Sussex

We finally managed to shoe horn a quick break in between work assignments. Technology is a wonderful thing for last minute arrangements. We discussed possible plans last Friday and by the evening we had booked this little barn conversion in the village I grew up in. Although we had five days in total we lost a whole day to work running over in London so that messed Monday up a bit and on Friday we were away by late morning so we had just three clear days.

Rye was top of the list for various reasons not least because it was my closest chance of finding decent wool! It’s also home to the famous Merchant and Mills but luckily for our bank account I’m hopeless at fabric related crafts. I’d love to be able to make some of their simple clothing items but ugh, I’d be learning a whole new thing from scratch and I think I’m happy enough with my woolly pursuits. I won’t mention names but my usual spot for wool gathering seems to have gone over to acrylic worship. I did find a selection of lovely yarn elsewhere and ended up buying a few skeins of Malabrigo. Sussex born and bred sheep and their wool is what I would really have liked and could have found but I didn’t want to drag M all over the county when he really just needed a quiet week.

Coffee and cake in Rye was a real treat. Exchanges in shops are so much easier in my native accent! It’s almost like getting a bit of my hearing back. I should be able to cope with Northern accents by now but there are so many. I actually had a whole conversation with a woman who had a small dog and it’s hard to describe how such a small thing made me feel like a fully functioning human being again. I tend to get M to do the talking and listening and he hardly recognised me when I took an object in a junk shop and went to haggle with the owner.

We don’t buy much these days. There were a few vintage metal wall racks that would be useful here but we’re not quite ready for them. Major reshuffling needs to happen first! The vintage crochet scarf was an exciting find and a bargain at just ten pounds. I’ve soaked it in euclan and blocked it in preparation for minor repair work. I’ve got some thin pure wool left over from a charity shop bag of odds and ends that will be ideal for mending. I’m going to add a discrete dc row to both sides too. Ella has claimed this one and although I think I would have worn it myself, she will wear it with so much more style! I’ve been promising to do one of these intricate granny square scarves for a while and I’ve put it off all this time because of the millions of ends, so hopefully I’m off the hook now!

The barn was perfect although considerably smaller than the last one we stayed in. It had everything we needed including a lovely walk in shower. Two weeks would have been perfect! Little has changed in my childhood village. I showed M the playing field where I was allowed to play until 5 o’clock. Dad taught me to tell the time on my Tom and Jerry watch and woe betide me if I was late. One day I decided to climb one of the big trees, missed my footing somehow and was only saved by the strap on my dungarees. I was dangling high up off the ground by a mere strap but with a wonderful view and at 5.20pm I could see the top of my Dad’s head appear at the gate. I braced myself for the telling off but when he saw me of course he laughed his head off! Sadly they’ve chopped that tree down!

It’s always good to see my Grandad in person rather than FaceTime! We had some nice lunches out and chatted away. I told him I was sad not to live in the area anymore but in all honesty it just kills me that he’s so far away at a time in my life when I’ve finally got time to call round for a cup of tea every day if I lived closer.

I finally faced my fears and got the hem and cuffs of my fisherman jumper done. I had a bit of a mental block on those because I usually do them as part of each panel. I thought that picking them up afterwards might be a bit messy and awkward. I’d still rather do them as part of the main panel but I got them to work after a few false starts. I ended up doing my own thing entirely by going down a hook size and doing the rib the way I’ve done for hat brims. All the ends got sewn in quite late on Thursday and when the weather finally turned a little cooler on Friday I was able to wear it home. I fully intended to stay awake and make a hat with my new malabrigo wool but somehow the repetition of doing short half treble rows made me feel very sleepy!

Crochet trainer sock pattern

I’ve made quite a lot of these quick socks and I’ve seen similar ones floating around the internet that are made slightly more slipper like and embellished with flowers and so on. Once you get the basic idea you could do all sorts of adventurous adjustments!

For my own practical use I tend to keep them rustic and hard wearing. I use pure wool which usually needs to be hand washed gently. You can use any aran weight yarn, even a part wool content will help them keep their shape better.

UK terms

Using a 6mm hook and aran weight yarn, create a magic circle and chain 2 (the chain 2 does not count as a stitch here and throughout pattern).

We are starting from the toe.

6htr stitches into the circle, pull circle closed and join with a slip stitch to the top of the first stitch (not the ch2!) (6st)

Ch2, 2htr into each st around and join with ss as before. (12st)

Ch2, *2htr into next stitch, htr, repeat from *to end, ss to join. (18st)

Ch2, *2htr into next stitch, 2htr, repeat from *to end, as to join. (24st)

If you wish you can change colour here.

Ch2, htr in each stitch around, htr in top of first stitch (not the ch2) and continue working in spiral rounds without joining. After a few rounds it’s a good idea to slip the sock over your foot to see how the fit is coming along… if you have particularly wide or very narrow feet you can make some adjustments with your gauge and try a bigger or smaller hook. The sock should stretch a little when you try it on otherwise it’ll end up a bit loose fitting.

Work in spiral rounds until you reach the arch of your foot or as far up your foot as you want the sock allowing approximately 2cm for final cuff rounds.

Making sure any visible joins are on the underneath of the sock we will now divide for the sides and heel. Of the 24 stitches we are going to leave ten unworked that will go across the top of your foot.

Ch2, turn and htr in same stitch (ch2 does not count as a stitch for this part either!)

Work 13 more htr, turn.

Work as many rows as it takes to fall approximately an inch or a few centimetres short of the back of your heel. This will depend a bit on the ‘give’ factor of your chosen yarn.

We will now fold this flap in half with right sides facing inwards and slip stitch to join (see photograph). Your yarn will end up at the base of the heel. You can fasten off and rejoin if you wish but I do a loose slip stitch back up to the top (because I’m lazy).

Working in dc stitches now we will create a final cuff for the sock. Different foot sizes will mean different stitch counts so you’ll need to chain one and work dc stitches evenly on both sides of the sock with right side facing. Once you’ve completed one round of dc stitches try the sock on to make sure your opening is a good fit and adjust as necessary before completing four further rounds of dc. Work in a spiral and slip stitch at the back of the heel to finish.

Weave in ends. Make your second sock the same!

I hope they work out for you! They are extremely quick to make and I’ve even made myself an emergency pair in under two hours when I found myself on holiday in an apartment with stone cold floors (and no socks or slippers packed, but plenty of yarn in my suitcase!)

Feel free to message me via Instagram if you need help or spot a glaring mistake in my instructions!

October

I seem to be another year older since I last blogged. I had brief thoughts of doing 49 things before the next birthday but let’s be realistic, could I think of that many? I’m mainly content with my little lot. I have no burning desire to jump out of a plane, go white water rafting or anything like that. My thoughts are mainly wool related these days, along with simplifying things so that we have less stress in our future.

There is an overwhelming amount of house maintenance on my mind at the moment. I’ve mentioned that cycle before. We have something that needs urgent attention and M insists on seeing to it himself but then works all hours but refuses to pay someone to do it quicker (and better). At least we tackled the all important workshop this summer and several torrential downpours have proven it to be watertight at last. My own workshop also has an extra layer of felt on the roof too but neither have their trims back in place, that may well be another year.

We had plans to pop over to France for a brief holiday but cases that are assigned six weeks have a nasty habit of lasting ten weeks. I have been sorely tempted to book a shepherds hut or barn or something and just get away on my own. I am terrible at routine monotony and this is probably the most extreme case of it for a very long time. I pretty much do the weekly shop every Sunday, for Jake and I. He knows what he likes and inevitably some of the same things end up in the trolley, he loves M&S pancakes/crepes and whilst I feel guilty buying them ready made I too have succumbed to the simple lunch or breakfast of pancakes with a tiny bit of sugar and lemon. It’s the closest we’ll get to anything genuinely French at the moment.

Our weekdays jog along nicely with football training on a Tuesday which involves him driving, for practice and me dashing home for all of 50 minutes before going back to get him. Driving with a learner is even more fun in the dark, everyone should try it. Apart from brief chats about football, driving and studies we are like ships passing in the night. He still manages to walk past the bin on bin day. I look forward to the day when all this responsibility is his and his alone, he will have to wake up a little. I think it was the second week Ella was away at university when I received a message saying, ‘I don’t think I want to be grown up anymore’. Of course she’s doing it extremely well now. We are down to only one crisis per week.

There was a lovely brief autumn kind of month and then all of a sudden it feels a lot like winter. It’s absolutely freezing today and I’ve been wearing the same old aran cardigan every day. The house is plenty warm enough but if I sit for a little while I soon begin to feel the draughty spots. This particular aran cardigan was a vintage find and it’s perfect in a lot of ways, I like the fact the sleeves are quite narrow, this is ideal for crocheting without anything getting in the way! It’s also a good length. It looks stupid buttoned up to be honest but I think that was last an acceptable look back in the seventies. It’s this last point that made me wonder about a crocheted aran jumper. I’ve got two old books that have hideously complicated crochet aran sweaters in them. I think one is American which doesn’t help either but both are just so darn vague! One of them even says, ‘pattern the next section’ without giving any pattern! I’ve studied and studied them and I think the only way I’d ever make a garment with these books is by just winging it from the picture!

I eventually found a modern pattern online called the Meara Fisherman Sweater, it’s in U.S. terms and written very clearly. I still had doubts about tackling it but unlike other things in life I jumped straight in and was relieved to find it was actually quite simple. I had a blip with gauge even after doing an entire gauge square but that’s forgotten now and I finally have a front and a back loosely tacked together and thrown over Hilda just to see how it’s coming along. I’ve made it nice and roomy with dog walks in mind, it just needs sleeves, hem and neckline and it’ll be put to the test out there on those freezing cold muddy walks.

Although I’d already started the leaf stitch cowl before the jumper it has taken a bit of a back seat whilst I crack on with something I know I’ll be wearing a lot. The burnt orange cowl yarn is part alpaca and is incredibly soft. I bought four lovely wooden buttons for it but when E made a visit home I ended up sewing them on to her mustard cardigan. She will probably never button it up but we both agreed it was a nice finishing touch!

As of last month I am now the proud owner of one of the most expensive crochet hooks you can buy! Mum and I had a few funny text message conversations that started out with ‘I want to buy you something you’d never treat yourself to and wondered…’ Then me worrying that it might cost all that money and be terrible, and then finally throwing caution to the wind and ending up relieved that it is actually a beautifully crafted piece of kit! It’s called a Furls Odyssey and it absolutely glides through yarn and feels beautifully weighted and comfortable in the hand. I had some problems after making socks with a 2.5mm hook and it made me release that my crochet does have limitations, though not as much as knitting. 4mm is my most used hook size but typically I didn’t have a 4mm project on the go so I’ve started a textured hat for E and I made a purple pom pom keyhole scarf for little E. The latter used yarn I’ve had in my stash for a very long time, it was originally purchased for wrist warmers when Ella was ten! Yikes. I’m just glad it finally got used up! A little leftover ball has been added to the pure wool scraps bowl, she might even get a striped hat at some stage, before she too goes to university!