A Handmade Christmas Part 3: for the Mummies

Every now and then I come across a really beautiful knitting pattern, crafted from what can only be Rumplestiltskin's gold, or something else luscious looking but equally unavailable, and I sigh, and cruise the internets and Ravelry to work out a substitution, or how to not eat for a month to afford the shipping.

So when it turns out that the yarn in question is in fact a nice little Rowan, available from all number of places including a shop five hundred yards from my office; well, it seems only right and proper to knit it up right away to encourage the knitting muses to foster more such synchronicity.

I saw the Drifted Pearls scarf on Pinterest in a gentle grey, and when I saw it called for Rowan Lima, I knew I had Mum's Christmas present-to-be.  It's knit as a traditional scarf with a loopy bobbly edging until you get a little over half the length you might want in an ordinary scarf, then the fabric is pleated, and the pleats securely knit into a loop.  Tuck the end through the loop and you have a gorgeous warm wide scarf, perfect for Mum who tends to wear her ordinary scarves this way.

(Photo shamelessly stolen from Mum)

The Amazon blue matches the hat that I made for her last Christmas, and I hope they are both keeping her warm in the wild winds that are currently howling at our windows as they whip around the house.

Further north, lots further north, is another cozy Mum.  We have a simple formula for H's Mum's Christmas gifts: fruit jellies (the good ones made with actual fruit juice) + handknit socks = happiness.

And when you know the recipient likes your knitting so much she wears holes in the heels on a regular basis, you can't but pick up the needles:

Edwardian Boating socks, knit from an Opal blank that I hand-dyed with Kool-Aid.  With a linen stitch heel and a sock yarn with a 25% nylon content I'm hoping not to see these in the mending pile for many years to come, and to be honest they may fall into the 'oh darn' over the bin pile as I'm not sure I could work out how to reknit linen stitch without dropping almost all of the stitches.

It's an addictive pattern though; I'd always want to knit to the next waterboatman, and the next and the next, until I had two socks sat in front of me.  I'm glad I didn't knit them for me though as the linen stitch is not very stretchy and I would never have got them over my ankles.  I know if I really wanted them for me I could change the heel flap to a simple rib, but it was nice to knit them as they were designed.

That's almost all of the Christmas craftiness out in the open; the last little bit is still wrapped up under our tree, but before I'm truly caught up I've still got to tell you about the Christmas Croquembouche and my brother-in-law's amazing ultra-slow roasted beef.  That'll have to wait for another day though as it's late, and after an evening spent chasing electricity with a hairdryer when we got home from work to discover that none of the plugs were working, I'm off to make a nest in which to hide from the storm with a couple of quilts, a knitted blanket and as much of the duvet as I can persuade H to part with.

A Handmade Christmas Part 2: Woolies for H

It's said that every one of us has a love language, a way of expressing affection and feeling cherished that trumps all the others.  I am a Knitter and (for want of a better word) a creativist, and my love language won't be found on any list or in any bestseller; it's Handmade (subsection Wool).

If Kitty was predestined to be snuggled in cosy handknits and handsewns from the moment of her birth, how much more yarn should be heaped upon my H; the man who puts up with my (many) foibles, has loved and supported me unwaveringly throughout some of the hardest and darkest days of my life, and who did the entire Christmas washing up single handed on Boxing Day morning while Kitty and I had a mid-morning nap.

It's really no surprise then that the Christmas knitting that I was prepared to bust bedtimes for should now belong to H.

 

First, the Christmas hat. From a quick count in the hat cupboard this is the fifth Christmas hat, and I'm told it's the best to date.  The pattern is the Irish Moss Toque by Alexandra Charlotte Defoe, and the yarn is Rowan Felted Tweed Aran in the wonderfully named Storm Blue. 

It's a really fun pattern to knit; the cables are interesting but logical so you don't have to refer back to the pattern every thirty seconds, and in an aran weight yarn you progress pretty quickly.  It is worth noting that the called for yarn is sold in 100g skeins so when they say you need 2 skeins, and the yardage suggests that you need four balls of something in a 50g put up, you might not need all of the second skein; I used two and a half balls and this is a big hat with a really deep turn up.  I would also recommend a circular needle rather than DPNs, even if you have to pull a loop to make it work, my standard length DPNs were just too short to keep all the stitches safely on three needles.

The yarn itself is slubby and tweedy with a bit of a crunch, enough to keep you nice and warm without being too scratchy on a bare forehead.  It would make fabulous jumper yarn for a cabley aran. 


I started it in the early hours of a dark Wednesday in the departure lounge of Birmingham airport, and knit the ribbing as we bounced and bumped our way through turbulence to Glasgow, and finished it late into a quiet evening a few days before Christmas, having chivied H into an early bedtime (and run him a bath).

It suits him, it fits him, and two hat-testing missions to our windy local playgroup says it keeps him warm.

Moving from a warm head to cosy toes, I gave him a pair of handspun Christmas socks:

They started out life in our house as a braid of fluffy Falkland from Spindlefrog at Wonderwool a long time ago (2009?) in the Bogdust colourway.

I spun the whole braid as a fine continuous ply and then Navajo plied it (or my approximation thereof) to preserve the flashes of neon colour in an otherwise muted green/brown yarn.  I love how it turned out but were I to do it again I think that dividing the braid lengthways into three or four and then spinning each one end to end would result in shorter stripes across the entire sock, rather than the off/on effect here.  It would be fun to try anyway.


The Falkland is soft and fluffy, although I'm not sure how hardy it will turn out to be.  Still, socks are made to be loved and worn, and as you can see from the slightly Nora Batty-esque baggyness around the ankles, these made it to feet before photographs.

And finally, a pair of socks from Father Christmas, supplied to his elves by a convoluted system of packaging and posting made known to parents everywhere during ante-natal classes. (You thought they taught us how to look after the baby? Alas no, it's Santa's Secrets for Beginners followed by Embarrasing Your Teenager 101)


You're going to have to trust me when I tell you that this is a pair of socks.  Or at least, on Christmas Day when H unpacked his stocking and immediately put them on his feet there were two.  The laundry basket contains only one.  Ergo, one of them is somewhere in our house.  H does not know precisely where but mentioned something about a bed/sofa/other furniture and the word 'under'.  It bodes well for our marriage that my love language is not the accurate placement of laundry.

It's a Regia sock yarn from the back of the stash [ETA - it's actually Fortissima Colori Socka Color No 2405 - thanks Diane!], and I think even when I bought it it was in the discontinued and discounted bin.  The yarn in the ball looks like the toe and heel sections so the rest was a bit of a surprise.  If you have a ball of this, it's going to pool no matter how many stitches you cast on, it's just a question of getting the pooling you can live with and then maintaining an identical tension until you finish.  The colours are two or three stitches long and even the tiniest shift makes a massive difference.  I restarted the first sock because my afternoon train-ride tension was producing a completely different pattern to the morning.

The finished article is crazy and random and looks rather as if a box of crayons had exploded in the yarn factory, which happily is just the kind of socks that H enjoys.

Two pairs of socks and a hat.  It doesn't sound like very much does it?  But at a conservative estimate it's 50 hours dedicated to cherishing my husband, and that can't be a bad gift. 

Appraisal

It's dark and rainy outside, and only the throbbing beat of some questionable music somewhere in the neighbourhood suggests that it's anything other than a dreary winter Saturday.  We've been counting down the last few hours of the year in a quietly insular kind of way; a little family in hibernation, reading, colouring, playing with toys and knitting, and now Kitty is fast asleep in her cot, H is playing Sonic and I'm here - it's very flash I know!

Looking back at last January, it seems that I did manage to make some New Year's Resolutions of sorts, the most specific of which was to buy a new organiser for the cutlery drawer that actually fits.  So how did I do with that one ....

ah. well. yes - lets pass over that shall we.

I wanted to take the time to uncover buried projects and really enjoy the books and materials I have, and I think I can put a tick against this one. Twelve of my knitting projects used yarn that had been in the stash for over a year, although unaccountably the yarn seems to have expanded to fit the space again, and I tackled a few things that had been on the 'make me' list for a while, such as the birthday bunting that I made for Kitty's party, her pirate trousers (scroll to the bottom) and a pretty spotty dress with ice-cream's on it that I can't remember blogging about (now sadly outgrown).

I've got some more specific aims for this year (and not just the cutlery drawer organiser either), so with a vague promise to come back this time in 2012 and see how I've done, this is my plan for the next twelve months:

Knitting:

• I've got some great projects lined up so I want to continue to enjoy the stash. 
• I'm going to knit my Bohus Wild Apples kit and finish my 7 Chakras socks.
• In a moment of weakness, H asked for a jumper and chose a pattern from a shortlist that's been loitering in my Ravelry favourites for, well lets just say 'a while', and the colour of the called-for yarn.  I've a few things to finish first and then it's all systems go.
• I'm going to write up my Phoenix socks pattern and publish it properly.
• I'm going to design some knits for Kitty.

Quilting

• Now that I've got the borders, backing and binding for my Christmas quilt, it's time to put it all together, quilt it and finish it up.
• I've got fabric in the stash for three four complete quilt tops, and most of the fabric for two more.  I'm going to make them.

Sewing

• I'm going to keep sewing for Kitty; another pair of reversible trousers, and a couple of dresses at the very least.
• I'm going to sew something for me (don't know what yet - any suggestions)

Crafty Creating

• Every year I make Christmas presents right up until the last minute and all those Christmassy crafts get put away until after the presents.  This year I'm going to have Christmas throughout the year and make the things I want for our house and our tree.
• I'm going to tie down some of the pretties that float through my brain and actually make them.

Photography

• I've stalled a bit; I can take pretty enough pictures but I really want to work on staging still lifes and my portrait photography - yay more pictures of a little girl who is incapable of keeping still.

That may be my specific plan for a creative 2012.  But above all of that my intent for this coming year is to  Cherish and Nourish.

Cherish - every little moment with our rapidly growing girl, and my lovely H; not focusing on the time we have to be apart but fully living every minute together.

Nourish - our bodies with good food and our hearts and souls with good words.

What are your New Year's plans? and do you know anywhere that sells really large cutlery organisers?

Handmade

I'm four rounds off finishing Kitty's Christmas jumper (and a little darning in of ends and sewing of seams) so there's hope that she'll get it before the 12 days of Christmas are up.  I think I can count that as finishing in time, yes?

One of the other reasons that I didn't worry too much about not having finished for the day itself was that she did have a large Mama-made parcel under the tree to open. 


She isn't short of quilts or blankets, but they were all made for the bump that turned out to be her, rather than for her specifically.  That and if she keeps growing at the current rate she's going to need something a little bit bigger.

This is the next size up; about 46 inches square and on me it's a lap quilt, but for her it's big enough to play tents and hide-peepo and wrap up in until she's snug.

I'm possibly setting a new personal record for the time between buying the fabric and making the quilt as it came from Il etait une fois at this summer's Quilt Festival at the NEC.   I walked past the stand, took one look at a print of a little curly haired girl on a swing and knew that it was coming home with us.


The picture blocks of the little girl and the apples and houses are sold by the block and the other fabric comes by the metre (a really really wide metre). 

It's really the simplest of simple quilts.  I cut the blocks to 9.5 inches square and played around with them until I liked the layout, then sewed them into rows and then into the quilt top.


The backing is another length of the gorgeous multicoloured check, and the binding is the same.  To quilt it, I used a red/pink/yellow variegated thread and stitched lines with my walking foot about a 1/4 inch either side of each seam to mirror the check fabric.

Kitty had caught occasional glimpses of something interesting under construction through an open doorway or perched on the back of the sofa but all attempts at further investigation were swiftly curtailed. As I mentioned in an earlier post, she unwrapped it, hugged it, and lay down and rolled in it.  I love that I made her something that she loves, now all I need are some new labels that say 'Mama made it'.

Artist in residence

My grandmother's painting of the tower of Magdalen College, Oxford, with a softly lit Cherwell flowing around the Botanical Gardens in the foreground, hangs on the wall of my sewing room; H's sketches, still lifes and landscapes are framed around the house; and my father once knocked out a mean pencil drawing of our teddy bear David dressed in my blue gingham baby romper on a scrap of spare paper.

With such genetic potential, and a smidgen of Mama's crafty ways thrown in for good measure, no one was surprised that Kitty likes drawing and colouring.  There's only one hitch with such creativity in a house full of artists, well two hitches to be precise.  Firstly, neither Daddy nor Mama try to eat the raw materials (cue chalks and a packet of wax crayons going back into the cupboard), and secondly, well lets just say I haven't yarn bombed the travel cot and H hasn't felt the need to add a touch of colour to the spine of my hardback copy of Great Northern.

Father Christmas came up trumps on the edible art materials front, with a little box of Stockmar beeswax crayons.  They are really lovely crayons, smooth and easy to make a mark with the gentlest of pressure, you don't need to force the colour onto the page, they smell nice, and if she eats them I'm pretty relaxed about a combination of natural colours and beeswax.  Her little box has 8 colours, but I think we may be adding to them in the future.

I think the crayons were her favourite present until Christmas afternoon when we unwrapped a big shiny parcel from Grannie and Grandpa:


Can you tell what it is yet?

When we were little we had magic paper painting pads; you brushed them with water and a picture appeared in a pastel rainbow.  That was then, this is now.  Magic paper, meet your future self, an Aquadoodle.

(please also note the effect of roast potatoes and sticky toffee pudding as hair styling product!)

Kitty loves it, and we've found it curiously addictive - even after she'd gone to bed

San Salute from the Accademia Bridge

Thank you Grannie and Grandpa - we all love it!

Merry and Bright

The days leading up to Christmas are not exactly stressful, because I adore this time of year, but full of busyness, making sure that all the jobs are done and all the loose ends come together at the right time and in the right order so that Christmas Day (and the following 12) are calm and restful.  With help from H, who crucially managed to find somewhere else in the house on which to balance the partially completed jigsaw that has been dogging our dinner times for the last few months, freeing up that end of the table to be loaded with roasted edibles, we had a wonderful Christmas, and today we spent the day curled up like well fed house cats with a saucer of cream; warm and cozy from head to toe.


Kitty mastered the art of unwrapping presents fairly quickly, demonstrating a determined insistence for removing every last scrap of paper and throwing it over her shoulder before turning her attention to the goodies inside.  As is only fitting for our only daughter she has been spoiled rotten at every turn, and a happier little girl you'd be hard to find.

(unwrapping and playing with her present from Auntie Zee and Uncle D)

My highlight of the day was watching her unwrap her Mama-made quilt (pictures to follow if it ever stops raining); she took all the paper off, hugged it, spread it out around her, lay on her back, kicked her feet and giggled, and then wrapped herself up in it.  Clearly someone (Daddy?) has been teaching her the proper way to respond to handmade (it's also a cute quilt if I say so myself).

I'll be doing some more detailed posts on some of the Christmas crafting over the next few days but for today I leave you with some snippets of our day:

Scrambled eggs for breakfast

reading That's Not My Snowman with Daddy (and yes, in the background is a metre of Jaffa Cakes, from Kitty to Daddy)


Talking to Grannie and Grandpa in Devon

It's for you! - chatting to Gran and Grandad in Yorkshire.


A trip to the playground in between rain showers this afternoon.

Merry Christmas

It's Christmas Eve.  The veggies are peeled, the chicken is prepped and stuffed according to my Great-Grandmother's recipes, a pile of red and white parcels are smothering the Christmas tree skirt, and Kitty is asleep in her cot, dreaming of mince pies and shiny things.


This morning I made two dozen mince pies (not all of which remain), cleaned and tidied the house (a somewhat pointless task with a toddler on the loose, but worth doing for the honour nonetheless), and corralled and folded the laundry from its various drying points around the house.


Our Sunday club put on a brilliant nativity for the Christmas Eve Crib Service, and Kitty reprised her role as 'smallest star', perched up on Daddy's knee on the steps at the back of church for the best view, giggling and clapping her way through the production, and then this evening, lovely friends came to visit, bringing a most interesting and excitingly large box for Kit (unconfirmed reports suggest that even the generous benefactor's seriously grown up sons were intrigued by the size of said box).  Kitty hugged it, and then started to work out that wrapping paper is supposed to come off so it's been tucked away until the morning.


Tomorrow I'm looking forward to time with our wonderful church family and a day spent in the company of my little family of three, watching Kit drink in all the sparkle and the wonder. 

For the very first time I haven't finished the Christmas knitting; Kitty's jumper is minus a sleeve and a half and the shoulders to neck section.  A serious assessment at 11.30 on Friday told me that I could either spend Christmas Eve madly knitting and scrape in under the wire, or spend Christmas Eve getting ready for Christmas, and just enjoying my family.  Given the option between helping Kitty make shiny ornaments (with a kit from the front of her Waybaloo magazine), curling up to read the Gruffalo (again), and cooking with H while Kitty napped, or knitting frantically, the yarn didn't stand a chance.

For one, Kitty isn't going to turn round to me when she's all grown up and accuse me of ruining Christmas because her jumper was a couple of days late, but she will remember that Mama and Daddy used to read her stories and sing carols and |Christmas songs, and that we all plomped down on the floor to make the most noise with her rattles and shakers, and for another, I really like the yarn, I really like the pattern and I don't want to rush through the knitting and loose that pleasure, or tinge a jumper with the frustration of deadline knitting.

So my plan for the rest of this evening is a nice long bath and a quiet night with half an ear open for sleigh bells.

H, Kitty and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and we'll be back in time to wish you a Happy New Year.

May the joy of the angels,
the eagerness of the shepherds,
the perseverance of the wise men,
the obedience of Joseph and Mary,
and the peace of the Christ child
be yours this Christmas

Dress Rehearsal

The nursery Christmas extravaganza opens to previews tomorrow, with the command performance on Thursday when H and I are going to see our super special snowflake be a star.

Her costume is finished, and I'm pretty pleased with it.  I'll take some proper pictures on Thursday, but here's a sneak peak.

I popped her into her ensemble this evening and let her run around for a bit to test drive it and to see if anything fell off.  There are limits to what interfacing and felt can achieve so I had to add a safety pin to keep the point of the star upright, but other than that it seems to work well.


The only possible drawback, and I really should have foreseen this one given how much she enjoyed playing with the raw materials, is that she does have a bit of a fascination with the skirt ...


and may well spend most of her time in the spotlight with her head in at least one layer of gauzy skirt.

So Kitty, is it fit for purpose? Let's see (cue music):

Twinkle, twinkle, little star



How I wonder what you are.



Up above the world so high,



Like a dia....hang on a minute Mama



diamond?



diamond! in the sky.



Twinkle, twinkle, little star,



How I wonder what you are.


(exit stage left)

She's going to bring the house down.