Emergency procrastination - short and sweet bolero

This was running the risk of becoming a graveyard of unfinished knitting projects, but thankfully I have finally finished something. And no, it is not the Petrie shell or the sweetheart jumper. I decided last weekend that I needed an emergency bolero or shrug to wear to a wedding this past Saturday. Which meant that I had to be done super quickly. Which meant a crochet project.


When I first learnt to crochet a few years ago I picked up the "happy hooker" stitch 'n bitch book to get to grips with the basics and to practice with some projects. I think one of the first things I ever made was the fit to be tied bag (made twice now) as a cute an easy project, and then became more adventurous and attempted the cupcake top (which I occasionally wear, although the bamboo yarn means it had stretched out a bit). But one of the projects that I always had my eye on was the short and sweet bolero, as a cute little cardie to wear in the summer.

So the choice for which bolero/shrug to make was easy. And yes, it was in fact pretty speedy, although it did involve some furious, non-stop crocheting on the whole of that Sunday to get the body done (achy hands!), plus a couple of hours on the Monday and Tuesday to do the sleeves. I had some issues following this pattern which are not new apparently ( I found quite a few helpful comments on Ravelry), and when making the right front I ended up following the chart rather than the written pattern. Otherwise it was pretty easy to do and memorise.

The yarn is rico cotton, which is aran weight rather than worsted, so I decided to go for the smallest size (naughtily did not check my gauge) and that worked out great. Although I did find that, as a result of the weighty yarn, the bolero was heavier than expected. This means that it holds its shape very well though, but still I think I may have preferred to make it with dk in a bigger size. Incidentally, that was my plan, as I have a tunic in dk weight that I never wear, but despite my efforts I totally failed at picking it.

Anyway, the good news is that I have a decent photo of me modelling it for a change,  so you do not have to endure yet another grumpy-looking selfy! Thankfully taken after only two glasses of champagne too :p

yay! she smiles at last

Baking gone a bit wrong - honey and peanut butter bars

My friend was coming to stay for a few days, and trying to play good hostess I asked her what she wanted to have for breakfast - given that we are a weird household when it comes to this supposedly important meal and either skip it entirely or just have cereal bars. So I bought a big box of porridge oats for her, but then was left with a dilemma: what to do with the remainder? Well, I'd been meaning to make the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's honey and peanut butter bars, and now was my chance.

Stuck at home on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, I decided to give them a go. Of course any normal person would read the recipe, go to the shop and buy the ingredients etc etc. But not me, in the spirit of experimentation I decided that, even though I didn't have enough of most of the things needed to make these bars, I would press on.

Not enough butter? No problem, instead of 125 grams I just used the 50 grams that I had, thinking I could supplement with peanut butter. But no, not enough peanut butter either, so I just chucked in the pan 140 grams, desperately trying to scrape as much as possible out of the jar. No oranges? Just try and zest an already zested orange to get a teency bit of zest out, supplementing instead with the juice of said orange and the zest of two lemons instead of one. And who weighs honey? Its a pain to even get off the spoon in the first place, let alone getting it off the spoon, onto the scales, off the scales and into the pan (some hindsight googling reveals that one tablespoon, which is what I used, is about 15 grams, so again, way off the 45 grams the recipe calls for). Oh yeah, and the the mixture didn'y quite fit the dish, so I left a gap. What could be the harm.

Well, they didn't quite work. They taste nice (and actually sweet enough, so not sure about the sugar and honey quantities) but the consistency is  different to the ones I had tried before, I assume because of the reduced fat content and reduced amount of honey. And of course, in the spirit of totally ignoring the recipe, I cut them too soon so they crumbled a bit more than they should have. But I guess not bad for such a deviation from the original!

So the moral of the story is, don't stay in on a sunny day and stick to the recipe.

Edit: I am assured that they don't taste like they went wrong, so maybe not such a disaster after all. 

Geeky knitting - knitting a retina!

My plans to finish my Petrie shell in 2-3 week were completely optimistic as usual - I did very little knitting while on a (work) trip in Italy, as I was busy busy busy! I did manage to get most of the back done, but there's still a long way to go (should really have converted it to knitting in the round, I have decided that purling really slows me down). And to complicate matters further, I agreed to participate in collective knitting project.

Last month I joined the WI (women's institute) in an effort to meet some local women and participate in some fun (and crafty activities). The WI is quite an old institution, and has typically been associated with old ladies baking cakes, making jam, knitting and drinking tea. But in recent years it has seen a revival of sorts, with many 'new wave' WIs opening up around the UK, in particular in urban areas such as London, and attracting younger women. After a lot of research in the local WIs, I braved my first meeting back in February (for some cheese tasting!) and then joined properly in the April meeting, when we learned how to quilt.

A couple of weeks ago our president asked us if we wanted to participate in a collective knitting project, organised by the knitting group of the Institute of Ophthalmology in London. Their aim is to create a knitted retina, down to the cellular level: rods and cones (the photoreceptors, or simply the cells that detect light and offer visual information), retina ganglion cells (the cells that receive the visual information from photoreceptors and transmit it to the brain), bipolar cells (which transmit the information between photoreceptors and retinal ganglion cells) and muller cells (a type of glial cell that support other neurons in the retina). For anyone interested, here is a schematic of approximately what this looks like. One of their members wrote the patterns to knit each cell type, and they were looking for volunteers beyond their knitting group to knit the various cell types.

I offered to make a couple of rods, and here they are. The pattern was really simple, and the knit quite fast, but as usual the sewing up was my downfall (and this is why I probably won't offer to knit any more!).

Three rods! (one of the right is a bit wonky though)

If I remember correctly, once the whole project is finished and assembled (around November), it will be on display at the Moorfields eye hospital in London (or the Institute of Ophthalmology), with a brief stint at a nearby gallery. Hooray of geeky knitting, I want more!

Summery procrastination - the Knitty Petrie shell

Progress on my sweetheart jumper has been very slow (no idea what I was thinking when I said that it would likely take a month, its DK yarn after all), and I think it has become clear that by the time I finish it it will be too warm to wear it. I think this is partly because purling while doing stockinette (ie knitting flat) is much much slower than knitting on the round. I am currently close to finishing the back, but there is a looooong way to go!

So against my better judgement I decided to pause it and start a new, more summery project. I first spotted the Briar cardigan in Simply Knitting, which looks cute and summery, and bought the recommended Rowan cotton glace for it. But the lack of correct needle tips for my circulars, and my impatience in using tiny straight needles made me switch to the Petrie top from Knitty - I just love the neckline on this. Of course complications arose because my yarn is sport and it calls for DK, so I had some issues with getting the correct gauge. I started out with 4mm needles, as suggested, which gave me the correct gauge (with the fabric being a little more transparent than I would like though), but after knitting 10 rows I measured the piece and it seemed much bigger than what it was supposed to be for a size small. I then switched to 3.5mm needles but my gauge was off, and after some deliberation I went back to the 4mm needles; hopefully it will not be too big and not too transparent.

Being optimistic again?

The yarn is actually quite beautiful to knit with and  has a lovely sheen a, so I am looking forward to a nice, drapey top. Optimistically once more, 3 weeks? Although the top is made in two pieces knitted straight, so I might struggle a bit, as usual, with the stitching. And yes, this means it is knitted flat like the sweetheart jumper. But I never said I was rational :p