In the pink!

I haven’t blogged about my knitting projects before but there has to be a first time for everything, right? And I’m celebrating because ... finally ... FINALLY ... F.I.N.A.L.L.Y! ... I’ve finished a project that’s been on the go since January 2015.

I have actually completed three other projects in the meantime – a bulky jumper with cables, a simple scarf using up the rest of the bulky jumper wool, and another Fair Isle project, a sleeveless vest (which was my own design and one I’m rather proud of) – but this other just seemed to linger somehow.

It’s a jumper / sweater / jersey – whichever you prefer – and it’s one of my own Fair Isle designs (or, more correctly, I should say that it’s my own combination of traditional Fair Isle motifs knitted to my own colour choice). 

I started the project during the six months I lived in Cheshire in 2014-15 and even took the part-finished jumper and all the wool back to New Zealand in April 2015, thinking I would get it finished during the few months I was back there. It was the New Zealand winter after all.

But no! I was too busy selling my apartment, selling off my goods and chattels, and arranging to move my life to Britain to knit a single stitch. And then, when I left New Zealand, I went travelling for a few weeks and didn’t have the space to carry the part-jumper with me, so it had to go into the boxes with all my other belongings, to be seafreighted to Wales.

My worldly goods finally got delivered in mid-October 2015 and I recall enthusiastically extolling the virtues of knitting and including a photo of the part-jumper in a blog I wrote then, entitled ‘Ten things I love about autumn’ – one thing being that the autumn weather meant it was cool enough to knit comfortably.

Still, it lingered.... I was busy getting my new life here in Cardiff under way, walking and exploring a lot. I joined the Glamorgan Fungi Club and the Glamorgan Bird Club and the Ramblers so was out and about with them as well. And, at the beginning of the year, I started a new daily nature blog that took / takes quite a lot of time to produce. And then I started doing voluntary work two full days a week....

Excuses, excuses, excuses! Finally, in the middle of summer, I got my knitting mojo back. 

First, I knitted the sleeveless vest mentioned and shown above, and then I finally got back to my lovely Pinky jumper. I told myself I wasn’t allowed to start anything new until it was finished and I set a date of 31 August to get it done. And I did! 

So here it is. I absolutely love it and can’t wait for the colder weather so I can wear it. 

And, in the meantime, another sleeveless vest is underway. My knitting mojo is well and truly back!

10 things I love about autumn

Autumn and spring are my favourite seasons. I think it’s because of the changes we see during those months, changes in the colours of our world, in the life all around us.

So, what are my ten reasons for loving autumn so much?

1) Colour

The colours in the landscape, and I don’t just mean the trees. The diversity of colour in the berries is astonishing and they provide such a welcome burst of brightness on grey cloudy days.

2) Leaves

There’s nothing more fun than kicking your way through a great drift of crunchy autumn leaves and there’s nothing more peaceful than sitting quietly beneath a tree, watching and listening to the leaves fall.

3) Homemade soup

As the days get shorter and the temperatures cooler, my mind turns to comfort food, and there’s nothing better than a big bowl of homemade soup and a chunky piece of bread. And it’s healthy and nutritious!

4) Knitting

My hands get too warm to knit in the summer months but come the cooler evenings and I’m reaching for my knitting. Yes, I did get my stash of wool freighted all the way from New Zealand when I moved to Wales. Yes, I have knitting in progress: finishing off the sleeves of this jumper I started last winter, and the rib started for a fairisle vest.

5) Scarves

Of course, I wear scarves all year round but, in winter, they’re more of a cosy necessity than an optional extra. At current count I have 21 – and these come from such diverse countries as India, Cambodia (several), Peru, Morocco, Scotland (family tartan, of course!), Turkey, Australia, and New Zealand – but I need more!

6) Nutty squirrels

The grey squirrels in the parks and woodlands here are going crazy at the moment, madly scrabbling about trying to find and secrete away as many nuts as possible to tide them over the coming winter months. Their antics are laugh-out-loud funny!

7) Slippers

When you have slippers as delightful as these, how can you not like the cooler evenings when they come out of the wardrobe and on to the tootsies? I think they’re hedgehogs, but that’s open to interpretation.

8) Fungi forays

Though I’ve always loved to eat mushrooms, my appreciation for non-edible fungi has only really sprouted in the last few years. Like the berries and the leaves, they add wonderful colour to the autumn landscape. Their huge range of size, shape and colour is astonishing … and they can be frustratingly difficult to identify!

Waterbirds like this Shoveler are among the most common migrants

9) Migrating birds

With the changing seasons, Britain sees an outpouring of some species and a huge influx of others, so the skies and the fields and the estuaries and the wetlands are suddenly home to many different types of birds. As an added bonus, this is also the time the starlings perform their wondrous murmurations, those aerial dances where thousands of birds fly in incredible synchronised formations.

10) Robins

And finishing with another bird because this little cutie deserves a mention all of its own. They’re friendly, they’re cheerful, they’re cute, they herald Christmas – which may or may not be a good thing. As the leaves fall from the trees, they seem to reappear in great numbers – were they hiding there all along or are they returning from their summer holidays?

That’s my list – what’s yours?

Getting knotted

I've always quite liked doing craftwork. When I was young, my nana Johno taught me to knit and crochet and tat, and I later taught myself to do macramé and embroidery and canvas work. I’m not one to sit around doing nothing so, for example, I prefer doing something with my hands while I'm watching television.

I don't do much craftwork these days, though in the winter, when my hands don't get too hot, I do still like to knit. I don't like simple patterns, preferring instead to knit complicated Fairisle-type patterns that I’ve put together myself from ideas gleaned from books, magazines and, these days, from the internet. I see a jumper I like, plot it out onto graph paper and go from there.

Last winter I finally finished a jumper I'd started the previous year (see picture), and started another that I’ll finish this year when the cooler weather comes again.

In the meantime, I've been enjoying making friendship bracelets. Those who regularly read these scribblings will recall that I taught myself how to make these in preparation for my last trip to Cambodia, thinking it would be something I could teach the children. In fact, the bracelet idea didn't go down as well with them as I'd hoped. They liked the bright colours of the embroidery cottons I took and did make their own simpler versions but only one or two had the patience to spend the hour or so it takes to make even the simplest friendship bracelets.

Many colour variations, plus a wider bookmark at the left
and two bracelets in progress at right

However, I found knotting the bright colours into complicated patterns very relaxing, and Marianne and a couple of other volunteers also enjoyed knotting away an hour here and there, so we left behind many friends wearing our bracelets. And I’m still wearing the one Marianne made for me.

I brought some cottons home with me and have continued my knotting some evenings. I haven’t ventured away from the more simple patterns as I find I can still make lovely creations just from varying the colours. I’m not sure what I’ll do with these bracelets but I figure they can also be used as bookmarks, so it may be that I'll gift them to the students in my morning class when we finish our FCE exam course in a few weeks’ time. They’re a lovely group and are all working hard so I think the bracelets/bookmarks will be a good reward for them and a nice reminder of our time together.