Hello all,
I can confirm that an acceptable place to crochet is in a car dealership. I had my car serviced and whilst I was waiting I whipped out my Toft T-Rex project. Unbeknown to me, I was in the presences of fellow crocheter, Tinkyblink. She is also a Tunisian crochet fan and we lovely yarn shops in the area. The time passed quickly as we shared projects and exchanged Ravelry page details. There were also a few other people who were intrigued with what I was working on. All in all, a car dealership is an acceptable place knit. hhhmmmm where to try next.....
With this extra time of working on my project, I completed my T-Rex project ready for Christmas. I sadly did not find the missing leg so had to make another one.........(grumble grumble). The pattern was straight forward to follow and I am please with the result. I would recommend this pattern if you would like to make a cute dinosaur.
I have been away on holiday and found some lovely knitting shops in the area. I have been to Periwinkle in Ilfracombe, which is not only a knitting shop but a cafe as well. There was a delicious range of home-made cakes and speciality teas and coffees. What I also loved was that there were knitting magazines to browse whilst having a brew. There was a range of yarn to explore and sweet knitting accessories. I brought myself a hand mirror which has pictures of wool on the back. This is a place worth visiting if you are in the area, I recommend the bakewell cake.
On the way back from holiday we stopped in Tiverton and I popped into the Tiverton Bead and Wool shop. Downstairs they have an extensive range of beads, however, upstairs there was a whole floor of yarn. They stocked the beautiful West Yorkshire Spinner's yarn and drops yarn. The yarn was affordable and there was a good range of colours. I felt a bit of inspiration and brought some yarn for the next project.
I am going to get back to gloves that I am knitting for another Christmas present but before I go, you may wish to have a look in this month's Inside Crochet for my latest pattern..........I will talk about it more in the next blog.
Until next time
Happy crafting
Sarah :)
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@knitsnotperfect
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Hello all,
I have officially finished my first brioche knitting project (yay).
My knitting buddy and I wanted to find a workshop to challenge our skills. Becky suggested brioche knitting and I thought this sounded great. However, when I arrived at the workshop I quickly realised that this was not a form of cake eating and knitting.
Instead it is a form of knitting that creates a thick and stretch piece of material. It amused me too as it involves stitches called 'barks' and 'burp'. The bark or a 'brk' is a brioche knit stitch and a 'burp' or 'brp' is a brioche purl stitch.
The work involves placing 'shawls' (or a yarn over) stitches which are then worked together to create the thickness. I think the best way to get a grasp of this is either have a very clever knitting friend or attend a workshop. I went to Hilda Haarhoff to learn this skill. It was an interesting session which included a free scarf pattern to take home. After some time, I found it fairly simple to pick up.
However, when I returned home I ended up in a right mess. I would recommend when you are starting to use a life line. This is a piece a yarn you thread through so if you make a mistake, you can pull your work back to a specific point. I had not done this and somehow lost my many stitches.........instead I resorted to my other life line 'Becky' to the repair the damage done.
After knitting quietly with no distractions, I was able to finish my piece. I am quite happy with it and would like to wear it in the winter as it is an extremely warm accessory.
The next piece of work on this would be to learn how to use 2 colours for brioche knitting. Becky has picked this up so maybe I can get some tips off her..........
I have just submitted another pattern for Inside Crochet so keep an eye out in September :)
I am currently working on another idea that I am dying to get back to
Until next time
Happy crafting
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@knitsnotperfect
http://www.ravelry.com/designers/sarah-reed
Hello All,
I can finally take a breath as I have completed all of my Christmas knitting. I am looking forward to the open day at TOFT alpaca on the 20th December and I hope to see you all there. If you are a little behind with your knitting and need a place to go with lovely cakes, I suggest that you go to TOFT's knit night. At the moment it is on every Thursday 4pm-8pm to provide you with time to catch up with your festive projects.
The Christmas stocking bunting is on my fire place ready for Santa. Maybe as there are so many mini stockings I will get loads of gifts this year. I feel this was one of the cleverest schemes that I have hatched muhahaha. ......... Unless I have been naughty which means there will be a lot of coal for my fire place........
The final project that was published in Inside Crochet was Tunisian Mittens. This was a good challenge that I had set myself as I used a special way of crocheting. I have used this technique before and it involves a long crochet hook. With standard crochet you would work with one stitch at a time. However, with tunisian crochet you have a front pass where you pick up stitches on the hook, this means there could be 20 stitches plus on the hook at one time!!!!. You then work a back pass where you remove these stitches so you are back to one on the hook. You never need to turn the work and the stitches can mimic knitting stitches. There are not many books out there to provide guidance on this technique but I recommend a workshop with City Knit's In Birmingham. The courses there are a reasonable price, the tutor Kate was lovely and extremely knowledgeable and it is a good excuse to visit the lovely shop in the gorgeous area of Bournville.
As I am a beginner at tunisian crochet, I wanted a project that did not require increases or decreases. I have learnt three stitches which were a standard, knit stitch and purl stitch and wanted a project to combine them together. This is where is the mitten was created. I used the wonderful Erika Knight's yarn. I love the texture and colours and feel this really added the the project. I also wanted to use different colours which is again another skill. I really enjoyed making this project and I hope that you do too. I feel that if you are new to tunisian crochet, this is a good place to start.
I have added a couple of new patterns to my Raverly page so please check it out. There is not a crochet mug cosy and a knitted Christmas gift bag.
Until next time
Happy crafting.
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@knitsnotperfect
http://www.ravelry.com/stores/knits-not-perfect---sarah-reeds-designs
With this extra time of working on my project, I completed my T-Rex project ready for Christmas. I sadly did not find the missing leg so had to make another one.........(grumble grumble). The pattern was straight forward to follow and I am please with the result. I would recommend this pattern if you would like to make a cute dinosaur.
