Weeds 4: Poppy

Papaver rhoeas is the botanical name for this weed; common names for it include common poppy, corn poppy, corn rose, field poppy, Flanders poppy, or red poppy. It is a notable annual agricultural weed, appearing in cultivated fields during the summer all over Europe.


By Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen – https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=255420

The leaves, stems and bud coverings are a blue-green, the four-petalled flowers are a rich scarlet with a purple base to each petal, and the seed capsule is an intriguing shape, a bulbous cup with a little cap to keep the rain away from the seeds and to help distribute them in the wind..

The field poppy produces an enormous amount of pollen, one of the highest pollen-producing plants in the UK, and is therefore an important food source for pollen-collecting/consuming insects, such as many species of beetle. As far as human consumption goes, the poppy’s black seeds are edible, and can be eaten either on their own or as an ingredient in bread; oil made from the seed is highly regarded in France. The petals contain a red dye which is used in some medicines and wines; in traditional folk medicine, it was used for gout, aches, and pains. The petals were used to create a syrup that was fed to children to help them sleep, although there is no opioid content.

My design for this tam ignores the beautiful but overly-familiar flower and instead uses the nodding flower buds, the seed capsules and the tiny black seeds. The wheel of the tam is a representation of the cap sheltering the seeds in their capsule. The seeds can be worked as just colour, or you can add small black beads making this an unusual and interesting tam.

The Weeds Collection can be purchased from the Granary Knits Payhip Pattern Store.

The whole Weeds collection, as well as individual patterns, is also available from Ravelry.

Weeds: 3 Wild Oats

Wild oats, (genus Avena), are a variety of tufted annual grasses of the family Poaceae, native to Eurasia and Africa. Wild oats are sometimes cut for hay, and young plants provide forage for grazing animals. All species have edible seeds, and domesticated oats (Avena sativa) are an important cereal crop in temperate climates around the world; several other species are locally important food crops. A number of wild oat species are considered weeds in agricultural fields and can be difficult to eradicate.

By Alvesgaspar – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10353691

Wild oats are erect grasses with long flat linear leaves. The inflorescences are typically large and loose and bear minute bisexual flowers. The ovary is characteristically hairy, and some species feature long awns (bristles) on the seeds.

One of the best-known species is the common wild oat (A. fatua), which has become a common field and roadside weed; originally native to Europe and C and SW Asia, it has now spread throughout temperate regions of the world. It grows in small tufts about 0.9 to 1.2 metres (3 to 4 feet) tall. Mature spikelets are bell-shaped, with bent bristle-like projections.

Wild oats grow with abandon all over my garden, popping up in borders and vegetable beds alike. I love seeing their feathery heads dancing in a summer breeze. Some heads are long and narrow, others, where the individual seeds within the seed head have started to separate and mature, are wide and bell-shaped.

By Kurt Stueber – www.biolib.de, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6294

As a food for humans, the seeds are particularly valuable. The seed ripens in the latter half of summer and, when harvested and dried, can be stored for several years. It has a floury texture and a mild, creamy flavour. It can be used as a staple food crop in either savoury or sweet dishes. The seed can be cooked whole, though it is more commonly ground into a flour and used as a cereal in all the ways that oats are used, especially as a porridge but also to make biscuits, sourdough bread, etc. The seed can also be sprouted and eaten raw or cooked in salads, stews, etc. Roasted, the seed can be used as a coffee substitute.

Birds love the seeds once they are ripe, my chickens can strip a plant of its seedheads in seconds.

Medicinally, it is considered a diuretic. Cosmetically, a meal made from oats can be added to bathwater or used as a facial scrub. The straw has a wide range of uses such as for bio-mass, fibre, mulch, paper-making and thatching.

My design for this tam uses several elements of the wild oat plant; the three-part seedhead on its drooping stem, the leaves, and the opening head revealing the three seeds themselves. The interlocking elements create another fortuitous motif, heart shapes in different sizes.

The Weeds Collection can be purchased from the Granary Knits Payhip Pattern Store.

Weeds: 2 Teasel

This is the second in my collection of tam patterns based around the theme of Weeds, this pattern uses three colours of Jamieson’s Spindrift yarn to create a distinctive hat.

The teasel is a fascinating plant, very well guarded by sharp spikes along stem and leaf margins, with a mass of tiny lavender-coloured flowers bursting through the seed head in bands, starting with the centre of the flower head and then moving in waves down to the base and up to the tip. They may be little flowers but they nevertheless provide abundant nectar for bees, ants, and hoverflies, and once finished flowering the goldfinches move in to feast on the seeds.

Although the teasel does not generally provide food for humans, the young leaves are edible although one must take great care to avoid the spiny, stout hairs. Teasel leaves can be consumed raw, cooked or added to a smoothie. The root can be used in a tea or for making vinegar or tinctures. The root has many health benefits as it contains inulin and a chemical that destroys the itch mite causing scabies.

It does, also, have an important place in the history of fibre. Dipsacus fullonum or Fuller’s teasel, was widely used in textile processing, providing a natural comb for cleaning, aligning and raising the nap on fabrics, particularly wool. It differs from the wild type in having stouter, somewhat recurved spines on the seed heads. The dried flower heads were attached to spindles, wheels, or cylinders, sometimes called teasel frames, to raise the nap on fabrics (or tease the fibres). By the 20th century, teasels had been largely replaced by metal cards, which can be made uniformly and do not require constant replacement as the teasel heads wear. However, some people who weave wool still prefer to use teasels for raising the nap, claiming that the result is better; in particular, if a teasel meets serious resistance in the fabric, it will break, whereas a metal tool will rip the cloth.

The brown, oval, spiky seed heads of the teasel are a familiar sight in all kinds of habitats, from grassland to waste ground, even cultivated in gardens for their use as an ornament.

The the design for this tam was inspired by the spiny bracts that guard the seed head, and the overall pattern of tiny flattened triangles seen when you look deep into the seed head.

The Weeds Collection can be purchased from the Granary Knits Payhip Pattern Store.

Swifts

The European Swift is a much loved visitor to the UK, but one which is sadly in decline. This tam pattern celebrates swifts wheeling over the English countryside in summer, an iconic sight and sound. I have chosen a monochrome palette for this tam; you could use bright or muted colours. Instructions are given for four sizes, to fit small, medium narrow, medium wide, or large. The narrow and wide sizes refer to how full the tam part of the hat is. This tam is roomy and warm.

Suggested yarn: Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift; 4ply; 100% wool; 105 m/ 115 yds per 25 g / 0.88 oz ball:
1 or 2 balls of each colour, depending upon size. Sample shown in 104 Natural White and 126 Charcoal.

Small, medium narrow, medium wide, large, to fit head circumferences 54 cm (58 cm, 58 cm, 62 cm) / approx. 21 ¼” (23”, 23”, 24 ½”) at the brim. Finished sizes at the brim, unstretched, 45 cm (49 cm, 49 cm, 52 cm) / approx. 17 ¾” (19 ¼”, 19 ¼”, 20 ½”).

Needles: circular needles or DPNs, sizes 2.75 mm [UK/Can size 12, US size 2] and 3.25 mm [UK/Can size 10, US size 3].

The Swifts Tam pattern is available from the Granary Knits Payhip Store. There is a 25% discount on all tams, just enter coupon code Tam25 at checkout.

Autumn Beech Tam

This tam pattern features the beautiful leaf colours of the European Beech tree in Autumn. While the lower branches are still green, the middle and upper tiers graduate through yellow, russets, and rich red shades. Instructions are given for four sizes, to fit small, medium narrow, medium wide, or large. The narrow and wide sizes refer to how full the tam part of the hat is. The hat, being a tam, is roomy and warm.

Suggested yarn: Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift; 4ply; 100% wool; 105 m/ 115 yds per 25 g / 0.88 oz ball. Sample shown uses 8 colours, no more than 45 m / 50 yds of any one colour:

Dark green 147 Moss
Pale green 998 Autumn
Pale yellow 230 Yellow Ochre
Dark yellow 1190 Burnt Umber
Orange 1200 Nutmeg
Russet 261 Paprika
Red 187 Sunrise
Dark Brown 235 Grouse

Sizes: Small, medium narrow, medium wide, large, to fit head circumferences 54 cm (58 cm, 58 cm, 62 cm) / approx. 21 ¼” (23”, 23”, 24 ½”) at the brim. Finished sizes at the brim, unstretched, 45 cm (49 cm, 49 cm, 52 cm) / approx. 17 ¾” (19 ¼”, 19 ¼”, 20 ½”).

The Autumn Beech Tam pattern is available from the Granary Knits Payhip Store.

Sock Yarn Shawl: a new free pattern

My first design release of the year is the easiest of easy shawls. Knit from any sock yarn you have in your stash, this scrunchy garter shawl is a perfect go-anywhere knit. Use up leftover scraps of yarn for a unique stripey look; or colour block two or more yarns. It can be made from any amount of yarn; the sample shown was knit with 100g of self patterning sock yarn from West Yorkshire Spinners, but you could use any fingering/4ply yarn.

The shawl features an open top edge and a simple stretchy cast off. This is the perfect go-anywhere knit, requires no special techniques, and will look great in any yarn.

Available now in the Payhip Granary Knits store .

Temperature Pi Blanket – November Update

At last the temperature has begun to fall a little! The maximum achieved was 15 degrees Celsius, which seems rather too warm for this time of year. We often have the first snowfall of the autumn in November, and this year we did indeed have 2 days of snow at the end of the month, but they were not particularly heavy falls of snow, and the melting started almost immediately.

Our new rescue hens enjoying the November warmth

The Temperature Pi Blanket continues to take up a lot of space on the sofa! Each daily round is 2,304 stitches, but I am just about managing to keep up with the timetable. At last there is a little blue to be seen, but still a lot of green.

November’s progress between the fancy stitch markers

I have now completed days 305 to 334 inclusive, working on 2,304 per day. I have worked 364,788 stitches, and the blanket is 83.63% complete (in terms of the number of stitches worked). I have spent over 300 hours over the past 11 months knitting this blanket.

It’s not too late to join in and knit your own Temperature Pi Blanket, or get the pattern now and start knitting it next year. You can download the pattern and accompanying spreadsheet from Payhip

Temperature Pi Blanket – October Update

October is usually stormy in our part of the country; we’ve had a plum tree blown over in our garden in previous years, and had the roof of one of our chicken houses torn off. It is almost never warm and sunny. This year was different; yes, we had a good number of overcast or rainy days, but 15 days out of the 31 were sunny and warm enough to be outside in a tee-shirt. Temperatures hovered in the mid teens, and hit 22 degrees Celsius at one point. The weather gave us time to really ripen the enormous crop of apples on our cider trees, and we were able to pick and process them much later in the month. Cider making is hard work when you only have manual macerator and press, and the huge crop meant that it took us two weekends to complete, but the twelve demi-johns of lovely golden liquid are more than worth it!

The Temperature Pi Blanket has, I believe, achieved sentience, and refuses to stay very long on any surface. It is like sharing the space with a very large dog – a St Bernard for instance – and practically pushes my husband and I off the sofa while I am trying to knit! Each daily round is 2,304 stitches, but I am just about managing to keep up with the timetable. The blanket is still very green and yellow, with just a couple of days when the temperature dipped below 10 degrees.

October’s progress, between the fancy stitch markers

I have now completed days 274 to 304 inclusive, working on 2,304 per day. I have worked 295,668 stitches, and the blanket is 67.78% complete (in terms of the number of stitches worked). I have spent over 246 hours over the past 10 months knitting this blanket.

It’s not too late to join in and knit your own Temperature Pi Blanket, or get the pattern now and start knitting it next year. You can download the pattern and accompanying spreadsheet from Payhip

Temperature Pi Blanket – September Update

September can be cold and dark, sometimes it can be warm and sunny, an Indian Summer we call it here in the UK. This year, we have been lucky enough to experience an Indian Summer, when you wake up and there is a freshness in the air, dew on the grass, and the promise of warmth to drive away any mist that is lingering. The days are growing shorter, but they make up for that by being warm and fruitful. All the soft fruit – strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants – have been harvested and frozen, dried, or made into jam; soon it will be time to pick the apples and make cider. But just now, we are enjoying sitting outside in the sunshine.

September is a busy time for knitting and on the Temperature Pi Blanket front, it is time to work the last of the increase rounds, taking each daily round to 2,304 stitches. I’ll be honest, this is a lot to get through, but I find if I pace myself, do half during the day when I can fit in a little knitting, and half in front of the TV in the evening, it is doable. The blanket is still very green and yellow, with just a couple of days when I got out the orange yarn, but with the turn of the weather at the end of the month to rain and dropping temperatures, I expect it will be back to the blues very soon.

September’s rounds, between the fancy markers

I have now completed days 244 to 273 inclusive, continuing with 1,152 stitches per round until 20th September, when I doubled the stitches to 2,304. I have worked 224,244 stitches, and the blanket is 51.41% complete (in terms of the number of stitches worked). I have spent nearly 187 hours over the past 9 months knitting this blanket.

It’s not too late to join in and knit your own Temperature Pi Blanket, or get the pattern now and start knitting it next year. You can download the pattern and accompanying spreadsheet from Payhip

Temperature Pi Blanket – August Update

If July 2021 was a reasonable approximation of Summer, then August has definitely felt like Autumn. On the very first day there was dew on the early morning grass, huge skeins of wild geese flew over the house several times, and the air felt slightly crisper, that little bit cooler. The shortening days became more overcast, there were even a couple of stormy days, high winds and hurrying clouds, almost unheard of at this time of year. The highest temperature achieved during the month was 25°C, the lowest 15°C, and the colours of the blanket reflect this, being largely mid green with a few days of yellow.

I have now completed days 213 to 243 inclusive, continuing with 1,152 stitches per round. I have worked 177,012 stitches, and the blanket is 40.58% complete (in terms of the number of stitches worked).

It’s not too late to join in and knit your own Temperature Pi Blanket, or get the pattern now and start knitting it next year. You can download the pattern and accompanying spreadsheet from Payhip.