All Fingers and Thumbs

Daniel was a good supervisor for the owl production line - as well as the needlebook I made a lavender sachet, a felt brooch following this tutorial and I knitted a little cuddly. I'm rather proud of her, I wanted a seamless pattern for this little knit and couldn't find one easily so I  used my brain and thought about socks. She's started with a magic cast on and the only sewing was at her head and a little embroidery of feathers.

It's not an item from Joelle Hoverson's latest book, but in the last minute spirit I seem to be imbued with at the moment here is Willie, lying damply on the towel which was its gift wrap! Pattern: Willie - Pamela Wynne Yarn: Sirdar Click Chunky - 2 balls - Lamb, c3/4 ball  - Merlot, c1/2 ball - Muffler Needles: 5.5mm Started: May 6th 2010 Finished: August 27th 2010 Ravelry Page What an adorable creature wee Willie is. I remember I fell instantly in love with this pattern and was so keen to knit it I bought the pattern and the yarn in a flurry. I nearly came a cropper as I made a very basic error when substituting this yarn and looked at the number of balls the pattern was written for and not the yardage of those balls. Luckily I bought two of the background colour thinking I would have enough of the others  to get two sweaters out of the four balls. The knitting gods were feeling kind that day! The Sirdar Click was a practical choice but is not a yarn to fall in love wi...

When you're slogging through a Friday at work there's nothing quite like a personal package or two in the post to lift your spirits and make the weekend feel a little closer, especially when they had such weekend enhancing contents. This beautiful collection of things is the result of the Knit Love Club Owl themed swap. The club logo inspired such fondness that one lovely member organised a swap to celebrate all things owlish. Thank you so much to my swapper . Such a delightful parcel of things - look at the owl tape measure, that's a Knit Nation Ravelry party bag and oh did you ever see such a characterful owl? He's called Daniel. Daniel has been sat at my side all weekend and encouraged me to get my act together and get on with the making of owlish items for my own swapee. My parcel also contained owl covered magnetic chart guides - fabulous for my latest knit project, a big squishy (c)owl: Daniel had company in the knitting supporter stakes. There's one creatu...

Yes. These photos were hastily taken in the car park, at the wedding, this cushion cover was a gift for! Glad this was a deadline I managed to make. Pattern: My own construction inspired by the New Directions in Knitting Course Yarn: About 3 balls of Sirdar Denim Ultra - Ivory Cream Needles: 6.5mm Started: July 29th 2010 Finished: August 14th 2010 This was such a fun knit, squishy yarn (super cheap and washable, one of my favourite ever acrylic blends that doesn't feel like acrylic - if only they had a better range of colours ) simple to work and I just threw in ribbons, yarns and some texture to create the heart motifs as it felt right. I did a provisional cast on and then knit the body of the cushion in the round, cast off half the stitches and knit the rest on for the moss stitch flap. Grafted the bottom closed and sewed on three beautiful ceramic heart shaped buttons from Injabulo . Rather fitting as it was through their site that I found details of the Oxford Summer School. ...

The molehills are not mountains yet. Holiday time saw a little desultory sock knitting and that was it and now I'm knitting off on the most wonderful tangent. I spent the latter half of last week on a very inspirational course - New Directions with Knitting . The tutors, Susanna and Kate, put together a brilliant set of exercises and tutorials that the group could dip in and out of depending on previous knowledge and the directions we wanted to explore. From very technical work such as double knitting through to the fun of knitting with any material you can think of from jute to videotape. I had my first go at knitting with wire and beads and have lots of jewellery related ideas to explore from this experience. There were twelve students with mixed experience and approaches to knitting and that diversity coupled with lovely supportive attitudes helped to make it a wonderful group to be part of. This was my happy space for four days of fun. My main project piece is a cushion cover w...