Tiny gift knitting...

Tiny gift knitting has been underway...

These cute gifts are made from the pattern Home Sweet Home Wee House Brooch and Key Ring.

Knitted on straight needles with sewn on embellishments. The brooch and key rings are similar in design but constructed slightly differently. Detailed instructions are given for both.

These gifts were made with Jamieson’s of Shetland DK but you could use other DK weight yarn. 

Small amounts of contrast yarn are needed for the roof and walls along with additional colours for windows and doors, 5 colours in total to complete each of the projects as shown.

Knitting skills required: cast on, cast off, knit stitch, purl stitch, working with changes of colour, picking up stitches. Some basic sewing skills.

Examples of the brooch version....

Here's one in action so to speak...think I'll be keeping one of these for myself.

What makes British sheep breeds special

Book titles and authors: The Fleece and Fibre Source Book Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius
Beautiful Sheep Kathryn Dun
British Sheep & Wool The British Wool Marketing Board

Britain has a rich heritage when it comes to sheep husbandry and fibre crafts. It’s wonderful to see so much renewed interest in the traditional breeds. 

With so many breeds however, it can be hard to know which fibre is right for a given project: some are hard wearing but rough against the skin, while others are among the softest in the world, but can’t take much wear. 

I’ve rounded up a beginner’s guide to some of my favourites, to help you get your bearings and shed a bit of light on what makes British breeds so special. 

If you read to the end, there’s a giveaway too if you'd like to win a box of knitting goodies!

Some of you may already know that I kept a small flock of Shetland sheep, so it’s no surprise that this breed is at the top of my list. 

Shetland

Description: A small hardy hill breed with fine bone structure. Rams usually have rounded horns.

Uses: A Shetland’s fleece can be used to produce fine yarns suitable for lacework, most famous for it's use in beautiful fair isle sweaters. The fineness and the wide range of natural shades has led to Shetland being the wool of choice for sweaters through to traditional tweed.

Characteristics: With an average fibre diameter in the range of 20-30 microns, Shetland wool can be exceedingly fine for a British breed. Known for the wide range of colours. Staple length for coloured fleece is between 6 to 12 cm.

Wensleydale

Description: A distinctive sheep, the Wensleydale has blue legs, ears and face, with a long, curly lustrous fleece. It is a large, bold sheep, but it is one of the UK’s rarest breeds.  

Uses: The wool from this particular breed is often blended with finer, but shorter stapled wools for a stronger yarn. Ideal for hand-spinning and hand-felting, it is used in a number of crafts, including rug making, knitting and crochet.

Characteristics: Wensleydale wool is arguably the finest, most lustrous long wool in the world. This is because the breed has an unusual feature in their DNA known as “central checking”, which prevents kemp, or coarse fibres, from being produced. This means that purebred sheep will produce completely kemp-free fleece. The staple length is between 15 -30 cm.

Masham

Description: Mashams are a cross breed originating in North Yorkshire. The progeny of a Teeswater ram and a Dalebred or a Swaledale ewe.

Uses: Masham wool is good for those who want to get started spinning their own yarn due to its good staple length. Despite this, Masham isn’t the softest wool around, so you’ll usually find it used in a blend with softer fibres, or used in carpets.  

Characteristics: The Masham is a hardy sheep, with a lustrous  soft fleece and a staple length of between 12 and 25 cm.

Herdwick

Description: Perhaps the hardiest British breed, the Herdwick can survive on high ground, like the Lake District fells. Born with a black fleece, they go grey as they get older, but they usually have a white head and legs. 

Uses: Herdwick wool is best suited for woven outerwear, hard-wearing carpets, and for filling furniture and mattresses. It does have a reputation for being harsh against the skin, but it’s great for accessories.

Characteristics: Their kemp fibres increase with age, making the wool brittle and coarse, so it’s never been too popular with knitters and dyers. Staple length is between 10 and 20 cm.

Lincoln Longwool

Description: A rare native sheep, the Lincoln Longwool is the largest British breed. It was bred, way back in the 1700s as a wool sheep, but it later became a dual-purpose breed. It is a docile sheep with a white face, dark ears and a broad forelock of wool that falls in it's face. 

Uses:  It has a strong and durable fibre, making it suitable for use in rugs, bags, cushions and outerwear.

Characteristics: Popular with hand spinners, especially the wool from Lincoln lambs. It is naturally a marbled grey, so is great for creating naturally variegated yarns and fabrics. It has a staple length between 15 -30 cm.

Romney

Description: Named after the Romney Marsh area in south east England. The Romney is a large sheep with a calm disposition.

Uses: Fleeces vary in fineness from next to the skin softness to courser more suited to upholstery purposes and floor coverings. This demi-lustrous fibre is a very popular and versatile fibre and works well for knitting, spinning, and weaving.  

Characteristics: Romney fleeces are generally of a uniform and consistent quality from top to tail. The staple length is between 10 and 20.5 cm.

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If you’re a wool lover, the kind people over at herdy®sleep are giving away a bundle of knitting goodies! As keen supporters of traditional British crafts and breeds, they use a full herdwick fleece in each of their handmade luxury mattresses. 

This giveaway includes the following:

Herdy Pattern Booklet which includes the following 5 patterns: 
rucksack 
cushion cover
hot water bottle cover 
childs jumper
a beanie hat

x4 balls of Herdy chunky 100% British wool

x1 pair of bamboo knitting needles

x1 Herdy tape measure

To have a chance to win this lovely knitting kit simply click on the link below. A winner will be drawn at random and announced here.

The giveaway is open to UK entries only 
(sorry to all overseas readers) 
and runs from 

6th - 30th November 2017.

*******
The Giveaway has ended.

Weekend Gloves Revised

First published on Ravelry in 2010 the Weekend Gloves are knitted flat on straight needles and have a sewn inset thumb. 

The pattern has now been revised to including additional instructions, knitting the glove and thumb all in one piece,  though still retaining the knit on straight needles technique. Also new yarn suggestions have been included, as some of the originals are discontinued. 

Testing out the new pattern Stylecraft Alpaca Tweed Chunky was used, in shades: (from left to right) Duck Egg, Emperor, Mole, Blush, Midnight, Aran (see also above), Cherry and Ocean. This yarn comes in x100g balls of length 135m. It's a blend of 3% viscose, 77% acrylic and 20% alpaca. 

This is a quick knit that can be completed over a weekend. Make longer for arm warmers or keep short for hand warmers. A cable detail on the front of the glove is suitable as a first cable stitch project. 

Pattern instructions included are

Hand warmers all in one piece

Arm warmers all in one piece

Hand warmers with sewn in thumb

Arm warmers with sewn in thumb

Cable c6f instructions

Knitting skills needed for this pattern

Sewn in thumb option: cast on, cast off, knit, purl, knit two stitches together, cable forward.

All in one piece option: cast on, cast off, knit, purl, make one stitch, cable forward

Suggested yarns

x1 100g ball Stylecraft Alpaca Tweed Chunky

x1 100g ball Stylecraft Special Chunky

You will need

x1 pair 6.5mm straight knitting needles

x1 cable needle

spare yarn for holding stitches and making markers

blunt tapestry needle for sewing seams

Tension

19 rows x 14 sts over 10cm x 10cm (4x4 ins)

Sizes

Hand warmers 18cm long x 9cm (7ins x 3.5 ins) to fit small to medium women hand approx. 19cm (7.5 ins) around knuckles

Arm warmers 33cm long x 9cm (7ins x 3.5 ins) to fit small to medium women hand approx. 19cm (7.5 ins) stretching to fit approx. 25cm (10ins) around arm below elbow.

Abbreviations used in the pattern

k knit

p purl

st(s) stitch(es)

c6f cable 6 forward

pm place marker

m1 make one stitch

sm  slip marker

k2tog knit two stitches together

RS right side

Weekend Gloves Hand and Arm Warmers Knitting Pattern

Stylecraft Blog Tour

If you haven't been following the tour so far, let me tell you a few details.  The tour features Batik DK yarn and the new Batik Elements. There are four different colour packs: Country Garden, Desert, Lagoon and Rain Forest. Each day from 16th - 31st October a different Stylecraft Blogstar talks about the knit or crochet design they have created using one of the yarn packs. 

Thank you to Phil from The Twisted Yarn for yesterday's stop off on the tour. Tomorrow it continues with Catherine's Crochet Corner.

Today it's the turn of Hand Knitted Things. The lovely "Desert" colour pack was my selection which includes the shades iron, graphite, cherry, heather, rose, coral and gold.

Inspiration for my design came from waves on the seashore in Scotland and a blanket I made previously using a stripy contrasting stitch pattern. Some experimenting with colour combinations and stitch patterns followed,  eventually a sample knitted swatch was produced. 

The wave pattern is based on the Shetland lace stitch "Old Shale" (Old Shell), usually knit on a stocking stitch background. For this project, however, all rows are knitted, so it's garter stitch all the way. The shawl is knit from the centre line in one direction from a provisional cast on. 

A provisional cast on allows cast on stitches to remain "live" and be worked on later. There are various methods to achieve this technique. My preference is to create stitches on the knitting needle using a crochet hook and some scrap yarn. There's a very good video I found which demonstrates this - click here.

After casting off the first half of the shawl, the "live stitches" from the provisional cast on are placed back on the knitting needle. The other half is knitted outwards, again from the centre line of stitches. This results in two halves running parallel with each other. 

Now, you may have noticed a shade missing from the original line up, which is the golden yellow. After completing the swatch and getting started I realised the golden yellow did not appear in my design. Following much consideration I decided to proceed with the predominantly plum, cherry, pink and mauve tones and think about adding another complimentary project using the yellow. 

Using some of the graphite and cherry with the yellow, "Parallel Lines" gloves were devised, incorporating pattern stitches from the shawl. The gloves are knitted in the round with purl rows and colour changes.

Gloves matching the shawl were also made using some of the remaining yarn.

The gloves and shawl patterns are available from Ravelry with 

a 30 % discount until the end of the blog tour.

(Offer ends 31st October 2017 - Midnight BST)

Parallel Waves Pattern 

Parallel Lines Pattern

Batik DK colour pack "Desert" - x4 Iron, x1 each of graphite, heather, cherry, rose, gold and coral

Stylecraft yarns are offering the chance to win one of the yarn packs of Batik "Desert". There's enough yarn to make the shawl and two pairs of gloves. 

Click on the link below to enter the giveaway

*****

Stylecraft Batik Yarn Giveaway

(Opens 10am BST on 25th until 10am BST on 26th October 2017)

*****

Update 26th October 2017

Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway, it's now closed.

There were 1496 entries.

The winner is Alison Dibdin.

Thank you!

Knitting snippets, out and about

Summer seems to have slipped into autumn and time as usual has flown by. Here's an autumnal resume, mainly photos from August through to October with some captions thrown in. 

Spent one Saturday in early October helping these two lovely ladies Barbara and Alex. They were presenting items from the Knitting and Crochet Guild collection at the “Up Country” yarn shop in Holmfirth.

The blanket is a design by Debbie Abrahams, the one featured on the Knitting and Crochet Guild logo. It was a “Mystery Blanket” knit-along in 2011. A kit was available by subscription (but no longer available). You can find details about it on Ravelry but I don’t think you can get the pattern.  

There's been some work done on revamping a Hand Knitted Things pattern, more news on this in early November...

These popular greeting cards with knitted Highland scenes have sold out over at Nanny's Cafe in Sheildaig. More ordered, printed and delivered...

Some walking along the shores of Loch Torridon...

...and sunshine with far reaching views along the loch...

Views from the front door with changing light...

Mobile library visiting...

...well stocked library van with lovely books...

My wise old owl appeared in the September/October edition of Landscape Magazine...

There's been lots of knitting behind the scenes with these shades...

...here's a sneak peak of the finished item which will be revealed here on Wednesday 25th October, part of the Stylecraft Blog Tour 2017...there'll also be a giveaway too. Tune in on Wednesday to participate...

KCG Trunk Show September 2017

From time to time the team at the Knitting and Crochet Guild (KCG) Archive arrange "Trunk Shows", where a selection of items from the collection are made available to view by interested groups and organisations throughout the country.

One such occasion a few weeks ago, I accompanied Barbara Smith (Publications Curator) to a trunk show in Harrogate. Barbara had selected items from the archive and prepared a talk for a group on a knitting tour of Yorkshire, organised by Susan Wolcott of Trips for Knitters. My role on this occasion was easy, helping organise and display items for the presentation.

Barbara presenting the Trunk Show talk 

Here's a list of the items. Followed below by some photos and a brief description of each.

1. Pence jug
2. Knitted lace doily
3. Irish crochet bag
4. Irish lace collar
5. Yorkshire Dales gloves
6. "Welcome Home" tablecloth
7. Crochet and knitted rayon jumper
8. 1930's Childs Fair Isle cardigan
9. Royal Baby's Fishermans sweater
10. Marianne Kinzel knitted tablecloth
11. Steve's jumper
12. Pink disco dress
13. Kaffe Fassett waistcoat
14. Cacti

1. Knitted Pence Jug, a container for pennies from the 19th century.

2. Knitted cotton doily with a triangular pattern insert (see image below) called "Print o' the Wave" in Shetland lace. Doily's were popular and knitted throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

3. Irish Crochet Lace was introduced in Ireland by nuns to provide an income for girls and women of poor families in rural areas. Motifs are worked separately and then joined together. Fashionable during the early 20th century unto 1914. 

Theatre Bag

Lace Collar

Collar detail

4. Knitted Yorkshire Dales Gloves, similar to the the Sanquhar designs of Dunfries and Galloway The Dales gloves held in the KCG collection are very rare and are featured in the book Old Hand Knitters of the Dales by Hartley and Inglby

5. Crochet "Welcome Home" Tablecloth. Example of patriotic WW1 filet crochet with a military theme.

Image courtesy of Barbara Smith

Image courtesy of Barbara Smith

6. Knitted and crochet rayon jumper typical of knitwear fashion around 1920's. Rayon (usually called art silk) is very slippery to work.

7. Knitted child's Fair Isle cardigan from just before WW2.

8. Royal Baby's Fisherman's jumper knitted in the 1940's with a gansey construction. The pattern was published in the Daily Telegraph, the royal baby probably being Prince Charles.

10. Marianne Kinzel tablecloth. This design is "Rose of England"  knitted in cotton.

11. "Steve's jumper". Knitted around the mid 1950's, the pattern is thought to have come from the Radio Times but has not been found by the archive team yet. 

12. Pink Disco dress probably published by Patons around 1970. This example came to the collection from a charity shop. 

13. Knitted Kaffe Fassett waistcoat. Donated by Kaffe to the collection (and knitted by the man himself) when he became patron of the Knitting and Crochet Guild in 1999. 

14. Cacti, these were designed and knitted by Jan Messant.

Image courtesy of Barbara Smith