Make Along and a Competition

Would you like to join a knitting Make Along for this blanket? It’s the Special Stripy Blanket in a new colour way called ‘Sea Breeze’ made with 7 shades of Stylecraft Special Chunky yarn.

The Make Along begins on 13th August in the Stylecraft Yarns Make Along Group on Facebook where you’ll be able to find the link to the pattern with a special discount code.

The original colour way 'Beach Huts' (on the left in the image above) and the new 'Sea Breeze' were inspired by the seaside.

There’s a competition to design a new colour way based on a 'Deck Chair' theme. You can find the entry template on the Stylecraft website by clicking on the image below and downloading. To enter the competition choose a 7 colour combination from the Special Chunky shade range. List your colours on the template chart (with your contrast colour first). Scan or take a photo of your finished chart and email to bronagh.miskelly@stylecraftltd.co.uk

I’ll be selecting my favourite colour way and the winner will receive the yarn courtesy of Stylecraft to make their own version of the blanket.

Good Luck!

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

Summer Houses

It's March already and I've been wondering where this year has gone so far. There have been too many grey and rainy days. It's been good these last few weeks to work in summery yarn shades with names such as, Sky Blue, Sunflower, Greek Blue, Poppy, Soft Lime and Lavender.

Generally I use wool DK yarn when I knit these wee Scottish croft houses. It has been a change to use a smooth cotton in 4ply making a summery seaside cottage. Even though the 4ply is a lighter weight the pattern worked well with this yarn and the same needle size 3.25mm was used. 


Here are the colour combinations I came up with... 
 

 Poppy  ~  Sky Blue  ~  Sunflower  ~  Lavender

Soft Lime ~ Lapis ~ Poppy ~ Sky Blue

Peppermint ~ Sunflower ~ Soft Lime ~ Shell

Fondant ~ Lavender ~ Peppermint ~ Soft Lime

Greek Blue ~ Shell ~ Peppermint ~ Lavender

The pattern I used was Mini Red Roof Croft House.

For the Summer Houses I used the new Stylecraft Classique Cotton 4ply see below for the full the colour range. This is a 100% cotton and comes in 50g balls 182m/199yds.

I had fun choosing colour combinations from the 12 available in the palette. I like the mix of pastel and stronger shades. There are two neutral shades, White and Ivory, the latter I used for the windows on all the houses. This is just a start on possible colour combinations, I'm sure I can mix these around and create more different houses...

Image courtesy Stylecraft

Image courtesy Stylecraft

Moss Stitch Table Mat

This is a quick and easy one square knitting project in bulky t-shirt yarn. A textured surface is created with alternate knit and purl stitches. Make just the one as a trivet  or several for place mats.

 

For this project I used Hooked Zpagetti which is a 90% recycled cotton, with 10% other recycled fibers. The label states a min. 120m (131yds), just enough for three of these table mats, each one requires about 39m.

The pattern uses size 12mm knitting needles and makes a square about 25cm x 25cm (10ins x 10ins).

 

Click on the image or click here to download the free PDF pattern from Ravelry.

Arrived from The Net Loft

This adorable collection of items arrived all the way from Cordova, Alaska, sent by the lovely Dotty Widmann from The Net Loft. Earlier this year in June/July 2016 The Net Loft hosted a fibre festival called "Fisher Folk".

I designed a fair isle style fish pattern for use with yarn made from the one Shetland sheep they have in the town. Dotty produced a knitting kit to go with the pattern and these were given to each of the 100 participants at the festival. As there was a very limited supply of the yarn I was delighted to receive a sample kit (and lots of other goodies) in the post recently.

Inspiration for the fish motif came from patterns used on fishermen sweaters. In particular those from the Moray Firth Gansey Project in Scotland. There was to be exhibition of these sweaters on loan to the festival in Cordova and I thought it would be appropriate to include a net style motif from the Scottish Ganseys. The fish knitting pattern is called Catch of the Day and is available now on Ravelry.

I  was not able to attend the event, but if you'd like to read more about it, there are two very interesting blog posts by The Net Loft and the Fringe Association which include images from the festival and interviews with participants.