Joseph Beret

Quite some time ago, (yikes.....last February!) I introduced you to the Joseph Jumper. At the time I promised to show more of my Dad's Technicolour creations.

Lookee what I found at the weekend. The Joseph Beret.



I can't remember who this was made for and I don't remember wearing it myself, but it is now in my possession. It would take some courage to wear the beret and jumper together-at-the-same-time- simultaneously. There is a photo in existence of the whole family wearing all their Josephs, hats included. I'll dig it out sometime*.



Notice how well it looks on my modelling shrub. Don't you kinda half expect the shrub to turn around and say hi?



It looks to me like a back view of Grover the Muppet - only green of course.

(Or is that just me? It is? Oh. Ok. Scratch that.)




I particularly like this flying shot!



*(ED: Yeah right, and then head for the hills Lady if your siblings see it!)
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Ravelympics

So listen, the original plan for the Ravelympics landed on it's big backside.

Seemed straightforward enough.



Enter the WIPs Wrestling event with the Jolly Green Giant and sprint to the finish line with one-and-a-half-sleeves and an entire front (which has yet to be charted). And then poxy real life reality intervened.

The reason I have WIPs IN THE FIRST place is because like everyone else, my life is crammed with family, working, and many many other responsibilities. Given that all these elements are currently running at full steam up to the hilt, knitting has taken a back seat of late.

And not the back seat of a car either, which implies that it's nearish to the driving seat and can at least be considered. No, the back seat of a really really really long bus where it's out of earshot and has to look out of the window and hum softly to itself for entertainment.

Sigh.

It's not true however that there has been NO knitting at all. I'm currently slogging my way down a 40" ribbed scarf which will eventually make this out of this. It's going fine, the rib is easy if tedious and the yarn is scrummy.

I'm also considering some of these delightful things. It seems that really small projects out of scrap yarn will allow me to knit standing up stirring pots in the kitchen and negotiating the many many multiple requirements of Little Mouse and Little Monkey.

And then I saw this cutie.

Perfect. And I know several persons young and old, big and small who would love one of these.

It looks pretty fiddly tho'. Looks like I might have to actually concentrate after all.

Still an' all. Utterly irresistible.

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So what else?

So....when I ran out of leaves and petals to knit I started to panic! Housebound with 2 kids on a wet holiday with no knitting?

NoOOOOOOO!



Luckily I also packed 2 balls of Kidsilk Aura which I got in the recent sale at TIK. It's a luscious dark purple berry colour (Loganberry - 793), just CRYING OUT to be a pair of Ms Potters. Crying out I tell you. There was definitely crying.

However....and I really don't know how to admit this.....when it came to it, I just couldn't remember the stitch pattern. I mean specifically how to do the DD which forms the ridge up the mitten and balances the 2 yarnovers forming the lacey bits. Just couldn't remember it! Gosh-darn-it!

I tried all sorts of variations (except the right one of course) and after 2 days of frustration, I gave up. I even thought about phoning a knitting friend at home to read me all the variations of the DD instructions she could find until we stumbled on the correct one - but the lack of phone coverage and the need to supervise children jumping on cliffs made this impractical.

Eventually I started to think about how to make a Ms Potter without the lace-and-decrease details. A knitted tube would be easy enough, but it might have to have something else to create the same pull-in-and-cling effect. Especially to counter-act the floaty-hardly-there effect of the Kidsilk.

I came up with a 2 x 1 rib pattern which would do the job. If you look closely, concentrate (and take many hallucinogenics), you might be able to see the double-row of knit stitches in the rib down the back of the hand. This occurred at the joins betweens the dpns. Anyway, I think a little row of small elegant buttons along this rib at the wrist would be just delightful.



I did start off with an alternative lace pattern (a kinda chevron thing) but after 2 repeats I dropped it....since it couldn't really be seen amidst the luscious cosiness of the Kidsilk Aura. It's visible in this pic only with the application of an unreasonable amount of stretch.



Frankly, I don't think the Kidsilk is a good yarn for this kind of project. I prefer to see stitch detail rather than general furriness. However, they are lovely and soft, very warm and the colour is stellar so they'll make an ideal gift for a friend of mine who likes this sort of thing more than me.

I mean, she likes the mittens more than I like them. Not that she likes the mittens more than she likes me. Or who knows. Perhaps she does? Never mind....too complicated for me, I'm orff to the next project.

See you around.

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Ok OK suspense over...

Let's start with the felted leaves. Just beautiful aren't they? Love the way you can still see the spine of the leaf created by slipped stitches.

And here's the flower in its entirety.



The pattern called for a felted bobble in the centre of the flower. Now, I've already declared my anti-bobble stance, so I thought I might do without this feature.



But just to see, ('cos I could be wrong, right?) I tested out some flower stylin' with the cap of one of these babies. Looks like the bobble will be knit after all. Ah well, suppose it won't kill me.

Pre Felted Flower




Post-Felted Flower



OK, so I'm still not a flower-brooch-wearing-kinda-woman, but I can see something like this on a felted bag, can't you?


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And what did I knit while we were away?

Well, for starters I brought along this felted flower kit I got YEARS ago from Tina at Knitwhits.

I've had it for a very long time but never bothered to make it because:

a) I'm not a flower-brooch-wearing-kinda-woman

and

b) it just looked too darn fiddly.

However, my recent love affair with felting Lamb's Pride made this an ideal travel project, so into the suitcase it went.

I'm quite delighted with how it turned out.

To paraphrase an old joke in our family,

What's this?



I dunnno....but here' comes another one!

These are two of the larger red petals. Pretty cunning the way you knit 2 petals in one piece.

Even tho' the instructions are extremely clear and simple, I still managed to screw them up.

See the roundy ends of the petals? I read the instructions to 'cast-off' 2 stitches at the end of every row when finishing the petals....and of course decided (without thinking in any way clearly about it) that it would be the same thing to Knit 2 together instead, which I felt was quicker, and surely would make no difference to the finished product.

Ah hah! Not so Ms Smartypants.

See the slightly pointier petal at the bottom right (of the pic above)? That's how it's supPOSEd to be.

And there WAS a difference in how the petals felted. Just goes to show. Every stitch has it's part to play in the scheme of things. (Kinda philosophical that, eh? You get it all here folks.)

(Note to self: just follow the instructions and see what happens before taking the lazy shortcuts. OK?)

And of course, the leaves.

Love love LOVE the way the slipped knit stitch creates that ridge down the spine of the garter stitch leaf. So cool. I couldn't wait to see how this felted.

But you'll have to...*

*(Yeah, that might seem mean to you, but how else am I going to create some dramatic tension? Huh? Tell me that! It's a knitting blog for goodness sakes!)
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Brittany in Brittany

I can't tell you how long it took me to notice this...



And in case you missed the point...



Did I mention we were on holidays in Brittany?

(Yes, there will be knitting again soon....promise.)

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