Thursday 20 May 2010

Sweet Feet

About 6 months ago I got an issue of Inside Crochet and found this great pattern for socks called sweet feet. I just had to make them even though I'd never made a pair of socks before. 6 months later I've finally finished them.



I don't know why its taken me so long to finish these, possibly because I'm always getting sidetracked making other great things. One of those was an easy pair of chunky socks and after finishing the sweet feet I'm made a pair of knitting socks in only 4 days! 









My little boy wanted to get in on the picture take of my knitted 2 needle socks. Made with Stylecraft Wondersoft Baby dk and 4mm needles.


Sweet feet wasn't a hard pattern to make, I was just lazy with it, but now they are done, I love them. Its great to make something then immediately wear them.

Wednesday 19 May 2010

Friday 14 May 2010

knitting in the round

I've not long been knitting, but something I've always wanted to do is knit a pair of socks. How hard can it be? I mean, crocheting socks is easy as pie!

I've got 4 dpns in a size 3.25mm and I set about asking the question in my favorite Ravelry Forum, What's the best way to make socks, with dpns or circular needles? I was given some great advice and as I already had the dpns I'd better practice with those to see if I actually enjoyed knitting in the round.

I was told that making a pair of socks as my first project would be quite a challenge and maybe I should start with fingerless gloves. That's a great idea, I thought! I need some as my little hands get cold when I'm crocheting, knitting or typing on here.

I clicked my way over to youtube and found a great little video on working with dpns.

Here's a picture of what i did in two rounds. Pretty good isn't it :D




I'm surprised out how easy it is to work in the round. I'm going to make a pair of fingerless gloves very soon :D

Sunday 2 May 2010

Freeform Crochet and Knitting Fun & Frivolity

This last week saw the start to 2 new crochet and knit freeform extravaganzas that I'm proud to take part in for the year.

Both of these freeform projects are for 52 weeks and are hosted by two very grand and lovely ladies over at Ravelry.

The First freeform is Freeform crochet Fun and Frivolity by Cro-kween's intrepid Knights of the Freeformed Table and her freeform is all about crochet. (GypsyDancer is our leader for this freeform as well as the knitting one below.)

We have been tasked to make "something" this time. I've chosen to either have my project grow into a bag or a cushion cover. My heart seems to be leaning towards the cover but we'll see how it goes.
So far we've had one instruction (one a week) and here is my work so far.




We had to go outside and find a flower. This wasn't so easy for me so I chose to look on the internet for my fave flower. I really love the Stargazer lily so this was the basis for my instruction. 




Count the number of petals on your flower and multiply this by the number of letters in the flowers name.
This for me was 6 x 13.
The number of rows was 4 for the Month of April.
I chose to use Sirdar click dk with wool for the yarn choice and the hook was 3mm.
We had a choice of stitches we could use too. DC, TC, or DTC. We could use a more experieced stitch if we wanted too. Its our freeform afterall.
I ended up doing a who host of different stitches. single crochet, half dc, linked dc, linked tc, etc. 
I started with the magic ring and did 4 sc in the ring. I then chained 20 and did 18 dc back down the chain (4 x). I continued with varying stitches to give the peice a flower look. Each "petal" opening out from the center.
Here is a close up of one of the petals.


 

For the second freeform its all about knitting.
GypsyDancer's Freeform Frolic, hosted by GypsyDancer.
She has a fabulous Etsy Shop selling yarn bowls and pots. Beautiful and elegant, a real must see (and possible buy). 

This first instruction starts with us multipling our teaspoons with sharp knives to give us our starting stitches. This for me is 66.

Then to think of our favourite vegetable. A family fave in our house is brocolli. The number of rows is dictated by the number of letters in the word.

Needle size is 3mm and colour is inspired by the vegetable. I've chosen to use a yarn that reflected the needle choice, so its a 4 ply grey yarn for me.
We had 3 choices of stitch we could use.
Chinese Wave, Moss Stitch and Simple Slip.

I've chosen Moss Stitch as I know this one. I'm still very new to knitting so progress was slow. It took me a day to do the 8 rows but I think they've come out really lovely.




If you'd like to join either of these projects, just join Ravelry and head over the the Groups. We are a merry group of madhatters and look forward to meeting and chatting about anything and everything.

If your already on Ravelry, just click on the project icons on this page and it will take you to the work in progress project page.