Hospital Entertainement!

As I mentioned, when my daughter was in hospital the play nurse came an offered her a choice of things to do before she went down to theatre to take her mind off things. My daughter (I am pleased to say) selected something crafty rather than the other things on offer, but no sooner had the nurse gone off to find the bits and pieces for her 'dream catcher' (which she had sold my daughter as being useful while under anesthetic) than we were called down to theatre.

When she came back all groggy and plastered up to her arm pit there was a box of bits and pieces at the end of her bed. As soon as she had come round properly and I'd persuaded her to take her medicine (no mean feat) she was desperate to make something. The only way to do this was for her to choose items out of the box with her good arm (which is not the one she 'uses') and then tell me what she wanted me to do with them. So, under strict instruction this is what we came up with.

I was quite impressed by the range of materials they had and it was good distraction for daughter and worried mother alike.

Stash, Stash, Stash

After some encouragement from our school librarian (you know who you are fellow wool fiend) I eventually got round to organising my stash into a kind of system. It's in one place (ish) at least. So the scary truth is that after an honest overhaul (outcasts sent to help the aged) I still have 6 very large plastic storage boxes stacked from floor to ceiling. They are grouped into 4ply, lighter than 4 ply (sock/ lace), aran, chunky(ish), cotton and fancy/ not sure where to put that. I can't bring myself to photograph it because it really is a shameful admission of my yarn addiction.

However, then there's this box. This one is full of yarns I have bought/ acquired since the reorganisation. There are some really gorgeous, deluxe skeins in here, with the serious damage done at Knit Nation where I made the mistake of touching some silk skeins and whoops I'd bought them. It is absolute heaven to stick your hand in.

I must get some yarn self-control, I must get some yarn self-control, I must get some yarn self-control, I must get some yarn self-control............

For anyone interested, my daughter is picking up nicely, fingers crossed that all is as it should be when we visit the hospital on Monday.

Ouch!

Despite my recent post which was scheduled as I'd written two the other day I've not been doing much over the last few days as my daughter (7) had an accident at the park with a see-saw. As a result it's been a couple of traumatic days at the hospital. She's broken her wrist in two places with the growing plate from one bone moving off somewhere else and she went to theatre yesterday, but we've got her home now. We intent to sit and watch back-to-back films for a day or two, and do some high level treats and spoiling until she's feeling more with it.

While we were in hospital the play nurse came and offered her games, TV etc, but she perked up when craft was mentioned, but that's a story for another day when I'm not on full pampering duty.

Knit Love Club - ''Caretta Caretta"

Caretta Caretta got renamed in my project page on Ravelry to 'bling- berries socks' because the colour of the yarn reminded me of blackberries which are over- ripe and leak their colour everywhere.

The 'bling' element was obviously in connection with the beads (that sit in the lace pattern holes) which I have continued onto half the instep pattern attempting to stop where my shoes would come.

The yarn was Spirit Trail fibreworks Sunna and is unbelievably soft and deluxe to work with, what a treat to go with another of Alice Yu's brilliant patterns.... I enjoyed these so much that I knitted other things in between working on them to make them last longer.

Shawl for a journey

I've just finished knitting 'Citron' a free pattern by Hilary Smith Callis on Knitty. It was really, really easy, even though there were a great deal of stitches by the last ruffle and I cut it short by a couple of rows because I was out of wool having used a ball of yarn with a few metres already pinched for another project.

A brilliant knit while on a long journey in the car again (and afterwards too), where I could knit away with relatively little concentration, but the choice of colour changing yarn made it interesting.

The Noro (Silk Garden- Sock) I used seemed to soften after I washed it before blocking - still, I think this will be once to be worn over a top, not next top the skin. I love Noro colourways, I just wish they had the tactile quality of some of the other yarns I use.

Dress- finished at last

With a bit of a struggle with the invisible zip I eventually finished my dress. I decided to add a frill of the bodice fabric to the bottom of the skirt which seems to have balanced it better and as the striped cotton is quite firm it helps to hold out the softer black fabric and give a bit of shape to the skirt.

Amazingly (since it's been so long since I've sewn myself a garment) it fits nicely, so I'm quite chuffed with my handy work.

It also swishes round nicely!

Peg Dolls

We've been making peg dolls out of bits and pieces from our recyling collage/ junk box. They were good fun and approached with a high level of ambition from my daughter, some bits she needed help with because they were a little fiddley for little fingers, a good amount of PVA glue seemed to be the key.

Experiments in Crochet 1

I've been experimenting with crochet, it was an idea to help me carry on 'making' with a touch of RSI, thinking that the hand action is different from knitting. It seemed to work quite well for a while. This scarf was made for my daughter's class teacher. She examined her clothing daily for a week or so and then decided that this colour from the stash would suit her best. ...... I hope so. It's always tricky making things for people that you don't know very well.

At the same time I was making this simple shawl. I call it my 'Glamping' shawl, though i'm not sure that the camping we do is very glamorous. I’m chuffed with this, it should prove really useful for English beach holidays and is great for wrapping up my daughter too; blanket/ shawl.

The unfinished dress

I started this dress some time ago and it's hung unfinished for so long that it's become part of the decor. I sort of fell out with it and wasn't sure that I liked the skirt, though it looks better on than on the hanger. So, by posting a picture of it incomplete I'm trying to motivate myself to go back to it and complete it in some fashion. I think that it might need some of the striped fabric on the skirt....... pockets? an underskirt? I don't know yet.

I think that I'll go a wrestle with the zip first, it's been a while since I've put in a concealed zip it might prove a challenge.

Shhhhh!

Massive Granny Square Chrochet Shrug

I've been playing around with some crochet and made this shrug out of chuncky wool for my daughter, she loves it, not least because she got to go to John Lewis and choose these very, very large and blingtastic buttons to make the fastening.

I made it up as I went along; it's essentially a very large granny square. I'm wondering whether I'm up to writing it as a pattern; chrochet instructions take sooooo long to write out. Perhaps a diagram would work better?

Found materials beach necklace

While I subscribe to the saying 'when you're at the beach leave only footprints, take only photographs' [and I always take plenty of those], we're not always highly successful at frisking our daughter and on getting home from holiday discovered we had a couple of broken shells hidden amongst pockets and buckets.

Since we live too far away to take them back, we decided to have a search round see what else we could come up with to make them into a necklace. A little bit of gold leaf on the inside and a few minutes threading together some odd beads from broken necklaces and this is what we came up with:

The goldleaf is stuck and sealed on with my new best friend acrylic medium, which I seem to use for virtually everything except knitting.

We might make some more of these necklaces, but I shall be trying to source some 'farmed' shells. I'm quite pleased with the results of this, but should I be consumed with environmental guilt every time I wear it?

 

More Odds and Ends

This proved to be a good car journey knit..... nothing too complex to cause travel sickness!

Free Pattern - Odds and Ends Kerchief

This pattern emerged after looking for ways to use up small scraps of yarn. The hoarder in me could not throw away those lengths of yarn after sewing up, particularly if it was yarn that had been hand-painted or perhaps was quite expensive. There are quite a few attractive scarves that use similar techniques; I would not claim to be the originator of this idea. However, what I wanted was a knitting stitch which allowed splashes of different colours from the odds of yarn to get mixed in with each other and yet also provide a reversible knitted surface. With this in mind, I began to experiment with slip stitches and eventually came up with this simple pattern:

KIT AND CABOODLE

You will need leftover yarns of a similar weight, (or you could use this with some highly coordinated new balls of yarn). This stitch works particularly nicely if you have a range of colours so that at stitches become highlighted against each other. Hand-painted or multicoloured yarns are particularly useful.

You will also need either a circular needle or two circular needles that she can work between which will hold the number of stitches you will be using if you intend to extend this into a longer shawl. You might find that a slightly larger needle than you would normally use for the yarn chosen will help create a more flexible fabric.

Gauge is not important and will vary depending on your choice of yarns and anyway you just stop when you are happy with the size.

THE PATTERN

Cast on 3 stitches

On each and every row slip the first stitch and increase in the last stitch by knitting into the front and back of the stitch. This will give you the triangular shape. Bring new stitches into the simple pattern once there is enough to do so.

Knit each row until you have increased to 5 stitches and then begin the pattern as follows

Row one:Sl1, Knit to last stitch, KFB


Row two: Sl1,*K1, (K1 wrapping yarn 3 times round needle)* repeat to last stitch ,KFB


Row Three: Sl1, Knit to first wrapped stitch then * (slip 1 purl wise dropping extra loops), K1 * repeat to last stitch ,KFB


Rows Four and Five: Sl1, Knit to first slip stitch then * (slip 1 purl wise), K1 * repeat to last stitch ,KFB


Row Six: Sl1, Knit to last stitch, KFB

When you start the following sequence of the pattern ensure that you place the wrapped knit stitch one stitch across from the one slipped in the rows below, so that they alternate.

Keep going until it is the size that you want changing colours at will.

Where possible I ran my yarns up the edges of the kerchief, but still had a fair few ends to sew in and took them down the edges as well to be covered with a simple crochet picot edge.

I also found it pleasing to have Row two completely different in colour to those around it, but see what you think.

If you have lots of changes of yarn you might want to weave in the ends as you go along. Or, have a look at Techknitting blog here http://techknitting.blogspot.com/2007/02/adding-new-ball-of-yarn-in-same-color.html or here http://techknitting.blogspot.com/ which suggests some excellent ways for joining in yarns as you go along.

Cast off when you get to the size that you are after. This is when I blocked.

Then add the edging, unless you prefer a plainer shape.

The crochet picot edge is 3 double crochets, 5 chains with a slip stitch back into the last dc. (English crochet terms!)

Enjoy!

Finger Knitting Fun

Today we have been finger knitting and my daughter took to it like a duck to water with some bulky wool that changed colour every row or two she was highly motivated and sat proudly making herself a very long length of knitting singing 'Oliver' songs (her latest obsession) as she worked. Every so often she would show me how long it was , only stopping when she reached the end of the the ball.

If you haven't done finger knitting before it's really easy, start by getting them to hold the yarn between finger and thumb then take it over the first finger, under the second and over the third, then under -round and over the little finger to come back and under finger three, over finger two and under the first finger. Basically, it's up and down round the fingers to cast on.

The knitting is easy, the beginning of a row has four stitches on the fingers

Then the yarn is laid across the front of the fingers and

each new stitch is made my pulling the original stitch over the top of and off the finger, leaving the new stitch in place. It's best to start at the end where the yarn is

attached to the knitting finishing with the tail end where it is attached to the ball of wool, so swapping from one side to the other as in 'real' knitting which this is great preparation for.

To cast off, pass one stitch to the next finger and pass the back stitch over it and off and repeat, this method will gather the stitches together onto one stitch and then the end can be passed through the final stitch loop.

This first piece of knitting is being used as a thin scarf or belt depending on my daughter's fancy today, but I have ideas for things to do with this technique, so keep looking out for them if you are interested.

fabric scraps broach

Here's a broach that I made out of layers of fabric scraps randomly machined together then trimmed into a circle. I embellished it with some small glass beads and embroidered with a running stitch and french knots and glued a spare felted 'bead' from previous projects into the centre. Simple and  very quick.

knit Love Club Secret 'Owl' Swap Reveal

The Knit Love Club has a secret swap running that involves making an owl as that is the emblem of the club. I managed to arrange to meet up with my recipient at Knit Nation yesterday and handed over the following package of makes:

My 'Odds and Ends kerchief' which I shall now get round to writing up as a free pattern. I incorporated odd pieces of the yarns that were left over from the socks we've been making in the club.

A ceramic owl in a knitted & felted nest

A badge derived from the Knit Love emblem

And some silkscreened cards along with some other bits and pieces.

It was great fun making it all and handing it over.... roll on the next swap!