Month: July 2013

Everything Has Gone Square

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As you might expect my life is being dominated by squares at the moment. In my naivety I thought this latest charity collection would be lovely and simple – really! What was I thinking?!

So there’s the making of the squares, that bit is simple. Except I’ve had to take an executive decision and forgo the making part to move onto the blanket stage. This involves the all important selecting of the squares and laying them out into a blanket. (this can take a while)

Then there’s the sewing:

  1.   Sew 4 squares together to make a strip
  2.   Sew 5 strips up to make a blanket
  3.   Sew all ends in
  4.   Crochet the border

 

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Now to be fair to blankets look absolutely beautiful, particularly because they’re made up of multi-coloured squares that you probably wouldn’t put together if you had the choice. Mixing the colours and styles up really adds to the eclectic feel of the blankets and hones in on the popularity of ‘Shabby Chic’ at the moment. Truthfully, you could probably sell the blankets in a vintage store FOR A LOT OF MONEY with the current trend in all things handmade. Don’t worry I won’t.

I won’t…HONESTLY.

The good news is we have 40, yes 40 blankets in various states of completion, which is fantastic and has made all the work worthwhile.  We still have approximately a week left to get as many squares in before we have to send of the blankets, so please keep at it.

In the meantime I’ve just discovered that I’m short of a square to complete the blanket I’ve been sewing up, so I’ve had to crochet a quick one.

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Happy Knitting!

 

Look what My Children Bought Me

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It was my birthday last week and to be honest I don’t handle them particularly well.  I’m not really sure why, I’d just sooner do the whole present thing without the pressure????

My children were on time as far as ordering me a gift (a couple of days before the unmentionable event), however the said gift only arrived today.  For me this is better, it means I have something to look forward to although my husband believes this is unacceptable (?????).

023So today I happily ripped the packaging off my gift to discover a beautiful hank of Malabrigo Sock Yarn in Ravelry Red and a beautiful book called Handmade in the UK with designs from Emily Wessel.

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Usually, I’m pretty up to date on newly published books but I had yet to see this one so it was a complete suprise.  There are 10 designs in the book all with an element of lace in the knitting and if I were to be completely honest I think I’d like to make all but one of them.

I thought you might like a little look at my favourites.

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Rosewater

Rosewater is this beautiful little, double knit hat.  Made in the round, the pattern includes 5 sizes from baby to large adult.

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Windswept Adult
Windswept child
Windswept child

Windswept is a double knit, v neck jumper with a lace panel running down the centre.  Again the pattern includes an incredible range of sizes, this time from baby to 4XL (16 sizes).  I love the use of garter stitch to make the knit look contemporary.  It’s used on the deep cuffs, the bottom bands and runs up in between the middle of the lace panel and splits to form the neck shaping.

 

Estuary
Estuary

Estuary is a gently shaped 4ply shawl/scarf with 2 lace patterns and is very like something I’ve been designing recently.

Vivid
Vivid

The last pattern in the book is Vivid and there’s no denying it’s beauty.  The instructions include yarn amounts for 1 square knitted in either 4ply, dk or aran weight meaning you can use your favourite yarn.  All day I’ve been jumping from this to my final pattern and back.  Obviously, though I shall have to begin with Winding Way as I have the perfect yarn already, don’t I?

Winding Way
Winding Way

Happy knitting!

 

Wow, How Hot is It?

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It seems like ages since I managed to get on here and post up a little snippet of life in the shop.

For the past 2 weeks we’ve been so busy with the blankets that it feels like we’ve done little else.  Given the time restraints for the collection (3rd August) it’s very difficult not to get absorbed with knitting & sewing squares.  I have managed to get a pair of socks knitted and think I could become obsessed.  They’re the first pair I’ve made using the two circular needle method as championed by Cat Bordhi.  If you’re interested in seeing this method check out her video on youtube.com http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&p=cat+bordhi+socks

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If you were on Ardmore Beach this week you could have possibly spotted me trying to get ahead with my Autumn/Winter Samples.

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If that wasn’t enough the Innocent Smoothie/Age Action Campaign is back again, more about that another time.  I’m off to knit or sew, or both if that’s possible.

Happy Knitting!