Yarn along

Joining Ginny in sharing what we are reading and knitting/crocheting


After finishing my socks on Sunday I have started b my handbag kit I got from my parents for Christmas, I have already made one of these bags, in purple and I use it as my every day bag.

It works up surprisingly quickly. I am also reading Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind by Hayo Miyazaki. The film was based on the book of the same name. It has to be one of my favourite films and the manga follow the same story but goes into much more depth.

Yarn along

Sharing what I am reading and knitting at the moment with Ginny from the small things.

It has taken me nearly a month to get these socks knitted! My my, but I did make decent progress since yesterday. I knitted the gusset and started work on the final length of the sock (the bit what holds your foot? Not sure what it's called)

At the moment I am reading the spring issue of landscape. As much as I love the magazine. It has me waiting for spring even more now. It has some great pictures of the obligatory baby animals and daffodils, some great desserty custardy recipes. Baked custard slices if definitely one I shall try. And also a super cute pattern for knitted lambs I shall have a go at once I have finished my socks. 

Another thing I took five minutes out to do was jazz up some hair ties. As a child of the 90s scrunchies were the thing, but they are impossible to find now! So I saw some really cute fuzzy ones on Pinterest but they were from Japan and it would have cost me a fortune to make, I saw a tutorial, (I would link it but I couldn't find it again) that uses snowflake wool, wrapped around plastic cross stich canvas. 

My creative brain started buzzing and I thought "I wonder what would happen if I crocheted some of it around a hair elastic?" So the end result is this:

Irish crochet

 I recently have been looking at (and admiring) Irish crochet. I came across this on my Pintrerest feed:

 I was immediately hooked as we say. I had a bit of an idea brewing in my brain to make some mini-doilies. Which turned out ok, but look more free-form crochet-y. I have made them into pretty hair ties.

 

 

 

 

and all four together

 

 When  I was looking for some information online initially I found it quite hard to find instructions and information about, it seems to be one of those skills that is passed down through the generations.

Although some digging around has bought up some very useful archives on the Internet, here and there are some lovely old patterns here. There are a few books that I have seen recommended such as the Priscilla range of books and Irish Crochet by Mdme Hardouin (although this one is in French).

I feel super inspired by these books and pictures and will keep you posted about how things turn out.


xxx

Oh and PS we did have snow this morning but it didn't settle!

My crochet waist coat - Yarn Along.

Here is my finished waist coat/vest thing.  No new reading this week. Still reading last week's Landscape and just finished a rather charming article about Harris Tweed.

Unfortunately the lighting isn't very good as we have had a bad storm blowing in all day and it's been super dark. 

Here is the back too

Also there was a lot of ends to weave in too:

Phew. Apparently we are due for snow tomorrow! I am quite excited.

Xxxx

Work in progress

Phew, it has been wet and windy and very wild. But today is a welcome break from all of that. Clear skies and lots of lovely sun.

There's the last of the afternoon sun!

The past few days I have been hunkering down from the weather and working on my next project. A cotton vest.

Here is the front panels. Currently working on the back, which is going to be a large granny square with the same fabric pattern on the top to join at the shoulders to form some sort of yoke. 

I hope you all are well. xxx

Yarn along and Christmas presents

This week I have been enjoying another magazine, Kitchen Garden. In my opinion I find it is the best gardening magazine, it always comes with a pack of seeds and has lots of very useful tips, even though some of them are aimed at the young at heart!

I have been knitting with my hand spun silk, which is super hard as you may know that silk itself is very slippery. 

The finished product.

I have also been busy crocheting candle holders to go in the gift boxes.

Here they are all finished.

And packaged up

Business and preparation

Autumn is definitely upon us now. It is cold and murky time, a time to cosy up inside. Firing up the central heating which has been named Clunky. To chase away the cool, dampness that has been hanging around for the past few days.

The nights are drawing in too, it makes the day seem so short. Many times I have felt myself longing for bed around 8pm, which is far too early. Last night I gave in at half past 9. 

I felt that was acceptable after a hard days work. Yesterday I had to repair the chicken coop after the feathery ladies escaped. Luckily there was no Mr Fox around, so everyone is safe and accounted for after their adventure.

I have also been working on the decorating. Still going! Although it was all the boring white gloss for the wood work. Now it looks fresh and clean. I also need to make some soft furnishing for the living to help with the cosiness factor. Maybe some curtains just to help keep the warm in a little more. I came across some ideas for burlap (or hessian as it is called in the UK) curtains.

Here are some examples I have found on Pinterst:

The colours I picked for my living room are brown and purples anyway, so hessian would fit perfectly.  I would post a picture of my living room but it is about to chuck it down so has gone very dark!

Digging around further on Pinterst (as I am sure users of that site are well aware how often this happens!) I came across some pretty interesting combinations of hessian and lace:

 

Some possible future projects maybe?




I have also made mayonnaise. It was a very stressful thing to do and I managed to use eight, yes eight egg yolks! Now I have a whole bunch of whites sitting in the fridge ready to be made into meringue. 

Knitted dish cloths

I am a huge fan of knitted dish cloths and the fact they are completely re-usable is a plus. Once they have done their duty washing up and are mucky, chuck them in the washing machine with the other laundry and they come out as good as new.

After they have been washed to death and are looking a bit sad they get relegated from the kitchen draw to the bathroom to clean in there. Once they are beyond that, as they are 100% cotton they can be chucked into the recycling as textiles. 

After visiting my Nanna in Scotland, she traded me a huge bag of cotton, double knit in white and ecru. So I set to work knocking up a few 

I don't bother blocking them as they are only to be used for cleaning pans and eventually the toilet. 

The one at the back is just a simple stocking stitch block with a garter border. The other uses this pattern found on raverly. I added a crochet border for added prettiness but I find crochet is better for scrubbing with.

Do any of you guys still use knitted dish cloths? My Nan always said her mother (my great Nan) always used them.