Making Miscellany 3:2

Procrastination and potential

Hello, and welcome to a belated February edition of the Making Miscellany! The last Thursday of the month snuck past me; the family calendar has only just been flipped over to March. But hello, hello, and thank you, as always for letting me pop into your inbox.

It’s been a month of endings and beginnings for projects; my making has been in a happy place as I’ve had the satisfaction of enjoying some freshly finished garments mixed with the excitement of new ideas and undertakings.

My Janni-uary sweater¹ got finished in February and has gone into constant wardrobe rotation. I love that the yarn² makes it feel a bit special, while the shape is comfy and cozy. So far, it’s happily come on holiday with me, attended an interview, made an appearance for a date night and just generally slotted right into my wardrobe. Hoorah!

I also got around to sewing up a Jackson Pullover that had sat cut and ready for quite some time. I got this remnant piece of ribbed floral fabric from Lamazi Fabric last year, intending to use it for a child’s garment, but I loved it so much I decided why not add something happy and floral to my own wardrobe? A few weeks ago, inspired by the the flowers slowly popping up in our corner of the world, I decided it was time to sew up my pullover; I finished it just in time to wear to a friend’s birthday (I sometimes find a faux deadline helpful, do you?) I’ve made quite a few Jacksoon Tees, and I enjoy the easy slightly oversized fit of the pullover just as much as the t-shirts. It’s fun having something a little more playful to put on, and I can definitely imagine making another Jackson pullover in my future—I’d love a cozy version in french terry or sweat-shirting!

It’s been really nice to be back at my sewing machine, and I’ve also been slowly working on a scrappy quilt, inspired by this beautiful one from Penelope Handmade. I had a lot of fun pulling fabric from my scraps and stash to see what combinations might work and making up a first set of blocks. I stalled a bit trying to make some decisions about what fabrics to use next, but I’m hoping to get back to this project this week.

A machine pieced quilt is not a good travel project though, and with my main knitting WIP off the needles and the prospect of a few days away, I went on a bit of a casting on bonanza (because you never know what kind of project will slot in while traveling!), casting on a new sock, kerchief and child’s Love Note before we left. The Love Note³, in particular, has been long planned … in fact, I took the yarn and pattern along with me to Barcelona back in November, intending to cast it on on that trip!

With the days getting brighter though, it seems a perfect time to be working on a colourful spring sweater for my favourite five year old; it helps that she seems very keen to wear it! She’s already informed me that having a new sweater will be her “news” the first day she wears it to school (where, I gather, each child gets a chance to share something noteworthy to them with the class); the other evening, I found her in the living room after dinner, wiggling herself into the WIP to see how it was coming on. With such encouragement, it’s perhaps not surprising it’s the project I’m picking up the most at the moment. I’m a sleeve and bottom hem shy of finishing!

I ended the month by tackling a project that had been waiting quite some time: repairing some fairly substantial damage to my youngest daughter’s Hansel Hap. For quite some time the hap had—to my delight—been my littlest’s blanket of choice for bedtime; my maker mama’s heart would nearly burst seeing her wrap herself in it each night. If you’ve ever seen a baby with knitted lace though, you’ll know that tiny fingers like to find and pull on the perfect finger shaped holes (makes sense!); H had, I think, done this many, many nights, pulling loops that seemed impossibly long out from the hap’s fabric, and, in a few cases, those loops had snapped. That combined with a particularly vigorous play session with her bigger sister had led not only many, many pulls, but holes as well, two of them rather substantial.

I had such a mix of feelings when I first picked up the hap and saw it heavily damaged. On the one hand, I love seeing handmades well loved; I’ve not made them to be looked at! On the other, there were so many memories wrapped up in the hap. Of knitting it for her while I was pregnant (as I’d done for my first), of bringing her home in it, of wrapping her in it for walks. I knew I wanted to repair it, but wasn’t sure the best way to go about it — the springy garter stitch is so elastic, and I didn’t want to compromise that. I asked for some advice on Instagram and got many suggestions, and then it sat for many, many months.

I was too stuck into the mending to take many photos, but this is the first hole I mended, midway through mend and done.

I finally felt ready to tackle it the other day, and while the mending is by no means invisible (especially if you hold the hap up to the light — I like that it’s almost like a secret to be revealed!) it is, I think, not immediately noticeable. The holes were were not particularly straight forward, and mending them was a bit of a messy, hybrid business. I reknit small sections where I could, tried garter duplicate stitch in others, and winged it plenty. There were lots of short broken yarn strands, too small to really weave in, as well as many new ends from my own efforts, so when I finished each area, I went over it very lightly went over with the finest needle felting needle we have to help bed any short fibers in — Shetland wool’s tendency to stick to itself will, I hope, mean most of what I’ve done stays relatively secure!

The hap is huge, so it's actually quite hard to get a photo! Folded and ready to return to it's little person, and held up to the light to reveal a mend (turns out it is very hard to hold a giant hap up and photograph it at the same time!)

The hap has had a good wash and been aired out and is now ready to return to, hopefully, being a well-loved blanket. As soon as this final bout of teething has ended, that is. First nap back with the hap and H bit a fresh hole in the edging (she’s been chewing everything as her last molars come in). An early test of my resolve to just mend things quickly — which I passed — but I have to say, I would rather not test myself again just yet. But as soon as this passes, the hap will return to its rightful place on her bed!

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This month, a lot of my making centered, in one way or another, on getting around to things long planned. Usually, I’m in the habit of seeing these things as little piles of reproach scattered around the house: the sewing pattern traced; the fabric, cut and waiting; the mending pile, with a much loved blanket teetering on top; the yarn wound in a fit of enthusiasm then neglected. During my many hours mending the hap though, instead of keeping up my usual reproachful internal monologue — “why has this taken you so long? why didn’t you find time sooner?” — I thought instead about how good it was to wait until I felt ready to tackle the project. The tenderness I’d felt when I saw the holey hap had faded, and ideas about how to approach the mending had had time to percolate. Similarly, when we were packing for our half term trip, and I didn’t know what knitting to grab, I was thankful to my past self for having planned W’s Love Note, and put the yarn ready to go in a bag. And I enjoyed having the pieces of a lovely spring-y top, cut and waiting for me, to sew up and enjoy wearing during a glum February week. Maybe you do the same? Plan projects and don’t get to them right away, then feel guilty? But maybe, to adapt a phrase from Ina Garten, it’s a good thing to be ready when the making strikes … and we can start thinking about those piles of reproach as piles of possibilities for our future selves.

That’s about it for this now very belated Making Miscellany! Other things I’m excited about at the moment: rediscovering artisan bread in five minutes a day (we had this book many moons ago, and while I’d love if we were constantly churning out Very Good Sourdough, the ratio of effort to deliciousness with this recipe is hard to beat!); new colourwork sock patterns (do I actually like knitting colourwork socks? the jury is out! but I love the look of both of these); longer days and the opportunity to recite “I wander’d lonely as a cloud” to my family at every daffodil sighting; my current book from my Mr. B’s reading subscription and having Woolly Good on the horizon (are you going?!). I’d love to hear what’s bringing you joy as we move firmly into the moth of March!

Thanks, as always, for reading, and if you know someone who would enjoy a monthly meander through a (literally) slow making life, do forward this along! The more the merrier!

xo Katherine

1. Janni Sweater by Orlane Sucche in size 2. I followed the pattern as written, but on advice from my friend Jenni (whose version inspired me to try this pattern) adding short rows at the upper back and bottom hem.

2. I bought this yarn Biches et Buches Le Coton + Alpaca yarn at Barcelona Knits, the knitting holiday equivalent of saying you hate needles and coming home with a tattoo. In the past, I’ve had problems with yarn with alpaca content, with lots of sneezing, itching, etc. But I loved the yarn, so different than anything I’ve knit with, and over time I’ve noticed that some alpaca yarns don’t seem to bother me at all, while others immediately bring on a reaction (I don’t know if this comes down to how it’s been processed, the grade of the fiber, how it’s spun etc?) … and I decided to gamble on this one. A bold gamble, given this yarn is definitely fluffy, but I’m happy to report one that paid off. I’ve had nary an itch or sneeze wearing this new sweater!

3. The Love Note is, of course, by Tin Can Knits. I’m knitting this in some stash that twice as old as my daughter: two skeins of Manos del Uruguay Alegria, bought in Boston in (I believe) 2014!