I thought it was time to update you all on the progress of my ever increasing blanket which is now 54.5″/138cms. As you can probably imagine knitting the 2 rows per day is taking much longer now on account of the blankets size. To be on the safe side I need to make sure I have three quarters to an hour spare when I start to knit. Unfortunately, our weather is anything but May like which has inadvertently been a godsend as there is some warmth from the blanket.
Sitting under the weight of it whilst knitting in heat is not great.
I think I have a little over a months worth of knitting left before I’ll reach my target length of 6 foot.
In order for you to judge the length and to give you a bit of a giggle you can see me modelling the blanket so far. I’m 5ft3 on a good day.
Some of you may recall we knitted 14″ blankets for the maternity hospital a couple of years ago now and the pattern many of us used was knit on the diagonal.
20cms/8″ or there about
The beauty of the pattern was that you started with 1 stitch and increased by 1 stitch on every row until you’d reached your desired size. You then knit one row plain and begin decreasing 1 stitch every row until they’re all gone.
Easy peasy!
8inch/20cm Charity Blanket Square
Materials
Any weight of yarn
Appropriate size needles for yarn
Eg: Double knit yarn = 4mm,
Aran weight = 5mm
Chunky yarn = 6.5mm
Super chunky weight = 10mm
Abbreviations
K – Knit
KFB – Knit into the front and the back of the next stitch
K2Tog – Knit the next 2 stitches together
Instructions
Cast on 1 stitch
1st Row – Knit into the front and the back of the stitch, (2 stitches).
2nd Row – K1, KFB, (3 Stitches)
3rd Row – K1, KFB, K to end, (4 Stitches).
You can see that by increasing in every second stitch a decorative border is produced. Repeat row 3 until either of the sides is approximately 8”/20cm (please note you are working on the diagonal).
Next work one row in knit without any increase.
To decrease K1, K2tog, K to end.
Repeat this decreasing 1 stitch on every row until only 2 stitches remain, K2Tog
OK so I’ve got the knitting needles out and had a good rummage through my stash so I can give you a couple of ideas for 8″/20cm squares.
A really unblocked stocking stitch square
Stocking Stitch Square
Using 6.5mm needles and standard chunky yarn cast on 25stitches loosely. Working in stocking stitch (1 row plain, 1 row purl) knit until your piece of knitting is square ending with a wrong side row.
Cast off loosely.
Hint The best way to check this is to fold the bottom right corner over to the top left corner diagonally. If the edges meet on the left side your piece is square.
Moss stitch square
Moss Stitch Square
Using 6.5mm and standard chunky yarn cast on 24 stitches loosely.
1st Row: Knit 1, Purl 1 to end of row
2nd Row: Purl 1, Knit 1 to end of row.
Repeat these 2 rows until knitting is square (as above). Mine took 44 rows.
If you’re making squares remember it’s easier to block slightly smaller ones to 8″ but we can’t make larger ones smaller. Having said that we will use them. You can also use 2 strands of double knit yarn held together to make a chunky yarn.
Here’s a quick snap of the lovely new sock yarn that arrived in yesterday. It’s the Sweet & Spicy range from Opal and there are 8 gorgeous shades all 4ply of course so they can be used as a substitute yarn for other 4ply garments.
Tempted?
These are the adapted Alice Mitts I made yesterday to show the girls at the Children’s Knitting Group this morning as there are a few of them that have asked to make them next.
Happy Knitting!
I used the Colourbrushed Chunky from Tivoli, which is very reasonably priced (€3.95 for 100g), soft and comes in very child friendly colourways. Even better than that I probably have about half the ball left, so it’s 2 pairs for the price of one.
As you can see from the pictures the shop is now Stash Dash ready for Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th March. There is sooooo much lovely yarn included that I will have to try to control the urge to buy it all myself.
Of course if we’re going to be honest then I shall have to admit to having selected several balls (slight understatement possibly?) for some of the projects I’ve cued…….. Who could blame me?
Double knit
So will I give you an idea of what to expect when you come in for your 20 minutes?
Spring/Summer is supposed to be coming so it stands to reason that there will be chunky yarns, including –
Shades of Wendy Merino Chunky, Rico Galaxy, Bergere de France Duvetine, Twilley’s Purity & Sirdar Folksong to name but a few. We are also clearing Wendy Celtic Chunky & Wendy Norse.
In super chunky were clearing Sirdar Denim Ultra & Big Bamboo, shades of Sirdar Big Softie and there’s a few packs of Rico Super Chunky Tweed there too.
In aran weight there’s Wendy Traditional Aran, Rico Country Aran, shades of Sirdar Supersoft Aran and several lovely cottons from Araucania.
More dk
As you might expect there’s loads to tempt you in double knit yarns – shades of Sirdar Baby Crofter & Snuggly dk, we’re clearing King Cole Riot, Shades, Moods, Moods Duet, Baby Alpaca & Haze. Sorrento from Wendy is also included to clear as is Tiny Tots from Sirdar. There are also shades of Wendy Merino Dk, King Cole’s Splash, Rico’s Cotton dk and Sublime’s Egyptian Cotton.
4ply & scarf
In 4ply and lace there is Sirdar Countrystyle to clear and Rico’s Romance, there’s also sock yarn, shades of Comfort 4ply and loads of odd balls and hanks.
There’s also scarf yarns from Sirdar, Rico & Tivoli, shades of Reflection from Rico, Snowdrops from Sirdar and loads more yarn in lots of lovely colours, too many to mention.
I’m looking forward to having another look myself and hope everyone that’s coming finds something they like.
Basically, we cover up all the shelves and lay out as many tables as we can fit into the shop; on top of these we put all the yarn we’re discontinuing. There could be whole ranges of yarn, shades of yarn and some you might not have seen before. There will be odd balls, several balls and packs of balls, no matter what, all balls are €3 each.
There are things to consider: you have to book your slot, you only have 20 minutes (you’re timed), you have to prepare, dig out the patterns, check your favourites on Ravelry, make sure you know how much double knit/aran/chunky you need. Have a look at the post linked above if you’re not sure and make sure you book your place quickly before they all go.
This is what you should be expecting.
Stash for the DashLaceweight, 4Ply & more DkSuper Chunky & Novelty
So, this box arrived at the shop on Friday and there are no prizes for guessing where it came from. As anticipated the yarn inside is lovely.
For our initial delivery of Knitcol from Adrafil we have gone with 6 of the most popular shades – 46, 55, 56, 58, 59 and 62. (If the light is good tomorrow in the shop I will take a photo)
For now the shade card will have to suffice.
Knitcol Shade Card
Knitcol is 100% superwash merino wool. Each 50g ball contains 125m, knits as our standard dk and retails in the shop for €5.25. There are free patterns available on the Adrafil website here.
We hope to add to the range of shades we stock if the yarn proves popular.
At this time of year you can’t fail to notice the impending visit of the jolly white-haired geezer in the bright red suit. The infection spreads like wildfire and before you know it you’re walking around singing carols and driving everyone mad (just me then?).
Anyway, across our three knitting groups we try to encourage everyone to join us for our annual Christmas get together and take part in our Secret Santa present swap.
Every year we stick to the same theme – A Christmas Decoration. The only rule is that the decoration must be handmade, preferably knitted or crocheted. I have been posting up links to various patterns which could be used for these gifts but thought it might be an idea to put them all in one place for everyone to see.
If you’re still stuck for ideas there are literally 1000s of them out there – there’s even my decoration that I posted last week. Another idea if you’re not too confident is to make a felted heart or knit a little scarf and wrap it around a shop-bought snowman/reindeer or Santa ornament. Or you can wind yarn around a polystyrene ball to make it look just like a ball of wool.
Having just sent off two rather large boxes full of knitted and crocheted garments for preemies it’s great to be able to come back to you all with a little feedback from one of our previous collections.
Our collection for the Chernobyl Children’s Trust earlier in the year for knitted hats, scarves and gloves was extremely successful thanks to the fine brigade of people that gave up their yarn, time and skills to ensure that we were able to hand over several black sacks full of winter woolies.
Deena at the charity has very kindly got back to me with a couple of photos of the children wearing some of the items. The photos were taken earlier in the summer at the holiday camp the charity arrange for disabled children and their families to attend.
Vika modelling one of the knitted hats.
This is one of the little girls Vika modelling one of the knitted hats on a balmy summer’s day; however I’m sure she’ll be grateful of it now it’s much colder in Belarus.
Sveta and her mum Galina
Sveta and her mother Galina are in the picture above sporting their scarves, with a little help from Deena on the left.
I hope, like myself, you enjoy knowing the items crafted by all of us are actually going where they’re supposed to and that the right people are benefiting from our work. The charity itself is wonderful and everyone involved are so generous of spirit, time and resources that I find them totally inspirational. I know they are presently looking for more people to become host families, and if any of you are interested, or know someone who would be, please get in touch.
Our next collection (details to come) will be for another project The Chernobyl Children’s Trust is involved in too, so I hope we can rely on your continuing support.
After months of knitting and crochet it’s now time to send off our teeny, tiny creations to the Irish Premature Babies Charity.
Didn’t we do well?
Our Preemie Collection
In addition to all of the items pictured there are still some to collect and add at the shop but for now our totals are as follows –
Hats & Bonnets = 228
Cardigans = 180
Blankets & Sleep Sacks = 140
Booties & Socks = 13 pairs
There is also a little Paxton sitting on the side here knitted by Dina, awaiting sleeves which will be completed by the end of the day (yes I’ll be doing it).
I’m so very proud of how many items we’ve managed to collect and want to extend a huge message of thanks to all of you that gave your time, your creativity and your yarn to make the delicate, little creations. It’s great to see how much the collection has inspired so many of you and I know there have been a good few ‘retired’ knitters that have been persuaded to pick up their needles once again and knit for this charity.
I’d also like to say a big Thank You to the East Cork Journal for promoting our collection in their newspaper, the article really helped to highlight the charity.
I understand the charity are sending all of the donations to one warehouse, where they plan to sort through them and divide them up into hampers. These will then be sent to the hospitals around the country. The charity intend on having the parcels to the hospitals for World Premature Baby Day on November 17th.
A big thanks once again to all of you that helped with this collection and if you couldn’t do something this time, maybe we could persuade you to pick up you hook or needles for our next collection? (more info to come very soon)
Confessions of a Fibre Strumpet 