The Liberty Book of Home Sewing

I have had a life long love affair with Liberty.  It's where I bought the fabric for my first ball gown, the circlet of wax flowers and yards of silk tulle for my wedding veil and Tana lawn for my little girls' first summer dresses.  The Liberty Book of Home Sewing by Lucinda Ganderton published this month by Quadrille is more than a manual of instructions for cushions, bags and curtains, it is like owning a little bit of that fabulous shop.

I guess you might expect any book with Liberty in the title would have plenty of beautiful illustrations of their exquisite prints but this book excels itself with a fabric cover, gorgeous endpapers, double page reproductions of designs at the beginning of each chapter and a directory of prints at the end.  Kristin Perers' photographs are positively delicious

The instructions for each project are very prettily illustrated.

And there is plenty to lust over, like this luscious silk kimono

As any regular reader of my book reviews will know I like to test drive the books I review to make sure I can recommend them to you as a guide to making things of beauty and utility.  The instructions for the projects must be clearly written (and work!) as well as be something lovely to look at.

One day I will make the kimono - in exactly the same silk as illustrated.

But, not having the silk to hand, on rummaging through my fabric stash I found enough white and spotted linen to make this very practical apron.

The design is great, the pattern very easy to draw and the cutting and making up instructions spot on. It took me about an hour to make.

I love this book, leafing through the illustrations, reading a little of the shop's history, it conjures up all my visits to Liberty.  Climbing the wide creaking oak staircase, sauntering through the fabric department checking the feel and colours of the Tana Lawn and lingering over the matching print wash bags and the cushions.  If you share my Liberty obsession (or would like to discover an extraordinary emporium and grow to love it) you can, and with the help of this book, make your own cushions, make-up bag and  curtains to boot!

The book is out now, published by Quadrille.

Enjoy!

x

C

You can't knit with that... can you?

 The thing about an obsession is, you tend to look at everything in a different way - in a way that encompasses the possibility of incorporating ordinary every day objects into the obsession.  I was joking when I blogged about knitting place-mats out of spaghetti on the first of April this year,  but I have to confess I have always looked at those pliant strings of 'aran weight' flour and water paste and wondered if they could be knitted with.

So it's only a small step to consider the knitting (or crocheting) qualities of  string

Then there's ribbon

Now wire and beads, there's a possibility

And why not all three?  Does any one else remember a time before every shop gave you your shopping in a plastic carrier bag? (and then they didn't).  My mother had large willow baskets for shopping but my father, who took me shopping to the nearby town every Saturday morning for the weekend bread wanted something he could stuff in his pocket - a string bag.  Mr Ptolemy Tortoise also used his own bag when he took lettuce to Mr Jeremy Fisher's lunch party.  Trying to remember my father's shopping bag I made up the  pattern, using chains and DCs, as I went along.

I have taken rather a long time to finish off the Little Model's cardigan It has been sitting in my work basket waiting for me to trim the edges with some velvet and floral edging.  A ribbon flower button hole to go with the velvet trim perhaps?

But the most fun of all was the wire and beads.  I have seen jewellery making projects with knitted wire before and longed to have a go

I'm not sure that I will ever give up knitting with fabulous, soft and silky wool, silk and cottons in all their multiple incarnations but I had fun with this project.

The bag adapts readily to its contents

The cardigan is ready to go

And the table laid with white china linen and new napkin rings

The napkins are made out of beautiful rose patterned damask inherited from my mother.  But it was not till I was ironing them this morning that I noticed that they must have been handed down to her.

E. Spicer 12. Mr and Mrs Spicer were lifelong friends of my parents.  My father and Mr Spicer had met in the cyclists touring club in Newcastle upon Tyne in the 1930s and every year until first Mr Spicer then his wife died they would come and stay with us before travelling to stay with their daughter and family for Christmas.  Their visits felt like the start of Christmas for my brother and I. I have no idea how my mother came to have some of their napkins (I have four of them, all marked) but as my parents married in 1952 when rationing was still in force I wonder if some of their presents would have come from their friends' linen cupboards. They must be made of fabulous quality fabric as there is not a single sign of wear and they are as white as ever. 

The Zimmermann project - part Two

After checking out my gauge/tension the next step was to calculate the number of stitches for the body of the sweater. I am making it for a 38inch chest with an extra 2 inches for comfort - thus 200 stitches.  EZ says in my book that the number is nearly always 200, I don't know how she comes to that conclusion but it is right for me.  She also says that 'this is almost the only measuring and deciding you will have to do yourself' as from then on all you have to do is follow the percentages she has worked out.

I actually began by reducing the number of stitches by 10% for the rib, 180 stitches, increasing one stitch every nine inches on the last rib row, to keep the waist of the sweater snug.  I have already knitted up three balls and am about to begin the fourth

The size is looking fine, I slipped half the stitches onto another round needle and tried it on JTH (he is one size larger than my father) and it looks fine.  But I am also keeping a note of what I do -  in case I want to modify the number of stitches, snugness of the rib etc, next time I will know exactly what I did at the first attempt.

xx

C

New beginnings and new lessons

Given what a grubby disaster last week's effort was, I was really heartened by all the people who read and commented, thank you so much all of you.  It was lovely to read all your comments, including the ones on twitter and facebook.  Even one of the tutors from the course I am going on in two weeks reads my blog - wow!  Despite your encouragement, sadly the one thing I cannot do is up-cycle it in some way.  Neither use it for a cushion cover (well not one that I would display proudly) nor unravel it and make something else.   Because although it did not felt, it did mat and shrink and the colours ran to variable tones of sludge.  Currently it is chucked under my desk, perhaps I can use it for a foot warmer as the weather gets cooler!

It was Sarah who got it quite right, you cannot felt wool described as super wash.  Obvious really.  And Jenny at knitting group reminded me of the perennial must - 'you have to make a test swatch'. So I have now, just a tad late I admit.  I don't really have time to do more experimental stuff, I must get on with making Christmas presents, but I just wanted to have one more go.  In my original effort I used some left over alpaca for the top row of crochet - it was the only bit that felted, giving the bag a slightly drawstrung effect.  So rummaging through my stash I came across three more balls and made this, 14 cm square.

I started gently this time at 30deg with woolite

 Not there yet so back in at 40deg and a big towel to give it the required bashing

Done - to 9cm- and a mental note that if I buy say three more balls I can have another go at the bag once I have some time.

Now, to Christmas presents!  

It's a little tricky to blog about this because some projects may be destined for friends and family who might just read about their presents first here and that just will not do.  I am a stickler about presents being surprises.  But I am quite safe with my father's sweater, he's 85 and never owned a computer in his life!  

One of the regular readers of this blog and someone who occasionally e mails me to ask a question asked last week about knitting a baby cardigan from one of the books by Elizabeth Zimmerman. This sent me flying to my introductory book by EZ - Knitting Without Tears and I realised perhaps I could answer Caroline's question, make my father one of the seamless sweaters in the book and blog along the way.  

Caroline's question was to do with sizing.  She said that the only information E Z gives is '5 stitches to an inch' and, as she said, how does that translate to all the various sizes a baby can be?  

Elizabeth Zimmermann, is a huge inspiration and practically the Empress of knitting.  I think what I love most about her writing is the joy she can project, even in her chapter on washing your knits.  But one thing that is said about her that is so true is that her patterns contain not so much instructions as suggestions.  At first it appears she is not very precise in her suggestions but once you get into her way of thinking the results can be brilliant.

5 stitches to 1" is about tension (or gauge as EZ calls it) not sizing but it is where everything about the correct fit begins.  So here is what E Z says about 5 stitches to an inch and what I did

What E Z says	What I did
[No instructions as to what weight of wool given] If the directions specify a gauge of 5 stitches to one inch, take any size 16" circular needle from 3.5mm – 5mm and cast on about 90 stitches, work 3-4 rows in pattern	I am knitting with Sirdar Balmoral (DK in wool, alpaca, silk mix).  Using a pair of size 4.5mm needles I cast on 22 stitches and knit 28 rows.  This is what the ball band said I would need to do to knit a 10 cm (4”) square
Take out the needle and lay the work flat	I cast off loosely.
With a ruler measure off 3” in the centre of the knitted fabric and place two pins exactly 3” apart	I pinned the square out on a flat cushion being very careful not to stretch the work and keep the sides and top and bottom square
Count the exact number of stitches in between the two pins.  Do not neglect to count half stitches or even one-third stitches, if there are any	I placed a ruler over the whole square, it was 2 stitches more than 4”.
Divide the number of stitches by 3,     15 sts will give 5sts to the 1”	I have 20 stitches in 4” - so 5 stitches to the inch
Keep changing needle size until you achieve the correct gauge	yes!

I didn't exactly follow the E Z suggestions mainly because I was too impatient to cast on 90 stitches but I did follow in spirit, knitting  loosely and counting carefully and precisely.

That's gauge (tension), next week I will work out how many stitches I need to begin with, cast on the body and begin knitting.

xx

c 

It began so well

It's no2daughter's birthday today, we have a 'sponsored shopping trip' planned for Saturday but I wanted to add a present I had made myself  She has great taste and likes original, quirky stuff, like this felted bag from Gifted by Mags Kandis

An ideal project I thought to use up all the left overs from my rose mittens, easy and speedy to make in three different sized granny squares and learn a new skill (felting) at the same time

Not quite so quick, I had to work fast to get all 66 squares done in time, but crochet is such an easy thing to do on the train.  Then there is the added bonus of conversations that begin with 'What ARE you making?'  Everyone from people who refer to crochet as knitting and vis-a-versa to a lovely musician who chatted about knitting socks and finding yarn shops around the world as she travelled with her viola

So it was finished in time and the sewing up marathon began

How many times have I wished I had the foresight to sew in ends as I go?  So easy with crochet, but I am impatient and want to see the finished effect as soon as possible.  I even go to the lengths of tucking all the unfinished ends in under the work as I lay it out, just so I can stand back to admire.  After an evening of piecing together and half a day of sewing in the tails it is ready for felting.  

Just one more portrait.

Now - I am very experienced in accidental felting.  You may have read my cushion post where I made the best of a bad job. But I have never intentionally felted anything.  The book had plenty of handy hints but no real explanation of the basics.  After the usual sort of research I found instructions, to place the item in a laundry bag and wash at a higher temperature than recommended for wool, adding a pair of jeans to give it a good bashing. No specific temperature was mentioned but as the max temperature for wool is usually 40deg I began at 50deg and chose a pair of old very well faded jeans.

Well, instead of a sturdy chunk of felt in glowing colours the unidentifiable object that exited the washing machine looked like a pile of sheep's entrails.  I washed it hotter, then in the sink with a kettle of boiling water.

It had most definitely not felted, it had not even shrunk, it had stretched! And the colours had run so that the whole lot looked more like the old blanket that had trailed around this summer's festivals with no2son. Most of the yarn was Rowan pure wool DK, one or two tiny sections that were in Rowan cashsoft had felted up as tight as a tick but the rest - disaster!

I can't bring myself to throw it away yet, but what shall I do with it?  I am going on a knitting course in a few weeks and we are invited to bring projects to show and tell - the good and the bad they say, but this one is so embarrassing.

Does anyone else  have disasters like this? Feel like sharing?

xx

C

Intellectuals do not polish their bath taps

The lovely thing about blogging and all the nice people I meet through comments and visiting other blogs is that it's all about shared interests and a love of making things.  But it also means I don't know much about you all apart from just that.

So I don't know how many of you will recognise today's title and how many will be asking yourselves whether or not it has a whole lot more to do with woolly thinking than knitting. But some of you, like me, may have been avid readers of the doughty columnist Katherine Whitehorn in the Observer since your impressionable teens.  And it was she in the late 60s whose analysis of women's bathroom cleaning habits struck a cord with me and many other aspiring 16yr old intellectuals!

I met my good friend the fabulous novelist Elizabeth Speller when we were both Cambridge undergraduates, several years older than most of the other students, a little more than 20 years ago.  Both of us had chosen to train as nurses when we left school (I had even qualified) and  both had spent many years not polishing our bath taps (or in my case polishing and hoping no one would make the connection).  But as we joined the wonderful community of women at Lucy Cavendish College, all delighted in finding a place to study at last, we discovered one (there were many) unexpected liberating fact about education and the self confidence that came with it.  We no longer had to prove our intellectual ability or worry that people would think we were airheads if seen with a copy of Grazia. We joked that we could now be seen with copies of glossy magazines and not just The Times and Middlemarch - we could literally have it all, and love George Elliot and Vogue equally

And so it is with knitting, sewing, crochet of embroidery.  I have always had a talent for it.  I love making things and the wonderful feeling of relaxation as I sit down with a ball of beautiful knitting wool and a pair of needles (particularly alpaca yarn and bamboo needles).  I may have said it before but I can feel tension lift and blood pressure subside as I begin.  Although for several years I was too busy, keeping up with the law (reader I became a solicitor) or reading the whole of the Booker short list, to spend time browsing craft books or knitting patterns, a change has come over my life and with it the content of my book shelves

Although there is some way to go before I need the same space for craft books as I have for novels.

I thought about Katherine Whitehorn  as I read The Hell of Handicrafts in the Observer Magazine on Sunday with it's caption  'I have a degree in astrophysics you know' beside a photograph of the writer Alex Clark icing some cupcakes .    She was not having a poke at we crafty people, she wrote affectionately about her sister in law who could re-line a coat and knit two baby suits in the time it takes to say licketty split, just at her own efforts.  She describes her attempt at knitting a scarf 'soon I'm clicking away', for the first seven or eight rows she has fun then gives up saying 'luckily I already have a scarf, I bought it with money I had earned by going to work instead of staying home and making things'

For me and other people like me, probably Alex's sister-in law too, that is not the point. And most of us know that trying to make money out of what we make is where there be dragons.  How could you cost a pair of tiny baby bootees for sale when they take at least two evenings to kit?  I don't stay at home all the time making things.  I go to work, do thinking stuff, but in the train on my daily commute I knit, or crochet, ( which requires a different sort of thinking stuff) .  On my days off I join friends in a knitting group.  Its all part of the mix.  I no longer feel I have anything to prove, I am a lawyer who knits, enjoys both and loves the surprised look on people's faces when I tell them what I blog about.

One thing I do agree with Ms Clark about is on watching The Killing while reading the subtitles and knitting at the same time.  I admit it is tricky, it is quite possible to knit by the feel of it but there are times when you just have to give your full attention to one or the other.  This is where one's partner comes in very handy - Ms Clark asks hers if he can help with casting on, I prefer to ask JTH to fill in the gaps I have missed whilst looking down to pick up a dropped stitch!

xx

c

Book review Knits to Give by Debbie Bliss

The book arrived from Quadrille Publishing with perfect timing.   I intend to include a small hand made present in each person's stocking at Christmas and this book is full of fabulous ideas.You know how it usually goes? you get a gorgeous new knitting book and you just don't know where to start.  Which project will you knit first?  And when you finally choose, despite owning The Stash Beyond Life Expectancy you never have the right yarn at the right time.

Problem solved with Knits to Give from Debbie Bliss.  Thirty project presents, all of which (so the author says) can be knitted in a week and many require only odd balls from your stash.  As a  lover of Debbie Bliss yarns I have a lot of oddments and some larger batches of her yarn in stock.   But the joy of little projects like this is that you can also use oddments of other yarn as exact sizing and tension is less crucial for a little scarf or a tie.

At first glance I couldn't decide between a fabulous stole

or bracelets

and even bought the yarn to make this shrug for The Little Model.

But I decided to begin with the bracelets and use (I hope Debbie will forgive me) some stash yarn (I'll make the shrug and the stole later).  I'm rather pleased to find a suitable project for my sari yarn.  The moss stitch version shows off the glowing colours to perfection.  I chose cotton left over from Knitting a Name for the other two.

My only problem, cheap bangles (from Primark) do not go over my large hands.  I wonder, has all that knitting and crocheting caused hand enlargement?

No matter DD1 will be delighted with them.

I also carried out a little consumer survey of the book at my Friday knitting group.  We were a little thin on the ground last week but Claire loved the baby blanket (but agreed with me that this project would take more than a week unless you had no children to collect from school, no meals to prepare and no job to go to).

Jenny loved the tea cosy and Cary-Ann the blue rabbit baby bootees and the zebra.


The instructions are all so well set out and easy to follow.  And I know I always go on about beautiful quality paper and cleverly photographed projects but a book can be a thing of beauty in itself, can it not?

Thankfully there is only one cushion.  Once that would have been a serious omission in any book of small craft projects but honestly, enough already! Leave us room on our arm chairs and sofas to sit and on our beds to sleep!  Instead the home section includes (in addition to the teacosy that Jenny covets) a pot of pansies and table mats.  The other sections are For Him, Her, Baby and Kids

Its a scrumptious book and if my only criticism, apart from my knitting speed not being up to knitting the baby blanket (or the stole) in just a week, is that one or two projects use a prodigious amount of yarn (7 balls of aran for a pair of socks)  I still recommend it to you.


You will pour over it if you tend to dream over beautiful photographs and of being the goddess of hand made

You will use it a lot if making your own presents is your thing

And you will love it if you simply seek the joy of making beautiful things in delicious yarns.

xx

C

Yarn Shopping at Affinity

I have said it before, I am not to be trusted in yarn shops.  The colours call to me, the textures tempt me and the assistants...? well assist me to part with my money. My stash resides in a trunk under my bed, it is filled to the top, I have to sit on it to close the catch and JTH says if I buy any more yarn we will have to put the bed on stilts.  But there is nothing like wandering the shelves and lusting after yet another hank of jewel coloured merino.  The background picture to this blog gives you an idea of the sort of temptation I give in to far too readily.  It is by kind permission of my local wool shop (I thought you might like to see all of it).

But what about on line shopping? Until recently this did not really do it for me.  Sure I have shopped at a few when I knew exactly what yarn I wanted but until recently virtual shopping for yarn did not give me the purr of pleasure I get from my LYS (or John Lewis rapidly expanding department). But things are changing, yarn lovers are entering the fray.

My friend and fellow yarn addict Vandy Massey has recently pulled off a little miracle with her new online yarn shop Affinity Yarns

Her website is elegant and unfussy.  Sooo easy to navigate.  And she delivers the delicious yarns exactly as promised with clear information on delivery times before you buy.  All the information on the yarn (that these days I have to get out my glasses to squint at the ball band when I am in a shop) is clearly set out on each product page. This is what she says about my favourite 'go to' yarn Debbie Bliss Cashmerino

There's plenty to tempt too, including the rainbow selection of yarn from Yarnscape hand dyed by Alison

This is where I want to say something about what is so special about Affinity .  Vandy sells what she loves and she loves hand dyed, hand spun, natural fibers. As well as gorgeous Yarnscape you can browse and buy fabulous yarn by Fiberspates and wonderful Jarol Aran (undyed yarn from specific breeds of sheep)

I think it is very important whenever I recommend anything to you that I try it out properly first.  So last Friday evening I ordered two skeins of lace weight yarn, yarnscapes wintersea and I'm pleased to say it was promptly delivered by our postman on Monday morning

The yarn is beautifully soft and sheeny and its name absolutely perfectly describes its colour.

I used to live close to the Northumbrian coast and gunmetal streaked with blue and cream is exactly the colour of the sea on a sunny, chillingly cold, winter's day.

Vandy had told me that Alison of Yarnscape lives and works not far from her and this meant that Vandy could offer Alison's almost entire colour range on a 3-7 day delivery,  because Vandy can just ring Alison to get the colour in.  If Alison does not have any ready she can dye to order in the week.  Well I happened to leave a comment on Alison's blog to say I had ordered some of her yarn and she emailed back 'Oh it was you was it?  Vandy rang me for another skein'.  So I can say it works! Affinity only offers what Vandy would like to knit with herself and can deliver on time as promised  and when it arrives you will be very happy.

xx

C