'SNUGGLY SLIPPERS FOR TOASTY TOES...'

...as Debbie Bliss describes in her book 'The knitter's year - 52 Simple seasonal knits'. These pom pom slippers are one other piece I have managed to finish as a gift for Mum with no difficulties. It's a really simple pattern and they've been very popular afterwards with Sarah wanting to knit a few pairs, one for herself (of course) and the others for her friends, lucky people! Who wouldn't want a pair of adult pom pom slippers?!

SKATING THROUGH 2012

Here we are and it's March already, can you believe it? It's been a very long time since my last post and I do apologize for this and on behalf of the other 3 too. Whilst I have been busy in the background I haven't been producing as many hand made bits as I usually do. I have been a bit put off after I didn't manage (and still haven't, might I add) to finish my fair while piece in time for the festive holidays, and what's worse, I don't think
it will fit me when made up, very unhappy about that.

I have learnt a few lessons from the past few knitting and sewing projects because of this. A) Don't rush into making a garment, take your time and... B) Get the measurements right before you start. C) Not to make up 
my knitted garments so tightly (More to come on this from the converted aran jumper which is finished!). I think that's enough lessons for the moment, perhaps I should post all of my pieces that don't make the cut to remember what went wrong for future projects, and to show you what I have done to make the others work too.

On a lighter note, above is a recent knit I've finished for a lovely little lady who has not long had her "6 months birthday", her first pair of wheels, wahoooo!

ONLY ONE WEEK TO GO...

... 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...

...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

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.

A WARM WOOLLY

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.

I HEART BABY BOOTIES

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?

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!

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! 

WHY WHY WHY 4PLY?!

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....

I WANT ONE PLEASE!

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

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?!

A POST TO LAST A WHILE!

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!

PENCIL SCARF

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!

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!

BOOTIFUL BOBBLY BOOTIES!

These are more socks though I reckon, but I liked the title! Sarah made them ages ago for one of her friends, but as I was on the topic of baby booties I remembered this picture she sent me a while back and I just adore them! The pattern is taken from the same booklet I use for my mice booties which originally belonged to Mum ; ) (ta Mum!) It's a shame adult socks and booties aren't as quick to knit up! Enjoy!

BOOTIFUL BOOTIES

As I mentioned a few posts back it really does seem to be the year of the bambino with at least another 2 of my friends pregnant whilst some of the others' babies have already arrived, and a lil bit early too! ( the needles are going like mad!) These pair above were ordered a while back and I was asked to do them in American colours as the family are off to live in the US of A. Once I had finished the actual boot I wasn't sure about the colours but once you get those ears, eyes and the whiskers on they are just adorable! I hope the receiver thinks so too!

CARDIGAN WEATHER

It's all grey and gloomy outside which only means one thing, it's cardigan weather! This calls for being sat indoors with a nice hot cuppa and a cardi! I made this last winter but it's definitely getting it's use at the moment, Marie has asked me to make one for her too as she likes the 'stripes' as she says! So I'd better get onto ebay and find some wool for this winter! xx

OUR KNITTING BROTHER MODEL KH-551!

Oh boy and what a treat he is! This stunning piece of machinery was given to us from my Great Grandma's sister our Auntie Clare. We've had it a while now and still haven't got round to having a go on it. I have brought the handbook back to Liverpool with me so I can get my head round how to use it and make lots of lovely things. I just can't wait! I will be uploading a few more images here of the graphics on the box, it's in mint condition and deserves to be shown off to the world! So keep watching this space for some wonderful knitted beauties in a few months time! Fingers crossed hey?!

CRAFTY COFTER WOOL

It seems the only one of us not to have knitted a pattern using Crofter wool is Marie. Here is an example of a piece I have just recently finished, I had to carefully note the pattern on the wool when getting to the neck division so that both sides matched equally. I know that Alison (aka Mum) has made this same pattern whilst Sarah made a lovely pair of socks a couple of christmases back in the sock challenge Marie and her set one another as gifts. Oops, I forgot to mention about the wool! The Crofter wool has it's pattern pre printed or sprayed onto the yarn, so by simply knitting in an easy stocking stitch (knit one row, purl one row) you get a beautiful faire isle pattern all over the garment.