Clothkits

I love reading other peoples blogs and one of my favourites is Ysolda, I love her designs as well as all of the interesting things she blogs about; delicious food and beautiful landscapes. I have been making the Liesl cardigan in Blue Skies Alpaca worsted, bought in the Loop sale - pale blue and beautifully soft, I will take some pictures soon but only after I have finished it - nearly done but I am still in search of the perfect buttons.

Yesterday her blog post was about the arrival of a Clothkits parcel. I remember Clothkits when I was very young and my mother used to make them - 70's England didn't really believe in natural fibers so Mum used to make my clothes or buy them in Denmark when we went home. Mum and I were discussing the relaunch last night over dinner and saying how much we used to love their needle cord and the quality of the material in general, so this morning I had to have a look at the website.

Be warned - the site does not work well on Internet Explorer 6, Firefox seems to be fine though. At the moment the collection is small but what they have is absolutely perfect - I want every single thing in the womens wear collection and the children's gear is seriously cute. Even though it blows my craft budget for the month I had to buy a kit.

I had such difficulty choosing which one but I eventually settled on the Rob Ryan skirt in cerise needle cord with purple print - I am sure I will be buying other items in due course! You can just see the colour at the back of this photo.

I really like his designs anyway - check out his website and etsy shop

I could have paid through the site but decided to call them directly as I had some questions. I'm glad I did as I got fantastic service, they were super friendly and chatty and I also got to choose which lining material I wanted - from a choice of gorgeous Liberty prints.

Yes, the kit seems on the expensive side but the design and quality is excellent and you get everything you need to finish the item, including lining, thread and zip. If I considered what it would cost to buy the pattern, material, lining, zip and thread in John Lewis it works out about the same.

Having bought the skirt kit I will have to wait until next month to buy this - I have been lusting over it for ages:

And when I saw this material in the new modern midwest collection, I was sold on making it:

Gorgeous brown with the cherry blossom - it makes me think about Memoirs of a Geisha - much better in book form than on film, if you enjoyed the book you might also enjoy Geisha by Liza Dalby an American anthropologist who became a geisha in the 70's to enable a deeper study of their world - fascinating.

This is my current choice for the accent material on the dress, I am undecided about this, it's pretty, but I am not sure about the combination - what do you think?:

The lovely ladies in Liberty haberdashery told me that Amy will be in the store on the 12th August having a chat with people - I must put it in my diary! This hasn't been announced yet so don't tell anyone I told you!

Oooo just as I was typing this I got an email to say the Knitty surprise is up - I'll be having a look in a little while - tell me what you think too.

Handspun and homemade

I am completely in love with handspun yarn, the texture is just beautiful. I am longing to spin my own and have bought a drop spindle kit from the flying ewe, I can't wait to have a go! I am really really lusting over a spinning wheel (Ladybug realistically or Matchless if our bonus it huge this year!) but worried over when I'd be able to fit it into my life and house. I am planning to go and have a look at some next week - shhhh don't tell anyone - I am in denial about how dangerous that would be!

I am trying to content myself with buying some lovely handspun on etsy. I had to go to the post office to pay the customs charge on this beauty yesterday (£13.80 - most of which is the post office handling fee for me to drive 20 mile round trip to the sorting office, hand them cash and pick up my parcel!) It was worth it though!

634 yards of laceweight Merino Tencel from Squoosh, I have no idea what I am going to make with it yet - investigation on Ravelry will commence!

The colours are really vibrant and bright - and elusive on camera! I tried every setting and light and these were the best I could get. There is pink, orange and mauve in the yarn and the colour is called hotty - that made me smile.

If you love handspun too I also received two lovely skeins from Stony Creek, I can't show them as they are destined to be made into a gift.

My Swallowtail was finished ages ago but I am only blocking it today, I am home alone for the weekend so I dared to pin it out on the floor.

It is so light weight and ethereal - when wet it was a tiny blob hardly bigger than a tennis ball! Made from Posh yarn Cecilia, it took forever to wind the yarn into a cake (all 1300 yards) and this shawlette made hardly any dent in it - I shall weigh it to find out how much was used when the blocking is done. The yarn is 50% silk 50% cashmere mix and warm despite it's lightness.

It is almost dry with the warm weather today - I really wish the weather here was more reliable! I should go and pick raspberries and strawberries RIGHT NOW as I won't get soaked - in 10 minutes that may have changed!

I have some friends coming for dinner tomorrow and since I will be working tomorrow, I did a bit of prep work today - I don't think I will ever stop being a chef at heart.

This brown sludge looks deeply unappetising but is in fact an unbaked pain d'epice, if you have tried the supermarket version in France you will be think 'meh - why make that, it's dry, fairly tasteless and a bit dull!' but homemade it is really lovely, soft and delicate with a deep fragrance from the spice mix and the local honey. It is baking now and filling the whole house with Christmas scent. I have been making this since I lived in France but have made one change to my version since reading the chocolate and zucchini book - adding crystallised ginger and crystallised orange peel - yum!

You may be wondering why I am making a Yule scented cake in midsummer, well my plan for dessert tomorrow is to grill some peaches with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon and to serve them on toasted pain d'epice to echo the cinnamon and suck up all the peachy buttery juices, I'll also plop some creme fraiche on top for contrast.

Hope it tastes good!

Long summer nights

I arrived in Helsinki on Sunday night and decided to go out for dinner, the light is amazing with only a couple of hours of semi darkness – the pictures below were taken at about 10 in the evening. I walked down to the harbour and saw the Götheborg reconstruction; the original East Indiaman went down in 1745 and was excavated in 1986 -1992, it was amazing to see. There was a festival going on around the visit and some little old men were on a stage playing a jazz version of ’it’s a long way to Tipperary’ and singing - it was quite surreal.

On Monday I met with Leo after work and we did a little shopping, I'm looking for a dress to wear for a wedding, I wanted to make one but I don't have enough time to finish it before the big day. I found a lovely dress in Marimekko, sadly it was a little to tight around my assets!

We did manage to get to one knitting shop before it closed and there were some really sweet bits and pieces.

I think I will have to knit one of these hats for myself! I love all these stripey things – a new obsession with stripes might be emerging. The yarn all these are knitted from is seriously woolly and I can't wear it next to my skin unless the temperature is in the -30's, very very itchy.

Behind me you can see some manikins wearing very finely knit colour work jackets - absolutely beautiful, I wish I had taken some close ups - next time perhaps.

Once we got thrown out of the craft hall because they were closing, we went to a local coffee shop – hot chocolate and berry tart – yum!

I am going to have a go at re-creating this tart, very short pastry base that is almost biscuit like. A light creamy filling, it was difficult to work out what it was made from - I think I will try marscapone cheese, vanilla and fold in some lightly whipped cream. The berries were mostly Finnish blueberries plus a few red berries of various types, really intense in flavour with minimal sugar. I love that the Scandinavians seem to enjoy less sugar in these types of things, the hot chocolate was unsugared too; slightly bitter and dark, a much more adult taste.

The coffee shop was quite old fashioned feeling, with beautifully displayed pastries and dark wood chairs and tables. The view from the window was cake-like too, Helsinki's Lutheran Cathedral reminds me of a wedding cake, I love the white walls and columns with the understated gold highlights.

Leo and I went to Olof's mothers for dinner - it was a really great evening and the first time I had met her, such a lovely lady and we talked about knitting, sewing and weaving. The flat is beautiful and filled with gorgeous crafted items from all the families travels.

The rest of the week was work with not much time for knitting, although I managed about 6 hours of dedicated knitting on the flights and finished all of the nupp rows on my swallowtail.

I'm really enjoying this lace work and excited to finish and block it. The garden is open to the public this weekend so I have been sat talking to people about the plants and knitting, after all it is world wide knit in public day today.

Lots of people visiting the garden asked me what produce I would be making for the village fete this year, apparently my hand made bread (not from a bread machine) almost caused a stampede last year and I was referred to as the 'jam lady' (I don't think I like that particularly - it makes me feel old). I feel very WI sometimes then I have a naughty thought and decide they wouldn't appreciate that side of me, I'd probably get thrown out.

Was that the entire summer?

What a lovely week last week - hot and sunny, I hope it isn't like last year and that is all we get! At the weekend I went to a spa with my friend Leo, we had a great time and the weather really was fabulous. I thought I would get lots of knitting done but we were really 'busy' getting treatments, chatting, eating delicious but healthy food and sitting in the outdoor spa pool.

I took along my Swallowtail shawl - it was moving really quickly but I appear to have stalled - I am almost at the nups but the budding lace seems to have refused to grow to the right number of stitches! The colour is an gorgeous one from Posh - I can't remember what it was called but it looks just like the blossom on the apple tree. In fact I tried to take a picture of the WiP in the tree but it was far to high and I did not want to take remove any branches to photograph, but the wisteria that holds up a rickety fence in the garden is in bloom and the colour is beautifully similar to the yarn as well.

I shouldn't take pictures of on going work as I am terrible at finishing things (especially if they are for me), however it did occur to me that if I put pressure on myself by blogging about something it might get done.

I am very guilty of jumping on the bandwagon and knitting the 'latest' thing. Apologies to Grumperina, I love the knitting new scarves book and when I saw this, I wanted to have a go. So here is the start of my linked rib scarf, it's Manos Del Uruguay silk blend 6461 bought from iknit - I went and checked out the new shop, it's lovely and has a bar, obviously I couldn't leave empty handed!

The plant is an Acer Palmatum, I love the colour of it. The whole garden looks lovely at the moment - it is going to be open to the public (!) in three weeks, through a local open garden scheme, it is a shame it is not slightly earlier as it is really a spring garden and looks it's best at the moment. Although it is quite good it isn't this weekend as there is scaffolding up and there appears to be a toilet in the driveway - Plumber Dad installed a new one some time ago and the old one hasn't gone to the tip yet despite all the nagging, maybe I should plant something in it just in case it doesn't get moved!

When Leo was here at the weekend I had to try and secretly measure her for the jumper I am making, I failed and just held it up to her but it does mean it can appear here. I love the pattern - Simply Marilyn from Interweave, but a bulky cable knit is not something all of us can wear! I have made the pattern smaller, advice from Ravelry users has help with this, I think it will stretch a little too. I finished the front in a day and am half way up the sleeves, it is a bit of a warm project to be knitting now so I'd like to finish soon.

I hope blocking evens out the bottom of the cable as it looks wibbly at the moment and not very nice.


I had been keeping these secret as they are a gift but the recipient saw them in the knitting basket and commented on them, asking who they were for - I couldn't manage to fib! It does mean I can blog about them too. Pomatomus in a really lovely colour way but I have been having second sock issues for so long that I can't remember what it is called and have misplaced the label, it might be Koigu though.

This shows the colours better. I love the pattern and it is quite simple to knit. I have seen a second sock on Ravely that is fraternal so maybe that will have to be made instead of a matching one. I grafted the toe oddly so it looks funny to me but I tried to undo it and it was a nightmare - I thought I'd just leave it.

Finished object! The very simple socks for a certain boy, the yarn was Kaffe Fassett in Landscape Caribbean since the this boy likes sailing. They are a bit large for me but I hope they fit him, I really enjoyed knitting them and the colours are gorgeous, I decided that I like knitting man socks so much I signed up for a guy sock club. They are larger, giving more scope for beautiful yarns and I love the unfussy nature of men's socks, the muted colours and small details make it a much more subtle knit. I have so many sock clubs at the moment I don't think I will get to the end of them but I just can't resist.

I had some trouble getting them to match at the heel - I frogged three times and in the end I cut the yarn and rejoined it to match up properly. It was the dark blue thin stripe where you pick up along the heel - it was accidental in the first sock but I thought it looked lovely and wanted the same on the other.

Taking pictures of your own feet is really difficult - especially if you end up with the picture making your calves look like they belong to a hefty rugby player or maybe a hippo or giving yourself cankles as in the picture above - horizontal stripes eek! I was a little un-nerved by the picture below, perspective is to blame I'm sure (or maybe it is the evil fat leg fairy who makes me eat chocolate and wear high calf building heels)

I'm have been looking for something gorgeous to knit with the amazing yarn from Lily, my secret pal. I have not found anything that screams - 'knit me with your precious camelspin!' so I am having a go at designing something myself.

I love designing things but my time is really limited so spending ages knitting and finding I am unhappy with the look and feel is really difficult. The pleasure in seeing something beautiful does outweigh this eventually though! I have been reading (actually just looking at the pictures as I don't read Japanese) the new Japanese stitch patterns books I bought from yesasia and want to start swatching soon. I also bought the same colour yarn in seasilk (periwinkle) as I would like to see if I can use both to give areas of different texture - not knitted together but more like intarsia - hmmm wonder what will happen!

finished object-tastic

Wow finished objects - actually they are not recently finished but I have only just had the chance to blog about them.

Firstly some thrummed mitts (Interweave winter) for my friend Leo - she and her gorgeous family are moving to Finland, so warm mitts were called for. I shall be very sad to see them all go but I am excited they will be somewhere that I visit so often! Thank you to Leo as well for saying such nice things about my blog - I suspect it not many people read it but I love writing it all the same (hello to others reading this - Trine and Lily) I may get around to doing some visitor stats but I'd much rather use the time to write another post.

These are made with Artesano alpaca aran - really delicious yarn - I can't remember the name of the colour way but I did buy it at Knit 1, great service from them too - thank you. The thrum roving came from knitshop. I was not to sure about the colour on it's own but once it was knitted into the alpaca I was much happier. Modifications to the pattern - longer cuffs to keep out the snow! I used two hanks of yarn but I had lots left over, if you made the cuffs shorter and perhaps used a co-ordinating stripe on a couple of cuff rows you would be able to get the pair from one hank. These are super warm and this is the seond pair I have made - why have I not made some for myself!

Second item is a scarf for my friend Bev - she's modeling it below. It's done in a free pattern from Fezza using some of their yarns. I made some changes so that the same yarn ( a cute fluffy one) appears at either end and the srtipes are matching on either side - slightly fussy and others may not notice - but I know. I am not always a fan of man-made fibres and fun fibre but I do love how this kind of scarf brings a little interest to an outfit and is fun to twiddle when bored! Bev said that the children in her class are facinated by it - nice to be appreciated :)


I just had to include this pic of the ladies modeling their knitwear - I think a little too much wine may have been consummed at this point (although our behaviour is pretty daft without wine! Bev is the funniest person I know - nothing is sacred and she cracks me up). Leo's family get lots of hand knits (her son is my godson) mainly because they appreciate the work but also because they make them look good :)

I finished my Ene scarf from scarf style - I did have enough yarn so panic over - thank you to lovely Ravelry people for their offers of matching the yarn (gorgeous Dee) and Tinks for her offer of some of her Christmas pressie brother yarn to mine should I not have enough - you are such kind people - thank you :)

This picture of the tip is closest to the colour - I took advantage of the snow and bright sunshine at the weekend to take pictures. The colour way is called pansies and is purple with hints of blues, the depth is amazing - I don't know how Tony who dyes the yarn makes such gorgeous deep colours

My arty hedge background is not the best picture - why am I such a pants photographer!? I know that pictures make a blog so I really should practise more.

I also tried the willow hurdel in the garden as backdrop, that was a lot better I think.I am also kniting a pair of socks for a boy, yes I know this is such a bad idea but it is also a good way to deal with becoming too into him too quickly, deflection onto the socks! Two of his sisters knit so he may have an idea of what it means (!). He dealt with the knitting habbit pretty well when it was revealed to him, although I suspect he may not realise the extent of it! The socks are plain sock receipe in the new Kaffe Fassett yarn - the most stunning picture here. Maybe I'll keep them!

Visiting the family

Last weekend I went to my cousins 30th birthday party in Copenhagen and stayed with my Danish Grandma (Mormor) for a long weekend.

Lots of family stuff went on as well as lots of knitting. My Mormor is the most amaizing knitter, she can knit thoose intricate Scandinavian jumpers with two colours and steaks with NO pattern - just from her head!

She's 85 in May but still very active - I met her at the shopping centre, I walked and she cycled:

Her knitting group make blankets and other things for the childrens villages, last year the group made 135 blankets and many other things. They also sponser a child, their first sponsered child has grown up and is over 18 now, she passed all her school exams and still writes to the ladies.

It makes me feel quite emmotional that these ladies who are quite elderly, spend so much time and energy making things for unknown children in villages far away. I also feel guilty that I spend so much on yarn and really I don't need it - if you feel the same, please donate some of your yarn money to a charity or give some of your knitting time to making something for one of the organisations.

Enough with the charity thing! bring on the knitting! having said that here is a combined knitting and charity thing. Mormor is putting together a blanket made from squares knit by a very old lady who can hardly see - you can see below she's crocheting round the edge with a picot stitch. Each square is garter stitch from one corner of 3 stitches increasing the second stich at the beginning of every row (knit into front and back) until you reach the desired width and then decreasing again to 3 stitches, bind off. It's great for using up bits of yarn - you can make the squares strippy if you don't have enough for a whole square.

I also gave Mormor some Debbie Bliss Rialto that I got on ebay really cheaply, she was delighted because on her pension buying yarn is not that frequent an occurance. She has found an stitch pattern and is using it to make a cardigan. This sleeve in the picture is a couple of hours knitting time (wish I was that quick!) - I love the pattern and it is reversible, I'll try and get some instruction on it and write it up here. Reminds me of the ribs on some plants like a cactus. I also bought some self stripping sock yarn for Mormor to make socks - we all own several old pairs of Mormor knit socks but she got out of the habbit of making them some time ago. However the self stripping stuff that she had never seen before made her laugh a lot and she has got back into making socks - the brighter and more crazy the pattern the better!

I went to Strøget in central Copenhagen, there are a couple of good knitting shops on Fiolstræde which I went to look at - I did buy some yarn but more on that at a later date! I walked down to the main shopping street and as I came round the corner I saw this - apparently they do it every Saturday!

The last thing I wanted to share was this picture - all this yarn (admitedly mostly cotton and wool/acrylic mix) is in the SUPERMARKET!!!!! yes that is correct they sell yarn in the supermarket - wow - If only the rest of the world was so forward!

Wow! It's better than Christmas and birthday rolled into one!

I arrived home on Wednesday from an evil week at the office, to find I had missed a delivery! I worked from home on Thursday and my very kind mother went to the post office in town to pick up my parcel - I wanted to unwrap it immediatley of course, but had the sensible thought that I should take some pictures first!

I'd like to say that - Lily you are amazing - the best swap partner I could ask for - I was blown away when I opened my parcel. Everything was beautifully wrapped in pretty tissue paper (pink and purple) and had the cutest notelets attached to each item explaining her thinking for buying me each thing. What a lovely idea i wish I had thought of it - it made me feel really special.

Here is the box - oooooo the anticipation! I made myself open each thing really carefully and slowly, savouring every moment!

A picture of the whole stash together - the light didn't do the beauty of everything justice so I decided to take pictures again today:

YARRRRRNNNNNN!!!!! in the picture below too.

The two skeins at the back are Posh - you were right Lily - I love the colours! The pinkish one has a small skein of plain yarn for heel and toe - I love this idea and didn't get any when Dee and Tony did them so I am really pleased.

The three (yes three! wow!) lilac skeins on the right are this amaizing yarn made from milk, I had heard about this but never been able to find it to try it! It's called creamy (Ravelry link) and the colour makes me think of a blueberry milkshake.

On the left the most glorious Handmaiden yarn called Camelspin (Ravelry link) in Periwinkle colour way - it has to be one of the softest yarns ever - I can't stop stroking it! Made with Camel - which you would imagine to be a bit rough and smelly - it is quite the oposite. I am going to choose the project for this yarn very very carefully as it is just fabulous.

Check out the stitch markers - tiny little sheep! one black sheep too. They have the cutest sheepy expressions - where did Lily find them!

This is the book that I really wanted - so kitch, I love it - I have to make tea cosies right now, but casting on and typing is not so easy!

Lots of really pretty bits and pieces too - this parcel had so much in it! A lovely notebook, a sweater keyring, a little purse and a sweet pen and pencil. You can see one of the notelets in this picture - such cute little yarn monkies and knitting sheep - Lily must have spent ages finding all these beautiful things.

Mmmmmm chocolate and coffee - organic and fairtrade too. My best friend is coming later so we will be having some lovely real coffee and choclolate.

The beautiful card is from Blue Moon Fibre Arts.

I also received a kit to make a bracelet from Earthfaire in blue with silver thread - I made one before for someone else, they are really lovely and look spectacular. I have always wanted to make one for myself - now I can, YAY! Lily had even added needles to the kit as they don't come with the needles, really thoughtful of her.

There were also some Lush products - they are absolutley the ones I would choose for myself and I had a bath with some last night - Amandopondo, the smell of roses really helped me get over my terrible week at work! I also got some Greenday smells really spring like of fresh grass and a Fever massage bar - now to find a handsome man to rub it on me, until then I will do it myself and smell gorgeous!

A big hug and thank you to Lily - the parcel is amaizing and made my week (and my month as well!). I've really enjoyed the swap even though I have been travelling so much I have not been able to email Lily as much as I wanted to and take part in the things happening on the swap blog - I'll deffinatley take part again, it has been really great to see and meet some younger knitters.