World Wide Knit In Public

June 27, 2014 LeftFootDaisyLeave a comment

2014-06-21 15.32.54 — Lets begin with Sadie and Martina ….

We had a fab day at the shop last Saturday for World Wide Knit In Public. Lots of lovely people came out to support us, as did the sun (yes!).

2014-06-21 15.32.57 — Camera, what camera? Clare, Edwina and Sue all looking very productive.

If you couldn’t make it I hope you were with us in spirit at least?

2014-06-21 15.33.12 — Sue and Michelle deep in concentration, with Lucy trying her best to hide behind her beautiful blanket.

I managed to capture the odd photo or two of some of our woolly friends despite their protestations and as you can see there was tea, cake and laughter. What more do you need?

Michelle and Deidre doing a great job of ignoring me.

Maybe that should be what don’t you need?

Breeda and Orela proving it's never too hot to knit — Breeda and Orela proving it’s never too hot to knit

Possibly a friend wielding a camera?

Orela and Fiona are having fun. — Orela and Fiona are having fun – no really they are.

Worse still someone you’ve only recently met.

It was Agnieszka's first time so lets hope she'll return. — It was Agnieszka’s first time so lets hope she’ll return.

But, if it’s going to happen you might as well accept it ….

2014-06-21 15.33.30 — Shirley looking the happiest to be photographed.

If not you can get them back later 😉

We should have started with Dina and Sadie, but I needed to lull my daughter into a sense of false security before attempting any form of photography ;-) — We should have started with Dina and Sadie, but I needed to lull my daughter into a sense of false security before attempting any form of photography. Caught her on the way back round instead.

We never need an excuse to break out the hooks and needles in public if the sun is shining, maybe we’ll see a few more of you next time?

Happy Knitting!

Quick Knitted Gift For Kye’s Teachers

June 23, 2014 LeftFootDaisy8 Comments

On Thursday I posted up a photo of the present Kye made for his favourite resource hours teacher Mrs McCarthy, today I thought I’d share with you the little gift I knitted up for all of the teachers, secretary, special needs assistant and resource hours teachers including the very special Mrs McCarthy. Don’t panic it sounds like I’ve been knitting for a bus full when in fact there’s only 6 ladies in total as it’s a very small school.

I’m a regular reader of the blog Simply Notable, which is written by Carli and her mum. I spotted her post on The Almost Lost Washcloth Pattern and was delighted because it was just what I was looking for. Have a look at the blog here Simply Notable or you can find the pattern through the link on Ravelry here.

The Spiral shape is created by using short rows, much easier than it sounds, you knit 14 points in total and sew the cast on edge to the cast off edge and gather in the centre with a running stitch.

I made 8 of the washcloths in total, the first was more of a trial one to see if I liked them, the 8th was to use up the yarn and I can gift it to someone else later. The yarn I used was Rico Essentials Cotton Aran and I knitted two washcloths out of the one ball.

I bought some lovely handmade raspberry soap from our local health food shop Well & Good and wrapped the bars up with the washcloths and a bit of organza ribbon. Simples!

Nice, pretty and personal.

Happy Knitting!

Kye Made This

June 19, 2014 LeftFootDaisy6 Comments

Just a really quick post to show you what Kye made for his favourite resource hours teacher, Mrs McCarthy.

This week is his last at National School (primary) and he will be starting secondary school in September. There have been a lot of changes at the school since he began in 2006 but Mrs McCarthy has always been there and he’s grown very fond of her.

We’d be looking for something nice to give her as a gift and had found loads of ideas on Pinterest (who doesn’t?), so we narrowed down the list and finally decided on this. He did everything himself including putting it together.

Brief Instructions (very brief)

We bought a frame in Tesco for €10.50, it’s slightly bigger than A4.

I got Kye to check in his thesaurus for words that have the same meaning as teach and favourite and make a list of words he preferred.

Using word he then selected fonts, sizes and colours for each word and he printed off a test sheet so he could tweak the design a little and then when he was happy he did it again on ‘posh’ paper.

It looks lovely and I’m really proud of him for writing exactly how he feels about her on it too. Especially as he’s at that age where it’s important to be cool.

Happy Crafting!

Crochet World Record Attempt in Aid of Essex Children’s Hospice

June 16, 2014 LeftFootDaisy2 Comments

I know we’re smack bang in the middle of trying to get all of our lovely stockings knitted for the Knit Happens campaign but we’ve been asked for help via Instagram by The Craft Club who are busy preparing for a ‘magical’ yarnbomb in the gardens of The Little Havens Hospice. The Havens Hospice cares for children from across Essex in the UK with life-limiting illnesses by providing respite breaks, managing pain and caring for them at the ends of their lives.

Helen Thomas, Gabby Atkins, Kelly Holcombe, Claire Whitehead, Becky Burton and Emma Curley are seasoned yarnbombers, they understand the joy of collaborating on projects which raise a smile or inspire others to have a go.

The Little Havens yarnbomb is inspired by children’s book The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton and the group hope to create their version of the land at the top of the magical tree in crochet. In doing so the team hope to break a Guinness World Record for Largest Display of Crochet Sculptures which currently stands at 4061 crocheted items.

The finalised project will be displayed on the 25th August 2014 in the Little Havens garden which is an event for the parents and families but it will be covered by the regional press and there will be loads of photos up on Facebook, etc.

It is hoped that the attempt will consist of over 1,000 individually crocheted items including rabbits, hedgehogs, owls, pixies, trolls, fairies and characters from the book. For an item to count towards the world record it has to be made in crochet, but if your strictly a knitter only, then The Craft Club would still love to receive something bright and cheerful to add to the garden.

There are loads of suitable patterns available on Ravelry, many of which are free. You can also find a few ideas on The Craft Club’s Pinterest board here and if you stumble upon any suitable patterns it would be lovely of you to share them on our Facebook page

You can keep up to date with what’s going on with the record attempt on The Craft Club’s Facebook page too. They regularly post photos of the items they’ve received and they’re often linked to patterns and blogs. As I’m not the best at crochet I’m going to whip up a few Teeny Tiny Flowers from Attic 24’s blog like these that I made before.

View this post on Instagram

#crochet #knitting #attic24 Completely sidetracked by mini flowers at knitting group this evening. Think I made 11, not bad considering I'm terrible with a hook. Give me needles any day.

A post shared by LeftFootDaisy (@leftfootdaisy) on Mar 19, 2014 at 4:13pm PDT

We will be collecting finished items in the shop to post to the UK up to Saturday 12th July or you can send them direct to:-

Miss E Curley

9 Kenley Close

Shotgate

Wickford

Essex

SS11 8XL

It would be great to have a few items to send over for this very worthwhile cause, remember to let us know what you’re up to.

Happy Crochet!

Exploits in Crochet

June 12, 2014 LeftFootDaisyLeave a comment

Following on from the crochet madness of Dina’s scarf I thought I’d have a go at making something else and as you might have seen on the Facebook Page or Instagram I decided to have a go at The Chunky Crochet Basket by Elizabeth Trantham.

Heading outside to crochet in the sun, I was grateful I’d managed to get the bottom of the basket made before the rain clouds appeared and chased me inside. Thankfully Elizabeth has put photo tutorials to accompany the pattern up on her blog, great if you’re like me and assume because you can ‘do a little crochet’ you must be able to conquer the most complicated of patterns.

In her original basket, Elizabeth uses 2 strands of a super chunky yarn held together and an 8mm hook. This means the resulting basket is sturdy and stands up independently like you might expect a basket to do.

Cue my attempt

It’s general state of floppy isn’t really that bad.

I followed Elizabeth’s pattern but used 3 strands of Rico’s Country Aran held together and a 7mm hook. This meant the base of the basket when I’d reached the suggested 48 stitches was a little on the small side so I continued increasing my stitches until I had 72. My basket is approximately 10″/26cm’s across it’s diameter.

The basket is a very usable height at /19cm7.5″and as you can see I decided not to add the handles. I did work them up, but didn’t like the way mine turned out and my yarn was running a little short, so I completed 14 rounds of the half trebles.

Perfect for my current crochet project, one of them anyway.

I’m thinking ideal gifts for friends? Ones that don’t crochet though because I’m pretty sure I had more than my original 72 stitches when it came to finishing off the basket with double crochet (ahem).

Happy Knitting or crochet.

World Wide Knit In Public Day

June 9, 2014 LeftFootDaisy1 Comment

It’s come around rather quickly again this year, technically it’s actually a week but we’re celebrating on Saturday 21st. The Saturday knitting group is scheduled to take place on the 21st anyway, so it would be lovely to think the sun might be shining. Sunshine or not we can still knit can’t we?

As a little incentive to get a few more of you into the shop armed with your knitting and crochet we’ll have the market stall set outside as we did for Yarn Shop Day. For those of you that missed it before, there will be packs of yarn, books and maybe some other bits and bobs all at discounted prices.

Come and join us for a for a bit of open air knitting fun (fingers crossed anyway).

Happy Knitting!

Quick, Pretty Knit

June 6, 2014 LeftFootDaisyLeave a comment

I thought I’d quickly share this knit with you before I wrap it and send it off to it’s new owner.

You might have seen the photo of the blanket I started for our friends new baby in my last post. The pattern is from James C. Brett, number 173 and uses their Flutterby yarn which looks really pretty but (confession time) I’m not so fond of knitting with.

I’ve used Hayfield Baby Chunky and the blanket which is pram size only used 2 x 100g balls. The garter stitch border adds definition and there are only 4 rows to the lace pattern which becomes very memorable after a few repeats. This really was a quick knit and I can see it being a pattern I’ll use again and again, great for last minute knitting.

The blanket dimensions are approximately 30″ x 20″

Best of all the colour (406) is almost identical to the rosy pink I used in the Gidday Baby Cardigan and the hat. Lets hope the baby’s parents aren’t allergic to pink.

Happy Knitting!

Yippee! I Can Knit Baby Things

June 2, 2014June 2, 2014 LeftFootDaisyLeave a comment

One of our friends has recently had a little baby girl so my needles have been smoking a little with shades of pink and oatmeal.

True, I could have been sensible and just knitted up a few different garments in gender neutral shades and themes and been ahead of the game, but where’s the fun in that?

I’d spotted the Gidday baby cardigan by Tikkiknits on Ravelry a little while ago and have been looking for an excuse to knit it up. You might remember I popped the link up on the shops Facebook page? If you missed it you can find it here.

It’s a fantastic little double knit pattern and this free version has instructions for 2 sizes, newborn and 3 months. If you’d like to make larger sizes the full pattern contains 15 sizes from newborn to 12 years and costs $6AUD or a little over €4, which is a bit of a bargain. Find the full pattern here.

I love the way the yarn overs that make the increased stitches on the yoke add a little extra interest. You can always increase your stitches with a M1 if you’d prefer not to have the little lacy holes in your garment.

I’m rather pleased with the finished cardi, although when knitting it again I think I’ll knit an extra 2 rows of the garter stitch yoke in the main body colour in order to try and overcome the ‘jog’ that happens when knitting stripes.

2014-06-01 12.25.47 — Look closely and you can see the jog at the bottom of the stripes on the border.

The little wooden flower buttons add that little bit of extra charm, buttons are so important, at least that’s what I keep telling myself to explain away the tins of them I’ve amassed 😉

I used Sirdar Snuggly DK because I love the feel of the finished fabric, it’s machine washable and the range of colours is vast. The cardigan used a little over one ball of the oatmeal (344) and barely any of the rose pink (Lolly 420) so I thought I’d be proactive and try and use up a little more of the yarn rather than just pop it straight into my ever growing stash.