Let The Sun Shine

Here I am, indulging in shameless basking while knitting up the second of my 'Death to Depression' Mitts.

A mere few weeks ago, I remember being wrapped up in all my woolly items and still shivering. We've had the longest Winter in most people's memories and, finally, the sun has decided to grace us with its presence. About time too, the bastard.

Time for a spot of knitting al fresco while my son happily plays in the sunshine. Aaaaaaah, this is the life...

TA DA!

This is one of the 'Death to Depression' Mitts that I finished last night and I'm really pleased with how it's turned out. Unfortunately for you lot, it looks far, far better in real life than it does in pictures. The yarn I'm using (UK Alpaca Superfine in Mustard) is simply a snoggy delight to work with. It has strength, bounce, and softness and is very easy to knit with. I might marry it...or at least start an elicit affair, which will hopefully end in a dramatic showdown where I shout. 'I've moved on to Fyberspates Scrumptious anyway!' when the truth is that I have a complicated and highly frustrating relationship with Fyberspates Scrumptious (another blog post...).

Ahem, I have an active 'mental' life to compensate for quite a serene real one.

There's something about this mitt that whispers, 'Put some purple in me, I will love you for it'. I'd like to tell it to shut the hell up but then I spotted this bit of colour inspiration in Forbury Gardens this afternoon:

That Chanel Rouge-Noir in tulip form looks stunning against the fresh greens and soft ecru of the foliage. I find this most pleasing and I might have a think about embroidering a dark colour like this onto the mitts or perhaps shelve the idea for future colour scheme inspiration.

I had a very nice browse around Aunt Elsie's Spring Fling at the Market Place in Reading this afternoon. There were many, many wonderful handmade goodies and artwork to see and I got a chance to chat to some of the lovely artists there. I also came home with this little fella from Red Kyte:

He has been named Von Clownsticks (after a silly meme currently doing the rounds) and he will be very at home with his new family:

Meet our lovely collection off oddbods who ordinarily inhabit the mantelpiece in our living room: (clockwise from the back) Uncle Funky the giraffe, Crab Monster, Pootlebeetle (a Japanese silk owl, no less) and Baby Crabmonster. The two larger owls and the giraffe are from the ridiculously talented, lovely (and mildly batty) Caroline Rose Art (she's doing an owl sale very soon, so join her Facebook page and do a stake-out because these babies fly out of her shop at ninja speeds).

Some one should probably stop me before I become one of the people you see on those awful 'Hoarders From Hell' programmes. Intervention needed!

'Death to Depression' Mitts

Here I am, indulging in a spot of 'therapeutic knitting'. Basically, that's a nice way of saying I'm getting truly fecked off with the brioche cowl and I'm feeling a bit Stabby It would seem that 'I've got five minutes, I'll just do...' invariably ends in disaster because I'm rushing and not in the Zenlike state conducive to knitting. So, I just wanted something quick and dirty that packs a good confidence-boost.

For me, crafts are a big fat cannon in my war against a small collection of mental health problems: I can be creative in a way that fits in with my life, plan things to do (vital), and feel I've actually achieved something concrete (with my level of genius, that's quite literally possible). This gives me a good dose of kick-arse positivity. The trouble is that I haven't actually managed to complete a project in some time. I've been trying to learn new things and push myself while working on projects that are interminable long-term, which is fine unless I am struggling on the anxiety-depression front (I don't need to feel like I'm failing at one more bloody thing, thank you very much).

Hence:

Some mitts/arm-warmer thingies that I'd saved on Ravelry (Jiffy Armwarmers by Iris Wilde) and forgotten about. Waddaya know, I have the right yarn, the right needles, and I can totally do k2p2 rib! A new but achievable thing that is knitting up really quickly. I've nearly finished one and so I'll put more progress piccies up at some point and then do the big TA DA!.

So, these shall be named my 'Death To Depression' Mitts. Yeah, I have a thing about death, doom, and destruction because 'knitting is a battleground'...or was that 'love'? Easily confused. Oh, look! That otter looks like Chevy Chase!

*hides*

Hey, it's cheaper than therapy.

For the Love of Ravelry!

Why is, every time I want to make something, I don't have the right things to make it with and so I have to buy more stuff?!

Take my modest stash above. I can't start a single project I've got lined up for the yarn because I don't have exactly the right needle or hook for the job. Nope, I'm not even going to to start all that 'doing it in a different yarn by checking your gauge and changing the needle size' because guess what I still won't have the sodding right size needles, will I, and I'll have to buy yet more??!! Also, I'm easily confused. No, I don't know why I chose such a confusing pastime either, except that it's meant to be a cheap hobby, as opposed to llama trekking in Peru or moonwalking on the actual moon.

Ok, I admit I do quite like the challenge of finding the right project and the right materials to make it. I also quite like completely losing my rag over it (catharsis again, people) and making high-pitched, enraged animal noises (sorry, neighbours). For this reason, I have come to love Ravelry. It confused the pants off me before  I realised it's potential.

For instance, their search function allows you to refine it to the point where you can find crocheted, child size, fingerless mitts, using aran yarn at a beginner level. That might give you a big fat clue as to what I'm planning to do with that alpaca yarn I got at Unravel and categorically did not make a Knitted Necklace with. I shall say no more on that project except:

What can I say? This blog is the place both to celebrate glorious successes and to get a bit Rumpelstiltskin when things don't go to plan.

Oh, and I'm not entirely sure I'm going to bother finding a crocheted hat pattern for Rob because I think I was doing single rib stitch correctly, I just lost faith in the whole 'bear with it because it will look an unholy mess for the first few rows' method.

Blanket of Death!

When I tell people about my 'Blanket of Death' project, they often tell me, 'You can't call it that!' or 'That's not a nice name'. To that, I say, 'I can' and 'It is'. It was named after a song called 'Angel of Death' by the Thrash Metal band, Slayer (Of course! Thrash metal and knitting go together like...Tasmanian Devils and kittens). Besides, if I called it something else then I would no longer be able to do this:

This young man is doing a lovely rendition of Slayer's 'Angel of Death'

in order to relieve my frustration and, let's face it, there's plenty of that during the 'creative process'. Think of of it as a form of catharsis: I get all 'roaring like a big, hairy man' so that I don't have to stab people with my hooks and needles, thereby doing humanity a huge favour. No, no, please, don't thank me, it's all in the name of philanthropy.

It's taken me a while to decide on colour combinations but the the top picture shows my final choice for the main square and border colours. The orangey one is actually a bit more 'pale coral' than 'worrying vomit' in reality - don't you just love how weird colours can be on screen? I decided to choose Oaty and Scrummy Plum for the border:

When I knitted the brown square, it took every single ounce of effort not to eat it because it resembled Cadburys chocolate in its purple wrapping. If I'm rushed into hospital one day for a 'yarnectomy', you'll know why.

The squares are knitted diagonally and then I've crocheted the same type of border as the Doggy Blanket  from my last post. I'm pretty happy with the results, although the teal one was a practise and so it looks like it's got a bad hangover (you know, the kind where you can only open one eye at a squint) These have not yet been properly finished - you can see some fuzzy ends sticking out here and there. They also need to be blocked, so they will be beautifully square and lovely in the end.

Going back to 'Things that make you want to scream like Satan with a stubbed toe', check out my progress with the 'Brioche Stitch Cowl of Woe':

The observant amongst you will notice that there is a lifeline (you thread some yarn through the stitches you have on your needle, so you can rip back to there if needs be) just above a very wonky looking row. Yeah. Major lesson learnt: do a life line before you balls up. I had to rip back quite a number of rows because I made a mistake and then had a HELL of a time trying to get the stitches back onto the needle the right way round.

Didn't work. That's why it looks like it's gone on a bit of a wander before getting its arse back to where it should be. Never mind, it will be all bunched up when it's worn and no one will notice and I won't care anyway and why are you looking at me like that is there something WRONG WITH MY SCARF?!

Deeeeeeep, breathe...might need to check out that screaming video again...

My next task is to look up a simple crochet pattern for Rob's hat. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to Ravelry I go!

Doggy Blanket: Knit & Crochet

Last time, I showed you a picture of the moss stitch neck-warmer that my son hijacked to become a Doggy Blanket. I made vague threats to crochet a border around it but have had little time and energy to devote to handicrafts owing to bogging family illness over the Easter break.

I was not thwarted for long! We were going to Hobby Craft for storage boxes and I thought I must be able to pick up a basic hook because I don't have any. I was fairly impressed that there's something of a decent knitting/crochet section there since the last time I visited: Pony needles, Rowan and Sirdar yarns, lots of patterns and magazines. They didn't have any 5mm hooks, so I grabbed a 4.5mm. I figured this would make the stitches a little tighter but this didn't really matter for this little project.

Here's what I started with, which was me just doing moss stitch in Sirdar Supersoft Aran until it was big enough to cover the beloved Doggy:

I borrowed some Poppy and Tangerine Sirdar Supersoft Aran from my Blanket of Death project and followed a You Tube video by Liat Gat on how to crochet a border around a knitted square. The first row came up a bit squiffy because the yarn in the blanket had become very fuzzy in places (note to self: crochet borders before giving blankets to toddlers who will inevitably chew, rub and generally abuse them). It was hard to see precisely where I should insert the crochet hook in a lot of places.

This is how it looked after the first row:

I found that the wonderful thing about crochet is its flexibility: it's easy to see what you're doing, where you've gone wrong, how to correct and to kind of patch it up a bit. By the time I'd crocheted three borders, the mistakes of the first where much less pronounced. I will freely confess that there is little method here but this didn't seem to matter. I confess, I really rather enjoy the madcap freedom of crochet compared to the seeming rigidity of knitting. There, I said it.

Whether this glorious sense of freedom is a genuine feature peculiar to crochet or I'll trip up further down the line because I wasn't conscientious enough to learn properly remains to be seen. For now though, here is a happy boy with his faithful canine companion, who has a natty new blanket for sofa snuggles:

(Yes, he has several of them. We thought we were canny buying a few - one in the wash, one at my parents', one for emergencies - but we didn't count on the uber-canniness of a toddler who notices absolutely everything all the time. In short, we were rumbled and he now sleeps up against the wall in bed)

A Tale of Two Stitches

This picture is me getting on really well with a brioche stitch cowl in Debbie Bliss Paloma yarn. I got the yarn in a sale (along with a couple of others, which I have plans for already and will roll out for you at some point) at the Jelly Knit Night:

It's baby alpaca and merino and therefore very bouncy and I-will-squeeze-it-to-death! soft. I knew it wanted to keep its squashy, airy character and so I found a great, simple cowl pattern here, got Knit Pro Nova  needle tips to go with my interchangeable set from Meadow Yarn (you can use straight needles but I love the ease and lightness of these babies) and got ready to learn brioche stitch. I was very excited about this project because I love the feel and colour of the yarn (I'm going with the orange and saving the pink for later), enjoy knitting big, chunky things and wanted to try rib stitch, of which brioche is an interesting variety. The advantage of brioche over the usual knit/purl combo is that this will end up being the same on both sides.

It looked an unholy mess after a couple of rows but, as if by magic, the distinctive cornrows of a rib stitch started to emerge. A miracle! I was really enjoying how quickly this was producing a very light but incredibly warm, springy and snugly fabric. I cannot extol the virtues of this stitch enough: it is delightful and the Paloma yarn seems made for it.

What I didn't bank on was the price of having a cowl with identical sides.

Shortly after the top photo was taken, I had completed about 10" of cowl and used most of my 50g ball of yarn (yup, this stitch is a hungry beast but worth it) when I suddenly realised I was faced with a stitch that I needed to slip but I had just slipped the last one, so I should've been on a knit two together. Oh dear. I studied the row and tried to work out what I'd done wrong but couldn't see how to rectify it. Feck. I tried ripping back a couple of rows but then couldn't get the stitches back on to the needle correctly. Feckity, feckity feck!

*kicks the living arse out of her knitting bag and makes noises like a possessed weasel*

*cough* That's better. Brioche stitch is pretty easy once you get going but it's complicated to fix if you get it wrong. The online advice I found wasn't very helpful and I think I probably need a better grasp of how stitches work to be able to problem solve. So, I decided to undo the whole thing, order a couple of 'sewing bible' type books to help my knowledge and start again. No point sulking, let's move on...

Having ballsed that up, I set upon completing the moss stitch neck-warmer from my last blog post. In the intervening couple of weeks it had been transformed into a 'doggy blanket' at the insistence of my three-year old (besides, I'd made a few mistakes in it and found a yarn that was much more 'me' in colour and feel - see Brioche Cowl tale of woe above). So here is the Doggy Blanket:

Moss stitch is good fun and, like brioche, looks unsightly for a few rows before the little springy tufts start appearing and you find yourself exclaiming, 'So that's why they call it 'moss'...' while your husband looks askance at you with an expression that lets you know just how much of a grip on reality you have: 'Great, she's talking to herself about the knitting now'. You just have to keep your brain in the 'knit, purl, knit, purl' zone and you'll be fine. It's the kind of thing you can whip up while having The Antiques Roadshow on (yeah, I know, I'm one rocking chair away from Googling for bed jackets and calling people 'Dearie').

I think I should crochet a border around this in some nice, bright colours (this crapifying weather has given me a temporary allergy to the muted and mottled) and I think that little journey will be a blog post for the future. In the meantime, I can use the stalled Brioche Cowl as an opportunity to demonstrate how to wind a ball of yarn from a hank (necessary if you're not going to sacrifice more sanity to the gods of knots and snags) and possibly how to troubleshoot when trying brioche stitch.