Over the past week or so I’ve been working pretty solidly on the shop part of twoswallows.com, which is intended for showcasing and selling some of my dolly hand-knits. (I make so many that they’re just sitting around doing nothing, and so why not see if anyone else can benefit?). My attention has a tendency to wander at the best of times, so staying fully focussed on one thing is usually an uphill struggle. However, I can say with some small degree of satisfaction that I am making progress.

Firstly, I have done a good deal of work on the upcoming website. I’m keeping a theme of sorts by having the shop layout be very similar to my blog layout, but — as is usual for these things, I think — most of the work is behind-the-scenes. After experimenting with several open source “e-commerce solutions” (as they hilariously call themselves) I decided I could go one better and customise a Wordpress install to use as a CMS. (Basically, this means I’m making the Wordpress front-end look like a shop, and then I can use the very familiar and user-friendly control panel to input my products and information. Endlessly customisable, and admittedly rather fun for me to work on. Don’t worry, I’ll stop now before anyone’s eyes glaze over.)

That’s one side of the shop. The other side is the products, and in this area I have been making strides.

I have a couple of new patterns that I really like the look of:

And I have a pile of knits that need the finishing touches added to them: snap fasteners, the odd edging, etc. The pile has grown since I took this picture. I think I will have to sit down in front of a really long film and just get on with it.

If the weather would start to behave, I could perhaps get on with the third stage of things: photographs. Ultimately, though, I am having a lot of fun with this. I like have a project and something to work towards. It doesn’t feel like a chore (yet!), either, which is doing wonders for my motivation. Now, if only dinner would cook itself, and the house clean itself, and the washing-up magically disappear…

Hurrah! My first (human-sized) knit of 2008! This is an auspicious beginning. Let me introduce you to Bonnie:

Yarn: Rowan Bamboo Soft, about 1.5 balls, in Sea Foam (colour #109)
Pattern: Bonnie from Kim Hargreaves’ pattern book, Heartfelt
Size: standard size + two extra pattern repeats to fit around my huge noggin

In my earlier post on hats I was trying to decide which hat(s) to knit out of my rather long wish-list. My fate was sealed as soon as I touched the recommended yarn in the Oxford Street John Lewis – Rowan Bamboo Soft, it seems, is very very soft indeed.

Making this hat was harder than it needed to be. Firstly, I need to remember that my head is huge, and that I should always check to see if ‘one size fits all’ hats really will fit. I had almost finished knitting when I realised that it wasn’t going to fit – or at least, if it did, it would be so tight that the headband would probably leave a mark (like those awful rubber swimming caps I used to wear at school). I unravelled it and began again with two extra repeats of the lace (20 more stitches), and the hat was done in no time.

A yarn caveat: the Bamboo Soft is gorgeous, but so splitty. This wasn’t so bad, because with such a complex lace pattern (well, I thought it was complex, but this is my first lace!) you’re always paying attention to your work, and you can catch any stray plies that are making a bid for freedom. However, I would absolutely not be willing to knit a lot of stockinette in this – or any stitch that I can usually do without looking. Ysolda has mentioned this, and I wholeheartedly agree with her summary of the yarn.

I should also add that trying to crochet with it is akin to torture. When knitting, it’s fairly rare for the plies to escape if you’re keeping an eye on it. When crocheting (as I did for the headband) they will escape no matter what you do. I had to redo countless stitches because the hook failed to snag a ply, or snagged too many, etc. The final row is reverse single crochet and I didn’t know this stitch, so had to refer to a youtube video (which was very helpful), but it was hellish trying to learn a new edging with less-than-co-operative yarn. I’d do it again for this hat, because it’s only a few short rows, but I would never even consider it for a larger crocheted project.

Anyway, despite those little niggles, I adore this hat. It’s an adventurous colour (in that it is a colour), the lace is beautiful, it fits perfectly and it’s extremely comfortable. We’ve been having some very blustery weather here and I wore it today when I nipped out to the shops. It protected my hairstyle (or complete lack thereof) and there was a minimal hat-hair effect when I took it off later.

Score: 10/10.