You are my sunshine

You may recall that I mentioned that last weekend I bought a new handbag. More specifically, an Emily bag from Earth Squared, a company in Edinburgh that sells fairly traded bags, purses and other accoutrements. I’d fallen in love with the funky, multicoloured and polka-dotted bags in a cafe-come-craft shop in Fort William, but I was on the way home from Skye and had spent all my money.  So I was overjoyed to discover that the gift shop on the High Street here in Dunblane has started stocking them.

I have three black handbags, of various sizes and degrees of smartness, so I’d ruled out black (they didn’t have any black ones in stock any way). I was tempted by two shades of brown (but ruled out as boring), red and brown (ruled out as I have a red coat and that would be Too Much Red), and brown and teal (lovely, but wouldn’t go with lots of things). I eventually settled on mustard yellow and grey, as it was just so very pretty. I have very few yellow clothes, but I thought it would look great with my trenchcoat and would jazz up the black or grey winter coat I hope to buy next week. And it’ll look super funky worn with purple accessories, of which I have many.

So I then decided I needed a yellow scarf or shawl to go with it, and a visit to the Posh Yarn website yielded a skein of golden yellow merino/silk laceweight, which matches the bag perfectly:

I am in love with the prettiness. I’m thinking Ishbel for the laceweight, maybe using the small stocking stitch chart and the larger lace chart. Or maybe a Swallowtail. Or maybe something else entirely!

I have also just ordered Whimsical Little Knits 2, because I have been living in my Laminaria shawl and I desperately want a pair of Veyla mitts to go with it! But they will have to wait while I work on my sister’s sweater – I’m seeing her next weekend and I’d dearly love to have the whole thing done by then, but at least I’d like to have the body done so she can try it on properly. After knitting lace and complicated cables I’d forgotten how quickly stocking stitch knits up – but I’m about to switch to ribbing, so that will probably slow me down a bit…

Cables and lace

At long, long last Vivian is finished!

Details, for those who have (understandably) forgotten since I cast on for this in, oh, January?

Pattern: Vivan by Ysolda Teague

Yarn: New Lanark Pure Wool Aran, colourway Bramble

Mods: My mods were the reason it took me so long to finish! I decided that the sleeves for the size 34 were way too tight, so I knit the sleeves for the size 40.  I then couldn’t figure out how to join the sleeves and body, so put it away for several months. When I came back to it the solution seemed obvious – I worked the pattern for the size 34 when I was on “body” stitches, and followed the instructions for the size 40 when I was on the “sleeve” stitches. I made the yoke longer (as per the size 40 instructions) until I’d decreased down to the right number of stitches for the size 34 shoulders.

Oh, and I also couldn’t figure out how to kitchener in seed stitch, so I just grafted the hood together using normal kitchener – it left a bit of a line down the middle, but not as obvious as a seam would look on a “normal” hoodie. I was going to make the hood bigger, as many on Ravelry have done, but I ran out of yarn (to the extent where I had to unravel both my swatches).

I like the result – yes, the sleeves are a little baggy and not how the pattern was supposed to look, but I can roll them up to do the washing up!

The colour in the above photo is most accurate, but I think this photo of the back shows off the beautiful shaping:

Not so long ago I bought my first Posh Yarn – a merino/silk 4-ply in a colourway that looked very pink onscreen, but turned out to be more of a pinky purple. But I’m not complaining about the addition of more purple to my wardrobe! After frogging my Laminaria shawl due to the ladder on one side of the central stitch on the star chart, I cast on again and managed to eliminate the problem simply by pulling the middle three stitches tight. I made the small “shoulderette” size, and it’s just perfect to wear as a scarf:

It also works rather well slung over one shoulder:

And it even works as a shawl (in fact, I wore it last night over my black and purple polka dot dress for a wedding reception).

I’ve really got the lace bug now. After my Print O’ the Wave, which took me 2 months, I wanted a break. But I whipped up the second “draft” of this shawl in a fortnight (ok, so it is a lot smaller than Print O’ the Wave, but it’s also more wearable). I also want to make a pair of Veyla mitts to out of the leftover Posh Yarn to go with the Laminaria.

Yesterday I bought a yellow felt handbag (it’s an Emily bag from Earth Squared). Yellow is a whole new colour for me (to wear, anyway) and I stumbled onto it accidentally when I bought a yellow top thinking it was green (the shop lights were deceiving).  I decided that I needed a scarf to go with the handbag (as you do) and spotted some yellow laceweight on the Posh Yarn website. I forgot about the Posh Yarn sale, and didn’t log on till nearly 7.30. But the yellow was one of the few colourways that were left, so I nabbed a skein of that.

However, before I can cast on anything else for myself I promised my sister a sweater! Which I have already swatched for, but then I had a tidying spree and put the needles away. So I’ll have to take an educated guess as to what size I used…

To the frog pond!

I’ve been working on a Laminaria shawl in the Posh Yarns Sylvia that I posted a picture of last time. It hasn’t gone particularly well, so far – nothing to do with the pattern or yarn, just me making mistakes and not paying attention. I dropped some stitches in the border and didn’t manage to pick them up in a satisfactory manner (ie in pattern), so I have a small hole in the border. I ploughed on, thinking nobody would see the hole once it’s finished, but then I noticed this:

The stitches on one side of the central “spine” stitch are looser than on the other side. Browsing the Laminaria KAL on Ravelry tells me that this is a relatively common problem. I thought about it for a while, and then decided that, since I’m not that far into the project and I’m a perfectionist, I’m going to frog it and start again. Someone on the KAL suggested twisting the stitches before and after the central spine, so I’ll give that a try.

Meanwhile, I have finished and blocked Vivian (at last!). The upper sleeves are a wee bit looser than I’d like, but everything else fits beautifully and I’ll be able to wear long-sleeved tops under it. I just need to put in a zip – which is not a trivial task as I’ve never done it before! It won’t be this weekend as we’re off to Yorkshire to visit Chris’s parents, but hopefully I’ll be snuggling up in it soon.

Right, off to the frog pond!

Finally, some FOs

My honeymoon sweater (which I finished knitting while on honeymoon!) was finished a couple of weeks ago, but I only just got round to getting photos this morning.

While I didn’t love knitting it, and I ended up ripping most of it out and adding a bunch of modifications, it’s turned out an immensely wearable sweater and I’ve been slipping it on most evenings and weekends since I finished it. The pattern is Cayman (Ravelry link) from Yarn Forward magazine, issue 15. The yarn is Rowan Summer Tweed. I love the yarn – when washed it becomes wonderfully soft and it’s ideal for a casual sweater like this. I’ve already blogged about the pattern – it had no shaping and I wanted it to look more shapely (like in the picture in which the model is lounging artfully in a chair). I also didn’t like the way the ribbing changed from twisted rib to plain rib on the body and sleeves.

In the end I made the following mods:

• I added waist shaping, and from the waist increased up to the next side so it wasn’t stretched across my hips
• I started the ribbing on the body and sleeves an inch or two later than the pattern suggested
• I did away with the twisted rib (except between the raglan increases) and just used plain rib
• I used a single crochet hem as the double crochet edging was pulling too tight

I nearly got rid of the split sides, but they were a feature of the original pattern that I liked the look of. It’s not the most flattering style on someone pear shaped like me, but I still like ‘em.

While on honeymoon I cast on for Ysolda’s Hap Blanket. I made the whole thing out of Artesano Aran, which is incredibly snuggly and soft. I had to buy an extra skein of red just for the bind-off – my loose gauge strikes again! But I found the colourway on sale at Natural Knits for Nippers, so I bought two. I’m planning a hat out of it – maybe yet another Gretel, or something slouchy like Ysolda’s new pattern, Ripley.

I finished the blanket on Friday evening, and promptly used it to snuggle under while chatting to Helen on the phone.

The scalloped edges haven’t blocked brilliantly – I was impatient for it to dry, so instead of pinning it out very wet I put it through a gentle spin cycle in the machine. But I don’t particularly care – after all, just how cosy is this sofa?

I seem to recall mentioning exciting new yarn in my last post. Well, here it is:

It’s Posh Yarn Sylvia (a silk/merino blend) 4-ply in “State” – full of gorgeous pinky purples. It’s going to be a Laminaria (inspired by Princess Pea’s fantastic pink Laminaria – I’d never paid much attention to the pattern until I saw that!) and maybe an Ishbel Beret.

Mountains, eagles and sharks

Our honeymoon on Skye was incredible. Here are a few highlights:

Sunday

We went for a 10-mile circular walk along the coast from Kilbride, taking in Suisnish and Boreraig, ruined villages that were forcibly evicted in the 1850s during the Highland Clearances. Sometimes the crofts were burnt to the ground to stop the householders returning. This sort of thing is all that’s left:

The reason the crofters were evicted was to make way for the landowners to raise lots of these:

It was a very poignant walk, both considering the hard, isolated life the crofters must have led and the terrible circumstances in which they were thrown out of their homes.

Monday

We set off early in the morning for a much-anticipated ascent of Bla Bheinn, supposedly the most beautiful mountain in Britain.

Considering we are reasonably seasoned hillwalkers, this hill completely kicked out asses, and it was entirely our own fault. Despite being well equipped with compass, GPS, OS map, etc, we misread the directions in the walking guidebook and spent nearly two hours guddling about on a terrifying scree slope before turning back, tired and frustrated, just as other walkers started arriving and merrily going up the correct route. Still, our unfinished business with Bla Bheinn will be a good excuse to go back to Skye!

Tuesday

We visited the Quiraing, a famous and decidedly weird series of rock formations to the north of Portree. While we were there, two white-tailed eagles treated us with a fabulous display right overhead:

Wednesday

We took a walk from Glen Brittle up into the Coire Lagan, a popular starting point for the ascent of some of the famous Black Cuillin mountains. The cloud was low and it was very windy, so we settled for a trip via the Eas Mor waterfall up into the Coire, and then back down again.

Thursday

This was the day we made up for our failure on Bla Bheinn. We left the car at Sligachan Glen, and headed up the path towards Glen Brittle. To our left rose the beginning of the Cuillin Ridge.

From left to right: Sgurr Nan Gillian, Am Basteir (with the Basteir Tooth sticking out) and Sgurr A Bhasteir. Our target was the Fionn Choire, to the right of Sgurr A Bhasteir. We had the vague idea that we might attempt Bruach Na Frithe, the “easiest” Cuillin (although “easy” is a relative term when you’re talking about the Black Cuillin), located on the right of Am Basteir but out of sight behind the peaks in the photo. When we got up the the Choire and looked up at the pass via which one can access Bruach Na Frithe and Am Basteir, the Bealach Nan Lice, we decided it didn’t look too hard:

The Bealach is to the left of the crag at the top, while the summit of Bruach Na Frithe is hidden behind the ridge on the right.

We stormed our way up the Bealach and were soon at the summit, which was absolutely incredible. I just love the buzz of reaching a summit, and this was one of the best. The main ridge was under cloud, but we could see the entire island laid out below us, all the way from Portree to the Old Man of Storr to Carbost to Elgol. And, of course, across to Am Basteir and the exposed peak of Sgurr Nan Gillean. Two to tackle in future, I think…

Friday

We went on an amazing boat trip out of Elgol to the Small Isles of Rhum and Canna. We saw porpoises, a minke whale, Manx shearwaters, distant white-tailed eagles and, best of all, a basking shark.

We left our adorable rented cottage the following morning for a leisurely drive home, stopping off in Fort William to meet friends for lunch and staying overnight at the Clachaig Inn in Glencoe, where we were treated to excellent whisky and live music by a funky blues band called Wolftrain.

Back home now and back to reality with school starting next week! But I do have some knitting to show you and exciting new yarn.

Honeymoon baking

Before I head off on my  honeymoon* in Skye, I thought I would share with you today’s baking efforts:

Chocolate and zucchini cake, using courgettes from the allotment. The recipe is from the Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook, which I found (I think) via Chatirygirl. Seriously, if you love food and cooking, and you haven’t found the Chocolate and Zucchini blog yet, go and look at it. Right now. (Then come back and read the rest of this post).

The cake is to take away with us, so we haven’t cut into it yet, but there is a serious amount of chocolate in this cake. (As an aside, for any allotmenters with a surfeit of courgettes at the moment, I also recommend Nigella Lawson’s courgette cake – the lime curd alone is to die for). I am looking forward to testing it tomorrow as we snuggle up in the cottage on Skye!

This is the second thing I’ve made today:

I’ve never had much joy with bread. I’ve tried many recipes using baker’s yeast (the dried kind – can’t get hold of the fresh kind for love nor money) and it’s never risen very well. As it happened, the day I discovered the Chocolate and Zucchini blog, the current entry was a post about sourdough. I was intrigued – a form of bread using a culture of wild yeasts found naturally on flour? It sounded wonderful. So I made a starter culture, using this tutorial. Last week I made my first loaf, using Clothilde’s method (in the above C&Z post) which rose well, but which was a bit overcooked as the oven in the new house is more ferocious than the one in the old flat**.

The above photo shows today’s loaf, my second attempt at sourdough, and I’m very pleased with it. I haven’t cut into it yet so I can’t attest to the texture, but it looks like it’s risen pretty well. I used 400g of white bread flour, and 100g each of rye and wholemeal flour. I only used about 350ml of water, along with 200g of the starter “sponge”, and it was still a fairly sticky dough to knead by hand (I gave it about 10 minutes). I baked it in my very handy Le Crueset casserole, which was a Christmas present a couple of years ago.

I’ll be back in a week, hopefully with photos and tales of my adventures on Skye. And may the baking be as good as it looks!

* No, the honeymoon sweater is nowhere near finished yet.

** Somewhat ironically, the “old flat” was built around 1890 and the “new house” around 1770…

New yarn, and a growing queue

My family were staying on in Scotland for a few days after the wedding, and requested a trip to Edinburgh. The city itself was hellish – so full of tourists you could barely move, and because I didn’t realise you had to book in advance we couldn’t get into any of the tourist attractions we wanted to see (although we did manage an open-top bus tour). By far the best part of the trip was a visit to K1, ostensibly to show it to my Aunt (who knits, cross-stitches and embroiders) but really for some sneaky stash-enhancement.

I’ve been wanting to make the Hap Blanket ever since Whimsical Little Knits was released, and moving into a 200-year-old cottage gave me the perfect excuse. In fact, Chris even gave me permission to buy the yarn from the joint account because the blanket will be for the living room! So I came away with this:

Four skeins of Artesano Aran in a sort of oatmealy colour, and one skein in red for the contrasting colour. I rarely knit patterns in exactly the colours shown in the pattern illustrations, but in this case the beige/red combination will match our living room perfectly.

I’d paid for the Artesano and was just mooching about waiting for my family to finish their coffees when my eye lit upon this:

It’s Fyberspates Scrumptious Lace in “Milky Chocolate”. My first thought was that a scarf in this would look fabulous with my cream trenchcoat. I love the subtlety of the colours – whatever I make with it, it will be extremely wearable. I’m still thinking of Muir, or a triangular shawl (such as Swallowtail) I could wear as a scarf, or maybe even one of those laceweight cardigans that everyone’s making at the moment.

Meanwhile, my highly knitworthy sister has requested a pair of Cairn mitts, and a sweater. I’ve never knit a sweater for anyone but me, but if anyone is due a sweater it’s Anna. She described what she wanted (fairly fitted, v-neck, long sleeves, ribbing) and I suggested the Cozy V-neck Pullover from Fitted Knits. She loved it, so now I’m on a quest for non-squeaky, machine-washable aran weight yarn that comes in a chocolate brown colour. If anyone has any suggestions for a yarn that’s available in the UK which would work, I’m all ears. I’m currently thinking of Patons Diploma Gold 4-ply or DK with two strands held double.

My queue is now getting out of control. I still haven’t finished Vivian. I’m currently re-working the ribbing on my honeymoon sweater (which is not going to be finished in time for the honeymoon!) and I still have the sleeves to do. I’ve got vague plans for an Ishbel in some of my stashed sock yarn. I’ve been meaning to try colourwork for ages, and I’ve got a few possible colourwork projects favourited on Ravelry. And now I desperately want to start knitting up my new yarn.

Now the Big Move and the wedding are over I need to schedule some serious knitting time!

Wondrously well wed

On Saturday, after 11 years together, Chris and I finally got married. It was the most amazing day and everything just came together like magic, despite worries over the food and the weather. It was perfect. The ceremony was beautiful, the weather was gorgeous (despite the fact that it’s been mostly raining for the last week), the hog roast was amazing and the dancing went on till nearly midnight (after which we all went to the pub for an hour!).

I don’t have many photos yet but here are a few that my cousin took:

My Maid of Honour (my sister, Anna), Chris and I walking to the ceremony (I’m modelling Print O’ the Wave!).

Chris and I after the ceremony (Chris is juggling his baby nephew while trying to get something out of his sporran).

The cake, finally assembled!

The wedding party and assembled friends and family!

We are off to Skye on Saturday for our honeymoon – but before we go I may have some yarn to show you…

More wedding crafting

Last winter I knit a small rose brooch (Ravelry link) from some leftover Fyberspates yarn. Mum loved it, and made me promise to knit several for use as buttonholes and corsages for the wedding. I’ve been working on them on and off for ages, and today I finally finished them:

There’s no particular code regarding purple vs blue or pink vs blue hearts – there are enough for everyone at the top table, immediate family, and people giving readings. Everyone can just pick the one they like. (The background in that photo is the white board I bought to make a big seating plan – I’ll be keeping that after the wedding for knitting photography purposes!)

In non-wedding-related knitting, I cast on a couple of weeks ago for Cayman (Ravelry link). It was very much an impulse knit – it was the first day of the summer holidays, and I was sitting outside my favourite coffee shop in Stirling reading Yarn Forward magazine, and I thought, “That’s a nice sweater. It would be good to slip on in the evenings on honeymoon.” And luckily (or perhaps unluckily) McAree’s is right across the road from the coffee shop. And before I knew it, I’d purchased a whole bunch of Rowan Summer Tweed in a lovely pale sage green.

So I cast on, and promptly realised that the artful manner in which the model is slouching in a chair in the photo disguises the fact that the pattern has no shaping other than some ribbing. So I added some waist shaping. The ribbing also changed from a baby cable rib to plain rib after a couple of inches (I guess this would add a bit of shaping, but the ribbing starts below the natural waist), so I decided to make it all baby cable rib because I thought the transition looked weird in the photos. I also omitted the short-row shaping on the collar, because I didn’t want the collar to be so high at the back.

Here’s my progress so far:

I’m very happy with the fit and the shaping (if my swatch is not lying then it should gain a bit of ease when I wash it) and I think the weird ruffling around the collar will go away when the collar is properly sewn down at the front, sleeves are added, and it’s blocked. But I’m not happy with the ribbing.  Because I’ve kept it all in baby cable rib, it pulls tighter than it should over the hips, leaving the split sides (which you can’t see in the photo) gaping and looking very unflattering across my belly!

The current plan: frog back to the stocking stitch portion, knit a couple more inches in stocking stitch, then switch to plain 3×2 rib (abandoning the baby cable rib altogether) and knit it a couple of inches longer than it currently is. A plain rib should have a bit more ease than the cable rib, but I’m wondering whether to stick in a more increases as well.

So I’m looking for advice, dear readers! What should I do with the bottom of this sweater to make it more flattering? Is my plan of a longer stocking stitch portion followed by plain rib a good one?

Wedding cake

Remember the Very Important Cake?

Well, they (for there are three of them) are now finished!

After I finished baking them I wrapped them in greaseproof paper and foil and stuck them in a cupboard, getting them out every few weeks to “feed” them with more brandy. While we moved house they, along with other precious wedding items, stayed with a friend to avoid any mishaps. And now, with only a week to go (!!), I decided it was time to ice them.

Here in Dunblane we have an excellent cake shop, Celebration Stations. As well as fabulous cakes, they sell all manner of baking paraphenalia and freely give out great advice to amateur bakers like me! They supplied and coloured the sprays of sugar flowers. I also found this video on the Internet that gave me some pointers (why had I never thought of turning the cakes upside-down before?). I have borrowed Jackie’s cake stand and recruited her to be in charge of cake assembly on the big day, and now the cakes have been very carefully placed in boxes and will remain there until they need to be displayed for the wedding!

Here’s a close-up of the middle tier:

I am very, very proud of the way these cakes have turned out. I just hope they taste as good as they look!