Saturday 14 March 2015

Cetona Cracked code, no longer baffled.


Since Tuesday 10th March this picture has been haunting my mind, baffling my brain and occupied my subconscious... I saw it in Rowan Book 57 at John Lewis on Tuesday evening in Oxford street London.
I love it , the stitch pattern in particular and I was so sure I'd seen it before somewhere, but WHERE?
Also being a bit mean I was reluctant to pay £12.50 for just the ONE pattern as I don't knit and the other crochet pattern in  Rowan Book 57 is a replica of ''Tribe ''a pattern I crocheted a few years ago.
They've changed the yarn to linen and the colour from red to orange and the neckline to a jewel neckline but the stitch pattern is the same. Tribe is a FREE pattern on the knitrowan website.
My Tribe on Ravelry is here:
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/merrystitcher/tribe

So back to Cetona: first I found images on Google and then on Ravelry , it looked so simple, surely I could work it out?!
You can even see and count those double crochet stitches: 5 on the small arches and 7 on the large ones, interspersed with a dc or a Treble but at first I thought each colour was a 4 row repeat: first the large arches , then cover them with dc s and then the small arches and cover that with dc s?
But that necessitated doing either extra dcs or slip-stitching along to do the small arches in the placement that they had....so baffled I tried again and again. NO GOOD!
I had abut 3 goes in a sample which thankfully I did not photograph because they looked awful.
Then I remembered that Rowan seem to take their stitch patterns from stitch bibles rather than create something entirely new so I hunted through my stitch bibles:
Here we go my first stitch bible and the ''go to'' source as it's well organised and has diagrams.

 Was it a variation on this? No!
 Nothing in this one
 Nor this one
 Nor this one...
Arches but the wrong ones....
 And this one I have lent to a colleague so I could not consult it.
 THEN I thought about Tribe and recalled that Rowan had used the Harmony guide for the pull up a loop stitch that was unusual in that pattern...
 So I hunted it out, it's ancient look : 1986! By the Crochet GURUS of the time the famous :Sylvia Cosh and James Walters!
AND THERE IT WAS! It's called Double Arch Ground.
 
And to help you this is the diagram:
And so the story ends: I had a go!

LOVE this stitch pattern .
I am using some spare DK cottons, one of which is quite thick like an aran, and a 4mm hook.
My 3 colours here measure    and the 2 oattern repeats 11.5 cm just as required by the pattern.
Or 6 cm from treble to treble which is easier to measure.
 
I am just so pleased the mystery, the conundrum is solved! The trick is to go back on yourself half way along the second half of the big arch, chain 4 , slip stich into place and then cover it with 5 dcs , then continue covering the large arch with dcs. Such fun! I'd never come across this ''trick'' before and so feel really good having learned something new.
Hope it helps you too?

I am planning to make this in Texere linen yarns I have in stripes of turquoises and blues, navy and maybe green. 4 ply mostly or may the cotton DK s I have as it does seem OK and grows quicker.
Love the vertical stripes the non shaping and the gathered shoulders Lisa designed.
And if I wish to keep the ''tweediness'' , not sure about this- I may run a navy or white 2 ply along the colours to make a tweedy look , that is if I use the 4 ply linens.
Just ideas so far but can;t wait to get started now!
Roll on some hot sunny weather to wear it in!!!
Oh and if the diagram does not help then try these videos?
I have not watched them but if you google the stitch name DOUBLE ARCH GROUND you will find plenty?




Ravelry details for Cetona are here:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/cetona



HAPPY HOOKING!


Monday 9 March 2015

A spot of dancing: Scottish Style.

The Oxford and Cambridge Highland Ball on the 7th March was enormous fun and seemed to be enjoyed immensely by all who attended.

The students performed a Scottish Country Dance demonstration and this was it:




If you are very keen, you may see a short tubby female dancing and that happens to be me, one of the last times I will be able to dance as a ''student'' ( postgraduate and a bit elderly!).

The dances in order were:

Monica's Way
(a 32 bar jig for 4 couples devised by Gail Sibley published in Book 48)

The Golden Years
( a 32 bar strathspey devised by Nora Sutherland , published in Book 48)

The Rye Twist  
( a 32 bar reel devised by Sue McKinnell. published in Book 48)

and

The Kaleidoscope Reel.
( an 80 bar reel in a square set devised by Sue Petyt and published in the Lochmaben Collection 4 )

Then the young ones also danced the most amazing Highland demonstration which was designed  and danced by Sarah one of the students and OUSDS Society President.



Enjoy! This has been keeping me so busily occupied with so much less time for blogging...

And so inspirational that I will be aiming to start a reformation programme today to shed at least 1.5 stone- or a minimum of 21 lbs! A bit of re-shaping is much needed .


Sunday 1 March 2015

Dog Days


Dog days, those long leisurely days of sleep , relaxation and the occasional walk that our dogs enjoy.
Here's JJ with Pippa on the ''bluff'' at Aston Rowant reserve recently: a rare walk for the two of us.
And Pippa having ''killed'' her stuffed penquin with it's squeeker, having rippied it open and finnaly removed ALL of the stuffinr, she managed to just find and keep the squeeker in her mouth: she's so excited! Listen:


And then when she'd punctured it I had to remove it quickly by bribing her with a carrot as I feared she might choke on it or parts within.
Back to that Aston Rowant walk: what a lovely sunny day.





 That's the M40 with cars rushing off to London.


Then there are currently the'' messy and mating''days as both have been in season for almost 3 weeks now:


















Lucy at the top waiting for me!

 Such wonderful views and the light was lovely : late winter afternoon light between 4 and 5 pm...

 Must not forget that this is really just a 15-20 minute drive away from where we live!








 Rabbits, did you see a rabbit? Where did it go?