Tag: socks

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!

Yesterday’s Goodies

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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?

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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.

Our Latest Charity Collection Is………..

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OK, so I know we’ve already been busy knitting and crocheting for this charity however, the charity is involved with so many different projects (all as needy as the rest), that I feel sure I’m not asking too much of you all again.

This time we’re hoping to help the 500 residents that live on 5 floors of the Kyl asylum.  Many of the children that the charity work with in the orphanages out in Belarus end up going to Kyl asylum when they turn 18.  Conditions are hard with the total allowance for clothes and shoes per patient being €3 annually.  The Chernobyl Children’s trust have been working with another group The Bureen Chernobyl Project and have recently managed to collect in approximately 1000 pairs of secondhand shoes as the residents had been using cardboard on their feet whilst working out in the fields.

We’ve been asked for hats, scarves and mitts again and in addition maybe some socks and legwarmers, anything to help to try and keep out the cold.

Bureen Chernobyl Project

A lot of the links I put up for our previous collection will still be valid as are

Easy hat pattern

http://knitmidleton.com/2012/07/06/quick-chunky-hat-great-for-charity-knits/

Easy scarf pattern

http://knitmidleton.com/2012/06/02/easy-rib-scarf-for-chernobyl/

Previous blog post with links to more patterns

http://knitmidleton.com/2012/06/01/knitting-for-chernobyl-childrens-trust/
Our collection will run until the end of March when the next containers will be traveling to the area, so you’ve plenty of time to get cracking.  Items will be accepted in all colours of the rainbow, so break out the stash and use up your leftovers.  The residents are both male and female and all are over 18 although they will be slight for their ages.
We’ve also been asked to collect any unwanted needles and wool in for the residents some of whom love knitting.  If you can’t knit or crochet maybe you could be persuaded to drop off some personal hygiene products like soap, shampoo, etc. which we will also be collecting in (all new and unopened please, with as long a ‘use by’ date on)

A big thanks in advance for all of your help AGAIN.

Happy Knitting!

They’re Off!

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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)

Happy Knitting!

If You Love Knitting………

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In an effort to try and publish posts a little more regularly I have written myself a list of the knitting things that interest me.  I subscribe to quite a number of different knitting newsletters but find a few in particular are my favourites.

In this post I’d like to talk about knitty.com

Knitty.com

Knitty is an online knitting magazine that publishes four times a year  in March, June, September and December.  If you sign up to their email list they’ll notify you when the latest edition is out. Occasionally an odd pattern or two are released as a ‘bonus’ and you’ll be emailed again.

Knitty is very much a magazine: there are features pages, product tests, letters from the editors, competitions and of course there’s patterns.  FREE PATTERNS

Yep, you read it correctly, the patterns are all free for individual use only.  That doesn’t mean the patterns aren’t great, on the contrary.  Some of the most well-known patterns have originally been published in knitty.

Clapotis by Kate Gilbert

http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall04/PATTclapotis.html

One of my favourite patterns, as I think I’ve mentioned before,  is In Leaf by Avril Lang.

In Leaf Cardigan from Knitty.com

Currently, the 41st issue is out and the magazine is celebrating their 10th year.  This issue contains 4 lovely sock patterns, 2 for gloves, 3 hats, 4 shawls, 9 jumpers/cardigans, 3 of which are for men.

I think one of the sock patterns is absolutely fab.  I have to admit that I just don’t have the time to knit socks, particularly ones like these, however I can appreciate their uniqueness.

Pair-a-normal by Barry Scates

Pair-a-normal

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEdf12/PATTpairanormal.php

One jumper that has already been added to my ever increasing ‘to do’ list is the Party Mix Pullover by Julia Farewell-Clay.  It’s an aran weight, raglan, A-line jumper that will be great for using up some of my stash.  Even better, being an A-line design it will help to hide a multitude of sins (mostly of the cake kind).

Party Mix pullover

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEdf12/KSPATTpartymix.php

I find the Cool Stuff section where books, classes, etc are reviewed particularly interesting being a keen collector of all things knitting.  For me this issue the most interesting items have been the reviews of several books I am keen to own including November Knits and the Knitters Handy Book of Top Down Sweater Designs.

I also like the Knitty Yarn Roundtable feature as it helps me to keep an eye on possible new yarns for the shop or what new trends are coming.

In addition to all of the above, not to mention the competition, crossword, adverts and shopping, there is also Knitty Spin, which is a section of the magazine aimed at spinners.  I do intend on learning to spin, I even have a lovely Ashford Spinning Wheel, which at present adorns the window sill at the top of my stairs (sadly).  This doesn’t stop me coveting fibre and lusting over the endless possibilities……

Knitty Spin has reviews of fibre that the testers spin and then knit, reviews of cool spinning stuff, a spinners glossary and yet more patterns.  My favourite this issue without a doubt are the beautiful mitts Calertne by Sandy Sitzman & Lynne Vogel – they are truly beautiful.

Calertne

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEdf12/KSPATTcalertne.php

Knitty is in my opinion, without a doubt one of the best knitting related features available online

If you’re still having doubts about signing up to the knitty.com newsletter reminder – why?  Maybe this will encourage you –

Norma

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEff12/PATTnorma.php

Norma is definitely an heirloom piece, but just look at the detail.  Meghan Jones is a truly gifted designer.

Norma Up Close

Happy knitting!

More Has Arrived

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A second batch of Autumn/Winter goodies has arrived in.

Nina

Some of you have probably already seen the post I put on the Facebook page about the new scarf yarn from Wendy – Nina.

The caffeine had started to take affect.

I’m a little smitten with it myself and have been seen on several occasions sporting one of the scarves.

There were new shades in some of our favourites, of course I only remembered to photograph one – this was after the photo at the top of this post.

Wendy Merino DK

A lovely new sock yarn or 4ply depending on what you prefer – Wendy Roam Fusion.  It’s available in 5 lovely shades, at least 3 of which have been subliminally singing my name since they arrived.

Celtic has also come in: 8 shades of tweedy, chunky yarn with great pattern support. It’s a blend of 30% wool and 70% acrylic.  Knits to a tension of 14sts x 24rows on 6.5mm, the ball is 50g/85m.

Wendy Celtic Chunky

I’m hoping to knit this up if I can find the time?

Hopefully, they’ll be a lovely delivery of Merino DK and Alpaca Silk Aran today or tomorrow.  I’ll take pics and post them up for you all to see.

Happy Knitting!

The Purple and White Knitting Initiative for Irish Premature Babies

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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

A Paxton by Edwina
Another Paxton from Edwina

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

Baby Booties – So tiny

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!