Sticky challenges

Not a bowl of glossy orange compote but a candle.  A little wobbly (I think the proper term is organic) perhaps but I made it myself and it pleases me.

A little while ago Laura from Homecrafts  e mailed me to ask if I would like to take part in a competition.  The website would send me and several other bloggers a mystery parcel, I would make something with the contents, blog about it and the winner receive a voucher to spend on the site.

Now, I’m a suspicious lawyer, trained to look gift horses right in the teeth so I needed to ask some questions.  Was the mystery parcel free?  Would I be signing up to receive more parcels which weren’t free?  You know, questions like this.  Well no it wasn’t a trick, but my caution meant that I missed the ‘mystery parcel’ that Karen thought would be ideal for me – a packet of miscellaneous woolly fibres and some sari yarn.  But she signed me up for the next competition

The parcel arrived while I was away – candle making materials, wax, wicks, colouring and candle crayons,  a small example of the many things that can be found on the website

I've done simple candle stuff in the past, melting and pouring into cups and dishes but never anything complicated, a BIG challenge then.  After thinking about it for a couple of days I decided to make three sorts of candles.  Beginning with a variation on what I had made before, candles in some of my pressed glass dishes, then some with simple straight sides and some with texture, decorated with the ‘candle crayons’.  Apart from the pressed glass the other containers came from plastic drinks bottles.

To make it easier to get the moulded candles out of the bottle moulds I split them and stuck them back together with masking tape.  Neat eh?

I bought a cheap jug to melt the wax in over a pan of simmering water

And now I shall draw a veil over proceedings.  This is the last tidy picture, you see...  

The jug was a messy pourer

I needed several jugs to mix colours – all available pyrex drafted into action

The tidily stuck together seams in the moulds leaked

I didn’t notice the leaks till orange wax cascaded off the edge of the kitchen work top and onto the floor

My carefully placed flowers, stuck to the side of the moulds with a little wax, floated off and sunk to the bottom

I eventually achieved wax stability by chilling the moulds and adding wax in layers (although this gave me a new opportunity to spill wax all over the place as I tried the run the hot wax up the sides of wobbly plastic bottles with sticky masking tape hanging off in all directions!)

I made 7 candles in all with varying levels of success.  I love the dishes of fruity flowery prettiness. 

The flowers pressed into the sides of the cylindrical candles don’t look as they did in my imagination but I like the effect.  

The candle wax if poured in one go sets to glossy perfection.  Unfortunately I can’t show you that, as the most perfect glossiness was stuck to the kitchen floor and it is lost a little when poured in layers as I did here but if you use one of the proper moulds that Homecrafts sell you would get exactly that

Lastly there is the textured candle with extra embellishment.  Least said about this the better really except perhaps ‘don’t run before you can walk’ and ‘less is more’.  I cannot blame the fact that the instructions on the crayons were only in French, they are short and clear and I understood them perfectly well

I could write a long list of how to make perfect candles, lessons learned and all that but I suspect you can work that out from where I went wrong, but it was all good fun.  Thank you Laura and Homecrafts

xx

c

Take-away knitting

I'm packing for 7 blissful days away and have one more item to consider for my carry on bag.

I realise the choice of knitting to take to a Greek island is not everyone's priority.  Most people will decide on how much factor 8 to take and whether factor 30 should be used for the face, how many pairs of flip-flops and which bathing costumes (is this the year I finally ditch the bikini?) But for a holiday with a dear friend that you just do not see nearly enough of, knitting is perfect.  As long as I choose something without a complicated pattern, knitting and chatting (as every knitter knows) is the perfect combination.

So, its going to be hot, fine cotton is far better than wool, a simple sleeveless top could be finished in the week and short wooden needles do not upset the security system.

I chose to make Gretel by Julie Weisenberger  in charcoal Habu Cotton Gima - perfect!  The pattern is readily available on line, I found the yarn in exactly the colour I wanted and I have the right size Knit Pro interchangeables

But I don't have the yarn.  I ordered it last week, Thursday to be precise and paid extra to have it posted first class but it has not turned up and I am off to the airport long before the next post arrives.  I haven't received a reply to my two  polite e mails either.  Well the first was very polite, the second a little more complainey - I suggested they should refund the cost of postage at least (first class was £3, whereas second class was free)

I wonder if anyone else has had problems with on line orders?  I order quite a lot of yarn on line and this is the longest I have ever had to wait.

Of course I could (and probably should) have gone to my local yarn shop but they don't have Habu, few places do.  But they do have Noro and yesterday I fished these six balls of Sekku out of a bargain bin at half price.  But I don't want to knit Gretel with this, I want a cardigan and I have no time to trawl ravelry again, (this time for the perfect cardigan)

So I have swatched and cast on enough stitches for fronts and back in one will knit 3 inches of rib and stocking stitch up to the armholes.  I will find a pattern for all the shaping when I get home

I reckon what with all those other Greek island things to do apart from knitting and chatting (like swimming a bit, dozing a lot and eating at the beach pizzeria) this will be quite enough to do.

x

C

Knit-along rewards

Although yesterday was my birthday and  nearly all the post that arrived at our house was for me, today was a very exciting post day too

(Do you see the customs label)

Its my prize from the BlightKAL (Organised by Karen of Ridiculous Knits) all the way from the USA.  Beautiful hand painted yarn from Punita Yarns

I already have the other half of my prize, the pattern for Pine Barrens from Deborah Frank, I'm longing to get teh skeins would and begin.

When I last blogged about my Blight it was in the embryonic stage (I would have said tadpole but there is a knitting problem with that as it only ends in frogging).   I was so thrilled to finish very late the following Saturday night having knitted like a demon for 7 days!

Unblocked, fuzzy and a little blurred (it was late).  

But after a long soak in Eucalan (the colour of the yarnscape yarn did run a little) and lots of pulling into shape with blocking wires and holding with pins it had grown into  perfectly flat, multiple pointy, leafy, lacy, loveliness

Something like this needed a perfectly plain frock to wear with it - pale green silk twill, with just a touch of frivol, shell buttons in all the colours of the shawl and one more...

xx

C

Wearable vintage

I began making this sweater just for fun, a challenge to myself to see if I could knit something from a photograph.  This photograph

Oh no! not this one... this one is mine - three months of thinking, planning, writing notes and crossing out
and I got there -

from here...

via here...

I have simplified it, by knitting the main body sideways from cuff to cuff via the front and back I could knit the colour work panels fair-isle fashion and not as intarsia, much quicker.

The finished piece was HUGE and took over half the dining-room floor when I blocked it. Sewing up took ages too.  Does anyone else use safety pins for this?  It made it much easier to keep the lines matched up

All the little crochet detail were interesting too.  The fillets at the shoulders allowed for some fullness rather in the same way as one gets from a shirt with a yoke

And I loved the bobble buttons

and the tassells

Loved making them too

When I joined the Titanic sewing project the choice of patterns was wonderful but when I looked around there are far less things to knit.  Hats gloves and mufflers a-plenty, baby things too but not actual items of women's clothing.  Perhaps knitting was mainly confined to shawls and working men's sweaters.  So I was thrilled to find this which is spot on for the period.  Spot on for the style too.  I realise that many of the women in steerage would have kept themselves warm with a shawl but the patterns we are making up are more of the style of the 2nd class passengers and although this tunic is probably designed by Poiret, someone who would have dressed the first class passengers, I see no reason why a 2nd class passenger who was able to knit could not also copy.

My mannequin, still decked out in 1912 blouse, skirt and underpinnings wears the tunic well.

I too shall wear it, with something more modern such as a pair of straight legged jeans

The pattern I devised is available as a Ravelry down load if you would like to make one too.  If you do please let me know - I would love to see other versions

xx

c

The LYS

With the very special exception of independent book shops, local yarn shops (LYSs) are The Shops where you find people working there who just love and understand what they are selling.  They often buy a lot from their shops too. At my LYS in the Hampshire Metropolis one lady shop assistant says her stash is spilling out of two large wardrobes into a third.

I wander the shelves stroking the yarn and soaking up the colours getting into conversations about this or that yarn, how it feels to knit, what we have already knitted with it - how long is the yardage?  And so often someone has to put down their knitting to serve which is the occasion to feel the knitting, remark on the colour and say how gorgeous it will be when finished (the knitting sorority  is nice like that)

I not only have a LYS where I live but one in the town where I work, its called Rokka Sheek. Situated in a shabby little 60s shopping centre that time forgot (used as a set in the fabulous film Made in Dagenham ) it is a real find.  The ladies in there might be mother and daughter, auntie and niece or friends but they both love knitting and often have something beautiful on the go and love to talk about their yarn and their own knitting projects.

Yesterday the whole of Croydon was in a festive mood, the sun was shining hotly and the Olympic Torch was in town.  Queue excuse for  everyone to be out, there were singers, dancers and face painting as well as The Torch.

what a difference a year makes

When I called in to Rokka Sheek on my usual short-cut to the station and home there seemed even more time to chat.  One of the ladies was knitting a sweater in some yarn that looks very like Noro, but a good deal cheaper - I only resisted buying some because she was knitting with my favourite colour (soft greys and greens) and there was not enough left for sale.  So we got talking,what she likes to knit, patterns and yarn and what I make (my handy app called Woolly stores all my ravelry projects for easy showing off).  I bought this...

Beautiful 100% merino at £2,99, how could I not? But what put a smile on my face was the lovely welcome and conversation.  If you knit and live near Croydon go and see them (49 St Georges Walk) they are going to stock Debbie Bliss and maybe Rowan too very soon

xx

c

#BlightKAL progress

Rules is Rules and The Rules say it's OK to swatch before-hand but not to cheat and keep knitting instead of casting on again on day 1 of the KAL.  So I frogged my swatch

Day one was Sunday and I knitted all afternoon .  The main chart, chart B has to be repeated 7 times but that is if you are making the shawl in sock weight.  My yarn is lace weight so I shall have to add several more repeats.  Three complete by the end of day 1

Each pattern row grows by four stitches so the work gets slower and slower, although I am making up a bit of speed by getting more familiar with the stitch pattern.  Day 2 only 1 repeat as most of my knitting was done at knitting group and I would never be able to knit lace and talk at the same time.

I had another knitty frustration on day 2 - my railway knitting, consisting of toe up two at a time socks on two circular needles, was severely hampered when didn't remember I had robbed that knitting bag of one of the circs to make Blight.  Only one repeat completed.on day 2

Day 3 better, three more repeats (it looks smaller because it crunches up as you knit and the colour is due to taking an i-phone pic at some time past midnight.)

Day 4 (today) and I haven't begun knitting yet as I'm working (at home).   This does not stop me swapping sarky comments on twitter and suggesting a fellow knitter visits a friend's house and steals from her stash. But @knitsend has finished!  Oh well onwards and upwards

xx

C

On negative ease and learning from the past

It took me a little while to feel as comfortable as this in my new skirt and sweater but I got there in the end

When I made this skirt for the Titanic project the fit was so good that it got me thinking.  I wondered what it would look like made in a contemporary style.  When I say contemporary I mean short, there was no need to mess with the shape in any other way at all.  I made a few little modifications like using a zip fastener under the scallops.

I still did lots of hand stitching as I felt the skirt went together better that way.  It is made entirely with stash fodder, the gunmetal coloured linen was bought a while ago on a visit to Goldhawk Road and the ribbon left over from a previous project, rummaging around in my work-basket I found the right colour cotton and zip.

I loved the skirt it looks perfect in its 21st century guise, I expect to make it again and again and I love the little Tana Lawn shell top, Sorbetto, from Colletterie patterns (it is a free download at the moment)  But not together,

So delving into the stash boxes again I came up with three skeins of Manos Del Uruguay silk and merino blend in just the right colours.  A search on Ravelry came up with the perfect pattern from Ram Wools Yarn Co-op.

The largest size was a 36inch - too small for me so I swatched (yes I truly did) and added stitches to give me an extra 2 inches round.  I also decided to go for an all stocking stitch construction with curly edges.  This is when I discovered what negative ease is.  It was huge and only looked OK if I grabbed a handful at the back and smoothed out some of the curlyness.

It was just a Sloppy Joe and not the look I wanted at all (I should have learnt from the way Sorbetto was the wrong shape).  So I pulled it all out and made it up in the 36inch size, obeyed all the pattern instructions and VOILA!

So, negative ease - knit a sweater that you want to fit snugly about 2inches smaller than your bust size then it will fit not hang.

xx

C