thumb gusset

Ducks in a row

The GCSEs continue (spread thinly over a month!) Yesterday a couple of my plans fell through and I had a quiet day at home. I lined up my current active projects (i.e. not lurking things that pull at my conscience from time to time) and worked on each one in turn. It was a lot of fun. I think I'm definitely an accessories knitter rather than a garments knitter, although I fantasise about fantastic jumpers all the time!

From the left: scarf in 3x3 rib using British Mohair Spinners Alpaca Lana that I snagged at the yarn swap last weekend; the Latvonian mitten; log cabin square (no. 4); second Lorna's Laces sock (which I need to finish before 1 June when I cast on for Trek with Me).

The Alpaca Lana is so lovely that I found I had cast on and started a scarf even though I really didn't intend to have another project on the go. I have approximately 250g of the yarn. It's 4-ply 70% alpaca and 30% wool, 'carefully spun in oil', as it says on the ballband.

I had never heard of BMS and did a Google search. BMS was a West Yorkshire firm that operated from Lower Holme Mills in Shipley for over 140 years. They were bought up by a French company a few years ago and in 2004 production was moved abroad because of competition from cheap imports, particularly from South Africa (!).  Now the company has applied for permission to use the land for residential development. At one time BMS employed 3,000 people at the mill; when it closed there were 40.

Eclectic sock heel

It was Dawn (HI!) who told me about the eclectic sock heel and it has become my favourite. It's not hard to do; it works equally well toe up or cuff down; it's very comfortable (especially for feet with wider heels). You can read about it here.

This is a sock made in Lorna's Laces using the eclectic heel. It has been worn quite a few times.

Making an eclectic heel

Here is how to knit the heel on 5 double pointed needles (i.e. four holding the stitches and the fifth for knitting) on 72 stitches in total. There are three parts to the heel: heel flap, short row section and gusset.

The first needle after the join is needle 1.

When the cuff is as long as you want knit to the end of needle 1 and put the stitches from needles 2 and 3 on a holder for the instep.

Heel flap
Transfer the heel stitches from needles 1 and 4 onto one needle for ease of working. Knit in stocking stitch for 14 rows (12 to 14 rows is normal for a sock in 4 ply/fingering yarn). Row one is a purl (wrong-side) row. Slip the first stitch of each row to make a chain edge.

Short-row section
On row 14 (right-side) knit to last stitch. Don't knit it but turn (I don't wrap, but do wrap if that's your method). Purl back to last stitch. Don't purl it but turn. Work short rows progressively one stitch shorter each time until you feel that you have left enough stitches in the centre for the base of your heel. I like quite a wide heel so I left 16 stitches and had 10 short rows each side. Then, following your favourite method work longer rows until you have worked across all the stitches. Adjust the heel stitches so that you put half of them back on needle 1.

The short row section complete. Needle 1 is on top.

Gusset (I like gussets!)

With needle 1 pick up and knit one stitch from each chain loop along the left-hand edge of the heel flap. (Or use another needle to do this and transfer the stitches to needle 1.) Pick up and knit an extra stitch through the corner stitch at the end of the flap. Eight new stitches.

With needle 2 knit half the stitches held in reserve on the holder. With needle 3 knit the other stitches from the holder.

With needle 4 pick up a corner stitch and then a stitch from each chain loop on right-hand side of the heel. Knit the remaining heel stitches. You should be back to the original configuration, but with eight extra stitches on needles 1 and 4.

Knit one round. Then start decreasing the gussets:

Round one

• needle 1: knit to last 3 stitches, k 2 together, k 1
• needle 2: knit
• Needle 3: knit
• Needle 4: k 1, ssk (slip 1, slip1, transfer back to left-hand needle and knit together through back)

Round two: knit.

Repeat these two rows until  you have decreased away the gusset stitches. You may like to work more rows between the decreases to give you an even roomier heel. Here's a picture of my gusset with some of the stitches decreased.

A gloomy day with some highlights

I have elected to stay at home this week because no. 1 son is sitting his GCSE exams. The rain and enforced domesticity (cooking lunch and supper!) made the day seem rather long and I hit the sherry with some relief at six o'clock. Looking back, though, it wasn't all bad.

Earlier in the year I mentioned cutting a rose called Madame Alfred Carriere back rather hard. Well, she has withstood the onslaught:

This is usually listed as a white rose (a climber) but in cooler weather the flowers are a lovely blush pink.

I decided yesterday that the Latvonian mitten was too narrow for any human hand. I've reverted to the four repeats (again!) and even though it may be a bit wide, it looks much better. Funnily enough I'm finding it much easier to knit, too. Each needle has exactly one repeat and I hardly have to follow the chart after the first needle.

News just in

Thank you Adrienne (if you read this!) for hosting a brilliant afternoon. Somehow most of us took away at least as much as we brought but there was still lots left of the table. Adrienne provided a really delicious lunch and Paul very kindly ferried us to the station. I was the happy recipient of enough Summer Tweed for a cardigan or jumper, plus some gorgeous boucle wool, some alpaca and some baby wool to dye for a bit of fun lace knitting.

Colour

At the moment I am more excited by colour in knitting than by texture. Colour is such a wonderful added extra in life. I had absolutely no art education at all. At my school 'Art' consisted of the teacher opening the art room door. We nver progressed beyond powder paints and sugar paper.

When I started work in publishing I had no vocabulary for colour and no understanding of why some things worked on book jackets and other things didn't. I knew so little that I didn't know what questions to ask or what difference it would make if I knew more. As a child I loved doodling (still do - in meetings!) and I would draw scribbles with lots of loops and colour each pockets differently. Some would be striped, some checked, etc. I remember loving yellow and orange together, and blue and green.

Later, I did one of those 'Color Me Beautiful' classes where you learn which colours suit you best. Your skin tone is analysed and you are pronounced 'Autumn' (meaning you have a golden tone underlying your colouring and suit browns, gold, salmon, cream, etc. or 'Summer' (where you would suit clear pastel blues and pinks), or whatever. This was the first time that I learned about warm and cold colours.

As my interest in gardening developed I wanted to make my flowers look better together. I got very keen on separating the cold (blue-toned) and warm (salmon-toned) pinks, reds and purples. I took on some advice I read in a book by Graham Stuart-Thomas (who was the gardens adviser for the National Trust and responsible for some of the great plantings in country houses in England): if you can't decide on which colours to put together, pick a colour to leave out. I have found that this is an easy way to get a group of plants to look good - e.g. no yellow (but lots of blues, pinks, reds, whatever).

Then I went to Great Dixter, home of Christopher Lloyd, the well-known garden writer. He cut across all those good-taste colour combinations. I saw pink and yellow together, which I had always avoided like the plague, and saw that they were good. He loved colour - and lots of it. Recently I've noticed more adventurous colour combinations generally, for instance in advertising or on book jackets, and in clothes. Sometimes the palette looks quite Japanese to me.

Anyway, this is all because I saw some postcards in Paperchase this morning and I loved the colours, as well as the repeating designs. One day I'd like to use these colours in my knitting. I just googled the artist, Hanna Werning, and there are some amazing designs on her site.

I'll just include a couple of the postcards here:

Latvonian progress

I'm making progress on the 'Latvonian' mitten. I love the pattern and the Satakieli yarn is making a firm windproof fabric, exactly as I wanted. However, the mitten is rather narrow for my broad hands. I suspect that I have tightened up as I have knitted.

I had decided to do three repeats round of the 24-stitch pattern because I thought 96 stitches was going to be too many, judging by the cuff, which was knitted on 96 stitches. Seventy-two stitches is just a bit of a squeeze, although it did give me the opportunity to do a THUMB GUSSET. I even did a mini palm gusset - see?

Not to worry, I have thought of a good friend who has smaller hands than me and I think I will give the mittens to her.

Things are moving fast on the allotment. I did a long stint on Sunday and planted broad beans (small plants I'd been growing on in pots), beetroot (bought-in plants) and tomatoes. I was cheeky and asked my Italian allotment neighbours if they had any spare seedlings. They usually grow tomatoes like mustard and cress. Well, they generously gave me about 20 plants and gave me a lesson in planting the Italian way. You take a long iron-tipped dibber, make your hole, drop in the little plant and firm round its roots, leaving a cup-shaped depression for watering.

The potatoes are just beginning to push up. We've grown Ratte again. This is a fantastic second early potato (though goodness knows when ours will be ready!). The tubers are long and tend to have a root like a tail attaching them to other mini potatoes. I think the potatoes look more like mice than rats.

Helen has put up the beanpoles, although we need to be there together to tie them up properly at the top. She also sowed all the various climbing beans and the dwarf french beans. We bought seed for these in France a couple of years ago and followed the instructions on the packet with great success. Dig a hole about 2 inches deep and 5 or 6 inches wide. Drop in half a dozen beans and cover up. We've found that this 'pocket' method gives sturdy bushes and lots of beans.

I'm not sure what to do with the red onions. They are starting to flower. Anyone know?

Trek with me

Yes, it's another knitalong! Norma has started one for everyone who likes Trekking XXl sock yarn. I do - I finished a pair in 100 earlier this year and I have a couple of other colours in my stash. Anyway, I usually have a pair of socks on the go, so joining in won't affect my other knitting - right?

The slight drawback is you are supposed to go trekking while knitting your sock. I haven't got any treks lined up for the summer but I'm sure we will go on some decent walks, particularly in July when we go camping in Monmouthshire.

Here are my two balls-in-waiting:

Any sock knitters reading this who don't know this yarn - try and get some if you can. It's very soft, nice to knit (I used 2.25mm needles), has lovely colours arranged to make subtle stripes, and isn't particularly expensive. I don't think any of the UK online stores carry it, but it is widely available from German sites (it is made in Germany). It's different from Regia and Opal etc. in that it's not printed or handpainted. The different plies in the yarn change colour at different rates so you get the nice tweedy effect. If anyone wants to know where I got mine I'll dig out the link.

I'm taking it easy today. Yesterday I worked on the allotment in the hottest part of the day (and it was a scorcher), which was silly and I feel quite tired as a result.

Hunkydory

Yes, knitting is going well at the moment. I have started a log cabin blanket. I can't get the colours right in this photo; the mid-blue is really a peackc colour and the pinky grey is really a dark fawn. Overall, the colours are mute - a bit shakerish. The yarn is Jaeger Matchmaker dk.

I plan to knit at least 16 of these squares so that I can have some fun arranging them in one of the traditional patterns. Each one measures 14" square if I keep the tension right.

I chose the red centre as a good contrast to the blue and beigey green sections. Apparently, however, this is the traditional colour for the centre and may have represented the hearth, the heart of the home. Have a look at some of these fantastic quilts:
exhibition log cabin quilts
log cabin quilt designs

I think I must like red

About six years ago I sowed four seeds of Paeonia delavayi. Three germinated and in the second year each had a single leaf (peonies grow a root first). A year later they had made tiny plants and the following year I planted them in my garden. One didn't survive, but the other two made decent little shrubs (delavayi is a tree peony). Last summer they flowered and I was interested to see that one had much nicer flowers than the other. I decided to move the better one into prime position this spring and gave away the other one. It's going to be difficult to part with this peony when we move house...

Isn't it gorgeous?

Now that I have finished the sockapaloooza socks I can return to some unfinished business. Before I went away I started some mittens using two-colour patterns from Estonia, Latvia and Sweden (sounds swanky, doesn't it!).

The main pattern for the hand has a 24-stitch repeat and while I was away I realised that four repeats was far too wide. I thought three repeats would be too narrow and wasn't sure how to proceed. Then there was one of those lightbulb moments. THUMB GUSSET. You'd have thought that with a blog so named I would have got there a bit quicker. So, I decreased after the cuff and am doing three repeats with a thumb gusset. Here's progress so far. The gusset is on the right.

Can anyone guess what this is?

Gorgeous! Fabulous! Splendid!

Look what I picked up from the post office this morning:

Yes, my kind and super-efficient sock pal, Cathy (aka Rose Read) managed to send them all the way from Boston, Mass., and they actually arrived on Tuesday, although I couldn't get them until today. Thanks Cathy!

Oh! You want to see inside?

I was immediately bowled over by the beautiful colours of the socks. The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, Monet colourway. Cathy says she chose this after seeing pictures here of my allotment and wanted something that would capture the essence of flowers, gardens and spring. Isn't that nice?

Here they are on and they fit perfectly:

Side view, so that you can see the snazzy lace insert (this photo gives a better idea of the colours as well):

Detail:

So, thank you, Cathy, very much indeed. I love the socks.

I have warned my receiving sock pal that hers are going to be late, but she has very graciously said she doesn't mind because she is away for a week anyway. They are very nearly done now. I just have to finish the toe and give them a wash and I should be able to send them off tomorrow or Saturday.

The bands aren't the same width on the second sock (the colour repeat is longer in the skein - I checked) but at least it is still spiralling.

Finally: what the well-dressed allotmenteer is wearing this spring (this isn't me - it's my friend who shares with me)! I don't look much better, but I was holding the camera!