New book sneak peek + giveaway

Contrary to what you might think if you read this blog, I have spent a good deal of this year making things.

So how come I've shown so few photos of 'things'?

Because they have mainly been made for books, and the publishers – not unreasonably – prefer one not to wave the makes about on the web before they've been in the book.

But there comes a time when publication is due and one is off the hook, and that's now for The Knitted Alphabet.

I've done this book with knit guru and generally wonderful woman, Sarah Hazell (who needs to get a move on putting her website together so I can link to it...), and it really does do what it says on the tin: 250ish pages of charted letters and numbers in 26 different styles, plus punctuation and dingbats for emoticons, plus knitted samples, plus projects, plus techniques.

Everything you need to say it with knitting...

Self-striping yarn makes for excellent knitterish spray paint...

We had help knitting the samples (about 300 of them...), and the projects, from some wonderfully talented peeps: thank you Fiona, Jools, Luise, Sophia and Amanda. Without you we would still be knitting now...

Some of the alphabets have uppercase and lowercase letters. These impeccable samples were knitted by the lovely Luise.

There are ten knitted swatches with every alphabet – made using a variety of techniques including beading and embroidery as well as colour knitting – with (hopefully) helpful captions giving you ideas and tips on how you might work the letters for your own projects.
 

Fiona's staggeringly perfect knitting, plus captions telling you how the samples were made.

There's lots of variety of letter styles: retro, classic, modern, quirky, handwritten, typewritten... in different scales and, because Sarah and I are knitters, the charts are done on rectangular knitter's grid – not squares – so you can see what they will really look like when knitted up.

The charts are done on knitter's grid, not unrepresentative square grid...

Samples use different techniques and yarn combinations for lots of knitting choice...

Some of the alphabets have matching numerals...

And there are ten projects, each with notes on how you can adapt them to feature your own letter choices (so you don't have to be called Lucas, Ingrid, Max, Elvis... to knit one of them).

Bribed with Marmite, Vincent agreed to model with this scarf, even if it did have someone else's name on it... And isn't my new bedroom floor lovely?

I know that I would say this, wouldn't I, but I honestly think that The Knitted Alphabet is a really useful knitting resource: you can add a letter, a name, a motto, something obnoxious... to any project with enough stitches in it (the smallest letters are 11 stitches tall, the largest 57 stitches).

However, I have to confess that at the moment the book isn't available in the UK... There's a US edition (published by Barron's) and an Australian edition (published by Sally Milner), so I'm chuffed to have a copy to give away to a UK knitter. Follow me (via the little photos on the right – I like those – or Bloglovin) and leave me a comment on this post, and I'll pick a name out of something hattish and send a book to you on 21 October.

The great catch-up...

As one wanders the blogosphere, one encounters quite a few rather surprised entries that wonder where all the time went...

Well, I was on holiday for three weeks: yes indeedio, three whole weeks. (That was why I had to late-night sew: my summer clothes had mysteriously shrunk while in winter storage...) Himself and I took our 1979 VW camper to Norway and toddled gently around the Western Fjords, an expedition made significantly easier by the power steering fitted just before we left. Camper owners of the world, I thoroughly recommend the Litesteer system, even if you aren't planning on negotiating narrow, twisting roads that sport little in the way of crash barriers and a great deal in the way of vertiginous drops. And while there wasn't much traffic on the roads, a fair percentage of what there was was large and oncoming at surprisingly high speeds in the middle of a single-track road. Himself and I have an arrangement whereby I drive and he cooks, so 2000+ miles of lorry-dodging later, I have nerves of steel.

The fjord scenery is spectacular and the camping sites splendiferous; indeed, several of the shower rooms had underfloor heating, making them more luxurious than our bathroom at home... (Which reminds me of a postcard I once bought in Alabama that defined a US Southerner as someone whose standard of living improved when they went camping: I live in South London...) So, despite the novel experience of becoming overly excited about dual carriageways, and rather more snow than I had anticipated in May, we had an excellent holiday.

Lots of truly magnificent scenery...

Camper motored perfectly throughout...

Himself up to his ears in snow... (and looking rather dishevelled around the midriff, sorry about that...)

An end-of-the-world campsite, just us and a few oddities with the world whizzing by overhead: good showers here...

Uplifting view from the camper at a more isolated campsite...

We rented campsite cabins a couple of times; groovalicious curtains...

Found a yarn shop in Florø in the far west of the fjords...

I missed Elvis, but was mollified by a bulldog show judged by this wonderously bulldoggish English chap...

I took some lace-weight yarn (my fave at the moment), a circular needle and a crochet hook on holiday with the intention of experimenting. Having spent so much time making for books recently, it was very lovely to be doing something with no deadline. It's quite definitely a WIP, and I'm not convinced...

The start of something... not sure what...

But I like the way the knitting and the crochet work together...

And when I got back, Liberty had reordered pincushions, which is very gratifying...

Fab fish courtesy of Sarah, china-hunter extraordinaire...

Very charming clog from the lovely Julie... (I twiddled about in Photoshop trying to get the label to read the right way round, but my left/right idiot-thing defeated me: that affliction is particularly trying when driving a right-hand drive car abroad...)

Where's the kissy princess? How did I end up like this?

I hugely enjoyed doing some sewing for myself and am determined to do more (plus, three weeks of holiday have made A-line pinafores a logistical necessity: I think my behind is attempting world domination all by itself...) and a trip to Fabrics Galore (one of my very favourite shops, and now – so excitingly – with an online store) elicited this...

A pinafore with a plain red bodice and a long skirt made in this? Scarlet, I blame any dipping of my toes into the waters of Goth-dom on you...

And in other news, Lefty is doing well in the US Open.

The lovely Lefty, -3 at the end of day one.

I don't have Sky, so I rely on the Guardian for coverage: I think that even if you HATE golf (and I am led to believe that, astonishingly, some people do...), this is a very amusing column.

Knitting with the Masters

This afternoon I shall be...

Just perfect. 

Though it's hard to keep my tension even at the colour changes when Dustin goes into meltdown. Will have to concentrate on Lefty instead.

Update: It was worse than I could have imagined; Dustin and Lefty both in meltdown. Other than that, it was great. And the Grand Prix on Sunday morning.

Knitting geek alert # 1

Having edited an abundance of knitting books by a wide variety of knitters for plenty of publishers, I've learned oodles of tips and tricks: some have become indispensable, others thrill my inner knitting geek, and some seem overly complicated for a not-very-good result. Now I'm sure that some of these tricks will be new/thrilling/indispensable only to me and actually well-known and rather dull to you, but in the spirit of knowledge shared...

Let's be entirely conventional and begin at the beginning with a slip knot. 

Images from Ultimate Knitting Bible by Sharon Brant (Collins & Brown)

1 With the tail end of the yarn in palm of your hand, wrap the ball end once around your fingers.
2 Slip a knitting needle under the loop around your fingers.
3 Wrap the ball end around the tip of the needle and pull a loop through the loop on your fingers.
4 Slip the loop off your fingers and pull on the ball end of the yarn to tighten the knot.

Does that look and sound familiar? It's the way most books show you to how to make a slip knot, and I made them this way for years. But as you have to tighten the knot by pulling on the ball end of the yarn, once you have cast on and knitted the first row it's impossible to easily tighten what will often be a loose first stitch (mine are always a bit baggy).

So I now make my slip knots this way.
 

1 Make a loop with the tail end of the yarn over the ball end.

2 Take the tail end under the loop.

3 Slip a knitting needle into the loop and under the tail end only.

4 Pull on the tail end of the yarn to tighten the knot.

This means that once you've knitted the first row, you can pull on the tail end of the yarn again to tighten the first cast on stitch should it be baggy. The only reason I can think of for not making slip knots this way is that the first stitch isn't locked off; theoretically I suppose it could come undone. I've never had an end work loose yet, and once the knitting is finished it'll be darned in, so it will be entirely secure. 

Does any one know any other reasons for not making your slip knot this way?

Knit 400

I knitted, and knitted, and knitted, and knitted, and knitted, and... and was rescued from complete knitting insanity by the lovely LR and scrumptious SH, and the result is this new book.

The UK cover on the left and the US cover on the right. The titles are different, but the insides are the same (apart from some spellings...)

There are 224 packed pages: don't worry, I'm not going to go for a blow-by-blow tour of each one – here are just a few faves.

I'm very pleased with my knitted colour wheel. The lovely LR steered me in the right direction for this, and was very patient with my dimness when it comes to comprehending shaping charts (I'm a words knitter).

A fabulous opportunity to shop for yarns, though sometimes a serious struggle to find the right type of yarn in the right colourway...thank you Mrs Moon for stocking such a fabulous yarn selection: couldn't have done it without you.

Slip stitch was the revelation for me when researching this book. I'd only known it as rather clunky colourwork, and wondered why one would – stranding or intarsia aren't impossible to master. But a limited palette and lots of texture and I was a true convert.

My editor was staggeringly patient with my endless requests for tiny changes to the artworks. I think it was worth it: I hope he's forgotten the pain.

Excellent colour knitting, don't you think? Sadly, not my own work in this instance: thank you LR.

Each chapter (there are nine) deals with a different type of knitting, and each palette in a chapter looks at a different way of influencing that knitting; so here are some thoughts on beads and embroidery with stranded knitting. As always, one has more thoughts than there are space for...

Colour and Aran combos: I really liked doing this palette.

So, there you are, a taster of the new written offspring. I hope you like him.