A finished thing!

Six months of knitting, this has taken. I only seem to knit while I am on holiday recently, and even then only erratically. I have discovered that I rather enjoy these marathon knits. The shawl is about 5ft wide across the top and can actually be wrapped around my shoulders in a useful keeping out the cold sort of way. I started it while I was at the Cambridge Folk Festival, knitting while I was in a tent that smelled of squashed grass and beer; and finished it the other night sitting in front of the fire on a dark evening. I now feel rather bereft and am not sure what to knit next. A girl can only have so many scarves and hats. I don't think I need a third shawl however much I like knitting them. Perhaps it is time to attempt another jumper, though the one I started just after I began to knit again is still languishing under the sofa and is never likely to be completed. Apart from being badly knitted with yarn from two different lots (and therefore not the same colour, but in a bad looking way rather than an on-purpose sort of way) it's also boxy and likely to be highly unflattering. So no to finishing that.

It's Alive!

Ever since I got the River Cottage bread book I have been contemplating making a sourdough loaf. This means creating a sourdough starter, which you use instead of yeast as the raising agent in the bread. It's easily done: you mix flour and tepid water and wait a few days for the natural yeasts in the air to do their job. I've always been put off from doing it though, because you have to 'feed' the starter. It's alive, and if you want to use it, you have to keep it alive. Apparently it's possible to keep a starter on the go for 15 years or more. I've always found that rather daunting. I'll forget to feed it, it'll die, I'll feel bad.

Luckily others do not have such ridiculous worries, and my friend @rougeforever has been inspired by @PlanBreadBakery to make a starter of her own. I'm all in favour of a bandwagon, so yesterday I decided to jump on. I duly mixed 20g of wholemeal bread flour, 20mg of white, 4 raisins (oh alright I used sultanas) and 50ml of tepid water. Plus a bit more water because compared to everyone else's photos it looked like it needed it . I left it on the kitchen counter over night and when I checked it this morning it looked just like a mixture of flour and water. Distinctly inert.

Today I 'fed' the starter with another 40g of flours and some more water and having just checked it....it's bubbling! It's alive!

There may yet be bread (I'll have counselling if it dies. Or a cocktail).

Scarves for Leila and Stanley

Well, yes. It's been a while. I would like to ressurect this blog. I would mainly like to be making more things, as it makes me happy. The last year has been very difficult indeed and I am very much hoping that things will get a bit easier in the coming months and that I'll get my making mojo back. We'll see.

So to start off, here are two scarves that I knitted for friends' children this Christmas. The urge came very suddenly, and given that my current wip has been on the needles since July, this was SUPER SPEED KNITTING for me. Both scarves took about a day to knit. How I love 8mm needles. And holidays.

I cast on 17 stitches, and in the case of the blue scarf knitted a combination of knit purl and yarn over holes in stripes. In the case of the green scarf I did about 12 rows of moss stitch and then knitted to the end and did an equal amount of moss stitch.

I’m pleased to say that both scarves have been very positively recieved. Hooray for friends who appreciate knitting!

Autumn garden

Stanley's blanket

Here is the other finished thing I referred to a while ago. As I have finally delivered it to its recipient, a charming young fellow called Stanley, I feel I can reveal it. I started this blanket sometime back in the summer and knew it was going to be a nice quick project. Obviously I then stopped working on it for about a month, and then after finishing it spent another month putting off weaving in the seventy billion ends, so it actually didn't get finished until September. Still, I am very pleased with it, and can only pray that it doesn't fall to bits the first time it goes into a washing machine. It shouldn't, but one worries about such things.

The more you beat them the better they be

We spent a very happy hour or so yesterday morning throwing sticks at a tree. The people of Abbey Wood do not wait for their walnuts to fall, and whilst this would not have been my first choice of harvest method it is clearly traditional in these parts. As far as I can see from the healthy trees the method does little damage apart from a light leaf-prune, so my conscience is reasonably clear. The harvest method mainly goes throw--miss--collect stick, or occasionally throw--hit branch--wait--collect stick. I discovered a great talent for lodging sticks in trees, and also had a little local difficulty with a dog who took a fancy to my stick (and well he might, it was very fine). Fortunately once he'd been distracted with a green ball (so fickle) I was able to get back to my throw-miss-collect stick routine. About once every twenty-thirty throws an actual nut fell from the tree. It was enormous fun.

About half of the nuts in the bowl were actually gathered a few weeks ago as green windfalls, but the green outer shell (a bit like a conker shell but without spikes) has rotted slowly away and yesterday we stamped on them to get at the nutshells. The walnuts are 'green' in that they have not been kiln dried, and have a more delicate flavour than their shop-bought counterpart. I could probably have bought three times as many at a supermarket for about £1.50, but these were hard won and as a result taste four times as good.

I have finished a thing!

This is miraculous. Not only this, but I have almost finished another thing as well (just 4597 ends to weave in before that's finished too).
My amazing finishyness is probably due to the fact that I have recently started going to a knitting night at the Pelton Arms in Greenwich. I am enjoying this very much not only because of the knitting, but also and especially because of the opportunity to chat with a) people over 3ft tall b) intelligent adults with whom I do not work. Come along if you're local: I highly recommend it.