Yarning Along: Mitten addict

One of the things I want to do this year is to knit more patterns written by other people: most of my knitting is work knitting, and sometimes I think it's good to look at things from a different perspective and to try out new techniques. With this in mind I've decided that, where possible, weekends will be dedicated to non-work crafting. Late last year, lots of knitting podcasters (Woolenvine, Stranded, Tea and Possibilities to name but a few) were talking about knitting Norwegian style mittens. It wasn't something that had specifically appealed to me before, but after watching so many people talk about them, I started to think it might be something I was interested in. During the Giftalong last year I discovered designer Erica Heusser, who has designed some beautiful colourwork mitts and mittens, and I decided that I really, really wanted to knit her Songbird Mittens. I put in an order to Knit Picks for some of their Palette yarn (which is perfect for colourwork), but when it arrived, I got a little intimidated: stranded mittens in 4 ply yarn at 40 sts to 10 cm, what was I thinking?! So I started looking for something a little simpler.

After a quick search on Ravelry I decided that the Selbu Mittens by Skeindeer Knits might be a good starting point - they're knitted in DK weight yarn, and come with full instructions (so many patterns for Norwegian Mittens are just the charts, which I'm sure I'll be fine with after a little practise, but maybe not for my first mittens!). I had DK weight yarn to hand - Willow and Lark Woodland - but when I sat down yesterday to cast on, I quickly realised that the yarn was much too thin, and that I would need something a little bit thicker.

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to do all non-work knitting from stash, so having decided that the yarn I had to hand wasn't going to work, I stepped away and got on with something else for a bit. It was only later in the evening that I realised I had the perfect yarn in my stash, an odd couple of balls of DK weight Bluefaced Leicester that have probably been in my stash for five years. 

Having found the right yarn, I decided to jump straight in and cast on the mittens (yes, I should have done a gauge swatch, but a stranded swatch in the round isn't far off knitting a mitten, in terms of time and effort). I immediately loved knitting the mittens, the pattern was pretty intuitive and before long I had knitted a decent portion of mitten, and even better, the gauge was perfect for making mittens in my size! This morning at soft play I even managed to get to the tip of the first mitten! I am really excited to get the second mitten knitted and on to my hands!

Another resolution for this year is to read 26 books. I'm doing pretty well so far as I've already finished the Susan Calman book (which was brilliant) and am now reading A Very Distant Shore by Jenny Colgan (it's a short book that is set on the same island as The Summer Seaside Kitchen, which I read last summer). The book is good so far, focusing on the arrival of a new doctor (a refugee, whose medical training is his ticket out of a war torn country) on a Scottish island. I'm sure it's not going to take me more than a couple of days to finish the book, then I might move on to one o of the books I got for Christmas - there's quick a pile!

Linking up with Rachel for Yarning Along.

Yarning Along: Happy New Year!

Hello, and Happy New Year! I hope this finds you well and that you had an enjoyable festive period. 

I'm still in a bit of a festive limbo - Christmas and new year are over but the kids are still off school - I'm spending a lot more time playing board games and eating biscuits than knitting! I have done a bit of knitting, and am starting to step up the business knitting again, but am generally working on slightly more mindless knits that don't require any concentration. One of the things I have had time for over the Christmas break is thinking about how I want to proceed with this blog; over December the blog got a little neglected as other things took priority, so I feel it needs a bit of redirection for the new year. With that in mind, this is going to be the final Yarning Along on a Wednesday. Wednesdays have never worked that well for me as I tend to spend my weekdays working on business knitting, so Yarning Along is moving to a Sunday, which should make the posts a little more relaxed. I'm also considering creating a few more blog regulars, so watch this space!

My current major knitting project is these fabulous Mind the Gap socks, which I cast on as part of Little Bobbins' Christmas Eve cast on. The yarn is from Trailing Clouds is fabulous - the stripes are in the colours of the tube lines on the London Underground tube map and create a 12 stripe repeat. Each dye lot is dyed with the stripes in a different order, which makes each skein even more special. I've done the heels and cuffs with West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply in Milk Bottle, and plan to do the same for the toes. I've also decided that I'm going to knit the second sock with the stripe sequence reversed so I don't waste any yarn between socks. I'm really excited about these socks and can't wait to finish and wear them! 

I'm currently reading Susan Calman's Cheer Up Love: Adventures in Depression with the Crab of Hate. This book is brilliant; it is autobiographical, but frames each of the periods of Calman's life in the context of her relationship with her long-term depression (which she refers to as The Crab of Hate). The book answers a lot of questions about depression, but in a light-hearted way, and I have spent a lot of the book laughing out loud. I would really recommend this book.

As ever, linking up with Rachel for Yarning Along. And I'll be back on Sunday with another Yarning Along! For now, happy knitting.

Yarning Along: The things we do for love

Here we are, five days from Christmas, and you find me, somewhat predictably, busy. Most of the Christmas preparations are done: the tree is up, the presents have been purchased, the cards have been written, and everything that needs to be in the post has been posted; I probably ought to do a food shop and wrap the remaining presents, but otherwise I'm sorted. Which should allow plenty of time for relaxed knitting and reading, right?! Well, not quite. The schools here don't break up until Friday, so I'm still on full work mode, and am trying to finish writing some patterns this week so I have a decent chance of getting some sample knitting done over the holidays, as well as contemplating the year that's just been and anticipating the year to come: what's gone well, what hasn't, and where I want to be in a year's time. It can't just be me that gets terribly introspective at this time of year? Anyhow, I have resolved to make the most of it, and have bought a new notebook so that I can make a plan for 2018!

This week's key crafting projects are very much labours of love: my husband's phone lives in a phone sock that I knitted for him ages ago. He has a new phone, and it requires a new phone sock. Easy. Just an evening or two's knitting, but it's the sort of obligation knitting that just isn't all that fun, so it feels slow even though it's not. I will definitely get it finished today, which is a good thing, then I can get on with something I want to knit! The second labour of love project is an odd one. My daughter has requested a cuddly toy bunny for Christmas. I have managed to purchase one that matches her requirements, but she has also requested that the bunny comes with some carrots, so I'm going to crochet a couple over the next few days, assuming I can find my crochet hooks, which have gone AWOL. Children sometimes ask for the strangest things; I might crochet a little basket to go with the carrots in the hope that we can keep the carrots belonging to the bunny separate from the other play food.

The rest of my knitting at the minute is rather sock heavy. I spent an evening this week working on my advent socks, and will confess that I have shuffled the colours a little so that the socks will be to my taste (and so they don't contain any single-plied yarn - single-ply just doesn't work in socks). I am almost at the end of sock one (I just need to look up how to do the toe decreases - I do top-down socks so infrequently that I can never remember when I should switch from decreasing every other round to decreasing every round) and the second one only requires the foot knitting, which I should be able to do in an evening. I am undecided on whether I will turn the other yarn from my Advent calendar into another pair of scrappy socks, or whether I will add it to my sock yarn blanket. Part of me wants to start a crocheted granny stripe blanket using sock yarn as I have seen so many other people making them recently. The other project that has seen some love this week is my Christmas socks. I have completed sock one! We'll ignore the fact that I've not yet cast on sock two...

I'm really looking forward to finding a bit more time to read over the Christmas holidays: I have acres of stocking stitch planned, so I can read at the same time. So far in December I have mostly been reading The Christmasaurus, which I finished last night and loved. This evening I will start reading The Girl Who Saved Christmas by Matt Haig, which was recommended to me by my sister, and next week I might finally get round to finishing Into the Water, which seems to have been on hiatus since the start of the month! I looked on my Kindle last week and realised I had downloaded a few books in the past couple of months that I've not looked at yet, so hopefully they might get some attention soon.

As ever, linking up with Rachel for Yarning Along. What have you been reading this week?

Yarning Along: Scrappy socks and slow shawls

So, last weekend's sleet and cold became SNOW! I always get a little excited about snow, but only when I don't have to go out in it. Unfortunately, as the snow fell during the week, I did still have to chauffeur the kids about and get on with all the usual activities. The kids loved it though. It was daughter's first time seeing it, and she was in her element. It's warmed up again now, but I think we're all hoping for a bit of snow later in the month...

This weekend we started our Christmas activities with our visit to Santa. Both the kids were really excited, and it was lovely and festive. I'm not totally sure we're going to manage to keep the festive feeling carrying on for the whole of December, but I am aiming to spread our festive activities out over the month so we don't all get burnt out. This week I'm taking my daughter to the under-5s show at our local theatre, and I'm at least as excited about it as she is! And this weekend we're off to Newcastle to see Fenwick's Christmas window (a North East tradition). This year's window is Paddington-themed, so we're going to make a day of it and see the new Paddington film at the same time.

We are now well into Advent, and this year I have an extra special advent calendar. A friend on Instagram organised an Advent swap, so I put together a parcel for someone and they put a parcel together for me. Every morning I get to open a tiny package containing 5 g of sock yarn and some little extras. I had originally planned to add the yarn to my sock yarn blanket, but had a last minute change of plan and cast on some scrappy socks. I am not totally ok with scrappy socks though, so have striped the yarn with a cream to minimise the risk of major clashes. I am up to Day 4 on one sock and Day 3 with the other, and have turned one heel, and so far have beautifully coordinated socks. I am now a little behind (mostly because of the extra knitting required for the heels) and am not keen on the yarns from Days 5 and 6 with what I have already knitted, so I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do next. I suspect I'll make a second pair of socks and everything else will end up in the sock yarn blanket. Do you have a yarn advent calendar? What are you doing with your yarn?

My other major work in progress is my Red Katana shawl and it is SO SLOW! I have no idea why. The pattern is pretty straight forward, but I have had to write myself a cheat sheet and cross off each row as I work it (having pulled the whole thing out twice already). I think I am starting to get a little faster, but I don't see myself finishing any time soon! I'm knitting my Red Katana shawl as part of the Indie Design Gift-A-Long, a knit and crochet along that is running on Ravelry until the end of the year. For more details and to take part, head to the Ravelry group.*

Last week I asked if anyone had any recommendations for Christmas books. Well, on Friday I went to Waterstones and browsed their festive reads table and came home with The Christmasaurus. Yes it's a children's book, but I am a third of the way through and am enjoying every second. So much so that my son and I are reading it together too. A definite Christmas book recommendation!

As ever, linking up with Rachel for Yarning Along.

*Ravelry link. You need to be logged into Ravelry for this link to work.

Yarning Along: Best get the fire on

Hello! How have you been? With all my Gift-A-Long posts, I missed Yarning Along last week, and I missed not writing it. Today it is freezing, so I'm trying my hardest to get away with being snuggled up indoors away from the sleet.

The past week has been *so* busy. I spent 36 hours in London at the end of last week for an event with Love Crafts (which deserves its own post at a later date), and managed to sneak in a trip to the Tower of London, which has been on my to do list for a very long time. I loved it and was so glad it occured to me to go. I joined one of the Yeoman (beefeater) tours, which was very informative and entertaining. I learnt lots of facts to pass on to my Tudor-obsessed six year old, and found my dream home (the old hospital building). I felt a bit like a kid in a sweet shop as there were so many amazing things to look at.

Of course I got a lot of knitting done on the train (especially as the first train was running an hour behind schedule), and my Christmas socks are finally looking like they might be done in time for Christmas (but not the end of November, which was the original plan). The other project I am trying my hardest to get finished is the Christmas stocking I'm knitting for a friend's daughter. The outside is, as of last night, done, but I need to knit a lining as well, which is less interesting, but perfect for knitting while watching TV.

I am still reading Into The Water, mostly from lack of reading time (the lack of daylight at this time of year always makes me sleepy), and am finding it very interesting and well written. I am considering reading something Christmassy over advent. Any recommendations? Otherwise I'll be reading Cheer Up Love: Adventures in Depression with the Crab of Hate by Susan Calman next as it was a Kindle bargain last week.

This week's elephant in the room is my kid's advent calendars. I bought two kits from Button Box in the January sales, with the intention of making them with the kids in time for advent this year. But I totally misjudged the difficulty level. These are definitely kits for adults to make for their children, unless the kids are over about 10. There is a lot of sewing involved, lots of cutting out fiddly shapes and frankly they're on the tricky side. I'm going to dig out the ones from the cupboard (the Paintbox Yarns calendar from last year has an excellent box, and we have a felt one with pockets from M&S that I had pre-children) and hope they're not too disapppointed. The other option is to sew a pocket a day and by the end of December we'll have an advent calendar. No, I don't see that happening either!

Linking up with Rachel for Yarning Along. What are you crafting on and reading this week?

Yarning Along: Christmas craft excitement

This weekend I took a bit of a break from knitting (I had a sore shoulder and elbow, so decided that knitting might not be the best plan. Turns out it was a trapped nerve, which fixed itself pretty quickly), so got started with a couple of festive activities. You may remember that last year I made my own yarn advent calendar. Well this year I am making a yarn advent calendar, but it's not for me: I am taking part in a yarn advent calendar swap organised by layfamilyyarn on Instagram. So I spent the weekend stamping number stitckers, winding minis and wrapping tiny parcels, which was all a lot of fun. I also took a walk to a local Christmas craft fair, which is always lovely and very festive. I didn't actually buy very much, just a Christmas present for a Secret Santa that I'm involved with this year, but I always enjoy browsing craft fairs.

Another thing I worked on this weekend was the cross stitch wreath I have been sewing. I'm sure that when I bought the kit I thought I could do it in an evening. How wrong I was! Last week I realised I has misaligned one side of the wreath by a couple of stitches, so did a huge amount of unpicking. I was finding the chart that came with the kit too small to follow easily, so I decided to take a photo of the chart and print it out much larger. This was an excellent plan as not only can I now see the stitches to work from, I can also colour them in as I go, which makes the chart much easier to follow! Why didn't I think of that before? I am a little concerned that I have a whole length of thread that is a slightly different shade of green to all the others, but that I have assigned yarn to each of the symbols already, so may have done something wrong. I'm pretty certain it doesn't matter...

Back on knitting, I am making good progress with my Christmas socks, and love how the stripes are developing. Other than those I am currently between projects, which can only mean one thing: tonight I get to cast on the Christmas stocking! I'm quite excited about this project, and finally got round to writing the pattern up this morning, so should be able to publish the pattern in time for next Christmas if not this.

I'm still reading Into the Water and enjoying it, even though I'm not that far in. The story revolves around the drowning pool, which, as the name suggests, is where many people have drowned, and the unexpected death of a local author who was writing about the pool. Each chapter is told from the perspective of a different character, and the narrative jumps around in time. I'm finding the writing style really engaging.

Stocking yarn and the current read. And fairy lights. I bought them a couple of weeks ago, and now they're out of the box, expect them to appear in far too many of my photos!

What are you crafting on and reading this week?

Not Yarning Along

Rachel, who took over with the Yarn Along knitting and reading theme that was started by Ginny, has decided to pause the offical weekly Yarning Along, but have no fear, I am going to continue to have a crafting and reading post on a Wednesday beacuse I enjoy writing them, and it gives me an excellent excuse to take half an hour off from work and share what's happening in the rest of my life. I might even give the feature a new name, although I am currently drawing a blank on that! If you have any suggestions, feel free to post them in the comments. And if you want to join in sharing what you're reading and crafting on, go ahead and share that too. I've started a book post in my Ravelry group too, if you prefer to chat on Ravelry.*

This week I've been surprised by the sudden approach of winter. October was warm, but last weekend the cold snap happened and I had to dig out all the winter woollies. I am always caught out by the start of winter, never fully believing that the weather gets that cold in the UK until the first frost. My car has been to the garage for it's annual MOT and service, so I've been relying on the buses. This morning, after one person too many smoked a little too close for my liking, I decided to walk home from town. It's a good few miles, but the clear skies and glorious sunshine made it worth it. I happily crunched through the leaves and enjoyed the last of the autumnal colours.

The other thing I've been doing this week is frantically knitting to try and get the last couple of commissions for the season complete. Between 8pm on Sunday night and midnight on Monday night I knitted an entire adult UK size 7 cabled sock in 4 ply. Even I am not sure how. I know I knit fast, but that was pushing it even for me! I have one more magazine commission to complete before I can properly get started on my Christmas crafting, but things are a little more relaxed round here now.

My Christmas socks are now on the needles, and I'm pretty certain the yarn is going to microstripe, with larger white stripes and a variegated section spiralling round the leg. This pair of socks is going to become my out and about knitting, so don't expect speedy progress, but I am hoping to have them done by Christmas.

For a change, I started a small cross stitch project this weekend. I bought this kit from Hobbycraft last year, but it's taken me until now to start it. It's my first time sewing with the fabric held in a hoop, and I pretty quickly abandoned the hoop and held the fabric freehand. I am enjoying the sewing, but not the chart - the squares are tiny, so it's very, very tricky to keep track of where the stitches should be. If I had a colour printer I would be scanning the chart in and printing out a larger version to save my eyesight!

As for reading, I have paused on The Power as I've had too much else on to concentrate on the story. Last night I started reading Into The Water, which I am enjoying so far, and can read it while knitting as it's a hardback and stays open. Maybe it's time to start only reading on my Kindle...

What are you reading at the minute? How's the Christmas crafting going?

For those of you that entered my 1st birthday giveaway, I drew the winner last week and the prize went to Mary in Toronto. Thank you to everyone who entered, and for your thoughtful responses. If you'd like to be in with a chance of winning a different prize, how about joining my Christmas Knits KAL? It's running until the end of November, and all you have to do is knit something festive and join in the chatter in my Ravelry thread.*

*This is a Ravelry link. You'll need to be logged into Ravelry to read the thread.

Yarning Along: Festive plans afoot

I've got a much longer Yarning Along post for you today than usual. Partly to make up for the lack of post last week, and partly because I have plans afoot!

It was Halloween yesterday, and while it's not a festival I celebrate, I did make a token effort with some pumpkin carving, which I enjoyed much more the previous attempts I've made (I think I chose the right knife this year, which made it much quicker than earlier efforts). I also took my kids along to the school Halloween disco, which they enjoyed and I endured. I like parties with music, but it's not that much fun when you're expected not to dance!

  

And now it's November 1st and I can get started on my Christmas knitting almost guilt-free (I have a few commissions that I need to get finished so that I can cast something else on completely guilt-free). First up, I will be casting on some Christmas socks in this very festive yarn from Unbelievawool (it was a club colourway a couple of years ago), and carrying the project round in my brand new Christmas sloths bag from Yarn Magpie. Seriously, the bag is amazing, beautifully made and a lovely size, and who doesn't need festive creatures on their project bags. And once my Unbelievawool socks are done, I'll be knitting some Candy Cane striped socks in the new yarn from West Yorkshire Spinners (which I ordered the second I knew of its existence!).

While the socks will be my out and about knitting, my home project will be a Christmas stocking for a friend's daughter. I made a stocking for my friend's eldest a couple of years ago, and am pleased that a second was requested for their new daughter who arrived earlier in the year.

After the stocking is knitted, I shall be totally indulgent and cast on my Sincerely Louise reindeer head so it can be mounted on the wall in time for Christmas. I'm not certain the deer was designed as a Christmas ornament, but mine shall be adorned with tinsel over the festive period, and maybe even some fairy lights, so it will be super-festive!

You may remember that last year I had not one, not two, but three yarn advent calendars. You may also have noticed that I didn't show you the after photo for the sock yarn blanket. And that's because I still haven't completed all 24 days of squares, oops. My schedule required two squares per day, which was never going to happen, but over the next few weeks I am planning on adding the final 16 squares (days 16-24), so that I can be ready to add this year's advent squares over the course of December (one per day; the yarn will come from an advent calendar swap that someone was organising on Instagram). Here's what the advent section of the blanket looks like at the minute.

And in the spirit of Yarning Along, here's what I'm currently reading: The Power by Naomi Alderman. I heard of this book via Radio 4 ages ago, but was reminded of it last week and ordered a copy straight away. The premise is interesting: what would happen if all girls suddenly had the ability to control electricity and as a result became physically stronger than men. I'm a big fan of well-written dystopian novels, and so far this one is ticking all the boxes.

I finished reading Autumn just before half term, and felt the book was far too clever for me. I am actually considering reading it for the second time as I think there's a lot more I could get out of it now I know that it is character- rather than plot-driven. I have a couple of other books I am very excited to get started with over the next few weeks: The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman and Into the Water by Paula Hawkins. I loved the His Dark Materials series, so am glad that Pullman is revisiting that world again. I'm saving the book for a clear weekend as I suspect that once I start reading it I won't be able to put it down again! Into the Water is by the same author as The Girl on the Train, which I read very quickly a couple of years ago; I heard an small extract from Into the Water on the radio when it first came out and am excited to see what happens.

Thanks for reading. What are you excited about at the minute?

As ever, linking up with Rachel for Yarning Along.

Do you have any festive knitting plans? If you do, why not join in with the Vikki Bird Designs' Christmas KAL? All the details can be found in my Ravelry group.*

*Ravelry link. Requires a Ravelry account to read; membership is free.

Yarning Along: Record socks

This time last week I was one a half socks into a four sock deadline. Did I make the deadline? Well, sort of! Somehow, through some serious speed knitting, I managed to get both pairs of socks completed by the end of the party (yes, that does mean I was still working on them when we arrived). I think these socks deserve a post of their own, which I'm going to save for FO Friday, but here they are in all their giftwrapped glory!

Having finished my gift socks, I am back to the autumnal socks I gave you a sneak peak of last week. The yarn is Paintbox Yarns sock yarn,* which will be available from Love Knitting** by the end of the month. I'm going to give these socks a full post to themselves when I review the yarn, so keep an eye out for that, but for now, just enjoy those beautiful stripes.

This week has felt long and we're only on Wednesday. The party we went to at the weekend was in Cambridge, which is a very long way from Durham, and we only spent one night there, so we spent a lot of time in the car. It was worth it though as we managed to catch up with friends, spending the afternoon walking round the parkland at Wimpole Hall, which was gloriously autumnal, before having dinner with my sister and her family, followed by drinks with just my sister after our children were safely asleep in bed. We nipped into Cambridge very briefly on the Sunday morning to show the city off to my brother in law who had never visited, and my son, who is currently studying the Tudors at school, was very excited to see all the Tudor buildings in the city centre. I spent three years living in Cambridge and it is one of my favourite places, so I was delighted to be back, even if it was only for an hour. The party itself was wonderful. I met many of my mum's relatives who I hadn't seen in years, and some that I had never met. The party was held in one of the Cambridge colleges, and the kids loved exploring the gardens and chasing the squirrels.

Yesterday I went into town to queue to get tickets for the Lumiere Festival, a biannual festival held in Durham city centre. I've been to all previous events and am looking forward to it again this year. Some of the event is held on the Durham peninsular, and tickets are required to enter that area between 4.30pm and 7.30pm on festival days. Having been to all the previous years, I know how busy the event can be outside these hours, when access becomes unrestricted and the area becomes very crowded, and as tickets are free queuing for them yesterday morning as soon as they became available seemed like the only sensible option. I ended up queueing for an hour, which was actually a bit less time than I expected. I took a book (I can't knit while standing up, I'm not sure I've shared that here before!) and read my way round the queue! I'm still reading Autumn by Ali Smith, and while I am not disliking it, I am unsure of where it's going and what its conclusion will be. Also, the book has no speech marks to indicate when someone is talking, which is annoying!

As ever, linking up with Rachel for Yarning Along. What are you crafting on and reading this week?

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Don't forget, I'm currently running a competition for my blog's first birthday. More details can be found here.

*Yarn provided by Paintbox Yarns for review purposes. All opinions are my own.
**Affiliate link.