Jen Arnall-Culliford Knitwear

A planting treat

You'll be pleased to hear that I finally finished the back of nephew's jumper, and I'm now 12cm into the front. Yes, I'm still measuring it every 5 minutes and it still isn't growning very quickly. My finger's still quite numb, and I find the cables tricky to do with the yarn in my left hand. There's only one solution to that though... To practise!

I had a very exciting parcel in the post yesterday...

If you happened to be on Twitter at the time, then apologies! I got quite carried away with tweeting my excitement!

As I unwrapped it, I discovered that it did indeed contain some beautiful live plants, all the way from my cousin in Cumbria (you'll read more about him here at the end of June after I've been to visit him)! They had totally survived being posted, and arrived safely in perfect condition.

Excited unpacking moved to the greenhouse, and the cucumber plants went straight into the greenhouse beds.

They are a variety called Crystal Lemon, and I can't wait for them to start fruiting.

I potted up the other treats - from bottom right to top left they are... Lemon bergamot, Russian kale, Mexican Marigold (whose leaves taste of apple - beautiful!), then there's a tray of my own radicchio that needs planting out, followed by two perfect Lovage plants, and a tray of my own chard (again, in desperate need of pricking out)!

I think it's going to be a busy weekend in the garden, if the rain holds off...

While I was out, I also snapped a pic of the Eremurus himalaicus (Foxtail lily) that is finally in full flower (a whole month behind last year). It's a bit wonky thanks to some brutal snail damage earlier in the season. Behind it you can also see a rose, which I think is Harlow Carr. It smells lovely.

Fingers crossed for some rain today and maybe tomorrow, and then a fine weekend. A girl can hope, right?!

WIP: The nephew is only getting bigger...

I had a sudden realisation that if I didn't pull my finger out and get on with making the next sweater for my nephew, that it might never fit him. I have 6 balls of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in a lovely ____ shade (yes, you really don't need me to fill in that blank!), and a pattern from Baby Cashmerino book 2 ear-marked. That's enough yarn to knit the 9-12 month size of the cable and rib sweater - a sweet hooded jumper that I've had my eye on for ages.

Nephew turned 1 last week.

His birthday jumper wasn't finished in time to hand it over at the party. In fact, the first piece wasn't even finished in time to hand over at the party! But there is still some time... Nephew is slim & wiry (a lot like big Jim), so we think that the 9-12 month size will fit him for some time to come. So I spent most of the weekend doing this:

Followed by lots of this:

And more of this than any sane knitter would consider necessary:

And here we are on Monday morning, and I'm here:

The back of the sweater isn't finished. In fact, my abject failiure at finishing anything at the moment is nicely summed up by the fact that I haven't even finished my row. Sigh.

The simple cables are very pretty though. And it's in one of my favourite colours. So I'll keep at it!

You can see all the project details on my Ravelry page here: Birthday present for Nephew

Garden Highlights

Just a quick post this morning, before I crack on and whip this to do list into touch. I've just spend a wonderful 45min running round the garden doing odd jobs, and it really was the perfect start to a Friday morning. Here's the round-up:

Gave the greenhouse a good watering, and thought about picking a lettuce to take to London later. I must make carrot and coriander soup next week, or the coriander will take over the world!

I popped in some pea sticks around the pea plants. They are a bit short, but hopefully better than nothing. I also gave the beds a good drench as well.

Popped some stakes next to the second batch of broad beans, and added netting to the sweet pea wigwam. These all had a good drink as well.

We had some landscaping work done last week, to tidy up the vegetable garden, so I took a moment to admire how much better it now looks. I'm really finding the garden inspiring now that it feels more manageable. All of the watering was done from our waterbutts. We have 6 in total - you can see one next to the greenhouse at the top right of the picture above. It's more time consuming, but very therapeutic to keep pottering back and forth to refill them.

I then took a few moments to admire the flower end of the garden (which needs a bit more tidying - but that can wait for another day). The Siberian Irises are in full flower (they don't look that impressive in this picture, but they're lovely in real life.

The Persicaria is as rampant as ever...

And the geraniums are in full flower.

I love to take a moment to enjoy how the garden is looking - it's all too easy to only spend time in the garden working on it, and never actually enjoying it. We're celebrating littlest nephew's 1st birthday this weekend - where has that year gone?!? I hope that whatever you are doing, you have a good time.

Shetland Wool Week

I am thrilled to announce that I will be teaching a short session on writing knitting patterns for publication as part of Shetland Wool Week.

My class is called Making a Knitting Career - Part 1, and even more exciting is that Kate Davies is teaching Part 2. I'll be running you through how to take a basic design idea and write it up for publication. I'll also be covering some of the most common pitfalls and how to avoid them. Kate's class covers how to prepare your designs and sell them through Ravelry. Having not self-published on Ravelry, I'm a bit tempted to sign up for that class myself!

Both sessions take place on Monday 8th October 2012 at Jamieson & Smith in Lerwick, Shetland, and you can book by telephoning them on 01595 693579.

For more information about Shetland Wool Week, visit their website: Shetland Wool Week

Other delights of the week include: A number of sessions on Shetland Lace taught by Gudrun Johnston (how I wish I was going to be there long enough to do some of those classes!), a session on Susan Crawford's research for her Vintage Shetland collection (I'm concerned that I will need to make every garment in this collection, and there just aren't enough hours in the day!), and much, much more.

Baking: Sourdough possibilities

Herman is still going strong here. I've had him since January, and we've settled into a nice routine. I feed him 125ml each of flour, sugar and milk every 5 days, and stir him vigorously every day. Then about once every 10 days I either give a portion away to someone else, or I bake something.

So what sorts of things have I been making? Well, there's the carrot and pineapple cake that I blogged about previously. But my absolute favourite so far is probably the cinnamon buns.

They were so good that I ate one before I remembered to take a photo. Yum! I used a recipe that I found on Allrecipes.com - My only tip would be to really leave them to rise for a long time once they are shaped and filled. The sourdough mixture rises more slowly than traditional yeasts, but it's worth the wait.

The other great recipe that I've tried is called coffee cake... except that rather confusingly it isn't a coffee cake. It's a pecan and raisin spiced cake. I'm guessing it's coffee cake, as in "cake to have with coffee". But it did lose me for a while there! As I was baking I kept waiting to add the coffee but never did. Sigh. Not very on the ball, me.

Once I'd got over the no-coffee aspect of this coffee cake, my mind started to boggle slightly at the instructions as well. This is how the uncooked cake looks. Nice, huh?

Then you add a topping made from brown sugar and magarine (or butter)...

Yum! The mixture is then baked for 40 minutes or so...

...before you add a glaze of brown sugar and butter. It's a double topped with butter and sugar cake! I nearly chickened out of adding the glaze, but I'm glad I didn't! This is the most deliciously scrummy cake. I froze half of it and have been feeding it to the guys working on my garden all week. In fact I might just go and get another piece now.

Finally, as if one sourdough baby to keep an eye on wasn't enough. I just couldn't resist when Jeni offered me some of her bread sourdough starter. We're having a sourdough starter-along on the Fyberspates group on Ravelry (you'll need a Ravelry account to see that page, but it's free and quick to register), so there's lots of help and encouragement to get your own going if you fancy it.

This starter takes up less space, and doesn't need quite so much feeding. I just add more flour and water a day or two before I want to make some bread. And oh boy, the bread it makes!

I did the sponge and first rise stages during the day yesterday, and then left it to prove overnight. This morning it was HUGE. And tastes amazing. I'm eating a slice with butter right now, and trying to resist the urge to cut another slice...

My only "problem" now is deciding what to bake next. Do you think I have baking startitis as well?

Startitis

What is a girl to do when her normal kick of finishing projects becomes impossible due to a combination of little knitting time, learning a new knitting technique and having meaty long projects on the go? Why, cast on ALL THE THINGS of course!

I have a serious case of startitis. It stems from the fact that I'm not getting my normal completion kick. All of my WIPs were really long-term projects:

The Still Light sweater dress in a light 4ply yarn.

The Goldern Wheat Shawl. Ahem. Am I really still talking about it?!

And a super-secret work project that I can't really talk about yet...

So clearly the only solution to my slow knitting pace was to cast on a whole world of new projects. After all there is something of a kick to be had in searching through patterns in my library, and picking gorgeous yarns out of the stash. For me, it's not quite as good as casting off, but for now it will do.

First up is a very blue pair of socks for Jim. They are nothing fancy, but I really needed something in plain stocking stitch, so that I can whizz round in my newly learnt style (with yarn in my left hand), without having to worry about purling or anything more complicated. I've got 1 sock done, and now I'm having a bit of second sock syndrome, plus the needles I need are in another project.

Next up is a lovely simple cowl design by Stephen West, called Windschief. I'm using some GORGEOUS Old Maiden Aunt Alpaca Silk DK in the Brass Taps and Oak colourway (the picture on Lilith's site is a much better representation of the colour). It is just beautiful to knit with. This was meant to be the project that would prevent me from needing to buy ALL THE YARN at Loop on Sunday. It didn't really work. Well, I don't think it did. But maybe without this project, I would have purchased more. Who knows? This yarn doesn't knit to the correct gauge for the pattern, so I've rejigged the numbers somewhat to make it work.

I've kind of stalled on these colourwork mittens for a young friend of mine. I promised them to her as an 18th birthday present, and I really need to get a shimmy on with making them. I'm finding them hard because I normally do Fair Isle with both yarns in my right hand. At a push I can do it with one yarn in each hand, but since I'm meant to be resting my right hand from knitting, these are a bit tricky to work on. The pattern is Oh Deer! and I'm using the suggested Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light yarn that I purchased online from Loop. They will be super-duper once they are done.

My final WIP is a pair of the amazing Phloem Socks by Rachel Coopey. As soon as I saw these in Knitty, I knew they had to be mine. Rachel is a fantastic designer, with a particular talent for socks. Click through to her designer page on Ravelry (linked above) to see the range of her brilliance. As a former gardener, socks called Phloem were a must. I think there will be a pair of Xylem socks in my future too. I am sure it's been said before, but a girl really can't have enough green socks, can she? I'm using some fabulous Skein Queen Crush for these, that I picked up at my local yarn shop; Marmalade Yarns.

Phew! That's a lot of projects for me. I was doing so well at being monogamous, and really, the more projects I have on the go, the slower I will be at finishing any of them. It's a bit of a conundrum. In the meantime, maybe I'll just cast on something else...

New design in The Knitter 45: Vita

My first proper sketched and swatched submission is published in The Knitter this week (on sale 16th May 2012). I've done well over 30 designs, but generally speaking I've been asked to "do something with this yarn" or have said, "oh, I could design a pair of socks with a slipped stitch pattern", or something like that. This was the first time I looked at a submission call, came up with an idea, and then sent off the sketch and swatch and then crossed my fingers for a few weeks. It's a nerve-wracking business working like a proper designer!!

© Future Publishing

And this is the result: Vita (Ravelry link). I can't decide how to describe it! If I talk in terms of how I would wear it, then it's a shawl. But it's a clever shawl, because it doesn't come unwrapped, and it won't fall off the way that some shawls might. If I call it a poncho, my mind fills with entirely the wrong kinds of images, although one might think of it in that way - it does after all have a neck opening! The other word that has been used is capelet, but again, in my mind this is something very fancy - for wearing to the opera - and not an item that I could pop over a top and jeans and worn everyday.

© Jen Arnall-Culliford

But as you can see in this picture - you can absolutely wear Vita over a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans. Yesterday we had a meet-up at Loop, followed by food & drinks at Bill's in Islington, and this was the perfect outfit. It was just warm enough but not too much as the sun actually was out yesterday.

The construction of this top is quite straight forward. You start with a wide rectangle, and the split into two halves, which you work on separately. This makes the front and the back of the neck opening. And then when both sides are the same length, you join them either by grafting the stitches together, or with a 3-needle cast-off (which won't be quite as invisible). Finally, an i-cord edging is added around both the neck, and the body.

© Future Publishing

The purple version is knitted in Rooster Baby, in the Parma Violet shade. it takes between 6 and 12 x 50g balls of yarn depending on your size. The pattern is written for UK dress sizes 8-30 (bust 32"-54"), and they differ by length and neck opening length. If you plan to wear your Vita over a coat, then you might want to choose a size or two larger than your actual size, so that there's more wiggle room. Many thanks as always to Kim for knitting this version for me. You did a brilliant job, as ever!

The stitch definition in this version is incredible. It really makes the lace pattern jump off the fabric, and I'm hugely grateful to Andy at Rooster Yarns for his yarn support and encouragement with this design. If you like this version, then be sure to get The Knitter this month, as Andy has kindly donated enough yarn to knit the largest size of Vita to the Goody Bag Giveaway competition. The competition raises money for Refuge, which is a brilliant cause, so be sure to make an entry and check out both Rooster yarns (from Laughing Hens) and the work of Refuge.

© Jen Arnall-Culliford

I was lucky enough to have two brilliant sample knitters for this design - Rachel knitted up the red version using SMC Select Highland Alpaca Fino, which is a lighter weight yarn than the Rooster (which is sport-weight or heavy 4ply). It's also spun more loosely and a single ply yarn, so the fabric drapes beautifully and gives a softer finish. Rachel describes the i-cord edging that finishes Vita as being, "so relaxing". What a star! This version uses between 3 and 5 x 50g balls depending on your size (there is more yardage on the Highland Alpaca Fino but it gives a thinner, lighter fabric).

© Jen Arnall-Culliford

So whether you're looking for something more dressy, or a top to throw over pretty much anything, I hope that you'll enjoy knitting Vita! You can find all of the precise details about the sizing and construction over on the Ravelry page, which is visible to all: Vita on Ravelry.

Issue 45 of The Knitter goes on sale in newsagents on 16th May 2012, and is also available through Zinio and Apple Newsstand. Here's the cover that you're looking for (squee - I'm in the bottom right-hand corner!).

Review: Knitting Everyday Finery

I've got a real treat to share with you today. It's the latest book from the brilliant Mel Clark! 

© Mel Clark, Collins & Brown

I first worked with Mel when she designed for us on The Knitter, and I've been delighted to edit a couple of her patterns for the magazine since I went freelance. Mel mentioned in passing that she had a new book due out and I jumped at the chance to have a look at it. Mel has a style that I can only aspire to. She thinks about each and every aspect of a design to make sure that they work together in perfect balance. You can be sure that her yarn choice is going to give the best possible results for the intended finished item, and that the colour combinations have been chosen with a great deal of care and attention.

Knitting Everyday Finery is a collection of quick-to-knit designs that bring a touch of luxury to your everyday life. It's not so much luxury in the sense of really expensive yarn (although the yarn choices are what I would describe as nice yarns, rather than really budget yarns), but more luxury in the sense of time and effort taken to create an item which conveys that love to its wearer. There are designs for men, women and children so you can knit a piece of finery for everyone in your life!

© Mel Clark, Collins & Brown

I am completely in love with this gorgeous Daisy Dachshund pencil case! I'm not normally one for toys, or dogs for that matter (I'm more of a cat person), but this is too delightful to miss. You can make her as either a pencil case or just as a toy, but what child wouldn't want an excuse to take such a fantastic creation to school each day? Mel has done a short blog post on the making up process for Daisy that you might find helpful.

© Mel Clark, Collins & Brown

These July Gloves also caught my eye, as the construction is a little unusual - they are begun in the round, then the hand is worked back and forth and sewn together later between the bobbles. It gives the gloves an interesting detail and one that I'd enjoy trying.

Each project is carefully photographed from a couple of angles, so it's possible to see all the detail you might require while you are working on a pattern. The instructions are straightforward to follow, and the few charts are of a good size and not too intimidating if you are new to chart-knitting. I could easily be tempted to cast on a few of the designs for a quick and satisfying knit. In fact... I'm off to Loop on Sunday, so maybe I need to pick up yarn for one of these. Hmmmmm. It might be just what my slow-knitting mojo needs!

Mel might be known to you as Slip, Slip, Knit - the name of her lovely and inspiring blog, or perhaps as the co-author with Tracey Ullman of Knit 2 Together - a book of patterns and stories for serious knitting fun (instantly recognisable by the 2-person jumper worn by Tracey and Mel on the cover). She's also on Twitter as @SlipSlipKnit and on Ravelry as melc to do go and check out her other designs.

Knitting Everyday Finery by Mel Clark
Published in the UK by Collins & Brown (and in the US by Trafalgar Square Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84340-663-1
RRP: £14.99 

Disclaimer: I asked Mel if I could review this book, and as such was provided with a copy free of charge by the publisher, Collins & Brown.

It's MY colour

A couple of my birthday presents really captured what I see as "my" colour palette. My knitting friends really did hit the colour theme nail on the head. First up was a skein of Posh Yarn Elinor in the Fair Wind and a Following Sea colourway.

Never before has a skein of yarn so perfectly emboidied my favourite shade of teal green. Kim, you hit the nail bang on with this lovely yarn.

Hot on the heels of the perfect yarn, was the perfect pair of socks! Jen knitted a beautiful pair of green socks for me. I have spoken before about what a treasure it is to be knitted for, and I really do apreciate every single stitch of this wonderful pair of socks.

I couldn't help but whip my feet out and display the glory of this fantastic creation! And on my return home, I noticed that the socks are exactly the same shade as my lovely Namaste handbag (the colour is actually much closer than it appears in the picture below).

If you take a look at either my stash or my projects pages on Ravelry, you won't be able to avoid noticing how much I love greens and blues, and particularly TEAL! If I could only have one colour for the rest of my life it would definitely be teal.

What would your colour be?

Running a close second in my favourite colour stakes would have to be red. You may have noticed that my blog has had a bit of a facelift... and I now have a brilliant colour theme (there's some teal in it, don't worry, it's just not obvious on the blog) and it's all organised! Nic has done all the hard work, and there are a few more exciting things in hand which will be revealed in due course...

All the fault of the weather

While I was busy, being busy, I missed my one year blog anniversary (which happens to coincide with my birthday). I can't believe that I went as long as I did without having a blog. I so enjoy keeping track of my projects and looking back to see what I was doing last year. Here's my very first post: A great birthday present

In terms of the garden, there is a huge difference between where the bulbs were then and where they are now. The fox tail lilies were in full flower last year, but they are nowhere near out this year. Such a difference in the weather we have had!

In fact, much of the garden is being eaten alive by a plague of slugs and snails. The wet weather has made them so happy! The pot of pinks below was covered in baby snails...

The only upside of the vile weather is of course that I can happily wear as much knitwear as I like. Today I've got 2 sweaters, a shawl, socks and a hat - thus keeping myself just under the maximum 5-item limit for avoiding crazy-knitting-lady status. Not that I'm bothered if it's keeping me warm!