Steel Kitten

Spring has sprung and I'm back to school

 

All the spring magazines are out in the shops and the contents look wonderful.  Martin treated me to a magazine yesterday for the first time in months as I had a horrible meeting at work I got through intact. Country Homes and Interiors looks particularly good - love anything with farm anaimals printed on it - and I'm itching to get back to my crafts. I have a jumper for Martin to finish (still!) and a hexagon quilt I started an eon ago, although I seem to be having problems with repetitive strain in my left thumb if I do more that five or six hexagons at a time so that is slow progress when I do pick it up. I also want to add some fresh new textiles to the kitchen in various forms, such as curtains and napkins - and have the cloth to do it - but time is very scarce for me.

I've gone 'back to school' to do a course as part of my continued professional development and the first step is for me to do a 20 day e-learning programme. The 20 day course requires 3-4 hours of study a day outisde of work (I'm doing some retraining in a subject that isn't related to my current role so I have to). I'm half way through it at the moment and that has to be my priority in my free time.

I can focus for 20 days surely? With all the spring growth and lusciousness that starting to emerge it will be very tough, but it will be a poor state of affairs if I really can't...

How to create a living willow hedge

 

Well, what was to be a pruning session with the willow turned into living willow hedging thanks to hubby, who came up with the great idea of using some of the canes to start fencing off the kitchen garden from the chickens. We always intended to fence it off, but stopped short due to the expense and effort of getting fencing tall enough to stop them scrambling over. I also didn't really want any more concrete in the garden, which would have been necessary to fit fenceposts solidly into the bed.

So, this was the area to be fenced with living willow. A line of rosa rugosa would have to come out, which wasn't an issue as they hadn't been doing particularly well where they were. Far from being the thick solid line of thorns that would stop the chickens getting through as we had planned, there was one large plant, several small plants and a few straggly growths here and there formed from runners. Dismal. 

Out it came, the area dug over and some blood, fish and bone put down, and a weed suppressant membrane laid on top. Willow won't grow where there is competition for nutrients from weeds so they must be prevented. 

This is the willow patch before pruning - three different species for basketry, biomass and general purpose garden projects. They've done really well this year. Far from being just a single straight stem in their first year, many of them have sprouted several side canes each already. 

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The pruning begins, but after a while I notice a weird blood-like substance on my hands. I'm checking everywhere trying to find the source of it. 

 

That's when I spot this on the end of a cane: willow aphids.Sap sucking pests that won't kill a plant but can devitalise it. A major squishing session ensues and I'm covered in red stuff which turns out to be all the old sap inside the aphids. 

The canes for the living willow hedge are cut and laid out at 20cm intervals along the 14 ft length of bed. I used the willow variety which is often used for biomass, as the canes are thicker and straighter than the rest. 

I cut a cross through the membrane at each point where they will go, and use a metal pole to drive a 1ft hole in the ground to take the willow whip. Willow need to be rooted a good foot into the ground. 

Then I took the thinner shorter willow canes and began to weave them in diagonally, again driving holes into the ground up to a foot deep and placing them in diagonally. I was careful to ensure the weaved whips crossed at the same points front and back. I tied each one in with a rubber band, rather than string, so as the whips grow the rubber will expand with them until it degrades enough to break and fall off. At the base of each set of two diagonal whips I chose to pull them together with a band in such a way that it filled in what would have been a large chicken-sized gap to squeeze through. One day those pesky critter will be faced with this living willow hedge and they're not getting through!

The side of the willow fence is simply willow whips curled around and woven in. The top of the living willow hedge is made up of the very short leftover pieces of willow whips that couldn't be used for the diagonals, and around those were woven the ends of the longer diagonal whips which were sticking out to add strength. However, as you can also see some of the diagonal whips are not long enough. I'm hoping the the new growth will be enough for me to weave them in next winter. 

And this was the living willow hedge as I left it last weekend. Just about a third of the distance left to go!

If the rain holds off, I'll finish it this weekend and then turn my attention to getting the greenhouse up. 

Merry Christmas!

Where did the last few weeks go?!

Sorry for not being around...all I've done is work and knit with precious little time for anything else, but sadly I did too much of the former and not enough of the latter.

I wasn't able to finish Martin's jumper - I'm halfway up the second sleeve with not much further to go, but I decided to 'give' him his present this evening so I could offer up the first sleeve and if it fitted finish the second in a concerted couple of hours and make it all up. Sadly it was just as well as I fessed up this evening, because after I offered up the sleeve I realised it was waaaayyy too long and I need to frog it back and lose at least two, probably three inches. 

So perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing to not finish. It would have been heartbreaking to have done all this work, sewn it up and then have to undo it all. At least I can get a decent finish on it now. 

Anyway, tomorrow I'm doing a simple turkey-based roast for us and hubby's parents, then on Boxing Day a roast beef lunch for eight with my family. As of 6pm tonight, everything that needs preparing for the two days is done. I have two trifles in the fridge - a sherry one and a cointreau chocolate orange one - just waiting for their respective vanilla and chocolate custards to go on top. There's two lots of red cabbage, a whacking great portion of Marie Rose sauce for prawn cocktails, around 40 pigs in blankets and then part of my niece's boxing day lunch so the flavours could mingle and develop for a while. 

Having a vegetarian niece is one thing, having a vegetarian niece with a peanut allergy is quite another. The shops are useless  when it comes to this sort of thing - everything revolves around nuts - so you really have no choice but to make something yourself under the circumstances. So I plumped for a greek spanakopita - spinach and feta filo pie using this recipe. Originally I was going to do Jamie Oliver's recipe without the pinenuts, but luckily I read through it first right to the end and realised that he's done something that almost all professonial chefs do - they forget we mere mortals do not generally have professional equipment. His recipe requires me to use a pan on the hob for a while and then put that straight into the oven to further cook the pie. That's fine if you have completely metal pan from top to bottom. I have what most people have - a teflon pan with plastic handle. So that recipe and way of cooking it was out and I searched until I found another. I think this one will be a lot tastier too as there is more varieties of cheese to give it greater depth. And of course, I'll sort out a separate pan of stuffing, tatties and veg for her without any animal fat. 

So, Merry Christmas one and all, I hope you have a wonderful, relaxing and peaceful few days.

I'm going back to my port, Morecombe and Wise and knitting by the open fire, and I'll be back in a few days, hopefully with a finished jumper to show you!!

And it all went wrong. Then right.

 It was going so swimmingly.

I was three quarters of the way up the front of the jumper by Friday evening. I was going great guns. Before me lay the possibility of having a sleeve almost done by tonight. Life was good.

Then I was supping a cup of tea and had a sudden thought "That first piece of rib looks very deep. I don't remember it looking as deep as that when I did the back". I pulled the back out to check. My heart stopped. I was only supposed to do 10 rows of rib for the base of the jumper. I had absent-mindedly done around 25.

I was facing the possibility of frogging around 50cms of knitting to get it back to what it should be.

The back with the correct amount of rib. It has that slight curve at each side which gives the bottom shape while it's being worn

I just couldn't face it.

Instead I did something I'd never done before as a first and last ditch attempt to prevent me having to frog everything. With a crochet needle I upicked the rib from the bottom upwards, starting with the cast on stitches and working my way though the 15 superfluous rows. It's not the same frogging forwards as backwards - the wool is literally wrapped around each stich and you have to carefully loosen it first and then draw it through. Each stitch needs to have the wool drawn through it twice.

But....I did it!! Then I faced the task of casting off the stitches, but I knew it would have to be in a loose enough stitch that the jumper edge wouldn't be too tight. I searched for and found a great cast off stitch tutorial here that you would use for casting off sweaters that have been knitted top down. I used Version B: Knitting through the front loops. And it worked.

When you compare the front and back you can see a difference. The back is obviously much more tapered due to the natural shape of the rib, while the front is now more stretched out, but what I will do is unpick the row of cast on stitches on the back and then cast off the same way to get them to match up.

 

The front as it is after casting off. You can see it's a lot looser without so much elastic spring than the back rib

In the end I only had to frog back to the point where I would have begun to shape the sleeves and knitted on a few more centimetres of stocking stitch otherwise the body would have been too short.

Back rib with normal casting on stitches. Slightly curly on the edges.

Front rib with casting off stitches. No curl and quite flat.

I can't tell you how relieved I am that I managed to avert that disaster.

The back

The knitting pattern book containing Martin's Christmas present finally turned up Thursday afternoon and I managed to make a start on the back on Friday morning. 

Last night I finished it. 

The needles were smoking ;-))

All told, the back took me nearly 14 hours to knit, which is slower than I thought it would. I was hoping for 10 hours. I managed to sneak in 2.5hrs of knitting at work on Friday - a combination of my usual early morning start plus my lunch hour - then a further 3 hours knitting Friday evening. Then I got up early and managed to do another 2 hours yesterday morning and 6 hours yesterday evening while watching the Omen trilogy one after another on Film4. 

It's not pinned our or blocked yet, which is why the edges look a little uneven and curly.

And where was Martin in all this evening knitting? Actually sitting in front of me on the computer with his back to me. Last week he asked me to knit him a beanie hat for Christmas in colours that matched his Fairthorpe so he could wear it to events, so I told him I was knitting him 'something' and he couldn't turn round.

Bless him, he warned me every time he had to leave his chair so I could hide the hat he thought I was knitting and scuttled out of the room with his back to me so he couldn't see it. What a sweetie. 

I will knit him the hat he wants after the sweater - I wouldn't want him to be disappointed on christmas morning - but he's just mentioned that it would be nice for me to maybe knit his father a nice jumper for Christmas.

Gulp!! 

I'm not sure my fingers can take all this.

Could not stop knitting lust

I tried really hard to sit on my hands but it's no good. I am about to start a new knitting project.

Rather than for me this time, it will be for Martin. For Christmas. Nothing like a deadline is there!

Every morning I get into work two hours early. Recently I've been watching a variety of programmes on various iplayers (at the moment it is the 1980s classic Day of the Triffids on BBC Worldwide) and knitting away with a small vat of tea beside me. That's what got me thinking this was a perfect place to knit up something on the quiet for Martin (he doesn't read my blog so I'm safe. I think).

Every Christmas Martin gets a new sweater, normally a chunky effort with zip neck from M&S. This year I thought I'd knit him one instead. After a search through Ravelry I found the perfect pattern in the Patons Australia knitting book Jet Mens. It's just stocking stitch and rib with some decreasing, all things I have done before when knitting sweaters. Never split for a neckline though but shouldn't be too hard. The only thing I have to watch for according to other knitters on Ravelry is the length of sleeve which can be too long, so I'll measure up against Martin's existing jumpers to get the right size.

I ordered the pattern and wool today, the latter of which is a lovely 70% wool and 30% alpaca, and both should turn up at some point next week.

Until then, I'll keep knitting away on my current projects. Martin is out on the Fairthorpe stand at a car show this weekend so I have two full days to knit like a crazy women and finish off my projects.

Two out of the three Christmas presents I wanted to do have been completed this week (Yay! Go me!), and the last will take no more than a few short hours to complete. My cowl is so very close to be finished I anticipate that it will be done and sewn up by the time the wool for Martin's jumper turns up next week.

So come on then, are you knitting for Christmas and who for?

Knitting frenzy

 

Well the knitting is coming along with great gusto. I've been sitting here this morning watching Ade in Britain on the ITV iplayer and clicking away, much to the amusement of my boss.

I'm nearing the end of the huge cowl, which I'm now positive will swamp me, but at least I'll be warm and if I want to make the hole at the front round my face smaller I can do something completely daft like thread pull ribbons through. I'll look more togged than a baby, it will stretch to my navel and probably only have my eyes showing, but I will be warm. She says again at the risk of repeating herself, warmth was the aim of this bit of knitting, not style, although I am hoping the mojo of all the cowl knitters that have gone before me will rub off and a little chic shine though (don't pee on my bonfire with the rude truth please. Not yet).

However, I did start some more knitting this weekend for Christmas presents, which I'm storming through at the moment. I cannot show you too much, but I can show you this:

 

I have numerous balls of this type of yarn in various colours, so my poor female family members are about to be inflicted with one of 'these' each. "God help us", I hear them cry in anguish. Too late.

As if that wasn't enough, I'm now planning the next two projects and have commencment lust.

Ambitious they are. Frightened I'm not.

The first is this French cable jumper by Bergere De France. As the song goes "I knew I loved you before I met you." I fell in love with cables last year when knitting mittens and want to progress my skills on this 'relatively' simple jumper. No it is! Honest! I've seen the pattern.

The second is a Rowan pattern called De Havilland. Not sure what my hips are going to make of it, but the sleeves and the neck are calling to me.

 Also de Havilland was a plane manufacturer that made a number of very stylish aircraft between 1920 and 1964, so it is a passing nod to my husband's love of aviation.

Yes, in an effort to deflect him from my lack of wifely devotion and near-constant and irritating needle clacking of an evening I am willing to kiss butt in any way I can.

BUT I must not be overwhelmed by commencement lust - I must finish what is currently on my needles first.

I.Must.Finish.What.Is.Currently.On.My.Needles.First.

What's in the knitting bag?

I keep alluding to knitting stuff in my posts don't I? I do have something on the needles at the moment, and it's rapidly turning into a huge bit of knitting.

Every day I go for a walk round a lake by my office. It's about 1.75 miles, although I can add extra bits of path here and there to take it another 0.25 to 0.5 extra miles depending on how energetic I feel.

Photo: copyright Mitch11, supplied by Panoramio

One side of the lake is quite sheltered, with lots of tall rustling trees and willow by the water's edge. Here all the ducks accumulate for feeding, squabbbling and snoozing.The other side of the lake is a different proposition. Open ground. High wind. Brrrrr. It's not winter yet and already the wind is shooting down my ear canals and leaving them and my neck sore from cold.

So, I rooted through my wool stash and found a half finished jumper I got from a a fellow freecycler. I'm now reusing the wool and knitting a cowl of what appears to be ginormous proportions BUT it may actually be just the right size once sewn up and worn.

Not a very difficult pattern either.

I cast on about 180 stitches (or so). The pattern is odd rows knit, evens purl until I get to row 10, which should be a purl but instead I knit again. This leaves a single row ridge, then I start the 10 rows again. Very easy. I need about 19 to 20 repeats of the pattern. However, that many stitches with this type of chunky wool means it doesn't fit on two normal needles so I'm using a circular needle. I've not been blessed with enough brain power at the moment to figure out how to join the circle and knit in the round, so I just use it as a set of extra large needles and will sew it up at the end. I'm thinking I might also crochet the edge to stop it rolling up so much.

I'm looking forward to finishing it - the winter weather is starting to draw in!

What are you knitting?

Revamping an office chair

After

Before

You see before you what was a most sorry looking office chair this morning. 

It cost me a small fortune a few years ago when I set up freelance, but it was worth it because it has all sorts of nifty ergonomic little tricks, including a pump up lumbar support and spring loaded arms that extend so you can hover right above the keyboard and still be supported. 

Anyway, expensive and ergonomic it may be, but it's also looking decidedly shabby and not in a chic way.

So the order of this morning was an attempt to recover it with some of the Amy Butler fabric I found a few months ago. It started well for the seat but then descended into chaos for the back rest. The seat came off fine but I just couldn't get the back off, even with a long screwdriver, pliers, tyre iron and a frenzy of swearing, so settled for pulling back the plastic frame, stapling it to the side against the wooden base of the back rest and tucking the excess out of sight. 

I don't think it looks too bad. I still have the neck rest to do, but I'll do that next weekend.

What do you think? 

Crafty considerations

 

I haven't done much in the way of crafts this year, but Christmas approaching has reminded me that I need to get my butt in gear and start some of the homemade items I'm planning. Someone at work has requested Monsieur Meerkat! Isn't he cute! He's in Susan Polley's book Knitted Toys.  

I bought it in the week and am trying to get to grips with the slightly complicated pattern for the Meerkat. So far I have two meerkat feet, a belly and two knees! 

In addition to Mr Meerkat, I am also practicing my cable technique.

 

I've always wanted to be able to cable but shied away thinking it was too complicated. If I'd known how easy cable was I'd have done it years ago. Here's the first of one cable mitt and its twin is being knitted. This is all in preparation for a much larger project for someone for Christmas. I cannot say any more but if you've never tried cable, give it a go. If I can do it, anyone can.

And now for some sad news. My cushion cover, now into the second anniversary of its knitting has been abandoned.

I was going great guns lately, knitting quite a bit every morning in the car. Then disaster. Martin tucked a flask of soup behind his seat, not noticing my knitting back was there. The flask tipped over, leaked, the tomato soup went in my knitting bag and the cream coloured cushion was ruined. After washing it was still badly stained so into the bin it went. Very disappointing. 

To make up for it and to cheer myself up, I had a friend of a friend make up this gorgeous laptop bag for me! She even put a pocket on the outside for me to store my cables.

I love it!