General Store

ONLY ONE WEEK TO GO...

2011-11-27T09:02:00.000-08:00

... before I join the wonderful machine knitting Amy Lawrence at the Winter Arts Market at St George's Hall. We were both lucky enough to get a table on Sunday the 4th of December where I will be selling some of my hand printed paper, letter writing sets, bunting and other festive oddments. I'll also have a few limited edition sheets of hand printed christmas paper. Amy has been a busy bee knitting some snoods, wrist warmers and some adorable bow tie necklaces, sweet!

If you're feeling lucky there's also a competition where you can win a £50 voucher or one of two £25 vouchers which you can spend at the event. See here for details and good luck!

JUST A QUICKIE...

2011-11-11T00:31:00.000-08:00

...before running off to work. A friend shared a link with me this morning that I'd like to pass on too! Mum, Grandma, Sarah, get your knitting needles out! A yarn store in New Zealand are requesting people to knit jumpers for penguins that have been affected by the country's oil spill.

Skeinz the yarn store first sent the pattern out only this week which you can find here, the crochet pattern will be out soon so keep an eye on their blog to keep updated. Above you can see some of the stores recent arrivals and some of the lovely penguins keeping warm and trendy with their jumpers on (Photo credit: Toby Zerna/Newspix/Rex USA). Read the full story here on the abc news website.

BABY WINTER KNIT

2011-11-09T15:13:00.000-08:00

I made one of these for both Sarah and Marie when they were babies and they were the handiest winter coats they had for when going out in the pram. I've not long finished this one for a friend of mine and it's just in time for the chilly weather. Marie thinks it looks like a big marshmallow, which it definitely feels like, it's sooo soft! It's best to use the wool that the pattern sheet suggests for this piece which is Sirdar Snuggly (55% Nylon 45% Acrylic). Marie has just ordered some wool from ebay where she got 50g balls for £2.25 each to make her friends recent arrival her winter coat.

YARN GUIDE

2011-11-09T14:52:00.000-08:00

Remember a post a while back about my visit to Berlin? Here's a reminder. Well, I mentioned purchasing a gift for my mum which I wasn't sure she'd really use but thought it was worth a try anyway. I finally managed to snap some pics for you to see what it was I was trying to explain! As you can see from the instructions (and lovely finger model!) you slip it onto your finger and then put the different strands of wool into the separators. I'm still not sure mum has actually had a chance to have a go with it yet, I'll have to ask her and update soon! I'm not sure I'd find it much use as I'm sure that's my needle pusher and checker for no wool falling off finger when knitting!

A BIG THANKS...

2011-09-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

... goes out to all who came to say hello at the market stall on Castle Street last weekend, I met some really lovely people. I still have some stock left over from the stall but unfortunately will not get a chance to set up an online shop for a while yet. If you are interested in purchasing any of the hand printed papers, bunting or letter writing sets please don't hesitate to get in touch here. In the meantime here's a few pics of the stall and you can check out the different types of hand printed papers available here.

FIESTA LATINA!

2011-09-23T06:20:00.000-07:00

If you're out and about Liverpool City Centre tomorrow why not pop over to Castle Street right by the town hall and join in the with the celebrations at Fiesta Latinaaaaa! I'll be there with Mister Paxman selling some of my hand printed paper (See below) and Mister Paxman will have some lino prints on sale too. P.S. I'm quite busy at the momento trying to finish off the writing sets and some bunting (Last minute idea!) but I'll hopefully get the new images of my papers up before tomorrow.

COMING TO A STALL NEAR YOU...

2011-09-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

... this weekend I will be selling some hand printed pieces I have made on a stall at the Fiesta Latina on Castle Street in Liverpool. The festival will start this Saturday (which is the 24th) at 12 noon. There's also the Bold Street festival on too so if you're going to that why not pop over to Castle Street for a bit of a Fiesta afterwards!

If you're not lucky enough to make the festivities in person and would still like to purchase some of my paper feel free to get in touch with me here. Each sheet measure roughly 100cm by 50cm but there's still more to come yet too, these are just for starters! So watch out for the next batch where there will be some letter writing sets, my christmas collection and some more printed sheets of paper. Busy busy, no time for knitty!

BERLIN HABERDASHERY STORES

2011-09-19T02:22:00.000-07:00

I'm sure a while back I may have mentioned my little trip to Berlin. Whenever I go away somewhere I'm always excited to have half a day or so to myself searching for shops that sell fabric and wool. Berlin was a bit disappointing in that respect and I only really managed to find 2 shops (Maybe I didn't try hard enough!). On my next visit I think I'll be spending a little more time online searching for shops as there do seem to be more places scattered around.

The first shop I found was Fadeninsel and it sold mostly wool. I only managed to snap an image of some of the wool inside but after doing some research I have found the shop has a lovely sign on the front and so have borrowed an image from here for you to see. Fadeninsel can be found at Oranienstrasse 23, they have a website here, it doesn't show anything really but has the contact information. I did make a purchase here for my Mum's birthday, I'm not sure she'll ever use it though, it's a yarn divider for when you're using more than one colour on a knitting project and you pop it onto your finger! I'll get her to take some pics soon.

The second shop (which I found online!) was a fabric store in Charlottenburg. It's called Kumasch and although small, it did host a wide variety of fabrics. I didn't buy any in the end as I thought most of the stuff they had there I could probably buy back at home and a tad cheaper too.

We were a bit more successful on finding lots of other interesting things in Berlin though, some of which I haven't blogged about yet. Others I have and they include Polish poster design, an independent artist run space with some fab pieces of graphics inside. The colourful beer, mmmmhhh! A double decker bus cafe, the worlds largest open air gallery, lots of inspiring graffiti, and much more to come! So as you can see we were hardly disappointed really!

MORE NEW FABRIC

2011-09-17T09:07:00.000-07:00

Mmmmhh, I just couldn't help myself. I was up that part of town last Wednesday and thought I'd pop in to Abakhan Fabrics in Liverpool. I started out not liking much, but then after perhaps my 5th round of the baskets I managed to dig out a few beauties. I'm planning to make tops from all of the pieces and have chosen a lovely shirt pattern for the stripy piece. I think I'll have to put a ban on buying any more until some sewing gets done!

A WARM WOOLLY

2011-09-13T16:08:00.000-07:00

Made by Sarah, posted by Marie!

Sarah sent me these pics ages ago and it's only now I've managed to get them up in a post. I think the background resources for photographing pieces on is a but scarce in Wales. Even though they do have a good old supply of some of my materials! So, I've made the background a little prettier than what it was (that's my excuse for late posting!) to show off this, oh so comfy looking baby jumper. I just love the collar on it, it makes you want to pull it up close around your neck and melt inside its cosiness!

Mum is just finishing off a baby set for a friend (coming soon) and Sarah has perhaps one more baby piece to post up, but as far as making anything new for the bambinos this year we've come to a bit of a halt in order to make ourselves some woolly mammoths for the upcoming wintery weather.

I've just one more sleeve on my converted Aran pattern and it will be my first adult jumper done : ) ...ever, Wahoooo! I don't think I'll be done completely for a couple of weeks again yet as I'm prepping to sell some hand made bits on a stall in Liverpool, coming up in about a week or so. Busy busy! More on that to come soon.

HOMEMADE SPONGE BARS

2011-09-13T14:19:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks back I was lucky enough to have my lovely Mum and Sister over to stay, and even luckier that they brought me the knitting machine so I could start figuring out how to use it. They also left a nice long list of things they'd like me to make along with a cone of wool, how nice!

Usually I'm straight in there without even reading the manual (tut, tut) but I've been that busy I haven't had the time to even take it out of the box yet. That was until yesterday, and I'm so glad that that's been the case as since it was dropped off I've been having a chat with one of our blog followers and she very wisely advised me to change the sponge bar in the machine as it hasn't been used for such a long time. I am so grateful for having been given this advice as the sponge bar was, as you can see, in bits. The first image shows the sponge bar already in the machine and below, is the new one I have made. The next image is the old sponge taken out which turns into this horrible "stuff" which breaks into bits and smudges into everything when touched, beware!

It didn't take me long to find an extremely helpful, step by step guide online showing how to make my own sponge bar rather than having to fork out for a new one. A big thanks goes out to all people who give these helpful pieces of advice and to those who provide the extremely valuable help online.

So for all those who are getting their knitting machines out of the cupboard and on the go again here's the valuable advice Id like to pass on, be sure to check your sponge bars! And, if you need it replacing you can follow this fantastic guide here. As for me, I'm just waiting for my cone of gorgeous yellow practice wool to arrive, woop woop!

I HEART BABY BOOTIES

2011-09-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

I just can't keep away from that moss stitch now! After making my friend a tie with the good old moss stitch I decided to make my next baby project with it too, just to make sure I've got the stitch remembered! Aren't they gorgeous?! The pattern is by Debbie Bliss and I have just added the hearts myself. It might look like I haven't been up to much over the past few weeks with yet another lack of posts but trust me I have! Plus I was brought a little surprise last week all the way from North Wales which I am quite excited about and will definitely be taking up some of my upcoming time, trust me!

THERE'S FINER THAN 4 PLY?

2011-08-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

Last time I visited Wales Mum was battling this beauty. It reminds me of my struggle with my 4Ply knitting only far more complicated. It has knitted up oooooh so prettily, and with all the bad feelings I have towards fine yarn knitting at the minute I do feel a bit sad that Mum isn't going to go any further with it.

To Mum's surprise however the wool she ordered by post arrived on a cone, which, "Is the perfect fit for that knitting machine of ours hey Mum?!" A few people have been in touch about our knitting machine as they have the same model. Unfortunately, we here at The General Store haven't had the time to get together and use ours and we're very jealous of all out there who have managed to get it going! I definitely have big plans ahead for ours, it's just the getting together and getting it going that seems to be slowing us down!

BEAUTIFUL BOBBINS AND THEIR RACKS

2011-08-12T06:33:00.000-07:00

Today I received my regular Pedlars newsletter, only to be greeted 'Good Morning!' by these absolute beauties! They are vintage bobbins and racks recovered from an old weaving factory on the east coast of America and are now up for sale on the Pedlars website here - six to choose from. They have been re wound using deadstock cotton by a gentleman who's wife supplies Pedlars with some of their vintage goods. He said he 'wound it all on last winter when the snow came in.' He used a homemade device that he constructed from an old electric drill! Wonderful! I'm not too sure what I'd do with the cotton if I bought one, whether to keep it as is or use it for a one off colourful project! You can also follow Charlie and Caroline's blog here (who run the family business Pedlars) to find out what they've been up to or see what other delights they have found on their travels and could be in-store soon.

CONVERT DOUBLE KNIT PATTERN TO ARAN

2011-08-10T12:27:00.000-07:00

I've now started this pattern! It's fab and already from just doing the rib my needles feel like they have some weight to them! My Grandma came over for a visit the other week and we both went up to Abakhan in liverpool to get wool for our new projects. The smaller ball of wool with golden flecks was in the sale and is aWendy wool.

However the pattern is for double knit wool but the wool I chose was aran. Luckily my Grandma has a brilliant trick to convert you're pattern so you can use the aran wool. To start with you find a pattern in aran for a similar item, in my case a jumper. Find your size on this aran pattern and see how many stitches it asks you to cast on for a main piece i.e. the back. So for mine on the aran pattern it was 96 stitches to cast on for the back piece, now go back to the double knit pattern and find which size uses roughly the same amount of stitches to be cast on for the back. Mine was a couple of sizes smaller on the double knit pattern and casts on 95 stitches which is close enough as missing one stitch wont make a difference. NB. You use the needle sizes from the aran pattern. I'm not too sure how Grandma figured out how much wool to buy, I'll have to quiz her on that and post again but I think she pretty much doubled the weight. Don't quote me on that one though! I hope all that makes sense, if not drop me a line and I'll try to explain it a bit better!

P.s. I prepped this post yesterday and have since started this new aran jumper of mine and it is fabulous! I can't believe how quick it's knitting up!

WHY WHY WHY 4PLY?!

2011-08-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

As my first "big" knit project I decided to make a cardigan for myself to go with some buttons I bought in Japan about 2/3 years ago. I was quite new to it all and didn't know much about wool etc and chose a 4ply pattern, mmmhhh! My mum bought me the wool and since then I have also foolishly started another 4ply fair isle jumper. I have now managed to finish all of the jumper except one sleeve but the cardigan really has been put on the back burner which I feel quite sad about but I really wanted to start something with a bit of chunk to it! so....

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND!

2011-08-10T12:16:00.000-07:00

Over the past few days we have seen some very disturbing events take place here in the UK but it's good to know that if you're nice to people, wherever they are in the world, people are generally extremely nice back. I recently did a favour for one of our readers of The General Store blog and in return she very kindly sent me some Alpaca wool. Now this is no ordinary Alpaca wool as it comes from the ladies........very........own........Alpacas, amazing! I was very excited at the idea of owning your own Alpacas and ever since she said she'd send me some it has put a big smile on my face whenever I think about it : ) Her two Alpacas are called Lorenzo and Diego. I know my Mum and Sister fancy getting a donkey, I wonder if Donkeys get along with Alpacas?! I haven't decided what to knit with this beautiful wool yet but I'll let you all know as soon as I find something!

LOOPY NEEDLES

2011-08-10T12:01:00.000-07:00

Speaking of circular needles, when I was last in Wales my Mum showed me her interchangeable kit that Dad bought her one christmas. (Well done Dad!) When I needed to use a circular needle on the jumper above I began by using one that my Grandma gave me that she got free in a Woman's Weekly magazine years ago. Needle's to say (sorry!) that will shortly be going onto ebay as I just couldn't use it! In the end I went to Abakhan to buy one but when I got back I realized I'd bought an adult sized one! Doh, so then went on down to John Lewis haberdashery to get a baby sized one which I managed to use perfectly! Happy days! This kit here does look amazing though, almost like some kind of science kit and is of course very handy, although I'm not sure how often I'd need to use them.

I WANT ONE PLEASE!

2011-08-09T09:02:00.000-07:00

Aw! I keep saying I need a machine that does the reverse of what Willy Wonka's shrinking machine that Mike Teavee went into for my knitting! When I completed this gorgeous jumper for my friends baby almost everyone who I showed it too now wants one in their size too! It's a really easy pattern and just the simplest of things like throwing in two knit rows in a contrast colour on the stocking stitch pattern gives a great effect. I have to admit that I may have had a bit too much fizz when I got to the top of the fair isle and the neck line and my amazing Grandma had to help out a bit ; ) It was the first time I'd used a circular needle though! The pattern I used was from the same one as this lil beauty too.

BIRTHDAY TIES

2011-08-09T08:48:00.000-07:00

My friend has wanted either my sister or myself to knit him a tie for what feels like forever now! So for his recent birthday celebrations I experimented by learning how to do moss stitch and made him his tie! I was really pleased with it's outcome as was he and I may consider making more to sell. Any takers?!

NIPPORI, TOKYO'S FABRIC TOWN MAPS

2011-07-10T11:22:00.000-07:00

I get quite a lot of interest in the Nippori, Tokyo's fabric town post and when rummaging through the drawer the other day I came across the maps I picked up whilst I was there last. The portrait one is in English and the landscape in Japanese. If you click on the images they should load as a larger image in a new window for you to see closer and to take a copy too if you like! They are free in Nippori and can be picked up at pretty much all of the fabric shops there.

A POST TO LAST A WHILE!

2011-06-30T14:48:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the recent lack of posts. I have been here there and everywhere and have still yet to prep my posts for you! This weekend I'm London bound and so again wont be posting for a few days. What's up and coming though is worth the wait with some bits from Berlin, some recent knits of mine and hopefully something from the South! But for now I leave you with my Mum's amazing baby outfit she has just finished and I have to say it is oh so adorable! Those booties with the zig zag rim are fab. The zig zag rim makes me think of ravioli! Yummy! So enjoy the weekend people and I'll be back sooner than you know it!

HAND MADE MAYAN CRAFTS

2011-06-10T14:37:00.000-07:00

A couple of other bits I bought whilst on our holiday in Mexico! It took me forever to chose which ones to buy, I think I went back at least 4 times changing my mind! There were mostly fruits or birds and now I do wish I'd have bought a couple of bird ones too, ah well! I bought them from the shop I mentioned here. I wonder how they have done the circles of stitching, wonderful! All of the crafts in the shop were hand made in the local Mayan villages.

PENCIL SCARF

2011-06-10T14:03:00.000-07:00

Hey Sarah, check out Sara! I just found her pencil scarf online, isn't it cute?! I had a look to see what else Sara Carr has made and found Monty the Fox. Isn't he cute too?!! Sara has a folksy store here and an etsy store here. It seems that Sara is on a brake at the mo but will hopefully be busy making some more lovely bits 'n' pieces for us to adore when she gets back! Keep watching this space!

KNITTING WIZARD GRANDMA!

2011-05-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

This piece I'm sure has been knitted and undone at least 3 times! I managed to take a picture of it before Grandma changes her mind again as I really love the pattern she's doing. Grandma can probably whip up a jumper during the weekend if she wanted and what's more she can watch T.V whilst doing it and not even watch what her fingers are doing, amazing! Grandma says she enjoys the knitting more than the joy of being able to wear something you have knitted afterwards. So Sarah we'll have to buy some wool and find some patterns for her to do so she doesn't keep doing and undoing the same thing all of the time!! I don't know how she does it!