Christmas Jumper

This pattern is from Haiku Knits by Tanya Alpert and is about the only pattern in this book that I really like! It's an unusual construction, knit in one piece starting from the bottom and then knit over the top of the shoulders, casting off/casting on for the neckline before knitting the back from the top down. The sleeves are picked up from the arm openings and knit down. The only sewing involved is the side seams. I altered the pattern slightly to make the neckline roll better and gave it longer sleeves. The yarn is Sublime Chunky Tweed.

I didn't quite finish it for Christmas but it's brightening up January now.

January Blues

Last weekend we went on a couple of day-trips to try to cure my January blues. On Saturday we went down to London to visit the Paul Klee exhibition at Tate Modern. I've always loved Klee's work - I think his use of colour and pattern is very appealing to anyone interested in textiles. I've seen many of his works in reproduction and have collected dozens of postcards of his images but I've never seen them in real-life. I was amazed at how small they are; you have to look at them really closely and it felt like peering into a magical world. There's a sense that Klee is using a very personal vocabulary and I'm not sure that I could make any attempt to try to interpret their meaning but they are beautiful nonetheless. My favourites were his fishy paintings including 'Fishes in the Sea'.

Later that day we went to Liberty and I bought this fabric to make a new spring shell-top. 

Then on Sunday we visited the Sea Life Centre in Birmingham. The star of the show was this friendly filefish - it was really interested in us and kept following us around. It took many, many attempts to photograph him - he swims so fast - so I'm very pleased that I finally managed to get a decent shot.       

Nordic Saga

I have been trying to knit Aftur, a traditional Icelandic jumper, since September but have encountered many tests along the way. The first version was made using some jade green yarn that I bought in a sale a few years ago. It knitted up beautifully and I thought it would be no problem to buy a few balls in a similar weight and yarn content to knit up the multi-coloured yoke. But when I came to gently wash the jumper to finish it off, the green yarn felted and it is now so small I can't even get it over my head.   

I had really enjoyed knitting the fair-isle yoke and that has survived the wash perfectly.

But it hadn't taken too long to knit so I thought I'd give it another go. I had lots of yarn leftover for the yoke so just needed to choose a colour for the main body and arms. I spent ages trying to choose a colour and in the end went for this orange. I thought it would brighten up the winter. But after knitting a few inches I've decided that I really don't like it and I know I'll never wear it.

So I've abandoned version two and am now about to start version three. This time I've gone for something a bit more subdued for the body and will use the orange for the yoke. But I still haven't finished the journey with this particular project and I have a feeling that there may be more challenges to come...

Power Porridge

I'm over half way in my Channel swim and have just five weeks to go to swim the last 9 miles. I thought I'd be feeling super-fit by now; actually I've just felt shattered so far. But recently Kirsty reminded me that I need to be stocking up on protein and carbs in order to replenish my energy. Now why didn't I think of that?

So I have decided to follow my health and fitness guru's lead and start using chia seeds in my breakfast. I have been watching him sprinkling this stuff into his muesli every morning for months but its resemblance to fag ash has prevented me from following suit. However, this last few days, I have discovered that it actually tastes pretty good mixed into porridge, especially with banana and maple syrup on top. 

And I really do feel more energetic. Calais, here I come!

Hundreds of Little Ends

Progress on my left-overs cardigan has stalled. There are hundreds of little ends to weave in and I really hate weaving in hundreds of little ends. It's boring and fiddly and takes ages.

I will do it eventually but in the meantime I've started another stash-busting project and am trying to avoid the problem of hundreds of little ends by carrying the yarn up the side of the knitting rather than cutting it off to join in a new colour. But this means having to knit with lots of balls of yarn at the same time and it gets very tangled.

It's a dilemma - de-tangling every few rows or weaving in hundreds of little ends...



Back to School

This week has been all about getting ready for the new academic year while enjoying the autumn sunshine. Anxious emails from my new students are already filling my inbox and we start in earnest tomorrow. But I love this time of year; it's a time of fresh starts, high hopes, a new uniform and sharp pencils.

In high hopes for the new year I visited A Squash and a Squeeze: Sharing Stories with Julia Donaldson at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, which was great fun. I particularly liked the way the exhibits were displayed at child height. But there was a lot to interest adults too - Donaldson's notebooks and the correspondence between editors and illustrators gave a useful insight into the process of producing a picturebook. Alex Scheffler's doodle of the gruffalo crouched ominously on his back, made during the stressful process of producing the illustrations for Donaldson's best-selling book, was particularly poignant.

I also rediscovered this Taylor Mali performance, which I have used to introduce my Linguistics students to the blur between everyday and literary language. I'm starting to get excited about this year!

For back-to-school cool, I finished this addition to my autumn uniform. The pattern is buttonbox from Knitty.com. It goes really well with the tweed trousers I bought at the charity shop with Naomi on Monday.

And Naomi too starts a new academic year this weekend and a whole new life at university. I made this owl cushion to keep her company in her room. The pattern is from The Eternal Thread

We love you Naomi - have a wonderful time!

The Library of my Dreams

I went to the opening of the new Library of Birmingham yesterday and came home feeling full of inspiration. Malala Yousafzai gave the opening speech and the whole event felt very emotional. I kept thinking about past openings of Birmingham's public buildings - buildings that are so much part of the city's landscape and culture - and felt really proud to be there.  

Once inside, we were completely bowled over. It is an incredible building - stimulating and fun and, in Jo's words, 'the library of my dreams'. I was especially pleased to see so many of the library's collections of eighteenth and nineteenth-century journals out on the shelves. The building is both futuristic and reminiscent of the past and the materials used feel beautiful and solid - there's a lot of wood and stone. The outdoor areas are green and calm; there's a huge music library and film-viewing pods; the children's library is colourful and comfy. Around every corner and curve is something new and quirky. We spent about three hours just walking around yesterday and still didn't get to see everything. I'm really looking forward to spending lots of time there discovering new stuff.