Ducks, Socks & Reindeers

Ducks....

Socks...

And one very cute reindeer!

Perhaps, I should say a little more than that. The ducks are from Mary Jane Mucklestone's 150 Scandinavian Knitting Designs and I'm designing a sock around it. I did Mary Jane's workshop recently and was inspired to try some patterns out.There will be some gansey-like texture in there and at least two rows of ducks. It's been frogged a bit because I keep changing my mind. There's a good chance when you see it next time, they'll look different again.

The socks are made with Regia Design Line by Erika Knight and made for giant feet.  They're plain vanilla socks that I carry around with me, so they don't get as much knitting time in one go. One Christmas present down....so many more to go.

And the reindeer is the start of a King Cole Christmas jumper. When he's finished, he'll have a lovely red pompom for his nose. I need to make two though. The one in the picture is for big brother but I need to make a smaller one for his new sister. 

A shocking amount!

The lovely Nicsknots is doing a great competition called "How much do you have in your project bag?". I thought it was a fab idea for a blog post. Embarrassingly, I think my answer is "A shocking amount!". I don't think I've ever gotten everything out at once and I was stunned on just how much I had.

Recently, I've been using a small Cath Kidston Tote that was a Christmas present. I like it because it has a firm base and sits where it's put. This is the bag I grab when I'm going out, whether it be to Knit and Natter, visiting family, road trip etc.

Cath Kidston project bag

Can you believe all this was in that small bag?

• There's my Nicsknots Miya bag (which contains a secret project, so I won't show you) and my Nicsknots notions case, which I blogged about here.
• Micro scales for weighing yarn.
• Some embroidery threads and snips.
• A teaspoon! No idea why.
• Bag of yarn ends. I save these for a friend who knots them together and makes bags from them.
• Two needle cases. One is all my Knit Pro circulars and the other is a full set of Chiagoo needles.
• There's my iPad mini, which has all my knitting patterns on it.

• My next two projects, just in case. Is it just me that lives in fear of finishing my current project and having no knitting with me?

One is a pair of socks for a Christmas present with the pattern for little ducks from Mary Jane Mucklestone's 150 Scandinavian Knitting Designs. I might add a bit of texture too. With a set of Nova Cubics DPNs to try out.

• The other is handspun yarn and some Easyknits (that I got from A Good Yarn's yarn swap and I believe it was Nicsknots that brought it) for a pair of Narwhal mittens by Ysolda

• My African Flowers Drawstring bag which contains most of my stitch markers

Also the contents of the notions case was a shocking amout!

• Calculator
• Quilter's Guild tape measure
• Needle case
• Scissors
• Plasters. Just so nothing stops me from knitting!
• Assorted crochet hooks
• Spare DPN
• Grid ruler (for swatches)
• Purple uniball pen
• Handmade wooden celtic pen (made by Mr)
• Cotton Thread
• Waste Yarn
• Cable needle
• Handmade passementerie buttons that I made ages ago and for some reason been carrying around with me
• Knit pro cable key
• Fripperies and Bibelots stitch markers from Fibre East
• Needle puller from Cotton Patch

See what I mean, a shocking amount!

Scandinavian Knitting

Last week, I ventured off to Baa Ram Ewe in Harrogate for a Scandinavian Knitting workshop with Mary Jane Mucklestone. After a scrummy lunch at Wagamama. I wandered down to the shop. I've been to the one at Leeds plenty of times but not yet had a chance to go to the Harrogate shop.

The shop was gorgeous. It was very light and a riot of colour. Details for the shops here. The workshop was held downstairs in the basement and it really was fantastic. Mary Jane was lovely and very knowledgeable. She'd brought all the samples from the book, 150 Scandinavian Knitting Designs and it was really interesting to see and feel what they were like.

The main parts of the workshop were learning No Purl Garter Stitch in the round and Norwegian Purl. I normally work stranded knitting with a yarn in each hand, but under Mary Jane's guidance had a go at trying both yarns in my left hand. I think it'll take some practice to get it right but it is always good to have another way of knitting in your skill set. There was lots of other information about the history, steeks, weaving etc. If you ever get a chance to do one of her workshops, I definitely recommend it - she knows her stuff!

I even got my book signed and a complementary badge!

I have plans to make a Scandinavian inspired hot water bottle cover using several of the designs from Mary Jane's book.

This is the before picture...

Yorkshire

I've been a bit quiet for the last couple of weeks because I've been on holiday in Yorkshire. We were really lucky with the weather and had a lovely time. Here is the view from our cabin - 

I've never seen so many varieties of mushroom in one place

We visited Whitby, York and Rievaulx Abbey. The abbey was amazing but I didn't take my camera that day, so sorry no pictures. I did take it when we went to Whitby and the abbey there though.

Whitby Abbey

Whitby Abbey

Here's a couple of my favourites photos - 

Morning Dew

Whitby Beach

I took lots and lots of photos so Mr occupied himself balancing stones on the beach. He'd seen Adrian Gray on BBC's Coast programme doing this and it was absolutely incredible. Pop over and look because they really are incredible. Seemed to defy gravity, so he had a go in miniature.

#yarndale

Yarndale....wow! I had a fantastic day. A bus load of us from A Good Yarn went on Sunday and it was amazing. First of all, I booked to do a workshop with Amy Singer, aka the editor of Knitty. The workshop was Making the Next Monkey and for anyone who is a designer or a fledgling like me, then it is fantastic. I learnt lots and lots, plus Amy was wonderful. My head was buzzing with ideas all the way home.

Even though, most of my time there was taken up by the workshop, I did managed a bit of time to supplement my stash. I bought Ply magazine, which had some gorgeous patterns in. Haven't got around to reading it yet, but looking forward to it.

There must be tons of photos of the bunting at Yarndale going around, but there were hundreds of them and the effect en masse was just incredible. Far more incredible in real life, compared to the photos.

Mostly, I bought Garnstudio Drops, 4 balls of Alpaca (in 2 shades of green and 2 balls of cream) and 2 balls of Delight. The top skein is sock yarn from The Knitting Goddess, and I loved the name - "Where There's Muck There's Brass". Mr's favourite colour combination is black/dark grey with burnt orange, so they should be perfect for a pair of socks for him. The grey yarn was the bargain of the day, it was £3 from Artisan Yarns; it was in a bargain bin with no label but it's definitely laceweight and most likely BFL.

I did make one non knitting purchase, which was a Yarndale Sheep kit from Hooked By Design. There was another kit that was stunning, this Reindeer Stocking but I just got one to see how I fair with it, as I've never done any latch hook rugs before. One of the lovely ladies from the knitting group at A Good Yarn, had done the Yarndale Sheep and made it into a bag, which looked so amazing, that it seems to have inspired several of us from A Good Yarn to give it a go ourselves. Here's my progress so far.

My first attempt, so perhaps not quite right but I'm enjoying it. Not sure what I'm going to do with the finished rug. Mr suggested turning it into a beanbag footstool. The rest would be made of leather (which we have plenty of). I like the idea but wonder about the logistics of putting it all together.

Wish Upon a Knit

Last week we had great fun at A Good Yarn, Cleethorpes. It was the Wish Upon a Knit events all week. It was to raise money for When You Wish Upon a Star. 

It was very busy with lots of knitting, laughter and cakes. The last being the most important.....we ate a lot of cake. All the cakes were homemade by several of our lovely knitters and were very, very good. Obviously, I found the cakes to be the standout feature of the week! Maybe, I should tell you about the rest and forget about the exceedingly good cakes. Hold on - how about a piccie of ..... cake.

Every session had different cake too and of course, we had to test it all.

Anyway....

Everyone who took part received a kit with materials for four different jewellery projects.

They involved lots of different skills and hopefully, some new ones for people to have a go at.

The room looked very pretty, with fresh flowers, white tablecloths and vintage china.

The Saturday session was that busy that we had to expand into the shop.

Hopefully, everyone had a fabulous time. We certainly did. A big thank you to everyone who took part.

Oak

I normally share something to do with what I've been doing, but for a change I'm going to show you some of Mr's work. His current crafty obsession (and has been for awhile now) is woodturning with the odd foray into carpentry.

His latest piece is just stunning. He found a gorgeous plank of naturally edged oak. He has routed and shaped it into two racks and turned some identical oak pegs to make two amazing coat racks. With some polish and elbow grease, we now have two very useful coat racks. One has 4 pegs and the other 5. The 5 peg rack has the pegs put in at an angle for coats and the other we'll use for hats and scarves.

Incidentally, I've found it makes a nice prop for photos.

With my well worn colour affection.

Incidental lepidoptery

At a quick glance, it's looks like I'm practising lepidoptery, but I'm not pinning out butterflies but lots of swatches. 

I've had that many, that I've had to do them in batches and each time I've started to run out of blocking pins and have been relegated to using dressmaker's pins.

I still have more to go. Wish me luck....

Puerperium and spots

I've done plenty of knitting lately but for one reason or another they are secret projects, so I've not been able to share them.

I have completed one little project which is a Puerperium Cardigan by Kelly Brooker. I bought some gorgeous Adriafil Duo Plus yarn in the "End of Season Sale" at A Good Yarn - plus lots of other yarn too, which I'm not going to talk about because I think I have a stash addiction and I'm going to ignore the problem and hope no-one will notice.

The yarn in question is absolutely gorgeous, stunningly soft and in beautiful muted colours. So even though there are lots of other projects I should be doing, I had to make a little Puerperium ( which is a welcome to the world gift for a friend's grandchild due in a few weeks ).

I decided on making all the buttons different and trying to match the colours in the yarn, not a perfect match but I quite like the effect.

The other project that I can share is currently languishing on my needles, normally I'm pretty good at starting and finishing but I got a little frustrated. The pattern is Pop Spots and is a relatively simple project (most of it is either stocking stitch or garter stitch).

I originally used the orange hand dyed yarn below for the lace edge, originally thinking it would work well with the brighter spots. I'd done half of the lace edge before eventually deciding it was far too zingy to work with the other colours. 

So I went and bought another ball of the lace that I'd used for the body. The body is done in a strand of Rialto Lace and a strand of Kidsilk Haze. So for the edge I'm using 2 strands of the Rialto Lace and it's working so far but it just seems to be sitting on my needles at the moment. As you can see I've hardly done any at all, maybe putting it on here will push me into finishing it

Pile o' knits

I've been knitting lots recently and have this big pile o' knits. There's lots of different bits in that pile; baby cardigan, baby vest, fingerless mitts, socks, bandana, shawl and a moebius cowl.

A pair of vanilla socks (my pattern)...

And this is what is currently on my needles...

It's a baby vest. It's a sort of a made up pattern, with the inspiration being from a photo of something similar. I do like a bit of stranded knitting! The yarn is Rowan Milk Cotton and is just lovely to knit with but unfortunately has been discontinued by Rowan. The only thing is now I love this so much I want a grown up one for me.