Crafty is as Crafty does

I'm plotting some more crafty adventures.

last week I picked 450g of elderberries. My Mum has also picked me about a pound, so if I pick just two more pounds of elderberries, I can make wine to my Dad's recipe. He's bringing me some demi-johns for doing that with. I also hope to make some plum wine, as the neighbours gave us a bucket full of plums!

Well, as you can imagine, there are more plums than I need for the wine. I'm also going to make some jam. The trouble is that I don't have any jam jars!
I do have about 600g of raspberries which are also lined up to be jam, but I've frozen those. I bet I can pick another punnet of them tonight too.
So, I think I'll need to buy myself some jam jars. (Though my Mother-in-Law has offered that I could have some of hers, which might be a cheaper solution!)

So, wine, jam - how cool! Anyway, we also identified that the tree/bush behind the shed is not, in fact, a blackthorn bush. Therefore it doesn't have sloes on it. It's a damson tree, and so I have also picked 450g (about a pound) of damsons. I'm going to make damson gin with some of them, and I might make damson rum with the other half if I can find a small (35cl) bottle of cheap white rum.

We're also making a scarecrow for the Bugthorpe Scarecrow trail. I'll post pictures once he's up. We're starting tonight by making a papier-mâché head.

On the fibre craft front, I am still working on the hoody, but I confess it's not really appealing to me at the moment. I just need to get to the top of the arms and it will be interesting again! I guess it's all down to my orangutan-like proportions - or so it seems! I've rarely met a jumper (hand knit or bought) which has sleeves the right length. Most often they are too short - the cuff leaves my wrist bone exposed, or in some cases they look like 3/4 sleeves even if they're not meant to be! Sometimes they are silly long though, but that's less of a problem!


I did cast on something new, a cowl. The pattern is Lava Flow Cowl (Rav Link) although I have made some amendments because of my yarn choice.



The yarn is actually much lighter than in that picture, it's the Llama yarn that my parents brought back from America when they went.

This arrived in the post this morning



It's greener than that (the joy of taking photos when it's rainy and miserable!) but really nice. It's 30% cashmere 70% merino from Colourmart. It's going to be something for Hubby for Christmas. He has seen the yarn (I had to check when it arrived, I was a bit worried about the green-ness) but that's all he's going to know about it! It's lovely stuff, I've already skeined it and I plan to wash it tonight. This is because Colourmart yarn is usually weaving or machine knitting yarn and as such is usually oiled. I want to make the most of the 150g I have, so I'm going to want to pick the most appropriate needle, and not have to make a swatch. (That and I hate swatching)
Then I want to re-skein and wash the bargain red yarn from the British Wool Weekend because it smells a bit fusty. Trouble is that it's probably twice as heavy as the Colourmart yarn, and it's laceweight. So re-skeining that could be a bit of a nightmare! I may have to do it into 100g skeins! That's going to have to be a project for when I'm a bit less busy. This week in my evenings I have to:

1. help with the scarecrow
2. pick elderberries
3. pick courgette
4. pick raspberries
5. pack for visiting my sister (and travel there on Friday)
6. organise present for upcoming birthday
7. go to Slimming World

I think that's all. But that's a lot to fit in to the next three evenings! I guess it's better than vegetating in front of the telly though, right?

When did that happen?

Folks, it’s only 16 (plus the rest of today) days until Christmas.
Crikey!

And although I have done most of my shopping, there’s a catch. I’ve done it online, and then this slight cold snap that we’ve had appears to have upset the postal system a little bit.

I wouldn’t normally worry about that, but I’m off to my parents’ place at the weekend, at which time I intend to leave all the gifts for my sister and her fiancé, and my parents, with my parents. Clearly I can not do this if said gifts are still sitting in some stranded lorry somewhere. Boo.

Well, I do have some things for each of them so far. I’ve had to return one item already, and so I’ve decided to buy the replacement item in person in an actual shop. I may have to pick up some backup gifts for my sister as 95% of her gift is still in the post.

(Well, I guess there’s a chance that some of it is waiting for me at home, if the post has arrived today.)

Somehow this makes me want to go out and madly buy more stuff! And then I feel a bit materialistic!

I’m only doing a little bit of Christmas knitting. One item is almost finished and will go in the post this weekend all being well. The other is for my fiancé, and he knows he’s getting a knitted thing, but he knows not what. I need to get cracking on that! I feel some in-car knitting will be required (we have a 20-30 minute commute, he drives…)

Well, I’ll cross my fingers about the parcels. They’ll understand if there are more to come! (The other year an item I pre-ordered didn’t arrive until the following February!)

Here’s hoping!

Lacey Fingerless Mittens

I’m having some bizarre issues with my Macbook, so I’ve been unable to post. Normally I wouldn’t worry, but I’ve been waiting to tell you all about my latest pattern!

Pattern:Lacey Fingerless Mitts by Tsuki (download now)
Sizes Available: S, M and L (though from feedback the small runs more like XS, the other sizes are about right)
Yarn:Violet Green, Sappho (70% merino 30% silk, colour pink ruby); yardage just over 150yds (140m) for the medium size.
Needles:2.25mm circs long enough to do magic loop, or 2.25mm dpns.
Other:you’ll need two pairs and one odd stitch marker, and a darning needle for weaving in the ends.
I enjoyed knitting these, and I hope you will too. Do let me know if you knit them – and if you like to knit for friends for Christmas these would make a lovely gift. Just click here to download the pattern and you’re away!
Thank you for reading!

Any feedback about the pattern (including errata) is very welcome, please leave a comment, or come find me on Ravelry – I’m Tsuki.

Dangerous Socks For Boys

So, I heard back from Knitty, and though it was a lovely email, it was a rejection. However, for the small sum of £2.50 Dangerous Socks for Boys could be yours! Just click on the link below and (hopefully) you'll be able to download the PDF. It's via paypal, I believe. Just click the link: I wanted to create some socks for my boyfriend that were manly enough for him (no lace, nothing too fancy), comfortable enough to wear in slightly warmer weather and most of all interesting enough that I didn’t get the dreaded second sock syndrome!
I also wanted a pattern that I could knit while on the move – something I could commit to memory easily. Thus, the Dangerous Socks for Boys were born, though the only danger is that you might want to keep them for yourself rather than give them to another boy in your life. The cuff ribbing is designed to flow into the main pattern, though it can easily be replaced with k2p2 rib. The central ribbing flows down the heel flap, helping it to hug the heel when worn. The blue sock is shown with k2p2 ribbing, the brown sock is shown with patterned ribbing.
(Click to see larger versions) So go on, treat the boy (or man) in your life to some dangerous socks!

Not (quite) an epic fail

Well, sort of. I heard back from Amy, the editor at knitty.com. She told me that, as I suspected, I had only sent her my headshot and not the rest of the pattern details. However, she has asked for me to resend the details, so I might still be in with a shot! Woo!

-oOo-

We spent last weekend moving all of our superfluous stuff from our house to the house of some friends in a large van. It was a long wheel based high top something or other! It was pretty big anyway. I didn’t drive it because I couldn’t reach the pedals and we couldn’t figure out how to move the seat any further forward! We also took a van-load of things to the tip, so we have much more space at home.
Now the real fun begins (sarcasm) because we have to tidy, sort, throw away some more things, tidy some more, sand, paint, dust, sweep, Hoover, tidy, stick down, cover up and generally make the place look like it should.
I want to get it on the market by the end of March – with some luck we might even be able to get people round to see it over Easter that way. Perhaps that’s ambitious, but we’re so close to being ready, all it needs is some commitment, elbow grease, and me not to get ill or injured!

-oOo-

The shawl I’m knitting at the moment is coming along, although I’m not spending enough time on it. Lately I have been watching a bit of telly in the evenings, which isn’t conducive to lace knitting for me. So I’ve been mostly knitting some stockinette socks I’ve been making. These are a surprise gift for someone, who fortunately has feet a similar size to mine (one size larger, so should be an extra few rows before I begin the toe!)
To add interest (and, as it turns out, speed) I’ve been knitting two at a time on one circular needle. (I think I mentioned that already!) Which is working well for me!

Presto Chango Finished!

Pattern:Presto Chango
Yarn: Patons UK Washed Haze Aran
Needles: 5mm
Modifications: I made the second panel just plain stockinette.
If I were to make it again, I would probably arrange it so that I could graft the sleeve joins, and possibly knit the rest in the round. But that's just to avoid seaming!
(more updates soon!)