My Beautiful Customers and Their Beautiful Projects

I know you love looking at what other people have made with our yarn and you are in luck because I've been disorganised again and I've got a big old list of stuff that I haven't shared anywhere so..... sit back and enjoy. :)

In no particular order:

 

Ann's first sock!!!!! Ann is Toni's grandma and has knitted forever (I think??) but Toni's new found enthusiasm has fired her up. I know there were problems in these socks, extra stitches I think, but with Toni's calm guidance she has smashed it out. Aren't they great!?!?!? They actually almost make me like this brown yarn... ;) She's since started a beautiful cardi that I had a sneaky peak of the other day and I can't wait for it to be done. OOOOOOHWEEE!

King Cole Zig Zag 4ply in Mocha and the free pattern that comes with it.

LOOK LOOK LOOK LOOK! It's Totoro! I have no idea what that is. Some sort of Japanese cartoon character that I should know more about but apparently makes a really good knitting and crochet motif. Isn't it just the cutest!?!!?!!?! This is by 'ByRobin' I guess that's not her name, I guess it's a business name.... maybe just Robin? Hi Robin or ByRobin! It's made in lots of balls of the Cygnet Chunky and Robin's one of our internet customers and has been busy stashing this yarn over months and months and now I get to see this amazing thing! Isn't the internet great??? She has a blog and her photos are amazing. Once I get this, the vlog and the pile of patterns sorted then that's what I'll be catching up on. Gorgeous.

Claire appeared in our last customer photo blog too - she's bloody amazing, especially for keeping her head up over a difficult few weeks (and in that massive biker jacket she was wearing last time she was in. Haha). It's the first time I've seen this pattern (King Cole 4143 if you must know) knitted up - first in this photo and secondly in the flesh. This yarn really is perfect. Amy Blackwell described it as feeling 'like love' earlier on. (The King Cole Recycled Cotton Aran if you must know). It is lovely! Soft and drapy. Claire's had a little difficulty with the seaming, to make it neat she felt like she had to pull it tight but then it was a completely different tension so the softness of the knitted fabric. I guess you'd counter this by doing tiny sewing up stitches but I don't know yet. I'm doing a cardi in this yarn and from the same selection of patterns but I keep putting off doing the second sleeve. Yes, sss has struck. So I ought to get on with this so I can give you some actual advice. However, Claire's jumper was just perfect - the balance between neatness and tightness was near spot on and it looks good on, I tell you that for free. :)

 

Heather also appeared in our last customer projects blog too!Last time she made an amazingly cute bolero/shruggy thing and this time it's an oversized tee. Heather's a little concerned about the size and I see where she's coming from but it takes me back to when I was a kid and playing in the sun all day and mum used to put us in big oversized tee shirts and it was heavenly. This is the sort of top to wear with a nice denim skirt in the evening in the summer when you have to look reasonably put together but don't want to have to have things touching you. Does that make sense? She used the Bamboo Cotton DK and the Bamboo Cotton Prints DK for the top bit but before you all go mad and want to knit it - King Cole have just discontinued the prints. The buggers. To be fair, I don't think the chose the right colours - each one was lovely within itself but there weren't enough and I also think there may have been too many colours in each print. Oh well. That's life. It looks great on Heather though doesn't it?! :)

 

Ahhhhhhh. This is Sharon and Alice who were both on my lesson LAST SUNDAY and this photo was taken LAST SUNDAY EVENING! Can you believe that?!?! Lessons are such a lovely thing to do with you mum or your daughter and Alice is going to be a knitting superstar, I can tell. She already sews and plays the French horn (I think??) so she has many many talents and her mother must do too for bringing her up. Lovely ladies. :)

 

Susie's blanket. Susie's blood blanket. Susie did not crochet before she started this blanket. Just stop for a minute and think about that.

Amazing. 

We had lots of discussions about how to put the blanket together, sewing, crocheting as-you-go. In the end she chose the latter option and used the Silver colour to do so. However, she'd laid the squares out so that they went from light to dark, can you see that? But once the Silver was in place that was lost a little bit so Susie came in and she was all like 'ooooooooh, it's not good, I hate it' and so on and so on. No. No. No. It's AMAZING! Amazing! I love it! You may not be able see this here but there are six squares with 3d flowers on, they're white with black middles, can you see? Just the whole thing is lovely. Neither of us were convinced about the colours when she first started - white, black, brown and grey but I'm definiteley convinced now and I kinda want to start one this very minute (but I have gay socks to finish, stop Eleanor, stop). In case you want to make it, and allow me to live vicariously, it's done in the Bamboo Cotton DK. 

 

Now, given that Susie has only just started crocheting with that blanket, what was her next thing? Only the last crochet thing that make me want to rip my hair out. haha. LOOK! She's using the rest of the Black Bamboo Cotton DK but I think she might end up using the Bamboo Cotton 4ply after she's had a good old practice. Can you believe this woman????

Ahhhhh. Moira's cardigan. Moira's lovely cardigan. Moira is one of our very experienced knitters but put it down for a long while and now every so often gets the bug to make something for herself or her daughter. This is one of those times. It's pattern number 4014 and it's knitted in the Moods DK which, if you're not willing/able to splash out on the Masham DK, is a lovely woolly subsitute. We had a few problems gauge wise which resulted in a few inches of the back being ripped down but now it's done it's spot on and I can see her wearing it an awful lot. Lovely. Can't wait for the next one which is even more spectacular but requires Patons to pull their finger out and get some yarn sent to me.

 

Ahhh. I think I did share this one. Did I tell you that Vezza's gone a bit sock mad? Well, she's made like more socks than me now, more often that not in her lovely hand dyed but of course she's still got a soft spot for King Cole Zig Zag like we all have. This is the Marine colourway. :)

 

I can't do this one justice. I've tried many a time. It is Davina's Navia Uno shawl, covered in many many coloured beads and it's absolutely delightful. She used the Charcoal colourway so it's a little bit more subtle than the black but it's still beautiful with an every day outfit to jazz it up. I must admit I was shocked when she was wearing it for work but why keep special things under wraps? You need to get them out and love them and appreciate them and (hopefully) wear them out which means you get to wear them more and you also get the memories of having used them. Perfect. I'm sure she'll let me know what the pattern was when she reads this because I can't remember.... 

 

This was Lindsey's beautiful wreath inspried by Attic 24 and crocheted in many colours of the Patons Diploma Gold and the King Cole Merino Blend DK for her mother for mother's day. I love how jolly it is and how I saw it in all the stages. We initially weren't sure about the colour scheme for the ring bit in the background but I think it's a lovely balance between that and the flowers. Her mum rearranged the flowers because a daughter can never do anything right can she? Haha. I think Lindsey did a bloody brill job, I'd have left her flowers where they were. 

 

I couldn't not show this off even though it's totally cheating. Izzy came on our Learn To Fairisle course just before Christmas last year (I'm running it again because I loved it so much but we're nearly booked out so.... chop chop) and bought the yarn to make this, King Cole Merino Blend DK, on the day I think or soon after anyway. She was tickled by a tropical theme knitted in double thickness pure wool and I must admit, I think everybody that sees it is too. She totally cheated by having more than two colours in a row but I think I'll let her off. Would you? 

Haha. You couldn't escape a customer blog without a nod to Toni could you? She sent me this photo of her newest creation sat on top of one of her oldest creations. Same needle, same size, same yarn - whooooooooooooole different gauge. Haha. It happens folks. It happens. This is made in her favourite, the King Cole Chunky Tweed with 6mm needles.

 

And lastly but not leastly, Lindsey (again... haha), was inspired by the crochet elephant in the shop and has made herself a bunny from the Toft Alpaca book in the King Cole Cottonsoft. I feel like I love him/her but neither of us can work out what colour the eye should be - she's tried a range of greys, browns, black, cream and white and buttons, but nah. Doesn't work. What do you think? 

AREN'T MY CUSTOMERS WONDERFUL??!?!!?

Love,

Eleanor. xxxxxxxxx

An Update

Gosh. I had the best day yesterday. The best. I woke up early which is all Chris's fault but I knew I had a lot of nothing to do so I got up anyway. First thing was first, I had to get to the Post Office. Decisions needed to be made whether I was going into town or staying in Beeston. Always town. If it's the option, always town. Which meant that I could get some sculpey from The Bead Shop. And if I was going to town then I might aswell pop into the KITTY CAFE(!!!!!!) to see Marie so I booked a slot before I even set off. Perfect. I spent a lovely hour there before heading back home, having some soup and spending some time with Versace in the garden listening to podcasts and sculpeying and drinking lots of tea. Perfect day.

 

The pasta maker kind of at work. I was trying to take a photo of the scratches I got from being a human scratch post to the kittens at the Kitty Cafe. They were on fire yesterday, playing and fighting and making a noise and I was sat in the perfect place - just at the entrance to the rest room for them - so I got them all. Ahhhhh lovely. Almost lovelier on my own than with other people. Loner. Anyway. This was my setup for the afternoon. More later. 

 

In the evening Chris and I go to salsa. This is Sophie who takes the lesson. She's French and she's lovely. She's a ballet dancer originally so she likes to put loads of twirls in and it drives me mad but she's a good teacher - nice mix of making sure you do it right and helping you relax. I've set up a Facebook group for it here because at the minute it's me and Chris every week and a small assorted group of singles so it'd be nice to get a proper group going. It's only £5 for an hour and the beginners class starts at 7.15ish. It's at the White Lion in Beeston which is just right across from the Tesco and also where the Wool and Wine group meet on a Tuesday. Honestly, it's worth popping along if you can make it because it really does make exercise enjoyable and you can be as two left footed as Chris is. Haha. COME COME COME!!!

 

I thought I'd share this for posterity. This is the chart that I put together for the wedding socks that I've been on about in the vlog for a couple of days (click here). I did it the right way round for starters and then just looked at the phone upside down every time I needed to knit it. For Graham's socks I swapped the T and the G around which I thought would be simple but really bloody wasn't. This morning I finished the initials on the very last sock, only took two rippings out, 9 countings, some increasing, some decreasing and lots of fag breaks to get there. But from now on it's plaaaaaaaaaain sailing. Touch wood.

Another for posterity. This is the first tram that I've seen on the Beeston line. Chris still found something to moan about...

 

Sculpey. An inordinate amount of sculpey. More another day. 

 

Ahhhhh. And here is the progress as of Saturday night (I think.... or maybe Sunday). So that's Theo's socks down to the toe and one of Graham's sock down to the toe. Now I'm on the last sock, Graham's and I'm about half way down the leg after doing this ribbing and the initials this morning. Heel at some point then the foot and then I have to decided whether I really do have enough for the toes and if I do then what patterns I'm going to do to make the differentiation easier. Then I'm going to give these a jolly good blocking. Literally the first socks that I've blocked. 

 

Photo from the Kitty Cafe!!! This is either Minnie or Daisy and they were both lovely little things. Whichever one it was it saw my knitting from across the cafe and came to accost me repeatedly. I have scratches all the way up my leg. I have many videos of the shennanigans but I'm so sick after this Vlog A Day April malarkey of waiting for videos to upload that I couldn't justify putting any on here. For each video I make I have to upload it to Windows Movie Maker and then, even if I don't do any editing, I have to save it in a different format which looks like an upload bar and then I have to upload it to Youtube and then I have to do some html. Didn't really think about that every day did I? Oh well, nearly over and very enjoyable. :)

 

And here is the beginning of something quite beautiful. That tiny little sprout in the middle of the photo is a marrow dear readers. At least I think it is. It's the first thing that came up from the seeds that we planted a couple of weeks ago and I do believe it's from the stock of seeds that I got from the mega marrow last year. Is this genetic modification? This year I will harvest only the seeds from the biggest marrow and so on and so on until I have a marrow that I can sale the seas in and you won't see me for dust (or sea spray).

 

And here's the setup proper. You'll have to excuse the state of the garden. We got it gorgeous last year but, like a good little housewife, I mulched the raised beds at either side of the path where I was sat here with cardboard. But when I came to take them up earlier this year the beds on the right side were all mossy and had very few worms and stuff so it wasn't healthy soil. The beds on the left side were great and I think that's because the beds on the right have concrete under them. The whole garden had concrete under it last year and we took up as much as we could but it took so long we had to just get the soil in and get going in the end because all the seedlings were ready to go in. This meant we left the concrete on the right side and just covered it in soil but it is where the mega marrows grew last year so I didn't think it'd be a problem this year but I wasn't happy with the soil health in the end. (Can you believe I'm talking about soil health?) So a couple of weeks ago I dug all the soil from that side and put it onto the other side hoping that Chris would help me smash up the concrete but now either we're weak or the concrete is significantly thicker but we can't do it so we're waiting for his dad to come down with a concrete breaker but his parents aren't fond of telling us when they're coming so they'll turn up one day with it and we have no say but until then the garden is officially a mess. Wow. That took a long time to say....  I still enjoyed sitting there with a pot of tea and my pasta maker though. :)

Gosh, that took so long to do I've got to be off but I got everything I wanted to say said so no problem really but no proofreading. Love,

Eleanor. xxxxxxxx

Eleanor's Pattern of the Weeeeeeeek - 3914

 

I'm really happy to be presenting this today. Mainly because I've got a stinking cold and this is just what I want to be wearing. 

 

King Cole 3914 in the Bamboo Cotton DK (Damson, Oyster and Navy). How perfect is that for something to just shove on? It is not flattering. It's not horrendous but it's definitely not what you wear when you what to accentuate your assets.... Haha. Not with those pockets where they are. It's what you put on when you want to be relatively presentable without doing any work at all. It is an outfit in itself - this, leggings and flip flops and you too can be as beautiful as me!

Now, the pockets. This brings me to my top tip which is to just follow the bloody pattern when it tells you which contrast you should use to make the pockets. I'll explain why. I made a fabulous dress with the purple yarn (Damson) when the shop had been open about six months or so. I wore it a few times but came to the realisation that it just didn't suit me - and it was too pretty to be one I just shove on to look presentable, it needed styling to look okay. So it got left in the cupboard but I couldn't help but think it was a massive waste of yarn just hanging around with the towels. So, at some point last year I ripped it all out and started looking for an alternative. One fine day this pattern came along and I knew it was the one. I couldn't not cast it on so I started like that minute. You cast on the pockets first and they should have been done in the purple but the Damson was at home and because it had been so long since I knitted the original dress I had no idea how many balls I had at home but I certainly didn't want to start a new ball of purple if I had enough of the Damson back at home. So I started it in the Oyster thinking it wouldn't be that bad. But really, if you want to use the pockets, and I do because what's the point of having pockets if you don't use them, then the pockets are going to sag a little and then the lining shows. So, even if you're trying to recycle and be earth and pocket friendly - don't skimp on your pocket linings.

As it happens, I didn't have enough of the purple yarn and I knew that pretty early on in knitting the back. So about half way through I bought a couple of balls of the Damson and striped it in. Then on the front I did exactly the same thing, I did the same amount of rows in the original colour and then striped up to where the Oyster and Navy come in. I think I also did the same on the sleeves. Now. You can definitely see the difference with the stripes. Definitely. It's obviously a different dye lot being perhaps four years old... but I did wear and wash the original dress a fair bit so the colour had definitely changed anyway. But, because I did the same on the front and the back people either don't notice or they think that it's a design feature. So this comes to another top tip - don't be afraid of mixing dye lots. Definitely be afraid of using one ball of a different dye lot when everything else another one and you're starting half way up a sleeve but there are plenty of ways of including this lonely little dye lot ball in. The general rules are, if it's separated by a seam and it's symmetrical then it's gonna be alright. So you could do the sleeves in a different dye lot to the body as long as you do both sleeves. Or you could do the neckband in a different dye lot. And if you're doing that then you might as well do the welt and sleeve in the different dye lot if it means you can do the body and sleeves in the other one. Yeah? You have options. :)

So, on with the pattern. It's done in pieces and this is a good idea with the Bamboo Cotton. Cotton and bamboo both have a tendency to drop with wear so the stability that a seam creates is necessary (or a necessary evil if you love knitting in the round...). It has a drop sleeve, which means no shaping around the armhole or for the top of the sleeve, and this is good if you have a smaller bust to bum ratio - it creates a bit more interest up top so that's where it draws the eye. Added on to the stripey yokey bit which has the same visual affect and it's all about the small busted ladies out there (or the large bummed like me haha). However, the pockets where they are do mean that it isn't particularly flattering for people with a large stomach (or one that hangs down a little like mine does). I suppose you could move the pockets but I'm not sure where..... much higher and you'd lose your waist any lower and they're not useful. Or you could take them out. BUT WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!!!!?????!?!?!? I will fight for pockets!

Other than that I will say that it is a lot of knitting. A lot of stocking stitch. I tend to like these projects a couple of times a year or if I'm planning to do something else whilst I'm doing it and I did think about casting another one on for when I'm called onto the tv at short notice - perfect for back and forth and back and forth. But thinking about it, wouldn't this be perfect for holiday knitting? Kids scratting around on the beach at Skeggy? Get a few rows in whilst drinking your dishwater tea on shivering at the sidelines. Eight hour drive to the Scottish Highlands? Perfs. Don't talk to me if you're headed abroad. Me and the hole in my ear don't want to know... ;)

And one more photo for the record:  

 

And a link to the pattern for the google rankings: King Cole  3914.

And, bugger it, a sneaky link to the King Cole Bamboo Cotton DK for the rankings too...

Love Eleanor. xxxxxx

P.s. Have you see our vlog about Love Your Local Yarn Shop Day????

A Fixer Upper

Like my fave song from Frozen. This blanket was a bit of a fixer upper.

 

Cathy, who owns a vintage reselling business and has a real eye for incredible things, bought this blanket for her granddaughter a while ago. It's obviously been used and reused and well loved. The colours are incredible and the stitching it beautiful. It's a real simple stitch, something like *treble into the top of the treble, ch1* and then in the corners it's very much a granny square corner. The yarn is something like a pure wool 2 maybe 3ply. But, as you can see, there was a stripe in it that was crocheted in something very different and it's that stripe (actually a partial stripe) that had worn through which is a such a shame.

Now, crochet is difficult to 'fix'. In knitting you can basically re-knit holes with a sewing needle if needs be, or knit a piece and kitchener stitch it in place or whatever and that's because knitted stitch, as I think of them, kind of aren't complete until you've done something to them. The best example of this is casting off, once you know you need to finish you have to do something else i.e. casting off in some way, whereas when you're crocheting the crochet stitch is complete within itself so when you know you want to finish you just stop. But because it's complete within itself in order to fix it you have to do some weird acrobatics to make sure that the stitch that was worked into the row that's gone wrong doesn't come undone. Acrobatics I tell you. 

Now, Cathy was going to do this fixing herself. She's a strong knitter but not so much a crocheter but she was going to have a go. But then she picked up some Riot DK and some Patons Diploma to make a fairisle for herself and she was gone. She brought the blanket to me, and the yarn and hook that we'd chosen to fix it with and hope for the best. That was a couple of weeks ago and I haven't had any time to do it until Monday but I did carry it round with me everywhere - like a bag lady - I was really looking forward to fixing this.

So on Monday I got to looking at the problem. Only part of the row was this thinner yarn but the colour that Cathy and I had chosen was the Pastel Green of the Navia Uno: 

 

 Because the Natural White just seem too stark against the ages creams in the blanket. But, despite the fact that the two halves of that stripe were in different yarns, they were both the same creamy colour and I just couldn't cope with the idea that half the round would be green and half would be cream. So the first decision I made was to do the whole round. I found the beginning of the thinner yarn that had broken, but before it had broken and chopped a small portion of it:

 

And then each horizontal chain bar between the trebles on the row above was chopped. snip snip snip. And then, for the section that I did at a time, I teased out the tiny curls of waste yarn. Cute.

Then I actually had to so some crochet, I did start by slip knotting and chaining some, and then I identified the bottom bit of the treble from the row above that I needed to secure:

 

I shoved the hook in which was pretty difficult because the hole at the bottom of said treble was super small because it closed around the thinner yarn. This became easier when I got round to replace the thicker bit:  

 

 and slip stitched through it.This was also a bit difficult because the old yarn was splitty from years of wear. But I did it! I soldiered on.

Then I worked a treble into the top of the treble from the row below, in the normal place that I would have done were I making the thing and then a quick chain before started the process of finding the bottom of the next treble to work into. It was slow going. A 2mm hook. Yeesh. And really, it's all a bit forward facing, like I've done a back post treble:

 

Can you see? However, when you look at the whole thing, it really works!

 

 

I'm pretty sure that were you not a crocheter I really don't think you would be able to tell. The colour works and from atop a pracing pony the slight variation in texture won't either. 

 

I am looking forward to giving this a jolly good block tonight because the Navia yarn fluffs up a beaut once it's blocked and I think it'll match the texture of the other yarn much better. BEAUTS!

And that's my fixing story. :)

Love Eleanor.

Pattern of the Weeeeeeeeek - Great British Granny Shrug

BRILLIANT VIDEOS!!!! BLOODY BRILLIANT!

This week I'm talking about the Great British Granny Shrug. Full disclosure - it's one of mine - but because I got the idea from around and about I put it up for free. I'm featuring it because a version of it has made it into the window once more:

Just below the ceiling tile where the leak was. Ahhhhhh. Lovely.

Now, this is a very easy pattern. Even if I say so myself.

 

It's essentially made out of two granny hexagons. So if you've managed to make a granny square (for example if you've been on one of our Learn to Crochet One lesson....) then you can make this. All you have to do is start with six shells in the middle and then move outwards with six corners. Twice. Dead easy.

What does make people struggle, is the putting it together so I thought I might explain that a little better now with some of my beautiful artwork. So, you'll end up with something like looks like this: 

 

The coloured dots are simply where you fold it. You can fold the blue corners to eachother or the green ones or of the purple ones. (Just to be clear though, the colours in the corners don't appear on the work - this is just two show you that you have options which is perhaps why it's confused people doing the pattern.) Any will work. I used the purple ones:

 

Once you've folded the purple corner onto the other purple folder you'll get a 'T' shape as shown by the light orange dotted line. Dead easy. Then you need to: 

 

 Sew the red line to the equivalent red line on the other granny hexagon that you've made, making the back and that's when it looks like this:

 

 Can you see? And finally:

 

 You sew the tops of the arms to themselves and  that gives you the basic shape. It'll look like a much more beautiful version of this:

 

 Yeah!?!?!?!?!

Lots of people have worked it out but I thought I'd make it super clear. I hope that helps.

Now, more about the actual pattern itself. I used the Fashion Aran when we used to stock in in 100g balls because I'd made a Union Jack hot water bottle cover and had loads left over which meant that the original uses a 4.5mm hook and aran weight yarn. BUT YOU CAN USE WHATEVER YOU WANT! The hexagons have to be the same size of course, otherwise they won't sew together nicely and you'll have one arm longer than the other but you can literally use sewing cotton and a .000000000005 hook if you wanted. You shouldn't want to do that though and if you do you need seeing to... If you look at the projects that people have made though you'll see they've done it in all sorts of weights.

Now, limitations. There are limitations to this pattern and that is that the chest/bust size decides the width and length of the arms and the body. 

  

 So the purple line indicates a quarter of the bust measurement. The orange line between the purple and blue ones indicates the length of the sleeve and the green line indicates the length of the jacket from below the arm. The relationship between the blue and the green line indicate the half width of the sleeve (which I think means that the crucial measurement of the length of the purple, blue and green lines is the width around the whole of the sleeve but don't quote me on this, all of a sudden it's got very mathsy in here...). Anyway, essentially, you don't have a choice, once you've got a bust/chest measurement, what anything else is doing to do. Only, you kinda do..... 

You can add on to the bottom of the cardigan or onto the length of the sleeves, really easily. Especially the sleeves, just go round and round in granny stripes. The bottom is a little hard because you'll have to work in rows which means you'll have one row of front facing trebles and one row of back facing trebles if you decide to go back and forth. If you've done one row stripes anyway and are therefore having to break your yarn at the beginning and end of each stripe then just make sure you're always working with the right side facing. If you're not doing stripes then decide whether you're ocd enough to care about that. OOOOOOOOOOOR. You can start from the very beginning of the hexagon, flipping after the sl-st at the end of each round so that you're kind of working back and forth and kind of working in rounds. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR you could just think much less about this sort of thing than I do.

But! If you decide to do any of this adding onto anywhere, there is the added (and probably very slight or even unique to me) disappointment in losing the sheer simplicity of a bloody cardigan made out of two hexagons.

THE CHOICE IS YOURS DEAR READERS. 

And that, as they say is that. Although, you probably need a proper photo of the thing don't you? Haha. 

 

Lovely ain't it?

Love Eleanor. xxxxxxxxxxx

Pattern of the (Mid)Week - Round Ripple

New camera means new effects. Lucky us!

Now, I feel a bit mean posting this because I've already talked about crochet blankets before on here and I haven't done nearly enough crochet on this pattern of the week malarkey (it'll be sorted soon enough I promise) and I feel a little bad about posting yet another blanket but I couldn't not show this off and also I wanted to talk about COLOURS! I'm not a fan of this weather but it doe make me want to put COLOURS everywhere! So, first, a photo:

 

 That's as close as you're getting to an FO picture... I tried yesterday, I really tried but it's just too huge! Look:

I thought I'd set it out in the back alley and take a photo from the bedroom but then for some reason I put it behind the gate and Chris was in such a miserable state that I didn't have the heart to ask him to move it. Poor lad got my stinkin' cold.

Anyway, it's finished but the ends aren't sewn in. I must admit, wanting a finished project before I write these posts is killing me. I may be a bit kinder to myself and do swatches or other people's projects in the future...

So, this pattern is the round ripple that I found here. It's a free pattern and it's fairly easy to understand. My advice when you're starting is don't try to understand what it is you're doing, it only becomes clear about four or five rounds in. As always with round blanket patterns, you can absolutely ignore the hook and yarn suggestion because you can just make it to whatever width you like at the time. I used variously a 3.5mm, 4mm, 4.5mm and 5mm depending on what was in my hand bag at the time.

The yarn. I used all old yarn. Stuff that I'd brought over from my house for Chris to use or stuff left from projects or just bits that appeared from nowhere as yarn tends to do around here. I used either dk, aran or chunky depending on my whim and thought that if I allowed it to be really random then it'd all even out in the end and it did, happily.

People are always asking me about my colours and how I put them together. Can you remember the mohair dress? 

 

 Oh how I miss that dress. Well, I wanted to use the same effect here but also use every last scrap of wool that I had. Problem is, with it being pretty much my leftovers in some form or another, it's mainly dark and bright and I ran out of creamy-beige colours at the end. I should definitely have started with them because the smaller amount of yarn would have looked bigger in the middle but I didn't think about it...

 

 So this is how it started on March the 2nd. I took it to the hospital and then soon enough it became too big to take with me anywhere.  Basically, I gathered together all of my darkest colours - blacks, browns, dark green and then I made sure there was a little punctuation - still dark and deep colours - the pink Galaxy Chunky.

I don't know about you but I make bargains with myself whilst I'm crocheting (and knitting). 'I'll just get to the end of this row before I do.... blah blah blah...' or 'I'll keep going until the end of this repeat' or.... as I was telling myself 'I'll do this colour until dinner's ready/the programme finishes/Chris squawks...' and that's how I chose how much of one colour to do. Which was a bad idea because once you get into the bigger rounds:

 

that approach looks much bittier than the middle. Can you see?

 

As I got rid of a ball I'd keep a mental note of how many and then when I was back in the stash I'd grab a few more so each couple of days or so my choices got gradually lighter but because I didn't get rid of all of my colours before introducing new (and therefore more exciting to use) ones I still had remnants of the dark right until nearly the very edge. Honestly, because of the way that the colours combine in something like this you don't have to be an expert. You could literally start with ten balls, pick two up, which one's lighter? Put it to the right, pick another one, compare it and put it more right or more left in comparison, pick up another one. In that way you can get a light/dark scale in seconds.

I'm absolutely thrilled with this, can't wait to sew in the ends although that'll probably never be done, and get it on the bed. The nights are still nippy even though the sun's trying it's best in the day isn't it? Ahhhhhhh. No idea what'll be for Saturday's pattern of the week. I've just been reminded that I had three weeks to knit two pairs of man socks. Better get on with it then...

Love Eleanor. xxxxxx

Eleanor's Pattern of the Week - 3990

I am thrilled to be speaking about this pattern this week! It is the one that I felt really stood out when the yarn first came in and I cast it on straight away... although I shouldn't have... So much to do, so little time. Anyway, here's the pattern:

 

It is the one that stood out to me when I first got the yarn in a couple of weeks ago and I think I cast it on that very day. Finished the front up to the armholes on the front/back that very evening and then put it aside to knit something in the King Cole Big Value Recycled Aran. And then when I needed something a bit more lightweight to knit than a big old aran I started on this again. Once you've got it on the circular needles for the yoke and you start decreasing it really is a bish bash bosh job and I think I got that bit knitted in about an hour at the shop and an evening when I got home. 

Here's Toni the reluctant model wearing it. I made the smallest size to fit best on the mannequin and I think Toni's about the only one of my regular customers that would fit it. Haha. But she's also in most often and doesn't mind stripping for me. :)

 Anyway, a better photo:

I think the reason I like this so much is because it reminds me of the Eldora from last years Spring/Summer Rowan collection. 

 

This is a classy top. The Patons' version has only three colours but I think my top tip for today will be bugger the pattern and use LOADS of colours!  I must admit, when you look briefly at the Patons' one it already looks like more than three colours - that's some clever little strip combinations that mean that one stitch repeat looks completely different in one colour than it does in two but I really think that there's an opportunity to open this up. There are 30 rows to the whole repeat, and two different stitch patterns that are repeated within it. I would recommend sticking to the 30 row repeat and keeping all of your colour repeats within that. It would be super easy to pencil out what the stitch pattern is going to look like and then use crayons to colour in your stripes.

The difficulty with that comes from combining the colours of the Patons' Washed Cotton. I adore this yarn. It was gorgeous to work with and when I make my own version of the 3990 I'll definitely be using it but I do think you could get more 'Eldora' colours if you go over to the Bamboo Cotton DK. Perhaps something like:

Anti-clockwise from the bottom right - Damson - Sugar Pink - Plum - Lawn - Navy - Old Gold.

I also think that the Crimson would be amazing in there too.

However, doing so many colours does push the price up (£24 until Monday, £27 thereafter). Using just the three colours of the Patons' Washed Cotton DK costs just £17.70 which I think is a pretty good price for a pure cotton t-shirt. And such a pretty one!

Now, the pattern itself. It's a very modern shape, unlike anything else we have. You do a front and a back which are both the same, then the sleeves and then you pop them all on a circular needle and decrease it a lot. Booooooom. What that does mean is that it should be relatively easy to upsize this t-shirt which lots of us are going to need to do seeing as it stops at.... wait for it.... a size medium. Tsk tsk Patons, tsk tsk. I am planning to write a little info about how we would do that and insert it into every pattern so I'll make sure to keep you updated when I do that.

 Apart from that, the lace work is very simple. It would be a great something to make if you haven't even touched lace before. Very easy to do and very easy to see where you've gone wrong. The elongated stitches are like cheats lace too. Haha.

AND THE BEST THING ABOUT THIS?!?!!? IF YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER  - SHE CAN HAVE ONE TOOOOOOOOO!

 

Patons 3994. Amazing! 

I really rate this pattern, found it interesting but easy to knit, I followed the instructions from start to finish without thinking that I needed to change something (and that's very rare). I did misread them and made it a little short but actually I think that's pretty cute and might redo that on my version. Once I've finished everything else I'm doing...

Love Eleanor. xxxxxxxx