do you mind if i knit

Things at the moment.

Dear reader,

thank you for coming by and stopping to read my blog, my blog posts have been so erratic over the last few months, that I feel the need to explain to you, with out going in to any detail, that I need to ease up a lot on blogging for a little while. There are a few reasons for this, and those of you who have been reading my blog for years might have sensed something was wrong, because my posting has been erratic the last few months, and I haven't been responding to comments or commenting on people's blogs as much as I usually do, and I'm very sorry about this.

I can't really explain my situation at the moment, it may be that in time I can give you an indication of why things are so difficult, but at the moment it's best that I don't make things public.

What I will try to do is pop in every now and then, and try to be jolly, and get on with life. I'm still knitting, and I hope to do a reveal of the cardigan I'm making at some point.

I've been feeling that I owe it to my loyal readers to let you know that there is a reason for my blogging being so erratic, it's not that I'm losing interest in you, or blogging, it's just that things are difficult at the moment, and they will be for a while.

Thank you.

Vanessa xxx

Evangeline Meditates, and Evangeline Does The Tea Towel Dance.

Hello.

Who would have thought.

Little Evangeline the mouse, is still going about her business, living her life, immortalised (sounds very grand) in various sculptures that go to different people's homes.

Last week I sent off a new mouse to Australia, to a lady who commissioned an Evangeline to reflect a part of her own life.

Evangeline Meditates.

The same lady bought another Evangeline to send to a special person in her life. In this one, Evangeline was doing The Tea Towel Dance.

I was just thinking, it might be fun to look back over all the Evangeline sculptures I've made, from the very first, to the latest one.

 

I'm working on another Evangeline, in which she's pretending she's at the wheel of a very fast car.

I've always liked Evangeline's little dream world. Her escapism, which peppers her days of cleaning and tidying, really appeals to me.

Though my sculptures are changing.

I'm moving towards creating pieces that have more serious content, exploring themes that bear no resemblance to the world of childhood, which a lot of my sculptures might have leaned towards in the past, or been considered to be linked to.

Unfortunately I can't show you these new pieces, they are being created to go to various galleries, and I have to be all secretive about them, sorry about that. I will be able to show you photos of them eventually.

You know what? I think I've reached the end of this blog post, I've suddenly gone vacant. I think I'll head off now, my concentration has completely evaporated.

Cheerio!

Vanessa xxx

 

The Walnuss Cardigan.

Hello!

The Walnuss Cardigan by Anke Stricke, is what I'm knitting now.

Would you like to see a picture of the finished cardigan on Ravelry?

Here you are, go to this link. You'll have to be a member of Ravelry to access this, you do this by applying to be a member and when you're invited, you can join and have access to an amazing pattern library. It's free to join.

If you're a knitter you may well have heard of Ravelry, and downloaded patterns. Some patterns you can get for free, with other patterns there is a charge of around $6.

The link to the wonderful world of Ravelry is here.

I'm a huge fan of Ravelry, it's the most amazing way to find all varieties of knitting and crochet patterns.

And one of the best things is that members upload photos of their knitting, so if you want to see what the garment you might knit, looks like on all shapes and sizes of bodies, you go to the projects link for that pattern.

The link to see what the pattern I'm knitting, The Walnuss Cardigan, looks like on many different people, is here.

I have to admit, the pattern for this cardigan is not for the faint hearted. It's a very clever pattern, but you need to be alert when knitting this. I feel as though I'm having a rehearsal for the second cardigan I might knit from this pattern. There are a few uncertainties, like the wool I'm using, I'm not sure the Rowan Cashsoft 4 ply in shade 453, has enough drape for this garment. There are also some mistakes I've made which I only became aware of by the time I'd knitted on quite a lot, and I just didn't feel like ripping back all the knitting I'd done. Like making a buttonhole every 7 mm, rather than the 7 cm required in the pattern. I'll have lots of buttons on this cardigan.

I think I thought that because this is such a simple design, (it looks simple in the photo for the pattern), it would be an easy knit. But it's not a particularly easy knit. I had a question about the pattern which I didn't know how to solve, and I emailed the designer Anke Strick, she got back to me really quickly, I thought that was very nice of her, and my problem was resolved.

Righty-ho, I'm going off to do some knitting, my fingers are itching to get going.

Have a lovely weekend.

Cheerio.

Vanessa xxx

Dressylicious.

Hello!

Back after another week away from blogging, work load, you know the thing, will just skim over it because it's very boring. Just to say sorry for yet another absence.

In my last blog post, I said I'd tell you more about the dress I was wearing under the dress I knitted, in the photo above.

It's a dress I love to wear, and I can imagine other people loving wearing it too, so I thought I'd share my source with you.

I didn't sew it myself, it was made by Kate at Harmony and Rosie, and bought from her shop.

I tell you, it was bloomin freezing when these phots were taken by Helen.

Helen Stephens. I've mentioned her work on my blog before. She's also a very lovely friend, it was extremely nice of her to stand out in the cold with me and take these photos.

Actually, she's just had another fabulous book published, which might interest those of you who know, or have small people in your life. It's called "The Big Adventure of The Smalls", and you can see it on Amazon UK here, or Amazon US here.

Helen has a blog called "oh, I forgot to say", and in one of her latest blog entries she shows her drawings of my Miniature Wire Haired Dachshunds, Ellie and Douglas. She's borrowed them a couple of times to draw them, because....................... !!!! She's doing a children's book in which they are the stars!!!!!!!!!!!!

Imagine if your children were starring in a book, and the author was producing lots of drawings of your beloved children for the book, you might well feel thrilled about it.

Well, it's the same if you have beloved dogs, there are lots of happy feelings involved in seeing your children/dogs being drawn for a book.

If you want to see some of Helen's drawings of the doggies, go to this link.

So, back to the dress.

Without a belt, or with belt? What do you think? I just can't decide.

Maybe it's a mood thing, how I wear it depends on how I feel on the day?

I really love this dress, and I'm so glad I bought it from Kate. It's made in linen and comes with full care instructions. The colour isn't a colour way that Kate shows in her shop yet. I emailed her asking if the Iona Tunic dress was available in any other colours than the dress shown in her shop, and she photographed this colour fabric, and emailed it to me, and I knew immediately it was the one.

This dress is so, so comfortable, and I think it's a timeless piece too, I shall wear it till it becomes a limp rag. I find the pockets very handy and nice to use, (the dresses I have that don't have pockets now seem incomplete). It's made with a linen fabric, which crumples, but that is part of it's charm, that elegant crumple of linen, and I actually like it's look.

This blue green colour is a colour I'm very "in" to at the moment. I've started a new knitting project in a blue green wool. It's a very clever but complicated knitting pattern (for something that appears relatively simple), and requires a small amount of gritting of the teeth and bearing the pain stoically in the following of the pattern.

Maybe I'll save showing you what the pattern is till my Friday blog post, rather than over-loading you with too many links and images.

Yes, Friday's post it is, showing you what I'm knitting.

Till then, take care, may the sun shine on you, and now I'm tip-toeing off back to work.

Cheerio.

Vanessa xxx