Tiny Teddy and Grandaughter's Bag

Another teddy from Sandra Polley's book, complete with coat in patons chenille and a teeny weeny curly wurly, from one strand of machine knitting yarn. Have also made a bag to mount grandaughter's woven square on, I have found several bag making books on the Kent Libraries catalogue, and it's now possible to reserve them on line, which makes things very easy, in fact it's too easy to spend ages on line browsing the library catalogue.

Yummy Yarn, Bags and Beads

Where does the time go to? What have I been doing, well knitting, cooking and decorating amongst other things. The beaded knitting class with Julie Makin was excellent, held at C & H Fabrics at Canterbury, a full day we did various samples in the morning with Julie showing us how to thread beads, cast on with beads, knit with beads, etc, with lots of tips to avoid the worst problems. After lunch we had a choice of jaeger yarn and bead packs to start on our own design. I have not got very far with mine yet, I did not want to follow a pattern but to experiment with the different pattern and stitch placements, so this is it so far.

I have used all my sock yarn so it was essential to buy more and I found some gorgeous yarn on ebay. Opal hand painted in teal, pink and claret, very soft and some of my favourite colours, just asking to be made into a great pair of socks.

C'est Moi

I've been tagged by Mary-Lou, so.....................

What is your all time favourite yarn to knit with?

Well that's a bit like saying which bottle of wine do you prefer? it's much easier to think of the wines I would not drink, and similarly the yarns I do not want to knit with, yarns with horrible texture, vile colour, poor quality, yarns that break and yarns with knots, yarns that smell and yarns that scratch.

I enjoy knitting with a good quality, well spun pure wool in about a four ply or double knitting, usually Jaeger, or hand spun, and in a colour I adore, and even better if I am knitting an interesting new pattern, and knitting it for someone I am very fond of!

Your favourite needles?

Usually Addi Circs, smooth, fast, weight held on lap, easy to tuck in for travelling knitting. Sometimes old metal beehive or aero and four needles for socks, (sorry Alex) and occasionally bamboo, BUT NOT PLASTIC, they make my hands sticky, stitches stick and I really get grumpy.

The Worst Thing You've Ever Knitted?

A zipped jacket that I made for my daughter, looked great, fitted well, and shed fibres over everything. I have sometimes thrown or given away yarn I absolutley detested knitting with, once I even burnt it with great glee!

Your most favourite knit pattern?

Bottle Cover for the Wine, and matching coasters for the glasses :-)

Most Valuable Knitting Technique

Knitting two colour fairisle with both colours held in the right hand and "picking" the colour needed with the index finger. Don't knit complex patterns after two glasses of wine.

Best Knit Book or Magazine

Books for me every time, they can go into much more depth than magazine articles, so my favs are Elizabeth Zimmerman, Mary Thomas, Maggie Rigetti, Montse Stanley, Gladys Thompson, Jean Frost, Sally Melville

Favourite Knit-Along

None, not my thing unless you consider the cw blog a K-A.

Favourite Knitwear Designer

Elizabeth Zimmerman

The Knit Item You Wear the Most

At present it's my clapotis, pic on my blog, because its soft, light and warm.

Which Lucky Knitter Gets this Next?

Spinning Sue
Nickerjac
The Wool Palace

First Curly Wurly Completed

This is knitted from one 25 grm ball of kidsilk haze, very soft, light and fluffy, I knitted this with addis but perhaps not the best choice as both the needles and the yarn are very slippery. I think I have caught the CW bug! as I am deciding which yarn to use for the next one! More pics are on the Curly Wurly blog.

Inkle Loom, Guild Meeting and Squares

It is going to be a fun day at the guild this Saturday, we are making bags and need to produce some knitted squares from handspun yarn to create them, need about 15 - 20 and I have done 9 so far, so lots more yarn to spin and knit before then! I will post a picture of my bag when it is finished.


At the last workshop I was shown how to weave on an inkle loom, (apparently inkle means small) great fun because it's not too difficult and fairly quick to do, the picture is my first attempt in crochet cotton, next I want to make a soft wide braid in wool.

Touring the Cotswolds

Another trip with the motorhome, this time to Cheltenham, Broadway and then home via Oxford, mostly good weather, lots of walking and pub lunches, first time to Cheltenham, the Caravan Club site is on the racecourse, and an easy walk into Cheltenham, where there are lots of places to shop, eat, drink and generally spend money!! Broadway was delightful, honey colour stone building, a small town with very colourful gardens everywhere, lots of grockles of course but still very relaxing, and an excellent butchers and deli and an independant wine shop, what more could one need? well no wool shop sadly, given that the cotswolds were famous for wool.

Back from the birthday party

Back from celebrating their joint birthdays with some very good friends and their family, lots of barbecue and booze, a great time and excellent weather, travelled with the Motorhome so stopped at the Chichester site on the way home for a few days. There is a peaceful traffic free walk through Chichester Park into the town. I had a lucky find, the Marianne Kinzel book Modern Lace Knitting for sale in the Oxfam bookshop.


Sadly there was very little yarn in the charity shops but I did find a great bit of stash storage at a boot fair a few weeks ago, a wicker stool with a lid, it will hold quite a lot of yarn so the national yarn collection can grow. I could knit a round cushion for the top? Short rowing perhaps?



I have knitted a collar as a neckwarmer when out walking. It took two 50grm balls of a wool/alpaca/acrylic mix. Knitted in garter stitch, I cast on 100 stitches to start, knitted the first ball on 4.5mm then joined the second ball, changed to 5.5mm and increased 10 stitches evenly across the row, knitted 1" increased again and then once more, cast off with double knit c/o (pick up the loop between each stitch and knit into it to cast off), it's very soft warm and cuddly and now DH and DD would like one.

Daughters Shawl

I have kept the shawl I knitted for my daughter, many years ago and when I looked at it recently I saw that it was rather yellow. Washing has improved it but its still a little discoloured, does anyone have suggestions to improve this? It is over 37 years old so I want to treat it gently. It is knitted on two needles in Patons 2ply pure wool, the pattern was from a Patons leaflet. The shawl is joined when knitting is completed.

Learning to Spin

While she was with us I had time to teach youngest granddaughter, age 10, to start to spin, she did very well and wanted to use the yarn, so cut out a simple card loom which she could weave on. I think she did very well for one days work. The pink slubbed yarn to the left is the yarn she spun. I knitted her the mohair throw from various odds and ends of mohair and then did a crochet border, she choose the colours and made a colour key for the order she wanted them in.

1st September 2005

Great fun with the granddaughters we all enjoyed ourselves and the time flew by. The first part was spent at home and going out and about then we went off with youngest grandaughter and the motorhome, met up with daughter at the Caravan and Camping Club site in Salisbury. A very good site, just below the hill on which Old Sarum sits, and an easy 1 Mile walk into town, mostly along the side of the river, lots of space for children and dogs in the public field opposite the site. We were told that Salisbury has an excellent market on Saturday and it was just that, lots of the usual stalls but also lots of local produce, organic goods, local watercress, wonderful bread meat and cheese stalls, super pies, we chose one with blue vinney and potato. We really enjoyed wandering around the town and strolled back to the Caravan site for a late and leisurely lunch, having collected a bottle of wine or two from Waitrose, which is halfway between the town and the caravan site. A wonderful sunset on our last night there. We will visit Salisbury again, the time just flew and I did not have time to look for yarn shops!!

Renaming the Stash

Lily and Violet in the Garden

Dyed in microwave with Easy Peasy Dye

Tea Rose Pink, woollen roving and lovely lustrous Wensleydale Fleece old rose colour mixed 7ml scarlet with 5ml blue

EZ Fairisle Pattern 3 + 1
Busy week, family coming to stay so lots of sorting out and tidying the craftroom, I mean spare bedroom, and gosh how big is the stash!, so huge in fact that have decided to call it "Part of the National Yarn Collection" feels much better now, am in fact doing important job in acquiring yarn for the nation and not just buying more for me! Will have glass of wine to celebrate.

Mmmmm very nice red wine from M&S. Have done about 8" of the Elizabeth Zimmerman 3 + 1 fairisle pattern, using black cotton as background and white, teal and lettuce green as contrasts, v.easy to knit and fun watching the pattern develop. She uses some purl stitches to change the texture of the knitting. Easy fairisle to knit because there are always 3 stitches of one colour and one of another, can follow this even if have had second glass of wine, sounds like a good idea in fact and DH would like another glass too!

Narvik Cotton Summer Top

Narvik young touch soft cotton, in a soft teal, one of my favourite colours, from a pattern I designed.

Rowan Pattern, made larger to fit me and knitted in two ends of machine knitting yarn, a two ply pure wool in a fox red and silk and wool tweed in rust.
Noro Silk Garden

Knit Bits

Clapotis in the breeze

The sock and Beanie trellis

Spinning Wheels

My two wheels, an Ashford and a Louet.

I am a member of the Kent Guild of Spinners Dyers and Weavers, we meet once a month in Ashford, and guests are welcome to join us. A very friendly group with a varied programme of events through the year, covering workshops, dyeing, weaving, braiding, etc.

Scandanavian Holiday

We had a wonderful holiday in June this year travelling through Denmark, Sweden and Norway, crossing the Artic Circle, mostly by train. It was a group holiday and one of the group described it as "Outward bound for the over 60's" which is pretty accurate, it was a truly memorable holiday and a very special treat. The pictures are Gerainger, Bergen and Narvik, which is north of the artic circle. I'm the one on the right.

Two Tiny Teddies

From the book by Sandra Polley, very quick to knit but lot's of tiny sewing up and stuffing to do. They are about 5" high.

Clapotis Completed

Clapotis now completed, I pressed this fairly heavily to give it a "drapey" look.

Clapotis underway, this is a yarn by Garn Studio, 50% wool and 50% silk in a slightly tweedy muted old rose colour, very easy to work with, as others have done I did not use stitch markers but knitted the stitch to be dropped pearlwise.

The baby suprise jacket from Elizabeth Zimmerman

Iwanted to try out this pattern from Elizabeth Zimmerman, it's knitted all in one piece with only the two short seams to sew up. There is an adult version of this in her book "The Opinionated Knitter" which I plan to knit for the winter. It's possible to get some excellent striping effects because of the way the garment is shaped.

Sock in progress

Sock in progress, guaranteed toasty toes, I hope to make the next pair from yarn I have spun, I have some alpaca which would be lovely and soft, perhaps blended with some wool.

Sock Impaled on DPNS

Wensleydale Fleece

Wensleydale Fleece

Bought from ebay, it's a lovely long lustrous fibre and I hope it will end up as a shawl eventually! but before that will need cleaning, spinning and knitting and possibly dyeing.