Jen Arnall-Culliford Knitwear

Beware the shiny red beasties

Earlier in the year we noticed that we had shiny, red Lily Beetles (Lilioceris lilii) on our pots of asiatic lilies (Lilium species). These are one of those garden pests that can wreak havoc before you have even noticed that they are around. Jim and I managed to squash them all pretty quickly, but we knew that this wasn't the end of the story. So I was dismayed to spot this at the weekend, around the largest pot of lilies in the garden:

Black splashes around the base of a pot of lilies.

These splashes around the rim of the pot are a tell-tale sign of hatched lily beetle larvae. They are a particularly unpleasant pest as the larvae are usually covered in their own excrement. So what you will see on the leaves of your lilies is a ball of black slime like this:

Lily beetle larvae covered in excrement.

They sometimes hide under the leaves, so it's worth a good look all over the plants. As they feed, these larvae can strip the leaves from your lilies faster than you would imagine - they just munch away until there is nothing left, so look out for stripped leaves too.

Lily beetle larvae damage.

This year we even spotted some of the larvae without the covering of excrement - something I hadn't seen before. At least these little beasties were easier to squash! We went over the plants pretty thoroughly, squashing as many as possible. The key is just to be vigilant, and squash them as soon as you see them. If you leave them, they will keep eating until you have no lilies left!

Bare lily beetle larvae.

If you haven't already checked, do go out and make sure that you haven't got any of these devious pests hiding among the leaves of your lovely plants!

Pressing onwards

I'm staying with Fyberspates Jeni this week, and we are getting things sorted ready for the book launch as well as doing some planning for next year. I needed a nice portable project to bring with me - something to knit in the car. I picked up the perfect project from my pile of works in progress.

Luscious cherry mittens.

I knitted the first of these mittens as a test run of the pattern for the very talented designer, Lily France - this is her pattern for the collection. I decided that having finished Jim's jumper, this should be the next project to receive the faithful knitting treatment. I shall knit on them until the second mitten is done! I am so enjoying knitting the design that I don't actually want to finish them - maybe I will have to cast on another pair immediately!

My project is on Ravelry here: Hinksey mittens.
Yarn used: Fyberspates Scrumptious Aran
Shade: Cherry
1 x 100g skein.

So I knitted on these in the car this morning on the way over to see The Scrumptious Collection being printed. I haven't done a press pass before, but it was brilliant. We saw both the cover and some inside pages being printed, as well as the team checking the colour balance and registration. It was a bit like being on a school trip to see how the real world works! Here is a short video of the cover being printed (and Jeni and Nic looking pleased about it!).

 

It was quite an experience to see the pages being produced, and to remember how much care and attention goes in to every step of the process of creating a book.

Catching up with myself...

I realised over the weekend that there hadn't been much movement on my projects pages on Ravelry over the last few months. Most of this was down to knitting projects for publication, but some of it was also forgetfulness. So here are some of the things I've knitted over the last few months (and in some cases longer).

Country Colours, my own design, published in Simply Knitting last year.

I had some Debbie Bliss Donegal Aran to make a jumper for Jim and none of the patterns I looked at really appealed to me. So I knitted a jumper of my own design. The project is on Ravelry here: Sweater for Jim

Then I noticed that I had actually knitted all of the hats in The Scrumptious Collection...

Left: Hendred Hat designed by Elly Doyle                Right: Cogges Hat designed by Jeni Hewlett

These two are as well as the Arncott hat that I already blogged about.

My recent knitting has been back to projects for publication, so despite the fact that Jim and I did a whole batch of finished object photography on Sunday, I can't actually show you any of it at the moment. Sorry! Pictures of Jim's latest jumper will be forthcoming however, as soon as I have given him a quick lesson on blogging in Typepad.

Frome Farmer's Market

Yesterday was an unexpected delight. Scooter (AKA Fat boy cat) woke us up bright and early at 5.20 and I couldn't get back to sleep, so I got up and finished seaming Jim's squishy cashmere jumper (more on that later in the week). Walking into town at 08.25 was pure pleasure. I got a nice shot of my favourite view, looking down Catherine Hill and out to the hills and fields beyond. I love the fact that I can look out and see the countryside on my way into town.

View down Catherine Hill, Frome

Jess and I had made a date for an early coffee and croissants at my favourite, La Strada, before heading to the Farmer's Market for some food shopping. There was no-one around on Cheap Street so we sat outside and enjoyed the sunshine. I even fitted in a few rounds on a work knitting project. Blissful! 

Jess enjoying her croissant.

The highlight of the market is the quiche and pie stall. I have to admit that I came home with three medium quiches - they are completely addictive and as far from supermarket wet soggy quiche as you can imagine.

The stall was also proudly selling their very own Knob pies - a Dorset treat that has been featured in the Telegraph and on Have I Got News for You! How could I not treat you to a picture of pies emblazoned with the word knob?

Knob pies.

I also stocked up with Fussels mint mayonnaise, garlic oil and sunflower oil. We devoured far too much of the mint mayonnaise on new potatoes with the quiche at lunchtime.

Fussels Mint Mayonnaise.

Finally, I was really pleased to spot Mead Nursery with a stand. They were one of my favourite nurseries when I ran my gardening business. The plants are always in such good, sturdy health (as opposed to the lush floppy things you get from the garden centre, that keel over after a couple of weeks). I couldn't resist these 3 Dianthus plants, which we potted up as soon as we got home. A lovely addition to the patio!

The remainder of Saturday was divided between chores and attending an evening talk by Michael Wood on "England in the time of Bishop Thomas Ken". Thoroughly fascinating, and the knitting time it afforded saw my work project cast off too. Look out for knitting-related posts later in the week!

Arncott

I can't begin to explain how delighted I was when my hat design, Arncott, was chosen to be on the cover of The Scrumptious Collection. Working with Jeni from Fyberspates over the last few months has been such an amazing mixture of cracking good fun and hard work. Camilla did a brilliant job at modelling it, and I really can't speak highly enough of Amanda's photography. She was such a dream to work with.

So here is the cover:

And here's a pic of the top of the crown - this was my starting inspiration for the design. I worked back from the shaping I wanted, and put together a cable pattern to work with it...

This is one of the samples I knitted myself (Kim was amazing with the rest). Now that all these patterns are being published, I am understanding why there was so little change on my Ravelry projects page for such a long time. It looked like I wasn't knitting, but that's never really the case is it? 

There will now follow a short break from Scrumptious projects while I tell you about some of the other things I have been up to. The last two projects will be revealed on Thursday and Friday next week (we have a schedule you see!).

Filkins

I'm more than a little bit over-excited this afternoon! I've just received my subscriber copy of Simply Knitting, and it's got 3 of my designs in it, and Murcott is on the preview page for next month's issue. I shall do a proper post about it next week, when the issue is available in the shops. And that came on top of yesterday's The Knitter and the new Interweave Knits. I just need some time to sit and read them all now!

Anyway, the design I would like to share with you today is called Filkins.  It's a large wrap, knitted in Scrumptious Aran. There are two sizes available - the large size is shown here and uses 4 hanks of Aran, and there is a small size using just 2 hanks of Aran.

Model: Lily France
Photographer: Amanda France

I fell in love with the idea of strings of circles and joining them to make a generous, warm and snuggly wrap. Kim did a fantastic job of knitting the sample for me (she also knitted Murcott & Chinnor). 

We gave printing approval on the book this morning, so we are hoping to start taking orders at some point next week. Never fear, I will keep you all posted. Hope you have some time for crafting this weekend!

Jen x

Murcott

Murcott is the first of my garment designs for The Scrumptious Collection volume 1. It is a short-sleeved wrap-around cardigan in Fyberspates Scrumptious DK in the Water shade.

Photographer: Amanda France
Model: Lily France

The sleeves have short-row shaping at the start to give the bell shape, and then the sleevehead is gathered into the armhole to add the ruffled effect.

Both sleeves and body have a folded hem (one of my all-time favourite design features in a garment).

 Back view of Murcott

The fronts and back also have little pleat details. And the cardigan is finished with ribbed ties and a knitted-on ribbed edging.

Tie detail from front of Murcott

Amanda and Lily are such a lovely team for photographer and model. Thank you both again!

Chinnor

Ta da!

Photograph: Amanda France
Model: Lily France

So this is the first of my designs for The Scrumptious Collection volume 1. It's a little cowl called Chinnor (Ravelry link), made very simply with a twisted rib pattern and striping Scrumptious Aran yarn. 

We sent the book to press yesterday, hence the lack of blog post from me. Now we have the nerve-wracking wait for the copies to arrive; hoping and praying that we haven't missed anything important.

Can't wait to share...

I've been busily working on The Scrumptious Collection Volume 1 for Fyberspates for the last few months, and I can't wait to show you my designs! This is what my designer page on Ravelry looks like at the moment.

And by 20th May all of the 6 empty slots will be filled with pretty pictures, and we will be very close to having books for you to purchase! I can't wait!

And that's not all - there are more designs in the pipeline that I should be able to share shortly - finally the fruits of the last 4 months are reaching publication. Did I mention how much I'm enjoying work at the moment?

Not fast enough!

Fruit and marzipan cake.

I wasn't fast enough to get a smart picture of this cake - it was scoffed, still warm from the oven. I can tell you it's very tasty though! It was baked in order to use up the marzipan that was left over from my birthday Simnel muffins. I'm sure that this has been done many times before, but in case you would like to try this fruity sticky cake, here's what I did.

275g self-raising flour
3 tsps ground mixed spice
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
125g spreadable unsalted butter
125g dark  brown Muscovado sugar
275g mixed dried fruit
2 medium eggs
4 tbsps milk
250g white marzipan
2 tbsps Demerara sugar 

Preheat the oven to 170C (Gas mark 3). Combine the flour, spices, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Mix in the butter and sugar (I use my KitchenAid mixer to do this) until the fat is thoroughly combined with the dry ingredients. Stir in the fruit.

In a small bowl, beat the eggs and mix with the milk. Pour the wet ingredients into the fat-flour-fruit mixture and stir well to make a sticky mixture.

Grease and line a 20cm cake tin, and pour in half of the cake mixture. Roll out the marzipan to make a circle the same size as the cake tin, and place the disc of marzipan on top of the cake mixture. Gently press it down, so that there isn't too much air caught under the marzipan. Spread the remaining cake mixture over the marzipan and smooth it flat. Sprinkle the Demerara sugar over the top and bake in the oven for 90min. Test with a skewer (or metal double-pointed knitting needle!) and continue to cook until the tester comes out clean. Some marzipan may stick to the tester even once cooked - it is raw cake mix that you are checking for. Please ensure that your cake is fully cooked before eating it.

When cooked, remove from the oven and allow to cool fully before trying to remove from the tin.

Enjoy it!