A pip and a squeak

Grace is almost there. And I still have yarn. Hallelujah. There was 44g left when I had cast off the back, and now I'm on the collar, so I'm (almost) confident that I'll be able to finish it now without having to buy or find a suitable substitute. The button bands and collar aren't quite working out as written - I had less than the suggested no. of stitches for the button bands, and way more for the collar. Not sure how or why that should be - the button bands look okay, although I did manage to miscount and only made 6 buttonholes instead of 7 (doh). Not sure about the collar yet - I started with the wrong side facing so that the slightly raggedy neck edge will be hidden beneath the collar. We'll just have to see how it works out. 

While I was waiting for Grace to block, I cast on for another chevron scarf from last-minute knitted gifts. I'm using some rowan cashsoft from the stash and some of Jenny Cook's delicious handpainted yarn, this time in soft greens and blues. I made one of these scarves last year for a friends' 40th birthday, also using some Jenny Cook yarn, but never blogged it because, as usual, I was knitting up to the deadline and didn't manage to photograph it before it was wrapped and gifted!

The second purple sock (also Jenny Cook yarn) has been picked up again, and in a rare slot of child-free time at the weekend, I managed a leisurely coffee and got past the heel flap, so it's all down hill from here. But as if that wasnt enough I'm itching to cast on for a couple of other projects too. I've promised the Bean a new jacket knitted with Rowan denim, and there are some balls of deep raspberry yarn waiting to be cast on for a Betty (Rowan Winter Kids). Perhaps it's the spring that is doing it? Anything seems possible now that the evenings are lighter and the washing can go outside on the line for a good blow again.

Baby Lost

Just heard that a new mama I know, has lost her baby son after only 15 days. Rest in peace little one.

Slooooow progress

Grace is still on the needles. The back is almost done, but so is the yarn and my optimism about having enough to fnish it now seems misplaced. Heaven only know what I'll do to complete the collar and button bands... oh well. On the plus side, it seems pretty big as age 3-4, so it should fit the intended recipient for a while yet!

In other news, we helped a young friend of ours celebrate her 4th birthday last weekend. The bean and I made her this lovely card. We also gave her a copy of one of our favourite books: 'Iggy Peck, architect' which the bean received for his 4th birthday. It has some fabulous rhymes, and great illustrations - and is perfectly suited to the daughter of a trained (if not practising) architect. Happy birthday Ruby.

In the spirit of ongoing discussions about going off-grid and supporting the local economy, we bought the book in a real bookshop. You know one that you actually physically go to,  and where you can touch and read the books before you buy them! It was lovely, and as an added bonus DH found a lovely book for his dad's birthday - something always to give thanks for, so we heartily recommend the Edinburgh bookshop if you are ever in Bruntsfield/Morningside or Edinburgh for that matter... [As I was holding a sleeping toddler, I was unable to rifle very effectively through the craft books, of which there is a nice selection. looks like I need a return trip...]

Finally, in terms of the lenten aspirations: I have made 3 loaves of bread; been out on my bike twice; been to Pilates classes once a week and generally managed to keep myself off the biscuits, cakes and chocolate (except on Sundays of course). No sewing to report (except sewing on a button and reattaching some elastic in my pyjama trousers), and a bit more knitting. Things should get a bit easier from now on because teaching (but not marking) for this semester is now over, and some other project deadlines have also passed, so the mountain of work is no longer so mountainous. Phew. And, summer time is here to boot, so a chance perhaps to get out in the garden in the evening and continue the work sowing and growing.

Oh frabjous day....

Today I finally managed to finish Grace's two fronts. I weighed them. They weigh 167grammes. I weighed the yarn that remains: 208 grammes. Phew. Looks like I should be able to make it after all. I am pleased. I wouldn't have minded some yarn shopping you understand, but it's just so satisfying to use things up. I like finishing things: bottles of bubble bath,  bars of soap, the last few scraps of pastry, the last jelly baby in the packet.... It's a different to finishing a project. It's something to do with replacing a thing with a space - particularly when our lives are so full of stuff and so lacking in space.

The other thing I did today was make a mental list of the things I will be avoiding during Lent (chocolate, sweets, cakes, biscuits) and some of the things I'd like to do more (exercise, sit-ups, Pilates, making bread, knitting, sewing). Today I knitted. Yesterday I did Pilates - which counts as exercise and sit-ups. So far, so good.

Home Alone...

It's Saturday and the sun is shining weakly outside. My husband and children are elsewhere and I am all alone. I should be in the garden, trying to unwreak the havoc therein, and getting ready to plant seeds and bulbs and things to eat in the coming months. But inside, looking at a computer screen, trying to catch up with work or get ahead or somehow effect some change in my never-ending list of things to do and the blizzard of emails that fall thickly into my mailbox each day. So am trapped and free all at the same time.

I might, just might, have spent a few minutes searching in my stash for some more yarn for Grace. I found little bit more, but as I still haven't finished the fronts and the yoke seems to be eating yarn, I am more and more sure that the yarn will run out. I may even have to unravel my tension square, except that it's not very big and wouldn't help very much... The trouble is there is nothing else in my stash that I can use to make up for the missing yardage. Rats. Looks like I might have to go shopping....

Birthday Parties # 2

We were at another children's party this weekend (they always seem to come along in pairs dont they?) to celebrate the birthday of one of the bean's nursery friends, Macey. There were balloons and dancing and face painting, and we came home with one of these boy tigers.

While we were there I met Kerry Kimber, who runs Kids Knit. She was telling us about the tights (yes, tights!) she'd been knitting for Di Gilpin and a catwalk show happening today in London. Di has designed a collection of knitted pieces including socks, stockings, tights and a skirt with 4m of knitted fabric - all of which have been hand knitted. Kerry made one pair of tights, which took around 70 hours to complete. It sounds interesting and fun as a one-off, but not a way to make any money - although DH was quite keen on the idea of me knitting for money...

Examples like this demonstrate the great difficulty that UK hand-knitters have in making a sensible living from knitting pieces for sale, and the very great price that such items would need to retail at to provide such knitters with the minimum wage. Maybe if we shifted our taxation and economic system to favour labour-intensive processes and products over carbon-intensive processes and products then this might change a bit. But £700 (or more) for a pair of tights is still a hell of a lot...

Children's parties

Although his birthday was at the end of January, last weekend we celebrated the bean's 4th birthday with a proper birthday party. There were grandparents, there were friends, there were balloons, there were candles and cake and presents. And, we all had a lovely time (phew).

Much as I aspire to lead the sort of crafterly life that leads to serene parties in which calm children play party games, participate in well chosen craft activities, and take home a hand-stitched party bag packed full of homespun craft and baking goodness, my life just isnt like that (sigh).

So, this is what we did. We opted for a bouncy castle party at a local leisure centre. The room hire/charges were modest, and gave us 2 hours of fun - an hour or so bouncing/playing in the sports hall and an hour or so in a separate room for our party food. The bouncy castle was more of a bouncy assault course than a castle, so children went in one end, and after negotiating various pillars/slopes, slid out of the other end - hopped off the mat, ran round and repeated until they were hot and bothered.  

As well as that, the hall had some footballs, tennis rackets and a couple of space hoppers - and we took a basket of toys for some of our younger friends which we spread on a couple of quilts/blankets. Surprisingly some of the older children sat down to play/read after a while - and it seemed that having a variety of activities on offer worked very well.

In terms of food, we laid the table in good time, and put out bowls/platters for children (and/or their mums) to serve themselves. Everything was finger food - sandwiches, hula hoops (these seem to be very, very popular), sausages, mini cheese portions, carrot sticks, cucumber sticks, cherry tomatoes, grapes and satsumas. I worked on the basis of allowing 1 or 2 pieces/portions per child - knowing that individual preferences would mean that some would eat sandwiches/cheese and some wouldn't. I also opted for foods which would be familiar to most children - so slightly more exotic things like olives, pineapple and kiwi fruit were not included. The only exception to my portion estimation was the hula hoops. I bought a multi-pack and put them all out.

We kept the cake/sweet things off the table until most of the savouries had been eaten. Then we offered home-baked cookies, blueberry muffins and of course birthday cake. I did this very deliberately, having seen what happens when chocolate biscuits are on the table next to ham sandwiches, and when one child puts 10 chocolate fingers on their plate they all do! I was also very deliberate about avoiding chocolate and commercial cakes/biscuits - nothing moral here, I just thought there would be enough sugar/sweetness on offer without them. And so it seemed. There were no complaints. Most of the food was eaten, everyone seemed to have enough to eat and there was very little left over to take home. My last (inspired) decision was to take a pack of baby wipes for wiping sticky fingers and faces. It was a good one.

As you can imagine, the party hiatus meant that there has not been much knitting in the last few days. But the deadline for the third birthday is getting a bit near, and grace is moving slowly (but gracefully?) forwards. I started with the sleeves, which I'm knitting at-the-same-time, and last night I managed to get to the final series of shapings at the top of each sleeve, so it feels like progress is being made. I'm slightly concerned about running out of yarn though, because I'm knitting with some yarn from a charity shop jumper which I unravelled a couple of years ago. It's about a DK weight, with 50% wool, and has a sparkly lurex strand to make it just a weeny bit shiny and bling - and there should be enough - it was an adult sweater and I'm knitting a child's cardigan, but you know how it is. the internal knitting curmudgeon isnt quite convinced. To counter the running out feeling, I will of course, do the thing every other knitter does in this situation - just knit faster.