Always Look on the Bright Side of Life...

Back in the New Year, I made a resolution that I would make something for myself in every month of 2015, and this is my make for March. It's the Comino cap dress by Kitchsy Coo. The dress is a first in many respects as it's my first pdf pattern, the first time I've used my overlocker to make anything (apart from finishing seams) and the first time I've attached a neckband using the overlocker...

I chose a rather bright orange, flowery cotton jersey fabric (that I'd originally bought from Laura Ashley several years ago) from my stash and although it's a little on the bright side, I think it's worked quite well :-)

I was very pleased with the way the dress made up and I shall be making more!! 

A New Swirly Skirt

Valentine's Day came and went without any flowers, cards or chocolates so I decided to cheer myself up on Sunday morning and make myself a skirt. I usually wear straight, fitted, short skirts but with the vintage revival currently in full swing, so to speak, I decided on a swirly skirt for a change. Luckily I'd already ordered a couple of patterns, and had cut out the pattern from the fabric, so all I had to do was stitch. I timed myself this time too, just to see how long it took ;-)

It didn't take long at all, just four hours from sitting down at the machine to completion, and that included stitching the side seam twice and putting the zip in twice! lol When I tried the skirt on it was too big round the waist, so I had to take the zip out again and take the seam in by two inches. It's still a little on the big side round the waist, but I'm aiming to lose a bit of tummy podge in the next few months, so hopefully I'll be able to nip in the other side of the skirt when I've lost a bit lol

there's life in to the old blog yet....

Hello again!! I've been away for a few years but would really like to get my blog up and running again....let's see if this works!!

What Happened to My Blog?

Well like many bloggers these days I moved. I moved to Facebook. You may, of course, pop over and see what I'm doing over there, but I'm my home is open to visiting on a friends-only only basis.

I may well update my blog in the next few months but... it's quite unlikely. I like the small, cosy world of Facebook where I can exchange virtual gifts with mates and play games of Bejewelled Blitz and Farkle and where I can share information and photographs without having to be casreful that the whole world is watching.

I'm here: Deb's Facebook Page
so come and see me when you're over there!

Debs xxx

When Top Down Hits, It Hits Bad

Once upon a time, I made all my sweaters in pieces, casting on at the bottom rib and knitting to the neck, then sewing all the pieces together to produce a final garment. The only problem with this method is that I absolutely detest sewing up and many of my completed projects sit waiting to be sewn up for weeks, even months, before I actually get round to doing it.

I had read about knitting in one piece from the bottom up, but the thought of all those stitches on the needles ~ and horrible twisty, metal circular needles at that ~ made me shiver. I steered well clear.

But I spotted the February Lady Sweater that was very popular with internet-connected knitters last year and I knew I had to try it. But it was knitted top down, starting at the neck. I knew I had to take the plunge and after a few weeks I had finished this:

Best of all? No sewing up!

My interest had been piqued. Over Easter I was drawn to cast on for my very own Liesl that I knitted in about ten days, from the top down, and again, no sewing involved at all in piecing it together. Okay, there were ends to sew in, but that's by the by:

And then I happened upon the Chevron Lace cardigan that was *gasp!* crocheted from the top down. I couldn't resist such a challenge and I produced this little number:

Not only top down but my first ever crochet garment.

And I have been besotted with top down knitting ever since. I've been trawling the net for top down patterns, I've been trawling Amazon for books with top down patterns, I've joined a top down Knitalong and I'm totally in love with top down!!

My current project, in case you're wondering, is a raglan cardigan with short sleeves that I'm knitting in an acrylic mix aran yarn. And yes - it's top down!

Update!

I shall be back for a more complete update in a few weeks.....

Crochet Excitement!

I completd my first ever crochet garment whilst I was on holiday recently and have definitely caught the crochet bug... but the patterns I've found so far online have been less than appealing to say the least :(

Until yesterday evening.

I'd already found Interweave Crochet magazine at Get Knitted and planned on buying a couple of back issues; Pictish had also recommended the mag, so that was my plan. Then I realised that I could buy individual patterns from the magazine via the Interweave website. Result!

Here's the garment that started my mad-crochet-pattern-search, it's the Chevron Lace cardigan. Worked in one piece from the top down in a lovely chevron lace pattern (hence the name I guess!) and a very economical project as it only used 2.5 balls of Patons 100% Cotton DK :

I should try the Big Bow cardigan (but without the bow) as apparently it's fairly straightforward, but I quite fancy trying my hand at the Butterscotch cardigan as it's my kind of thing. Will it be too difficult for a novice crocheter? Time will tell!

Strange Ball of Yarn!

I started a new aran project last night and as I started to cast on, I pulled the yarn from the middle of a 400g ball of aran. I pulled out a right mess and was really surprised at what I found!
The centre of the yarn wasn't a long length at all - it was a huge bundle of smaller sections of yarn, all about 30cm (or 12 inches) in length. There weren't just one or two of them, there was a huge handful:

At first I though a mouse had somehow got into the centre of the ball ---- but the balls of yarn had been in a bag that had no signs of rodent activity, and the ends hadn't been chewed and there were no tell-tale 'mousey' signs in the ball!

Mr M thinks that somehow, somewhere, in the balling up process, someone has shoved a load of ends into the centre of the ball to make up the weight! He has a suspicious mind!!

I should add that the yarn was bought a while ago from a mail order company that has now gone out of business but the yarn was actually produced by a well-known spinning company.
I've never had this happen before - how odd!!

If anyone can throw any light on this I'd be very interested to hear!

A Few Timely Updates

I realised that I haven't shown you any of my finished items lately (although you can see them by clicking on the Flickr slideshow at the side of my blog) so here are a few things that have been finished recently:

A pair of plain ordinary socks knitted in Opal Prisma, terracotta colourway

A little baby jacket knitted in Novita Marine DK for a friend's new baby boy

A fusion knit cardigan knitted in Hayfield Authentic Cotton Rich DK

in a beautiful, pale terracotta shade

These three finished items have something in comon - they are all knitted using yarn that has been received as part of a swap of some sort, either Karma swap or straight yarn swap. I think that a good proportion of my yarn stash is beginning to share that common factor!

I'm now working on a chevron lace crochet cardigan that I'm working from the top down. It's a real first for for as not only have I never crocheted a garment top down before, I've never CROCHETED a garment before! It's turning out extremely well and I only have a few more repeats to work at the bottom of the bodice before it's done.

I'm also working on a pair of bright, primary coloured socks for Dan to take camping in a few weeks time. I'm up to the heel of the second sock so they should be finished in a few days too.

The summer WIPs are soon to be hibernated though because there's no point in finishing off summer knitwear just as the Autumn mists start to roll in is there?

A Very Green Day

I've had a very green day today :)

I've dried three loads of washing outside and saved electricity because I haven't used the tumble dryer (I never use the tumbler when I can dry washing by any other way though), I walked to the post office instead of using the car when I went to post some woolly parcels, and I've recycled three lots of yarn to other people via the Karma forums. The recycling of yarn with added karma is a fabulous idea and I urge you all to try it :)

We had a very green day yesterday too, taking two overgrown trees and an old fence that was really a health and safety hazard down to the recycling skips in the city where my parents live. The trees were terribly overgrown and Dad is so old and frail now that he is unable to chop them down, and the fence had fallen down several years ago. There's lots more to do in my parents' garden, but it's a start! Next time I promise I'll take some photos!!

ANTS!

We were away for the weekend in the caravan in the Peak District, helping my dad to celebrate his 80th birthday and had a lovely time.... we came home and I put some washing into the washing machine. When the wash cycle ended and I was taking the washing out of the machine to dry on the lin outside, I noticed there were several ants by the side of the washer; they seemed to be crawling from under the kick panel at the bottom of the sink in the utility room.

Now we've had ants under the back door step for a while, but they've also migrated to patio and near to the front door. A quick shout to Mr Melody who started to swat them as best he could. And then.... he pulled the kick panel off the sink unit.... and there were hundreds of ants. Small ones, big ones with wings... crawling out of the hole around the drain pipe

I really don't like ants and it made me feel sick but strangely fascinated... I couldn't help Mr M at all :(


Luckily Mr M managed to swat almost all of them (goodness knows how he did it) and squirted them with ant powder, but I can't get the thought out of my head and I've been itching all afternoon.

Someone tell me it's not just us!

Blaze

I finally managed to finish my Blaze jacket off this week. I was unhappy that the sleeves looked far too long after finishing and so I gave it my usual handwash and dry flat treatment. I was also able to seam press it because I had used a cotton yarn:

You can still see that the sleeves are a touch too long; next time I knit this jacket I'll knit the sleeves an inch shorter and possibly decrease a couple of stitches around the back neck band.

I knitted Blaze in Patons 100% Cotton DK in the Pomegranate shade on 4mm Brittany Birch needles; I left off the pockets and I made a few minor modifications when shaping the neckline.

As I was sewing Blaze together I thoght that it would only be fit to wear in the caravan as a throw-on cardie in the evenings. I have, however, worn Blaze with a pair of smart trousers and a smart white top and it looked great! So it's been promoted to my 'good' knitteds pile rather than my 'scruffy' knitteds pile!

And Finally - a close up of Blaze's fully-fashioned goodness:

Hay Fever?

My nose is absolutely streaming and I feel under the weather.... I don't think I'll be working tomorrow if I feel like this!

Mr M Back in Town

Mr M is back from his foreign travels and has unloaded his suitcase into the washing basket.
And it's raining :(

Camping ShakeDown

You may remember that we bought a brand new caravan back at Easter time and I'm happy to report that we have just returned from our very first camping holiday with said 'van. We probably had the best family holiday we've ever had and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Yes, it rained some of the time, and yes, the weather was cool because we were up in the Welsh mountains, but it just means that we all need lots of camping jumpers, hoodies and socks for next time!

We arrived and Mr M reversed the caravan into the pitch with little or no difficulty whatsoever (the joys of having driven a truck in his younger years!) and we put up the awning easily:

We stayed in a beautiful part of North Wales where there were trees, wildlife and wild flowers:

And had the added benefit of being within travelling distance of Stash of Chester....

Much to my surprise, Mr M insisted that I called into Colinette on the way home as we literally drove straight past the door! You can understand that it would have been rude not to buy something as I was forcibly pushed in through the door whilst the boys had sandwiches and drinks in the caravan on the car park...

And the best thing about leaving and coming back home? We're going back to spend our two weeks holiday there in the summer!

LK 150 Arrives Back Home

I loaned my Silver Reed LK 150 knitting machine to a friend several years ago and went over to her house last week to pick it up as it has an important job to do; I've been asked to teach the children in littlest Little Melody's class to knit and I thought that the younger and less dextrous children could use the plastic bed machine to produce some knitting and feel included in the 'knitting workshop'. I cleaned and oiled the machine this afternoon, cast on and knitted a few rows. The Little Melodies heard the commotion and wanted to knit of course :-)

I was quite surprised that they found it so easy to use and they were soon whizzing away on it, the littlest Melody announcing that he was knitting a washcloth for himself!!. They were so excited and encouraged by the ease of the machine that littlest Little Melody is taking his yarny masterpiece to Show and Tell on Tuesday to show all his friends at school! I can see lots of blankets being produced by Class 2 this term, the only problem is that I'll have to do the finishing by hand.

The LK150 is cleaned and oiled and ready to start work

Two pieces of yarny artwork produced with the flick of a wrist

The LK 150 is so light, compact and easy to set up that I'm thinking about using it in the caravan when we go on holiday.

Now THAT is what I call a home from home!

Completion

The Rossetti/Cecilia combo cardie is completed; all I have to do now is wash and block the main parts and then piece them together. And another fusion knit cardie pattern has been re-written, a tension swatch knitted, washed and blocked and the Bank Holiday weekend is just around the corner...

Making Progress

Well my knitting certainly seems to have moved forward these past few weeks! Maybe it's because I'm not spending so much time surfing the 'net! I dusted off and oiled my mid-gauge knitting machine at the weekend and managed to complete the second sleeve and both front on my Rossetti/Cecilia combination cardigan; it's been sitting half made for several months so it's about time it was finished. The reason it went into hibernation is that I wasn't happy with the very shallow neck shaping of Rossetti and I wasn't overjoyed with the shallow borders either. However, a flash of inspiration found me combining two of Louisa Harding's designs to come up with a deeper neckline and garter stitch edges, both of which seem to have worked well. (I only have another front band and the neckband to do before the dreaded sewing up - yuck!

Here's what the cardigan looked like before with just the back and one sleeve knitted:

Hopefully I'll have more to report on its progress this weekend!

Spring is Finally Here!

I can tell when Spring has made an appearance, it's when the winter clothes are packed away in readiness for next Autumn, and the Spring and Summer clothes and shoes come out of hibernation. I've sorted out a large pile of clothes to recycle so there will be plenty of room in the wardrobe for any new ones that I buy!

Talking of new clothes, I've completed a fair few knitted things:

The first one is Liesl, that was my Easter knitting project. This was a really quick and easy knit, top down cardigan that took a bargainous three-and-a-half 100g balls of Sirdar Spree chunky to knit. I knitted it on a 7mm circular needle and used 7mm wooden DPNs for the sleeves. It only took about thirty minutes to sew the yarn ends in and stitch the buttons on to complete it once the knitting was done. I bought the Spree chunky from Kemps Woolshop a couple of years ago as it was being discontinued, so in total Liesl cost about £2.40 in yarn and I already had the buttons in stash. Bargain!!!

Liesl cardigan

Another bargain is the Coffee Sorbet jacket that I finished sewing up this week too. I knitted this in the now discontinued Patons Sorbet chunky yarn that I bought again for the princely sum of 69p from Kemps Woolshop. I used 12 x 50g balls for this, making it £8.28 for the yarn and once again the wooden buttons were in my stash already.

Coffee Sorbet jacket

Two cotton, handknitted cardigans for under £11? Completely bargainous, don't you think?

PS - if you're thinking of grabbing a bargain at Kemps Woolshop, here is the direct link: http://www.kempswoolshop.com/home.aspx
Save some yarn for me won't you?

Happy Campers

Last weekend we picked up 'the big thing' that we've been thinking about for quite a while - a lovely new caravan! It's a Dethleffs Rally Nomad 640V. We parked in on our drive and we tentatively spent the last two nights sleeping in it. The boys were so excited on the first night that virtually no-one got any sleep - they went to sleep at 10.30pm and woke up with the birdsong at 5.30am! Consequently, everyone felt the effects yesterday and not surprisingly, we all had a good night's sleep last night.

This is the wonderful thing parked outside on the drive:

and this is the view of the inside:

the kitchen area

the living area

the boys have fixed beds

After just two nights, I can honestly say that it's warm, cosy and very comfortable and there's lots of space and light. There is also plenty of storage space, a big fridge and a lovey shiny cooker and hob.

All we have to do now is decide where we're going on our summer hols and I have to knit a few camping cardies and caravanning socks for the Melody Mob!