In honour of a wee small

We spent this weekend visiting Lord and Lady Coventry, two members of our SCA household. The main purpose of the visit was to meet their recently-born sprog, Nemo[1]. He is utterly adorable despite having thrown up on me twice.

I'd made him a hat before he hatched, but I had a partially-worked piece of embroidery I designed back in March when Terry Pratchett passed away. As Nemo's parents are huge Pratchett fans, and as the quotation in question seemed remarkably apt for the start of a new life, I decided to add the relevant details and call it a birth sampler. I think it came out rather well, personally.



Worked over two on 14-ct Aida cloth in some mysterious hemp embroidery floss. I ended up using it as it came from the hank rather than splitting it into strands. It seemed in keeping with the heavy fabric and juvenile style. Anyway, the parents seem to like it. At least, they bought a frame for it within an hour of me presenting them with it...



[1]Not his actual name.

At long last

It will come as no surprise that I am prone to taking on Very Large Projects. Wedding dresses, embroidered Tudor shirts, enormous research projects... I love them all. Consequently, there are a number of WIPs whose age is measured in years rather than weeks or months. Today I finished one of them.



This is a piece of cross-stitch I've been working on for longer than I've been married. (We celebrate our tenth anniversary next January, to put that in perspective.) It's absolutely enormous, more than a foot wide. DMC cotton on 28-count linen, plus the staff and the bands at the bottom of the cloak are in gold metallic floss.



This is one of those rare occasions when I make a project that is very much not to my taste. It's a gift for my grandmother, who chose it but didn't make it herself. It'll be off to the framer's soon, and then I'll give it to her for her birthday in May.

For now, though, I've got a new sewing machine (did I mention the sewing machine?) to put through its paces and a couple of sexy little fat quarters that want to become some sort of bag...

Flashbacks - more embroidery

In addition to the small projects floating around, I've also finished a fair few big projects. These two are among my favourites. Just plain cross-stitch, but I love the colours.

A trio of cats, my first big finished piece:

A birth sampler:

This one is very special. I made it for my mother a few years ago for her birthday. You see, I'd discovered that although she's made many birth samplers over the years for lots of babies, no-one had ever made one for her! I picked this one out because she's very into astrology. I spent hours poring over astrological charts to work out the details. Thankfully my grandmother keeps the family birth certificates or I'd never have gotten the time details in secret! It came out quite nicely, I think, although the designer didn't leave much space for the words - I had to rechart a section of it.

Flashbacks, part one

While I was visiting my mother, I took the opportunity to photograph many of my pre-blog needlework projects. Most of what I have there is embroidery, but there are some exceptions!
A few years ago I was helping mum with one of the perennial rounds of organizing, cleaning and purging, this time in all of her sewing stash. We found a bunch of little kits, things that had been freebies with some of her embroidery magazines. Since at the time I wasn't knitting and had very little in the way of embroidery supplies, I swiped them!

A free embroidery needle case that I use to store my sharp quilting needles:

A scissors fob:

A little framed jobbie that mum has hanging in her sewing room:

A little embroidery

A good friend came round on Sunday for the first time in about 6 months. And while here, she remarked that I'd not done anything on my Santa embroidery. It currently lives on the arm of the couch along the wall, so perfectly visible to anyone who comes in. And you know, she's right. I really haven't. Oh, I'd done the odd bit here and there, but hadn't actually sat down for a good session in forever.
So I did! After she went home again, I pulled out the box of embroidery floss and the pattern and set to. Got a big chunk done and really enjoyed myself. And I've been doing little bits in the mornings before work! And hubs is proving his worth once again. The trouble I often have with embroidery is that there are too many things I could be doing. With a sock, for example, I knit the cuff, then the leg, then the heel flap, then the gusset, foot and toe. Given that I'm making a cuff-down sock, I can't work the parts in any other order. With an embroidery, I can and do work on any bit I fancy, which unfortunately allows my inner dithering side to come out. This is where hubs come in. I can call out to him in the other room "Red or brown?" when I can't decide. After years of practice, he knows to just pick one at random, thus eliminating my dilemma.

The scarves are breeding again

I had to work on something chunky over the weekend to give elbow and shoulder a break. So, rather than do the sensible thing and pick up the hat I've got on the go, I decided to start something new. There was yarn left after I'd finished the coatigan/cushion - four skeins of it. So I got out my 20mm needles, held all four strands together as one, and knit myself an uber-chunky scarf!



The whole project took less than 24 hours, and I've totally used up all the yarn. Woohoo!

I also had a big tidy-up this weekend. We've been rearranging some of our storage due to builders needing boiler access. (Our landlord just had a power shower installed. It's great.) I cleaned out the storage tub with all my embroidery things in, finding some treasures. A pair of patterns with all the fabric and silks waiting to go. A large freehand embroidery I started several years ago, inspired by a Tarot card. An afghan, embroidered all over with cats and their treats. I miss embroidering. Don't get me wrong, I love knitting and spinning, but sometimes it's nice to just embellish. And to get a finished project that looks exactly like the photo on the pattern - gauge isn't so much an issue when you're sewing.

I am the boss of my knitting

My knitting is not the boss of me.

Occasionally I forget this truth of textile arts and get terribly bogged down. Then I remember, I reassert my authority, and life gets better. What prompted this round of navel-gazing? My coatigan. Or perhaps ex-coatigan would be a better description!

I lost weight, you see. And the coatigan no longer fit me. Thanks to my mother's sewing lessons, there was no way the seams were coming undone, so it wasn't as if I could unpick, frog and reknit. So I took my scissors, sliced off everything above the armholes, folded and wrapped it around a pillowform and sewed a lovely new throw pillow. I even took the toggles that were the planned closures and sewed them on for decoration. End result - one pillow, 4 pristine balls of yarn to turn into something, and one relaxed and happy knitter.

As it happens, I was off sick yesterday with a stomach upset. Nothing major, but I wanted to get plenty of sleep so it didn't turn into anything bigger. I was a bit too spacey to work on the wedding dress, so instead I flitted about between some of my other WIPs. The ripple afghan is finally past the halfway point. I've still got a goodly chunk left to work on, but it's not so daunting anymore. And the bag that the yarn lives in is looking decidedly smaller. I got a couple of rounds of a mitten done, although the colourwork was a bit more than I could concentrate on. And I got a parcel from my mother and grandmother! Full to the brim of exciting things, it certainly cheered me up.

I received a pile of new knitting and spinning magazines, a spinning supplier's catalogue (dangerous!), and an enormous piece of white linen. 7 yards of 60-inch-wide white linen. It's destined to become new garb at some point in the future. Once the wedding dress is finished, of course. For now I'm content to sit and oogle it.

One last thing that was in the parcel:

Isn't it stunning???

Owww.

Ok, I think I need to do a motto sampler that says "Too much sewing and not enough stretching makes the Knitting Fiend hurt lots." Yes, once again I have managed to embroider myself into a serious neck-and-shoulder knot. Thank goodness for hot baths and neck rubs.

The upside is that I managed to get loads done on the poetry sampler this weekend. I'm nearly done with the cross-stitch parts and have made good inroads on the backstitching. Although I'm 99% certain I'm going to need another skein of Claret to finish. Fortunately my friendly neighbourhood needlework shop carries Gentle Art Sampler Threads!

I also cast on for a new project on Friday evening. Mum has been after the Wool Peddler's Shawl from Folk Shawls for a while now, and since there was a secondhand copy on Amazon for cheap she bought the book and had it sent to me. It came on Friday, and since we'd already gotten the yarn I saw no point in delaying! It's a very basic triangle shawl - garter stitch for about half of it, then an arrowhead lace pattern for the second half. And the edging is just more garter stitch, so I can knit the lace pattern until I run out of yarn. This makes me very happy, as I won't have to find something to do with the leftovers!

Stitch 'n' Bitch tonight will see me working away on the Halloween Monkeys while eating birthday cake. A friend is celebrating, so I've made chocolate indulgence for her, complete with frosting! Mmmmmm...

something new

One of the other nice things about mum visiting is that she brought over 3 of my partially completed embroidery projects. (And no, we won't be discussing how many partial embroidery projects I have.) These 3 were my favourites. One is just a plain piece of counted cross stitch, a picture of Henry the 8th and his 6 wives. Remarkable only because it is the very first project I ever purchased entirely on my own.

There's a bellpull spot sampler that is so complicated I need supervision for parts of it. (I've never done any fancy hemstitching before, nor worked with hardware for finishing.) It has the first few lines of one of my favourites poems:

"What is this life, if, full of care,
we have no time to stand and stare?"

I like it because taking time to look around is really important to me. Plus the sampler is gorgeous. :D

The third is an alphabet sampler with a verse backstitched around the edge. The gist of it is "Read me poems, it makes me happy". I worked about half of this in a week a few Christmases ago and then just put it away. It's silk on cream-coloured linen, and I just thought it was a bad thing to have in a dorm and then in a student shared house. But now that I have my own home and my only roommate is my (mostly) responsible and careful spouse, I decided that it was time to finally finish it. So, this morning before I went to work, I mounted it in my stretcher frame, found all the silks, remembered how the pattern went, and started working! It's even quicker than I'd remembered, though that may have something to do with the 6 years of intervening needlework experience... I'd like to get a good chunk of it done this weekend, and hopefully I could finish it in time for Christmas!

In other news, I got two parcels in the post this morning. I've been doing a bit more swapping on Ravelry, and received 2 skeins of Regia sock yarn in a lovely mottled red/orange, complete with DPNs to knit them with. I also got 2 balls of ivory Kidsilk Haze. Amusingly, these are exactly the same colour as the 2 I found for half price at John Lewis the other day. So, now I have enough ivory KHS to make a really good-sized shawl. Now, to figure out which pattern I want to knit...

Slowing down somewhat

September is always less productive in the world of my hobbies than any other month. This is because it's the start of the academic year, and I have always been either in full-time education or working in education. Or sometimes both! So right now at work we are rushing around trying to get everything done on time, and when I get home I don't necessarily have the energy to focus on a complicated knitting pattern. I've been crocheting my afghan and playing a lot of video games as a result!

I've also been indulging in a long-neglected hobby - my embroidery. Several friends and acquaintances have recently been spotted with embroidery in hand, and as ever, seeing someone else doing something I enjoy has inspired me to do it myself. I fished out a big pice of counted cross-stitch that I've had on the go for a couple of years and have actually been making progress. I find embroidery involves a lot less concentration than knitting, for some reason. I'm still craving yarn between my fingers, but I would like to spend the autumn working on both needlearts, not just one or the other.

Busy busy busy

The biggest hindrance to updating the blog and posting photos is that I'd much rather spend my free time making things than writing about them. Especially at the weekend, when I've got enough time to work on big projects instead of the ever-present socks.

This weekend was both busy and productive. There is an SCA event coming up in a couple of weeks, and both of us would like to have garb to wear. And we bought fabric, it was just a case of cutting and assembling. So I laid out my fabric, realized it was huge (3m of 60-inch-wide crimson wool), and decided to have a go at cutting two garments out of it. And I did. Thanks to lots of geometry at school and my trusty notebook, I was able to lay out the fabric in such a way that I've got a long-sleeved kneelength tunic for the spouse and a sleeveless floorlength gown for me cut out. Spouse is very happy, since I'm finishing his tunic first.

Thus far I've attached the sleeves to the body and basted the side gussets into place. Stitch'n'Bitch is tonight, so I'm hoping to make good progress on attaching the gussets. Once I've done that I'll put in the gusset at the back, finish the sleeve seams since it would be a pain to do them later, cut out and attach the underarm gussets, finish the collar, sew the sleeve seams and pin up and sew the hem. Then after the event when I have more free time I'll add some embroidery around the cuffs and collar and finish the rest of the seams.
Then it's on to my garb! I've already got most of my chemise and gown (a teal one, not the red) cut out and basted, so hopefully they will go quickly.

Over the course of this year I've got a second, Byzantine-style tunic and matching undertunic, along with some breeches, planned for the spouse and the red gown and a couple of headdresses planned for me. Plus there will be a ton of navy wool left over from his second tunic, so I'll have to figure out something to do with that. I'd really like to attempt a pieced gown, maybe with lacing. And I'm certain I'm going to have leftovers from the teal and cream I'm using for my current outfit. So many possibilities!

Of course, the weekend also contained yarny goodness. I worked on Monkey Two, and am very nearly done with the cuff. It's slowed down because I really need to finish the clothing, but it's still fun. I've been working a few rounds whenever I make progress on the tunic. The mini-Who scarf is being worked on too. In fact, it's my lunch-hour knitting of the day. I needed something mindless, since the tunic takes so much concentration.

And because I have the restraint of a 2-year-old at Christmas, I started a new project. See, I had to go up to the London Bead Co for red sewing thread to match the tunic, and while I was there I spotted a jumbo crochet hook that was just the right size for making the black-and-pink yarn into the wrap I found. So of course I had to try out my new hook. I've never worked with one this big before, but I think it's going well. And so quickly!

FO your viewing pleasure...

...I present a pair of finished Whovian fingerless gloves, made from the finest in Dr Who leftovers! Yes, I finally sat down on Sunday and just finished them. And they are warm and snuggly. It took frickin' forever to sew in all the ends, but I did it. Go me!

Much progress has been made generally over my long weekend, and it isn't even over yet! After finishing the gloves, I decided to work on making a scrap scarf from the leftover Dr Who yarn. I'm not going to be able to add the yellow and green yet, since I'm going to make another pair of gloves yet, but there's no reason why I can't crack on and use up the other five balls of scraps. And I've used three now. Feeling good.

I have been making progress on using up the acrylic too. The ripple afghan is getting bigger, and I've discovered that I managed to make it wide enough to fit my double bed. I've never made a bedspread before. I've also done a ton of work on the back of the cushion cover. I'm not going to have enough of the charcoal grey to make the entire back, so it's going to be partially done in black around the edges. It'll still look good. I've also had an inspiration - the partial balls left from the afghan and the complete skeins that aren't going into it will make great practice scarves for trying out my new book of scarf patterns!

I finished 2 more repeats on the drop-stitch shawl, and I'm planning to do another this afternoon. That will put me at 21 of 28, although I'm definitely going to stop earlier if it's wide enough to stay on my shoulders. It is still boring.

The Monkey sock is getting bigger. I finished the heel gusset last night, so now I've just got the foot to do. I'm concerned about running out of yarn, although I think I've got enough, so I'm going to stop before I do the toes, make the second sock, then work the toes at the same time. If I run out of yarn, I can add some contrast yarn on both to make it look deliberate. I'm thinking black, so that they look like Hallowe'en socks!

Here is a picture of the bulk of my Mission:Possible yarn. It would be so nice to use it all up and have this much floor space back!

And finally, just so that it doesn't seem as though I'm an exclusive knitter, I present my current big embroidery project. I was in the mood for working on it yesterday, so I fished it out. I really love it, I've just been in more of a knitting mode for the last year or so...

Your projects may be destined for glory

As I discovered last night. The friend for whom I made the Dr Who scarf, along with some other friends, was recently filmed for an episode of the quiz show Eggheads, produced by the BBC. And my friend being who he is, he decided to wear the scarf while they were filming! So the work of my hands is going to be shown on national television at some point.

(Apparently he got some rather odd looks and kudos while wandering around the BBC studios wearing such a classic item of apparel. Go figure.)

Other stuff happening in the world of the Fiend's needlework. The Monkeys are rocking along. I finished the cuff today and am going to work on the heel flap during my dinner break later. They are soft and lovely and wonderful, and it is going to be very hard to not spend Monday and Tuesday knitting them instead of the shawl. But I have decided that the shawl will be finished. Sigh. So I shall be good and put on a DVD (possibly a Lord of the Rings marathon) and see how much shawl I get done in two days. What I may do is knit on the shawl during the day and then the socks in the evening.

I have decided that I am not going to enter the Piecework Exellence in Needle Arts competition this year. I had a very good idea for it, but frankly wanted to knit rather than embroider, and I refuse to be rushed. At the end of the day, needlework is supposed to be my fun hobby, not a source of pressure and stress, so I don't have to knit anything I don't want to. I suspect that I will do some embroidery this year because I have a bunch of big projects I really want to finish (some of which are not in this country! Ack!), but I'll do it as and when I want to. No guilt-tripping on not doing a million things at once.

Maybe that should be my mantra for the year. "I can't and don't have to do everything at once. Slow down!"

Now I just have to figure out what to do with the fabric I cut out for the competition.