Well bugger it anyway!
Tag: Crafting
It’s a Spring Thing
I’m currently trying not to look up from my computer, as the sun is rising directly outside the window I sit at and it’s making my eyes water. I’ll be safe just as soon as it lifts a little higher and I’ll be able to watch the cows march back to the fields after milking.
Revealing My Knitting
The madness has abated round here again at least for a little while now the second issue of Olann and is out there, floating around for all to see.
I’m happy, Deirdre’s happy, we hope you’re happy too (sorry I realised I was listening to David Bowie, when I wrote this). I imagine our friends and family are slightly worried they’ll be the next to get a call to model for us. A g♥♥d friend has already been persuaded to lend us a child or two and we’re going to be looking for a volunteer or two, later at knitting group. (Ssh, don’t tell any of them yet 😉 they might decide not to come)
If you’ve seen the second issue, you’ll know I’ve been incredibly busy knitting and although I shared snippets, I wasn’t able to reveal my work before hand. I knitted the silver grey sample of Patricia Cox’s Sunset Cardigan for the photographs in the magazine. It’s actually a lovely pattern, with it’s detailed stitch panels, complimented by smooth stocking stitch. It was great to knit, the pattern has been extremely well written by Patricia, with a lot of care and attention to detail. Little things like the few rows of short row shaping around the neck, really help the whole garment sit much better.
The eagle eyed among you, will notice that I worked the decreases to create an obvious raglan line as I favour that look. Having used a solid shade in place of the beautiful Soft Donegal tweed Patricia used in her original, it also adds a little more detail.
The yarn itself, Sublime Extra Fine Merino Worsted was a pleasure to knit with. It’s smooth construction, meant it just slipped through my fingers and as you can see, it knits with great stitch definition and produces a fabric with a lovely drape and bounce to it.
The other knitting I’d been busy beavering away on, was the Turners Cross Cable Twist hat, one of my own designs. I knew what I wanted to make, having drawn some rough sketches out and armed with Barbara G. Walker’s Pattern Treasury books, I got down to some swatching.
Several samples and two and a half hats later, plus one test knit (thank you to my good friend Dr. Sock), I was satisfied with the design, except I wasn’t. Having had the shop for 10 years and spoken to literally thousands of knitters during that time, I know the majority of knitters still prefer to knit flat. However, there are a good few of us now that enjoy knitting in the round, myself included. So I re-worked the pattern to include the instructions for knitting the hat in the round using circular or double pointed needles.
Those of you that know me, know I love Tivoli Celtic Aran, see the review here if you don’t believe me. It’s an extremely underrated yarn, it’s a fantastic workhorse yarn, that is till 100% wool, doesn’t cost the earth, wears well and feels lovely. I’d love to see more colours available, but that’s only going to happen if everyone jumps on my Tivoli Celtic Aran bandwagon.
Anyway, it worked up just lovely for the hat, the stitches look great, especially the slipped stitch cable, which sits raised up proudly on the knitted fabric. It’s warm, woolly, easy to wear and will keep your head nice and snug.
In case you’re wondering about the name?
It’s because the handsome fellow (Shane), wearing it in the photographs for the magazine is from Turners Cross in Cork City of course 🙂
There has also been more knitting….
New socks, that I finished yesterday evening. What a great way to round off a very good day ♥♥♥
I’m hoping to get a little weaving in today, after some more work. Hope you get to spend some time doing what you love too.
Happy crafting!
♥ Follow me on Bloglovin Here ♥
Kye Made This
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!
New Magazine – Prima Makes
I spied this little number smiling at me from the shelves of Eason in Dungarvan yesterday and was won over instantly. Containing a hefty 162 pages of things to make, knit, sew, crochet and bake what’s not to like?
Like many of the other ‘lifestyle’ magazines that are available at the moment it is a very photography heavy publication, leading you to aspire to all things quirky, vintage and floral. In addition to the numerous projects there are ‘Ideas & Inspirations’ and ‘Spring into Shopping’ sections. There’s also a great feature on craft courses and workshops and if that wasn’t enough the good people at Prima Makes have also thrown in a couple of sheets of fancy printed paper.
So I imagine you’d like to have a little look at some of my favourite little projects?
These 3 beauties are called High Flyers, Heaven Scent and Time for Tea. Soooooo pretty.
The very appropriately hat a Picture is so fantastic I’d actually like one please. The funky, patchwork laptop case ould make a great gift and Kitchen Stichin’ is for those of us that like a bit of crochet.
The pretty Tunic Top knitted in cotton has sizes from 6-12 months to 5 years and it would be hard to resist the little pairs of Baby’s First Shoes. Bobtail Bunny is a pocket sized pal worked in 4ply crochet.
Still more …..
For the bakers amongst us my 3 favourites are the Coconut Doughnuts, Shortbread Flowers and the Peppermint Marshmallows, yummy.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise to those of you that know me but Daisy Chain is my absolute favourite, isn’t it beautiful? I hope my crochet is up to it.
If you’re still in need of a little convincing, then the icing on the cake has to be that the magazine comes complete a free kit to make this little mousey pincushion.
Happy Knitting! (maybe that should be crafting?)
Confessions of a Fibre Strumpet 