And then there were two...

Mrs. Beeton was a name I grew up with. She was the Delia Smith (Martha Stewart) of the victorian era. Her books on household management and cookery changed the lives of many women of her time with their no nonsense approach and are still in print today albeit updated. Her cookbook accompanied me to university and saw me through the early trials and triumphs of running my own kitchen. The BBC did a fantastic dramatisation of her life recently which was fascinating. The matriarch who led a household revolution turned out to be a slip of a girl of 21 with a drive and ambition that saw her transform women's publications.

I was delighted to see a pattern named after her, especially when I read why it was - it summed up her spirit exactly and managed to be incredibly pretty in the process. I have finally completed my own pair.

I can't tell you much about the yarn, it was 10p a ball in a charity shop and came unlabelled. The second I saw them together they were destined for this pattern. It's also a very happy coincidence that the plain purple is a very close match to the pashmina (Yes, Jen I know!) that my Mum has just bought for me. I made them a little longer than usual given that I have monkey arms and often have a bit of a gap at the cuff with some of my clothes.

I love these - both the look and making them and plan on one more pair for myself in black - cotton angora for the main part and the frill in some mystery yarn with a silver thread that's been in my stash for ages - I only have a tiny bit let and I'm so glad I never threw it out, it's perfect for these. I'm yet to use beads as per the pattern - down to supply issues rather than an aversion to knitting with them, but black won't be difficult to match so I hope to use them next time.

Babes in the Hood

I am still back and forth at the hospital at lot at the moment which will be ongoing until the end of November so I don't have a whole lot of new stuff to show you. My current big project has to be kept under wraps and my smaller projects are still incomplete.

To make up for it I have a new look at some old favourites. When I first started knitting for Scarlett i.e. within half an hour of hearing she was expected, I was very careful about sizing and choosing some bigger projects so her mum Jenn wasn't inundated with too many small things. This means that things I knitted 18 months ago are only just starting to fit and I get the most wonderful unexpected photos in my inbox that really make my day.

She's been walking for about 6 weeks now and is into mischief wherever she goes, but how could you get mad at such a cutie, no matter what she gets up to. The gilet is from Knits for Babies and Toddlers by Fiona McTague. I subbed the Jaeger Persia (a chenille) for bog standard DK acrylic in mink and the zip was put in during my very first attempt at using a sewing machine. To say I had to try a few times to get it right is an understatement, but it went in ok in the end. Initially I wanted to put duffle closures and toggles on it, but couldn't find any. Jenn has said loads of people have asked her where she bought it, so I must have done something right.

Jenn is going back to her native Canada this winter and we were discussing how Scarlett won't wear a hat and options for keeping her warm. Problem solved:

It appears that when I sewed the hood onto this, it's been done in such a way that she can't get it down over her face. No shopping at Bluewater for you my dear!

This was a Sirdar pattern, sold individually that I spied and couldn't leave in the shop. It's for Snowflake Chunky and I found a more affordable clone of the yarn from another company. I think it was called Cloud 9. The range of colours was limited to pale blue, yellow, pink, lilac and white. The yellow was more of an earwax than a lemon, so I chose the blue as the most uni-sex colour. This is one of my favourite of all the things I made for her. The pocket and polar bear are knitted as a separate piece and sewn onto the front.

Needless to say I do intend to fix the hood, so she won't be like Kenny forever.

Got ya back!

Guess what's back? Two things actually. No prizes for guessing the first.


And the other thing is MY BACK! I've had a back injury for a very long time that has seriously affected my mobility. I've been stuck on waiting lists to see various specialists for ridiculously long times (15 months in one case) but I finally had a diagnosis last week and had a proceedure to help fix it yesterday. I won't go into too many details as it's a bit gory but it involved three 6" long needles and at least a dozen smaller ones. I feel like a pin cushion. I'm still feeling a little worse for wear but initial signs are good. It'll be another 6 months or so before I'm fully functional but at least I have a target. I'm tucked up on the sofa in my jammies where I fully intend to stay all day. Cartwheels down the street are postponed until tomorrow.

The response to the video post was wonderful, thank you and I was delighted to see the Domestic Overlord and Turtlegirl also make use of their video cameras. Ripple's surprise appearance was hilarious. I loved hearing both of your voices and I do hope more of you have a go if you can. I really enjoyed doing it and intend to do more, but not for every post.

If Cassie conned you into thinking she is a sweet sleepy little puppy I can assure you she's not. I slept on the sofa last night as it's easier to prop myself up here until I can lie flat. I put her bed on the floor next to me. She woke me up FOUR times in the night just by staring at me. She's got such a dark little face that it was quite freaky to open my eyes to see her just looking at me. I've also lost count of the number of times I've had to come downstairs in the middle of the night to confiscate noisy toys - prime culprit being her frisbee and will whichever idiot thought it was a good idea to buy her a glow-in-the-dark ball please stand up.

I'm guessing my halo isn't fooling anybody.

Erase and Rewind

Long time no blog! I didn't want to put a post up without any photos so I've been waiting for my camera to come back from Sony, but it's still not ready. I then remembered my video camera....



You'll have to forgive the sideways shots, I thought I could rotate them but I'm not that good with the editing software. The picture and sound quality suffered a little in the transfer, but it's still watchable.

Please bear with me if I haven't got round to commenting on some of your blogs yet, it's been a pretty hectic week for me and I promise I'll catch up with them all soon.