Needles but no pins

In primary school, I was the girl who sewed her stitch sampler to her trousers, spending play time back in class as teacher unpicked it to release me from my chain stitch prison, while children more skillful with needle and thread played What's The Time Mr Wolf outside.

In secondary school, I was the girl struggling to complete the knitted clothes hanger cover when the rest of the class had graduated to jumpers, and still come end of term resorted to stretching an incomplete cover over the smallest hanger I could find in my wardrobe.

I have the blanket crocheted by my grandmother. I have the blanket crocheted by my mother. My childhood teddy bear wears a dress, duffel coat and scarf knitted by my grandmother. On my mantel piece sit an owl and a pig knitted by my mother.

Curtains, cushion covers, felt birds, all sewn by my mother, all part of what makes the cottages a family affair. So what happened? Did the knitting gene skip a generation? Is there no needle and thread in my blood? Unconvinced by my protestations of ineptitude, my mother spent an evening teaching me to crochet a granny square. A full size blanket was my goal, my third generation contribution to the family's woollen inheritance. 18 months and 13 squares later, I completed my sofa back cover and packed away the crochet needle.

Since then, I have had the pleasure and privilege of meeting (in life and online) a number of women who are skilled with needles of all shapes and sizes, and my social media news feeds showcase their creativity and inspire mine. Through these women I was invited to join a "Hook Up" at The Make It Shop in Chorlton as part of the Sixty Million Trebles record breaking blanket attempt to create the world's largest crochet blanket and, at the same time, create something that could be de-stitched into individual blankets and donated to refugee charities. This was the prod I needed and, excited by the prospect of a trip to The Make It Shop, I dusted off my yarn bag and hunted out my crochet needle. The mind went blank. Not a clue how to begin. Off the shelf came the "Learn to Crochet" book. Still none the wiser. Stupid book. Stupid needle. Stupid me. Back in the bag go needle and yarn.

Luckily for me, a granny square tutorial was promised once I made it to Chorlton. Luckily for them, I ended up not being able to go to Chorlton. Disheartened by this turn of events, I wandered into Red Apple Yarn in Lampeter one day and enquired about knitting classes. Luckily for me, there's a beginner's class every Saturday afternoon. Unluckily for them, I turned up two weeks ago.

I am now the proud owner of not one but TWO pairs of knitting needles, and the not so proud owner of two rather unfortunate looking pieces of knitting.

 

I am very good at increasing. Start me off with 20 stitches, and within 2 rows I can present you with 25 stitches. My knitting breeds stitches. And I tend to forget if I should purl next or knit. Practice practice, practice, knit, purl, knit, purl. I'm almost at the point now where David can talk to me while I knit and get a response. Almost. Nevertheless, spurred on by my best friend and fellow beginner (but already far too good) knitter, I have started my first project. A scarf. You can never have too many scarves. She plans to have completed four scarves by March. I hope to have completed one scarf in time for her birthday in June, or maybe a wrist warmer.

 

A whittling he will go!

If I had a pound for every occasion when Dave has offered to whittle, carve or otherwise knock up something for me, I wouldn't be sitting here writing this, I'd be taking a trip in my private helicopter for a week in the sun on my private island. If I had a pound for every item Dave has actually whittled, carved or otherwise knocked up, I could probably scrap together enough to buy a bag of pick 'n' mix. There are signs, however, that I may yet be able to swap sweets for sunshine.

It began with Valentine's Day. I wanted gifts for our Valentine's weekend guests. I'd seen various bric-a-brac, shabby chic, crafty type shops selling slate hearts bearing assorted printed words of love, but wasn't convinced that the workmanship matched the price tag. Ever hopeful, but with little expectation of success, I showed a picture to Dave and enquired as to the likelihood of him knocking up something similar. Well blow me down, if before I could say "don't worry, I was only asking, I can always buy some from that shop in Lampeter", he'd whipped out his Rotozip and was off rummaging amongst his scrap yard off cuts. OK, so the prototype was a slightly wonky, strangely misshapen heart, but armed with a cardboard template there were soon not one but two slate hearts flying off the woodshed workbench production line. I let the side down with some dubious handiwork with brush and paint (which in Dave's opinion did not do justice to the quality of his own workmanship), but all in all I think that between us we did a rather good job for the princely sum of 45 pence for a strip of ribbon.

He didn't stop there. Next up, the tree lamp. We'd been following the fortunes of our friend Sarah on the BBC's Great Interior Design Challenge (which she won by the way, so if vintage, quirky unique interiors are your thing, I recommend you take a peak at her website before she's a rich and famous designer to the stars!). Anyway, shameless plug over, on one episode of Great Interior Design Challenge Sarah created a lamp from a silver birch tree (not the whole tree, obviously). This idea lodged someone deep within Dave's brain, where after a few days of mental whittling, it blossomed into a new project. A redesign of the dining room in Cwt Mochyn cottage has been in the cards for some time, with a new lamp having been on the "to buy" list for months but with no junk shop find or eBay listing having taken my fancy. Dave was now on the case. Dead tree identified, chopped and lopped, stripped and whittled. Handy tree surgeon log cast off re-located to the woodshed, stripped and whittled. Of course, our version of Sarah's tree lamp would have to be "eco". The retro filament bulbs she used look very cool but are about as eco as a hot tub is, so Dave sourced an alternative and needless to say our eco but cool bulbs came at eco but cool prices. It's still neither easy nor cheap to be green.

 

Right now I'm sourcing the wildlife for Dave's tree. I have a felt robin ready to nest in its branches, and one of Sarah's very own blanket birds should be flying this way very soon (well they are made from Welsh blankets so it seems appropriate that one should come home to roost). You'll have to wait for the birds to arrive for the "after" picture and the grand unveiling of the finished article.

As if those two masterpieces weren't enough, before the varnish on his tree lamp was dry, he was plucking willow whips from the grassland, then back in the woodshed, whittling knife at the ready, knocking up a couple of willow hurdles. 

Is there no end to this man's talents? I intend to find out! I will be shamelessly exploiting this sudden burst of creativity. I've already put in my order for reclaimed wood shelving for Cwt Mochyn cottage. Dave may now be the whittling king, but I am the queen of lists, so I'm pretty sure that his enthusiasm will be on the wane long before my "to make" list will be complete.

House of Wax

“How hard can it be?”, said Dave. “Don’t you just roll it?”. Oh yes, candle rolling, sounds simple doesn’t it. We had the wicks. We had the beeswax. We had the confidence. All we needed was a warm room. Oh, wait a minute, we live in a draughty Welsh farmhouse where warm rooms are in short supply. That explained why the first attempt was less candle rolling and more wax snapping. Dave had a brainwave - warm the wax sheets in the oven. Pop it in, just a low heat, don’t want to melt the wax. Whoopsie, forgot we’d just cooked dinner. That’ll be a tray of melted wax then.

Dave had a second brainwave - why don’t we just mould a candle instead of roll one ….

 

Hmm, maybe not. Not sure that purple dog turd candles make good Christmas presents.

Dave had a third brainwave. I wasn’t sure we had enough beeswax sheets left to cope with another Dave brainwave. The oven’s too hot, but what about using the open oven door as a warm rolling table.

Finally, a genius idea. Dave’s brainwaves are like buses – if you wait long enough one will turn up that takes you where you want to go!