Rose and Trellis Sweater

So this is a hoody which I designed back in 2010. It was actually the very first thing I ever designed from scratch, and looking back it was definitely fairly adventurous to say I had only been knitting a bit over a year.

I have always intended to write the pattern up and grade it into a few sizes and either try and submit it to a magazine or just publish it via Rav. Now I've been saying since the end of 2010 that I would get it written up. But let's face it, this is me I procrastinate like mad! There are always new and shiny things to cast on, or learn, oh and let's not forget I had begun my university course by then. Actually I'm surprised I didn't write up the pattern simply to avoid doing coursework....

Here is a (terrible) picture of the sweater, taken just after I finished it. I will most certainly be taking other pictures of it in order to make the pattern more appealing!

I'll talk you through the inspiration and the basics of the pattern. My friend Kyla from Glasgow had this gorgeous Aran weight hoody with a really flattering cable and lace pattern on it that she often wore. It was a shop bought item but I always liked it and I decided I would use it as inspiration for my first garment designed by me, especially when after searching through Rav I couldn't find anything which looked like it.

So after looking in pattern books for a hoody design to base the basics shape on and using a stitchonary or two I cobbled it together with I feel a lot of success. I knew I wanted a very fitted hoody, even though Kyla's was really quite baggy (approx 6 inches positive ease). I wanted the stitch pattern to open up and to mold nicely to my body. As a result the body of the hoody has no waist shaping. I have lost weight since I designed/knit this and currently have a more distinguishable waist, which due to the pure wool fibre and the stretchiness of the stitch pattern, it shows my curves well and doesn't appear baggy.

The hoody is called Rose and Trellis after the stitch pattern which reminds me of a wooden trellis framework and a cable reminded me of roses, plus the fact I happened to knit it in red helped a lot with that association.

The Knitter magazine used to get knit groups to send in finished objects they wished to show off. Our group was contacted our items were published in issue 24, I sent this is and it was photographed really nicely. I wish I could use it for my pattern but you know, copy write is a bugger ;). However here's a wee picture of the article

Even on this lassy, who is a good size or two smaller than me, the hoody sits so well on her (even if I do say so myself....)

After this article I got a lot of feedback from people through Rav, but also the magazine forwarded on some really nice feedback they had gotten about asking me if I was intending to write the pattern up.

So anyway lot ramble short, I'm nearly there!! I started a few weeks ago, when after finishing my uni course, moving back home, and being totally bored out of my face, I figured I really ought to be a bit more productive. I have been really stuck for a few days about the armholes. But I think today a lot of things just slotted into place and I had a good solid 5/6 hours at it. I also decided to have a fiddle around with writing it up with the option of a hood and with a shawl collar (no hood) as well, as I figure many people won't really want to wear a hoody dependant on age/personality. ETA: This is definitely going to be incorporated in the final pattern. So after some test knitting, ironing the pattern out, and a bit of editing, hopefully I'll be able to publish it in the new year! Fingers crossed, wish me luck!!

General update

So I haven't posted I ages. Generally haven't felt like I've had that much to write about! But I guess there are a few things that have been going on.

Finishing Uni 

I guess this is really a big one. Second university course I've completed, both undergraduate ones. This wasn't an honours one so you don't get classifications, just a straight pass or fail. Well I passed! So that's all good :). Being the class rep for the year I helped to organise the graduation ball. Well I say helped, thankfully two of the four other branches of the course had already organised and let us join in! It would have been murder otherwise! However, I'll not even be attending the ball, or the graduation ceremony itself, as its all too costly and a bit of a trek now that I'm back in Yorkshire! I'm a bit sad about not going, as it would be nice on the day to see people. But there are cheaper and funner way to do it! One of the things ill be most gutted of missing are the pictures! I wish our uni had done what Glasgow Uni did, and those graduating in absentia still got pics done! Oh well. Will I regret it if I don't go? I just remember my first graduation being a total pain in the arse & the hall being so warm I almost fainted. I'm sure a group of my fiends are going to be organising a big get together around the time, and that'll be much cheaper, funner and involve a lot more alcohol... ;)

Moving back home:

Well that was and still is a bit gutting. I miss Glasgow so much! All the friends I've made up there, the city itself and just the feel to it. I miss living with my other half, and until we're both settled into jobs, which is probably not going to be before the middle of next year, as I still don't have anything lined up. Luckily my other half has managed to get himself a graduate training post, which i am very proud of him for! I miss just being able to walk down to the botanics on a nice day. Living back at home is fine though, I get on with my parents, it's just hard since contact with various friends down here isn't what it used to be. Although there are some that I'm still as close to as the day I left, there are some which I wonder if we even have much if anything in common any longer. Although the knitting side of things isn't what it really was in Glasgow, it does exist down here, how could it not, it's Yorkshire! And as I'm writing this it's actually Yorkshire Wool Week, and the little knit group I and a few other ravelry friends started in a local pub (The Sportsman, in Huddersfield) were in the local paper! Here's the link, although I didn't say what I'm quoted as saying!

Other craft news:

I've finally started writing up the rose and trellis hoody pattern, it's taken so much to get the 'get up and go for it'. I'm doing it 5 sizes, 4" increments from 32" to 48". I've got up to the armholes tough and I'm totally stumped! So after a lot of research I have ordered Sweater Design in Plain English by Maggie Righetti. So hopefully when that arrives, I'll be able to crack on, and then no doubt I'll get totally stumped on the hood....

I've also been asked to be a godmother, this will be my third godchild, first god daughter, and the first of their christenings I will have actually attended, which will be nice! As a result I am planning to knit Leaves of Grass by Jared Flood  it's bloody stunning. I've chosen this pattern as the third pattern in it is the pattern which was used on the wedding shawl I knit for the mother :) so I thought it would be a nice touch. So today I am off to my LYS, Spun in the Byram Arcade to find something beautiful for it!

ETA. It's a few days after this post was drafted and I bought some lovely cygnet 4 ply in cream. I had hoped for white, but this cream is lovely and the shawl so far has knitted up really quick. Although I'm nearing the next section of MAHOOOOOSIVE increasing, and I think it may grow in turtle pace from then on....

I can't really think of anything else to write about. Although it appears I am in the local newspaper again today after me sister, Hayley (also in the knitting feature) and I had our picture taken whilst out last Saturday dress all 50's style for a friends birthday. So I must pick up one of them whilst I am out aswell!

Tour de Fleece 2012: Day 6-20 "The Second Leg"

For the second leg of the tour I decided to work on 100g of beautiful fibre I bought from Texere in Bradford, UK. It was maybe the first stuff I bought in an actual shop rather than online. It's a beautiful mix and not something which tends to be available on their website. The fibre is merino 64's with white Tussah Silk. The merino is a lovely blend of different olive greens.


I really wanted to be able to spin this as thing as possible. Previous attempts have been more a 3 ply weight. My targets for TDF were to spin 15g per aday and if that wasn't possible for me to spin that among on top on the 15g of another day. This really didn't happen in this second stage! I was away from day 13 to day day 17, and there was no way I could catch up that much! Here is a wee collage with pics from different states and notes of the amount spun on what days.


Now, you may wonder why there is such a massive gap in the project! Especially with my targets for the tour. When I agreed to it I had kinda forgotten I would be away back home for a long weekend for Chris' birthday. It was his big 3-0 and there was lots arranged for it. I went down home on Thursday the 12th. On Friday his birthday his sister had organised a lovely surprise birthday meal for him at Meze in Brighouse (West Yorkshire) there were 18 of us. He figured out that a few of his extended family were going to be there, but had no idea that any of my family would be! So it was really nice surprise for him. The food was beautiful aswell, the only problem was was that they had two tables for us! This essentially meant that the two families were split up. But other than that it was a lovely evening.

The following day we had a meal with friends in Leeds at Las Iguanas, a mexican restaurant, again nice food and a good fathering of people, then we went for some drinks at a few local pubs. We had planned a lunch thing because we were planning to go on a hot air balloon ride for his birthday, my present to him. I bought the flights from Goballooning.com, but although the weather had been rubbish all week, Sunday looked promising, actual sunshine! However, it was really windy, so that was cancelled. The company did inform us on the Friday though so at least we had fair warning. So I'm going to look into rebooking for August/September when I'm back home.

So yeah anyway, sorry for rambling, but that's why there's a big gap!

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Tour de Fleece 2012 Day 1-6

So for those of you not on Ravelry, or not in the fibre game, the Tour de Fleece is a spinning event which runs alongside the Tour de Fleece. Not literly mind you until we can get spinning wheels to work in conjunction with bikes.....ooooooo now there's an idea...! Anyway, no, spinners set themselves targets for their spinning and aim to spin ever day during the Tour.

My aims are....
-To spin every day, or on days when I can't, for what ever reason, make up for it by doing double my target on the following day.
-to spin consistently and try to aim for 2/3ply weight.
-spin at least 15g a day.

So here is my progress so far!
Day 1: eeeeeer I miss behaved and was at a BBQ, and eating and drinking in combination with no wheel meant I couldn't very much do anything.
Day 2: I started spinning up a beautiful plait of "Floop" by a local indie dyer, friend and fellow knit nighter Helen, who sells currently solely to The Yarn Cake. The yarn is 100% falkland, meaning this was my first non merino experience! I made up for day 1 and spun about 40g (48g on each bobbin aimed for)


Day 3: I spun 25g, well over my 15g target!


Day 4: I finished spinning the rest of fibre (97g total) and plied it, well I got 3/4 done before my bleeding brake band snapped


Day 5: Finished plying. Lazy day, really should have done more!
But I took a reet pretty pic to make up for it!


Day 6: I skeined it up, soaked it, and dried it. Here's a finished pic


Day 6 continued: I then had to decide what I wanted to spin next. I went for some beautiful olive green merino 64's & tussah silk which I bought from http://www.texere-yarns.co.uk.


And spun 15g of that, it spins up sooooo thin :D


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Yey! Final essay handed in!

My university course is coming to a close! Just handed my final essay in and now I just have to pass this final placement! So, as I now have a good month and a bit stretch till that happens I will have a good bit of spare time on my hands when I finish placement for the day. Which means I finally might get some more designing done!

Currently my designing plans are to do a matching hat and glove set for the butterfly and lemniscate socks, and to finally write up the pattern for my rose and trellis hoody which I designed about a year ago.

The hoody featured in the section of "The Knitter" magazine where knit groups sent items in which they had recently worked on, or what they were most proud of. Needless to say as this was the first item I had conjured up I sent it in. I got a lot of good feedback for it through the magazine, and from people who saw me wearing it in university and other fellow knitters.

It's something I have been meaning to do for ages, but always put it off and never fully got round to getting focused enough thinking it would be such a big job. But after helpful tips and gentle shoves from other knit wear designers I have met I think I might be able to tackle it! Here's hoping!!!

Mini Paul and Rache's Mini-moon!!

Hello out there! We thought we would write a little post to show you what we got up to on our honeymoon, well mini-moon (we go on our proper one during the summer holidays. Then again I wonder if big us will take mini us with them, customs might get confused, and our mummy might get a bit upset if they broke us. It has been a while now since our wedding and in fact our mini-moon but our mummy has been a bit busy and neglected to share our fantastic little holiday with you. She tells us the previous post on her is all about her making us, we didn't want to read that because it seems a little weird, and we don't want to think about things like that!

So after our amazing wedding on the 12th April at one of the most beautiful settings, with such brilliant weather and with barely any hic-ups on the day, bar our mummy's wedding favour chocolates going walkies and kind of being ruined, she still gets grumpy about it. Two days later we set of to Bath.

This is the first picture of us, big us put us on the parcel shelf so we could look at the beautiful countryside. Its a good thing we can't get travel sick, doing backwards can make some people feel a bit sick (so we've heard....)

After a long drive, and a detour to big Paul's parents for a lovely brunch a'la Mummy B (because she stole Big Rache's makeup bag, the cheeky mare), we eventually got to where we would spend most of our mini-moon, Haptree Court........... Isn't it grand?! We didn't stay in this building, we got a tree house! And look what was waiting in our tree house! We do like our bubbly!

The following day after enjoying our lovely treehouse (no pictures of that!) we went for another trip and went to Stonehenge! Big Rachael was naughty and nudged us past the sign which says you shouldn't go any further so she could take this picture of us. It was a beautiful place and the weather was perfect aswell. It just a shame you have to pay to see it and you can't even get close to it! But it was worth it ;)

The next day we went for a boat ride on the river Cherwell in Oxford. It was brilliant! We just got to sit back and relax while big Paul did all the hard work. We did offer to help but he wouldn't let us!

Needless to say after this boat ride we were all famished, especially big Paul who was a deft hand at punting, (see even though we were perched on the boat edge we didn't fall in once!), so we went for a spot of afternoon tea! Until we had experienced this we didn't really understand big Paul and big Rache's fascination with these scones with cream and jam. At the wedding we noticed people eating these too, it seemed all a bit odd to us, but we were intrigued! When big Paul and Rachael weren't looking we stole a taste of one of these delightful looking scones. We couldn't help it! Look how close they left us to it! We knew we couldn't ask for a bite, big Paul likes his afternoon tea far to much to ever let us share ;)

After the afternoon tea we went to do a bit of exploring around Oxford. We went to Balliol College, the grounds were very splendid.

Parts of it were so quite that it looks all deserted and makes us look like were in a model town :)

 

We had a great time, all four of us. It was good to get away and relax and wind down after the busy run up to the wedding. If you want to have a further read about what the wedding was link there is a fantastic post in a wedding blog about it here. There's even a picture of us in it! Here's looking forward to the big honeymoon, and the rest of their married life.

Inbetweeny moving stage (aka pain in the ass)

So as from previous posts you will know we are planning to move back down to Yorkshire. Last weekend we did the first stage of the move, of which there will be three. The other half moved back, with all his stuff and we sent much of my stuff back too. Primarily all my books (craft books included, thank fook for Ravelry!) and DVDs along with a few book cases. This means my flat now looks half naked! There's odd bits of furniture gone that don't get used that often.

However, I must say that the lack of stuff in the flat does not really seem to have impacted upon my ability to be untidy :s.

The original plan was for me to just be in here till the end of June and move in with a few friends. However, it then transpired that we had to give our landlords two months notice! What a pain in the ass! Then again I didn't know that it would be possible to move in with the aforesaid friends two months prior to this, therefore it wouldn't have made much difference. It's our own fault, it's there in bold print on the first page of our lease. We ought to have read it earlier! So this now means I'm stuck in the flat on my own for two whole months! Well till the 27th of July, and then friends will only have put up with me for a couple of weeks. Which will no doubt be better for them.

All this on top of final essays, job searching, and general worries about the future! Oh and to top it off, me living on my own.....might end in disaster! I fell out of the bath the other day and nearly knocked myself out! Now that's something to give you a huge shock and make you consider, what would have happened had I broken my leg/knocked myself out/broken my neck! Yeah I know I'm exaggerating but I did get a bit of a fright :(. Needless to say I'm going to have to mind my clumsiness from now on it seems.

FO: Wedding Dolls

Ooooo look at their utter cuteness!

As you will see from What's on my needles: March 2012 these wedding dolls were created for my big brothers wedding! Which took place yesterday :)




This piece took quite a few months to complete, mainly because I kept getting distracted by other pieces! Its been finished for over a week but i wasn't allowed to publish anything about it as they wanted it as a surprise for them and for the other guests. All in all it didn't take that many hours, the pattern just covers the figures and uses a different dress and includes a veil was used as the basis for the piece. Although it is an expensive pattern, it is worth it if you are a beginner crocheter as half of the pattern is instructional pictures explaining different steps and the way the pieces are assembled.






So my little additions include:
Paul
-A rock climbing harness that Paul is wearing,
-Lime climbing shoes
-Blue and red climbing rope (handspun)
-Climbing helmet, smaller than head, but a helmet that would have fit just looked stupid
Rachael
-Exercise books
-Rachael's wedding planning book
-SLR camera
-The colours of the bouquet were the colours of her sisters bridesmaids dresses.
The Base
The base consisted of 11 white rings, one for each year they were together, then the sisters colours in age order, Michelle the next eldest in blue, then Juliette in green and Alison in the dusky pink.

The materials used were various bits and bats of 4ply acrylic but also scraps of stash yarn. I bought a 10" cake drum for the base and cut it down for the base ;).

On another note the wedding was amazing, it was so beautiful and the weather turned out brilliantly for it! Unfortunately 60 of my 94 chocolates got misplaced! And we're left upstairs overnight and do ended up melted, but they all still tasted lovely. Unsurprisingly I wasn't impressed! But what can you do! Silly people moving things!

I'm a chocolate truffle making machiiiiine!!

So my big brothers wedding is on the horizon, under a week to go, this thursday. I agreed back at Christmas to make the wedding favours after Rachael tasted one of my little chocolates I made for friends as little Christmas presents.

It's been a hectic few days, there are 94 guests and I needed to make just under 400 choccies so each guest hand 4 little hand made chocolates. I say hand made, does melting chocolate down and adding cream and alcohol and then just putting it into moulds count?! Well I reckon it kind of does! There not fancy, just there definitely chocolatey and that's all that counts!

This is where I got the original recipe from but I ended up essentially fudging it toward the end. The recipe is for 32 truffles per batch but I only had 24 of each of the 4 types of mould. I also think these moulds hold a smaller volume of chocolate than the balls in the recipe create so I did the following

200g chocolate
50ml cream
50ml alcohol

Which worked out at about half the amount that the recipe suggests. I used twice as much alcohol as I found that 25ml didn't result in much flavour even in a full batch so these chocolates really do pack a punch!

The 4 varieties I made were
Rum, Baileys, Orange and Strawberry.

The Rum (old vatted Demerara), Baileys and Strawberry (Smirnoff vodka and monin strawberry syrup) were all half and half (dark chocolate and milk) and the orange (Cointreau) used dark chocolate. We got moulds from Lakeland, I love the orange and strawberry ones, they give such good detail on the chocs.

I think they look pretty cute in there little packages, we had hoped that they would be able to stack on top pf each other in the cellophane but it was a little narrow and too faffy.

The Next Chapter

The past week has been one of contemplation, decision making and general considerations about whats going to happen in the future. Currently my partner and I live in Glasgow and are coming toward the end of our university courses. We moved up to Glasgow originally because he decided this would be the best uni for him, and we both fell in love with the city. Now as we both come to the end of these courses we had to decide what the plan was, were we going to stay up here or move back down to our families.

Its been a hard decision, I've made so many friends up here and without meeting the people I have I wouldn't have developed this obsession with knitting that I have. Not to mention all the friends I have made through my university course. But we've decided it would be in our best interests, especially jobs wise. Neither us are particularly benefits savy and have the feeling that the flat that we are currently in won't entertain having people on housing benefits, especially seen as they were so accommodating with us being students in the first place (insert sarcasm here).

Besides this way we will have the luxury of being able to job hunt and not have to jump at the very first thing just so we can pay rent etc as we will be moving back in with the parents. His course finishes before mine though so wherever he finds a job I will follow.

I am a little sad about it, but I know its for the best. Besides Glasgow is not that far away and I will definitely be journeying back up to see people and for yarn events and so on. I couldn't live without it ;) But I have to say, I'm very excited to move back down and see people more often especially family and close friends including my little godson. Its too shocking the development in him when I haven't seen him for a few months! Besides there is a big enough yarn scene down in the old textiles capital of West Yorkshire for me to get my teeth into!

WIP: "Stonor" by Belinda Boden

I had an acute uncontrollable case of startitis this week as I finished off the wedding shawl and my shrug for my brothers wedding, for more info see Whats on my Needles: March 2012, although I have yet to post about them as FO's. And even though I haven't finished the little dolls for the cake I just needed to start something else (bad me :( ). However, its involved me using up a cardigans worth of stash so GO ME! 

 
Introducing Stonor by Belinda Boden ;) she is a beautiful long sleeved cardigan with a deep rib at the waist and an incredibly addictive lace pattern. The lace pattern is a really simple 4 row repeat which although the cardigan only uses 4ply, its going to knit up nice and quick I think.                                                              

The other aspect I found really attractive about this cardigan is the way that it just has buttons at the top and due to the deep ribbing it opens up beautifully at the waist but in doing so really emphasises your body shape. Whereas some cardigans that open like this can just leave you looking a little bit pregnant.       
      
The pattern is only available in Fyberspates Scrumptious Collection Vol 1, which offers 20 patterns and retails at £12.50, to be honest I bought the book primarily for this pattern although I have spied a few other projects in there that I will be making, such as "Challow", "Hinksey",  and "Tirrold".                       

The book is lovely, very well set out and all the patterns are presented really well with the inclusion of graphs and some of them are seamless. This cardigan is meant to be knit in separate pieces but I have chosen to knit the back and fronts together up to the arm hole where I will split them and start to work the sections separately, I have included a faux purl seam though to split the sides a little bit visually.                          

Now, the yarn that I'm using isn't the suggested yarn. If I had the money I would definitely have splashed out on some of Fyberspates Scrumptious 4ply, that merino and silk blend is SO SQUISHY! Not the mention the beautiful colours its available in. However, when I'm still on a bit of a yarn diet, and I had just the right about of Cygnet 4ply in my yarn cave I had to behave myself and satisfy myself with this.

I love how its turning out and even though its not going to have quite the same amount of sheen that it would have with the suggested yarn, I love the colour and its going to be lovely and just the right amount of warm. The lace detailing on it will make it cool enough for the summer cardigan its designed to be whereas the wool will make it just right for a Scottish Summer, or its attempt at it at least! I can't wait till its finished!I love the colour and think it will go well with alot of the things I wear :)

Craftsy

So, I've just joined up to the site Craftsy, (heres my little bit in it) mainly to make my patterns available for purchase on there. Its an interesting little site, although I'm aware it could be a danger zone for me. At least with Ravelry I'm stuck (in the best way possible) with just knitting and the occasional bit of crotchet if I so desire it. But Craftsy :o there's sewing and felting and all sorts of crafty-ness on it. I don't need any more hobbies! I serious! There's lots of workshops that you can sign up for aswell which seems very intriguing, although I am not investigating that front just yet as I really don't have the time and do not want to get sucked in.

The pattern data base is a bit slow uploading the patterns which was a little frustrating when used to the streamlined format that Ravelry has. But I'm sure this is only because it is "beta" format and so as it grows I'm sure it will be a much better experience :).

I really am going to have to be careful and not go on the site too much for the next few weeks. At least until after Paul's wedding otherwise I'm going to end up with my schedule going completely to pot.

Squee! Baby Knitting!!!!!

It looks like it's going to be a busy year this year! 3 friends having babies! I have literally just had a phone call to tell me about the third, it has totally brightened up my day! A day which has seen beautiful sunshine in Glasgow, which I'm pretty sure is meant as a form of torture to me as I have an essay (formative, only 1,000 words) to write for tomorrow and so can't go out. PLUS it's spin sunday at my local yarn shop The Yarn Cake. So as a result my spinning wheel is behind the sofa muttering at me because I haven't paid her any attention this month. I've been so focused on wedding knitting and uni, more emphasis on the former as always I must say. And now I have the temptation to trawl through Ravelry again for more Baby knits! Must Restrain Myself!


Obviously I cant link pics through to this for copyright reasons so click on the links and go and have a look at all the pretty projects! I'm planning to try and do unisex ones because I think all 3 Mothers are looking for surprises. Typical ;)

Booties:
I think its a must that all the babies get a set of Saartjes-bootees I have made any of these yet but they will be   such a quick little knit :)
Also these amazingly cute little things! DUCK FEET! How cool are they? I've been wanting to do a set since they came out!
Cardigans:
And look at the absolute cuteness of Ella-funt
And theres one with little Sheeps on too
And this pretty little thing Maile sweater
This GarnStudio pattern is a lovely little unisex one too

There are tonnes of lovely blankets too but I end up getting so bored with them! Although they do end up getting more use out of them.

What's on my needles: March 2012

My big Brother is getting married in April this year and so currently the only things I am working on right now (along with uni work-grump) are things which I need to do for the big day!

"Sea & Shells Stole"  by Val Campion
For Rachael (the Bride).

This shawl is based on "Print o' the Waves" by Eunny Jang. This is the forth time I've knit this beautiful Shawl since Mid 2010. All 4 Brides I have knit a shawl for as soon as they see pictures from the FO's page for it on Ravelry all want that one. Now usually I hate knitting the same thing even twice. But this shawl is simple and stunning and the perfect addition to any wedding dress. Not too complicated, it doesn't take too much attention away from the dress! Here is a pic of the most recent, I'm working this newest one in that same yarn.
Craft: Knitting
Yarn: Natural Dye Studio "Precious Lace"
Colour: Silver
Fibre: 100% pure silk *swoon*
Needle: 3.5mm















The next bit of cuteness is a Saplanets Original wedding couple "Jake & Fiona" they're to go on the table with the cake.

The plan is to make them a bit more like Paul (the big brother) and Rachael. I've crocheted a tiiiiny little climbing harness, the same colour as his, and I'm planning to do a climbing rope too. I have a camera which I'm going to fix to Rachael and she's going to have bright yellow hair. If I have enough yarn let from her shawl I'm aiming to do a mini shawl for her figurine.
Craft: Crochet
Yarn: Various bits and bobs of scrap 4ply
Hook: 2mm





"Aphrodite Shrug" By Sarah Hatton, in Vintage Inspired Projects. This is to go with my dress, no not a bridesmaid dress :( (she has 3 sisters, there would have been to many) the dress was a bargain! £23 down from £80! The shrug has a very interesting construction and I love how it's turning out.Not the mention the yarn is AMAZING
Craft: Knitting
Yarn: DROPS Lace
Fibre: 70% Alpaca 30% Mulberry silk
Colour: (not sure on shade number) Rust
Needle: 3.5mm






31st March (Update)

I have finished all the projects!! Yey!! I'll post picutres in a new post after the wedding when all the items can be seen in all their glory! I'm very impressed with the dolls, in the beginning I wasn't too sure about them and thought they didn't look brilliant, but once they had been personalised and put on a cake base with the other little bits and pieces I crocheted to join them, I think it looks really cute! Even if I do say so myself! 

I feel like a big girl now!

I has taken a year, but march is my designer birthday month! I don't know what date I published Aislinn, but Ravelry notes it as March 2011. And today I got my very first invoice from Ravelry because I have sold over $20 through the site in the past month. This makes me very happy. Plus it means I now actually contributed to the site, although it was only 70p, it's still something. Hopefully I'll carry on selling enough patterns to contribute something each month to Rav.

Also I only just learnt today about PayPals micropayment plan, where businesses which tend to only deal in small transaction (under £5) get charged a smaller fee per transaction! So whereas before for a £3.50 pattern I would only receive £3.16 now the fee should only be 5%&5p I will get £3.27 . All those pennies definitely add up! Wish I had known about this earlier, but what can you do!

The story behind Lemniscate Socks

It seems that in the world of sock knitters there are the two camps of toe up and cuff down knitters. I wonder if I am one of the few who seems to visit one of them dependant what mood I'm in, rather than only ever doing the one version because most of the knitters I have met seem to be firmly in one camp or the other. In my trawls through Ravelry when I have been looking for a sock to do most patterns I have seen are written for only one version, therefore dependant on what mood I'm in I'll just glance at it and then move onto the next one.

I figured that even experienced sock knitters even though they may be easily able to re work the sock to their preferred method are still less likely to pop it in their queue or buy it if its not done in their preferred method, so I decided to develop a pattern which worked well viewed from either way, and wrote the pattern cuff down and toe up! Hurrah!

When I was first developing the pattern on the charting software I recently bought (intwined) at one point I had 6 charts! I hate patterns that have too much information and too many charts to follow and after some serious reworking I ended up creating a chart which incorporated both sizes (Women's medium and large) which both versions, cuff down and toe up, could follow. I have to say I did a little dance when I managed to create it!

Then there was the name. At first when the chart was finished the cable patterns looked like round hay bales and shafts of wheat and so it was going to be called "Hay Bales". But once I began to knit the sock myself I realised the cables looked like the infinity symbol. After a quick google search I found that another name for the symbol was lemniscate and I just thought it was perfect!

Here is a link to one of my testers "Eternal Arts and Crafts" blog posts about testing the sock and one about the finished product.

A different way to M1L and M1R

As you will see from my 'about me section' I'm not a typical knitter. Being predominantly self taught and knowing I was left handed lead me to knit in a very different way to most, even to many left handed knitters.

However recently, I realised I had also been doing my M1R & L's totally different to the "proper way". Instead of lifting the bar between the two stitches, I have always lifted the leg of the stitch below.

To explain this is a righty way, to do a right leaning increase ( / ) I would lift the leg of the stitch on the row below from the stitch I was about to knit, and knit that as normal. For a left leaning increase ( \ )I would lift the leg of the stitch from the row *below* that which I had just knit.

I aim to take pictures to demonstrate this in the near future once uni demands have diminished.

Even though I have now realised this isn't the proper way. I'm going to carry on doing it! I find it gives such a nice and clean effect!