Pixie hat

This funny little thing is a hat - I had two balls of Noro Spring Thaw which were reduced in John Lewis so I couldn't resist. It was made from 7 long oval panels, knitted using lots of increases and decreases. It took a bit of concentration, but was quite straightforward. Once I had seven panels, I seamed them on the inside with a crochet slip stitch, which was nice and simple, although I think I should maybe have seamed it on the outside side with double crochet in a contrast colour, which would have made more of the panel construction. 

When I finally tried on the finished item, I realised the panels were too short and it made for a very strange, skull-cap kind of fit. I did knit a tension gauge swatch, but didn't really take a lot of notice of the results. There's a lesson in that, probably. Anyway, to make it a bit longer I crocheted a double-triple border all around the edge, which improves things, but I still don't actually like it that much. I'd rip it out, except that I'll end up with 8 short bits of yarn, which isn't very inspiring. A bit of a waste of one and a quarter balls of bargain Noro, all in all. 

Future projects

Things that I would like to learn to do in knitting: 

Lacy knitting:

Cables:

Entrelac:

I haven't even completed a garment yet, so I don't think I'll be doing any of these things soon, and besides which I'm working on a secret project at the moment, so everything else will just have to join the queue.

Inspiration

Here are a couple of things I've found to be really inspirational recently. 

The great thing about blogs is that someone somewhere is doing something you'd never imagined. This selvedge project is amazing. God knows how long she has been hoarding selvedges for. I usually throw mine away (although apparently they're very good for waist stays as they don't give or stretch). Not only has she collected them all up, not only has she done something with them, but she's done something amazing with them. Kudos. 

Secondly, this is from December 2008 Livingetc. Apparently designer Natalia Pepe knitted wool flowers and stitched them onto a wool base. From what I can see of the flowers in the photo they look crocheted to me, but still, that's a quibble. Available to snap up for a mere £3,900. I've no idea what size it is, but for four grand I want it to be big. Very big. 

What I love about this is that it could be a fantastic way of using up bits and pieces of your yarn stash. The flowers are simple 5-petal single-layered things. It could take forever to get this many flowers together, but each flower would be the work of a few spare moments on the tube. At the very least it has inspired me not to throw away the little scraps at the end of a project. 

The season of Christmas presents

The thing about any hand-made item is that it's slow, and often painstaking, to create. That is one of the joys of them, of course, and why they're expensive to buy, and risky to make for other people, who might fail to appreciate the time and effort that went into them. 

In this season of shopping (what do you mean, Christmas has a religious meaning?), I can't help thinking I would prefer to make things for people than buy things. Why buy an anonymous chain-store piece of mass-production when you can make something personal and unique? I'm sure that the people who I would make for would appreciate the time and effort, but there's still the possibility that the recipient mightn't like the gift. A shop-bought scarf in the wrong colour can go on ebay or to the charity shop with hardly a pang of conscience. A hand-knitted £7-a-ball silk-mohair creation, well it's probably got little charity shop value, certainly won't sell on ebay and if I ever found out it was unwanted I would be gutted. 

I've got one or two ideas on Christmas presents, but I'm still undecided on whether to go ahead or not. Hopefully if people don't like them they'll learn to be good actors, quickly. 

Learn mattress stitch. Really.

So I got a new acrylic cheapo yarn in the pound shop, this time at £2.50 a ball. (I know, a bit of an investment.) 

And as the weather has turned autumnal I decided to use it for long wristwarmers. Didn't take long - a couple of evenings each hand. This is the result, and I like them. I shaped them into the wrist slightly with k2tog, and then out again for the hand a bit with m1, so they fit quite snugly. 

In fact today I finished them,  and in order to wear them for the first time - to the supermarket - I went and changed three times to find an outfit that worked around the slightly garish pink shade. (Usually it only takes me two changes of clothes to decide what to wear to Sainsbury's (one in the case of Tesco's))

I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit, because first I spent a an hour finishing them this morning (whilst watching Antiques Roadshow). There's a reason it took so long. Unfortunately I decided to put into practice this fabled 'mattress stitch' for the seam. The reason this was unfortunate was that I only decided to use it when I got to the second one, not the first. 

Once I had done this mattress stitch seam I realised what everyone had been going on about. Turns out that it's makes a really neat almost-invisible seam. As you can see at the top of this picture. Compare with the bottom, which is the hand I finished first, with just an any-old-sewn-up-seam. Oops. 

Obviously I then had to unpick the first crappy seam and re-do it properly with mattress stitch. Eventually I had a pair, both neatly seamed with mattress stitch. Nice. 

Moral of the story: believe what all the books and websites say about mattress stitch. It really is easy, and it really is worth learning. And a good finish really does make all the difference to a project. 

Now I just need to decide whether to go for a matching hat or a matching scarf. 

End of a WIP

For the sake of closure, here's a photo of the WIP I posted about in September here. You can just about see that it's now scalloped down both sides. 

I'm pleased with it, but haven't worn it yet. I also made a blue one while I was away, in a sweet merino/cashmere mix. It's a colour I'll never ever wear so if anyone wants it, they can have it. I've now made this scarf twice, and while it's super-easy and ideal for a single ball of yarn from the remnant bin, I'm bored of it and in need of a new single-ball-project.  

Incidentally, starting a new yarn was easier than falling off a bike.  

Red fishing nets

So, back from holiday, where I learnt to crochet properly on the plane on the way out. I actually completed a few little things while I was away, which I'll probably post at some point when I've got my holiday photos sorted out. 

For the moment just a quick photo of my most recently finished project - red fishing nets. 

Started messing around with a v-stitch on the plane back from Hong Kong and have completed these three little pieces, all the same width but of different lengths.

    

I'm thinking that I'll use them to make a scarf, spaced out with some blocks of knitting of the same width in a different colour. Whether that's likely ever to happen, I'll leave you to judge.