Moving to new blogger?

This might be the last time I post with my old blogger account: blogger tells me I have to move. So if it all goes disasterously wrong, and the whole thing vanishes, you'll know why. If need be, check my website http://www.penspot.co.uk. At the moment, all you get is a link back here, but if here vanishes, or stops being updated, it'll link to any replacement blog.

I've been busy with my OU course. I got my first assignment back yesterday, and I get full marks. I'm rather pleased about this, as you imagine. I'm enjoying the course tremendously: its History of Maths.

Knit wise, I seem to be frogging as much as I'm knitting. I started Florence from Rowan 35 (as opposed to Florence from another Rowan publication) and frogged it because it looked like it was definately going to be too small. I'm knitting a Knuck from Knitty, and have had to partially frog it three times. At this rate, it won't be ready until the summer, which is no good for keeping my hands warm now.

Sewing wise, I have done teensy bits, consisting mainly of winding bobbins. It's worth saying that I got Popular Patchwork with Ferret's quilt in it. She has managed to create a very effective design that really shows off the fabric. In one of those ironies of life, its the fabric I commented on here.

Wednesday Finish

This is my new yoga mat bag: I finished it on Wednesday.




It's my own design: there were lots of knitted ones on the internet, but none that I could find that were sewn. It has two handles - a long strap for putting it over my shoulder and another for carrying it in my hand. The material cost about £2/metre from a local shop, but I have no idea what its made of: I'd bought 1.5m last year.

The original plan was to make it barrel shaped with a round base. After I sewed the long side, I decided just to sew across the bottom instead. Unfortunately this meant it wasn't long enough, so I needed to add a flap at the top. This delayed the bag more then feasible: I want an accompanying messenger style bag, but with the limited amount of material available, I knew I'd have to cut it out carefully. But I also wanted to line it, so I made the lining for the accompanying bag, then I cut out the material and made the outer bag. Then I realised I was running low on thread, so I stopped making the messenger bag and started the yoga bag again. And then I finished the yoga bag.

I'm very, very pleased with it. I like the way it looks almost like a medieval quiver. More specifically, I'm really pleased with the eveness of the sewing.

Congratulations!!!

Congratulations all round, for a number of good and varied achievements to a varied group of people, including Ferret, Rosamundi, Olivia and Vicky. If I haven't seen your recent achievement, congratulations to you too, and let us know what it was.

I made a pot scrubber out of a plastic bag today. It's like this one: I love the light and shadows and reflections in this picture:-

The needles are Susan Bates, and are ideal for knitting string made from plastic bags.

Squared Up

To summarise Tuesday's course:

Ferret was the teacher.

The class quilt can be seen here.

The ruler was a square in a square ruler.

The place was Patchwork Corner.

Snow!

Before the children went outside:
After the children went outside:

No school today!

Hat Details

Pattern: Funky Flapper, from Ruth
Yarn: cascade 220, present from Caitlyn
Needles: 5mm Brittany Birch DPN
Crotchet Hook: 5mm
Duration: 15/01/07 - 28/01/07

DH wanted a hat. DH now has a hat.

I think I should have used the next size down of needles, as the fabric came out a bit floppy. DH says he will wear it anyway.

I liked the wool: it was my first experience of Cascade 220, and it knitted nicely. It didn't split, even though it seems to be two colours plied together, didn't break, didn't itch and generally didn't do all the things that annoy people about other yarns. If I was the type of person to order online, this is something I'd happily order.

The pattern was a good design. I altered it a bit, as my gauge was a bit off compared to the pattern: I did an extra couple of rounds of increasing. Ruth didn't include a stitch count at the end of the increase section which I would have liked, and there was one place where I had to read ahead to check precisely what the instructions wanted me to do. But these are minor quibbles, the design itself was good.

It was also my first experience of a crotchet edging. This really neatened off the edges, and makes it look a whole lot better.

DH just came to ask where his hat was. I think he likes it.

Four things

One - I got my fabric postcard from Kate on Wednesday. Isn't it pretty! There are several techniques on it: patchwork, stamping, couching (hope that's the right term). The picture doesn't do it justice.

When I first heard about fabric postcards, I thought they were postcard sized bits of fabric art which went in an envelope before being posted. They aren't. They are postcard sized bits of fabric art, with some kind of stiffening in the centre which go directly in the post. Look - a franked stamp on the address side.

Two - you might like to see the material I bought. I took numerous pictures and not one shows the variation in colours. The instructions ask for two colours of material plus a zinger: my colours were a red which varies from pinky-red to maroon, and a browny-goldy orange. In every photo either the orange looks red or one of the reds looks orange. This one - blurry and out of focus though it is - gets the contrast less worse then the others. (The zinger is lime green). I do like my choices, although when I was choosing I kept picking toning colours. Maybe I need to practise choosing colours with a whole load more contrast.

The course is being taught by Ferret.

Three - SnB was on Wednesday: an enjoyable evening of knitting and chat. Unfortunately I think I've lost my knitting mojo. I've done so much knitting over the last couple of months (and almost no other crafting) that I probably need a break. The next on my list was fingerless gloves for me, which I do really need.

Four - my fourth finish of the year, a hat for DH. More details later.

Not what I thought!

I went fabric shopping today, to my nearest quilt shop, to buy fabric for the course I am doing next week at a different quilt shop.

I bought fabric, I came home, I studied the neat pile of fabric, admiring the colour combinations. I started to experiment so I could show you lot what I bought.

And then I unfolded one of the pieces and discovered all was not what I thought.

One edge of the material is much darker then the other:

Checking online, it's supposed to do this.

Just to be really frustrating, I left the magazine I bought at Kiddo's guitar teacher's house.

Tagged: five things you didn't know about me!

Ferret tagged me to come up with five things that haven't previously been published. This was harder then I expected. I kept thinking about things from the past - such as my childhood - and about other people I am close to.

Anyway, here goes:

1) I really enjoy public speaking. This might seem odd, because I am usually a quiet person.

2) I have got into the habit of doing logic problems just before I go to sleep. I don't necessarily expect to finish them at one bedtime. At the moment I am working my way through a collection of 16x16 sudokos.

3) I don't diet. I never count calories or carbs or fat grams or whatever. I just eat what I want, when I want it and don't eat what I don't want when I don't want it. However, my BMI is firmly in the normal zone.

4) You can see a thatched cottage from my kitchen window. Two other houses that are close to mine were built before 1775: over 200 years before ours.

5) I have forgotten more about the vi text editor then most people ever know.

(Vi is the standard text editor for the UNIX operating system, and I worked for a company that was writing software to test the operating system. I had to write the test case for vi, and it had to test every option in the specifications. Unfortunately, I have forgotten most of them. Linux and MacOS are both based on UNIX.)

I won't be tagging anyone specifically, but if you want to do this on your blog, feel free to count yourself as tagged.

Third Finish in Three weeks

On the Angel Yarns board, someone was asking for patterns of birds. I had one in an early issue of Simply Knitting (issue 5, August 2005) so I offered to send it to her.

At that point, the possibility loomed that one day I might be struck by the urge to knit a bird. I haven't such an urge ever before, I could vaguely remember thinking that knitted birds seemed a bit pointless. But what of the future??

Copying the pattern would just add to the paper piles around here (and is illegal anyway, if you are am not keeping the original pattern). The best way seemed to be to actually knit a bird.

So here is Dicky:


Pattern: Simply Knitting August 2005, issue 5
Time: Jan 20 - Jan 21 2007
Yarn: body - sirdar country style, wings - possibly sirdar tweed
beak - rowan handknit cotton, eyes - sirdar cotton
Needles: 4mm

I also knitted the swatch for the lace cardigan I am planning to make next. The hat is still in progress too.

This level of finishes will soon slow down: I'm starting an Open University course very soon, and that will take up serious amounts of time. For those interested, it's MA290, topics in the History of Mathematics.

Hats and Knitting Needles

The cascade had been wound into a ball for one reason only: to make a hat.
The pattern had been choosen and bought - the Funky Flapper Hat
from Ruth Wooly Wormhead. The only thing missing were the appropriate size DPNs - I needed 5mm ones. The Cascade suggested US size 7 or size 8.

The two 'convenient' shops (given that one was in Sussex and the other Buckinghamshire) had only got circulars. Circulars are no good when you are fiddling with 9 or 12 stitches.

A vaguely local, well stocked YS is Needle and Thread in Leighton Buzzard. I rang up on Monday, and asked whether they had any. Yes, they did have DPNs in the right size, yes they were DPNs, not circulars, yes I would be going there this morning. So I went, and I got two sets, 5mm (US size 8) Brittany birches, and some 4.5mm Addis.

(Frustratingly, while I was in the shop, someone else came in and asked if they had any special offer wool. "Not today, but the sale starts tomorrow for a week". OTOH, although they have lots of nice wools - Noro and Debbie Bliss and cobweb and artesano alpaca - I don't need any more right now.)


To make it really worth while going, I decided I'd better actually cast on on Monday evening. To begin with, I didn't read the instructions properly, and what I thought I was supposed to do simply didn't work. I pulled it all off the needles, and the resulting creation looked so sweet I photographed it for your viewing pleasure. Then I frogged it. And then I started again, and got further.

In other news, I didn't get to S'n'B yesterday. Again. And we had a four hour power cut today.