Smitten

[Sorry for the huge delay in posting.. no excuse.. no extra busy crafting time.. just slack]





imagine the scene.. it's valentine's day, you're off for the weekend with your boy, you've got visions of the two of you strolling hand in hand over the Charles bridge (you're in Prague obviously) and then the weather says it's going to be freaking cold. Suddenly holding hands in gloves is a bit more tricky.





Enter the SMITTEN.. ( some websites refer to it as a love glove but that feels wrong to me). It's a glove with two hand openings so that you (and your loved one) can both pop your hands in and hold hands inside the glove.





I found a lovely pattern http://cocoknits.com/knit/garments/accessories/smitten.html which called for enourmous double pointed needles so I had to work out how to knit it on straight needles instead. it meant the smitten had a seam inside, but as you were meant to be holding hands there would have been trouble for anyone noticing the seam when they could have been stroking my fingers!!!





I also made two mittens for the other hand of each of us, and hey presto.





I did feel a touch spoilt because whilst I'd taken other (sensible) gloves with me as well, but the Admiral thought he'd better rely on his new gift of the smitten and didn't take any other gloves.. We were smittened all weekend!

Teddy has arrived

My first post was about a blanket I was knitting for a university chum.. well yesterday her little one arrived and for once I'd finished the present in time!


I had carried on knitting round and round the blanket all over christmas and everyone who saw it couldn't understand how it was going to end up square (I started to have a few doubts myself). I finished the edges with 4 rounds of seed stitch which is the same as the top of the teddy's pocket and once I'd washed it I was AMAZED how square it came out. I've used my teddy, Teddy to show how I'm envisaging new teddy sleeping under the blanket. [My Teddy.. been with me since I was 4.. looking a bit tired now but still in one piece although his head it very wobbly]

Then I set to knitting the teddy...













So all that there is for me to do now, is send it off to the new family.. but while I'm here I'll also show you the card that I made for them.. i'm rather proud. (yes there are 5 of them.. mum dad, big bro, sis and little bro!!)


kxx

Knitting drives me loopy

A slightly late christmas present is currently on my needles.. and I don't mean my little sticks I mean my MACHINE NEEDLES.. I love my knitting machine.

I bought it off ebay late 2007 and then enrolled at a evening class to learn to use it. I've made a few things on it, a wedding blanket for some friends this summer but mainly it's been used for socks. (I love socks almost as much as I love my knitting machine).

One of the weird things about machine knitting is how much the edges curl in when they are being knitted.. It takes a LOT of steaming to uncurl them afterwards and a dear chum commented that this curling back under made them perfect to copy a scarf she once saw.

This christmas I aimed to make her one of these beloved scarfs. I decided on 20 needles wide.. the scarf is only about an inch wide when it curls in but I think it's mainly for beauty rather than warmth and each loop is 100 rows long. I wanted the seams of the links to be as seamless as possible, so rather than cast off each time I transferred the stitched on to real needles (oh dearie me) and hand grafted them with kitchener stitch

So here it is on the machine.. The little green section is a block of waste yarn so that I didn't have to cast off and on again for each loop. It was these green stitches that I transferred onto real needles to graft off. i'm also not knitting on the middle of the machine.. this might be bad practice by it was mainly because my table is a bit weeny and to knit in the middle I'd keep banging into the wall.

I'd really like inspirational pictures of loveliness over my desk but I currently have a star.. it's nice and all but it's just not made of wool is it?? one of my new year resolutions is to sort out this room so that there is enough space for all things science and boyey and my shit (I mean creative masterwork)

so finally this is what the scarf looks like now.. Obviously it's going to get a bit longer.. I don't think it will provide much warmth but at least it can wrap around her neck.

kxx

Oh and pleased as I am with this scarf present idea, I was TOTALLY blown away by my pressie from Lady Kitsch

Number 1 - Anna and Andy's number 3

I've been dithering about writing the opening to this blog for ages.. in fact blogger has tried to kick me off several times claiming I was a SPAM BLOG.. how cheeky. So rather than give a thorough introduction to myself and what I'm planning on blogging I thought I'd just start off and write an introduction on that grey day when I don't have any knitting to do.

I'm currently knitting a baby blanket for a friend from University, Anna, who's about to have her THIRD child (cue me feeling VERY old). For her first I made a patchwork quilt, number 2 got a cardi and as I didn't realise she was pregnant until quite late in the game I thought I shouldn't bite off too much. The pattern is from a Vogue Knitting book called baby blankets (I never realised there were soooo many patterns for blankets.. I thought they were just a square). I originally bought it for a pattern of a 'Hey diddle diddle' blanket but as I've already suggested there isn't much inside time left for this little one so it needed to be a bit simpler! I'm rather pleased because I just had a little surf to find a picture of the blanket and found this blogger has knitted it http://wishfulknitting.blogspot.com/ and there is a pleased little person playing with the teddy that lives in the pocket.. so I'm holding out a little hope that baby number 2 (who happens to be 2 when her little brother/sister arrives) might be quietly impressed too.

So back to the knitting.. I'm currently having a bit of love for Rowancashsoft yarn.. I bought a big bag on spec in 4ply peppermint to make (another) baby cardi and then when I went shopping for this yarn had to ring up home and direct the admiral to check I wasn't about to buy exactly the same stuff. thank goodness no, it's DK instead!! So I've gone for bloom for the middle pocket and then there are stripes of chicory, cloud, borage and snowman (think that might be my fave name) which you can have a sneaky look at here http://www.knitrowan.com/yarns/Cashsoft-Baby-DK.aspx. It's the first time I've knit on a circular needle.. I've used double pointers before but this grew much too fast to stay on them for long so I ended up having a little loop of circular needle that I had to keep moving round the knitting.. that may not make sense at all, and maybe I should have bought the smaller length circular needles, but I didn't think of that at the time.

So I'd love to show you a picture of the work in progress but not only is there no natural light to take the most flattering picture, but 2 of the 3 bulbs in here have gone so I'm typing in semi-darkness and that just isn't satisfactory for this cutie. I promise to show it soon.

and I've also made my christmas cards today.. but that's surely another post!

kt