Going Vintage

Chaos has reigned once more on this little house of mine.  After labouring to clean all of the linen in our hotpress, or airing cupboard to everybody else, after the builders left the house caked in cement dust, my heart sank this weekend to discover that the pipes in the house next door had burst and the water had seeped into our hotpress and destroyed all of the contents once more!  Much screaming and pulling of already thinning hair ensued!
So to cheer myself up a little, I headed off to the local antique fair.  And with my beady little eye I found a beautiful set of dessert plates just begging me to bring them home.  They may not be perfect with their little chips and cracked glaze but I love them more for their little imperfections.  I shows that they were well loved and used plenty.  And they are certainly going to be well used here too.

This is the cake plate.  It may be a little cracked and warn but just look at the beautiful detailing on it.  Who couldn't just fall in love with it!












There are five cake plates in total and the design on each is completely different.








I was also going through some of my material stash because I've started my chrimbo present sewing and I found an old tablecloth that my mother used to use in her house a lot when we were growing up.  Because some naughty little mouse had a nibble one or two corners of it, it was put aside to be made into a bag of some description.  But when I saw it, it brought back a lot of memories and I no longer have the heart to take the scissors to it.  I love it just the way it is.  Perfect!

Well obviously it could do with a bit of an ironing!  But I never did say that I was the queen of the rubber glove and feather duster brigade and I am severely allergic to the iron.  Well that is what I tell the Hubbie anyway!

I also finally managed to finish my purple waistcoat from the pattern by Kyoko Nakayosho.  I really struggled to find a button that I really liked for it.  The only problem that I had with the pattern was that the number of stitches for the arm ribbing was very small and I had to rip them back and pick up extra ones.  Other than that it was a great challenge and now I am quite happy with the final result.

The light wasn't great today so sorry that the pic isn't that good.

Oh and one more thing I forgot to show you the finished mittens.  I really love them.  I knitted them in fine merino and they are so snug and warm.  I'm wearing them all the time.  I decided to cast off the top and thumb a little snug on them so that they don't get all baggy and loose because that is one thing that really drives me batty.  So far it has worked!

Well that was my weekend.  Eventful as ever.  Hope that you had a good weekend too.
Rosie xx

Short Row Craziness

First of all I'd like to thank everyone who left such lovely messages and words on my last post about the sad passing away of poor Nutmeg.  It was very kind of you all.

Now down to something a bit more cheerful, knitting.  I've been working on this waistcoat for some time now.  It is a beautiful design by Kyoko Nakayoshi.  And oh boy was it a learning curve.  It was a first for a lot of stitches and techniques.  It was the first time that I attempted doing a reverse cable stitch but slowly got the hang of it and by the end I didn't even need to look at the pattern.  Here I also learned to perfect my wrap and turns.  They always drove me crazy because I hated the way that they looked when I had to pick up all the wraps at the end.  And I think that I must have ripped back this knitting about five this because I was so unhappy with my short row shaping.  But I eventually got a link on the internet and it said to always lift the wraps up from the knit side and place them behind the stitch to be knitted.  On the knit side the two stitches should be knitted together from the back of the loop and on the purl side they are just purled together normally.  It leaves the wraps totally invisible.   

I'm still not sure about the colour of this though.  That's always the danger of buying yarn over the internet, you risk not getting the colour that you expect.  What do you think?

Now just being so close to finishing this, I have to put it aside.  I have a wedding coming up on the 20th October and I need a wrap to go over my shoulders and keep me warm.  So I'm knitting against the clock.  I love knitting to a deadline if I'm honest.  It makes me work a lot harder on it.

I chose the Illyia Shrug from ravelry and Garn Studio Merino Extra Fine.  I love the colour.  And it matches perfectly with the trim on my dress.  Now that was a lucky internet buy!!

Anyway I better go now.  I've got the Hubby's jeans to mend too.  

Rosie

xx