Yarn Along on the beach

Joining in with Ginny’s Yarn Along, where she invites us to share a yarny project and a book we are reading.

At last I am reading a novel! This is one of my 16 for 16 challenges, I am on page 133 and am still with it – I’m relieved!

I used to love reading, but nowadays I spend so much time reading and writing blogs that I think that might be one of the reasons I haven’t read a novel for ages. The other reason is that the story has to be cheerful, interesting with very little jeopardy, but not too trashy – definitely nothing to do with war, death or violence – that cuts out a great many.

So far so good with ‘Enchanted August‘ by Brenda Bowen.

I was attracted to it because it is about Maine where Melissa of The Aran Artisan comes from. I’m not sure how much I will learn about Maine, but I’m fascinated with all the very English place names, Dorset being mentioned a lot.

As you can see in the photo above, I was taking a break from Beach Cleaning on Monday morning, (more photos here) by reading and knitting a wig. You can see more wigs, and patterns for them, in my Etsy shop

The wig will look something like this when it is finished

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New Year, New Pattern

Ta Dah!!!

New year, New Pattern! I am proud to announce a new pattern for my Ravelry and Etsy stores!                                 Exciting!

This fun Chemo Cap or fancy dress wig joins 5 other designs and is

modelled here so beautifully for me, back in the summer, by my lovely niece. 

It takes me absolutely ages to get a pattern from idea to online shop.                                This one was requested by a customer in America. All my patterns were in Chunky weight yarn, but she wanted one in Double Knit.

It took a while to work out something suitable and then  knit it – those are the two easy, fun stages.

 

 

The hard part is writing a pattern for others to follow. After that painstaking, brain-aching procedure, I have to put the pattern aside for a few weeks or months and come back to it afresh to test knit it – it always amazes me how many mistakes there are! A punctuation mark in the wrong place and it can all go horribly wrong!

This one has been waiting in the wings for a while as I needed a few quiet days to test-knit and put the finishing touches to it – and this mid-winter break has given me that vital quiet time – hurray! I love my hibernation years. (I only ‘do’ Christmas in alternate years!) You can see what I did with these precious days 2 years ago here.

These knitted wigs are such fun to create and I get such lovely responses from knitters and crocheters, who are often making them to cheer up a loved one who is going through chemo. It is heartwarming to know that a pattern I created just to see if I could, and for a laugh, is larking around the world cheering people up and bringing in some lightness during a difficult time in their lives. We never know what we are really doing do we – we just have to keep doing what makes us feel happy, or what we feel compelled to do as artists, and see what happens – sometimes with happily serendipitous results!!

Happy New Year one and all!

A Good Day

Some days go by and I feel I have done very little and then other days – like today, I feel full of energy having achieved much – it is no coincidence that the sun has been shining ALL day:

I woke early and cleared out some 150 or so emails from my Inbox – my how they increase when you are not on it! (up to just over 900, which is ridiculous!).

Checked in on Ravelry and Etsy and answered emails and messages.

Finished off a knitted Hat Wig (or Wig Hat – which sounds better? hmmm?) with a 3 needle cast off, my new favourite finishing technique,

I rarely get up before doing a bit of knitting or crochet, with my first cuppa of the day – green tea.

Charged phone, lap top, and camera ready to go to a meeting at work (this is some work I do with groups of children) and set off for the weekly market in my local town to buy snowdrops ‘in the green’, and some wonderful local produce.

I bought 20 little bunches of snowdrops from a local grower

and he kindly threw in a few extra and some advice to plant them at least 5″ deep to prevent them from being dug up by mice and squirrels for a tasty snack.

And then to work – I was a bit earlier than I needed to be so I sat in the car listening to ’12 Years a Slave’ on BBC Radio 4. and carrying on with some knitting – I was so engrossed in both that I was nearly late for my meeting – oops!

I’ve come up with this kinda wavy pattern for the Flick Wig – it’s probably a well known pattern, but it pleases me because it is a cable that does not need a cable needle,

and it gives the wig a bit of texture and creates a snugger fit, which is especially important for chemo caps/hats/wigs.

A very productive meeting at work, and then back home to plant snowdrops in the sunshine

I am planting them in front of my new espalier pear trees – Concorde, Conference, Clapps Favourite and Baronne de Mello which I got from Thornhayes Nursery in Devon. They were planted in early December.

And in front of the snowdrops will be a mass of forget-me-knots, from the seeds I was given last year and grew in my fabulous Veg Trugs

The heart is made of poppy seedlings, the ‘kisses’ are black cornflowers, and the sprinkling around the edge is the forget-me-knots.

I love how the shapes grew

I planted the snowdrops with a little of my own home made compost to give them a good start – you can see the amazing whizzo black rotary compost maker in the background

There is very little that gives me more pleasure than using my own compost! It ticks so many boxes for me – using up waste (the hoarder in me LOVES this!), environmentally fabulous, creative, and just so magical how kitchen waste can turn into rich earth so quickly to give my food and flower plants such a good start. Heavenly bliss!!! My children roll their eyes at my glee and delight!!!

And now the sun is going down so it’s back inside for a currant bun, vanilla chai and a cosy log fire – and more knitting of course!

How was your day?

Fun Chemo Caps, Hats, wigs

A couple of years ago, I was hopping around the internet looking for knitting inspiration when I saw a picture of a knitted wig. I couldn’t find a pattern for it so I made one up myself. To get the pattern right I had knitted several wigs.

which we had fun with at Stonechat – but what to do with them – so i put them in my Etsy shop.

I had no idea what a wonderful journey this would take me on. The first to sell was the Daisy Wig, which  was bought by a woman in America for her friend who was going through chemo and I was told  “she absolutely went nuts for it!”

And since then I have had such heartwarming messages from people who have bought a wig and say it has cheered up an otherwise grim time for them and their families – other members of the family wanting to wear the wigs too!

And of course they still come in handy for fancy dress parties

This is my lovely daughter-in-law modelling the multi-coloured clown style wig, getting ready to go to a ‘Bright and Tight’ Fancy Dress party.

I have also been asked to make some patterns using double knit rather than chunky yarn

and I have come up with these bob-styles.

It has taken several attempts to get the shape right – and now to get the pattern perfect for others to follow …….

So that is what I was working on whilst putting my feet up in the Middle East

swapping our little .beach hut studio at dear old wind-battered Portland Bill (crumbs, have we had some storms in the UK this winter!) for a different ambience altogether.

You can see my new toy in the picture – an iPad – mainly bought so that I could work on the patterns on the beach!!!

So, at one point I was 4, 410 miles from home, on the beach, listening to English radio live on the iPad, whilst reading a Thomas Hardy novel downloaded for free onto the iPad and knitting wigs – surreal?

I love my life!!!!

Fun way to keep your ears warm this Winter

Wigs and patterns have been flying off the shelves of my Etsy shop, so I am busy making more and improving the patterns as I go.

I’ve had some fun requests too which I can’t share with you yet – but hopefully when I have perfected to new designs I will be able to tell you all about it.

Let me know if you have any crazy ideas for styles of wigs I could make.

Looking forward to creating new designs in January when I take my knitting needles all the way to Abu Dhabi for some winter sun, R and R and a sort of knitting retreat – can’t wait!