Fair Isle Hat Pattern

Just popping in today to share the pattern for my Fair Isle Hat.

I've completed the second version and written up the pattern, so I'm feeling very pleased with myself for getting it all done so promptly.

This version was knitted with Rowan fine Tweed - leftovers from the cardigan I knitted Eve for her birthday.  

It's lovely and bright and I enjoyed knitting the pattern just as much as the one earlier this month.

Version #1

Version #2

Details of this version can be found on my Ravelry page, here.

The pattern can be downloaded for free, of course, HERE.

Alternatively you can add the pattern to your Ravelry library by visiting the pattern page, HERE.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.  Bye for now.

No Ends, But Plenty of Beginnings

Hello Everyone, I hope you all had a good weekend.  We had a lovely spontaneous trip to Sheffield to see Grace.  Although it was still very cold and windy at the weekend we did get out and about in Sheffield.

On Saturday we visited the cathedral.  Grace has lived in Sheffield now for two and a half years, but this was our first visit to the Cathedral and we were very impressed with the interior.  From the outside it doesn't look very exciting, but inside there is a lovely mix of ancient and modern architecture, plenty of interesting side chapels and, my favourite, lots of lovely angels to spot.

On Sunday, we walked to the Botanical Gardens.

It's always good to meet up with Grace, because we have plenty of knitting chat to catch up on - comparing works in progress, yarns and discussing future projects.  For the trip, I took my Leftie Shawl.  This had been languishing at the bottom of the works in progress pile, mainly because it's a good travelling project so I was saving it for the next long car trip.  I managed to get lots done on this, more than I thought I would. I could quite possibly finish it this week - I'll have to find a new travelling project for future trips.

The other shawl I have been working on and  had intended to finish this week has been put to one side because I've cast on another Fair Isle Hat.

I want to get the pattern written up and the best way to check what I've typed up is to knit it up again.  I'm using leftovers from the cardigan I knitted Eve, so it all helps towards stash reduction.

I've also been doing some dress making - little and often, so it's coming together nicely, without any stress.

Neckline and armholes to finish off, zip to insert and then only the hem.

I've also joined in with a new crochet CAL.  This one is called Mandala Madness and it's by Helen Shrimpton.  The pattern is being released over 18 weeks.  So far the first 6 weeks are available.  Here's the pattern picture of what's been released so far.  Isn't it gorgeous.

The finished object will be a very large circular blanket.  I've only just joined in but I'm part way through the second part.

I would have made more progress but my eye strain problem flared up again - you would think by now I would have learnt that trying to read complicated crochet patterns on my Kindle late at night is not good for my eyes.  Anyway, I've had to put it down for now, but as soon as my eye recovers, I'll be back with it - but only in good light!

I've just remembered that I do have something finished after all.  I've been continuing to make my mini sock yarn sweaters to add to my bunting decoration.  Here's another 7 that have been completed recently.

So that's what I'm up to at the moment.  I'm off down to London on Friday to have a girlie weekend with Eve.  Can't wait for that.  I'll have to sort out a new travelling project for the train journey.

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Enjoying the Sunshine

There are times when I feel that I devote too much attention to the weather - but I'm British and that's what we do.  So yesterday was gorgeous and unbelievably hot and sunny.  Yes, I should get outside and do some gardening.  Well I made it outside, but somehow the gardening just didn't happen.  It was far too nice to worry about gardening, instead I sat and read and did another row of knitting... and another.  So the gardening never got a look in.  But I did get my first suntan of the year!

Anyway, enough about the weather, let's move on to more important matters - knitting and crochet!

This week has been another productive week. I'm in such a good creative place at the moment, everything seems to be flowing along.  Firstly, the socks for April were finished. I used the yarn Grace bought me for my birthday.

I endeavour to try something new each month with my sock knitting.  It's just over a year since I started knitting a pair of socks each month and I feel I've still got so much to learn.  This month I was trying a new heel.  I find I'm drawn to toe-up knitting rather than cuff-down, so I'm trying to find a heel that works best for me with this method.  So these socks were knitted with a Fleegle heel.

And I must say I loved it.  It was a great heel to knit, I loved the process.  I'm not sure about the finished look of the heel yet.  I think I need to explore some more styles of heel before I settle on my perfect sock "recipe" but this is one that I will knit again.  You can see full details of this project on my Ravelry page here.

I've got the sewing machine out at the moment.  There's a dress in progress, but still a way to go with that.  I'm taking a leisurely approach to sewing it up so that it doesn't feel too stressful - it just means the dining room is littered with fabric and sewing patterns.  In between sewing the dress, I ran up a work-in-progress bag for one of the shawls I'm knitting at the moment using leftovers from last week's Dottie Angel dress.

I also found a sample of some crochet flowers I had made years ago that was hanging around, being idle, so I put it to use as an embellishment for the bag.

I should then have been concentrating on completing one of the two shawls that are on the needles, but there was a distraction!  And I blame Meredith - yes, you Meredith.  I sat drooling over your South Bay Shawlette and saw that you were making another one (and had got Lynne to join you).  How could I resist making another one myself.  It is a great pattern, so easy and it grows quickly.

 I had some lace weight yarn in my stash that needed some attention.  I knew it wasn't enough to make a full sized shawl, but there was still enough to make something of a decent size that would satisfy my South Bay Shawlette distraction.  And here it is.

It took two evenings to make and used up 27g of Regia Lace.  It's just the right size for a doll or Teddy Bear and I know just the bear who would appreciate it.  So I'm gifting it this weekend to someone's well-loved and cherished companion.

The squares for my crochet blanket were also completed this week.

I have 11 squares in total now, only 5 more to go to get the size of blanket I want.

So that's it for now.  The sun has come out again, so I'm off into the garden - to actually do some gardening this time.  Then later it will be back to the dressmaking and in-progress shawls.  (Actually yesterday I started a new crochet along for a blanket, but I'll tell you about that another time).  I hope the sun is shining for you.  Enjoy your week.

Floral Embellishment Pattern

Sometimes, you just have to sit yourself down and get on with things.  So that's what I did yesterday - pattern writing.  Not my favourite activity. I'd much rather be making, but these things have to be done - eventually.  There are a number of patterns waiting for attention, but I started with a gentle one, to ease myself into the job.

And here it is the Floral Embellishment crochet pattern.

You can use the motif to embellish all your crafty goodness.  The pattern can be downloaded directly, here, or you can access it via Ravelry and add it to your library.  As always this is a free pattern, because I love sharing with you all and it's great to give something back to the  knitting and crocheting community.

You will need scraps of DK weight yarn in four colours and a 3.5 mm (Size E) crochet hook.  Any weight of yarn woud work for the pattern but the size of your crochet hook would need to be adjusted.  The pattern is written using both UK and US crochet terms.  The pattern PDF contains photos for each step of the way and I hope that you enjoy the pattern.

Right, that's one pattern done, now I'm back to some knitting before I tackle the next one.

Waiting for the Warmer Weather

It's April, and don't you just feel that it should be a bit warmer outside?  Apart from one sunny day this week, I don't feel particularly drawn to the great outdoors yet.  I did venture out to eventually cut the grass for the first time this year - guilt had got the better of me, and it desperately needed doing.

So it's been a quiet indoors week (although I love the indoors and love the luxury of not having to venture out if I don't want to).  I'm hoping to get these socks off the needles today.

Aren't they lovely and colourful?

As part of my stash busting blitz, I gathered together all my bits of aran weight yarn and decided to make them up into a Sophie's Universe blanket.

The colours aren't very inspiring, but I don't knit with aran weight yarn very often, so I wanted to clear the stash completely of these pesky bits and pieces.

I didn't have enough to do a full Sophie's universe, you can see the one I made last year, here.  Instead I kept the central square shape and just added as many borders as I could.  I like the effect, the colour combinations work quite well, even the hot pink and bright red work well together - they give it a jewel-like colour scheme.

It's just the right size for a lap blanket. so I have it by my side on the sofa, ready to throw it over my legs when it goes chilly in the evenings.

So that's a very welcome reduction to the stash of 650g.

Last week I popped into Liverpool and bought some fabric to make up a "proper" version of the Dottie Angel Dress (you can see my prototype, bedsheet version, here).  From the prototype I had learned that the armholes on the pattern are quite deep, so I adjusted for this.  Also the point at which the ties are attached to the dress were a little high.  I needed to lower the point of attachment to allow for my more mature, gravity affected body!  This time I also wanted to make a two colour version.

And it all went well, I didn't bother with the patch pockets, but I did add pockets in the side seams.

This will be a lovely comfortable dress to wear, when (or maybe, if) the weather gets warmer.

I also bought more fabric for one of my other favourite dress patterns - because you can never go into a fabric and haberdashery shop and only buy what you went in for!  Maybe later this month I'll get started on that one.

For now, I'm back to my socks - and then there's the shawl, the cardigan, the crochet square etc etc etc.  Don't you just love being surrounded by so much craftiness!  Have a good weekend.

Fair Isle Hat

I had a bit of a distraction this week (but then again, don't I have a distraction every week!)  I should have been knitting up my socks, cardigan and shawl, but couldn't resist joining in with a knit along for a hat on the Yarnder Wonder Podcast.

In the KAL, the hat could be any pattern, so I decided to use up some of my Jamieson & Smith stash and make a Fair Isle hat - as you know, I love my Fair Isle knitting.

Here's my completed hat, which took about four days to knit up.

I didn't use a published pattern but instead followed some notes I made a few years ago when knitting a similar hat.

I just love the way the colours have worked out.  It was so enjoyable to knit, more than anything else I love the process of Fair Isle knitting.  Very tempting to cast on for a another one!

 

So that's another stash busting project.  This one used up 58g and I shall be linking this with Linda's Crafty Corner Stash Busting Party.

Now I really need to get back to all the other half-finished projects I have lying around - no more distractions.  The Masters Golf is on this weekend, tonight is the last round, so I'm getting plenty of knitting time whilst watching.  Sky Sports was made for knitters.  The IPL in cricket has also started this weekend, very tempting to sit and watch cricket matches every afternoon, but that might be taking things too far.  Whatever!  I'm enjoying my sports and crafts and so very thankful for the time to do so.

So let's get moving and see those projects fly off the needles.

Where I'm At

April already, this year is just whizzing by.  It's a rainy day here today, so a quiet knitting day is planned.

I had a bit of a mad cast on, yesterday.  Having finished a number of projects earlier in the week, I felt I could treat myself to some new ones.

Firstly, I couldn't wait to start knitting some socks with the yarn Grace bought me for my birthday.  Just look at the gorgeous colours in this.

Totally delicious.  It's Wendy Roam Fusion in the Force colourway.  Here's what we have so far.

Toe cosies!  And even better, they match!  The colours are about to change to a lovely deep blue, so that's what I'm going to be working on this afternoon.

I've also cast on for another cropped cardigan.  Using this wool.

Yes the labels are correct, it was only £1 per 50g ball.  The wool has no label but it is soooooo soft.  I bought nine balls altogether when I was at Yarndale last year.  I've knit 6 rows of rib so far and it really is beautiful to knit with.

And then, just because I can, I cast on for another shawl.  Yes I now have more shawls than I need but I love knitting them and it's nice to have a variety of course.

I'm using Knit Global 4 ply yarn in the Summer Berries colourway - there's no way I can ever resist a colour that has "berries" in its name.  It'll be a simple feather and fan shawl, very easy to knit.

So that's my knitting projects all up to date.

As far as my stash busting goes, I'm pleased to say that March was a very successful month.  In total I busted 1410g of yarn, and that's allowing for the 200g of new yarn that found its way into the stash.  Obviously things were helped along by the generous donation of yarn to Grace, but it all counts.  So my running total of stash that has been busted since the weigh-in in February, is 2.165 kg - that's just under 5 lbs in imperial weights - so I'm very pleased.  It's 1/9th of my total stash.  It's all looking good for Yarndale later in the year!

I haven't mentioned my embroidery project for quite a while, so I thought I'd give a glimpse of where I'm at.  If you remember, I was embroidering 54 squares, while I was still 54.  And amazingly, I did get them all finished before my birthday.  I got into a lovely rhythm of a square a day, and it was a very pleasurable project to work on.

So now I have the task of joining them all.  I'm using the English Paper Piecing technique to make three inch squares.  I've tacked them all up and here they are.

Here's a close up of some of them.

Plenty of variety in them.  I'm now looking forward to planning the layout of the squares to make my wall hanging.  There's still a lot of work to be done, but it's coming along nicely.

And finally - gosh I have had a productive week - I made some spicy fruity biscuits.

They have nearly all gone, so delicious.  So that's me, keeping busy and enjoying my creative life.

Have a lovely weekend, may your days be filled with love and inspiration.