The only problem is I've not sent it to Adam yet!! Oops!
Saturday 28 February 2009
It's made of sheep...
My Father's birthday was approaching and what better gift to give than something that I have fun making *chortles* I am embracing the selfish side of giving knitted gifts!
This yarn had a high wool content and actually smelt of sheep! Perfect to give to a Cumbrian!
I'm not a huge fan of the hat which came out a trifle tea cosyesque. I think it's the Knitty Gritty hat pattern..
No No No to Mo Mo Mo hair!
In my infinite wisdom I decided to knit this lovely delicate shawl/scarf thing for my Gran who's been unwell... what I didn't know when I started was what a sod mohair is to work with!!! My Lord, when it wasn't sticking to itself it was just slithering off the horrible plastic needles...it had to be frogged at one point because it was just too wide and using too much yarn and the few mistakes I'd made were glaringly obvious. Thankfully the 2nd try was better, but it still took nearly 2 weeks!
I am pleased to report though that Granny loves it so it was worth the effort I think!
Little brown bag!
One of the things I've come to love about knitting is that you can buy the wrong yarn for a project and it's not a problem! You just find another project for it!!! This was originally bought for a scarf project but was just too scratchy and not bulky enough so I made a little bag! My own pattern inspired by the cable project bag in Knitty Gritty.
Chef's scarf!
What better early project to do than a scarf for your man! Chef desired a scarf so a scarf was duly knitted. I would marry Sirdars Bigga if I were single and you could marry yarn! 2 hours, 15mm needles and 3 skeins and ta da!!!! One lovely incredibly heavy scarf!
Baby knit, knit, knit baby....
As I said before... baby yarn quantities are small, and results are quick! I like knitting baby stuff!! Here are the set I did for my friend Gill's baby Adam and my friends yet unborn (the green set)
My first knit!
Woolly bag!!!! I knew I loved cotton yarn after Mum knitted Teen a jumper with it when he was a toddler, so I went for cotton and to be naughty, I bought Debbie Bliss!! Wanton expense, especially as I don't use the bag, but hey, it was my first knit! A pair of Pony 4mm metal needles and off I went
Shiny new blog!!!
As my knitting photos were starting to clog up my real blog and I don't really want my real blog on my Ravely profile, what better thing to do than to create a shiny, new, exciting blog just for my knitting!!
I learned to knit as a child, but it was referred to by my Granny as 'knotting' a strange mixture of knitting and a kind of backwards purl it looked slightly peculiar but did nonetheless create a wooly fabric of sorts. My Barbies were treated to many fine, square, unshaped garments and my dollies ; the odd blanket but a knitter I was not.
Fast forward to Christmas 2008 and my Amazon wishlist. I'd had a small hankering to learn to knit properly and someone had mentioned Stitch and Bitch so on a whim I chucked it on my wishlist.
Thank GOD my brother saw it there and thought "Hmm how odd, I'll buy her that" by the end of Christmas day I'd read it from cover to cover and was desperate, in the way I used to be desperate for a cigarette, to knit! But it was Christmas and I had no yarn or needles in the house!! EEEK!!! It was nearly a week before I managed to get to the LYS (that's local yarn store for those not in the know...how cool is that? I'm in the know!) and buy myself some yarn...but more on that later......
S&B taught me a few things, 1) my purling was actually wrapping the yarn round the needle in TOTALY the wrong way! 2) my knitting was going into the stitch the wrong way and I've just this minute tried to recreate that and failed, so clearly it was incredibly, incredibly peculiar.
Luckily I'd also been given some money for Christmas (Thank you Mum in law and also Granny, the same one who'd been so honest about my early childhood efforts) now usually I'd have gone and bought some paperbacks which I'd have read in a week and then put on the shelf. It seemed a better idea to get something else on the knit front.
Enter my new best friend Aneeta Patel and Knitty Gritty the colour photos helped me get over some problems in a way that S&B hadn't been able to and I LOVE, LOVE, ADORE Aneeta's garter stitch baby booties! Never again will I have to think about what to give a 'new mum'.
At this point I'd discovered that yarn was expensive and baby knits were quick and only needed 100 or so grams depending on what I was making, so the rest of my money was spent on
Easy Baby Knits. This book gave me the final piece of the jigsaw, the thumb cast on!!!! Until that day I'd been using the 2 needle cast I'd learnt as a child, but it gave a very loose edge and I wasn't happy with it! Claire Montgomerie's thumb instructions were followable and I'm eternally grateful!
So, I'm a knitter! YAY me!
I learned to knit as a child, but it was referred to by my Granny as 'knotting' a strange mixture of knitting and a kind of backwards purl it looked slightly peculiar but did nonetheless create a wooly fabric of sorts. My Barbies were treated to many fine, square, unshaped garments and my dollies ; the odd blanket but a knitter I was not.
Fast forward to Christmas 2008 and my Amazon wishlist. I'd had a small hankering to learn to knit properly and someone had mentioned Stitch and Bitch so on a whim I chucked it on my wishlist.
Thank GOD my brother saw it there and thought "Hmm how odd, I'll buy her that" by the end of Christmas day I'd read it from cover to cover and was desperate, in the way I used to be desperate for a cigarette, to knit! But it was Christmas and I had no yarn or needles in the house!! EEEK!!! It was nearly a week before I managed to get to the LYS (that's local yarn store for those not in the know...how cool is that? I'm in the know!) and buy myself some yarn...but more on that later......
S&B taught me a few things, 1) my purling was actually wrapping the yarn round the needle in TOTALY the wrong way! 2) my knitting was going into the stitch the wrong way and I've just this minute tried to recreate that and failed, so clearly it was incredibly, incredibly peculiar.
Luckily I'd also been given some money for Christmas (Thank you Mum in law and also Granny, the same one who'd been so honest about my early childhood efforts) now usually I'd have gone and bought some paperbacks which I'd have read in a week and then put on the shelf. It seemed a better idea to get something else on the knit front.
Enter my new best friend Aneeta Patel and Knitty Gritty the colour photos helped me get over some problems in a way that S&B hadn't been able to and I LOVE, LOVE, ADORE Aneeta's garter stitch baby booties! Never again will I have to think about what to give a 'new mum'.
At this point I'd discovered that yarn was expensive and baby knits were quick and only needed 100 or so grams depending on what I was making, so the rest of my money was spent on
Easy Baby Knits. This book gave me the final piece of the jigsaw, the thumb cast on!!!! Until that day I'd been using the 2 needle cast I'd learnt as a child, but it gave a very loose edge and I wasn't happy with it! Claire Montgomerie's thumb instructions were followable and I'm eternally grateful!
So, I'm a knitter! YAY me!
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