Resurfacing

I’m back! After a hiatus due to moving house and our broadband taking two whole weeks to be reconnected. No new crafting to show you, sadly (although I have made a cowl, it’s just not photographed yet).  I do, however, have a new house:

It’s a 200-year-old cottage built into the side of Holmehill, which I think is the original “Hill of St Blane” that Dunblane is named for.  As a result, the garden is somewhat precipitous – but worth it for the view:

We still have some unpacking to do, and lots of little things to sort out (not to mention wedding organisation – three weeks to go!). But as of today I’m on my school holidays – six weeks of freedom, to be filled with pleasant pottering, house and allotment chores, and crafting! I’ve already got house-related crafting planned – two lap blankets for our sofas, ready for winter-time snuggling in front of the fire (probably a Hap Blanket and a Hemlock Ring Blanket). After watching Kirsty’s Homemade Home I’m eager to try candle making (and possibly quilting, but that can wait). And at some point we’ll need new curtains and cushions – I love this fish print cushion from Clothkits, but I’m not sure I can justify £15 + postage on a cushion cover, let alone a self-assembly one!

But the chores can wait for a few days while I decompress and recharge my batteries. Tomorrow I’m just planning a small shopping trip into Stirling for some new summer clothes, the highlight of which will be coffee and cake in my favourite coffee shop with a magazine. Then I’ll maybe go to the allotment for a bit of light weeding!

Packing? What packing?

I should be packing for the Big Move, but I’ve been procrastinating by uploading pictures of my latest FO.

Pattern: Liesl by Ysolda Teague

Yarn: Lousia Harding Grace Silk and Wool

I’m pretty pleased with this. My maths told me that, according to my stocking stitch swatch, I should be knitting a size 42 to end up with a garment that was actually a 34. My lace swatch was really stretchy, however, so I ignored my maths and went with instinct. I cast on for a 38 and I’m delighted to report that it fits me perfectly. The sleeves are a wee bit snug, but they’re perfectly comfortable.

It was very much a matter of just knitting until I ran out of yarn. I put the body on some scrap yarn when I judged it to be the minimum acceptable length, and then worked the sleeves. Then I went back to the body and just knit until I ran out.

The buttons I got from my local craft shop (very local – just downstairs and two doors down!).

I love the fact that they match the feminity of the cardigan, while blending in with the colour of the yarn, so the overall effect is completely neutral (and will thus match nearly everything!). The top one sticks up past the neckline, which annoys me a bit, but that’s due to the placement of the buttonhole rather than the button. If I knit this again (particularly in a DK weight yarn) I’ll put the buttonhole on row 4 rather than row 2.

Because it’s a lighter weight yarn than the pattern calls for, the three buttonholes end at a higher point on the cardigan than ones in the photos on the pattern. I think that’s fine here, because it’s a cropped cardigan and I’m not very well-endowed! If I had bigger boobs I think it would make me look top-heavy, and if I knit it again I’ll make sure it buttons up across the chest, rather than above.

All-in-all, I’m very pleased with it!

Lace, lace and more lace

After over two months of knitting, here is the finished Print O’ the Wave:

Pattern: Print O’ the Wave by Eunny Jang

Yarn: Knitwitches 2-ply silk, colourway “Lush Seas”

It’s blocked beautifully and I am so pleased with it. You can’t see the full depth of colour in the photo, but it varies from deep purple through teal and sapphire to sky blue. It’s going to look amazing with my purple wedding dress. Ironically, I put in lifeline after lifeline and never had to rip it once (I had to do a bit of tinking, but nothing too serious). I would really recommend this as a first time “proper” lace project – as the centre panel is only patterned on right-side rows, it’s not too hard to keep track of. I definitely foresee more lace in my future!

Actually, I decided a lace cardigan for summer was on the cards, so I can wear my strappy tops for school without looking indecent. I have some Louisa Harding Grace in a pale beige/gold colour that I’ve been searching for a pattern for, and after rejecting many shrug patterns as I wanted more of a cardigan, finally decided on Ysolda’s Liesl. The problem is, the pattern is written for an aran-weight yarn and while the Grace is somewhat thick-and-thin, approaching worsted in places, it’s definitely lighter than that specified by the pattern.

I don’t want to go up past a 6mm needle or the fabric will be too holey. I’ve made several swatches. It’s hard to tell if my lace swatch is the right size or not – it was when I blocked it, but when unpinned it’s much smaller than the specified 4 inches unless I stretch it. I know the cardigan will stretch when worn and the weight of it will pull the lace open, but I’m not sure. So I did a stocking stitch swatch. Without washing it (the yarn has been knitted and washed before so I’m not too worried, although I probably will wash it tomorrow) I get 16 st/4 in, rather than the 13 st the pattern calls for. This is 81% of the full size, and happily that means that if I knit the size 42, if it works up at 81% of the full size it’ll be a size 34.

I’m still a bit concerned it will turn out too big, but I’ll just have to start knitting and see how it looks!

Stop press!

About five minutes ago I grafted the final bit of the Print O’ the Wave border.

Yep, you read that right.  Print O’ the Wave is finished.

And even unblocked it is amazing. I can’t believe something so gorgeous came off my needles.

Now I just need to find a big enough bit of floor to block it…

Ready for hillwalking

In only a week my sensible hat and mitts are finished!

Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool DK and Rowan Tapestry.

Pattern: Cairn by Ysolda Teague

I made the mitts an extra hexagon longer to counter the “drafty wrists” problem I get when driving in winter. I’m glad I did – I think they’d have been a tiny bit too short without the extra repeat. The hat, on the other hand, could lose a repeat to make it shorter, but I do like the length of it – I’ll be able to pull it down over my ears and forehead when I’m in a howling gale on top of a hill.

This is a very simple and clever pattern and I think there will probably be more Cairns flying off the needles later in the year as presents for people – I’m sure my sister would appreciate a machine washable version once Autumn starts to arrive (she works outdoors).

So many patterns, so little time

I’m about two-thirds of the way round the knitted border on Print O’ the Wave, and should have it finished in a week or two. But other projects are calling me. I realised while hill walking a few weeks ago that, while I have a trilby, a newsboy cap, and two knitted berets, I am severely lacking in sensible hats. So today I went to McAree’s in Stirling to buy some yarn to go with the leftover grey New Lanark wool from my Baby Cables and Big Ones too. As I am utterly incapable of using up leftovers I actually came away with two balls, having decided that the lovely soft Rowan didn’t go with the more textured New Lanark.

Look at the way the two colours go together! Isn’t it gorgeous? But what are they?

Rowan Tapestry and Rowan Pure Wool DK. I’ve admired Tapestry for ages, and this seemed like an ideal opportunity to play with it. I’m going to make Ysolda’s Cairn beanie and mitts. A couple of people on Ravelry have used Noro for the contrasting colour, and I like the way the colours change throughout the hat, so I’m hoping to get a similar, more subtle effect with the Tapestry. I  might well go back for more Tapestry at some point and make some kind of neckwarmer to go with them.

While I was in town I also picked up a copy of Yarn Forward magazine. I had previous only bought issue 3, which I picked up only for the Miss Potter mittens pattern (as I’d been searching for the perfect pattern for a pair of handwarmers for Helen for ages, and this was The One). The pattern was poorly edited and had a large error (although the mitts turned out really well after some trial-and-error), and after that I steered clear of the magazine. I wasn’t too enamoured of any of the patterns I saw in subsequent issues.

I am, however, very impressed with the current issue. Check out these gorgeous patterns:

Clockwise from top right: Siena, Salzburg Twisted Stitch Socks, Magda and Morning Echo. I don’t know which one to knit first! And I still have Print O’ the Wave, Vivian, wedding corsages and (now) Cairn to finish! Plus I want to design a wee lace shrug to use my recycled Louisa Harding Grace.

There was also an article on Norwegian purling, which looks intriguing. I knit Continental, so I’m an ideal candidate to learn the Norwegian purl technique. Might have to give it a whirl!

Normal service will resume eventually

I’m into Phase II of the great wedding cake baking project. The largest tier is currently in the oven, and I expect it to stay there for at least another 6 hours.  I had to make up the mixture in two batches, as there was absolutely no way it would all fit in even Auntie Frida’s massive mixing bowl.

I haven’t been updating much lately. My photography project has pretty much been abandoned, as has my plan to run the Loch Leven half marathon next weekend. Taekwon-do is happening once a week, and I’m not pushing myself to start training more often just yet. The reason for all this cutting back?

We have accepted an offer on our flat, and had an offer accepted in turn on a gorgeous listed cottage. The big move is still about 6 weeks away and it could all fall through in the meantime, but assuming it all goes to plan we are faced with the prospect of packing up 4 years’ worth of accumulated stuff and shifting it about 200 yards down the road. And about a month after the move we’re getting married.

So I’m cutting back. My priorities at the moment are to keep the allotment under control, keep on top of my work, move house and get married. Everything else is very much Not Getting Done unless I feel like it, and have time. I’m still going to update here with odd photos, knitting projects etc but I’m very deliberately not putting any more pressure on myself!

It’s all very exciting. Please keep your fingers crossed for us that everything goes smoothly!

And just to include a photo – I never did get round to another wedding ring shoot, and I ended up tweaking and using this image on the invitations (which will be going out soon!):

Spaghetti with tomato, mushroom and pancetta

The Fella is working late tonight, and I couldn’t be bothered to go to the supermarket, so I decided to make a pasta sauce based on whatever we had in the fridge. The result was so good that I thought I’d post the recipe (such as it is – it’s really very simple) for my own future reference as much as anything! Apologies for the lack of photos, the light is dull and it tasted so good I just ate it.

Ingredients (serves 2)

• Olive oil
• Half an onion, finely chopped
• A large clove of garlic, crushed and chopped
• 150g pancetta lardons
• A small glass of white wine
• A good handful of sliced mushrooms
• A tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon of tomato puree
• A drizzle of double cream
• A small handful of fresh basil, torn
• Black pepper
• 2oog spaghetti

Method

1. Heat up the olive oil and fry the onion, garlic and pancetta. I sauteed them all together, but a better way to do it would probably be to fry the pancetta on a high heat to brown it, then turn the heat down to gently soften the onion and garlic.
2. Add the white wine and mushrooms and let it bubble for a few minutes (this makes the mushrooms taste deliciously winey!).
3. Add the chopped tomatoes and tomato puree (come to think of it, you could probably add a pinch of sugar at this point). Let it simmer for about 20 minutes until it thickens.
4. Stir the cream into the sauce and let it warm through.
5. Cook your spaghetti. Don’t believe the packet. It takes 8 minutes.
6. Season with black pepper and stir in the torn basil leaves just before you serve it.

Even better? I’ve got most of the bottle of wine left for tonight and half the pasta sauce for my lunch tomorrow!

A Very Important Cake

The fruit had been soaking in brandy for over a week, the ingredients were all to hand, and after I got back from taekwon-do I had the whole afternoon without a pressing reason to leave the flat (apart from the sunshine, but hopefully that will still be there tomorrow). So it was time to start work on our wedding cake.

My friend Jackie gave me an awesome fruit cake recipe that she used for her own wedding, and I trialled it at Christmas. It was probably the best Christmas cake I’d ever tasted; dark, moist and richly fruity (and alcoholic).  So today it was time to make the real thing. Jackie lent me her cake tins, and I wrote up a spreadsheet in Excel to scale the recipe to the correct quantities for each tin.

Today I made the small and medium tiers – the large tier will require the entire oven to itself. I made up a huge batch of mixture (thank heavens for the large mixing bowl I inherited from Auntie Frida).

From top left, clockwise:

• Flour, ground almond, bicarb and spices
• Fruit (soaked in brandy for a week) in a little flour
• Eggs, treacle, zest and marmalade
• Butter and sugar

Assembly took some time as it involved folding in a spoonful of flour mixture, followed by some egg mixture, ad infinitum.

But eventually it was spooned out into the tins and smoothed down:

After this, the tins were wrapped in brown paper and placed very carefully in the oven for the whole afternoon. They’re still there, in fact, but they’re nearly done.

In other wedding-related crafting, I am now on the outer border of the Print O’ the Wave. I’ve done 11 repeats – one short edge and a corner. Ironically, despite putting in lifelines religiously, I haven’t needed to frog once (so far!), while Vivian (not wedding related) is totally kicking my ass at the moment. The yoke section of the pattern has no stitch counts at all, and I’ve already screwed up the decreases once and had to rip back (I foolishly didn’t put in a lifeline on the joining row, and couldn’t get one in straight, but as the yarn is aran and pure wool picking up the live stitches was quite easy). It’s further complicated by the fact that I’ve made sleeves 3 sizes bigger than the body, as they were too skinny for my arms.  Hoping someone on Ravelry will reply to my plea for help in the Vivian KAL!

Back to wedding crafting. I have knit 3 little roses out of the purple Fyberspates Scrumptious leftover from my Rose Red beret. I think if I’m going to make all the corsages and buttonholes out of the same yarn I’ll need a new skein – what hardship! Then I need some green yarn to make the leaves. And brooch pins. And a pretty bead to put in the middle of each rose.

I’m also in the process of taking photos for the invitations. We are hoping to get Moo postcards with a collage of meaningful photos on the front. The main one will be of the rings. To this end, I borrowed our friend Ben’s macro lens and spent some time playing around with it the other day.

All I can say is, macro photography is MAGIC. The letters on the engraving are only a few millimetres tall. And you can even see the weave in the pillowcase I used as a background! I’m going to have another photoshoot, hopefully tomorrow, and I plan to make a few changes:

• Use something smoother (paper?) as a background
• Stop it up a bit (or should that be down?) – the depth-of-field is a bit too small at F2.8
• Polish the rings! They look shiny and clean to the eye, but the macro lens reveals all my grubby fingerprints
• Wait for a time with more diffuse light so I don’t get reflections of the sunny window.

And now it’s less than 3 months to the date (woo!) I can get on with filling out the boring paperwork…

Kinder Scout

On Saturday we were driving from Staffordshire, where my parents live, to Yorkshire, home of The Fella’s family. As we were passing through the Peak District it seemed only right and proper to stop off for a spot of hill walking.

We took a steep route up out of Edale, following the path up the rocky gorge of Grinsbrook Clough. Running four times a week plus taekwon-do have obviously improved my fitness over the last few weeks because we positively stormed up the Clough, scrambling over boulders and overtaking lots of other walkers. It was fabulous. We got to the top and felt like we could do it all over again! I think I feel a summer of Munro-bagging coming on…

Anyway, this was the view looking back from the top of the Clough (you can’t see the Clough itself – it’s so steep it just falls away to the left of the photo).

Most of the walk was over Kinder Moor, a desolate area of peatland. We briefly walked in front of a group of very loud women who we overheard suggesting that someone should plant wildflower seeds to brighten the place up…so we walked fast to leave them behind (it was either that or subject them to a lecture about the importance of moorland habitats and the acidity of peat).

Then there was the bit that comes during all of our walks…the bit where we lose the path. Despite having a compass, map and GPS, and the fact that we were on one of the most popular hills in the Peak District on a Bank Holiday weekend, we ended up wandering around in the peatbog for a while. We weren’t alone – other groups of baffled people kept popping up on the horizon and wandering around looking lost.

The Fella pondering how to cross a patch of ankle-deep peat. Gaiters would have come in handy.

Eventually we teamed up with some other walkers and their very muddy dog and located the Kinder River, which we followed until we got to our destination: Kinder Downfall. The river was low and as we’d approached the waterfall from above we couldn’t actually see it from the path, but the view was lovely.

Then it was time to descend the well-trodden section of the Pennine Way back down to Edale.

The way back down.

By now our legs were quite tired and we didn’t manage to overtake very many peoople on the way down! In fact, we were overtaken by a family…but they had sticks which The Fella reckoned allowed them to go faster.

Now I’m just itching to tackle Stuc a’ Chroin…