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A bit of a divergence from my usual knitting topic but I've been drawing a bit recently. I'm a sucker for a nice notebook. I love the Leuchtturm 1917  notebooks. I have an A5 one for my everyday notebook/bullet journal but I recently bought one of the smaller pocket ones. I'm planning on using it to write all my knitting notes in and put some sketches in. The other thing that I've bought recently is the most amazing brush pens. The Kuretake Zip Clean Color Real brush pens . I bought mine from Cult Pens , who have always been easy to deal with. The pens are Japanese and from a lot of shops come directly from Japan. I just bought a selection of pens but I've put another order in for more, as I love them so much. The pens have an actual brush tip to them. You can get a really fine line or thick one - depending on the pressure you use. They blend with one another. The really good thing is they are water soluble, so you can get some really nice effects with very little e

We had a lovely weekend in London and with a few pennies in my pocket, I made a visit to Loop . I came away with yarn mainly for knitting socks. There's some Madelinetosh Sock in Neon Peach, Blue Moon Socks that Rock in Firecracker, a couple of balls of Lang Jawoll Sock yarn for some stranded socks and 2 hanks of Quince and Co Finch in Apricot. They kindly wound one of the Finch for me in the shop, so I could get started while I was in London.  I started a Flax Light by Tin Can Knits . It's a super easy pattern and I whizzed through it. Ravelry project page . I didn't do any modifications as such but I used the Estonian Cast-On at the neck - my tutorial for it is here .  I used TechKnitter's Fake Tubular Cast-Off for the cuffs and the bottom edge. It's a really easy cast-off and gives an interesting finish.  1 x 1 ribbing is not my favourite type of knitting, I really dislike the open knit stitch and I just feel like it doesn't look good. I worked the neck

I did get a few nice knitting bits for Christmas, mainly books this year. I'm really loving all of these. From left to right - Botanical Knits 2 by Alana Dakos, New Lace Knitting by Romi Hill, Sock Architecture by Lara Neal and Knitsonik Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook by Felicity Ford. The first two are pattern books and there are some really beautiful ones included. Knitsonik is a self published book that is just gorgeous and really interesting. I've really enjoyed reading this one. The Sock Architecture book is very good and I think my favourite one, since it's the one I've used the most so far. I've started a toe up Dydas with the leftover WYS yarn from my Holly socks. A lot of the patterns have toe up and toe down versions. There are options for different toe lengths and whether you want gussets or not. There's a lot of info and you could easily use the patterns as bases for putting your own patterns onto. Over New Year, I started a stash busting shawl. He

Hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas and New Year. I enjoyed mine though glad to be back to some semblance of normality. I’ve got a few projects to share that I gave as Christmas presents. Actually, the first one wasn't a present but I didn’t get around to blogging about it. This one was for me. I started on a weekend away as I thought it would be one of those really easy travelling projects. It was a very simple pattern. I worked it in one colour but I’ve seen some nice multi-coloured versions about. The yarn is Posh Yarn Martha Sock and the pattern is Dotted Rays by Stephen West . There’s something about it that bugs me a bit but you’ll have to spot it for yourself. Here’s my Ravelry Project Page . This little one was a Christmas present for my new godson. I’ve made this one before for another friend and it went down well. I did it in about a week before I had to give them the presents so was a bit rushed. The pattern is a Sirdar one and the yarn is Rico Baby Class