Lilysunshine

Squee! I have finally received my Bergere de France catalog, the French one. I actually received it yesterday. I had ordered it a while ago, but as it hadn’t arrived, I thought it didn’t go through, because I live in the UK. But it arrived! They did send it as if I was living in an exotic country. I think they didn’t realise that UK is in Europe and mail and package don’t really need a declaration for custom. Anyway it’s here now!

Bergere de France, catalog 09-10

It is exactly as I remembered it. The models, then the yarns’ shade pages and then the random stuff. They did modernise their offering. The models are somewhat trendy, there is much more wool than I remembered and they now sell ‘modern’ needles and notions (circular needles, stitch holders, etc…) But there is still some room for the tackiness which is fantastic!

This is how yarn catalogs should be!

I don’t know how many hours I spent as a child browsing the samples pages, fondling the little bits of yarns, dreaming of garments. I remember pullovers made by my mother in Barisienne. Aaaah, so many memories!…

I don’t know if I’ll order any yarns from them. I’ll have to compare with what I can find here, but it might not be worth it with the change and the shipping. The needles, notions and accessories seem to be a lot more expensive than what I could get here or on ebay. They do have some lovely bags, though. BUT! I will probably order a manual tricotin (french knitting mill) and I might also get a subscription to their pattern books.

Tags: knitting, Random

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I have started working again on a lacy stole I began last month. I took a break to start and finish the Seaweed socks that should be off this week to their final destination. That is, if my husband remembers to get a birthday card…

I blogged yesterday about my eczema and how it was preventing my knitting. It is slightly better today, even though I woke up with really itchy fingers. A good dollop of cream did help. Now it’s really dry and it’s catching the fuzz of the yarn a little bit. But I’m toughing it up.

I did keep on doing some crochet yesterday, in the form of a toy for the wee ‘un, but the yarn I’ve got is not quite right (thinner than what the pattern called for) and it’s making some of the parts really fiddly. And I don’t have any filling for it yet. I ordered some though, so I might finish it when it arrives. Or start over, doubling the yarn with a bigger hook. But that would mean getting a bigger hook. Mmm, something to ponder.

Anyway, back to the subject of the day. The Madli (Ravelry link). It’s called a shawl but it’s more of a stole really.
Madli in love (hahaha)…

I am using this gorgeous Malabrigo Lace I got from Pure Purl. It is in a fantastic hue of blue called Continental, with just a hint of variegation. I don’t like blue, in general. But this one is absolutely perfect. It might even tempt me if they have the same colourway in a heavier weight. Woohoo! They do it in the Merino Worsted weight. And the Impressionist Sky colourway in the sock weight look close enough. Thing is, I don’t wear blue. Never ever, so what would be the point of making a garment in it? Maybe socks would be a better choice…

I’m getting sidetracked again. Back to the Madli. It is an easy enough lace stole, made in 2 parts grafted together. I’m not sure how I’m going to feel about the grafted part, but I’m not there yet. Before that, there is a lot of yarn overs and nupps to work on.
Nupps… I’m 3/4 done with the first border and I’ve got to say I’m not convinced by the nupps. They are fiddly, slow and I’m not sure they add that much to the pattern.
Nupps…

See? Sensible people would replace them with beads, which would be lovely but 1) I don’t have any beads right now when I want to work on it, 2) I’ve never done any beading works on my knitting and don’t feel like learning at the moment, 3) it’s probably as fiddly as the nupps and 4) I don’t think that it would suit the person the stole is intended for.
I am very tempted to just not make them. And just do a plain knit stitch where they should have been. I am not frogging the border, so I’m going to call that a design feature: the 2 borders will have their nupps, but the body won’t. I’m sure that will work out fine. And I will have more yarn left for the main part this way. Win!

Tags: knitting, lace

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My fingers are once again covered with eczema. The bugger reappeared last week and the lack of sleep of the last few days (baby is having another growth spurt, I think) has made it flare up.
Itchy fingers…

It doesn’t look too bad on the pictures, but it does make me want to scratch all the time. Which I don’t do, because I’m a good girl with willpower (and nobody wants bleedy fingers anyway). I do cover my fingers with cream when the itch is too strong. Unfortunately, I can only use lame-ish cream as corticosteroids and breastfeeding don’t work too well together. Le sigh…

It’s even more of a bugger, as it’s making knitting REALLY uncomfortable. Holding / touching the project is almost unbearable. It made me finish the mini seaweeds socks a little earlier than wanted. It also makes working on a shawl almost impossible. It’s using some baby merino lace and the fuzz makes me want to throw myself against the wall. Note: if you’re knitting for a person who’s got sensitive skin, and eczema, please be considerate in your choice of yarns. Safe bet would be to use super soft, non fuzzy acrylic. Or cotton. Please.

So what does a knitter do, when she can’t knit and when she’s got leftover sock yarns? She whips her crochet out and start making granny squares. I’ve used the granny squares pattern there, but I did modify it a little as it didn’t look quite right (or I was too tired and didn’t read properly, which is completely possible).

The squares are about 5cms wide. I used a 3.5mm crochet hook and it worked quite well. I got 5 squares from the leftovers of Dream in Color Smooshy used for the Seaweeds socks. I got 4 squares from the leftovers of Regia Galaxy I used for my first toe-up socks.

But now, I’ve run out of leftovers yarns. What should I do?…

Tags: crochet

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I have finished the mini Seaweeds! They only took a few hours to make and are really cute. They’re not perfect, far from it, but for a first time adapting an adult size sock into a baby size one, I think I’ve done pretty well.

Baby sized Seaweeds socks!

The picture is not the best, but the model wasn’t feeling like standing still!

Now the details. It’s an almost to the letters adaption of the pattern I’ve used for the adult size. It did involved a little bit of math to get the right-ish numbers for the gusset and heel flap.
Knowing what I know now, there is a couple of things I would do differently. First, the toes. They are way too pointy. My boy’s got flat, wide toes. I cast on 14 stitches and increased to 34, which is not quite right. I’ll keep that in mind for the next pair: I will do a couple of increases, if at all (and cast on more stitches)…
Also, I chose to go for 2 repeats of the seaweeds pattern across the instep ((2 x 8st) +1) and it is a bit narrow. I should have done a ((2 x 9st) +1) one and it would have been better. Or I could have used bigger needles.
For the gusset, I increased by 6 x 2st every other rows, bringing the total of stitches for the sole at 29st. I turned the heel by increasing to 33st, then I decreased to 15st and started the lace pattern.
If you want the precise numbers, just let me know. I’ve got them written down. But what I did was pretty simple.
Let’s use the gusset increases. At this point in the adult pattern, we’ve got 55st and I’ve got 29 st. For the first increase in the adult version, I need to knit 37st, so I did:

(37 x 29) / 55 = 20 stitches (rounded)

I used the same method to come up with all the numbers I needed. And it worked perfectly fine. I will definitely adapt more adult patterns this way.

Tags: baby, knitting, socks

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When I started knitting again, I had been on a knitting break of about 5 years. And I was in another country. What I knew in the past was now almost irrelevant. The easy part was to (re-)learn to read knitting patterns in English. There are so many great knitting websites around here that it didn’t take long to be able to understand what k, p, skp, k2tog, etc meant. Which made the whole process of coming back into knitting world quite painless. Until I had to get some yarn.

I grew up using Phildar yarns and patterns as we had a Phildar shop as our LYS. We spent many afternoons there with my mother. I loved it!
We also received the Bergere de France yarns catalog. I had so many pullovers made of Barisienne or Ciboulette (I think, might have been another low wool content blend)! I love the catalog with the little bits of sampler yarns on the side of the page. It was great to browse and dream about future garments!

Phildar and Bergere’s yarns are not readily available in the UK. You can find Bergere in a few LYS, but God! so expensive! For me, Bergere’s yarns were the cheap yarns that my not so rich parents could afford. So it does seem wrong to spend all those hard earned (by my husband) pounds on ‘em.

So what to buy and where?

What is still something I am working on. I haven’t tried all the native brands yet. Actually, the only one I’ve really tried is Sirdar, which I love. Their Snuggly yarns are perfect for baby knits: they are the softest acrylic I’ve ever touched! I am planning in trying Rowan and Debbie Bliss at some point in the near-ish future.

Now, where, is something I worked on quite religiously over the last year or so. Here’s the list of shops I check every so often:

• Get Knitted: they sell all the Knitpro needles range and a very good assortment of yarns brands. And they are very fast.
• Pure Purl: a one-woman shop, extremely fast and with cheap as chips Malabrigo lace. And other delicious yarns such as Dream in Color (my new favourite for socks).
• Kemps: the place to go for bargains! Not everything is my type of yarns, but when it is, the prices are just to die for! Regia sock yarn for £1.20, Sirdar Luxury soft cotton for the same price, Stylecraft carousel for £0.59. Worth checking often!
• Pavi Yarns: the first shop I tried. They carry the usual British brands, but also some international brands such as Louet, Cascade and Filatura di Crosa.
• New Lanark: Now, that is a Scottish (I think) mill. They sell their own 100% organic wool in 2 weights (DK and Aran) in a boatload of colours. Not the softest, it seems (just received some, not knitted/washed yet), but at those prices, it’s going to be perfect for outerwear.
• Loop: One of the rare UK shops who have blocking wires and T-pins. And also a nice selection of yarns, notions and accessories.

I have tested all those shops, sometimes more than once and I LOVE them and would reuse them without thinking twice. I’ve got some in my bookmarks that I haven’t tried yet, but plan on doing so soon. That will be for another shopping spree post!
No wonder why my stash is expending at such a rate!…

There isn’t any LYS in this list. I’ve only tried 2 and one of them is John Lewis Oxford Street, which got a surprisingly good selection of yarns and haberdashery. The other shop I tried didn’t convince me (too snobbish) so I won’t talk about it. They did have lots of stuff, but I didn’t like the attitude / spirit: they made me feel awkward and that’s a big no-no for me. But I know LOTS of people love this place, so that’s just probably me! Better to keep it shut, then…

I’ve got some haberdashery places written down, but let’s not mix tea-towels and napkins (bad translation of a French saying, like apples and oranges English one, right?)

Tags: handmade, knitting, shopping

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