Just In Time

I seem to have been absent from my blog for rather a long time. Oh dear. It's all the fault of the Long Covid which is living up to its name, getting on for five years now.

Anyway, I am still here and still working on new patterns, albeit rather slowly. Lately I've been concentrating on this one ...

Having designed bunting for Spring and Autumn, I was tempted to do a special one for Christmas too. I haven't forgotten about Summer and Winter; I shall do those at some point. All my bunting designs have a row of letter flags spelling out the season and another row of flags decorated with appropriate knitted motifs.

Can you spot the problem here? All the other seasons have six letters (unless you're American of course) but Christmas is nine letters long. That means an awful lot more knitting and designing. I couldn't bring myself to design Xmas Bunting though; it's really not the same.

Another problem was choosing my colour palette. For the other designs I've used two shades of three different colours. This time I decided I needed three shades of three colours which, of course, all had to go together nicely and preferably look at least a little bit festive. After much worry and confusion I finally came up with three shades of red, green and gold and then this happened ...

Stylecraft only went and brought out twenty new colours of my favourite range of yarn. I use their Stylecraft Special DK a lot, especially for this sort of pattern where you need little bits of lots of good colours. I keep some of every colour in stock and buy new shades as they come out. But twenty? All at once? So I decided to order ten to start with  and then get the rest next time. I went for the brightest colours, partly because I was starting to wonder if there might be a better red and green in there for my bunting (which I was already half way through knitting but never mind).

From left to right and top to bottom, these ones are:

Poppy, Leaf, Nigella, Cinder Rose, Jade.    

Aquamarine, Milky Tea, Pink Rhubarb, Mistletoe and Periwinkle.

There are some great names in there, aren't there? I think I might have to make something with Cinder Rose or Pink Rhubarb, just for the names. 

Back to business though. The two that I had my eye on for my bunting were these two.

Leaf is a soft shade of green which fills in a gap in the range of greens in the range and as for Poppy ... I have been waiting for a paler red for years. After Lipstick, the next reds are really quite violently bright. I've tended to use Pomegranate instead which, although it's a pink, goes well with the Lipstick.

See what I mean?

These were my original colour choices for the Christmas Bunting ...

... and here they are with Poppy replacing Pomegranate and Leaf instead of the bright Grass Green ...

I thought the second one was better so, ignoring the bright green flags I'd already knitted, I knitted some more.

It was plain sailing after that for a bit as knitting the letters is quite straightforward and new ones don't take long to design. 

The decorations for the plain flags weren't quite so easy. I made myself design and make one a day and, believe it or not, every single one took three to four hours to do. Yes, even the little presents which are just folded squares of knitting!

I tried just to use my set of nine original colours for the decorations with a few exceptions, notably black for faces and an orange for the snowman's carrot nose. By the way, it turns out that a carrot nose has to be positioned just so or it doesn't look right. Guess how I know that?

I also made an effort not to use too many extra things that people might not have like beads and buttons which means that there are a lot of french knots used, mostly for the baubles on the Christmas Tree. I like french knots.

As you can see though, I did use a sequin for the star on the top of the tree - one failed attempt at embroidering a tiny star sent me straight to the sequin box.

The decoration I was dreading most was the mini stocking (or three mini stockings as it turned out). I can knit stockings in the round easily enough but making a flat one was a bit daunting. In the end it wasn't too bad. I tend to try lots of complicated methods before finally realising that something simple is what's wanted and that's what happened here. Four short rows for the heel with no wraps and turns and it was sorted.

Once all the knitting was finally done, I just had to find long thin dowels to hang the bunting from. Did I say 'just'? For the seasonal ones, you only need 90 cm lengths of dowel so that's easy enough; for this one I needed lengths of over a metre and the next length I could buy was 2.4 metres! There was no way I was going to be able to carry two 2.4 dowels home without poking someone's eye out or breaking them - not to mention the fact that I can't breathe properly if I carry anything difficult or heavy. Luckily, my brother came to the rescue and went to the shop for me (B & Q, in case you're wondering).

With the writing on the top dowel and the pictures on the bottom, the whole thing is about 140 cm wide which still fits on a chimney breast (or it would if I could be bothered to hang it up). The dowels are tied together on the back of the bunting to keep everything in place. You may or may not be able to see the ties in this picture.

I've spent the last couple of weeks writing, proofreading, proofreading again ... and I've just managed to get the pattern ready to publish before Christmas. As normal, you can download it for free from my ravelry shop. Something to put on your list for next Christmas perhaps?

Now that's done I can turn my attention to some of my long-neglected projects. I'm getting on with a garter stitch lace scarf that I started months ago and the last of my Ten Stitch Rectangle samples is on the blocking board so that pattern will be done next month I hope.

I've also been working on some other Christmas crafts but, for obvious reasons, I can't show you those yet. This year I decided it was time to make my own crackers which it took me ages to work out how to do; it'll be easier next year though. 

I'll tell you what's in them after Christmas. I also made some Christmas hats to go with them (they're too bulky to fit in the crackers). The paper ones you normally get are too small and they tear; these ones should last.

The pattern is a free one from Waves and Wild and it comes in sizes ranging from baby up to large adult. I adapted the method after the first one to make it easier to sew. The two key secrets to success are a good interfacing - I used Vilene H250 - and sewing the zigzag seam twice to strengthen those points when it comes to turning the hats right side out. This was a revelation to me and definitely a trick I shall remember for the future.

I also made my Christmas cards, this year using scraps of fabric and the Crumb quilting method. 

I shall definitely be using this technique again. Such pretty fabric made up of strips pulled out of my scrap basket (okay, baskets - who's counting?). Then there was the afternoon I made a ridiculous number of gift tags from card, felt and stickers.

In case you're wondering just how many people I give Christmas presents to, I often give several small presents, rather than one big one. Since having my craft stuff organised, it's so much easier to find things for little projects like this. 

It is starting to look festive here now, no thanks to me though. My daughter came to my rescue and put up my decorations for me (and has promised to take them down again afterwards too). I really couldn't manage it this year. 

I think I told you about our relatively recent family tradition of making advent jigsaws for each other so that you have a section of it to put together every day. Mine is such a lovely picture this year and it's also got all sorts of unusual shaped pieces which makes it fun to do. It's really coming together now.

I hope I'll be back here again before Christmas but who knows? If not, I wish you all a very happy and peaceful Christmas with lots of knitting / crochet / sewing time.

Christmas Bunting

600 Patterns

According to ravelry, I have published 599 knitting and crochet patterns in the 16 years that I've been doing this malarky. To be fair, they count all the individual patterns of my partwork patterns but still ... it seems an awful lot. Once I realised this, I decided that pattern number 600 had to be something typically Frankie so I pushed aside my pile of finished stuff waiting to be written up and set to thinking.

I decided that it needed to be a bit unusual so that ruled out blankets, scarves and shawls (which are normally the most popular patterns) and, that decided, I thought it would have to use plastic canvas. Over the years, plastic canvas has been my ally when it comes to making knitted versions of three dimensional things - houses, boxes, all sorts of containers - it gives a firm structure to what is basically a floppy fabric.

At this point my eyes rested on these ...

I love little card suitcases and use various ones to store some of my many crafty bits and bobs. How difficult could it be to reproduce these in knitting? Pretty difficult actually. I've spent the last couple of months working on this problem, on and off. Very early in the day I abandoned the idea of a set of different size cases (not impossible but far too much work) but, even then, every single stage of this design had to be worked and re-worked two or three times. I got this far twice before even deciding on the stitch pattern to use.

I started off with stocking stitch, then a combination of moss stitch and stocking stitch (the box on the left) before finally deciding on slip stitch rib for both the inside and outside. As normal, this was a case of me going round the houses before coming back to the simple solution that was staring me in the face. I'd used this stitch pattern for containers before so why didn't I think of it in the first place? This sort of thing happens again and again when I'm designing.

See what I mean? Square Nesting Boxes and Round Nesting Boxes both use this stitch, they're both boxes that need to hold their shape and, as you can see, I knitted ten of them so you think I'd have got to this realisation a bit sooner wouldn't you?

Not that it was all plain sailing once I'd decided on the stitch pattern though. The front of the suitcase had to be curved. This was quite straightforward to design for the bottom of the case. Make a template, use it to shape the plastic canvas and then shape the knitting to match (sort of).

The problem came when I had to work out the curve for the lid. It took me ages (and a lot of trial and error) before I got the size of this curve right. Obviously, the lid had to be bigger than the bottom but the question of how much bigger to allow for the thickness of two lots of knitting (one of which you haven't actually knitted yet) is very difficult. I got there in the end though.

Those sides were another problem. Again, it was a question of working out the length of a curved piece of plastic that had to fit round the edge of another piece of plastic that had been covered with knitting, while also allowing for the sides to be covered too. In case you're wondering why the colour of the suitcase keeps changing, that's because I had to knit one to work out the pattern (the green one) and then knit it all again in pink so that I could take step by step photos. Stopping to do this the first time when I'm making so many mistakes is just too much hassle.

All the time I'd been working on this, I'd been considering how to make the fastening. The little metal toggles that close the card suitcases are lovely but I wasn't sure they'd work on my little knitted version and, anyway, they'd be difficult for people to find. The simplest solution seemed to be a big press stud and I designed a very nifty little black tab with a press stud underneath and a a knitted 'button' on top ... only to find that it didn't actually work because the plastic canvas wasn't firm enough to be able to press it closed. I was not happy.

After ignoring the thing for days, I went back to it, took the fastening apart and added two buttons and an I cord loop, another example of the simple ideas often being the best.

After all that, the handle turned out to be easy. It's just a narrow strip of plastic, covered with knitting and sewn on to the front. Once it was held securely in place, I found that I could bend the plastic to a more natural looking curve.

Having knitted two little suitcases and taken umpteen photos, I turned my mind to what you could put in them. I toyed briefly with the idea of deigning a mini doll to live in one, complete with a wardrobe of clothes before calming down and filing that away for another day. In the end I just found various knitting accessories to go in one of the cases for a photo. Amongst them was a little needle book, one of the many I've knitted over the years from an early pattern of mine. Looking it up, I found that it was actually my second pattern, published in 2008 so it seemed rather nice to refer to that in pattern number 600. 

As you can imagine though, this early pattern left a lot to be desired so I decided it was time to re-write and take some new photos. You can find the new version on ravlery.

Needle Book

This set me looking for other old patterns that I could link to this one and I found a couple more.

That's my Pincushion pattern from 2010 and the little triangular purse is one of my Magic Pockets which I designed six years later. I've updated both of those patterns too, mostly just taking some better photos (although I did experiment with a diagram for the magic pockets which may have made the construction clearer ... or not).

I put some stitch markers in that little yellow pocket. The suitcase also holds a pair of snips and a tape measure and there's still room for more. I can see me using one of those to hold a little sewing project too, maybe some paper piecing or a small cross stitch kit.

Which reminds me, I haven't told you how big these little cases are. They measure roughly 15 cm deep, 10 cm wide and 7 cm tall, here's one next to my pencil pot to give you an idea of scale.

Now that I've got pattern number 600 sorted at last, I can turn my attention to number 601 - but which one in the queue to choose? I shall have to have another think ...

Mini Suitcase

The Baby Blanket

As ever, my days are full of house sorting, trying to work and being ill. Needless to say, the first two things contribute to the third one. Never mind. I read a good line the other day - 'Happiness is not given to you, you have to pick it up here and there during the day'. Isn't that good? So, I find that when you can't go out or do very much without feeling rotten, the trick is to do a little bit of lots of things and to vary them as much as possible. Even if they're not fun things (scraping glue off the landing after taking the old carpet up for example) it still gives you that feeling of having accomplished something and means you enjoy the cup of tea you promised yourself as a reward all the more. It doesn't always work but I persevere.

Anyway, one of the things I've been working on over the last month or so is repairing my daughter's old baby blanket. I've been meaning to do this for a long time but she's moving all her stuff out from here later this year and I really didn't feel I could pack up a moth-eaten blanket for her to put with her treasures!

I had the idea of knitting a picture blanket back in 1991 when I was expecting my second baby and designed all sorts of picture squares on knitting graph paper. 

All that picture knitting entailed lots of darned in ends so I then knitted another set of squares for the back of the blanket and embroidered letters and numbers on them. Here's baby Rose with her new blanket.

And here she is practising sitting up later on (note my hand positioned ready to catch her when she gets excited and topples backwards). I've never known a baby with such a fine head of hair. It had to be held back with clips before her first birthday.

One more old photo - "look, I can sit up all my own now".

Fast forward more than thirty years and, after being put away for years, the blanket was a sorry sight. There was a lot of this ...

I'd used all sorts of different yarn and the ones that had wool in had obviously provided a tasty treat for the moths. So, I matched the colours as best I could (using acrylic yarn this time) and re-knitted each of the damaged squares.

The snowman, old and new.

I used a combination of intarsia and Fair Isle for the picture squares and then embroidered on the details afterwards, mostly using black yarn. The letter and number squares were simpler to replace as I just had to knit a coloured square and then add the letter or number with backstitch. Unfortunately, the square that I'd used as a label also had a hole in; that one took a bit longer to embroider.

I added writing to another blank square to record when the blanket was repaired. There are still some empty squares should it need doing again in the future.

In order to replace the damaged squares, I had to take out both the damaged one and the one behind it as I'd sewn them together in pairs before assembling the blanket. It was at this point that I discovered the damage to some of the knitted sashing. This was probably the time when the project looked most daunting.

It would have been good if I'd heard of blocking your knitting back then; needless to say, the squares varied quite a bit in size. I did block the new ones after finishing them but they weren't always a great match with the one they had to be sewn together with.

There was a break here while I worked out what to do with the sashing. I could see that I'd used a chunky black yarn for this and, believe it or not, I'd knitted it in strips and then woven them over and under each other where they met. Then, for good measure, I'd sewn them together where they overlapped. 

Luckily black Stylecraft Special Chunky was a good match for the original yarn. I had to unpick the knitted strips until I had sound yarn at each end and then knit a new section directly on to the existing stitches and graft them on to the other end. All very fiddly and lots of ends to sew in.

Once that was done I sewed the pairs of squares back in, gave the whole thing a wash in the bath - I didn't dare risk it in the machine - and draped it over the line in the sun to air it.

At this point I thought I was nearly done; just the blocking to do. I was hoping that blocking the blanket would smooth out some of the lumps and bumps which it did but ...

... see that hole, next to the house square? The tension of blocking revealed damage I hadn't spotted on yet another square. I couldn't face taking all those pins out and having to start again another time so I lay on the floor to unpick that pair of squares. Meanwhile, the blanket had dried so I sprayed it well and left it to dry as it was.

I re-knitted the offending square (an umbrella), sewed it back in and then took out all the pins. The next problem was that the garter stitch border looked a bit weak and wobbly (it wasn't the only one - I was sorely tempted to throw the whole thing away at this point). Instead, I found a big crochet hook and worked double crochet all round the edge using the chunky yarn. This made a huge difference, strengthening the edge and making the whole thing look much better. Finally, it was done.

Would you like to see the pictures in more detail? There are 49 of them all together, seven rows of seven. 

I think I got a lot of ideas from illustrations in children's books but that yellow teapot is an old favourite of mine. It's been broken and repaired several times and is now only used as an ornament.

The sun was one of our baby toys (I've still got it); it combined a squeaker and a mirror on the back with nice points to chew on. That giraffe reminds me of the first time Rose saw a giraffe in real life at Whipsnade Zoo. She was so excited and, from the look of amazement on her face, you could tell that she had thought were giraffes were just something in books not real animals. Looking at them, you can see why she would think that; they do look like something out of a story. 

There are a lot of animals on this blanket, aren't there? Pigs were a particular favourite of both my children. Rose even had a pig birthday cake one year.

Phones don't look like that any more but the building bricks are a classic I think. Jack had those for his first birthday and both children played with them a lot. 

The television is another thing that looks dated now. By the time Rose was born we didn't have a television. Before that we had a portable black and white set - remember those?  I think that train  might have been inspired by the toy train in one of the pictures of Rose on her blanket earlier on in this post. And there's that umbrella, the square that caused all that trouble during blocking.

On to the bottom row now. That car was ridiculously complicated - what was I thinking of? - but the blanket finishes with a nice little row of birds. 

Now that it's done I've written up notes on how I repaired it and put them together with the charts and the chunky yarn for the sashing in the bag with the blanket. Maybe they'll help next time it needs repairs. Although I hope that won't be for a while!

After making the baby blanket, you'd think I'd have had enough of picture knitting for a while wouldn't you? But no, in 1993, I was back, this time with colour charts.

These were the designs for a patchwork jumper for Rose's big brother Jack. He chose the things to go on it so it's a record of his favourite things. There are 44 little pictures on the front, the back and both sleeves. The pictures on the front shoulders are a Jumping Jack for him and a Rose for his little sister. He wore the jumper for years until he grew out of it and yes, I've still got it. It has survived the years better than the blanket did, probably because it got washed more.

Now that the Great Blanket Repair Project is finished I've been turning my attention to work. The first draft of my latest pattern is done. I just need to update a couple of old patterns that are referred to in it and it'll be ready to publish. It will be pattern number 600. How on earth did I write so many patterns?