Freeform

What a fabulous day! I spent yesterday at A Good Yarn, Cleethorpes; being taught by the wonderful Heike Gittins. It was a Freeform Madness workshop and I spent it alongside my fellow knitters and crocheters, such as Faded Reverie. Here are some photos of the creativity going on. (Apologies for the not so great photos; taken on my mobile).

The bags at the top are Heike's creations and very inspiring indeed and the photos don't do them justice. I love all the lovely little details on it. Lots of buttons and ribbons....

I found it very creative and a fabulous idea to use up all my oddments.

I need a new swimming bag so I'm going to try and build it up quite a bit and make a large bag.

Below is what I have made so far: I got carried away with the crocheting. I love the contrast between the textures of the knitted and crochet fabrics.

African Flowers Bucket Bag

I love the African Flower motif and suddenly just had the desire to make a bag for my knitting. Took a bit of playing around to figure out how to make the shape I wanted.

I wanted a bucket shaped bag. I ended up breaking the shapes down - I made a tube from the hexagons and then a circle for the base. I used half hexagons to give the tube a straight edge. I used Littleberry’s half hexagon pattern - though I restarted the yarn on the right hand side every round.

I used the magic circle technique for the centres and crocheted over the ends of the yarn and connected the hexagons as I went.

I managed to find some fabric in my stash that matched the colours of the cotton and used this for the lining. I made twisted cord from the cotton for the drawstring.

There was a bit of yarn leftover so I made a little drawstring pouch for my stitch markers.

Bag Construction

Make a tube with the hexagons, eight across and 4 high. Make 8 half hexagons for the top and bottoms to make the edge straight. I found it easiest to attach the motifs as I went. This tutorial is good for making the hexagons

Complete a round of sc (UK dc) around the top and bottom of the bag. Now at the top of the bag make the section where the drawstring will be. Work a round of dc (UK tr), turn, and work another round of dc (UK tr). It is important to turn to make a gap for the drawstring. See the photo below. Continue in this manner until this is about 1 inch deep. Fasten off

Using a bit of geometry I worked out how big the base circle wanted to be ( I measured the width of the tube and multiplied it by 2 to find the perimeter - then divide it by pi (3.14) this should  give the diameter of the circle)

Base

For my bag I had to make a base 17.5 cm in diameter.


Using a magic circle or chain 4 and slip stitch to make a ring. 
Round 1:    8hdc (UK htr) in the ring
Round 2:    Ch3 and dc in same stitch, *2dc (UK tr) in each dc, repeat from *
Round 3:    Ch3 and dc in same stitch, 1dc *2dc in next stitch, 1 dc repeat from *
Round 4:   Ch3 and dc in same stitch, 2dc *2dc in next stitch, 2 dc repeat from *
Continue in this manner until you reach the desired size. For me, my final round was Ch3 and dc in same stitch, *2dc in next stitch, 10 dc repeat from *


I changed colours on my base to use up some of the oddments of colour.

Lining

To make the lining, cut a rectangle and a circle the same size as the bag (plus seam allowances). Make these into a bag shape. I attached the base of the lining to the base of the bag so it can't be pulled out when you are taking your knitting out or other goodies!. Fold over the top of the lining and sew down to the top of the inside of the bag. I used monofilament to do this as it doesn't show if your sewing is messy. If not using monofilament make sure you use blind hemstitch so it looks neat.

I made a twisted cord for the drawstring - using two different colours. Cut 2 pieces of yarn twice the length of the final length of the drawstring. Knot them together and put this end over something solid (like a door handle). Keep twisting this until you can't twist it easily much more. Place a weight in the centre of the cord - like your sewing scissors and fold the cord together. The cord should twist together.

Fold over the crocheted edge and sew the edge of this to the inside of the bag. To make life easier I put the drawstring inside before sewing it up so I didn't have to lace it through. I put beads on the end and a toggle on the drawstring. Voila, one bucket bag.

Sock Thief

Knitting is lovely, knitted socks are lovely. What is not lovely is when you have a sock thief in the house...... I tried some unusual punishment but alas it does not seem to work. I think it might be because she can't read!

Woolsack

This last week has been a bit Woolsack orientated for me. A while back, Kate from A Good Yarn asked me to design a few cushions to give people in the shop some ideas on what to make for Woolsack cushions. A lot of the ladies from Knot Just Knitting group have made some lovely cushions and last Wednesday we had a cushion making day at the shop. The local paper turned up and wrote an article about it. In the paper there was an interview with me too but that's not on the web (thankfully).

The wool for the cushions has been donated by A Good Yarn and The Natural Fibre Company. Below is the 2nd cushion I made with some beautiful gold wool from the Natural Fibre Company. We are having a cushion stuffing day at A Good Yarn on Sunday 25th March, so please come along if you have a cushion for Woolsack.

Stash destash

I have a very lovely friend who was having a clear out and she has given me lots of cones of yarn. It was very exciting to go through as she has lovely taste and there is lots of cashmere, silk, wool, cotton and even a bit of angora.

Part of the collection is in the photo, it's all cotton of the same weight but different colours. It's quite thin so I thought knitting with it would probably be a bit too much bother. I don't mind crochet but I'm not enamoured on the fabric created with crocheting flat - however, I do like motif crochet - so after many Ravelry searches and swatches later, I decided upon the African Flower Hexagon. Originally I was thinking cushions, which it probably will be but one motif doesn't seem to make much of a dent in the quantity of cotton I have so it might be many cushions or perhaps a blanket really not sure yet. Think I've got a lot of crocheting to do to use this lot up!

Sequined Madness

Think I'm going slightly mad. I agreed to make a lacy top for my mum-in-law for a ball she's going to. We both thought it was over a month away but it turned out to be next weekend! So we were both thinking that it wouldn't happen but we had a few snow days so 4 knitting days later we have this!

Mum-in-law had very specific ideas on what she would like and unfortunately we couldn't find a pattern that would match and would also work with the wool. So I've ended up designing it too. I used measurements from a pattern that was the correct shape and then worked it out with a different stitch pattern and needle size. There was a bit of wool left over so I crocheted a corsage to go with the outfit.

Buttons!

This arrived in the post.... A mini haul of buttons which I bought from Textile Garden.

The metal stag's heads on the left are for Moorhouse, the dark floral wooden ones are for my Hudson and the others are for a little friend of mine who loves butterflies - so a few cardigans to be made in her future!

Handwoven needle roll

It's something that I've been intending to make for awhile and finally got round to it a few months ago. I'd wanted to make a dpn case because they were stuffed in pencil cases and weren't organised at all.

 I'd made the fabric on my Kromski Harp Rigid Heddle Loom intending it to be a table mat but it was so soft it didn't seem to want to stay still on the table; so I reused it into the cover for my needle case.

I lined it with some silk left over and added in extra lines so it would fit short and long dpns.

The button is a plastic button that I covered in thread - think the technique is called Passementerie. It was something I saw on Create and Craft TV and thought it was really pretty.

Didn't follow a pattern for this - just winged it and wish I'd made it a little shorter. Also, i'm sure there was a way to sew it up differently but ended up putting binding on like with a quilt - though it gives it a nice firm edge.

Wool Notebook

Another lovely gift I was bought by my husband was this beautiful notebook from Kate Bowles, who makes handmade notebooks from recycled material. I absolutely love it and the finish to it is just gorgeous - I especially love the spine.

I'm using mine as my little Knitting Bible. There is square, plain and lined paper in so I can add little charts in too.

Woodturned Christmas

 

For Christmas, I had some very lovely surprises in my stocking for my husband. He's been getting into wood turning and I got lots of knitting related goodies!

Hand turned knitting needles

 The knitting needles are size 8mm needles made from sapele with holly tops. I haven't knitted with them yet; as they seem to be living in the beautiful spalted beech pen pot he made as well. Along with a shawl pin with a celtic knot laminated into the end which I also adore!

Hand turned laminated shawl pin

Along with these other pressies, he also made a wooden dpn case - decorated with wire burning.

Hand turned DPN case