Wibbo's Words

Off the needles/hook

Knitted gifts

Now that January has got into its stride, here's a look at gifts I made for Christmas.

Fingerless mittens for Liz in hand dyed high twist merino; my own design using a stitch pattern from a Japanese stitch dictionary.

Elise shawls for Kris and her mum in hand dyed BFL sock.

Long crochet scarf with fringe for Julie; my own design in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino.

On the what's-on-the-needles-now front, not much. Huldran is progressing slowly (lovely, lovely Wollmeise) and there are a couple of pairs of plain vanilla socks on the go. I think I'd better go cast something else on! 

Pause

The days between Christmas and New Year feel slightly odd to me - like someone's pressed a pause button. Way back when, New Year's Day was only a Bank Holiday in Scotland and life south of the border got back to normal straight after Boxing Day. I can't say that I like this time of year either.

Right, that's the grumble out of the way. Not a lot happening at Wibbo Towers apart from generally mindless knitting and a little excitement after finding a terrific crochet block pattern which looks perfect for using up my bits and pieces of yarn. It's this one

and it's free to download here. I really should finish a couple of things first then it's out with the hooks...

Busy, busy, busy

Brighton Craft Guerrilla will be at Craftaganza's Christmas Market at Fabrica on December 10 and I'm busy dyeing, stitching and crocheting all manner of stuff for the stall. The venue's nice and central and we're looking forward to plenty of visitors wandering round and (hopefully) buying! I'll post more details nearer the date.

This is the latest batch of sock yarn ready to be skeined and labelled; I'd better go do just that...

Now, where was I?

The last few months have sped past. I'm reminded of that Douglas Adams quote I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. 

There have been several deadlines at Wibbo Towers, albeit self-imposed ones. The first one was to make a wedding present for Steph and Benn - a ripple stitch crochet blanket.

Then there was a shawl from Steph to wear at her wedding. She chose the Misty Blossom Stole pattern (ravelry link) and wanted a bright red semi-solid yarn to match one of the flower colours in her dress.

I was really pleased with how this turned out (as was Steph!) - I knitted it exactly to pattern apart from substituting a narrow picot edge for the original lace edging.

My knitting and crochet time

Write about your typical crafting time. When is it that you are likely to craft - alone or in more social environments, when watching TV or whilst taking bus journeys?

I'm happily retired and these days can do as much or as little knitting, crochet, embroidery, sewing as I fancy. After over thirty years designing and making things for clients and publishers, it's a joy to be able to make exactly what I want.

I ease into a typical day with a mug of tea and an hour or so's knitting or crochet.

I'm usually supervised by Fearsome Miss Flossie who sits by my feet waiting patiently for her breakfast. 

I haven't had a television since 2001 and much of my crafting is accompanied by audio books, radio programmes or music, with the occasional film DVD when I'm knitting something that doesn't need concentration.

I live round the corner from an excellent library (name-checking Hove Library) which has a really good, constantly changing audio book selection (above is yesterday's haul) and I also have a subscription to Audible. Music-wise, I listen to classical music, opera, rock, folk, jazz and I'm a big fan of Radio 5 live's football coverage.

I try and balance hours spent crafting by myself with regular company in the shape of a couple of knitting groups (Brighton Knitters and Knit & Natter at Cocoon) and with regular exercise walking by the sea. 

This is the last of this year's Knitting and Crochet Blog Week's posts - thanks for the comments and see you again next year :o)

And now for something completely different

This is an experimental blogging day to try and push your creativity in blogging to the same level that you perhaps push your creativity in the items you create. There are no rules or a topic to blog about but this post should look at a different way to present content on your blog.

Where are they now?

Write about the fate of a past knitting project. Whether it be something that you crocheted or knitted for yourself or to give to another person. An item that lives with you or something you sent off to charity.

Many years ago (sometime during the 80s) I crocheted a huge bedspread in hexagon motifs using Rowan's Lightweight DK. The yarn came in an enormous range of colours and in 25g/70m skeins. I couldn't afford to buy all the yarn at once, so I used to pick up a fivers-worth at a time from Reis Wools in Holborn. I had no colour plan in my head and because the hexagons were joined together as I worked, I couldn't make any changes once they were in place. The small inner voice of doubt in my head should have warned me, but I ignored it and pressed on. And on. And on. Until the bedspread was finished and I'd worked several rows of edging round it. At that point, trying it out on the bed made me realise with horror that I absolutely hated the colours. All that hideous yellow! What on earth had I been thinking of?

So I folded up the bedspread and put it away, firmly out of sight, where it stayed for the best part of fifteen years. Then it occured to me that I could unpick the whole thing and re-use the yarn. That way madness lies; I soon abandoned the unpicking, (don't faint) cut the bedspread into four and ran the pieces through my washing machine a couple of times. I ended up with nice thick felt and the colours didn't look too bad because they'd faded slightly in the wash and each hexagon had shrunk to about half its original size.

Two thicknesses made a comfy seat pad for my studio chair

and some is in use as a cat perch handy rug to take down to the beach. 

Skill + 1UP

Look back over your last year of projects and compare where you are in terms of skill and knowledge of your craft to this time last year.

It's been a curate's egg sort of year. I learnt and used some new techniques but these were balanced out by a lot of frogging of projects that I wasn't totally convinced about. If I'm not enjoying knitting/crocheting something, or I don't think it'll fit/suit me, then I frog it.

I discovered, practised and perfected working a belly button start (brilliant) and got halfway through a circular shawl in laceweight before I had an attack of it-looks-too-much-like-a-doily and frogged it. However, learning something new is never wasted and I'll use the technique again next time I knit a square shawl. I like square shawls, they don't look like doilies ;o)

I knitted a shawl pattern that had a section of lace-on-both-sides patterning across the border section. The finished shawl looks really pretty but confirmed my previous opinion that I don't enjoy working this type of lace stitches even in an easy-to-handle yarn like Koigu; I much prefer purling wrong-side rows.

I designed and knitted a pair of mittens that actually fitted me properly (small hands, short fingers) and wrote the pattern up rather than leaving it in scrappy note form (this is a major step for me).

I learnt much more this year about dyeing yarn from Ravelry forums, a friend who dyes fabric and through trial-and-error. I'm much more confident now about dyeing the colours/effects that I want and getting a dyebath to exhaust. 

 

In the next year, I plan to get better acquainted with Japanese crochet patterns. I have books, yarn and hooks, so no excuses! 

Not a lot going on...

...that's blogable. Knitting and crochet projects at the moment are mainly gifts of the birthday and wedding variety; funny how you come across lots of patterns you're keen on making for yourself when you're busy doing other stuff!

I finished knitting a new shawl before the gift-creating started.

The pattern's called Yggdrasil and it shows off the long colour changes of the yarn (Rico's Superba Poems sock yarn) nicely. I had about 5g left from a 100g ball of the Candy colourway.

Snigger...

20 Sad Etsy Boyfriends

I rather fancy taking part in this

How about you?

Details over on Eskimimi Knits.

Merry Christmas

from Jan and the Faithful Companion x

I have ripple mania

Latest off the hook

Blanket of Many Colours; wedding present for Emma and Jamie.

Hove KnitFest

 

 

It's nearly February

How did that happen? I only looked away for a moment and the month has practically disappeared... There has been knitting, dyeing, reading, happy snapping for Hove Daily Photo and numerous other activities. Flossie's in good form, but surprised that it's over a month since Christmas and catnip treats. She does that looking surprised thing very well.

 

Off the needles is finished-before-Christmas stuff, now safely gifted and no longer secret. Here's a quick glimpse of a few.

 

Details, as ever, on my Ravelry project page. Also off the needles is Wandering the Moor, the first item in the 10 Shawls in 2010 Ravelry challenge.

 

There are flowers

To go with last month's leaves, I've made flowers.

 

 

Oh, and a nice felted bed for The Flossbag. She approves.

It's gone missing again

My knitting mojo, that is. I can just about manage socks at the moment. I keep seeing designs on Ravelry that I rather like, but nothing's grabbing my attention enough to cast on.

When knitting doesn't appeal, I turn to crochet. After sorting out my stash a couple of weeks ago (had to buy some more, er, storage boxes to prevent it escaping) I'm using up bits of Noro, Maya, Malabrigo and other stuff and mindlessly crocheting them into big buckets and rectangles. When the pieces are chucked in the washing machine, they'll felt and make pots, bags or cushion covers. There may be a comfy felted bed for The Flossbag as well.

 

 

 

I've been busy

I've had a bout of finishing things. Not my favourite occupation, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and force yourself...

 

I'm pleased with this one! Cast on in October, It was a bit of a struggle finishing the last ten or so rounds as there were well over 700 stitches on the needle.

I've also blocked several shawls that were knitted over the last couple of years, then stuffed in a drawer and definitely weren't ready to wear. This is one of them, a rectangular wrap in Colinette Cadenza.

 

I've also knitted (and blocked!) a scarf-size Ishbel by Isolda Teague using my hand dyed 4ply merino,

 

 

crocheted a couple of easy shawls in Noro Silk Garden

 

and made some colourful swatches for a workshop.

 

I think I need to go have a little lie down now...