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.

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…

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.

Giant Knitting Cat Baskets are here!

…and they’ve been well and truly road-tested by all three crew members.  I think we have the seal of approval.

It was useful to make two baskets.  One came out a bit tighter than the other, and that turned out to be the best one.  This is because, over a few days’ constant use, they stretch.  So the looser basket has ended up a bit on the floppy side, and the tighter basket is just about right.  Also, as I knitted the base more tightly, the sides appear taller.

The crew spent hours lounging around in their new beds, which enabled us to take lots of scrumptious photos of them.  My partner is a professional photographer (thesheffieldlens.com) – I am sure you can tell which are his pictures and which one is off my iphone!

I am excited to make the next batch.  I might try a different colour, or at least, a different sheep….

Make your own giant yarn

Today I wet felted the whole batch of texel wool roving, to make my own version of giant yarn.  If it works, the cat baskets are back on.  This is a very exciting prospect for me, and worth the effort.

And it took quite a bit of effort too, transforming this

into this

and hanging it out to dry.

Three and a half kilos of wet wool is really heavy, as I found when I lugged it down the stairs and into the garden.  It drips a lot, so that was the best place for it.

It took me about 4 hours to process the whole batch, including a couple of false starts and working out the best approach. There is nothing online that shows you how to do this (believe me, I looked!)  So it was a matter of trial and error.  I can see how my technique improved as I went along.  I needed to achieve an even thickness of yarn whilst not disrupting the fibres too much.  From about halfway through, I was happy with the result.

The new yarn is a lot thicker than the yarn I used before, so I will need to re-write my patterns and possibly use larger doublepins than the set I have now.  Giant wooden knitting needles are easily available, as are giant circulars, but giant doublepins are rare so will probably need to be custom-made….

I’m very excited about getting my new yarn onto some needles soon!  Watch this space…

Wool has arrived…

…and it really is, actual, wool.  One continuous length of clean, combed, white fleece.  I even know the breed of sheep it has come from – the texel.

A pedigree texel sheep

It feels wonderful and has that typically woolly scent, which is very evocative for me.  I realised as I opened the package and handled the wool, that this is what my Auntie’s house used to smell of, and it took me right back there.

I adored visiting her as a child and some of my happiest early memories were made at her house.  She was brilliant at most hand crafts, and always had some wool at some stage of processing for me to get involved in.  I remember handling greasy, bitty raw fleece, preparing wool for hand-carding, and even had a go at spinning on her spinning wheel (I was rubbish at it).  I tried to knit up my hand-spun yarn and it was hopelessly uneven.  But such fun to try.  So in a way, embarking on this project feels like a home-coming.

Finding the ends of the strand took a while.  I had to tip the wool out of the bag and run my hands along it until eventually one end appeared, and then another.  I marked each end with a coloured tie.

Now I have to experiment with preparing the wool for knitting.  Although it’s surprisingly sturdy in its unprocessed state, and I could go ahead and arm-knit with it, the kind of structured pieces I intend to make will need a firmer, more ‘finished’ yarn.

Friction felting is not that effective and takes too long, especially with a large batch of wool.  Wet felting is probably the way to go, but must be done gently by hand.   So I think I’ll be filling the bath tub, swooshing it around, and then trying to get it dry.

The resulting yarn will be thicker than the yarn I used before, so I will have to knit up samples and work out how to adapt my patterns.  There may be other advantages which I haven’t discovered yet.  What’s really exciting is that there are all kinds of wool tops available, from many different breeds of sheep, some of which are different, natural colours.  So I could work with beautiful shades of brown and grey – all undyed, all from the sheep’s natural colour.

If my Auntie was still here, how I’d love to tell her about this!  She was, and still is, my inspiration, and there’s a bit of her in all of this.

I just took the plunge…

…back into knitting, big time.  I had a word with myself, and went and ordered a load of natural wool tops from World of Wool.  I don’t know if it’s right for my project, so I will need to experiment, but this is the start of a creative journey, something that’s been missing for too long.

Why on earth I chose to do it now, when I am busier than ever, I don’t know.  I checked back at my last knitting notes, when I was trying to source some alternative giant natural yarns, and I was shocked to find that I wrote them two years ago.  The article I stumbled across the other day, about knitting being really good for you, was undoubtedly needling away at my subconscious.

I can’t wait for my new yarn to arrive.  Actually it’s not even yarn yet, I will have to make it into yarn myself.  I will felt it into the size I need to fit the needles I have, and then test its strength and softness.  I’ve never custom-made my own yarn before so this is another dimension.

It’s time to stop prioritising everything else, get something on the needles and see where it takes me.

 

Knitting is really good for you

Knitting, apparently, should be prescribed on the NHS to reduce depression and ward off dementia, amongst other benefits.  Now that’s some claim!  So I read today in the Sunday Telegraph, in the Science section, so it must be true.

If that’s the case, I’d better pick up my needles pretty soon.  I’ve not knitted for a long time and I really miss it.  Other activities have simply taken over.  But it’s up to me to make time and space for it.

It was kind of a New Year’s Resolution to start knitting again.  I mean, whoever heard of a knitting blog with no knitting on it?  It’s not that I’m short of ideas, either.  I’m just not very good at blocking out time for it.

But I am taking some inspiration from last year, when I made a couple of radical changes to my life.  I quit my day job and got another (better) one.  I also decided to get a grip on my health whilst I’ve still got it, made some lifestyle changes and dropped a dress size.  So the next thing will be to get knitting.  For health reasons, to express some creativity, and for the joy of it.

Now that I’ve said it out loud, I’ve got to do it!