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My Narwhal mittens  are finished. The pattern is Narwhal Mittens  by Ysolda . The yarn for the outer mitten is my own handspun. Briefly, blogged here The inner yarn is some leftover Easyknits that seem to match well with the teal colour. I made some plastic templates to block the mitten around because I didn't want to block the inner and the outer separately. I wanted them to fit snuggly inside on another. Though the template was a bit slapdash, it did seem to work surprisingly well. I especially like the little finishing touches on the design. The little fish on the ends of the thumbs is lovely. I love the mittens. The yarn has worked nicely in colourwork and they are very warm. Just perfect for this lovely spring weather we're having!! Would have been a lot better if I'd finished them a few months ago. The cherry blossom is out.... and the bees have been getting busy!

Back to the knitting... The photo of this has sat on my computer for awhile, been a bit too busy to blog recently.  The pattern is Zuzu's Petals by Carina Spencer , which I made with some of my handspun, blogged originally here . Handspun Zuzu project page . The yarn is faux cashmere, 18 w.p.i, 268m/100g. So from fibre... to yarn... To Zuzu's Petals. It's a lovely idea, a small shawlette shape but worked as a cowl so it's not going to fall off. Another plus, is it doesn't take a lot of yarn. I have a few projects on the go at the moment. I've been wanting some very warm mittens for awhile now. I thought some Fair Isle ones with a lining would do the job. Another handspun yarn project, I blogged about the yarn on the same post as the faux cashmere. The pattern is Narwhal Mittens by Ysolda Teague . Handspun Narwhals project page . I've completed one full mitten and the outer mitten for the other. They are sitting unknitted at the moment because other project

I can finally reveal the knitted projects that were made for Christmas gifts. The first is a Neat Ripple Cushion made for my Mum. It's the Neat Ripple Pattern  by Lucy of Attic24. I made an 18" cushion.  The yarn is Rico Design Essentials Cotton DK  and there is such a lovely array of colours to choice from. It lends itself well to crochet and I used it in my African Flower Bucket Bag I crocheted one piece 18" by about 42" then folded over and crocheted together on the edges and a few tiny buttons to close it. Also, Mum got a pair of fingerless mitts that are my own design. I used Rowan Pima Cotton DK , which is beautiful yarn and made a lovely soft fabric but it was a little tricky to work with in fair isle. It has lots of different elements, broken ribbing, vikkel braids, fair isle, corrugated ribbing and an I-cord bind off.

Finally finished my Rams and Yowes blanket.  It's such a beautiful design  I really enjoyed the centre fair isle section. Having a look at the beautiful blankets others have done, there seemed to be a bit of an issue with wavy borders which I definitely wanted to avoid. So… When I cut the steek, I steam blocked a section of the blanket to get my gauge (I didn’t bother doing a swatch to begin with). My gauge was 28 sts by 32 rows in 4”. I also made a small garter stitch swatch which was 26 sts in 4”. With that sort of gauge difference, then a 1 to 1 pick up would definitely give a wavy edge. On the cast on and cast off edges, I picked up at a rate of 13 in 14 sts and on the steeked edges 13 in 16 sts (pu 4, skip 1, pu5, skip 1, pu4). So in the end I picked up 684 sts instead of 780; which is a huge difference. I don’t have wavy edges, though. Hopefully you can see in the before blocking picture the borders look relatively flat. Before blocking After blocking I did a w&t for the

I've spent a few days recently on my spinning wheel. Here are my latest yarn-like creations: Remember this? It was some of the Wensleydale/Silk roving I dyed recently - blogged here It's changed into a 2 ply, 15 w.p.i., 157m/100g - sport weight. I finished the Faux Cashmere I mentioned last week. It's 18 w.p.i., 268m/100g. I've finished the mate to the Teal Shetland - so it's all ready for some fair isle mittens. It's a very pale green, BFL, 161m, 17 w.p.i. Not identical to it's mate but close enough for the mittens. I've also made a couple of mini skeins. The sparkle will hopefully become a Christmas tree decoration;  and the other two are the start of a larger lot of yarns for another fair isle project. The original idea was for some Bandelier socks, so the colours I have are similar but think I might use the same pattern and improvise something else. Don't think I really want make a pair of socks I have to handwash at the moment!

Alas, it's been awhile between blogging yet again. Apologies. The latest all consuming project has been a commissioned Christmas Jumper for a friend. She's always wanted a rather naff sweater along the same lines as what Bridget Jones wore in the film. She's very tall and thin so it had to be a very long jumper too. After a bit of searching I couldn't find any ready made patterns that filled the brief so it had to be a design from scratch - which was daunting but also a lot of fun. It had to be long and include a reindeer and snowflakes and be as tacky as possible - hopefully the finished product does all that. I took her to my local yarn shop and we she bought the shop out with lots of bright and sparkly wool - I take no responsibility whatsover on the rather interesting colour choices! There's a cheeky bit of holly on the back as well as fair isle cuffs. There's a few more details on my project page on Ravelry.