All’s fair in love and Sock Wars…

What a week, it started with my assassination of a dear friend, Roo. I killed her with a pair of socks in blue alpaca so at least her feet will be warm and cosy in the afterlife. The weapons struck her on Tuesday and by Thursday she had sent me her partly assembled weapon in lavender Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino and the assassination dossier for her target, Donna. I completed the mission and by 10pm Thursday another package was in the post box at the end of our road.

My second target fell early Saturday morning and Donna emailed me news from beyond the grave of the my next mission. Unfortunately the partly assembled weapon for this target had not been particularly well constructed and the materials were not really suited to their purpose so, after discussion with Donna and her original target from whom the weapon would be coming we decided the best thing to do was for me to begin assembly of a totally new weapon from materials in my storage facility.  I will wait until I receive the original weapon before I post the new one and then wait however long it took me to knit from wherever they had got to so as to make it fair.

but I’m not dead yet…. and I have the t-shirt to prove it….

We’ve also been rearranging more furniture in preparation for (1) by friend Tracey and her children who are visiting next weekend and (2) the future arrival of adoptees….it’s progressing…slowly

We now have one room which is quite tidy and has two single beds and another room which at the moment has a single bed and a sofa bed in it…rather cramped but hopefully by the end of tomorrow we will have disposed of the sofa and armchair in the playroom and the sofa bed can move down there….

I also managed to knit this -

…his name’s Herbert and he’s a Snowme (I’m taking part in a Christmas themed swap and need to send something for the tree…)

There are no more finished objects but I have made progress on Mad Weave socks, but no photo I’m afraid.

In other news, I won a competition on Krafty1′s blog - can’t wait to receive my prize…some yummy yarn and chocs and a bag.

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If you are looking for my answers to the trivia for Quidditch Round 3 they are on a page here or follow the link over to the right!

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I am not a completer, I am an innovator, a pioneer. I love new challenges, trying new things, learning a new technique. It’s being an Aries.

This does mean that I have a worrying collection of unfinished objects lurking in bags/boxes/cupboards all across my house. We’ve been clearing out our spare rooms and loft recently in preparation for the hoped for arrival of small people to share our home and this has lead to me having a tidy up of my knitting projects and stash. This, coupled with my new obsession with Ravelry has led me to face up to my problem. Having entered all my completed projects into Ravelry, and my stash I had to put in all those UFO’s and suddenly they were no longer lurking but were out there in the full glare of daylight…and there were lots…like more than 20…actually more like 30…..

The worst thing is that a good proportion, around 50%, were only unfinished because they hadn’t been sewn up. The knitting was all done they just needed the pieces to be fit together and I had a completed garment. So I have set about completing some of them. I tried to do this at the beginning of this year by listing them all here on my blog but they could hide away there too easily - I needed to have them shouting and waving at me….”Wendy, here we are, finish us!!!”

So in the past week I have completed (ie sewn up) these items -

Child’s Aran Cardigan

Age - 1 year; started Oct/Nov 2006
Pattern is from a Sirdar Booklet - Sirdar 299 Toddler Aran Knits
Yarn is Sirdar Snuggly Aran
Size is 5-6 years

I knit this last winter when I was making loads of things for my sale to raise money for Breakthrough and never got around to sewing it up. After a couple of evenings of CSI here it is, ready for either a Christmas present for one of the little people currently in my life or to wait for one of the little people soon to come into my life.

Orchid Sweater

Age - 2 1/2 years; started une 2005
Pattern - Orchid by Kim Hargreaves from Rowan 31
Yarn - Rowan Linen Drape colour 847 Splash
Size - S

This was part of my Linen Drape obsession in the summer of 2005. After getting Rowan 31 I fell in love with Linen Drape, bought up a ton of it on eBay, finished the Flame vest in Watermelon which I wear all the time. I knit this as I thought it would be a great wear for evenings on holiday but never got it completed for holiday 2005 (Tunisia) or 2006 (Turkey).

I’m pretty happy with it except that the sleeves are rather long, they are supposed to be long and come over the hand but they may be a little tooooo long. I do have to buy a backless bra ……

The stash still contains 14 balls of Watermelon and 1 of Splash!

Stripey Hat & Mittens

Sorry, don’t have a photo of both mittens completed but they are done (honest!)

Age - 1 year; started Winter 2006
Pattern - Patons PBN C 4847
Yarn - DK Acrylic
Size - Child

These were another item intended for my sale last year. My mum bought the DK Acrylic to knit a sweater for my nephew but it didn’t knit up correctly for the pattern she had so she donated it to me for my sale. I made a whole load of mittens and hats but these were never finished.
The Patons pattern leaflet is one I’ve had for years and is brilliant, it has gloves, fingerless gloves, mittens and hats in 4 sizes for toddler, child, woman and man. I’ve made so many gloves and mittens from this over the years in all the sizes. I’ve spent more than one Christmas Eve finishing up gloves as last minute presents from this pattern!

These are in the child size so could well end up being a Christmas present this year.

Little Girl’s Bolero Jacket

Age - 1 year; started Sept 2006
Pattern - Alpaca Bolero from Baby Style by Debbie Bliss
Yarn - Bab Softspun 4 ply in lavender
Size - 24-36 months

This was started last winter as a possible christmas present. Finished all the knitting then it stalled. This photo doesn’t do it justice the colour is a lovely shade of lilac.

I still have the following to be sewn up

1. Baby striped cotton sweater (started summer 2006)
2. Echo striped sweater from Rowan 38 (Feb 2006)
3. Toddler duffel jacket from Debbie Bliss Baby Style (Jan 2006)
4. Checked jacket in Sirdar Snowflake (umm, not sure - 1999??)
5. Polly Pocket dress from Miss Bea’s Seaside (summer 2006)
6. Snowflake Bunny sweater from Sirdar (winter 2004 …probably…)

and these to be completed

1. Rose Dangle Crochet scarf from The Natural Dye Studio (June 2007)
2. Nell from Rowan 28 (Aug 2005)
3. Rose Bud Cardigan from Debbie Bliss Nursery Knits (Feb 2006)
4. Chrissy sweater from Rowan 31 (July 2006)
5. Friday Harbor Socks from Knitting on the Road (July 2007)
6. Mad for Fairisle Socks by Tina Lorin (May 2007)
7. Bayerische Sock by Eunny Jang (Jan 2007)
8. Cherry Leaf Shawl from Victorian Lace Today - this only needs the edging and it’s done (July 2007)
9. Miranda Pattern Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks - suffering from SSS! as I don’t like the fit, may frog (July 2007)
10. Mad Weave socks from Sock Madness (April 2007)
11. Binary Scarf by Christine Dumoulin from Knitty 2006 (Jan 2007)
12. Everlasting Bagstopper by Amy R Singer from Knitty Summer 2007, ok for this I just need to find the right ribbon for the straps but haven’t been anywhere that sells ribbon. (July 2007)
13. Snicket Sock by Sabine Riefler from Magknits Sept 2006 (March 2007)

as well as the “current’ projects which I am actively working on (I can’t work on just one as I get bored)

1. Gryffindor Scarf for Jon from Charmed Knits (Sept 2007)
2. Amigurumi Monkey from Super Happy Crochet Cute (Sept 2007)
3. Child’s French Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks (Oct 2007)
4. Cardigan for Arwen by Kate Gilbert (Sept 2007)
5. Prickly Girl by Cristiana Brenna from Knitty Summer 2007 (Sept 2007)
6. Weasley Sweater from Charmed Knits (Aug 2007)

So my aim by the end of the year is to get at least half of these finished - so please lend me your support!

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Tags: finished

…and here they are. My finished weapon in the all out fight that is Sock Wars II

Yarn - Artesano Alpaca Inca Cloud shade 37 Royal Blue
Needles - 3.25mm Brittany 5″ birch dpn’s
Pattern - Scar

The pattern was really nice to knit - it’s a ribbed pattern with a stranded pattern stitch which is caught every four rows on either side. Here’s a close up

Now, for anyone who doesn’t know what Sock Wars is - it’s an assassination game in which the weapon is a pair of socks. Yesterday (well actually I got mine late Friday night) all the combatants were sent a secret dossier containing the name and address of our target and the pattern we have to follow for the socks. Everyone starts knitting, we all knit the same pattern, and as soon as you’re done you mail them off to your target, once received they’re dead. They then mail their dossier and  the socks they are knitting back to you and this then becomes your new target. You keep doing this until you receive your own bullet from your assassin.

Now, I have no idea who my assassin is, where they are or how much progress they have made so I’m just hoping my socks hit their target and I get my new target before I get hit myself!

When I received my dossier it was a bit of a surprise as the name of my target was not unfamiliar to me, in fact I know that it’s someone who reads this blog. So, if you’re reading this and you are in Sock Wars then these lovely Royal Blue Alpaca socks were dropped into the post box on the corner of my road at 10am this morning and should have been collected by the post man at noon so they are on their way…..be afraid, be very afraid!

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My partner, Adele,  has received her parcel today (after a little confusion with postcodes, DHL and a small detour to collect…) so I can now post some finished pictures of some more secret knitting to which I’ve alluded and posted some hints over the past couple of weeks - the Hufflepuff Felted Bag -

Ta da!

I am really pleased with the way this turned out, it was knit with some Latvian wool purchased on eBay which felted beautifully. I only put it through the washing machine once, on a 60% wash, so the fabric remained fairly soft although the stitch definition was pretty well gone. I wanted it to be a “squashy” bag not a stiff case…and it came out perfectly.

I added some little touches - a magnetic catch with the fixings neatly covered up on the flap with this wonderful Hufflepuff sew on patch

It was accompanied on it’s journey with lots of goodies picked with Adele in mind and, from her email of thanks, I think I nailed her pretty well! They were mainly picked to be black and yellow to keep the Hufflepuff theme going . I have to admit I really wanted to keep this parcel…

Adele is prefect of Hufflepuff so I have to give her congratulations on her the performance of her House so far in the Quidditch - well done Hufflepuffs.

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October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month a worldwide campaign started in 1993 by Evelyn Lauder to

• increase awareness of breast cancer
• raise funds for research into the disease
• support people affected by the disease

Readers of my blog will know that I’ve been raising money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer for some time but this month is more about raising awareness than raising money. So my blog is going pink for the month (this is a temporary pink theme at the moment whilst my lovely hubby designs me a proper Pink Ribbon theme - I’ll make this available to anyone who wants it as soon as it’s here)

In the UK over 44,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, that’s more than 100 every day, and around 300 men are diagnosed each year. Worldwide more than a million women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year. This means that around 1 in 10 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, just think about that for a moment….out of every 10 women you know 1 will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some time in her life. Next time you’re at your stitch ‘n’ bitch group just look around and think about that.

In the UK more than 12,000 women and 100 men will die from the disease every year. This means, however, that many more will have successful treatment, around 8 in 10 survive beyond 5 years of being diagnosed. One of the most important factors in successful treatment is early detection.

For me the most important message of Breast Cancer Awareness Month is for every woman out there to become “breast aware”

Most of us know that finding a lump is a possible sign of breast cancer but there are many other early symptoms which we are not aware of. Thes include changes in

• size or shape of the breast
• skin texture
• appearance or direction of a nipple

Also, discharge, rash or a lump in breast or armpit.

All of us women should become familiar with our bodies and, in particular, our breasts so that we are aware of any changes in them - give your breasts some “TLC”. That is “Touch, Look, Check”

• Touch your breasts. Feel for anything unusual
• Look for changes. Be aware of their shape and texture
• Check anything unusual with your doctor. Chat with your friends if you are worried

We don’t have to follow a fancy routine, just look and feel wherever feels comfortable for you - in the shower or bath, as you get dressed in front of your bedroom mirror, lying in bed before you get up in the morning.

To find out how much you know, Breakthrough have a Breast Cancer Awareness Quiz you can take

If you want to get involved in Breast Cancer Awareness Month then there are lots of ways you can do so, many cancer charities are running fundraising and awareness campaigns with organised events, special items on sale with high street shops, and ideas for fundraising. Perhaps your knitting group could do something - everyone knits something pink and raffles them off? Have a sponsored knit-in?

Check out some of these links

UK-

Breakthrough Breast Cancer -

• hold a Pink Party
• shop Pink for Breakthrough with M&S, Evans, Avon, House of Fraser and many others having special pink products.
• hold a Great Pink Schools Spectacular

Cancer Research UK -

• Think Pink and help fundraise
• Join one of their Walk Together walks
• Shop for pink ribbon items from Cancer Research, Peacocks, and USA Pro

Breast Cancer Care -

• Get “In the Pink” to help raise money
• Buy some of their great items in their online shop

In the USA check out the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month site. For information on events near you.

I’ll add some more links to Breast Cancer sites in the blogroll so if you know of a good one let me know!

The most important thing is to make sure that we and our friends become breast aware - pass on the TLC message to every woman you know - NOW!

I can finally reveal some of the Secret Knitting I’ve been doing over the past few months as one of the parcels I sent off has arrived at it’s destination.

In a few earlier posts I’ve mentioned that I was taking part in a Prayer Shawl Swap and my partner was Karen who has just received her shawl. This swap was a wonderful experience, not just a knitting challenge but a real opportunity to find quiet time to knit and meditate on something for a partner. Sending “good vibes” across the world to help another knitter with a problem.. I feel as though each stitch was somehow imbibed with love and I hope the shawl will provide comfort and warmth in the coming winter months. The idea of Prayer Shawls is explained a little more here.

I started the shawl in Cornwall at my in-laws, sitting in the swing seat looking out over the sea -

I spent quite a lot of time knitting in the “orchard” ie the end of our garden where the apple tree grows and I’ve planted a plum, a cherry and another apple all very small at the moment. I like sitting up at that end as it’s away from the house and temptations to switch on the tv or do chores…

and this is the finished shawl, I love it and hope that Karen does as well. I may have to knit myself one of these… Pattern is Tri-aran-angle by Lizzi Jennings and can be found at Knitty.com

Today I’ve been working on the new sock for the Vintage Socks KAL I moderate, we’re knitting the Child’s French Sock during October & November. I’ve picked some Yarn Yard sock yarn in “Pink Ribbon” for this sock. It seemed particularly appropriate yarn as it is sold in aid of Breast Cancer charities and October is Breast Cancer Awareness month.

So far I’ve knit the cuff and 5 and a half repeats of the leg, the pattern calls for 11 repeats but I don’t know that I shall do that many. I don’t like the legs of my socks to be very long and it’s already 5″.

Another autumn activity stemming from the fruit around me is jam making. I’ve tried this with varying success over the years but decided to try again this year when I discovered a heavily laden quince bush in the hedge between our garden and our neighbours.

This bush is down the side of our extension and the reason I’ve never noticed it before is because this small space has always been overgrown. Since the gardeners came and cleared I’ve turned it into a storage space for my plant pots, the chicken food and other garden stuff.

I noticed a few weeks ago that there was a quince bush covered in fruit against our fence…so I went “scrumping” (I think you can apply that to fruit other than apples but quince are related to apples anyway). I don’t feel that guilty as most of the fruit was on my side and in any case the house has been empty for about 2 months and so the fruit would just have fallen and rotted.

Quince are strange fruit, they are hard and waxy and when raw totally inedible. When cooked the flesh turns a reddish pink colour and the fragrance is almost perfumed. They also produce natural pectin and so can easily be turned into jam and Quince jelly.

I decided to make jam from a recipe found here.

Step 1. Gather 1kg of quince

Step 2. Place in saucepan with 1.5 litres of water and 3/4 cup of sugar and bring to boil. Boil for 2 hours until the fruit has turned pink.

Step 3. Lift the fruit out of the pan, remove cores/pips, chop to pulp and return to pan adding 1 cup of sugar for each cup of pulp. Boil for another 30 minutes until the jam is “set”.

Step 4. Bottle up ready to eat!

My most successful jam-making ever, it smells gorgeous and the colour and texture is beautiful! I hope whoever moves in next door (a) keeps the quince bush and (b) wont mind me picking the fruit next year!

One of the best things about autumn, and one of the reasons this is my favourite season, is all the fruit that suddenly appears, the last of the lingering warmth but the hint of cold telling us winter is just around the corner….one of my favourite poems is To Autumn by Keats:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

In our garden the trees are definitely bent with apples and so we turn some of these into cider like this.

You start with some of these -

You chop, “bash” and press them

..as you can see this is a family affair - my brother is chopping, J is bashing (or pulping) and I’m pressing. Cider making is a very sociable affair, it is a celebration of low-tech, labour intensive processes that have been around, unchanged for hundreds of years. The thought that the end product will be so delicious is always a motivation.

Making cider always makes me feel it’s autumn - and moving towards Christmas. The weather had been wet and miserable but, as you can see from the photos, as soon as we went out into the garden to start the cider making the sun came out. My cider making book “Real Cidermaking” by Michael Pooley & John Lomax states “choose one of those lovely crisp sunny days in October….you will be blessed with fine weather anyway because cidermaking is a virtuous thing”

The pressed juice is decanted straight from the press into demi-johns which are placed in a warm place (our kitchen) and a loose plug of cotton wool placed in the neck.

No yeast is added as there is sufficient yeast present on the skins of the fruit to start the fermentation process. After a day or so the juice begins to ferment rapidly - hence the need for the loose cotton plug - any bits of apple that made it through the press are usually pushed out of the neck along with a brown “scum”. After 2 or 3 days the fermentation slows and then an airlock can be added.

The cider should ferment quite quickly for around 2-4 weeks at which point it will slow and we have to “rack-off” (transfer into a clean demi-john) to continue fermenting a little longer. At this point we can add sugar if we want the cider to be a little stronger. The specific gravity of our juice was 1.050 which would convert to around 6% alcohol by volume if all the sugar turns to alcohol. After another 1-2 weeks the fermentation will be virtually ceased and the cider should have cleared to a hazy golden colour (as opposed to the murky brown it is at the moment).

We then rack off again adding sugar if we want either sparkling cider or medium sweet cider. It’s then bottled, for sparkling cider it will continue to condition in the bottle. It’s then stored somewhere cold for 4-8 weeks which means it’s ready just in time for Christmas!

…to have so many people out there who are so generous. I’ve had lots of people wishing me well with the adoption and this week I received 2 swap parcels, so here’s what I got.

Firstly I got my parcel in the Sock it to Me swap, Laura turned out to be my spoiler and she really did spoil me -

She sent me a bag made from Recycled Plastic Bottles and a bar of Fair Trade Chocolate - both of which meet with my green principles. A set of clover bamboo dpns and a skein of beautiful Knit Picks Gossamer “Sweet Peas” a lovely little notebook, 2 sachets of Eucalan (never had this before!), a little tin of Burts Bees cuticle cream and a little packet of gorgeous wooden beads in blues & turquoises which comes with a cord and the finndings to make a necklace.

Laura must have been lurking around on my blog because the beads match perfectly with my favourite dress which I was wearing at my bbq!

Finally, and best of all, the socks! Here they are in their little wrapper

and here they are on my feet, which they fit perfectly

The pattern is Badcaul by Anna Bell and they were knit with Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Merino which is so soft it’s not true!

Thanks so much Laura.

The second parcel arrived today and was from a Swap-bot swap “Quick Stuff Swap” to send each of two partners something from their profile. Here’s my package -

Nicole sent me some really cute cookie cutters and stencils for decorating cookies/cupcakes with a Halloween theme - my friend Tracey is coming to visit with her two girls just before Christmas so I foresee a baking session!

On the knitting front I managed to complete another of my many and various UFO’s..this was an old one that had been completely knit and just needed sewing up. I spent most of yesterday doing that and got it from UFO to FO!

This is the “Alpaca Bolero” from Baby Style by Debbie Bliss, yarn is some BabySoft 4ply I bought sometime ago on eBay. I already knit another bolero as a baby present and still have about 3 full 100g balls left.

I’ve also been working on this

this was the “secret knitting” alluded to in a previous post which is unfortunately no longer secret. It’s a Gryffindor Scarf for J from Charmed Knits. Normally J doesn’t notice anything going on around him, I organised a surprise party for his 30th birthday right in front of him and he didn’t suspect a thing. I had conversations about it with him in the room. So I’d been knitting this and hiding it when he came in the room, usually not exactly “hiding” so much as putting it on the sofa next to me! Except a couple of days ago he finally notice it…oh well - no longer a surprise.

It’s taking for ever to knit as it’s very boring 1×1 rib with just the changes of colour every 30 rows for the trapped bars. It’s Merino Wool though so very soft and is knitting up really thick and I think it will be a lovely warm scarf for J to wear on his commute over the winter.

It finally feels like autumn around here this week, today it was damp and misty as I drove to work and I’ve been turning to “autumn things” …I’ll post about them later!