A Country Walk

One of the joys of having my son living near me now is being able to go for walks together. He works as a supply teacher so often doesn't know if he'll be working until the morning of any day. This means our walks are often spur of the moment which is actually quite nice.

On a sunny day last week we had a walk out into the local countryside that was full of bright colours. We started off on the old Mineral Way footpath in Banbury and then headed across the fields to Drayton. Just as we were coming into the village we saw this beautiful ceanothus; I don't think I've ever seen one with such a vivid colour before.

I really must plant one of these in my garden as they obviously thrive in our clay soil.

We ere following the road through Drayton, heading for the next footpath when we looked over the side of a bridge and saw the most beautiful, tempting path ...

... winding up and down through the trees, it ran between two small streams - just the sort of place where you might come across a hobbit or two. This sort of footpath can't be ignored so we followed it to the end.

Luckily, it wasn't a long path and took us to a field from which we could see the path we had been looking for.

As you can see, the oilseed rape fields are out in flower at the moment. The flowers look beautiful and smell of honey but they make me wheeze terribly so I find them a bit of a mixed blessing. Just look at the colour though ...

This picture was taken from eye height 

- the flowers came up past my shoulders

We emerged from the yellow fields into Wroxton village, where I took the opportunity to get a few photos of a rather unusual little church.

Yes, that's right, it's a thatched church. This is the Catholic church of St Thomas and can you see who's standing just inside the wall?

I always like to see Mary as I drive through the village so it was nice to be able to get a closer look.

From Wroxton we walked across the fields to North Newington - more bright yellow, this time buttercups.

Just before Newington, we turned off through more rape fields until we came to this little wood which were looking particularly lovely in the sunshine.

I saw a buzzard in this wood a couple of weeks ago; they have a very distinctive call, a bit like a kitten mewing.

By the time we got back to town we were in need of an ice cream and, in my case, a very big cup of tea. I do like walking though - fresh air, beautiful countryside and exercise. what's not to like?

Happy Crochet

Last week I discovered this exciting new yarn in my local shop.

It's from Sirdar and goes by the wonderful name of Happy Cotton. Those little balls are only 20g and cost £1 each. There are fifty colours to choose from and I had £10 in my purse so I bought ten to play with. Each of the colours has a name as well as a number and they're great too.

From left to right and top to bottom my colours are: Cherryade, Ketchup, Freckle, Melon, Wigwam, Treetop, Bunting, Princess, Currant Bun and Giggle. Aren't they evocative names? To me they conjure up memories of summer picnics and long days in the garden.

Anyway, to business. My first thought was to crochet a colourful mandala so I spent a day or so playing with ideas until I came up with this ...

I was so pleased with how the colours looked together and the yarn itself was a joy to work with. It's a lightish DK weight (43 m / 20g), soft and with a nice matt finish.

I then thought I'd crochet another one but, this time, reversing the colours.

Another lovely mandala but look how much yarn I had left. Now I could just have made more mandalas but I thought it might be nice to try something else. So, I set about designing a set of four coasters.

Then I thought "how about a little bowl to keep the coasters in?". Lots of double crochet and a bit of shaping later and that was done too.

By this point I had gone from idly wondering how far these ten little balls would go to a compulsive desire to make as many things as I could before running out of yarn. One more project should do it I thought.

This little octopus was very quick to make. I used the colours I had least of for his legs and then added a simple head. But guess what? I still had yarn left, admittedly in fewer colours. Well, I couldn't stop there, could I?

One little crochet pot (it's about 2" wide and tall) - actually I made two of these, although the second one had fewer colours as I really was running out of yarn at last. The leftovers just fitted into this pot as you can see. Here's what I had left after all four projects ...

I'm thinking of writing up some of these as patterns but I don't know whether to do them all or just a couple. What do you think? In the meantime, I'm off to buy some more of this beautiful yarn.

Look and Learn

Does anyone remember this?

Look and Learn was an educational children's magazine, published weekly for twenty years from 1962. Bigger and brighter than most comics of the time, it was an immediate success with its combination of history and high quality art work.

Now, I never got Look and Learn myself; I think it was seen as something for boys (along with Lego and staying up to watch the moon landing - anyone who was a girl in the 1960s will know what I mean). But I know someone who did read it ...

That's me and my brother Stephen on Christmas Day 1965. I look like I've definitely had 'too much Christmas' as my Mum used to say when the excitement was all too much for us but Stephen is eagerly reading his new Look and Learn annual.

Anyway, back to the present and, while visiting my daughter in London a few weeks ago, I found a big book called The Bumper Book of Look and Learn for a couple of pounds in a charity shop. I then made my daughter carry it all the way back to her flat but that's another story.

One of the regulars in Look and Learn was the double page spread about historic houses. This one is about Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire.

I remember us going to visit Nelson's flagship HMS Victory in Portsmouth in the 1960s. Maybe we were inspired by this feature ...

Although, actually, I think Stephen may have had a Jackdaw about the Battle of Trafalgar too. They were another wonderful publication. Each Jackdaw was a folder containing facsimiles of documents relating to a particular subject. I remember being fascinated by the death warrant in the one on the trial and execution of Charles I (what a lovely child I was). 

Look and Learn had longer articles too. I enjoyed this one about the restricted lives of girls in Victorian times which I thought made a change from all the stories about famous men.

The combination of good art and facts is irresistible and is seen in both sets of endpapers. At the front there are labelled pictures of four houses from different periods.

I'm not sure that 'bright and modern house' was particularly typical of the second half of the twentieth century - most of the walls are glass - but the other three houses are interesting.

The endpapers at the back of the book are about Christmas and its traditions; I particularly like the art work here.

I'm sure some of my love for history came from this sort of magazine. I was given an annual of June and School Friend one Christmas which made a big impression on me. I think I've just found a replacement copy online which I'm off to buy now. If it's the one I remember, I'll report back.

The Tenth Ten Stitch

I've been very busy lately. What with my bedroom being full of knitted and crocheted squares (I'm organising yarn bombing for my local park's 100th birthday) and working on this year's big Christmas pattern (started well but now I'm stuck), it's taken me ages to get this finally finished. But here it is at last - my new Ten Stitch pattern.

Obviously it's called Ten Stitch Star and it's available as a free download from my Ravelry page

I designed my first Ten Stitch pattern, a square blanket, over ten years ago and it was its popularity that led me to join ravelry and think perhaps I ought to do more of this designing malarky.

 Since then, there have been lots of Ten Stitch variations, mostly blankets ...

Ten Stitch Blanket, Ten Stitch Twist,
Ten Stitch Corner and Ten Stitch Cable

There were a few others though. There was an early (and quite complicated) pattern for a scarf and a wide, curved wrap...

Ten Stitch Scarf and Ten Stitch Wrap

This scarf is a better pattern ...

Ten Stitch Wave

I have to say, my photography skills have got a bit better since then. This one was cleverly posed to hide the tatty old shed at the end of the garden - long since replaced ...

Ten Stitch Triangle

... it was very handy having a model living at home. Now I have to make do with the cats and they're not nearly so co-operative, or co-operative at all really.

I've just found another blanket so that makes nine Ten Stitch patterns before this one.

Ten Stitch Zigzag

The thing all these patterns have in common is that they're knitted in one continuous strip, starting from the middle and working in spirals - although they're not necessarily round - or starting at one side and working back and forth. Having used a square, a circle and a triangle, I could think of lots of other shapes to try but the difficulty was how to start them off.

I did experiment with working lots of strips at once, using stitch holders to hold the ones I wasn't actually knitting but I didn't really like it.

This is as far as I got before giving up on it; I may have another go at this one day, I think I could refine it now.

Anyway, back to the new and tenth Ten Stitch pattern. Ten Ten Stitches - how pleasing is that? Maybe I should stop at ten? So, the big breakthrough came when it dawned on me that, instead of working in one continuous strip, I could knit a central shape and then work separate, coloured strips around it. Of course I have to be able to knit the shapes and then work out how to angle the strips but I think this idea has a lot of possibilities. 

I'd been wanting to do a star blanket for a while so I spent mainly fruitless hours trying to knit a garter stitch star before realising that I had already done it.

These are my Advent Stars, published a few years ago and oh look, they're garter stitch stars. It really would help if I could remember all my patterns at all times.

So, I knitted a star and then started working strips round it. See those stitch markers? They're marking the middle of each side, where the stitch pattern changes.

Now normally I'm a little bit fussy about my colour choices ... well, all right, I'm downright obsessive. All the colours are carefully chosen and planned out in advance, no making it up as I go along for me. This time I decided to be brave and choose each new colour as I got to the end of a round. I can't say I felt comfortable with this but decided it would be Good For Me.

As you can see, I did end up using two shades of each colour - well, I had to impose some sort of control, didn't I? - but, for me, this is positively random. The blues in the middle and on the edge are actually different, maybe my photography's not so good after all. I ended up doing twelve strips, by which time one strip was using over 100g of yarn. It doesn't look like it would, does it?

You could, of course, plan your colours. Shades of one colour, going from dark to light (or vice versa) would look good and, if you want to use up lots of scraps, how about alternating a scrappy round with a solid colour? I look forward to seeing what people do with this pattern.

I have to say that, of all my Ten Stitch patterns, this is the one I've enjoyed knitting the most. It was a perfect balance of simple but not too boring. I think changing direction in the middle of the sides helped; what with that and the sharp corners, there was just enough variation to keep it interesting. I could have carried on and made it even bigger but suddenly realised I wouldn't be able to fit it in a picture if it grew much more.

As it was, I had to balance at the top of a big ladder to take the photos (please note my weed free patio, it won't stay like that for long). Strange things happen when you take a picture with one of the points nearest to you ...

... is it just me or does that point look like it's dropping off a flat surface?

I had a lot of fun folding it into pleasing geometrical shapes ...

It's not the most practical shape for a blanket but I think it would make a great play mat for a baby or a throw to go over a bed during the day.

So, that one took me nearly a year to make. Any suggestions for Ten Stitch number eleven?