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.

Giant Wool & Needles in UK Now!

A Cable Knit Blanket in kingsize, made in time for Christmas, in Fawn.

I am loving the drape over the sides of the bed!

The Cable Knit blanket is my bestselling knitting pattern by far, available on Etsy or Ravelry via PDF download.  I also sell it on Ebay, but due to Ebay rules cannot offer downloads, so for ebayers I print the pattern as an A5 size booklet and send in the post.

The blanket is great fun and fast to knit!  I have been using custom-made giant needles, both in pairs and circulars, and a double strand of Cygnet Seriously Chunky yarn.

But now there’s a great place in the UK to find giant yarn and giant needles.  It’s called woollymahoosive.com.  They have a range of giant yarns, from luxury merino wool to amazingly good lower-priced alternatives, all in beautiful colours.

You can also buy the giant needles there too, which are all hand-turned by the lady herself!

Kits and offers are available.  So if you’re thinking of having a go at extreme knitting but could not get hold of the yarn and needles, wait no longer!

Till next time,

L x

Giant wool at the Knitting Show

Knitting with super chunky oversized yarn in the UK just got a whole lot easier!

At the Knitting and Stitching show in Harrogate (on till Sunday) I met Andrea of the superbly-named Woolly Mahoosive.  Giant merino wool and 2 acrylic alternatives are her speciality.  All the yarns are super-soft and come in a range of gorgeous colours.   They are for knitting on massive 25mm – 40mm needles.  They are also perfect for arm knitting!

Check out the display:

See the ginormous chunky wooden needles with signature cubed stoppers?  They are beautifully made from tulipwood and rosewood, and come in different lengths.  These needles are just what I was looking for when I started extreme knitting.  There were none available commercially at that time, so after I got lucky on ebay with a pair of wooden 25mm, I had my uncle make me a set of double pins and circulars in 2 big sizes.

So how did Andrea get hold of this array of giant knitting needles?  Does she have a helpful relative beavering away in a workshop? No, she made them herself.  Yes indeed.  Having no experience of woodwork, she informed herself, got hold of the equipment and set to work.

This kind of initiative and dedication is truly impressive.  Their prices are utterly reasonable too.  Bloggers, I would urge you to pop over to Twitter and give them a follow. They deserve it!

My head is now popping with ideas about what to make with these fabulous yarns.  Inspiration – that’s what the Knitting show is for!

Till next time

L x

Biggest blanket yet!

I’ve just finished this Cable Knit blanket for an Etsy customer. It’s the biggest one I’ve ever made.  It fits a 5 ft wide double bed, with a 10 inch drape over either side.  There are 5 cable columns requiring almost 100 stitches.

Blanket in progress

I used my 25mm circular needles which my Uncle made for me on his lathe.

In terms of hours spent knitting, the blanket doesn’t take that long to make.  But in this case it took me 4 weeks to complete, because I was away for a week on a business trip, and then I was on holiday for another week. During the time away, I had quite a lot of ‘downtime’ which would have been perfect for knitting, but unfortunately an extreme knitting blanket isn’t exactly  portable!  I ordered 5 kgs of supersoft chunky yarn and I used every last metre. I was joining in new balls of yarn every 5 or 6 rows.

I knitted it into a large cardboard box, occasionally spreading it out onto a bed to measure progress and check for mistakes (luckily for me there weren’t any – undoing this beast would be a bit of a nightmare!)

After casting off, there were seemingly hundreds of yarn ends to weave in, which was quite an undertaking in itself.

I love the result though, and I think my customer has chosen a great colour. The blanket is winging its way to her now, and I really hope she likes it.

Till next time,

L x

Mad Cat Baskets are finally here!

Whew! It’s taken me long enough to finalise this design, but here it is.  Listed and live on Etsy and Not On The High Street.

I’ve even updated my profile to show them off.

Mad Cat Baskets in 5 funky colours

After getting to grips with the quirks of t-shirt yarn, I’m really enjoying working with it. Many, many hours of working and reworking and unpicking and re-calculating have gone into these five cat beds. Because the yarn is totally unreliable – could be super-chunky, or just a bit chunky – each basket comes out a different size.

But they will all comfortably accommodate a small or medium-sized cat.

And Herbie, at a push.

All tucked in!

Till next time,

L x

Purple and yellow cat baskets

Some fab new colours have arrived from Hoooked Zpagetti.

New arrivals

So far I’ve made a purple basket

and a yellow one. But Herbie has chosen purple.

I love the bright colours and how the light makes the giant stitches pop out.

More colours coming soon – and a cat cave!

Till next time

L x

Knitting and Me are Back On

I knitted my cat basket in t-shirt yarn. It turned out much better than I expected.

I have had this cone of t-shirt yarn on the shelf for more than 6 months.  I never thought it would work. T-shirt yarn is quite floppy, not stiff like the semi-felted wool I was using before. That’s why I thought it would never work as a basket – the sides have to stand up unsupported. But I was wrong. The sides stand up beautifully.

Until Larry came along and curled up on top of it.

Larry flattens the new basket

It was good to get Larry’s seal of approval.  But I have to make an adjustment. The new yarn is thinner than the semi-felted wool, so the basket knits up smaller. Larry is using the entire basket as a pillow.

Time to make a bigger basket.  Here goes with the next size up. I’ve got just enough t-shirt yarn left to make the medium size. This works out a lot better for Larry.

Larry in the medium basket

The t-shirt yarn is delightfully easy to work with, maybe because of the generous stretch it has. Fortunately I can use the same set of doublepins I already have. Most exciting of all, t-shirt yarn is easily available in every colour under the sun. Wow, how exciting is that?

I went online and ordered a load of fabulous colours.

Knitting – me and you are back on!

Till next time,

L x

 

 

Biggest Ever Blanket

I’ve just completed an order for my biggest ever extreme knitting Cable Knit blanket.

Queen size blanket in progress

This is for a queen sized bed, so it measures 200 x 150 cm.

I’ve never made one this big so had to work out the pattern repeat to achieve that size.  I used my 24mm circular needles, which were handmade by my Uncle David.  I don’t have a 24mm cable needle, but for stitches this big, I don’t really need one.  I can just use my thumb or forefinger.

This kind of knitting is not exactly portable. I knitted it into a big box and the finished blanket weighs 4kgs!

I’ve knitted quite a few of these blankets now in various colours.  Mustard yellow, grey, and pink. But the most popular colour is this cream.

That’s it for Christmas orders now. Time to relax and enjoy the season!

Till next time,

L x

Sold the last cat basket!

The very last cat basket I have is a size Small which I made a while ago and sent as a sample to Anthropologie.  They didn’t go ahead in the end, which was just as well, since the wool has been permanently discontinued. So they sent the sample back to me and it’s my very last one.

Then today my boss announced she has just reserved a new kitten in the local rescue centre – a ginger and white cutie – to keep her older cat company. Could she buy a cat basket for him? A pleasure that my last wool basket is going to a home where I can see it again! The kitten is going to be called Jimmy – how adorable is that?

In case my own cats are disappointed, I’m sure I could pull together some scraps and offcuts, maybe undo a couple of smaller prototypes, to fashion the very very last ever basket to keep them happy too.

Herbie would appreciate it.

Till next time,

L x

Giant wool really has gone

No luck with the search for a new giant wool supply.

I was in London last week doing a trade fair with the new day job. It was a high-end gifts trade fair and I took one of my smaller knitted baskets with me as part of our exhibit. It was a great talking point. I had the chance to meet various buyers from textile mill shops and visitor centres – the ideal people to ask about the supply of giant wool. Sadly, these people who were in the know told me that they did not know of anyone who supplied it. One lady recommended the company I had used before – who have now discontinued it.

So I think I really have to draw a blank!

But then a very helpful lady from Not On the High Street suggested t-shirt yarn, and sent me some pictures. I hadn’t heard of t-shirt yarn before, but it appealed to me because it’s a waste product of the textile industry, therefore I would be ‘up cycling’.  It also comes in all sorts of fabulous colours. I found some videos online of people cutting up t-shirts into continuous strips to make the yarn DIY-style.  So I had a go myself with an old t-shirt, and found that it knitted up quite well.

I’m feeling inspired….am now sourcing a good supply…watch this space!