It’s Back – The Big Knit That Is

August 22, 2012 LeftFootDaisyLeave a comment

Yes, it’s that time of year again and as loathed as I am to encourage you to become distracted from knitting for the Irish Premature Baby Charity, the hats are quick and fun to make. Best of all Innocent give 25c to Age Action for every behatted bottle sold. The campaign also runs in the UK and the funds raised go to Age UK there. To be fair the ones pictured above probably aren’t the quickest to make, as lovely as they are. It’s the basic little ones I’m on about:-

Basic Innocent Smoothie Hat Pattern

4mm needles and double knit yarn

Cast on 28 stitches

Work 2 rows of 1×1 rib (knit 1 stitch, purl 1 stitch)

Work 12 rows of stocking stitch

To decrease

K2tog to end (14sts)

P2tog to end (7sts)

Cut yarn leaving approx 20 cm tail.

Using a blunt ended needle pass the yarn through the remaining stitches and sew the hat up.

Hopefully, your little hat will measure approximately 5 – 7 cms along the bottom and be at least 5cms high.

Add a little pompom to the top

bigknit_blue_stripy_high_better_medium2 — Basic Little Hat

If you fancy it you can of course make some fancy ones and even try for Innocents ‘Hat of the Week’, which means a picture of your hat gets put on the website.

At the moment there isn’t a pattern available on the innocentdrinks.ie website but there are pattern ideas everywhere.

Age UK has these from last year – http://www.ageuk.org.uk/get-involved/raise-money/get-knitting-for-the-big-knit/big-knit-knitting-patterns/

A Ravelry search produces all these lovely little versions, knitted and crochet – http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/search#sort=best&query=innocent%20smoothie

Knit Today has a few animal versions – http://www.knit-today.com/pattern/innocent-smoothie-hats

Lottiotta on ravelry made 1 hat a day from October 15th 2009 for the 2010 Big Knit Campaign her blog http://365hats.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/well-hi-want-to-make-a-hat/ has some really nice little pattern ideas. I like the Spirals Hat http://365hats.wordpress.com/tag/pattern/

The deadline for hats is 30th November this year and we’ll be aiming to send ours off about a fortnight before the deadline.

These are ones that were dropped off a little late to us last year so we’ve already got 38.

The hats can be made in knit or crochet and absolutely any colours are acceptable – have some fun.

Happy Knitting!

The Madness Caused a Malfunction – Sorry

August 20, 2012 LeftFootDaisyLeave a comment

As most of you probably know by now, we have moved premises. As it wasn’t the first time I’ve done this you’d have thought I’d have known what the relocating would consist of – yes and no is the easiest answer there.

In all honesty my previous moves have never included the sheer volume of yarn that we now stock and packs of yarn are quite big, especially when you have as much of it as we do. Then there’s the little matter of dyelots and we won’t even mention split packs – nightmare!

Anyway, we’re in and we did open as planned on the 9th August, however to be frank the lights have been on but there’s no one at home. I’ve been running on autopilot for the last fortnight and I only realised how bad it had got when I failed to notice something really important in a friends text message on Saturday evening. Fortunately, I did spot it on Sunday when I re-read the text and rather red faced I explained my predicament and her being such a good friend was cool with it (phew).

So we’ll ease back into this gently, I have some great ideas to try and bring to the blog in the future including a run down on the latest magazines, a look at the books I love and possibly even the odd video, which will carry a warning ‘unmanicured hands’ my nails are far too small and grow upwards (I’m special I know). In addition to that I still intend on trying to bring you some of my designs and keep you up-to-date on what’s happening in the shop and the greater woolly world. I’d like to try and make this blog an interactive platform too, so if there’s anything knitted related you’d like included let me know and I’ll try my very best to accommodate you.

We’ve also decided to stock the odd bit of giftware and a few fat quarters, items that I hope will compliment the yarn goodies. We intend to expand the haberdashery ranges too in the coming months and will be running a children’s knitting group and (hopefully a crochet group too.

We’ve already added to our giftware range since opening and have now taken delivery of some very unusual and pretty fairtrade gift items. We’re aiming to ensure that most of the items we stock will be €15 or under with many under €5 so they can be picked up as and when you see them.

Hope to see you soon
.

Happy Knitting!

Our Donations Are Off

July 31, 2012 LeftFootDaisyLeave a comment

Wow didn’t we do well? So well in fact that this little lot completely filled 3 black bin liners.

In total there were:-

Hats – 110
Scarves/Cowls – 86
Gloves/Mitts – 39

All of you that gave your time, energy, skill, yarn and most importantly care should be so proud of yourselves. When Deena from The Chernobyl Children’s Trust came to the shop to collect the garments she was honestly shocked to see how many items we had.

The organisers gave out as many woolly items to the visiting children as they could before they flew home and intend to send any that are left over later in the year. There are 2 lorries traveling over to Belarus later this year hopefully, full to the brim with everything the charity can collect in to help as many families as possible.

The charity are still keen on trying to get unwanted pairs of knitting needles in if possible. I know we’ve already sent a good few over but if you have anymore please let me know.

A big thank you once again to everyone that contributed.

Happy Knitting.

Everybody Keeps Asking Me –

July 23, 2012July 23, 2012 LeftFootDaisy3 Comments

Since we had our Stash Dash Day soooooo many people have expressed their dismay at missing it, or not being able to attend. I thought I’d been fairly proactive with the advertising and had done my very best to let everyone know, but like anything new it takes a while for these things to filter through.

So just to keep you up-to-date………

The Stash Dash Days will take place twice a year: one event in March and one in September

That means that about in about 4-6 weeks, after we’ve moved into our new premises, the second Stash Day of 2012 will take place. It will probably be on a Tuesday or Wednesday and we will be sticking to the ‘book your place’ method, although I think the time you have to shop will be increased to 20 minutes rather than 15 minutes.

How to Prepare

Most people got the hang of what we were suggesting before, but for those of you that were a little unsure here’s a little more help:-

You can see from my notes the patterns that I have in my ‘to do list’. Next to each I’ve written the approximate amount of yarn I’m going to need to complete the project and the weight of yarn I need. If I’m yarn shopping when I’m away (madness I know) I always have a rough idea of my go-to projects. I love knitting hats and baby garments although sometimes seeing what you can knit out of one ball/hank of yarn can be fun and it’s much easier with Ravelry.

The best bit of advice I can give any knitter buying yarn for a project, particularly if it’s in a sale, is to buy at least one ball extra. If you don’t end up using using it in the garment you can always use it to make a tiny item, like a baby hat, and if you’re super organised you could knit a square(s) using your remaining yarn. Collect these squares up and sew them together to make cushion covers or a blanket – great for those pesky tension squares too.

Get planning now while you have the time. The Stash Dash Days will become relatively seasonal with the lighter more summery yarns being cleared in September and the warmer ones in March. However, there are bound to be exceptions when I decide to clear a range or two based on yarns I’ve ordered for the coming season.

As you can see from my notebook the In Leaf Cardigan is up there on the top of my list, I’m sure you’ll agree it’s lovely.

Happy Knitting!

Hat for Preemies

July 20, 2012July 23, 2012 LeftFootDaisy2 Comments

After being contacted by The Irish Premature Baby Charity I went off looking for ‘basic’ knitting patterns and was bogged down by how many were out there. Many of them seem to be perfectly lovely, but some of them needed to be paid for or had a suggested donation and we’re already making them for charity aren’t we?

So I grabbed some needles and some double knit and knocked one up myself. You will discover that the hat is a little higher than we would usually knit, this is to accommodate the little babas’ heads, which can sometimes be a little oddly shaped.

Hat Dimensions

Height 5.5″/11.5cm

Width 4.5″/14cm

Tension

22sts x 28 rows

Abbreviations

k – knit

p – purl

st(s) – stitch(es)

ws – wrong side

k2tog – knit the next 2 stitches together

Materials

A little squidgy, soft double knit

4mm Needles

Darning Needle

Pattern

Using thumb method cast on 56 stitches.

Work 4 rows in 2×2 rib – (knit 2 stitches, purl 2 stitches repeat these 4 stitches )

In stocking stitch work until hat measures 10cms ending with a ws row.

Crown

1st Row – K6, k2tog across all sts (49 sts)

2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th rows – Purl all stitches

3rd Row – K5, k2tog across all sts (42 sts)

5th Row – K4, k2tog across all sts (35sts)

7th Row – K3, k2tog across all sts (28sts)

9th Row – K2, k2tog across all sts (21sts)

11th Row – K1, k2tog across all sts (14sts)

Cut yarn leaving approximately a 12″ tail, using your darning needle thread the yarn through your remaining stitches and remove them from the knitting needle. Fasten off and sew up using yarn. Sew in ends.

The Purple and White Knitting Initiative for Irish Premature Babies

July 18, 2012July 18, 2012 LeftFootDaisy2 Comments

As some of you are already aware, we were contacted back in May by Mandy Daly the Family Liaison Manager with Irish Premature Babies, Ireland’s only charity supporting families in Ireland with premature babies.

Each year, over 4,500 babies are born pre-term, and many require very long hospital stays and suffer lifelong complications as a result of their early arrivals.

The charity works hard to raise public awareness of premature birth and arranges several public events every November 17th to celebrate World Prematurity Awareness Day. This year the charity is participating in a global initiative and is hoping to turn many Irish landmark buildings purple (the worldwide colour of premature birth). It also wants to engage in a photography project where it plans to photograph a washing line of baby socks in front of these landmarks.

The charity also wants to donate preemie baby clothes (knitted and crochet hats, socks, cardigans, etc) to the various neo-natal units countrywide. This is where we come in.

Our collection for The Chernobyl Children’s Trust has come to an end; items are being collected later this week. This means we can put all of our efforts into this campaign now. Items can be worked in knitting or crochet and the charity has said all colours are acceptable. Of course they have to be soft yarns, that goes without saying, but the items really can be every colour under the rainbow. Fantastic, if like me you get tired using the same colour, if however, you do have any purple or white yarn lurking around in your stash the charity would love the odd item in these shades to follow their theme.

There are obviously quite a lot of sites online with patterns for preemies in addition you might already have some paper patterns that include preemie sizes. 16″ is newborn and 12″ and 14″ are classed as preemie.

Pattern Sites

While looking for free patterns on the web, I discovered lots of broken links and many sites suggested a ‘donation’ for their patterns.

Ravelry contains well over 2,000 knitting/crochet preemie patterns, with approximately 1,500 of them available free. I assume some of them can also be found on the other sites listed.

www.ravelry.com

This pattern from Ravelry is the one we’ve all been busy knitting as it’s so simple and lovely to knit. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/paxton-preemie-and-newborn-jacket

These are the booties we’ve been making too. They take more time to sew them up than they do to knit! http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/f310-100-angora-baby-booties

I think this site is one of the best for free patterns, it has links to some of the more popular patterns on the net. There are hats, booties, cardigans and blankets. I had a good look through the patterns and the yarns used range from 4ply through to aran weight. They are all knitting patterns though

http://www.knittingpatterncentral.com/directory/preemies.php

This site has a good few knitting patterns. I particularly like the Sideways Sweater which I’ve added to my ‘to do list’

http://www.carewear.org/index.cfm?pid=patterns/knit/_knit_patterns.cfm

This site has a mix of crochet and knitting patterns for preemies, lots of them.

http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/preemies.html#bevs

These are crochet patterns and again there seems to be everything from booties to blankets.

http://www.crochetpatterncentral.com/directory/preemies.php

This site has quite a few crochet patterns on it.

http://project-angel-kisses.150m.com/1memberpatterns.html

I found this little crochet hat pattern on the Red Heart website and it looks fairly easy and quick to make (says she who doesn’t really crochet).

http://www.redheart.com/free-patterns/preemie-hats

Lastly (for now) this is a blog one of my friend’s Lucy discovered for preemie crochet patterns.

http://preemiehats.blogspot.ca/

I also discovered this page with baby measurements on it for those of you that ‘go with the flow’ in your knitting/crochet.

http://tlcforangels.tripod.com/sizing.html

Hopefully, there are a good few patterns there for you to get busy creating for the latest charity collection. Ideally all items need to be in for around the second week in October to enable them to be sorted out and dispatched to the hospitals for November 17th. You can forward them on directly to the charity or hand them to me at the shop to go off with ours.

If you need to know any more information please email me.

Happy knitting!

A Really Hectic Week

June 17, 2012June 18, 2012 LeftFootDaisyLeave a comment

It’s felt like I’ve been chasing my tail all week; my daily list of things to do hasn’t been completed once in the last week. Even writing this post hasn’t been simple. I started it yesterday but my internet connection was so slow I gave up.

In addition to my usual manic weekly workload I’ve also had two other pressing items to get ready.

The first, and probably the least interesting, are the two assignments that I have had to complete for the course I’m currently taking. It coincides with the voluntary work I do for the Citizen’s Information. To be fair to me, I thought I’d agreed to do a very different amount of work on the course than what it’s materialised into. The sad thing is that given more time I could have made more of an effort; instead my assignments could be described as ‘half-hearted’ at best

The second, and much more interesting, is all the preparation for the ‘Stash Dash Day’. I didn’t realise there would be so much work involved. I’ve been busy clearing out yarn that’s been put away all over the stock rooms – moving it, sorting it and then having a really tough time persuading myself that I don’t need to procure more yarn for my personal stash while I sort.

Today the hubby took all the yarn over to the shop, along with tables, sheets, tablecloths and lining paper to cover the shelves. When I met him at the shop it soon became clear – to him that is, that the job in hand was a big one. He set about covering up the shelves and setting up the tables and moving boxes, while I began the humungous job of trying to sort out the shop.

The first thing to go wrong – the lining paper ran out!!! Undeterred, hubby went and purchased the next best thing: you guessed, it bin bags, green ones!! So the idea I had in my head of the shop looking somewhat OK while the mayhem of disorderly sale yarn is everywhere has been somewhat smashed. My head is a lovely serene place that I hope to reside in one day.

Still, the shelves of stock yarn are completely covered so there can be no confusion over what is in the sale.

The second thing to go wrong was the sellotape ran out. I simply had too many packs of yarn to close up before the yarn decided to take over and engulf me. At this point I was sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by boxes and baskets full of yarn while trying to make up full packs to make it easier on Wednesday.

Local shop to the rescue and a rather speedy 3.5 hours later the shop is ready for it’s first ‘Stash Dash’. I was quite shocked by the amount of yarn I had pulled out to clear and even more taken aback by how much stock I still have.

Looking over the yarns for the day I can safely say there’s a fantastic mix, with everything from lace weight to super chunky. I’ll be posting up some of the yarns on Facebook just to try and keep you all updated. For some reason there doesn’t seem to be a huge amount of aran weight, but I think that’s probably because everything we have in stock currently sells well. Apologies to all you aran lovers out there.

If all that woolly work wasn’t enough for one day I also went to see Rico’s new yarn collection for the coming Autumn/Winter Season. So many lovely new yarns and a few not so nice ones. It was a job to curb my enthusiasm and I could feel myself drooling over some of the truly scrummy yarns. Had I had a chance I can safely say some of the samples could have found their way into my handbag.

I have ordered quite a few as you might expect – oops!

If memory serves me right my order includes two new DKs – a great new baby one and a variegated lightweight one, one gorgeous super chunky, two completely different standard chunky yarns – one was kind of earthy, the other was glitzy, one furry aran and possibly an earthy one and lots and lots of lovely patterns. Almost forgot to say I also ordered some new shades in 365 Aran: scarlet red, navy and chocolate brown.

Like I always say “it’s an illness”

€3 Stash Dash

June 7, 2012June 7, 2012 LeftFootDaisyLeave a comment

We’re having a clear out at the shop, a big one.

€3 Sale Day Rules

The €3 sale day will take place on Wednesday 20^th from 9am until 7pm
Due to the size of the shop, only a certain number of customers can shop at the same time, this also means ‘shopping time ‘ is limited to 15 minutes for everyone (no exceptions, sorry).
Time slots can be booked from today (Monday 4^th June). There is no charge for the event but we would love it if everyone could make a €1 donation in the collection box in the shop for The Chernobyl Children’s Trust.
Times will be issued on a first come first served basis, all customers will be given a ticket with their allotted time written on it. This is the only way we can ensure everyone who wants to avail of the day can.
We will have a limited number of times available for customers that turn up on the day.
The only items available to purchase on the day will be the discounted yarn. We will not be selling from our general stock. This includes patterns, needles, notions, or collection of yarn that is on lay by, sadly we just won’t have the time to offer our usual service.
Come prepared – Have a rough idea what kind of yarn you’re after. What weight, colour, fibre. Pull out your patterns and work out your amounts before that’s why we give you over a fortnight to plan.

Remember you only have 15 minutes.

Every customer that purchases 11 balls or more will receive a raffle free raffle ticket. If your ticket is one of the lucky ones you will receive a gift from us. It could be a magazine, a pair of needles, a crochet hook, just a little extra to say thank you for your support.
All €3 sales are final; there can be no returns or exchanges. As with all of our sale yarns, we do not offer a ‘lay by’ service, please ensure you buy enough yarn to complete your project.

If the day is a success we plan to do 2 of these ‘blowout’ days a year. Over the next couple of days I will begin to get together a list of some of the yarns that are going to be included in the sale, in the meantime get looking through your patterns and books. Slots are available from this morning.

The girls at the knitting group last night suggested that I remind everyone that we do not have the facilities to take Laser/Credit Cards at the shop – sorry.

Knitting for Chernobyl Childrens Trust

LinkJune 1, 2012 LeftFootDaisy1 Comment

http://www.facebook.com/ChernobylChildrensTrust?ref=pb

One of the members of our knitting group (Mary) opens her house and more importantly her heart to children that come to stay for rest and recuperation from Chernobyl. The children are brought over by the Chernobyl Children’s trust – check them out here http://www.facebook.com/ChernobylChildrensTrust?ref=pb

The organisation is an Irish charity run by volunteers to help children and families most affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Their help takes many forms in addition to Bringing children over to stay with Irish families the charity also offer assistance on the ground in Belarus. The charity are very hands on and help in so many ways including community support and developement, building rennovations, holiday camps for special kids, family support, home care for special needs kids and humanitarian support.

Their mission is to help build the futures of those affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in a principled effective and humanitarian way. They are committed to bringing trust, dignity and joy both to those we seek to help and to our volunteers and supporters.

We are committed to bringing trust, dignity and joy both to those we seek to help and to our volunteers and supporters. As an organization of volunteers, we can give maximum donor value by directing all funds to exactly where they are most needed.

Description

A non-denominational, non-political, humanitarian organisation, we work in partnership with community based Belarusian organisations to bring children to Ireland for recouperation holidays. We also operate essential programmes for the advocacy and support for disabilities, poverty and sickness, the promotion of health and community development for marginalised children and their families, throughout Belarus.

General information

Chernobyl Children’s Trust is an Irish registered charity set up and run by volunteers dedicated to helping children and families most affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. All proceeds from our fundraising efforts go directly to helping the children of Belarus.

Hello World!

May 27, 2012June 8, 2012 LeftFootDaisyLeave a comment

OK. Well it’s safe to say I’m not the most organised of people. Actually that could be the first of many understatements, as organised chaos is about as good as it gets for me. That’s why I’ve put off writing a blog for the shop for so long, I’m sure I’ll get distracted, or I’ll forget or worse still my terrible grammar and umpteen spelling mistakes will be revealed. Also I suppose I’ve been a little bit of a coward. The internet can be such a positive place but it can be a bloody awful one too, with people knowingly or not ripping others to pieces and at times, forgetting that there is another person at the end of their post, blog, Facebook update.

Trying to put these concerns as far in the back of my mind as possible it is with trepidation that I’m going to write my first post –

Why a blog then?

Lots of reasons, we have a Facebook page which is a great way of interacting but there’s only so much you can do before you begin to jam up people’s feed. I hope to use the blog as a way of letting you know what we’re up to in the shop: the ongoing charity events that we’re participating in, what we’re stocking, what we’re hoping to stock and what we’re clearing. I’m hoping to eventually do a book/magazine/pattern review section, where I let you in on my knitting porn addiction – I know many of you have the same vice. Anything that’s new in the world of knitting and crochet (although my crochet skills are poor and that’s stretching it some). I also intend to upload my own designs, most of which will be quite basic as I hardly ever have the time to dedicate to this love, despite walking around with a head full of ideas. At present any designs I’ve created have only been available in the shop, so it’ll be handy to have them here in the one place. Lastly, there could also be the odd bit of cooking and/or baking thrown in. I try to bake for the knitting group every week and apart from my ever expanding library of knitting books there is an equally growing collection of cookery books.

Beginning with the shop. It’s called Knit. I couldn’t believe my luck when I discovered that there wasn’t another business with the name in Ireland. It explains the shop beautifully, although we have had the odd customer that expected something else?????

We sell yarn obviously and whilst I’d love to be able to say our premises is full to bursting with premium, designer yarns from around the globe, all hand dyed, 100% natural fibers at give away prices – I can’t. There are so many yarns I love but the reality is that most of us are no longer able to afford them, so I concentrate on sourcing the best yarns I can, whilst keeping in mind the price point. That doesn’t mean we only stock 100% acrylic, but it does mean I spend a lot of time shopping around.

In fairness to the bigger, more well known companies, they’ve realised that there is a revival in natural fibers and they’re really trying to bring good quality yarns to the knitting masses. The larger companies also have the money to invest in pattern design, but they can lack in inventiveness, which is where the independent designers come in.

One thing you will find is that I’m unlikely to stock anything I don’t really like, I’ve tried in the past and it doesn’t work for me. I find I can’t help giving the game away. If I’ve bought something because it looked nice and I’ve got round to knitting up a sample and discovered it’s awful to use it tends to go in one of the clearance baskets

At the moment we stock yarns from Sirdar, Wendy, Rico, Twilleys, King Cole, Opal, Trekking, Sublime and Schoeller & Stahl. There is pattern support to go with all of our yarns in the form of single sheet designs, collections and books. If I find a design I particularly like I will try and ensure I have it in. As I love all things Elizabeth Zimmerman we keep a few of her more well known designs although I’m hoping to eventually convince as many knitters as I can to embrace ‘uninventing’.

We stock needles, hooks and accessories from Knitpro, Pony and some from Clover. We also have most of the other things you’d expect: buttons, sewing thread and accessories, zips, bag handles, the list is endless.

I will leave it at this as I’m conscious i could start to waffle on a little…