Soay

An absolutely delightful and very clever little jacket. Knitted in the round, with a lovely little lacy touch and the cleverest set in sleeves. A very flattering scooped neckline with the front and neck edged in i-cord. Delicious. I highly recommend it. A five star cardigan.

Pattern: Soay by Gudrun Johnston aka The Shetland Trader – you can find it and buy it through Ravelry. I shortened the sleeves by 5 rows each because I was panicking about running out of yarn (OK, when don’t I?!!) and my arms aren’t very long!!

Yarn: Lana Grossa Merino Superfein in colour 583

I absolutely loved making this jacket – I learned such a lot, not least how to do amazing i-cord (which is SO clever, but really not difficult at all once you get going!). It also used up 960m of yarn from my stash, which was a big help in making this year’s totals look a little less awful!

Thank you Mel for telling me about this pattern! You may want to check out Mel’s new blog – The Little Washhouse – which I think should really have been called The Knitting Goddess, because that’s what she is!

Helen

It’s Sunday evening. I haven’t even started dinner and I don’t know where this weekend went.

What I didn’t do this weekend…

• Sewing
• Knitting
• My long marathon training run (my left hip is SORE, but I think it may be from doing something silly at pilates, rather than the running)
• Housework
• Proper catering of any sort whatsoever

What I did do…

• Failed the good Swiss housewife test (again!). I mean just look at the list above. No chance!
• Swam in the lake
• Watched the new Woody Allen movie Midnight in Paris (the jury is out….it’s not a gem, but there are flashes of brilliance along the way. It totally bamboozled my 12 year old)
• Ran in the Pink Ribbon run/walk in Zürich (but only 4km)
• Ate at my favourite restaurant from 20 years ago and discovered it is still every bit as good. No idea why I haven’t been there for about 15 years!
• Went to church
• Listened to rain lashing down on the roof and enjoyed being inside in the dry
• Went shopping in Zürich for all the things I forgot to buy on Friday when I was there.

And more to the point…HAD A GREAT WEEKEND!

Normal service will resume tomorrow!

Helen

You may remember that at the beginning of the year one of my goals was to reduce my stashes of both yarn and fabric.

I’m ashamed to say that despite my best (but obviously feeble) efforts, both have gone in completely the wrong direction. I’m not quite sure how this happened, because I honestly have been trying. It’s amazing how much damage a little late night internet surfing can do…

So, after two-thirds of the year is over, this is the damage:

Fabric – up 55 yards (ouch!)

Yarn – up 4,500m  – yes, up a whopping 4.5km!!! Mind you, Soay is nearly finished, so this number will soon be dropping by 900m. But still….

I’m actually quite shocked. What on earth would have happened if I hadn’t been trying to cut down? It doesn’t bear thinking about. I should say though, that I only count usage once projects are finished, and I do have a good few projects that are well on the way, so if I put my mind to it it isn’t a totally hopeless situation.

So now I have 4 months to actually try to do something about it. There will be smoke coming out of my sewing machine in the next few weeks.

And there will be NO MORE SHOPPING 🙂

Helen

So that’s it then.

Another summer drawing to a close. The Japanese anemones are in full bloom, the last flowers of summer. Ironically we’re experiencing delightful not too hot summer weather this week. It won’t last. The first leaves are starting to turn on the trees and I’m drawn to start tidying the garden, ready to put it to bed for the winter.

I like September. I’d have to say it’s one of my favourite months. It has that back to school new start feel about it. The feeling of wonder. What will happen this year?Anything seems possible. The children have been back at school for a couple of weeks and are working fairly conscientiously, but the pressure isn’t on yet.

The evenings are growing darker earlier and the sun hasn’t risen when we get up in the morning. Sometimes there’s a slight chill in the evenings. A foretaste of what’s to come.

Between you and me, I’m looking forward to cool evenings and the chance to light a log fire, close the blinds and get cosy. I’m not looking forward to freezing temperatures and snow and ice, but I love the inbetween early autumn. I’m a girl built for cooler temperatures and I love watching the seasons change. When I lived in California all those years ago that was one of the few things I really missed. Now I know I’ll see every small change when I’m out in the woods and running across the fields.

I feel like I haven’t been able to sew much for weeks – it’s just been too hot. Now that autumn is just around the corner I can’t wait to get down to finishing off some long-languishing projects.

Watch this space!

Helen

6.15 am

Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight

Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning

Hmmm….we’ll see if that’s true today

Helen