I seem to have found my knitting mojo again, having completed more projects in December than I think I have done all year. It’s become almost a challenge to see what I can do and I have to admit I’ve enjoyed it, albeit at the expense of my housework. Let’s face it though, the housework will still be there next week!

I recently bought a load of new stock for the shop and amongst it was some Rowan Big Wool, a super-chunky weight 100% pure wool in a dull grey colour. Lovely wool, but not particularly inspirational colours so I dug out my trusty kool-aid to dye it. Problem was, 100g of super-chunky wool is a fair quantity and I couldn’t get good colour saturation with the kool-aid so for the first time I used Wilton’s food colouring. And it’s GREAT!

I now had six balls of brightly coloured wool to play with and next on my list was to find a project. I wanted something useful but not clothing. I wanted something interesting but simplistic. I wanted something fun but not attention intensive. I picked a log cabin blanket, a concept rather than a pattern which I’d been introduced to whilst reading the delightful Mason Dixon Knitting blog. Bright, bold, delightfully patterned without being a timesink. Perfect!

By the time I finished this, I was really finding it difficult to imagine parting with it. Unusual for me, I never ever knit anything for myself but I had such an urge to keep this blanket for Greer because I just adore it. But good Auntie Vonnie wrapped it up for baby Blake.

Alas, being in Scotland in December has meant good photographs of the whole blanket have been impossible so I’m sating you with tiny ickle 10 day old baby photos instead. What do you think?

Posted under dyeing wool, knitting

You may or may not have noticed (and Kat can certainly attest to this fact) that I am quite the perfectionist. I’ll try most things but don’t sell my crafts really because I have no confidence that they’re good enough. If there’s even the slightest flaw – if my stitches aren’t quite right, if I am a little heavy handed with paint or dye – I will set what I’ve made aside.

So can you imagine my rage this evening? I’ve been working on a pair of longies* for Greer this week, it’s the first knitting I’ve picked up in a while and I spent most of last night and today working on the leg. I was SO HAPPY with how the wool (which I dyed myself) was knitting up and finally cast off the first leg earlier.

Then I looked at them.

Then I noticed a MAJOR COCK UP.

I’ll post what the cock up is tomorrow, in the meantime I’m going to leave it as is to see how quickly my knitting friends can spot it. Luckily for us, my lovely and fabulously talented friend Evelyn is currently making Greer a pair of her scrappies longies so at least we’ll have one pair to tide us over!

Apologies for the terrible photos but a) they were taken on my phone and b) the light in here is terrible.

I’m away to frog** the leg and start again. Out of curiosity though, can I ask your opinions on the leg design?

Firstly – I’ve got a moss-stitch band roughly where Greer’s knees will be. Primarily this is because the rise is so big on these that I don’t think my variegated wool will stretch to two full legs so I’ve broken it up with the trim colour. The other reason is that Greer will be crawling soon and I think the moss stitch patches will help reduce the wear and tear if she’s crawling in them. Do you think a) the band of colour looks okay and b) the moss stitch band is a good idea or a terrible one? Bob said he thought it might look better simply knitted but after the work that’s gone into them I’d be fuming if they ended up with a hole in the knee.

Secondly – I usually do a ruffle edging on the legs but I’ve gone with a ribbed cuff which can be folded over to give Greer some growing room. I can’t quite decide if I like the way it looks though – what say you?

* Longies are knitted, lanolised trousers worn over cloth nappies. They’re a more breathable solution than plastic pants and the wool can hold a significant amount of wee before it leaches, PLUS with being lanolised the longies are self-cleaning since lanolin+urine=soap. Clever, eh?

** Frogging (for the non-knitters) is when you rip back what you’ve knitted. Rip-it, Rip-it. Geddit?

Posted under dyeing wool, knitting

Today it’s my wonderful husband‘s birthday. Not a particularly special age, but a very special man.

In our house, it’s almost always Bob who makes dinner. In fact, I think I could count on both hands how many times I’ve taken a turn while we’ve lived here because we cook the vast majority of our meals from scratch and Bob is very quick at putting meals together whereas I am distinctly not. The usual exception to the “Bob cooks” rule is birthdays and Father’s day because really, that’s only fair. I asked my dearly beloved what he wanted and he told me, “lasagne and crème brûlée”. Easy enough, I thought, before remembering that I also needed to make a birthday cake. Hmm. I had decided on a pavlova because Bob had mentioned in passing that he really liked it but I had NO IDEA it was going to involve so much work! Luckily for me he changed his mind about dinner and decided he wanted pizza instead so I didn’t have to spend the entire day in the kitchen!

The most time-consuming and annoying part of this entire process was having to separate nine eggs. I hate separating eggs but luckily this time I managed all nine without breaking any yolks. Hoorah! Following this pavlova recipe I made the meringue first, put it in the oven for the alloted time and opened the oven as recommended to allow the meringue to cool down and dry out before realising that it was only cooked on the outside. I turned it over and put it back into the oven for another hour but I suspect my error was that the egg whites weren’t whipped firm enough before I shaped the meringue (perhaps worth noting here that I used nine regular sized egg whites from our own hens and not the nine large whites called for in the recipe). Delia Smith recommends baking your meringue the day before and leaving it in the oven overnight to cool and dry out, I may do that next time.

In the meantime, I was extremely happy with how the crème brûlée worked out! I made it after I put the meringue into the oven and it was easy as pie. The one aspect I wasn’t happy with is that our grill isn’t really good enough to caramelise sugar so I’m going to have to get my hands on a little kitchen blowtorch. Which seems kind of pointless when I can use it on one thing that I don’t make very often!

Recipe – Lemon Raspberry crème brûlée (makes 8 )

750ml double cream
Grated peel of one lemon
170g caster sugar
9 egg yolks
2 tsps vanilla extract
pinch salt

8 tsps brown sugar
punnet raspberries
Chambord or crème de cassis (optional)

Preheat your oven to gas mark 4/180C. Mix the lemon peel with the cream, put in a saucepan and heat until the cream is simmering. Meanwhile whisk the egg yolk and caster sugar until thick – using a handheld electric whisk this took roughly two minutes for me – then add the hot cream gradually. Take your time at this juncture – I just about redecorated my kitchen at this stage! Add the vanilla extract and salt, then set your custard aside.

Get the largest roasting dish you can find which will fit in your oven and put eight ramekins in it before filling the dish with boiling water to roughly half the height of your ramekins. Pour your custard into the ramekins through a sieve to remove the lemon peel then carefully lift your roasting dish into the oven. Bake for 55 mins-1 hour before taking them out of the oven. Chill uncovered until your custard is firm which will take at least three hours.

About an hour before you plan to serve your crème brûlée, put your ramekins on a baking tray and sprinkle 1 tsp of brown sugar over each one. Put under the grill (or use your blowtorch at this juncture) until the sugar has melted and browned. Put back into the fridge to harden. Put your raspberries into a bowl and add enough chambord or cassis to let your raspberries soak then leave for the rest of the hour. Spoon your raspberry mixture onto your ramekins immediately before serving.

Posted under baking, dyeing wool, family, recipes, sewing

I promised pictures of the wool that I’d dyed last week and here it is. I was thinking about this actually – would a step-by-step guide to dyeing with koolaid be helpful to any of you?

Bob bought me a few books on natural dyeing for Christmas last year and I still haven’t got round to trying any of the ideas out. Truth is that natural dyeing will take a bit more preparation than dyeing with kool-aid and so I put it off. In a similar fashion, I also bought some acid dyes over a year ago with great intentions and have still not used them. No excuses there, I just haven’t got comfortable with using them yet!

Truth be told I don’t know if I’m in a great hurry to dye again. I really enjoy the end product but it’s so messy, and one little slip of the hand can wreck an entire skein but then it can be so worth it when you get it right! I’m going to reskein these to show the colours better and maybe take more photographs.

Hope you’re all having a nice weekend! Our children are all away this weekend so we’re attempting to organise our house a little. What are you up to?

Posted under dyeing wool, general crafty updates

Annie is my swap partner in Apryl‘s Owl Swap and I received her parcel yesterday. I am so spoiled!

I had told Annie during our first discussions about my love for The Owl and The Pussycat and she clearly picked up on that as she’s made and sent me these beautiful toys which are going to have pride of place on my bed under my new print. Annie also sent me some gorgeous yarn which I suspect is cotton, a flake (which was eaten immediately!) and a butterball bath bomb from Lush. I am so grateful – your gift was so thoughtful Annie and I hope you are as pleased with what I send you.

I had planned to bake today but I accidentally put 1.2kg of wool into a soaking bin earlier and filled it with water so I suspect I’ll be dyeing it later! What are your plans (crafty or otherwise) today?

Posted under dyeing wool, general crafty updates, swaps

Merry Christmas one and all! I hope Santa Claus was good to you and that you didn’t get a lump of coal I’ll start today’s entry by sending you all over to Span’s Stitchin blog for a look at the hand-dyed Fetchings I made for my Crafteroo secret santa recipient.

Boxing day was spent with my side of the family this year and I came prepared! My sister has been telling me that my niece doesn’t have a hat that fits her now her candy cane hat is too small, so it’s Auntie Vonnie’s job to make a new one. “No problem!” said I, and off I went to work.

I really like the kids’ hats that have a little elvin nubbin at the crown but haven’t found a (free) pattern yet that matched what I liked so I improvised this hat. I promise I’ll sit down and devise the pattern if anyone particularly wants it. I will also update with pictures of the hat being worn since neither of my babies will entertain being models today!

The astute amongst you may have recognised the yarn. It is, in fact, the remaining 50g or so hand-dyed yarn that I used to create Janice’s Fetching. Nothing wasted in this household! And indeed, there was just enough left over to make matching mittens with an i-cord attached. You never seem to see those anymore: kids’ mittens with a cord to go through the coat so you never lose a mitten again. Very cute, really.

I did write up the pattern for these and they’ll be published on the site at some point today. As a tip, you’ll want to go and learn the Magic Cast On showcased in Knitty.

And, a reminder! Today is the last day to enter the competition to win a Namaste needle shell. I’ll close the competition at 8pm GMT so get in there while you can!

Posted under dyeing wool, for the kids, knitting

I work with a brilliant graphic designer called Janice, who just makes my day at work go by so much quicker and easier. Last week we went for a walk around the city centre at lunchtime and ended up buying new scarves as Janice had lost hers the week before (actually, she’d left it on a wall in Skye where she was volunteering for the National Trust). As she explained what had happened, she exclaimed, “I need COLOUR in my life! Colour!” and I suddenly decided what I was going to do for her birthday.

Pattern: Fetching from the Summer 2006 edition of Knitty
Needles: 4mm bamboo DPNs
Yarn: This was my very first skein of my very first attempt at dyeing with kool aid. I posted about dyeing on this entry. The yarn I used is the left skein in the bottom picture.
Ravelry project page: Click here
Techniques learned: I discovered whilst checking how to do the cable cast on that I’ve been casting on incorrectly for, well as long as I’ve been able to knit! That was fairly disconcerting but at least now I know how to do it properly.
I also feel that I’ve mastered how to pick up and knit stitches without leaving a gaping hole.

These were really quick to knit up – I cast on late thing on Thursday night and finished them on Saturday night, and I am by no stretch of the imagination a speedy knitter. I had to frog the thumb on the left because I somehow managed to pick up 21 stitches instead of 17 and I completed eight rounds on the thumb instead of the suggested four because the thumb barely covered my knuckle with four repeats. I did use the suggested picot cast off, but I’m not hugely happy with the effect. I think it looks pretty untidy – is it just me? Have any of you who’ve made Fetching before felt the same?

Click any of the pictures to get the bigger size.

The skein I used is the one hanging on the left hand side.


This is the best close-up I could get of the cables. To be honest, they don’t show up quite as sharply in the finished object because the colours are so dense but I like the texture.


Here is one finished wristwarmer


So I gave Janice her birthday present yesterday, something full of colour but which she could also use on her regular trips away and she says she loves them. In fact before I left the office she had her gloves on because she was cold so that’s made me very happy

Posted under dyeing wool, knitting

Loyal readers may remember this post where I hand-dyed wool using kool-aid. This wool has lay unused for so long that I decided enough was enough.

We use cloth nappies with the children and wool makes an excellent cover for the nappies. I like the longies that are quite popular just now and so using some of my wool whilst following the Aubrey Doodlepants pattern I created these longies for the baby.

I do apologise for the terrible photo but unfortunately space is at a premium in this house right now. The longies seem to be doing the job, they’re beautifully soft and the baby just looks good enough to eat in them. I subsequently made another pair using the same pattern for #2 but unfortunately I haven’t managed to accost him for a photograph yet. I will, though.

I made a few modifications to this pattern. Firstly, I measured her waist and subracted an inch to make the waistband fit better. I also measured her hips and increased in the five rows after the waistband to prevent the waistband from sagging too much. Then, after the short rows were done I found the stitches that would be grafted and increased between those every other row to create a gusset and provide a better surface area for kitchenering. Have I mentioned that I love the kitchener stitch? Oh! Beautiful and not difficult to learn either.

Overall I’m happy with how these came out and I expect I’ll use the pattern again. I’m all about the freebies.

As I live in the UK, it can be quite difficult to acquire kool aid without paying a huge amount in postage so I have recently bought some acid dyes to play with. I’m quite excited but nervous in case I ruin the wool I’ve bought. We’ll see how it goes.

I have more to update but I must wait to hear when my craftster.org swap pal receives her package as I don’t want to ruin her surprise.

Posted under dyeing wool, knitting

I spent a couple of hours last night dyeing up some wool using kool aid that I acquired from eBay months ago. GREAT fun! Seriously, although I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all this yarn. I very well may sell it on etsy if it comes out a good enough quality. I have very cleverly managed to dye my hands bright red, with a bonus raspberry-blue fingernail. Any tips on how to get rid of the dye would be greatly appreciated! I shall use gloves next time.

I did two types of dyeing – steaming and microwaving – and I’d say the microwaving was easier but steaming was more fun. My steamer has two racks but I didn’t want dye dripping from one rack to another, so the self coloured wool went in the microwave and the patterned stuff went in the steamer. I used roughly 6-8 packs of kool aid for the patterned wool and four for the self coloured, and that’s for 100g (4oz) of wool. Knitty has a great article on kool-aid dyeing here which was written by their advertising manager Kristi Porter. There’s also an article on the different dyeing techniques written by Julie Theaker and these were the articles I used to guide my dalliance. Thanks go to Emma Crew for pointing me to this colour chart too.

I’ll post again when I have them re-skeined, buut for now here are a few action shots, with more available here.

Posted under dyeing wool