Woolly whimsy

I was doing some pretty knitting lately for a friend’s wedding. Here is a poor photo of some of the cute and delicate buttonholes I knit. I ran out of time to take proper photos of them, but they are really pretty, knit using 3.5mm needles and a Rowan yarn called Kidsilk Haze Glamour in cream, a fine yarn with sequins in it. Not the easiest yarn to work with for this kind of thing, but the pattern was thankfully not too difficult itself and easy to commit to memory, so that I could concentrate on keeping an eye on where my needle was going. I think it is easier to knit with using a slightly larger needle but we liked the effect of having smaller stitches. Only one of the flowers has been finished with a button in the photo below.

And there were also other flowers made using the Rowan Kid Classic yarn which I haven’t photographed. I crocheted a couple of takeaway coffee mug cosies for the happy couple with the leftover yarn. Here’s the beginning of the first one, using a well-written photo tutorial from the firefly hook as a guide. I’m using a 4mm hook here with the yarn in drought and then I crocheted a couple of small hearts in feather and sewed them on:

Ahh! I managed to get my act together and take some photographs of the finished mug cosies. Although I was tempted to add a border of some sort with the Kidsilk Haze Glamour I ran out of time… I don’t have a takeaway cup at home, but the cosies fit these glasses and really make them so pretty!

A closer view… I love the colours. I think I might make myself something with the remaining yarn too! No idea what yet… but in the meantime, I’m dreaming of creating gorgeous yarn storage like Stephanie’s from the lovely blog All About Ami and I’m catching up with The Great British Sewing Bee on the BBC iPlayer. I’m still working on eventually breaking out the sewing machine I’ve had sitting under the stairs for almost two years, but I haven’t prepared a good space for a sewing corner yet, so… this girl will just have to dream for now…

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The grey season is back!

It’s getting colder in London now. It’s that time of year when I sometimes wish we could just snuggle up at home and not go out again for a few months. Although that would be a bit boring. Not least because it would give me no reason to knit grey, cosy pieces of yarn fabric to burrow into.

I have completed a couple of other projects that I will write about soon enough, but it’s now time to indulge in creating soft wads of grey to envelope myself in. Yes, it’s self indulgence time. Lucky for me, I love scarves. My mum invariably grimaces when she asks me what I’m knitting and I say “a scarf”.  To her, it’s the most boring thing on earth to put your needles to use for. To me, it’s the best thing to tuck into of a dark evening with some random food or travel programme playback on in the background.

Do excuse the poor lighting. I’m using a combination of a supersoft 100% merino thick and thin yarn by Stitch & Story that has since been discontinued (boohoo!) and this brioletto yarn in silver, both bought in last winter’s sales. I’m simply knitting in the round in stockinette stitch, although I tried seed stitch for a bit with the Stitch & Story yarn but decided it wasn’t worth the effort, as the pattern isn’t that visible.

I don’t think I updated you on the snood that I was knitting back in May (oops, sorry!) I was really pleased with the end result. It’s another grey one I’m afraid.. and I even tried it on my hubby who simply looked too attractive in it, I might have to give it to him, even though I wanted it for myself haha!  I did post a snap shot on Facebook of the lovely stripe effect I improvised using alternating sections of stockinette and seed stitch. For that one, I used Patons Wool Blend Aran in grey which has a lovely mottled effect making it easy to create a delightfully cosy textured look, although the texture is not as soft as the one I’m currently knitting.

So… how are you all? Anyone else feel like they just blinked and two months have gone by?  Hope you are having a good week, take good care xx

The Big Knit Send-off…

My apologies for the slow pace at which I’m working at the moment and I haven’t paid enough visits to your blogs, there’s so much to catch up on! I’ve finally taken some snaps of my contribution to the Big Knit this year though… a grand total of FIVE mini hats.

Not even a drop in the ocean when compared to some seriously dedicated stars who have achieved knitting fame this year in support of Age UK. But I did have some fun playing with my own designs… I practised crochet in the same design thrice.. then decided to get the knitting needles back out.

I must say I was rather chuffed with my fifth experiment, which officially became the accidental jelly mould hat. I don’t know whether anyone would find my rather bland hats interesting enough if they make their way to the shops, sitting atop some little smoothie bottles. Everyone seems to love multicoloured hats, and I’ve gone and just done off-white, how boring 😛 Well, they’re off anyway, hope they get there in time – cheers Royal Mail!

Huh?

Wow is it already Friday? I’ve knitted five little hats for the Innocent Big Knit (nothing compared to those marathon knitters out there!) It’s been great fun – I practised my crochet skills and even winged it with two of them and made up my own little knitted designs!

Hopefully I’ll get the chance to take photos of them before sending them off. Just wanted to wish you all a restful weekend! Take care everyone…

I’m coming back knitting!

Hi everyone!

Thank you for your ongoing support whilst I strayed away into the unknown since the middle of the summer that was, has been and is no longer. The weather in London is still mild and has actually been sunny and relatively warm in the last couple of weeks. I’ve even wondered whether or not another drought is on the way, crazy, I know.

Anyway, I’m planning on bringing an end to this last hiatus in blogging. And I thought I’d give a sneak peek at what woolly things I’ve been busying myself with recently as a starter.

Next week is National Wool Week in the UK, and I’ve been knitting quite a lot in the last month or so. These little booties are hopefully making their way halfway across the world in a matter of days, as soon as I get some long awaited news of the arrival of their intended new owner! I’m so excited, any time now!

Well, sneak peeks should not be too long, so I’m going to rest my eyes from the screen now and pick up my needles again. I’m enjoying catching up with all of your blogs in the meantime though. Have a great week!

xx

Not quite a ball…

It’s been a bit of a tough old time since I last posted. Still not out of the woods yet, but consoling myself with some knitting and learning yet again to trust in God’s plan and grace. In the past Sunday, a friend shared a song that I missed. I received news of it just when I needed reminding most. I’m feeling very thankful and at peace.

As I posted on Facebook last week, I’ve started another mini project. I promised to update you today so I’m posting photos below. But I’ve been winding yarn all day today because

1. I’m currently convalescing and have nothing better to do and
2. my mini project has run out of yarn and I need to get some more and
3. my mammoth cable project does my shoulder (and head) in if I do too much at a time (although it has more than doubled since I last posted that photo)

So, today I took apart a project I finished previously that I did not like so much once I finished it. I think I should have used a softer, simpler and consistently coloured yarn for it. But I’m not going to make it again. I love the yarn and the mottled greys in it though, so I did some searches for ideas on balling yarn with a centre pull. What I’ve ended up with is the equivalent of two balls of yarn into a elongated rugby ball shape. Still a ball of sorts I guess, but not what you’d normally call a ball.

As for my lovely mini project, I could never bring myself to bother with knitting up anything but scarves and phone holders or random not so useful things. I would look at the yarn needed to knit up a cardigan and baulk at the idea. But then, after enjoying knitting up the booties so much, my mum encouraged me to try some mini jumpers etc. saying that they knit up really swiftly and it’s a great way to learn the skills. So I’m currently working up a mini hoodie with the view that it can be for a girl or a boy because I’m not yet sure who’s will eventually end up wearing it. I’d really recommend trying baby knitting if you are just starting out, because my mum was right – it’s addictive!

I’m quite frustrated that I’ve done the back, front sides and just over one sleeve but have just run out of yarn! I can’t wait to get some more! How many yarn lovers do we have reading today? Please say hello and let me know if you have some ongoing projects!

In the meantime, with the yarn I’ve balled today, I’m going to make up a quick snood using inspiration I’ve pinned here and here. Hopefully it’ll be nice and quick and will turn out well. It’s definitely spring though, there is not a cloud in the sky and when I open the back door an unmistakeable fragrance of life wafts in. Hopefully the resulting snood will not be needed until the end of the year!

Thank you all for reading and leaving your comments. I’ve still to respond to some of them. I’m getting quite bad at this – sincere apologies! Trying to get into a good blogging rhythm. Missing some of your blogs too – I can see many friends of this blog have also been busy – thanks for popping by and leaving messages, even when you’ve obviously not had time to post yourselves. It always does me no end of good to hear from you ❤

New Year Firsts (i): Woolly Wednesdays

So blogging is a journey, and on a journey you might just take a straight path, but I’m not one of those people. My paths generally are all windy and crooked. They often loop back on themselves and sometimes they lead to a dead end. More often than not, I probably don’t know where the path is and go wandering off. So that’s me. Nuts and confused. Early last year when I tried give each day a theme to help schedule my blog posts, some of them inspired more than others. I’m not going to ditch any of the old ideas, because they are working for me, I’m just adding new ones. So here’s introducing Woolly Wednesdays!

If you have been reading my meanderings for a while, you may have noticed that I love the woolly stuff. And that I have been playing about with it a bit. I got a bit of shoulder trouble at the end of 2012, and although it seems not to have recovered 100%, I can’t stay away from the sheepies and am carefully knitting again trying not to get carried away for hours on end.

In my Wonder Wool post, I shared a hat that I was knitting for a friend. She lives in the land of the recent horrendous bush fires, hence it was not previously appropriate to send it to her. I mean, it was the height of summer during our freezing winter! I had wanted to enclose a surprise in the eventual package, and have made a decision to finish it in time to send it for her birthday next month. The surprise is a first for me and I’m really, really excited. I’m sticking with knitting and not moving onto crochet, because there are different steps I want to practice. Here’s a little peek of what I’ve done so far… what do you think I’m knitting?

And why not ask another question to get to know you better? Are you a focused, clear-headed traveller through life or more a hopeless, woolly wanderer? 😛

Wotta lotta spam… or yarn?

Seeing as it’s Friday… I wanted to share what I was chuckling over at the end of last week before I stumbled across this Freshly Pressed post on the subject of spam, which demonstrated that there is more than just the Internet that connects us all. Yes, I shared the exact same spammer with Nathan Badley of not-so-fleeting Freshly Pressedom fame (it appears that he’s been efFPeed more than twice). We received the same fascinating message which left us similarly flummoxed over a reference to “brussels”.

Aaaanyway, I digress. I had read that message in my spam folder briefly, sniggered and then moved on. Because there was a more intriguing and amusing message that caught my eye. Its brevity and the tone of unmistakeable incredulity drew my attention and held it there: apparently I have a devoted fan that I have been so remiss as to have overlooked a number of times, to my detriment. I really must check my spam more often…

I Google’d SCK and found no conclusive evidence as to the identity of this elusive person. But after some soul-searching and remorse I realised that the random combination of letters and numbers supplied by my mysterious visitor in the place of a name, was designed to put me off the scent. And in view of my recent obsessions that could only mean one thing: my blog had been graced by the presence of the  SUPER COOL KNITTER.

SCK I am truly¹ sorry, please come back and share your wisdom with all of us. It is my fault alone, please don’t hold my negligence against my readers also. Winter is approaching (or has already approached, crept up by the door and started huffing and puffing through every little tiny unprotected sliver *shiver*). Those of us whose hair Winter has already ruffled and whose cheeks she has already chafed, would really love to wrap up warm in hand knitted scarves, jumpers and throws. It would be truly cool but not cold, if we could share knitting tips… you must have quite a treasure trove of them if you have made over four million attempts at catching my attention.

Ho Ho Ho (oops, sorry, too early… and fictional) hahaha. There. What a silly lot of ramblings. But these random things entered my mind when I saw that silly piece of spam.

I wish you a light-hearted weekend, perhaps accompanied by a bubbly glass of (cue drumroll) freshly pressed lemonade. For many, it may be a slightly tart and sharp glass of the stuff… but still refreshing in some way, I hope.

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¹ OK, perhaps my final paragraph would suggest that I am not nearly as sincere in my sentiments towards SCK as I am trying to suggest here. But I am cheered by the ingenious spam message. Direct and to the point 😉

Wrapped up and warm…almost

Just a little photo of my 97% completed scarf #2. The colour has greyed out a little in the lighting at home.

I’ve hurt my shoulder and have been forbidden to knit until I’ve completely recovered. I need some time to decide how to finish off the ends of the scarf anyway, so I’m not complaining. I don’t like tassels too much and I’m not sure about pompoms. I’ve used a simple moss stitch along the entire scarf and it’s knitted in felted tweed, so a nice chunky wool. I’m thinking more along the lines of some sort of lacey crocheted edging. Any ideas?

Wonder Wool

OK…so I’m a tiny bit late to the party. National Wool Week was last week. But then, I was ill. Aaah. But, I’m still in the recovery position this week. The near-solid slime, glueing together my ENT passages is showing no intention of shifting. Sorry, tmi. At least my sexy voice has left me. Unfortunately, that means the only external clue to my being under the weather has dissipated, and I appear to be well enough to do all things.

Well. I haven’t been blogging so much. But the thing is, as I hinted here, I have been getting cosy with this:

I love wool. I picked up knitting and crocheting again last winter. It didn’t seem to make much sense, seeing as wool is expensive in the UK. And Primark is cheap. And let’s not beat about the bush, I am also expensive when it comes to hiring myself to knit. I recently bought some four jumpers at £6 each. Whereas, the total amount of money spent on that is not enough even to buy me the wool required to knit myself a jumper.

But in short, I will knit because I want a good quality garment. Even though synthetic yarns are cheaper, I will only bother with good quality stuff, because otherwise I can buy it for cheaper in the shops. Even if it is not Primark. I will buy synthesised yarns, but only when the synthetics add to the texture of the yarn. I will only do this, if it is good quality and it does not make up the majority of the fibre.

So. When a friend of mine requested a warm woolly hat, I took the chance to knit this. My head is massive (I have big empty braincells). So sorry, I am not modelling it. But I hope you’ll agree, that pompom is like candyfloss. Beautiful, wonderful, super soft merino wool. It’s also my first foray into thick and thin. And with the same yarn, I am knitting myself a scarf. It’s getting chilly, and I’m almost done. I will soon be the envy of you all 🙂

I’m glad I’m not the only one who loves the good old sheepies. I LOVE WOOL 🙂 And to prove it, as well as the abovementioned scarf, I have two others on the go:

I’m also researching baby blankets, I have a plan to deliver a hat with a surprise gift inside! Any pattern ideas? I’m thinking I might crochet it. I’m so excited 🙂