If I’ve been quiet lately, it’s because I have been busy trying to finish some WIPs (work-in-progress). Why? Well about 10 days ago I read a lovely blog by my friend Kerry http://oddmentsblog.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/autumn-crafting-whirlwind/
It was all about how she had so many projects (WIPs) on the go she felt she was drowning. It made me stop and think. Why? Because, like Kerry, I do drown a little in the volume of projects I have. I always have a lot ongoing at any time, but I rarely take stock. And I knew that there would be some projects lurking in my cupboards which had been there for far too long. So I decided to have a good rummage and found what I thought was rather a lot. So I confessed my list of WIPs (work-in-progress) on Ravelry. There were 16 of them; some I started in recent months but the oldest was over 17 years old!!!!!

There is something quite cathartic about clearing out cupboards, so I decided that I should clear out my WIPs because I knew it would make me feel good. I must finish those that deserve it and frog those that don’t. (For those who don’t knit or crochet, to frog is to rip back all the yarn and give up on the project). I laid down a challenge to myself – to finish at least 25% of these WIPs in 2 weeks. How have I done 10 days on? Well I frogged 4 WIPs and completed 2 WIPs. In theory that means I have 10 left………………but I have found another 3 hiding in a trunk

But I am so keen to do some new things and I am finding it very hard to finish the 2 more WIPs to meet the challenge! I think I will complete one more, and make a try at the second, with the help of an evening in front of the TV! But I so long to do something new…….or rather add to my pile of ongoing projects.

As well as WIPs, I have been busy on the pattern writing front and seen some of the fruits of my labour in this field. I have written the pattern for Poppet’s Blanket and I am just awaiting a little more feedback before publishing. Here’s a sneak photo of the design……..it’s a granny blanket with a difference and the difference is that it features my favourite diamond stitch in it!

As the blanket is for Poppet, and Poppet came from The Cats Protection League, I have decided to donate £1 from each pattern sale to the charity. I’ll let you know when I publish it.

The fruits of my labour is a small design which also uses my favourite diamond stitch in a slightly different way. It is the Diamonds Collar and features in this month’s Inside Crochet magazine. I don’t feature much in magazines because I don’t often submit my ideas to them, I prefer to dabble and design at my own pace. But being published does give me a bit if a buzz, so I may just send a few ideas off this month.

You can find it in the latest copy of Inside Crochet – website here: http://www.insidecrochet.co.uk/magazine where you will find it in their photo summary.

Happy knitting and crocheting xx

I returned home from a lovely weekend at lunchtime today. What was the weekend? The Small Wool Gathering – 12 of us who had met on P3 last October and March. P3 was developed by Amy Singer and Brenda Dayne, a wonderful weekend in Pembrokeshire with workshops by Amy and Brenda in a glorious location. But this October P3 was cancelled and some very enterprising people who attended previous P3s decided something must be done to keep P3 alive ! And so we did.
So that is where I was this last weekend……and I loved it! It was at Pedington Manor in Gloucestershire, a beautiful large country manor capable of taking 20 guests. Catherine and Jenny organised us and did all the cooking – yes ALL the cooking – breakfast, lunch, dinner and all the gorgeous cakes and biscuits for tea and coffee.

I LOVED IT! Amy Singer came to do 3 workshops and all relevant to what I wanted (needed!) and we had some lovely evenings knitting, spinning and enjoying the company of like minded people.

Here are a few photos
The welcome:
:

My door had a lovely sign attached, and there was a beautiful hand knitted washcloth (by Jenny) on the bed!

The Workshops:

The workshops were held in the dining room, with a warm and welcoming fire adorned with knittery goodness!

The Sunday Spinning:

On Sunday morning we learn how to spin silk, then in the afternoon several attendees brought out their wheels and showed us all how to do it!!

I also got to meet the lovely Jacqui Harding, such a fabulous opportunity.

Check out The Small Wool Gathering….and other gatherings….. here http://thesmallcrafters.blogspot.co.uk/

Happy knitting and crocheting xxx

A while ago I talked about the KAL/CAL on my ravelry forum to celebrate the first anniversary of that forum. I have been blown away by all the lovely sharves and scarves being made by the members, and they are great at sharing their photos as well as words. I can’t explain how lovely it is to see the different variations with yarn, colour etc – it brings the whole design to life for me.

The 2 designs I made for the anniversary are:

Amost 90 people are working on these now, some have even finished! But today I was blown away again! Kerry, who is making the sharf using some of her own beautifully dyed blue faced leicester yarn (yes, she dyed it herself!), has done a video blog of her progress on the sharf. It is a great blog and I confess had me blushing a little!!

Here is the video blog http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMM6FXqyTxs

She has also made a promise to do a video blog of how to master the more tricky parts of the knitting in the sharf, which is a fabulous idea and I am looking forward to that future blog. Kerry’s blog is here – http://oddmentsblog.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/wip-work-in-progress-anniversary-sharf/comment-page-1/#comment-21

Happy knittting and crocheting xx

I went to a gorgeous yarn festival this weekend, it was a first for them but not for me!

The first yarn festival I went to was called Bob! Yes, Bob the underground yarn festival. It was held in Bakewell last October. The day I went the weather was glorious and I had a spectacular drive over the moors to Bakewell – very unusual, because ‘over the top’ to Buxton is generally quite dire. For me it was an indication that the day would be great, and so it was. It was a small and cosy festival, and I was astounded by how helpful and encouraging the stallholders were – I was given a 20 minute workshop on how to use a drop spindle by the lovely Sue at Forest Crafters https://www.etsy.com/shop/forestcrafters#. It is on again this year – renamed The Bakewell Wool Gathering, find them here http://bakewellwool.co.uk/

At the time I went to Bob I was in mourning, because my most wonderful local yarn shop had closed in September and I missed it so much. So I had to take the opportunity to visit a yarn festival because I had no-where else suitable or helpful or courageous enough to go to for my woolly fix. Yes, I still mourn the loss of that shop – Riana and Nigel helped me rekindle my love of all things woolly, and unexpectedly unleashed my long hidden creative streak. But they did build the most amazing community and I will blog about that sometime soon.

So after Bob I wondered how else I would get my ‘fix’. I searched the calendar and found Wonderwool Wales http://www.wonderwoolwales.co.uk/ . And there and then decided the only way to rekindle the love was to organise a loving coach trip to Wonderwool Wales. It was months away, but plenty of time for me to get quotes for coaches and think about how to do it. And do it I did!!!!! It was at the end of April this year and was amazing! The first time I had organised a coach trip. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I think (hope) all the people on the coach did too.

Here is what I bought there:

So where next…… well it was obvious I should do Wonderwool again but nothing else…….until I found Yarndale http://yarndale.co.uk/http://yarndale.co.uk/ . But Yarndale was in Skipton, only an hour and half to drive from my home, surely I could do that without the need to organise a coach? Ok, I am a sucker….when someone said ‘are you organising a trip to Yarndale’ it didn’t take me long to decide. With only 2 months preparation time, I booked the coach, miraculously filled it and was on the way to a brand new yarn festival.

And what a festival it was. Thanks to Lucy at Attic24 http://www.attic24.typepad.com/ who is one of the organisers, it featured crochet rather than knitting as the main craft. Wow, how often does that happen? We arrived at the opening, had only a short queue in traffic and the coach parked up very close to the rear entrance to the festival. It was busy and little did I know that they had some logistical issues, as is always the case with something new, but I did not notice them! I can always recommend a coach for such events – for numerous reasons, and especially because they are green – someone else drives, they use less fuel per person and you can enjoy the journey there and back with some lovely like minded people. To me it is win, win.

Here is what a bought at Yarndale:

So will I do yarn festivals again – yes, yes, yes! I love them and I so wish there were more closer to me……mmmm maybe I should think about organising one!

Happy knitting and crocheting xxx
PS have just discovered there are some places left on this amazing weekend break http://thesmallcrafters.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/last-minute-dot-com.html let me know if you are interested.

Today is International Crochet Day 2013

What is International Crochet Day? Well, it’s a day to celebrate all things crochet – so definitely a day to get your hook and yarn out and crochet away, anywhere, preferably in public so the world can see us celebrating!

But I have a confession, I forgot it! Consequently I had absolutely no plans on what to do to celebrate. So I sat at my keyboard 4 hours ago and wondered what to do. It didn’t take long – I decided to design a motif today. And here it is – The International Crochet Day Triangle Motif:

Like so many of my spontaneous designs, it wasn’t planned to be a triangle – in fact I set out to design a hexagon because, as you know, I love hexagons. Somewhere in round 3 it became a triangle.

This is a nice dense fabric and would be ideal for a blanket.

It is now for sale in my Ravelry store here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/international-crochet-day-triangle-motif
And to celebrate International Crochet Day you can get it for free for the next 24 hours (until 14.00 tomorrow, Friday 13th September, UK time) – just use coupon code HAPPYICD at the checkout.

Happy crocheting xxxx.

My forum anniversary was 3 days ago and I have had over 80 people join in either the anniversary CAL or KAL for the 2 designs I wrote about in my last blog. The last time I did a KAL I had only 5 join in, so over 80 is quite astounding!

The most interesting thing for me is that 60 of them are doing the KAL (knitting) and only 25 for the CAL (crochet). Why is this interesting? Well, for most of the last year I have concentrated on crochet design, and done very little knitting design. In fact the last knitting design I published was in October 2012. So the design for the KAL is my first knitting design for 10 months. I do have a couple of knitting designs hibernating so maybe I should dust them off and progress them. Here’s a couple of ‘not so good’ photos:

What do you think? Should I progress these designs?

Happy Knitting and Crocheting xx

I spent 2 hours in the land of the sewing machine this afternoon. I confess it has been sadly neglected for many years. But working on my sewing machine brings back so many memories. I recall when I went to grammar school, I did one year of ‘home economics’ – which basically was cooking and sewing. Both of which I appear to have mastered beforehand. My mother was a traditional cook and, when I was young, I was encouraged to peel the potatoes and shell the peas, as well as set the table for dinner. Then when I was older I helped in the cooking, indeed my cold hands worked marvels with the pastry (it ended up being my job!). So when I did a term of cooking it was like water off a ducks back – easy and very enjoyable. Then I moved to a term of sewing – if cooking was easy, then sewing was a complete doddle. My mother had taught me very well, I was left alone by the teachers, just to make whatever I fancied because they couldn’t teach me anything. Throughout my teens I carried on sewing, and it was invaluable when I was at uni – I just couldn’t afford to buy clothes. By then I was knitting (taught by my favourite aunt) and crocheting. So I carried on making my own clothes in various media. It was very rewarding. But as many have said before – my working life took over, I no longer had the time to sew, knit, crochet.

As you all know, I came back to knitting and crochet a few years ago and, so far, 2013 has been the year of sewing. So today has been glorious, I quilted (for the first time!) and I made a cushion cover. Sewing is so much quicker than my other crafts, which give instant gratification.

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And it made me think a little, about all the crafts I have dabbled in. So not only do I have a new cushion cover (quilted!), but I have also started to reach my old cross stitch and embroidery from the attic – now where on earth will I hang all this?

Happy knitting, crocheting and sewing xx