Sublime

The latest addition to the shop is the Sublime range from Sirdar. It's really lovely yarn, super soft and in the prettiest colours. The range is affordable with Extra fine merino at less than £4 per 50 gm ball. The cashmere/silk aran blend is really gorgeous. It's no real coincidence that I have become very interested in aran type knitting lately. Their pattern support is also extremely good.



The range will be up in the shop tomorrow. I also hope to have some photos of knitting to show you soon. Unfortunately I have chosen lots of long and slow projects lately. But one is almost finished and as it hasn't been shown on the blog it will be a happy surprise for you all!

Chinese Treats

Our daughter Lucy has recently returned from a trip to China. She has spent a month in Beijing studying acupuncture and then had a few days travelling around ending up in Shanghai. Apparently she had a fabulous time and met lots of lovely people and saw lots of interesting sights. She also bought presents.....

Lucy bought this for me to keep my knitting in. It's gorgeous and she got this in a street market in Beijing. Apparently haggled down from 850 Chinese Yen (prices always seem to start at 850 Chinese Yen) to around 250. It's too nice to be kept for knitting and I might use it as posh going out bag, just in case I ever get to go out during the evening. (Unlikely).

She also bought this yarn.

I think it is a cotton boucle, but it could be anything really. Apparently you had to buy four balls for around £3 and they had lots of pastel colours to choose from. Lucy tried to buy one of each of four colours, but the shop assistant got 'very cross and quite rude'. As Lucy does not speak a word of Mandarin, we were interested to hear that she can argue in a foreign language, thousands of miles from home without fear, but she is fairly intrepid. Anyway, I came out the winner as now I have eight balls of yarn. It is very pretty indeed and I can feel some more children's garments coming on ....

More Aran Knitting

Well, once you get the bug that's it, isn't it? I suppose for those of you who enjoy knitting socks, this is the equivalent. This is my latest attempt at aran knitting.


Another Alice Starmore pattern. This time from the Fisherman's Sweaters book, which, by the way, is still available from Amazon.com for around £9 if you are interested. This is not complicated, but I don't think I would be able to do it without the help of the stitch markers. There are 11 patterns across. I am knitting this for my niece for Christmas and it is only size 6 - 7 years. It takes a great deal of time to knit a row and I reckon that at current speed I am knitting 5 to 6 rows an hour! So, I try to spend an hour or so each evening on either the aran for Dad or this. I then spend the rest of the evening on either the horrid chenille or another more interesting project, which is also a Christmas present and must therefore remain secret.

I am not used to spending so long on a project, but am enjoying the challenge. The colour, of this hasn't come out very well in the photo - it is a lovely dark mauve. Will try again when the light is better.

Aran Knitting 2

I thought you might be interested to see the progress on the Aran cardigan I started a week or so ago.

Good, isn't it? I love knitting this garment. The pattern is fairly easy to remember once you have got the hang of it. The yarn is really, truly lovely to work with and it is knitting up quite quickly. Don't think that this is all I've accomplished. I have also finished the stripy sweater from earlier this year, started another Alice Starmore jumper and been working on a jumper that I found in the back of a cupboard, put there from when we moved over 6 years ago and completely forgotten. This is an oversized horrid jumper in truly dreadful cotton chenille. It scratches across the needles and hurts my hands. Photos some other time.

In order to keep us all cheerful, here is another picture of the Aran, close up this time.

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.