toggle's knitting tip of the week

The baby isn't newborn size any more, nor do you know anyone with a newborn size baby. It's a good idea to knit to a size you can use. If this is likely to be a problem, aim to knit something for the 5 year old, then if you screw up the sizing again, it will fit baby.

pattern: gumnut

There's something about using the baby as a model for the patterns I knit her that never quite works out well enough, I had to get this picture as she was asleep, she wouldn't sit still long enough for me to get a closeup on the hat.





I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains,
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me.

I remember having to memorise that poem when I lived in sydney for a while. It wasn't the sunburnt brown deserts that fascinated me, but the faded grey-green hills in the Blue mountains.

I was gifted this yarn as part of a swap on ravelry. The faded green and pale brown reminded me a lot of the colours of the hillsides and there was just the right amount to make a hat, that an Aussie friend described to me as 'she looks like she has a gum nut on her head'

So the pattern is gum nut. It's a simple enough variation on many baby hats out there, but I wanted to make one of my own. So there.

yarn: leftover cashmerino DK

cost: to me, nothing because i swapped for it. to buy the yarn, about a tenner.but you would use about 1/3 of it



time: 2 hours to knit, 15 mins to finish

knitability level: beginner

needles: 1 pair 4mm (US 6)

gauge: 25 rows and 28 stitches per 10cm

Measure baby's head round the hairline, multiply the measurement in cm by 2.5 to get the number of stitches to cast on, round this up to the nearest 10, don't worry if this will make the hat a little large, baby's don't get any smaller.

Cast on in the pale brown colour. knit 7 rows in garter stitch, switch to the green colour.

Measure distance between baby's hairline and crown. knit in stocking stitch in green until the work measures about 3/4 of this distance. slightly under is better than slightly over.

begin decreases:

(k2tog, k9,)repeat to end, purl row
(k2tog, k8) repeat to end, purl row
(k2tog, k7) repeat to end, purl row

repeat in pattern, until:

(k2tog) repeat to end, purl row.

knit 8 rows in stocking stitch, then

(k2, k2tog, k to end, purl row)repeat until 4 stitches are left, knit at least 4 more rows in stocking stitch, you should have between 4-5 inches of tail on top of the hat.
cast off. sew up edge in mattress stitch, and sew in ends.

tie a knot in the tail on the top

Toggle's spinning tip of the week

Carding dark blues into light coloured fibers looks mucky. it all goes a greyish colour and looks crap. it all looks a mushy grey colour and not very fun.

Roughly carded mixtures of pastels looks fab and sparkle carded into dark coloured fibre looks spectacular, sparkle carded into white fibre is nothing special

it was all too much for baby

sleepy baby
Originally uploaded by toggle490

After a had day's crawling around on the floor, picking up bits of everything to taste, supper was just too much like more hard work.

Note to self

That really pretty insect picture on your blog is in fact a moth, backlit in a very intersying manner by a black computer screen. However interesting it looks, it won't stay there, and you can't get it to move by waving the mouse pointer at it.

Toggle's spinning tip of the week, part 2

When managing really annoyingly large numbers of plies and trying to add twist gets too much, try not adding twist, just wind the plies together, onto a ball winder, nosterapine or your wheel, I use my louet with the break band holding the flyer stationary so the plies just wind on.

When you have it all in place, you can then run your multiple plies through your wheel to add the twist.

Toggle's spinning tip of the week

When plying with beads strung onto thread, don't stress about having to put all the beads on in one go, add some beads, ply until those are all used, then break the thread and string more. Hold the 2 ends together and tie a simple knit. You can then move one of the beads up over the knot, elaving the ends tucked into the bead.

gin 'n' tonic

DSCF3046.JPG
Originally uploaded by toggle490

This is a sample of an art yarn inspired by the gin and tonic I was drinking while spinning it. I have turned it into a bracelet, I may make some more of this, or go along a different line to try to make something more arty.

fiberlicious

DSCF3007.JPG
Originally uploaded by toggle490

This is some of my handspun, drying in the Cornish sun.

Check out the etsy link, there is handspun and earrings for sale now.

selling stuff

Finally got all ready to start selling that stuff. Only it's not felt, it's starting with handspun. I think it's scrummy.

sleepy baby

sleepy baby
Originally uploaded by toggle490

Couldn't resist a nice picture of a sleepy baby.

Nothing much else to add right now, kids have started back at school, their father has been down to visit them and his family have sent them pressies, including the dress baby is wearing. i wouldn't have chosen it, but it's quite cute really.

happy new year

Time to share a few more photos with you. I took this in Truro this afternoon on my way to take the kids in to see their father. It's for a competition in a few weeks, theme is 'derelict'

It just caught my eye as an interesting subject. I think the photo may be too dark, and I think i could get a better angle as well. It's near the park where I go take the children to play quite often, so I may try to go back there and get a picture in better light.



There is some knitting content as well. Here is a scarf I made that can sit and wait until I decide what to do with it. It may go to baby when she's a little older, or it may wait until it becomes a gift. I like to keep a few little child size somethings waiting for those moments when i get told someone's child is 3 today.


baby socks from an orphan ball of regia 6-ply silk that I bought for about 1.50. Since they suggest 3 balls for adult socks, this was being sold off as fairly useless to most people, so I snapped it up for fancy baby socks. You can see a great view of those amazingly fat thighs. Not a patch on her sisters at that age though.


And a better view of the little sweetheart. Not my best ever photo, but shows off how pretty she is. I need to start playing with a photoshop clone and get rid of that redeye

2009- the year of the stash

This is the year in which I intend on doing most of my knitting from stash. I can't really see that being much of a hardship. I have a lot of stash and not a lot of time to knit with 3 children to look after, one of whom will very soon become an crawling baby. I'm also intending on finishing up the majority of my WIP's and generally condensing the quantity of 'stuff' I own into a more reasonable package.

When my stuff arrives here from London, I will be absolutely merciless. The vast majority of the crap is on it's way out.


On a slightly different note, there's some pinkness in my girl's lives arriving soon, like when I can learn to work my mother's sewing machine. I needed to purchase some fleece in order to make some new fleece nappy liners for the reusable nappies baby is in, and instead of just getting the half meter or so I would need for that, I bought 3 and a half meters of pink stripy fleece for about 11 quid, including postage costs, which is an absolutely fantastic deal. So as well as the world's supply of pink stripy nappy liners, the girls are both getting fleece blankets, as soon as I get round to cutting and sewing them. I'll stick in a picture when i charge my camera

the future is bright...

...the future is so very, very yellow.

I've knit about 3 and a half foot of 4 foot wide yellow fun for blanket. So far, I've used up 14 out of 40 balls of this stuff. I think I may have overbought slightly. I would say I'll use it up for something else, but there is a slight problem with that. I'm starting to get ever so slightly sick at the sight of yellow fun fur.

My only hope at the moment is that my tolerance for it will return once this project is completed, or this will become a huge white elephant

I also finished some socks in an unknown colourway of opal. Can't say the colourway impresses me greatly, but they are comfy in a plain wool sock sorta way.




Unfortunately, there's no show off the baby photos this post. She isn't well and isn't really looking her best right now. I will save taking more pictures for when she is at her cutest.

However, I asked on knittyboard and I'll ask here, do you have any project as crazy as a giant yellow fun fur blanket? If so, share the madness and tell me all about it.

you'd better not be making this for me mum

you'd better not be making this for me mum
Originally uploaded by toggle490

It's yellow, very yellow and it will be rather large.

I promised some knitting content to you and here it is, but probably not what you expected. But I got 40 balls of this yellow sirday funky fur for about a tenner, so the muppet pelt blanket has been born.

I was thinking about knitting myself a big fun fur rug for a while, but hell, that stuff can be expensive, so i needed to wait until the craze for it died back enough for it to go on sale. when it's a fiver a bag and on a BOGOF, you know that it's time to buy.

And it's not for her, it's for me, although i can really see the kids fighting me for it at some point.

trip to porthleven

Popped into the village for a pub lunch with the parents and to take a few snaps of the harbour. I looked over my shots of the harbour and I can't say I'm really taken by any of them. Always something in the shot that really dosen't look nice there.

However, I did find one good thing. (apart from the Salt Cellar workshops and their scrummy range of hats)




Little village yarn shop there, with a range of really cheap King Cole yarns. Under 3 quid a ball for socks yarns in the UK is something absolutely incredible. I did buy some elsewhere for nearly a fiver, and i doo need to use that up at some point, but I will be back there for more yarns, and possibly for some of the cheap chunky yarn for a long cardie for my older girl.

I've got a thing for long cardies. I've always loved them and now I appear to be fashionable so I can actually buy what I want. I probably look terrible in them, but I'm comfy and warm, so I don't care and I want to make the lass one as well (son has already tried to steal one of mine that drapes the floor on him)





Anyway, here's the compulsory baby photo. I was reading to lass and baby decided she wanted to join in.

I joined a club tonight

When I mentioned to my mother that I was looking into signing up for classes in digital photography, she mentioned that one of her friends was a member of a photography club that met weekly and held competitions and critiqued each other's images and generally learnt from each other how to take better photographs.

Now with that suggestion, I leapt at the chance to get out of the house with someone other than my mother and went along with her tonight and thought it was really good. I am in no way up to their standard and most of them are a bit older, but I think it may well be an enjoyable evening and I can learn a lot from them.

Anyway, this is a slightly different angle on the view from the house. I liked the way in which the sunlight on the houses was reflected in the water. I'd like to try and get that shot at high tide though, I think it would be a lot better. The whole creek area looks a lot nicer when the tide is up, smells a bit better as well.

As for the whole knitting thing, I've finished a couple of pairs of child socks, just need to sew up the toes. I've also been working on a crochet scrap blanket with the leftovers. I'll try and get some pictures of then when I have some time to spare during the day.

talking pix

I've been photographing the stash. One day I will learn to get good stash photos. This is some crochet cotton I eventually plan on turning into snowflakes.

I'm making a crochet 'paperchain' tonight

my crochet cotblanket

A variation on the granny square theme, all done as 5, 10, 15 or 20 rounds, then pieced together with a border added. It came out as just about the right size for a cotbed, so will do great for baby.

I'm glad people liked the piccy I put up yesterday. I really do like that view. I'm really quite looking foward to taking the camera everywhere and getting some good shots of the countryside and towns round here. It's all so different to what I'm used to, so it's exciting.

this week in cornwall

Lets start here.

If I'm going to do a bit of a tour about Cornwall as I explore the place as well as showing off the family and the knitting, I may as well start here and make you all jealous. This is the view from my bedroom window. Nice, isn't it.