Going loopy

Well today was Knit & Stitch group at the library.

It was my third visit after joining a few weeks ago. I only made the second half after having to take the dog to the vets but there was still a lovely warm welcome :-)

We are knitting some animals to sell for local charities at the Kintore summer festival. It thought I'd better join in and went armed with my Loopy Sheep pattern by Amanda Berry. It was first time doing loop stitches and basically it drove me loopy! Was that the idea?! I'm sure I'll get the hang of it, but for now I've pulled it out and will start again!

Here's what it's meant to look like:

I'm knitting one in black & white and one white & black. Then maybe a few more depending how the first two go!

I'm using Stylecraft special yarn in black and cream from Yarns With Alice and got the pattern from Love Knitting

Let's hope the next attempt isn't so baaaad (sorry, I had to do that somewhere).

New sock!

Finally I finished knitting this sock in Genua yarn from the Regia Springtime range.

It's a bit brighter than I first imagined but hopefully it will make an acceptable birthday present when the other one is completed. An acceptable belated birthday present that is seeing as the birthday is today, whoops!

I guess I'll find out if it was worth waiting for!

Neck warmer

Here is the first of many neckwarmers I made using Stylecraft pattern 8758 and Stylecraft Swift Knit yarn in Pepper.

This was my first attempt at knitting anything with cabling and it was surprisingly easy to do with this pattern.

This was so popular that I had to knit a few more in different colours for other people. The pattern uses just over a ball and a half of yarn so I was left with a few different coloured leftovers.

Also included in the pattern is a headband, so my increasingly sulky teenage son (it's his age) Aaron, who has just started knitting about a month ago, decided to use some leftover yarn in carnation to knit a headband, only just to the right length to make a neck warmer for our spaniel!

He managed the cabling very well and I think you'll agree that it suits her. She enjoys being the poshest puppy when she goes for a walk wearing it over her collar.

Yarn and pattern from Yarns with Alice

Modelled by Aaron and Domino.

Mitred square

Whoever invented mitred squares is so clever!

I've been looking for a pattern for a while now to make a large bed throw. There's so much to choose from with a variety of styles, textures and chunkness. Some too plain, some too small, some too delicate to be left on my bed for more than five minutes with two cats in the house.

Then I discovered mitred squares! They are amazing when knit together to make any size of blanket in any pattern of squares and colours, bordered or staggered, they're all great. After spending an hour lying awake in bed at 1am this morning trying to work out how to possibly knit them, I turned to google and found a blog post on Yes! Suna Knits!. It explained everything! So I decided to knit one in some old Regia sock yarn this morning as an experiment.

Success! So now I am going to make a giant bed throw out of mitred squares. I'm adding it to the bottom of my ever growing list of things I am going to knit as soon as possible.

I plan to use a self striping Aran yarn all over. The ever increasing pile of left over sock yarn will have to be saved to make a table runner or the like. I'll go and add that to the list too....

New sock yarn!

My new sock yarn has arrived from Yarns with Alice

This is the new Regia Étude range in Saxophone (blue) and Piano (multi).

I got the Saxophone to finally knit myself a pair of socks instead of for someone else but unfortunately there is a certain teenage boy in my house who has taken a shine to it! Maybe next time for me....

A sock I made earlier...

Here's a sock I recently finished making using Regia sock yarn from the Springtime Colour range in Lisboa.

I used bamboo needles which I prefer as they are less slippery and Regia pattern number REG0504 which I got for free from a website years ago. I love this sock pattern as there are several sizes and even though there is no fancy cabling or lace the socks still look great in the self patterning yarn.

This sock, believe it or not, is going to be one of a pair when I get around to knitting the other one. Ideally before Tuesday as its a special sisters birthday! Don't tell! I've also another sock and a half to knit in a different yarn from the same range for another special sister who is also celebrating a birthday on Tuesday! Yes, they are twins. Lucky me. More about the other pair of socks later!

Yarn from Yarns With Alice

Blanket squares

Last night was blanket and beads night!

I knit the first row of 7 squares from the Stylecraft pattern 9035. I attached beads from Debbie Abrahams to the tips and centre of the snowflake motif.

As you can see it is a work in progress. I don't think I've done too badly for my first time attaching beads with a crochet hook and also my first time using the intarsia method! 

When I sew the ends in on the back I will take the opportunity to neaten up any stitches required and I'm sure a good dose of steam will work wonders when it's finished!

I chose to use Stylecraft Life DK yarn in fern and cream from as these colours will go perfectly in a certain persons conservatory. Remember to keep that a secret for now ;-)

At the same time my friend and fellow knitter Mandie reached the heel on the second of the pair of huge kilt socks that she is making. They look amazing in blue with a tweed effect and a thistle motif at the top. Hopefully when she is finished she will do a post with pictures for us to see :-)

Yarn from Yarns With Alice
Beads from Debbie Abrahams

Beads are here!

My lovely beads have arrived from Debbie Abrahams

I am very excited to get these as I haven't used beads in knitting before, having not done much knitting before until I started again recently. I am going to be using the crochet hook method to add them to my knitting and have chosen size 6 to use on DK yarn.

They are going to be added to the snowflake motif on blankets I am knitting using Stylecraft pattern 9035. They are actually top secret birthday present blankets/throws for two special ladies so don't say anything ;-)

I have some birthday socks to finish off first before I get onto the throws so keep hush, hush and there will be more to follow about them soon!

Baby Cocoon

I recently made this cocoon using Stylecraft pattern 8916.

It's a gift for baby Olivia although I didn't know if she was a boy or a girl when I started it several weeks ago and I wanted to make it a bit funky so I used Stylecraft Merry Go Round in Sunshine. I finished it off with teddy bear buttons.

As I haven't a real baby to model it, here is Bearie the bear trying it out:

I made this in the 0-9 months size. It seemed to take forever so I would think twice about making the larger size! It was well worth the effort though, especially with the beautiful cabling on the front.

I did make a Pom Pom to go on the top as the pattern suggests but I wasn't keen so swiftly took it off and gave it to my two cats to have as a toy. It went down very well. Hopefully this cocoon will be as popular with Olivia's Mummy and Daddy!

Pattern from Yarns With Alice

Yarn found on Amazon and buttons found on eBay.