The pig wot got married - wedding shawl

I was going to post about this at a point when it fitted into the story of our wedding day as told on my other blog, but a couple of people asked and I can't resist showing off. Here is my wedding shawl, in one of my favourite photos from our wedding day, taken on the portico of the Fitzwilliam Museum.



The pattern is Aeolian by Elizabeth Freeman, which seems to be a popular patten for wedding shawls, judging by Ravelry.

The yarn is a 4 ply silk I bought several years ago from Fyberspates. It's gorgeously soft and shiny, blocks beautifully and was the perfect colour to complement my ivory dress, purple shoes and purple and pink flowers. I didn't have quite enough to cast off, as the pattern uses a double strand, so I went stash-diving again and came up with a small quantity of aran silk from HipKnits, left over from this scarf. The weight of the aran is a little heavier than 2 strands of 4ply, but not much. The colours are similar to the body of the shawl, but darker, giving an extra pop of colour to the wavy edge.



In this photo (ignore my windswept hair and veil), you can see the beads better. They're creamy pearly beads, size 6, I think. Looks like I neglected to record where exactly I bought them. This was my first time knitting with beads and it wasn't as hard as I'd feared. I don't think I'd like to tackle the sort of project where you have to start by threading all your beads onto your yarn, but placing each one on the right stitch with a thin crochet hook was not too fiddly and very satisfying.

I'm very very pleased with the result. The shawl actually didn't get much wear on the day. I didn't put it on until after the group photos when we went off on our own for some more pictures and, once we got to the reception, I didn't need it for warmth. But it will always be my wedding shawl and when I wear it again (which I will, unlike the dress) I'll remember our wedding day and smile.

Photos by Dave Routledge.

too tired to KIP

It's World Wide Knit in Public day. Well, strictly speaking it's the beginning of the WWKIP season, which runs from 12th to 20th June. I planned to join my fellow Cambridge KToggers on Parkers Piece at 1pm this afternoon. But I was so tired, I slept most of the morning and didn't get dressed until 2pm. So I shall be KIP-ing at some other time and place this week, probably whenever I think of it.

Where are you KIP-ing?

well, that's one way to de-stash

Ever since the weather got warmer, we've been finding moths around our flat. They're little brown ones which look like scraps of brown paper. When I was away last weekend, Rob went on a determined hunt and killed all the moths he could find. For a few days, we were moth-free, but I knew it wouldn't last. They must be breeding in the flat somewhere. Killing off all the adults we could find wasn't getting to the source of the problem.

Today I found it. I was searching for an elusive 3.5mm circular needle to swatch with. I wasn't having much luck, so I took all my wool bags and baskets off the top shelf and started to rootle them. Imagine my horror on finding my baskets of oddments full of little grey-ish specks and papery cocoons. I squished one of the cocoons and found it full of sliminess - a definitely active clothes moth larva. :( Many of my odd balls were full of cocoons and eggs and some were chewed into short lengths.

Three wicker baskets full of oddments have now gone straight off to the bins (which are outside and a distance from the building). I've had a look through the other bags of wool that were up there and they look ok, but I don't think I want to risk it. I've put some precious whole skeins in the freezer (including my gorgeous honeymoon yarn), but I suspect that I shall just ditch much of the rest. It's mostly oddments, odd balls and partial skeins, although there's a large-ish amount of Rowan 4ply soft I'm hoping to make into a short sleeved jumper that I don't want to bin.

Fortunately, my stash isn't enormous. I've got maybe half a dozen balls/skeins of sock wool, my honeymoon laceweight, the Rowan, a couple of things I've got 4 or 5 balls of (left over from jumpers) and then oddments, which I doubt I''ll miss. I hope this will teach me to keep my stash small, and to keep it in sealed plastic bags, not open wicker baskets.

Next, a grand search of the rest of the flat. Starting with the laundry basket which has several dirty woollen items which have been waiting a while to be washed. I fear the worst. :S

The pig wot got married - bridesmaids

I'm posting about my wedding on my other blog. I thought I'd post here about the things I made and bought in terms of clothes and decorations. Let's start with my lovely bridesmaids.



Here's Liz, in red, with Hannah (pink) and Debs (purple) just about visible behind her. They're all wearing the same dress, which is by Teatro and no longer seems to be online anywhere. All their dresses were bought on eBay. I wanted my bridesmaids to be dressed similarly, but not the same. I liked the idea of having many shades of pink, red and purple as my colour scheme. I didn't want to be stressing about finding exact colour matches for everything. If it was pink, red or purple, it was great! Having said that, within the BMs' outfits, there was a bit of colour matching to do, although some of it came about serendipitously.



The fascinators were the first thing I matched. I love fascinators, they're so much fun to wear. These ones came from Debenhams in the January sales. I think I paid full price for one, but the others were marked down by about 70%. They're all different and all (except the purple one) match the dresses perfectly.

The girls wore their own necklaces and shoes. The only stipulation I made about shoes was that Liz (who is shorter than me) could wear heels but Debs and Hannah couldn't. :) Debs wore some purple flats she already owned and Liz found some bargainous red LK Bennett heels for £5 in a charity shop.

The last thing I realised was that I needed to keep my bridesmaids warm. As I was knitting myself a shawl, I liked the idea of all of us wearing Bekki-knitted wraps or shawls, but I didn't really have the time to knit three more. A rummage through my wardrode produced two Clapotis - one in purple which perfectly matched Debs' dress and a second in purple and pink, which while not a perfect match, went well with Hannah's pink. The solution was obvious - knit a third Clapotis in red for Liz.

In the end, I don't think they wore them very much. These seem to be the only photographs in which all three bridesmaids are wearing their wraps. But it was pleasing to have us all wearing eBay-ed dresses and hand-knitted shawls.

Baby Fimble cardigan

FO: aka Fimble cardigan, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

It's been a while! I have wedding knitting to share, but first, let's catch up on pre-wedding FOs.

This is one of several baby cardigans I made at some point between November and February. Two were this colourway for baby girls and one was red and yellow for a bump of unknown gender who turned out to be a boy. I picked these colours first of all for my niece, because they looked so scrummy together. It was only when I was well into the body that I realised they matched Baby Pom from the Fimbles. Unintentional, but still pretty.

Yarn: Rico Design Baby Classic DK (Just under one ball of each colour per cardigan)

Needles: 3.5mm (ribbing) and 4mm (stocking stitch) circulars

Pattern: Top down raglan, made up by me. Fuller pattern on Ravelry.

Buttons came from Sew Creative. In terms of knitting time, it didn't take very long. I think the first one was knitting in 2 or 3 days. Quick and cute.

woolly bride

woolly bride, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

What do you do at a hen party* for a knitter? You dress her up in a wedding outfit made up of many many knitted items. :)

This was the end result of a game in which my friends all brought knitted items to the party which were gradually pinned on to make me a woolly wedding outfit. I had to guess the answers given by Rob to questions about our relationship. If I got the question right, I got to choose and pin on an item. If I got it wrong, the person reading out the question did. The final ensemble was very colourful and very warm. Note the awesome bouquet made out of bobble hats and gloves. (And Bendy Bob, who escaped from 'The Big Taboo'). Maybe if it's freezing cold in 19 days' time, I'll wish I was wearing something like this?

*US: Bachelorette party.

Not dead - busy

Hello there. I am still alive, and still knitting. Most of my knitting projects are wedding related, though there's a batch of baby cardigans and some socks I could show off.

My wedding shawl is finished, but not blocked, but I'm not going to show if off until after the wedding, I think. Will try to post a few FOs this week, but after that, I think I'm going to be in wedding-prep land. :)

Roll on 20th March! (40 days to go).

wedding shawl beginnings

Wedding shawl swatches, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

It's time to do some knitting for me! I originally planned to make my own wedding dress, but having made bridesmaids' dresses over the summer, I decided I could do without the stress. So instead I bought one from eBay, which may need some adjustments (and I need to lose weight to get into it), but it is beautiful and I couldn't possibly make something like that myself. So instead, I will knit myself a wedding shawl. I'm getting married in March, it's bound to be a little chilly and a beautiful shawl is the perfect way to keep warm.

Some searching on Ravelry and posting on the Cambridge Ktog board lead me to Aeolian. Now I need to decide on a yarn. I originally thought I'd make something cream/offwhite, but talking to people made me think about colour. Then I found this silk 4ply yarn in my stash. It's softly variegated in shades of lilac and pink - perfect for my colour scheme and the romantic lace of my dress.



I love the colour and the feel of it. The only problem with it is that so far, I havent found beads which fit onto the yarn. I've got sime size 9s and size 8s, both are too small. If I found some beads which fitted, went with the colours (I'm thinking either a pearly bead or a metallic/pearly lilac), I'd go with this yarn.

There's also a laceweight option.



This is some hand-painted laceweight I acquired at the most recent stash swap. I think it came from Jackie and was painted by Heather? I should probably message them to check. If so, I could ask Heather to dye me some in similar soft colours to the silk. The beads on it are (L-R) pearly lilac, pearly cream and a metallic darker purple.

Of course, neither of these swatches have been near my dress yet. I'm going to my parents' house where my dress is hiding this weekend, so I shall take my swatches, see what goes and go from there. So, what do you think? Which yarn? Which beads? Decisions, decisions.

tiny February baby jacket

February baby jacket, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

This is my favourite thing I've knitted so far for Tiny. I started it in January, before I knew my sister was pregnant. The yarn was a freebie from Yarn Forward magazine and it just seemed to fit with the pattern. Then when Debs found she was pregnant, it had to be for her baby. And here she is, finally and it fits.

Yarn: Merino wool, reward for renewing my subscription to Yarn Forward magazine. (Looking at my ravelry notes, it's called Sensation. 100g, 300m).

Needles: 3.25mm circulars

Pattern: Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby sweater on two needles (Ravelry link), with gull lace as she suggests.

I followed the directions, which mostly made sense to me. I think I had to redo the button holes near the top when I realised what she meant - button holes every 7 garter ridges, I think. It's such a beautiful pattern! I can see why so many people knit them. Purple buttons came from John Lewis. I love the contrast between yellow and purple, it makes both colours pop. More baby clothes should be in bright colour combinations!

tiny kimono

tiny kimono, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

More baby knitting!

Tiny was beginning to get a little grumpy here. This was the second garment I'd tried on her.

Yarn: More hand-dyed sock wool from Hay on Wye. Now identified by Anne as being from Wool and Willow and dyed by Jenny Cook.

Needles: 3.5mm (I think)

Pattern: Clementine's Baby Kimono by Diana Jones

Mods: None in the knitting. I finished it with three purple buttons (one inside) and sewn button loops instead of ribbons.

I like the construction of the kimono, though the ribbing will need blocking each time it's washed. It looks pretty cute, I think. Ribbons would probably make it more adjustable, they just seemed a bit fiddly.

tiny socks

tiny socks, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I have been knitting. Mostly for my little niece, blogname Tiny, who was born on 7th October. This was taken on her first evening at home. She has enormous feet, so I don't think these socks will fit for long. :)

Yarn: Hand-dyed sock yarn bought in Hay on Wye. I've now lost the ball band, so can't tell you the name of the dyer.

Needles: 2mm circs

Pattern: Better than Booties Baby Socks by Anne Budd. (Ruffle rib version)

Started and finished: sometime in September 09

The blanket you can just see was made for me when I was a baby by some relative or other (not quite sure who. There are various knitters in my family. Even my dad has been known to knit). It's lovely to see it being used for the first of the next generation.

wedding cake

wedding cake, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

This was a joint effort. The bottom tier is fruit cake made (in a bucket) by my mum and Hannah's now husband Steve. The upper tiers are chocolate (made to this recipe) made by me and my mum (the top layer was gluten-free for my dad and grandma). We covered the cakes with ready made icing and added lime green polka dots and brown ribbon.

The finished cake was very heavy and tricky to transport, but we did it. (Well, my mum and dad did). It looked good and tasted pretty good too.

bridesmaids' dresses

bridesmaid, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Rather a lot of the past 6 weeks has been spent making bridesmaids' dresses. With a chocolate brown and lime green theme, it was the easiest way to get four dresses which (semi) matched. This is mine, which I spent most of the day hoiking up. Oops. Not as well fitted on the bust as it could have been.

The pattern is Vogue 7848. The fabric is (scarily expensive, but rather lovely) silk satin from Borovick's. I don't have pictures of all four of us, but here's Anna, along with my gorgeous sister Hannah.



My other sister Debs is 33 weeks pregnant, so she needed a different style of dress. This isn't the best angle, but you can see the empire line and straps of her dress (Burda 7630).



The silk was a little intimidating to cut and sew, but with some patience, fine pins and lots of tissue paper, I got the hang of it. It felt gorgeous to wear and looks pretty good in the photos I've seen. Debs felt a bit too hot, but I think she'd have been too hot whatever she wore. The silk sashes tended to slip very easily, of course. I'm pleased with my work, though it has put me off the idea of making bridesmaids' dresses for my own wedding. I want to make my own dress and I think I'm going to have enough on my plate without adding 4 more. Though maybe I'll make a dress for the smallest bridesmaid...

What I've been up to

pom poms!, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

For the last few months, I have been mostly making these. My sister got married yesterday in a lime green and brown pom pom strewn wedding. We made a few hundred pom poms in different sizes to be used as decorations and thrown as confetti.

The inspiration came from this wedding blog - How engaging! - and this gorgeous post in particular. Way back when HP got engaged and started thinking about wedding colour schemes, she liked the idea of using chocolate brown and maybe lime green, but wasn't totally sure. I think showing her that blog helped her decide that it could work and was definitely a big influence on the final scheme. I'm going to blog some of the other things we made for the wedding, but if you can't wait, click through for some tasters on flickr.

Rob's socks are done

Finished socks!, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

And he likes them.

Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug in Mardi Gras

Needles: 3mm circs

Pattern: toe up, 60 stitches, spirals made by slipping every 6th stitch every other round, flap heel, 1x1 rib.

Started: 9? April 2009

Finished: 5 May 2009

me in my dress

me in my dress, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

This is the finished result of my dress-making exercise. As you can see, the final dress is in a different fabric from my original. I decided the sheet I was using was far too thin, so turned it into the lining and used some bold flower fabric bought from Walthamstow market.

I'm very pleased with the result. It's the first time I've used boning and once I'd got over my fear, it was easy to use. I also used my machine's blind hem stitch for the first time. It's OK, though a bit of a fiddle. I'd use it again if I didn't have enough time for a hand-stitched hem or had yards and yards of hemming to do all at once.

Looking at this picture, I can see that the lining is showing a bit. I made it about 5mm shorter than the outer layer, but I think it needed more. Or some more careful adjustment of lengths. I was running out of time when I got to the hems and just wanted them finished. If I had had more time or patience, I would have tacked the hems, tried the dress on and got someone to help me with getting the length right, rather than judging it on my own with the dress on a hanger.

Overall, this project did what I wanted it to do - gave me some sewing practice, got me familiar with this pattern and how to make it fit and provided a finished dress I could wear to some friends' wedding. I now feel more confident that I can make the bridesmaids' dresses I offered to make and that they'll look good.

socks in progress

socks in progress, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I've been knitting again. I stopped for a while thanks to tennis elbow, but I'm back, thanks to a visit to the Colinette mill shop on the way to North Wales.

The rainbow coloured socks are the result of that trip - bright coloured socks for my beloved.

The purple socks have been around for a while. I bought the yarn last summer (also at the Colinette shop). I decided to make socks with contrast heels and toes (and probably cuffs) to make the most of the yarn.

The lilac twisted flower socks have been causing me pain. The combination of dpns and little tiny cables does my wrist and forearm no good at all. If I find some 2.75mm circs, I'd far rather finish on them.

Further notes on flickr.

a change of craft

All pinned on, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I haven't done any dressmaking for ages, but when HP asked me to be her bridesmaid in August, I jumped at the chance to make my own bridesmaid's dress. I'm using Vogue 7848 (as used by Jen). It's a simple style and similar to a dress I already have which suits me. I think it will suit the other bridesmaids too, and be simple to alter, if needed.

I'm trying it out with an old sheet and if this one goes well, I might wear it to a friend's wedding in April.

Of course, the trouble with old sheets is that some parts are significantly more worn than others. I cut the front centre panel out of the middle of the sheet since it's cut on the fold and I wasn't really thinking about it. This means that it is much paler and thinner than the panels surrounding it. If I weren't hoping to wear this dress, that wouldn't bother me too much. But I like it so far. I don't think there's enough fabric left over to cut another front panel, so I might just have to live with it.

Steve's socks

Steve's socks, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I should have posted about these ages ago. They were a Christmas present for Steve (HP's fiance).

Pattern: Top down, 68 stitches, flap heel.

Needles: 2.5mm circs

Look at the little sheep! They're from the Looking Glass Knits Sheep Yoke cardigan.



This was my first serious attempt at stranded knitting. I'm pleased with it. The white portions were done as two colour stranded knitting and the black bits were added with duplicate stitch.



And most importantly, they fit and Steve likes them!

I made another hat

Rob!, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Tee hee!

Pattern: Jayne Cobb's Family Hat by Carlynn Field

Needles: 6.5mm circs.

Yarn: Yellow: Biggan Design DK merino, Orange: Rowan Pure Wool DK, Pumpkin: Pure Wool by Stylecraft. All used double.

Started: 7 February 2009

Finished: 11 February 2009

It's a shame you can't see the fabulous pom pom the top of this hat! There are a few more pictures on Ravelry.