"The bowler approached the wicket at a lope, a trot, and then a run. He suddenly exploded in a flurry of arms and legs…”

“…out of which flew a ball.” 

Only a short post this week, just to mention a couple of finished objects from a little while ago.

The niblings are a little obsessed with playing with balls. I cannot think of a non-dirty way to write that.They like balloons, footballs, those plastic beachy ones, they just love spheres.

So I found these two simple patterns and thought they might make good presents. Unfortunately the woven ball isn’t fastened together so I don’t think it would survive a baby’s curious fingers for long, and the stripy ball is about a third of the size I was expecting it to be.

CB speaks highly of a knitted football he and his brother had when they were younger, as it was a way to play football inside the house. I figured since I don’t live with any small ones, I wouldn’t have to deal with any broken objects so an inside football would be a great idea!

It’s a shame they aren’t really what I wanted. They could still be gifts, just not as good as I wanted. At least I got to use up some of the cheap yucky wool I have balls and balls of going spare. I bought it years ago and it’s not really suitable for many projects as it feels so plasticy and thin.  But the superscrimper in me won’t let me throw it away – it’s still useable wool after all! So back it goes into the stash….


*Quote from Douglas Adams

“The spectator is a prince…”

“…who everywhere rejoices in his incognito.”

One of my favourite words is also one of my favourite things to be:

“Flâneur, from the French noun flâneur, means "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", or "loafer". Flânerie is the act of strolling, with all of its accompanying associations” (Wikipedia)

And I have recently had a few days to enjoy being a flâneur in Bruges with my partner CB. The early days of our relationship were spent strolling around the streets of London, getting to know the City and its rhythms as much as we got to know each other. Since moving up North our urban flânerie has been curtailed, but we do love a wander and Bruges has to be one of the prettiest places to amble about.

We first visited Bruges a year or two ago so knew pretty much what we wanted to do. Which was essentially: eat waffles, chips and chocolate (not together) and drink beer.

Add a healthy dose of snoozing in the world’s most comfortable bed (we could lie horizontally on the feather duvet atop the memory foam mattress and not touch the sides – sigh!) and all that’s missing is hours spent walking around the cobbled streets and along the canal paths.

It doesn’t hurt that Autumn is my favourite season. The colours, the temperatures (hurray! Hats, gloves and scarves!) and the smells are a tonic for the soul.

Fun fact: I always thought Spring was my favourite season until this year. At some point in September I turned to CB and sighingly told him how much I love the sights and smells of Autumn, at which point he smiled and told me that I say that every year! He said it’s clearly my favourite season, but I had no idea! Well, at least I’m consistent in feeling even if I’m crap in memory…

Although this musing is really about the loveliness of existing in a space and being part of it while also passing through it, which is how I feel as a flâneur and also how I feel about Autumn, I couldn’t live with myself if I mentioned Bruges without a shout out to the amazing Historium.

Me, eating a waffle outside the Historium <3

God I love this place. Plus now there’s a virtual reality attraction where you fly. I almost fainted afterwards, it’s brilliant.

*Quotes from Charles Baudelaire

“The magic is only in what books say…

“…how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.” 

Another finished object to show off!

This time it’s nothing for a baby, it’s adult clothing.

No, wait…. That sounds dirty. Let me try again…

It’s a shrug made to fit a grown up. A particular grown up in fact. Me! 

I don’t have many pictures of its construction as, it turns out, tiny black stitches next to other tiny black stitches aren’t amazingly photogenic. At least, not at my skill level.

I used a pattern called Mae (Ravelry link here) by Carrie Bostick Hoge and, although I couldn’t bring myself to purchase the delicious but pricey wool the pattern called for, I did splash out on some delightfully soft merino wool – MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino in Pitch Black. Yum.

I’m really pleased. Initially I thought it would come round a bit further, but after a block it has stretched nicely, and I think a few wears will mould it to my body even further. It’s such a simple design, putting good use to simple stockinette and garter stitch patterns, but I think it looks really snazzy. Comfy but smart.

It’s also really cozy thanks to the merino wool and how it sits snugly against the neck. Perfect to go over a fancy dress at winter weddings!

*Quote from Ray Bradbury

" “Take off your hat," the King said to the Hatter..."

"..."It isn't mine," said the Hatter.

"Stolen!" the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made a memorandum of the fact.

"I keep them to sell," the Hatter added as an explanation; "I've none of my own. I'm a hatter.” " *

I am not a hatter, but I feel a bit like one.

Having said I would take a break before knitting any more hats, I then realised I was seeing my very pregnant friend pretty soon and it would be infinitely more convenient to give her both jumpers and both hats at the same time.

So I found myself once again knitting using the Dayton pattern, this time in the smallest size, and once again knitting to a deadline - I started on Monday and needed both finished by Saturday evening.

The first hat went pretty smoothly. Knitted up quickly, finished in three days (plus some finishing and pom pom making). However, partway through my second hat, I opened the pdf pattern on my phone (rather than using the LoveKnitting App) and it opened an entirely different version of the pattern, with different sizes and different directions. No notice of this happening, no choice of using the old or new pattern. I was pretty unhappy, considering I had already started knitting using the old version.

Luckily I had saved the old version elsewhere and, by not closing the app, I could still access the original pattern document. But I wasn't happy. You think it would tell you the designer had updated the pattern. Grr...

Once that hurdle was...well, hurdled, I soon encountered another. I was mid-way through the cabling (was on the third cable repeat out of six) when I realised I had messed up. And messed up in a superbly stupid way. I had begun the cable row and not actually cabled any stitches. I moved two stitches on to the cable needle, put the needle to the back of the work, and then promptly knitted those two stitches rather than the two next ones. About half-way through the row I started cabling properly, but I still didn't realise my mistake until the row afterwards when I suddenly saw only half of my hat was in the correct pattern.

I tried to tink back a row and a half, but found it impossible to untwist the stitches. I then ripped th row out, but then couldn't pick up all the stitches and be confident they were on the same row, that I hadn't missed any, and that they were the right way round.

I will be honest, I cried. I had a bit of a tantrum. This was Friday night, the day before my deadline, and I was ripping all my beautiful cabling out. I managed to pick up my stitches from the garter stitch band, and the rest was fine.

It was pretty hairy for a bit, but I finished in good time on Saturday and my friend was delighted with the knits. PHEW.


*Quote from Lewis Carroll,

“Each day I live in a glass room…”

“…unless I break it with the thrusting of my senses and pass through the splintered walls to the great landscape.”

Recently my parents came Oop North for a visit. Despite officially being Autumn now, miraculously the weather was surprisingly balmy and we had a great day out in Castleton, in Derbyshire.

The parental units are members of both English Heritage and the National Trust and seem to be on a mission to visit every property they can (oh to be retired!). As such, we first went to Peveril Castle:

It’s a very very steep walk up, but well worth it. The castle is a ruined 11th-century castle which wasn’t really ever a ‘proper’ castle. The closest it came to seeing battle was in 1216, when King John gave the castle to William de Ferrers, but the castellan refused despite them both being the King’s supporters. De Ferrers was authorised to ‘use force’ but there’s no evidence that the castle was actually assaulted.

It was rebuilt a bit after King Henry III visited, but he never came back to see the result. It was used for local courts in the 1600s, but essentially just fell into disrepair and ruin. Which is a shame, but it looks very romantic and gothic now.

After the castle we stopped by one of the many pubs for a well-received drink and bite to eat. We only meant to get something small, but portions were HUGE! I still ate practically all of it. Think CB only got one chip.

After lunch we pootled round the shops. Everything is Blue John themed after one of the caverns nearby. Lots of pretty jewellery and trinkets, though we were most impressed by these fantastic encyclopaedic mugs (ever wanted to learn all the bones in the human body while drinking your morning cup of tea?) though £20 for one mug was too much of a stretch. Plus how could you pick only one?

We then wanted to visit a cavern and, it getting on for 4pm by that point, there was only one closest we could get to before closing time. Peak Cavern, also known as:

Surprisingly, despite the name, the cavern was fantastic.

There are large flow stone (beautiful swirling white calcium carbonite deposits) formations in the entrance, and teeny tiny stalactites further inside the cavern, both of which would have taken hundreds and hundreds of years to form.

Cave exploration is still ongoing in the Peak Cavern system, but there’s a good 13 miles of caving that links with Speedwell cavern nearby. It is the longest cave system (so far discovered) in Derbyshire.

The tour started with a rope-making demonstration, which we thought would be rubbish but was really interesting! The entrance of the cavern was used from the 1600s to the late 1800s by rope makers, with the rope being used for the lead mining industry around Castleton.

Early visitors to the cave were taken round by the rope makers using only smelly tallow candles for light. So creepy! After the entrance, you have to bend double for a bit in order to enter the ‘Great Cave’, but originally visitors would have had to enter by climbing into a coffin-like boat and floating through a low archway. We don’t have to do that anymore as Queen Victoria flatly refused to travel like that, so they blasted her out a passageway (she was annoyingly short, old Queen Vic) as we walked through that.

The Great Cave is pretty impressive. Obviously when we were there it was lit with electric lights, but back in t'day they would have lit a firework to show visitors how big it was! The lights were turned out at one point (there was another group after us who were doing a soundscape - which we crashed and it was weird) and to be in the pitch darkness was quite unnerving. I can't imagine what it was like for someone to ride into the darkness in a coffin-boat to explore somewhere associated with the Devil!

The cavern floods and so the ‘Arsehole’ is actually a small hole where the water drains back. Quite a lot of pressure builds up and, unsurprisingly, when that pressure releases it makes the noise that you might associate with the Devil’s Arsehole…

*Quote from Mervyn Peake

“Some hats can only be worn if you're willing to be jaunty, to set them at an angle and to walk beneath them with a spring in your stride…”

“…as if you're only a step away from dancing. They demand a lot of you.” 

Another pat on the back for me – I have finished the hats for my niece and nephew!

I used the pattern Dayton (Ravelry link here) and yarn already in my stash for them both (you might recognise the green Paintbox Aran from the Rainbow Cardigans - pattern here and blog posts here and here).

This completes the winter woollies set for my nephew (which I sort of took on by accident), but which has turned out far nicer than I anticipated and will hopefully fit him.

My sister didn’t think my niece would wear mittens or booties (thank god) so her ‘set’ is literally just the hat! Though I did add a pompom for an extra jazzy touch. Plus I have run out of the green wool and had to add a few rows of grey to finish it!

I’m not a big fan of knitting cables. They are easy to do and they look fantastic, but the cable row and the one immediately after always seem wrong. Too tight, or too gapey. Yes that's a word. Of course they’re not, and when you get a couple more rows along it all evens out, but there’s still that nagging doubt every time you repeat…

I was intending on knitting a couple more of these for the twins, but I don’t know if I have it in me to knit two more of the same pattern. I might have a browse for alternatives - though I suspect I’ll come straight back to this one. It is lovely.


*Quote from Neil Gaiman

“I enjoy acronyms.”

“…Recursive Acronyms Crablike "RACRECIR" Especially Create Infinite Regress” 

In my travels, I have read many a knitting blog, spent many hours trawling knitting forums (well, Ravelry mainly), and have had to re-read knitting patterns far too many times. Through these adventures in knit-land, I have had to learn a new sort of language: the language of Knitting Acronyms.

Some are pretty obvious (FO = Finished Object). Some make no sense but once you learn what it stands for you wonder how you didn’t twig (ISO = In Search Of). And some are brilliantly obscure (SABLE = Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy).

So, for posterity, here is my list (so far) of knitting terms:

BOR = Beginning of Round.

CAL = Crochet Along.

CIP = Crocheting In Public.

Colorway = The name or number of the colour of a yarn.

DPN = Double Pointed Needles.

DS = Destash (to get rid of unwanted yarn.)

EOR = End Of Row.

FO = Finished Object.

Frog = To rip back (“rip it, rip it”) by removing the needles from the project and pulling on the loose end of the yarn. Generally used when the mistake you made is a few rows ago, or when completely unraveling an entire item.

Frog Pond = A storage place for knitted things waiting to be frogged.

Gifted = Giving yarn/FO to others for free.

ISO = In Search Of.

KAL = Knit Along (where a group of people knit the same pattern and discuss it in a thread to give each other pointers, tips and encouragement.)

KIP = Knitting In Public.

Knitworthy = Someone worth knitting for (not just because they are lovely, but because they receive the items with enthusiasm and wear/use them.)

LK = Loom Knitting.

LYS = Local Yarn Store.

LYSO = Local Yarn Store Owner.

MK = Machine Knitting.

Muggle = Non-knitter.

OTH = On The Hooks.

OTN = On The Needles.

PM = Place Marker.

Pooling = When one colour in a variegated yarn groups or ‘pools’ together in one area.

SABLE = Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy (my personal favourite, but not something I aspire to!)

SQ = Sweater Quantity (enough yarn of one type to make a jumper!)

Tink = To undo knitted stitches by reversing the knitting motion, to go back and fix an error on that row. ‘Tink’ is ‘Knit’ backwards – essentially you are un-knitting each stitch.

UFO = UnFinished Object (a WIP that has been abandoned or neglected.)

W&T = Wrap and Turn (a technique to get short rows. Instead of knitting all the way from one side to the other and then knitting back again, you knit partway down the row, turn, and knit back.)

WIP = Work In Progress.

Yarn barf = a big lump of yarn that has accidentally become tangled together in a spaghetti-like mess. Heartbreaking.

*Quote from Douglas R. Hofstadter