One day, many years from now, I imagine this will be the last thing you’ll accept from me, but right now I’m getting away with it and you did seem so happy when I gave you a new cardigan this morning and we saw that we matched.

“We’re the same!” we declared when I put it on you and we had a big hug. You didn’t know or care that the patterns weren’t the same. You just wondered why you had different buttons to mine.

Then we headed out into the cold autumn wind, both rugged up in our lovely red woollen cardigans and enjoyed a day at the Collector Pumpkin Festival.

You met some kid sized scarecrows and called the little stone church a castle. You made a beeline for the giant pumpkins and posed while the ABC TV crew filmed you. You had no idea.

Best of all you got to fly a kite in that cold, biting wind. It was all you wanted. The long string of kites was tied to the ground and you and all the little kids who joined you thought you were really sending it into the air. It was the closest you were going to get to really flying a kite and you were so, so happy.

Today was great fun. You were fabulous company and as we walked along holding hands and wearing matching cardigans, I felt so very proud to be an aunt who knits for someone so happy and lovely.

You may not always want to wear matching knitwear with me, but I hope I’ll always get to knit for you.

Love Aunty Bells
xo

ps her cardigan is made from the leftover Bendigo Rustic 12ply from my Seamair cardigan. It’s a mini version of the well known Mr Greenjeans cardigan. It’s called Little Miss Greenjeans and I made it in five days. Truly a fast and satisfying project! The sleeves are a little long but that just means it might still fit her next winter!

This is a cardigan I’ve been eyeing off since it was first released. It’s Seamair by Amy Herzog – the woman responsible for the Fit to Flatter series, which I highly recommend. What she doesn’t know about  shaping and fit – well, she knows a lot and it shows in her designs. I was drawn at once to the flattering way the cables worked down the length of the body.

Here it is from the back. I feel like the arms a little baggy but I’m not too bothered.

There is waist shaping, just vertical darts in the usual places, but the way they draw the cables in is really nice, I think.

From the front the cables work the same way and if I could get the buttons, which are placed inside the placket, to stay done up you’d see that, but I can’t. I’ll have to tighten the holes a little bit with a couple of stitches to bring them.

Here’s some cable detail for you to see. It’s a lovely 6 row, easily memorised cable stitch. I got into a nice rhythm with it early on and settled right in for a comfortable and enjoyable knit.

Here with this side view you can see the cable detail in the lower sleeves. I really liked that. Just something to add a flash of interest.

I used Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 12ply for this, in the colour Radiant, which has been in the stash for a couple of years. Madly, I bought five 200g balls of it and used just on 2.5 so I guess I have plenty left over. I predict Alice and Willem will receive garments made from the rest!

I know some people really don’t get the Bendigo Rustic thing – they feel it’s scratchy or just not garment worthy but for my money it’s as good as Cascade 220 – which is my usual winter staple. The only difference for me really is that the colours in Cascade 220 are many and varied, whereas Bendigo, as we know, has a more limited palette.

My first cardigans, way back in 2003 or 2004, were made from Bendigo Rustic and I’ve never minded it one bit. It’s worn really well over the years and does soften up nicely. The thing is you never wear it right next to your skin anyway since winter is all about layering so even if there is a tiny bit of scratchiness to it, it’s not like it’s supposed to be worn with nothing under it. For Canberra’s bitterly cold winters (I know, northern hemisphere bloggers are saying WHAT?) it’s a great weight.

I loved so much of the detail in this, especially the tubular cast on – which is a first for me. It makes for such a stretchy, neat edge on all pieces – I haven’t knit a cardigan in pieces for several years and had to go researching it all over again to remind me of the best ways to sew it up. I still think I could learn a lot there and could improve but each time I seam a garment I get a little more confident and better at it.

I started knitting Seamair in February. I put it down for the month of March, which was all about gift knitting, and picked it up again in early April, finishing all three remaining pieces in just over two weeks (a week off work with illness helped!). Knitting in 12ply on 5.5mm needles does make a project go fast!

There aren’t many versions of this on Ravelry. Only twelve. I really don’t understand why since Amy Herzog is so well known and her patterns are so great. I hope more people make this. It’s lovely and such a fun knit, which is something I needed after the difficulties I faced in Willem’s vest!

I love cardigan season!

Bells

And yet she’s never mentioned it. I have struggled to think of a time when she pointed out what I was doing or showed an interest  but it’s never happened until recently. Last week when she was here she found a crochet hook in the lounge room and asked what it was. I got some yarn and made a little chain. She watched. She took the hook in her own little hand and waved it around the yarn, got bored and walked away.

It was a tiny moment, short lived, but enough to make me wonder if maybe at last she’d noticed I’m always doing this thing with stuff in my hands.

I wouldn’t say I’m desperate to pass on the love of making things to her – if she never knits or crochets or sews it’s ok. But it’s struck me that in all the time it’s been going on right in front of her, it jus doesn’t register and, you know, being three she asks about everything. Everything. All the time. But not this. It makes me pause to think.

Then recognition came in the strangest and loveliest way. There’s a book she loves. It’s called The Gruffalo. Do you know it? A lovely book about a little mouse and his encounter with a beast in the deep, dark woods. It’s a clever story. She adores it. Recently we saw the little movie and the movie of the sequel and we were all delighted.

I found a stuffed toy of the Gruffalo and knew I had to buy him for Alice. Here he is.

He’s a cute, cuddly monster. Here’s how Alice looked when she met him.

To say she was happy is an understatement. Instant love. Very gratifying.

But for me, the best bit was yet to come. A little while later she said, and I’m still not sure if it was a question or a statement, ‘Bells made it!’

Really? She thought I made the Gruffalo? What a lovely, inflated view of my skills she has. Or as RoseRed said, Alice can’t distinguished between bought things and things I’ve made.

Either way (and who knows all the time what goes on in the strange little minds of toddlers anyway!) what this proved to me is that after all the cardigans, all the dresses, all the cakes – every little hand made thing I’ve given to Alice in her three short years, the fact of what I do has at some point sunk in.

Alice knows I make things and that I make things for her.

It’s the loveliest kind of acknowledgement. I’m happy now that she’s never asked what I’m doing when I sit with her and knit. She doesn’t have to ask. She just knows.

Bells

I worked hard to finish what should have been his birthday present in time for his visit, and I got there, but how I got there is a tale of woe. I’m not sure how to write about it without sounding like I’m trashing a pattern and a great designer so I’ll be careful, because the designer is someone whose work I respect and admire.

Here is the finished item – the Zigvest - made from Rowan Felted Tweed I’ve had in my stash for a while. It looks great but I found it hard to work the cables in this yarn. Something smooth and in a solid colour might have been better.

The designer, Tikki, has been my favourite children’s knitwear designer for the last year or so. I’ve made lovely patterns of hers like Olearia, Jane and Acacia. They’ve all been clever, fun and quick and highly wearable. So I prepared to knit my first boy pattern from her collection with great anticipation. It didn’t really live up to expectations. Whether it was because I wasn’t concentrating (it’s been known to happen!) or it just didn’t gel, I’m unsure, but from the moment I began the zigzag cables I found they didn’t stick in my mind and I had to refer back to the lengthy pattern over and over again, flicking backwards and forwards and never quite getting it right.

Then I started over. Twice. I almost gave up but I didn’t because I hate to be defeated and I really thought it was just me. No one else on Ravelry seemed to encounter problems.

Eventually I got the body done and decided on the collar style neck (it has two options, a v neck and a collar). How I wish I’d chosen the v neck. Without going into lengthy detail, the collar has odd instructions (which Tikki says in the pattern is fiddly – she wasn’t wrong) and it just never sat right but I was happy enough with it.

Then I tried it on him. Willem has that typical large dome shaped head some boys have. It wasn’t going to go over his head so I decided to cut a steek in the back of it. I’ve steeked before, and it was successful but it was four years ago and quite a different experience. Then I knitted something that had a panel worked into it meant for the steeking. This time I was doing it after the fact and well, it all went a bit wobbly. Here’s a photo to show how it looked when I first cut it.

Yes, I know the red yarn really stands out but I couldn’t see how to work a steek in the same yarn and not mess it up entirely. I wouldn’t have been able to see where to cut as easily and I thought the red might be a nice flash of contrast.

All was fine until minutes later when bits of it began to slip out of the crochet chain and it was all so distressing I threw it aside and decided I’d screwed it up and that was that.

A couple of reassuring conversations with my support crew (RoseRed and Tanya in Brisbane) and I pulled out the sewing machine, ran a zigzag stitch inexpertly along the edges and secured it. For extra support I crocheted in the brown yarn (Rowan Felted Tweed) around the opening to make it stick. It’s bulky and ugly but it holds and I hope never to have such a shockingly bad knitting experience again – but undoubtedly I will some day.

Here’s a back view where you can see at the neck, it’s unsightly but it holds. I’m too ashamed to post an up close photo of my dodgy surgery. It holds, it fits. That’s the main thing. And I can learn a lot from this hideous experience.

I’ve learned that I probably should have ditched it when I was having so much trouble and just knitted him a hat. We’d all be a lot happier.

But he’s my lovely, handsome boy and he’s grateful for handknits and he does look so great in brown felted tweed. He finds the neck a bit itchy though so I’ve learned that from now on, Willem gets only the smoothest, softest yarns near his throat. He deserves that.

Next time round, I hope to make him something that results in enjoyment for both of us.

Truly I don’t want to rubbish this pattern because plenty of people have loved it. I think it’s just a case of, as the cliché goes, ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’ At 28 pages, and written for two different yarn weights, it became cumbersome at times to read the pattern. I know that’s where I failed a few times. Lesson learned: read the pattern through entirely and be really, really careful to make sure you understand all the next steps. It’s near-fatal to not do this.

So this pattern and I just didn’t not mesh. But the result is pleasing enough that I can look at it and feel some pride that I stuck it out.

Bells

ps a note on problems with commenting – a few readers have told me they are finding they can’t comment on posts because WordPress won’t let them. I have looked into this and I’m yet to find a reason why it’s happening. I’m sorry for that. But thanks for letting me know and if anyone who uses WordPress knows how to fix it, please let me know.

I began it last Tuesday and finished it yesterday (Saturday) morning. An utterly delightful little quick project made from Bendigo Woollen Mills ‘Luxury’ 4ply in Autumn Glow – a long ago gift from Amy in Rhode Island. Yes, someone in Rhode Island bought me wool from Bendigo. Long story.

I was worried when I finished it that it would be too small. It was a puckered, silly looking thing when I finished it but a soak and a stretch over the largest dinner plate I own and it was right as rain. It helps that, as I’ve discovered before, the lovely soft Luxury has a tendency to grow. This grew a lot.

I noted the last time I made a beret, that having had no idea how to wear a beret when I was a Brownie has meant I’m not entirely sure I’ve got it right now either, but I’m enjoying playing around with the way it sits, and the possibilities on offer for bad hair days.

And isn’t the colour just perfectly autumnal? As much as I wished I’d had something in a pale sage green, which was what I fancied, I couldn’t go past the obvious thrill of a beret called Rustling Leaves made from something in so richly and vividly autumnal.

It’s a new thing, this hat making lark. Why did I never realise before now that they are such a great quick project, a way to knock something over fast when a bigger project is weighing me down? I see more of them on the horizon, hats generally, which I’ve long dismissed as dull. This was far from dull. Just fun from beginning to end. Can’t beat that.

Bells

It’s a piece of my first winter cardigan of the year. Late in the afternoon when the sun  has been bright and cheery, it’s hard to think that winter is coming (to quote a particular exciting TV Show, Game of Thrones) but come it will and I want to be ready.

While I’m nearing the final stages of the tweedy cable vest for my nephew, I’ve taken a moment to re-acquaint myself with my Seamair Cardigan, which I began in late January.

This is the right front, the back is complete and I think the pattern has a very pleasing column of cables. They go down both fronts and two down the back for detail and shaping.

It’s a delightfully simple cable with only two actual pattern rows out of six. And in 12ply Bendigo Woollen Mills rustic on 5.5mm needles, it’s flying along at a most satisfactory pace.

And it’s got a fabulous cast on. It’s a tubular cast on, which I’ve never done before and while it’s mildly fiddly, once that first step is over, you’re off and running. I love a piece of knitting that makes you stop and look and admire every now and then – it’s a great part of the process, a real contributor to the overall enjoyment of the work.

So yes, winter is coming, and I’ll be ready. Will you?

Bells

ps For those not in the know, ‘winter is coming’ is the portent laden phrase used in Game of Thrones – which returns for a second season this weekend. We’re a little bit excited in our house.

For her birthday this month, I made one for her and gave it to her this weekend.

I was inspired to do so when Bronwyn over at Yarnosophy made one from a book called Knitted Lace. Here’s the doily with the book – which I bought almost at once and will no doubt use repeatedly. The pattern is Ditte II.

It’s a beautiful book, with charts written flat, a system I’ve not seen before but which was easy to pick up.

I didn’t quite finish this doily. I knew I wanted to give it to Adele on the weekend so I cut the pattern short at around row 70 of a 90 row pattern. It felt like the right place to stop on Thursday night, at which point I did the crochet loops and then blocked it.

I used Sullivans mercerised cotton #20, which is oh so fine and perhaps a little like dental floss to work with but not to bad. A bit of a soak and some pinning out and it’s got lovely sheen and hold and it’s just perfect for a doily.

To go from this, just off the needles

to this (freshly off the pins and observed by Alice who was here on Friday night) is so satisfying.

I’m dying to make more. Thankfully my mum has expressed a desire for several smaller doilies. I’ll be only too  happy to provide them.

For all the detail in the pattern, these really don’t take long. This one was three weeks in the making and that included a week when I put it down. On 2mm needles, it’s got all the appeal of tiny little stitches that I love – I was even able to knit it on the bus and around town. I found it utterly mesmerising to knit. On the bus especially, I’d find myself looking up after my 25min trip and wondering where the time went.

When I gave it to my sister this weekend, I just knew she loved it. ‘Oh you didn’t!’ she said as she opened it. Yes, I did. And I’ll do it again. And again.

Bells

While I’m under no strict obligation to knit for these events, it just so happens that the birthdays falling this month include three people who come top of my list of people I love to knit for most. So it’s a given that I’ll have busy fingers and sense of looming deadlines.

First cab off the rank this month was Alice but I didn’t knit for her. I made a lot for her over summer and intended to give her the pretty quilt that still isn’t finished. Remember?

So I bought her a dress instead. I’m a realist. I just ran out of time to do anything decent and handmade for her third birthday.

Next is my sister, Adele. Always the happy knitting recipient, I had a last minute burst of inspiration which I just can’t show you until it’s done. Here’s what I gave her last year, Kai-Mei socks. (Psst, Adele: not giving you socks this year).

And finally there’s Willem, Adele’s not so little boy who turns eight this year. Whoosh! Haven’t those years flown by? From this:

to this, taken on his birthday last year when I gave him the Alex Jacket.

My knitting has been around about as long as Willem has been alive and he’s always been so happy to receive whatever I’ve made for him. Which brings me to this year’s birthday knit. His mum loves him in vests and he’s still young enough to happily wear them to places like church or special events. His last one is no longer wearable – I believe it went to a younger cousin – and so this year I’ve chosen ZigVest by Tikki. My first go at one of her boy patterns. I’m making it from a chocolatey brown Rowan Felted Tweed. Isn’t that what all the fashionable eight year old boys are wearing this year? Tweed vests? Sure they are.

But I started it late. So used to the quick knits for toddlers have I become that I figured I could knock Will’s vest over in a few weeks. I could it if was straight forward knitting (and if he hadn’t grown so surprisingly long in the torso!) but it’s fiddly cabling and I keep messing it up.

It’s for the love and knowing that those tweedy cables are going to look so great that I’m pushing on, but it’s been a slog. Sometimes the simplest looking patterns turn out to be slightly trickier than anticipated.

A reprieve came from Adele yesterday though who pointed out that honestly, if the vest isn’t ready by the 26th, the world will not end.

Really? Wow, glad she told me. No one sets an unrealistic deadline quite like I do, I sometimes think.

Knit on!

Bells

I’m so used to starting on a small amount of stitches (like 3!) and building up to the long edge of a triangle. Not so with this shape. i started with over 300 (I think!) and knitted 28 rows of beaded lace before doing the plain section. The plain section took only one day because it’s all short rows, which is what gives it the U shape, I think, bringing it all together nicely. Here’s how it looks on.

We’ve just been away for a few days to a family wedding (not my family; Sean’s) on the Bellarine Peninsula and I wore this to the pre-wedding family dinner the night before. Ok, so black beaded lace doesn’t say casual family dinner, does it? But I was dying for a chance to wear it and over a black t-shirt and plain denim skirt with flat shoes, it didn’t look like I was over dressed. At least I don’t think so. It was just a fun bit of sparkle.

The yarn was given to me by a friend who made the same shawl from the same yarn. It’s Lotus Yarns Miya, which is a Mink/Merino/Silk blend (emphasis on the mink). She had some left over and sent it to me with beads. Knitting with, and wearing mink seemed so luxurious but it’s not unlike possum and I’m assured from my research that no minks died in the production of this yarn. The days of mink coats are long gone, I believe.

And it’s a great shape to wear – the added weight of all those beads means that it stays on even better than I thought. Here’s how it looks from the back.

I have a feeling I’ll be looking around for more shawls in this shape. As much as I love the triangular shawls (and boy doesn’t it sound unfashionable to say that – there’s an undercurrent of triangular shawl backlash in the water, I think) I do have quite a few and don’t need any more right now.

I’m almost afraid to mention the Crown Prince Square Shawl I’m supposed to be knitting for myself for my 40th. I might have to discuss that one with you all in a few days. I’m conflicted.

But I’m very happy with my Billie Holiday and her dark, sparkling elegance. She’s a winner.

Bells

A patchwork class is almost entirely about the piecing together of the top of the quilt and while I’m happy to be learning some of the finer points of that skill, having been pretty much self taught to date, I really signed up for the class so I could learn about the quilting part because that’s the hardest part for me.

No matter. I’m getting what I can out of the class and will investigate quilting skills later on. I’ll show you what I’ve been doing for my homework. We’re sent home to work on hand piecing our blocks each week and I’m SO SLOW. It took me all of Sunday afternoon to make just one of my blocks. Considering it’s possible to machine sew a block in under half an hour, a whole afternoon is not an economical use of my time.

But the results are pleasing, if imperfect, so there’s something to be said for it. Here, see what I mean? This block is called Ohio Star. Getting those points to line up was hard but I’m moderately happy with the results.

I love the cream and red tones I’ve chosen. Hopefully it’ll be a lovely, small quilt. This block is called Churn Dash (no idea what the name means but it’s as old as the hills, apparently).

Such a long way to go. I think I’m going to do some of them on the machine. I just don’t have time to get more than one done by hand a week, not if I’m to knit, work, eat, sleep, live as well! OK, maybe I do, but it just seems so slow, which is odd given I’ll happily sit and knit lace for weeks or months at a time. But an afternoon spent on a quilt block seems excessive? Perhaps I need a change in attitude because really, I do like the slow, gentle pace of hand sewing. I just feel somehow like I’m cheating on my knitting.

Speaking of which, I’m blocking my Billie Holiday shawl today. Here’s a sneak peek. It’s awfully pretty. Photos coming soon, hopefully taken while we’re away this weekend.

And finally, I can’t let a certain important birthday pass without comment. This weekend just gone, the lovely Alice turned three. THREE! She’s growing up. She’s talking non-stop, discovering the world anew every day and delighting us all. Uncle Sean bought her a pair of roller skates (he’s got roller derby fantasies I think!) and Alice loved them, even if she found she lacked the skill to go fast.

She stayed safe on carpet on Sunday morning for her first go at getting about. I spoke to her earlier today and she told me she thinks the skates are ‘exciting’. I bet.

Bells