Every time I phone my step-dad, and I ask him how he's doing, he replies with "plodding on, you know." This seems like a fairly accurate description of how I feel right now. There's ups, there are downs, but mostly right now we're just keeping on keeping on. Perpetually hoping that at some point going out in public will start to feel safe again. Technically of course, we're out of lockdown, and have been for the last week and a half. Masks are now no longer mandatory in the majority of places, although they are still recommended, social distancing is a thing of the past, and we're allowed to gather in large crowds if we choose.
I choose to continue to be careful. There are still plenty of people who aren't vaccinated, and plenty of people who are still vulnerable despite being fully vaccinated. This is the first year of the world learning to live with the existence of covid, we don't yet know how long the resistance created by the vaccine will last, or what proportion of the population will need regular booster shots. Infection levels are still very high. It's not so great a sacrifice to continue limiting my contact with others, and wearing a mask in shops. I'm missing knit and natter meet ups in cafe's, and spending more time with my sister and nieces, but other than that it's not like I had the most scintillating of social lives before covid. Disability, living miles from anyone, and having a dog, are all things that limit how much you get out and about!
Anyway, I may be being singularly terrible at maintaining this blog this year, but I'm determined not to abandon it! I've been updating my notes, in preparation for writing this, for almost 2 months now! The weather has been oppressively hot for the last couple of weeks, which of course despite it being July, somehow nobody expected. I mean, I know I live in the UK, and we're renowned for crappy summers, but the effects of the climate crisis are also becoming increasingly un-ignorable, so it's hardly a great shock that it gets hot in the middle of summer. Personally I really struggle when it's anything above the low 20's (European metric systems here! I believe that's about 75 Fahrenheit), so I've had to put off writing this even longer, until it's actually cool enough for my brain cells to function.
If you've made it this far, then well done, you have the dubious reward of having reached the point where I stop pontificating, and start showing you pretty pictures of things made out of string.
FO's
As I'm sure you can imagine, despite my recent heat-induced lack of crafting mojo, there are quite a few things in this section, as I've had roughly 4 months to work on them since my last update...
I was working on these last time. I made them for my friend Fran. She has since received them and tells me that they fit perfectly, and she loves them.
My usual sock pattern, and the yarn is Schoppel-wolle Crazy Zauberball, in the colourway "Charisma".
I also made these socks for Fran, as she said she likes green and turquoise colours as well as purple. The yarn for these is Zwerger Garn Opal in Sweet and Spicy colourway 6757 "Pflaume".
I was also working on this last time. I think I was waiting for more scales to arrive, having dramatically under estimated how many I would need (200+). This is a "Dragon Egg" dice bag that I made for Stephen, and it now contains his collection of spotted D6's (6-sided dice, for those unfamiliar with dice nomenclature) He has other D6, but they have numbers written on them instead of spots, and they're all part of sets with other types of polyhedrals, so they live in his giant dice bag of pockets.
I didn't use a pattern, because pouch patterns are simple enough. The yarn is Gedifra Semira, in the colourway "04324", and the anodised aluminium scales are from The Queen Ring.
Having made one for Stephen, and also having lost my own dice bag some years ago (Distressingly, along with many years collection of dice), I decided that I should also make a dragon egg dice bag for myself. Mine is a little smaller, and obviously in my colours. I also made the drawstring as an i-cord, instead of braided. The yarn for this one is also Gedifra Semira, but in colourway "04312".
Last time I showed you the finished Chevron pattern blanket that I eventually made for my youngest niece, and explained that I'd given up on my original plan for a blanket made of lots of squares sewn together, after I irrevocably sewed several of the squares together in the wrong orientation, thus spoiling the carefully calculated pattern. So instead I used the yarn that was left over from making the chevron blanket, and a little bit of similar yarn, to finish the last row of squares I'd been working on, sewed those squares together at random, added a thin crochet border in some scrap yarn, and declared that it is now a dog blanket. Finn seems to like it, although more for carrying around than sleeping on.
The yarn for this is Rico Baby So Soft, in the colourways 001, 007, and 015.
There was no Marie Curie Christmas Sock Quest last year, as it was impossible to ensure the safety of the recipients at the height of the covid-19 outbreak, but the Sock Quest is back this year! This year there is no West Yorkshire Spinners Marie Curie colourway, but I still had some of the yellow yarn left from last time, so I looked through other colourway options that had similar colours to previous Marie Curie colourways, and found that Kingfisher looked quite promising. However, it does knit up into stripes, which can somewhat affect the contrasting toes and cuffs motif when the yellow stripe that is exactly the same colour as the rest of the sock appears too close to the rest of the yellow! I think I just about got away with it on this first pair.
The pattern is a mix of my own, and the official Sock Quest pattern, which is linked from the site above. The yarn is West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4-ply, in the colourways "Tumeric", and "Kingfisher".
For the second pair of Sock Quest socks, I elected to remove the yellow section of the contrasting yarn, and attempt to make the toes and cuffs match exactly. I'm much happier with this version, even if it does mean that when I've finished all of the Sock Quest socks this year, I'll have a lot of little balls of yellow yarn with blue bits at the ends.
Pattern and yarn as above.
Not the world's most exciting project, but a project none-the-less. These are a selection of swatches that I made for Lola of Third Vault Yarns. She has been creating new colourways, and she likes to show what they look like worked up, but with all of the other requirements of running a small business, she doesn't have time to make all of the swatches herself. So she asked some of her facebook fans if we would be willing to do the swatching in exchange for getting to keep the rest of the yarn. Obviously, many of us were more than willing!
I'm still not sure what this yarn base is, or what the colourway is called, but it's beautiful!
My favourite of my recently completed projects is version 2 of my Advent Sweater design. As you can clearly see, I did much better with the sizing on this version!
I still need to grade the pattern for different sizes, and calculate how much of each yarn each size will need, so that I can clearly state the maximum size it's possible to knit using just 24 mini-skeins, and one full skein. I confess that I'm slightly terrified of this process, as I'm not 100% certain about what I'm doing as far as grading goes, which is one reason why I'm procrastinating somewhat. I'm rapidly running out of time though, as I need to leave time for test knitters to do their thing, and to make any adjustments, if I'm going to release this on 1st December as I'm hoping to do.
Obviously I'm still working on the pattern, but the yarn used for this version is a selection of mini-skeins on the Barbarella base by Beehive Yarns, the colourways are all inspired by The Dark Crystal TV series.
My friend, and fellow Spaniel lover, Boo, teaches sex education. She's always looking for new props that can help with her lessons, and this is one of them.
Contrary to common wisdom especially among men, the clitoris is actually more than the tiny bud that is apparently so elusive to many. In fact, it looks more like this. Not exactly like this, because my skill with crochet still leaves much to be desired.
When I found the pattern for making crochet clits, I had to make one for Boo! Fortunately for me, another of her friends has managed to create a 3D printed version, which is much quicker and easier to produce multiple copies of to use in class, but I'm still going to send her this as well.
The pattern is available from The Vagina Museum. I used left over yarn for this, as it doesn't need much.
Unexciting, but necessary. A simple cotton wash cloth, made mostly for helping to keep me cool while it has been too hot for me.
Just a garter stitch square, with a few purl rows for detail. The yarn is Stylecraft Classique Cotton DK, in the colourway "Saville".
Finally, another unexciting but necessary project. A couple of months ago Lisa of Made by Penguins sent a taster pack of her new wax melts in with the monthly yarn boxes, and I've been using them quite a lot, but the little wax burner that I'm using gets very hot, so I had to make a little coaster to protect my desk.
It's just a simple spiral of single crochets. The yarn is Opal 4-ply, from one of my Opal advent calendars.
WIP's
It looks like it's finished, but it isn't really, because it hasn't been blocked yet. Blocking makes a world of difference, which you should see when I can eventually block this!
This is my Celestarium, a knitted star chart, with lace holes and beads in place of the major stars visible in the Northern hemisphere. Right now it's difficult to make out the details, but blocking should fix that. Unfortunately, blocking something this large is somewhat of a problem, as I don't have anywhere big enough to pin it out flat, out of reach of a certain curious pup. I will have once I eventually finish clearing out the spare room though!
The border pattern is taken from French CanCan, by Mademoiselle C, the yarn is a gold stellina sparkle sock yarn by Sparkleduck, in the colourway "Figgy Pudding", and the beads are size 6/0 galvanised yellow gold miyuki beads.
Another pair of socks in the making, these ones for Boo, in exchange for a beautiful rainbow collar that she made for Finn. Boo has very skinny feet, so even though I know the adjustments that I've made to the sizing are correct, I can't help but feel like these are very small!
My usual sock pattern, and the yarns are King Cole ZigZag, in the colourway "Crush", and Opal Uni Solid 4-ply, in the colourway "Berry".
This is my current TV knitting, a drapey cardigan that I'm making up as I go along. I'm knitting it out of a thick and thin yarn that's been sitting in my stash for years. It looks and feels lovely when it's knitted up, but it's horrible to work with! I have a couple of other colourways in my stash as well, and I had planned on making a sweater with one of them, but I don't think that I can endure knitting another garment out of this stuff, I like how it looks and feels enough to make myself finish this, but not enough to make anything else out of it.
The yarn is King Cole Opium, in the colourway "260".
This is a close up of a section of the project that I chose to work on for my birthday. I like to work on something entirely selfish on my birthday, even if all I manage is a few rows. Which is all I did manage, and this has been put away again until I finish everything else I'm working on, and probably a few other things too.
The pattern is Hazy Days, by Boo Knits, and the yarn is Tuxedo Lace, by Penguin Soup, in the colourway "April Showers".
My final project that I've been able to work on over the last few months is spinning! This is the first time I've been able to settle down to some spinning since dad died, and the first wheel spinning I've done in my new home.
This is the first bobbin of singles in my Fluff to Stuff project. This fluff is commercially dyed burgundy merino tops, and I intend on plying it with a Bluefaced Leicester and stellina blend by Wildcraft Fibres. Then, if all goes according to plan (Meaning I achieve the thickness and meterage I'm hoping for), the yarn I end up with will be knit into a shrug/cardigan before the end of the year.
For more information about the Fluff to Stuff 2021 Challenge, you can watch this video:
Stash Acquisition
Now, in previous years this section would be a daunting proposition after 4 months, especially 4 months that included my birthday! To be fair, it's still not inconsiderable, even though I have been reasonably (see: ASTOUNDINGLY!) good at sticking to my New Year Goal of buying minimal yarn. But it's much smaller than you might expect.
Let's start with my Little Penguin subscription boxes from Made by Penguins:
March - colourway "Hibiscus Flowers", cute pink bunny stitch marker, sweet little sticker, and a lollipop.
April - colourway "April Showers", and a pretty little flower stitch marker.
May - colourway "Pina Colada", a little sticker, and a yellow sea-horse stitch marker.
June - colourway "Blue Lagoon", a lovely little sticker that is now adorning my laptop, a pineapple stitch marker, and a packet of gorgeous wax melts that smelled amazing!
July - colourway "Pink Elephant Summer", 2 adorable stickers, and a pink elephant stitch marker, which is possibly the cutest stitch marker that I own!
This was part of a gift from the very lovely Becky. It's a gorgeous mini-skein by HeyJay yarns. I can't remember now if this was a belated Christmas present, of if Becky just randomly decided to give me a yarny present (again, details on the other items that Becky gave me later!)
I'm pretty sure that you already know what these are, as you've seen what I'm making with them already. The rule on being allowed to buy yarn if it's for a specific project means that I was perfectly justified in buying these. I did already have a ball of the yellow, but I bought another so that I could make more pairs of socks for the Marie Curie Sock Quest.
So these are both Signature 4-ply by West Yorkshire Spinners, in the colourways "Turmeric", and "Kingfisher".
You saw this yarn earlier too. This is the mystery yarn that I was sent by Lola of Third Vault Yarns, and made swatches of. It's so lovely!
It had to happen. The miraculous thing is that it only happened once. This is the one skein of yarn that is classified as "naughty". Lola was clearing out the store of some discontinued yarn bases and colourways, and she offered them at a discount to her facebook group. I honestly thought that I was safe having a look through the skeins that she'd listed, as by the time I read the post, it had already been up for several hours, so I fully expected there to be nothing left. Imagine my surprise when they colourway that I most coveted had not been claimed!
So this is Third Vault Yarns Companion 4-ply, in the colourway "Decima".
Knitting Adjacent
This is volume 2 of the Shetland Wool Adventures Journal, and it was a complete surprise. My friend Dominey is going through a nightmare of a year, therefore she is one of the very few people who I am actually visiting indoors. I went to see her a few weeks ago, and she handed me this. Apparently she had pre-ordered it, but then couldn't remember if she had, or hadn't, so she ordered another copy. Then both arrived. Rather than send the spare back, she decided to give it to me! It's brilliant, and I thoroughly recommend it.
Finn
Time for cute pupper photos!
Our baby boy is 10 years old! He still doesn't know this. He still thinks he's a puppy.
I was trying to take a photo of the wild flowers, but Finn wanted to know what I was finding so interesting...
Helping me choose which yarn to make socks for Auntie Boo.
Penguins!
I wasn't sure which section I should put this in, as it's not only a penguin, it's also a Finished Object. I bought the kit to make him at Bakewell Wool Gathering a few years ago, and finally finished him this year. He's made using the same technique as Hook Rugs, or as they're known in the North East of England, from whence I hail, "Proggy Mats".
My present from Becky. I honestly wish that I could eat eggs without getting sick, because I really want to have a boiled egg out of a penguin egg cup! Instead I'll use them for storing chocolate eggs at Easter, and I use the little spoons for eating yoghurts.
Most nights Stephen goes to bed before me, often long enough before me that he's already asleep before I go to bed. He can't sleep with the light on, but if I try and get ready for bed in the dark, I tend to knock things over and make a noise that wakes him up. So I got myself this little fellow. If I set him on red light, he doesn't keep Stephen awake, but he gives off just enough light that I can find all of my moisturisers, and my hair brush, and get ready for bed without making too much noise.
This is my avatar in the daft little word game that I play on my phone when my brain isn't working well enough for me to do anything useful or productive. I was so happy when the sea life challenge came up, and I made sure that I earned the penguin avatar.
Not the best present that my sister brought for me on my birthday, because she brought my nieces to visit! Still, it is pretty awesome!
Last, but most definitely not least, my birthday gift to myself. This is a solid silver yarn cutter pendant, with the Made by Penguins logo embossed on it. It was made by Fizzy Stitches, and to the best of my knowledge, it is one of only 2 in existence. Lisa herself owns the other one. I expected to have to fight for this, given exactly how special it is, and made absolutely sure that I was first in line for it! If there's another person in the world, besides Lisa, for whom this would be more perfect, and who would wear it every day as their signature piece, then I have not yet met them, and let's face it, penguin obsessed knitters probably aren't all that common, and in my experience, like will find like in such niche communities.
Well, it's taken me all night to write this, it's now 07:45, I've just finished watching the Olympic women's trampolining, and now I'm watching a British woman take gold in the BMX racing. I mean, I'm not sure when BMX racing became an Olympic sport, but since it apparently is now, it's good to feel proud that the British are still good at something. Even if I'd rather we were good at international diplomacy, and leading the way in Climate and Social Justice, I can still get behind sports that elevate ordinary people, which is a change for the UK, usually we're only any good at posh people sports, like dressage, and rowing.
Ahem, right, that's all for now then. I can't promise that I'll be back next month, but hopefully a little sooner than 4 months from now! Take care my dears, and stay safe.
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