I will be a little late this morning

I never thought I would ever blog about Croydon.  This is where I work, where I am going Monday, Wednesday and Thursday when I say I am knitting on the train.  And then there was last night. As we were packing up at the end of the day, messages came in from friends saying 'get home quickly'.  The BBC reported the police expecting  trouble that had begun in Tottenham to spread south of the river and reach Croydon.

I took this picture just outside my office on a fine day last November.  Last night just a few yards from here the atmosphere was not sunny.  Dashing into the department store for something I needed for today  I was served very quickly by two nervous looking ladies.  One of the many policemen standing every few yards on the High Street stooped to stroke a young girl's dog, I heard him say 'are you alone?  I suggest you go straight home now'.  Another policeman was chatting with a group of youths, one boy said - 'this is damage is just stupid'.   People were standing around quietly in disbelief, something  nasty was coming.  'Calm before the storm' is over used but last night felt just as it does immediately before a thunder storm.

I felt it at Clapham Junction too where I waited for my connection.

I sat glued to 24hr news last night, watching a furniture store burn like matchwood with what looked like two jets of water aimed at it by lone firemen.  More fires broke out close to the town centre but in the dark it was hard to identify where the fires were.  There was no word of people being injured but with all those fires and so much smashed glass it was hard to believe no one was hurt. This morning this photograph of dramatic rescue in Croydon was the Guardian front page

Riots like this are shocking wherever they take place, and I remember the last time more than 20 years ago when this happened in the UK, but when it takes place in streets you know, where you wander shopping in your lunchtime

Or go for a coffee

it becomes more than shocking news reel.  Of course there are tensions in Croydon, poverty too and there are often signs of weekend fights left over for the street cleaners on Monday mornings.  The level of violent crime is probably no less than any other inner city community.  But when I see 'gangs of youths wandering the town centre' at lunch time they are chatting, jostling each other and laughing, more often than fighting or making a nuisance of themselves.  I once saw two groups of young men squaring up to each other and then two elderly West Indian grandmothers wade in, tear a strip off them all and tell them to run home to their mothers - and they did.

There are some beautiful buildings in Croydon. It is easy to think, wandering around the steel and glass shopping mall that Croydon is a creation of the second half of the 20th century but look harder and you will find evidence of a much longer past

These alms houses were built with money bequeathed by a 17th century Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift, whose country residence was just outside the town. The inscription reads Qiu Dat Pauperi Non Indigebit.

They sit right on the end of the High Street, next to a department store

Above a bar you can see the beautiful shop front of an earlier department store still advertising ladies mantles, ribbons, laces and gloves

The view from my office window is less inspiring

But there are pretty things to see in the shop windows

I was still worried about my colleagues as I checked my emails this morning, did I need to?  Only one message 'I will be in a bit late, some travel problems' .  So it's business as usual, no one seems to be prepared to let the horrible behaviour of a relatively few very young people spoil a community that is genuinely proud of it's town.  Perhaps it takes something like this for people to say so.  Like other areas (Hackney and Clapham included)  local residents have organised themselves, using twitter and facebook for positive good, to get together and clear up litter and broken glass and no one is making a fuss about being a little late for work.

But people are sad, my PA said the worst hit area is where she grew up, her parents had bought their first sofa at the furniture store that was reduced to a pile of ashes in less than an hour and it is all still a bit scary.

xx

C

A lesson in Crochet

I spend over two hours a day on my daily commute, so if I do something useful on my journey the total woman hours of slightly more than 250 a year seem not such a waste.  This week I am crocheting. 

I am embarking on quite a big project with the granny squares I blogged about last week.  It was something Tracy over at prosestitch said that got me going, that and the photograph of water at teh end of last week's blog.   More of that later, the thing is that I seemed to gather a bit of attention as I hooked away at my watery project on the train yesterday.  The person sitting next to me said (after about 30 minutes) 'what ARE you making?'  I explained briefly, after saying something nice about the colours she said 'how sad that crochet was a dying craft'.  Then on the way home another woman, about the same age asked me what I was knitting!

A dying craft?  I don't think so judging by the number of new yarn shops springing up all over the place.  And with all the books and magazines on the subject I think lots of people are learning new crafts and certainly know the difference between knitting and crochet.

I know I could have looked at one of my books on crochet but when I wanted to make something based on granny squares I worked it out by trial and error so I thought I would blog a little beginners tutorial.  Experienced crafters look away now, or perhaps just skip to the last paragraph.

The Tutorial

Start with a slip knot and pull it up gently to fit snuggly around the hook.  All crocheting is based on drawing the yarn through the loop on the hook to form a chain.  Hold the hook in your right hand and the work in your left in a pinch grip with your index finger and thumb.  The tail of the yarn falls down the palm of your hand towards your wrist and the yarn you are working with goes from the chain over your first three fingers and under your little finger. It's your little finger that keeps the tension on the yarn.

Make five loops (chains)

Join the chains into a ring by slipping the hook through the first chain and drawing the yarn through both chains then make a three more chains.  The granny square is made entirely of a stitch called treble crochet and chains.

This is how you make your first treble stitch

Wind the yarn once around the hook then pass the tip of the hook through your foundation chain ring drawing another loop through, you will have three loops on your hook now

Hook the yarn through the first two stitches, then...

Hook it through again.  That's your first treble

Make one more treble, then two chain then three more trebles

Continue making three trebles then two chain until you have four groups of three trebles two chain (in patterns this is written *3tr 2ch, repeat from * three more times). You now have a circle.  You begin to form the corners of the square in the next row.

Begin with four chain then *three trebles, two chain and three trebles  into the two chain space then one chain, repeat from * twice more.  Work two trebles into the last two chain space then link up to the third chain of the 4 chain with a slip stitch

Keep making rounds like this with one set of three trebles in every chain space on the side and 3tr 2ch 3tr into each corner.  You can completely finish the squares to the size you want and sew them together but you can also link as you go...

by slip stitching into the corresponding  chain space of the previous square as you work the last row.

There are all sorts of designs for squares (I have just bought Jan Eaton's book 200 crochet blocks ) and I intend to incorporate some of these in my project.

This morning Alison, who blogs as plus 2.4 blogged about her first efforts at crochet , in a few weeks with help from a friend and some on line tutorials she has produced some brilliant brightly coloured squares (and a very funny picture of her first effort) .

Its simple when you know how!

xx
C 

Travelling light

Last week I escaped our rainy shores for a few days sunshine, blue skies and turquoise sea with my lovely friend the writer Elizabeth Speller  .  We were staying in her perfect little house in the olive groves of Paxos where  this year JTH and I spent almost all of May.  As well as looking forward to a week with my friend and reacquainting myself with the kittens, born behind the mirror in the garden during my last stay,

I needed to think what out of all my various works in progress I would take with me.  Now you might be forgiven for wondering why I would even bother to take knitting or crochet with me to a Mediterranean island in high summer.  But there would be early mornings and late evenings, when we sit and chat, to say nothing of the travelling (nearly ten hours each way counting check ins and waiting for connections) when I could be making something too. Something in this beautiful Sublime Cotton DK from my stash, eight balls, eight different colours bought in a sale in January, £1 for 50g

But what should I make?  Not only should there be no complicated pattern to follow but what about needles and scissors and security?  I was travelling with hand luggage only and ever since having an operation that left a large chunk of metal in one of my hips I have had a bit of bother with airport security.  I set off the alarms so often that I usually walk through the security arch and straight up to one of the women with the hand held metal detectors, not waiting for the beep.  Then there is the time I set them off at JFK in New York and was placed in a glass cubicle until someone was free to check me and another time when I missed my flight when the 'patting down' woman  did not believe me and I had to be taken to a private room and show her my scar!  So I am very careful about my hand luggage, at least I can make sure that does not offend.

I had already decided I would crochet and use a wooden hook but what about scissors? It was then I discovered this helpful website and found I could take scissors as long as the blade was no longer than 6cm, needles both knitting and sewing variety are allowed too.

I decided to make a throw with granny squares, separating the yarns into two colour groups, strong and light.

I have about 30 squares made up to now and have probably used about a third of the yarn

I have 25 pale squares and when I have completed the same amount of the other colour-way I may mix the colours up again.  I have quite a way to go before the afghan is finished  and I haven't decided what the linking colour will be yet but what with all the other things we did (eating, sunbathing, dozing, reading and occasionally dipping in the sea) I did not spend a lot of time on it.

I have been visiting Paxos for ten years now and have photographed it in every season, capturing processions of icons and tiny wild flowers as well as breathtaking views and kittens and goats so this visit I left my camera in my bag most of the time. Instead I took a few pictures that might inspire some of the things I make.  I'm not sure yet what ideas I will take from this close up of the sea lapping against the restaurant decking as we piled tzatziki and taramasalata  onto village bread but for now it is just good to look at and remind me of a perfectly clear, warm, turquoise sea.

xx

C

A cautionary tale

Oh!  This yarn just shouted to me 'buy me buy me' from the shelves of one of my favourite wool shops.  In a mixed fibre, including linen and a beautiful shade of chartreuse, how could I resist? 

I already had a pattern, downloaded from Ravelry.

Not for the same yarn of course, and the Rowan Lenpur does not knit up to quite the same tension as the Berroco Glace, but it's only a couple of stitches and rows to a 10 cm square.  I was so impatient to begin.

As the front and back are the same and I hate sewing up (have I said that before?)  I decided to knit it on a circular needle in one piece, it took a very long cable and a while for the weight of the knitting to pull the coil out straight.

Increasing and decreasing either side of stitch markers denoting the side seams, pleases me, I love the orderly way it sits.

Even when the knitting itself is quite bulky, with a circular needle it is still possible to knit on the train without getting in anyone's way.

It knitted up really quickly...

And then I realised how 2 stitches and three rows in 10 cm can have a huge effect over 240 stitches!.  The top is truly beautiful but I had not intended to knit it for my daughter!

Although it does suit her!

xx

C

   

My Knitting Aunt

I have mentioned my Knitting Aunt before.  She was my mother's sister, one of seven, my Knitting Aunt was the third girl, then came three boys and lastly my mother (born in 1918).  She was barely 18 when she married and left the family home in Kent to live in Buckinghamshire in the 1920s.  My mother went to live with her ten years later when both their parents died.  This picture was taken of my mother when she was about 7, probably about the time my aunt married

In due course my mother met and married my father, my brother and I growing up in the same village as my seven girl cousins.  The cousins were older than me but one of my aunt's many grandchildren is my oldest friend.  She and I shared our first day at school in the little village school, our first teenage parties, family holidays and now we compare grandchildren.  She is three months older than me and those three months are the only time that we did not know each other. 

This is a picture of her son Zak wearing one of his great grandmother's famous hand knitted sweaters (I am not worried about embarrassing Zak, this picture was taken more than 20 years ago).  In the family they are known as Joseph Jumpers.  When bringing up children on a small income, during the second world war, economy was second nature to my aunt and her contemporaries, they grew their own vegetables, picked blackberries in the hedgerows to make jam and made all their own clothes.  My mother was a very skilled dressmaker and I think made clothes for her nieces, my aunt's skill was knitting.

My aunt took her knitting everywhere.  I think the only time she put her wool and needles down was to cook a meal or work in her garden (where she grew as many flowers as vegetables).  She knitted in the evenings while everyone else watched television and when she visited us to have tea with my mother, one afternoon each week, her knitting came too.  On Sunday afternoons when the whole family went out for a walk she walked and knitted, carrying the ball of wool under her arm.

Joseph jumpers were the ultimate make do and mend, they were made of unpicked wool from worn out or out grown hand knits (cast off from the family or bought in village jumble sales) and knitted up in my aunt's special stripey, slipped stitch.  The pattern is made by slipping (always purlwise) one stitch in five from the stripe below,  right through the next stripe then the alternate stitch slipped when the next colour is joined in, making a brick pattern.  Once her girls married and had children of their own Aunty Kit began to knit Joseph jumpers for the grandchildren as Christmas presents.   In time there were 18 grandchildren (I've lost count of the next generation) and the  knitting began in January in order to be ready for the next Christmas.

One day I came across a similar stitch pattern in 200 Knitted blocks, by Jan Eaton, where she calls it V-stripes, I decided to knit a cowl in the style of a Joseph jumper.  As always happens when I decide to knit something free hand I did not have exactly the yarn I needed in my stash so I bought this silky bamboo in some bright shades plus the standard neutral.

Without a pattern I did swatch first to get the right number of stitches then cast on, knitted a wide band of k2/p2 rib before launching into the stripe pattern, keeping 6 stitches on each end of the row on pins, then knitting up the button and button hole bands and finishing it off with more rib.  The mother of pearl buttons in bright colours to match the stripes give me a little smile of pleasure to see them gleaming down the side of the cowl.

I haven't actually written down the pattern but please let me know (in the comments below) if you would like it and I will post a free pattern in PDF to download.

xx

c

Getting Organised

When my sister-in-law gave me a large sisal hamper as a Christmas present a few years ago, with small baskets and a box inside, it was just the thing for a new work box.  But last week as I ransacked it for one of my new fabric marker pens (convinced someone in the family had mistaken it for a handy gel pen) and everything ended up in a jumble of thread and elastic caught around the scissors, I knew it was no longer fit for purpose.

Some of the pieces of kit in here I have had for ages. The threadbare pincushion was made by my daughter when she was about 6, under the close supervision of her lovely Grandma, is a treasured possession, one of the thimbles had belonged to my mother and the orange handled Friskar cutting out scissors have been carefully guarded over the years from other craft activities.  But I have recently rediscovered the fun of sewing and bought many many more little gadgets which together with an ever growing stock of hooks and eyes, press studs and beads had simply out grown the old basket.

I needed a big and business like new work box.  Somehow the traditional offerings in big store haberdashery departments or just another, bigger basket would not do the job.  So I went hunting in B&Q

If a tool box could have an expectation of its future role this stout business like box from Stanley might be forgiven for expecting to carry screw drivers, the odd hammer, nuts and bolts rather than cotton reels, darning wool, the odd tape measure and more besides.

I love it, the lid has two lift out compartments where I have put a spare foot for my sewing machine, skirt hooks and mending bits.  The other front compartment has thimbles, small scissors and the quick-unpic.

More fun inside, the cantilevered trays are great for all sorts, including cotton reels.  At last I can see what colours I have and may in future avoid owning more reels of navy than anyone should need in a life time. I also discovered that I own a great stock of beads.  Mental note to self - think up a project to make the best of them.

I think this new box will be good for a few years, there is even room for a little more kit...

Then there's the question of the empty basket, what shall I use it for?

Perhaps before long I will have outgrown my knitting kit roll

xxx

C

Exciting beginnings and satisfying endings

Last weekend I gathered up several half completed projects and finished them off.  I was going to blog about my success and call it The End of Loose Ends.  Then we had some exciting family news which sent me running to the wool shop.  Well it doesn't take much to do that, in fact I'm really not to be trusted in wool shops, fabric shops or Haberdashers at all.  

Soft Sublime double knitting cotton and kapok mix in delicious pastel candy colours.  To make a baby blanket.  Yes The Little Model is to have a new baby brother or sister, a lovely new beginning.  The first project I knitted after taking knitting up again was a blanket for her (from The Baby Knits Book by Debbie Bliss) so it follows I would knit one for the new baby.  It is to be in a modular pattern with stars in the centre I will blog more about it later.

Back to the weekend and the satisfying endings. Firstly I finished my 'New Look' summer dress, made from some 50s style lawn and a Vintage Vogue pattern.  

The pattern was a joy to make up, using techniques like covered buttonholes that I had not practised for years.  But I learned one big lesson - Make a Toile.  If I had, I would have discovered I needed to add an inch to the waist length and a couple of inches to the skirt if the dress was to be truly New Look.  But it fits well otherwise and with a wide black patent belt the slightly raised waistline doesn't show. I already have some navy spot to make a second dress (did I not say I should not be trusted in fabric shops?) incorporating all the modifications.

Our new kitchen was finished a while ago as far as the 'man jobs' of plumbing, carpentry and electrical stuff were concerned but I had still to pull out some vintage fabric from my stash for a blind and a sale bargain meter of black and cream Toile de Joie for kitchen chair cushions.

The blind is 50s Rayon, a mainly black and yellow oriental style pattern.

The cushions have simple buttoned flaps.  No covered buttonholes here - my clever Elna has a sort of jig foot where you insert the button in a slot, press the buttonhole button on the control panel, down with the presser foot and sew.  All this requires is courage to put your foot down on the pedal and keep it there until the machine comes to a halt.  I had enough of the vintage fabric left for a tiny cushion to go on the Little Model's chair too and some proper vintage buttons from my mother-in-law's button box for the fastenings.

Finally I finished the socks that I began on holiday

And mastered the grafting stitch for the toe.

Of course this is not the End of Loose Ends as I have many other projects on the go, and not just the navy spot New Look dress and the baby blanket but a sleeveless top for me, a cowl for a friend... and more.   But that just makes me happy to think I have more days and weekends ahead sewing and knitting.  

xx

c