Book review: Shades of Milk and Honey

This Austen/magic mash-up didn’t prove spellbinding for me

---

The problem with following authors on Twitter is that when you don’t like their books you feel bad. I do, anyway, especially when said author seems to be so nice.

I really didn’t get on with Mary Robinette Kowal’s Shades of Milk and Honey. Jane Austen-esque, it was essentially Sense and Sensibility with magic, or glamour as it’s called in the book. I didn’t warm to the main character, Jane, at all. Mostly I just thought she needed to get over herself and grow a backbone. Her younger sister Melody was just plain annoying.

While the passages on glamour were often beautiful, the story itself was completely predictable. In some ways it was both too similar to Jane Austen and yet not similar enough. It was so alike that I couldn’t help but compare it, unfavourably, to the original. Had it simply followed the story of Sense and Sensibility, more like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (the story of P&P with added zombie fun), I might have been able to let the story wash over me and just enjoyed the addition of magic.

Modern-day menace
I found some of the language jarring. Depression instead of melancholia, for example. The former was in use in the 19th century, but the latter was far more common, especially among laypeople. And using gift as a verb is just plain wrong (as in a synonym for given, rather than talented).

I understand that Kowal did a lot of research to ensure the historical accuracy of the series so it’s likely that she had good reason for using the language she did; unfortunately I don’t know what those reasons might be so I can only judge as I find.

Melody was just plain annoying

It was also really very obvious what was going to happen – who would turn out to be the rotter, who the good guy behind the taciturn exterior. And it was about as subtle as a punch to the face. I got it from the very first page that Jane was plain and Melody beautiful. It didn’t need to be repeated every couple of paragraphs.

It’s a shame, because I really wanted to like this book, but I just didn’t warm to it. I won’t be reading any of the others in the series.

Is there a right way to design?

Charts and sketches or straight to the knitting – which method is better? Or does it all come down to your preferred way of working?

---

I’d really love to know how other designers go about designing. Do you meticulously measure, chart, make sketches and so on so that when you come to the actual making you know exactly what you’re doing and how it’ll all turn out? Or do you jump straight in with the knitting? I do the latter, it’s the way my brain works – I’m not great with paperwork and making charts just doesn’t appeal. I want to knit. I want to see the real thing taking shape.

I make a sketch of what I’m designing and I always do a swatch, usually in stocking stitch, but sometimes in the relevant stitch pattern. I use this and either my own measurements or general ones to work out how many stitches I need for each piece, and then I start knitting. That’s the extent of my planning.

When I came to sewing on the sleeves it quickly became apparent they were the wrong size

But this leads to problems. I should have finished the making up on my Comme Ca top ages ago, but when I came to sewing on the sleeves it quickly became apparent they were the wrong size. Too long and too narrow, so they didn’t fit the armholes properly and would have been too tight on the tops of my arms.

Spot the difference? The sleeve on the left was the first one;
it's too long and too narrow. The one on the right, however,
fit perfectly. Photo by Idoru Knits.

Now, if I was the charting type I’m sure this wouldn’t have happened. I’d have known exactly how many stitches and rows I needed to make the sleeves the exact size. Instead I estimated the extra number of stitches needed to make the sleeves wide enough and started experimenting with rows and decreases to see how to make them the right length. It took a couple of goes, but I’ve got it now, and I like the way it looks. I’ve still got to sew on the second sleeve and then weave in the final few ends, and then it’s done, and I can finally wear my new top.

All change?
But does this mean I should change my way of doing things? I’m sure the top – and many other items I’ve designed – would have been finished a lot more quickly if I was more methodical in my approach. A proper drawing on graph paper would mean I could work out numbers of rows for each piece, heading off problems like the one encountered here.

I worry that this would take the enjoyment out of it all, though. I knit because I like it. I design because it’s creative. Making it more methodical is surely going to make it more like, well, work. And I don’t want that.

Those sleeves pinned in place ready for sewing.
Photo by Idoru Knits.

Review: My Mad Fat Teenage Diary

This teenage diary wasn’t what I expected, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing

---

I bought this having watched the excellent TV show on Channel 4, but then I had a look at the comments on Goodreads and was a bit apprehensive. The main criticism was that the book was nothing like the series, and it’s true: the book is different.

Much of what made the series so good is missing: Rae’s social worker; her friends back at the hospital; her burgeoning relationship with Fin. She’s also younger in the series and it’s set in the early 90s rather than 1989. In the diary she’s on a scholarship to a private school, creating all kinds of wealth issues, which aren’t in the series. Several other elements are present and correct: the bitchy best friend; the weight issues; the sex-mad teenager-iness; the visit to a rave.

Rae’s mental illness was much more visible in the series. In the diary it’s hardly mentioned at all. In fact she explains that she doesn’t want to talk about it because she doesn’t really know how to deal with it.

I challenge anyone who’s ever been a teenage girl to not identify with Rae on some level

But once you accept these differences, the diary is actually a very good read. In the series Rae was always the ‘good guy’, but in the diary she can be selfish, thoughtless, mean, even cruel at times. Often she doesn’t realise. But it makes her more real. In fact for all her mental health problems, Rae is a normal teenage girl, with body issues, love life issues, arguments with her friends and her mum. She’s just trying to find her identity in this world, and I challenge anyone who’s ever been a teenage girl to not identify with her on some level.

Finishing things

It's time to bite the bullet and finish off some projects that have been hanging around for a while

---

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to finish some things off. This has meant some blocking, some sewing and little bit of learning.

Blocks off
First up was the blocking. These squares are for a crochet blanket design. I’ve made 10 of the circles-in-squares motifs and thought it best to block a few and start getting the blanket put together. I soon ran into a problem: I’ve got more pink inners than I’ve got red. So I’ve blocked what I’ve got and started joining. But it’s back to the crocheting for that one really.

Blocking the motifs, with help from Poppy.
Photo by Idoru Knits.

Sewn up
The knitting was completed on my Comme Ca crossover top quite a while ago, but I’ve been putting off the sewing up. I wanted to start wearing it, though, so out came the pins and the darning needles.

The complication with this top is that there are three bits: a back and two fronts to create the crossover. It didn’t actually occur to me that having three pieces of fabric would require more sewing until I got to this stage.

It didn’t occur to me that having three pieces of fabric would require more sewing

I’ve never joined three pieces of knitting before, and according to the internet no-one else has either. This obviously isn’t true, but a Google search didn’t turn up any information on seaming three pieces of material, although there was plenty on sewing together two.

Trying to join all three layers in one go seemed a bit complicated, so I decided to join two in the usual way and then sew the top layer on afterwards. This appears to have worked, creating a neat seam that’s not appreciably different from normal.

The seam looks to be shaping up well
and is as neat as my usual sewing.
Not sure if that's a good thing!
Photo by Idoru Knits.

Recreating a favourite sweater

My jumper’s really old – what can I do? Make another of course

---

I tend to wear the heck out of my clothes. I’ll fall in love with a particular piece and just wear it until it falls apart. And then I’m bereft. So, for me, one of the best things about designing your own knitwear is being able to recreate favourite sweaters when they’re past wearable.

The wool in this jumper is pilling and it's not going to
last much longer. Time to replace it. Photo by Idoru Knits.

One such piece is a pink jumper originally from Jane Norman that I picked up for a few quid in a charity shop. I love this jumper. It’s really fitted, has nice chunky fold-over ribbed cuffs with a matching ribbed collar, both of which have a touch of angora in. The neckline is a very deep V, so I always wear it with something underneath – this can be a low-cut strappy top for going out or round-neck jersey top for work. It could be in a co-ordinating colour or something with more contrast.

The cuffs and sleeves are a very slightly
different colour. I want more contrast.
Photo by Idoru Knits.

But the wool is seriously starting to pill and the jumper is clearly past its best. I won’t be able to replace it, so I’m going to recreate it. But better. For one thing it’s got a sort of ‘insert’ in the V neck that I don’t like. Plus those ribbed cuffs and collar are in a very slightly different colour, but I want the change to stand out more. I also want to add a ribbed hem to the bottom.

I already know what I’m going to knit it in – Artesano Alpaca 4ply in sweet pea (for the main jumper) and belize (for the cuffs, collar and hem). Now I just have to buy the yarn and get that tape measure and calculator out!

Here you can see the 'insert'. This will
not be in my design. Photo by Idoru Knits.

Knitting a dress

The challenge: to design and knit a dress from scratch, preferably by the end of the year

---

I wanted a big project – something to really get my teeth into. I’ve knitted sweaters; I’ve knitted lace shawls; I’ve knitted big cabled pieces. So I needed something else. I decided it was time to design and knit a dress. This was back in July, so how have I done so far?

The completed front. I really like the
colour changes and wide neckline.
Photo by Idoru Knits.

First up I had to come up with the style. After making a few sketches I settled on a flared or A-line skirt just above the knee, coming in to a fitted waist then out for the bust and up to a round neckline. Long flared sleeves would finish the look.

Next choice was yarn. I wanted a variagated colour, though nothing too bright. Ideally it would also change thickness. I was thinking something from Noro. But a dress takes a lot of yarn and Noro isn’t cheap. I’m lucky enough to have some very good friends, though, and one of them had a whole load of Rowan Damask, a linen blend, bought in the sale that she was willing to give me. Yes, give it to me. For free. I did say I was lucky.

Lattice cable pattern test. Using some spare yarn I tested
out how the cable pattern would look. I really liked the
effect and thought it would work well, even with a
variagated yarn. Photo by Idoru Knits.

Some measuring and maths later and I was ready to cast on. I’d already decided to knit it in stocking stitch, partly because there would be so much of it I didn’t want anything too complicated and partly because I thought the rolled-up effect that stocking stitch gives would create a nice effect at the bottom of the skirt and sleeves. By the time I’d got to the body of the dress, however, I was ready for a change. The dress was shaping up well, but knitting so much stocking stitch was dull and the piece itself would benefit from some variety.

Because of the yarn’s differences in colour and thickness, nothing too fancy was required and I decided that a lattice pattern on the bodice would be ideal. So how to create it? The simplest method would be to use a combination of knit and purl stitches. But that wasn’t the look I was going for. So it was time to trawl the internet and my stitch pattern books. I found the perfect cable pattern in a book I found in a charity shop.

That lattice pattern on 'the real thing'. Patterns can
easily be lost in variagated yarns, but because
this is so simple it works well. Photo by Idoru Knits.

I’ve now nearly finished the back. Then it’s just the two sleeves to do. I don’t know if I’ll finish the whole thing by the end of the year. I’m also crocheting a blanket and sewing up the crossover tank top I designed. But I’m nearly there and so far I’m very pleased with what I’ve produced.

Book review: Parade’s End by Ford Maddox Ford

Hard work, but worth it – mostly.

---

I downloaded this having watched the BBC adaptation starring the wonderful Benedict Cumberbatch. This is the first of Maddox Ford’s books I’ve read and I’m not sure it’s the best introduction to his work. For a start it’s huge – 906 pages, according to my Kindle. It’s also quite hard going.

Set in the early 20th century, it tells the story of Christopher Teijens, the youngest son of an old, respected Yorkshire family. Unhappily married to Sylvia and bringing up a son who might not be his, Christopher finds his head turned by the young Valentine Wannop.

This isn’t an easy book to get into, but it is worth the effort. It is incredibly well written. Christopher goes off to fight in the First World War and the sections on his experiences of trench warfare are some of the best I’ve ever read. At times moving and comic, it conveys both the horror and the stultifying boredom perfectly. Christopher’s frustrations with his commanders and the politicians back home will surely be recognisable to any captain in the field.

There are some great moments of humour, with Sylvia’s arrival at her husband’s barracks almost farcical in its mistaken identities and misunderstandings. None of the characters are particularly likeable, but this didn’t matter. In fact it made more sense than the BBC adaptation, in which Christopher was essentially sympathetic and I couldn’t understand Sylvia’s antipathy towards him. In the book her behaviour is much more understandable.

Sylvia herself is an interesting character. It would have been easy to cast her as The Bitch or The Whore, but she isn’t. She takes lovers throughout her marriage and there is a suggestion that Christopher isn’t the father of her son, yet she isn’t judged by the book. In fact all the women are ‘real’ characters, with their own motivations. A very unusual and refreshing situation.

So why only three stars? The book is seriously let down by the ending. The BBC series finished with the end of the war and the troops coming home. The book, however, carries on with some rather long-winded and to my mind pointless chapters told from the point of view of Christopher’s brother Mark and his French mistress, as well as Valentine and Sylvia. For me this final section put something of a dampener on what was otherwise an excellent book.

The Shetland hat

My newest knitted design and some thoughts on saving money.

---

My latest design, the Shetland hat, is a red and white bobble hat. It was inspired by Shetland, a TV show based on the books of Anne Cleeves. A thoroughly enjoyable crime thriller show starring Douglas Henshall, it is, unsurprisingly, set on Shetland. Shetland is very cold and very windy, so there was a lot of knitwear, much of which was stunning. A second series is coming soon – check it out.

A very important part of a Shetlander's wardrobe is, of course, a cosy hat. This one is knitted in Erika Knight’s bulky-weight Maxi Wool in Marni (red) and Canvas (white). The wide ribbed band keeps the hat firmly on your head, while the denseness of the reverse stocking stitch will ensure you stay warm. And the gorgeous red pompom just finishes the whole thing off!

The Shetland bobble hat in Erika Knight Maxi Wool.
I really like this colour combination,
and the weather's definitely turned, so I'm
sure to get plenty of wear out of the hat.
Photo by Idoru Knits.

 The chunkiness of the yarn means this is a very quick knit; it’s simple too – ideal for pub knitting. The yarn itself is lovely; soft to the touch and a joy to knit with. It isn’t cheap, though, and this got me to thinking. Knitting can be a rather expensive hobby and this is something I want to address in my designs.

Maxi Wool costs £8.95 and the pattern requires one skein of each colour. I know we don’t necessarily knit to save money, but I still think that nearly £20 just for the materials to make a hat is quite costly (although I did get two hats out of it). I’m not saying it’s not worth it – the yarn is beautiful and I’m really pleased with finished product – but not everybody wants to, or even can, spend that much.

So my plan from now on is to always find two different yarns that can be used for every project: a ‘save’ yarn and a ‘splurge’ yarn. In this case the Maxi Wool is the latter. If you want to ‘save’, however, I recommend Wendy Pampas, which I picked up for £4.50 per ball. Another bulky yarn, the gauge is marginally bigger than the the Erika Knight, so might require a smaller needle.

A 'selfie' of me looking happy in my new hat.
Photo by Idoru Knits.

This pattern will be available for free at some point in the future ...

Organisation - how am I doing?

Back in February I wrote a post about organising my time better. I wanted more time to do the things I enjoy, while getting on with things like cleaning; I had four areas I wanted to improve on: organisation, blogging, Spanish and designing. We're about halfway through the year (yes really), so how am I doing?

Errands is a great way to get organised.

1 An organised flat
Using an app called Errands, I've been planning my evenings so that I do a small amount of cleaning and tidying every day. This worked so well. My flat has been a joy to live in. My mum has come over a couple of times this year. Normally this would involve two or three days prior to her visit spent in frantic cleaning mode. Not this year. The flat was already clean and tidy.

2 Blogging
I've managed to stick to my schedule of three posts a week, with the only breaks being when I've been away and when I was ill. I'm happy with that. I know I could schedule blogs for when I'm away, but I really don't feel the need to.

3 Spanish
Yeah, totally failed on this one. I started off well – doing Mi Vida Loca on the BBC website once a week and with plans to sign up for the next language course offered by HALS (Haringey Adult Learning Services). But then I missed the enrollment date for the course and the rest just slipped. I will pick it up again, but probably not until at least September now.

4 Design
Another success! I've been designing for knitting and crochet and I've even managed to get a pattern published.

All in all I'm pretty pleased with myself. I've managed to hit three of my four goals, I'm a whole lot less stressed and I feel like my evenings are my own.

Sunday best

Best photo
The world’s first 14-loop rollercoaster, from @earth_p0rn. This is opening at Alton Towers soon. It’s been about 10 years since I last went to Alton Towers. Time for another visit methinks.

Best pin
This is Milan Cathedral, Italy. This church, or duomo in Italian, apparently took nearly six centuries to complete. The architecture is quite simply fantastic.

Best pattern
Ripple blanket. This is more of tutorial than an actual pattern - a how-to guide to creating a ripple pattern. But if you do enough you’ll end up with a blanket.

Best product
Vintage Royal Albert tea trio. I’ve got a collection of tea sets. It’s still only very small, but I’m planning on adding to it, and I absolutely adore this gorgeous little trio.

An update - the Comme Ca top

Things are going well on the Comme Ca crossover top, my most recent knitwear design. I’ve finished all the different elements – the back, the two fronts and the two cap sleeves. Everything is blocked apart from the sleeves.

So now I have a decision to make. Normally when I do a collar I sew one shoulder edge together and then pick up stitches around the whole neckline, creating a single collar with no join. To do this with the crossover top, I would have to pick up stitches all the way up one front, around the neckline of the back and all the down the second front. That’s a heck of a lot of stitches. Doing each piece separately, however, means joins in the collar.

My usual way of dealing with this would be to take my preferred option and just see how it goes. But in this case my preferred option is to do the collar in one go, and picking up all those stitches is going to be somewhat labour intensive. If it doesn’t work, and I suspect it won’t, that’s an awful lot of time wasted. Maybe a compromise would be to join one front to the back and do the collar as one piece then edge the second front and join it all together.

The edging still needs to be added to this.

Review: Apartment 16 by Adam Nevill

This was an intriguing book rather than an engaging one. It’s not the most original story – all the elements of a haunted house story are there. An old, exclusive apartment block in Kensington. A mysterious apartment that remains locked but from which strange sounds emanate. An evil presence that tortures the residents in both life and death. The ageing residents themselves, who guard a terrible secret that binds them together as it tears them apart.

It’s the treatment of these tropes that lifts the book. Art becomes both catalyst and reason for the ghostly (or even ghastly) goings-on in apartment 16. And there are enough twists and turns to keep you reading on. One character in particular seems to be innocuous but turns out to have a dark secret of their own.

Into this charged situation come Apryl, an American who has just inherited an apartment in the Barrington House and everything inside from her great aunt Lillian, whom she never knew, and Seth, an artist who has moved to London to pursue his dream of painting but ended up working the graveyard shift as night watchman at the block.

Apryl discovers the mystery of apartment 16 when reading her aunt’s increasingly confused journals and is determined to find out what happened. Seth is drawn to the rooms on his nightly rounds of the building and finds himself in deep over his head.

But it was these two characters that didn’t work for me. I found neither at all sympathetic. Apryl comes across as rather self-obsessed, while Seth is pathetic and self-pitying. I found myself not caring what happened to them, not caring whether they lived or died. What I did care about, though, was the mystery. I wanted to know what happened in apartment 16 and what still happening. I was intrigued about the real identity of the evil presence.

So, not a perfect book, but certainly a readable one.

The inaugural new Sunday Best

So here it is. The new-style Sunday Best. Enjoy.

Best photo
This was a difficult one. I follow a few accounts on Twitter that post the most amazing photos from around the world and it was hard choosing just one great image. This one of the Blue Dragon Odeleite river in Portugal, from @earthposts, won out because I love dragons. I’ve even got a Japanese one tattooed on my shoulder blade.

Best Pin
A four-layer cake with vanilla, caramel, chocolate-caramel and chocolate, complete with chocolate ganache topping. What’s not to like?

Best pattern
This Shimmering Shoulders shawl in Kidsilk Haze Glamour is gorgeous. The perfect summer evening cover-up for a posh garden party. The pattern is available free; just fill in the form for a copy.

Best product
The Utopa sofa. I suspect this is way, way out of my price range, but I love it anyway. It just looks so cosy. Who wouldn’t want to curl up right at the back with knitting and nice glass of wine?

Inventing a new kind of sleeve

One of the best things about design is figuring out how to do new things. The crossover top I’m making has got cap sleeves, something I’ve never knitted before. This meant some experimentation.

The sleeves have to be wide enough to cover my shoulders and the tops of my arms, but also shorter than the length of the armhole, otherwise they’re just short set-in sleeves. They also have to decrease properly so they can be sewn into the armholes. I had to work out how many stitches I’d need to make the sleeves the right width and length with the right amount of decreasing so that it would all fit together.

First attempt. The straight edge (right) was to
be sewn into the armhole; the curved edge (left)
wouldthen form the sleeve. It doesn't look
like much, but with a ribbed cuff on the curved
edge it did look good. Just not right for this project.

My first attempt was completely wrong. I tried doing them sideways. So I cast on two stitches and increased along one edge until I was about halfway across and then decreased back down to two stitches. The idea being that I would sew the straight edge into the armhole. But the finished piece wasn’t long enough. It looks nice, just not right for this item of clothing. It’s certainly something I can try to incorporate into another design.

So my second attempt I did in the more traditional manner – starting at the cuff. For this I went back to the original item and measured the width of the sleeve. Then I cast on the right number of stitches to achieve that width and started knitting. Again this took a bit of experimenting with how long to knit in straight stocking stitch before starting the decreases, how many decreases to do and where to do them and so on, but I soon managed to create a cap sleeve that looks to be the perfect size and shape. Now I just have to make the other one.

Second attempt. This one seems to fit perfectly in the armhole
gap and appears to be the right size and shape.
I'm going to add a 1x1 ribbed cuff and then it's done.

A Scottish Sojourn

No 'proper' blog post today as I spent the weekend in Scotland. This was my first-ever visit to the country, which is shocking really as I used to go up to Northumberland two or three times a year when I was younger. You'd think at one point our parents would have taken us across the border.

I travelled up with my mum. We stayed in the village of Tomintoul in the Glenavon Hotel. The point of the visit was to see Black Grouse and Osprey, and we got both, so we were very happy. There were also bonus Red Grouse, Eurasian Curlew, Oystercatcher and tiny Northern Lapwing chicks. Mammals seen were Red and Roe Deer and Red Squirrel.

I'll be writing up a full report for the Birdwatch website and post a link on here.

Sunday Best - a new direction

Just a short post today. When I first started doing Sunday Best posts the idea was to find cool stuff from around the interwebz, but I’ve realised it’s very quickly turned into a list of stuff that you can buy from Folksy or Etsy, which isn’t the point at all.

To fix this I’m introducing a new, more structured approach. Each week I’ll have a series of ‘Bests’ which I’ll have found over the internet, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. These will be Best Picture, Best Pattern, Best Pin and Best Product. Hopefully this will make these posts altogether more interesting and useful.

The new approach will begin a week on Sunday, as this weekend I shall be in Scotland looking for Black Grouse and Osprey.

New crochet design

In progress. Single rounds of treble crochet form
the thin rounds and double rounds of the same
stitch make up the thick rounds.

I’ve just embarked on a new crochet blanket design. The pattern was inspired by the print on a duvet cover glimpsed on TV show Murderland. It’s a series of concentric circles of differing thicknesses in white, pink and red.

I’ve figured out how to make the circle, working the right number of increases to create a flat piece that won’t curl up. I tried out several versions to get the right look. First using a quadruple crochet stitch combined with double crochet to make the different thicknesses, but finally deciding on using just treble crochet, but one row in a single colour for the thin circles and two rows for the thick ones.

Working out the increases proved problematic. I searched for advice, which said to increase by the number of stitches in the first round, so if you crochet 12 stitches into the foundation circle, then you increase by 12 on every other round. But I decided to ignore this and try random numbers of increases. Turns out that I should have just followed that formula. You live and learn.

The plan now is to make lots of circles, alternating the pink and red rounds, and then crochet them into squares and join the squares to make a blanket. I might then border the whole thing with smaller circles in squares, again alternating the pink and red.

Two finished circles. Now I just have to figure out how to
make them into squares so they can be joined.

Making money from your knitting

Last week I concluded that it’s probably best to not try to make money by selling your knitted products. But of course that isn’t the full story. So how might you go about making your knitting pay?

1 Sell your patterns
The best way to make money is to design and sell your own patterns. There are lots of knitting and crochet magazines in the UK and more across Europe and in the US. There are also online magazines, but beware of these as a lot of websites don’t pay.

You’ll need to be able to write your patterns in a clear and concise way, so you’ll need to be very familiar with the standard abbreviations and knitting ‘language’. Different magazines will probably have different conventions so it’s worth getting style guides from them all. Email commissioning or technical editors and find out what each magazine looks for in a pattern and then try to match your skills to that.

The growth of self-publishing means that you can even publish your own pattern books for a fraction of the cost of a traditional book. eBooks are great – a whole pattern book that is conveniently stored on your phone or tablet. But keep quality in mind. If you can’t provide decent, colour photos and well-written copy then this might be one to avoid.

2 Knit small things
The big problem with selling knitted items is the time it takes to make anything. This isn’t the case with, for example, baby booties and hats. Make a matching set, put them all in a tissue-paper-filled box and, hey presto, you’ve got a saleable item! If you then manage to build a reputation for high-quality knitted babywear, you’ll soon be able to charge more for bigger or more complicated items like blankets or clothing.

This cute hat and bootie set hardly took
any time at all to make.

3 Knit for other people
Designers need pattern testers. You’ll need to be fast and highly skilled, but if you think you fit the bill then try contacting some designers to see how much they pay and how much knitting is expected of you.

4 Write about knitting
If you can write, you can make money by providing copy for knitting or crochet magazines. I work on a birding magazine and we get unsolicited feature ideas all the time. Good ones make it into the magazine. You’ve got nothing to lose, so why not jot down some ideas and email all the relevant publications.

How to get free patterns

If you’re anything like me, your pattern book/magazine stash takes up at least as much room as your yarn stash. The cost of all those books and magazines soon adds up. I’ve stopped buying magazines and I generally only get books as presents these days. But there are some ways to source great free patterns.

1 Ravelry
Ravelry is a fantastic site for free patterns. The search facility is excellent, really easy to use and with lots of search terms so you can find exactly what you want. You can also request that only free patterns are displayed, so you don’t have to wade through lots of paid-for ones. This is the search function that every pattern site’s search facility should be judged by. Ravelry should be your go-to place for freebies.

2 Yarn suppliers
These will often provide free patterns to support their yarns. Red Heart is particularly good, with 2,005 free knitting and crochet pattens at the time of writing. Red Heart yarns aren’t available in the UK, but you can usually substitute with something suitable. Designer Yarns (stockists of Debbie Bliss, Noro, Louisa Harding and more) also offers lots of free patterns.

Red Heart's Octagons & Squares Crochet Throw
is a gorgeous free pattern.

3 Craft blogs
Bloggers can be a great resource for free patterns. Established designers will often publicise a new range by offering a free pattern, and you can get hold of patterns by such well-known names as Debbie Bliss. It’s worth following budding designers too, as these will offer free patterns to help get their name out there.

4 Vintage
In the UK, copyright expires after 70 years, so any patterns from before 1943 are copyright free. It’s worth searching for old patterns to see what you can find. This doesn’t mean that all vintage patterns you find on the internet will be free. People can charge what they want for vintage patterns they’re offering on their websites. It does mean, however, that you should always check whether you can download a pattern for free before you part with any cash.

Keep an eye out for pattern books in charity shops too. These won’t be free, obviously, but you can pick up some great bargains.

5 Design your own
This is by far the most fun way of getting free patterns, in my opinion. You also learn lots of new techniques, improve your knitting and end up with a garment that’s totally unique, totally your style and fits perfectly.

This Union Jack iPhone cover is one of several covers I've designed.

Sunday Best - Pretty and practical

"Never have anything in your house that you do not know to useful or believe to be beautiful," said William Morris. Well, this Sunday Best is all about things that are both.

Pink Polka Dot passport cover
Passports are such dull things. They should all be given a makeover with one of these.

Fabric-covered boxes
This is a great idea - a tutorial on how to cover boring cardboard boxes with gorgeous fabrics.

Madeline handmade bag
This is ultra-cute and would make a great evening bag.

Applique Pastel Rainbow on Linen purse
A lovely little coin purse that would surely match perfectly with the Madeline bag!

Just a short one this month. The photos all remain the property of the original photographers; please click the links for more information. And if anyone attempts the box-covering tutorial, do let me know!

How to charge for hand-knitted items

This is something I’ve been thinking about ever since agreeing to knit a baby cardie for a friend to give to a colleague of hers. At the time we agreed she would pay for the materials and buy me dinner, and we’re both happy with that. But I'm not sure if I'll knit any more requests. This doesn’t mean no presents, of course, I love knitting presents.

The bad news is that there is no tried and tested way of setting a fair price for your knitted items. It depends on the materials used, the time taken and how much value you put on your skills, and all of these things can vary by knitter and project. In fact an internet search revealed that discussions on this can get rather heated, with some knitters accusing others of devaluing all knitters by not charging enough.

What are others charging?
So how to arrive at a fair price for your knitted goods? First, a trip to Folksy. A search for ‘hand knitted blanket’ results in two pages of blankets. One of the cheapest I could find was a crib blanket at £11.50. Even in acrylic and quite small – it measures 64x70cm – that can barely have covered the cost of the yarn. This knitter, it would seem, places no value on her or his time and skills. That’s their choice, but it does make difficult for anyone trying to make money from their knits.

At the other end of the scale is the Glen Nevis blanket. Measuring 132x137cm and made from 70% acrylic, 20% alpaca and 10% wool, it costs £160. This blanket is around twice the size of the former, but it costs nearly 14 times as much. This is a knitter who values her time! But do people really pay that much for a blanket?

The method
One easy formula is add up the cost of materials, labour (ie your time), overheads and any profit you want to make. This is the wholesale cost. Multiply by two to get your retail price.

Let’s pretend I was going to sell the baby cardie. Please note that you’re not actually allowed to make a profit using someone else’s pattern; you can only charge for your time and the materials. I’m just using this as an example.

It's a nice cardie, but how much is it really worth?

The materials came to £20, there were no overheads, but this could include things like postage stamps and envelopes, rent, machinery and so on. Time was 25 hours. The only advice I could find on what to charge for your time was to ensure you don’t go below minimum wage, which is £6.19 in the UK. That works out at £154.75. So even without adding in any profit, the retail price (ie the materials and labour multiplied by two) is nearly £350. That’s somewhat overpriced for a cardie, especially when you can get one from Next for £8.

Another method is to ask for three or four times the cost of the materials, but even so this would be £60 or £80. Is that a fair price for something so small that will probably only be used for three months? Probably not. On the other hand, if we take a price of £80, subtracting £20 for the materials, this gives an hourly rate of £2.40. Is that a fair price for someone’s time and effort? Again, probably not.

It would seem that the best advice I could give to someone who wants to start knitting for a living would be: don’t do it!

Projects finished and projects in hand

Blogging has been suspended recently for reasons of illness and being in Portugal for work. Knitting, however, most definitely hasn’t. So here’s what I’ve been up to.

First, I finished the sample for Knit Now magazine and managed to send it off in time to meet the deadline. I will of course let you all know when the magazine is in the shops.

I also completed the baby cardie commissioned by a friend. She was very happy with the finished product and I hope the final recipient will be too. I made this in Rico Superwash Merino, a lovely soft yarn that’s (the clue’s in the name) machine washable – a somewhat important consideration when it comes to baby clothes. I also made a baby hat using the leftover yarn.

Hat and cardie. The buttons are tiny blue teddies.

This swatched up slightly bigger than the recommended Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, even knitted on 3.75mm needles rather than the suggested 4mm. But I figured it wouldn’t really matter if the finished piece was a bit bigger than anticipated. The baby will grow into it after all. I actually much preferred the tension achieved with the smaller needle. I think the Superwash tends to knit up a bit too loosely on 4mm needles. So an experiment that paid off.

Finally I’ve been knitting Champs-Elyssees handwarmers for my niece. These were meant to be for her birthday which was last week, so I’ve missed that. Oh well. This is really quite complicated lace pattern, which has been a lot of fun to do but I have made several mistakes and had to undo it a few times. On the plus side I’ve learnt how to make a thumb hole using M1 increases. This is the benefit of following other people’s patterns – you learn new stuff.

This is just the first handwarmer. I've still got number
two to make.

 All photos my own.

The Time Machine by HG Wells

I’ve been finding it difficult to review this book. Maybe because it’s so well known, or maybe because I wasn’t that impressed with it.

It’s the story of the Time Traveller – we don’t learn his name – told by a friend of his. The Time Traveller invents a time machine and travels forward many millennia into Earth’s future.

This is a surprisingly short book and one rather thin on, well, everything – plot, exposition, characters...

It started well, with an interesting discussion on the meaning of time that reminded me of Bergson’s Creative Evolution. The dinner party setting was good fun and later on the Traveller’s own explanation of time travel was well done. However, his relationship with the Eloi girl Weena left me feeling decidedly uncomfortable and his blythely leading her to her death was irresponsible and possibly immoral.

The devolution of the human race was never properly explained. Why would humanity split in two in such a way? Why are the underground-dwelling Morlocks immediately assumed to be evil? Why would they hide his time machine? There’s also a very disturbing implication that the worker-humans (who eventually become the Morlocks) of the Time Traveller’s imagined future are inferior to the rich, refined humans how end up as Eloi.

In short, too many questions were left unanswered for me to really enjoy this book. The title was downloaded for free from Amazon via @FreebooksUK.

How to read more and pay less

The coming of the Kindle and other eReaders prompted predictions of the imminent death of publishing. Predictably, this didn’t happen, and in fact most people I know who have Kindles are reading more than ever – I certainly am.

There are also many more books out there to choose from. eReaders have led to a veritable explosion in self-publishing. Of course this does mean there’s a lot more dross to wade through, but it also means there are lots and lots more diamonds to find.

I’m a huge fan of my Kindle. I love that I can finish a book in a series and in seconds be reading the next one. I love that there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of out-of-copyright books that can be downloaded for free. I love that self-publishing is opening up new avenues for both writers and readers. And I love that reading all those books doesn’t have to cost a fortune.

Twitter
Are you on Twitter? Then get following @FreebooksUK. This feed tracks and lists free ebooks on Amazon. Follow the link, read the synopsis and if you’re interested download it for free.

A lot of these books are by indie authors or the first in a series. So if you enjoy the book, repay the author by buying the next one or by rating the book on Goodreads or Amazon. Writing a short review is even better.

Another good source of cheap books is @eBookDailyUK. This account tracks reduced price and occasionally free titles on Amazon. Unlike FreebooksUK, it often includes bestsellers.

Project Gutenberg
This project is really quite amazing – tens of thousands of free books that have been digitised by an army of volunteers and uploaded so that you can download and read them. All the book here are out of copyright, so it’s a great source for classics.

If you use the resource often you might want to consider donating or volunteering some of your time.

Amazon
Of course Amazon itself is a great resource, with books for £2.99 or less, as well as seasonal sales.

So there's my tips for some ways to get hold of cheap and free books. What resources do you use?

Sunday best - throws and afghans

Granny square bed throw
I have big plans to make a throw like this. In fact I’ve saved hundreds of odds and ends of yarn so that I can make them all into a massive granny square throw. Buying one would be easier.

Granny square bed throw by Janice Anita Bullen, from Folksy.

Daisy meadow blanket
This daisy blanket is adorable and would make a lovely present for a baby girl.

Daisy meadow blanket by Claire Davenport, from Folksy.

Blackberry salad striped afghan
For obvious reasons I prefer blankets I can make to blankets I can buy. This textured crochet afghan is lovely.

Blackberry salad striped afghan by Tamara Kelly, from Ravelry.

Octagon and Squares throw
I first saw this on The Crochet Crowd Facebook page. Take a look at the photos to see how changing colours can make a huge difference to the same pattern.

Octagon and squares throw by Red Heart.

Circles and squares throw No pic of this one, and no link either. This is a blanket I’m planning to design, based on a pattern I saw on a TV show – watch this space!