Flower Cupcake Cushion

I knitted a giant cupcake!

Using mega chunky yarn and 15mm (US 19) straight needles, I adapted my Flower Cupcake pattern to make this cute cushion. The main difference is that it has a temporary closure so that you can easily remove the stuffing for washing or storage.

I love working on chunky needles and this was so much fun to make! Here’s how much bigger it is than the regular Flower Cupcakes worked in DK yarn.

Time for the next project – hoping I can post more than once a year, I have loads of ideas, but so little time!

I knitted socks!

Finally nailed sock knitting! After many failed attempts to knit socks for my massive feet (size 9 UK, size 44 EU), I went back to the drawing board. I had never made a sock that fit particularly well, so of course I had never made a second sock, since the first sock was never right. I was very much in ‘second sock syndrome’ but with good reason.

So I decided to abandon the traditional ‘heel flap’ method, and asked google, how to knit socks?

Before long I came across the Fish Lips Kiss heel method, and did the whole thing, starting with drawing around my foot on a piece of cardboard and doing all the measurements. As my previous failed socks had always been very tight on the heel, I added the extra stitches for big heels, and wow, the pattern worked and the sock fit. Success at last!

I went all excited to a yarn shop and bought some self-striping sock yarn in fabulous colours. The next stage really blew my mind – TAATTU – two at a time, toe up! This was great.

Then I got even more ambitious and decided to add a cable into the rib, using this gorgeous cashmere sock yarn which I found in a yarn shop on holiday at the seaside. Now that I can knit socks, I can’t resist this kind of yarn.

Then I visited a craft fair with a table full of irresistible sock yarn. Do I have a new sub-stash of sock yarn? Erm….

Merino cat basket

Out of the blue, a giant wool cat basket order on Etsy. This was a returning customer who first ordered a hand-felted wool basket 4 years ago, now ordering an upgrade for a new kitten, in white merino. An excellent choice!

Super soft merino giant wool

This was the first time I’d worked with giant merino, and my goodness it was soooo soft, it was a joy.

Luxurious merino on the giant needles

My cats were desperate to sniff it and lick it and sit on it, so they were banished from the room whilst I knitted this customer order. I used my 20mm double pins, made for me by my Uncle David.

Casting off with double pins

All finished and ready to send. Turns out the customer’s new kitten is a Maine Coon – just like my cats. But mine don’t have a merino wool cat bed, just several well-used texel fleece versions. I might have to make a merino wool cat bed for my new kitten….coming soon!

Finished and ready to send

Many thanks to World of Wool for beautiful quality merino and quick delivery.

Beginning Spinning

It had to happen eventually. My blog page about the Barnett Drum Carder occasionally attracts queries about spare parts, which I forward on to my Uncle David. Recently a lady who runs spinning and felting workshops enquired, and in the course of her query I noticed her website, Beechwood Crafts, and went to have a look. Turns out her classes are not too far away and she does a novice class, ‘Beginning Spinning’. So I thought, why not have a go? Could be another way of getting in touch with my family heritage on my mother’s side. I have happy memories of watching my Aunt spinning wool, it was kind of hypnotic, almost like magic.

Well we had a fab day, myself and 3 other ladies, all beginners. To our amazement we all managed to familiarise with several different spinning wheels, set up and actually spin some yarn. Once we’d spun 2 bobbins, we put each bobbin onto a ‘lazy Kate’ and plied the 2 yarns together to make some actual yarn. Then we made our freshly spun yarn into a skein by winding it onto a niddy-noddy (aren’t the words in spinning so colourful?)

As soon as I saw our teacher demonstrating the technique where you feed the wool in and control the twist so that the yarn is perfectly even, a light went on in my heart. That’s exactly what I saw my lovely Aunt doing on childhood visits. It was fascinating and mesmerising. Now, instead of finding excuses not to spin my own yarn, (too busy, takes too long, needs too much equipment, what would I knit with it anyway), I just want to spin for the joy of it and I don’t care what I do with the yarn.

First attempt – great fun but so uneven!

Second attempt – better but really need to practise!

The only thing to do now is to get a spinning wheel…

More Reversible Cloths

Following the success of Three Reversible Cloths, here we have Three More Reversible Cloths.

First is the blue Tumbling Blocks cloth. Love how this pattern jumps out.

Yellow is the Diagonal Zigzag cloth, a nice easy one.

Finally green is the Herringbone cloth. This one is worked with slip stitches and makes a very dense fabric and a really hard-wearing, practical cloth.

All three are worked in knit and purl stitches, and the pattern appears like magic on both sides of the cloth. I love it when that happens!

Pattern is available on Etsy as a PDF download or as a printed pattern, and also on Ravelry. You can also find it on my website, Knittingrev.com.

Now what to knit next? I might return to the sock project I shelved a year ago, I really need to nail a sock that fits my feet. If I manage that, it could be the start of a new obsession…

Reversible Rules!

Such a busy few months over at Go To Design fine art printing, I have quite neglected the knitting so I am very happy to return to the reversible cloth project. Here is a diamond shape with a lacy edging, worked in a magic double-sided stocking stitch. This gives it double thickness, all from a little slip-stitch.

Double-sided stocking stitch diamond dishcloth

Loving these pastel colours in 100% soft cotton. I’ve also added a hanging loop in the form of an i-cord. This cloth is quick, fun, all-in-one, and no sewing! Yay for that 🙂

New – Lace Flower Circle

Here is my latest knitting pattern, the Lace Flower Circle. Following on from the Three Reversible Cloths, I wanted to design a circular dishcloth with a lace element. I also wanted it to be reversible – who doesn’t love a reversible cloth?

The pattern is worked in one piece using short rows and simple yarn overs for the lace effect around the edges. There is one short seam to sew.

The Lace Flower Circle can be knitted in any kind of yarn from fine 2-ply up to seriously chunky. It can be many things depending on the weight of yarn you choose.

Dishcloth – spa cloth – table mat – coaster – rug – throw – cat blanket.

Knitted in cotton yarn, it makes a decorative and practical dishcloth or face cloth.  Alternatively you could use 4-ply or a finer yarn to make a small delicate flower, for a beautiful addition to your dressing table.  Or why not go chunky on big needles to make a giant flower to grace your favourite armchair, or for your cat to lounge on?

1940s Vintage cardi FO

Finished Object – stripey 1940s short sleeved cardigan in 4-ply angora.

This was commissioned by a friend who does historical re-enactments, putting together a 1940s outfit.  She chose the pattern, the colours and the buttons, which saved me a lot of time as I am hopeless at putting colours together!  I love the gathering effect on the waist and sleeve cuffs, and also the fabulous pleat in the shoulders.

I am so pleased with how it turned out, but…will it fit?  My friend lives quite a distance away so we have not been able to do many fittings.  The pattern only gives one size and my friend is smaller, so I reduced the number of stitches.  Then I found that the pattern didn’t make sense: with stripes it is easy to count the rows, and the pattern instructed me to knit many more rows than are visible in the photo.  So I had to rely on my stitch gauge and my friend’s measurements.

Added to which, my friend did not want the pocket flaps or the collar.  The flaps were easy to miss out.  Then for the collar I worked a simple ‘pick up & knit’, 2 rows in garter stitch, and then cast off.  For some reason this was fiendishly difficult – the first attempt was puckered so I had to re-work with a much looser tension.

The sleeves look huge and I’m now thinking I should have reduced them more.  But perhaps they look huge because the waist is drawn in – maybe it will look more balanced when it is being worn.

My friend is coming to collect at the weekend – fingers crossed for a decent fit!

Vintage Knitting

This week I’ve been working on a commission to make this 1940’s striped cardi,  I love a spot of vintage knitting, and it makes a nice change to work with fine yarn and no 9 needles (US 5), when you’re used to handling needles the size of a broomstick.

My friend has chosen some fabulous colours, and a superfine angora yarn.

The pattern is from Subversive Femme, a fab website full of vintage inspiration.

Vintage patterns are interesting.  Only one size is given, so if that’s not your size, you have to work out how to amend it yourself.  On top of that, this pattern instructs you to knit almost twice the number of stripes you can see in the picture.  The shaping is accurate, which is a relief for such a fitted design.  But the given length is way off!

The only way to make sure I’m getting a good fit, is to do a fitting with my friend, in person.  We are now permitted to meet in a garden, if we keep 2m apart.  So I will have to pass her the Left Front, and the pins, and ask her to fit it herself.  Or ask her partner to pin the piece accurately on her.  This could be quite a challenge for a burly tree surgeon, especially when the sides of the piece curl in!  We certainly live in interesting times.

I have some lovely vintage buttons for this cardi, looking forward to getting this far!

 

Barnett Drum Carder

I have occasionally mentioned the Barnett Drum Carder in my posts.  As a result, I sometimes get enquiries from spinners and fans of the machine around the world who are looking for advice or spare parts.  So I’ve dedicated a new page on my blog to the Barnett Drum Carder.  David Barnett is my Uncle (my mother’s brother) and although I’m not a spinner (yet!) I am so proud to be part of the family handcrafting tradition.  Uncle David made the giant double pins and circular needles which enabled me to start my adventures in Extreme Knitting back in 2012.   I am also the proud guardian of the Great Wheel which he made back in the 1970s.

My cousin Libby demonstrating the ‘Long Draw’ method

 

 

Here is a picture of me with my Uncle David and Aunt Sonia in Sheffield Botanical Gardens, on the occasion that they visited from Sussex to deliver the Great Wheel.

One day I will learn to spin, as I think that will be a whole new world….but for now I’ll be knitting, with the tools that have passed through my Uncle’s hands, and the collection of knitting needles inherited from my Aunt and Grandmother.