Project: Arachne

 Arachne by AndiSatterlund 

This jumper was released as part of a set last year and I have been thinking about this jumper ever since. I decided that this was going to be my project for October, I'd knit a long sleeved jumper in 4ply in a month, I thought I could totally knit one in DK with time to spare. The 'time to spare bit' I was a little short on (there was also a plan to crochet a matching Tarantula but she is still a WIP).

Awkward selfie!

There were some bits about the pattern I wanted to change from the off, the original has a very high neckline with I'm not a massive fan of generally, t-shirts sometimes feel a bit claustrophobic, and I didn't want long sleeves as I tend to run a bit warm. The pattern was written for sport weight which isn't hugely common in the UK and I'm not sure my LYS stocks any, so there was some working out of which size I needed so I could make it in DK.

I've done some stranded colour work before, I have a lovely pair of wrist warmers made from a Third Vault Yarns  kit, but the floats were only ever a few stitches long. WoollyWormhead posted a great video on her instagram that I found really helpful and I used this every 3^rd stitch or so. I think this might have been a bit overkill and made the fabric a bit inelastic, but I'm hoping with a bit of wear it'll loosen.

Yarn:

My LYS is Sew Much To Do (who doesn't love a pun), and although it is mostly a haberdashery they have a decent enough selection of yarn. I picked some West Yorkshire Spinners Colour Lab DK, which is 100% wool and reared/sheared/spun in the UK. I picked a rather garish green MC and a purple/pink CC (I have a set of 50 colour pencils and didn't have a matching shade for my notebook). It smells a bit sheepy and doesn't specify a sheep breed, and not currently the softest yarn, but also not massively scratchy.

Needles/Gauge:

Using 4mm needles I got a post blocked gauge of 22st x28rows in stst. If I had been knitting the pattern as written I would have been making an XL, but I worked out a L in my gauge would be the same.

3.75mm DPNs for the arm holes and 3.5 crochet hook for the neck.

Modifications:

Arms: I picked up the stitches as per the pattern, knit 2 rounds, then all in 1x1 rib [knit 1 round, decreased 2 under the arm on next round] twice then did a stretchy bind off.

Body: I only did about 20 rows of rib at the bottom, and had to switch to the purple because I ran out of green. I'm on the short side so if I'd continued the rib it would have been too long for me.

Neck: I had to do something with the neck because it was curling over. The pattern calls for picking up the stitches and knitting the neck band, but I didn't want a high neck line. Instead I used my crochet hook to double crochet two rows in the purple. This gives a slightly stand up collar which I maybe could do better, but right now I'm ok with it.

Difficulty:

Bit tricker than what I knit normally because of the stranded colour work, but the general construction wasn't difficult, maybe because this was not my first jumper, not my first pattern from this designer, but I felt the instructions were very clear. I'm not the biggest fan of knitting from charts but writing it out for all the sizes probably would be a nightmare to do and follow.

Worth Repeating:

I'd be happy to make this jumper again, but as I bought the whole pattern set I'm thinking of making a Morticia at some point – those sleeves!

Books

I worked pretty much non-stop on this jumper all October so no blog posts, no art, no gardening but I did read some amazing books. 

Kindred by Rebecca WraggSykes. This is a really interesting, thoughtful, compassionate round up of all the science and archaeology of Neanderthals. It's aimed at people who know nothing and people who might know about one aspect of the Neanderthal story but not other parts. It looks at the story of their discovery, which is an interesting story in the history of archaeology, how they've been portrayed by historians and how they may have interacted with Homo sapiens.

MexicanGothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I wanted something spooky for Halloween and I'd seen a lot of people saying positive things about this book, and now I am one of them. It's a classic gothic country house style story, think Northanger Abbey, but set in 1950s Mexico. Given the chance I could have read this all in one go, unfortunate I have to work and reading in bed means sleep sometimes wins. I still hold the opinion that reading in bed can be an extreme sport, there's always a risk of dropping a book on your face.

AFatal Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum by Emma Southon. I really enjoyed her book about Agrippina, and this is just as good. It looks at all the ways it was ok to kill people in ancient Rome (and there were a lot of ways) and stories of the people who committed these non-crimes. I love the way Emma shares history, making it accessible and fun. I don't know how she'd feel about the phrase “Horrible History for grown ups” but that's what it feels like.

Garden

This is the after, honest.

I said I'd neglected the garden during October, but I managed to get in it yesterday to clear the flower border and plant some bulbs. I'm so sore today, but as it had forecast rain today I wanted to get it done. Of course the weather seems nice now but if I'd left it I'm sure it would have been miserable. I trimmed back some of my perennials (no idea how they'll feel about that), split and planted some goats beard and something else with white flowers that I was given by my aunt last year, not split plants before so I hope they survive too. I had a whole load of tulips and daffodils planted last year, so they should come back and I've set a whole load more tulips bulbs as well as ranunculus, alliums, anemones and eremurus. Putting bulbs out feels a bit like planting hope, almost the same way that making jam in summer feels like bottling sunshine. Fingers crossed for some interesting germinations. 

Project: Fuss Free Festival Shawl

 

Fuss Free Festival Shawl

I've been a fan of Louise Tilbrook's for quite a while, she's actually pretty local to me, was until quite recently a scientist like me, and her designs are simple and beautiful. I was a member of her Everyday Knitter group on facebook, although it soon became a bit too big to keep up with (and FB algorithms never help) but when she said she was setting the group up on Mighty Networks I was happy to join up there too. The Mighty Networks layout is really clean and easy to follow (no ads!) and it shows you stuff in chronological order, which is nice. To celebrate the new group we held a Knit-A-Long, although this time it was no mystery, it was Louise's Fuss Free Festival Shawl (FFFS).

Not a sponsored post.

This is a nice, asymmetrical triangular shawl. Really good for one skein of fancy hand dyed yarn your not sure what to do with. There is also an option to have stripes. You could probably work it in any weight yarn to make it really big and squishy if you wanted.

Yarn:

Witch fibre co. - Dream Country (75% merino, 25% nylon) Fingering weight (400m). I brought this from a fellow knitters destash, I would share the link to the shop but I can't find it.

Needle/Gauge:

4mm. There's no gauge given, just instructions to make a fabric you're happy with. As it's a shawl you don't want anything too tight, like you would have for a sock, but also doesn't want massive holes in like lace (unless that's what you want!)

Difficulty:

Very easy. This is all garter stitch, knit every row. You need to know how to increase and decrease, but once you've got the hang of the pattern repeat then the tricky bit is remembering which side is the right side (and I stick a stitch marker on the right side so I remember). The cast off is a picot cast off which can be a bit fiddly, but some people in the group did an I-cord bind off instead or even just a regular bind off.

Worth Repeating:

Definitely. I've made this one as a Christmas gift and it's so easy to make I'll probably make more at some point. It took something like 3 weeks to make, but I was also working on something else at the time.

Kitchen

Its not a pan, its a cauldron.

After finding that massive marrow in the garden, I found a chutney recipe for it. I don't know what sort of courgette this should have been, but the skin was really tough, it's not the sort I usually grow. I haven't tried eating this yet, but when I made it I expected it to break down more and it hasn't, so some of my jars have a lot of stuff but not much fluid in. The jars were properly sterilised before filling so I'm hoping that they won't spoil, I've had them on the side to keep an eye on and they're ok so far.

I did find a slightly smaller marrow in the garden the other day, so I'll have to find something to do with that.

Art

Since Covid and lockdown started a million months ago, the Natural History Museum (London) started a weekly #NatureDrawingClub. I've really enjoyed joining in when I can, but this morning I just felt like doing a quick drawing of my little carnivorous plant Errol the Engulfer. It's a small sundew, which has really flourished since I moved it to the front room window where it gets a lot of light. It's sent up loads of flower spikes recently and they're just so pretty and delicate. I wanted to try doing an ink and watercolour (although mine are watercolour pencils) and apart from the pen bleeding slightly I'm really pleased with it. Someone suggested using a dip pen and ink, so maybe I need to add one of those to my wish list as well as proper watercolours.

Errol was very impressed with his portrait.

Lots of little bits.

Recently, and for some time in the future, I've been making things for mostly small people. Now this has been quite fun, planning things for people not yet here (not mine, this is not my way of announcing anything) and trying to make something a bit more unique and special than something just bought off the shelf.

For the baby my friend is expecting I've made a baby bag. It's kind of become a bit of a thing for me to make these; this will be the third. When I made the first one nearly three years ago whenever I explained what I was making people were always like "a bag you put a baby in?" But I believe recently they've become more popular as it's like a sleeping bag so babies can't kick it off and get cold. I've also found that self striping sock yarn is really good for these too, the first one I made was plain, but this latest one is very bright. The twisted rib cuff is really effective too, maybe it's lost a bit in the multi colours, but its very simple to do and looks a bit like cabling.

Fancy twisted rib.

For my birthday in July my husband bought be a book of crochet animals, I'd been a fan of the menagerie since I saw them at an NEC event and they had a very cute bunny called Emma (and as Coke can testify, giving things names is a very good marketing tool). I had bought a PDF with some of the animals, but the book has more patterns and better instructions for the different fur stitches. They're such lovely toys I had no problems making one for my friend's little boy's first birthday. The wool I used was free from a friend clearing out her stash when she moved; it's grey flecked with green and pink which gives it a much more lifelike quality. I made an elephant because out of the more basic patterns (I'm not as confident with crochet as I am knitting, and I really like the book is set out in levels of difficulty) it seemed to have a lot of character. Since the intended received it and I put some pictures on instagram a cousin has expressed an interest in receiving one for the baby he and his wife are expecting.

Really pleased with the tail.

 And so, I've had a quick break to make something for me. A year ago I was planning to make a hat and bought some lovely llama wool. I decided that the wool was too variegated in colour for the hat and chose something else, but this wool was going to be something beautiful. Luckily my wool shop keeps it in stock so I was able to get a second ball. On Ravelry I have a whole list of things I'd love to make, and this particular pattern had been in that list for a while, since I saw Michaela Strachen wearing something similar on autumn watch last year, and decided this would be the perfect pairing. Casting on is fairly straightforward, but it took me three goes to join all the stitches without it being twisted and becoming like a Möbius strip, and every time I had to start again I was putting on more and more stitches, until the final time I had 300 and managed to get it joined without twisting (I know, I could just have undone some but then I didn't think it would have been as loopy as I wanted it).

The pattern is a really simple but effective repeat, using yarn overs to create the eyelets. Because I had two balls of wool I alternated which one I used over every couple of rows so that any colour changes between them would be evened out, but I possibly didn't need to as the changes in each ball over the whole round were amazing. Due to casting on a few more stitches than originally called for I did run out of wool a bit earlier, cutting a repeat short and eventually having to sub in a dark, not so lovely, yarn for the final bit of finishing off, but I don't think its noticeable.

Trying not to make duckface.

The binding off row is quite a bit tighter than the other rows, but I think this gives it structure and holds it all together; if it was as loose as the rest it might just be a bit much. As it is I can still wrap it around my head three times if I want to, but I'll probably just do it twice most of the time (trying to get the third wrap off my head was difficult, trying to find the last loop and it kept getting stuck on my ear stud). I really enjoyed this project, it was quite quick and easy to do watching the TV and I think it might make a really good present for my mum if I find the right wool. Also, I think doing it in something lighter, like a cotton, might make a really good spring/summer scarf (I'm going to end up with a selection of these, I can see it now).

...A Woolly jumper!

OK, bit of a gap between posts, but it took longer to finish the jumper than expected and then it's all been a bit busy. But it is finally done!

Not your run of the mill jumper.

In my last post I mentioned that I needed to check the sizing because I might not have made the right one, well, turns out I was making a size too small. First lesson kids: always measure yourself before picking a size to make. Real rookie mistake. But how to fix this? My idea was just to make two panels and sew them in under the arms, but after talking to someone at work, they suggested picking the stitches up one edge then working the same number of rows as stitches I was missing. This then meant I only had to sew one seam per side rather than two. And it worked. Really well in fact. The change in stitch direction also makes it look deliberate rather then just trying to cover up the mistake.

It was meant to look like this...honest.

Rookie mistake number two was not double checking which sides I was sewing when putting it together so I managed to sew one side up with the right side of one piece and wrong side of the other both on the same side *slaps forehead* Putting the arms in was really simple too, just a case of picking up stitches, the correct number for the size I should have been making with the added panel I put in, and knitting. I was worried when I was doing it the sleeves may have been a bit long (being short sleeves sometimes are a bit long), but they've come out as great little cap sleeves, more or less.

Teeny-tiny sleeves.

Once the two front pieces and back were attached, and arms put in, I could work on the hood. Really straightforward, just knitting straight rows to make what seems like a massive 80s collar before it's seamed across the top. When I reached the point that the pattern said to seam it just didn't seem big enough... so I did a few more rows. I now have a giant hood. It definitely covers my head, which I think is the basic purpose of a hood, even if it does restrict my vision a bit.

Last step was just the ribbed button band that runs all the way from the bottom of one side, around the hood and down the otherside. Took a bit of fiddling about, I didn't want to buy a massive cable I wasn't likely to use again, and although Knit Pro (the make of needles I use) make a small part to connect two shorter cables, neither of my local yarn shops stock it. So it was a case of knitting along one then unscrewing the needles, putting ends on, attaching the needles to another wire and then starting along that cable. I had a bit of trouble picking up the 150-odd stitches I had to in order to do this, I kept over and under picking, but a friend's mum told me when she has to pick up a lot of stitches, she divides it into manageable chunks and works out how many she needs in each block. Shame I'd already moved on when she told me about this.

It's macro time!

The button holes were simple bind-off/cast-on type, but I think I need to work on them, or pick a different cast-on because they're a little loose. The buttons were a bit of a find in the local everything shop, I wanted wooden ones, and these have purple that is a really good match for my wool.

Just so happy to have finished it.

And voila, one jumper. I've worn it a couple of times, its really handy to have in the car, if it looks a bit grey and miserable before work I can wear it in and it squishes small enough to get in my bag if the weather picks up.