Truth be told, I made a mouse in January, it turns out. I just didn’t quite get round to writing about it. I had some holiday to use up from last year so I ended up taking a fair amount of time off in January and February. And, seeing as I’d bought the mouse pattern months before, I thought I’d finally try and use it.
Reader, I am still terrible at sewing. It turns out that if you’re not very good at sewing, just never doing it doesn’t somehow make you better at sewing when the time comes. I made the dress too but it was all too exhausting to sew a button on, so it’s held closed with the ribbon. I think that my sewing machine needs tweaking though – the tension isn’t right and I can’t seem to fix it no matter what I do. I also made a ship’s sail for a model my partner is making, and in the end, I sewed the bigger seams on the hand cranked Singer and some detail by hand.
Anyway. This is what she looks like wearing a cardi, because of course you would wonder about it.
The pattern looks like it’s based on the Maileg Mouse but is nowhere near as cute – I assume for copyright reasons (!). I’ve honestly never met a Maileg toy I didn’t like. They absolutely have their aesthetic nailed. I can barely look at the website for how cute it all is.
Since then I’ve been knitting a few more toys for people – a lot of people at work are having babies.
These are two likely lads, before they got their faces. Both now have faces, but honestly I am not at all sure about the one in the red t-shirt. We’re 3 faces in, and I’m still not convinced. I might unpick it and give it another shot. Stay tuned…
Hello! I can’t believe how bad I’ve been at updating this blog this year. But looking around, I’m not the only one. Lots of the craft blogs I used to follow seem to have stopped, and lots have migrated to Instagram. Much easier to share a quick snap of work in progress than it is to write a blog post about it – which is a shame actually. I like crafty blogs and they’ve taught me a lot. (Apologies, it’ll be a miracle if you ever learn anything from this one: sadly, I’m not very skilled!) Anyway. Two things I’ve made in the last week:
I made a little duckling (a Claire Garland pattern), and a little christmas hat and scarf to go with it. I was quite pleased with the hat, actually – just knitted 30 stitches and then decreased gradually. The scarf is a 4 stitch icord. And the wee duckling is very cute, even if I do say so myself. That said, I made one right before this one, which was also nice but.. just a bit small. I think I didn’t give him enough stuffing. He needs more than you’d think.
I also made a loaf of sourdough bread. To be fair, this isn’t big news as I usually bake one a week, however, they’re unpredictable, which means making them for other people is always a risk (for me). This one was for my parents and seemed to go ok. I have another loaf on the go right now for friends. The starter is just coming up to speed, and I’ll begin the loaf later this afternoon and bake it tomorrow morning. It is a faff. But usually a useful, tasty, preservative-free faff, so that’s something.
Aside from that, I’ve been bashing out socks as my go-to pickup/putdown project. They look like socks, which no one is ever that excited about so I haven’t bothered writing about them. I need another shawl-type project. Something that’ll keep me going through the year. Despite the fact they usually drive me a little bit nuts, I do like it when they’re over (!) and I miss them when they’re gone.
Some of the oldest socks I’ve made are almost beyond repairing now… Although I’ll think about patching over the patches (maybe this exhibition would have some ideas?) Ideally, it feels like there must be a neat way to detach the foot from the ankle, as the ankles are always fine. That said, it’s not like I have a sock shortage.
I also need to knit three more bunnies or bears: three friends have babies on the way. I’ll make two small ones, I think, and one big one. The big one is for a baby brother to a child I’ve already made a big bunny for. Seems a bit rude to give the younger brother a smaller one. We’ll see.
Plans for the new year? Not sure. But I should make more things, if I can. We’ll see. Anyway: here’s to 2025, I hope you have a happy, healthy, peaceful new year. x
I gave myself a break yesterday and knitted another strawberry. I’ve been trying really hard to knit this shawl but I still have a ball and a half of wool to go. I’m knitting it on carbon fibre needles which I bought after two different cable needles came to sticky ends. I think the cable snapped on one and just popped out of the needle on the other. It’s a 3.5mm needle.
Ideally it would be finished now. Now is the perfect time to wear it. The only reason I’m knitting it is because I love my Almina shawl (finished in 2020) but, as I think I’ve said before, it’s a bit heavy to take out of the house. I kind of fancied making another one I could put in my bag and use a bit like a cardigan. (I’m too scared to make a cardigan). I knitted it over xmas and new year, and it’s grown a lot, but it’s still not there. Gah. Soon.
Also, my eyesight is all over the place. Better to knit it without glasses or contact lenses at the moment. If I wear contact lenses then I have to wear glasses to fix my vision for close up work. I’ve become one of those people who can only see a menu if someone holds it up the other side of the restaurant. Well, not quite, but you know what I mean. I went out with a friend last week and the restaurant was so dark, I used the torch on my phone. Ten minutes later a couple came in and sat on the table next to us. Unprompted, one of them did the same thing. Vindication.
I’m not sure what’s going on at the moment. Time spent making things (well… knitting) doesn’t feel quite right. I keep feeling like I ought to be doing something else. Even reading, actually. Hard to relax. That said, my boss is pregnant so I should probably knit something for her, so… best figure out what.
(Sorry this isn’t a very exciting post, but one day, maybe I’ll be glad to look back and think ‘Yep, this shawl that you are currently wearing and looking fabulous in, really did take a long time. Do not make another one.)
A while ago, I tried to knit a unicorn, for a friend’s newborn baby. I knitted his head, and added different colour threads for his hair (which took a while). Then decided it just wouldn’t work, so knitted a bear instead.
But after a while I knitted the head a body too, just to see – still no clothes – and he sat in the yarn bowl, naked for a while.
Then, Julie released a pattern for a horse/unicorn/donkey, which was just what I needed, but a bit too late. This prompted me to make him a T-shirt. And once I’d done that, it wasn’t that much harder to finish him off properly:
Actually, I really like him, after all that!
He’s got pretty solid / robust ears, as originally they were made to withstand a baby pulling them about, and a little tail, which I’m too lazy to photograph. In the end, I think he worked out pretty well. Poor thing.
Now I’m trying to decide if I should actually give him to the intended recipient after all. She was so kind about the bear, and said that it was the perfect size for a newborn – the only thing he had that was the right size to hold. (The bear didn’t have any buttons on his clothes, in case you’re worried.)
In the spirit of tidying up, I also finally made the light grey elephant a dress. I can’t even remember when I knitted her she’s been waiting so long. Now I just need to force her onto someone who may appreciate her. (You can really see why Etsy took off as a business, right?) I have a horrible feeling I’ve given a knitted toy to anyone who may want one. Maybe it’s finally time to knit something else. Or knit neater and sell them for charity, maybe.
Anyway. Tidier. Fewer naked animals lolling about in the heat. Can only be a good thing… I think?
I know. These photos are never going to make me an influencer, but I guess I’ll have to live with that. I darned my socks! I was a bit annoyed when they got a hole to be honest, as it felt like I’d only had them for 5 minutes. But according to the internet, I finished these in May 2021, which is not a bad life for a pair of socks. I wear these a lot at home.
I assumed I’d make a hash of fixing them, but actually, I didn’t do too badly. I used this video to help. It’s good. I knitted a patch because, as much as I love all the woven visibly-mended stuff, I didn’t think it would be strong enough for a heel.
Actually, that patch above is a preemptive one, as the yarn is wearing thin. It’s the second patch of the day. The first was to cover this hole:
It was a huge hole. Also a huge pain, as I had to add stitches to widen the patch as I went, because it started at the narrow end of the heel. The blue thing peeking through is a massage roller ball. Not that good for massaging muscles, but does ok as a darning egg in a pinch.
I don’t love the left and right edge stitches being a little bigger on both of these, but they’re slipped so they get a wee bit baggy. I assume they’ll tighten up when the socks are washed. Things that seem good about this:
You’re supposed to knit the patch with a smaller needle, so the stitches are naturally a bit more dense, which seems like a good thing
The original wool should felt itself into the patch as it’s worn and washed, so that should make it stronger too
So that’s that. i thought I’d hate doing it, but actually I enjoyed it. Not sure why.
In other news, I need to make another duckling. We had guests on Saturday, and the duckling was quickly adopted by K, 5. It came to the park with us, down the slide, on the roundabout and back again. Come hometime there were pleas from K and apologies from parents. I offered to make K a ducking of her own. “How long will it take? A day? Ok, we’ll come round tomorrow”.
I’ve been wondering about Claire Garland’s patterns for ages. For a long time she wrote patterns for more realistic animal knits, like this bunny. But, I’m a lazy knitter and the patterns always looked a bit tricky for me – also, what would I do with the finished article? (What do I do with anything I knit though, aside from foist it on people?) Anyway.
You may have seen Claire’s work more recently, because she made a frog pattern, which India Crawford then knitted and used in a stop-frame animation, which she posted on Instagram. Suddenly Instagram was awash with actually rather lovely knitted froggies. (And the animations are brilliant).
So, while everyone was knitting frogs, I thought it was finally time to knit the lucky ducking.
Saints alive, it’s a cute pattern! Look at it!
Full disclosure though, this one was without feet for about 2 weeks. I just wasn’t keen – they didn’t look as neat as they should.
Here is the duck when it was literally footloose, but probably not fancy free ^.
I shouldn’t take photos when the light is terrible – not sure where the focus is here, but never mind. It’s knitted in sock yarn, on 2.75mm needles. I also stitched the eyes, because although I do have safety eyes the head is so small the stems on the eyes would bash into each other. So I might buy some beads to use and knit another one. I think a bit of reflection in a black beady eye would be nice.
It’s a quick knit, if you don’t dither about over the feet. There’s a bunch of ‘wrap and turns’ which I’d not done before, but overall, it’s not hard, and it’s explained clearly. This one fits in the palm of my hand.
I’m still working on the shawl in the background, and I’m still not that sure about it. But never mind. Also I’m making a pair of socks, in Felici which…
I mean, look at that! Honestly. Put some effort in. I chopped it out, and rejoined the colour in the right place. I’m not in love with this colour combo, but I do like Felici sock yarn when it’s knitted up (soft, machine washable, hardwearing). So when the yarn is on offer, I buy the least worst combinations. Anyway. There you have it.
I’m sitting in the garden. It looks like it’s going to rain any minute, but actually it’s quite nice. The birds are singing, and aside from that it’s quiet and fresh. I’ve just made tomorrow night’s dinner and there’s a plum clafoutis in the oven too. Actually, I tasted half a plum while I was prepping it, and it was completely tasteless, so we’ll see. Might sound like an episode of the good life, but we’re not there yet.
I’m still in sock and gardening mode at the moment. (Although I’m also making a pink elephant.) After the woolly-wholesomeness of my last socks, I fancied knitting socks in a really bright colour. So I bought some Cascade Heritage yarn which seems to get good reviews – and actually, is quite cheap for the amount you get in a skein.
I started the stripy one first. Then, we went to see friends (finally!) and I thought it would be good to take something easy and mindless with me, so I prepped the second sock. Sometimes I like knitting while I’m talking. In the end it was such a joy to see them, and to sit in their beautiful garden, I didn’t knit much. But I carried on with the simpler sock when I got back. I was intending to make a corresponding pair for each, but now I’m not so sure…
Originally, I was going to reverse the stripes on the stripy one. Thinner at the top, wider apart at the bottom. But now I’m thinking I could just make another 2 socks using the same yarn in any way I fancy and mix and match them. If they all use the same colours, who’s to say they’re not a pair? Plus, I’ll only wear them at home anyway, so does it matter? Not really. So I’m using these as ‘trying it out’ socks and knitting whatever I feel like. I’ve got a hunch I’d prefer this yarn on a smaller needle, actually. We’ll see about that.
Last summer I made some bunnies for the children of friends abroad. I have no idea when I’ll get to see them and hand the bunnies over. The kids’ll probably be fully grown at this rate. But a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to reknit their clothes. Just suddenly decided I didn’t like them. I was going to knit them in the Krea Deluxe cotton I bought – but it’s so splitty! The colours are absolutely beautiful, and it’s organic cotton yarn, but it really does split and if you’re knitting on small gauge needles you’re forever picking up the single strand of thread that gets left behind. So I put the clothes on pause. Then inexplicably decided to knit a pink elephant with the yarn instead.
How this is different to knitting clothes, I haven’t worked out. But the beauty of a hobby is the option to abandon all logic and/or quality control when you feel like it and just get on with things.
This project bag is lovely – a xmas gift from the friend I mentioned earlier.
If you’re the sort of person who might make the elephant pattern using the Krea Deluxe yarn and wonder if the yarn is strong enough to take the weight of curling up the trunk, the answer is no. It took 5 attempts at sewing that up before it did what it was supposed to. Krea didn’t cut it, nor did some random (what I thought was strong) yarn I found in the drawer. Eventually I used a bright red yarn – maybe a cotton glace? Luckily it’s true – you can’t see the thread you use to sew up mattress stitch. It does get buried in the stitches themselves. And now the head is done, she’s quite nice. I’m making an elephant with shoes on. I haven’t made an animal with shoes in ages. We’ll see from the finished article if there was a reason for that I’ve forgotten.
I’m a bit soggy. Just come in from the garden where it’s started to rain. But you can practically hear the happy sighs of the plants as their leaves stretch out in satisfaction. I’m really enjoying the garden at the moment. Everything’s coming back to life. I took a risk and planted out 2 small sunflower seedlings. I’ve been bringing them in each night for the past week or so. I hope they’re ok out there tonight. I think I might plant a couple more just in case.
I also planted some bleeding hearts the other week – which are doing really well, and some phlox this week. Fingers crossed for them. They’re all from bare roots I got in the post.
My dad (a master gardener) gave me 3 of his bonsai. Obviously bonsai are little trees – that’s literally the point. So of course they drop their leaves in the winter. But I’ve been waiting anxiously for them to sprout again. I’m happy to report all is well. The larch is as larchy as the day it arrived, the ginko (“It’ll never make a decent bonsai but if you want it, you can have it?”) has some wee ginko leaves and the 40+ year old chestnut grown from a conker has sprouted and is doing very well too.
I planted anemones in the winter. They’ve been amazing all spring – red ones, white ones and these blue/purple ones. Actually. All the anemones everywhere have been amazing all spring. I planted different types at different times, but didn’t really register that they were all anemones.
These little ones have been great. They open their petals when the sun comes out. Watching them open up each day and raise their faces to the sun was like having a little heard of pets.
Once I realised the small blue ones were also anemones I realised the white flowers in the woods were anemones too. Good year for anemones all round. I try to go for a walk every morning before work, and seeing the woods coming back to life has been really nice. It’s full of bluebells at the moment. And the field is full of oilseed rape.
I feel incredibly lucky to’ve had access to the outside over this last year.
I’ve been knitting too. I completely finished one sock, and while I was sewing up the toes, got distracted (mentioning no names…). This meant I lost my place and screwed it up. I guess I could’ve saved it but I was so annoyed I unravelled the toes, then the foot, then the heel and then the entire sock. A meltdown. A lot of swearing. I guess that’s frustration with the whole world manifesting in one sock.
Whatever. I started again. Realised I actually like knitting really boring socks.
I like it when you get past the cuff – which I do on DPNs – and on to the relaxing joy of just round n’ round with a circular needle. No need to count. No need to concentrate. Do when you’re watching TV, having a meeting, waiting for the kettle to boil. Like more productive worry beads. I like this picture above. A little knitted campfire.
Can you believe it? I bought the grey because I wanted to use up the yellow and orange. And then I ran out of grey! I didn’t think it was a good idea to buy more, so I ended up improvising. Maybe the next pair will match? Who knows. I’ve started a new pair now. They’re actually stripy and in different yarn. I’ll write more about them next time.
Someone I know also mentioned she’d really like a rabbit. She can knit. Probably better than me. But I said yes anyway. It was nice of her to ask.
I used Cascade 220 yarn (‘antique heather’) and the kidsilk haze – which I’d only used once before on a smaller rabbit. I like the extra bit of fluff. Seems to work quite well. The face of this one intimidated me a bit. It’s a big responsibility giving something a face. Sometimes you need to wait till you’re ready. And actually, this one was right first time.
Here she is. It’s quite hard to photograph bunnies actually, as their eyes are quite far back on their heads. Trust me, in real life she’s got a nice face. Something about her feels quite old fashioned. Not sure why. She’s been given away digitally but not physically yet. The recipient (who is in the process of moving house, hence the delay) seems super happy, so that’s nice. It’s nice when people like the things you make. And you can’t give something a face and not become attached to it, so y’know. You want it to go to a nice home.
I made 3 other bunnies last year. I’ve inexplicably decided I don’t like their clothes, so will remake them over the next few months. They’re for friends abroad. I guess I won’t see them for a while so there’s plenty of time to get things right.
Rewind / unwind / unpick / unravel / frog / begin again (Michael Finnegan). Just to give you a heads up, from the way things are going, these are the future titles of the next few blog posts. I’m just about to frog the sock again. Which is a shame actually, but also doesn’t matter.
After my last post I decided to start again, in grey. This time the cuff took forever because I did 2×2 twisted rib stitch, which is tighter than regular rib and so barely stretched across the needles. I like twisted rib stitch, but is it worth the hassle of trying to squeeze your way through every stitch? Maybe not for a sock. Weirdly, it stays stretched out once you’ve knit it, or it does for me. When I’ve done regular 2×2 rib it sort of sucks itself in and only stretches when you wear it. Twisted rib seems to stay stretched out. Wait – this photo will show you what I mean, twisted rib on the left, regular rib on the right.
Just me, or the same for everyone? Or actually, is it just this yearn? Anyway, once I got past the cuff I thought I’d make life easy and do some plain knitting. And then I thought maybe I should do some colour work after all. I know I said I don’t really like knitting colourwork, but everyone else’s socks on Instagram look really great – and… bleurgh. There you go.
This is an awful photo but I actually really like the sharpness of colour changes in knitting. I don’t think people make much use of it – often people try and soften the edges or try and create organic shapes in colourwork, but there’s something really nice about embracing the fact that slabs of colour just look good. So I went with colour blocks of 4 stitches. This is good because, 1) counting to 4 is easy to remember 2) carrying the other colour over 4 stitches is fine, you don’t need to do any weird ‘catching the float‘ techniques, which I know I’ll forget to do and then risk a flappy thread that’ll catch and break.
Somehow, I did pretty well with this. Usually, because I’m a tight knitter, the fabric gets really pinched when I knit in more than one colour. No matter how hard I try to keep the floats loose. But I think I did ok this time. Or maybe not.
I switched back to grey, measured it against the well fitting stripy sock and decided it was time to do the heel. I did an ok job with the heel itself, and for me, a decent job of picking up the stitches to get the whole sock back on the needle.
But here’s the thing. It just doesn’t fit well. I pulled it on to check the heel, and the colourwork section is just too tight. I can get it on alrightish, but it’s a slight squeeze every time. I would suggest if you’re (I’m) going to do this, and you don’t want to go up a needle size – which is what a lot of people do with colourwork, but I don’t want to do – then you’ll just have to add more stitches to account for the tightness of the floats. The yarn also shrinks ever so slightly in the wash too – even though it is listed machine washable at 30 degrees. If I did finish the sock it wouldn’t take long before I couldn’t wear it at all. So, I’ll unravel it and try again.
Who says knitting isn’t a cheap hobby? I’ve been using these same balls of yarn for entertainment for literally weeks. Maybe one day I’ll even get a functioning pair of socks out of them too.
I’m assuming someone’s written extensively about the fact you need to account for all this if you’re knitting colourwork socks, but never mind. Experience is a great teacher, as they say (when they’re being polite about the fact you’ve just screwed something up needlessly).
In more productive news, I knitted the bear a blue t-shirt. I think it’s better. Same as the rabbit in the previous post – which, it turns out, is loved.
So that’s where we’re at this week. A few steps forward in knowledge, and a lot of rows back in knitting.
Truth be told, I was a bit grumpy last time I wrote. Not sure why. I’m much happier right now though, because I’ve finally managed to dig out a bramble from the garden. It took about 30 minutes kneeling in the wet mud, with my head in a flowering currant (or indeed ribes sanguineum), but I finally did it. It’s been bugging me since we moved in (3 years ago). It’s hard to get to, and the… stems/trunks/stalks (?) that come off the bramble are the kind of thickness you can only imagine in fairytales. I’ve never seen anything like it. But as the currant bushes haven’t come into leaf let I could finally get to the heart of the bramble. It was a beast. I thought I might have to ask for help digging it up, but I got there in the end. This is in no way interesting to anyone but me, but honestly, I am very pleased with myself.
In other news, I made a quick-ish rabbit for someone at work. Originally I’d planned to dress her in the dungarees I made for the bear (I’m not convinced the bear is happy with their clothes), but then I just sort of knew that the person who would receive the bunny would prefer it with a tail – and I’d sewn up the back of the bear’s dungarees and there’s no way to unpick it. So I made a new pair of dungarees, but without the pocket this time. Actually, they’re quite cute pocketless, I think. The white bunny is there for scale – both made with the same pattern, but the white bunny is in worsted weight yarn.
Here’s an artless shot of the bunny’s tail as proof. I posted her to the recipient on Monday, and by Friday, I’d given her up as lost. Which was awkward. Do you tell someone you’ve made them something and it’s got lost in the post? If they weren’t expecting to get it, would you just be making a scene? I wasn’t too sure. But then on Friday afternoon, I got a nice message to say thank you. I think the bunny had just taken the long route across London.
Here’s a sort of secret. My boss knows, not everyone else does. If I’m in a long (up to an hour +) meeting which is mostly listening, I sometimes knit. If I don’t knit, I end up getting instant messages about work which I feel obliged to answer, and then I check my email and before long I’m responding to a bunch of work related questions and then I might as well not be in the meeting at all. Knitting keeps me focussed and listening to what people are saying. I’m not alone in this, I’ve heard other people say it helps them to focus too – just no one I work with, as far as I know. Anyway. I unravelled one sock in one meeting, and this sock in another:
It got to the point where it was okay, just not…that great. It’s not like I desperately need a knitted sock I don’t like much, so I unravelled it and started again. I thought maybe solid blocks of these colours would work better?
The colours do work better like this – but then I was working on the heel yesterday morning and decided I didn’t love this either so I unpicked this too. I have no idea what I’m looking for in this sock, but clearly none of the above. I’ll work it out. I did actually find someone who makes beautiful socks on Instagram. Amazing colours, beautiful photos. Maybe I will have to go back to learning colourwork after all? I love how solid her colours are. Less about texture, really. Although this is the wrong yarn for trying that kind of thing. Anyway. I’m still attempting to knit socks, basically. What are you up to?
Occasional Crafter 