Whenever I see someone frazzled, overwhelmed, and upset, I always feel bad if they don’t have any knitting. I feel sure that the tangible, even progress of knitting would make anybody feel better. (However, so far my attempts to give upset people some yarn, needles and a knitting lesson have been less than successful. Maybe my timing is off).

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (the Yarn Harlot)

OK so I’ve never actually done yoga for the body, but I do know that knitting can calm and centre a troubled mind.  Knitting has been very comforting and soothing to me in difficult times.  This weekend, we were visiting my son’s friend who was recently badly hurt in a car accident (he’s going to be fine tho, yay). About this time last year, his mum was inspired to take up the needles again when she saw me making a fake isle hat, and I’ve been happily enabling encouraging her since then.  She was telling me how glad she was to have her knitting with her while she was by her son’s bed in the hospital, it gave her something to do and focus on, and she found it like a meditation.

Helping people learn/relearn how to knit can bring such unexpected benefits.

Going to Manchester Yarn Day!  I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make it, but I can and am so looking forward to it.  See you there, Manchester knitters.

What with the clocks going back and the weather turning decidedly autumnal, I have been knitting hats recently:

Meret Beret

An early birthday present for a friend visiting from central America.  Her birthday’s not until December but there didn’t seem much point waiting till then, when it’s cold and damp now (and in January she’s going back home and won’t have much need of a woolly hat).

pattern: Meret (Mystery Beret) by Woolly Wormhead
yarn: Rowan Pure Wool Aran shade 673 Cloud

I worked one extra pattern repeat, for slouch but not too much slouch. I love this beret pattern, and it looks lovely on Osiris.

Rose Red Beret

I fell in love at first sight with this pattern, got the yarn at UK ravelry day in June, and have finally got around to actually knitting it.

pattern: Rose Red by Ysolda Teague
yarn: GEM Teeswater, shade ‘Fire in the Heart’
needles: 4 mm & 3.75 mm

I love this hat, although I’m not convinced it actually suits me (isn’t wearing this hat supposed to make me as beautiful as Ysolda?) but I don’t care. Love the colour and the pattern, wearing that hat constantly since finishing it, even in the house. Haven’t blocked it yet and not sure I will, but I think I do need to reknit a tighter brim.

There’ s going to be more beret knitting in the next couple of months, both my mum and my sister have requested berets for Christmas.

And I have also been working on a new hat patterns of my own but you’ll have to wait for the publication of Bobbins for that ….

What did you do in the olden dayes, mummy?
Well son, back in the dark ages, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, long before the internets were invented and St Bob gave us ravelry, we used to go to the wool shop and choose from the delightful range of knitting patterns on offer …

My mum’s been having a clear out of her old knitting patterns. She was going to throw them away! Of course I objected violently and so she gave them to me instead. I don’t know if I will ever knit anything from them.  There are a lot of of aran jumper patterns in there (which probably explains where I got my love of cabling from) and I will probably use the stitch patterns at least.  And anyway I like having them if only for comedy sentimental value.

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This pattern is where it all started.  I was a football-mad 11 year old tomboy who refused all my mother’s efforts to teach me ‘girly’ stuff like sewing and knitting, and I desperately wanted a Liverpool FC scarf. My mum refused to buy me one or make me one, instead she took me to the wool shop to pick a pattern and wool to make my own. So I had to learn to knit.  I also made my Dad and Grandad hats from this pattern.

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I once made my sister a hat from this leaflet, the one on the top left. Lovely. Luckily for her, both my knitting skills and my taste in fair isle hats have improved since then
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My mum made me this jumper, at my request. Look, it was the 80s and I was a teenager and I thought it was beautiful. And I wore it a lot. Not that I do ever doubt that my mum loves me, but if I ever wanted to make sure, I just have to look at this pattern. It’s not just all that (shudder) intarsia, which I now know she hates as much as I do. It’s the pattern itself. You’d expect to find a chart when you opened that leaflet, wouldn’t you? Well you’d be wrong. It is written out, line by line, not a chart in sight. And my mum still knitted it for me. That’s love.

I took my chemistry-with-hard-sums exam last week.  Now I have no studying for a couple of months, until my next course starts in February (although I may do a little light reading in preparation for it).   Even though my chemistry studies are over for this year, I still have plenty of new things to learn.  I’ve cast on for my bountiful bohus cardigan.  This features a couple of techniques I’ve not done before – short row shaping and steeks.

I have done short rows before, but not for shaping a garment.  The pattern does give some shapings but I’m going to recalculate my own, as well as tweaking other parts of the shaping, using my hard-won mad algebra skillz. If  I can apply the steady state approximation and understand the Langmuir adsorption isotherm then I can damn well work out where to put a couple of bust darts.

Steeks, though! Steeks are a different story.  You want me to cut my knitting?  I think I’d rather derive some more kinetic equations, thanks.  Cut. My.  Knitting! ?  This is terrifying.  But I know lots of knitters who have done it and survived, and they assure me it’s not that difficult but even so, I’m scared.  But ’tis a long way off yet.  I have started with the sleeves, by way of checking my tension calculations (my yarn is knitting up looser than the pattern so I am following the instructions for a smaller size).   I’ve made the sleeves narrower than the pattern has them – I already have one cardigan with big sleeves, don’t really need another.

I did finally finish my summer school shawl, and wore it during my exam – it gets quite cool in the exam hall after 2 or 3 hours sitting still.

pattern: Litla Dimun by Cheryl Oberle (from ‘Folk Shawls‘)
yarn: Jamieson & Smith 2 Ply Jumper Yarn, shade 1403 (the red is slightly deeper/darker than it shows in these photos)
needles: 4 mm

I love the finished shawl, the Faroese shape really does stay on well. And I love the yarn, in all its crispness and slight roughness. This feels like the kind of shawl my great grandmothers would have worn. Airy lace and softy delicate yarns are good for dressing up, but this is an honest, everyday working shawl.  Although I wear it for working in  the library, rather than the fields or mills.  Ah, which reminds me …

I kniktted this ‘U’ for the Poetry Society’s Knitted Poem.  They asked you to tell them your favourite poem.  One of mine is Digging by Seamus Heaney

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.

We had a great camping holiday in Pembrokeshire in August.  Of course there was knitting on the beach

and by the campfire

and a visit to some lovely angora goats

And I became slighly obsessed with blanket making.  The people in the neighbouring tent had blankets to keep them warm round the campfire and we had none.  Which is clearly wrong, for a knitter’s family not to have cosy blankets.  So when we got back I used up some of my oddments for a crazy cat lady kind of blanket

Now that’s finished, son wants one of his own in blues.  Plus, I have finally got around to starting making squares for a sock yarn oddments blanket.

Oh and my summer chevron that I finished ages ago, I loves it. It turns out to be perfect for holidays and got lots of wear

pattern: Summer Chevron by Audrey Eschright (from “More Big Girl Knits”) (with heavy modification, see my ravelry notes)
yarn:  Patons UK Vintage, shade 07008 acidic
needles: 5 mm

Due to a combination of Stuff^* happening at the same time,  I’ve been a bad blogger recently.  I will start posting again properly soon, and catch up on what I’ve been knitting and otherwise doing in the past couple of months.  Apologies to anyone who has contacted me for pattern help in the last couple of months, I’ll catch up with your emails as soon as I can.

For now, please to enjoy pretty picture of things I’ve been making and yarns I’ve been meeting


* work, study, holidays, summer school, laptop near-death experiences …

One week of summer school down, one to go. Obviously an important part of my preparations was deciding which knitting to bring – when you’re going to be away from home for two weeks, with evenings alone  in your room, you have to have plenty of projects to hand.

Just before I came away, I cast on for a Faroese shawl (Litla Dimun from Folk Shawls).  Faroese shawls are traditionally knit from the bottom up, so the pattern starts ‘cast on 421 st’.  Eep.  But at least the number of stitches will decrease as the shawl grows, so it should get quicker.  Which was no consoloatino when I spotted a mistake in the lace pattern a few rows down, and am going to have to frog 3 rows of 400+ st.  Boo hoo.

So I have set the shawl aside for now (for ’set aside’ you could read ’shoved into a bag in disgust’) and cast on some socks instead – Hallows & Horcruxes pattern by Kate from Green Eyed Monsters, using the Old Maiden Aunt yarn I got in a swap.

And it hasn’t been all work and no play.  Friday afternoon was free so my bff came over and led me astray in the yarn shop, the second hand book shops, the cocktail bar and best of all, the button shop.  York has the most amazing button shop, Duttons for Buttons.  If you are ever in York, go.  It’s button heaven.

really, hear my voice.  On Rav Day, Girl & Dean interviewed lots of knitters and they’ve now put together a couple of fun short films from those interviews – there’s a bit of me on the WWKIP one.

Excellent sound track, too.  BRMC & knitting, great combination.

Quite a lazy weekend here.  Went to the local World Wide Knit in Public Day yesterday, it was nice to sit and knit in the textiles gallery at the Whitworth, almost felt part of the exhibition.  Made some more progress on my summer chevron

Although an MMBSS¹ project like this gets boring after a while, I am liking making a jumper top down in the round.  I love that you can try it on as you go, making it easy to tweak the fit.   And of course, there is no seaming waiting for me at the end.  On the other hand, although I’m getting better at working with circular needles, I do miss ‘proper’ knitting on lovely long straight needles.  My next planned project is another green MMBSS jumper but this time worked flat, so back to the trusty straights yay.

Lots of green going on right now, as our teeny ‘veg patch’ on the balcony is coming on.  Thinned some of the salad stuff this afternoon and had fresh salad with our tea.

rocket, chard, beetroot leaves and teeny tiny radishes nom nom nom.

1.  Miles & Miles of Bloody Stocking Stitch