A bad year for blogging

It cannot be denied that as far as I am concerned 2015 was a bad year for blogging.  The completeness of the change brought about by moving house has got me out of the habit of blogging.  Let us hope that 2016 is different, now I have had this house a year and had another birthday, both of which feel like little landmarks.  If last year was about moving out and getting the house set up, what is this year for?

My strepocarpus, I am developing a love of houseplants

So far not a lot, as I'm finishing my second virus since Christmas, though I have got a lot of knitting done while glued to the sofa by fatigue.  Last week I finished a baby dress in a yarn that just suited the pattern and hopefully when I have sewn the second button on I will get around to showing it off.  In the past day or so I have started on some socks for a cousin; as my sock drawer is rather full I have been concentrating on knitting socks for other people.  Am I alone in finding it hard to stop knitting socks?  If I do not have any on the needles I can get a deep longing to knit a sock. Still, there are worse addictions, right?

A recent picture of Willow

I think I will start keeping a blogging ideas notebook so that when I have ideas I don't forget them again.  This year I would like to do something each month on the garden, even showing the weeds and failures.  No point pretending to be better than I am.  Gardening has been so good for me mentally and physically and it provides a safe calming thing to think about when I am anxious.  There will hopefully be more on books, faith, knitting and other making.

Here goes, fingers crossed.

A lovely day

The Greyhound Inn

This last Saturday was my dad's birthday and one of those crisp, cold, bright, sunny days that make winter so much more bearable.  We went to Carshalton, a former village, now swallowed up into south London, for lunch at the pub in the picture above and a walk.  It was busy with a frost fair going on but the crowds were relaxed and there was a good atmosphere.  I am still very tired from it but all in all it was a lovely day.

Tufted duck

The other event of the weekend was reviving my Locke St Cardigan, which had been languishing for some weeks with only the left front left to complete.  Hoping to finish it before Christmas, certainly it is the weather for it at present!

Some Vintage Knitting Resources

In my journeys around the internet I have discovered some vintage knitting patterns and resources that I thought worth sharing.  Although I knew about Trove*, the free online archive of Australian newspapers and magazines, which contains many free patterns, it was only recently that I came across the collection of digitised knitting books put up by the State Library of Victoria, Australia.  The Australians truly are good to us.



Among the books I have found in the State Library's online collection is the 1933 edition of Woolcraft, a thoroughly useful publication containing a wide range of patterns, particularly strong on socks and baby clothes.  I have started gradually adding the patterns to Ravelry and they can be seen here; it is going to take me a while to get them all up there.  Incidentally the 1915 edition is among a range of books available here.

My personal favourite is the 1948 Woman's Knitting Book which features this dashing reindeer jumper on the cover, which unusually for the period is fully charted.  You can see the woman's role in society in flux between the wartime working women, as seen in a knitted suit, "designed primarily for the business girl or traveller" and the 1950s ideal housewives, as seen in a brightly smiling advert for "Raco Aluminium Ware", "Bright Kitchens Happy Homes".  There is a good range of patterns for all the family, including a man's skiing jumper, baby's layette, gloves, cardigans and socks.  I have added the front cover jumper to Ravelry as I thought it might appeal to those looking for a retro Christmas jumper.



Given the age of the collection it is unsurprising that there are various booklets of "service woollies" or "knitted comforts", the austerely covered booklet P&B (Patons and Baldwins) Knitting Made Easy from 1941 is part pattern catalogue, with tips on knitting for the forces and a handful of patterns.  There is also a booklet from the Australian Comforts Fund dating from 1940 and a booklet from department store Coles, Knitting for the Forces.

The last item I will mention for today is the Viyella Nursery Book, listed as dating from the 1940s and containing a great many patterns for babies and children up to five years old.  Some of the patterns are perhaps knitted with finer yarns than we might use today, but a little adaptation could make bigger garments.  There are a great many other baby booklets such as From 2 to 5: 11 smart and practical new styles, Smith's Ideal Baby knits and Toddler knits and Baby Knitting 6 months - 2 years.  Also included are a great many baby books by a lady called Ella Allan but I shall go into them in another post.

I hope you enjoy these resources as much as I have been.

P.S. My crochet blanket is making slow but steady progress.


*There is a Trove group on Ravelry whose members have been doing an amazing job of locating patterns and adding them to the pattern database.

Coronation Stitches

Once again I have ventured onto eBay, that dangerous treasure store, and emerged with a copy of the March 1953 edition of Needlework Illustrated, published by Weldon's, an edition intended to help its readers make their Coronation souvenirs.  The front cover is brightly adorned with knitting, embroidery and wonderful little felt toys of a soldier, a sailor and an airman.



The centrefold contains a wonderful double page colour picture of the embroidery transfer of the month (which is still extant with the magazine), with the Coronation coach and horses processing across the bottom. It would still make an attractive embroidered cushion or wall picture, I rather think my embroidery skills would need work first though!



Naturally I was most interested in the knitting patterns; it was one of those, for a man's jumper with a Fair Isle border, which interested me in the first place.  It is the sort of jumper I could imagine my father wearing, though hopefully he would accept it in a colour other than fawn, as I do not relish acres of stocking stitch in fawn!  The accent colours are red, green and blue, rather than the red, white and blue I would have expected.  Elsewhere there are a couple of women's patterns, including the twin set from the cover and a very sweet dress and bonnet set for a toddler.  The yoke of the dress is knitted in the round on a circular needle, which is earlier than I had previously come across their use, certainly in a mainstream British knitting pattern.  However, I did then wonder why the skirt of the dress was knitted flat in pieces.



Other features include table mats, some small items for gifts or bazaars - including a charming kangaroo sewn in felt and a crocheted tea cosy in an "Elizabethan" design.  In addition there is a schools' page with a simple embroidery design and a small piece at the bottom advertising Weldon's historical costumes for pageants, as seen in Weldon's Fancy Dress, price 1 shilling.  As in any old magazine the adverts are fascinating, mostly related to needlework, as you would expect and include holiday guides, knitting machines, children's clothes, fabric remnants, embroidery cloth and threads, knitting wool and a postal dress making course.  The best of the adverts is, of course, on the back cover and is for a series of Coronation Hats in Strutt's Candlewick Cotton. Many of the designs look more to me like something a French Revolutionary would have worn to man a barricade and the thought of them made in the same material as those old Candlewick bedspreads such as my grandmother used to have makes my mind boggle!



Anyhow, there we have it, a small piece of social history.

Knitted Novelties

We all have our chosen mode of distraction when things are hard, some watch TV, read or play computer games: this past week or so I have been taking refuge in the world of vintage knitting patterns.  I have won two EBay auctions and had a lucky time in a charity shop; I am now forbidding myself to look at EBay again - it's a dangerous place!



Knitted novelty or "Odd Ounce" books seem to appeal to me particularly, they are not only a source of knitting patterns ranging from useful to bizarre, they are also a piece of social history.  Knitting novelty items seems to go back as far as there were women with time on their hands for "fancy work", such as this fabulous knitted pineapple bag Franklin Habit has written about and the booklets I have been collecting are descendants of such patterns.  The proliferation of fund raising fêtes and "fayres" increased the need for women, who mostly ran such events, to make these items.



The majority of the items are of household utility, in a fancier form, such as tea cosies, cushions and pot holders in various guises.  Hats, scarves, gloves and bed-socks are popular items, all entering the category of "useful presents".  There are also toys and frequently dolls' clothes.  Then there things one could class as true novelty items, golf club covers, toilet roll covers and poodle bottle covers.



Yet at the same time these booklets represent a something of the constriction of the lives of many women, unable to undertake paid work because of marriage.  While the absurdity of many of the items amuses me, there is also behind it a sense of the need to fill in empty hours, even in the comparatively liberated 1960s and 1970s (when the booklets in my collection were published), in lieu of more useful work.  This is not to disregard the money that was undoubtedly raised by the sale of such items for charity.

I was particularly taken with the parrot when I spotted this one in a charity shop!

Some of the patterns I could see myself making, such as the rabbit hot water bottle cover on the front cover of the oldest booklet in my collection, others, such as the poodle bottle covers I will be giving a miss.  The current trend for vintage has even led some companies to republish some of these books, such as this one (even featuring a knitted pineapple tea cosy!) and this one from Patons, although many are still available relatively cheaply second hand.



Apologies for the quality of photographs in this post - the paper is quite shiny on most of these booklets making it tricky.

Odd Socks

This month I have finished two socks, unfortunately they are not a pair though.  The first to be finished is a very plain, "vanilla" sock in Four Seasons Grundl Hot Socks, a German self striping sock yarn.  There is sometimes something wonderfully soothing about knitting a sock round and round, feeling the wool slipping between your fingers and watching the colours stripe themselves as the sock grows.  I did a good bit of the foot of this sock on my way to and from Sussex on holiday, a plain sock is perfect train knitting.



Meanwhile the other sock, finished today, is at the other end of the scale, a gloriously complicated sock full of twisted stitches and cables, which I find equally, though differently, enjoyable.  Sometimes it can be wonderful to focus and be present in the moment, following the instructions and transferring a chart on the page into 3-D reality.  The pattern is a mystery knit-along from the designer Rachel Coopey, the first of her patterns I have knitted, although I have admired her work for a while.  I was especially drawn to this pattern because it was inspired by the Brighton Pavilion, the most glorious confection of a building, to which we were often taken as children.  Brighton is a place dear to my heart, so full of life and our nearest seaside.



Throughout knitting this sock I have enjoyed the challenges offered and the yarn, Toddy by The Yarn Yard, is a delight, bright and soft, making the twisted stitches "pop".  I would definitely recommend pattern, designer and yarn; I have plans to try Rachel Coopey's Mixalot pattern using some of my sock leftovers.  Once I have finished both second socks that is - I have the leg done of the second Pavilion sock and have begun the second sock plain sock.



Of course with a number of friends expecting babies I should be knitting baby gifts, but sock knitting has this way of taking over.

A Set For A Special Baby

I like knitting brightly coloured clothing for babies and I think this yarn is truly excellent for baby clothing.  It is Aire Valley DK, a 75% British wool, 25% nylon blend from West Yorkshire Spinners, soft, washable and excellent value; I could see myself using this for many more baby knits in the future.  The pattern is the classic Baby Surprise Jacket by British born, American ground breaking knitter Elizabeth Zimmermann.  As you knit the jacket looks nothing like a garment, but a neat piece of folding and two short seams later it has magically transformed itself, the closest knitting gets to origami.  This yarn is just right for showing off the mitres in the pattern - Elizabeth Zimmermann adored mitred corners - and it has made a cosy, colourful jacket, without being utterly overwhelming (to me anyhow).



To go with the jacket I made the matching bootees and bonnet, which are less startlingly made but still fun knits, I will be interested to see how well the bootees fit and crucially stay on because that seems to be the crux of the matter with baby footwear.  I would recommend these patterns, the jacket is available as a separate pattern from School House Press and in the UK from the Knitting Parlour and Knit'n'Caboodle does kits.  All three patterns appear in her book The Opinionated Knitter, well worth the price, like all her books it is an enjoyable read in its own right as well as containing lots of useful information and great patterns.  School House Press have recently brought out a more detailed version of the pattern too, for those who find the original writing style a little short on detail.

Now I want to knit another, there's something curiously moreish about garter stitch in brightly coloured wool.

Knitting from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has just released 400,000 images into the public domain so I have done what any knitter would do - gone to look at the knitting images, below are a few of my favourite finds.

Shepherdess Knitting by Jean-François Millet (1862) - similar to the pictures of Shetland women knitting while going about their work.

German knitted rug (1751) - according to Richard Rutt's History of Handknitting these were sometimes made as 'masterpieces' as part of qualifying for craft guilds and sometimes for customers.  I cannot imagine knitting anything so intricate!

Sampler, German (nineteenth century) There are more here, incredibly beautiful items.  The V&A in London has a good collection of them too

Sweater, American (1895) I could see something like this working today, a very dramatic silhouette

There is vastly more to look through, so much detail of the history of knitting

Actual Knitting Content

Now we have not had much actual knitting content in a while have we?  Most neglectful on what was originally supposed to be a knitting blog.  So, on the needles, Dad's jumper very much on the back-burner, more to the forefront is a cute 1950s cardigan from a pattern I bought in a charity shop.  I am extremely pleased with this purchase, not least because it contains the pattern for the matinee jacket with hearts and embroidery featured on last year's BBC 4 programme Fabric of Britain.



The cardigan I am making is called Rogue in Raglan, a name I suspect inspired by the wonderful expression on the little model's face in the photograph.  My alteration to this neat little textured cardigan has been to lengthen the cardigan by a good few inches to make it a full length cardigan, although as it is it would make a lovely cardigan to go over a girls' empire line dress.  The pattern is fun to knit, now I have got the hang of how it works, creating a very stretchy variation on rib; it would work well on socks, something I may have to consider in the future.  I am using the delightfully soft Patons Fairytale Dreamtime 4ply, in a discontinued colour I got for £1 a ball at Black Sheep Wools ages ago, I do love a good bargain.  For authenticity and practise in making up I am making it in pieces, even though a raglan cardigan is so easy to do top down.  May Elizabeth Zimmermann forgive me!



As the summer is upon us I have resurrected the double v cardigan I put away last year after it went wrong one too many times at a point in the year when I was never going to have it ready for that summer.  Mercifully I managed to sort out the problems I was having, despite initial confusion over whether the piece on the needles was a front or a sleeve and I am powering on nicely with it.  Part of a front and one sleeve left to go, then making up and hopefully I will have a new summer cardigan.  The yarn is Nikkim by Vinni's Colours from South Africa, bought at Purlescence, the colours are gorgeous, although it is hard on the hands being 100% cotton.



If I get my act together and sew on some buttons there may soon be a Baby Surprise Jacket and attendant bonnet and bootees to show off soon.

My personal, partial guide to yarn buying in the UK

I thought it might be helpful to put together a brief guide to where I tend to buy yarn in the UK, which shops I find reliable, which yarns I've particularly liked.  Naturally this can only be a brief guide, we seem to be enjoying a time of abundance of yarn shops and yarn varieties.

First off, a guide to yarn weights, which can vary from country to country, a guide to substituting yarns, and the importance of swatching (checking that your gauge or tension matches that of the pattern so that it turns out the right size - not something to miss out).

I do not tend to use acrylic or artificial fibres, except in blends, as I prefer natural fibres, so I will focus on them.  Natural fibres (wool, cotton etc.) do not have to be significantly more expensive than many of the acrylic yarns and I prefer knitting with them and wearing them.

Good all round shops

Modern Knitting - good for having its yarns organised well, sells a wide range of yarns from cheap basics to some higher end yarns; especially good for sock yarn.  My particular favourites from here are Cygnet Superwash dk and the King Cole Merino Blend range of yarns, both of which are good quality pure superwash wool yarns.

Wool Warehouse - good wide range of yarns including the full range of Drops yarns, a Norwegian company, who are excellent value for money and very good quality natural fibres or blends.  Drops have regular discount times when a range or type of yarns will be on sale, which are well worth looking out for.  Also do a good range of German company Rico's yarns, which are at the good value end of yarn buying.  My favourites here include Drops Alpaca, a light, soft, drapey yarn, one of my favourites ever, their other alpaca based yarns are good too; Drops Karisma superwash, another good quality superwash wool yarn and Drops Fabel, their sock yarn.  Drops Paris and Rico Creative Aran cottons both deserve a mention as they are good for dishcloths and crocheted blankets as well as baby clothing and are very easy care.

West Yorkshire Spinners - buying direct from the manufacturer, this is a comparatively new find for me but I have just made three projects in their yarn one after the other and am impressed.  Good value for money, I especially liked the Aire Valley DK, a wool/acrylic blend which is machine washable and uses British wool.  I really want to try their newly released sock yarn, I have long thought that a British wool standard sock yarn was missing from the market so hopefully this will fill the gap.

MCA Direct - an established Scottish company who sell a good range of yarns including a wide range of Rowan yarns.

Pavi Yarns - has a good range of Cascade 220, an American brand of worsted weight yarn, often described as a "good work horse yarn", was for a long time Ravelry's most popular yarn, among other yarns and some good buttons.

Get Knitted - an established Bristol yarn shop selling a whole range of yarns, good for sock yarn, although their lack of stock control system (things appear to be in stock on the website but then turn out not to be) has put me off lately I will admit.

Stash Fine Yarns - good wide range of yarns, mostly big brand names, some good sales and discount codes, their bargain section is always worth a look.

Deramores - fast gaining ground thanks to aggressive marketing, stocks a wide range of yarns but are often more expensive than other shops for the same product.  They have a lot of voucher codes which make the yarns more affordable, but on the whole I do not shop here much, but thought they were worth mentioning.

Addicted2Knitting - I should declare an interest as this shop is owned by a friend, particularly good for Zauberballs, good range of clover accessories and Knitpro needles.

Kemps of Sunderland - great for bargains, sell yarns companies are clearing out, really worth keeping an eye on

Black Sheep Wools - the other good shop for bargains and clear outs of stock

Sock Yarn Shop - does what it says on the tin, mostly sells sock yarns

Great British Yarn Shop - stocks a range of yarns including some exclusively spun for them, as well as being the sole UK stockist of popular US yarns Knitpicks

Purple Linda Crafts - specialise in crochet, great range of crochet hooks

Higher end shops

Meadow Yarns - a well curated range of interesting yarns from the everyday basics to true luxuries and exotic yarns not sold elsewhere.  Also has the widest range of my favourite Knitpro knitting needles, I like the symfonies (the spelling makes me shudder), which are wooden.  I would like to try the Hjertegarn Lima, a good value worsted weight wool.

Tangled Yarns - lots of lovely yarns, including the luscious Malabrigo yarns, they do a 10% off jumper quantities of yarn too

Loop of London - sells mostly luxury yarns from overseas, can be pricey, sole UK retailers for some US brands like Quince Yarns and Brooklyn Tweed

British Yarns

The Woolsack website lists retailers of British yarns far more comprehensively than I could ever hope to, but I will briefly mention:
Blacker yarns who sell rare breed yarns
John Arbon, an expert spinner with some gorgeous yarns
Maple Tree Yarns (again owned by a friend) for a wide range of British yarns
Jamieson of Shetland and Jamieson and Smith both specialise in Shetland yarns (amazing stuff)
New Lanark, brilliant value British yarn spun at the world heritage site of New Lanark mill, not the softest but very hard wearing

I hope that helps as a start, I will add to this and do a post at some point on my favourite independent yarn dyers.  I accept no responsibility for yarn bought as a result of this post!

Ever wondered...

Ever wondered how they get the stripes in self-striping socks?  Let this video enlighten you.  It's in German but the pictures are fairly self explanatory.

If

Rudyard Kipling wrote in his oft quoted poem If,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same

This was to have been a post of triumph, that I had finished my Dad's Fair Isle sweater, that it fitted, that he loved it, a photo or two of the jumper, if not of him wearing it - he wants to get his hair cut first!  But... it is finished, it is photographed, it does not fit.  I have not blocked it properly (meaning that it is still a little tight all round) and the top of the arms is all wrong, big and puffy.

After four months of working more or less solidly on nothing else my first reaction was devastation.  That set back set off my tendency to catastrophize, triggering all of my worst, blackest thoughts of myself and my fear of failure and fear that I am a failure.  Inside my head has not been a pretty place this afternoon Everything felt overwhelming and hopeless and I simply could not see how I could ever sort it out or face trying to sort the jumper out.  I felt angry with the jumper and with myself, angry that I had wasted four months, that I had not been able to knit anything for me in that time (what a horrible selfish thought that one is), angry with the world.  At one point I even considered taking the scissors to the thing: not in a cutting a steek manner either.

It took most of the afternoon, good friends, some good Christian music, a nap and a particularly good edition of Just a Minute on radio 4 to help me to climb out of that particular sink-hole.  All of this came on a day that was not a particularly good day anyhow, I felt tired and headachy, the weather was vile again and life seemed dull again.  Now that I have calmed down I can see a way forward.  There is not actually that much that needs re-doing, just the two sleeve caps, which in the light of an entire jumper's worth of Fair Isle is fairly minor.  I think, upon reflection, that I am going to unpick the sleeve caps, having put life-lines into the arm stitches, knit down from the armholes in the traditional manner and then graft the sleeves back on again.  I have plenty of yarn left to do this with and hopefully it will not take too long.

And if that fails?  I'm going to dust myself off, pick myself up, take off the sleeves and knit ribbing around the armholes and he can have a tank top and lump it!

Meanwhile I will try to learn from my mistakes and try to be less afraid, sometimes this fear of failure leaves me completely frozen unable to try new things in case they go wrong.  Rational self knows that this is nonsense and that my first attempts to walk or talk or write did not always go right and needed lots of tries to get right, so why do I not see that this needs to be the case with learning new things as an adult?  Designing a Fair Isle jumper from scratch is a big undertaking, I could not expect to achieve it without making mistakes and wool is a fairly forgiving medium.  I have dealt with other things going wrong with it such as getting the v-neck in the wrong place, so why the melt-down today?  Mental health recovery seems to be a process of two steps forward, one step back, probably best to see today as a one step back and a learning experience.  One day I will be able to keep my head.

A finished baby cardigan

Ta dah!  A finished Baby Sweater on Two Needles, often called the February Baby Sweater, as it appears in the February section of Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac, an excellent and original little book.  Although it is worth noting that Elizabeth Zimmermann's pattern writing style is concise and takes a little getting used to; she expects her knitter to be using her (or his) brain when knitting, one's hand is not held through every step.  However, her patterns are rewarding when one has done the spadework and this cardigan is one of my favourite cardigans to knit for baby girls.  I have used Sandnes Garn Smart, a Norwegian yarn available from Scandinavian Knitting Design.  Now all I have to do is reposition the bottom button, which for some reason I have sewn on in completely the wrong place (relief at finally nearly finishing sewing on the buttons going to my head?) and post it to the intended recipient before their daughter outgrows it.

Next time I will definitely do the sleeves in the round, make the body a little longer and work out a more widely spaced option for the buttons as there are ten of them, which seems excessive on a baby cardigan and takes ages to do up.  Ravelry page here.

There we are, some knitting content at last, doesn't that feel better?

January Ends

January feels like a month to be endured, despite having a birthday in its middle I still feel less than enthusiastic about it.  The fairy lights and sparkles are packed away and once more life is earnest, life is real.  Life is also wet, windy and dark.  So I cannot say that I am sorry to see the back of January.

Meanwhile there has been knitting activity in the background, I have finished the knitting on Dad's jumper, started the making up and in between times, in the interests of my own sanity, knocked up a quick baby jumper and a warm cabled hat.  Pictures anon I hope.

One of the little bright spots, like a missive from a brighter, happier land, has been the arrival of the first catalogue of books published by Daunt's Books, an excellent independent chain of London bookshops.  If you feel gloomy about the survival of the High Street, or wish for inspiration for how to revive the High Street, go to one of their shops forthwith.  Preferably their Marylebone High Street shop branch, which is where I found them, fortuitously, on the way to a medical appointment nearby.  Going to one of their shops is a joyous experience, the Marylebone shop is an original late nineteenth century bookshop, with a wonderful galleried room of books on every country or region of the world, arranged by region, then country, covering more traditional guide books, dictionaries and maps as well as books on their literature, history, art and cookery.

The bookshops are well curated and always have something new to catch your eye and the publishing list is similarly good.  It is like a well thought out and selected delicatessen rather than a pile 'em high behemoth and full of such tantalising titles.  Like Persephone Books they are mostly titles that have undeservedly gone out of print and I look forward to spending some of the book tokens my kind friends and family have given me for Christmas and my birthday.  But don't take my word for it - go and feast your eyes.



As a last note I am pleased to note that Persephone are currently selling Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield, a funny little book that deserves to be better known.  My copy is one that had belonged to my mother's cousin, 'Aunt' Daisy and although she died when I was 12, it is lovely to make that connection and read a book that I know she enjoyed - we inherited two copies, one an omnibus edition which is falling apart.  Albeit she did not managed to obtain a copy with the original illustrations; I suppose you cannot have everything?

Anyhow onwards into February, searching for signs of the beginnings of spring as we go.

2013 - some best bits

A challenge to myself and to my usually gloomy outlook: to find and write about some best bits or favourite things from the past year.

Knitting
I think the project of the year has to be Dad's Fair Isle jumper, I'm just coming to the end of the first sleeve, so it will not be finished this year, but it is the knitting I am most proud of.  The Jamieson Spindrift I am knitting the jumper in is undoubtedly my favourite yarn find of the year, I never thought I would be saying how soft Shetland yarn is but it has really grown on me.



Additionally I am pleased I managed to get my Pomme de Pin cardigan finished, it was another epic knit, but one I wear a lot, very snug and soft and warm despite its light lacy fabric.



Cooking
The recipe of the year has to be the apple and fruit cake I made for Dad's birthday, it was so, so moist and so simple and clever.  Again it was a recipe from Aunt Daisy dating back to the late 1940s; her books contain a rich seam of recipes to continue trying.  As a recipe it suited my energy levels and needing to pace myself because I could make the apple purée one day and the cake the next, a good while ahead of the party itself so that the cake could mature.  No need like a sponge to cook it that day or at most the day before.

Here is the recipe as it appears in the book, I baked it in a 23cm round tin, the cups are English although it would probably work in American cups and just be a slightly larger cake.  A moderate oven is around 180C though I may have used a slightly lower temperature as our oven can be a bit fierce.  It came out perfectly flat on top without so much as a dip.  When you first bake the cake it does look a bit dry and uninspiring, hold your nerve, wrap it up and pop it into a tin for at least two weeks and your patience will be rewarded.

Apple fruit cake – delicious
Do not cut this cake for a fortnight. Have ready 1 ½ cups stewed apple, sweetened with ½ cup sugar and with 1 tablespoon butter melted into it. Mix together 1 cup brown sugar, 1 tablespoon cocoa; 1 dessertspoon spice; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 2 large cups flour; lemon peel and dried fruit to taste (about 1 ½ to 2 cups). Add the apple mixture and a little milk if necessary. Line tin with greased paper. Bake in a moderate oven for about 1 ½ hours.

Music

After much thought I think my album of the year has to be Seven Stars by Chris Haines.  It is a quiet, peaceful album soaked in the Bible and the past of the church.  Of all the songs the one that I love the most is "Strangers", about our true home, it is a peaceful, hopeful song that helps to put all the worries of today into perspective, speaking of the "colours undiscovered", the "sweet aromas" of heaven and how we will be home soon.  Throughout the year this song has helped me in times of despair or panic to find my bearings again and remember that this life is not forever, that a better life is forever.  You can listen to the album here on bandcamp and read the lyrics here.

Rend Collective Experiment's album Campfire has probably been my other album of the year, full of life and energy.  I am so looking forward to their new album.

My garden find of the year: Southover Grange in Lewes

Books

Elizabeth Jane Howard was my book find of the year.  Radio 4's dramatisation of her Cazalet novels caught my attention and I started by reading her autobiography, Slipstream, in January; a tremendous work, lively and honest, one of the best autobiographies I have ever read.  After this I moved onto the Cazalet novels themselves and devoured them, I was so completely in their world and found myself, in the intervals of reading the world insists in inserting, wondering what was going to happen, utterly caught up in the lives of the characters.  They are more than the usual "family saga" novels, all the characters are real and engaging, no mean feat in a novel sequence about such a large family and there is a strong sense of place.

My reading has also branched out, inspired by Katherine Swift's Morville Hours, a book about the creation of a garden and so much more besides, don't just take my word for it, go and read it, now, go on!  So I have read more garden and countryside books, ideal if you cannot get out that much, to go to other places in books.  I have read my way through most of the Penguin English Journeys books, particular favourites were the volumes by Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville West on gardening and I plan to read more of both their books in the new year.  Some of Gertrude Jekyll's books are out of copyright and so available on line for free which is particularly handy.  The extracts from James Lees-Milne's diaries were amusing too and he has been added to the ever increasing list of books to read, along with more of Elizabeth Taylor's novels.

Tomorrow I shall do some thinking on goals for the coming year as is traditional.

Some knitting and more cake

Finally a finished piece of knitting to show off, a little jumper for a baby cousin, the pattern is Fiddlehead Pullover and the yarn Patons Fairytale Dreamtime 3ply.  Yes, you read right, 3ply.  I still have no idea when or how I ended up with this yarn, it is gorgeously soft, but knitting anything in it takes ages, especially when squeezing it in between a big Fair Isle project.  Talking of which, the jumper is now onto its sleeves, which are beginning to take shape after a shaky start.



Then there have been two more cakes made, one for the day of my Dad's birthday, a lightly spiced sponge and the other for the lunch party for his birthday, an apple and fruitcake, which matures for at least two weeks before cutting and becomes rich and moist in the process.  Both from the books I mentioned in my last post.  Where would we be without old cookbooks?


Spiced sponge, cake plate courtesy of my parents

Christmas seems to be rushing towards us at breakneck speed, how it has accelerated over the years.  When I was a child advent seemed to drag on forever and it seemed as though Christmas would never come!  So I am busy, or as busy as I can be, allowing for headaches and naps, my Christmas preparations only succeed by starting early and plodding along steadily, so on I go.


Fruit cake on left, Colin the Caterpillar cake from Marks and Spencer (which has long been one of Dad's favourites) on right.

Progress Report

It is now two weeks and a day since I cast on Dad's Fair Isle jumper, having swatched over the weekend and the body of the jumper is now 12 inches long.  I am in the middle of the last "OXO" repeat of the sequence and will start again from the beginning, but with the "OXO"s differently aligned next.



The jumper is somewhat all consuming and has kept me occupied for most of my knitting time and I am enjoying the rhythm of the knitting and the absorption it requires so as not to make a mistake.  It is mindful knitting, which keeps me focussed and in the present.  Meanwhile, the geometric nature of these old patterns cleverly breaks down complicated effects into variations on simple themes of, for example, three stitches of one colour, followed by one of another across one row and the opposite across another.



Without wishing to sound overly self-satisfied I must confess that I am thrilled at how well the colours have come out, I never dreamt they would work so well first time and thought I would have go through a tedious process of changing colours and making several orders to get it right.  It is a real boost to have it go so well.  Anyhow, there is plenty more to do on it so I had better get going again before my Dad notices - I would knit it my every waking hour if he had his way!

The Right Time To Begin

You may, or may not, have noticed that this week is Shetland Wool Week, which is being marked in Shetland by a variety of events.  Entirely co-incidentally this is also the week that I have made a start on the Fair Isle sweater my dad has wanted for ages.  He is one of the most knit-worthy people I know, not only wearing the things I make him but also showing them off to all and sundry and taking care of them.  His love of being knitted for is life-long and he has not quite got over his mother switching from knitting for him to knitting for his nieces and nephew when he was in his late teens.  Although he later made up for this by getting his grandmother-in-law to knit for him, a mutually beneficial relationship as she loved having someone to knit for.



After a day spent studying the Jamieson's of Shetland spindrift colourcard, a thing of beauty in itself, until I was in a whirl of colour, I eventually picked out my colours, with some trepidation in case they did not work out.  Mercifully they do seem to work, bright and colourful without being too "in your face" or garish.  I wanted colours that had some tradition behind them, but that avoided the beige background of many Fair Isle sweaters.


Swatch

I have put together motifs from an old picture featured in Michael Pearson's book Traditional Knitting, which he had helpfully charted, together with a variety of peeries, some from the original sweater, some from Alice Starmore's invaluable Fair Isle Knitting.  Michael Pearson's Traditional Knitting was a library find and the book that first got me interested in the knitting of the past.  For the charts themselves, rather than spending hours hunched over graph paper, I found some excellent software online called KnitBird, which is charting software for both colour work and textured or lace knitting and allows you to flip and repeat motifs among other handy features.  The finished charts look professional and polished too; I'm pleased with it, well worth the money.

So now all I have to do is knit it.  I began yesterday and am something just over an inch through the ribbing.  Here goes... I may be some time.

The Ravelry project page is here and has details of which colours I am using.

On the needles

As it has been a while since this blog, supposedly about knitting, has had much on it about knitting, I thought i would do an update post on what I have on the needles.



A couple of days ago I finally finished this pair of socks, which, embarrassingly, I started in February.  The delay was owing to how long it took me to get the hang of the pattern and also various interruptions, but now they are finished I am very pleased with them.  The pattern is Elm by Cookie.a and the yarn is from one of my current favourite indie-dyers, Countess Ablaze.  Although I do increasingly enjoy a plain "vanilla" sock, particularly in stripy yarn, I do sometimes enjoy a more challenging sock, particularly by Cookie.a whose designs are so clever, I often marvel at how she does it.



Inspired by autumn's imminent arrival, I have mostly been working on Lady Marple cardigan by Nadia Crétin-Léchenne in Artesano Alpaca Aran, which is a gorgeous mix of alpaca and wool making a lovely warm, not too heavy fabric with a slight halo.  The yarn is slightly tweedy in its depth of colour - the shade I am using is called twilight and is a mid turquoise with hints of red. The pattern has a nice balance between mindless relaxation and a bit of lace to keep it interesting; it is an adult version of a pattern written for a child - Miss Marple.  As it is on 5mm needles it is making fair progress and I am currently a few centimetres from dividing at the armholes to work the back and two fronts separately, and so I am fairly confident of finishing it before the cold weather (touch wood).




Apologies for the quality of the photograph, it can be quite challenging photographing a work in progress, this was taken over a week ago too so I have progressed a fair bit from there.

In between times I have been finishing off some baby knits and really need to get more done - there seem to be a lot being born at present.

The Big Knit - 4ply Innocent Smoothie Hats

Another free pattern, there have not been any for a while, so here we go.



4ply Innocent Smoothie Hat

The Big Knit, run by Innocent Smoothies to raise money for Age UK, is now in its 10th year.  For each hat knitted the charity receives 25p.

Perfect for using up all those sock yarn left overs that are too small to use for anything bigger. I thought the self striping sock yarns would look particularly effective.  They are strangely addictive to knit.

Materials:
small amounts of 4 ply yarn
3mm needles (or size required for gauge)

28stitches and 36 rows to 4 inches – the fastest way to check gauge is probably to cast on a hat and measure it after a few rows

Cast on 36 stitches and knit two rows.  Then knit 18 rows of stockingette stitch commencing with a knit row.

Decreases: Following row knit two together across the row.
Then purl two together across the final row

Cut yarn, thread through stitches on needle and pull tight, sew seam and add pompom or any embellishment you wish.



Perfect as a blank canvas for different stitch variations or colourwork.

For more information about the Innocent Smoothies Big Knit, including where to send the hats, please see: http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/bigknit