do you mind if i knit

Susan's Fair Isle Scarf started me on my Fair Isle Journey.

Helloeee! Just sorted out the little problem with the computer, and am now all yours.

I had thought I might be able to show you my finished fair isle dress today, but alas, it is not to be. It needs to be lined. The fair isle section on the skirt, is so heavy, it's pulling the top part down, and I don't want any stretching going on.

So I have looked in my fabric stash, and found an old curtain I bought in a charity shop, and I'm going to use that to line my dress.

My friend Bob, who's just had a baby, and is a dress maker and costumier by profession (she's worked for the Globe Theatre in London, impressive hey?), is going to very generously show me how to line my knitted dress. Isn't that nice of her? We're going to try and fit the dress making demonstration into the couple of hours baby Nancy is having her nap.

But I'm straying from the reason I'm here today!

Susan's (my Mother-in-Law), Fair Isle Scarf!

I owe the inspiration for my fair isle endeavors entirely to Susan. It was Susan who got my attention with her free-style fair isle. In other words, using only pattern repeats from a book as guidance, no full written out pattern.

I'd been wanting to try fair isle knitting for a while before I saw Susan's knitting, but had been intimidated by the patterns, they look so complicated.

(Douglas always has to get in to photographs. He's a shy little doggy, but when the camera comes out, he suddenly wants to pose too).

Susan inspired me to try my hand at the old free style fair isle, and make my own scarf, (the reveal of which will have to wait for another time). For the moment, I want to concentrate on giving Susan's scarf the full photo-shoot, "look how beautiful it is" treatment.

It's just sooo gorgeous. And goes with my charity shop tweed jacket rather well don't you think? I'll be returning Susan's scarf to her with some reluctance, I have to admit.

It's a stunner isn't it?

Just love, love, love the colours. It seemed apropriate to the colours in the scarf to take these photos by the sea.

Which then turned into a flower child session, or that's what I started to feel like, a flower child.

I like going for walks and sticking flowers in my buttonholes.

Note the twiddle in my hair? That, I've found, is the perfect way to manage a fringe I'm growing out, just twiddle it, and there's no unsightly shortish/longish bits of fringe hair. Since doing this, I've noticed that I'm one of many people doing the twiddle, it must be fashionable.

I tried to persuade Hugo to let me put flowers in his curly locks, and take photos for you, but he was having none of it. Wouldn't have those photos been wonderful?

Then the dogs would have had to have chains of flowers on their small furry heads, and we could have been flowery-powery together, as a nice little flowery-powery family unit.

I'll just have to imagine those photos.

It's very tempting to copy Susan's colour scheme, and make a scarf for myself, to go with this jacket. We'll not only have matching winter boots (we have the same boots), but Susan is a fan of tweed, like me, and probably owns a similar tweed jacket. There's a potential great photo, me and Susan wearing matching clothes! Wonder what Hugo would think of that.

Well, I'm off to do some knitting. Tomorrow I'll be snatching a couple of hours off work and making the lining for my dress, which I shall of course try and document for your viewing pleasure. Till Wednesday then! Love Vanessa xxx

A little dog who sighs a lot.

Hello! I sometimes think Ellie looks a bit like a cat when she's curled up asleep. Do you think she looks a bit like a cat?!

Miniature wire-haired Dachshunds (which is what our two doggies are), go really teeny weeny when they curl up tight. When they're in this position, it usually means they're concentrating hard on the job of sleeping, but they look so adorable when they're like this, I always want to scoop them up and give them cuddles. Which doesn't go down well, especially with Ellie.

Ellie was doing a lot of snorting, followed by great big huffy-puffy sighs, whilst I was photographing my knitting. It must be very exasperating for her, that I never appreciate just how much sleep a dog of her miniature stature needs.

I swear I could hear her mumbling "this is my sofa so just go away".

Anyway, as a dog owner who in no way (ahem) panders to the whims of my dogs, I carried on photographing my knitting.

Do you get an idea of the OCEAN of yarn ends I've been sewing in, from these photographs?! Feels like an ocean.

I really am having to grit my teeth and get on with it. Well, I don't have a choice, they have to be sewn in if I want to wear my fair isle dress. It does feel a bit like there are thousands to sew in though!

Someone made a comment at my knitting group about the amount of ends to sew in, and I said they wouldn't be a problem, and I naively believed what I was saying. Self-deluded, that's what I was.

Anyway, this is fast turning into a great big long moan about sewing in ends, and that's about as bad as actually sewing them in. So I'll just show you some colourful pictures to whet your appetite for the big reveal, which will hopefully happen next week.

Ellie, my little snuffling flower.

Must be going now, it's my knitting group meeting tonight, and I've got ends to sew in. Lovely.

Before I go, here's a bit of something interesting. Someone asked a friend of mine if I'm pregnant, because she saw me "wearing a maternity oufit". I'm not pregnant, I just like wearing loose smocked tops. Every time I put them on in the future, (and I have three of these 'maternity' tops), I'm going to be a bit self-conscious. I was wearing one of these tops when I answered the door to the postman a few weeks ago, and he said "have we some good news then?"

Look at this blanket, above, it's from anthropologie. I like the freeform crochet going on, it's inspiring don't you think? Linda shows it on her blog, which you can find here. If you go over to her blog, she's got a link to a fabulous must-see crochet blanket that someone has just finished, honestly, it's worth the peek.

Must go. Toodle-loo. Love Vanessa xxx

Thing-a-me's, like tights and camper vans.

Hello, lovely to see you, feels like ages since I've been here, when it was only Friday I was here last, I must have packed loads into my weekend.

Hugo was so pleased to read your comments from my last post, he was very touched by the things you wrote, thank you, they were heart warming. He's fully recovered now, a few early nights did the trick.

I went to Edinburgh on Saturday, to mooch around galleries, and see the 'Impressionist Gardens' exhibition. It was a lovely show, but left me strangely flat, which surprised me. It's had rave reviews in the press, and so I went with high expectations, but I just found it dull. The paintings were beautiful, but Impressionism, which, when it was first let loose on the public, was seen as revolutionary, whereas now it's very much part of the establishment. There were some exquisite paintings on show, where the speckled light dazzled, but generally, the actual gardens in the paintings were dull and uninspiring. I've been very spoilt this year, visiting some extraordinary real-life open gardens. Many of the paintings in the show didn't capture the verve of flowers and foliage.

I did leave Edinburgh with a couple of pairs of tights that were on sale. The Impressionist show might not have got my pulse racing, but the tights did.

It might have been a little warm to wear my tights on Sunday, but I was determined to pull them on. I love their loudness. I love stripes, so when I saw them in a shop called Aubin and Wills, and that they had been reduced from £29 to £9, they had to come home with me. There's an on-line shop, if you want to buy a pair for yourself, the link to the tights is here.

I like their packaging, and the fonts they use, very stylish.

The other side of the bag is ever so cool. My tights came home wrapped in tissue paper with the logo all over it too, tissue paper to keep and treasure I think.

We went for a coffee on the promenade after my little photo-shoot.

Ellie wore her sunhat.

She really needs some 50's style sunglasses to complete the look, don't you think?

Then we returned to the carpark, and saw this camper van parked next to our car. It was the curtains that caught my eye.

There was a lady sitting inside, I think she was having a cup of tea.

Her other half was sitting in the driver's seat, nursing his cuppa. He didn't look like he wanted to talk. Maybe he was in deep contemplation of the view..........

The lighthouse in the distance.

I instantly fell in love with this little camper van, and had visions of it painted in duck-egg blue, with vintagey finds inside, and me sitting drinking tea, eating Victoria Sponge cake, and crocheting blankets for the interior. I like the idea of whizzing around in it, taking off and having adventures. If they wanted to, Hugo and the doggies could come along for the ride.

Look, you can see more pics of the mk1 transit camper here, they're wonderful!

Mine might have red gingham check curtains, or I could make some out of squares of fabric, lots of different squares of pattern sewn together, quilt style.

Lovely. I wonder if it will ever happen.

Have you got five minutes to spare? To settle down with a cup of tea or a tipple, and watch this short film for Toast, it might take a little while to download, but it's rather a lovely film, dreamy.

Sorry, still no sleeve pics to show you, and I've finished both the sleeves for my fair isle dress! Tonight I'm going to start sewing in ends of yarn. It's getting quite close to the big reveal of my dress, so maybe I'll wait till it's all finished till I show you anything more! Till Wednesday then! Cheerio. Love Vanessa xxx

Wallpaper?

Hello! I'm wearing a yellow dress I found in a charity shop, today, and I'm much chirpier than I was on Monday! Hurrah!

Today I'm going to dip my toe into the subject of wallpaper, which I'm not planning on buying, but I could be manoevred into planning to buy some, if this wallpaper idea of mine was available.

Patchwork wallpaper. I haven't a clue if it exists, but I'd like my wallpaper to be exactly like one of Hen's cushion covers. She's a master of mixing pattern and colour, using the most gorgeous vintage fabrics, and each cushion cover is made up of about 100 small squares. One hundred, yes.

I'm in the fortunate position of owning one of Hen's beautiful cushions, it was a Birthday gift from my parents this year. Such a wonderful present.

Every time I look at it, I see fabric squares I hadn't noticed before, so it's a constant joyous surprise staring at it whilst I'm drying my hair each morning, when I should probably be paying more attention to my hair in the mirror.

I thought I'd photograph some of the squares to show you, and give you a similar happy experience! Then as I was putting the mosaic together, it occured to me that this patchwork cushion would make the loveliest of pattern repeats on wallpaper. Probably not like my mosaic, more like Hen's actual cushion cover.

A bit like this above?

Or like this photo?

If I was suddenly blessed with an immense stash of fabric, I suppose I could always sew my own wallpaper together, out of little squares of fabric.

I'm off to knitting group now, but before I go, I see it as my duty to direct you to something that may well make you smile, laugh too. A real pony who lives the high life, look here, at Jenni's blog post (scroll down a bit till you get to the video). I must show it to Hugo later, it's a real gem.

Well, toodle pip and all that. Love Vanessa xxx

Sleeve progress.

Hello! D'you have a good weekend?! Hope so.................... Ours was a strange weekend, with an early start on Saturday morning to attend the funeral of a dear neighbour, who was and is loved by many. Saturday afternoon we visited a gallery, (and although we were cold-calling, in the nicest possible way we hoped), the gallery owner was lovely, and took eight of my prints, which I was exceedingly pleased about. Then in the evening we went to some friends for a meal, and had a rollicking good time. I'm so glad I didn't drink too much, because it takes me a week to recover from one evening of staying up late, let alone a hangover. So glad I know my limits these days.

Saturday was a mix of highs and lows, and that sort of thing is exhausting isn't it? So Sunday, I felt tired, and today I feel washed out, so it was with the greatest of self prodding that I picked up my camera and took these photos of my fair isle dress and its progress for you, in the abysmal grey light that we have been treated to today, this month of July. Summer.

One inset sleeve, above. I tried it on, and it seemed to work as a sleeve! I did a provisional cast on, because now I am going to work the sleeve downwards, towards the cuff, in a fair isle pattern, like this:

When I worked the cable section of the sleeve, I cast on thirty more stitches than was needed for the stocking stitch area, as the cabling draws the knitted fabric in, a bit like smocking. So before progressing downwards with the fair isle pattern, I reduced the stitches on the needle to the number they should be, according to the pattern.

I'm going to have to take this sleeve out to work on it. All the work on the fair isle pattern of the skirt, (involving going round and round on the circular needle), caused friction on the top half, and you can just see the pilling in the cabled top half, above. So I want to try and avoid any more friction than is neccessary, by working on the sleeve seperately from the dress.

So I'm feeling a bit cream crackered today, not even wearing bright pinks and greens has perked me up. I know you wanted to see the sleeve progress of my fair isle dress, and didn't want to keep you hanging on any longer, so I had to pop by and say hello, and do a mini-reveal.

Right! I'm going to make myself a cup of tea, pick up my knitting, and enjoy creating some more fair isle. Toodle-pip! Love Vanessa xxx

I never leave cake on my plate, but there's a first for everything.

Did you get a but of sunshine this last weekend? I hope so, it's good for the soul isn't it? Today is Monday, and it's a bit of a bedraggled day, so I'm turning to my photos from the weekend to give myself a bit of cheer.  We visited another open garden on Saturday, and the tables were set up beautifully. It's grey and lumpen outside and I'm in the mood for colour and sunshine, so here we go, a bit of indulgence on my part.

I don't know why, but when I look at pictures like the one above, I feel happy, excited, inspired, happy, this sort of image is pure escapism, simplicity, cheeriness.

A splendid red-and-white striped marquee had been set up in the garden, infact, a lot of effort had been put intop setting up the event.

We did our usual first port-of-call, the tea tent. My Mother-in-Law, Susan, visited the garden with us, and Hugo and Susan went to get the teas and scones, whilst I chose somewhere to sit from a group of empty tables. I thought it was a bit strange that there were so many empty tables. Beautiful, but very empty.

We all sat down in eager anticipation of our yummy looking scones and cups of tea.

Oh dear. I've never left a scone in my entire life, I love scones, and Hugo will eat anything, but he couldn't eat his either. What a shame. Still, the table decorations made up for the scone incident, they were glorious.

 

 

My gaze did waver from the tables and tea cups a couple of times, like to this coconut shy. There's something very old fashioned about coconut shy's don't you think? That's why I like them.

And we did have an amble round the garden, which was pretty, mainly full of flowers intended to be cut.

  There were some more open gardens on Sunday, but I worked in my garden all day, apart from when I was taking two baby Seagulls who had fallen out of their nests, (and wouldn't have survived without my intervention according to the vet), up to the wildlife centre. They were small and covered in fuzzy grey down, and very helpless. One flapped it's wings, and I was amazed at the wing span on such a small a bird. They're safe and sound as I write this, getting all the love and care they need to grow into great big fat Seagulls, like the one's on all the roofs of the houses around here. The mother wasn't very happy about me taking the babies away, but the vet insisted they wouldn't survive if I left them there, there was a lot of squawking and cries from the Seagulls circling above us.

I've started on the first sleeve of my knitted dress, ripped that out, and started again. Sorry, no photos just yet, but there will be more on Wednesday.

I must love you and leave you know, I'm itching to do some knitting. See you Wednesday! Love Vanessa xxx

Relaxing to Fair Isle, rather than music.

Hello! It's been aaaages hasn't it? It feels like it's been a while since I popped in to say hello. Things have been whirl-wind busy here, but I think I'm getting there, and slowly returning to 'normal', as normal as things are normally.

I've been working on the final art work for my latest mole book, which has actually gone over the deadline. I've been doing my selling of bargain books (tomorrow, Tuesday, is the last day of this bargain book sale, details available here), and I've been organising the prints of my paintings, putting them in their mounts and bags, ready to go to various galleries, and some are to go in my etsy shop, I just need to photograph them and put them in my etsy shop. When I have some photos, I'll show you the pictures.

Phew! Busy busy busy. Oh, and I've been working on my fair Isle dress.

When you last saw my fair isle dress it was at the above stage.

This dress is like a little oasis of calm, when I sit down to knit it everything else is forgotten about, it's just me and my knitting, with happy colours.

I'm so in love with my fair isle knitting, I can't imagine knitting anything else other than fair isle. I'm besotted.

And I'm wondering if my spotty shoes would be too outrageous a match for my dress when I finish it, and get to wear it.

I like it. Though, to be honest, if they were orange rather than red shoes, with white spots, they'd probably be a better fit with the dress.

Ho-hum, we'll see. I do have some bright green shoes that might do the job. Ho-hum.

Well, it might be six o'clock on a Monday evening here, but I have to sign off and get back to work, which is a shame, as I'd like to stay and chat. Inbetween all the busyness, we have made time to go and visit some idyllic open gardens that have made me want time to stop, and I'm very eager to show you just how beautiful they were. That will have to wait till another time, when I've got more time. So ta-ra for now twinkle toes. Love Vanessa xxx

Fair Isle fun!

Hello! I am, officially, a busy little bee, and I'm almost buzzed out. Knitting my fair isle dress has been done in moments of relaxation this week, which seem to have been few and far between. Good thing I enjoy being busy isn't it?

 In the last couple of days I've been having a sale of my books, and it seems to be going well. Actually, I'm absolutely pleased as punch that you want to buy my books. 43 books sold so far, and I'm reeling from the astonishment of it all! To sell that amount in such a short time is the ultimate compliment. (If you're interested in buying some bargain books, illustrated by me, which I can sign and personalise for you should you so wish, have a look at the post which tells you all about it, by clicking here. Looking for a present that is a little bit different? You never know, a signed copy of one of my books might be just the job!)

Anyway, back to the fair isle shall we?

I just love my subtle choice of colour combinations. (Oh, it's not subtle did you say?!)

It's not at all subtle is it! But I'm enjoying it, ever so, ever so much, letting go with the colour, going a bit wild. It reminds me of the hot colours you might find in a sari, colours that wake you up, spicy colours.

What I always find when I'm doing fair isle, is that I have to knit an expanse of it before the colours start to pull together, and the pattern starts to gel. I think it's still at that "knit a bit more and it will start to work" stage. That's the way fair isle draws you in and gets you addicted, the "one more row and it will be even better" thing is gripping.

That orange is a bit of a wild card isn't it? I'm having to keep a tight grip on the reins with that orange, it's a bit of a run-away, and I waver between allowing it to rampage all over the pattern, and being strictly an accent colour, it sometimes gets the upper hand, as you can see above.

It's changed quite a bit since you last saw it in this post, hasn't it? I decided to unravel  some of the orange, I felt it was too solid.

I think the nice thing about fair isle patterns is the smattering and sprinkling of colour you get all over the pattern, and the process of dispersing bits of colour all over the place not only helps the colours to work together, but you also get an illusion that there are more colours being used, as you contrast different colours with each other.

Well, I'm off to have a quick cup of tea so that I stay fully alert whilst driving to meet Hugo, who is due back from having done a weeks course for the RNLI, (the Lifeboat), who he volunteers for. Apparently there was two days of first aid, a day of jumping fully clothed, whilst wearing full lifeboat safety gear, into the water and having to swim (I'm sure it wasn't as simple as that), and a day learning how to fire fight, followed by assessments this morning. He had to fly there (Poole), and I have to pick him up in the car after about a half hour drive according to Hugo, forty-five minute drive by my estimation, I try not to get speeding tickets).

I'd better get my skates on. Have a wonderful weekend, hope you have blissful weather, and see you on Monday, when I hope to be bright eyed and bushy tailed, and have yet more progress on my fair isle dress to report. Ta-ra! Love Vanessa xxx

Knitting in bed.

Hello! Do you ever knit or crochet in bed? I LOVE to knit or crochet when I wake up, after a cuppa has arrived by magic at my bedside each morning. The start of my day wouldn't feel complete without that few rows knitted each morning.

So this was me on Saturday morning, working on the Fair Isle section of my dress.

Uuuugghhhh it's addictive this Fair Isle, it's compulsive and is affecting my blogging time, hence no blog post last Friday, I just had to work on my dress, couldn't stop myself.

I'm trying to ignore the fact that the only circular needle in the right size I could find, isn't my usual luxury Addi Turbos, but the cheapest alternative, and each time I go in to a stitch the metal of each needle makes a horrible metally, set-your-teeth-on-edge sliding noise. It's actually making me feel a bit nauseous every time I use them, but I'm so enchanted with watching the Fair Isle pattern develop, I'm persevering. I think I might have to order some Addi Turbos on-line, because I shall, after all, be knitting this dress for a while, and the thought of feeling sick every time I knit is a bit ridiculous. The metal is making my hands ache too, so maybe I'll try bamboo circulars.

This Fair Isle malarky is a slow process. All that changing colours every few stiches. Still, I'm enjoying it, I really am. I think I'm getting into a rythmn.

This was the stage, above, I had reached today. That's when I decided I didn't like the solid orange arrows, too solid, you know what I mean?

So, during my lunch break, I sat in the garden and made a big decision.

I decided to unravel some of my knitting, which is no easy decision. The unravelling alone is a pain in the proverbial, with the yarns spiralling round each other, and putting the live stitches back on the needles is a painstaking business when there's about 260 of them.

Never mind, it's done now, and I'm feeling better for it, and actually, I'm just about to slink off and do some knitting. If you'd like to see how it's progressing, pop by on Wednesday and see the pictures................ who knows how it will have changed by then. Cheerio, and thank you for stopping by, looking forward to showing you all on Wednesday. Love Vanessa xxx

I'd rather be..................

That's the thing about working from home, distractions. It's oh so easy to stop work and have a break. I've been working from home for over twelve years now, so I've mostly got the 'break' thing under control. The simple answer when people ask me how I keep motivated at work is this, if I don't do my work, I don't get paid, and I can't afford not to be paid, my yarn addiction would not be the smallish problem it is at the moment, it would be my ruin.

Some days it is harder to buckle down and get on with work. Hot sunny days are the worst, when the garden is full of roses, (they are particularly good this year, there's a real bonanza of flowers), when it looks so pretty and inviting, and it's just the right temperature for sitting out, with a cup of tea and my knitting. Today was one of those days. We've been treated to heat, sun and happy birds all day, and I wish these photos of my knitting and cup of tea in the garden represented reality, but unfortunately the deadline to finish the  book I'm working on is looming, and I'm nowhere near finished, so I have been shackled to my desk most of the day.

I said the garden has a lot of roses blooming this year, but in these photos, you can't see the roses I'm growing, they're all over to the left of the garden, which gets the most sun.

I must show you one rose which has just started to flower, she's a beauty.

This is the rose 'Lady of Shalott', above, aren't her flowers beautiful! I bought her from David Austin, after seeing her introduction, when I watched the Chelsea Flower Show on t.v, in 2009. She's meant to be good at resisting disease, and flowers profusely I understand. I shall have to wait and see on both counts, as the summer progresses.

I must cut a few of my roses, and bring them indoors, so I can enjoy them, there are so many about to burst in to flower, I can spare a few for the house.

Over the last few years I've grown to love yellow roses, which is strange, as I used to dislike them. I can pinpoint exactly when I started to change my opinion of them. I heard that Kate Spade always has a bouquet of them on her desk. I love the style and colours of Kate Spade, so when I heard she has to have them on her desk at all times, I stopped to think about this little fact. I imagined lots of yellow flowers in a perfect dome shape (in one of those low round bowl-like vases), and I pictured them set against chalky pink, duck-egg blue, grey chalk or a 50's soft green. And the effect of this imagining made me think I had been judging them unfairly.

I love pink roses too, but there's something about yellow roses. And I quite like that I opened myself up to liking them, I like having my perceptions changed.

Oooh, is that the time! It's time I got going to my Wednesday night knitting group. I'd better dash. See you Friday, fingers crossed, I'll have started on the fair isle bit of my dress. Love Vanessa xxx