Monday 31 March 2014

Mother's Day

Hello to you all,

I hope you had a great mother's day, I know I did. the rabbit and cat were kind enough to send a card to their mother......my husband. I had a meal with my mum and nanny, which was lovely. 

As a knitter I will try and make my own gifts for special occasions.  Do not assume that any gift is impossible as I have knitted gifts from hats to a mini starship enterprise for my dad. As it was Mother's Day, I wanted to stay on the more sane end of the spectrum. 

My mum has always liked frilly scarves and this is something that you are able to knit. You can by a special yarn where the texture is similar to netting. It is straight forward to work with as you purely need to knit rows to get the desired affect. It is fiddly as you have to twist the yarn as you go. This got to be quite frustrating and I had to give my work a good telling off on a couple of occasions. 

Of course when you are making a scarf you need to ensure it is long enough. This is where you need a live model to wear it to determine how much length is required. At present there are no other females in my house, apart from my cat and rabbit, so the only option I had was for my husband to try it out for me. I think he looked great and I may consider knitting him one up for his birthday.......however, he did not seem to agree :s

Once I had made a scarf my Mum, I made one for my Nanny. Both scarves were greatly received and I would recommend anyone to make these up as quick gifts.


I am proud to announce that my latest pattern has been printed by Inside Crochet. The inspiration for the mug cosy came about at the Toft Knit Night that I regularly attend. There was a lady who crocheted in the front and back of a treble post and I loved the affect this gave. This creates a rib type affect and this made me think that this was a great idea for creating stems for flowers. From here my pattern was created! This goes to show that going to a knit night can give you inspiration :) The latest issue of Inside Crochet is out in the shops now. 

Next time I will share my sockccess story :)



Until next time

Happy Crafting

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Monday 17 March 2014

Tunisian Crochet

Hello all,

As a crafter who is able to knit and crochet, I will often do one craft for a while and then revert to the other. However, I have found a new trend that is emerging to be a mixture of the two. The only way to describe the instrument is if a knitting needle and crochet hook had a baby it would look like that. this technique is called Tunisian crochet. 

This is a technique where the yarn is woven to make a thicker piece. This is great for items such as rugs and placements. It is also different to normal crochet as you are picking up a number of stitches onto a hook as opposed to working one stitch at a time. This process involves working a front pass, this is where you pick up the stitches and then a back pass where you drop the stitches again. 

As this was a new skill, I decided to work on a simple project. I had left over lovely Rowan Tweed yarn. I wanted to make something small and practical and at the same time, I wanted to practice my tension and the technique. I took a drink of my tea and noticed that the mug had left yet another mark on the table. this is something that has been annoying my husband for a while and this is where I thought a coaster would be useful.............. hahaha my project was born :) 

I made up two plain coasters and two striped ones to practice the colour changing technique. This has now given me the confidence to try making other designs :)

I was also fortunate to attend the Knitting and Stitching show in London. This was excellent as I could find much Knitspiration under one roof. I stumbled across Rachel John's stall. You may be aware of extreme sports but there is such a thing as extreme knitting. Rachel has created knitting needles, Crochet hooks and Tunisian crochet hooks that are massive. The theory is that you can knit a rug or blanket in one piece and quite quickly. Of course I had to buy these tools and I am looking forward to playing with these items soon :) If it doesn't go to plan, I could at least frighten the husband with them :) 

The current project that I am working on is my socks. I will post up the finished project soon. This should be within the next two weeks...........as long as I do not suffer from second sock syndrome. This is an ailment commonly suffered by knitters whereby they finish one sock but don't really want to work on the second one as it involves repeating the whole pattern again. 

Until next time 

Happy crafting

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@knitsnotperfect