Wool stats and projects for October

 This isn't pretty!

My quarterly clubs arrived and I went to the Glasgow Yarn festival and then there was the Australia themed sock yarn ... so the grand total in was 1250g. It was another unproductive month knitting wise as I only managed to finish three things. So wool out was only 243 g which means a net increase for October of 1007, and the reduction for the year is down to 6769. 

The projects I managed were 

the last of the baby cardigans from who knows when - still awaiting transport to the charity shop. 

Poppy's new blanket with the leftovers.

and this is a project for a Christmas swap. Since it was largely lace it gave me a lot of trouble but I managed in the end. It's a Victorian style muff and obviously I wouldn't knit one of those for just any random person but my swap partner is a regular attendee at Victorian/steam punk events so this seemed perfect. The yarn came from the cardigan kit that I disassembled, it was perfect, being the right weight for the pattern and also the right colours for my partner who loves autumnal shades. 

Not entirely sure why productivity was so low this month although going away didn't help, and I did a non knitting thing that took ages and isn't quite finished and there was something else that I had a lot of trouble with which I mostly knitted in October but doesn't count because I didn't finish it until yesterday. 

Numbers for November are looking a bit better so far, and I hope I might get more knitting done than I've managed recently. Certainly hope so! 

Advents

I know, we haven't got Bonfire Night over yet, how dare I mention something associated with Christmas? There again I had an e-mail from Jacquie Lawson last week saying their Advent Calendar is now on sale  so I'm assuming we can talk about them, even  if it is just November. 

I daresay I will get  the JL one although I had a few issues with it last year. At least this year they claim they have some new music, which is a great relief because they have been using the same few carols over and over for years now, and some of them I am very sick of. The calendars are fun and I do look forward to seeing what each day brings, but  occasionally I think I have  just got  a bit too used to them and no longer have quite the same joy in them that I did when the first few came out. The wonder is gone. And that is not the fault of the team at JL, it's a fault in me, because I've got  blase. That said the colour palette last year was horrible and I'm not particularly taken with the this years setting - 'a chic apartment in Paris'. 

We do already have four advent things in the house. One is the yarn advent that the OH traditionally buys for me for Christmas; this year it's from a dyer called The Yarn Artist themed on the paintings of Van Gogh and that's still in the box the postie brought it in. I'm not sure whether to open that day by day in December or leave it all until Christmas Day. The jury is out on that one.

Also yarn related is the weekly advent from Lay Family Yarn which I treated myself to. 

Four parcels, on the theme of Winter at the Christmas Market,  one for each week of December, and each one containing the yarn and pattern to make a project small enough (in theory) to be finished in a week. All I'm saying to that is -  It's December and Christmas is coming, who on earth is going to have the time to knit a project a week?? But I'll give it a go. 

Next up is this one 

the Bonne Maman Jam advent. Some may remember I got this one last year as a one off and I wasn't going to repeat it, mainly because it had 5 or 6 days when instead of a small jar of jam you got a little chintz bag filled with dust which was supposed to be tea. As far as tea goes, if it doesn't look and taste like a relative of Yorkshire Tea then I'm not inclined to call it tea at all, and I'm certainly  not venturing to pour boiling water on a set of crushed-almost-to-extinction leaves which aren't even admitting to what they are, and then drinking the stuff.  It seems I wasn't alone in my low opinion of the tea option, as this year we are promised 24 small jars of jam. Plus, by buying direct from the company,  we got a large jar of their chocolate spread  which we are already using. The OH seemed a little it unsure about this, it not being December and all, but as I pointed out there are 24 small jars behind 24 numbered cardboard doors for December. The big jar is therefore non month specific. 

And finally is one that has become a bit of a fixture recently and that's the Yankee Candle Advent Calendar. The one we have this year looks like this. 

There was much bigger one that was twice as expensive which I assume contains votives rather than tea lights. Anyway the past two years the TC advents have had 18 tea lights, which I have always thought was odd, and they just sat in the box waiting for you to choose which colour for today and with a generic list of five scents on the bottom the box with no indication of which colour which scent related to. This year they have upped their game. There are 24 tea lights and they are each concealed behind their own little cardboard door and there's a little infographic on the bottom of the box telling you the scent for each of the eight colours. I feel that personally  I could live without a Christmas Cookie scented candle but it is an American company and Americans do strange things where cookies are concerned; scent their candles, put the raw dough in ice cream etc etc And anyway, who knows? they might smell all spicy and lovely. 

So that's our advents for this year. Last year we were away for the first week of December for our Stockholm Christmas Markets trip and although that was lovely and I wouldn't have missed it, it meant playing catch up with a lot of the advent stuff whihc spoiled the fun a bit. This year we are planning to be at home for all of December so I should be able  to get into a routine of opening /marvelling/ eating/ lighting and knitting as each day begins. 

But before that, two birthdays, Bonfire Night, a trip to Leeds and the Alps, presents to buy and the cards to get written. After that though, it will all be relax relax relax. (Yeah, probably not that last bit!)

Happy Mail

 

I sometimes think I have not so much fallen off the No Yarn Purchases wagon, as hurled myself off it at high speed and with great enthusiasm. Witness the above.

What can I tell you? It's a special edition sock wool called The Colours of Australia. This means two things. It won't be around for ever ( because special edition) and I have to buy it ( because Australia ).

Fall about laughing if you will, but those three balls honestly represent some restraint (!), as the collection comprises six colourways and as you will see I have (so far) purchased only three; left to right, Daintree Forest, Kalgoorlie Gold Fields and Sacred Earth. The plan is to make myself a pair of socks from each ball and then pair the leftovers with some West Yorkshire Spinners leftovers in a  toning or contrasting  colour to make another pair for the OH. So good value moneywise, if a rather large commitment in time. I did also think I might try doing at least one pair toe up, a technique I have yet to master, but that might be a step too far with everything else that is going on just now. We'll see. 

Two Days Out

 

So although the trip south recently was basically so I could go to the Glasgow School of Yarn yarn festival we took the opportunity to drive over to Dundee to see the Kimono Exhibition at the V & A Dundee Museum as well. 

I didn't take any photos at either of these events, and the OH just took the one at Kimono, which is above. 

The exhibition itself was amazing. A lot of care had gone into selecting the images, both the large background ones and the smaller ones on the walls which illustrated the story of the development of the kimono over the years. Plus the garments themselves were spectacular. It's amazing that one garment should stay as a staple for so many hundreds of years, with nothing much changing bar the nature, method and placement of the decoration. It was a bit sad to see how the workmanship and detailed nature of the decoration decreased once Japan was opened to the west and alkaline dyes were imported from Europe. But it was interesting, as was the way the basic shape was plundered by designers in Europe too. I was still suffering a bit from Exhibition Knee but I made it round with just the one break - and there were plenty of chairs and benches for people to sit on and contemplate the beauty around them if you needed them.

After we had looked at all the kimonos we repaired to the cafe where we didn't stay, since it was overpriced and pretentious. We had a look in the shop which has to be the dullest museum shop I've ever seen, which is ridiculous when you think its supposed to be a museum of art and design. To be honest I'm not sure how well the whole plan was thought through. There was a lot of hype over the exterior design when it was first built, as it's in the shape of a ship, as a nod to Dundee's maritime heritage,  but inside there's not a lot of space and a lot of it is wasted. There were lots of rooms for the Kimono Exhibition and presumably that's where they always put the temporary exhibitions, but they didn't seem to have much of a permanent collection on show. It opened in 2015 and I can't  shake off an eerie feeling that it was designed in Westminster to be built as some sort of pre-referendum bribe-cum-sop. It's supposed to be 'Scotland's Design Museum' but I saw precious little design or indeed anything very Scottish except for some Dundee cakes and tea towels in the shop. Which was about as overpriced as the cafe. We won't be rushing back! 

The GSoY was also a bit of a disappointment actually. Several of the vendors I've come to rely on seeing there weren't vending there this year. Whether they decided not to bother, or whether they weren't selected to make room for new ones I don't know but I certainly missed them. Some of the people I go to see had very small or badly placed stalls and certainly Wee County Yarns were suffering from being stuck in  a very dark corner,. They had had to being in extra lights themselves on the Sunday after putting up with it on Saturday. Some of the people who were supposed to be vending weren't there, and it wasn't just the weather that had kept them away because they had been announced as vending but they didn't appear on the floor plan which must have been printed a while in advance. Several of the volunteers had no idea of the answers to the questions we had either. Also I do wish they would extend their refreshment 'offering' from just drinks and cakes to something a bit more substantial. If I'm there over lunchtime I don't just want cake. I mean, obviously I DO want cake, but not just cake.

That said, the friend I went with and I had a very nice late lunch in a small cafe not far away, that we just stumbled over,  and where the staff were fabulous and  there was plenty of choice food wise. And we did then wander off to John Lewis where my friend made a couple of purchases and we rounded off our day with coffee and blackcurrant and marscapone  cake in the cafe. And it was delicious! 

I think I'll be giving GSoY a miss next year though. 

Shopping hauls - General and Specialised

So we've been away to somewhere where there are 'proper' shops, which naturally means I've done some shopping. Fist up, the general stuff.

Two new pairs of pyjamas for me, a ball of wool, two books, two bottles of shower gel and a Yankee Candle Advent Calendar. 

The wool is the West Yorkshire Spinners Christmas colourway for 2024. Normally I buy two balls and make a pair of socks for each of us and Son No 2, but this year there's too much going on and I can't be bothered. However the OH would be disappointed if he didn't get a pair, so I bought one ball in John Lewis and I'll fit those in sometime before December 25th I hope. The books are part of the Christmas present for one of the grandsons.  The shower gels are my two favourite scents from Arran Aromatics or, as they are now known, Arran Sense of Scotland, and the only reason they are in a gift box, since they are for me, is that the girl in the shop very kindly pointed out that it's cheaper to buy the two together  in a gift box than it is to buy them unboxed and separately. I decided this year to forgo the Aran advent calendar as it leaves me with stuff I don't use, like conditioner, and spend rather less on getting something that I really liked and would use. 

Then there's what I got at the Glasgow School of Yarn. 

I had a list and am happy to say I stuck to it. As hinted previously I bought the pattern and some wool to make the Stirling hat from Wee County Yarns, that's the pattern at the back, and the two skeins on the right are for making it. Pink is an unusual colour for me but it seems to appeal more the older I get! Beside that are two further skeins from Wee County Yarns which are for some mitts from the Lord of the Rings Knitting Book. At the back is a skein and a co-ordinating mini-skein form Helen at Giddy Knits, from her 2024 Roald Dahl Collection. She does a special collection for Roald Dahl Day every year and this year it was based on Fantastic Mr Fox. I am not a fan of Roald Dahl as a person or as a writer, so RD day generally tends to pass me by, but the colours are so beautiful and autumnal this year  I knew I wanted to make something with this as soon as I saw it on the website. And then there are two Doodledecks from the Pacific Yarn Co, stocked by Claire at Cookston Crafts. There are lots of topics covered but I chose Fantasy and Desert this time. I have the Arctic one already. 

There's a close up giving an idea of some of the motifs they each have. Claire was also the dyer asked to dye the mini-skein this year for the goody bags, which is what that small mini in the middle is, wrapped around a lovely Mackintosh themed tin, also form the goody bag, which contains rose gold coloured bulb markers. 

I'm giving myself a pat on the back for not succumbing to any of the other lovely things I saw, but really this is quite enough to be going on with. 

 

A Sad Farewell

 

Yes, my wedding dress has gone. After 40 odd years of lying in a box and being carried from move to move, when we cleared out the loft the other week I decided the time had come to let it go. To be honest this was more because the box had got damaged than anything else; I could just see it in another 20 years or so spoiled because the box had let in dust and dirt and possibly insect life. And I didn't want that to happen. 

I couldn't sell it or send it to a charity shop because on my wedding day someone put a stiletto heel through the train ( I'm sure it was accidental, but it was a pity none the less.) So it has gone off to Bonnie Babies to be cut up and made into beautiful little burial gowns and wraps for still born babies. It is doing more good like that than it would be lying in my loft for another few years, and I'm glad I knew I could do that with it. My veil has gone as well but I kept the head dress, and the comb that one of the bridesmaids wore in their hair, so I'm not totally without physical reminders of the day. 

That said I was a little bit sad, but then - why do we keep them? The suit the OH wore on the day has long since gone to the Great Wardrobe in the Sky and I don't remember him being loth to part with it.  We obviously imbue this particular outfit with some sort of special significance but I do wonder why. 

Changing the subject completely many thanks for the kind words from some readers on my Forth Bridges Hat, much appreciated. And given that it is the GSoY this coming weekend, keep your eyes peeled for a companion piece, coming to you in photographic kit form very shortly!  

September Wool Stats and Finished Projects

 I said to the OH the other day; it's not that I buy too much yarn, it's just that I don't knit quickly enough. I'm not sure he was convinced about that one. 

Anyway I was dreading totting up the stats for September because I did buy all that Aran wool plus  various other bits this month and that all came to a grand total of 1488g in. However it wasn't a total disaster as wool out came to 1342g, thanks mainly to a 'gifting opportunity' courtesy of my son. He worked for 6 months at a charity in Glasgow and still volunteers there two days a week, and it's just started running a year long fundraising campaign featuring knitting.  There are various ways to join in, one of which is donating wool. So a bag with 872 g will be on its way to Glasgow with us later in the week, and another 150g left the house as part of a swap. Total wool out was 1342g, which meant a net increase of 146g which was sad but not nearly as bad as it could have been. 

What with being away and then spending lots of time here clearing/cleaning the house I didn't have an awful lot of crafting time in September to be honest so I'm quite pleased, looking back, to see how much I did actually achieve. 

Starting with the non-knitting stuff, I made two cards 

they were brighter than that in real life and also not out of focus!

ThenI took a deep breath and crocheted the crib from my crochet nativity set

far from perfect but I'm happy with it. I don't claim to be a crocheter.

Then guess what? two pairs of socks. One for the OH

using some wool I bought in a destash on Ravelry. No, I don't know why I did it, except that it looked like this in the skein 

and I thought he would like the colours. Which, to be fair, he did. 

And a pair for me 

this wool was from ages ago. I'd started making a different pattern with it, but it was too complicated so it sat in time out for a while and when I could face ripping out what I had done I cast on these instead. It was unfortunate that I had forgotten that I had used this pattern once before and hated it. The finished object is fine, although not shown to its best advantage when not on a foot to be honest! but the pattern is very confusing to follow and I won't be using it again. 

I picked up the third of the four unfinished baby sweaters, the peach one, and completed it

and of course this meant that Poppy the Penguin got yet another blanket made from the left overs. 

She must be the warmest penguin in the world by now. 

And finally I picked out the kit for the Forth Bridges Hat, which I bought the last time I went to the Glasgow School of Yarn, and knitted it up. Like the Glasgow one from the same company, Wee County Yarns, this was a joy to knit . I have come to the conclusion that I must rather enjoy stranded colour work and I was very happy with the way this turned out. 

October is also shaping up to be a less than productive month, but maybe I'll be able to accelerate a bit once we're back from our next trip south.