Lovely New Stock

We have just taken delivery of some really lovely hand dyed yarns. We met Jenny at Wonderwool where she shared a stand with her friend Patricia Baggott, whose buttons we also stock.


As always, it is very interesting to see how different each dyer's yarns are. Jenny's are very delicately painted and full of colour. When knitted up they are really very pretty and quite different to most other hand dyed yarns. To view Jenny's lovely yarns, click here.

Jenny and Patricia also design patterns that go with the yarn and we will be putting these on the site as soon as we can.

A New Project

Last week I knitted a child's hat and slipover, both in an Aran pattern. I decided not to photo them and put them on the blog as I feel you have probably seen enough of my attempt to knit something for every child in the land. However, this exercise did awaken my interest in Aran knitting. I knitted quite a few Aran sweaters etc in the days before I had children. Once they arrived I lost the ability (and will) to count carefully due to extreme tiredness. Eventually, of course, they grew up a bit and although the tiredness wasn't such a problem, exasperation took its place. Anyway, as I was saying, my interest in Aran was awakened and I was lucky enough to buy this on e-bay.

To be honest, I was a tiny bit disappointed with the book as I thought the patterns were a little dated. However, Joe's friend has been staying with us and so I thought he might be interested (well, I knew he wouldn't be really, but I desperately wanted to show someone and he is very polite). It turned out that he was pretty interested and thought the patterns were fantastic and 'retro'. I felt tremendously pleased with myself for being such a trendsetter and promised to knit him a jumper soon.
In the meantime I thought that the Aran cardigan pattern would be just the thing for my father, possibly for Christmas. So, I made a start, using the most fabulous natural aran (100% bluefaced aran) that we have in the handdyeing section of the shop.
Here is a photo of progress so far.

Not bad. I haven't decided when to show you a picture of the actual pattern, possibly when I've done a bit more.

More Knitting

Here are a few more garments I have made over the last few weeks. This is another aran weight yarn, very quick and easy. Pattern, Sirdar, again, colours my own. I spent a lot of time discusssing the colours on this with my family whilst on holiday - it passed a few minutes. The general consensus was that the colours didn't look good. This was when only a few rows had been completed. I decided to persevere and by the time I had finished the front everyone said they thought the colours looked good. Or rather, I said 'these look fine together DON'T THEY?' in a rather threatening manner. As Joe and Lucy were watching some awful TV programme, they quickly agreed in the hope that I would shut up.

Next up is this rather smart slipover, again Sirdar pattern, knitted in the everlasting ball of Aran. Quite pleased with this, very easy knitting, finished in a few hours.

Now, you wouldn't believe this, but I found this one in the back of a cupboard. I had completely forgotten I had made it! The thing was, I had wanted to knit this pattern, because it was pretty and I thought challenging. But, I didn't have anyone to make it for. So, in the end I decided to make it and wait and see who came along that might fit it. It wasn't as challenging as I had hoped, but the endless moss stitch frill and sailor collar was boring. Still, it is very pretty, better in the flesh and I hope even better on a small child. I still don't know any small children, but this is going to the craft fair, so hopefully someone will like it.