How long is a piece of yarn?

My internet problems appear to be over and I am attempting to get back to blogging. While confined to the real world, I have been busy. The giant skein of yarn that I pictured below has been put to good use and here is what it produced.

Three scarves

Two pairs of fingerless mittens

One baby hat

And one bit of yarn left over for playing cat's cradle!

Not a bad return for less than ten pounds and it has kept my fingers busy while the keyboard has been useless.

What I did with my time

My internet problems appear to have been resolved - it was difficult to type that with all my fingers crossed! So what have I been doing for six weeks instead of reading all my favourite blogs and writing the occasional post? I am pleased to say that I am way ahead of myself with Christmas makes. I have three large boxes full of jams and chutneys, I made three capes for the grandchildren, a warm woolly jacket for Benjamin, a tiny lacy jumper for the new baby (coming soon!), several scarves and mittens for great nieces and nephews. And I read many more books than usual. Perhaps I should write and thank BT for all the time I saved.

Here are a few of the goodies:

I had planned to make a Little Red Riding Hood cape but when I saw this lovely sparkly Christmas fabric in the store I decided to make  reversible capes. I hope the children will find them very versatile. The two girls will have red and cream and Benjamin will have a more wizardly green.

They are hanging beside my desk and I keep turning to look at them in amazement that I have three finished items and October isn't over yet.

I bought the wool for this sweater from a local farm that rears rare breed sheep. It is beautifully soft and warm. Then, on a much cheaper note, I found these giant balls of Aran wool in the nearby town. I think everyone will be having scarves and gloves for Christmas. (I put the paperback alongside to give an idea of the size of the skeins. Each weighs 400g)

I'm off again tomorrow for a few days but this time it will be on a visit to Adelephant and the children and not because I can't get online. See you soon.

What's on my needles

In response to Cathy's question over at Still Waters, here is my current knitting project:

It has the fanciest rib that I've ever attempted

It has a picot edging that is pretty but very time consuming.....

... and has introduced me to knitting with a circular needle

 I am using a 4ply cotton yarn in pale green and hoping that it will end up looking something like this:

A gift for my daughter, who last had a homemade sweater when she about 12 years old!

I only took up my knitting needles again three years ago, when grandchildren started to appear. Little clothes are really satisfying to make because you get such quick results. This adult-sized cardigan has been quite challenging for me but I hope it will be ready to take up to my daughter next week. If it is a disaster I will unpick it and all three grandchildren will be wearing pale green this summer!

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Post-script This post disappeared for a while during Blogger's technical problems. While the main body has been restored the comments have been lost. Fortunately, I still have been able to copy this comment and its marvellous link from my email account. Thank you, D, I have already spent too much time looking at  those 19th century books!

60 going on 16 has left a new comment on your post "What's on my needles":

I'm sure it will be perfect and much loved, M.

In the meantime, you (and all those other knitters out there) might be interested in these wonderful 19th century knitting books and patterns, available to download free of charge from Southampton University's website. They form part of the Richard Rutt Collection at Winchester School of Art Library. A little gem of a discovery, courtesy of Twitter!

This month, I have been mostly .....

.... Sewing, knitting and entertaining. As usual, my good intentions to be prepared well in advance for Christmas have come to nothing. I have a pile of almost-finished projects and I wonder how many of them will be ready to wrap on Christmas Eve?

Here are some that I finished last week because they need to be sent off this month.

 A sweater for Millie, who has suddenly grown out of everything she has.

Advent calendar for Millie and Benjamin. 

My daughter is making little figures to put in the pockets. They 

will then be assembled into a Christmas nativity scene.

A Christmas stocking for Benjamin.

He wasn't around last year when I made stockings

for Millie and Charlotte.

A Flower Fairies bag, the first of six that I 

hope to get finished for Christmas.

There are two more sweaters ready to be sewn up (the part of knitting that I really don't like), another Advent calendar almost completed and a list of requests from friends and family that I will probably not get around to this year. It would be so much easier to buy gifts but I really enjoy looking at the finished product and hope that the recipient will appreciate the thought that went into it.

When I was a child, a homemade dress or sweater was a sign that your parents couldn't afford to buy from the shops but it seems to be quite different now. Hand crafted goods are highly desirable and, though mine are far from perfect, family and friends seem to like having something a little different.

The entertaining that I mentioned at the beginning refers to this house guest:

Paws

Paws is a border collie belonging to a friend, who leaves her with us whenever she needs to go away. Paws is really quite happy with us but if we don't respond to all of her demands for treats, she sits by the back door looking sulky in the hope that we will try to win her favour again. She is a great actress with an amazing ability to look sad. Don't be fooled, she only wants doggy chocs!

Knitted yoke

Over the weekend, I tried out a new (to me) knitting technique: a yoke for a little jacket. It looked tricky but turned out to be much easier than I expected:

Here is the short-sleeved jacket, knitted in cashmerino aran yarn.

I'll be posting it off to Millie today, together with a little summer dress. I hope the sunshine returns soon so that she can wear them!

As I was working on the yoke, I couldn't help thinking of a certain lace collar in Cranford. Thank goodness I have no cat!

Winter woollies

The snow has provided the best excuse for sitting on the sofa and knitting. I am having a great time producing little knits for our two granddaughters.

For Millie, a sweater based on a Rowan pattern, teamed with a Sirdar retro bonnet:

and for Charlotte, a lacy lavender cardigan

and a ballet wrap in Sirdar Sublime.  I know 5 months is rather young for ballet but l couldn't resist it.

GMT blues

British Summer Time ended last night, we turned the clocks back an hour and this evening feels very wintry with the lights on at 5pm. We have had some blustery weather for a few days and the last of the apples came down along with the leaves from the trees and the Virginia creeper. I was beginning to feel gloomy but a passage from Carel Kapek's The Gardener's Year came to mind:

Bare trees are not such a forlorn sight; they look a bit like brooms or besoms and a bit like scaffolding ready for building. But if there is a last leaf on one of these bare trees, quivering in the wind, it is like the last flag flying on a battlefield, like a standard which a dead man's hand is clutching on the field of the slain. We fell, but we did not surrender; our colours are still flying.

So, having put the last of those apples to stew gently on the stove, I went out again to look at the bare trees and found that there were, indeed, a few leaves fluttering nobly in the wind. Heartened, I came back inside and read Ecclesiastes - a very good book to help one put things into perspective! And then I listened to Eva Cassidy singing Who knows where the time goes?

Time to shake off the end of summer melancholy and think of the positive aspects of long evenings by the fire: the knitting and sewing needles have already made a start on the mound of projects I have to get through in the next few weeks. Did you see the snug neck warmer over on Rattling On a few weeks ago? Here is my version, knitted in Sirdar Click Chunky yarn, with a large wooden button to finish it off.

Thanks, RO, it really was quick and easy and will make a lovely present for someone if I can bear to part with it!

I've also made Christmas stockings for my two granddaughters:

and here is my work in progress:

Gloomy moods don't last long around here. A few hours of sunshine would help to dispel this one, especially as it is the half-term holiday and there are lots of visitors in the area, hoping to spend a few days on the beaches before winter arrives. If the weather forecast is accurate, they'll have to settle for brollies and boots instead of buckets and spades, but the rock pools can be just as exciting as building sandcastles.

Knitted shoes

The mystery picture on the previous post was quickly identified by Rattling On as shoes.

I used a Debbie Bliss pattern but wasn't able to get hold of the correct yarn and the shoes will probably fit Millie next year! However, not to be defeated, I started again with  smaller size needles (pins) and Millie will be getting a parcel from grandma with two pairs of garter stitch shoes, plus the sweater and scarf.

REMINDER
I will be making the draw for A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts tomorrow. If you would like to enter then leave a comment (enter me, please, will do) on this post or on the original. Good luck.

Cracking the crochet code

You may remember my first attempt at crochet, when I made a little coat for baby Charlotte. I couldn't quite make sense of the instructions but my fudged effort looked acceptable, if not quite right.

My next project was to be a sweater and scarf for Millie, decorated with crocheted flowers. I worked out how to make the flower centres but then I came up against: work 1dc, 1htr, 1tr, 3dtr, 1tr, 1htr and 1dc into each chain space. I  settled on a corsage, like the one I had made for Charlotte, instead.

It isn't really in my nature to accept defeat, so I spent hours trying to follow the crochet pattern for the flowers.  I had been trying to learn from an American on-line instruction video until I discovered that English crochet terminology is different. So I went back to my muddle-along method and produced these:

I am sure that my htr and dtr stitches leave much to be desired but Millie won't mind. (If anyone can recommend an English instruction video or manual, I would like to try to do things properly.)

Now for my next project. Here is stage 1:

and this is stage 2:

Watch this space for stage 3.

A corsage for Charlotte

My lovely blogging friend Karin, whose posts on One Perfect Little Miracle keep inspiring me to try my hand at different crafts, sent me some very pretty pink yarn. Having translated all the information into English equivalents, I found just the right pattern to make a little cardigan for baby Charlotte.

It was a challenge because the trim is crocheted and I have never tried that. I sat with one eye on the Rowan knitting pattern book and the other on a crochet instruction book. After a great deal of unpicking and starting again, I achieved an acceptable, though not perfect, result. Charlotte won't mind and I hope she likes the corsage, which was great fun to make. I have made it to fit when she is 6 to 12 months old, so she will probably enjoy pulling the corsage to pieces!

Cable and moss stitch

While confined to the house with a chest infection for the last few weeks, I kept busy by knitting a jacket for Millie's approaching first birthday. I had some Sirdar Hug yarn in my craft bag and found this pattern in my Debbie Bliss Baby Knits book. The only thing lacking was my cable needle, which is somewhere among all the boxes we hastily moved into storage. So I improvised ... da daaa ....

Yes, that is a paint brush and didn't it do well? I will be taking the jacket up to London next week and perhaps I will get a picture of Millie wearing it.

Away for a while

I will be away from Random Mansions for a week or two and possibly will not have the opportunity to add any posts until I return some time in mid-November. Tomorrow I will be going to Oxford for the funeral of my friend. Then on to London to look after granddaughter Amelia (Millie) while her mummy has an operation.

Millie is now almost 8 months old and, since I saw her last, has become independently mobile. She hasn't quite got around to driving the car yet but apparently she has developed a most efficient and high-speed crawl/slide around the room and she never rests! I am expecting to be too exhausted to do more than read my favourite blogs and answer emails.

I hope we will have some crisp, dry days so that we can get out onto nearby Hampstead Heath. I have been busy knitting for Millie for just such an occasion.
Embroidering lazy daisies onto the little cardigan was a new experience for me. No-one will ever doubt that the garment is hand made because no two daisies are the same. I don't think Millie will be too harsh a critic, though.
It has been good to welcome Juliet back to Blogland. I am looking forward to seeing more pictures from her trip to lovely Lindisfarne and beyond on Musings from a Muddy Island. You might have noticed, too, a new addition to my favourites: Advanced Style , it is a must for everyone who refuses to believe that style is exclusively for the very young.

I can't leave without mentioning that my son, who writes under the name of Brit, is filling in for Bryan Appleyard on Thought Experiments for the next few weeks. I shall be keeping a proud, motherly eye on that.

I'll be back soon. Don't have too much fun while I'm away!

P.S.I forgot to mention an important date for the diary - 4th November. That is the MM's birthday and the day of Tanith's operation and I think there is something else happening but it has slipped my mind for the moment!

Off to London again

Tomorrow I will be going to London to stay with my daughter and son-in-law, hoping to be useful in the final week or so before the arrival of their first baby, our first grandchild. I am trying very hard to remain calm and sensible but the excitement is mounting. I've been rummaging through boxes and drawers, finding baby sheets and blankets I couldn't bear to part with from my own days of early motherhood.

I don't know if today's babies wear hand knitted clothes any more but I'm doing my bit anyway. That's what grandmas do, isn't it? I used the left over wool from the little jacket I pictured in this post to make another, less complicated one.

I am now knitting a hooded blanket, shown here on the cover of the Debbie Bliss baby knits book. I've had enough of yellow wool, though, so I'm using this pretty apricot yarn.











I don't know when I'll be back. The baby is due around March 11 but who knows?

Gift day scarves

I've finished the scarves I promised to make for Gift Day. Now my only problem is which one for Tanith and which for Anna.