In the Making...

This blog post is a wee bit delayed. I’ve been away on holiday in Yorkshire, which happily coincided with Yarndale, so I dragged Mr along. The bunting was still up this year but has now been accompanied by lots and lots of mandalas. It really did look fantastic. It was a lovely day and my purchases were quite restrained (well, for me anyway). A skein of Deeply Wicked by Easy Knits for the Woolly Wormhead KAL . Anyone else doing it? A lovely thank you skein of Soliloquy Sock yarn from the Linda at Tall Yarns n’ Tales for the sock pattern in Knitty. A selection of pretty buttons from Textile Garden and a few needles. Oh and a crochet kit from Natural Dye Studio , which I wanted to do on holiday. I was sans ball winder, so a very patient Mr helped me wind 5 skeins of yarn into balls. On the way back, we went to Fountains Abbey in the afternoon and took a few nice pictures.

The Rico Creative Cotton Aran that I bought last week has transformed into a dishcloth. It is the same stitch pattern that I used for this cowl , which was perfect as it is made on the bias. This meant I could stop increasing and start decreasing when I’d used half the yarn – so the dishcloth was as big as I could get it with one ball of yarn. I do love the colour but it is quite a psychedelic blast for the eyes.

I had a little retail therapy the other weekend. There was quite a lot of fabric bought. This was the haul! The rippled one really did remind me of the Old Shale stitch pattern ( what most people erroneously call Feather and Fan ). Though Mr says it makes his eyes funny, so it won't be used for cushion as I'd intended. These two were from Andover Fabrics' Downton Abbey range. And the charm pack is one I've been on the look out for - Road 15 by Moda . My patchwork cushions in the lounge have been very well loved and could do with replacing so hopefully these fabrics will step up and take their place. I learnt a new crochet stitch that same weekend. Its modern name seems to be Diagonal Box Stitch - a rather uninspiring name. It was fun to do. Michele from Yarn Aloud taught us how to do it. There were a few examples about and I liked the look of it in a finer yarn.  So after some stash rummaging later, I came up with a ball...

My mum bought me a basket from the local farmer's market as a present. The idea being I can keep all my current knitting bits in so they don't end up everywhere. It's a lovely basket but I thought it needed a bit of decoration. I've not done any crochet for quite some time. I used Attic 24's May Roses  pattern and did a htr circle for the liner. Not sure whether to add any more, so I'm leaving it for the moment. Bo likes it.

"One year from now, when the 5th Knitting & Crochet Blog Week rolls around, where do you hope your crafting will have taken you to? What new skills, projects and experiences do you hope you might have conquered or tried?" From Eskimimi Makes   Knitting TechniquesWelcome to Pro! | Create infographics On a whole, I've done a good majority of the different knitting styles out there. The one I've been meaning to do for a long time is to try Double Knitting. I've skirted around the technique, such as knitting two socks at a time (one inside the other) which is the same way of knitting but you keep one yarn to the front and one at the back at all times (instead of swapping the colours) and I've done brioche knitting too. I've got two Zauberballs sat waiting in anticipation and that's something I'd like to do sooner rather than later. The other technique I would like to try is on the crochet side. I'd like to cover a piece of...

I can finally reveal the knitted projects that were made for Christmas gifts. The first is a Neat Ripple Cushion made for my Mum. It's the Neat Ripple Pattern  by Lucy of Attic24. I made an 18" cushion.  The yarn is Rico Design Essentials Cotton DK  and there is such a lovely array of colours to choice from. It lends itself well to crochet and I used it in my African Flower Bucket Bag I crocheted one piece 18" by about 42" then folded over and crocheted together on the edges and a few tiny buttons to close it. Also, Mum got a pair of fingerless mitts that are my own design. I used Rowan Pima Cotton DK , which is beautiful yarn and made a lovely soft fabric but it was a little tricky to work with in fair isle. It has lots of different elements, broken ribbing, vikkel braids, fair isle, corrugated ribbing and an I-cord bind off.

I've had a mass of finished objects recently. Above are just a few of what I've finished in the last month; there's a scarf and a jumper as well plus two secret projects (I'm going to be writing the patterns up for them). It's nice to get all those unfinished objects done and I can start on some new exciting ones.

I love the African Flower motif and suddenly just had the desire to make a bag for my knitting. Took a bit of playing around to figure out how to make the shape I wanted. I wanted a bucket shaped bag. I ended up breaking the shapes down - I made a tube from the hexagons and then a circle for the base. I used half hexagons to give the tube a straight edge. I used  Littleberry’s  half hexagon pattern - though I restarted the yarn on the right hand side every round. I used the  magic circle technique  for the centres and crocheted over the ends of the yarn and connected the hexagons as I went. I managed to find some fabric in my stash that matched the colours of the cotton and used this for the lining. I made twisted cord from the cotton for the drawstring. There was a bit of yarn leftover so I made a little drawstring pouch for my stitch markers. Bag Construction Make a tube with the hexagons, eight across and 4 high. Make 8 half hexagons for th...