Tag Archives: knitting

March 9, 2014 · 12:12 pm

Update

Busy doing lots of knitting, carding and spinning this week, and here are the results!#

Here’s some new sets of batts that have just been put up in my Etsy shop.

They’re a blend of black Finnish wool (it’s a lot like bfl) and merino. I’ve also got some secret batts on the go for a knitting project that should be done in a week or two.

There’s lots on the needles too. I’ve got a lacy version of my Mosely Cardigan on the go which should be finished pretty soon. I hope to have the pattern out for testing in April and released sometime in the Summer. Here’s a sneak peek! It’s in Madelintosh Merino Light which is just a joy to knit. The colour is a lot more vivid in real life, a beautiful deep pine colour. Can’t wait until it’s done!

The neckline’s at the bottom of the picture and the two holes are armholes. Here’s a closeup of the stitch pattern:

I’ve also got a fairisle yoked jumper on the needles. We’ve been watching the Killing and I was feeling inspired! The yarn is BC Garn dk. I’ve never used BC Garn before but they have a lovely range of colours for fairisle. It’s just the right weight for me too. A pretty light dk so you can get lots of detail into the colourwork, but not so lightweight that it would take years to knit a sweater.

And finally finished spinning my birthday fibre! Think I’m going to use it for stripes in a sweater, or maybe a giant smooshy scarf!

This week I’ve also started a test knit for my latest sweater pattern, Buchanan Street Sweater for my knitting pattern line, Littletheorem Knits. If you would like to volunteer to be a tester, please head over to the Ravelry Free Pattern Testers group! Here’s some pictures of it…

Christmas Knitting

It’s all systems go round here now in terms of Christmas knitting! Have a list of 8 things I want to knit as gifts and have managed to finish one (yes one) so far. Oh well.

Here’s some progress pics so far! Starting with the project that’s actually done, this Felted Lace Wrap will be going to one of my oldest and dearest friends:

And here’s a few feet of scarf:

Edges are a bit scrappy because a lot of the knitting was done overnight on a bus to Alton Towers on a school trip! Going to crochet round it. Everything will be fine.

Not much else to show in terms of gift knitting, but I do have a couple of pictures from my latest obsession: Fair Isle knitting. Here’s a cushion cover I started that is currently on hold. I’m knitting my mum a Fair Isle cowl though. More pictures of that to come soon!

Only downside is the loose ends!

aaaarrgghhh!

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Filed under Christmas, Knitting, Knitting Patterns

Tagged as Christmas knitting, double moss stitch, fair isle, knitting, knitting patterns, lace, scarf, wrap

October 6, 2013 · 5:12 pm

Birthday Goodies!!

Ok, so it’s been a couple of weeks since my birthday, but I thought I’d show off the yarn and fibre I’ve got now. (The last couple of weeks I’ve had nice beach and walking pictures to share but this week’s been a bit boring!)

So, here they all are:

The spinning fibre is from Three Waters Farm, it’s a polwarth silk blend.

That’s from my parents, as is:

This skein of laceweight merino from Welthase. It’s going to be a scarf with a lacy leafy kind of pattern.

D’s parents gave me 7 (!!) balls of Jamiesons of Shetland aran weight. I’m going to knit up a fair isle cushion for the flat with that I think…

And my little brother got me a skein of Abstract Cat yarn. It’s handdyed, sockweight bfl, not sure what I’ll knit with this but the yarn is gorgeous!

Sorry to be such a show off!

Knitting wise this week, I have finally made a start on a second project with my gradient batt yarn. I started knitting up a shawl, but was wildly overoptimistic when planning how far the yarn would go, so it’s been ripped back and is being knitted into a hat.

You can’t see very clearly, but it’s twisted 1×1 rib split into 6 sections which will spiral round. Hopefully lots of progress will be made by next week and you’ll be able to see what I mean!

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Filed under Batts, Hat, Knitting, Spinning, Spinning Fibre, Yarn

Tagged as birthday, birthday presents, gradient batt, handspun yarn, Hat, knitting, Spinning Fibre, Yarn

September 23, 2013 · 5:08 pm

St Andrews Visit

We went back to stay with my parents in St Andrews this weekend. It’s my birthday on Tuesday so we had a family weekend at home to celebrate. Checked out the new wool shop in St Andrews (I forget the name but it’s on Bell St if anyone’s visiting and wants to seek it out). They had a lovely selection of undyed alpaca and handknitted scarves. Really cute soft toy alpacas too, would make a lovely present for a knitter’s kid! Bit on the pricey side, but it is St Andrews so I’m sure they can find plenty of people who can afford it. And I think the rates there are horrific so fair play to them…

Didn’t spend long in town, but I’ve got lots of lovely pictures of windswept beaches for you! On Saturday we walked along the West Sands in St A’s. The tide was right in, and it was overcast but the sea was amazingly calm. There was a huge flock of sanderlings flying in unison which was very pretty. Here’s a couple of pics anyway….

Sunday was much sunnier, and we headed out to Tentsmuir forest for a walk. It’s a pine forest just north of St Andrews by a huge beach. You see lots of seals there in Summer, but at the start of Autumn, it’s just amazing for finding mushrooms!

Here’s a small sample of the mushroom pics!

Here’s a nice foresty pic:

And some of the beach:

Knitting-wise, things have been a bit up and down! I knitted up as much shawl as possible with my gradient yarn from the last post, but there just wasn’t enough for an anywhere near decent shawl. Back to the drawing board and I think I’ll knit up a hat with it instead. Got an interesting idea for a twisted rib hat that I think will look nice with the colour change…. More on that hopefully next week!

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Filed under Knitting, Nature, Scotland, Uncategorized

Tagged as Beach, Forest, knitting, knitting shops, Mushrooms, scotland, St Andrews, Tentsmuir, West Sands

September 1, 2013 · 4:37 pm

Spinning Gradient Batts

Last week a carded a pretty gradient batt:

And this week I’ve been spinning it up. I spun it all into laceweight singles (somewhere between 2 and 3 ply weight), then navajo plied it to make about a dk weight yarn.

Here’s a pic of the singles:

And the plied yarn:

Really pleased with how it turned out! I’ve got about 180m of it, think I’m going to make a cabled hat. Was planning on making a lacy hat, but I’ve got a bit too much yarn for that if I want to show off all the colours in the gradient…

Two FO’s this week too:

A hat for my aunt in twisted moss stitch. The yarn is Shilasdair luxury dk. It’s dyed with woad and it’s dyed a blue line on the index finger of my right hand where the yarn runs over it. Going to write up the pattern and stick it up on Littletheorem hopefully sometime this week.

Also finished off a little external hard drive cover for Dunc. This is leftover Rowan Felted Tweed from knitting my brother a sweater for his 30th. It’s pretty cute I think!

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Filed under Batts, Carding, Cute, Knitting, Spinning

Tagged as batt, batts, carding, handknit, handspun, knit, knitting, spin, spinning, spinning fiber, Spinning Fibre, wool

August 25, 2013 · 6:13 pm

Etive Cowl

Remember the alpaca I was spinning a few weeks ago? It has metamorphosed into a chunky lace cowl for which I have just released the pattern. Whoop!

Etive cowl is a soft, cosy, lofty cowl that’s really quick to knit. The lace pattern is suitable for beginner knitters and is perfect for handspun yarn. It’s available to purchase on Ravelry here, Etsy here and Craftsy here. I knitted this up as a birthday present for a friend. She used to work in a posh knitwear shop on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh and would always say how soft (and unaffordable) the alpaca scarves were.

I’ve just started a new spinning project which I’m pretty excited about (although I haven’t got very far with it). I’m spinning a gradient batt into colourchanging yarn, which will hopefully become a lace hat in the near future.

So far I’ve carded the batt:

Tore it into strips:

And spun about 10 grams. Why only 10 grams?? We’ve been inundated with guests! My brother, my cousin, his best friend, his girlfriend and his housemate all dropped in this afternoon. He lives in Birmingham and stopped by on his way to visit his Dad in the Highlands. And last night we were dogsitting for a friend (the same friend who now owns the Etive cowl above). So we’ve been spending a lot of time playing tug of war with a squeaky toy pig.

And generally being overwhelmed by cuteness…

Knit 1 Pearl 1

Just added a new free knitting pattern to Ravelry and our sister website, Littletheorem Knits.

Knit 1 Pearl 1 is a cute little storage box knitted in superbulky cotton tape with pretty pearl detailing. It’s really quick too, definitely less the a one hour project. You can find the pattern on Rav here, and on Littletheorem Knits here.

In other news, it was my first week back teaching after the summer and my first week at a new school. Very pleased to report that everything’s going great so far. Even the commute’s pretty quick and easy! Still finding time to do lots of knitting, spinning and cooking after school (thank goodness). The picture of the alpaca handspun last week is half turned into a chunky lace scarf. And here’s a pic of Friday night’s dinner: veggie tapas for two.

We’ve also starter to house-hunt more seriously. After 7 years of living together in rented flats (good and bad!), Dunc and I both finally have full time, permanent contracts and can get a mortgage (whoop)! We looked at a house this afternoon that was lovely. Small and quirky in a quiet, leafy street, really beautiful inside with a big garden, buuuut…. it’s sandwiched between two disused industrial units. You can’t see them, but the road down to the house would be pretty scary at night, and there’s a lane behind the house with lots of empty beer cans. Not such a good sign… Think we might keep on looking for now!

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Filed under Cooking, House Hunting, Knitting, Knitting Patterns, Teaching

Tagged as free knitting pattern, house hunting, knit, knitting, lace, littletheorem knits, ravelry, scarf, school, spinning, teaching, vegetarian, veggie

August 11, 2013 · 5:15 pm

Busy Week!

So the last week of the holidays has come and gone, back to school tomorrow (booo). I’m actually pretty excited, I’ve just finished my first year of teaching and I’m incredibly lucky to have a full time job for this year. Having said that, I will miss having so much time for crafting and have spent the past week crafting like a demon.

On the needles:

Pictures aren’t great, but this will be a lace wrap based on traditional Estonian lace stitch patterns. The nuppy bit is meant to look like a lily of the valley plant. It’s very pretty but nupps drive me up the wall! I’ve had to use a cocktail stick for the p7togs.

On the spinning wheel

Been spinning up some fawn alpaca to make a scarf for a friend’s birthday. So soft!! I’m thinking just a simple twisted moss stitch pattern I can knit in a zombie-like state after work…

On the drumcarder

Lots of lovely batts! Soon to be posted in my Etsy shop.

In my shopping bag…

A beautiful (and gigantic!) batt from Spin City. It’s a lovely smooshy blend of faux cashmere, merino, soysilk and firestar. I think this one might turn into a lacy cowl… And they sent a free mini batt too! Think I might ply it with some plain coloured merino and make some slippers.

Out and about

And to top it off we went up a few hills. Camped out in Glen Etive on Thursday night, which ended up being pretty horrific. The midges were as bad as I’ve ever encountered which made cooking tricky (our dinner was half burned, half raw and totally inedible), and my hipflask was jammed shut so no whisky. Had a nice wee stroll up Ben Dorain the next day though, and climbed Beinn Garbh and An Stuc the day after. Pictures above are of Beinn Garbh and An Stuc.

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Filed under Batts, Carding, Hillwalking, Knitting, Scotland, Spinning

Tagged as alpaca, an stuc, batt, beinn garbh, ben dorain, camping, carding, glen etive, handknit, handspun, highlands, hillwalking, killin, knit, knitting, lace knitting, mountains, spinning, Spinning Fibre, tourist information, wool

August 2, 2013 · 1:26 pm

Caora Sweater Pattern

I’ve designed a new sweater pattern knitted up with Caora batts. The irony is that Scotland is currently experiencing a bit of a heatwave (this is very, very unusual!) but it never hurts to have a chunky sweater on hand.

It’s a quick knit in chunky yarn, and pretty plain to show off your handspun. Chunky garter stitch edgings and cute buttons seal the deal.

Anyway, enough chat, here’s the pdf! CaoraSweater.

Caora batts can be purchased at Caora Fibres Etsy Shop.

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Filed under Knitting Patterns

Tagged as batts, bulky, buttons, chunky, free, free knitting pattern, handknit, handspun, knit, knitting, pattern, spinning, Spinning Fibre, sweater pattern

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Tag Archives: knitting

Update

Christmas Knitting

Birthday Goodies!!

St Andrews Visit

Spinning Gradient Batts

Etive Cowl

Knit 1 Pearl 1

Busy Week!

Caora Sweater Pattern

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