Tag: baby clothes

Excavating writing fossils 2: yarn forward

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A folded A4 envelope with knitting instructions written in two columns. A fluffy black cat with white paws is passing through the frame.

I still have another page from a dead notebook to share with you, but this isn’t it. This, as you see, is an old envelope with a bit of knitting pattern written on it. Indeed, it fell out of a knitting book earlier today as I was finishing a baby hat – this hat:

A baby's knitted hat in grey yarn with a white trim and a pattern of deer and a crowned heart in white

Experienced knitters will see that this hat and the pattern on the envelope have nothing to do with each other. Indeed, as with the last post, I can remember exactly what I was trying to do: lengthen a short-sleeved blouse to turn it into a cycling jersey. I didn’t finish that; it’s still sitting at the bottom of my knitting bag.

I’m a bit of an intermittent knitter, you see. At the moment I am possessed with a wild enthusiasm for it, am telling myself that I am going to make all the socks in Cute Knits for Baby Feet, and plenty for myself as well. Since socks are a lot quicker than blouses I may even get a few finished. As you see, I have most definitely finished that hat.

Then I turned the envelope over, and I found something quite different:

The other side of the envelope has a note reading: 'Daisy's friend is called Pippin. The alien actress is bewildered by people mistaking her stage name for her real name or vice versa'. The cat is reclining behind the envelope as if posing

Daisy’s friend is called Pippin.

The alien actress is bewildered by people mistaking her stage name for her real name or vice versa

I know exactly what that’s about too. Or, rather, exactly what those are about: these are two separate notes about two separate stories.

The first one is Daisy’s Yarn. (Here, have a PDF.) That got finished, rejected by whatever call for submissions I originally wrote it for, shopped around a bit, and picked up by a podcast that now seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. Fairly standard.

The second one is a Book Bus Story. Or it’s going to be a Book Bus Story. I don’t really have a proper link for that yet, but it’s going to be something like this, except a book. There’s a draft of that story on the page – it’s inspired, by the way, by the way that transport enthusiasts often make a careful note of 3267’s 1970 British registration number and ignore the real story – but I’m not happy with it yet. My hope is to get Book Bus Stories done so that I can sell it at next year’s Ventnor Fringe. Will that happen? Who knows? I have a lot of writing hopes and at the moment most of them just aren’t happening.

That’s not all there was to the envelope.

The envelope is presented spread out with two A6 invitation cards to The Authors' Awards and The Authors' Awards Winners' Tea Party, Tuesday 20th June 2017

Invitations to my first and – so far – most glamorous literary prize event. I swanked about that quite enough back in 2017, so I won’t repeat myself now. All the same, it was quite a boost to my self-esteem to remember that I was there and I did that.

I don’t know if I can save the alien actress story. There are more words to it than that line, but there isn’t much more substance, and I have no idea what it needs. I’m almost certainly going to frog that blouse. Tony gave me one of his cycling jerseys and it fits me fine, and anyway, I haven’t been out on my road bike for well over two years.

That’s not really the point, though. The point is this: all the years when I wasn’t doing any knitting aren’t relevant now, when I am, when I’m finishing hats and socks all over the place, and looking forward to trying cables for the first time. I was knitting, and then I wasn’t, and now I am again. So I might as well trust that it’s going to be the same for writing, that I’m going to get back into it, writing notes to myself and turning them into stories within months or weeks.

Maybe there’ll be more glamorous prize nights. Or any sort of prize nights. I don’t mind. At the moment I’d just like to be sure that I’m going to get another book done – and I can’t be sure, because the only way to get a book done is to do it, and at the moment I’m not doing it. But I’m glad this particular fossil came to the surface: it makes me believe that I can.

Smocked dress 2

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This dress was originally meant for a wedding on 6 July. I sat up most of the night on the 4th (election night, you will remember). Eventually, round about the time the Labour majority was official as opposed to just obvious, I conceded defeat myself. The smocking was all finished (I’d made life hard for myself by doing the back as well as the front) but there was no way I was going to get the seams and the hem and the buttons done. I went to bed and was up again a few hours later for the drive to Exeter (not with me behind the wheel, I hasten to add). The wedding was the day after, and was a great success. The baby wore Smocked Dress 1.

Close-up of the embroidery, which is done in pink, brown, and three shades of green thread

As I remarked back when I finished that one, there were several things I did differently. The main one was making the pleats half the size, which instantly made the whole thing look tidier. The other thing about this dress is that it’s shaped entirely by the smocking. If you were to take all the pleats out (please don’t; it takes forever) you’d find that it’s made of three rectangles, one at the front and two at the back. The shape of the armholes is formed by judicious use of more and less elastic embroidery stitches. I smocked the whole thing then turned in the edges at the neck and armholes. In that sense it’s a zero waste pattern. I’m torn between feeling vaguely virtuous about that and a little bit sad there aren’t any scraps to use for patchwork.

The back of the same dress, with green buttons shaped like tortoises

I didn’t quite get it done in time for the baby’s birthday. But she wore it to her birthday party, then to mine, then to her great-aunt’s. Smocking is quite stretchy, so if only the weather holds up it might get a few more outings. For the moment, though, I’m attempting to knit a sock.

Close-up of the smocking and buttons on the back of the dress

The enemy of the passable

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Detail of a child's frock in red fabric with a smocked front. The stitching is somewhat irregular.

This is not the finest garment I’ve ever sewn. It won’t be even when it’s finished. The pleats are too deep, the tension is irregular, the smocking goes closer to the left armhole than to the right, the bias binding is very slightly brighter than the main fabric, and the less said about my feather stitch, the better.

However, this was my first attempt at smocking, and once I got down to the Vandyke stitch and surface honeycomb on the bottom rows I was enjoying myself hugely. It’s also the first garment I’ve made for my daughter, and a trial run for a second little smocked dress. It doesn’t need to be perfect.

And it will be finished.