Yarn Shopping

Went to the Sewing for Pleasure show at the NEC on Friday. I've never been to one of these shows before and was a little disappointed. It's basically just a big indoor market. I was expecting there to be a lot of artisan spinners and dyers and so on. But actually, most of the knitting stands were just selling packs of cheap, acrylic yarn. 

The highlight of the show for me was the Toft stand - I bought some of their alpaca double knit yarn and the cutest fluffy pom-pom to make a hat. It all came in a lovely little bag and makes a very nice pre-birthday present for myself.

Don't think I'll bother with the shows in future though...

Reading List

My reading list for 2014 - mostly birthday and Christmas presents from 2013. No match for Jim's 2014 reading challenge - which is to beat the 57 books he read last year. But some challenges here nonetheless - notably, my challenge to read more Dickens. This challenge, recklessly agreed to after a glass of fizz on Christmas Day, was to read a chapter of Dickens a day. That quickly became 5 chapters a week and I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read a single chapter at all this week. The challenge now is just to finish Little Dorrit. Reading Muriel Spark's Symposium at the same time probably isn't helping. Spark's sharp, economical prose is such sweet relief from Dickens that it's difficult to resist.

Others on my list for this year are a mix of pure pleasure (cats and Anne Tyler), semi-serious literariness (biographies of Charlotte Bronte, Patrick Hamilton and Jane Austen), and just great writing (Patrick Hamilton).

Apparently, it's naff to post picture of one's reading matter (as naff as posting pictures of one's breakfast no doubt). Well, naff I am.



Summer in February

I've found myself thinking a lot about yellow cardigans recently. I've got two sunshiney cardigans, which I love and wear year-round. But I've never managed to knit myself a yellow cardigan. I once spent a lot of money on some golden-yellow, very fine alpaca yarn in a cute shop in Edinburgh but half-way through the intended project I realised that that kind of yellow just doesn't suit me. The cardigans that I love are a sharper, lemony yellow and I've realised that this is the shade that I need to knit with.

Having pondered the perfect yellow cardigan for weeks now, I finally took the plunge and spent a fortune today (Rowan - your prices are getting insane!) on this cotton-linen yarn to make my first Spring/Summer project of 2014.

The pattern is going to be this one from Knitting By Design by Emma Robertson. When I first flicked through this book in November, I thought it was a bit boring. But I found that I kept being drawn to it whenever I visited a bookshop. I ended up buying it as a pre-Christmas treat for myself and I've already made a few things from it. It's really grown on me.  

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!