Chalk Cottage Knitting

Unravel - avoiding temptation

2012-03-04T05:25:00.004Z

I avoided temptation

After I had finished the workshop at Unravel I looked to look at each stand (several times) and I didn't buy any yarn. My resolution held firm. However, when I made this resolution, nothing was said about patterns, or buttons.

The Textile Garden stand had me hyperventilating with the absolute wondrousness of their buttons. I bought a silver coloured kilt pin for the next ribbed waistcoat I plan to make.

At Ida's House stand I succumbed to a Bakelite pin box, some buttons and a buckle.

The buckle - I love the styling and the crazed effect

Old plastic buttons, a pale lilac that doesn't show well on screen
In need of a bit of a scrub

I bought five of these tiny 8mm buttons.
They look almost as if they will burst into life.

Susan Crawford

2012-03-02T05:44:00.001Z

Swatching the stitch we looked at with Susan Crawford

I am on a yarn fast. One of my 2012 objectives is not to buy yarn until some of the stash has been used. So, I made sure to book myself on a course at Unravel therefore minimising the time I would have to be led astray among the wonderful stalls of colour and squishiness. I figured even with the course fee it would be cheaper.

I booked myself onto 'Interpreting and Working from Vintage Patterns' with Susan Crawford. What a knowledgeable lady, not only about knitting, but about social history and all things vintage. And although we all got too interested in home front issues of the war and the austerity period just after, and we all talked too much and ran out of time to knit, I learned a lot.

I came home and straight away swatched the stitch from the vintage pattern Susan shared with us. She showed us how to dissect the pattern, look at what it tells you and what it doesn't and all the pitfalls and assumptions you shouldn't make. I had several attempts before I mastered the stitch. All down to terminology I think. If you strictly interpret the yfwd printed in the pattern as a yfwd, you run into trouble and suddenly lose about 5 stitches. I learned a lot just from battling with that.

Susan helped me understand a few things one of which is that I'm not far off in the way I look at vintage patterns. I just needed someone with her experience to articulate a few things I hadn't quite grasped. I had a good time and am inspired to start to use my collection in a practical way. Susan gave me confidence.

Try the link to Susan's blog to see how she gets her inspiration for her knits and her books and the wonderful things she creates.
Susan Crawford's Blog

Unravel at Farnham, Surrey

2012-02-29T06:17:00.009Z

Arriving for Unravel at Farnham, Surrey

It was that weekend in February when the wonderful Unravel show takes place at the Maltings in Farnham, Surrey, a pretty little town with a lot of history. I knew Farnham throughout my childhood, we lived in a nearby village and it has many happy memories for me. As I arrived for Unravel on Sunday the bells of St. Andrew's Church were ringing and the sky was a springtime blue. I wandered the little cobble streets for a while listening to the bells and studying the little cottages clustered around the church.

In the car park and approaching the bridge to the Maltings, the clever Unravel people build up your anticipation by decorating the Victorian lamp posts with some rather fetching knits.

Decorating the street furniture

Outside the Maltings the lovely people at Well Manor Farm had penned a Gotland ewe and her lambs to greet the visitors to the show. The ewe was so tame and friendly that her lambs were completely unstressed by the whole experience. They appeared to be rather enjoying all the attention.

Good to meet Ewe

Bright eyed and soooo pretty

All of this made me happy before I even got into the show. More posts planned about what I saw inside.

Finished the first stash item of 2012

2012-02-27T12:17:00.000Z

First stash item 2012 - the camera doesn't show the true 'redness' of this

I've long wanted to knit this aran waistcoat from the Third Sublime Aran book. I have some very precious yarn in mind for it, but just wanted to check it out in something a bit less precious, so used a bright red, not wonderful acrylic that I had 'in the heap.'

Glad I did this and didn't go into my precious yarn straight away. The things I learned from this are :

1). If you are doing a knit 3 purl 2 rib, it will always be twelve rows later when you find the place where you knitted when you should have purled.
2). I can recover the above situation by laddering back to the error, correcting the stitch with a crochet hook and then using the crochet hook to complete all the stitches above. It works fine as long as you don't twist any of the stitches.
3). There is no armhole band. The knitting just stops. That's fine if your knitting stitches look neat at the ends of rows. Not all mine do and so I'm going to have to experiment with my first and last row stitches to get a neat edge. There is no advice on this in the pattern and this is one of the things I had my doubts about when I started, which is why I used cheap yarn first. I edged the armholes with a little blanket stitch to tidy up.
4). Rib stretches out when you cast off and so the seam at the top of the arm sticks out a bit. I need to find a way to counteract that.
5). Although I have used a rather cheap, not great quailty yarn I have achieved a wearable, durable, knit that I'm rather pleased with.
6). I can wear it with the shawl pin placed there for a whole day without stabbing myself in the stomach.

Second completed WIP of 2012

2012-02-24T05:54:00.001Z

I finished my second completed WIP of 2012 (aiming for six). This was a large tunic for my mother in Sirdar Indie (Navajo colourway) on size 12mm needles. I did not love this object, I hate knitting on large needles and it's impossible to photograph.

Mum started it and couldn't finish. She suffered a severe stroke in 2000, fell and broke her hip a couple of years ago which further impaired her mobility and she now has symptoms of Parkinsons disease. The great love of her life is knitting and only in the last few months has she stopped. Right until then she battled on, taking hours to complete a row. Her patience is phenomenal.

Mum (on the left) and her sister Lily in the 1980's
both wearing black handknit sweaters made by mum

Mum still takes pleasure from knitting. Her monthly knitting magazines are read over and over, I have made a catalogue of her stash in a hard cover notebook so she can match patterns to yarn and daydream. She still buys mountains of yarn at every chance. She taught me to knit and has an eye for colour second to none. I feel so grateful that we have this shared delight and can talk this language together.

This blog has been going for a year

2012-02-22T06:12:00.000Z

This blog has been going for exactly a year. I had all kinds of ambitions when I started out. I occasionally think about stopping because I haven't hundreds of readers and I'm not sure where I'm going. Then I find, I don't want to stop. I have created something of value to me and It doesn't matter that I haven't achieved a huge following.

In this blog I have found a space to record some of the things I see and things I love. It's my space away from other pressures. If I go on a walk, I don't come back until I have at least one photo that might be blogworthy. That means I really look at the world as I walk and I've loved it. It also means some days I walk further to find 'that' photo and that's no bad thing either. I've become fascinated by wildlife again as I was at ten years old.

I've discovered that my garden (in spite of some eccentricities) is rather photogenic and I have found that although I have knitted since I was a small girl, I need to improve a lot. It's when you try and photograph it and write about it, that the little imperfections really show, especially when you look at the wonderful work done by others. My photography needs to improve as well.

I've met some lovely people in blogland, it's been a good year, I have lots more to aim for. I'll keep going.

I'm feeling very noble

2012-02-19T06:12:00.005Z

I'm feeling very noble. Day off yesterday and was in the mood to clear up all the tedious jobs. I managed to :

mend my umbrella
mend mum's skirt
shorten dad's trousers
finish knitting and sewing up a large shapeless tunic in Sirdar Indie for mum (lovely colourway, but a yarn and pattern I would never chosen to knit. She started and couldn't finish)
finish proofreading my uncle's memoirs so the grandchildren have it as a memento - he progressed from Dorset farm boy, to property developer, to repairing snooker tables in Ghana
get somewhere near the bottom of the laundry basket
do a litter pick up the lane

I'm glad some of that's over.

I saw this intensely coloured blackberry leaf on an autumn walk

Not much to photograph recently and it's a rainy old day today, so I dug up a photo from my files. This blackberry leaf caught my eye back in the autumn. I'm wondering about swatching some of the colours including the deep green of the ivy in the background.

Feeling in need of a bit of summer

2012-02-17T06:00:00.001Z

Can you hear the bees?

This picture was taken some years ago and it was one of those rare occasions when the planting came out as I wanted it. There is a door to the road in the old chalk garden wall and growing beside it are hollyhocks, honeysuckle, tansy, marigolds, nasturtiums, stocks and sedum.

After several years I have now managed to get the honeysuckle to grow up over the wall and down the other side. In the spring the wall is due for major repair by conservation specialists and the honeysuckle will have to come down. Hey-ho.

I'm going to have to move all the compost bins as well. But the rhubarb. Well, they'll just have to work round it.

2012-02-15T06:09:00.003Z

Mid-late forties?

When it turns cold, my mind runs to bed socks. My feet are never warm. This little pattern which is A5 size comes from the austerity period during or just after World War II. The size of the pattern and the black and white photo are down to shortages of paper and ink.

There are embroidered socks knitted in 3ply with a kind of Tyrol look going on - quite popular in the late forties. Also ribbed socks knitted in 4 ply (the pattern suggests blue and white stripes) and garter stitch socks, also blue and white.

The garter stitch socks are discribed as follows :
"Knitted on two needles these cosy garter stitch bed socks are given a snug fit with double ribbing at the tops of the legs."

I think these might be just the thing to use up all these odd balls of 4ply I seem to have amassed.

We've had some weather

2012-02-12T06:00:00.008Z

1943 AEC Matador in our wintry garden

We've had a bit of weather and the up side is that the snow always makes our small collection of rather rusty vintage vehicles look rather elegant. This baby will be 70 next year and a re-fit is planned to celebrate.

Father bought 'the Mat' in the late sixties from a Ministry of Defence sale. She was a gun tractor. He converted her for timber work and I pretty much grew up with her. In the early eighties she was in a bit of a sorry state and Dad sold her to a young man he knew who was keen to restore her. In 1993 this young man took me out on our first date. We went out as exhibitors at a vintage vehicle show. She was fifty years old.
People told him he would never get a girl to go out with him in the Mat. I'd been going about with my father in the 'Mat' since the age of ten.

Next year, in 2013 this same young man and I will have been together for twenty years and our 'Mat' will have pretty much been in the same family for forty five years. We've had other old lorries and cars and sold them on. The 'Mat' is family. She stays.

Pride and Prejudice

2012-02-10T06:00:00.001Z

There's a lot of walking in Pride and Prejudice, (published 1813)
Left - a couple in morning walking dress 1818 and on the right, 1817

I promised myself at the beginning of the year that I would read all Jane Austen's six completed novels in 2012. I have just finished Pride and Prejudice which I first read about forty years ago. I had always believed my favourite Jane Austen novel to be Persuasion, but I am now completely taken with Pride and Prejudice. I recently watched the adaptation with Colin Firth. ( I usually avoid any film or TV adaptation before reading a book), and I'm impressed at the interpretation. It didn't spoil the book for me at all, rather added to the excitment.

I can only think that many years ago in my early teens I couldn't appreciate some of the subtleties of the novel and I think that you do have to focus and on occasion re-read paragraphs, particularly the passages of narration to understand what is being conveyed in language that is beautiful, but more elaborate than we are now used to.

There is real humour and frankness. It tells a lot about the English and a lot about the class system and the place of women at the time. Class and the role of women form the setting for the proud behaviour and
prejudicial beliefs which are gradually unravelled as feeling and good sense take over.

I rather love Mrs. Bennett, silly woman, and am rather cross with Mr. Bennett who brought it all on himself, then gave up, retired to his study and let his younger daughters run wild.

I've heard people complain that Jane Austen didn't write about the great national events taking place at the time and I know that Charlotte Bronte wrote disparagingly of the confinement of Jane Austen's characters in their elegant homes. Fine, but not everyone lives on the moors and experiences wild, raging and deadly passions. There are truths in Pride and Prejudice about the way us normal folk live and think. And I defy anyone to read of the proud Mr Darcy and his slow realisation of love without knowing that however formal his expressions right to the end, something very dramatic has taken hold of him to make him defy his original prejudice.

Take a look at this link to see what the man about town (and country) would have been wearing.
Regency costume for gentlemen

Watch the Birdie

2012-02-08T06:10:00.001Z

Section of embroidered cushion from Needlecraft and Needlewoman Magazine no.66
April 1956

I wanted to take part in the RSPB Great Garden Bird Watch at the end of January, but unfortunately did not manage to find an hour where I could sit still and watch and count. However, I console myself with the fact that my garden is rich in bird life (largely because it's a bit untidy and attracts all sorts of bugs and creepy crawlies). We have lived here for exactly fifteen years and in that time I have spotted 43 different species of bird in the garden, or flying over. They are:

Magpie
Rook
Jackdaw
Starling
Chaffinch
Goldfinch
Bullfinch
Greenfinch
Robin
Wren
Coal Tit
Great Tit
Blue Tit
Long Tailed Tit
Blackbird
Heron
Moorhen (which got in the kitchen and hid behind the units).
Sparrowhawk
Little Owl
Buzzard
Pheasant
Song Thrush
House sparrow
Black Cap
Swallow
Swift
House Martin
Willow Warbler
Dunnock
Gold Crest
Linnet
Green Woodpecker
Red Kite
Wood Pigeon
Collared Dove
Tree Creeper
Greater Spotted Woodpecker
Nuthatch
Mute Swan
Mallard
Pied Wagtail
Pied Flycatcher
Jay

Totalling 43. I had set myself the target of 45. Nearly there.

First completed WIP of 2012

2012-02-06T05:49:00.008Z

Doesn't show the true colour, but shows the 4x4 rib

I've completed my first WIP of 2012 and have been wearing it all week. A beret, 4ft scarf and arm warmers. It's in Sirdar Persia in a deep dark blue green. It's a boucle and not necessarily a really enjoyable knit, but I'm pleased with the result. I've used it to brighten up long coat I've had for some time. The scarf drapes rather elegantly at back and front. When I arrived at work on Monday I was told I looked glamorous. That's bouyed me up all week.

Coat, scarf and arm warmers on tailor's dummy

Beret modelled on planter in the garden

I tried making a head for my tailor's dummy out of knitting needles and bubble wrap so I could photograph the whole ensemble. It looked like something Captain Kirk might have discovered during the voyages of the Star Ship Enterprise. So I gave up and found a planter from the garden.

This is the first of my six WIPs to complete in 2012.

Golden Orb Spider Silk Cape

2012-02-01T06:53:00.006Z

This image is from the V&A library
Detail of the embroidery on the cape

A friend at work, knowing my interest in textiles and embroidery showed me a news item about the golden orb spider silk cape now on show at the V&A.

Here is a link to a short piece in the V&A film library showing how the cape was made.

V&A - The Golden Orb Spider Silk Cape

The colour is the natural colour of the spider silk. The embroidery is stunning and took 6,000 hours. I have to make a trip to the V&A to see this.

The emblem for my blog is a spider, and I use a spider's web for my moniker on ravelry, even one of my earliest blogs was about weaving with spider silk.
Spider silk

I have no particular fascination with spiders, but I do love the classic spider's web. For me it represents the way that one thought, idea or design can radiate outwards to many others and all the way there are links and crossovers. There exists a beautiful pattern of ideas, human creativity and links to the natural world.

2012-01-29T05:57:00.001Z

Front Cover Stitchcraft Magazine No. 175 - late forties

The caption for the pattern reads,

"By Request", for all those readers who have begged for a jumper with stags across the yoke.

I wonder what was in the air in the late forties, that caused such a demand for stags across the yoke.

Slip Stitches

2012-01-25T05:36:00.000Z

Slip stitch slipover from Stitchcraft August 1951

I've been badly neglecting my slip stitch collection and was reminded when browsing through my vintage magazines. This caught my eye. Quite an impressive effect.

Close up

I must have a try at swatching this one.

The socks to match

Six Items I've Never Knitted Before

2012-01-22T06:03:00.002Z

I can crochet a doily (did this in Autumn 2000), but can I knit one?

I love playing with this idea of six and planning what Iwill do in 2012. There will be six items from the stash, six WIPs completed, six new techniques mastered and six items I have never knitted before. Draft list for those is :

Socks (this has to be the year of the sock and will cover a couple of items in my new techiques list)
Shawl (there is scrumptious stuff in the stash, so this will go towards my 'six items from stash' list)
Tea cosy
Poncho
Doily (using DPNs will go towards the 'mastering a new technique' list).
Hat with earflaps (done hats, but never earflaps)

I just love writing lists and have this terrible temptation to put all this in a spreadsheet.

Six new Knitting Techniques

2012-01-20T06:30:00.002Z

Will I ever be good enough on DPNs to do this?
48 inches (1.22 metres) in diameter, knitted in No.60 crochet cotton on four no. 12 (2.75mm needles)
Pattern designed by 'Marianne' and priced 1shilling and 3pence. Probably 1950s vintage.

I'm still enjoying thinking about the 'sixes'. These are sets of six things to tackle in the year 2012. (Six works in progress, six things from the stash...).

I decided I would also like to master six new techniques and the proposed list stands as follows :

Entrelac (I'm intrigued by it)
Kitchener stitch (will fit with my plan to tackle my first pair of socks this year)
Continental knitting (not sure how you would describe the way I knit. Some sort of aberration of English)
Knitting in the round (had a bash, but want to become more confident)
Steeking (fits with the knitting in the round bit)
Domino knitting (I'm not quite sure what it is, but sounds fun)

Meanwhile, two of the 'Six Works in Progress' set are progressing well.

Hat scarf and arm warmer set in Sirdar Persia, very dark blue. Just got to finish the scarf and sew up hat and arm warmers
Mum's tunic in Sirdar Indie, going well but am going to run out of yarn, can't figure out why. Will be glad when this is over so I can get on to something more edifying.

Six things from the Stash

2012-01-18T05:49:00.001Z

On the left a Bayadere cushion - on the right a Rush Matting Stitch
Picture from 'Knitting' by Wanda Bonando 1979

Still playing with the idea of 'six' and have a tentative list of six things from the stash.

A ripple stitch throw, possibly knitted, maybe crochet
A waistcoat, hopefully purple
A hat, stripey to use up odds
A teacosy (I've never knitted one)
A shawl (I've never knitted one)
A bayadere cushion (I've never knitted one)

My sister gave me the book with the picture of the Bayadere cushion and I've longed to try it. Masses of possibilities and good for the stash. Apparently 'bayadere' is a fabric with brightly coloured horizontal stripes...or, an Indian dancer.

Six Works in Progress

2012-01-15T05:59:00.010Z

Referred to as 'the pink thing'

The Pink Thing is a crocheted circular shawl where I make it up as I go along. Been doing it for about three years now.

A Smock top baby jacket

Intended as a Christmas present, it was never really going to make it. I've got a doll it might fit and I want to finish it to see how it turns out. Right now it doesn't exactly look like a work of art.

A 'stained glass' throw made up of lots of knitted oblongs passed on to me by a friend. Known as 'Sarah's thing'.

Plus

Number 4

a hat, scarf and arm warmers in Sirdar Persia. Hat and wrist warmers done. Scarf half way through.

Number 5

A tunic in Sirdar Indie which mum has started, but it got a bit overwhelming. Great big chunky knitted on great big needles. I cannot express how much I hate knitting this.

Number 6

A peach coloured top for mum with lace at sleeves and bottom edge. Neither Mum nor my sister could master the lace. I was a smartass and was given the whole thing to do. That'll teach me. Yarn is Wendy Peter Pan and mum insists on using plastic needles. Ghastly. The needles will have to go and I'll live with the yarn.

We've been walking around Stonehenge

2012-01-13T06:06:00.003Z

Stonehenge from the other side of the A303

One of my aims this year is to improve my photography and the quality of my posts. When I concentrate, I can take quite pleasing photos. This particular post has turned out to be a lesson in what not to do. I cropped the one above to remove the fenceposts. This has had a somewhat unfortunate effect.

We didn't go that way

I was amused by the 'permissive path' sign, but managed to cut off the tip of the sign when I photographed it.

Map on noticeboard showing the line of Bronze Age Burial Mounds

For hundreds of years people have been digging in the mounds and in 1808 some treasure was dug up in Bush Barrow, one of the mounds in the line. I had managed to photograph some of the items found as shown on the noticeboard - then deleted the photograph by accident. Here is a link to some information about the finds.

Information about Bush Barrow, Normanton Down, Stonehenge

Photographed on a dull day from the wrong side.

Just good to look at

2012-01-11T05:47:00.002Z

Headlamp from an old Packard car

When a design is pleasing it can be pleasing in all kinds of media and forms. This headlight is simply good to look at as well as being unusual. And I can't help thinking of a bobbled beret, or a table centre, or a good warm textured circular shawl for those cold January evenings.

The Packard in question

January, the time to plan

2012-01-08T06:32:00.002Z

January - bare trees against a blue sky

Went for a walk on Friday, quite a long one. Very little caught my eye for a worthwhile photograph. But that's January. Time to plan and look ahead, write lists and enjoy a bit of a daydream. I'm having fun thinking about the '6 things' projects and I keep refining my list of 6 things to aim for which now stands at :

6 things knitted from the stash
6 WIPs to be completed
6 new techniques to be mastered
6 things to be knitted that I have never tried before
6 things out of all the above that I am really pleased with
6 photos that I am really pleased with
6 novels of Jane Austen - read them all in 2012

Eve Arnold

2012-01-06T14:31:00.000Z

News today of Eve Arnold's death. She photographed some of the most famous people in the world and her pictures of Marilyn Monroe are iconic.

Eve Arnold was a photojournalist and didn't just photograph Hollywood legends. She also travelled in China, the Middle East and South Africa taking often stark photographs of the lives of people there.

If you get a moment, google her to see examples of her photos. The link below gives a You Tube recorded interviews with her talking about Marilyn .

Eve Arnold talking about Marilyn Monroe

New Year's Day - hope you had a good one

2012-01-04T06:00:00.001Z

Yvette - the sleek and lovely Citroen Traction Avant

We went to a car show in West Sussex on New Year's Day and really enjoyed ourselves. Only a little informal gathering outside a pub. The Citroen Traction Avant is one of my favourites and I was pleased to see a late model. These were made from 1934 for many years, so stylish, so French. They were used by both the Gestapo and the Resistance. This one is called Yvette and is a bit of a film star.

The Peugeot 402

In spite of my love for the Citroen, my selected 'Car of the Show' was this Peugeot 402. I've never seen one before and I would go all the way back to West Sussex in the rain to see it again.

Looks like it might have been made from three different cars, but it still works for me

Deco trim on the rear wheel arch - if you look closely you can see
the head of a big cat echoing the mascot on the bonnet

Front indicator light - look at that beautifully moulded glass

Flowing lines

On the drive down, I managed to knit a wrist warmer in Sirdar Persia. Not a particularly enjoyable yarn to knit with, but comes in some good colours. I've completed a beret, a wrist warmer and am about to start a scarf for the full set. All from stash. Yay!

New Year Resolutions

2012-01-01T06:00:00.004Z

Part of the stash - Part of the New Year Resolution

First of all - Happy New Year - May 2012 be full of all kinds of good things for you.

Then, the Resolutions. I have joined a Ravelry group called 'Underrated'. This group is for under achievers like me who would like to think they could knit 12 things in 2012, but don't really believe they will. So we are going for 6 things. There are different threads in the group and I will be working along on these :

finishing 6 WIPs in 2012 (from all the heaps of bags around me I can certainly find 6 abandoned items)
6 items knitted from the stash

along with this my other resolutions include :

no yarn buying in 2012 (Oh really?) owing to the giant proportions of the stash
along with busting the stash learn new techniques, there are some things I would like to try. (see the excellent Pinkundine's blog for a list of the things she aimed for and achieved in 2011 - she's only been knitting a year) Pinkundine's list of things to try

I'm working on my list of techniques to try in 2012, but as for specific items ...

make a pair of socks - never done it
make a shawl - never made one

Also,

work a bit harder on the photography
give more back to the blogging community in terms of the quality of my blog and networking / sharing
Enjoy it!

Smaller Items to Knit

2011-12-30T11:54:00.000Z

Dad's arm rest tidy - it's pale blue, not grey

It's always been my 'thing' to take on larger projects, because I feel somehow that I should, that I enjoy knitting, but must make sure that I make something really worthwhile. This strange approach is something to do with my obsession that time spent must be productive in some way and it often leads to disappointment.
I'm starting to learn that it's ok to just enjoy stuff and that not every piece of knitting has to be something to wear.

Now I've learned that, I'm starting to find that smaller, quicker knits can be really useful too and that I actually finish them and they work. The arm rest tidies knitted for my parents are already in use and much appreciated. I used some aran from the stash, three strands knitted together to make a super chunky and Voila! Such a worthwhile knit on so many levels :
- a gift
- a useful gift
- I enjoyed making them (I love cable knitting)
- they were quick
- they used up some stash
- they got me into the notion of using more stash by knitting several strands at once

Christmas Reading

2011-12-28T10:07:00.000Z

Christmas at Mum's

Over Christmas I have been reading Charles Dickens' Christmas Stories, a little edition that includes :
A Christmas Carol
The Cricket on the Hearth
The Chimes
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain
The Battle of Life

Lots of Victorian sentimentality, angelic women and bad men. Lovely.

Other recent good reads have included

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
A beautiful book about some very ugly times. It's about the things people do to and for each other and how words can work for good or evil and it's about survival.

The Age of Elegance by Arthur Bryant
Written in 1954 with a very patriotic and rather rose-coloured view of life in early nineteenth century England and the English, it is very good on the battles with Napolean and gives rather amusing depictions of European royalty. He describes the Prince Regent (future George IV) in 1814

'Though not yet fifty-two, he was enormously fat; his great backside, tightly swaddled in bright white inexpressibles, was one of the sights of Society'.

Bryant used huge numbers of contemporary sources and I enjoyed reading it for what were obviously first hand accounts by soldiers and politicians, but when it came to the 'editorial' kept reminding myself that his view of the world would not be mine.

The Making of Victorian England by G.Kitson-Clark
First published in 1962 this book uses a lot of words to explain that there was no cut-off point at which Britain suddenly entered The Victorian Era. There was no fanfare or clap of thunder which meant that we were suddenly all Victorian. A lot of the behaviours, practices, customs and injustices of the eighteenth century continued right up until the 1870s and beyond. The book is very interesting on the development and influence of Dissenters and their rejection of the Church of England. Also the development of political parties. But it was hard going - why use two words when fourteen will do?

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T06:00:00.001Z

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone. Peace, Love and Joy.

Trying to get Christmassy

2011-12-23T06:36:00.003Z

Home Made Christmas Wreath

I'm trying to get Christmassy, but have a heavy cold and had to have an emergency tooth extraction this week after breaking a tooth on a lamb chop. The tooth put up a fight and there was quite a tussle in the dentist's chair, so I've got face ache. Feeling a bit miserable and low on the energy I need to tackle the Christmassy things I wanted to do. I am sitting over a heater, listening to IPlayer, finishing up my knitted presents and trying to decide which sort of medication to take next.
Before the cold and the tooth I was very Christmassy and after a visit from the TV aerial man (we were down to two channels) I picked up a bit of waste cable, rolled it and stuck things to it to make a wreath. We've had a lot of strong winds and I really didn't expect it to last, but it's still there and still intact. So is my Christmas tree, in spite of the fact that the TV aerial man watching me put it together had severe doubts. He kept offering advice and instruction as he worked. He was right and I had to take it apart twice before the branches were in the right order.

Smocking

2011-12-21T06:21:00.002Z

Beaker Button, the new yarn shop which has opened up at Weyhill Fair near Andover had a box of old patterns for sale when I visited, the proceeds going to charity. Apparently there had been some real treasures in there, but I was a bit late to get those. I did get this wonderful little book on smocking which I have never seen before. Late '40s maybe. Certainly in a period of austerity as all pictures are black and white and if there had been a choice publishers and readers would certainly have wanted them in colour.

I have books on smocking which also cover Dorset buttons and I suppose there is some link between the crafts. There are some wonderfully intricate patterns in this little pamphlet and I have often thought it would be fun to translate smocking patterns into knit, either by creating fairisle patterns from them, or by knitting a diaper pattern and embroidering it. In fact I have a WIP which will do just that very thing if ever I can finish it.

I caught the office cold

2011-12-18T07:15:00.000Z

Bare trees in a wintry sun on Sidbury Hill

I never catch the office cold. This one I caught. Feeling a bit bleak today. Got so much to do for Christmas. Sniff.

Beaker Button

2011-12-15T05:59:00.011Z

New one on me - Patons Colourworks Aran - so squishable

A new shop called Beaker Button has opened up near me - at The Fairground Craft and Design Centre at Weyhill. You get a lovely welcome and Jen who runs it stocks some very nice yarn, with more coming in all the time. I went to get Christmas presents and shouldn't have been looking at wool shops at all, but hey-ho. What can I say?

Absolutely scrummy mossy green 4 ply

Also in stock are kits for making Dorset buttons and some cards of buttons already made up. I have always been fascinated by this craft which once provided a livelihood for many in the west country who would proudly say when asked, 'I do buttony'. Sadly, the advent of machine made buttons took away their livelihood and they fell on hard times.

Jen does workshops and here is her website.
Beakerbutton

Another Dorset connection is that Weyhill is the site of the famous Weyhill fair where thousands upon thousands of sheep were brought by drovers from all over the South of England. Itinerant workers would go as well, to sell their labour or their expertise and it was at one of the Weyhill fairs that the Dorset novelist Thomas Hardy had the future Mayor of Casterbridge sell his wife.

I haven't read The Mayor of Casterbridge. Thomas Hardy always makes me a bit depressed and having got through Far from the Madding Crowd, Tess of the D'urbervilles, The Woodlanders (the last two are extremely sad), I'd need to be feeling particularly bouyant to tackle the Mayor of Casterbridge.

Beginning to get a thing about fungi

2011-12-13T06:00:00.002Z

Bracket fungus on a stump surrounded by stinging nettles

Whilst walking a footpath at the back of the local cricket pavilion a few weeks ago, I found this bracket fungus attached to a tree stump.

It looks really tough and embedded in the wood. It's curled up around the edges, like a dish shape so that it catches dead leaves and rainwater and I wonder if this is one of the ways it gets nutrients. It has a weird kind of beauty and power.

I've poked about various websites and books and haven't been able to name it. What is it with us humans that we have a real fascination with labelling things ? I think maybe if I name it, then it might lose some of its power. Am I going a bit strange?

Anyway, as I was poking about, I found this website with all sorts of interesting things in it.
http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/

More Inspiration from Nature

2011-12-11T06:33:00.000Z

Lichen on the farm gate

I like to get inspiration from nature. I'm not a clever enough artist or designer to have any great success, but there is a buzz when it comes close.

Decided to have a go at a small ruffle

The gate is richer in browns and blue greys than appears in the first photo, so I chose a colour rich yarn for my first shot.

The instructions attached to my swatch

Deeper ruffle

Lichen seen on Hawthorn - now there's a challenge

Inspiration on the ground

2011-12-09T06:05:00.000Z

Clitoeybe ?

On a recent walk I saw this band of toadstools. They get their nutrients from the decaying leaf litter. I've had a look at my Mushroom and Toadstool book and think this may be something called Clitoeybe Candicans. Not one for the cooking pot, I'm afraid. Looks innocent, but it's not.

I was more interested in the way it marched across the fallen leaves. The contrast of it's pale disks against the leaf litter. And then there are the colours in the leaf litter itself - all sorts. And the contrast of the bright green bramble. Lots to ponder.

There's something fascinating about these things

Spiders' Webs

2011-12-07T06:00:00.004Z

My emblem

Photographed at the base of Sidbury Hill a few weeks ago. It's much colder now and more difficult to find enough daylight to walk. I'm resorting to walking in the dark where there are streetlights. It's a bit restrictive and hopeless for photography.

Another view - I find these so captivating

Thoughts have turned to lighting the fire. First we had to remove the Jackdaw's nest from the chimney. There was a small forest up there and it was solidly blocked. I think we wouldn't have minded so much if they had raised a family. But they built it, then abandoned it.

Now that we have removed the blockage the chimney is drawing again at a terrific rate and the sitting room is very draughty once more. A great gale whistles through the house and up the flue. Such is cottage life.

Still Christmas Knitting

2011-12-04T06:00:00.001Z

This is the inner pocket

I'm still managing to progress with a bit of Christmas knitting. This week I've been focusing on an armchair tidy for Mum who, because she has very little mobility, tends to gather all her bits around her. Lots of stuff goes down the side of the chair. Regular excavation is required.

I'm now thinking of making one for Dad, but it would have to be a darker colour. This cream colour would not survive his mucky little mitts.

The outer pocket waiting to be sewn up - I do so love a bit of cable

This pattern was one I had cut out of a knitting magazine and was for some kind of super chunky. One of the few things I don't have in my stash as I don't enjoy knitting with it. I had some vintage chunky which I used double to get the right tension.

The second photo is in bright sunshine and looks like a completely different colour than the first. The first is a truer representation of the colour. Interesting.
I'm now getting obsessed with the different ways I could stashbust by doubling up yarns. Hmmm

Food for thought.

2011-12-02T06:00:00.003Z

Pig about town

Whilst I quite liked the pig, I felt he lacked something. A collar and tie makes all the difference. I think this is true of a lot of males. You've never really seen 'em until you've seen 'em in a good suit.

Label attached to his foot

2011-11-30T06:00:00.001Z

Something for 3-6 year old

A little bit of knitting for a charity stall. As long as I keep focussed and don't try anything too large, I actually do seem to be able to finish stuff. This is in chunky of course, which I rarely use. But I can see why people like it. It grows fast.

I always worry about the thumbs on children's gloves. They always look out of place to me. Too prominent. I'm just hoping they mould to the wearer.

Christmas knitting

2011-11-27T12:25:00.000Z

They look better with a foot in

Finally finished some Christmas Knitting - and it has turned out rather better than I expected (and better than these photos - I rushed them a bit). These slippers are done in aran knitted double. They are supposed to have a tassle at the front. Since these are going to someone with three Yorkshire terriers I think that's tempting fate, so I crocheted some flowers and put a bead in the centre and it's all very, very firmly sewn down.

I think I shall add some drinking chocolate sachets and other little goodies that might help with a warm and relaxing afternoon watching old films. and cuddling Yorkshire Terriers. And before you think it, they are the same size, I've just realised that they look different in this photograph. I'm going to have to start concentrating on the photography a bit more.

Slippers for idling on the sofa

November

2011-11-25T06:00:00.004Z

November morning

A misty November morning and you would think that there wasn't a lot of colour to be had.

The world starting to wake up

Look more closely, see what you can find - lots of inspiration here

And suddenly the world's awake

Taa-da!

Martin Down

2011-11-23T06:06:00.001Z

Man made ditches stretching down the hillside

Martin Down, ten miles from Salisbury is a site with a long history, a bronze age enclosure and enormous ditches acting as boundary markers. The scale of these ditches is remarkable - it would be a huge undertaking even today with modern machinery. It was all dug by hand. It's all grassed over now, but when it was first dug the great white stripes across the down as the chalk was exposed would have demonstrated the power and dominance of the people who created it.

It's now a nature reserve providing a downland home for all the creatures who specialise in that kind of habitat. We went at the end of October, so not much in the way of flowers and butterflies to be seen. Lots of sheep though.

A Derbyshire Gritstone

The Derbyshire Gritstone is one of the oldest British breeds of sheep originating in the Derbyshire Peak District in the mid eighteenth century and is well able to survive on the top of a hill in the south of England. I have two little books called 'Know Your Sheep' by Jack Byard and they tell me that the wool of the Gritstone is used for high quality hosiery, knitted outerwear and underwear.

An ancient burial mound

On top of the hill an ancient burial mound lay among yew and holly trees. The ancient druidic trees. Very fitting for such a site and very atmospheric.

Sugar and Spice

2011-11-20T05:47:00.006Z

Knitted skirt, jumper and cardigan for 2-4 years old

I should think this pattern from Sirdar's Sunshine series is late '50s. Knitted in 4ply, the button bands on the cardigan and the cross band on the skirt are embroidered with flowers. I can remember little girls who would have looked just right in this. Their hair neatly brushed and their little white socks gleaming in their patent shoes. I wasn't one of those. Frequently mistaken for a boy, always untidy with unruly hair and chewed sleeves, one sock up, one sock always down, I was a source of desperation to my mother. By the time I was ten I had the National Health specs - the brown ones with the wire earpieces (I refused to wear the pink ones). I knew what my style was early on and everyone learned to live with it.

When I was about five I paired up with one very neat little girl called Valerie for a fancy dress parade. We were Jack and Jill. She looked wonderful in her little flounced dress, pale yellow with white frills. I was Jack and wore dark blue striped dungarees and a brown hat. I held her hand and we walked out into the sunshine with the rest of the parade. Someone in the crowd said, 'Oh look at that sweet little boy'. We won first prize.

Nowadays (about fifty years later) I love fashion and feminine clothes, but still look best in a pair of jeans and a check shirt. I knew it all along.

Dog Roses

2011-11-18T06:18:00.005Z

A Dog Rose in November

"Unkempt about those hedges blows
An English unofficial rose;''

Rupert Brooke

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester

I love Dog Roses but they always seem to come into flower in those few weeks in June when we get high winds and slashing rain. As soon as they appear their delicate petals are whipped away. I found this hardy specimen on a walk in early November on the hills around Ashdown Copse.
On some wonderfully sunny walks in October on Sidbury Hill I saw masses of rose hips. Must remember to come back in early summer to see the roses.

Rose hips in October

Some of the hips had split to disperse the seeds.

Just look at that sky

Colours in late October

2011-11-16T06:23:00.012Z

Rosebay Willow Herb

These pictures come from a walk in late October. I like to record colours for use in knitting swatches. This huge clump of Rosebay Willow Herb was turning to the most glorious colours.

How the colours look close up

Rosebay in full flower tends to be associated these days with waste ground and bomb sites and so doesn't strike us as it did Culpepper in his herbal who believed it to be the most beautiful of all the willow herbs. As it dies into winter it certainly is very beautiful.

Dogwood going through green to bronze to purple

And then, of course, there's the sky

Bias Knitting

2011-11-13T06:00:00.001Z

This bias knitted swatch was achieved by increasing at one end of a row and decreasing at the other. This keeps the number of stitches constant but slants them diagonally.

I cast on 3 stitches and then knitting in garter stitch increased at each end of the row until the swatch was the width I needed. Then I decreased 1 stitch from the right hand side and increased 1 stitch on the left hand side on alternate rows. Then when the swatch was long enough I decresed a stitch at the end of every alternate row until there are no stitches left. The colours were inspired by a satellite view of a Saudi Arabian desert.

Bias knitting would achieve the same kind of drape as any bias fabric and chevron stripes are created using the same principles.

I got my instructions for the swatch from a course I did with Locaine Mclean who runs a City and Guilds knit course. But for her I would never have tried things like this.

A quiet corner

2011-11-11T05:50:00.007Z

The Mortuary Chapel, Tidworth

I've been meaning to go and look at this little corner for some time and then the other day ended up on a footpath that went right by it as I climbed Furze Hill. The chapel was built in the late 18th century using materials from the demolished medieval church of South Tidworth. A place of worship is recorded there in the Domesday Book, but the grandees living in Tedworth House at the time considered that it spoilt their view and got permission from the Bishop of Winchester to demolish it. The little mortuary chapel built from its rubble was then the only place of worship in South Tidworth.

I wonder what impact this would have had on the villagers. I wonder if they were at all devout, attached to the old building and conscious that their families had worshipped there for generations. Did this demolition strike at the heart of their community? Or maybe, it was just another damp and leaky old building got out of the way and replaced by a much drier one on higher ground. That was certainly the argument made by those who wanted it pulled down.

View showing the belfry

Some quite grand people - the estate owners - were buried beside this little chapel in the 19th century without much fuss. And then there is a sad little corner for the children where the graves date between 1915 and 1918, two of them for children from the same family, aged 9 and 16 months. Hard to think that with all the great suffering of those years, small tragedies were still being played out far from the trenches.

Children's graves from the years of the First World War

Exhausting week

2011-11-09T06:11:00.001Z

Marilyn - trying to look as if she knows nothing about it

Very exhausting week last week. We could hear something moving about in the walls and under the floorboards. Always in the early hours of the morning. Fearing the worst I got the pest control man out. He turned out to be about twelve years old with a mobile phone that rang constantly. He was extremely laid back. He only became animated when he saw our bird feeders. Clearly he does not like bird feeders. I made him go in the attic because he was annoying me. He rummaged about a bit, then went away.

'The Man Who Can', came home from work with a circular saw and we started taking up floorboards. Finally caught a mouse. The noise it had been making over the past week, I thought at least a small pony had been running about in there. I discovered it had stashed about two boxes worth of cat biscuits in The Man Who Can's boots. Of course, if we didn't have the cat, we wouldn't have the mice. She brings them in and lets them go.

Needless to say I have been emptying and scrubbing cupboards ever since. But things are no longer scrabbling in our woodwork and the upside is we found some rather nice wooden floorboards that we didn't know were there.

Perhaps I shouldn't have started

2011-11-06T15:38:00.003Z

Part way towards smocking

You know how it is when you think perhaps you shouldn't have started. I'm making what I hope will be a Christmas gift (I'm not prepared to admit what it's supposed to be yet). Got carried away and didn't read the pattern properly before I started. It has smocking on it and this smocking is achieved by Tw2R and Tw2L.

The second one takes some getting used to. (and I don't think I'm doing it right), A couple of hours of this and my fingers are really stiff. And then when you have done all that you have to stitch all the diamonds into place so that it really looks like smocking. Oh deary me.

Tw2R
K into front of second st on left-hand needle, then P into front of first st, slipping both sts off needle together

Tw2L
P into back of second st on left-hand needle, then K into front of first st, slipping both sts off needle together

Reading

2011-11-04T06:07:00.002Z

A stand of beech - end of October

The photo bears no relation to the post. I just like to look at it. The post is about what I've been reading lately.

E.M. Forster - A Passage to India.
All these years and I've never read it, but have seen the film which doesn't quite do it justice. It's wonderful. Like Henry James, but with more happening.

Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things
Very sad, I found it upsetting. It's about how easily fragile lives are damaged. Wonderful writing from the viewpoint of a child.

Jo Nesbo - The Snowman
Billed as the next Stieg Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tatto), this was gripping with many twists and turns. A good page turner.

Trea Martyn - Elizabeth in the Garden
Fascinating story of the rivalry between Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester and William Cecil Lord Burghley for the favour of Queen Elizabeth I. They competed extravagantly to build fantastical gardens at The Earl of Leicester's house at Kenilworth and Cecil's home, Theobalds. The gardens were designed to celebrate the Queen and all the emblems of her cult. The book tells the story of the Queen's visits to these houses and the entertainments that were arranged for her. They spent the equivalent of millions of pounds, but neither of these gardens exist today.

A Very Extraordinary Pig

2011-11-02T06:59:00.001Z

You see, I don't make toys really. I kind of know that it's not my thing. But mum's craft club is having a charity stall at the end of November and I thought I would muck in, so to speak. So along with some hats and gloves and slippers, I had a go at making a pig.

He's just under 6 inches high (about 14cm in new money) and very, very round. The legs are not stuffed, just knitted and sewn on. He's not quite what I expected. Or rather, he is what I expected, knowing my skill at toy making, but probably not quite what the designer expected. I thought I might put a label on him saying either,

"Please look after this pig" (which is plagiarising Paddington Bear really)

or

"Please do not feed this pig
Because his tummy is too big".

I'm looking for those old fashioned brown card parcel labels to use on him and on the hats and gloves so I can give sizes. Can't get 'em anywhere.

Z is for Zumbador

2011-10-31T06:10:00.010Z

Zumbador was one of the words in the 'words beginning with Z' list I found on the internet. The defninition gave it as a South American bird. I researched it a little further and found that it seems to be Spanish for hummingbird. And then I found this little film clip. I love watching birds and if you have a minute or two do take a look. It's happy-making.

Zumbador reminds me of the old West Country word for a bumble bee 'dumbledore'.

And then I started looking at videos of Zumba classes. Wow.

Now that does look like fun. I love the music and there was a time when I could have moved like that. Not so sure now.

So, we are at the end of our ABC. It's been great, I've met some wonderful people and learned lots.
Thanks everyone.

Patterns in Nature

2011-10-28T06:35:00.003+01:00

Patterns in tree bark

I was intrigued to see these patches in tree bark because they reminded me of something. It's almost like an aboriginal art.

A stripey branch

I've tried to find pictures on the web to illustrate what I mean, but I haven't found anything that comes close. So I'm reverting to a photo of a hollow log coffin that I took at the British Museum a while back. It does nothing to support my fancy that the tree bark looks like an aboriginal painting, but I like it anyway for the shapes and colour.

Aboriginal Hollow Log Coffin at the British Museum

Which moves me on to another theory that I must research. Artefacts like the hollow log coffins and other aboriginal works often remind me of European design in the 1950s and I wonder if that's when these works were being discovered and first valued as works of art. I know so little about this subject. What a wonderful world. So much to find out.

An October Walk

2011-10-26T20:07:00.000+01:00

Walking below Ashdown Copse looking towards Sidbury Hill

On a walk in mid October I can begin to feel the grey part of the year approaching. There are little accent snatches of bluest harebell and deep purple/pink ragged robin still to be seen all jostled roughly by a strong wind blowing across the hillside.

And then there was this little flower.

The Common Rock Rose

The hillside was simply covered with this plant although only a few flowers remained and I can only imagine what it must be like when out in full flower, so I have to be sure to go back. It's a form of helianthemum. I grow a strong red variety in my garden. It clearly likes chalky soil a lot.

The tussocky hillside smothered in helianthemum plants

On the top of this hill was an ancient field system and a burial mound. The mound had been dug into and turned into an observation post during World War II, like so many around here. There was something a little creepy up there and I don't know whether it was just the turn of the year or my mood, or my sadness about the burial mound, or the grey sky. A jay flew into the woodland, a very shy bird and I noticed how very silent is their flight. Ghostly.

I was cheered up by a flock of long tailed tits rushing through the bushes looking for berries. Hard to be melancholy when you see their dapper little bodies busying about and all vying for the best pickings.

'Y' is for Y

2011-10-23T17:19:00.000+01:00

'Y' is for Y, another instalment in the ABC meme set up by An Accidental Knitter

Section of Y's sampler of what was called Plain Sewing

I first knew Y when I was a little girl. Her name was Ynona, but she was always known as Y. Born in 1916 she was educated in a Belgian convent. She struggled through her sampler at the convent, having little interest in needlework and it always reminds me of a sampler described by Rozsika Parker in 'The Subversive Stitch'. In contrast to other seventeenth century samplers with verses about love and duty, diligence and obedience there is Polly Cook's, whose sampler reads

'Polly Cook did it and she hated every stitch she did in it'

Y would have felt the same. She didn't really understand my fascination with embroidery and knitting. She was completely baffled by my interest in how to launder things properly. But she used to tell me about her attempts to knit a pullover for her first husband and how she would knit on long train journeys to see her brother at his RAF base on the east coast early in World War II. She described the result as 'full of holes' but her husband wore it anyway, out of love for her.

Y's mother Belle was half French. This was her workbox.

Knowing my interest Y gave me all the crochet and embroidery pieces that her beautiful mother, Belle and her aunt had made. Some of them were in a sorry state and I'm still working to launder and restore them. Y couldn't understand why I would do all this just to pack them in lavendar in a box, but was happy that they gave me pleasure.

Y was related to dukes of the realm, to princesses in fact, but her branch of the family had no money and so she had to earn her living. With no practical education, she capitalised on her looks and style, did a little work as an extra in films and also took what she called 'a dancing job' in Milan, a great adventure for her. She also modelled lingerie at fancy department stores.

From Y's scrapbook, the programme for her 'dancing job' in 1935.
She was part of a troupe known as 'le Young Ladies of Mayfair'

She was a lively, beautiful young girl during the last years of the 'long party' between the two World Wars, living in London and having a wonderful time. She had so many stories, like the one about being chased around a large dining table at a smart London address by an over-amorous young man and we laughed together as she described skidding round the corners on the wooden floors in her party shoes. We shared an absurd love of slapstick. Now I come to think about it, she never did tell me whether he caught her.

Programme for Gala Evenings, 1939

Y's husband died in 1943 after attempting an escape from a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Her beloved older brother and only sibling, a Flight Lieutenant was killed in 1942 in a Lysander near Alexandria. Y also lost many of her friends. Her only son died tragically in his thirties during the 1960s. After the war and right into her seventies Y worked tirelessly to support herself, learning whatever skills were needed to earn her living, something her upbringing had not really prepared her for.

Never, ever bitter or self pitying, this courageous lady had no surviving close family and invested her energies in building a circle of friends, most of them many years younger than herself. A highly intelligent, sometimes challenging lady with an enquiring mind, Y would have made the most of a decent education if the opportunity had been there. She would have absolutely loved the internet for the world it could open up to her.

Y in 1935

Y died on her 86th birthday after a long battle with her last illness. She died in her own bed at home with her lipstick on. As she would have wanted.

I think of Y often. She taught me so much about standards, about endurance and style, about life between the wars and during World War II and about the world she came from. As always in these circumstances, I wish I had asked her more. I'm priveleged to have known her.

Another One Finished

2011-10-20T20:01:00.000+01:00

Rather Smart

When Mum was still able to knit in any quantity she chose a variegated yarn to make a waistcoat, but didn't buy enough. So she did the fronts and we decided to buy a dark navy to do the back. Then knitting became more difficult for her and I took it away (some time ago) and finished the back and button bands this week.

This has come up rather better than I expected and I managed to find some rather snazzy buttons in my button tin which tone in nicely. Mum will have forgotten all about this project by now and it is being wrapped up for her birthday as a surprise. Just the right thing for this time of year.

What is so good about this is that she managed to do so much of it and that will please her.

Linen stitch again

2011-10-18T21:34:00.000+01:00

Wash Mitt and Lily of The Valley Soap

Mum's birthday coming up soon. I have made some of her presents and one is this wash mitt in green and cream cotton, knitted in my favourite slip stitch - linen stitch. It knits up to a dense fabric.

Linen Stitch

Because it knits up so densely you use slightly larger size needle than normal for your chosen yarn.
Use a multiple of 2 stitches. For the wash mitt I cast on 34 stitches in DK cottons and used 5mm needles.

Row 1, Col 1 : K1 *yfwd, sl1pw, ybk K1* last stitch K1

Row 2, Col 1 : K1 *sl1pw, yfwd, p1, ybk* last stitch K1

Row 3, Col 2 : As row 1

Row 4, Col 2 : As row 2

I started the decreases for the top of the mitt when it was six inches long. All a bit experimental, but I'm quite pleased with the result.

X is for ...

2011-10-17T06:00:00.002+01:00

... had a bit of trouble deciding what X is for. So, I had to resort to a dictionary - first time during this ABC meme hosted by An Accidental Knitter.

A few words appealed to me.

Seen in the Victoria and Albert museum
a 19th century embroidery in silk on linen from Skyros - Greek Island

Xebec - a small mediterranean three masted trading ship with oars. It was similar to the ships used by Barbary pirates. Can't believe my luck as this allows me to use the photo above of an embroidery I found in the V&A a couple of years ago. It appears to show a xebec.

Xenops - a small tropical rainforest bird of the ovenbird family.

All the ovenbirds you will ever want to see are on this link

Xystarch - the definition on the website was worded "ancient Greek officer in charge of gymnastic exercises". I think it means an officer in Ancient Greece. Although I like to think of some ancient officer, disappointed by too few promotions and embittered as younger men pass him by, exercising what little authority he has left by putting them through hell on the exercise ground.

That's what it was like at the gel's school I went to. Our Physical Training mistress was just like that. Xystarch. A small fearsome spinster with metallic grey hair that never moved, even in a high wind. I never once in five years ever saw her smile. Boy was she starchy and boy did we suffer. Gymnastics was a nightmare not to mention hockey in sub zero temperatures. Indoors if it was wet to have the off-side rule explained to us. I didn't get it then and I don't get it now.

We must have been a huge disappointment to her. I can still hear her shouting "Oh Misery!" at the latest feeble attempt to vault, run, hit the ball with the stick, pass a baton, get a ball over the net, get another ball through a hoop. All the usual forms of torture.

A late evening stroll

2011-10-14T15:38:00.000+01:00

Twilight at the top of Sidbury Hill

On the first Sunday in October we walked Sidbury Hill at dusk. The weather was fine and warm breezes wafted across the grass.

We saw an owl make a kill and surprised a badger out on his evening rounds. And somewhere lower down the hill unearthly cries, something between a bark and a shout. Whatever it was moved swiftly across the land. A deer? A fox?

Where is this blog going? Notes to self...

2011-10-12T06:00:00.008+01:00

Norwegian Door Jamb 1050-1070
Because I like it

Blogging is therapeutic and allows me to keep a record of things I love and want to share with others. But there are things to think about now. The blog is 8 months old. We are moving into winter a bit of a seasonal change is in the wind. The temptation is to move right into another meme as the ABC meme hosted by An Accidental Knitter comes to a close, but I have challenged myself here. Do I need to focus on finding a voice?

Today I've looked at the Blog Hub Group on Ravelry and read through the hints and tips experienced bloggers have given on others' sites. (How generous these people are with their time).

http://www.ravelry.com/groups/the-blog-hub

This prompted me to make notes to myself:

Pictures need to be bright and cheery. Many of mine are, but some are a bit muted.
There needs to be more focus on the writing style
There need to be more references to other peoples' blogs and links to websites that might interest readers. I'm not doing enough to contribute to the blog community
The profile may need a bit of a revamp
Bit more radical - Have I got one blog here or two? There are the craft bits, the nature and countryside bits, the vintage bits. Do they work altogether, or does one thing dilute another? I really don't know the answer to this. I like multi-faceted blogs, but I have seen critiques that encourage greater focus in blogs.

The search will continue for other thoughts and ideas and comments are welcome.

Works in Progress

2011-10-09T15:44:00.001+01:00

W for Works in Progress, another post in the ABC meme hosted by An Accidental Knitter.

Discipline is key. So projects started these days don't tend to drag on. And I even managed to finish a couple of WIPs in the last few months left over from last year. Maybe I am less ambitious now than years ago when I started some very long standing WIPs still in my collection. I prefer to think of these as heritage items.

There is the double bed sized patchwork coverlet started in 1980. It's backed onto a soft teal sheet now, but I cut the sheet in the wrong place and don't know how to finish it. Some innovative thinking required here. And strong nerve.

I can remember when we first moved to Wiltshire laying this out on the lawn to figure out where to go next with the pattern and an elderly neighbour came along, Mr. Orchard who had twinkly eyes and rosy apple cheeks. He looked over the garden gate and said,
"What be you doin?"

Some of the patches are outlined in feather stitch

Too much work has gone into this to abandon it, but oh my goodness, I fear the work to come.

There are embroidered daisies at strategic points around the border

This hasn't come out of the bag for a couple of years and deserves to be finished

This embroidered Christmas tablecloth has a motif like this in each corner. Started about twenty years ago. I try to do a bit each Christmas, but have even failed in this is the last couple of years.
From a pattern in an Anna magazine which was done in silver and gold thread, it looked a bit icky, so I chose my own colour scheme, but like an idiot I started doing it with only one and two strands of embroidery thread, so it takes forever.

There is a tapestry I started about fifteen years ago. Knowing my limitations and how it would take years to complete I even made a special cotton bag for it and the frame to keep the dust off. A very little gets done each Christmas while watching the films on the box.

This is a project for those tired evenings when I don't want to think too hard about stitches and tension

This pink crochet 'thing' has been going on for about four years, I think. It's circular and folded in half will make a comfy shawl. No pattern. I just do whatever I fancy doing when I pick it up and it has developed these very cosy ruffles. My chap hates pink and really resents this object, but our house is chilly and I lose the feeling in my hands and arms when reading in bed, and my shoulders tense up so this is a 'round the shoulder reading companion'. (It may be my age, or my chilly house, but does anyone else collect old bedjacket patterns? I love them).

Framing all the rectangles in black crochet to create a kind of stained glass window effect

I am often given other people's collections of patterns, needles and works in progress. One of these was a heap of knitted cotton rectangles, purpose unkown. I have fallen very behind on the knitted patchwork throw I intended to make from them to gift back to the friend who gave me her Gran's collection.

And there are bits mum has started and is unable to finish.

Mum's waistcoat - I'm sure this will be fine when it's put together

Her waistcoat for which she didn't buy enough yarn, so the fronts are variegated purples and the back is navy blue. She had done the fronts and I have done the back and just need to put it together. (I hate putting together). I think the button bands will need to be navy blue.

I really dislike knitting with this yarn and have the whole top to do - hey-ho.

Her peach coloured shell top which has lace at the sleeves and bottom edge. The lace defeated her, so I have the whole thing to do. I've managed to complete the lace on one sleeve.

Then there are the presents and charity stall items that must be finished before Christmas.
This of course doesn't cover the list of things that are projects in my mind to start and finish for charity knitting and Christmas presents.

And do you know what? It's fun to create pressure for yourself in this way. Mum and I can keep ourselves entertained for hours just thinking about what we might do. Mum who was an expert can barely knit now, but the works in our heads release her from the struggle of living with disability and release me from the mundane day-to day battles of modern life and work. It's better than chocolate.

2011-10-07T07:00:00.001+01:00

Old Man's Beard

Gerard the herbalist who published his Herbal in 1597 called this plant 'Traveller's Joy' because it decorated the 'waies and hedges where people travel'. Also known as 'Gypsies' bacca' because gypsies smoked the hollow stems. A form of clematis, the whole plant is poisonous.

I must have seen miles of this driving through the lanes of the south of England. As autumn moves into winter it gets greyer and stragglier and old and beardy looking, but seen here as the sun came up on the last day of September the seed heads are brighter pink than any I have ever seen.

Views

2011-10-05T06:50:00.001+01:00

Pickpit Hill in the early morning from the base of Sidbury Hill
- it's the bit left of centre with the little clump of trees

Last Friday for my long walk I climbed to the top of Sidbury Hill to look across at Pickpit Hill.

While I was up on Sidbury Hill walking the Iron Age ramparts I had a chat with the woolly highland cattle that wander the hill and look so at home there. The burial mounds are clumped and scattered across the landscape below and ancient boundary lines roll out across the landscape. Pickpit Hill called to me.

Walking back down the hill across the valley and up the other side I battled through some undergrowth to find my way to the top of Pickpit Hill so that I could look back at Sidbury.

Last bit of the ascent of Pickpit Hill - getting a bit tired now

At the top of Pickpit is an ancient burial mound, an Ordnance Survey triangulation point, the remains of a building put there in World War II. And there are the views of Sidbury Hill across the valley and across Salisbury Plain.

Sidbury Hill from Pickpit Hill

Views from Pickpit Hill across Salisbury Plain

This was an unexpectedly beautiful October morning. I hadn't set out intending to do both hills but the skyline drew me on. It took four hours, partly because I stopped on both hills to have an apple and just look at the world. It was priceless and cost me nothing at all.

V is for Voracious

2011-10-03T06:52:00.002+01:00

Mostly 'his' - car manuals, engineering texts and somewhere in there several editions of The Ball Bearing Journal

Another post for the ABC meme by An Accidental Knitter.

I am a voracious reader. A friend at university called me 'the shredder' because of the way I got through books.

I read fiction and non-fiction. I pass on modern fiction to friends and charity shops (which is where a lot of it comes from), but find it difficult to part with non-fiction and 19th Century classics. I'm not a huge fan of the Victorians, but they could spin a good yarn and I keep going back to them.

After we discovered that the book case on the landing was coming through the dining room ceiling due to overloading there was a major redistribution. And there will have to be another since all the upstairs floors on that side of the house now need to come up and three more book cases will need to be cleared. So, I'm trying to read my way through books I have had for decades so that I can let them go.

The books I will have to part with are mostly strange and obscure history books written by now discredited historians in the thirties and forties. It's interesting to read them from the perspective of events at the time they were written. One I read recently was about Nelson, Wellington and the Peninsular War where I learned that many details in the Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell (Sharpe's Rifles, etc), and subsequent TV series starring Sean Bean were based in historical fact right down to those rather fetching green jackets. This old book, written in late thirties used a lot of first hand sources and what really came across was the terrible hardship endured by the armies on all sides as they tried to move around the Peninsula in winter.

A lot of the art history will have to go as well. The natural history books, poetry, gardening, cookery and craft books (mainly embroidery and knitting), are untouchable. They stay, floors or no floors.

In recent weeks I have been reading :

Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres
It's been published a long time now and I'd never read it or seen the film. One of the funniest, saddest, most harrowing and poignant books I have ever read.

Boudica, Dreaming the Eagle - Manda Scott
First of a trilogy. Somehow you know the story won't end well. Since the written history of this period is so scant, and what exists was written by the invaders (the Romans), this is a tremendous work of the imagination and absolutely gripping.

The Virgin's Lover - Philippa Gregory
A good page turner, like all Philippa Gregory's books.

Currently reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell who writes so devastatingly with such a light touch. He wrote Cloud Atlas which I read some years ago and was blown away by it.

Next up - might be A Place of Greater Safety, by Hilary Mantel. I read Wolf Hall last year and will read it again (one of the rare occasions when I would re-read a work of modern fiction). I watched a documentary about Hilary Mantel last week - what a fascinating writer.

This list leans heavily towards historical novels, but I actually love thrillers and detective fiction and recently have got through a fair bit of Jeffrey Deaver.

And on the non-fiction side I am looking forward to A Gambling Man by Jenny Uglow about Charles II and the Restoration. Jenny Uglow wrote a lovely book a few years ago called A Little History of British Gardening.

And I still do all my reading on paper. The whole tactile experience is part of it for me. Not sure I'll ever take to reading at great length on any form of screen.

In the back of the cupboard

2011-09-30T06:25:00.003+01:00

It's that time of year when you start turning over the summer clothes to dig out the autumn/winter ones. I found this which I knitted winter 2009. It's knitted in Rowan Big Wool. First time I have ever knitted anything that chunky. Grows fast, but I don't find it a comfortable experience, rather hard work and I shan't do it again.

I had read that big wools can mess up your tension and that the fronts will tend to droop. That's exactly what happened here. I packed it away in disgust, but now I shall re-style it and wear it as if it's meant to be that way and use a scarf pin at the top, removing the button that is supposed to fasten it at the bottom.
It's nice and warm and red is very 'in' this season. And I've lost some weight, so I won't look quite so 'lumpy' in it.

Comfrey

2011-09-28T06:48:00.000+01:00

The comfrey is still going strong. Grown from seed last year this variety is a rich dark purple. The bees love it and it's good for the compost bin. Helps things rot down faster. Leaves laid in strategic positions can also be used to tempt slugs away from susceptible plants.

Apparently we're in for a heat wave over the next few days. Our Indian Summer. So, out in the garden to do some tidying up and cutting back.

Comfrey, Bee and Ox Eye Daisy

U is for Underwear

2011-09-26T06:44:00.006+01:00

Late twenties - early thirties

U is for Underwear, another post in An Accidental Knitter's ABC meme.

Advertisement on the back of the pattern for the combinations

I don't recall ever having any knitted underwear, but I rather hanker after a knitted silk camisole. Maybe one day. Drawers are quite another thing and I don't think I could ever reconcile myself to knitted drawers.

Stitchcraft 1947 - described as 'snug fitting briefs'

The ones below are handsewn and are rather more appealing. I've made the ones in the centre for a doll. They are "French panties finished at the top and bottom with a facing and opened at both sides by means of short plackets." There is something rather lovely about handsewn underwear.

From a Women's Institute publication - first published in the mid Thirties

The WI publication describes each of the styles and then goes on to explain how to make all the special features; the placket, the waist panel in the style shown lower left and the scallops at the top.

"...every woman can have dainty, neat, well-fitting lingerie if she chooses her materials carefully and her designs wisely, and if she does her sewing skilfully."

Another Pair of Leg Warmers

2011-09-23T06:55:00.016+01:00

Finished the second pair of leg warmers. These are done in King Cole Ocean - picked up a few balls in a bargain bucket. It's the colour I was after (sort of creamy) and the slub gives them texture. They are done in K3,P3 rib and sewn up the sides because I was experimenting and too idle to work out the sizing properly. I'll do the next set on DPNs, but I've really got to stop knitting leg warmers now and get on with some other bits.

Evenings are drawing in now and the days are cloudy. Finding it really difficult to take good photos and keep the colours true. Upside is, as soon as we get to this time of year I really get my knitting fever going. Has to be good news for the stash.

Leg Warmers

2011-09-21T06:46:00.016+01:00

Been trying to photograph my own leg - it's not really that shape, it's the angle of the camera.

I have become obsessed with leg warmers. I hope this isn't advance warning of another bad winter, like an excess of Old Man's Beard in the hedgerows and rats nesting facing south.

I think it actually started when I bought a pair of brown cords when racing round the shops (I hate shopping). When I got them home that they are really tight fitting all the way down the leg. With my shape that is not necessarily a flattering style, so I thought, baggy leg warmers. Balance the silhouette up a bit and that will look fine with my walking boots ( or weird, but deliberately so).

The first pair are quite tight fitting and so don't necessarily achieve the desired effect. I wanted to use yarn from the stash so took a Sirdar Eco Wool DK in a sort of soft dark greyish brown and a vintage 4 ply (Falcon Superior) in rust and knitted them together. It's come up at around aran weight and the effect is ok.

It's given me lots of ideas for using up the rather varied contents of my stash.

T is for Tatti

2011-09-19T06:34:00.012+01:00

Tatti

T is for Tatti - another post in An Accidental Knitter's ABC meme.

Tatti is one of my sister's Yorkshire Terriers and the only one that sits still long enough to be photographed.

Tatti had a hard start in life. She was apparently abandoned on the streets of Portsmouth at about two months old, possibly by a puppy farmer when it became apparent that her ears were not 'right' for a pure breed. Imagine the terror of a little dog alone on the street.

Tatti was taken in as a rescue dog with another little dog called Daisy who had been a breed bitch in a puppy farm. At last they had a happy home, but it wasn't long before their new owner became very seriously ill and life became uncertain once more.

In stepped my sister, taking both little dogs who by this time each had their own set of issues. Tatti was very nervous, widdling at the slightest provocation. Daisy took exception to people in trousers who came through doorways suddenly. Teeth were bared, flesh was punctured.

My sister and her husband are endlessly forgiving and firm with their discipline. Move on two years and with a huge amount of patience and love Tatti has become very cuddly. Daisy is now more tolerant, loves attention from her favourite people but has never learned to cuddle. And they have been joined by a little brother Pinksie, the escape artist (formerly known as Prince).

The most wonderful sight is this little dog, Tatti, sitting in my brother in law's arms with her head on his shoulder wearing a completely soppy, devoted and trusting expression. She came through it all and rewards us with love and laughs.

Tatti in the cable coat I made for her Christmas 2009
- more interested in food than posing for the camera.

More Late Summer Colour

2011-09-16T06:58:00.001+01:00

Viburnum Lantana

Something to brighten things up - the Wayfaring Tree seen on the chalk hill below the iron age hill fort where I take my walks. Wayfaring Tree, how I love that name.

September always makes me a little morose and everything is a bit of an effort. It's almost as if I need to hibernate. I start cleaning things quite fanatically and feel a bit low. It happens every year. It's most peculiar and a little irritating. Talking with some colleagues today I find I'm not alone, which is at least reassuring.

Come late October, I will find something to inspire me and that will take me through the winter.

For now, I'm hanging on to as much of the year's colour as I can.

Another Minor Victory

2011-09-14T20:57:00.000+01:00

My cropped top to wear over shirts. This was an exercise in creating my own pattern, a very simple one, assessing the measurements and tension and then charting the decreases. It has actually worked. Nobody more amazed than me. Mind you, the amount of counting and calculating I did, goodness knows how I will ever achieve a pattern with sleeves, or a collar.

Still, you have to start somewhere.

'S' is for success (well, sort of)

2011-09-12T06:25:00.000+01:00

The finished bolero

Yessss, a bit of Success. The next instalment in 'An Accidental Knitter's' ABC meme.

This is the drapey bolero which has given me so much concern. When I finished knitting I had two very long strips of knitting and really couldn't believe that they would make a bolero, but wahooo!

On the blocking board

It actually looks better on me than on the tailors dummy - a rare event

I knit a fair bit for myself, but because I experiment a lot, the results are a bit patchy. Against all expectations I am rather pleased with this.

This bolero was a Sirdar Flirt pattern knitted in Rowan Damask, (I don't know why I do things like that), but actually I am rather pleased with it. My other bit of success is that I have lost a stone in weight so that the bolero actually fits me rather better then I expected.

The view of the back reminds me of a sort of Georgian brocade.

We have a saying in our family. If ever asked to assess someone's new outfit and unsure how to break bad news gently, our diplomatic response will be, "It looks nice from the back".

Very Sad

2011-09-08T06:53:00.000+01:00

Hungry Cat

Hungry Cat was put to sleep yesterday morning after succumbing to a very severe skin complaint which became infected. At the end he did not look like the beautiful strong boy in this picture. He was suffering and it took me two days to catch him so that I could get him to the vet.

Hungry cat was feral and although he allowed us to feed him we always had to keep our distance. He could have lived with us, but chose to live rough. He often arrived with new scars and wounds and we were never sure what he'd been up to. He survived it all until this time when he picked up something, probably from foxes and it took him over. This time there was not going to be a recovery. We are sad that he ended his days in fear and pain in a strange place, but he is out of pain now.

A beautiful boy

Have officially stopped buying yarn

2011-09-07T07:39:00.000+01:00

...And I mean it this time, I'm not buying any more. Thirty eight items in my Ravelry stash and I've only listed one shelf. There are three more, several boxes and some cubbyholes. Plus the stuff my mum has that she is unlikely to use. (A room full). So it has to stop. Healthy culling is required, a strong will and a determination to get down to knitting something rather than faffing around.

Unfortunately I am one of those slightly obsessive people who will not allow myself to start something new and exciting until I have finished off the old and boring. This does all slow down the stash reduction process somewhat.

R is for Remedy

2011-09-04T08:30:00.005+01:00

Borage, Tansy and English Mace in the garden in mid August

Collecting herbs is a bit of a hobby of mine and has been for many years. I like to cook with them and although I don't use them for remedies very much, I like to know their history as all-round useful plants.

Since moving to Wiltshire I have found wild plants growing in this garden that I didn't find in the part of Hampshire where I grew up. This will have been partly because my part of Hampshire was arable and therefore chemical sprayed to within an inch of its life in the late '60s. If the wild plants in my Wiltshire garden are pretty or have a medicinal history then I tend let those grow among the cultured flowers. Woundwort (used on open wounds) and Fumitory (an all round useful remedy) are two that grow profusely here.

A passer-by who had come back to visit the village where she was born told us that in the thirties a lady lived in this house who was locally known as 'The Witch' because she grew medicinal herbs in the garden. A dour old lady in long skirts with hair tightly drawn back into a bun, she must have seemed intimidating to small children. Her herb garden was right in the spot where I had chosen to put mine. So now I preserve wild seedlings on her behalf. Some may be from her stock.

The Borage, Tansy and English Mace shown in the picture are introductions I have made.

Borage - the crushed leaves smell like cucumber and can be put into salads. The brilliant blue flowers are favourites with bees and are very pretty frozen into ice cubes to drop into your Pimms on a hot summers day. Among other things borage was a remedy against the blues. It was thought to raise the spirits and was used for centuries as a tonic.
Borage self-seeds very, very freely and needs thinning out frequently.

Tansy - old recipes used the leaves for flavour in puddings. I'm sure I read somewhere that it was used as a strewing herb in houses among the rushes on the floor as a remedy against insects. It was also used for dyeing fabric. It was used as a medicinal plant, but is toxic, so was only used only by people who really knew what they were doing.
Tansy is rampant, so be very sure you want it before you plant this one. Its roots spread underground like mint and it is very difficult to eradicate. I have been somewhat incautious.

English Mace - one of my favourites. It's a form of Achillea, or Yarrow, sometimes known as Milfoil and is an old medicinal herb, not used any longer. Insects love it and it simply has a country look, providing a pleasing backdrop to other plants.

Presents

2011-09-02T06:40:00.001+01:00

Gedifra Easy Wear - very very chunky

I had a birthday recently and I got presents!!!

Very, very chunky Gedifra - hat? bag? arm warmers? So soft, so cuddly, it would be nice to use it to keep warm.

Noro Sekku

Oh the fun I have had already with the Sekku. Just looking at all the lovely possibilities on Ravelry has kept me quiet for hours. I'll have to make a decision, but not yet.

Home Sewing

2011-08-31T06:54:00.001+01:00

Home Sewing in 1929

The picture is from the cover of a small book entitled, 'Shortcuts to Home Sewing - The Modern Singer Way'. This is one of the books my sister sent over to me when she lived in the USA. She volunteered in a local charity bookshop and was able to find wonderful vintage knitting, sewing and cookery books for my collection.

Years ago I used to do a lot of home sewing and made nearly all my own clothes. Never as good as my mum and my sister, I could get by. More recently I have lost the interest, and apparently lost the knack. The last two skirts I made came straight off the sewing machine and into the waste bin, so dire was the product. The language was something terrible. There's a dress in my wardrobe with a long zip at the back that will not go in correctly although I have taken it out and put it back in three times.

Some of the failure may have been partly to do with my not taking into account the way my shape altered over time. Now that I'm managing to lose a little weight, maybe I'll have another go. Although, at 5ft 2inches and curvy I doubt I'll ever achieve the effect in this little picture below. It comes from the same little Singer book and the text above it asks you to think of your sewing machine as a 'never-failing friend'.

Q is for Queen Bess's Stockings

2011-08-29T06:45:00.001+01:00

Diamond Faggot Pattern

Q is for Queen Bess's Stockings, another post for the ABC meme hosted by
This is also my one hundredth post. Yay!

I was having a bit of a problem with 'Q' when I saw in Mary Thomas's Book of Knitting Patterns a picture of a pair of silk stockings worn by Queen Elizabeth I. The picture is given in the chapter on Faggot Stitch Motifs and is headed, 'Queen Bess's Stockings'.

Mary Thomas says that the stockings are in Diamond Faggot Stitch and below the picture (which is a little unclear) are the instructions for Diamond Faggot Pattern. I made a swatch in the palest shell pink cotton 4 ply on 3.25 mm needles. The colour probably isn't showing up well here.

I haven't been able to source a picture of the stockings to post, but I believe there are some at Hatfield House if you ever get the chance to visit.

The story goes that silk stockings were first made in England in 1575, knitted for Queen Elizabeth by Mistress Montague. Up until that time stockings had been made of cloth or felt and sewed together with seams. Doesn't sound all that comfortable and so no surprise that Queen Elizabeth liked knitted silk stockings so much that after that first pair she always insisted on them and Mistress Montague had to keep on knitting.

Mistress Montague's Pattern

Barbara Walker's Treasury of Stitches gives 'Mistress Montague's Stitch' and also tells the story of Queen Bess's stockings. I think this stitch is far more likely to have been the one used by Mistress Montague. The swatch has a little more body to it than the diamond faggot stitch and would, I think, be more comfortable to wear. Very 'holey' stitches aren't comfortable on the feet and legs, I find, which is why I only tried fishnet stockings the one time (but that's another story).

Take a look at the wonderful website on the link below for an article all about Renaissance stockings and lots of other costume articles.

The Purple Files : Keepyng yer Legges Warme

What's in a Name

2011-08-26T07:37:00.002+01:00

Harebells

Wandering across the hills on a fine morning in late summer, the mist lifts and the sun warms the land. Damp, delicate flowers start to lift their heads and shake off the weight of yesterday's rain and the poetry of the old flower names sings across the grass.

Viper's Bugloss

I took several pictures of Viper's Bugloss and have found they all tend towards the fuzzy. Maybe this blue is just too intense for me to capture.

Birdsfoot Trefoil

Musk Mallow

That Late Summer Feeling

2011-08-24T07:04:00.000+01:00

Haws - Late Summer Bounty

The hedgerows and the hills are preparing for autumn. Blossom and buds replaced by fruits and intense colour.

A Confused Blackberry - Blossom and Fruit at the same time

There is an excitement and urgency in the air. Feed up as much as possible, hoard and make the most of it. Last winter was long and hard. Be prepared to hunker down and get yourself fit and strong while you can.

A Small Section of the Ramparts of Sidbury Hill Fort

And on the top of Sidbury Hill in the ancient hillfort, I wonder how those people prepared and how they survived on draughty old Salisbury Plain. Ancient boundary lines run down from the hillfort to mark out their grazing, but in times of trouble they would withdraw to the fort. And they clearly expected trouble. In places these massive ditches must be 30feet deep. So they dealt with threats from the climate, from lean years and from enemies who would try to take what they had.

On a sunny morning in August this place is serene and beautiful. I wonder how often they faced the threat of invasion or starvation.

P is for Perambulation

2011-08-22T06:40:00.000+01:00

I wonder where this goes

P is for Perambulation - another post in the ABC meme series.

Having recently reached a birthday with an uncomfortably high number and a weight with an uncomfortable number of kilos in it, I have taken up walking. I march up the local iron age hillfort - short walks on work days, long walks on days off.

On the longer walks I follow tracks and trails that look interesting, rather than fixing a route. I like to wander and somehow I never get tired. This ancient place has a peace about it and the air is clean and clear.

Sunlight breaking through to warm an ancient ash tree

In the woodland wrens scold me indignantly, deer crash across my path and a green woodpecker trails me from the treetops laughing uproariously like a too loud lady at a polite gathering and warning everyone I am coming through. A barn owl snores nearby, cross that humans have to make so much noise crashing about. (Barn owls really do snore).

Chalk Hill Blue butterfly on Ragged Robin

This week's long walk was on a beautiful misty morning following heavy rain. Everything was sodden and as the morning grew brighter the flowers straightened up and butterflies came out to warm themselves.

The view from the top
on the ramparts of Sidbury Hill Iron Age Hillfort looking out across Salisbury Plain

This week's walk was so wonderful that I shall be using the pictures in the next few posts and straying away from knitting just for a short time. I need to capture the late summer atmosphere and colours.

Dear Followers

2011-08-17T20:07:00.000+01:00

Hello Followers, I know that some new followers have joined me, but owing to a bug in Blogger I can't see who you are. My Followers listing completely disappeared at about the beginning of August I think.

Thank you for following. I hope to be able to reciprocate as soon as this bug is sorted out. If you happen to catch this post say hello and then I'll be able to welcome you properly.

What we did at the weekend

2011-08-17T07:15:00.004+01:00

Angry clouds

Recently we went to a steam fair at South Cerney in Gloucestershire. It rained. Heavily. Forked lightening, the lot.

But for a couple of hours when it stopped raining and there were lots of things to see.

In the poultry tent a sat a hen with her feathers ruffled out while several chicks nestled under cover. But we waited and the chicks, either getting too hot, or just plain curious, peeped out their little heads to watch the crowds pass.

A Very Fine Fellow - I like his tweedy headgear

The photos aren't great because the poultry tent is quite dark and, of course, to use flash on the camera would cause all kinds of distress to the birds.

Close-up of plumage of a Wyandotte hen

I love the plumage of the Wyandotte hens and seek them out when I see a poultry tent. Black and white ripples. So classy.

The rain stayed off long enough for us to see an excellent falconry display presented by the Falconry Days team from Warwickshire. The best falconry display I have ever seen, with Max as its star.

Max a male Gyr/Saker Falcon

O is for Old Cars

2011-08-15T07:05:00.002+01:00

1936 Hudson Terraplane 4 Door Saloon

O is for Old Cars, next letter in the ABC meme.

I am rather fond of old cars, the styling and colours. All sorts of interesting shapes and patterns can be found.

1939 Plymouth

The square headlights on this Plymouth are extremely rare, they only made them for a year and what catches my eye is the art deco influence in the red paint detail at the top.

1930's Triumph Dolomite

For some reason, this makes me think of Madonna's bustier phase.

Can't remember what this is - seen at the Great Dorset Steam Fair

I'm very taken by the combination of rust and mustard colours set against the blue shepherd's hut in the background. There's a hint of dirty green in there as well.

Moss Stitch - single row stripes in five colours

Old Books

2011-08-12T07:32:00.001+01:00

Lurid 1950s thriller

Bought at a car boot sale for 10p - for me the front cover is worth that alone. This is a 1953 edition.

The pleasures of the open road

First published in 1939, this is the 1959 edition of the caravan manual. I would love to get my hands on the 1939 edition.

This is a first edition of 1953. I'll leave you to make up your own captions for this one.

The View from My Hobby Room

2011-08-10T07:32:00.003+01:00

In need of a prune

Periodically I have to climb on the desk in my hobby room, prise open the window and cut back the ivy. I love the ivy for the habitat it provides to small birds who sometimes come and look at me through the window. When, however, the ivy starts to cut out the light, I have to do something about it. And clean the window. This is all rather precarious, but good when it's finished.

The view from the open window after clearance - yes, I know I have lorries in my garden.

Ivy cleared, clutter returned to it's proper place.

Not In The Mood

2011-08-08T07:30:00.001+01:00

Bias knit garter stripes inspired by a satellite picture of a Saudi Arabian desert

You know how it goes, (maybe you don't), but sometimes you just aren't in the mood to knit. Not in the mood to finish those five UFOs in the basket, not even in the mood to start that new jacket for Autumn/Winter season that you have been drooling over and promising yourself for the last three years.

Bobbles inspired by pictures of the Fly Agaric fungus - the one you always see in pictures in fairy stories

On days like that when it's raining, I'm not working and I can't garden, everyone's been fed and I have cleaned pretty much everything, then I turn to 'faffing about'. I look through old patterns, I browse on Ravelry, I tidy up the yarns, and when I feel like picking up needles, I swatch.

I was encouraged in this when I took up a City and Guilds handknit course taught by Loraine McClean. I loved the swatching and the learning. Family pressures prevented me from completing the course, but the swatching and learning habit has stayed with me.

Inspired by a 1940s Stitchcraft pattern and knitted in fine crochet cotton on 2.25mm needles

Barbara Walker and Mary Thomas are well and truly thumbed for stitches I haven't tried. Maybe that's the problem, maybe I'm a 'sampling' person, rather than a 'knit to the bitter end' person.

Bobbles and stripes in chenille inspired by a picture in an old RHS Garden magazine

I look at pictures of plants and the natural world, art and gardens. I have heaps of coloured paper cut from ads in glossy magazines, throw them up in the air and look at the colour combinations that land. Then try to knit them into pleasing patterns in slip stitch. I look at vintage knitting patterns and try the stitches out.

This sample comes from a 1940's pattern and full details given in a previous post here. I just love, love this and make no apology for posting it again.

This is another post in the ABC meme with An Accidental Knitter

Monochrome

2011-08-05T07:17:00.003+01:00

Inspiration for the embroiderer

Seen at the Weald and Downland Museum open air museum at Singleton. Painted plaster in glorious patterns. The Museum information shows that this is a late Tudor (probably late 16th century) mural painting taken from a timber framed house at Fittleworth. It closely resembles contemporary embroidery and lining papers. The framing timbers were colour washed in a light background so that the pattern could continue across them.

Possibly something for the knitter and crocheter here

And another mystery object

2011-08-03T07:23:00.002+01:00

Can you see what it is yet?

This may not look like much, but there is a cunning plan. Mum has difficulty holding things and uses a wash mitt rather than a flat flannel or washcloth. This way she doesn't have to grip it, just puts her hand inside. So, thinking about my large stash of boucle and other cottons, I thought about knitting up some wash mitts as a little present for her birthday. I'll wrap them with small bars of special scented soap.

The colour is a sort of khaki green and I have put a light blue with it. Not a combination I would have naturally picked, but the yarn was there and although the photo may not show it well, there is a sort of seaside feel to the combination.

The cotton knits up pretty much as DK and I have used linen stitch which gives a very close texture and should prevent too much bagginess. When using linen stitch you knit on slightly larger needles than normal for the yarn because of the closeness of the fabric, so I have done this one on 5mm. Thinking about trying the next on 4mm to see what happens.

Linen stitch is one of my favourite slip stitches and I have knitted all sorts in it and have plans for more.

Mobile phone cover in linen stitch

You can try it in two colours and get interesting effects :

Row 1, Col 1 : K1 *yfwd, sl1pw, ybk K1* last stitch K1

Row 2, Col 1 : K1 *sl1pw, yfwd, p1, ybk* last stitch K1

Row 3, Col 2 : As row 1

Row 4, Col 2 : As row 2

M is for Mystery Knit

2011-07-31T07:35:00.009+01:00

Marilyn getting involved

Mystery - another post in the ABC meme run by An Accidental Knitter

Have you ever knitted something and when you completed all the pieces thought to yourself,
"It's a mystery...
... how this is going to go together",
or
"...why I did it in this yarn."
or
"...why I did it in this colour."
or
"...why I ever started this."

Right now I have all of those. It's a 'drapey bolero' knitted from side to side which I intended for summer wear. I didn't do it in the recommended yarn, did most of it, left it over the winter and one year after starting I don't like the colourway, I have two long drapey pieces of knitting and can't for the life of me see how they fit together to make a bolero. They are so long they won't fit on my blocking board (which is made up of an old cork noticeboard and some cork table mats wrapped with an old towel - Make do and Mend another M). And I have just this minute realised that the colour shading is not going to work in the right directions when I put it together. Hey-ho.

And I'm wondering whatever possessed me. It's a mystery.

Michael Kors Cape

Then there's the Michael Kors double breasted cape I knitted last winter with intricate cabling and decreases. Although definitely cape shaped, it is definitely not double breasted on me . Just about goes around me with a bit of an overlap. And now it's finished I can see where the error is in my cabling. And I don't like the way the base of the collar works. I spent ages researching a yarn for it and spent rather more than I should have for the yarn when I found it.

Whatever possessed me? It's a mystery.

Still, you have to keep telling yourself it's all about the journey.

Hungry Cat on one of his better days

2011-07-29T07:24:00.005+01:00

Looking particularly handsome

Hungry Cat lives rough and visits us only for meals. I couldn't believe my luck when he stayed long enough to pose for a picture outside the back door.

I don't suppose it will ever happen, but one of my ambitions in life is to hear him purr. He's a miserable old devil.

Gilbert White's house in Selborne

2011-07-27T07:29:00.001+01:00

Gilbert White's house from the garden

During the eighteenth century Gilbert White was the vicar at a small village called Selborne in Hampshire. There he built a 30 acre garden and made meticulous notes on nature, the weather and his garden. From these notes and letters to others with similar interests he compiled a book, The Natural History of Selborne which has been published in many editions and many languages since then.

Last week we went to visit his house and garden, something I have wanted to do since I was a little girl, mad about natural history. It was a lovely day and a lovely visit. Walking through acres of meadow, looking around his house and learning about his world and his interests.

He inherited a tortoise and wrote about it often. In a letter of April 21st 1780 he wrote :
" The old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened to express its resentments by hissing; and, packing it in a box with earth, carried it eighty miles in post chaises. The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it that, when I turned it out on a border, it walked twice down to the bottom of my garden ; however, in the evening, the weather being cold, it buried itself in the loose mould, and continues still concealed"

An old moss rose in Gilbert White's garden

You need to go to Selborne on a sunny day to fully understand Gilbert White's devotion to this place. The sound of the grasshoppers in the meadow grass tells the story.

L is for Lace, Laundry and Land Rovers

2011-07-24T20:48:00.002+01:00

Lace oddments stored in a box that once held rose scented soap

The next instalment in the ABC meme run by An Accidental Knitter - L is for Lace

I love lace, all forms of lace:
Knitted
Crocheted
Bobbin (all the different kinds)
Needlelace and lacework embroidery
Tatting

I love the look, the techniques, the patience of the people who make it well.

Odd thing is that for me it doesn't have to be attached to anything or have any purpose. I just like bits of lace. And when it's raining and there's nothing better to do, then a dolly wash is fun. Some lace bits come out of the collection in the cupboard and I launder them according to the instructions in old books. Yes, I have a fascination for laundry techniques as well - bit peculiar I know.

They are dried and pressed unstarched (otherwise they go yellow), placed between sheets of acid free tissue paper with lavendar and there you are. Lavendar, it's scent, it's colour and it's calming properties - love that as well.

These little pieces may not be seen again two three years, but when I open the box, Heaven.

Drooping Elm Leaf from the Barbara Walker Treasury - knitted by me (4th attempt).

And Land Rovers. Ever since I was a little girl I have loved Land Rovers, the look, the sounds, the smell, and the ride. I learned to drive on a beaten up series 2 short wheel base Land Rover manufactured in 1959. My first love.

Old Land Rovers in a line up at a recent 'Sort Out' - an Autojumble - which focused on Land Rovers

The Stash

2011-07-22T07:02:00.004+01:00

Part of the shelved section

The stash is giving trouble. It's out of control. I don't know what's in there any more and it constantly surprises me.

Time for a re-think on how I am managing this.

I have been collecting yarn for years and not necessarily with any purpose in mind, just simply because it came my way, or because it took my fancy.

And Oh Deary Me I've got a problem now.

If I can find a pattern, I can't find the yarn and if I can find the yarn I can't find a pattern. Instead of resorting to going out and buying more yarn which then gets lost in the Bermuda Triangle of my boxes and shelves, I should rationalise and use what I have.

So, here's a mid-summer resolution. Introduction of some order and control.

The current WIP

2011-07-20T12:54:00.000+01:00

The current WIP (which was a UFO that I picked up from last summer) is a waterfall front, three quarter length sleeve drapey bolero from the Sirdar Flirt pattern book no. 371.
I've chosen to do this in Rowan Damask. (57% viscos, 22% linen, 21% acrylic). It's definitely drapey.

Got a few worries. On revisiting it I am unconvinced about my choice of yarn. This happens often as I hardly ever knit anything in the yarn stated and some of my choices have been - eccentric. I do it because I want the silhouette in a particular colourway. And I just like to see what will happen.

It's got a weird construction and right now I seem to have all two shapeless lengths of knitting that look to me like they will never make anything, let alone a drapey bolero. So the jury's still out on that.

Second problem is I have just finished a ball of yarn and can't find where I put the rest. It's in the stash somewhere, but the stash has reached legendary proportions. I've been through the boxes, so it must be on the shelves which are really packed so that if you pull something out the whole lot comes tumbling down. Looks like I am in for an afternoon of searching and tidying. Oh well, it's raining, so no gardening in prospect.

K is for Knit Nation 2011

2011-07-17T23:06:00.000+01:00

The Yarn Yard stand

Still enjoying An Accidental Knitter's ABC meme and as luck would have it this weekend was Knit Nation.
This wonderful event is becoming a fixture each July at Imperial College in London. Too good an opportunity to miss for 'K'.

The weather was grim, but the atmosphere inside Knit Nation was cheerful and bright. So many happy people, all sharing the love of yarn.

John Arbon Textiles stand

It's not a huge show, but a very busy and popular one and there are lots of quality yarns on sale. The Habu Textiles stand was of particular interest. So unusual and I regretted not doing more research before I got there. Clearly lots of visitors knew about Habu and knew how to use these very specialised and unusual yarns. I was fascinated, but unsure and so just bought a little tsumugi silk to experiment with. A missed opportunity, but I'll be ready next time.
Habu - the UK website
Habu - the American website

Juno Knits roving

The colours at Juno Knits were hypnotising and Artisan Yarns took my breath away as they always do.
And then there are the workshops. I chose a class on Top Whorl Spinning for Beginners. I fear this was really not for me. The tutors were wonderful, but it was not my greatest triumph and as another delegate said after a couple of frustrating hours trying to get yarn from a heap of wool top and a wooden stick,
"I came into the room a knitter and I shall leave the room a knitter"
However, when a few of us gave up trying and just sat and chatted, we had a really lovely time and I came away happy.

The very dodgy bit of spinning that I brought home with me

More of the Country Show

2011-07-15T08:13:00.018+01:00

Views across Gloucestershire towards the Severn

This was a beautiful, quiet place where a few local people had gathered and brought along their old cars, their tractors, lorries and sheep.

There was a sheep shearing demonstration and while it doesn't look a particulary pleasant experience for the sheep, it's over quickly and they do look so much more comfortable afterwards.

Zwartbles ewe after shearing

This Zwartbles ewe was clearly suffering from the heat more than most, simply because of her dark colour. It must have been wonderful to have had all that heavy fleece removed. She was very friendly and apparently that is a characteristic of the Zwartbles.

Her Fleece

Her lamb

Her closeup

'Zwartbles' is Dutch for 'black with a white blaze'. The Zwartbles originates from Friesland and was bred early in the last century. As farming changed the breed nearly became extinct, but was saved by the Dutch Rare Breeds Survival Trust and now you can see them all over England and Wales.

Chalk Cottage Knitting

Unravel - avoiding temptation

Susan Crawford

Unravel at Farnham, Surrey

Finished the first stash item of 2012

Second completed WIP of 2012

This blog has been going for a year

I'm feeling very noble

Feeling in need of a bit of summer

We've had some weather

Pride and Prejudice

Watch the Birdie

First completed WIP of 2012

More reading

Golden Orb Spider Silk Cape

Slip Stitches

Six Items I've Never Knitted Before

Six new Knitting Techniques

Six things from the Stash

Six Works in Progress

We've been walking around Stonehenge

Just good to look at

January, the time to plan

Eve Arnold

New Year's Day - hope you had a good one

New Year Resolutions

Smaller Items to Knit

Christmas Reading

Merry Christmas

Trying to get Christmassy

Smocking

I caught the office cold

Beaker Button

Beginning to get a thing about fungi

More Inspiration from Nature

Inspiration on the ground

Spiders' Webs

Still Christmas Knitting

Christmas knitting

November

Martin Down

Sugar and Spice

Dog Roses

Colours in late October

Bias Knitting

A quiet corner

Exhausting week

Perhaps I shouldn't have started

Reading

A Very Extraordinary Pig

Z is for Zumbador

Patterns in Nature

An October Walk

'Y' is for Y

Another One Finished

Linen stitch again

X is for ...

A late evening stroll

Where is this blog going? Notes to self...

Works in Progress

Views

V is for Voracious

In the back of the cupboard

Comfrey

U is for Underwear

Another Pair of Leg Warmers

Leg Warmers

T is for Tatti

More Late Summer Colour

Another Minor Victory

'S' is for success (well, sort of)

Very Sad

Have officially stopped buying yarn

R is for Remedy

Presents

Home Sewing

Q is for Queen Bess's Stockings

What's in a Name

That Late Summer Feeling

P is for Perambulation