In the Making...

The sewing machine came out this week! I saw the most gorgeous knitting bag on instagram. It was made by Truly Myrtle (I don’t usually like podcasts but she’s very interesting to listen to). Here’s the link to her bag . It’s a shape I haven’t tried before. The pattern for the tote is a free one from Very Shannon . - the Reversible Box Tote . I bought some gorgeous fabric from The Little Fabric Store . It’s a sweet, little shop and worth a visit, if you’re near. Helen is very lovely and helpful. I got some new Cloud9 fabric and linen to line the bag. I bought another Clover tape measure too. They are really nice quality. I’ve found with the cheaper retractable tape measures that the tape will stretch and warp with use. I’ve had one for over a year (with daily use) and it is still as straight as the day I bought it. So I bought another because well…you can never have enough tape measures! You can see the tape measure in the picture below. The fabric that I ch...

Finally finished my Rams and Yowes blanket.  It's such a beautiful design  I really enjoyed the centre fair isle section. Having a look at the beautiful blankets others have done, there seemed to be a bit of an issue with wavy borders which I definitely wanted to avoid. So… When I cut the steek, I steam blocked a section of the blanket to get my gauge (I didn’t bother doing a swatch to begin with). My gauge was 28 sts by 32 rows in 4”. I also made a small garter stitch swatch which was 26 sts in 4”. With that sort of gauge difference, then a 1 to 1 pick up would definitely give a wavy edge. On the cast on and cast off edges, I picked up at a rate of 13 in 14 sts and on the steeked edges 13 in 16 sts (pu 4, skip 1, pu5, skip 1, pu4). So in the end I picked up 684 sts instead of 780; which is a huge difference. I don’t have wavy edges, though. Hopefully you can see in the before blocking picture the borders look relatively flat. Before blocking After blocki...

I seem to have been really busy this last week or two but not a lot to show for it. I've been sucked into the enthusiasm of the 2012 Woolly Wormhead KAL . I really enjoyed the Orchid Thief KAL. I've been very good recently and there has been an embargo on stash acquisition, which accidently came to an end yesterday when I bought this: I've a feeling one ball won't be enough as I've got rather a large head. There is 250m on the ball so I'm crossing fingers. There's plenty of knitting going on but nothing finished. Here's a sneak peak of my Rams and Yowes blanket: Hopefully it'll be finished shortly but I had a minor disaster with it last night. I'd sewn the border down to the inside and blindly did the whole thing without checking the tension of the sewing. When I'd finished I did my usual thing of pulling it into shape and proceeded to snap all the sewing that I'd done. I'd done it way too taut so I'm pa...

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.

Another fantastic year at Woolfest; despite the exceedingly rainy conditions it was still a wonderful day. It was bigger this year with lots of new stalls. I found it quite overwhelming with the vast array of choice and ideas. My haul was quite large this year. I headed straight for Kate Davies stall and bought the kit for the Sheep Carousel Tea Cosy and also intended to buy the BMC  kit but were already sold out within an hour of opening! I tried to start the Tea Cosy on the way home in the car to quickly realise the one size needle I didn't have was a 3.00mm 16 inch circular; which is extremely frustrating when you've just left a big wool show. I also got Ysolda Teague's Saturday Treat pattern book and some Scrumptious laceweight yarn in Treacle Toffee to make Barley Sugar from the Fyberspates stall.     I bought a dyeing kit from D & T and a bundle of unknown yarn on offer from bluefaced.com A pretty batt and a faux cashmere roving f...

Had a little trip to Leeds on Friday; and of course if in Leeds, then baa ram ewe is a must! I brought back a little haul with me. Not sure what I'm going to do with the Malabrigo but my Mum picked them for herself so  some sort of warm woollies for her. The white and dark grey spindrift are to make an Estonian Hand Puppet .  There was lots of lovely patterns by the talented Kate Davies in stock. I settled on a little project - Neep Heid . The green spindrift in stock wasn't the colour I wanted but they had it in Rowan Fine Tweed so I bought that instead. The yardage was different but there was plenty left. A few days later and voila one Turnip Hat! With all fair isle the inside is gorgeous too!