Little Sleeves
Tonight I started the little sleeves, the final stages, of a new cardigan for Alice. I stopped to reflect, as I did so, on various aspects of what I was doing.
I’ve been away a lot lately and so it feels like a real treat to be at home on a Saturday night. We’ve had roast chicken, a bottle of chardonay and some relaxing after a day spent doing loads of re-organising. I almost, very nearly, cast on something new tonight. Well, when I say almost, I mean I thought about it. I didn’t go so far as to actually choose new yarn or even a project. I just flirted with the idea that I could, if I wanted to, start something new. It feels like everything I’ve got on the needles at the moment was started with travelling in mind. Something that was either easy or transportable or both.
And for a moment I struggled with boredom, which is just crazy. Each of the garments I have on the needles, and really there are only four taking my attention, was once an exciting beginning. Each of them was begun in a fit of love for the new. And a matter of weeks later, my desire to get stuff finished means they’re all feeling a bit tedious.
But I sat tonight with Alice’s little cardigan, a pattern I’ve made before, and decided to remember that it was once exciting. I began it on my second afternoon in Bendigo. I chose the yarn at the Bendigo Woollen Mills shop. I sat on the floor of our little cottage and cast it on with that sense of urgency that comes when you have new wool, needles and that itch. And I thought I’d finish it quickly. Two weeks later and it’s been lingering. I worked on it in the beautiful Shamrock pub with Drk on that Thursday afternoon and I fell in love with the pale blue wool.
So I started the sleeves this evening and thought of how this cardigan began, and who it’s for. When I thought of how the pale blue will look with that silky white hair of hers, my feelings changed. I thought of her precious little arms and the way the cardigan will button up over her pudgy tummy. And I thought of how when I put it on her, she won’t even notice and that made me smile. I don’t think we dress babies or toddlers for their gratification. I mean, we want them to be warm and they are warm when we put them in woollens, but the look, the beauty, is for us. Not for the babies.
Sometimes after I’ve put a new handknit on Alice for the first time, I’ve had a second’s pause when I’ve realised that I almost expected her to look thrilled with the garment. She won’t, of course. She’s too young for that. But it’s nice to imagine that what you’ve dressed them in registers somewhere in their minds as good. As comforting. As loving. My nephew has received knitted goods from me for enough of his six years now to know that when Aunty Bells gives him something woollen, it’s a good thing.
So even though I’m finding tiny sleeves ever so slightly dull, the knowledge that they’re the casing for those small, pale arms is enough to remind me why I started in the first place and to remember that every item I make started life as something new and exciting.
Here’s Alice watching her cousin at his rugby game last week. She ran around like a mad child, but paused to turn and say hi.
Bells
The Right Cuff
Here’s a lesson in what happens when you apply the wrong bind off to a sock knit from the toe up.
I finished the sock when I was at the lunch time knitting group yesterday. I was in a cafe, with no needle to do the sewn bind off, which is better for the cuffs of toe up socks. I tried a different bind off and hoped for the best. This was not the best!
I used the method which makes a lovely edge but isn’t as stretchy as promised. It looked like this.
But when it came time to try it on, it wouldn’t, as you can see from the top photo, even go over my foot. Fail! This bind off was simply worked by knitting 2 stitches together through the back loop, placing the new stitch back on the left hand needle and repeating. Alternatively you can do it by not knitting through the back loop. I don’t know if this provides a more stretchy bind off. I should try it some time because going through the back loops made this tighter than even a regular bind off would.
A few minutes’ work this morning and I was right as rain.
There are some great demonstrations of different bind off methods in this Knitty article.
I mentioned in my last post that I’m feeling like I’ve got too many projects on the go and that I need to finish something. The way I’m planning on doing this is to set myself deadlines. I know I’m good with deadlines. I like to set myself a challenge.
For instance, I’m crocheting a Chevon Lace cardigan for my sister, Fee, at the moment. It’s been sitting at the point of division for the sleeves for seemingly weeks. I kept putting it off until I could measure it properly on Fee. Now that I’ve managed that and have passed the point of dividing for sleeves, I’m off and running. I’ve decided I’d like to have it finished by the weekend, which means focussing pretty much solely on that. It’s a fast project – the body is the crochet equivalent of solid stocking stitch. Monogamy is really the only way to go when the number of WIPs gets you down.
That said, I’m about to launch into some sewing for the morning but I’ve got stuff to prepare for my class tonight and that’s my justification!
Bells
A Winner and the Weekend
I returned home from a sisters’ weekend in Sydney and drew the winner for the bag contest. I’m happy to declare Peaceful Knitter, Sonia, the winner! Sonia, I’ll be sending the sunflower bag to you as soon as I hear from you.
Some time ago my sisters and I planned a weekend where we’d all get together in Sydney, with the two small people we love most in tow, and it just so happened that the only date that suited us all backed on to my Bendigo weekend. And so I abandoned Sean for the second weekend in a row and headed to Sydney with my sister, Fee and baby Alice and arrived on Friday evening.
Saturday began bright and early with an outing to watch nephew Willem, who’s now six years old, in his weekly rugby match. I know nothing about rugby, and neither does Alice, but we cheered a lot.
In the afternoon, we all visited RoseRed so we could meet her new little boy. Drk came too and there was much food, tea and company. Mr RoseRed suggested a trip to a nearby park and when we left, Willem said that Mr RoseRed was ‘very nice. He’s nice to kids.’ That’s endorsement!
While there, RoseRed presented me with a particularly fine birthday gift. It took my breath away. Wollmeise lace yarn. Oh my. It’s taken much restraint to not wind it into a yarn cake and knit it since arriving home today.
The rest of the weekend passed in a blur of card games, good food, cuddling children and games of tag around Adele’s living room. Exhausting but exhilarating. I’ve come home with a head cold and a plan to stay home for the next few weekends, and then some. Too much time away, even for fun reasons, takes its toll at some point. But it really was fun and the little people were loving and sweet and very well behaved. Especially the one who doesn’t go to sleep very easily when in a strange house.
I have a lot of projects on the needles right now. Too many for my sense of well being to remain intact to be honest. I need to finish something soon. So stay tuned. I’ve set myself some mental deadlines for a few things and will be back soon with new stuff to show.
Bells
A Bit About the Drawstring Bags
In the last post, when I mentioned I was giving away one of my snazzy, fresh off the machine drawstring bags, there were a few questions about them, namely about the pattern.
As a newcomer to sewing, I’m pretty impressed with myself that with next to no knowledge other than a smattering of high school sewing, a bit gleaned from my mum and a lesson in apron making with Jejune a couple of years ago, I got off and running with these bags quite happily. When I got my machine home and took it out of the box earlier this month, I stared at it and thought, I don’t even know where to start. But the internet, as we know, is bursting at the seams (ha ha) with tutorials on everything and anyone, with a bit of time and patience can find what they’re after and follow some videos or pictures.
And here I am. So I’ve now made quite a few of these dinky little bags. The first one, with details, was posted here. It’s a great tutorial for lined drawstring bags put together by Yarnmonster. I’ve made seven bags and four of them are pictured below. Two I’ve kept, two are being or have been given away.
1. russian dolls bag, 2. sunflower bag, 3. mum’s bag, 4. Drawstring bag
Obviously I use them as project bags. They’re a great size for a sock on the go, or some other small project. Next I’m going to make the bigger size available in the tutorial because I want to see what size knitting project can be kept inside.
Now that I’ve started my sewing classes, I’m looking forward to broadening my skills and am scouting around for inspiration. What I really hope to do is learn to make skirts for myself, so I was pretty happy to see a whole bunch of skirt making inspriration at Buttontreelane in a whole week devoted to that subject.
Can’t wait til I can do that sort of stuff myself. In the meantime, I’m keeping it simple with the bags and other small items. Entry to win the sunflower bag pictured above closes on Friday night, whichever timezone you happen to be in. Just leave a comment. I’m away for the weekend so I’ll draw when I come back.
Oh and as endorsement, after I sent the pink one to my mum, an experienced seamstress, she gave my novice work the thumbs up. Thanks Mum!
Bells
The Bendigo Haul & a Giveaway
While the first post about Bendigo covered the experience of being there, meeting friends, experiencing the town, this post is more specifically about the show itself and what i bought there.
I’m pretty pleased with how it played out. I didn’t go crazy. I bought a couple of gifts which I can’t show, but the rest was good stuff for me.
On Thursday morning, DrK and I went to Bendigo Woollen Mills. Lovely, lovely experience. I know some people were a bit disappointed by what they did or didn’t find in the sale room out the back but I did well. I got stuff I plan to use for specific projects.
This discontinued colour, Cayenne, in the Rustic 8ply will be a Hemlock Ring blanket, or some such.
This is another discontinued colour, Inferno, the one I used to make Alice’s Helena cardigan. I snapped up some for me and some for RoseRed. Amazingly it’s the same dyelot as the leftovers from Alice’s cardigan.
I bought some of the amazing Melody which is part cashmere, part merino, part microfibre. At $4 a ball it was a bargain and I began knitting it up that afternoon into a Garter Yoke cardigan for Alice.
Then there was the show itself. Early on I saw a kit for a delicate crocheted scarf. I never got over it. It was expensive and so was my main purchase for the day. I’m not allowed to start it until I’ve finished my Babette blanket. There, I’ve said it. Such lovely muted colours. I think it’ll be a good summer project.
From Pear Tree yarns I bought some 8ply alpaca which is deliciously soft. It was very cheap and last night Sean put it against his throat and asked if he was getting a scarf out of it. Maybe. Cheeky bugger.
DrK bought some Polwarth Silk in 5ply for me as a birthday gift. We all love this stuff and I think it’ll be a shawl for next winter. Look at the sheen!
And that was basically it. I got some gifts which will be mailed off in due course. It can take a bit of time at a show to look for just the right thing for gifts. That kept me busy.
On our way back to Melbourne, we stopped at a little town called Kyneton where we found a gorgeous wool and fabric shop. By then I felt I’d gorged myself on yarn and so focused on fabric instead. I’m still rather enthralled with fabric bundles. They make me happy.
Speaking of fabric, I’ve spent today making another couple of project bags. The first one is quite special. It was made from fabric that was given to me by the lovely Jan. When I said I was starting to sew, Jan said she had some fabric she would love to give me. I was thrilled when I saw it was Russian doll fabric. I made a bag today, with the yellow fabric Jan also included. I just love it. Thank you, Jan.
If you’d like to win the sunflower bag pictured below, all you need to do is leave a comment between now and Friday night. I’ve made a few now so feel confident they’re good enough to give away. I hope so anyway!
Bells
The Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show
There were many things I liked a lot about my four days in Bendigo. I’ll show you. Some with photos, some with words.
Going to Bendigo Woollen Mills felt a bit like a pilgrimage. I loved it. A very welcome, buzzing little shop with the famed ‘back room’ where the sales are. I’ll do a separate post on the shopping.
I liked stumbling upon a giant ball of yarn at the Women of Wool display in the middle of town in the afternoon DrK and I spent exploring.
I liked finding my friends at the show all wearing fabulous handknitted hats.
I loved the fabulous architecture of this large regional town, with its roots in the Gold Rush era. DrK and I spent a few hours knitting and drinking very happily in that building, the Shamrock Hotel.
I liked hanging out with friends all day at the show, meeting up with people I’d longed to meet in person and generally having a very happy time connecting. Above, left to right at back, DrK, Random Knits, HoneybeeMine. Front, me and Knitabulous. It wasn’t very muddy at the show, thankfully. My feet stayed dry and warm all day!
I liked the Melbourne-style lane ways. In this one we found the best cafe/bar called The Dispensary. A place that does coffee, breakfast and cocktails all equally well is a real find!
Here’s a pic DrK took of me knitting there. Great venue. Loved it.
1. Meeting Kgirl, 2. cats mum and drk
I loved meeting people, like the each utterly lovely Kgirl and Catsmum. Sometimes, the online/real life crossover is easy as pie. Both of these meetings, as well as many others, were just seamless and lovely.
I really loved the cathedral that sits up high on a hill over the town, a truly impressive and imposing building. At night the spire is a shining image from all over Bendigo.
1. Cathedral – outside, 2. cathedral door, 3. cathedral detail, 4. Cathedral interior
I loved having a quiet, friendly little house where I stayed with Jody, DrK, Yarna and Jody’s Mum. It was a quiet haven from the occasional craziness.
I loved sticking my hand into the damp, warm and heavy wool on the back of a very handsome ram.
I loved sitting around and knitting for hours when there was a chance.
And I loved buying new yarn, but that’ll be saved for another post when I can take some photos of my delicious additions.
I loved the Bendigo Sheep and Wool show. I think I don’t feel the need to go every year and I feel glad that I’ve been. When I post about what I bought, I’ll talk more about what the show was like in more detail.
I’m also loving being home.
Bells
My Mum’s Cranford Mitts
Hopefully by the time this post goes live, my mum will have received a package in the mail from me. Inside the package will be a bag, a bag that I made. When I posted recently that I’d learned to make a lined drawstring bag, mum asked if I could make one for her. I chose some fabric in the Addicted to Fabric sale a few days later and here it is. I also made one for my sister, Adele from the same fabric.
Inside the bag are some fingerless mittens my mum asked for, before she asked for the bag.
My mum suffers from arthritis in her hands and like me, uses her hands a lot. I think winter must be very hard for people who use their hands but suffer with pain. So when mum asked for some fingerless mittens in something light and warm, I thought immediately of the Felted Tweed I made my Coraline cardigan out of. In the weeks since I finished it I’ve loved how light it is to wear but how very warm it is. It’s the alpaca in the mix, I think. It seemed the perfect yarn for mittens that could be worn while working at the sewing machine.
So these are Cranford Mitts, a great pattern by Jane Lithgow, who I was fortunate to be able to meet a few months ago at RoseRed’s baby shower when she was visiting from London. I made these for mum not only because they are a lovely pattern, but because, like me, she’s a big fan of the adaptation of the novel by the same name, Cranford. The Elizabeth Gaskell miniseries was one of the best things to come out of the BBC and the pattern’s nod towards women wearing something nice to keep their hands warm was a fitting tribute that I knew mum would appreciate.
I made no modifications except to up the needle size to 3.5mm because the yarn was heavier than the pattern specified.
It’s a lovely, simple pattern that took a few short days to complete. Hope the Felted Tweed warms your hands so you’re able to keep working, Mum.
Special thanks to my sister, Fee, for modeling them at my birthday morning tea.
Bells
Ps edited to add – they arrived and she loved them.
Happy Bellsday
Today is that one day a year where you get total permission to indulge y ourself, and be indulged by those who love you. Today I inched a little closer to forty. I celebrated in a variety of ways – and the fun’s not over yet.
I was collected for an outing by my sister, brother and Alice. We went to a lovely tea house called Adore Tea and, well, drank tea. And ate cake. Alice was cute.
The rest of the day was devoted almost entirely to preparing for the Bendigo Sheep and Wool show. Why do I always leave this stuff to the last minute? I don’t know but I’m pretty much there. I’m packing light. Truly I am. I won’t be home until Sunday so I do need stuff, just not everything I own. I swear I’m packing light.
Now, the evening is here and Sean is preparing a lovely dinner for me – lamb cutlets are one of my very favourite things to have for dinner and he’s out there putting it all together now while I have a glass of special birthday Sparkling Shiraz and contemplate what else I need to pack.
See the Wollmeise there? It was a surprise arrival in the mail today from Lauren, who is probably known to many of you from the Ravelry forums. Those wollmeise colours are incredible aren’t they? They never fail to impress with such depth and richness. Lauren was very sweet to send such a beautiful skein to me.
And that badge was a great find today. It’s been so long since I last saw it and I was worried I wouldn’t find it again before leaving for Bendigo. It’s good at these events to have a name badge isn’t it! Just so you know, if I meet you at Bendigo, I answer to both Bells and Helen! Amongst friends and family I’m known by both in fairly equal measures.
As for the title of today’s post, if you happen to follow me on twitter you’ll know it’s a bit of a joke. I’m not sure who started it now but today was declared a mini holiday – Bellsday. I’ve gotten a fair bit of mileage out of it today and a lot of laughs.
If you’re heading to Bendigo, see you there! If not, see you on the other side.
Bells
The start of a big week
I’ve been hiding away from the blog a bit lately for fear of not having much knitting to talk about, but then I remember that it is nice sometimes to just write generally about stuff, even if there’s no knitting (that I can show) to discuss. I could talk about my test knitting, but it’s plodding along with not a lot to report; I could talk about the shawl where I ran out of yarn in the cast off, but I’m too sad to go there right now.
Instead, I’ll focus on what’s ahead.
It’s a big week, not least of all because, as mentioned previously, I’m going to Bendigo on Wednesday, meeting up with DrK at Melbourne airport for what will no doubt be a huge, thrilling and at times overwhelming trip. And not just because of all the shopping I p lan to do!
I’m really looking forward to meeting up with people, those I’ve met before and those I’ve known about, read or interacted with online for a long time. Those sorts of experiences are often as draining as they are fun for me. I can have the best intentions of being highly sociable, only to find myself feeling quite shy and unsure what to say but I’m sure that’s the case for lots of us. But as scary as it sounds to spend several days around loads of people, I just know I wouldn’t miss it for anything. I just have a lot to do between now and when my sister drops me at the airport on Wednesday morning.
Also, this week, it’s my birthday and today kicked off the Festival of Bells, as Sean has been known to call it. I don’t mean to spread out the birthday celebrations into a week long party, but it does tend to go that way when I try and fit in various friends and family for catching up. Beginning with a full on afternoon at a local German brewery with a group of friends, among which were several other birthdays occurring this week, I have a few different engagements planned. One of the nicest will be morning tea with my sister and Miss Alice in the morning. For my last birthday, Alice was still a tiny girl in a pram. This year she’ll probably upstage anything I could possibly do and make the morning about her, and why not?
Speaking of Alice, remember how I made Elijah the Elephant for her? Well he’s still around. He tends to show up mostly in her bag when she comes to stay. I’ll zip open her overnight or visiting bag and he’ll be there on top. He came with us yesterday to keep Alice company while she had her first big girl hair cut.
She was such a good girl (except for when she got bits of snipped hair in her eyes and she got upset, but who wouldn’t?). Speaking of eyes, look at Elijah. Or Stampy as he’s otherwise known. No eyes. They fell out and I’m unsure what to do. I didn’t do a great job in the first place because making the little french knots for eyes is really hard when you can’t actually get your hand into the back of the fabric. Any suggestions?
Here’s one last shot of the moment Alice discovered herself in the hair salon mirror. I think she was a bit taken with the image of herself and her hair being snipped. Later I stood her in front of the mirror and she planted great big kisses on her reflection. It’s good to have a healthy self-esteem isn’t it?
Bells
Yoked Cardigan for a Baby Boy
I thought long and hard before I made a knitted item for the RoseRed’s little guy. He’s 8 weeks now and winter is moving along and I thought I’d better get a wriggle on if I was to get something to him that he might actually get some wear out of before the weather warms up.
I went through so many options, from the Baby Surprise Jacket to pants to heirloomy style crochet jackets. Nothing seemed quite right.
Some time ago, Amy in Rhode Island sent me some amazing Blue Sky Alpaca Organic Cotton. It’s worsted weight and soft as a cloud. A single skein she had left over from something else. Into the stash it went.
Single skeins are great for baby items, particularly those tiny newborns. Here’s what I made. It’s a quick knit. Blink and you miss it.
It’s the Yoked Cardigan by Hannah Fettig (she of the Featherweight Cardigan). As an item on its own, un-modelled, it’s dead cute. It just screams cuddly new baby don’t you think? I thought with the short sleeves it might have some scope to be worn on chilly spring days, as well as a layering piece as winter continues.
It has all the appearance of the perfect baby cardigan. Knit top down in a nicely written pattern, it’s very easy to recommend.
Then RoseRed sent me a picture yesterday of her not-so-newborn wearing it and it was clear it wasn’t a great fit. Ok, but not great. I was disappointed.
The problem is as I suspected once I’d finished it – the neck is a gaping chasm of openness. It’s wide and lose. I had a look at other finished garments on Ravelry today and there aren’t so many shown on babies. A few shown on older children, but not so many on babies. I wonder if its the kind of pattern that fits people with shoulders better?
RoseRed says she might crochet a row or two around the opening, with some dark blue cotton to match the buttons (I ran out of my cotton). That might help.
This pattern is a rare find in that it’s written for newborn to adult. So it’s well worth the purchase given the vast array of sizes you could make. But I’ll rethink the neckline before I try it again. I had intentions of whipping one up for Alice, but I’ll look around at others first. Maybe when she’s a little bigger, with more developed shoulders.
That said, it is a fun knit and I think there’s scope for improving it. And it’s lovely to have made something for RoseRed’s little guy.
Bells
