Needles on the Move

I know I’ve been in and out lately, well for the past year really, but things are settling down around here. My training is practically over and my joints are behaving enough to be able to crank up the spinning and knitting again.

I’m very keen to start up a fibre club, similar to things I’ve done in the past.
You’ll get

• exclusive hand-dyed fibre
• notes on the fibre content and dyer background
• spinning techniques, advice and guidelines
• pattern suggestions

Plus all the social gossip and chat that goes along with a club, including hopefully a real-life meet-up for each shipment as well.

I’m still considering ideas for payment models, fibre folks and delivery methods, I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please pop by the Ravelry thread and let me know what you think.

Shock! Horrer! An actual blog post…

It’s been so long since I was here that I just had to delete 1,300 spam comments. Urk.

So, news… Well, I’ve finished the bulk of my Pilates training and am searching for a job in a studio. August is a pretty dead quiet month for Pilates though, so no-one’s in a particular hurry to be hiring. There’s some stuff around though so I’m not worried. I’ve also started training for my specialisation in Low Back Pain, pretty heavy going! It’ll take roughly the rest of the year to finish, maybe a bit longer.

We’ve got some travel planned for the rest of the year: off to Prague for the August bank holiday, visiting Will and Elcin in Istanbul in October, and then Kai and Ollie in Germany in December. Neil’s talking about going somewhere warm for New Year’s, he’s never been a fan of the London winter. So you may find us in the Caribbean or something!

Last weekend was Knit Nation here in London, I booked my tickets in December on the day they were released and have been so excited about it! It’s the only fibre event I’ve managed to get to this year (and do classes and so on, I did get to shop at Unravel), and it was brilliant to catch up with everybody. So many people I haven’t seen in ages and even though I was there 2 days it wasn’t nearly enough time to properly chat with everyone.

I know you want to see swag, it’s very small though. I’m not knitting much these days, so the stash is going up rather than down at a rather alarming rate, so I’m being careful not to over-run the flat!

I bought only two (2) skeins of Wollmeise (I know, crazy right?) in Taube and Moses. I have never knitted with it, and already have one skein in my stash, so until I’ve tried it, I don’t really think I should go nuts over it. It’s one thing to love the colour, but if I don’t like knitting it, where would I be then? (What? You’ll willingly take it off my hands? Surprise surprise.) 3 skeins is plenty for now.

I bought some laceweight, alpaca/silk/cashmere from Artisan yarns - in a colour that matches my eyes :)

I also bought baby yarn for the niece-phew in roughly the same colour, I figure there’s a good chance the baby will have eyes this colour too, so it’s an obvious choice.

Cookie A was there, so it was a good time to pick up a copy of Sock Innovation, which I’ve meaning to do for a while, and get it signed!

And last but not least, a sock project bag from NicsKnots - see the wolf? I love this fabric. Next knit night may see me combining the book, yarn and project bag into one big happy KN-purchases-project. I have my eye on Sam at the moment, or maybe Bex.

I didn’t get any pictures of friends and so on at the event, which is a shame, but you can see a rather nutty picture of me here admiring Velvet’s fabulous handspun shawl! I made a few new friends too, and admired many lovely knits - lots are now in my queue. I tried on a Coraline and decided I have to knit one, so that’s going to be up soon, maybe in Rowan wool/cotton. And probably blue ;-)

I have become such a lazy blogger - even when I have multiple finished objects, and pictures of them, I don’t seem to be able to get organized to blog about them! So here they are all together, the product of my needles over the last few months.

(sorry about the slightly rubbish quality of the photos - uploads from my blackberry are playing up at the moment)

More Monkey socks

I’ve knitted this pattern three times now, and will definitely do it again. There’s just something about it that makes it the perfect balance between not-boring and not-time-consuming. I prefer them without the purl stitches though (well, makes it even quicker).

Pattern: Monkey by Cookie A
Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in Corsage (I am IN LOVE with this yarn and replaced this skein 8 rows before casting off)
Mods: No purl sts, toe-up

TIny Shoes

Because I couldn’t bear to stop knitting with the Tosh Sock!

Pattern: Tiny Shoes by Ysolda
Yarn: leftovers from above
Mods: I altered the strap slightly, but otherwise as written

Endpaper Mitts

My first time knitting this pattern, and first Koigu colourwork - in LOVE (um, does that make me a bigamist?…) The fabric created is just yummy :-)

Pattern: Endpaper Mitts by Eunny Jang
Yarn: Koigu PPPM, nearly a skein of MC a bit under half of CC
Mods: I changed the thumb to a normal gusset, and added an outline MC stitch each side to make clearer stripes.

Happy-Ruth Star

This was a little present to cheer up a pal who had a rough task to endure!

Pattern: Mini-Stern Kissen by Annette Maass
Yarn: Koigu PPPM scraps
Mods: I picked up sts for the second star rather than knitting two and sewing, added buttons.

As I suspected, once I finally got going it didn’t take me long to weave this project. I crossed the finish line well within the deadline and the runner (skier) is proudly holding up my spindle collection on the bookshelf.

I’m not entirely happy with the sett, the weaving seems a little loose to me. It may tighten up a little with a wash, but I haven’t washed it and somehow, now it’s in place, I suspect laziness will kick in!

I have a bit of yarn left over, I started with 100m of each colour and guess I used about half the green and most of the white. The runner measures 23″ including fringe and there wasn’t too much loom waste thankfully. One good thing about the Rigid Heddle is that you can pretty much weave right up to the end of the warp, I think I lost about 4 inches of yarn.

This was a practice run for a bigger project I’m planning later in the year, and I’m pretty confident now that I can manage that one without messing it up. I just have to get spinning for it!

This year, I joined Team Suck Less for the Ravelympics, hoping to suck less at something over the course of the Winter Games in Vancouver.

I decided that my most needy area was in cotton - not the spinning of it, I have lots of little skeins, but actually using it up! So I pledged to actually weave something out of my Charkha spun cotton.

The tricky part of this is not the weaving, the project will be small, plain weave and will probably take a couple of hours. The challenge, which I haven’t yet overcome (loom is empty), is to actually start - you see I need to chop handspun cotton up into little bits to make a warp, and that is a bit tricky. This cotton represents a fair bit of sweat and tears and is very precious!

While I psych myself up, I have been spinning more on the charkha, just to get myself in the mood, and have finished a few more skeins. This is kind of a practice run for a bigger project I’m planning for the summer, so it won’t hurt to have a bit more yardage lying around.

So, wish me luck! And let me know if you’re challenging yourself for this Ravelympics.

With the closure of The Inside Loop, all pattern rights have reverted to the designers and designs are to be made available individually. Most designers are choosing to store their patterns as free Ravelry downloads, some have updated or expanded the patterns and are now charging for them. Please contact the relevant designer if you have a question about any Inside Loop patterns.

I have listed my three patterns from The Inside Loop on Ravelry as free downloads. I hope you continue to enjoy them!

Just a note to let you know that I have a bunch of books, yarn and fibre to destash during February. I’ll be donating 50% of all proceeds to MSF for use in Haiti and anywhere else they’d like to send it.

Please visit my Ravelry de-stash page for yarn and fibre…

Books:

Folk Mittens by Marcia Lewandoski *sold*

First Book of Modern Lace Knitting by Marianne Kinzel

The Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns by Ann Budd

Plus a couple of stitch dictionaries, and some spinning books including The Ashford Book of Spinning by Anne Field

Make me an offer!

A few months ago, I heard of a book called The Flavour Bible. I read a few reviews and decided it was just what I’ve been looking for - a book designed for people who can already cook, leaning more towards inspiration and suggestion rather than recipes. I have been cooking since I was wee, and I have never used any of the numerous recipe books I’ve fallen for over the years, so I banned myself from buying any more! I occasionally invest in baking books, but that’s different, being more of a science and less of a throw-it-in-the-pot-and-see-what-comes-out.

I finally got my copy of TFB last week and have been browsing and planning menus, but today I feel it really proved its worth. I got to the end of my soup, tasted, and decided it needed something. I wanted a herb, but which herb? So I looked up Pumpkin - the dominant flavour in the mix, TFB suggested bay leaves, so I added bay leaves, simmered a couple of minutes and voila!

I was so excited that the theory actually worked that I have written up the recipe for you to try if you are so inclined.

Pumpkin, Sweet Potato and Lentil Soup

1 very small pumpkin
1 large sweet potato
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tbs olive oil
1 tbs butter
1 1/2 cups pre-cooked lentils
2 (ish) cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the pumpkin and sweet potato into pieces, skin on, and coat liberally with the oil and spices, dot butter on top and roast in a baking dish at 200C for 1 hour or until squishy.

Scoop the flesh out of the skins into a pot and puree with enough stock to make it nice and soupy. Stir in the lentils and the bay leaves and simmer a few minutes to heat through.

Season, and add cream perhaps if you’re feeling decadent (I didn’t have any).

Notes:

My lentils were leftovers from yesterday, I had cooked them in chicken stock following standard packet directions.

I tend to use chicken stock for everything, but no doubt it would taste just as good with vegie. You could probably leave out the butter too to make it vegan, but I like the way it behaves with roasted vegies.

Take 1 Snow Day, 1 skein of super-squidgy handspun yarn, 1 pair chunky needles.

Cast on 64sts and go around and around in mistake rib until lunchtime.

Make a warm and cosy kedgeree for lunch, ease out the sofa-kinks in your neck and shoulders.

Go around and around some more, contemplate turning on the TV but decide that watching stitches form in perfect squidgy yarn is enough.

Decrease sharply, knit i-cord until it becomes dull.

Weave in ends, and wear to watch the snow melt the next day.

Yarn: Handspun Merino 3-ply, fibre from Oceanwind Knits, heavy worsted/aran weight.
Colour: Galvanized
Needles: 5.5mm
Pattern: round 1: k2, p2 around, round 2: k1, p2, k1 around

When I first spun this yarn (last summer maybe?) I had a big squidgy hat in mind already. It’s perfect for it. And this fibre is amazing. In fact, my first thought when I finished the last bobbin… “No more Oceanwind Knits in my stash!” :-( And now it’s knitted up it’s really all gone.

Must buy some more…

It’s been a while, but I’m sure you’ll all understand when I explain that I was busy soaking up sun, sun and more sun at home in Australia :-D

You can stop poking me now.

Here’s a picture so you can see I’m not fibbing:

And yes, of course this is what all Australians (and South Africans) do at their weddings.

We also went camping (pictures from my sister sometime I hope), and spent time at the beach house for New Year’s. I took a break from all knitting, spinning, pilates and anything else that could be construed as work. It was fabulous.

—–

At this time of year, it is traditional to look back in the archives of one’s blog and see what plans were laid out for the year and whether they were achieved or not. From 2009:

1) Finish a handspun colourwork vest (that will be the Deep-v Argyle) Ahem - no.
2) Finish a fullsized (i.e. long-sleeved) handspun sweater See above.
3) Finish (at least) one small and one large handspun shawl Large - tick, small no.
I’d also like to…
4) Knit more stash than I buy (I am in a sock club and a fibre club - so seriously, what else do I need???) Well, I have a lot less stash, but that was partly due to some judicious de-stashing. So kind of achieved.

I was kind of screwed on all of this by the issues I had with my back, so the list was doomed from the start really. But we could make a new list:

1) Train for a new career - tick
2) Set up a new business and begin to establish a client base - tick
3) Get myself back into shape physically (from a long way down, believe me!) - tick

I’m not making any promises this year, but I do have a goal… We’ve fallen into a bit too much of a cycle of going for the easy take-out or meal-from-a-jar options. This year’s challenge is to establish routines of cooking quality meals and reducing the rubbish to a minimum. This is partly financial, partly do you realise how much crap is in take-out and processed food?

I want to make more of my own bread (got a great sourdough book for Christmas!) and try interesting flours. I want to investigate the Slow Food movement more thoroughly. I will still have nights where I can’t be bothered cooking, but that’s what freezers are for. Chilli anyone? I want to entertain more, something we did all the time at home but seems to have fallen by the wayside here. I want to try more new things instead of just ‘Monday is pork chop night’. I want to visit the market occasionally and buy quality produce instead of tired supermarket imports from the other side of the world. I want to love what I’m fuelling my body with at every meal.

Here’s to a great 2010, may yours be full of friends, fun times and of course, great food!