Jane Dallaway

Pension age increases 

When I started work after finishing my (mainly government funded - my second year was the first year of the student loan scheme) degree my understanding was that I would retire on a state pension at 60 (being female).

In the intervening years this has risen and today I realised that I'm covered by the newly announced changes meaning that I'll be eligible at age 68.

I decided to do a bit of maths, so here's my reckonings:

• At start of full time "proper" work in 1993 I reckon I had 38.66 years until I was eligible for a state pension.
  
• Today, I reckon I will have had 46.66 years until I'm eligible for that same pension.
  

So, in 20 years it has increased by 20%. That seems like quite a lot.

It is worth pointing out that this is intended to be an observation only. Not a rant. I think I'm one of the lucky ones - I work with a lot of recent graduates in a field of work where having a Master's degree is an expectation. Many of them are young enough that they had to pay some element of tuition fees in order to get into this line of work. That means that they are starting their working lives with quite a bit of debt. And for them, retirement is likely to be at age 70. I guess they need those extra years to allow them to pay their loans back(!)

Updated little waffle. Now with orange 

Having worn my Lincolnshire little waffle hat a few times I just didn't think it felt long enough. It didn't quite cover my ears. So I wondered if I could add a border or something. After an unsuccessful look around my local yarn shop I took a quick look online and found this in an orange mix and thought it might look good, so I ordered some.

Last Friday evening, whilst feeling rather grotty and coldy and while Richard was out, I decided to give it a go. I did a round of single crochet on the edge of the hat. And then did three rounds of back loop only single crochet.

I liked how it looked, so I decided to make a matching pom pom. All in all I'm much happier with it now.

Ricefield Collective: I won a photo prize 

Quite some time ago I spotted a kickstarter campaign for Ricefield collective - an organisation who were planning to take knitting needles and yarn over to the Philippines and teach people to knit. The aim was to give the Ifugao indigenous people some additional skills so that they could add to their household income through knitting as well as tending the rice fields. I liked the idea so I backed it, and ordered a hat in the process.

In early September my hat arrived. And along with it were some little finger puppets. As the hat (and puppets) arrived the day I was going to Wales for a holiday, I took the finger puppets along for the ride. And started to take photos of them in picturesque locations and post them on instagram. I have no idea why I thought this was a good idea, but it made me smile.

A little while later I noticed that other people had also done this, and that Ricefield Collective had decided to do a competition based on this idea. So, I took a few more, tagged them appropriately and thought little more of it.

Until I heard that this photo had won me a prize (special thanks to Richard for being a great finger warmer model).

The prize arrived earlier in the week. It's another hat. This time a Dreamer Hat which isn't what I'd class as my kind of hat (being a beanie kind of girl really), and so isn't one that I'd have ever ordered, but that actually is growing on me. It feels really nice and warm, and seems to fit pretty well, so I'm planning to have it as my winter dog walking hat. Who knows, maybe it will become my kind of hat, and beanies will be a thing of the past! The items that the ricefield collective have produced are really well made, and the inclusion of the photo of the maker (Glory for my first hat, Rosa for the second) is such a nice touch, and a great reminder that there are real people, hand making these products.

This is such a nice initiative, and I'm pleased to be a supporter.

To make is to be 

I came across this article the other day. It is an extract from a talk that Professor Hans Stofer did at the Craft Scotland 2013 conference. I really liked the section on there being different types of making and could identify with at least some of them as being reasons why I've sat down and made something.

There are many different types of making:

• There is making to be in touch with what is real.
• There is making to experience another reality.
• There is making as thinking.
• There is making as a reflective process.
• There is making to visualize the unexpected and hidden.
• There is making as revealing.
• There is making to discover.
• There is making to cover up.
• There is making to produce stuff for others.
• There is making not to have to feel.
• There is making to let off steam.
• There is making to help you focus your thoughts.
• There is making to feel alive.
• There is making to make sense.
• There is making as an attitude.
• There is making as identity.
• There is thinking about making as an imagined form of making.
• There is making as healing.
• There is making as repair.
• There is making as a form of object - rebirth.
• And there is making as something that is essential to define the self.

Weaving projects 36, 37, 38, 39 and 40: bookmarks as samples for scarves 

Having broken the warp stick of my rigid heddle loom, and having failed to find one of the correct size in the UK I was waiting for a delivery to arrive at the supplier from New Zealand. So what to do. My next planned project was a scarf using this lovely yarn as warp, and this (in red) as weft, and to do it all using a 2:2 leno (as I'd liked how this had looked in the Finger Controlled Weaves sampler). I wasn't 100% sure whether it would be strong enough, or whether the variegated yarn as weft would look a bit too much.

So, I figured I might as well have a sample, so that's what I did for weaving project 36. Using my old picture frame loom I reverted back to bookmark size pieces and did an almost exact miniaturised version of my scarf plans. The only deviation was that instead of doing 2:2 leno I did 1:1 leno as it made more sense at this scale. And I learned that it worked up really nicely, and held together well. But when I wet finished it the lovely yarn felted badly. So, I'd need to think carefully. Also, the patterned yarn and the leno did seem a bit much together. I'm glad I checked.

Room for more experimentation. So, this time I used the merino/silk yarn as both warp and weft. This looked better. Having removed it from the loom I attempted to do some yarn twisting — but didn't knot the ends as I'm not a big fan of the knot. During the washing the twisting untwisted, and so again, the lovely yarn felted but not as much as when not twisted at all. More thought needed.

I'd originally thought about using some of the lovely Sirdar snuggly baby bamboo yarn for the leno project, as I like the shine and the softness that this yarn has. So I decided to buy some lime-green and warm-grey and give this a go as weaving project 38 using both colours for the warp, and just the grey for the weft. Success! I love how the colours, pattern and yarn work together. But I did wonder if it was lacking a bit of oomph.

So, for weaving project 39 I did the same as project 38 with the exception that I used a bright pink as the middle colour. Much better. This has made it into the planning stage for a proper sized item. With mainly green and grey but with highlights of the bright pink every 10 or so colour changes to give it that oomph!

Finally, for weaving project 40 I took the bits I liked from projects 36 and 37 - using the lovely merino/silk blend as weft and wandered around my local yarn shop with weaving project 37 in hand looking for something that looked like it might work. I ended up with another baby bamboo yarn — this time in a colour called Retro Russet — which I used as the warp. This complemented the weft nicely — it's subtle so it doesn't over power it and is a match against a part of the transitions. At scarf scale there won't be the distinct stripes as the transitions really are quite short but I think that will be ok and will make a plain weave project look a bit more interesting.

This seems to have been a good use of the enforced down time whilst I waited for the replacement piece to arrive. It has also saved me the disappointment of a project that probably wouldn't have worked out as well as I'd hoped (weaving project 36). Definitely worth doing deliberately again.