What I have been knitting

Hello All!! Greetings from the land of dribble and cbeebies. There has been a little knitting thrown in for good measure (or should I say my sanity!!) As you can imagine, in my blog break, I knit a lot of things that I haven't shared with you all. So I thought you would like to see some of my projects and some knitting notes too if you fancy having a go yourselves.

I have been making a few toys recently. Having a little girl now makes me want to knit dolls for her, and lots of lovely things, so that is pretty much what I have been up to, and I will be showing more of my projects over the next few days. I am going to start with my Cinderella Topsy-Turvy Doll, pattern by Jean Greenhowe. As soon as I saw this pattern, and some of the projects others had knit, I knew that I wanted to knit it, and I really didn't have any excuse when I found out about Little Bear

So here is Cinderella, in her glory with her fan and pretty dress. I used James C Brett Twinkle for the white, as I wanted it to have more of a sparkle for her princess dress. I also used a sparkly pink (whose name escapes me, I'll check and get back to you) Robin DK in blue, and Stylecraft Life for the green on the flowers and the yellow for the hair. Here is Cinders, who appears when you lift the skirt of Cinderella over her head.

This was made with oddments of mostly Stylecraft Life DK and Robin DK, things that I have floating around. I am determined to stash bust, and use colours that might not be exactly right, but I have to save buying a full ball for just a few rows.

I love this pattern, always have, and now I love the finished article too. I now have to wait until she is big enough to play with it rather than eat it!!

Hat of the Month- October

When you have a baby, it seems necessary to dress them in ridiculous outfits and hats because they are still small enough to allow you without moaning. My little pumpkin is no different. Knitters and crocheters seem to have the knack too of creating fabulous things you can't get on the high street. My friend has a brilliant boob hat for her breastfed daughter. I have a lovely berry hat knitted by a Rav friend. But it is October, month of autumn and of course Halloween. So it seemed right, if not necessary to create a pumpkin.

So here it is, with customary swirly leaf on top. It is such a cute little hat, and very easy to knit. It comes from the pattern, Pumpkin Hat by Jill Albert Allen, and I have knit it flat rather than the round it suggests, and I also used a rib pattern to make mine a bit more pumpkin-y (oh I do love to create a word- so glad I am back!!) The rib has also helped it to fit better, as my pumpkin seems to have a larger head than anticipated. Luckily I can get away with her wearing it for october because I am not sure it will fit for Halloween. Although she does look cute in it.

I used a basic acrylic for this pattern, I believe it was Robin DK, but the ball band is probably residing in the same place as my memory- if anyone finds it let me know. I tend to use the cheap acrylic for these patterns (shoot me!) simply because she will not wear it forever, I can shove it in the wash when it gets dribble, biscuit or any other baby stains on it, and I can afford it. She has so many lovely knits thanks to the odd ball bin at John Lewis, but most of the time it is baby acrylics and there is nothing wrong with that. I enjoyed knitting this one, the pattern was so simple and easy, and she has worn it pretty much every day since I finished it...except for the time I left it in the library!!!

She loves it, and keeps it on pretty much all the time, although she wouldn't want you all to think that...

Finally!! Im back!!

Hello all my lovely readers!! Man has it been a long time since I last blogged. And the reason for this epic absence...

 

 This little monkey is my daughter, born in March this year, and when I was pregnant and through the early part of her life, blogging took second place to firstly sleeping and then swiftly followed by not sleeping!!! I had some Post Natal Depression too which I am undergoing treatment for and I now feel almost back to normal, and that includes going back to my other great love, Knitting. And I even have a model now for all my fab baby knits. So everyone is a winner!!!
My little bear is now nearly 8 months old (erm where did that time go? she will be at University next week!!) and crawling and causing all sorts of trouble, and I am really enjoying knitting for her. My next post will be about her hat of the month so keep your pointers poised.
Thankyou all for continuing to use my patterns and read my blog. I hope there will be many more to come, and I am glad to be back!!

Techniques: What's in my Knitting Bag?

Happy Saturday everyone!! Hope you are all well and are having a lovely weekend no matter what you are doing. It is a lovely day today, and I have been working at the Dickens Festival in Rochester where it was a lovely day but very busy, so I am completely hibernating tonight

Today's post is about what is in my knitting bag. There are plenty of posts out there on a range of bloggers websites regardless of what they blog about, on what is in my handbag. Now If I went through my handbag we would be here all week- especially since I have just bought the most wonderful handbag and I do like to carry a lot of stuff with me. So instead of boring you with the content of my Mary Poppins Handbag, I am going to share what is in my knitting kit and stuff I couldn't be without for my knitting.

So this little pencil case goes everywhere with me. It came free with Knit Today when I had a subscription, and to begin with it smelt horrendous and I thought it was cheap. However, I used it to store my stitch markers in anyway as I wasn't really using them, and now it has become brilliant. It doesn't smell at all, in fact it smells a bit like my perfume now, and I've slowly and surely added all my essentials so I can just carry them all around easy.

Here is everything this little case contains. It has more markers, but you get the idea. It squishes a lot, and everything just about fits in, if I get it in the right order and hope!! So here we go. All my knitting essentials.

This is my selection of needles. Sewing needles this time. Now the Pony ones in the middle are the ones I use all the time, and I mean ALL the time. I use them for sewing up my work and in this pack you get 2 needles, one for the thinner yarns and one for the bulky ones. They cost about 90p and are so very perfect. I completely could never be without them. The ones on the right, with the orange pack are 1950s needles I inherited with all my buttons and they are very very thin for small buttons and beads. The other side are my button needles. They are smaller than my sewing up needles but bigger than the beading ones.

These are my row counters. I have two, one small one designed for the end of a needle, and the other one was a freebie with Simply Knitting. I seriously could not be without my big flower counter. I love it. The smaller one I use now if I have to count more than one thing at once. You can also see my pen, that I always have on me, in my handbag, and I like to note down changes to a pattern or if its my pattern then what is going on.

Pair of scissors- obviously. And that sad looking little bumblebee without its googly eye and the print kinda faded, well he is my tape measure!! Many patterns will say something like stocking stitch for 9 inches, or garter stitch for 3cm. So a tape measure is pretty essential. This one came free with Simply Knitting too.

So the big safety pin things? They are stitch holders. If I am working on a cardigan or in fact anything where I will be coming back to stitches later to work on them I use these. You don't need these because you can always put those stitches onto a piece of spare yarn, but I have these and I prefer to use them, I find them easier. At the bottom of this picture are a selection of my stitch markers- little padlock style (which I probably use the most), little hoops, and keyring style. All of these were free with magazines too.

So there you go. That is what I have in my knitting bag, and all the notions I couldn't do without. So tell me, what's in your knitting bag?

Magazine of the Week: Woman's Weekly

Hi Everyone!! Happy Friday!! I hope you are all well!!

Today's book/magazine of the week is Woman's Weekly. After People's Friend last week, I wanted to show another of the great weekly magazines that come with knitting patterns. Woman's Weekly is a great example of this. Each week, there is normally a pattern for knitting or crochet, and they have been known to get great licensing deals so there are lots of popular childrens characters in them. To name just a few from recent magazines- Hello Kitty, Fireman Sam, Rory, Peppa Pig. This is also normally the only time you can get these patterns too because many of them are only available for a short amount of time, so you can definitely find most of these on ebay!!!

As well as each magazine having a pattern in, every three months or so Woman's weekly publishes a knitting and crochet special. These have so many patterns in, from many popular designers such as Alan Dart and Debbie Bliss. I actually found these particular magazines in our local Cancer Research shop at the same time as it is published and at over half the price, so it is always good to check out your local charity shops for old magazines and knitting pattern books

The mitts from this little baby set were created from a pattern from one of these magazines, and I have always found them to be great magazines and I check out woman's weekly on my trip to the newsagents every week along with People's Friend. Its worth a quick flick, who knows what pattern you might come across?

Have a great day all!!

Baby Hats Off!! POTD

Hey everyone! Happy Thursday, its horrible again and rainy so I think that sunny spell was a bit of a weird spell. Hope we are all doing well out there. Today I am going to do a bit of a POTD because we have been sharing a lot of different patterns in our group on Ravelry and it has been making me grab my needles and cast on.

This little hat was recommended to me because it is so simple, and so easy and has made up the staple of many of my friends project lists. This is Little Boy Blue Ribbed Baby hat, which is actually in my case Little Baby Cream, but is a cute ribbed hat which is great for a new knitter, learning to purl

Here is mine:

It is knit with some of the leftover from my ripple cotton blanket- Stylecraft Special Aran in Cream on 4.5mm needles. This was the last of my non-pink knits so pretty much everything you will see this month will be pink- different shades mind you, but pink.

Have a great day all, I will be spending the rest of my evening here making sure my hair does not resemble Sideshow Bob now it has been cut short again and watching Great British Menu! Oh and finishing off knitting with Sirdar Snowflake- that could be a bigger task than taming the aforementioned hair!!!

Think Pink!!

Hi Everyone!! Happy Bank Holiday Tuesday!! How many times do you get to say that? I'd like to be able to report that a wonderful heat wave has swept the South East but no, that would be wishful thinking. But still, it was nice enough for a flypast, and that's good in my book. I will never get fed up with the Red Arrows. No better way to be patriotic!

Love this picture- I took it at Biggin Hill 2009 and it is me being all arty (when you read arty- read my camera battery was dying, the sun was shining and I was guessing and hoping I got them in the shot)

As most of you know, me and Ravelry are great friends, in fact it might possibly be love. I use it daily for patterns and yarns, and catch up with friends all over the world. As part of Ravelry, you can join groups of like minded people and in certain groups we have challenges. In one of the groups I belong to, Babyalong, we knit and crochet baby clothes, blankets, well anything for little people. This months KAL (Knit-A-Long) is for the Fantasy Naturale Cardigan. So a trip to the wool shop was in order, and I bought this.

And here is my little cardigan- minus buttons- for all of you to see. It is rainy and grey outside hence the rainy and grey photo below. The colour is perfect in the photo above. And this cardy only took up 1.5 of the balls above so I have lots more to play with.

Which is absolutely perfect for the June Challenge in the Trash from Treasures group. We love to recycle and use all sorts to create things with, not just knitting and crocheting. We have challenges we vote on every month and there are two this month. The first is clean and purge, which has come over from May's challenge. We are focusing on organising our lives and our homes and all the areas we work in and getting rid of all the rubbish. The garden makeover worked into this, as well as a lot of my other organising over the last month. Also this month, the June Challenge is Pink. 23rd June is Pink day, and we are making lots of things in pink. So to go along with both of these challenges, I have sorted out my stash, got out all the pink, and this month I am going to work on busting this.

I have actually decided, that should this month go well, I am going to do this every month with a different colour each month to work that stash down, and create cute and useful things.

Have a great day all, and look out for the review of the yarn for the cardigan and the pattern posts soon