Stash Avalanche

More Lewis and Irene!

Hello!

I must admit to not having done much since my last post, partly due to having the maddest two weeks ever and partly because I managed to half slice the end of my finger off on a piece of glass so was completely unable to knit or crochet. But...

I've been thoroughly Lewis and Irene-d, so much so that, whilst I try to work out how I want to finish that riverside strip quilt,  I've started another one...

Another strip quilt. Well, they're just so quick and satisfying.

This one is a mixture of Flo's Wildflowers, Salisbury Spring, and Enchanted Forest with a bit of pale grey (can't remember whose) thrown in to break up the busyness.

 

And if you peek closely enough, you'll see there's a general theme of rabbits.

We're pretty big on rabbits in this house, so I just couldn't pass by these fabrics without buying.

Somewhat uncharacteristically for me, I think I even have a plan for the sides - as with the riverside one, it's too long and narrow to leave as it is, so there will be some additions to sort out the proportions.

There is a third pile of L&I to work on so I think I can officially put this in the Frenzy! category. But that will have to wait a while. I think it would be too dangerous to start a third before I have at least one quilt top finished; too much temptation to get even more distracted than I am already.

And now, back to the cutting mat.

 

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50g of Fabel

When I was having my major yarn shop for supplies for this lovely cardi a few weeks ago, I thought what the heck, and treated myself to a ball of Drops Fabel in Berry Dreams. Really it was the colour that sold it to me, following on from my established (and not yet exhausted) obsession with another Drops yarn, Big Delight in Rose Garden.

I bought it with no idea in mind other than I liked the colour and I might use it as some sort of pseudo swatch for the cardi to come (which will also be in Fabel). If you don't know this yarn - and I'd never even heard of the Drops range until I moved to Ireland - its a 4ply sock yarn, 75% wool and 25% polyamide, and it comes in 56 colours (plains and prints), which is a pretty good number if you ask me.

(Apologies for the photos - I took them on my phone in a hurry and they're, frankly, not the best).

Well, the swatch idea kind of went out of the window due to being to tired and  not being able to think straight. The cardi pattern calls for a 3mm crochet hook and I couldn't find one so I used a 2.5mm instead, but I like the end result. The colours a fab, and - although you can't really see it in the photo above - there's a lovely gradation of colours with the brights all ending up on one side and the more subtles on the other.

I used an ever-so-slightly modified version of Lucy's Granny Stripe starting with just over 100 chains ( I forgot the exact number). Being more of a knitter, I'm more used to a softer end result; this made a firmer fabric that I was expecting, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Actually, I don't think I've ever crocheted with wool before so I really wasn't sure what to expect. My two previous efforts at crocheting a cardigan   were both in cotton and turned out very floppy, too big, and exceedingly frogable. There should be posts about them somewhere on this blog but I can't find them at the moment.

Anyway, 50g makes a piece of crochet 39x18cm. So the question now is, what do I do with it? I could buy a few more balls and make a cowl, or I could buy a lot more balls and improvise make a cardigan. I'm more up for plan B but I think, given that one ball only made this small bit, it's going to take some area calculations and a rather large number of balls before I get anything remotely cardigan shaped out of it. But the colours are lovely...

 

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Yarn shopping

Ravelry: A Good Vinatage Cardigan

Getting ready to do a bit of yarn shopping. This crochet cardigan looks fabulous, and Drops are having a sale (which ends tomorrow) so I need to get a move on!

 

Giveaway Day!

I haven't made it to one of Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway Days for quite a while now, so I hope you'll forgive me if I'm a day late to this one!

I bought this fabric a couple of years ago at a Knitting and Stitch Show, thinking I would make cushion covers, but I've just never got round to it so I think it needs a new home. Would you like to win it?

This is a metre of "First Class" by Prestigious Textiles. It's about 143cm wide, 100% home dec weight cotton. Each stamp is 7x8.5cm not including the white borders. As well as cushion covers, it would also make great bags, either a simple shopper, or a messenger bag or framed purse. Or (sudden brainwave) you could cover a couple of chair seats with it. But you have to win it first!

It's really simple. Leave me a comment telling me if you're a collector and if so, what you collect. I tried stamp collecting when I was a child but was never really gripped by it. Instead I collected Whimsies (do you remember those little china animals?), jugs, and Royal Mail stamp postcards (they produce postcard versions of all their special edition picture stamps, so I suppose I did end up collecting stamps in a roundabout way!).

The rules are pretty simple too: I am happy to ship internationally. Comments are officially open until Sunday 10th May at 5 pm PST which is apparently 1am on Monday 11th May Irish/UK summer time (that's 2am GMT) - that's a wee bit too early for me so I will close comments first thing Monday morning at 9am. I will delete any comment that appears to be spam. I'll choose a winner at random using random.org. I'll post the winner's name on this post on Tuesday, and the fabric will be on it's way to you by Friday.

I'd love to hear from you. Happy Giveaway Day!

Thank you everyone for commenting. Comments are now closed and a winner will be announced tomorrow.

Congratulations Lia! You're the winner. Click on over to here for the whole caboosh.

Lanesplitter skirt

Hello! Gosh, so much time has passed and so much thinking about posts has been done, and where has it got me? I have a whole winter's saga of knitting to tell you about, but that will have to wait for next time.

Today we're here for the Lanesplitter skirt. Woo! I have been coverting one of these for ages and finally (finally being mid January!) got round to making one.

I was so enamoured by the colours of the Drops' Big Delight in Rosegarden in that Quant headband that I made over Christmas, that I decided to make my Lanesplitter with it. With the 'normal' Lanesplitter, you use two different colourways, but I decided to use the same for both stripes and just start at different places in the colour graduation.

Well, what happened? I have to say this pattern looks difficult but is really easy. My only problem was that somehow I completely miscalculated how much I needed to knit and ended up with a waist that was about 18" too big! So there was a degree of pulling out to be done, but even that was relatively painless. Using two strands of the same colourway worked well and there were only a couple of times when I had to break the yarn and start further down the ball to avoid a big patch of same-colour-both-stripes.

For comfort's sake the waistband was knitted in Patons' Cotton DK, and does admittedly look rather lurid, but no-one will see it so I don't mind.

Verdict: Great, easy pattern - very suitable for a confident beginner. Yarn was a little scratchy on the first wear but after that, feels fine (and I still haven't got round to making a half slip for it...).

Next up in Big Delight, a cardigan. but rest assured I will not wear the two together. That way madness lies.

Chocolate flapjacks, take 2

The first chocolate flapjacks I made were delicious, but after they were gone, I started thinking about the recipe, and how it might be better.

Me G had commented on how he thought there wern't enough oats in them, and I did feel like there was a surfit of toffee (although should one really complain about such a thing?), so I did a bit of tweaking, and yes, I do think that the results were even better than the first lot.

Chocolate Flapjacks

(tweaked from a Green and Blacks recipe via Jo and Susan)

175 g dark muscovado

150g butter

1tbs gloden syrup

1tsp instant coffee (dissolved in 1 tbsp hot water)

1 dsp vanilla extract

5 tbsp cocoa

2tbsp dessicated coconut

200g jumbo oats

100g porridge oats

 Melt the sugars and butter in a pan over a low heat. Mix in the cocoa, coffee  and vanilla extract. Add the oats. Tip into a lined 9x9" (that's about 20x 20cm off the top of my head) tin and bake in a preheated over (140C) for about 15 minutes. Allow to cool a little before marking into squares.

Makes 16. You could cut them bigger but I think it would be a bit too much. This, coming from me, is really saying something!

Sorry, no photo. They got eaten too quickly.

Chocolate flapjack

I read blogs. I cook things. I find bad and dangerous things to cook from blogs, and this is one of them. Very bad indeed.

It comes to you from Susan at Canadian Abroard via Jo at A life in lists.

I only made half quantity because the recipe looked a bit odd in quantities and temperatures but it came out fine. I won't quote the recipe here, Susan has it with notes here, but I will tell you a few things:

The original recipe for full quantity goes into a 9" square tin. I made half and put it in a 12x6"ish tin because that was the first thing that came out of my baking drawer. It made a flapjack about half an inch thick which is just how I like it. I get the impression that Susan's version will be thicker.

I left it in the oven for 25 minutes because it looked so uncooked and practically liquid. Turns out this is ok, and it will solidify once cool.

I used only muscovado sugar because that was what I had.

I think it could easily take more oats.

Really, seriously, line your tin.

It is utterly delicious and I don't think I'll ever be able to eat a 'normal' flapjack again.

It's here. Go cook it. Do it now.

 

Just rushing through...

Just rushing through...

God, I have so much to blog about  and no time to blog. Agh.

Anyway. Remember those wrist warmers I made back in ...uh... February last year?  I managed to lose one so I need to get another ball of delicious Milli Colori to make a replacement.  My LYS doesn't have any in stock and is unlikely to get any so I went back to my original on-line search and discovered that not only is there the original Milli Colori but now there's a baby version and a chunky version too. If I were a different kind of blogger, it would now be appropriate to say "swoon" but I don't do that sort of thing.

The Baby version is a 4ply and the Big version is a superchunky which means I could make another Saga Jumper although I still have my sights set on one in Graffiti grey if Sidar don't discontinue it before I manage to get round to it.

In other news... ~Stashlet is now at nursery 4 mornings a week so my chances of actually blogging once in a while have marginally improved.

Happy Wednesday, y'all.

 

The Saga Jumper

I've finally managed to get Mr G to take some photos of me in my Saga Jumper. Well, it was such a saga to get to completion that I marvel that it made it at all.

To recap, I started of crocheting a variety of samples to make a "something" just because I fell in love with the yarn, then I had a brain wave and knitted a huge basket weave bolero, which looked awful as soon as I put it on (but I did love the giant basket weave pattern), then a polo jumper based on a Rowan Polar pattern (disasterous neck and arm holes), and finally this Supersoft Turtleneck Sweater from Ravelry.

Well, we have a Proper Finish. I am done with this knitting. And I LOVE IT.

It is the most snuggly thing I have ever had. The fit is great. The colour is wonderful. The neck hole is not forty feet across. Did I mention the snuggliness?

I am also exceedingly proud of my seams which came together perfectly. I felt like I had finally mastered mattress stitch, even on the arm holes.

The pattern was very quick and easy to follow (although there do appear to be a couple of counting typos). I did exactly what it says on the packet, apart from

• I knitted the sleeves about an inch longer
• I didn't count the stitches I picked up for the neck, and I just knitted until it felt the right length, then cast off.

The (minor) negatives are

• it's a one-size pattern
• Sidar Big Softie tends to pull apart if you use it in long strands to sew seams, so I did have a few extra knots to deal with. I think next time, I'd just use a DK with a similar fibre content.

I will most definitely be making another, possibly two. Is that excessive? Is it even possible to have excessive snuggliness? I think not.

 

MumsNet WorkFest 2014

Eeek! Just booked my ticket to the MumsNet WorkFest 2014 in London. Anyone else going and want to meet up?

Might be nice to have some friendly faces in a crowd.

They're doing an Early Bird ticket until Sunday 27th April, and the event itself is on Saturday 7th June. There are also reduced price tickets for unemployed people, which is nice.

The event is billed as "advice and inspiration on going back to work, changing your career and starting your own business". There will be a variety of talks/workshops through out the day (with different talks aimed at different needs: returner, business starter, etc) from an impressive list of speakers, and one-to-one sessions if you want/need them. The programme looks great.

And just for the record, this post is not sponsored (or anything else-ed) by MumsNet, I'm just gushing with enthusiasm.