CRAZY ZAUERBALL

This year saw my second trip to Berlin where I re-visited Fadinensel from my first trip last year and found another new beaut of a shop called Frau Tulpe (Post coming soon). On my first visit to Fadinensel I bought the yarn guide and this time I bought a ball of fantastic Crazy Zauerball which is made in Germany. I'm still not entirely sure I like the way that this kind of yarn knits up but just look at those strands, oooh! I can hear you asking what am I going to use this for if not knitting then. Well, when I saw this it reminded me of the lovely bakers twine which I've seen a lot of recently and thought I'd use this yarn in a similar way. Wrapping parcels, presents, generally tying things up nicely! I haven't had a chance to do any of these things yet, but when I do I'll take a quick snap to show you how I've used it. In the meantime if you want to get your hands on the above Zauerball No.1507 a quick google should find you a few online sellers and here it is for you on the Skacel Collection website.

JUST A QUICKIE...

...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.

YARN GUIDE

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!

FIESTA LATINA!

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...

... 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

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

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!

HOMEMADE SPONGE BARS

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!

CONVERT DOUBLE KNIT PATTERN TO ARAN

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! 

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND!

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

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.

NIPPORI, TOKYO'S FABRIC TOWN MAPS

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.

HAND MADE MAYAN CRAFTS

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.

MORE BEAUTIFUL MAYAN CRAFTS FROM MEXICO

A follow on from my previous post! A local shop was also part of the day trip we went on whilst in Mexico which sold all of the crafts that the Mayans made in the villages. It was really clean and really nice to see all of the other things that were being made. Each person or household could have their own section in the shop and there were sometimes photographs of the people who had made that particular piece or pieces, so you sometimes recognized some of the people who you'd seen previously in the village. Dad got a bit bored but for Mum, Sarah and me well, we just couldn't decide which bits we wanted to buy as there were so many lovely pieces! Here are a few of the delights we feasted our eyes on! Oh, also outside there were what looked like two weaving machines. One was hidden away and all wrapped up but had a piece being worked on whilst the other was just out in the open. It was a shame no one was around to show us how they worked, the colours did look just lovely in the Mexican sunshine.

TRADITIONAL MAYAN CRAFTS IN MEXICO

Earlier this year me and my family took a holiday in Mexico in the Yucatan Peninsula. On one of our day trips we visited a Mayan Village where we were privileged to visit two houses which belonged to two Mayan sisters. Their husbands were out working all day whilst they stayed at home, looked after the children and created hand made crafts to sell locally to tourists. The sisters we visited specialized in hammocks and the traditional embroidered dresses, they stitched the beautiful and intricate patterns using the sewing machine and hand weaved the hammocks. We didn't realize this, but if you are visiting a Mayan village you can take along gifts with you for the Mayans. A lot of people seemed to have taken shampoo bottles and soaps from their hotels, fruits and clothes. I really wish we'd have known this before hand. If you're heading over to Mexico you can find out more about the day trip here, it included visiting Coba, a large ruined city of the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization, a traditional Mexican lunch (very yum!), the visit to the Mayan village and then a quick dip in a cenote on the way back. Very refreshing!

ABAKHAN LIVERPOOL

As Sarah was over in Liverpool for a few days the blogging has come to a bit of a halt but the posts behind the scene have been building up! We limited ourselves to only one visit to Abakhan while she was visiting Liverpool, which is just off London Road on Stafford St. As a family we have always gone to the Abakhan in Mostyn which really is a lovely day out, but as Mum hasn't been to the Liverpool one yet she wanted to know how different it was. So here's some pics for you Mum! The Mostyn store is definitely nicer but the Liverpool Abakhan is really handy for me as it has everything I could ever need really and it's not too far away. It has 2 floors with Knitting Yarns & Accessories, Curtain, Soft Furnishing & Household Fabrics, Dressmaking Fabrics, Bridal Fabrics and Accessories, Trimmings, Haberdashery and Sewing Accessories, Ready Made Home Accessories,Craft Fabrics, Hobby & Crafts, Made to Measure Service. Sarah bought a pattern for baby mittens and hats with some wool to make a start on and I bought some fabric. I picked up a couple of patterned pieces to make some tops from and some more satin for my upcoming scarf project. Keep watching this space for updates on all of the above!

JUST A QUICK PUFF!

I bought this little contraption from Nippori (Tokyo's fabric town) last year and have only made one small, shall we call it fabric blob?! It's really quick and easy and you can buy more of the yellow clips so you can prep loads of the blobs and fill them all in one go. I haven't decided what I'm going to make once I have a few blobs on the go but it's always nice to give something different a try! All of the instructions are in Japanese but the illustrations are pretty easy to follow. You cut a square piece of fabric using the stencils as your guide and then clip each edge of the square with the yellow clips. You sew all around the edge leaving a gap where you can pop the long tube in and stuff your stuffing down it!. Hey presto, the birth of the fabric blob! You can also make some pretty nifty folds and pinches in the fabric too to give a different effect. AH! I have just, by the amazing power of google discovered that this is called puff quilting! You can buy these sets with english instructions from clovers website here!