Jenny Q, Stitched Up
Page 13
Also, I spend a lot of the day praying, to any power in the universe that might listen, that Mum won’t be feeding Harry when any of the group is around. I know it’s natural and all that, but she’s my MUM and those are her BOOBS on show!‡
Christmas is almost upon us and there is much to be done in the Quinn household. A strange thing happened last week when we put up the decorations around the house. Someone put mistletoe over the front door without telling. I suspect Gran, because it’s exactly the kind of mischief she likes to unleash. I was inside the door when Uggs came through it and he saw the mistletoe and gave me a kiss. But he deliberately did lips on lips. And it was OK. No tongues, so not wet. Not unpleasant either. Odd because it was Uggs, but, yeah, OK. Then we pretended it never happened. And that’s how things will stay.
Gypsy jumped up and down looking for attention but I refused to let her kiss me. A girl has to draw the line somewhere and that cur is not to be encouraged. Next thing she’ll think I like her, which I do not.
Dixie so got the Uggs kiss out of me and I’ll never be let forget it, but she also thinks the mistletoe should be used to my advantage re Stevie Lee. Her plan is that I lurk by the front door for the entire festive season. That would be a great idea if there weren’t so many of Dermot’s friends coming through the house and the chances of being snogged by an eejit pal of his are therefore way too great.
Christmas Day
My gifts are a total hit (MEGAPHEW!). I have added a tiny stripy hat for Harry, like Dermot’s but much smaller. I get a great picture of both of them wearing the Jenny Q Collection for Young Men. I’ve also embroidered words on a bib for him, so it says BURP MACHINE. I get fairy lights from Mum and Dad, just what I wanted for my room, and a brilliant calligraphy set from Gran and a totally cool T-shirt from Dermot with an illustration of ten guitars on it that he got made especially for me. Dixie is SO going to see a merchandising opportunity there.
If Ten Guitars get through to the next stage of Teen Factor X, Dermot says he might wear his Jenny Q creation on television!!!!
Maybe the other nine will want one?
Maybe I’ll be knitting for SLB!
YIKES.
The day after Christmas, Stevie Lee actually visits with a gift for Harry, and I am under the mistletoe so I get a peck on the cheek. I am so startled I move to one side and accidentally brush my lips against his (!). I nearly faint.* It is v v brief contact and lovely, I am happy to report, though it kind of burns me due to my passion for him.
Dermot is beside me and SLB says, ‘Love you, mate, but no tongues,’ to him and they hug and do a blokey, funny peck.
I haven’t been able to speak to SLB since. Well, nothing beyond ‘Lo’, which is as close to ‘hello’ as I can manage without falling over. This lurve stuff is v draining.
I’m sitting on the sofa planning some baby knits and thinking about the year and how I freaked when I heard I was going to have a new brother or sister, and how selfish I was to only think about how that looked for me. Who cares how things look?† That’s not what’s important. I couldn’t be prouder of the Quinn family right now. And I think I’ve learnt how to trust those closest to me a bit better too. I nearly lost Dixie through not trusting her, and Uggs through trusting him too much with information he didn’t need or want.
Maybe we’re all like a piece of knitting. Gran says it’s our mistakes along the way that make us unique. As long as we learn from them, we’ll be stronger, better, and they’ll have been worth making, as painful as they may sometimes be. It’s good to know mistakes are OK. Nothing is perfect.
Except for baby Harry Quinn, of course.
If you want to learn to knit like me,
Jenny Q,*
then here’s how!
Dad’s Skinny Tie
I’m using one 50g ball of bright (lime) green double-knit cotton (same as I’m using on Dermot’s hat) on 5mm needles.
Cast on 10 stitches – this should lead to a tie 4 cm wide, but you can make it thinner by having less stitches (say two less) or wider, with more stitches, depending on your taste.
Knit 1, purl 1, every row, until it measures 150 cm in length.
BUT: a Quinn Tip (or Q TIP!) = slip the first stitch of every row (i.e. do not knit it but pass it on to the needle you’re knitting and purling on to) and then continue as per instructions and this gives a lovely edge on both long sides of the tie.
Cast off.
Hide the tail of the yarn by sewing it up the side.
RESULT = one bright, skinny tie.
Gran’s Fingerless Mittens
The purple yarn I chose is perfect for Gran because her party piece is a poem about how to grow old wearing purple and learning to spit – it’s v funny, and v worrying because she does wear purple, though I’m not sure if she has spat at anyone recently. She is definitely growing older. In this case I’m going to say that two out of three ain’t bad and will certainly do if the spitting is left out.
I ran up a tension square using the purple cashmere mix on 5mm needles and my measurements on that are: 9 stitches = 4 cm, and 11 rows = 4 cm.
So, knit two identical pieces, one for each hand, and they’ll be interchangeable. Only two stitches are used = plain/knit and purl.
Cast on 36 stitches (so the pieces will be 16 cm wide). Knit the first 8 rows – this will give a nice textured edge that won’t roll up.
Then switch to knit 1 row, purl 1 row, until the piece is 24 cm in length.
Knit the final 8 rows, for a matching upper edge, and cast off.
Repeat.
TO MAKE UP
Simply sew the sides of each piece together with a wool needle (these needles are special and blunt so they don’t split the yarn) and the same yarn as you’ve knitted with.
Go up 18 cm and finish off.
Then leave a gap of 4 cm (for the thumb).
Sew the rest up to the top.
Neaten any stray lengths of yarn.
Twice.
Hey presto, Luxury Mittens!
Mum’s Cowl/Snood
I’m using two balls of bobbledy yarn (a kind called ‘Splendour’ that goes through two shades of pink to mauve and purple), four balls of chunky purple wool and 10mm needles.
Using the textured yarn of your choice (to make a frilly, luxurious edge for wearing up over the head like a hood), cast on 90 stitches (this is the painful part of using this yarn – it takes a while to cast on and knit the first row!). Also, these needles are so big it sometimes feels like I’m knitting with huge, pointy sticks, which I am, I guess.
Knit 1 row, purl 1 row, until you have used up the two balls.
Switch to the plain wool and continue to knit 1 row, purl 1 row, until it measures, say, 40 cm in length. You want it to have a roomy, hoody look when it’s worn up on the head and not be skimpy and stretched.
Then knit 1, purl 1, for 6 rows to make a nice ribbed finish that won’t curl back on itself.
Sew the two sides together with the purple yarn and a wool needle and neaten off any loose yarn.
VOILA! A lovely luxurious snood.
Dermot’s Stripy Hat
This will take one ball of black double-knit cotton and some of the bright green I’m also using for Dad’s Skinny Tie, on 5mm needles.
My tension for this is:
14 stitches and 14 rows = 7 cm × 7 cm.
Cast on 84 stitches in black.
Knit 1 row, purl 1 row, for 8 rows in black. This will curl up and give a nice bottom edge to the hat.
Switch to green and knit 1 row, purl 1 row.
Back to the black and knit 1 row, purl 1 row, twice.
SO: it’s 2 rows green, 4 rows black, from now on.
Continue till the piece measures 13 cm, then things get ‘interesting’ because we’re going to start shaping the top of the hat which means decreasing stitches!
(Knit 18, knit 2 together) 4 times, knit 4 = now you should have 80 stitches.
Purl 4, purl 2 together, (purl 17, purl 2 together) 3 t
imes, purl 17 = 76 stitches.
(I’ll use abbreviations now, because that’s what other patterns will always have, so K is knit, P is purl, K2tog = knit 2 together, P2tog = purl 2 together.)
(K16, K2tog) 4 times, K4 = 72 stitches.
P4, P2tog, (P15, P2tog) 3 times, P15 = 68 stitches.
(K14, K2tog) 4 times, K4 = 64 stitches.
P4, P2tog, (P13, P2tog) 3 times, P13 = 60 stitches.
(K12, K2tog) 4 times, K4 = 56 stitches.
P4, P2tog, (P11, P2tog) 3 times, P11 = 52 stitches.
(K10, K2tog) 4 times, K4 = 48 stitches.
P4, P2tog, (P9, P2tog) 3 times, P9 = 44 stitches.
(K8, K2tog) 4 times, K4 = 40 stitches.
P4, P2tog, (P7, P2tog) 3 times, P7 = 36 stitches.
(K6, K2tog) 4 times, K4 = 32 stitches.
P4, P2tog, (P5, P2tog) 3 times, P5 = 28 stitches.
(K4, K2tog) 4 times, K4 = 24 stitches.
P4, P2tog, (P3, P2tog) 3 times, P3 = 20 stitches.
Then cut the yarn and use a wool needle to thread it through these 20 stitches and fasten it off.
Sew up the sides = one stripy beanie hat!
Harry’s ‘Pixie’ Hat
This is kind of a mirror image of Dermot’s hat because I have used the same two colours of yarn but there’s more green than black in Harry’s.
It’s knit 1 row, purl 1 row, as per Dermot’s hat, so it’s stocking stitch again.
Cast on 36 stitches in green.
(Knit 1 row, purl 1 row) 3 times = 6 rows.
Switch to black for 2 rows.
Green for 4 rows.
Black for 2 rows.
Green for 4 rows.
Black for 2 rows.
Then, in green, K5, K2tog, (K4, K2tog) 4 times, K5 = 31 stitches.
Purl 1 row.
K3, K2tog, (K4, K2tog) 4 times, K2 = 26 stitches.
Purl 1 row.
In black, K2, K2tog, (K3, K2tog) 4 times, K2 = 21 stitches.
Purl 1 row.
In green, (K2, K2tog) 5 times, K1 = 16 stitches
Cast off and sew along the seam with right sides facing one another.
Turn inside out and you’ve got a Harry hat!
Oh, all right, SHEESH! Here’s the pattern for
GYPSY’s COAT
I’m only adding it because it’ll make Uggs happy …
Uggs used an Aran weight pure wool on 5mm needles and his tension square was:
17 stitches and 24 rows = 10 cm.
It’s in three pieces: a top, a bottom, and a hood section. I know, I know, he knitted her a hood on her coat too = MADNESS! And this will only fit a v small dog – a runty sized mutt.
TOP
Cast on 46 stitches.
Knit 6 rows.
Then knit 1 row, purl 1 row, until the piece measures 23 cm long.
Knit 6 rows and cast off.
BOTTOM
Cast on 20 stitches.
Knit 6 rows.
Then knit 1 row, purl 1 row, until the piece measures 18 cm long.
Knit 6 rows and cast off.
HOOD
Cast on 30 stitches.
Knit 1 row, purl 1 row.
Continue to knit 1 row, purl 1 row, but increase by a stitch at each end of every knit row. (How you do this is K1, then lift the low loop between this and the next stitch on to the left-hand needle and knit it too, so you have created a new stitch.)
Keep going till you have 46 stitches.
Purl 1 row.
Cast off.
TO MAKE UP
Put the top and bottom sections with right sides facing together (one piece will be longer than the other), then, starting at the ‘neck’, stitch along each side for 5 cm, leave a gap of 5 cm (for the mutt’s legs) and continue to join the rest to the end. Turn it ‘right way’ out.
With right sides together, attach the shortest edge of the hood to the collar bit of the coat, then (right sides together) do up the final seam, which will give the hood its shape.
Thusly, you have one barktastic dog coat … or a barking mad garment, if you ask me.
I’m lucky to have Dixie to show me how to do stuff and, if you can at all, it’s v great to get someone who can knit to help and to show you how to do the stitches – and how to calm down when things go wrong! There are good books out there too that are v helpful – one is Purls of Wisdom by Jenny Lord (published by Penguin Books) and it has illustrations, which are the next best things to having a living knitting guru with you in person.*
Acknowledgements
A big shout out to those who let me use their names in some way – especially Uggs Grundy, Gypsy Carman, Dan Nightingale, Steve Bolton, Vic and Doug. Thanks to Lawrence Till for letting me use one of his favourite put-downs. Orla Shortall does not bite her nails, Peter Gowen does play guitar brilliantly and Hugo Pheiffer has not (yet) been vommed on in public (phew!). Paddy O’Doherty gave lots of great tips and direction when Jenny’s story was emerging, as well as Shannon Park and Wendy Shakespeare at Puffin, and Daphne Tagg. Sam Combes is the brillo designer who made this book look SO good. As always, Richard Cook and Faith O’Grady have been brilliant support. Thanks to my mum, Sheila, for teaching me to knit. HOORAY for the lot of you!
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DIZASSO
* That or his latest antiperspirant isn't working or has a totally tragic smell.
† That or his latest antiperspirant isn't working or has a totally tragic smell.
‡ I shizz you not - she wasn't in the least bit embarrassed!
б The Kit Kat is my snack of choice as it is the greatest ever invented - FACT.
NIX!