Shaaaawwl!

Well, nearly. I have got this far:

Phew! I am really enjoying knitting it, although I have to concentrate quite hard on the lace rows (each RS row; WSs are all purl) and I can't take it to my knitting group. Oh, or even really watch TV... I am also rather worried that I'll need a third ball of wool - which, at £11something, is a bit of an expense. It's Debbie Bliss Fine Donegal Tweed and a pattern from the accompanying book - gorgeous, but not cheap. The pattern does specify two balls, but I have a way to go to 21 stitches remaining... Anyway, we shall see. I am so looking forward to wearing this in the Autumn - and, dare I say, that looks like a realistic goal?!

In other news, I have been listening to The Archers. Now, I appreciate this isn't news for the majority of the Radio 4-listening population, but I've never got into it. However, now, it falls at just the right moment when I come downstairs after the hustle and bustle of a busy/lovely/tiring/long day parenting. So I am catching up on all the characters and drama of it all. And the omnibus seems to be just nicely soporific if I'm woken up in the night. Yes, I'm turning into my mother.

 

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Knitting a Shawl, continued ...

Well, I have done about fifteen rows of the shawl! I dread to think how long this has already taken me; the first two rows of the pattern took me an hour and a half. Still, it is looking as though the pattern is working and I love the colour, so I am cautiously optimistic about it.

I have a feeling it'll be the first item I actually block, as it will probably need it. The wool is a glorious colour and a nice texture to work with, but it does scrunch up a bit.
I have also be rootling through this superb stash of old patterns, bought for me as a job lot from a church sale by a friend.

Anyone else recognise the 'bazaar' toys on the left? I have been reminiscing about my lovely Grandma's excellent knitting; she made us lots of these things and we loved them. I've also turned up this knitting classic:

So, back to the shawl. It seems a good summery knit - what do other people knit in the summer?

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In which I finally complete some knitting ...

Hurrah! The seldom-felt joy of completing a knitting project. This is a cardigan for my daughter. This is the 1-2 year size which will hopefully be a good fit. The yarn is much nicer than it looks here - it's Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in a lovely pale green. The cable effect pattern is a trick achieved with slipped stitches, so it was much easier than it looks - perfect.

Green is a colour she wears a lot, as I try to avoid too much pink, or ghastly clothes with lots of slogans on them.

Next project: a shawl for me! I haven't ever made a shawl, so this will be interesting ...

 

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Knitting + books - what more do you want?

Time to write about an excellent novel: Anna Hope's debut, Wake.

This is a beautifully written, moving novel about the lives and legacy of soldiers in World War One. London is preparing for the public, ceremonial funeral of The Unknown Soldier and Hope creates a convincing portrait of the city and its dance halls, government offices and homes after the destruction of the war. There is little sense of celebration: people are mourning the lost, or the un-returned, and the men who have come home from the war are scarred by their experiences. The novel has three protagonists: Ada, a mother whose son is missing; Hettie, a nightclub dancer; Evelyn, who distributes benefits to returning soldiers in a government office. Hope tells each of these stories and weaves between them episodes from soldiers' lives in France. I found the three stories interesting and lifelike - Hope's technique of writing the whole novel in the present tense means that each character's thought processes are minutely recorded so that their inner lives are superbly created. It is a slow-moving novel but I appreciated this: Hope writes in careful, thoughtful detail and there are moments of drama which are also well-managed. All in all, this is a very satisfying read: it's unsentimental (though moving), well-observed and unusual - even though so much writing has been inspired by World War One, this novel has, undoubtedly, something new to say.

And a completed piece of knitting in time for Handmade Monday!! I'm really pleased with this. I've written before about this pattern (from Knits To Give by Debbie Bliss - though it should more properly be called Knits To Keep) and the wool, which is just lovely. The cover is a good, snug fit and it was an easy pattern - it looks misleadingly like garter stitch, but it's a little more complicated than that. I need a reason to make another one - I guess there's always 'giving' ... !

 

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A Good Read, An Exhibition and a New Knit

It seems a while since I've blogged, so this is a February round up! The month began with a nice gift from Mum:

Then I went to the fantastic Masterpieces: Art and East Anglia exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich. I just squeezed the visit in before it closed and I was so glad I'd made the effort. Because the link between the pieces was only that they were produced in, or inspired by, or found in East Anglia, there was a huge range of exhibits in a variety of media. There were fabrics, Anglo-Saxon objects, paintings, silks and sculpture. This made for a fascinating time wandering round and looking at everything. One slightly surprising detail: East Anglia was defined as just Norfolk and Suffolk! No Cambridgeshire?!

Norwich looked beautiful in the sun last week:

As a great fan of Elizabeth Jane Howard, I was pleased to spot this celebratory table in Norwich Waterstones:

At the moment, though, my reading time is being completely devoted to the wonderful Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. This is a completely marvellous book and, as it has had masses of press coverage, I won't describe it fully. Nevertheless, the recommendation from (another great novelist) Hilary Mantel on the cover is well-deserved. Atkinson's writing is precise; the settings and situations seem very true to life (in World War II, for example) and the characterisation is superb. At the start, I tried to keep flicking back to the list of dates at the front to see which of Ursula's 'lives' I was reading. I wouldn't recommend trying to keep track of things in this way; I soon gave up and enjoyed the book much more because of it. Atkinson's use of motifs such as the fox and snow struck me as particularly ingenious: they are as much fun to spot, linking the episodes in the novel, for the reader as they are for the characters. This is a unique novel which would bear reading again and again - rather like Ursula's episodic, near-magical life.

Oh, and finally - before the the weather turns too hot, I've just got time to knit a new hot water bottle cover from Knits To Give by Debbie Bliss. More on this once it's done, but I'm enjoying doing it in luxurious merino Aran:

Hope everyone is enjoying the sun!

 

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She cooks, she knits...

I seem to have been knitting this baby jumper for some time - and the baby has already been born, so last week I thought I'd really better get a move on. It's a lovely pattern which I've blogged about before, from Joelle Hoverson's book, More Last Minute Knitted Gifts. It's knitted in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran on a circular needle, so (if you just crack on with it) it knits up quickly and there are very few seams to join up! The only reservation I have with the pattern is that there are no buttonholes, so I've added one. Now I can finally go and see the new arrival!

This has been a rather productive weekend, all things considered! It's not often I have even one thing to blog about on #HandmadeMonday! I've been meaning to make these mug-hunger samples for a lovely local cafe for ages, as something I might sell with them. So now I have these to show them later today:

And, finally - I made these gorgeous cookies from a recipe in the Guardian magazine a couple of weeks ago. You can find the recipe here: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/nov/01/nut-recipes-almonds-pecans-hazelnuts. The cookies are luscious, really chocolately, and the pecan praline tastes lovely in them. Having said that, the praline took just *ages* to make - probably because I was very nervous about burning the sugar, so I didn't turn it up high enough to melt it. Because you have to make the praline first, these biscuits take slightly longer than other cookies, but we are just loving them.

 

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#Woolhouse!

 

 

 

 

Yeay! A weekend in which we see W O O L!

 

 

This weekend, we went to Somerset House to see the Wool House exhibition by The Campaign for Wool. What a *fab* event: room after room furnished almost entirely in natural wool fibre and plenty of mannequins sporting British tweed, too. Even the carpet runners had been crafted for the exhibition, as had this felt-covered chair by Claudy Jongstra:

 

 

 

We loved the light and the natural colours in Josephine Ryan's Natural Room, inspired by her Irish roots:

 

 

 

The chairs are covered in Aran jumpers!

 

 

This free exhibition was jam-packed, too, showing how many people care about just what things are made of. As well as these 'still life' rooms, there was a room with bowls of yarn including my Hiking Hat favourite, Debbie Bliss' Blue Faced Leicester Aran, as well as Rowan Pure Breeds and Blacker yarn from the Falklands. Sadly none for sale, though! Not every room showcased the practical, utilitarian uses for wool: there were sculptures, tapestries, bed-steads . . . all showing just how useful but also beautiful and decorative woolly things can be! Twitter tells me that the exhibition has hosted classes in knitting and weaving, too, and that yesterday they held a Tweed Tea-Party. Hurrah for The Campaign for Wool - a great show.

 

#HandmadeMonday - My Hat, At Large.

Finally, the Louisa Harding Himalayan Hiking Hat is done! This took three skeins of Debbie Bliss Blue-Faced Leicester Aran (from Les Tricoteuses in North Norfolk) rather than the two skeins the pattern asked for. Frustratingly, the third skein was needed for only two or three rows of knitting - but the pompom took rather a lot of wool. It has been pointed out to me that the pompom may be, er, a little outsized . . .  but I *love* this hat. The pattern is a good mix of cables, rib and bobbles. It's easy to do and the yarn is lovely - really warm, with a lovely texture which isn't too silky or floppy.

I was so pleased to see snow, so that we could go off and photograph it out and about! If you want to make one of these, see Louisa Harding's page about her fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Care, a really worthy cause. This hat is 'Parju', and the pattern for this, plus 5 others, can be found here: http://www.louisaharding.co.uk/macmillan/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, what to knit next? This brilliant charity-shop purchase by my GF has given me an idea:

 

 

 

 

I feel a tea cosy coming on . . .  How can it be that I have never knitted one of these? Scary thought: could it be that I am turning into someone who knits from those "Knitted Bazaar" books?! Help!

 

Happy Knitting: what have you made for #HandmadeMonday?

In Which I Mostly Drink Coffee & Buy Wool...

This was *just* what I needed: a huge cheese scone (missed photo opportunity there because I just had to scoff it) and a lovely, dark strong coffee at Back to the Garden in Letheringsett, near Holt, Norfolk.  Here is the interior of the cafe:

 

It is in a gorgeous restored old barn, full of light and beautiful beams. *And* they have a knitting group on a Tuesday morning - I'm a bit envious of people knitting and drinking coffee in this gorgeous location. They have a farm shop, too:

 

 

Luscious. Here is their website:  http://www.back-to-the-garden.co.uk/

 

Then, on to Holt, and to its lovely wool shop, Les Tricoteuses. Managed to buy more Debbie Bliss Blue-faced Leicester Aran there, to make another Louisa Harding hat. It's lovely yarn, not too silky and quite plump (not the technical term, I'm sure, buy hey) and feels like it'd make a nice hat. The shop is jam-packed with wool - you need to leave time to have a rummage! So, all in all, a successful day!

In Which I Venture to Les Tricoteuses & find yarnbombing in Sheringham...

A lovely sunny day in Holt last week - and a browse in a lovely wool shop:

I was really keen to check out this shop properly - I love the name (with its connotations of gallows knitting) and Chapel Yard, its location, has great little shops and galleries. The huge window shows the lovely yarns inside.

This is a pretty good generic picture, actually, of all the Places To Buy Yarn that I like - the gorgeous coloured patty-shaped balls of pure wool. This shop has an excellent range of luxurious wools - everywhere I looked there was more! It was great to meet Mary Pembleton, the owner; she turned down her German rock music to talk about the shop, our dislike of acrylic, "squeaky" wool,  and showed me her newest arrival - *British*, no less - Debbie Bliss Blue Faced Leicester Aran yarn, in gorgeous autumnal shades -

I want to go back and buy the mustardy colour to make some gloves I've found a pattern for in Bronwyn Lowenthal's Love to Knit  - Mary has knitted the swatch here in red and it feels dense and lovely and woolly! She has the Debbie Bliss accompanying pattern book, too. Bravo, Les Tricoteuses! www.lestricoteuses.co.uk

The knitting theme dominated our trip to Sheringham, too; luckily, my Lady Friend is a patient partner. First I had to snap this part of the sea front mural:

But then - huge excitement - we saw more Sheringham *yarnbombing*: fantastic knitted fish and starfish on the seafront -

Aren't these great? I wonder if it's those @NorfolkNinjaKnitters again ;)

On a rainy day, we went to Norwich. While the Lady Friend had  a tour of the Cathedral, I paid a visit to Jarrolds, a great independent with lots of lovely Sirdar wool and good haberdashery bits too. Had a crochet conversation with the sales assistant who was wearing a black crochet collar that she'd made herself. Then, a trip to the Cathedral refectory:

And a scrumptious cheese scone:

I love Emma Bridgewater's crockery - though the use of this Biblical quotation is rather surprising, as the second part of the verse from the Song of Songs reads, "For I am sick of love." I suppose that's why only the first part is on the plate!  I know there's no mention of a Wednesday #WIP - but that[s because my Sarah Hatton jacket is still .... still .... still on the go! 

Wednesday's #WIP, Graffiti Knitting & More Adventures in Haberdashery

So, here is my current #WIP: a jacket, for me. It's a Sarah Dallas moss stitch jacket from Rowan's Scottish Inspirations, using lovely Debbie Bliss Glen  wool I picked up in the Cafe Knit sale. It's beautiful wool; I'm just hoping it knits up like the pattern as I was too lazy to knit a tension square . . . am I the only one?! I am rather too near the sea in North Norfolk in this picture - I had to shift back a bit a few moments after I took this. I'm rather pleased with my cheapy jelly shoes, too!

Norwich  library has a fantastic selection of knitting and crochet books - and look what some knitters have done to the section!

This probably isn't technically yarn-bombing, actually, as it's to advertise a new Knit and Natter group they're starting up there - but it looks great.

No trip to Norwich is complete without a rummage in the haberdashery department of Jarrolds, and here is one of my mug huggers en route:

They have some gorgeous VV Rouleaux ribbon on sale which i'm rather regretting not having bought: lace plus velvet . . .  hm, maybe I can give them a ring. . . .  ;)  I did manage to buy some red "Live...Love...Laugh" ribbon and a Rico Aran pattern - they had lots of lovely things.

I wonder if I can take a break from the jacket - much as I love it - to have a go at the crochet necklace and collar I've Tweeted about . . .  they're beautiful and there are so few crochet things I actually *know* I will use....

Jubilee Weekend Knitting and General High Jinks

Yesterday's trip to Cafe Knit was inevitably rather Jubilee-tastic. I'm sure Suffolk has the highest concentration of Union Jack flags and bunting in England; Cafe Knit had some fantastic knitted bunting as well as the great tea cosies in the window. I treated myself to some delicious Debbie Bliss 'Glen' wool to knit a Sarah Hatton cardigan - the pattern looks brilliant, and nice easy moss stitch too - perfect TV knitting. Victoria has 15% off in celebration of the Jubilee, too, so it felt like a great bargain! She has some great Lavenham Blue yarn, too, bred and dyed in Suffolk - I wish I'd bought some of it ... might have to ring and order some ... but how many WIPs can one person have?! There is an excellent review of the Lavenham Blue yarn on another East Anglian knitter's blog, which you can read here: http://annidomino.blogspot.co.uk/  . Anni tests the yarn's tension and colourfastness and has good close-up photos of it, too.

Saw this rather unlikely headline on the way to the car. There's no tradition of Jubilee spoof headlines, is there??

This picture was last weekend, knitting on the North Norfolk Coast, with Sirdar chunky yarn from Sheringham's Creative Crafts. I'm sure the Queen would rather have had her Jubilee in the 27 degree heat of last Sunday, but I was quite happy knitting and drinking coffee on the beach. So different from today, when our street party had to take refuge from the rain in the church - quite medieval, in its way! A brilliant occasion, nevertheless. Now - TV and knitting are calling!