 July 31, 2006
Cashmere wrap top
I took the weekend off this week for the first time in ages. I didn't check my emails from Friday night all the way through to Monday morning. I've been saying for ages that the only problem with proper work / HipKnits / MagKnits etc is that there doesn't seem to be a clear boundary as to when I stop work and this weekend we had so much on that I decided to make a clean break. It was great. I feel like I spent so much more time with the kids and Wayne (and had an extra couple of naps) and really there weren't THAT many emails to deal with this morning. So that's it, from now on HipKnits / MagKnits emails are Monday to Friday only. For the first time in a few years I won't be working 7 days a week. More me time. Woo Hoo. More time to work on things like this. This cashmere wrap top was inspired by a similar looking top that I saw someone wearing in Bluewater shopping centre once. I dreamed about that top for ages but knew that I didn't have the time to commit to knitting a laceweight cardigan for myself. I had the pattern all written up just in case I should find the time but it wasn't looking likely. Then the lovely Minxxy offered to knit me some samples and I jumped at the chance. She has already made me a Trudie jacket and is working on another HipKnits project at the moment so I knew that her workmanship was exquisite. This beautiful wrappy cardigan arrived in the post on Friday as I was feeling truly hot and bothered but do you think I could resist trying it on? It fits me beautifully and is such a great piece of knitting, thanks so much Minxxie! The best news is that this only took 72g of our HipKnits laceweight cashmere to make a bust size 38. So one skein of cashmere for £15 should be enough to fit up to around a 42 inch bust I would have thought. Its a pretty forgiving knit as the front either knots together as shown or fastens together at the sides so the ease of the top can be adjusted. I'm just tidying up the pattern now ready for the August HipKnits update later on this week where I have dyed some new shades of our laceweight cashmere in case anyone else out there is feeling cool enough for one of these!
Posted by Kerrie at 06:18 AM
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July 28, 2006
Hip Tee progress
Isn't it silly how knitting in a colour that you don't like can really slow up your progress? I've had this on the needles for ages and it should be a nice quick knit, aran weight - short sleeved and I'm making the smallest size as its only for a shop model. I think the problem is that when I look at my pile of projects and decide which one to pick up and work on, this is always last choice because the colour just doesn't appeal to me. I'm getting there though as you can see. The only problem is that now I've put it on the model to photograph I can't really be bothered to take it down and finish knitting it. Oops.
Posted by Kerrie at 06:35 AM
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July 27, 2006
Sari silk
At the Knitting and Stitching shows the sari silk is one of the fastest sellers. People are intrigued by it, they love to hear how it is made and are fascinated by the thought of knitting with it. Each and every person who buys it asks "what can I make with it?" "Do you have any patterns for it?" Until now the answer to the second question was no, not really. So I decided that I'd work on a collection of patterns in time for the NEC show in September. I've been busy writing nice easy little patterns and this is one that Annette knitted for me a while ago. Its the perfect use for sari silk, a nice little coaster and placemat set.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:23 AM
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July 26, 2006
Random things that are keeping me awake
Why is it always the little things that keep you up at night rather than the monumnental life changing earth shattering ones? I have a fair few "things" happening at the moment of the big news variety (work work, new exciting yarn ventures etc) which will all become clear over the next couple of weeks but are they the ones stopping me from sleeping? No. Its the little annoying things. Like these. Our kitchen floor is sticky. I have no idea why. I've cleaned it a million times over the last couple of days and its always fine for a while and then within a couple of hours is sticky again. It bugs me. I dont like housework (although I do like the house to be clean) and having to clean the kitchen floor more than once every now and again is a little too much for me to deal with right now. The never ending single sock syndrome, not the knitted variety. This is how 2 socks go into the washing machine and only 1 finds its way back to the drawer, clean and ready to be worn. Its a good job I have a plan for odd socks, or at least I do after lying awake thinking about all this last night. How Cameron can refuse to learn simple phrases that I would like him to and yet manage to ask me to open his banana for him in Spanish! (Dora, I love you!) He also learned how to say "poo, that stinks" in about 0.3 seconds flat when I was changing his nappy the other day but do you think he will say "down please mummy" when he wants to get down from the table? Down now mummy. Down mummy. Cameron down mummy. We have lots of variations but none of them including the word please. ARGH! How the new postal prices on 21st August are going to affect HipKnits. Basically all my postage costs are going to increase and the service isn't going to get any more reliable. Oh, man. Why the builders who built our house chose to make the children's bedroom windows on the 3rd floor open outwards with no way of preventing the children from falling out. This means that in the super hot sun we're having the top floor turns into a greenhouse with windows shut and children who roast at night. Our bedroom window opens from the top which means that no-one could fall out of it. Why are the children's rooms different? How on earth people think they can get away with not making their children wear seatbelts in the car. I drive quickly but the other day a car sped past me at about 90 miles an hour with 3 young children climbing all over the back seats. Its just wrong. There, a random insight into why Kerrie doesn't sleep well at nights these days. I'm sure its probably lots to do with the heat but once I'm awake these are the annoying little things that keep me that way. Sigh.
Posted by Kerrie at 05:39 PM
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July 24, 2006
Festivals
We had a lovely weekend, which started Friday night with a trip to the cinema to see Pirates of the Caribean 2 (loved it!). We lazed around at mum and dads all day Saturday and then Sunday was spent at a caribean festival in Horniman park in London with Wayne's family. The kids had a great time with their cousins, the adults were on full alert watching them running around all over the place, catching them before they ran too far away and doing quick 1,2,3,4 headcounts to make sure we didn't lose any of them. As we arrived they were making a tannoy announcement about 2 five year old boys who were lost. Over 2 hours later we could see the police force combing the trees around the park and walking in a long line through the festival looking for the boys. I can't begin to tell you how emotional it made me. I kept thinking about their poor parents and what might have happened to the boys. As the music was turned off and the festival began to close I was about to go and volunteer to stay and search for the boys but then they made the announcement that they had been found safe and well. According to one of the security guards that we asked, they found them in New Cross which is about 5 stops away on the train. They said that they were not alone but its not clear whether they knew the person they were with or not. Frightening. Talking of festivals, what are you all doing the first weekend in August? If you are in the London area and looking for something fun to do then check out Fruitstock, the Innocent drinks festival in Regents Park. HipKnits are one of the sponsers of this festival and we will be in the relaxation area equipped with yarn, needles, deck chairs and umbrellas encouraging people to stop by and knit a hat for the Innocent Supergran project. There is no excuse to leave without knitting a hat as we’ll be happy to teach you if you can’t knit, bring along your needles and yarn or use some that we’ll have available and join us for a relaxing knitting session in Regents Park. What better way to spend your weekend? If you look at the fruitstock website you’ll notice that Innocent are asking people to bake cakes to bring along for their cake stand, I’m planning to knit them some tea cosies to take along just for a laugh. If you haven't looked at the Innocent website recently you really should. They are so funny and such lovely people. Its been a pleasure working with them on Fruitstock and I cant wait for 2 days of relaxing and knitting in the park.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:59 PM
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July 21, 2006
bag heaven
I'm feeling a bit silly now for apparantly not looking hard enough on Amazon for that EZ book! Thanks so much for all the offers to get me a copy, I should have one arriving any minute now. I'm in bag heaven today after a couple of my shopping splurges this week have arrived! I know that I only go into the office once a week but I struggle to know what to do with my laptop. I dont like the big black laptop rucksack that it came with but regular bags just aren't always strong enough to carry it. Welcome to the reversible laptop bag made especially for me in Cath Kidston fabrics by this ebay seller. Isn't it lovely? It almost makes me happy that I'm going to be in the office 3 times next week so that I get to show it off to everyone. Not that most of the men I work with will be interested but I love it. I also bought this bag from the purlescence sale. I had no idea it was going to be so large so it has now been christened my overnight / picnic bag. I'm pretty sure I could carry Cam around in it if I so desired but I'm not offering that one to him just yet!
Posted by Kerrie at 12:12 PM
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July 19, 2006
Cool things made by other people
I'm in love with these moccasin socks that Adrian just finished. I've been searching for the EZ Knitter's Almanac book but the only one I can find is around 6 dollars for the book and then around 20 dollars shipping to the UK. That doesn't feel right somehow so I'll keep on looking. Anna's gorgeous brimmed summer hat. There are just not enough hours in the day to knit everything but the children would look look just gorgeous in one of these each don't you think? Colleen's Shetland Stole. The lace, the yarn, everything about it. Gorgeous. Continuing with the retail therapy theme that we had going on here yesterday my copy of Hillary's Bear Bunny and Kitty book arrived the other day and I want to make all of the animals in it. I am also the proud owner of a Miss Twiss Hustle Bustle pattern which I'll be attempting just as soon as I'm brave enough to play with buttonholes on my sewing machine and I ordered the bonnet pattern from Amy over at Angry chicken yesterday. I was sooooo close to ordering this most gorgeous pendant I have ever seen this morning but then realised that I don't have an Etsy account so I resisted. Maybe not for much longer though, it is lovely after all. Thanks to Anna for the link to the lovely Etsy glass store.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:28 AM
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July 18, 2006
Handbags and sales
I met up with Robynn recently and (amongst other things) we discussed handbags and why we need so many of them. The conversation reminded me that I still had some birthday money that I had left to spend and what better to get than another bag? So last night surfing around Purlescence I noticed their fantastic sale, and just happened to purchase a bag from them. Then I remembered that I had wanted to get a cath Kidston overnight bag for some time so I surfed over to ebay to see if they had any bargains. They didn't so instead I checked out some Oilily weekend bags but the shape just wasn't calling me. I did end up buying something from ebay which I'll show you when it arrives. Not wanting to encourage anyone to spend more money than they need to I'm going to say the next bit very quickly. Cath Kidston have a sale on at the moment that is a very good sale and you can even by fabrics by the metre online now which you were not able to do before and isn't this a super good deal? Again, I'll show you what I bought from them when it arrives. Woo Hoo for some retail therapy. Lets not mention that I spent my birthday money 2 times, some of it was paid with Paypal though so that doesn't count as real money. Does it?
Posted by Kerrie at 08:11 AM
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July 17, 2006
Southend
Last Friday was one of those rare days when Wayne and I were BOTH home from work early enough to go and pick up the kids together. I love it when this happens, you can see the indecision in both kids faces when they come out and see us standing there - which one to hug and kiss first. Wayne always wins here but I don't mind, I love seeing them both come running over to us. We decided to be spontaneous and head over to Southend when we got in from school. We got there just in time for dinner and then spent a couple of hours playing on the beach before it was time to head home for bed.
We collected seashells, wrote our names in the sand with sticks, followed birds tracks, poked in the squishy wet sand where the tide had gone out with sticks and didn't find any treasure. We climbed mountains made of stones, explored sand castles left by other children and ran around and around in circles chasing each other until all 4 of us were ready to sleep in the car on the way home. It was a lovely unplanned way to spend a warm summers evening. We really should do it more often. A big cheer for fun at the seaside. Hip Hip, Hurray!
Posted by Kerrie at 08:22 AM
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July 14, 2006
Hip Tee
I decided to start the Hip Tee from Stef as a store sample. Annette came into the shop on Saturday to pick up some yarn to knit me an angelica after I gave up on mine and ripped out all the yarn. She chose Harriet which looks gorgeous when it is knitted up, I can't wait to see it finished. That left the Hip Tee as the only store pattern without a model so I thought I'd cast on for it while I was chatting with Anna and see how far I got. This is the progress from Saturday morning, Sunday and Monday evenings. Not bad is it? I'm just about to split for the armholes and then its plain sailing down to the bottom. I'm enjoying the pattern, its a nice easy knit but the raglan shaping gives it enough interest so as it is not just plain stocking stitch yet. Look at the colour though? This is zing, and it is about as far from my personal choice of colours as you can possibly get. I look at it and think "hmmm, interesting. Why would anyone wear these colours?" I'm much more into the blues, purples and pinks end of the spectrum. The last cashmere club yarn was yellows and oranges and it was a struggle to dye it I can tell you! I think that this will look lovely when its done, it will certainly stand out well on the walls of the shop and at the Knitting and Stitching Shows later in the year.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:02 AM
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July 12, 2006
Exciting new project for the autumn number 1.
SewHip. (words edited for the benefit of those living too close to Chatteris) What do you think? I wanted a name that was similar to HipKnits yet different. I am drowning under gorgeous samples of fabric and still searching for some new suppliers of buttons, beads and ribbons so if you know of anyone do let me know. Similarly if there is a fabric or pattern range that you would like to see stocked in the UK, just drop me an email and I'll see what I can do. This is where it is coming in handy having people working for HipKnits 6 days a week. I'm hoping that they will be able to handle shipping orders for SewHip as well as HipKnits and so after the initial setting up of the website and other bits it shouldn't be too much more work for me. I'm also going to be looking for an operations editor for the magazine, someone with basic html skills who can help me put the pages together once a month. This is by no means a full time role, it will take someone probably 4 or 5 hours once a month and can be done at any time. Let me know if you're interested and we can talk / email and work out the details.
Posted by Kerrie at 06:53 AM
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July 11, 2006
Patchwork quilt
I know I talked last year about making patchowrk quilts for the kids but now I'm actually doing it. Their birthdays are 10th and 11th August and I thought it would be nice for them to each have a handmade quilt from me to unwrap on the day. Cameron's is going to be a mixture of Cath Kidston football and horse riding fabric on one side and some Heather Ross Lightening Bugs fabric on the other. Not totally sure how that one is going to look yet. I have however pieced the front of Brooke's quilt which is made entirely from Amy Butler fabric. Random pieces in different sizes were just sewn together in no particular order or plan, I literally just sat in front of the machine and picked pieces up to join to the others. I love it. I wish I had a little more fabric and could make it a few inches wider and longer but its probably OK the size it is. Slightly smaller than single bed size. Here's a close up of the most uniform piece of the whole quilt, all those little squares joined together. I don't have any more Amy Butler fabric for the back so I'm considering buying a couple of metres just so that the whole quilt can be made in the same fabric. Otherwise I have some ordinary cotton fabric that would probably do the trick. I think I need to go and piece Cam's together before I decide, give me an extra few days to think about it.
Posted by Kerrie at 07:54 AM
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July 10, 2006
Strawberry picking
Wayne and I took the kids strawberry picking on Saturday and we accidentally came away with about3 kilos of strawberries! Now remember last year when we picked lots and Brooke and I spent the whole weekend making strawberry type stuff, well we did exactly the same this weekend. We ate big bowls full of strawberries on their own. We ate them with squirty cream on top. We made strawbery milkshakes, strawberry jam and strawberry bread and butter pudding. We looked at the last pile of strawberries that we had left and decided to make strawberry cheesecake out of them. The only problem was that the pieces of the food processer that we needed to make the biscuit base were in the dishwasher and I couldn't be bothered to wash them up by hand. So we invented a new kind of cheesecake. Very very yummy, quick to make and look pretty impressive at the same time. Here's how we did it. Ingredients 12 low fat digestive biscuits Take 6 digestive biscuits and lay them on a plate. In a mixing bowl use a wooden spoon to mix the soft cheese, the sugar and vanilla essence if using. Cover each biscuit with a generous amount of the soft cheese mixture making sure that there is a little left in the bowl when all 6 biscuits are covered. Pop a couple of strawberries on top.
Place a little of the leftover soft cheese mix on to the bottom of another digestive to help it stick. Place that on top of the strawberries and cheesecake mixture. Repeat for all biscuits leaving some without a 2nd biscuit on top if you like. Finally, use up any leftover cheesecake mixture and put it on top of the 2nd digestive and add a strawberry.
If you are not on a diet then eat as many as you can and enjoy. If you are watching what you eat, have half of one without the extra biscuit on top and feel good because they are as low fat as you can make them! Encourage everyone else in the house to eat the rest quickly so that you won't be tempted with them while working from home for the rest of the week.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:08 AM
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July 07, 2006
Bratz creations
When Brooke saw my little bags of fabric and ribbony goodness from Alicia that came the other day she instantly started planning what to make for her most favourite Bratz doll. She spent ages choosing which were the most pretty pieces of material and ribbon and last night when Wayne came home from work we made him take Cameron upstairs out the way while we played sewing machines. Bratz doll now has a sleeping bag and a little drawstring bag to carry her PJs in. Brooke chose the ribbons and the Posie label and told me where to sew them. She also helped with the sewing machine, pushing buttons and telling me when to stop. She loved it. I can see a little sewing machine in her future, how cool would that be?
Posted by Kerrie at 08:25 AM
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July 06, 2006
Button Scarf
The silk and buttons thing I showed yesterday is a scarf, Brooke loved it although she said the buttons made it feel funny on her neck. Made from just over 100g of silk this is super long and lots of fun. Annette kindly interpreted my instructions and came up with EXACTLY what I had in mind, how cool is that? It looks great on the model in the shop, but she needn't think she is going to get to keep it though! Quick reminder about Oliver's fund donations. Thanks to everyone who has donated so far, Michaela's house is now even more full of yarn than it ever was before! We've had lots and lots of lovely parcels and the deadline isn't until the end of July so you still have time to send something over to us if you want to.
Posted by Kerrie at 10:29 AM
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July 05, 2006
Gifts in the mail
I had a good mail day today, first the parcel that I ordered from Alicia a while back arrived and oh, its just so beautiful! I ordered 2 of her passamenterie packs, one in Fabric and one in notions They are just darling and Alicia was so generous with the amounts she included. Brooke has already picked through the fabric pack and chosen some to make clothes and quilts for her dolls with and I'm looking greedily at the rest of the scraplets, trying to decide what to make with them. I do have some plans which you'll see in a few weeks time. Then a package arrived from Annette who is one of my lovely HipKnits customers who makes samples for me from time to time. She offered to test knit some patterns that I'd written for sari silk and our aran silk and I'm just in love with this one. I'll post proper pics tomorrow so that you can truly appreciate how lovely this looks, its one of my favourites! Oh, and HipKnits has been updated today with some new cashmere sock yarn, more aran weight silk and some cashmere sock yarn on the sale page. Go enjoy!
Posted by Kerrie at 04:26 PM
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July 04, 2006
Summery skirt
Excuse the poor mirror photo, I'll get better ones later on. Remember a few posts ago when I was fixating on all of those beautiful sewing blogs? Well, I pulled out my sewing machine recently to do a bit of necessity sewing rather than fun sewing and realised how much I had missed it. I dug through my stash and came up with a 1 metre piece of Cath Kidston Ottoman Rose cotton fabric that I had planned to make into cushions a bit like these ones. As I was looking at it I realised that it was very similar to some skirts in Boden that I had been drooling over for ages but hadn't wanted to spend £6 on a skirt. (I still love the contrast trim around the bottom, expect to see more of those on this blog soon!) So the quick and easy pleat at the front skirt was born. I made this last night in the space of about an hour, from start to finish. The pleat at the front is held together with a brooch at the moment, I've never put a zip in something and I didn't have one in the house. I also knew that I didn't want an elasticated waistband in this one. Its really only a temporary measure but I think it will do for a while. What better way to chase away the blues than with a beautiful summery skirt?
Posted by Kerrie at 07:56 AM
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July 03, 2006
Weekend
What a gorgeous weekend (if you don't include the football saga and trust me, I don't!) The weather was amazing and I spent most of it hiding under a tree in mum and dad's garden watching the kids do a lot of this. Then spent more time at home hiding under in the shade under the gazebo watching them do some of this
and this.
There was lots of reminding them to wear hats and applying of sun cream, some knitting and lots of gossiping. Combine that with few or no tears from kids when it was time to pack away the toys and you have a perfect way to spend a weekend. All I need to do now is to work out how to remove the MUG tattoo that I must have on my forehead. There is no other explanation for how else I could have agreed to be chairperson of the school Parents and Teachers Association and to be filmed presenting a training course for work in the space of a week. I dont mind training people but the idea of a proper film crew filming me pretending to train people is just bizarre. Welcome to my world!
Posted by Kerrie at 11:24 AM
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