Christmas decorative knitting

We are having a village Christmas Fayre and I have volunteered, with the help of a friend, to provide a centrepiece of knitted Christmas decorations. I have been having a lot of fun making simple garter stitch Christmas trees, small mittens, mini sweaters and little socks - with the odd bauble or owl thrown in for good measure.

The patterns have mostly been free ones readily available online with some from one of the Christmas knits books I bought recently. Standard acrylic double knitting wool already in stock has produced something which I think looks rather festive.

Miscellany

Overheard:

Actually a conversation in a hardware store where I was buying wellies for the eldest daughter. Young man - " I need wellies that I can run fast in" me - " do you normally run in wellies?" Young man - " yes, I need to chase my birds of prey"

Things I never bought before:

Roof felt for the shed where we keep straw for the hens and ducks.

Items of knitting finished:

Items of knitting started:

Christmas decorative mittens - see above and little jumpers.

Baby cardigans  x 2

Chunky chevron baby blanket - started but unravelled.

P.S. We have owls in the garden every night from dusk. They sound like a tape playing of the sound of owls. If you stand at the door and hoot at them they respond. I adore living here.

Startitis

I have had a bad case of startitis. For non knitters a basic explanation of this condition is starting a piece of knitting then another and another and never quite finishing any of them. It started with a baby blanket in a soft cotton double knitting. I had been making the same pattern in 4 ply and quite liked it. The double knitting, however, did not seem right. Then I found a pattern for a chunky baby blanket and had some delightful yarn that I had bought in our local Red Cross charity shop. I like the pattern, there is a cable - but I am finding it boring. Then I had a request for a child's log cabin in the colours of Elmer the elephant. That sounded fun so I started that. Making the log cabin squares I realised that if I made them the usual size it would detract  from the Elmer type pattern so I made a few smaller squares and then hesitated. In my box of favourite wools I had a selection of Bamboo cottons in various pastel shades. I had a pattern for a throw called Building Blocks and thought the Bamboo would be good for that - so I started the first square, made a mistake, unravelled it and put the pattern and yarn and needles in a box at my feet next to the sofa - where there is another similar box of chunky wool ready for me to make another Cowichan inspired child's jacket. I haven't casted on with this one, fortunately but I can see it tucked under the coffee table.

I think I want to knit something else - maybe a baby cardigan, maybe something for Christmas. However, yesterday I bought some fabric to make Christmas bunting so maybe this is the time to confess that I have a similar problem with sewing. Upstairs there is, cut out, a red linen top, some pretty floral bunting and a dress. Oh, and, of course, some knitted chickens which need to finished off, a few owls, a Snowdog and a fair isle sweater.

My absolutely favourite kind of knitting - ever!

I love knitting - that is probably the biggest understatement I could ever make, but it is true. I am passionate about yarn, patterns, works in progress, finished items, stashes of wool, little rolled up balls of leftover yarn, books about knitting, blogs about knitting, wool shops, blogs by little wool shops, online wool shops, boxes around the house stuffed with half made items, patterns and yarns ready to start new items, log cabin blankets in progress, baskets of items I should finish but have to just begin something else......and one something else I just started, and finished is a little Cowichantype jacket for Noah.

I love chunky jackets for kids. Probably because that is how I was dressed by my grandmother as a child - and I still have the jackets! A couple of years ago I made myself two Cowichans and have worn them until they now look a bit on the shabby side. I wanted to make something similar for Noah and found a suitable pattern which just needed a little bit of adaptation - buttons for a zip mainly. I had a first attempt at the pattern in the smallest size and Noah's little cousin now seems to enjoy wearing this one and now I have made one for Noah and I am thrilled with the result. The dark grey was a yarn I bought to make something for myself but never did and the red I bought on a whim one day when I was in Cardiff. The other colours were end of balls. I want to knit more of the same but know very few children of the right age and I'm not sure Noah will want a selection! Charity maybe but I really want to see these jackets worn - they remind me of a simpler life.

Another baby blanket

This has been sitting in a "work in progress" bag for nearly 2 years. The squares were done but not joined together. I wasn't particularly happy with the yarn - cotton nor with the size - knitted on 3.25 mm needles instead of the usual 4mm.

This week I am knitting a chunky baby blanket with cables but I got a bit bored with it and don't like knitting on large needles really. So I retrieved these squares - 20 of them.

I decided on a baby cot sized blanket using just 12.

Now I have to decide what to do with the other 8 - maybe a cushion cover or to knit another share and make a 9 square blanket?

Ducks

When we moved here, nearly 6 months ago, we inherited the cockerel, a few hens and a duck. The duck is an Aylsebury who, inevitably, was named Jemima. She used to have a mate, apparently but he was taken by a fox some time ago and she was a lonely duck when we first met her.

Jemima didn't do a lot during the day. She came out of her house in the morning and waddled along to the pond. Later in the day she could be seen searching out slugs from the vegetable garden. Occasionally she ventured onto the smaller pond but at the end of the day was always waiting by her house to be let in for the night and fed. If we were late she would come towards the house quacking indignantly and if we had been out in the car for the day and only reappearing at her bedtime she could be waddling up the driveway complaining loudly.

A few weeks ago we bought 3 new ducks. They are Miniature Appleyards and very pretty - one drake, two lady friends for him. We imagined, erroneously, that they would follow Jemima around. Oh no! Jemima has become a teenager again. The new ducks are only about 6 months old and full of life. They are not keen on leaving their pond at night - persuading them into their house is a long drawn out affair ad Jemima just joins in. No longer is she there, waiting, at night, to be let in to the house. No, she has joined the young ones in their runaround attempts to get me to fall into the duck pond. As soon as they see me coming they swim to the far end of the pond - way beyond my reach. Our neighbour - the duck supplier, provided us with the equipment to help - a long piece of white plastic tubing. This, it seems, or he says, will persuade them to come out of the pond and go to bed. Maybe it does - for him! Actually, eventually, they are getting out of the pond. It is not an easy task. Great patience is needed and Jemima is just as bad as the rest of them - she has a new lease of life.

All is worth it though for the morning opening up of the duck house. These three little ducks come flying out as soon as the flap is opened and dash to the pond. They throw themselves in and swim around like lunatics. Jemima waddles frantically after them. They are such fun.

Baby blankets

A pattern I have knitted before in double knitting but I think I prefer the one below - in 4 ply.

New knitting for babies

Overheard

Before we moved to the countryside we lived in a suburb of a large city. The city centre was just over a mile away, life was busy, noisy and fairly typical, I would think, of city living.

Here there is a different pace of life. No one hurries. There is time for conversation and people actually chat to you in shops, on the street, on the bus.

I have been amused by conversations I simply would never have had nor overheard in the city:

" the wild boar are such a nuisance in the garden"

" I need pellets for my air rifle"

" you need a polytunnel. It is useless trying to grow anything in the garden with the deer"

" there was a snake sunbathing on my patio"

" the price of oil has gone down so much. I wish I could fit more than 500 litres in my tank"

" do you have your candles and paraffin ready for the power cuts"

" you can borrow my chainsaw"

" I'll bring you a bale round"

" do you want to barter"

" it is such a pain, the Forestry Commission closing paths for felling, I have to ride for miles"

I never thought I would:

Wear a high visibility vest to go out at night.

Wear crocs as standard footwear - and wellies.

Live in jeans and fleeces.

Chop wood.

Wonder what kind of livestock to have to add to our hens and ducks.

Bake my own bread out of necessity not choice.

Freeze milk.

Buy a spare freezer for home grown produce.

Join the WI.

I love it here!

The annual courgette glut - and another log cabin

Even though we have moved house, and country, we still have the annual glut of courgettes or zucchini. This year I have attempted some different recipes and strategies to deal with the influx.

As we now are living nearer to our daughters, and their friends, goody bags are being offered at the end of each visit - a few eggs, French beans, a slice of cake, a marrow.....and new recipes are being attempted. My favourite is my deconstructed moussaka. Unlike in the US, as I have been reading about recently in light of the NATO summit due to be held near here from tomorrow, we eat a lot of lamb and particularly Welsh lamb. I like to roast a leg of lamb slowly in the oven, covered in foil and slathered in a mixture of Ras al Hanoot spices, lemon juice and olive oil. This provides a meal of a roast dinner with potatoes and vegetables. The remaining lamb can then be used for a shepherds pie and then for the deconstructed moussaka. I cube the lamb and add to some fried onions and tomato and a little cinnamon. The marrow I then slice into large rounds and remove the central soft area with a pastry cutter. I heat a griddle and lightly oil the marrow slices before griddling them. When they are ready I microwave some left over potato and slice thinly and grate some cheese. The moussaka is the constructed by piling some of the meat mixture in the middle of a bowl, layering slices of the griddled marrow around the edges and the sliced potatoes on the top. The grated cheese is then sprinkled on the top and quickly melts in.

Griddled courgettes have also become a favourite vegetable accompaniment to any meal.

Googled recipes for courgette chutney and particularly marrow chutney - a James Martin recipe, have been very successful, the marrow chutney using some of the windfall apples too.

I am about to try deep fried courgettes and a courgette, tomato and cheese bake discovered in the  weekend newspapers.

And the freezer is so full of ratatouille that I have ordered a new freezer which is due to be delivered this afternoon!!

And in the meantime - a new log cabin:

My knitting addiction

II think I am suffering from a serious case of startitis but, thankfully, I am actually trying to finish what I start. Dawn and Peter got engaged a few weeks ago so a log cabin blanket was in order as an engagement present. Dawn selected some colours and I completed one of the brightest and loveliest log cabins I have made in a while.

Then there is still the baby knitting to do for Tor's baby. We don't know if this will be a boy or girl and, as I have a bit of a stock of girl appropriate cardies, I went for a beautiful, traditional, blue little jacket. It is in 4 ply and soft and silky. I am delighted with the result.

Obviously, having used up some of the stash - well that isn't quite the truth as I bought in the yarn for the log cabin specially to get the colours Dawn wanted, I was tempted by more yarn on my travels and found this lovely chunky in Shaws in Cardiff. Shaws is a traditional Drapers and they have a good selection of cheap wool and some patterns you don't tend to see elsewhere. I bought the yarn with no real,plan but a pretty simple sweater looks great.

A further shopping trip - to buy food, involved a bit of a wander and I came across a wonderfully stocked wool and craft shop in a market complex. I now have some 4 ply bamboo cotton - inspired by the little blue number and some more baby yarn added to the ever growing boxes full of stash - 5 in the bedroom, 2 in the sitting room, one in the music room......I think that I have to stop this buying compulsion.

However, I was tempted to do some organising so now I have this system:

Box one - current log cabin on the go

Box two - new baby yarns - 4 ply patterns

Box three - double knitting stash for log cabins

Box four - odd double knitting for random log cabins

Box six- beautiful wool - bamboo, Noro, alpaca....for special,projects

Box seven - chunky - for various cowichan a

Box eight - speciality yarns for toys, needles, works in progress

Oh - and box nine - I forgot about that one - cottons.

And box 10 - in the guest bedroom - some half finished chickens, but this is a small box. All the others are huge!!

100 years

Harry Stevens - my grandmother's brother. We visited his memorial in Tyne Cot a few years ago. He died on the Somme.

Albert Humphries - my great grandfather's younger brother.

His grave is quite literally in the corner of a foreign field - we visited and drove out of the village, along quiet country roads until suddenly, on the right, amidst fields was this small beautiful graveyard. So different to Tyne Cot but, nonetheless, moving.

Two young men, of the many, remembered.

Log cabins and Red Kites

Some old friends came to visit us in the new house. We had seen them quite recently but they had last visited us "at home" probably some 30 years ago! Consequently they had not seen the log cabin blankets that litter our sitting room and, fortunately, they loved them and, inevitably, requested one to match the new colour scheme of their lounge. I was delighted to oblige as baby knits are now proving a task. The difference is simple - with the log cabins I can just sit and knit. I don't need a pattern, I don't need to think very much. I can guess what 10 ridges look like and it doesn't take too long to count the rows if I have any doubt. With baby knits there is usually a pattern to follow, there are little pieces to sew up, borders to add, buttons to sew on. Little doesn't always mean less trouble.

So it was on to a new log cabin and it was quickly finished. Then a young friend got engaged and has chosen the colours for her log cabin engagement present and the eldest daughter has re decorated and wants a new log cabin in a new colour way and I have donated a log cabin from stock to a Kidney research charity as a raffle prize. Great! Lots of throws to knit, the first delivery of new yarn arrives - of course I had to add to the order of colours requested with just a few extras......

Sitting on the deck starting on the second of these new log cabins - purples and pinks being the dominant colours - I watched a large bird soar over the field. It came to rest in the copse of trees directly opposite and then soared into the air again. A Red Kite. Such birds were extinct in this area but have been seriously encouraged to return in recent years - and with great success - a majestic creature. The Red Kite flew out of sight but the family of three green woodpeckers reappeared together with the swallows ans the multitude of sparrows who live in our eaves. Fourteen little sparrows bickered over the bird bath, flew to and fro across various parts of the garden and came to rest in a row along the electricity cable - a fascinating and fun sight. I opened the door at the rear of the sitting room and a dragonfly flew in. I love my new home.

Then I made a little cowichan:

A rush on baby knits

Everyone seems to be having babies. I am inundated with requests for little items to send off to new parents all over the country. Two friends of my son are expecting babies within a month of each other . One knows that she is having a girl but the other has elected not to find out so I am preparing for each eventuality!

As so often happens with such events, today I learned of the passing of an uncle. At 85 he had reached a good age and outlived my Aunt by many years. When I heard the news, via Facebook as so often seems to be the case nowadays, I went searching for old photographs. In my favourite family album I came across a family shot from the 1970s. Only eight of us now remain, two whole generations almost gone but the few remaining are the characters we have loved for years.

I have one Aunt who is approaching 90 and is suggesting a family cruise to celebrate and I have a Great Aunt of a similar age who seems no different now to how I remember seeing her as a child.

This all prompts me to return to Family History research. An unexpected subscription to a family history site is going to be put to good use but maybe not until the end of the summer. I need something to look forward to when the garden is no longer a welcoming prospect and when the nights are long and dark. For now it will be some knitting of baby clothes in the evenings and days spent outside as much as possible. Memories will still be there when autumn approaches and some more obscure branches of the family tree can be investigated. In the meantime - the latest baby cardigans and that family photo.

More move knits

This baby knitting has been a great interlude and spurred me on to start using up more of the lovely yarn in the stash. I had just started a beautiful green 4 ply cardigan when I popped into a local yarn shop, which happened to be having a sale....so now I have more lovely yarn to knit up as baby items.....and enough to make a few more log cabins!

New house, new log cabin

Before we moved I had all these grand ideas:

We wouldn't unpack everything but have the bare minimum until everywhere could be redecorated.

We would decide on a new colour scheme for each room.

Each room would have a co ordinated look.......

So I unpacked the lot and no decorating has been done at all.

Colour schemes went out of the window - what was there would do.

Co ordination is all very well until a cold evening requires whichever blanket happens to be nearest.

I did, however, make a few decisions about the main sitting room. Our three sofas are black and the floor has grey slate tiles. The other major items of furniture are old pine. For a few weeks to these items were added random cushions - in red, blue and purple, and a couple of log cabins in purples, blues and pink. A couple of rugs were purchased in a neutral, natural colour and I found a lovely piece of linen that I had bought in New York a few years ago to make myself a dress. This piece of linen became cushion covers and provided a sort of colour scheme and a palette to sort of co ordinate some log cabins. I decided to use yarn already in the house rather than go out and buy yet more and the result is quite pleasing. I think that a second log cabin must be uniform in design instead of the randomness of this first one and maybe greens can dominate - to co ordinate with the view from the windows.

Dishcloths as log burner knob holders

The new house has two log burners in the sitting room. I love a log burner but they are unpredictable creatures and the door knobs have a tendency to get very hot indeed. For a few days I was bringing a tea towel out of the kitchen to hold on to the hot knobs whenever I was needing to open the doors to put in yet more logs and I was pondering what might be a better solution. Something knitted seemed a good idea but what pattern and size eluded me for a while. Then I happened to find an old dishcloth which had been relegated to outdoor cleaning - garden furniture etc and I decided to give an old standard pattern a go. Grandmother's favourite dishcloth is a good design and I found that using double strands of bamboo cotton produced a sturdy decent sized cloth which, folded in two, was perfect for opening hot log burner doors. So I made two.

The garden - makes the trauma of the move a distant memory

More finished "move" knits

I like knitting and I don't really object to sewing up but I find sewing on buttons a pain. To begin with there is the finding of appropriately sized buttons, and in the right colour. Then there is the frustration of needing 6 buttons when they come on a card of 5. Then it is buying the buttons and putting them on one side ready to sew on when the item is finished - and not remembering where that one side is.

Today I sewed on the buttons to two of the baby cardigans I had been knitting during the house move. I bought the same buttons for both which was great as 14 buttons were needed and there were 5 on a card so only one left over. Pretty sparkly buttons too and green which matched the two cardigans. I only had to unpick 3 or 4. I never seem to get the spacing right, even if I count the rows in between and match up with the buttonholes as I am going along. I have tried many techniques including starting at the top and the bottom and hoping that by the time I get to the middle there is enough space left for the final button. These don't look too bad if you don't look too closely.

Moved in at last!

I love the view I now wake up to.

I now just need to become a much better photographer.

The move, the stress, the knits

It has been a stressful few weeks.

The move was arranged for the 16th with all the legal niceties taking place on the previous Friday. Our removers wanted to move us over a three day period so were booked to start to do the deed on the Monday. Friday afternoon we waited for confirmation, and waited. Our solicitors said they were ready and just waiting for our buyers......silence. Our deadline to postpone the removers passed. Later that evening we contacted our buyers and eventually they called back. Their buyer had raised some ridiculous last minute queries and this looked as if it was going to delay the whole move.

We had thought the chain was small enough to be uneventful - a first time buyer at the bottom of the chain, a young doctor keen to move to the suburb. Then our buyers, selling their little house to the doctor and keen to buy our house for their young family to grow up in, especially in the amazing garden. Then us, buying from a couple moving out to live the good life in Portugal with no property to buy immediately. How wrong could we have been,

Monday came and we called the removers - they could delay by a day and then take our furniture into store - this seems preferable to losing all our money already paid for the move. Extra costs would just be storage and then the move into the new place. Just - good word! Wednesday came and still no news from the bottom of the chain - at this point we were getting increasingly cross with the estate agent who had known about the problems on the Friday but never got round to telephoning and alerting us - their clients! Thursday our house was empty and I cleaned and cleaned - it looked wonderful. A suitcase each the husband and I divided to spend the next however long miles apart. 

Easter intervened and a few.days spent with the daughters took our mind off the crisis - a little bit. The promise was exchange to take place on Wednesday 23rd and completion on the 25th. The removers were alerted but- yet another spanner in the works - no available slots until May!

I went out and bought some expensive baby yarn.

Wednesday came - silence.

This time we phoned the estate agent - again they knew what was happening and didn't bother tell us. This time the same person was alleging problems with her finances.

I started on the third baby cardigan.

Thursday afternoon I got a phone call for the solicitor - did you want to move tomorrow? She asked. I explained that we would like to buy the house but dreaded to think when we might actually move - and it happened - we exchanged contracts.

I started to make the phone calls. I am quite efficient and had a spreadsheet of all the people I needed to call, all the people I needed to tell and I sat down with 2 phones, one spreadsheet, one notepad and a pen.

This continued the following day - hours on hold, being cut off, passed from one department to another but - we eventually completed the sale and purchase and became the proud owners of a lovely old cottage in the country.

We haven't moved in. The removers can only move us in over 2 days - but not two consecutive days. We have our lovely new home but nothing in it. I am still living out of a suitcase in South Wales and the husband is living out of a suitcase in the Midlands. I am going to our new house every day to clean and get it ready for the first batch of furniture. I just hope that the first batch includes a bed.

The baby cardigans are lovely:

Filling the skip

The move is possibly imminent though not confirmed but, in hope and expectation, I ordered a skip - or a dumpster as my Canadian cousin reminded me - a much more appropriate name.

The skip arrived early this morning. Both sides of a the house have been piled up with rubbish for a couple of weeks:

The contents, almost entire, of the loft

The contents of 3 sheds

Detritus of 25 years hidden in every possible place

2 wardrobes - broken and irretrievable

A cot - in pieces 

Remnants of broken bookshelves - a mass of MDF.

The ring binders of work of 3 children from GCSE through A levels to 14 years' worth of university ( the non recyclable bits)

3 television tables - broken

One filing cabinet, collapsed

Odd shelves....... 2 broken desks.....

Anything metal has been left near to the road and immediately collected but the rest needed to go into the skip. I googled "how to fill a skip" and started with flat bits on the bottom - that took up quite a lot of space. Then  I started to throw in the bin liners. With hindsight this was not a good idea as they never went where I was hoping they would go - catching on bits of old wardrobe and leaving space beneath them I realised how expert builders who has worked her in the past and used skips had been in breaking down all their rubble to squeeze as much as possible into the space.

I returned to my knitting.

I have decided to knit some small items during this moving process rather than have a large log cabin on the go with its attendant multiple balls of yarn and needles. I finished a lovely baby cardigan in Debbie Bliis Baby Cashmerino save for the buttons and started the same pattern in Baby Alpaca. I'm not sure if I like this yarn - the stitches look uneven and, although it is a great colour - green, and soft, it looks badly knitted. I will persevere.

I returned to the skip and prodded a few items into gaps.

Then I got on with more paper recycling. By now the skip was looking full, the recycling bins were full and the amount of rubbish seems to just grow.

I decided to bubble wrap all the pictures and photographs.

The skip is pretty dominant at the front of the house but I think that it needs a stronger person to prod it a bit and squash down its current contents.

I caught up with the forums I follow discussing the happenings in The Archers.

Sorting, packing, knitting

The imminent house move dictates a massive attack on the detritus of 25 years. When we first moved here we had 3 small children. Even though they all left home some time ago their presence here over the years is still evident. Fourteen years between them at university generated an awful lot of ring binders - all of which came home in holidays and somehow never left. "Cute" collections lined shelves in childhood and remnants hid themselves away at the bottom of drawers, wardrobes, desks, beds. Birthday cards, postcards from friends on gap years, boarding passes from their own travels, all such items secreted themselves in little opened cupboards, only to be discovered in the light of The Imminent House Move (TIHM)!

Tackling this major sort out has necessitated a major action plan. Spreadsheets identified rooms and within rooms items of furniture and within these items smaller target areas - drawer 1, cupboard 2, shelf 3 etc. Names were allocated to each task - more in hope than expectation, but, broken down, the task seemed daunting but not insurmountable.

The only issue that I had not planned for was knitting.

I did recognise, very early on, that my knitting paraphernalia was going to produce a large a number of packing boxes but I had not really given serious thought to what my thoughts would be when coming across long hidden items of furniture.

From the loft came my son's old drum kit. It was all there apart from the drumsticks and the foot pedal for the bass drum. Drumsticks were retrieved from a bookcase - of course and I had vague recollections of the whereabouts of the bass pedal. Many years ago my mother had given me a Lloyd Loom linen basket. This was a tiny basket, not a lot of use for linen but useful to pop things into to hide them out of the way. Its contents:

Lego Technic - 3 boxes

Silk scarves - 4

Microscope in box

Drum Bass pedal.

Once empty I gave this linen box some thought. It had originally been a dusky pink colour but my mother had sprayed it some 30 odd years ago. I have no recollection of the original lid covering but as of last week it was bare wood and that is all I remember it ever being. I had been knitting a throw for my daughter in beautiful greys and pinks - a great 100% merino wool blnd too. Unfortunately, my mind probably more on TIHM than knitting, I had miscalculated the amount of yarn needed and so the throw became more of a chair cover - the chair being a Lloyd Loom nursing chair that my godmother had given to me many years ago - see where this is all going now. This chair had also been sprayed by my mother and was in serious need of a new covering for the seat. The daughter's throw became the seat cover and the yarn remaining was used in an improvised pattern sort of way to make a lid cover for the linen box. Of course, these had to be finished before I could proceed with the spreadsheet. Quite pleased with the results but now I feel I should pack away all knitting whilst continuing with sorting as time is limited - this is the most difficult aspect of the task in hand.

Random colours, edged in brown