Stella's Shawl

Today is my mother's birthday, and I wanted to share her gift with you on the blog. This is the very popular Revontuli pattern found as a free Ravelry download. I used one ball of Rico Design Superba Poems in the Denim colourway. The pattern calls for 800 yards, and at 459 yards one ball is far from enough to complete the last 20 or so rows of the pattern. Nonetheless, my finished object is plenty big to wear as a scarf through the mild Texas winter. 

I have read a lot of complaints about the unevenness of this yarn, and I can attest that it varies from so thin that you think it might break to almost chunky at times. I lucked out with this ball, which was a pretty consistent fingering weight throughout. It's incredibly soft, and the colours and price point are pretty hard to resist. So if you come across at your local shop, I'd recommend it for any garments other than socks. The unevenness would drive a fussy sock knitter mad.

The Revontuli pattern is super easy to follow and memorize, although it took me at least two hours to knit the first five rows! After that, the whole shawl knit up in a couple of weeks. I had fun showing it off to my coworkers as I knit on my lunch break in the canteen - although I have to concentrate on lace knitting and just make too many mistakes if I try to converse and knit lace at the same time! The result of public display of knitting addiction has led to many wonderful things though. One coworker asked me to teach her to knit, and she's already made two gorgeous chunky scarves and a hat. Another has picked up her needles after 23 years and trumped the rest of us by knocking out a cabled hoodie in three weeks! And one of our cooks asked me to knit her granddaughter an aran cardi for Christmas.

It's so nice to reflect on how knitting has brought me new friends over the years. It also allows me to send a piece of myself across the ocean, all the way to Houston. Each time my mom wraps herself up in her new shawl, she is wrapping herself up in my love. Happy Birthday Mom! xoxo

Sweater Heaven

Someone once told me that they would never buy me a sweater (say, for an all important holiday that happens to be coming up soon) because they know I could knit something similar or better. I was so saddened by this because while I could probably knit any of these yummy sweaters above, it would take ages and cost a fortune. I find myself thinking the same thing when I'm browsing shops, and the result is that I have maybe three sweaters in my entire collection. I have set down my cabled aran jumper that I'm so hoping will be finished by the holidays to work on a baby cabled cardi for a coworker. And as long I have projects on the go for other people, my sweater knitting need will go unfufilled. So friends, family, dear husband... feel free to buy away!

1.  Acorn Intarsia Jumper
2.  Proenza Schouler Sweater
3. Komodo Crema Cardigan
4. Marsha Animal Print Jumper
5. Lottie Sweater by A.L.C.


 

Hedgehog Ornaments

If you've been reading the blog since its inception this summer, you will know that I started a new job a few months ago. It's always fun to discover how teams celebrate the festive season, and apparently my teammates decorate their desks in a festive theme each year. There is an entire cupboard dedicated to storing bobbles and tinsel and electric pink desktop Christmas trees in our office!

In choosing my Christmas work space theme this year, it seems that the easiest and cheapest option would be to utilize existing decorations. But never one to shirk from a challenge of setting myself too many craft projects to complete before burning out from craft exhaustion by the end of the year, I have decided to deck my desk in a Winter Wonderland theme. I don't exactly have a "vision" for it yet, but these hedgehog ornaments are the first in a series of woodland animal-related ornaments that I'll be knocking out over the next week.

They are dead easy to make, and I suggest making a few extras if you have cats - as I have noticed one or two going missing after my sweet cat discovered them. The body is a pom pom made using a quick and easy method found on the Creature Comforts blog here. The head is knitted using a couple of meters of remnant chunky weight yarn and the pattern below. I used chunky yarn because I had it left over from previous projects, and I cannot bear to throw away even the shortest amount of yarn! I used 3.5mm needles to get a tight gauge.

Body Pattern:

Cast on 11 stitches.
Row 1: K to end.
Row 2: Purl to end.
Row 3: K2tog, k to last 2 stiches, k2tog.
Row 4: P2tog, p to last 2 stiches, p2tog.
Row 5: K2tog, k to last 2 stiches, k2tog.
Bind off in purl and leave a long tail of yarn for sewing.

Sew up seam to create a cone shape. Create a nose and eyes with sewing thread or spare yarn. You could use very tiny buttons for the eyes as well. Use a bit of polyfill or spare yarn to stuff the head of your hedgehog, and then sew the head to the middle of the pom pom body using yarn and a darning needle. Attach a loop of yarn to make the hedgehog into an ornament!

This project can be made with any weight of yarn. Simply adjust your needle size to get your desire gauge. If you'd like a bigger head, cast on more stitches. Just be sure not to decrease your cone-shaped head past 4 or 5 stitches and the head will be too pointy - more like an anteater than a hegdehog!

Enjoy!

Knitting + Stationery // Two Loves

 

1. Knit Thanks by besty
2. Knitting Writing Paper Set by Do You Punctuate?
3. Knit Notes by Papersheep
4. Cable Knit Letterpress Folded Cards by redbirdink

Crochet Peter Pan Collar

Detachable collars. A thing of the 80's? And the 60's before that? Perhaps. But they're back. And I just made one! I'm not sure how I'll style this yet. Not being a huge fan of crew neck anything, I don't have many of the right tops that could be accessorized with a collar. But now I have something to watch out for in charity shops. The pattern is by Emma Escott and is available as a free Ravelry download. I used some leftover Debbie Bliss DK cotton in a soft champagne colour that I picked up at Loop in London a few years ago. This isn't exactly a stash busting project, but it's a good way to use up about 20 grams or so. And it's quick! Incidently, those the last photo is of the curtains in my bedroom. I wasn't sure about them at first. They were put there by my landlord. But I'm really loving them and their vintage funkiness right now. I find myself staring at them blanking while I daydream and scheme more crafting projects, so they must be calmly inspiring.

Ikat Cushion Cover

I did a bit of sewing this weekend, as I'm on quest to expand my eclectic collection of homemade cushions. This cushion cover is sewn from a lovely woven ikat fabric that I picked up at John Lewis on Oxford Street a couple of weeks ago. The fabric was originally intended for a cape that I'm dreaming of, but I read the pattern envelope wrong and didn't buy enough yardage. So now it's a pillow! And I added some embroidery for extra eclectic goodness.

I love all of the embroidered pillows at Athropologie and would buy every last one of them were I rich. But I'm also having fun fabricating my own stuff too. I envision my eventual pile of colourful cushions on my eventual distressed leather sofa. Said sofa has not been found or purchased, so I've taken pictures of my latest creation on my bed once again. No one would want to see our existing sofa - the mint brocade monster that was left behind by our landlords' last tenant!

I'm very grateful to this tutorial on how to sew a cushion cover with a zipper featured on Design Sponge. This was my first attempt at putting in a zipper, and it would have come out swimmingly were it not for my ambition to also include a bobbly border! I actually purchased the funky trim several weeks ago at Sew Vintage in Wells. I seriously love that shop and encourage you to visit if you're in the area.

Knitted Sugar Skull

Halloween came and went with very little excitement this year, but I am looking forward to Dia de los Muertos. More closely related to the Catholic tradition of the All Saints's and All Souls Days than to Halloween, the Day of the Day is a Mexican celebration that "scholars trace the origins of the modern Mexican holiday to indigenous observances dating back hundreds of years and to an Aztec festival dedicated to the goddess Mictecacihuatl." That is according to Widipedia. Iconogrpahy associated with the holiday has become popular - sugar skulls, dressing up like a calavara (skeleton) for Halloween. And somehow the celebration has spread to Glastonbury, England, where we intend to join the party if my stomach bug will go away! Read more about the holiday and check out the line up of events in Glastonbury here.

There were so many great Halloween competitions this year that I fully intended to enter. Pumpkin carving - we never even got around to carving the pumpkin, much less entering it into a contest. So now I'm gathering recipes for pumpkin muffins, and I might preserve some puree to have on reserve when the shops run out after Christmas. Canned pumpkin seems to be scarce in these parts anyway. Please recommend recipes if you have them!

The month came and went, and I didn't manage to finish my little sugar skull creation until Wednesday night, literally at the 11th hour. She is based on Chauncey, a felted skull pattern that is available on the Tangled Laces blog or as a free Ravelry download. Rather than felting my lady, I knit her up in chunky wool with double pointed US 9 needles. She is stuffed with the innards of a cheap grocery store pillow that I bought when the nearest haberdashery was a 40 minute bus ride away.

Yesterday I blogged about overcoming my fear of following crochet patterns. I enlisted the help of a coworker, who kindly let me borrow her copy of 100 flowers to knit & crochet by Lesley Stanfield. All of the patterns in the book are given in words as well as charts/diagrams. I can only follow words when it comes to crochet! Most of the flowers used for this project came from that book. I just sort of free handed the rest - including the crochet eyes, the knitted nose, and the stitched mouth and tattoos. 

She might not get entered into any competitions this year, but my little sugar skull has encouraged me to crochet more - and to start amassing a collection of holiday decorations! When one makes a trans-Atlantic move and then house-shares for as many years as I did, one tends not to collect holiday decorations. So now that Olly and I are more settled in Somerset, I'm going to be holiday crafting up a storm. Watch this space!