elephantJuice

clean slate

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:34:00 +0000

Well here we are, well into the second week of 2013. I hope everyone had wonderful festive period. After months of anticipation it slipped away far too quickly for my liking. Is that what happens when you get older?

2012 was a rollercoaster of a year. There were some amazing highs, and some utterly crushing lows. It was a landmark year for me, and I miss it already, but I can’t say I’m not glad to be moving on.

I’ve had a thousand false starts with this post, and in the end I decided to just draw a line under all of them and just start afresh. After all, isn’t that what new years are about? There’s a lot of finished projects that I haven’t shared here, but I’m going to trickle them through gradually and keep things simple for now.

Clicking away on my needles at this moment, is a Featherweight Cardigan. It seems like everyone else has already knit this (4793 projects on Ravelry, and counting!), but I’m a little late to the bandwagon. The truth of it is, I’m on a bit of a cardigan binge. I start a new job on Monday, and the office attire is stated as being business casual. There seem to be so many different grades of business casual that I’m not sure where to land on the sliding scale, but I figure I can’t go wrong with smart trousers, simple, long sleeved plain tees, dressed up with a pretty cardigan. This has caused a bit of a cardi queue-fest on Ravelry, and Featherweight seemed a nice simple one to kick things off with! I’m knitting it a heavenly squishy merino laceweight from Colourmart in a beautiful soft charcoal, and it’s knitting up surprisingly fast for such a fine yarn! I cast on (for the third time! I’m all about the false starts at the moment.) last night, and I’m already a good 5 inches into it. I’m hoping that I’ll be up to the sleeve division by tonight… The Boy is seeing some friends after work tonight so I’ve got a nice solo evening planned with tea, knitting and Damian Lewis in Life. Yum.

cheating…

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:31:00 +0000

I cast on for a new project a few days ago, and it wasn’t a sock!

I do feel like I’m cheating on Socktoberfest, but I’ve been wanting a new not-too-slouchy hat for a while, and when I saw the new Cloudy Apples pattern collection, the Puffin Apple hat by the lovely Jen Arnall-Culliford seemed perfect. The name alone is too adorable to pass up!

So I went behind my socks’ back, dug up some cream aran in my stash, dyed it up and cast on. Working with tiny needles and skinny yarn so much, I often forget how quickly thicker yarns knit up. This is a super quick and satisfying knit, and I’m completely in love with the gorgeous texture and cable pattern!

I’m sure the socks will get over it.

notes from the weekend.

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:59:00 +0000

I sat in the garden in the morning sun with some knitting and a book,

I cast on for new sock,

and I cooked a roast dinner and baked some yummy pumpkin muffins.

These things are seriously good I enjoyed one this morning for breakfast, along with a mug of apple cinnamon tea. Oh how I love autumn.

The only thing I changed from the recipe was reduce the sugar slightly (I used 1/2 a cup rather than 3/4), but the next time I make them I think they’d be lovely with a handful of chopped nuts or some chocolate chips. It’s a testament to how yummy they are that 21 muffins came out of the oven yesterday afternoon, and only 14 remain today….

Back to the socks, I really can’t decide how I feel about them. I cast them on wanting something plain, and although I like the subtle variegation part of me feels like it’s missing a bit of texture. I’m half tempted to rip back to the cuff and start again with Hermione’s Everyday Socks, but I’m almost at the heel and I’d hate for all of my weekend to have to go to waste!

back to business

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 16:49:00 +0000

Well hello there, I seem to have unintentionally taken my annual summer hiatus from the blog! The last few months have been a bit of a rollercoaster. Not long after my last blog post I was called back in to my ex-workplace to help out with a project that was close to deadline for a few weeks. And then I got some incredibly tragic news about a friend which just pushed everything out of focus while friends and family tried to wrap our heads around it.

Things are starting to get back on track though, and I’m kicking off my return with a sock for Socktoberfest!

Pattern: plain top down vanilla socks with a short row heel (notes on Ravelry)

Yarn: Rico Design Superba Poems and Regia Stretch Color for contrasting cuffs, heels and toes

Ravelled here.

These socks were an emergency cast on as the Boy was dragging me to the cinema to see Looper (great film, by the way. I thought it was going to be one of those stressful, difficult to watch films but it was brilliant and I enjoyed it so much more than I was expecting to!) and I had… *shock horror*…. no vanilla socks to take with me! I kept the cuffs short so that I wouldn’t be knitting ribbing when the film started. I’ve been caught out with that one before; I always get so engrossed in the film that I lose track of what I’m doing, can’t remember if I’m supposed to be knitting or purling and end up with a couple of mistaken yarn overs and a mess of rib. Not good.

Once I got started, these socks zoomed by and were off the needles in a little over a week. I even don’t mind the fact that they’re not matchy matchy. I initially thought I was going to get a little twitchy about not being able to match the gradients because I forgot to make a note of where I joined the colour on the first sock, but then I decided to embrace the idea of fraternal gradient socks. If these were striped or patterned I would definitely be getting a little bit of twitchy rage at them not being identical, but I quite like it in the gradient, there’s something softer about the mismatch that almost works.

This yarn seems to provoke quite a vitriolic response in the Ravelry comments, but I quite honestly can’t see what the fuss is about. I actually quite like it. It has an almost handspun look when it’s knit up that to my mind translates to something cosy and comforting, and until I get around to spinning my own sock yarn these will do quite nicely. I did want to offer my counter to a lot of the negative comments I’ve seen surrounding this yarn though, so here goes:

It is on the hairy side for sock yarn, but it’s not scratchy or itchy.
It’s not soft either so personally I think it’s best for socks, but unless you have particularly sensitive skin it would be fine for a shawl or a scarf.
It is not plied, it is a single. Because of this I’m not sure how hardwearing it’ll be as a sock yarn, but I’ve used my favourite workhorse Regia yarn for the heels and toes so hopefully it won’t fare too badly. We’ll see…
It is a little splitty, but not too bad. I’ve knit with a lot worse before. I managed to knit this in the dark at the cinema and worked quite a few inches without working any split stitches, so it can’t be that bad :)

The needles have not been idle this past few months so I have quite a few things to share with you, but I’m going to ease back into things. I know I promised a couple of recipes in my last post, and I will get round to doing them! The pictures are all done, so I just need to sit down and write them up. In the mean time, I’ve got a lot of blog feeds to be catching up on….

ennui

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 19:10:00 +0000

Sorry for the extended absence this past month, but I have been suffering from some major ennui lately. I think it was possibly sparked off by how crazy things got towards the end of May when my godson decided to put in a very sudden and unexpected appearance a whole two weeks early! This was immediately followed by the Queen’s Jubilee, I had to go on a course for some volunteer work I’m doing, and then there’s my new found motivation to get fit and finally lose the pounds that I’ve been packing on over the past six years, and amongst all that the needles have been strangely silent. Even my reading slowed down; I’m still on the fifth Game of Thrones book!

I’m slowly finding my feet again though. I started a new pair of vanilla socks for some cinema knitting, and after an agonising yarn stash deliberation I settled on a predictable grey but thought I’d spice it up with some bright yellow heels and toes. Of course I didn’t have quite the right shade of yellow, so out came the dyes…

… and whilst I was at it, why not stick some roving in as well?!

And this is what I pulled out of the dyepot in the first picture. I love it so much that I’m dyeing up some more to stick in the shop, as it’s looking shamefully bare in there at the moment.

I’ve got a couple of recipe posts lined up, but here’s a little sneak peek for now!

inconceivable!

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Wed, 23 May 2012 18:38:00 +0000

I found myself without any active WIPs on the go yesterday. Since I found the idea of not having any socks on the needles inconceivable (anyone out there who can say that word without thinking of the Princess Bride needs to go and watch that film NOW!) so I cast on for these Cheery Littlebottom socks. It’s the April/May mystery KAL pattern for the SolidSocks group, and I thought of this Regia yarn from my stash as soon as I saw it. I’ve been meaning to cast on since halfway through April but never quite got around to it so I’m glad to finally have it on the needles at last. I think it’s safe to say that I’m not going to get these finished by the end of May!

My Baby Surprise Jacket has been off the needles for well over a week, but it’s still lingering as a WIP since I still have all the ends to weave in and all the buttons to attach. I better get a move on though, the baby is due in a couple of weeks and I still have soakers to knit and onesies to embroider!

I used an applied i-cord to bind off, and I love how it turned out. I always thought that i-cord borders involved knitting yards of i-cord, followed by painstakingly sewing on said i-cord, which sounds like an incredibly tedious thing to do. Not so with an applied i-cord! You’re knitting an i-cord, attaching it, and binding off in one fell swoop, and it gives a lovely polished edge. I’m a definite convert.

There was also a bit of spinning action that went on this weekend. I hand-dyed this fibre a few months ago, and perhaps it’s a touch of Jubilee fever but I thought it looked a tad patriotic (if you squint, and imagine that the purple is actually blue….).

It was a quick spin, started on the Saturday night as a Champions League football avoidance measure, and finished on Saturday afternoon. I didn’t have an exact picture of how I thought the colours would look spun up, but I suppose I thought there would more prominent sections of the undyed white so I was initially a little surprised by the levels of pink. Of course, if I’d bothered to apply any common sense at all I might possibly have realised that white and red obviously blend to make pink, which is why the finished skein has such an overwhelming pinkish hue!

It’s about a 4ply weight, and I was quite pleased that I managed to keep my singles fairly consistent, especially since I was balancing my kindle on one knee and reading at the same time! What can I say, I just can’t put down the whole Game of Thrones saga. I’m not typically a fan of this sort of epic fantasy genre, but this stuff is engrossing! I read the first book out of sheer curiosity from all the hype, and I was completely hooked. I’ve been devouring them all in quick succession and I’m now on the fifth book of the series. Not looking forward to finishing it and having to wait such a long time for the last two books to be published!

Sunday Best

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Fri, 18 May 2012 21:02:00 +0000

I’ve just realised that I never really got around to blogging about my Coopknits mystery socks! They got a little glimpse in my Colour Lovers post, but I think they deserve a little more attention because I LOVE them!

Pattern: UK Sock Knitters March Mystery by Rachel Coopey

Yarn: elephantjuice Super Sock 4ply

Ravelled here.

Coopknits is a sock genius. I’ve admired her gorgeous patterns for a while but this is the first one I’ve knit, and now I just want to cast on for all of her designs. I just can’t get enough of those crisp textures and twisted stitches!

I will admit that when I first saw the charts for these socks I was a little overwhelmed, but the actual knitting of it is very simple, and once I figured out what was going on it became very intuitive. Although there were a more than a few little lapses where I didn’t pay enough attention, or became too engrossed in my book and to do a little bit of tinking!

The only change I made to the pattern was to the toe, where I carried out my usual practice of decreasing every other row until about half the stitches remain, and then switching to decreasing every row before grafting the remaining stitches. It just gives me a toe which is ever so slightly more rounded than a standard “decrease every other row” toe.

On the whole, I really couldn’t be happier with how these came out. I’m so pleased with the yarn too. It was a bit of an experiment so I had no idea how it was going to knit up, and was really curious about how the little splashes of orange would look in a finished knit. It turned out nicer than I could have hoped, and the orange adds a bit of lively interest to the grey.

For a long time while during the knitting of the first sock I worried that I was going to run out of yarn. I was using a slightly underweight skein that I’d decided to keep for myself, so I was keeping a very close eye on the scales to check whether I’d hit the halfway mark before the end of Sock 1. I panicked in a moment of weakness and dyed a backup skein, but I needn’t have bothered because I ended up with a fairly healthy 10g leftover. The practical side of my is telling me to pop it into my pile of scraps for future darnings, but I’m very tempted to use it for a little hexipuff!

I’m not entirely sure that these socks will ever need darning though, because I’m being strangely precious with them! I’m usually so eager to pull on a pair of freshly knit socks and go trampling about outdoors in them, because there’s something so undeniably cosy about feet wrapped in all those little handmade stitches. But for some reason I’m shying away from wearing these lovelies inside of any shoes or boots, and instead am quite content to pad about the house in them, and admire them sitting on the radiator. I’m sure the novelty will wear off soon, but for now they’re my Sunday Best.

so near and yet so far

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:57:00 +0000

I feel like I haven’t been making much knitting progress lately. I started a little swatch a couple of weeks ago, but it hasn’t progressed beyond a rectangle because I need my 4mm needles, and they’re currently still occupied by…

… my Stripe Study shawl, which is still slogging along. I’ve knit all twelve contrast stripes and I’m now about two thirds of the way through the border, but even though I am so close to finishing, I can’t seem to bring myself to knit more than a few rows at a time. I still love this shawl, but my current feelings towards it are echoed exactly in Pinkundine’s recent post. At the risk of repeating what she has already written, the rows are just so long now, and there is none of the excitement of short rows or stripe segments left to break things up. It’s just become a bit of a slog, and if it wasn’t for my current rush to free up these needles it would probably linger on for quite a while!

Your Knitting Or Crochet Hero :: 3KCBWDAY3 ::

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 18:20:00 +0000

Your Knitting Or Crochet Hero
Blog about someone in the fibre crafts who truly inspires you. There are not too many guidelines for this, it's really about introducing your readers to someone who they might not know who is an inspiration to you. It might be a family member or friend, a specific designer or writer, indie dyer or another blogger. If you are writing about a knitting designer and you have knitted some of their designs, don't forget to show them off. Remember to get permission from the owner if you wish to use another person's pictures.

In truth I’m inspired and influenced by many talented people, but I think the mother of them all, cliched as it may be, has to be Elizabeth Zimmerman.

I come from a very DIY-inspired family. My Dad was a marine engineer and was DIY personified. Although his talents didn’t stretch to actually building our house, a huge proportion of the things in our family home had his mark upon them. He installed and varnished our hardwood flooring and skirting boards, turned our attic into a usable space with plumbing, refit our bathrooms, built our garden sheds… The list is endless. My 16th birthday present from my parents was a complete bedroom refit, and my Dad did every bit of it himself, from the flooring, to the fitted wardrobe, to the walls. B&Q was his second home (or perhaps that was the golf course), and I always felt like his handiness had no bounds. If he didn’t know how to fix or build something, he’d sit down, plan it out, and figure things out until he could.

Similarly my Mum has a totally resourceful, “can do” approach to everything. The number of times I experienced utter exasperation as a child whenever I expressed a longing for something, only to be told “that’s very easy to make, we can do it ourselves!” As exasperated as those words made me as a child, they’ve stood me in good stead, and to this day I’m always keen to have a go at doing things myself. Well, almost, sometimes it’s nice to take a shortcut.

But I think it’s also why Elizabeth Zimmerman’s writing appeals to me so much. She has a very no nonsense, “can do” approach to knitting. It’s empowering. She advocates “unventing”, experimenting, having a go, experimenting some more, and not being afraid of your knitting. If it doesn’t work, rip it back, but don’t be afraid to try. I think out of all crafts, knitting (and crochet) have the most flexibility in terms of experimentation. Most yarns can stand being reknit dozens of times if things don’t quite go to plan. Some yarns can even be re-joined once the ends have been broken, but the same can’t be said of fabric once it’s been cut for sewing, or paper once folded for origami. Other crafts have their perks, but there is a finality about them that is absent from knitting and crochet.

So I look up to Elizabeth Zimmerman for opening my eyes to the woolly possibilities,

but it seems that I also have my parents to thank for giving me an outlook that embraces craftiness so well.

Photography Challenge Day :: 3KCBWDAY2 ::

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:28:00 +0000

Photography Challenge Day!
Today challenges you to be creative with your photography, and get yourself in with the chance to win the photography prize. Taking interesting photographs in this instance isn't about flashy cameras or a great deal of technical know-how, it's about setting up a story or scene in a photograph and capturing something imaginative. Your photograph(s) should feature something related to your craft, so that might be either a knitted or crocheted item, yarn, or one of your craft tools. One example of setting a scene would be to photograph a girl in a knitted red cape walking through the woodlands with a basket of goodies, as in the Red Riding Hood tale, or you might photograph a knitted gnome hiding among the flowers in your garden. Photo editing is permitted for competition photos. Here are a few examples of my own photographs to illustrate an imaginative use of photography, but you can do much better than these...

Oh how I struggled with this topic! I racked my brains all day yesterday, but by the time I got the vaguest semblance of an idea there wasn’t enough light to take any photographs. The light today hasn’t been much better (thanks, rain!) but I did manage a few snaps so I’m putting this up today and hoping that no rules are being broken or bent. Judging by the quality of the entries I’ve seen, this is certainly no prize contender, but I thought a little yarn-evolution picture could be fun. So here it is, from fluff to yarn to ball to needles.

I couldn’t resist another picture, because hand wound balls of handspun yarn are just the prettiest things!

Colour Lovers ::3KCBWDAY1::

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 18:14:00 +0000

So it’s here at last! Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, Year 3. I love the concept of this event, and every year I start with the best intentions to plan out my posts in advance and schedule everything so that it all pops up on time, and it’s never once happened. Surprise surprise, it still hasn’t happened this year, but let’s see if I do any better than my previous efforts!

Colour Lovers
Colour is one of our greatest expressions of ourselves when we choose to knit or crochet, so how do you choose what colours you buy and crochet or knit with. Have a look through your stash and see if there is a predominance of one colour. Do the same with your finished projects - do they match? Do you love a rainbow of bright hues, or more subdued tones. How much attention do you pay to the original colour that a garment is knit in when you see a pattern? Tell readers about your love or confusion over colour.

I love colour. I love creating it, playing with it, exploring it. The rich, vivid hues of freshly dyed mawata silk hankies drying on the line make my heart sing.

And out of all colours, I’ve always had a weakness for blue.

I just can’t resist those deep, jewel tones and bright, fresh hues, and a glance at my stash definitely reveals my bias towards this end of the colour spectrum.

But as much as I love intense, vivid colours, a lot of the time I seem to gravitate towards neutrals for my knitting. Greys, browns and creams have such a natural, classic beauty to them.

They are simple and timeless. And of course, they go with everything! Which is a great thing when I’m bleary eyed in the morning, and running out of the door with the first scarf that I had to hand…

And out of all the neutrals, grey is my firm favourite.

But a pop of colour is always welcome.

I just wanted to give a little shout out before I go. I haven’t been online much for the past week or two because I broke my glasses and the lens coating on my other pair is all scuffed, and going through life with one perma-blurry eye is not fun! I’ve been getting some wicked headaches and eye strain so I’ve been trying not to stare at screens too much, but this week seems as good as any to jump back into things.

During my absence I’ve been lucky enough to have been awarded the Versatile Blogger award again, not once but twice! The first was from Michelle over at Will Knit for Food, whose blog is one that I discovered only recently but is already a firm favourite. She has the most beautiful photographs and her blog is filled with wonderful sewing and knitting projects. I am in so much awe of her sewing skills! The second was from Laura of Sudden Expressions, whose blog I’ve been following for a while. She’s so sweet and friendly, has such a fantastic variety of knitting projects, and she dyes absolutely beautiful yarn! Check out these lovelies! So a huge thank you to those ladies, I’m very flattered and grateful. As I already did a Versatile Blogger post last month I won’t bore you all with another one, but feel free to check it out if you want to.

And also check out all the other Colour Lover blog posts by searching 3KCBWDAY1. Enjoy!

a prize in the post

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 21:20:00 +0000

Remember the SolidSocks Ravelry group with the bi-monthly KALs that I’m always banging on about? Well, one of the great things about that group is that each of the KALs is sponsored, and if you finish your socks within the two months and post your pic to the group you get entered into a prize draw to win something from the lovely sponsors. Now, I can count the number of times I’ve ever won anything on one hand. The first prize I can ever remember winning was a beautiful doll in a sapphire blue velvet dress that I won after having the closest guess at the number of Smarties in a jar at a school fete when my age was still in single digits. My second prize was a set of paints I won during a colouring in contest one summer in Singapore when I was still of a single digit age. To be honest, I don’t even remember entering, all I remember is sitting at the kitchen table as my Mum placed a set of Bebe branded paints in front of me and told me I’d won them in a colouring in contest. In retrospect, that could well have been one of those parental white lies told to keep me happy and quiet in the midst of a very long summer, but I’ve always believed that I won them so it stands as my prize number two. And last weekend when I logged onto Ravelry, I discovered that my Galileo socks had won me prize number three.

To say I was giddy with glee would be an understatement. If you don’t believe me, the Boy can attest to my bouncing round the kitchen and squealing with joy as I cooked dinner. After calming down (just a tad) and getting in touch with Karen, the sponsor, she graciously told me to visit her shop, choose whichever project bag I liked, and she would pop it in the post for me. I am not decisive at the best of times, and she has sooo many lovelies that it took me quite a while to choose one! For a while I was really torn between this floral print and these really fun, bright birds, but the panda bag just reeled me in the end. The print was just too cute to resist! The bag arrived from the US to the UK in less than a week, and it is so beautifully made and I am so much in love with it that I just had to share it with you!

I’m not much of a seamstress, but I can tell that there has been so much care and attention put into the making of this bag. The seams are flawless and it arrived beautifully pressed and packaged. There’s a clear plastic pocket stitched into one side of the inner lining which would be perfect for holding a pattern or some notes and a few notions. The bag’s a pretty good size too, large enough to comfortably hold the two cones of Colourmart yarn that I’m currently using for my Stripe Study shawl, plus needles and knitting with room to spare, but the fabric is soft enough that a smaller project like a pair of socks would be equally at home inside.

There’s even a cute little stitch marker attached to the tag! I love little details like that, and I love the fact that even though this was a free prize I was still made to feel like a valued customer. As soon as my bank balance isn’t looking quite so pitiful I would love to head straight back to BlueTulips and stock up on a few more of these lovelies. There are some great zippered pouches that look like they might make a good home for my dpns, which are currently amassed in a rather unattractive pile on my floor.

So a huge thank you goes out from me to Karen at BlueTulips and all the other lovely sponsors, and the SolidSocks team for putting these KALs together. I might still only be able to count my wins on one hand, but at least my projects have a pretty bag to live in now!

WIPs & KALs… acronyms, ahoy!

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:10:00 +0000

My current muddle of WIPs. The ever present socks in progress and my current love, the Stripe Study Shawl.

I could have sworn I bought a red with a hint of orange for the contrast stripes, but the more I look at it the more it seems to be just straight up orange. No matter, it all works with my beloved grey.

Although I cast on for Stripe Study a couple of weeks ago I shied away from working on it much as I knew it would consume me and shunt my twisted socks to the background if I let it. However, since we’re all agreed that the foot is the fly-by home stretch, I felt that since I’d turned the heel it was “safe” to finally plough on with some lovely garter stitch. Oh, how I love garter stitch. It has such a rustic, squishy cosiness to it. Delicious. The pattern is a whole lot easier than I thought it was going to be, although it’s been a while since I worked on anything other than socks so the 4mm needles felt awkward and clumsy in my hands at first.

I had a brief dalliance with some other short row methods (shadow wraps and Priscilla Wild) since I’m not usually a fan of a standard wrap & turn, but ended up ripping them out and going back to basics. The wrap & turn method included in the pattern really is the best match for this project. I should have listened to Veera!

Still on the topic of the Stripe Study, Nat over on Misadventures in Craft recently blogged about a Stripe Study KAL that she and Crafts from the Cwtch have organised so I’m going to be joining in with that. There’s an FAQ about the KAL here (far too many acronyms going on in this sentence!), so if you fancy joining in then head on over to find out more! There’s even a discount code for Nimu Yarns for all you bargain hunters out there.

And on a completely non knitting related note, but you all know how I love to flash my nails, here’s what I’m currently sporting. I’m ashamed to say that my last mani only came off the nails at the Easter weekend (yikes, a whole month with the same mani! Gross. I am most definitely ashamed of my slobbish approach to nail grooming). I don’t think it’s a colour I would have normally picked up but it was given to me by my bestie when she was having a clear out during a house move. She said she never wore it because it was too bright for her, and although it doesn’t look too day-glo in the bottle, my goodness was she right. This pink looks a little muted in the photo but in reality it’s almost bordering on neon. I do love it though. It’s a perfect warm weather colour, although there’s very little of that happening in the UK at the moment. Incidentally, my bestie’s 2-year old daughter calls nail polish “nail badges” (although I at first I though she was saying “nail badgers”. Yeah, I can be kind of slow like that.). How adorable?!

a craft-ful Easter

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:48:00 +0000

I hope you’ve all had a lovely Easter! It’s been a bit of a busy April so far, but the long Easter weekend gave me a bit of time to kick back and relax for a bit. I’ve mostly been spending my time eating hot cross buns and baking Simnel cake. For anyone not familiar with Simnel cake, it’s a traditional Easter cake, and is basically a spiced light fruit cake with a layer of marzipan baked into the centre of it, topped with more marzipan and then toasted. And it’s delicious.

The layer of marzipan baked in the middle makes for a lovely moist cake. I’ve been making my own marzipan for a few years now, and I’d definitely encourage you to try it. It tastes sooo much better than shop bought and it’s a cinch to make. Equal quantities (I usually go for 250g grams) of ground almonds and sugar (either castor or icing), almond essence and an egg. Mix together. Done. If it’s too dry add a touch more water, if too wet add more sugar.

I forgot to buy more eggs before the shops shut down for Easter, so after a brief panic and a flap around the kitchen I substituted some water mixed with egg white powder, but if you’re squeamish about eating raw egg or are pregnant, or if you’re just like me and forgot to buy enough eggs to make cake and marzipan, there’s a vegan marzipan recipe here which I’m now dying to try.

I spent Easter Monday playing about with some embroidery and making a stitch sampler of sorts. I had so much fun with it, and my mind is now percolating with ideas.

I managed to do a bit of free form doodle stitching with my new love, the split stitch, and ended up with a little Harry Potter lighting bolt and a “slip slip knit” abbreviation. The free form lettering was trickier than I imagined, but not too shabby for a first effort! I can see an obsession in my future…

shades of grey

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 11:30:00 +0000

I cast on for a Stripe Study shawl. I’ve been wanting to knit one for so long! I bought the yarn for it at the tail end of last year but for some reason I’ve been putting off casting on. I’m still working on the twisty socks, but I just couldn’t wait any longer for a Stripe Study!

I’ve worked about three inches further along the foot with the sock since I took this photo. I always find working on the foot the most enjoyable part of a sock. I love doing the heel flap and picking up the gusset stitches, but once you’re onto the foot it feels like the home stretch. Of course it doesn’t hurt that by the time you’ve made it this far you’re already pretty familiar with the pattern, and being able to knit plain stocking stitch for half of the round feels like a lovely welcome treat!

bread and cookies

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:28:00 +0000

Confession time: I am a bargain hunter, and never more so than in the supermarkets, where my eyes are always on the lookout for those little brightly coloured reduced stickers. So when the Boy and I were wondering through the supermarket aisles yesterday afternoon and I spied a bottle of beautiful creamy Jersey milk reduced to just 24p, I couldn’t help myself. My mind instantly filled with thoughts of freshly baked warm cookies and a glass of cool creamy milk, and into the trolley the Jersey milk went.

Minutes later, the same thing happened down the fruit aisle with a bag of equally bargainous bananas, only this time it was thoughts of banana bread that grabbed me. I went through an obsession with banana bread a few years ago, where I would stop by the market in town on my way home from university and buy ridiculously large bags of bananas that I had no hope of finishing, just so that there would be plenty of overripe ones leftover that I could mash into banana bread. I’ve managed to curb my obsession since, but that still doesn’t stop me from passing over an opportunity for banana bread when one presents itself!

Banana Bread Recipe
adapted from Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking

3 mashed bananas
7.5oz / 230g plain flour
2.5oz / 75g wholemeal flour
2tsp baking powder
0.5tsp bicarbonate of soda
0.25tsp salt
0.25tsp cinnamon
1oz /30g chopped chocolate
1oz / 30g oats
2 eggs
2.5oz / 75g brown sugar (I used white sugar without any problems)
3oz / 90g melted butter
4fl oz / 125ml milk

Preheat oven to Gas Mark 4 and butter a loaf tin.

Mix together the dry ingredients (plain flour, wholemeal flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt, cinnamon, chopped chocolate and oats) and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and stir in the sugar, melted butter and milk. Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture in 3 batches, alternating with the mashed bananas. Mix until just combined but be careful not to overmix.

Pour the batter into the buttered tin and bake for about 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the bread comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin for about 5 minutes, and then turn out onto a cooling rack to cool completely. If you can wait that long…. I couldn’t, and the Boy and I only managed to wait about 20 minutes before helping ourselves to a couple of lovely warm slices!

This bread is delicious warm, cold, or lightly toasted and spread with a bit of butter. It’s also delicious with chopped toasted nuts added instead of the chocolate, or as well as if you’re feeling particularly indulgent.

But these cookies. Oh, these cookies.

They are all kinds of amazing. I am a sucker for oatmeal raisin cookies. Every time I dig in to a tub of Ben & Jerry’s I lament the fact that it isn’t my beloved and sadly discontinued Oatmeal Cookie Dough flavour, and I’m constantly craving the big chewy ones that the supermarkets sell in those waxed paper bags with the little plastic window. But they can be a little hit and miss, and sometimes they’re disappointingly crisp and dry. For years I’ve been searching for the perfect oatmeal raisin cookie recipe, because let’s face it, homemade is always better, but they’ve never been quite right. I think I might have finally cracked it though.

I adapted smitten kitchen’s thick, chewy oatmeal raisin cookies recipe (always with the adapting, but to be honest I very rarely follow a recipe exactly! I tend to use them more as springboards to something else, but that does sometimes make repeat results a little tricky) but added more raisins, a dash more vanilla and about twice as much cinnamon because I love the stuff. I was running low on brown sugar so I used white only, and I also chilled the dough for about 45 minutes. I then scooped it out into golf ball sized balls and then flattened them slightly before baking. I did a little experiment and flattened some of them out while leaving a few in a ball shape, and while they did all spread out I preferred the flattened cookies. The balled ones retained a bit of a dome shape and were a little bit too thick in the centre for my liking.

Strangely enough, I tried this recipe a few years ago and wasn’t overly thrilled with the results, but I think back then I made the cookies smaller and didn’t chill the dough.

Chilling certainly seemed to give this batch the edge that I was after. Warm from the oven last night, they were heavenly with crisp edges and lovely chewy centres, and they were just as good this morning at breakfast!

done, done, done at last!

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:12:00 +0000

I finally did it! After finishing my Galileo socks I felt bad that I still hadn’t gotten around to sewing in all those ends for the Boy’s socks, so I grit my teeth, stuck some Lewis on and hunkered down with my tapestry needle. By the end of it I was thoroughly fed up with ends and finishing, but I’m glad it’s all done now. And the Boy is glad that he’s got another pair of socks to keep his toes toasty. Happy campers all around.

twisted stitches

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 12:51:00 +0000

This sock is full of them. It’s taking a while, partly because I keep getting too engrossed in Catching Fire, and this isn’t exactly the best reading knit out there! More than once I’ve missed a mini cable out and had to drop down a few rows to fix it. I’m definitely getting some cable fixing practice in with this sock.

Still, I love how crisp the twisted stitches look, and I am absolutely loving how this yarn is knitting up. I was really unsure of how it would look after I’d dyed it, but I’m finding the little flecks of orange that pop up against the grey so much fun!

nothing quite like…

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 08:26:00 +0000

… a freshly caked skein of yarn.

Now that I’ve finally finished the Galileo mystery socks I can finally cast on for the March mystery socks in the UK Sock Knitters group!

i see a little silhouetto of a man

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 19:11:00 +0000

My Galileo socks are done!

Pattern: Solid Socks February Mystery KAL by Laura Jenkins

Yarn: Zettl Valbella

Ravelled here.

This pattern called for beads, but not being a bead-y type person I left them out and just did purl stitches in their place. I did see a few projects which used nupps or bobbles in place of the beads, and for a long time I wished I’d seen that idea earlier so that I could have incorporated it. In hindsight, I’m glad that I didn’t. It’s a nice idea in theory, but it wouldn’t have worked for me. The beads/nupps/bobbles are supposed to be placed on the front and back of the leg, and since my whole wardrobe is made up of leggings/jeggings/skinny jeans and boots, bobbley things on the leg would probably a) be rather uncomfortable, and b) give a rather strange silhouette!

Two pattern repeats along the foot was almost but not quite enough length for me. I didn’t want to break into another pattern repeat just to leave it half finished, so in the end I knit the first row of the toe section followed by five rows of plain stocking stitch, and then carried on with the toe decreases.

I was really unsure about these socks at first. The colour seemed too dark, the fit seemed too large, but I’m glad I carried on with them because I love them now. The first sock of the pair took me almost a month to complete because of all my dithering, but the second only took a week, which I think is a pretty good indicator of how much I enjoyed knitting them!

It’s an easy pattern to follow, just a little fiddly at times because of all the twisted stitches which form the “moons” along the sides. There’s enough repetition in the pattern to make it easy to read your knitting and not feel tied to the pattern the whole time, but it’s interesting and varied enough to not feel boring.

oh no, she’s not a secret now

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 13:50:00 +0000

Last night my new found love, my bamboo 9inch Hiya Hiyas, snapped.

There it is, the crime scene photo, all it’s gory detail captured on my phone. And ever since, this song has been stuck in my head.

It’s the first pair of needles I’ve ever broken, and in true sod’s law fashion the breakage didn’t occur where the swathes of stocking stitch were, but right where my column of yarn overs lay... Thankfully I only lost a couple of stitches, and it wasn’t too difficult pick them up, but I still swore enough to make a sailor blush. Dark yarn + bad lighting does not make for a particularly easy stitch rescue. Still, at least they didn’t break over the cables!

More cursing followed my frantic search for the steel tipped needles I’d bought in the same order as the bamboo (so that I could see which tips I preferred. Pack rat mentality comes in handy sometimes!) but the crisis was eventually averted, and I’m now 1.5 pattern repeats and a toe away from the finish time.

If I’d had these needles for a few months longer and if they’d been well used I would have just sucked it up and forked out the cash for a new (steel!) pair, but I’ve only had these since the end of January/beginning of February and this is only the second time I’ve used them, so I emailed the vendor I bought them from straight away at about 9pm, certainly not expecting to get a reply until at least the next day. A little over 2 and a half hours later at almost midnight(!) a reply landed in my inbox apologising for the breakage and offering a replacement. How’s that for customer service?! So thank you Linda at Tall Yarns ‘n Tales for such wonderful customer service!

She did say that this is only the second time she’s been informed about a broken needle, so I certainly don’t want to put anyone off buying the bamboo Hiya Hiyas. They’re fabulous little needles, and bamboo will always remain my first love in terms of needle material. However, the steel ones do feel a little sturdier, so when I stock up (and I will be stocking up on a few more of these 9inchers, I’m head over heels with them!) I’ll probably stick with the steel.

In other news, the Boy and I are off to see Doug Stanhope tonight. I don’t find him quite as amusing as the Boy does, so my plans for this afternoon include sorting out a sock project to bring along so that I can clickety click the night away…

if the sock fits

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:29:00 +0000

It’s been a hectic week round these parts. I had a volunteer job interview, my Mum booked a very last minute trip back to Singapore, there was baby sitting, and there was a long overdue catch up with friends, but at long last sock 1 of my mystery socks is finally off the needles! It turns out that all that fretting was for nothing. Although I think I could probably have gotten away with making the medium size, the large still fits nicely, and the cables really pop along the foot. I did have a bit of a toe issue – the two pattern repeats I did of the foot pattern didn’t quite give me the length I needed, and as I just wanted to get them off the needles I thought I could just work an extra few decrease rows. Er, not quite. Three extra decrease rows did give me a sock that fit, but it came at the cost of a ridiculously pointy toe. I decided that there was no way I could live with a toe that stupid looking so I unpicked the kitchener, ripped back the toe and knit five plain rows before starting the decreases. Perfect.

lazy days

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 16:51:00 +0000

I’m having a super lazy Saturday. I spent some time catching up on some Playful Day podcasts whilst I painted my nails, and I LOVE how my nails turned out! They’re gold scribbles on a baby blue base.

I have a heel for my mystery sock.

And I’m thinking of casting on for another mystery sock, despite being so woefully behind in the other one, in some of my hand dyed yarn. This skein is a complete experiment. I was dyeing a semi solid grey when I accidently tipped a whole pot of grey dye stock all over the yarn. Luckily the darker section doesn’t look too bad, I dunked it in water immediately so it’s blended out somewhat.

I did then decide to dot some orange dye around to see what it would look like, but I’m not entirely convinced that it’s going to knit up too well! I’ve a feeling this would have looked better with yellow instead of orange, but I won’t know until I try. The pattern I have in mind for this has quite a few cables and travelling stitches, but now I’m in two minds about whether to knit this up as plain vanilla sock instead. I probably shouldn’t because I’ve already got a vanilla sock on the go, but I’m just so indecisive!

And just because I love my nails so much right now, and I really like the way the gold looks in the sunlight!

Hope you’re all having a great weekend!

more lovelies

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 08:41:00 +0000

I’ve already bombarded you with a couple of posts on my dyeing exploits, but I’m far from done.

Beautiful purples and blues, bright sunshine yellow with splashes of orange, a multitude of browns, and a seafoamy, vintage inspired duck egg blue dotted with pale grey.

This is my favourite. Multi tonal purple with flashes blue and and even hints of green. Love.

I absolutely hated these browns when I first pulled it out of the dye pot, but I kind of love it now. It has wonderful depth.

This one is another favourite of mine. The colours are so soft and lovely, it’s definite spring colour. The hints of grey are much more apparent in this photograph. I inadvertently contaminated this skein with a few dots of red and yellow dye, but I should be able to use my notes to recreate it.

And a slightly better picture of the grey that I posted the other day. The blue and the grey are the superwash 2ply BFL that I’ve already mentioned, but the other are a lovely soft superwash wool blend.

There was also an organic merino that I dyed, but it almost ended in disaster as I forgot it wasn’t superwash and almost felted it!

Thankfully it reskeined beautifully so it wasn’t too disastrous. I must remember to be more careful with non superwash yarns in the future!

versatility

noreply@blogger.com (behind the ivy) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 08:54:00 +0000

The lovely MissHSoo contacted me to pass this award on to me a few months back, and more recently it’s been passed to me by KiwiPurler so it’s high time that I blogged about it!

I’m so so sorry to MissHSoo for not blogging about this earlier, but the thing is, I’m rather a shy person. Anyone who knows me in real life will know how ridiculously shy I am around people I don’t know. I open up to people after a while, but I’m really very introverted, and I’m usually unbearably quiet around people I don’t really know. KiwiPurler articulated my feelings towards blog awards so well in her post, and I’m so glad to see that I’m not alone in how I feel about them.

Being given recognition for my little home on the internet is a wonderful thing, it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling and makes me feel as though people do like what I’m putting out there and I’m very appreciative that these two people have passed this on to me. I understand that to accept this, the rules are thus - I must share 7 things about myself and then pass the award onto 15 other blogs. I think the reason that I shied away from blogging this award was the passing it on part. I subscribe to so many blogs that choosing just 15 to pass it onto was a big task in itself (not only am I shy, I’m indecisive), and then when I did decide on my 15, would they think me silly for passing it on to them? Which is a completely ridiculous thought, because I certainly don’t think that MissHSoo or KiwiPurler are silly for passing this onto me.

So I’ve decided this: if KiwiPurler can break the rules then so can I. Therefore I’m tagging all of you. Share 7 things about yourself, either in the comments below, or on your blog and post the link in the comments so that I can read all about it, because not only am I shy and indecisive, I’m nosy too :)

So without further ado, here are my 7.

I’m left handed, or as my other half the Boy likes to call it, cack handed/a southpaw. Isn’t he nice to me?! I very much like being left handed, it makes me feel a little bit special (apparently, only 10% of the world population is left handed!).
I was taught to knit at a fairly young age (I’m not sure how old exactly, but I think around 5 or 6). My Mum asked her friend to teach me because she was also left handed and for some reason my Mum thought it’d be easier for me to learn from a fellow leftie. I’m not sure why she thought that because I knit the same as a right handed person. I remember that back then I used to think that “purl” stitches sounded wonderfully exotic, and I still have the orange plastic needles that I used to play around with back in the day, although I’m glad to say that the hideous acrylic tangles that I used to make are long gone.
I’m an English style thrower, and the idea of backwards mirror knitting gives me a headache. I have tried Continental knitting, but my stitches end up too sloppy and I get frustrated with how slow my knitting is going so I never make it though a full row. I’d like to master it one day, but I’ll have to overcome my impatience first!
I’m half Chinese, my Mum is from Singapore and my Dad was English with a tinge of Scot. It’s an endless bugbear of mine that I barely look Asian at all, and I’m always envious of other hapas who looks far more Asian than I. Alexa Chung, Maggie Q, Kelly Hu, I’m looking at you girls.
When I talk to my Mum my English usually end up descending into Singlish. This is not something that is consciously done, and it can get a bit embarrassing when I’m in public on the phone to her and hear myself drifting into it! I can’t speak Chinese though, although I did have Mandarin lessons last year but I haven’t been practicing (naughty!) so need to get back into that. I can speak a teensy bit of Hokkien, which is my Mother’s dialect. Incidentally, the first Hokkien words that my Mum taught me were swear words (classy family!), but I pretty much only know enough to know when my Mum is speaking about me.
I was obsessed with Sweet Valley High and Nancy Drew books when I was younger, and spent much of my childhood with my imaginary twin solving ridiculous imaginary mysteries. (As an aside, in linking to the Wikipedia entry for Nancy Drew I've only just discovered that Carolyn Keene isn’t a real person! The books were ghost-written! I’m in shock.)
At school I was an army cadet and I almost joined the Royal Navy. I was considering being sponsored through university to study engineering and then going on to train as a naval officer after graduating, but I chickened out. There’s a part of me that hugely regrets not following through with it. Other childhood regrets: not following through in a career in either astrophysics, marine biology or archaeology. These were all dream careers of mine, and if money and time were no object I’d still love to study any or all of them. It’s never too late for a career change, right?!