BOOM! 1 hr Snood/cowl....

Last night I made a Snood / Cowl for a colleague at work as a thank-you for all her help during Men's fashion week, without her support our job would have been so much harder last week and would have meant me travelling on a grueling two day trip to Milan, which I really didn't want to do!

The design for this snood was really easy and only took me 1 hour, so gratifying :)

It was inspired by *THIS* design, the Around the way Cowl from *Pickles.no* and is just garter stitch on 12mm needles, knit using Lion Brand Thick & Quick yarn (which I bought in March last year in NYC!) and I just kept knitting until it was wide enough to go around the neck, plus a bit more, and then seamed the ends together, I'm calling it the 'BOOM! - 1hr snood/cowl'.

This year I am trying to make more effort with wrapping and presenting gifts for people, so my new favourite thing to do is to use textures from a Jpeg library that my friends and I have built up over the last year, which I then alter or resize in Photoshop and then print out and use as gift-wrap, above is how I wrapped Giulia's snood to present to her today.... I hope she likes it!

2011 inspiration.....Crochet

These pics are my idea of colour and crochet heaven.... this year I intend to :

Make a blanket of many colours...inspired by this beautiful work by Lucy of Attic24

Finish my hexagon cushion, which was also inspired by Lucy of Attic24

Make a crochet covered Ikea stool like this one by block a day blog

Make a Crochet bag like this one from the Japanese book 'Pretty colour crochet & knit goods'

My favourites of 2010....

Here are some of my favourite projects from 2010, and here's to many more in 2011!

Darn good....

Last night I darned my first ever sock, it is not a tidy job, in fact it is a bit of a monster, but the socks are the first pair I ever knitted and are full of mistakes too!

Despite this fact they hold a fair amount of sentimental value and I wore them around the house and in bed for a few years before they developed holes in their soles!

Bizarrely I found the process of darning the holes very therapeutic and can once again wear my monstrous socks with pride :-)

I found the tutorial on how to do THIS via the Craft:zine website, it is a collaboration with the Martha Stewart Living editors and has lots of good tips for fixing and embellishing.

Cowling....

The latest addition to the Lucy Knits and crochet collection....

A military style extra chunky crochet snood!

It was so easy to make, I just bought some extra chunky yarn (106 yards / 97 metres / 170g) , a 20mm crochet hook (monster size!) and just crocheted around in a circle through the back loop until the yarn ran out (or until desired length) to achieve a reversible textured snood, one side is ribbed, the other is a nice nubbled texture (as in the pics above).

Avoca - The Mill

One of the highlights of my visit to Ireland was a trip to the Avoca mill in County Wicklow, it is a working handweaving mill built on the banks of the river Avoca, and also the site of a large store selling their beautiful woven and knitted goods and an outstanding cafe that was by far the culinary highlight of our trip to Ireland!

The Mill itself dates from 1723, and is said to be the oldest existing manufacturer in Ireland, and the old buildings on the site were beautifully whitewashed and set amongst some of the prettiest blue Hydrangeas and Rose bushes.

On the day we went the weather was alternating between bright warm sunshine and torrential downpours, but luckily I managed to snap some pictures in between showers :)

I loved the bright colours they use in their designs, and this is how they describe their company ethos....


" What unifies our approach is to try to avoid the average or ordinary. Instead, we look for colour and life and happiness, and seek out the unusual and beautiful. Our mission is to create joy and have fun. In fact we're selfish, choosing things firstly because we love them and then hoping we're not alone in our taste. "

These bundles of yarn looked amazing in their cubby holes - waiting to be spun into soft and snuggly scarves and bankets.

It was fascinating to see the weaving process going on firsthand, from how they set up the colours above, to watching the work of one of the handweavers growing before our very eyes!

For anyone travelling to southern Ireland for a holiday - I definitely recommend checking out the Avoca mill - even if you aren't interested in weaving the shop and cafe were amazing, and the selection of cakes was mouthwatering!

Knitting Green Pouffes

Knitting Daily are holding a competition in homage to the book Knitting Green by Ann Budd.

So for this challenge I thought I would make a pouffe/foot stool from old jersey t-shirts with an XL crochet hook a la Pickles!

Here is a picture of their Puff Granny's Baby Pouffe from their lovely knitting blog :

I love Pickles

http://www.pickles.no/

Its official - this is my new favourite knitting website :)

The wool looks amazing and the patterns are free, so please support these lovely girls by buying their yarn!

Teeny Greenie Beanie

Hmm, so this was not quite the anticipated design, my gauge was way off and I couldn't be bothered with the seed stitch upper so I knitted stocking stitch instead and worked out my own decreases for the top .... but it does the trick for today at least, I think this will be unraveled halfway tonight and re-knit to include another few rows and make it less like a skull-cap :)


However, I am pretty excited because it is the first time I have improvised away from a pattern and it actually worked! It is a pretty neat construction, and to be honest the only part that resembles the original Autumn pattern is the number of cast on stitches!


So I will be writing out my little improv pattern and posting it up on here when I have perfected it!

Other winter knitting

Here are some of the other knitting projects I have finished this Winter so far..... seem to be a lot of snoods......hmm, Snood and Beret obsession I think?!

A very talented young lady

My lovely assistant Anwen is one heck of a talented young lady, not only is she the fastest knitter I know but she is also able to knit the most amazing designs pretty much just from her imagination and memory (something I am unable to do without following charts and ticking off the rows as I go!)

Here is her current project, a Star Wars jumper for a baby boy - how cool is this little fella going to look?! He'll be the envy of all his peers!


And here is a picture of the lady herself - hiding behind one of her other beautiful creations ;-)

In my knitting queue....

Super Duper Bulky Blue Cowl - by Unraveling on Ravelry


My kind of Town Cowl by Trish Woodsen


Feather and Fan Comfort Shawl by Sarah Bradberry - this version is the Cosy Shawl by TMA on Ravelry


Wham Bam Thank You Lamb by Susan Chang on Ravelry


Thrummed Mittens by Jennifer L Appleby on Ravelry

I aim to complete these by November at least!

Hmmm.......any bets on this actually happening?!

Can a girl have too many Snoods?