Knit, Crochet and Natter 7: the School of Stitchcraft and Wizardry

[lazylinguist]

A thread for woolly crafters of all kinds, from beginner level to advanced sorcery!

Previous thread here

Thanks tizwoz I'll have a read through those once we're settled on the bus in the morning.

The TA job at work's on the website & now I'm wondering whether to bother or not since not a single word has been said about it since our HT & office manager approached me the other week 🤷‍♀️

I have definitely found that they don't approach you once the and has been posted, so don't be discouraged. It is has to summon the courage to face rejection from people you know. I had a situation where a younger, far less qualified man was given a post before me. It really hurt. It turns out it was because they wanted me for something else they knew they had coming up. It was hard to put that application together! I do wish they'd hinted, but they just don't.

I should go for it, @lucysmam - worth a shot!
Those snowflakes look lovely! I always fancy making knitted/crocheted Christmas decorations but never start them in time!

I'm wearing a super warm jumper knitted by one of dh's great aunts decades and decades ago. MIL passed it on to dh when theyvwere clearing out great auntie's stuff after she died. It's a bit big for me as it was knitted for a man, but dh didn't want it and I couldn't bear to see it chucked out! It's beautifully made, but I can't work out if the yarn it's made of is wool, acrylic or a blend. Either way I think it deserves to be worn!

Oh that looks good with jeans lazy! Toasty too. I do the wet and sniff test for wool, or check to see if it's felted a bit under the arms

I think them approaching you before was the nudge you should apply lucysmam, they can't really approach you afterwards as they have to appear impartial then. Go on and do it!

A temperature blanket is a lovely idea InTheNight, they look great! Glad things are going well for you both

Well it's not felted under the arms Flavia, but it looks as though it's never been worn tbh! I've never washed it yet, so I might do that (carefully) and try the sniff test. Tbh I suspect it's synthetic or a blend though. Dh says his great aunt wasn't one to spend much money on stuff, and that much proper wool would have been expensive!

That jumper looks lovely and warm lazy . The pattern looks familiar I think MIL may have knitted it for DH many years ago!

I have managed a little Christmas project (not that we need any more tree decorations)

NiceCardigan they're very cute!

Unfortunately the same can't be said of my latest effort. No matter how many times I've redone the fingers it just somehow manages to default to a rude gesture... I'm at the stage where I'd happily stick pins in him and push him out to sea in a flaming shoebox.

Crocheters help! Is there a way to make the chainy bit not twist when you crochet into the back of a chain?

@lazylinguist that jumper is lovely.

They are cute @NiceCardigan. I've been meaning to make Christmas Decorations for a few years but always leave it too late and then don't bother.

@FlaviaAlbiaWantsLangClegBack the only ways I know of is to use a bigger hook for the starting chain, use a chainless foundation or just hope it straightens out as you add more rows. Which won't work if it's for those fingers.

I've been making a jumper but don't actually have a pattern. There's a lot of trial and error going on

I've been making a jumper but don't actually have a pattern.

Does not compute! How do you... I can't even... ??!

Gorgeous colour and texture CrochetBug!

Lovely jumper lazy and I know not the point of the thread but lovely kitchen too. Slightly jealous of your kitchen, ours is older than me and previous owners have some interesting approaches to cooking!

Sorry flavia can’t help. I hate doing hands and fingers, they’re so fiddly.

While corchetbug is just creating her own jumper of the top of her head, I’m struggling to follow a pattern with a YouTube video so I’m a long way from making up my own stuff!

Thank you InTheNight! We had the kitchen done just over a year ago. We are fortunate in that it's a decent size and square. It was a horrible orangey greasy pine monstrosity before though - full of twee twiddly bits that were impossible to clean. Only dated back to 1999 when the house was built, but looked older than that!

lazy our kitchen was put in in the 80s when the extension was built. It’s a really decent size but the cabinets are all tall and skinny so you can’t fit anything in them. As it was the 80s nothing is a standardised size, so you can’t just put new doors on the front of the cupboards to jazz it up a bit. My dad works in construction and has done up properties, he keeps telling us that you can get a kitchen from Wren on finance for £1,000, like they did. “It works out at nothing each month”. In theory, yes, but our kitchen needs a lot of other work before you can put new cupboards in. The appliances were all on lighting wire and we couldn’t afford to get the new wiring sink into the walls so the wiring would need sinking and then the kitchen replastering. The floor isn’t flat - we can’t bake a cake because it’s really thin at one end and really think at the other. Half the floor is one step higher, for no other reason that we can work out than it was fashionable in the 80s but this stops you being able to fully utilise the space. We’ve also got the twee, twiddly bits that are impossible to clean and offer no storage solutions. It’s completely knackered. When we bought the house, I thought it was great and I could put my own kitchen in. Then we moved in, I realised how much the previous owners had just decided to do shoddy work, hire cowboys, how much work the kitchen (and rest of the house) needed and how bloody expensive everything was!

Eek how annoying! Bonkers about the non-flat floor and the step! Ahh the 80s eh?

When I finish dh's hat and start on one for myself from the same yarn, I'm thinking of using the same hat construction but designing my own Fairisle motif.

My book all about Fairisle discusses how to go about it and it shows lots of examples of the traditional types of shapes and patterns and how to plan them on squared paper and good ways to combine colours etc. So I've ordered some squared paper and am looking forward to getting my colouring pencils out!

Thank you all for the vote of confidence regarding the application. I've just sat down with a coffee to make a start on it. I doubt I'll get a look in tbh, I expect there will be applicants with actual qualifications but it's worth a go.

InTheNight your kitchen sounds like ours! Falling apart at the seams 🙄

I've tried making fingers once @FlaviaAlbiaWantsLangClegBack and they didn't go well, so I gave up, sorry!

Just a quick one : this book on Amazon has been spotted on the bargain threads. Looks lovely but I've no on to knit animals for anymore.

Well, I'm about 3/4 of the way through my application form. The closing date is Sunday & our HT emailed me last night to make sure I knew it was up, so maybe I do have a shot after all!

I had an hour's crocheting this afternoon & made these for my friend who is gonk mad. I'm not likely to see her until after Christmas, after today, and am rather pleased with how quickly I managed them. The gonk only took a couple of hours & the card not even that long!

That's encouraging @lucysmam! We'll be crossing our fingers for you. Your gonk is very cute!

It's awful weather here. I need to take tye dog out for a quick walk, but all I want to do is knit in front of the fire!

lucysmam good luck with the application, fingers crossed for you. Very cute gonk.

I love your gonk @lucysmam and we'll done for sitting down to the application. Very best of luck to you.

Pics of the green scarf but not in daylight unfortunately as I kept forgetting and had to send it off today. Modelled by poorly DD in her PJ's.

Good luck with the application @lucysmam

That’s a lovely shade of green @MerylSqueak I hope your DD feels better soon.

Oh wow, that is gorgeous Meryl, I want one! Your poor DD though, I hope she feels better soon.

Ooh, that’s really good lucysmam 😀 best of luck! Your gonk is cute too.

I finished one of Kevin’s arms. He has hands like a steel fixer but they’re better than they were so they’re staying 😁 DS is having a VE Day party in school after they finished their WW2 project and they can dress up in 1940’s clothes so I was knitting like a maniac to kit him out in a tank top and he’s got one of my dads flat caps. He looks adorable 🤣😁

meryl lovely scarf. Hope your DD gets better soon.

flavia it’s a good job that your DS has a knitting mum, I can’t imagine many mums are able to pick up a tank top in the supermarket for their VE party I’ve got the image of the old Hovis advert in my head though now!

So this is how I crochet now… I got in trouble from the health visitor for crocheting. If I’m not asleep, I should apparently be watching shitty TV not crocheting. Even if it’s a repetitive pattern that you can do while watching shitty TV 🤷‍♀️ Given DD is in the ‘not sleeping in the Moses basket’ stage and I can’t fall asleep with her on me it looks like repetitive crochet patterns might be my future for a little while.

Good luck for the job @lucysmam and cute gonk.

Love that green @MerylSqueak

@InTheNightWeWillWish awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww I want one! HVs are bonkers. Why is watching shit TV better than crocheting? I watch shit TV while I crochet.

My friend asked me to make her some bits for Christmas, the only place that had yarn in the colours she liked was hobbii. It finally arrived today and nearly all of it is missing. 1/5 balls arrived. So no chance I can get it done and posted to her by Christmas now.