Flibbertygibbet

Oh the weather outside

is delightful.  Particularly when viewed from the sofa, inside a warm house with no obligations to venture out, though that does mean missing my local knitting group - ah, the hardship.  But I decided I had to get out and have a bit of a walk.  Fortified with homemade mocha.  There's something so satisfying about the velvet crunch of first footsteps on fresh snow.  And it's a little territorial, too.  My park. Mine.

I have slightly given up on the toe-up socks.  Just for the time being!  Will try again in the future but they were looking like this picture, right,  and then I realised they were supposed to look like this.  I had managed the crochet cast on but kept making mistakes during the wrapping of stitches as I wasn't concentrating enough, which is a bit of a lesson in itself. In the past I might just have soldiered on, because they were 'only for me', but now I want them to be right. 

Exercise your franchise...

Who are you going to vote for - in the craft blog award?  I think my sidebar may give away who I voted for...

As Britney would say...

No, not "Kevin, I dropped the baby!" Rather, "Whoops. I did it again."

Somehow wandered up to Liberty's haberdashery and fabrics floor before knitting.  However, m'lud, in my justification, it's 75% off now.  Plus you get another 10% off if you have a Liberty card.  So that's 77.5%, I think, with my limited maths.

That means I spent approximately £40 on this lot:

~ 1/2 metre of heraldic blues and red for "the quilt"/the accessories fabric stash
~ 1 metre of pink trees and little birdies for a summer skirt
~ 2 1/2 metres of psychedelic fruit for a summer dress - probably Simplicity 6587.  It feels like it should have buttons - buttery yellow pearls - and besides, the new machine just loooooves doing button holes!

~ Two different silks, 2 metres of each.  The first is from last night - originally £30 p/m finally reduced to a very impressive £6.75 p/m.  I'll probably use the same pattern as the black polka dot dress which I posted about back in December for this one, but with perhaps a teal silk for the upper bodice and cowl; and I'll start looking for a pattern for the orchid one, which actually arrived in the last spree, asap. It was comparatively more expensive at only 50% off, but it was all gone last night so I'm glad I splurged when I did.

~ The first print may look familiar - I bought a two metre piece of it last week, for £17.50, which was half price.  There wasn't a bolt of it on show then, but there was one there last night so I bought another 1.5 metres so that I can make a dress with a HUGE circular skirt, plus it was reduced to 75% + 10% off.  Seemed daft not to.
~ the second is a Robert Kaufmann that I bought in NYC last year, and have only just got around to washing.  Because when the inspiration to make something from it strikes, I'd hate to have the buzz killed by having to wait a day for the washing and ironing thing.

So I spent about £40 - but I calculated that I saved about £125.  Of course I would never have bought it all at anything near full price, but that's not the point.

I've realised there's a definite pinkish theme to the entire stash, and it intrigued me last week when Caroline, my shopping companion, said to me about one fabric I had chosen 'Oh, that's so you.' I often wonder what 'me' really is and it tickles me to think that others can readily recognise my tastes. But having realised how picky I am when it comes to choosing knitting patterns, perhaps there is a common theme.  I have fallen in love with most of the patterns in this book, particularly the one-button cardigan, but the silk yarn is slightly out of the price range at the moment.  However, I'm wondering if I can find something via Colourmart... cos, yeah, cashmere is always the cheapest option...

This weekend I've a freelance job to finish, some cards to make for a Swap-bot swap, some shoe bags to make for an order, I'm going to get the pattern book for the Lux tank top, and then generally hole myself in and craft, write, make, fabricate and avoid the outside world, or rather specifically two birthday parties.  I know I'm being a little hermit-like but it's time to stop posting about supplies and to start using them.  Then, I promise (myself) I'll come back out of my shell.

Stash!

Zach's quilt is done, well the label has to be sewn to the back and then it will be delivered to Zach's aunt, to be packaged up and sent off to America. 

I've realised that I do seem to be stash-building rather a lot this January, but I am at least buying it all in the sales.  Mostly at Liberty, it seems.

The two prints above are going to be for pretty dresses for summer: probably one in 6588, which is already in my pattern stash and I'll be looking for another one this week.

Quilting/stash fabrics from Liberty:

I've heard from a few people who've already received parcels from the fabric swap, and who are 'thrilled skinny' with what they've received!  To the point where I've been asked if I'm doing it again next month.  I think that if all continues to go well, we'll do it again in March - do let me know if you'd like to join in, leave a comment.

XH went to Berlin last week and I sent him off with a list of LYS - and he came back with ten balls of Lana Grossa.  Socks for ever! 

I was having a hell of a time turning the heel on the socks I'm working on now - and then realised, dolt that I am, that I had turned to the instructions for the 6 ply ones instead of the 4 ply ones I'm actually knitting, and had knitted the wrong number of stitches for the heel flap - 28 instead of 32.

Yes, I know that I should have twigged that I didn't have half the total stitches, yaddah yaddah.  So some frogging is in order.

I also bought ten balls of Lux in this delicious colour:

£52.50 reduced to £10.  I'm going to knit my first proper 'garment'  which is going to be a V neck tank top from one of the recent Rowan books, then do something with the masses of charcoal extra fine merino. 

Tomorrow I have a 'preliminary job interview' so wish me luck. I'm more nervous that I thought I would be and of course I'm not sure whether they'll like me or even if they have a job on offer, as the interview is as a result of a fellow knitter passing on my CV, thanks to Pauline introducing me to another knitting group.  I have said before how much knitting has done for me this year - if it could also bring the right job too, then it would truly be miraculous.  So everyone cross their fingers for me please!

Look into my eyes

Bad Shrimp

When most people hear that, they think 'food poisoning!'  I think - bad moggy.  Shrimp is short for Shrimpton, as she and her sister Twiggy came from the Celia Hammond Animal Trust.  Firstly, she does believe that she rules the roost here.  The other evening I decided to cut out a new sewing WIP - I've never made trousers before, but I was spurred on by a knitting project* and so cleared off the kitchen table to cut.  Within 2.3 seconds:

"My table.  Mine"

Possibly because I swooshed her off there, or maybe just because she is an ornery little critter, she decided to take it out on my iPod earbuds.  Whatever they ever did to her.

What's really Bad Shrimp is that she also went for the spare pair that I had found, the ones XH doesn't use because he has posh Sennheiser ones.  Little rip, as my mother would say.  The problem is that I look at those wide eyes, and usually just laugh.  There's no feline discipline in this house.

How many months ago did I say that I'd never knit a pair of socks?  But look!

They are mainly finished due to Pauline making me - cheers my dear! - she showed me how to do Kitchener stitch and I thought I was screwing it up so wanted to do something else instead, but she set me back on the path...I really like the fact that they are similar but different, I purposely didn't start the wool at the same point. Who am I kidding, I just started knitting the second ball without a thought.  I love the different coloured heels.  Encouraged, I have started a second pair, self-striping, which were to be for me, but now will be a birthday present for a friend who's 30 at the end of the month.  It's almost like pre-planning.  However the camera has deemed them too psychedelic to be photographed (at this time of day anyway) so we'll have to wait for their completion/the start of British Summer Time to get a better shot.

Denise got her package, hurray! I meant to share photos of what was in there, but um, I forgot to take them.  I hope all you gals are having fun with your swap stuff.  I went to the Quilt Room in Dorking yesterday and was tempted by all sorts of things... I was mainly shopping for Zach's quilt, my last commission.  Here's what I picked up there:

And then I'm working on this as a stash present - there's a baby arriving in February and I want to have a boy and a girl quilt ready, so that all I have to do is the label.  I've got two boy's ones stashed - well, one completed quilt and one top, so this is the girl's one.

It's just going to be strips sewn together, might do something a bit more interesting with the quilting but I've wanted to do a 'bar' one for ages.   One of the strips in the photo will be disappearing, and the pink that you can see on top will go in instead.

I went to see a friend (who's expecting the baby in February) the other day, she's an old flatmate, and a witch.  Ok, she's not a witch, she's actually a devoted Christian, but I swear that she can see inside me, inside my head.  In fact when I sent her a card to thank her for lunch, I asked that she only ever use that particular superpower for Good.  It's quite incredible to have someone listen to you, and then fill in the blanks with all the bits that you haven't been telling everyone, because they know you so well they can look into your eyes, and see it all.  We've seen each other through various trials and tribulations during the years but she's also the most insightful person I know.  Perhaps because she's an educational psychologist? I've also been inspired to get in touch with lots of old friends that I haven't seen for ages, for various reasons, and lots of people are coming back into my life in a huge wonderful demonstration of synchronicity, as well as making lots of new friends, mainly through knitting and craftyness (thank you so much to all of you for the comments and encouragment on here) 

In a last few days of madness before the job search begins in earnest, I'm going for my own personal Knitting In Public record - Tuesday at Foyles, on the train to and and from Dorking yesterday, last night in town, today at Canary Wharf and tonight at Liberty!  I may need support bandages tomorrow...

How can something so wrong feel so right?

All I want to do today is knit.  A bit a like all Alicia wanted to do the other day was bake. (I admit I stopped reading her blog for a while - because I think I was flat out jealous of how wonderful it is, I realised.  I have stopped being so silly.)

I should be starting on the freelancing job, I'm getting to it.  It's such a gorgeous day, there's a little voice saying 'Actually what you should do is get outside and enjoy the sunshine.'

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that right about now would be prime consumer bonanza time at Camden market.  Very possibly, but I am at home on the couch.  I had a lot of thinking time yesterday, and came to some conclusions.

1. I was right to leave the market yesterday morning. Yes, I did let that silly cow get to me, but overall I don't think I would have been the sunniest person yesterday and who buys anything from a miserable old baggage? 
2. I was right to come home and try to make some more stock to take to Camden.  I was also right to stop. I realised that what I was doing was panicking and trying to make things that weren't really me, to desperately try to take advantage of the fact that's it's the run up to Christmas and many people are in the midst of that seasonal buying frenzy.  Because my heart wasn't it, things weren't quite working out the way that I wanted them to.  So I stopped.
3. I've been putting too much pressure on the my little business, trying to make one thing work and I need to be more realistic.  All I'm doing at the moment is eroding my own confidence.

So I made these, for an order for a friend.  A trio of vintage fabric wristlets, or 'Candy Bags' for her nieces for Christmas.  Grosgrain ribbon handles and pearl snaps.  I ironed the fabric and lining to interfacing, and put them right sides together with the ribbon sandwiched between and trapped on the inside. Sewed around the edges, leaving a gap to turn it out and then slip-stitched the gap closed.  Hammered the pearl fasteners on, the slip-stitched the edges of the bag together. 

I also made these, which I'm calling 'My Pod Bags' .  Yes, a little Nano just fits inside.  Or of course it could be for other things too - make up essentials maybe.  Only if you're very low maintenance. I was getting all obsessed about making loads to sell at Camden and then... stopped.  But I have plans to refine the design and also make "boys" ones, with freezer paper stencils on the woollen Ethel fabric.

And here's the knitting.  As the socks are for XH for Christmas, and he's going to be here all this week before leaving on Friday night, I had to tell him as otherwise there's no chance I'd get them done in time if I was trying to do them in secret, so I was able to knit them last night as we watched tv. Or he watched and I listened.  (I should just retire to the kitchen with the radio or some podcasts).

Wow.  Look at the difference.  I wasn't quite getting the hang of knitting in the round on the first one, and hey, I'll admit it, I've always had a problem with rib because I don't concentrate enough.  Hence the first one is just - solid... happily the second one has more of a rib feel to it... um...

I didn't say it was a consistent rib.  I just caved and bought another set of dpns so that I could try to get both of them to the heel flap stage and take them to knitting (with the pattern!) this week and plead for help.  I know that Jane uses the same pattern and she kindly said that the first socks she knitted weren't quite a 100% success. I'm just not sure that I believe her.

Will try to post more crafty stuff and less 'I'm losing my mind' whingeing stuff soon.  Plus there's going to be more news on the Fabric Swap. Hooray!

Field Day

Yesterday was a great day. Firstly off to knitting group, where we had our Secret Santa swap. Lets just say that I am a very lucky girl...

Handknitted by the very talented Adrienne, I received a beautiful Mulberry silk scarf.  Snuggly soft, gorgeous colours, incredibly worked.  It's a little lighter than the photo shows.

I’d brought the sock to get some help with short row shaping – and forgot the pattern.  No matter, I’d also brought the yarn for the Louisa Harding mittens which were being knitted up as a potential Christmas gift for someone – but forgot the size 4 needles which I needed to switch to at the end of the rib.  So not the most successful knitting morning.

At noon we headed off on our little field trip, suggested by Jen.  After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to catch the 14 bus (the first one taking us only one stop from Tottenham Court Road to Centrepoint, as the idiot driver neglected to mention that we were almost at the terminus) Pauline, Adrienne, Jen, Caroline and I went off to South Kensington, to Christies.

What fun!  The staff were all charming (really really posh, but very sweet) and didn't bat an eyelid at our little gang traipsing in to the viewing for the 20th Century Textiles Sale.  They loaned us a catalog, let us wander around, answered endless questions, were intrigued by the fact we all know each other through knitting, and (mindblowingly for myself and Pauline) allowed us to take photographs!  Go and look at her blog to see the civil war quilt.

I adored these.
A PAIR OF LATE 19TH CENTURY PATCHWORK COVERLETS
comprising a child's coverlet of various printed cotton hexagonal patches,--44 x 31in. (112 x 79cm); and a smaller doll coverlet of the same fabrics,--12 x 15in. (30.5 x 38cm) (2)



The slightly squished hexagons measure about an inch across, and there are hundreds upon hundreds of them, all put together with the tiniest whip stitches.  No doubt some of those scraps are from favourite dresses, original recycling.  It's amazing how bright the colours are, and how daring the patterns - like the 'green fried egg' one in the middle photo.

Adrienne was particularly interested in a job lot of lacemaking paraphenalia and two sewing boxes, and she noticed that one had a secret drawer. 

Haven't you always dreamed of finding a proper secret in a real secret drawer?

As soon as I took it out and saw the inscription, 'Will', engraved on the front, I knew what it was. A mourning locket, which I think became popular in Victorian times.  Inside it contains a picture of Will, and a lock of his hair as a token of remembrance.  The woman at Christies was as suprised as we were.  It made me think - why was this hidden away, secreted in a sewing box?  Perhaps it was an unrequited love, or one that was snatched away too early, as he looks quite young to me. 

After all this excitement we had to make for the V&A and its fabulous cafe downstairs - I hope Pauline took photos as I know my little camera and my photographic ability wouldn't do it justice.  Well fed, we had to make a detour to the shop which has such fun presents, then went upstairs to the the newly opened textiles room and marvelled at lace, fabrics and silk weaving.  A grand day out, indeed.

And now, two hours later than intended, I must get to quilting! I got as far as pinning last night...

Now I realise

that this is why I want to learn to crochet. Or rather how I want to learn.  I'm also inspired by the beautiful afghan that Denise sent me, but it will be quite a while before I could even think about attempting something like that.

I'm talking about a vintage blanket, there was something similar on yarnstorm I thought but can't find it now.  You can find the 'Vintage Vertical Stripe Crocheted Blanket Pattern' on Bella Dia. I don't want to steal her photo, so you'll have to go over there and look.

But if you are the aforementioned Denise, then look away now!  Go on, hop it, missus! This is the crochet hook roll which I made for her.  I hope it's not too psychedelic, with the Kaffe Fassett fabric.  It has a ribbon trim which was sent to me from Pakistan, the flowery background is from a thrifted pillowcase, the top material on the fold over section came from the lovely Caroline, and the pocket for the tools is the aforementioned KF. Now I just need to get it to the post office...

You can all come out now...

...the whingeing has stopped.  Firstly, thank you so much to all of you who sent cyber hugs, emails, and offers of sewing machines (thank you Claire!) On pain of sounding like an Evening Standard journo,

THANK GOD FOR LOCAL SHOPS!

I had a phone call just after lunch to say that it wasn't as serious as feared and the machine was ready for collection, and popped the five minutes down the road to get it.  That turned into a free tutorial on how to use the automatic button hole, and basically they were incredibly helpful.  I think I may still go down the route of buying an industrial machine from them, but now it's not so urgent, plus I can use my domestic machine for the occasional bit of overlocking etc so I don't need to buy two machines.  All together now - hurrah! [Flib finally gathers up the last of toys she chucked out of the playpen on Saturday]  So the quilt top is done...

Next I'm showing a WIP and some souvenirs...

The WIP part is my first attempt at simple freezer paper stencilling.  There will definitely be more to come!  I've got lots of samples of this wool weight fabric in various colours, again thanks to Ethel, and I want to stencil images and symbols on it for purses. 

The souvenir part is the badges from The Reindeer's crackers, from Saturday night.  You walk in through a car park off Brick Lane, looks a little grim, and when you emerge upstairs it's a masterful concoction of glittery pink stars, blue lit pine trees and blurrily efficient waiting staff.  I was among the first three of our party to arrive and we decided to start with cocktails - the Reindeer Martini was Ketel Citroen vodka with elderflower, presented in a champagne coupe and decorated with redcurrants.  All very festive.  All very eye-wateringly elderflowerish.  The senior barman noticed the look on my face as my eyes rolled back in my head from the overwhelmingly 'cordial' effect - as in it tasted like it should be diluted with a pint of water, rather than making for a genial experience.   A second shot of vodka, proferred by senior barman, improved it no end.

You know, after two of those, I really shouldn't have noticed what the food was like.  But I went against my first instinct when ordering (dear god, when will I learn) and chose the steak rather than the risotto.  The waiter had called it 'a gud steak' in his lovely Scottish acccent.  Yeeeeeeeees, but only if you have a penchant for boot leather.  Ideally I like my steak blue or perhaps rare (I only order steak somewhere I assume it will be a prime piece of meat, basically) and to be on the safe side ordered it medium rare.  And then sent it back to be cooked more.  You know that old joke about 'How did you find the steak?' 'Oh I looked under the peas and there it was' - in this case they hid the dauphinoise potatoes under the steak because they were carbonised. By dessert I had given up hope but did try the chocolate and raspberry cake which had an alarmingly sharp fruit tang which was almost metallic. 

Next up was the cabaret.  I had hoped the (sound alert!!) Puppini Sisters were doing our show, but they'd been on earlier for the 4.30 show.  We were treated to Kiki and Herb. Eh.  It just wasn't a patch on the cabaret at Pigalle, say, but part of the problem may have been that there was just a little too much of Kiki and Herb.  Diluted, as part of a bill, they may have worked better.

All in all, we came to the conclusion that yes, it was worth going. It was an experience.  They got away with murder on the food.  But it was still worth it, simply for the sheer spectacle and the triumph of style over substance.  But that's ok as it's all disappearing after twenty-three days, the entire substance of it will be dismantled and removed, it's a pop-up restaurant.  Because remember, kids:  The Reindeer is not for life.  It's just for Christmas.

All I needed was a carpet bag

Oy, what a day!

Copyright Trevor Leighton, Times Online Gallery

Ok, so it wasn't quite like this at Waterloo today - but it wasn't far off.  After a stop-start journey en route which stressed me a little, I was hoping for a good day for my only market this week as the organisers had put a lot of effort into getting a full programme of events for the day, culminating in the switching on of the Christmas lights at 6pm with activities afterwards.  Apparently.

I was long gone by then.  From ten o'clock until about eleven I was happily setting up, chatting with the stallholders beside me, ignoring the cars driving past, the gentle drizzle and the general banging and clattering.  At one point I thought I heard thunder, but then told myself not to be silly, I'd checked every conceivable weather forecast and the worst prospect was some light rain. 

It came out of nowhere - a rapid darkening of the skies, a gush of wind - then all hell broke loose as four stalls, despite being weighted down with steel blocks as well as our various treasures, simply took to the pavements and damn near took out passing pedestrians.  Ah ha ha, how I had laughed when I was taking out my product and public liability insurance and the broker told me that I'd be covered for everything, "...even the stall falling on someone".  Gulp. Luckily there were two guys standing on the pavement and they jumped in, each one grabbing a canopy and holding them down (actually, pushing them back) while we scrabbled about picking things up.  The woman beside me from Jinx's Cat lost a lot of stock, but what was even worse was the woman who had a beautiful selection of teacups and china - all wiped out.  I've just had the washing machine on overload this evening and I'll have to redo all the labels but it could have been much worse.

After discussion with the organisers I agreed to stay as they provided a sturdier stall - a bit like this one, from Eastenders.  Minus the fruit and veg, obviously.  And the sunshine, unfortunately. The blusteriness continued and it didn't make for a convivial shopping experience for the few people who scurried past in the wind.

About three o'clock it looked like it might all happen again.  I thought to myself - I need a sign, stay or go... and the drops started to fall.  Like auditory neon, I suddenly heard someone calling my name - Caroline!  A pal from knitting.  We managed to get everything packed away in about ten minutes and ran over to the pub just as it really started to wee down.  I'm home, exhausted, sitting on the couch, flanked by two cats.  In a house that's intact, unlike those poor people in Kensal Rise where some houses lost walls, not only roofs.  But we're still here, and counting our blessings.  Happy and snug, all us three.