Sunday 14 December 2014

Rainbow blanket

Despite having several projects ongoing, I decided to start a new crochet blanket. It is winter after all, and you can never have too many blankets


Given that I’ve already got three projects on the go, it probably wasn’t the best idea to start another one. But I bought some Ice acrylic yarn via a Facebook Group, wool for sale, and felt inspired to crochet a blanket. There are eight balls of wool, each a different colour and varigated, so the idea was to make a rainbow blanket.

Magic Light from Ice Yarns in rainbow colours.

I knew I wanted to create the blanket using crochet squares, using two or three different styles. The main square would be very plain to make the most of the varigated colours; the other squares would be lacy and there would be two per row. So I headed over to Ravelry and started searching. I quickly found three free patterns that exactly fitted what I wanted.

A couple of weekends ago The Chap and I went to Edinburgh for a long weekend, so I packed the patterns, a ball of yarn and my trusty crochet hook. First things first, I needed a sample of each square to see if they were the same size, or at least could be made to be the same size. And that’s when things started to go wrong.

Locutus.

I started on the first square, Veolias Mormorsruta. It soon became clear that the pattern was impossible to follow. It’s translated into English from Swedish, but I don’t think the translation is the problem. The pattern reads much like a technical challenge from Great British Bake-off: I’ve got the materials needed and some basic instructions, but half of it seems to be missing. I couldn’t work out what to do by studying the photo, and even checking Ravelry didn’t turn up any errata.
The pattern reads much like a technical challenge from Great British Bake-off: I’ve got the materials needed and some basic instructions, but half of it seems to be missing
So I had to move on to the next square, Locutus. This was much easier – I couldn't follow a couple of the instructions, but happilty I could work out what I was supposed to do by looking at the photo. The final square was a simple, solid granny square. So having made a couple of samples of Locutus, all I had to do was work out how many rounds were required to make the solid square the same size. Turns out it was eight rounds of treble crochet with a final round of double. Simple.

Solid granny square.

One ball of the Ice yarn will produce two Locutus squares and five solid ones. This should give me a blanket that’s about 130cm wide. With eight balls of wool, each in a different colour, it should be about 150cm long. So a nice size and when it’s done it’ll be perfect for wrapping around me when it’s cold.

Wednesday 26 November 2014

All sewn up: Sirdar hooded baby jacket

I’ve got several projects on the needles at the moment, so it’s been nice to finish this one off




I have finished the Sirdar baby jacket I’ve been knitting for the past few months, and I think it’s looking good.

The finished article. I really like the way this has turned out.

I really like the way the yarn has knitted up. The speckle effect works really well and the yarn is super soft (read my full yarn review), so ideal for baby clothes. This is the first time I’ve used this yarn and I’m pretty impressed, although it did get rather splitty when reknitting after having undone a few rows.

I really enjoy learning new techniques, and this pattern involved two novel things for me: making a hood and raglan sleeves. The former was great. Hoods are so easy! This is good because I want to make a Little Red Riding Hood cabled cape with a hood. So now I should be able to work out how to make one in the right size.

Overall I really like the finished piece, but I’m concerned about the size – I just hope the recipient gets some wear out of it
It’s really just a case of casting on sufficient stitches for it to go all the way round your head, knitting until it’s the right height, casting off a third of the stitches, working a third and then casting off the remaining third. You re-attach the yarn to the remaining stitches, and continue working on them until the piece is deep enough to cover your head. This forms the top of the hood.

Hood detail. Photos by Idoru Knits.

The raglan sleeves, on the other hand, were a bit more tricky. This was down to different tensions, and is explained in more detail here. But after a few attempts I got it right and they look OK. I’m also pretty impressed with my seaming. It’s so neat.

Overall I really like the finished piece. But I’m concerned about the size. I made the 6-12 months version and it matches the measurements given. In fact if anything it’s a few milimetres over. But it seems really small. I know babies are small, but they do grow quite a bit in their first year and I just don’t know if this will fit. But there’s not much I can do about that now. I just hope the recipient gets some wear out of it. And that both mother and baby like it.

Wednesday 15 October 2014

Update: where's my knits at?

A look at the projects I’m currently working on




I’m working on four projects at the moment, two of which have been on the back burner for a while. Here’s where I’m up to.

Baby jacket
It might look a bit like a spider, but it's actually a baby jacket.
This is what I’ve been working on most recently. It’s not going so well. As it’s a jacket there are five separate pieces: the back, two fronts and two sleeves. So far all five pieces are different lengths, and I’m not convinced any of them are the right length. It also seems a bit small. I’m making the 6-12 months size and it fits the measurements given, but it’s very little. But then I guess babies are still little at that age. I’ve checked out some sizing charts and compared it to baby clothes in BHS, and it seems to be the right size.

The different length pieces are more problematic. I’m not really happy with any of them, and while it’s possible I could fix them with blocking, I don’t really want to do that. Which means I’m going to have to undo them all and reknit them to make them the right length.

This is a lesson on why gauge is so important, and how difficult it can be to achieve. I did, of course, do a swatch before starting the jacket and the problem I had was that my tension was spot on widthways (number of stitches), but different lengthways (number of rows). So I had the exact number of stitches in my 10cm square, but too many rows (32 instead of 28). I don’t actually know how to fix this. If I upped the needle size then my stitches would no longer have worked, but if I don’t then my rows don’t work.

Usually the number of stitches is far more important than the rows – if your rows are too tight, like mine, then you simply knit more, if they’re too loose, then you knit fewer, you lucky thing. But this particular piece has raglan sleeves, so needs a nice even decrease along all the separate sections. This means the number of rows knitted becomes rather significant. All I could think of doing was to add in a few rows at regular intervals where I don’t decrease in order to make the raglans longer but still even. The problem with this is that I pretty much had to guess how many extra rows would be needed. My first guess was clearly wrong and the pieces were too short. So now I need to undo them all right to the beginning of the raglan shaping and add in a couple of extra extra rows.

Jane Deep V sweater
The back of my Jane Deep V sweater.
I'm pretty much up to the neck shaping.
This is one of my own designs that’s been languishing. I’ve completed the front but I’ve kind of got stuck on the back. I gave up on it for a while after having to undo about 30cm having found a mistake. I could have left it, I guess, but that’s just not the way I do things. I was right up to the neck shaping and had to undo it almost to the start. It was pretty demoralising.

The back is a simple stocking stitch, though, so reknitting won’t take too long and I have already completed a significant chunk of it. This does raise an interesting question though. I could easily have left this mistake. I had k2tog where I should simply have knitted. I was one stitch out. One. If I was using a chunky yarn that one stitch might have made a difference, but I’m knitting with 4-ply. All I had to do was decrease by one fewer stitch than I’d expected to at the neckline and it all would have been fine. So is it best just leave such mistakes or should you go back and correct them?


I shall take the finished blanket on many sunny, champagne-fuelled picnics
I always do the latter. I hate knowing there’s something wrong in my knitting. But this is time consuming and can be really quite demoralising if I’ve knitted a lot after having made the mistake. It would surely be better for my sanity if I were to leave such mistakes, but I just don’t think I’ll ever be that person.

Dress
The back of my dress. It hasn't got a name yet.
I started this ages ago and shelved it in favour of other projects. It’s another of designs and I’ve actually done quite a lot. The front is finished and the back is nearly there. So then it’s just the sleeves. The plan is to do full-length bell sleeves (ones that flare out towards the bottom), or ‘wizard sleeves’, as one of my friends calls them, because wizards’ robes always have flared sleeves. I do love this style of sleeve, although it’s not totally practical when eating soup. I guess wizards don’t eat much soup.











Picnic blanket
Picnic blanket. This will be 2 metres long when finished.
It's going to take some time.
This is the only crochet project I’ve currently got on the go. I started it around the beginning of summer, knowing that it would take ages to complete. As there are so many different colours, it’s not the most portable of projects, but I did take it to Sardinia in June and managed to do quite a bit of work on it then. It’s something that I can easily pick up and put down and I’m planning on having it ready for next summer, when I shall, of course, take it on many sunny, champagne-fuelled picnics.

Postscript
Since writing this, I’ve taken out the Jane sweater and managed to knit right back up to the the neck shaping while on a nice weekend trip to Cambridge. Yay for quiet weekends with the parents!

I’ve also undone and reknitted all the separate pieces for the baby jacket and am now adding the ribbed borders to the two fronts.

Monday 15 September 2014

Review: Sirdar Snuggly Baby Speckle

It's being used for a boy’s baby jacket, but how will this super-soft baby yarn measure up?




First impressions
This is an incredibly light-feeling, soft yarn, with an almost velvety handle. I really like the colour – I don’t usually go for green but this works well. I bought the yarn online which always makes colour choice difficult, and as this is for a boy's baby jacket, I wanted to avoid the old ‘blue for a boy’ cliche. The speckle effect is also nice. The twist appears tight. This yarn should knit up well.

In use
This is a really nice yarn to knit with. The addition of acrylic gives a tiny bit of stretch and it’s tight enough that there’s no splitting. I’ve had to undo a few rows and found this easy – the yarn doesn’t ‘stick’ the way some do.
The speckle effect on a child’s jacket is fun and a nice way of introducing a bit of colour
Knitted up, the speckle effect is lovely. It’s really quite random, creating a result that resembles sploshes of paint flicked over a cream fabric. I can imagine that this might be too much on an adult garment, but on a child’s jacket it’s fun and a nice way of introducing a bit of colour.

Conclusion
Beautifully soft and fun to knit with, it’s a great baby yarn and machine washable, too. It would probably work well for blankets, but I’m not sure it would be suitable for grown up clothes.


Yarn spec


Double knit 50g 135m 60% cotton/40% acrylic 28 rows x 22 sts in 10cm square 

4mm needle, 4mm crochet hook Colourway: Moss RRP: £4

Wednesday 30 July 2014

How to: substitute yarn

Yarns can be costly, but with a little practice it’s easy to find cheaper alternatives




Patterns generally tell you which yarn to use. This is especially true of free patterns from companies such as Rowan, Red Heart or Designer Yarns, which are giving away the pattern in the hope that you'll buy the yarn. The latter is often much more costly than the former so it makes good business sense.

Yarn, some yarn at least, can be extremely expensive. Debbie Bliss, Louisa Harding and Noro yarns, for example, are gorgeous – but you pay for that gorgeousness. Rowan is one of my particular bugbears. The company's yarns are expensive, but I've never seen anything particularly special about them. This is just my opinion, of course, and I'm sure there are plenty of knitters out there who love Rowan's yarns. I'm just not one of them.

The big secret here, known by all experienced knitters, is that you don't have to use the suggested yarn. It's one of those things that tends to make me a bit cross, because the less experienced knitter is the least likely to experiment with different yarns, not understanding that many of them will perform just as well as the one given in a pattern.
If I'd insisted on using this silk despite the pattern advising me otherwise then this would have been my own fault; but no, this was the yarn suggested
I made my first-ever big project in mulberry silk. This gorgeous, soft, iridescent yarn set me back a good 50 quid in total. The project was a disaster. The pattern was badly written and I didn't have the knowledge to recognise that, so I slavishly followed it to the bitter end. I wore the resulting T-shirt a handful of times and then donated it to a local charity shop. I don't know what happened to it after that, although I never saw it in the shop. Really it was nothing more than an expensive lesson: make your first few projects in acrylic, or at least cheap wool.

If I'd insisted on using this silk despite the pattern advising me otherwise then this would have been my own fault. But no, this was the yarn suggested. In a magazine aimed at beginners and a pattern slated as being an ideal starter pattern. As someone who would like to be able to describe themselves as a designer I would never suggest silk in a beginner pattern. It's just too expensive. I'd also never suggest Rowan's Kidsilk Haze, for example. It's a beautiful yarn, but so hard to work with. Alpaca is also completely inappropriate – it costs too much.

But this doesn't mean that new knitters – or indeed those on a budget – should give up. Substituting yarn is actually very easy, if you know what you're doing.

Quality control
The first thing to understand is that different yarns behave in different ways. From the point of view of knitting, wool and acrylic are pretty much interchangeable. But in use, wool is very warm, breathable and moisture wicking in ways that acrylic can't mimic; this is especially true of merino. So consider how your finished project is going to be used. A lot of winter cycling jerseys are made from merino (or at least a merino blend) because of this material's qualities. An acrylic cycling jersey would be itchy, sweaty and uncomfortable. But a winter sweater will be fine in acrylic.

A good compromise is a wool/acrylic mix. These will be much cheaper than a pure wool; they're also very easy to knit with so ideal for a beginner.

Cotton is a very difficult yarn to switch. It's tough and hardwearing, it's warm in winter and cooling in summer. It also gives exceptional stitch definition. Neither wool nor acrylic can really match it, so your best bet is to find a cheaper manufacturer. This is eminently possible.

I recently found a free pattern for a stunning picnic blanket. It was a Rowan pattern and if I'd used the yarn suggested it would have cost more than £200. Given that I could buy a picnic blanket from Primark for about a fiver, that's rather expensive. So instead I went to my favourite substitute manufacturer: Rico. This German yarnmaker creates lovely yarns at a fraction of the cost of many other companies. Wherever possible I use Rico yarns instead of Rowan or Debbie Bliss. Using Rico Essentials Cotton I saved more than £100.

Again, using a mix would have saved me even more. An acrylic/cotton mix would have had all the properties of cotton but cost much less. It's also a good way to illustrate my frustration with Rowan. The manufacturer does a very nice mix called All Seasons Cotton, but then so does James C Brett, Cotton On. The latter is less than half the cost (around £2 per ball) of the former (around £5).

Can you tell the difference? The one on the left is James C Brett's
On Cotton. It costs £2 per ball and is a cotton/acrylic mix.
On the right is Rowan's All Seasons Cotton.
Another cotton/acrylic mix, it costs about £5.

Some yarns you simply can't match. Silk and linen would examples of these. This doesn't mean you can't substitute them. It just means you have to accept that you're going to lose the qualities of these yarns. Silk, for example, is wonderfully light and iridescent. It's a beautiful yarn to work with and I've never found a man-made substitute that comes close, though several acrylics try. A shawl made in this material will have certain properties that the same shawl made in wool won't have. But this doesn't mean that the wool shawl – or even an acrylic one – won't be as lovely as the silk one.

Tension headache
Pretty much the most important thing to remember when substituting yarn is tension. All patterns should give a gauge. This will be the number of stitches/rows per 10cm using the yarn and needle size suggested. You'll then be advised to use a smaller or larger needle – depending on the tightness of your tension – to achieve that gauge.

Gauge is a very personal thing and will depend on what type of knitter you are. If you knit tightly then your gauge will will smaller than average; if you knit loosely it will be larger. Changing needle size is one way of adjusting this. So if you tend to knit loosely, changing down a needle size from that suggested (for example from 4.5mm to 4mm) could result in the right tension. Conversely, if you knit tightly go up a needle size – or even two if need be.

The other option is to change the thickness (known as weight) of the yarn. Maybe try a 4-ply instead of double knit if you knit particularly loosely. This choice actually isn't the best. Changing the weight of the yarn will change the look of the final project much more than changing the size of the needle. This option works better for items like blankets in which the final size isn't that crucial.

When substituting a yarn you should always read the ball band. This will give you the suggested needle size and gauge. Keep in mind that this might not be the same as that given in the pattern as a designer might be trying to achieve a certain look that requires a tighter or looser tension. However, matching the information given on the ball band as closely as possible will help you achieve the gauge in the pattern, even if you do need to adjust your needle size.

You should always make a tension square, but this is
especially true when substituting yarns.
Remember to block your square, too.

With things like blankets and shawls gauge isn't that important, and I recently bought a chunky yarn to make a blanket that called for an aran. I'll just use the needle size given on the ball band and won't bother with a tension square – in this case I know what I've got will be much bigger than the size given. But it's a blanket so it really doesn't matter. Think about it: who's going to argue with getting a bigger blanket?

This isn't true of items of clothing, which we want to fit properly. In this case, you need to make sure that your alternative yarn has the same gauge.

Let's assume that you're making an item of clothing for which the sizing is important: a jumper that you want to fit. The sweater is made in a 4-ply alpaca yarn. This is really quite expensive and making it would set you back more than £50 – much more than buying something similar in Marks and Sparks. So you want to make the project in acrylic or lamb's wool. Neither of these materials will exactly mimic the properties of alpaca, which is famously lightweight, moisture wicking, warm in cool temperatures and cool in warm.

These properties aren't significant, though, and you just want to make a nice sweater. The first thing to do is look at all the 4-ply yarns available to you. A little practice will make you better at this. For example, if the pattern calls for alpaca, it only takes a few attempts to realise that cotton won't make a good substitute. So once you've discounted anything that won't work you can look at those that might. For this project you should be looking for a pure wool that comes up with a similar gauge on a similar needle size. The rest can be adjusted using different needle sizes.

Thursday 17 July 2014

In your lace

I’ve had to give up on the idea of a wedding ring shawl, but I’ve found something that could be even better




A few weeks ago I wrote about a wedding ring shawl I’d like to knit. Unfortunately the site still isn’t taking orders, and so far both my emails have gone unanswered and no updates have been posted. So I’ve abandoned the idea of getting hold of this pattern.
Pull quote
I’ve queued up two of Beatrice’s patterns, both very beautiful, very complicated Estonian lace shawls
I still want to make a really complicated lace shawl, though, so last night I did a spot of Ravelling. I found some fantastic patterns by Beatrice Olsson. She’s got loads of really stunning lace patterns, so do check her out. I also discovered an option that I wasn’t aware of before. Did you know you can ‘favourite’ designers on Ravelry? This is really useful and whenever I find designers I like I’m going to fave them.

I’ve queued up two of Beatrice’s patterns, both very beautiful, very complicated Estonian lace shawls: Estonian Jewel and Ligonberry Leaf Triangle. At $10 each they’re a lot cheaper than the wedding ring shawl pattern. So much so in fact that I could buy both and still pay less. In fact I spent a lot of time umming and ahhing over which to purchase and then decided that actually I don’t need to choose – I’ll get both. So I did.

This raw silk yarn from Habu Textiles has
been waiting for the perfect project,
and I think either of the two shawls
 would be ideal. Photo by Idoru Knits.
I even have what I think will be the perfect yarn: Tsumugi Silk by Habu Textiles. This 2-ply silk yarn has been sitting in my stash for years. I bought the three skeins on a whim because they were in the sale (I do that a lot), but didn't have a clue what I would use them for. Now I feel either of Beatrice's patterns would be ideal. I've not cast on yet, as I've still got some other things to progress, but I will be starting this soon.

Tuesday 1 July 2014

Review: Aeon’s Gate trilogy by Sam Sykes

I’m impressed with this debut trilogy from a new fantasy author




I’m always on the look out for good new fantasy – new to me, anyway. Twitter has turned out to be an excellent source for this. I believe I found Sam Sykes having followed Joe Abercrombie. Sykes is very entertaining on Twitter and I felt it was only fair to buy one of his books. So I did.

The first book in the trilogy, Tome of the Undergates, starts with a 200+ page sea battle with pirates. That’s either awful or awesome depending on your point of view, and I thought it was awesome. Being thrown right into the action like that isn’t something I’ve experienced before. Usually battles come after the characters have been introduced, when we know who to cheer for. Managing to make the reader care about characters we’ve only just met is hard, and here you do kinda care. Even more difficult is keeping the reader invested even after those characters have been revealed to be a bunch of scumbags and villains.

This opening is intriguing. We don’t know why the characters are fighting pirates, why they’re at sea, or even who our main cast is. All this information is revealed slowly, keeping interest high. Our intrepid gang comprises Lenk, the leader, Kataria, Dreadalion, Gariath, Asper and Denaos. In many ways they are the ideal AD&D group – leader, warrior, mage, barbarian, cleric and thief.

Tome, as the name implies is about a book. The kind that if it falls into the wrong hands Very Bad Things will happen. It’s our group of adventurers’ job to ensure that doesn’t happen. Not because it’s the right thing to do, but rather because they’re being paid very good money. Our gang is not heroic or noble, with the possible exception of Lenk, who at least tries. And yet you still root for them. This may be because they’re real. They’re flawed, they’re vulnerable, they’re petty, they have secrets, they’ve made mistakes and they want to atone for them, some of them have done terrible things, some of them are going to do terrible things. In short, they’re human. Even the ones that aren’t.

My dad’s comment pretty much summed the books up: “They’re good, really good, but they’re so weird”

The other two books in the trilogy are Black Halo and The Skybound Sea. I’m not going to attempt to a precis of each of them – read them, they’re great. Each book comes to a proper conclusion, but the story continues throughout.

The books are incredibly inventive. Sykes has created whole new races, complete with history, culture, beliefs and so on. The writing is stunning; by turns funny, exciting, gross, beautiful, moving, violent, disgusting and more. The final book ends with a great twist, presumably setting up Sykes’s next book, A City Stained Red, which he is working on right now. When he’s not on Twitter.

I genuinely loved these books. I even insisted my dad read them, and I never do that. His comment pretty much summed them up: “They’re good, really good, but they’re so weird.” I’d take that as a compliment.

Tuesday 17 June 2014

My best friend’s wedding

My best friend is getting hitched, and I want to make her something. A stunning Shetland wedding ring shawl would be just the thing



The wedding ring shawl is an incredibly
intricate piece that is likely to take a long
time to complete.
My best friend is getting married in July. This is pretty special news. We’ve known each other for more than 13 years, helped each other through some pretty tough times and laughed and partied through some really good times. On a more political note, she’s gay, so this is the first time in history in this country that she’s been able to legally marry the person she loves. This is something we straight people have taken for granted for centuries and I actually well up thinking about how long it’s taken for equality to win out.

But this post isn’t about inequality and homophobia; instead it’s going to be about something much nicer: wedding presents. The Chap and I already bought the happy couple their ‘proper’ present – a trip to a dolphin research centre in the United States. But, as a crafter, I want to make something too.

I’m absolutely fascinated by the Shetland wedding ring shawls. These gorgeous, intricate lacework pieces are said to be so fine they can pass through a wedding ring. They are absolutely stunning, and one of the best examples I’ve been able to find is available from Heirloom Knitting.

These shawls are not for the faint hearted. This project is described as being for “the ultra-skilled knitter[, it] requires time, concentration and patience”. The wedding is in July, so, based on that description, I’m pretty sure I won’t have the shawl finished in time – especially as I haven’t even bought the pattern yet, and at the moment I can’t. Due to illness, the guys at Heirloom Knitting are taking a break and the site is closed to orders. I’ve emailed to ask when it might be open, but that’s something of an impossible question to answer.

The pattern is by Sharon Miller, who has got several other stunning patterns on Ravelry. However there’s no way of contacting her direct so I can’t get the pattern that way.
These shawls are not for the faint hearted; the project is described as being for “the ultra-skilled knitter[, it] requires time, concentration and patience”
I’ve spent some serious time searching Ravelry and Google for patterns, but I’ve not found any I like as much as this one. Sharon has taken traditional Shetland stitches and incorporated them into a truly beautiful design. If I’m going to spend more than £20 on a pattern and invest a whole chunk of my time and effort, then I want a pattern that I love, and I do love this one. So I guess I’m going to have to wait till HK is back up and running. Fingers crossed that it isn’t too long.

Wednesday 4 June 2014

Review: Eeny Meeny

A thriller with an intriguing set-up and plenty of twists and turns




I really enjoyed this book. The premise is intriguing: two victims, one bullet; one dies, the other lives. The first two victims are a young couple who are snatched while hitching home from a festival. When the girl bursts from the forest, emaciated and starving, at first no one believes her story that her boyfriend begged her to kill him. They assume it’s a relationship gone wrong - maybe he turned on her and she shot him in self-defence. But then two more people go missing and the authorities start to realise they’ve got a serial killer on their hands.

The police investigation is led by DI Helen Grace. Grace is possibly the best female lead I’ve ever encountered in a crime thriller. In fact she might be the only one I’ve encountered – women tend to be victims, seconds-in-command, family members or support in some way to the main male characters, the DI or private eye and the killer.

Grace is ambitious, driven, strong willed and yet dedicated and loyal to her team. She isn’t a particularly sympathetic character, which is quite refreshing. It’s nice to read a female character when the author has resisted the urge to make her likeable. She is impressive, though. If someone you loved had been murdered you’d want someone like Grace heading the investigation.
Helen Grace is possibly the best female lead I’ve ever encountered in a crime thriller – in fact she might be the only one I’ve encountered
The author has previously written screenplays, and this discipline seems to have served him well. The short chapters are episodic and told from the point of view of various characters, often Grace, but also members of her team and the victims. Each chapter manages to reveal information – and often misinformation – while keeping the reader in the dark.

The book is full of twists, and I usually pride myself on being able to work out what’s coming, but with this novel I was really kept guessing.

Overall this was a well-written, pacy thriller that provided a very enjoyable read.

Disclaimer: I received this book through the Goodreads First Reads scheme.

Tuesday 27 May 2014

The joy of other people’s patterns

For the first time in a long time I’m crocheting something designed by someone else, and you know what? I’m enjoying myself




It’s been a while since I started something not of my own design. When I saw the pattern for this crochet picnic blanket, I just had to make it. It’s gorgeous. It’s also massive and it’s going to take ages to complete it, but that’s OK.

The pattern is a free one from Rowan that I received in the Love Knitting eNewsletter. It can be downloaded here. Obviously Rowan want you to use the company’s own yarn to make the blanket, the one recommended is Handknit Cotton. It would cost more than £200 to make the piece in that yarn. So I instead I turned to old favourite Rico Design. This German company produces some lovely yarns at quality that rivals Rowan and Debbie Bliss but at around half the price. Buying at Wool Warehouse, the amount of Rico Essentials Cotton needed came in at just over £100 – less than half the cost of the Handknit Cotton.

I love this stitch pattern and the colour combination, but
it's going to take a while to get the blanket to 1.5m long.
Photo by Idoru Knits.

The gauge is slightly different, with the Rico knitting up to 22 stitches and 28 rows on 4mm needles and the Rowan 19/28. But my tension is quite loose with crochet, so this wasn’t a problem with this pattern. Anyone with a tighter tension should just use a bigger crochet hook. If this were a knitting pattern, I’d go up to 4.5mm needle.

The other great thing about the Rico is that there were 52 colours to choose from, meaning I could match the Rowan colours as closely as possible. It’s quite unusual for me to stick to the exact colours in a pattern, as I generally want to put my own stamp on anything I make. But in this project the colours were so lovely I wanted to replicate them.
Crocheting this blanket is just fun, pure and simple

The pattern calls for nine different colours, but I think it would also be quite arresting in, for example, three very contrasting colours, or you could even go monochrome. With so many colours to choose from, it would also be possible to make the blanket in, say, all pinks, or blues, or greens.

I’m really enjoying this pattern. It’s nice to just be able to sit down and crochet, without having to worry about measuring and maths, without keeping notes on everything, without experimenting and getting it wrong, having to go back to the beginning, rewrite my notes, and so on and so on. Crocheting this blanket is just fun, pure and simple.

I like designing, but I’m not really doing anything with my designs. I’ve written up hardly any of my patterns, and I’m not entirely sure about sizing. I can make something that’ll fit me just fine, but I don’t know how that translates to a small, medium or large to fit a range of bodies.

I’ve got a couple of self-designed items to finish off – a dress and a sweater – and I think after I’ve completed them I shall work on other people’s patterns, at least for a while. I’ve got tons sitting on my computer waiting for me; in fact I’ve got some absolutely stunning lace shawl patterns and some gorgeous lace-weight yarns that are just made for each other.

Wednesday 7 May 2014

Review: Thor: The Dark World

The second Thor film has come in for a bit of criticism, but I loved it




I’ve seen quite a lot of criticism of Thor: The Dark World: it’s humourless, takes itself too seriously and is somewhat ridiculous. But I think it’s fantastic, and here’s why.

First off, it looks gorgeous. The SFX are excellent. But it’s not just that – the overall ‘look’ of the film is beautiful. It reminds me Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy II and Blade II films.

I don’t agree with the charges that it’s humourless and takes itself too seriously, either. Some scenes are hilarious: Darcy and Ian the Intern, Thor on a tube train. And while Chris Hemsworth is rather po-faced throughout, Tom Hiddleston seems to be having great fun. In fact his Loki is worth the price of admission alone.
There isn’t much of a plot – but who cares when you’ve got Tom Hiddleston in a leather coat and chains?
I admit there isn’t much of a plot. Just some stuff about invading dark elves, Earth at risk of total destruction, blah, blah. But really who cares when you’ve got Tom H in a leather coat and chains? Mostly it just seems to be preamble to the next Avengers film – a long-winded way of getting Loki where he needs to be for that film. But when the preamble is this pretty, what does that matter?

I only have two criticisms. First, Anthony Hopkins as Odin. It just doesn’t work for me. Ron Perlman would have been far more badass. Second, Greenwich is NOT three stops from Charing Cross! In fact the bit of Greenwich they go to isn’t even on the sodding Underground. This might not seem important, but it wouldn’t have taken much to get that bit right, and as London is the best city in the world they should have got it right.

I found the film highly entertaining and that’s all I ask for from a comic book film. It’s also left me thirsting for next Avengers installment.

Thursday 24 April 2014

Knitting for others

For once I’ve been knitting for other people and here are the results




Knitters tend to be a generous bunch, spending much of their time making things for other people. Not me, though. I mostly knit for me. This is because I design and I need a model to design for – it just makes sense for that model to be me. Honest, it’s not just that I’m selfish. And to prove that point, recently I have been knitting for other people.
There are loads of gorgeous baby blankets I’d like to make – so can more of you start having babies please?
First, my niece. It’s her birthday this month and I wanted to give her something handmade. The Champs-Elysees wristwarmers were a pattern I found on Ravelry a while ago. At the time it was free from Knit on the Net. Unfortunately it’s not available any more. Knitted in Rowan’s Kidsilk Haze, these are pretty, feminine wristwarmers that are gorgeously fluffy and light. My niece is quite a girly girl so I think (hope!) they’ll be perfect for her.

I actually started making these quite a long time ago, but I managed to lose my print out of the lace chart. By this time the pattern was no longer on Knit on the Net, and I just couldn’t track down a copy. I emailed Knit on the Net, but didn’t get a reply. I thought I was going to have to give up, until I found the designer on Ravelry. She’s Laylock on the website and more of her designs can be seen on the site – check them out; they’re gorgeous. I sent her a message, not with much hope of getting a response. She did reply, though, and took the time to track down the chart and set it up so I could download it from her website. Now that’s customer service.

The finished Champs-Elysees wristwarmers.

I finished the wristwarmers last weekend while I was visiting my parents, so I could leave them with my mum to give to my niece on her birthday. They are quite lovely. This isn’t a pattern for beginners; the lace is really quite complicated and you really have to pay attention to what you’re doing. But the finished product is beautiful.

I’ve also been making baby things for a pregnant friend. First up was a blanket. I was looking for a crochet pattern because I wanted something was a bit ‘antique-y’ and I just think crochet looks more antique than knitting. I also don’t agree with gendering clothes, so there was to be none of this blue or pink business. Sticking with – my idea of – an antique theme, I wanted a sort of deep golden cream colour. Again, this just says antique to me; I don’t know why.

I found the ideal pattern on Ravelry and a lovely soft, machine-washable yarn from King Cole. For once I had no disasters making this and I really like the finished product. I had loads of yarn left over so also made a hat. Another free pattern from Ravelry, this was another nice and easy make.

Baby blanket and hat.

In my searching for the ideal crochet baby blanket pattern I found hundreds of gorgeous baby blankets I’d like to make. So can more of you start having babies please?

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Musings: why fantasy got ‘gritty’

Inspired by reading Aeon’s Gate, some thoughts on traditional fantasy being stuck in a rut and why it had to change




The book that started it all.
This isn’t a review. I don’t like to review books that are part of a series until I’ve read the whole set. I don’t think it’s fair to put my thoughts down before I’ve got the whole picture, as it were. So this more some initial thoughts on Sam Sykes’s book Tome of the Undergates, first in the Aeon’s Gate trilogy, and more general musings on the genre.

I’ve loved fantasy ever since first reading Raymond E Feist’s Magician when I was about 10. But it seems to me that traditionally fantasy has been rather, well, traditional. I don’t know if it’s something to do with the genre itself or if fantasy authors and readers are just resistant to change, but since Tolkien it seems that the genre has stuck with certain ways of doing things.

There tend to be three main races: humans, elves and dwarves. Of these only humans have any kind of diversity. Elves are always good, beautiful, sophisticated and forest dwelling. Dwarves live in caves, are bearded, industrious and axe wielding. Their evil counterparts are orcs (sometimes replaced by dark elves) and goblins, respectively. And these races are always evil. Only humans can be either, and even then it’s pretty uncomplicated. You’re either good through and through (think Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings) or thoroughly bad (Grima Wormtongue).
Fantasy was a boy stuck in his teenage years, where everything is black and white, girls are some terrifying ‘Other’ and any kind of diversity or ambiguity is scary
Magicians tend to be one of two types. Either old men (Gandalf) or youngsters whose bookish ways have left them weak. They would have been bullied by the bigger boys, all except one who befriended and championed him and grows up to be the hero warrior (Pug and Thomas in the aforementioned Magician, Raistlin and his brother Caramon in Dragonlance).

You’ll notice that I’ve only used the male pronoun. This is because women don’t feature much in traditional fantasy. They’re mothers, sisters or daughters. They might facilitate the hero, but they are never themselves the protagonist. In more than 1,000 pages, The Lord of the Rings has three female characters. Galadriel and Arwen pretty much do nothing. Eowyn is more interesting, but even she has to pretend to be a man in order to achieve anything.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. Fantasy was a boy stuck in his teenage years, where everything is black and white, girls are some terrifying ‘Other’ and any kind of diversity or ambiguity is scary. Things had to change – it was time fantasy grew up.

With his New Crobuzon books, the wonderful China Mieville just invented a whole new genre – a kind of steampunk urban fantasy. But there has also emerged a more realistic type of fantasy – something that turns the genre on its head. I credit George RR Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series as the initiator of this.

Shades of grey
Suddenly things weren’t quite so cut and dried. Good people did bad things or had bad things happen to them (who could forget Eddard Stark’s fate?), bad people didn’t necessarily get their comeuppance, women actually had a part to play. Characters could be morally ambiguous - they didn’t all choose a side and stick to it. And you really shouldn’t get too attached to any of the characters because you simply don’t know what’s going to happen to them.

As well as GRRM, writers of this brand of fantasy include Britain’s Joe Abercrombie and Americans Peter V Brett, Mark Lawrence and Brent Weeks.

This new, grittier fantasy turned the old tropes upside down and inside out. It’s also often really rather violent, leading to the use of the term ‘grimdark’. I think this was originally meant to be disparaging but proponents of the sub-genre have embraced it.

If I had to identify one thing I don't
like about these books it would be the
cover art. But I'm reading them
on a Kindle so that's not really important.
So back to the book that started all this musing: Sam Sykes’s Tome of the Undergates. I’m not sure if this is grimdark, but it has all the characteristics. Moral ambiguity; characters with complex reasons for behaving the way they do; violence, lots of violence in fact; it’s dark and gritty and full of things like murder, betrayal and bad things happening. It’s also great fun, has some wonderfully crude humour and some stunningly beautiful descriptions.

I downloaded the book because I follow Sam Sykes on Twitter. I think that if you follow an author and find them entertaining then the least you can do is buy one of their books. This does have its drawbacks. What if you like the author on Twitter but end up not liking the book? This happened to me with Mary Robinette Kowal. She’s lovely on Twitter but I just didn’t get on with her book, Shades of Milk and Honey. Luckily that didn’t happen here, and I really like this book. In fact since I started writing this rather long blog post I’ve finished both Tome of the Undergates and the second book and made a good start on the third and final installation, The Skybound Sea. I also bought the first book for my dad.

The problem is that I’ve started Twitter stalking Mr Sykes, sending him @replies like we’re friends, when clearly we’re not. He hasn’t blocked me or anything, so I guess it’s not that bad. But I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise, anyway. Also, if you’re on Twitter follow him, he’s @SamSykesSwears.

Sunday 23 February 2014

Work in progress: Jane, the deep V sweater

Where I’m at with my latest project and overcoming problems with decreasing, unintentional increasing and perfectionism




My latest project is a replacement sweater for one that’s falling apart. Again. I really do wear my clothes to death. This one is a pink job with a deep V neck that I’m recreating, updating and hopefully improving.

So far the main challenge has been working out how to do the V neck. The idea is to layer a top underneath this one, either in a matching or contrasting colour depending on how I feel, so it’s important that there’s enough space to show off the top underneath, but at the same time the slope has to be nice and even. After a combination of maths and experimentation, I think I’ve got it sorted and the V is coming along very nicely.
The logical part of my brain isn’t very loud and nearly always gets drowned out by the louder, brasher perfectionist part of my brain
In fact I’m really enjoying knitting this as the frequent decreases and very deep V neck mean that the front piece is almost done. It hasn’t all been plain sailing, though. Just last week, 30 rows into the left-hand side of the deep V, I realised I had one too many stitches. I had done the right number of decreases. I definitely had the right number of stitches at the beginning. So where had that extra one come from?

The alpaca yarn I’m using, while gorgeously soft and mostly a joy to knit with, can be rather splitty, and that’s what had happened here. I’d split a stitch in two some 24 rows back. I could easily have incorporated an extra decrease to sort the mistake out, but my brain just doesn’t work like that. I had to pull it all back and start again.

I did something similar last night when I realised I’d decreased at rows 112 and 118 rather than 114 and 120. The logical part of my brain tells me that these things don’t matter, that these mistakes are easy to fix. But the logical part of my brain isn’t very loud and nearly always gets drowned out by the louder, brasher perfectionist part of my brain. That part tells me that I have to go back and make it right. So I do. And really I'm OK with that.

The front piece of the Jane deep V sweater is almost done.
Photo by Idoru Knits.

Sunday 16 February 2014

Book review: Larkswood

A mystery with intrigue – but ultimately did it satisfy?




The synopsis of this book was really intriguing: dark secrets, families torn apart, a historical reach spanning generations. What’s not to like? The introductory chapter didn’t disappoint, either, setting up the mystery nicely.

The story begins with Louisa Hamilton and her coming out, along with her older sister. Louisa is then set for a season in London, which she really isn’t looking forward to. However, she becomes ill and is sent to Larkswood House, the family home to which her grandfather, whom she has never met, has only just recently returned.

As she recovers, Louisa begins to love Larkswood, her grandfather Edward and, more unfortunately, the hot gardener. She also discovers what appears to be a family secret and endeavours to investigate. Some 40 years ago, when Edward was a teenager living with his two beloved sisters and with absentee parents, disaster strikes the family, tearing it apart.

The two stories are told in parallel to each other; we don’t learn what the terrible secret is until near the end, but I found it easy to guess. That said, there were plenty of other twists along the way that I didn’t see coming. As a thriller this all works very well and I read the book in just a couple of days – the mystery is such that you really want to find out what happened.

I didn’t buy Edward’s acceptance – and tacit approval and encouragement – of Louisa’s relationship with the gardener
One of the things that often seems to suffer with thrillers, though, is characterisation, and this is the case here. The characters are all rather cliched and one dimensional. Edward is never more than the gruff, bluff grandpa. Louisa’s sister is the beautiful, shallow one interested only parties and securing a good marriage. Louisa herself is plain and bookish, intended no doubt to appeal to a rather bookish audience, or at least one that sees itself as such. Parallels between the two sets of sisters are clear but never examined.

I didn’t buy Edward’s acceptance – and tacit approval and encouragement – of Louisa’s relationship with the gardener. Their differences in station would have been enough for him to put his foot down and his own past would mean he would want to keep them apart. I can’t say much more without giving away the secret, but I found the ending unsatisfying. It was wrapped too easily for my liking.

Sunday 26 January 2014

When knitting and cycling collide

What happens when a knitter takes up cycling? Knitted cycling accessories, of course!




It was bound to happen. I’ve been a knitting for some years now, and cycling is my new obsession, so it was inevitable that I’d find a way to combine the two.

A cyclist’s wardrobe consists mainly of lots and lots of lycra; knitted sweaters and the like aren’t really suitable. So it was to accessories I looked. Hats, headbands, neckwarmers, wristwarmers and so on. My first foray into knitted accessories was a neckwarmer or buff (I’m not entirely sure what to call it).

Now I just need something to keep my head and ears toasty …
The buff is a simple tube, knitted in the round, in a 2x2 rib for stretchiness in Rico Essentials DK merino in a chocolate brown colour. I crocheted a shell border onto each end for a bit of interest. Same yarn, this time in cream.

This is a very quick and easy knit, great for beginners, and the border isn’t necessary for those who don’t crochet. It’s long enough to sit on my collar bones and reach up to just under my nose. My helmet clips on over it, underneath my chin. So it creates a nice cover-up around my neck over the collar of my jacket.

The cycling buff/neckwarmer in action.
Photo by Idoru Knits.

Due to the quite amazing mildness that has characterised this winter I’ve only worn the buff a couple of times, but it really does work, keeping my neck and the lower part of my face nice and warm. Now I just need something to keep my head and ears toasty …

So I’ve started making a headband. I’ve got some 4-ply alpaca left over from my first-ever design project. I could make a hat, but I think a headband will be more useful on the bike, fitting nicely underneath my helmet. Again, it’s a 2x2 rib and I’m going to make it quite wide so that it covers my ears completely.

The problem is that the headband is dark blue and the buff is brown, and clearly brown and blue don’t go together. Luckily I’ve got some Rico Essentials DK merino in a light blue.

Knitting a cycling headband. Photo by Idoru Knits.

Friday 3 January 2014

The Comme Ca top redux

My latest finished object: what I think and what I’d do differently




So the Comme Ca top is finally finished, seaming dilemmas and sleeve difficulties and all. I’ve worn it a few times already and I’m actually really pleased with the result. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t change things if I did it again.

The verdict
I like it. The fit is great and it’s a good replacement for the original top. In fact I think it looks better than the original. It’s got more structure so is more fitted. The deep ribbed hem clings nicely to my waist and there’s plenty of room to wear a top underneath.

I had to teach myself several new techniques to complete this sweater: seaming three pieces of material; making the crossover; creating cap sleeves; inventing the single line of white on the sleeves and neckline. These are all skills I can apply to future designs and which will no doubt improve my knitting.

I love you, now change
To be honest there’s not an awful lot I would do differently. When I was sewing it up I did think it might have been better in a 4 ply, as the seams would be less bulky. But now that it’s done it doesn’t actually look that bulky. I still think it would work well in a 4 ply though.

I also think I should have put in more decreases on the crossovers, creating a more obtuse angle. This would have opened up the front, meaning that more of whatever top I happen to be wearing underneath would be on show. But this is a minor point, really, and overall I’m happy with the way the piece has turned out.

Comparing the original top (left) and my remake (right). I honestly do prefer mine. Photo by Idoru Knits.