurrence around here) and sit undisturbed and concentrate. For this type of work, I either, sit, when the house is empty and next door are out, in the conservatory at the glass table, surrounded by dogs and kitties, listening and watching da birdies on the feeders or I hide away upstairs in my little corner of the bedroom with the door shut.

For everything else then it is happens wherever I happen to be - at home, travelling, waiting around for stuff and generally out and about. I do like a little outdoor knitting in good weather. Sewing and spinning tend to take place at home either in the craft/crap room or sitting at my desk upstairs. Embroidery and needlepoint tend to be in the conservatory - brilliant light and knitting and crochet - nothing better than my comfy leather recliner in the afternoon sun....though there is always the threat of a nap attack.

I don't 'craft' much in the evening as with a family and pets and life - I find it harder to settle and I like to read in the evenings. Afternoons are my favourite 'crafting' time and sometimes a little naughty 'crafting' (or it feels naughty to me as I should doing chores) on a weekend morning.

That's it. Managed to stick with it for a week - hurrah!

p.s The word 'crafting' makes me wanna puke.

Something to aspire to.

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week;


Day six: 2nd April. Something to aspire to.Is there a pattern or skill that you don’t yet feel ready to tackle but which you hope to (or think you can only dream of) tackling in the future, near or distant? Is there a skill or project that makes your mind boggle at the sheer time, dedication and mastery of the craft? Maybe the skill or pattern is one that you don’t even personally want to make but can stand back and admire those that do. Maybe it is something you think you will never be bothered to actually make bu can admire the result of those that have.

I have two aspirations one is to keep my WIP's (works in progress) at a controlled level, which means also controlling my STARTITUS issues and finishing things once they start to bore the tits off me. Personally, I really don't think this will ever happen but it does need to to enable to achieve aspiration number two which is.........

this. From Jane Sowerby's 'Victorian Lace Today' book. I dream of completing this lovely bit of lace.

Sock Blast.

 Knitting and Crochet Blog week day 5.

 A selection of socks knitted in the last 12 months. Some are mine, some were gifts and some are yet to be worn.

Where are they now?

Knitting and Crochet Blog week - day 4.

This post is meant to be about a project you've knit and what has happened to it.....gonna tweek it a little.

I have spent the last 40 minutes trying to find a photo/date/blog entry/Ravelry link for this item and I can't find a thing. I must have never blogged etc about it. I have no photos of it and as for where it is.....folded up on the end of my bed.

My 'Cozy'.

The pattern was published in Knitty in 2004 - I think I must have made mine 2005 ish. It is knit in Jaeger Trinity in a kind of weird green. I hated knitting it. I made so many mistakes - it was my first big lace project and it took me forever to finish it. I shoved it in a drawer and left it to fester, unblocked and unloved.

I don't remember when but I got cold one day and decided to use the 'Cozy' for what it was designed for. It is stretchy and versatile and warm. The bloody thing has been in almost constant use ever since. I love it. I'd be lost without it. It is very tatty now but I still turn to it when I am chilly more than anything else I own. It gets used as a giant scarf, a blankie and a wrap. I have attempted to make its replacement but have frogged each attempt - cos I still hate knitting it (quite a boring pattern) and the attempts never quite match up to my lovely scruffy and battered existing one. It has been camping, worn to a wedding and I took it to Bath with me last month. It has been washed and washed and washed and I still love it. It is like comfort food in knitted form. In fact I'm a little cold now - better go and liberate it from the end of the bed.

Tidy mind, tidy stitches.....???

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week - post 3.

I first read the title as 'tiny mind' etc.

I don't have currents photos of my stash because it would be a nightmare to get the whole of it out and takes its picture but it is kind of organised or it was.

At one time I had an up to date list of all the yarn and fibre I owned and was in use and as I used stuff or added to it, I updated the list. This wonderful organised feeling last about 6 months. The list in now buried and woefully out of date. But I like the surprise element that my stash sometimes throws at me when I am having a good deep rummage.

I have 3 hinged baskets in my sitting room. They hold a couple of old UFO's and the relevant yarn for them. The also house my needles, hooks, patterns and sundries. They also are home to some fibre, spinning wheel bits and bobs, loom stuff and spindles and they are fairly organised. I can always lay my hands on what I need with ease.

I have a box in the lounge that keeps tidy the yarn and fibre for my current projects - so I can lay my hands on the next skein without a mega stash dive. My actual projects are kept in separate project bags so kept moth proof.

Everything else....? Is in the hall cupboard in 3 large crates and assorted other storage methods. I have one crate with all my most luscious and favourite stuff in (it hardly shuts), one with lesser yarn and hand spun and one with odds, sods and left over sock yarn. All the yarn is in individual zip lock bags to keep it protected. But it is a mammoth task liberating it and with a low door frame (it houses the tank and cylinder) I am guaranteed to bang my head every time. That might explain why I am so addlepatted.

It isn't perfect. In a perfect world I'd have a yarn room (full to the brim) with special glass fronted cupboards and oodles of space .......maybe one day.

Skill + 1UP

Day 2 of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week.

Today it's all about new things learnt in knitting and crochet over the past year. For me the last 12 months have been about acquiring new construction techniques particularly in lace knitting. I have had a go at Orenburg lace and that style of knitting a portion of the border first, then knitting the body and side border and finishing with the top border - it also covered garter stitch lace which I hadn't done much of and lace stitches in all rows. I've had a dabble with Estonain lace (my current lace project is in that style). I also had a good go at new techniques with knitted on borders (see above) and lace scarf construction (see below).

I find a lot of my knitting pleasure comes from learning how to make new things work. I like new cast on and bind offs and different ways of making garments more than learning styles of knitting.

This year I've also learnt to cable without a cable needle and to purl using a continental method that keeps the yarn at the back - can't for the life of me remember its proper name, learnt a lovely stretching cast/bind off perfect for lace knitting and worked hard to improve my stranded knitting too.

I want to carry on working on perfecting my lace knitting techniques and maybe try a few new sock construction ideas over the next 12 months. I'm pretty sure I'll find other things to get distracted by as well - that's the great thing about knitting there is always something new to find.

A Tale of two yarns

It's Knitting and Crochet blog week - huzzah!

Todays post should be about a yarn you lurve and a yarn you abhor.

My most favourite yarn in the world ever - has to come from  sock yarn as I knit more socks than anything else and it is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock. I just adore it. I would like a massive pile of the stuff (more massive than I have) and I would like to wallow around nekkid in it. It makes great socks which wash well and are hard wearing and it has lovely stitch definition and it never makes my hands sore (some sock yarns do as they feel coarse until they are washed). They have the most amazing range of colours and I covet every skein that has ever been produced.

I haven't got a specific brand of yarn I dislike - I have types of yarn I dislike for example - yarn barf which is bobbly with bits on or fluffy or like ribbon. The main reason behind my dislike of yarn barf yarn is  two fold.  Firstly they are normally fookin pants to knit with - not easy to handle or splitty -  stuff like that and secondly 99.9% of them, in my experience, squeak as you knit them. The kind of squeak that sets your teeth on edge and makes you shudder (similar effect to drinking cheap whiskey). It's like knitting with a mutant demented mouse that has been through a barf dispenser. Yuck.

P.S - Also most stuff knitted with yarn barf comes out looking pants cos the patterns written for this type of yarn (again IMHO) are total shit.