Knitting A Rainbow...

 

I found this wonderful bright yarn at our local Hobbycraft store a few weeks ago, and it took me a while to decide what to make with it. In the end I chose this lacy scarf, knitted in two halves and grafted together in the middle.

It has turned out well, despite the Kitchener grafting being the wrong way round and causing a ridge down the centre - the instructions in the book were either wrong or I misinterpreted them!  This only took just over half a ball of this yarn, so I have that and another ball left over - what to make, what to make...

I'm extremely busy at the moment - unusual for the weeks following Christmas.  I have a dog portrait on the drawing board, another waiting in the wings, two painted boxes to do, two  knitted hats and some rather interesting animation pieces to knit.  Perhaps the family can learn to feed themselves for a while?

Lost Souls...

I enjoyed crocheting the first Lost Souls shawl (free pattern by Maryetta Roy) that I decided to make another on and had the perfect yarn in my stash.  This has been crocheted using a cotton yarn that starts off dark greay and gradually lightens as you go along - creates a great effect in this shawl!

This is now for sale in my Etsy shop.

 In other news, the air plant in the bathroom has flowered!  I usually manage to kill off my airplants but this one has not only survived but put out this interesting bloom.  I have been told that once they flower they die...but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!

Haven't Done This For A Long Time...

 I find knitting repetative patterns very soothing and a good stress-busting tool.  Lord knows we need anything that can keep us calm at the moment!  I bought some yarn cakes a few weeks ago that were at a ridiculously low price and was pleasantly surprised to receive them and see how very nice the yarn was.  The next problem was to find a project to use them on.  I have a book of patterns of items that can be knitted using one skein so picked this triangular scarf as the first project.  It has turned out very nicely but I am a little disappointed it did not use all the colours in my yarn cake!  The next shade would have been white which really makes the other colours pop.

However, that's just me, the scarf itself is very pretty indeed, soft and warm.  The yarn is an 80/20% acrylic wool mix so should be hard wearing too.  The shade was called Unicorn - not sure why!
This is currently for sale in my Etsy shop.

Pretty Polly...

I've had this parrot's head on my unfinished heap for over a year - finally turned it into the intended scarf.  It has a clip inside the beak to attach it to the tail when worn. 

Also completed this wide crochet cowl/scarf/wrap using up the yarn cake I had left from the previous shawl.  It's very versatile because I've sewn buttons on it!

Both items can be bought from my Etsy shop now.

Triangular Shawl

Amongst everything else lately, I have been slowly knitting this scarf/shawl for the past few weeks.  It's in an interesting yarn, cotton consisting of four fine strands which gradually change colour as you knit - it starts with a deep teal and ends up a deep orange.

I like a yarn that does something as you work - keeps it interesting!

This is now for sale in my Etsy shop.

Knitting & Stuff...

Well, Christmas is rolling towards us at a rate of knots and while I am busy with various commissions for presents, it has not been too manic this year.  The above is not a present but a scarf I took on to knit for a designer to be used in the photograph illustrating her pattern in an upcoming book.  The knitting was easy if a little tedious as it is a hell of a long scarf, but the blocking was incredibly hard.  The main body of the scarf is in garter stitch, which when wet stretches to twice it's normal length, and the leaf edging - 92 leaves in total - had to be carefully shaped.  Not easy when you are on your knees for best part of an hour!

However, it is done and once dry will go off to do it's job.  I calculated that I probably got paid about 50p an hour for this - not really worth the effort although it was enjoyable to make something someone else had designed for a change!

I have been painting, a portrait of two children, but I am loath to show it as it is a Christmas present for someone I know and there is the faintest chance they might see it and spoil the surprise.  Frustrating, as I am really pleased with this one but I guess it will have to wait a few weeks!

In the meantime, Daisy has a new anorak.  This was taken before she went for a muddy walk - the coat no longer looks like this and probably never will again!



On the needles: a pig's head....
On the easel: a bear with a hummingbird

Hello February!

I've never been so glad to see the back of a month as I am to wave goodbye to January 2016!  What a ghastly few weeks it has been - I am hoping that February will see an upturn in our luck as we could sure use it.

This little pencil drawing has gone some way to keeping me sane - I've put a considerable amount of hours into it, but it is very slow progress.  Nearing the finish line now, just the left-hand greenery to do.  I'm using Derwent Coloursoft pencils - lovely selection of colours, but do need a lot of repeated going over to get the depth of colour I am after.  Not a problem, in fact quite soothing!  I did discover that I can scrape back the applied colour with a sharp blade to reveal the first colour used - terrific for detail on the shiny feathers.

I've had this sumptious ball of laceweight yarn for months now, since my last trip to London.  Finally started a wide lace scarf with it and am loving the way the colours blend into each other.  The flash on the camera has made the purples a lot brighter than they actually are, but it is still a stunning colourway.

I've been having a small spring clean of various drawers in the house lately, the spice drawer being one of them.  I discovered I had caraway seeds (who knew??) and with the left over beetroot in the fridge, it all came together to make this interesting cake, recipe in this month's Simple Things magazine.  I wonder if it tastes as good as it looks...

Lovely Linen Lace

 I've been knitting this for a while now, squeezing it in among everything else.  It;s been made using some very fine linen yarn I bought a few weeks ago at a fabric show.

 I did start a different pattern with it but found the yarn did not suit, so tried this slightly simpler design which shows off the yarn to perfection.

 The linen is slightly crisp since being washed, but I think will soften with wear.  Now for sale in my Etsy shop.

Funny Old Month...

November is proving to be a bit unusual in some respects.  This is the busiest I've been in the run up to Christmas for a while, so personal projects have had to be put on the back burner for a while.  I'm managing to put a little time each day into this though - a lace scarf knitted in a fine linen yarn.  It looks a bit like a dishrag at the moment, but I think once blocked it will be beautiful - the yarn is a soft grey with a bit of a sheen to it, and about as thick as crochet cotton.  It's quite tricky to knit with, but I am sure will be worth the effort.

I usually make our Christmas cake at the end of October in order to have plenty of time to 'water' it with brandy before Christmas.  A couple of weeks late this year as I've been so busy, but it's finally done and maturing in a tin tucked away.  I use a recipe in a Stork cookbook given to me by my parents when I left home...so that's quite an old book!  It's proved invaluable over the years and I still refer to it for good basic home cooking recipes.

Bizarrely, while the cake was baking away in the oven, I was outside in my shirtsleeves mowing the grass and tidying up the garden, with all windows & doors open.  I still can't do all the clearing up that is needed to put the garden to bed for winter - cosmos are flowering more prolifically than they did in the summer.

The black-eyed susan has gone berserk covering half the pergola and shows no sign of stopping flowering.

And against the house the pepino (tree melon) has finally got a fruit and is also flowering more than it did in the summer.

I have a feeling this will end in tears once the frosts begin - it would be nice to harvest one fruit at least though!

On the easel:  still the greyhounds
On the needles: Christmas stuff!

Time To Get Back To Work...

It's been lovely taking things a little slower over the summer, but with autumn here it is time to get back into some sort of routine & get on with some work!  The dog portrait is progressing nicely, although I had forgotten just how much effort goes into an acrylic painting of this type.  It feels very slow after the speed I can work with for a drawing, but it is worth it in the end.  Lots more to do here, the only thing just about finished is his head.

This lace scarf is finally finished, knitted in a fine, slightly stiff, linen yarn. If I hadn't made a false start and knitted half of it before realising my mistake, it would have been done a lot faster.  Currently for sale in my Etsy shop.

Pretty!

We've been making the most of the autumn fruits - fillng the freezer with bags of blackberries to keep us going with crumbles throughout the winter, and picking lots of apples from our tree - which survived it's collapse.  Also still harvesting tomatoes from the garden, but everything else is tailing off.

The aloe vera is putting out a flower.  Obviously my workroom is an ideal growing place - I picked four big tomatoes from the plant that sprang up on the windowsill in there!

I had a go at making a goldfinch feeder from some teasels I gathered while dog walking (ouch!)  They are attached to a large bamboo and I have sprinkled nyjer seeds in the heads - now have to wait and see what happens.

On the needles: a gorilla (still); a crochet blanket; and we don't talk about the summer top languishing half finished in a corner...
I also have to make yet another moorhen, child friendly this time - however, these people have paid up front!

Strawberries & Lace...

Another quick little watercolour done while teaching one of my students.  I'm getting quite a collection of them now and am very happy that the boy is enjoying painting mini still life.  Not only is it great to see his progress, but it is very good for me too, working fast & as accurately as I can.  Next week we decided it will be vegetables so I have to keep an eye open for something that is interesting but can be achieved in one hour.

I've had this delicate linen yarn for quite a while now and never had the time to use it.  I began a lace scarf with it and then discovered once I had finished one ball of yarn that there was no way that the second and only other ball of it would stretch to making a full length scarf.  After searching the site where I bought it and finding it no longer in stock, and after a bit of soul searching, I started the scarf again but with half the width and it should make a decent length scarf.  I've reached the point of knitting from the original piece into the new one and trying not to think of the time wasted!

The next few weeks should be very busy - after a quiet couple of months, I now have three dog portraits lined up.  It's good that the work is coming in now that summer is drawing to a close.  One of them might be a little tricky - the photos are from about 25 years ago and very grainy and small - it could be a real challenge to get anything out of them!

Toxic Bog & Lino Cutting

This delicate little scarf/shawl was blocked yesterday and is now ready to go.  It has been knitted in sock yarn in the most gorgeous deep acid yellow, green & blue called Toxic Bog!  I bought it at Unravelled this year, completely won over by the rich colours, and have been waiting to find a decent project to use it on.

While this has turned out very pretty, I have to confess to being the tiniest bit disappointed in the pattern.  I know from past experience that when knitting lace you can't judge what it will look like until it has been blocked, and generally a shawl will grow by about a third when it is washed & blocked.  However, with this one, it didn't happen - the shawl remained quite small and is more like a scarf than a wrap.  It is still really nice, but I would have preferred it just that little bit deeper - just my own opinion.  It's on my Etsy shop now.

I have joined a subscription thing called Art & Parcel, which means you get a mystery package of art materials each month.  My first parcel contained the bits and pieces to make a couple of lino cuts, so yesterday I had a go.  I think I was a little ambitious in choosing an aster as my first design - it was very tedious to cut out!

I tried printing with it using the ink pad I'd been supplied with - didn't show the detail of the flower particularly well, it was all a bit busy.  Then I used watercolour paint - a bit runny but I got the general idea.  I think I need to use other paint and a decent paper rather than nasty cheap cartridge paper.  It was fun, and while I don't plan to make it a medium I will use regularly, I think I might try a simpler design and see what happens.  It's always good to have a go at something new, it's never time wasted.

Rounding Up The Week...

I've been after navy & white self-striping sock yarn for a while - it doesn't appear to exist other than on Etsy, and there it is too expensive to buy just to play with.  I did find some yarn in a wider stripe but found when it arrived that it was quite chunky & definitely not suitable for socks.  So I knitted a triangular scarf with it, working out that if I turned the bottom corner when one ball finished, the next ball should take it nicely to the end....no such luck!  I was left with about five inches left to knit when the yarn ran out.  Luckily I found some alpaca in navy that just about matches - you can see the join if you look closely but it should pass muster.  Consequently, this one stays with me and just needs some pretty dolphin beads sewn to the three corners once the scarf is completely dry.

I found some lovely fuzzy yarn called Eskimo Kisses that is ideal for shaggy dogs - so I started knitting a little lurcher with it.  Looks good so far!

I quite often get asked for free knitting patterns.  Now, while I am always more than happy to pass on a reference to a pattern book I have used or to give advice, I am not quite so happy to just give away something I have worked hard on.  Let's put it in perspective here - if you spent several days making a fancy cake, mixing, baking, decorating, and then someone you don't know came along and said 'That's nice, I like that - can I have it?'  What would your reply be?  I think that's all I need to say on that!  Also, a lot of the time there is no pattern - with the dogs I make, there is a start-up pattern I use as a basis, but then I go into free-styling, extending legs, changing ears, sculpting with sewing after the body has been stuffed, embroidering faces, brushing yarn to get a hairy effect, the list of alterations goes on, so each little pooch is individual.  I hate to say no, but sometimes I just have to.  Plus, I'm trying to make a living here!

I had another brilliant lesson with one of my students yesterday - the boy has really got the hang of watercolours and is so happy to paint little still lifes each week.  This week it was a simple tomato & courgette from the garden - not that simple when you come down to painting them though!  This is my quick painting - I had to keep one step ahead of him in order to be able to advise which colours & techniques to use.  I really enjoy these lessons, they keep me on my toes!

I had a bit of a whinge at Waitrose about their 'My Picks' scheme the other day - long story but I missed out on a discount due to them not having the item I was after.  They kindly sent me a voucher by recompense so I spent it on this little greenhouse, which was half price as well, so I got it for a measly £2.50.  Who doesn't love a bargain!

Third Clanger

This little Clanger is all done, ready for his trip across the Atlantic - funny how all the Clangers I've made have gone to the USA.  As I make each one, I learn how to do them better - the waistcoat on this one is made with double layers of felt, which gives it a bit more stability, and I have punched holes in it for the leather thonging to pass through.

The actual knitting of these takes less time than the assembly - there is a lot of fiddling around with feet, fingers and of course the waistcoat.  Fun though, and it's hard not to make the sound effects as the Clanger takes shape...boop-boop-beep-boop...

Inbetween paid work, I'm knitting myself a triangular scarf in this navy & white self-striping yarn.  I didn't read the description properly when I bought this as I was so excited at having found the striping yarn I was after, and it is actually aran weight which makes it a bit chunky - I had planned on making socks.  I know there is self-striping sock yarn in this colourway somewhere out there, I just can't find it - any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Today's challenge - a knitted barbeque & all that goes with it.  Almost there, just figuring out the twiddly bits!

Lizards & Lace

This was a commission I received last week.  I'm not sure why anyone would want to have a gecko crocheted for them, but I am very glad they did!  Funny little thing, quite tricky to make due to its size.

Personally I am terrified of geckos - when I lived in Greece I would rather sleep in the living room than my own bedroom if there was a gecko on the ceiling.  Not sure why I have that fear, it came as a surprise to me as well - it's not lizards, just geckos....Not crocheted ones though, as they don't shed their tails or stalk you from above.

Amongst the paid work, I managed to knit this cute little scarflet.  I love the pattern, not just lace but wavy texture as well.

I also love the yarn - Sirdar Montana - with it's contrasting colour changes and good stitch definition.  This is currently for sale in my Etsy shop.

Still knitting the big cardigan with the planes, and currently sewing a very complicated small embroidered fish...but I MUST make time to paint, withdrawal symptoms kicking in.

Lovely Lace...

I've been knitting this scarf for what seems like an eternity!  The yarn is quite fine, the stitch to ages to learn and I kept getting sidetracked with other projects and having to put this to one side.

It's very pretty, very soft and very warm and now for sale in my Etsy shop. I have a lot of this gorgeous yarn left over and must think of something else to do with it...that doesn't take so long!

My son came home for a visit last week and opened a parcel that's been waiting for him for weeks.  Inside were some copies of a book he illustrated the front cover of.  It will be in the shops next month.

Can you read the credit on the back? Here...

I'm one very proud mum!  He also has two (count them, two!) front cover illustrations on upcoming editions of the Adventure Time comic book.  We're going to run out of room in the maternal pride folder!

Very busy at the moment - but not necessarily with what I want to be busy with.  I wonder why when you have extra time there are always things that crowd to fill it?