Dear Cat

Dear cat, this morning I very carefully fulled and blocked a nice new handknitted Tudor hat. It wasn't intended as a bed for you. Didn't you notice how damp it was?

Pointy Hats

I havent posted for ages, sorry about that. Life has been so very busy. Anyway, here are a couple of recent hats:

This week's collection of hats.

Been a busy week, had the usual manic bank holiday working at the medieval village, then a trip to London on tuesday and wednesday to go fabric shopping for my regency outfit, then work the rest of the week as usual. Still, managed to get three hats finished in amongst that lot.

We have a red cloche hat, a Russula cap in a purple shade, which took far more yarn than the last one I made, and a frilly little headband inspired by seaweed.

Wonderwool

Wonderwool was great, really enjoyed ourselves. As always, there is so much wonderful work and covetable yarn on display, but I managed to sell more than I bought, just about.

The stall gave me a headache, its a difficult space to fill with those white walls, but it looked like this in the end.

Did some spinning whilst I was there, and came back with 800g of the most gorgeous handspun gotland by Freyalyn, I intend to make something really wonderful with it, just not sure what yet.

Cunningly mismatched socks

Made these on the Autoknitter this morning, and for some reason, even though I used identical weights, method etc, the tension went off and I have vastly different patterning on these. Mildly annoying, still, I'm sure they will appeal to someone and as they are a child size being a bit skewiff will probably be a bonus.

Pineapple Regency Reticule

I've been mildly fixated by a silk reticule shaped like a pineapple that is at the Kyoto institute recently, even found a version of the pattern in an early pattern book, but havent had a chance to sit and wrestle with the terminology of the Recency notation, so this is a stopgap variation just to satisfy my desire for a purse shaped like a pineapple. It needs beadwork adding to evoke the diamond shaped pattern of the pineapple body, but I like it so far. Its in pure silk and was lovely to work on, body stockinette, tops in crochet.

Child size woollen stockings

Most of the output of my antique sock machines is practical woollen or fancy silk stockings for the re-enactment market. Up until now, I've only had the 84 cylinder Imperia, which makes wonderul adult stockings but which can be a bit baggy on anyone with very slim legs or smaller feet. The 'new' Autoknitter has a 60 cylinder, and now that its knitting I took the plunge yesterday and did my first child size stocking, pictured next to an adult size one for comparison.

It may not look like much to those of you used to modern socks in beautiful bright yarn, but this is going to help keep a lot of little people cozy this season, I'm very pleased with the first attempt and think it will be even better once I have the machine properly settled in. At the moment its a little stiff to crank and feels a bit awkward in places, but to be fair to it, I've had virtually no dropped stitches and it has been sat in a box in an attic for 60-70 years.