Christmas is around the corner

Hello all,

I seem to have lost the month of November due to my rapid Christmas knitting for family. I love having a skill which means that I can provide truly unique gifts for my family members. I often look to Ravelry for knitspiration and find projects that suits everyone perfectly. Last year I was able to find a pattern for a toy Starship Enterprise and made that up for my dad as he was a Star Trek fan. He loved it and it is proudly hung on the Christmas tree.

You'll be happy to know that I have almost completed all of the required items and I can start focusing on designing and knitting for myself again :) I am really into cable knitting at the moment. I love the effects that can be achieved using this technique and I am hoping to be the proud owner of some new fingerless mittens soon as mine are pretty done for.

I will be displaying my handmade Christmas bunting in my home in preparation for the big day. Inspiration came in the middle of summer (bit odd but there we go). I started to thing about my holiday projects and dreaming about advent calendars. I thought about how I would love to have bigger chocolates each day as opposed to the tiny ones found in the shop brought ones and the only way around this would be to make my own advent calender. I didn't have a stocking as a child and I felt to make it up to myself I would make 24 mini ones as a bunting. 

I found the gorgeous Milla Mia yarn and a beautiful bunting was born. The pattern was in last months Inside Crochet and I really like this piece. I will be putting it up very soon........I don't want to wait for 12 days before Christmas 

I hope all of your festive projects are going well. I will be going to TOFT's open day on the 20th December with the family. It looks great as there are many demonstrations and also the opportunity to halter walk alpaca's (how exciting). The Cornflower Cafe is also amazing and well worth a visit too. I am hoping to be there with a lovely cream tea or a salted caramel cake..............perhaps by that point I wont care and I'll have both. 

Right...back to these mittens!!!!!!!

Until next time

Happy crafting

Sarah

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Benjamin's Bunting

Hello all,

I hope you are all well. I have been knitting and crocheting like mad lately. I am proud to announce that Inside Crochet have once again published one of my patterns.

This piece is called Benjamin's bunting. The idea came about as my sister was pregnant with my nephew and said that she hoped her child would love dinosaurs. I am unsure if she wanted her child to turn out like Ross from friends but I thought it would be an interesting hobby for him to pursue. I didn't know what to make her for so I offered to make a baby blanket. She found a knitted design that she liked and I decided that I would like to create one that was crocheted. I found it quicker to create patches and I had to create the dinosaurs to add to the piece. Once I had completed the blanket my sister was thrilled.

I then thought that since I had the crochet dinosaurs, I would be able to adapt the design to make a bunting. The original idea for the bunting was that it was blue, yellow and red. I contacted Claire from Inside Crochet who loved the creation and suggested to use greens instead. I felt that this was a great idea as it was more soothing. 

To get the yarn required I visited the lovely Guthrie and Ghani in Birmingham where there was all the colours I needed in the Rico yarn. This shop is great for inspiration and I would recommend anyone to visit and also do any workshops there. 

One issue I had with the design was that the dinosaurs tended to curl. I contacted Claire for advice and she suggested doing a slip stitch to reduce this. This was the best advice that I had and found this to solve the issue. 

I completed the design and it was around this time that my nephew was born and his name is Benjamin. The ironic thing was the day I sent off the project to the magazine was the day that Benjamin arrived safely into the world. I wanted to dedicate this project to him so hence the name. The biggest challenge was keeping the project a secret from my sister as I wanted it to be a surprise. Now the magazine is released, and available in all good shops, I was able to show her and she was honored. The photo for this blog has been kindly provided by Inside Crochet

To this day, this is my favorite published piece and I hope it can bring much joy to others. 

Until next time

Happy crafting. 

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Benjamin's Bunny

Hello all,

I am an Auntie :). The lovely Benjamin arrived into the world in April and he is gorgeous. Babies are brilliant  to knit for as the projects are small, quick to make and often adorable. I asked my sister if there was anything in particular that she wanted for Ben. Instead of the usual booties or hat, she asked for a bunny. Not just any old bunny but one similar to what we had as children. 

One of the first knitted items that my sister and I had as a children were a rabbits. One of our rabbits had red dungarees and the other had peach ones. The rabbits did not quite look right but we loved them very much. I can remember they were mainly made in garter stitch and the dungarees were formed in stocking stitch. 

This would normally not be a problem to make.....if you had the original pattern....or the original toy to refer. However, I had neither of these :s meaning I had to rely on my memory. To reduce the amount of sewing needed I knitted the toy on double pointed needles but to achieve the effect of a garter stitch, I had to use a purl stitch.

My poor husband had to endure confusing questions such as 'can you tell it's a rabbit but it doesn't quite look like one?' He decide to help by bringing me a lot of tea and reading quietly in the corner. 

I thought to make this item more specialized and gave the rabbit blue dungarees. I finally completed the project after a week and hand delivered the item to beautiful baby Ben. He seems happy with the end  product (well as happy as a 1 month old could be). 

More news is that I have finally opened a pattern shop on Ravelry. I haven't managed to post all of my designs yet but there is a good sample which can be seen on this link (http://www.ravelry.com/designers/sarah-coad).

Summer is on the way so I will soon be writing about some of my summer patterns :) 

Until next time

Happy Crafting

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Extreme Knitting

Hello all, 

When the word extreme is used, some of you may think of death defying things such as bungee jumping or tomb stoning. Others may think of more unique challenging such as extreme ironing.  Believe it or not this term can be associated with knitting!!!!

There are different types of extreme knitting such as knitting as fast as you can or running the London Marathon whilst crocheting (this has actually happen). I undertook a different challenging.....

I went to the Knitting and Stitching show in London and found a stall that sold extra large knitting needles. The theory was that you could knit up rugs and duvets in one go. To make these items with 'normal' knitting needles, you would have to make a few strips and join them together but with these needles anything was possible! 

The needles are sized 27mm and massive. The first problem I encountered was finding the space to use the needles. I thought my marriage was safe as I had made my socks but there was an issue again as I had to evict the husband off the sofa for a week :-s  Another issue was that I could only knit a few rows at a time due to the weight of the needles and  the work as it progressed. This is due to knitting 12 strands of yarn at the same time to compensate for the size of the needles. 

I decided to make a rug with a moss stitch on the outside. I like a moss stitch border as it stops the edges curling so hopefully there is less of a risk of falling over. I used a stocking stitch in the middle just to make the piece more exciting to look at. The whole project only took two days to complete and I now have an epic size rug. 

One of the ironic things with knitting is that you do not always want your end product to be used for it's intended purpose. I know I made a rug, but I didn't want it in a place where people would stand on it. I found a lovely spot in the bedroom but when I came back, I found that my cat had found her new bed. I am happy for the rug to serve this purpose. 

The rug and cat have a new home and my husband is welcome back to the sofa. I had to make him a few cups of tea to apologise :s

Until next time

Happy crafting

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My Sockcess Story

Hello all,

I am proud to say that I have created my first pair of socks :) This is something that I have wanted to do for a long time but never found the knitspiration required. It is also considered to technically quite challenging. This is an essential project as I am fed up of my husband nagging me for putting my cold feet on him. If I had a lovely cosy pair of socks I felt that this would put an end to this argument once and for all. 

My knitspiration came in the form of a lovely ball of yarn from York. Whilst away in February, I went to a great knitting shop called Ramshamble. I love this shop as it has a great variety of yarns and most of them are natural fibres. My eyes fell upon a beautiful yarn from the Yorkshire Spinners. This was from a range called Signature and it is magical. Not only is it a lovely combination of wool and nylon, it is self patterning. This means that when you knit it the wool colour will change certain points to make the sock stripey. It is so soft and perfect for that lovely pair of socks that I crave. 

With this magical yarn, I finally got to work on my marriage saving socks. In order to create them, you need to use double pointed needles. Although it looks like a medieval torture device, I can assure you that it is not. It is a method of knitting where you need to use four needles as opposed to two. This means you knit a tube shape and reduces the amount of sewing needed at the end :)

When working on a sock, you tend to start at the top, also known as a cuff. This is usually started with a rib stitch for elasticity which is followed by a stocking stick. You will work to the desired length and then need to create a heel flap. This is achieved by working some of the stitches at the back of the sock so that a length for the heel is created. In order to make the part of the sock that is along your foot, you need to pick up stitches from the heel flap so that you are able to knit on the double pointed needles once again. The tube shape is continued until you get the foot length required and then sewn at the end. Looking back at this written instruction, it looks confusing but if you have practised each element in a different pattern, I can assure you it isn't :)

One difficulty I found with a self patterning yarn is that you need to ensure that your second sock is started in the same place in the pattern as the first. If this is not achieved the pattern and colour order on both socks would be different. Some people don't mind this but I do !!!!!!!!! After four attempts, I got this right. I no longer freeze my husband, I now have nice toasty warm feet. 

On Thursday I will be heading to TOFT for their knit night. It runs 4pm-8pm every other Thursday :) I love going here as its a cosy environment full of knitspiration and a lovely gang of knitters attend. I also love it as there is tea and cake a plenty. If you are in the area, I strongly recommend that you go. All skill levels are welcome.Check out www.thetoftalpacashop.co.uk for more and details and the great range of workshops they have.

 Toft also have a great open day on Easter Monday running 10am-4pm, this is soo much fun as you can see the studio, sign up for mini workshops and go on a tour of the farm to see all of the lovely alpaca :). This is well worth a visit if you are free. 

Until next time

Happy crafting

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Catching up

Hello all,

I am going through a period of catching up on my UFO (unfinished objects). First of all I have completed the dinosaur blanket. I will post a picture soon but as it is a Christmas/ birthday present I need to keep it a secret for now. I am fairly happy with the outcome, some of the blocks have a tighter tension than others but it was made with love :) The blanket has however, inspired me with another project idea............. 

Completed Peter Rabbit

Last year I was given a project by my dad's colleague. They had found the work in their mother's loft and passed it on to me. It was all the knitted parts a Peter Rabbit to sew together. I finally had the opportunity to finish the work and it is a cute piece. The knitter was obviously very talented and I imagine they would have loved to have seen the finished product. I am glad I had the chance to work on this. 





I have ordered more yarn (eeekkk) as I had a lot of left over blue yarn. This is from my first order of yarn for my Christmas Jumper. I have had to order extra colours to compliment it so I can make something out of it. Just need to dream up what I will do.......

Sunflower appeal

As part of my craft group we have all been asked to decorate a canvas piece with the theme 'happy'. This is for a charity called Mary Anne Hospices. The emblem is a sunflower so I thought I would use this and crochet a flower onto it. The piece will be put together and presented to the charity. I think this is a great idea and lovely when to see the efforts of the whole group combined. 





I have began to plot my holiday. I am going to head to Scarborough for a few days. Within this trip I will be heading to York which of course means a visit to the shambles. I have been there before and loved the fact that there were five different craft shops to explore. This will be in February so if you have any other recommendations, please pass it on. 

Now you have caught up with my antics I hope you are all well.

Happy crafting

Sarah

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