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I know it's been a while. I thought I'd use my blog again but in a different way to before. It definitely won't be a weekly blog [as it once was] but I thought I could share some tutorials and tell you about any pattern releases. Talking of pattern releases... I've been working on a collaboration with Giddy Aunt Yarns and since it's Yarndale this weekend, it's time for a pattern release. This is the beautiful yarn that the lovely gals at Giddy Aunt Yarns gave me. The darker skein is a Mohair Lace in "Pieces of Eight" and the Merino Singles is "Drift". There will be kits of various colours available from this weekend over at Giddy Aunt Yarns , plus they do pre-orders, so you could create your own colour combinations from their catalogue and they'll dye it up for you. Those two skeins turned into Barque; which is name for the old sailing ship of the same name. The two colourways I used had maritime-connected names - Drift and Pieces of Eig...

Been a little silent for awhile, mainly because I've been enjoying sharing through Instagram more plus working at A Good Yarn keeps me pretty busy. Please do come say hi on Instagram. A Good Yarn is moving at the end of this month and the grand re-opening is going to be on Saturday September 2. You're all invited. I've done all the artwork for the logos and the invites and love how they've turned out. I've just released a new pattern for sale on Ravelry. Lapwing  - Buy Now It’s a very versatile shawl pattern, it can be made with any weight yarn and you just keep knitting until it’s the size you want. It's quite a simple design - perfect for TV knitting. There’s details in the pattern for optional beading too. Once you get passed the initial point then it's essentially just a 2 row pattern except for adding in the picots. The picots make blocking on wires super easy as all you need to do is run the wires through them all and you're done. The multi-colou...

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...

This is a bit slow in the writing but last week, we had a Knitmas event at A Good Yarn . Kate and Ruth from Practical Publishing came for the evening to give a talk. There was games, food and fun. Kate Heppell is the editor of Knit Now magazine and her talk was on the process of making a design from inception to publication in the magazine. It was very interesting and they brought lots of lovely samples to show us. We had a prize draw and a couple of competitions – how many stitches can you cast on in a minute and how many rows can you knit blindfolded in two. Lots of hilarity ensued as you can imagine. We’d prepared lots of knitting kits and many of them had a Christmas theme. There’s an advent calendar in the shop for customers this month. The first customer that spends the first £10 of the day gets to open the calendar. I had a peek – the prizes are good. The window display this year is pretty cool. Everyone contributed green strips and Carolyn and Kate have produced the ...