When the world finally sees sense and appoints me President For Life, there are going to be some big changes around here. Obviously high on the list will be the introduction of paid knitting/crochet leave for all workers, and free access to yarn for the under-paid. But there'll also be some wildlife-friendly initiatives introduced within the first nanosecond or two of my iron-fisted forever-tenure. First of all, every garden will be mandated by law to include at least one wildlife pond. Continue Reading
Summer
It's a controversial opinion, but I think long hot summer days are the best. When you've spent 99% of your life shivering into your knitwear, it's a marvellous luxury to be able to go outdoors - or even indoors - in short sleeves. And then there's the joy of pulling off your cardigan to reveal the wanton nakedness of only a single layer of stocking-stitched merino beneath. Look who's been busy laying eggs in the pond! The problem - in my case - is that it's too tempting to spend every Continue Reading
Waterside
Please (cough) excuse this (cough, cough) ridiculous, hacking cough (cough), but I've had (c... you get the idea) a chest infection for the past week, and I sound like I got lost in a cigarette factory as it caught fire. There's quite a bit of water in this post, but I'll get to that in a minute. Here's the view from a small rowing boat, under a bridge in Oxford. The second-worst thing about this has been not being able to go running, and the worst thing has been not being able to do much Continue Reading
May
Despite appearances, this is still a knitting/crochet/running blog. But following your reactions to the last post, I thought that some of you might want to know that this happened with Robyn-the-robin. Repeatedly:- Hello, beautiful. She ate from my hand, too, but I didn't manage to get a picture of that. Sometimes one of the twinnage joins me on the bench waiting quietly for her to arrive, but Robyn is wary of my boys - she stares from the fence as though to say, "Look mate, I've got a Continue Reading
Nuts And Bolts
Hello! Do come and sit here beside the fire. I have much yarnery to share with you. (But the latest Stylecraft Blogstars weekend shenanigans should probably wait until next post.) Meanwhile in response to a dozen or so requests, I promised a post about how I went about designing this thing:- So here goes. I've written before (five years ago! Oh, for the youthful naivety of being 41!) about designing stranded motifs. But this 123 500 - stitch behemoth made its own rules. Just as I write Continue Reading
Knitting
Lately, I've been knitting a lot. The only downside to this is that it's left less time for blogging about knitting. I'm working on the prototype of my first cardigan design. You'd think this'd be a quick process since I'm working plain ol' stockinette in a single self-striping yarn, but... no. It's taking forever. I even did a recount to check that I hadn't accidentally made an extra six sleeves because that would at least explain the slowness. It's not as though I'm making it out of Continue Reading
Many Things, Not All Of Them Yarny
Hello. So on the plus side, I've been designing new crocheted and knitted thingummies and I'm very excited about sharing the patterns with you super-soon. My yarny/designing mojo has well and truly come back and has plonked its ample rear here on the sofa beside me. But. Of the three ideas that I'm working on (a cardigan, a peg-bag, and a vest top), two use yarns that aren't yet available outside of a secret vault under Stylecraft HQ, and the third involves an unusual technique that I really Continue Reading
Pondlife
May I show you something? It's not yarn-related, but I do plan to spend a lot of time beside it knitting and crocheting. You see, I'm making progress on the wildlife pond. It's nowhere near done, but I've finished digging, and it does at least now contain WATER. One day soon, the edges will be concealed, the lawn will be re-turfed, more rocks will be added, and most importantly, some coir mats will arrive (from these marvellous folk), pre-planted with native water-loving vegetation. Then, this Continue Reading
Want To Crochet Some Little Plant-Hangers? What A Coincidence: So Do I!
It's never, ever, a good idea to begin a blog post with the words "Sorry it's been aaaages - I've been super-busy". But sometimes the temptation is so strong that I have to tie my own fingers up with yarn to prevent them from writing those words. Because yes, it's been a while. Mostly, I've been in a hole. No I'm not talking about a pit of existential despair, thank goodness, I'm talking about an ACTUAL HOLE IN THE GROUND. One day very soon (possibly tomorrow), this will become a wildlife Continue Reading
About A Chair
[whispers] It's done. Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time (an embarrassingly long time ago), there was a young psychologist who lived alone in a flat in Oxford. She loved her home very much and was happy there, but she didn't have much spare cash, so not being able to afford an antique overstuffed armchair on castors, she went instead to Ikea, where she bought a Poäng chair:- The chair served her well over the years, and was sat in without obvious complaint by a long succession of Continue Reading