Loving Cookie(A)'s

ore knitterly excitement.......the first installment of Cookie A's sock club arrived!

Having previously received the patterns (two) and cookie recipes (two, one by the beloved Alice Yu) by email, I was mightily excited waiting for the yarn itself to wing its way to my door. It feels so lush and is beautifully dyed by String Theory, but it's testing my colour boundaries.....isn't that part of the fun of yarn clubs? The colour is one I would have never chosen myself and I'll admit to feeling a bit deflated when I opened it, but a few days on and I'm softening to its charms. In a week or two it might have become my new favourite at this rate, but if not I shall make something for somebody who more in tune with its green hue. Either that or I shall commit the sin over dying with some blue in the microwave!!!

Loving knit Love

inished!

My first Knit Love Socks of the year were finished in a speedy way. The first one had some ripping back and a few changes had to be made, but then the second one flew off the needles over an intense attack session.

I have discovered that I'm more of a following a diagram kind of girl and less keen on reading row upon row of written notes. I kept miss counting which row I was on because I was incapable of remembering whether I had actually moved the row counter on or not. Duh! Someone suggested moving a Post-It note down the rows and that seemed to help, though then I kept forgetting whether I'd moved it or not.... I'm clearly in the grips of middle age brain cell loss!

Ans what do i think of them? Well, I LOVE Alice's yarn, it's immensely soft, but firmly spun, the colour is great and I love the pattern, but it's love with a lover case 'l', not the big all encompassing Love that i have felt for some of her more patterned varieties of socks from last year. However; contented I am and they are well deserving of the flashing drop cap! Thanks Alice

A little birdie

 nother offering from my more recent bird pictures:

Lucky Girl!

oday, I am a lucky girl.

The postie arrived with well taped up box and I opened it to find my prize for the Advent Christmas Challenge:

Gypsy Dancer made this delightful soap bowl and two sets of chunky ceramic buttons for me. What a great surprise, I had forgotten all about it and wasn't sure what would turn up, but it's just so nice to get a hand crafted present; it has really made my day.

The colours are my favourites, so I suspect that these have been selected especially. Check out her Art of Notions shop on Etsy if you like these- she also makes 'yarn bowls' if you are of the knitterly persuasion.

Knit Love, Love, Love!

he first round of this year's Kit Love Sock Club has arrived.

I've been sitting on putting pictures up for a while so that everyone could get theirs. Alice has had her own yarn spun and hand dyed it all. It's called Sokkusu-X, a lovely cashmere mix and it's heavenly; squishy yet firm and soft. Deluxe!

 I'm absolutely in love with the colours. They are a perfect balance of a crushed berry

 purple with a touch of muted gold and a splash of grey....gorgeous! The colour way is 'Corallina' and I have to decide whether I can make it into the allotted sock pattern or save it for something else...I'm not sure I can slip it into a shoe....we'll see.

So, it was off to the swift and ball winder and I am glad to report that it wound like a dream into the most

delightful ball of colour.......I love this club!

Experiments

I've been having a little play around with clay and thought I might share one of the experiments. This is a ceramic tile at around A4 size made out of impressed, glazed and fired clay on which I then experimented with image transfer for the blue pattern and the bird using acrylic matte medium

Swedish Swap

When I came home today the postie had been and amongst the pile of letters was a large parcel filled with a brilliant array of Swedish stamps

and inside a pile of pink packages:

Which turned out to be my swap parcel from the lovely 'Sandykins' in Ravelry's Knit Love group. I have been a very lucky girl and was absolutely over the moon with the contents. They are not all photographed together because moments after the unwrapping was done my daughter was running off with things....it's the last I've seen of the Ysolda bear for sure!

My absolutely favourite, was the skein of Wollmeise (how brilliant?) and the Spina Di Pesce pattern by Yarnissima....WOW!

Lots and lots of singing and dancing round over this swap parcel and a big thanks to Sandykins.

Chicken

hicken!

It's been a while since I put up any of my artwork so I started to put some up the other day and then after a conversation with a friend I was promted to post this one.

It's a mixed media piece and photo's don't really demonstrate the surfaces involved, lots of paint, print, acrylic medium etc on a gesso ground.

In Flight

his little bird caught my eye in my studio and I thought I'd share him with you:

Magpie Chart

f you would like to have a go at the Magpie Wrist-ees from my recent swap package you will need the original Robin pattern by Tiny Owl Knits.

The chart here is the one that I made up for the knit, with the eye made from a french knot and the beak from a few satin stitches. At the last moment I added a couple of lines of stitching to outline the bird, but you could leave those out. I stuck to the original pattern for the nest, just adding some brown flecks to the eggs and  then stitching on an assortment of odd beads, ribbons, small buttons etc for the nest.

To print off the chart at a larger scale click on it to enlarge before printing.

Giddy with Excitement

xcited? You bet!

There I was checking my emails when I came across one from Cookie A, some spaces had opened up on this years sock club and I was on the waiting list. Before I knew it, with no level of self control at all, click, click and yahoo, I'm in.

Do I really need to be in another club? No, but its Cookie A's: yarn, two patterns each time and a cookie recipe evidently. Baking and knitting, what could be more perfect? I might be insane with excitement by the time the first installment crosses the pond!!!

Menagerie of Animals Knit Love Swap

So, the parcel was sent, and ended up with i-make a keen crafter so here's what I included:

This felted owl pincushion wristband, where I followed the pattern up to the eyes which I enlarged with discs of felt.

and these are an adaptation of Tiny Owl's 'Sweet Robin Wrist-ees' which I decided to adapt a little to make a magpie and nest complete with trinkets: beads, buttons, ribbons and a dangley bit from a broken necklace. I also included the channel island cast on which Alice introduced to us in last year's Knit Love Club and seemed appropriate as these were off to Guernsey.

Evidently magpie's love to collect shiny things and have a song that's described as a 'chatter' which just seemed right somehow for my swapee who has a blog and podcast about a whole range of gorgeous crafting activities.

The bought elements were packed up alongside the made and it has all been posted off and my fingers were crossed that I'd picked well.

Phew, she was very pleased with the package! Hurrah!

Animal Swap

I've organised a swap for the Knit Love Sock Club over on Ravelry. It's been keeping me rather busy and I can't yet put anything up here about the parcel I'm sending off because its all hush hush!

It has an animal theme open to interpretation with the aid of the questionnaire reply from the allocated swap partner. So, here's what I've made to send off this week:

Nothing to see here I'm afraid, not until 'she' gets it!

Nice Stash Prize

Lucky, lucky me... this is what I reecieved in the post recently as a prize for my Advent Challenge win (the recyled birds). It's a very nice skein of walkers sock yarn in a soft heathery shade of lilac/greyish which I shall now deliberate over to make something lush from.

Another Hat

After all those hats, I decided to make myself another one using some Colinette Art that was sitting looking at me. It was an entirely made up as I went along job, but this time I made some notes as I went along. I intend to write them up as a pattern at some point soon. I was after something that would  show off the wool which seemed likely to disguise a complex pattern. So this is what I came up with:

Hats and More Hats

I've been knitting hats for my SIL who is battling her way through Chemo. It seems a vaguely useful thing to do when there's frustratingly little that you can do. The good news is that she is just over hjalf way and things are looking good. She is a tower of strength and very much a lesson to all of us.

This first one is a Tretta Hat knitted in some beautiful Skein Queen Opulent cashmere which was very kindly donated to me by a fellow Knit Love club member.

This one was a lovely pattern to knit: a cotton Coline

and finally a Pi Topper in some nice silk yarn which between them should cope with all levels of chemo induced sensitivity I hope. This then led on to further hats emerging:

A Woolly Wormhead Brownie, sized up for my daughter and minus ear flaps

A further Tretta with beads for my mum

and finally a made up as you go along style hat for me. 

Knit Love Club - Crowley Socks

Alice's final installment of the Knit Love Club 2010 was a quick cabled sock which fits really nicely. While I did nearly come to blows with winding up the yarn (which was the biggest mess ever and took three evenings and a few curses to unravel) I must say that it won me over in the end. A Verb for Keeping Warm's

Annapurna Cashmere Yarn is a great yarn, soft, but strong and I suspect it will wear well.

 

Recyled Christmas Birds

These were my first go for the Advent Challenge. Three little birds made from an abandoned cardigan back that I was making, felted in the washing machine and left over scraps from my material and button box. They were not quite Christmas Robins, not quite Three French Hens:

Amazingly they won, which was such a lovely start to the New Year.