I have an apprentice and pleased as Yoda am I…..

One of the things I have always imagined when I looked to the future of myself with children was sitting teaching them to knit and this afternoon that dream was realised. My eldest , who is about 2 weeks away from being 8, was watching me sew name labels into her younger sisters school uniform and asked if she could help “I’d really like to do some sewing…..or knitting…yeah, that’s what I realy, REALLY want to do…..”

So, I found some suitably sized needles, large size so they are easy to hold and knit up quickly but fairly short so they are not unmanageable – I finally dug out some old wooden needles that were my grandmas (she used to call them her “string vest” needles) they are 10mm needles but only about 11″ long and being wooden they are nice to the touch. Then I dug out some wool – I decided on Twilleys Freedom. It’s 100% wool and very soft to the touch, it’s fairly chunky so the knitting grows pretty quick and the couple of balls I dug out were in a variegated blue so the fabric would knit up a little more interesting than a plain yarn.

I cast on 15 stitches for her and showed her how to make a knit stitch and she was off…

with very little input from me aside from the odd screamed “Help, mum…it’s all gone wrong” as the stitches slipped off the needles or she wrapped the yarn the wrong way! She sat working away happily shouting out excitedly every time she finished another row and, after about an hour of knitting she had produced this –

It may only be 6 rows of garter stitch but to her it’s a real achievement and (so okay, I may just be a proud mum) I think that’s pretty good for a not-quite-8-year-old who has never knit a stitch before! She has informed me it is going to be the longest scarf in the world, EVER! and that she is going to knit every day.

My husband walked in as she was knitting and said, “oh no – a convert. What have you started?” I prefer to think of her as an apprentice and I’m rather proud of myself as well as I’ve never taught anyone to knit before.

I tried to resist but inevitably, with the arrival of 3 little girls, a tide of pink has engulfed my house – toys, clothes, bedding, walls. I have to admit I was never averse to a little pink myself and have a sizeable quantity of pink items in my own wardrobe but now my washing line resembles an explosion in a candy floss factory!

And by the end of an afternoon this is what our lounge looks like (and this was on a fairly quiet day!!!)

The pink has now reached my knitting and, unable to resist, I have made them something pink. Admittedly it’s a very pale shade of pink and in fact it is not knitted but crocheted. Summer has arrived with a bang here in England and my girls are in need of summer clothes so I searched through my stash and found 4 balls of Rowan All Seasons Cotton which was my free gift with my Rowan subscription this year. The pale pink colour and the cotton content seemed perfect for a little lacy cotton number and from 4 balls I could probably manage something for both the younger two.

A quick search on Ravelry for a pattern (I love being able to do that!) came up with the Spring Fling Halter by Jaybird Designs. Since teaching myself to crochet last year I have (excuse the pun) become hooked but have yet to crochet an actual garment, just granny squares, lace edgings and amigurumi.

This little halter top is fantastic, it took less than 3 balls to make the size 2T and 3T so I still have a ball and a bit left and it took me only an evening to make each one. So after 3 hours in the company of my 3 favourite men (that’s Gil Grissom, Horatio Cain and Dr Gregory House) I had a finished top.

(check out the model pose from my 3 year old!!)

And here’s a close up of the shell pattern at the bottom.

It’s very satisfying making things this small – you get a very fast return on your efforts and (thankfully) at the moment the girls love wearing things I’ve made for them so I’m making the most of it.

Just to reassure any readers who may not be aware why I’ve been absent for so long. Everything in the Beckett household is fine, we’ve just been a little busy. Our little family has expanded from 2 to 5 as we are in the process of adopting 3 little children aged between 3 and 7.
As you can imagine this means I have less time for knitting, blogging or anything other than being a full time mum! I have done some knitting – all little things!! – and hope to be back to blogging on a fairly regular basis very soon. I’m beginning to get used to the idea of being a full time, stay at home mum and the job is getting a little easier every day so I find more time to spend on myself.
I’ve just completed a hooded jumper for my youngest which I designed myself (I knew exactly what I wanted but couldn’t find it) and I’ll get the pattern up here as soon as I can.

OK, so this is becoming an annual thing. As I was going to bed on Thursday night I noticed my right wrist was itching – looking to see if maybe I’d been bitten I realised I had a rash all up my right arm….by the time I woke up on Friday morning I had red wealds on both wrists, around my waist and behind my ears.

I took an antihistamine tablet and smeared on some hydrocortisone cream and then spent all day at work trying desparately not to scratch. It spread all over my torso and onto my feet. I left work early to get to the pharmacy to buy some more antihistamine and by the time I got home and took off my top I was one huge weald from my neck, down both shoulders, both underarms down my sides, joining up across my stomach and right down to the tops of my legs – lovely!

I took a bath just because I was on the point of screaming from the itching…..it didn’t help much. It spread all over my back. I sat in my loosest pyjamas all evening took another antihistamine and it seemed to calm so at least I got to sleep.

This morning my arms are covered in red bloches as are my knees, ankles and the very base of my spine – it’s even spread onto my hands – one of my palms is actually very sore.

The weirdest thing about my hives (or urticaria) is that they seem to flare up this badly just once a year in November…last year I had an outbreak on 1st November and the year before it was the 29th October. So this years outbreak is a little late. We’ve never managed to pinpoint a trigger for the outbreaks – at least nothing environmental or food that I might be allergic to. The fact that it seems to be occuring at the same time of year is now making me wonder if there is something environmental – what is there around at this time of year which seems to be triggering these outbreaks? The only thing I can find in common with the outbreak I had last year is that I had just had a horrible cold then and I am just recovering from a cough/cold now so perhaps it’s the cold virus that is triggering this?

Whatever it is – it is very, very annoying. Apart from the fact that it looks horrible (great big pale lumps surrounded by red skin) the itching is driving me to distraction….

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Tags: hives, urticaria, allergy

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!

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!

Many of you will have Nancy Bush’s wonderful book “Knitting Vintage Socks” I’m sure. When I first began knitting socks this was the first pattern book I bought and it’s been invaluable. As well as the wonderful patterns there is a large section at the start of the book in which she gives instructions for several different heel and toe styles, enabling you to alter the patterns or create your own.

Shortly after getting the book I discovered a knitalong on yahoo groups for the patterns in the book and joined up to motivate myself to try some of the patterns I might not otherwise do. Litle way down the line and the former moderator bowed out and I took over. The group is going strong and the poll for our next sock to knit during October & November had 53 people voting. The majority vote was for the Child’s French Sock so that’s what we’re now knitting for the next two months.

Several people in the group have recently suggested to me that it would be lovely to organise a swap for the group. I cogitated on this idea for a while, sounded out the group, gathered some ideas and today I’ve launched my very first swap as a host !

The Knitting Vintage Socks Swap blog is up and running and waiting for swappers to sign up.

The basic idea is we each knit a pair of socks from the aforementioned book and send them to our swap partner. At the moment I’m proposing a secret swap with each swapper having a partner they are sending to and a different partner sending to them..but we’ll see how it goes and how many people sign up.

It’s quite scary launching these things, it’s a bit like hosting a party. You send out the invites and buy in all the drink and then panic in case nobody turns up and your left with yourself and a pile of chips and dips feeling lonely.

My hubby J just recently launched a blog-idea-challeng-thing (not sure how to describe it), it’s called BlogFriday (go check it out). Each week a word is suggested on the site and everyone has until the following Friday to put a post on their own blog relating to that word and then link to it on BlogFriday. When he launched it he went through the “nobody will come” angst but, as with all these things, the word spreads and it starts feeding itself. It’s been interesting seeing the different interpretations from just one suggested word.

it’s a good challenge to get yourself posting on your own blog and quite a good creative tool – take a random word and create something.

Anyway, if any of you fancy signing up for a swap and giving and receiving a pair of hand-made socks then get yourselves over to the Knitting Vintage Socks Swap. Sign-ups will be open until the end of October, matches sent out by 7th November (I hope) and then swap parcels to be sent by 7th Jan 2008 so there will be plenty of knitting time even with Christmas!

Oh, and if anyone has any comments/suggestions about the swap then please let me know.

I was just looking around on Ravelry at groups and spotted one for WOT (for those not in “the know”, WOT refers to the Wheel of Time series of books by Robert Jordan), I was intrigued so went to have a look and found a post telling me that Robert Jordan had died….I was shocked and went racing off to Google to check.

It’s true, James O Rigney who wrote under the pen name Robert Jordan passed away on 16th September in Charleston SC. I felt so sad….I had never met this man, never spoken to him or corresponded with him but his passing has touched me because his writing touched me.

The Wheel of Time is a series of fantasy books with a huge worldwide following (just go Google it and you’ll see)…now I know fantasy books do seem to attract big cult followings but these books justified it. The world which Robert Jordan created and the people who inhabited it were incredibly real (even if they were full of magic and Ogiers and the One Power) and the story that unfolded was one which held the reader and swept them along.

I was given the first WOT book, The Eye of the World, as a Christmas present in 1993 by my then boyfriend. We spent that Christmas with his parents and family at their home in Essex, it was the first time I’d spent any time with his family and I spent almost the entire time reading the book finishing it by the end of Boxing Day. I went out the week after Christmas and bought the next two books in the series – I think at that time there were 5 published and I read them all over the first few months in 2004. I then had to wait for the 6th book to come out and my boyfriend bought that for me the next Christmas.

The next books came out at 2 or 3 year intervals and the wait each time was interminable. The final book, Knife of Dreams, was published at the end of 2005 and my husband bought it for me for Christmas. As it had been nearly 2 years since the previous book and 12 years since I’d read the first I decided to re-read the entire series before reading book 11 which I did over several months in 2006.

Whilst talking with a colleague at work about books I mentioned them to him, he’s a David Eddings fan (as am I) but had never heard of WOT so I lent him Book 1. He was hooked, went out and bought the whole series and read them in a few weeks. We’ve talked about them a lot and speculated on how the 12th, and final, book would end.

Robert Jordan has been ill for a long time and was diagnosed with a rare blood disease, amyloidosis, in 2006. WIth that knowledge he had commited most of the final book to word processor or audio tape and disclosed the story to his wife and his cousin. They plan to publish the book as per his wishes.

From a knitters viewpoint the books provide some inspiration, the most powerful society in the WOT world are the Aes Sedai – an order of women who weild the “One Power”. When a woman is made a full member of the Aes Sedai she is said to “attain the shawl” these shawls are worn on formal occasions and have a coloured fringe indicating which of the 7 sects, or Ajahs, she belongs to. I think each shawl is different – whether the Aes Sedai make or buy them is not clear…or whether they are woven, knit, crocheted….I always imagined a light, silky shawl with a very long fringe….I may have to design something…..

Also, women who have not “attained the shawl” for some reason are cast out and forbidden from weilding the One Power, others run away and go into hiding. These women form a secret society known as the Kin the leading council of the Kin is called the Knitting Circle.

So I think in tribute to Robert Jordan I’m off to design my very first knitting pattern – a lace shawl for an Aes Sedai…..may have to re-read again for ideas.

With regards to his family and friends, he will be missed by us all even those, like me, who never met him.

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Tags: WOT, wheel of time, robert jordan,