Having a good stretchÂ
Having a sniff of the curtain, just in case the smell of it has changed since the last time he sniffed it
Being a typical curious cat and checking on the goings-on in the neighbourhood.
April 29, 2007
Silhouettes
April 28, 2007
Pot Holders again
I havent given up on this pot holder obsession.
Here we have a pot holder for my Mum, and a spare one cos I knit it up ages ago.
They are blocked ( some bits better than others, I really need to buy a lot more pins) and ready to sew up.Â
I have since knit up another one of the green ones, identical to the one above, love that pattern!!! So easy to remember also and knits up really quite quickly. Almost as good as having a sock in your bag- from the portability point of view.
I think I should really start thinking about stocking up my etsy shop, I havent put anything in it in ages, and of course no link from here yet so must remedy that.
April 27, 2007
Lisa Souza booties
So, the sewing hasn’t totally taken over from my knitting. Knitting is just so portable.
Can’t see how it would be possible to bring the sewing machine on a bus.
So, I actually knit these a while ago, and have meaning to show them to you. I only finished grafting the second one at the weekend, it had been sitting in a bag waiting for that final touch.
(They really need my Fetchings to stuff into them for a proper pose, the plastic bags just don’t cut it-make them look really lumpy. Who would have thought there was another great use for Fetchings?)
These are great booties to make, the Pattern is so easy and talk about quick! Not to mention the fact that there are No SEAMS at all. Apart from the grafting, and thats easy enough.
And you know, I think I probably have enough Lisa Souza yarn left over to make another 2 pairs of these….at least? With the amount of babies that are going to come and say hello this summer to us, I think that the odds that at least 2 of the babies will be female.
I should really now start thinking about making some little boy booties though…..whatcha think?
The little bag I made is a perfect size to house them in for gifts…..more of these will be made methinks…
April 26, 2007
A Roving I will go
IÂ received a very unexpected parcel last week from Australia.
From my cousin Siobhan, who was on a work trip in the west of Australia ( she lives in ACT) and to try and counteract the boredom that can accompany these trips, decided to (?) bunk off and go to a market.
There, she came across this, and thought of me. How sweet!
Thanks Siobhan, really love it, the colours are lovely and can’t wait to try it out. MMmmhh…. silk…
Oh, and check out the name- very apt eh? Could be my wool den! Love the pictures of the sheeps also!!
I’ll be sending something to you very soon Siobhan….need to get my act together!!!
Happy Things
Isobel has been trying to fuel my sewing obsession- successfully, I may add- and sent me a link to some great Sewing tutorials from Happtthings.
This is a great blog, I have since read through a lot of it, and it has really easy tutorials.
So the other day I tried one of them out and came up with this
Yes, I know its the same material as the Blossom bag, but I like it and wanted something dramatic for my first offical sewing project.
I lined it with some more material I got in the local op shop, and I like the contrast between the geometric style print on the outside and the pretty flowers on the inside .Â
Its almost like a little surprise when you open it.
My bf was very impressed when he saw it, he asked me did I MAKE this??
“Yes I did“….I said proudly.
He then mentioned a friends birthday coming up soon….
April 25, 2007
Noro Blossom bag
This knitted bag has been sitting unfinished for I would say a year now. The reason it was unfinished is because I wanted to sew a lining into it. Not do-able without a sewing machine really.
Fast forward a year, one sewing machine later and voila!
I decided to sew a bit of material onto the straps also as they would stretch goodo without anything supporting them.
I put a pocket in (!!)
And feel quite pleased with the way it turned out.
I’m not totally sure its the right material for the lining, I think it clashes a bit, but its done now and I’m not going back and ripping it out!!
Specs: Noro Blossom bag from one of the Noro books, think it may be just Noro
Yarn: Noro Blossom, 3 skeins I think
Needle size: Can’t remember
Material: Picked up at one of my local op shops. Love it.
April 19, 2007
Fame? Sure, it won’t go to our heads (ahem)
Well finally its out, we debuted on Nationwide last night. Well Holly debuted, and we went along for the fun of it all.
The funny thing about it was, myself , Isobel and Cheryl were knitting on the couch while they were filming Holly, and we were just chatting away as if there was nothing going on. Then Laura was sitting asking us questions about our knitting, or where we went to knit, and this and that. One of us would start answering her question, another one of us would get a FO or another piece of knitting out and the person who was answering the question would stop what they were saying and say, Oh wow thats great, where did you get that yarn, as if there wasnt a camera crew in the room!
There was a little bit of giggling and high jinks going on also.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it to the Cafe to continue knitting, but the others did and had a great night.
You can check it out here:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0418/nationwide_av.html?2239639,null,228
Sorry girls, just had to include that photo, you both look so mischievous!!!
Spinning- kindof
Last week we brought M’s neice D to  see Disney on Ice.
She has been obsessed with princesses recently, and this was a nice treat for her.
We got there early as it was starting at 7 and we knew we would be going through rush hour traffic to get there.
There were loads of kids all dressed up in princess outfits, and it seemed like some of the parents were too 
Inside, I couldnt believe the amount of stalls were set up, ALL the same as each other, selling an amazing amount of TAT to the queues of parents and kids in front of them. I couldn’t believe the prices. Can you believe €10 for a bucket with princesses printed on the outside and a small bag of popcorn inside it?
I admit that we paid €9 for some candy floss and a gold crown for D, but luckily enough she was content with that. We did look for a princess doll that was in pink for her, but they didnt have any in pink so she didnt want any other colours.
Phew.
 
The show was pretty good. There were a lot of flashing lights from the Tat that was bought for the kids in the audience. A bit distracting initially.  The Seven Dwarves were my favourite. Rose Red was D’s.
There was also a really cool elephant in the Aladdin scene. Not a real one of course!!
But wait, what else was there?  Wasn’t there a referral to spinning in the title of this post?
Yes, there was a spinning wheel! in fact there was 2 spinning wheels, but the first one was tiny. This was the one that Rapunzel pricked her finger on.
 Its a pretty big wheel isnt it?
Talking of spinners, there was someone who was very absorbed in my wheel.
Think we may have a future spinner in our midst?
April 18, 2007
Sew,how many of these can I make before I’m sick of potholders?
Sorry, Isobel started it with her sew exciting comment.
A lot, is the answer! Above is one that I knit up a while ago, waiting for it to be sewn, and below is the sewn up item.
Oh, I know, its not perfect, but I’m learning!
Sew, of course I had to cast on for another one (okay, enough of the sew jokes).
I love this pattern, its really simple, I got it from a little book of patterns that my bf found for me when we were in a bookshop, can’t think of the name of it at the moment, but will update when finished. I like the green also. Its for my Mum, and will go with her green presses in her kitchen.
April 17, 2007
scrumptious yarn
I bought this yarn from an ebay seller waaaay back early last year if I remember correctly. Its from the The Natural Dye Studio and oh wow, I highly recommend the yarn!!
I can’t remember the details of it, because it didn’t come with information on the skeins, and I have mislaid/lost the information that came with it.Â
I did, however, buy 2 skeins of it, and in the skein it didn’t look as if there would be enough to make a pair of socks with it. Oh yeah, how wrong I was!
It had been languishing in my stash for ages, and every now and then I would take it out when I was looking for a particular yarn, squeeze it, smell it, fondle it a little bit, and then put it back in again. Not quite right for the projects I was thinking of.
 Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, when, even though I had just wound up some Lorna’s Laces, ready to make another pair of socks with it, and my Lisa Souza order had just arrived, and I wound up the green from that too, and suddenly I had an amazing urge to use this yarn.
 So I wound up one of the skeins into a cake, ready to go, intending on taking a picture of the cake and the skein together, just to show the difference in them (does anyone else feel the same? Sometimes I think the skein is so much nicer than when its wound up into a cake, I feel it loses something in the winding), and decided to go with the Summer Sock Collection pattern from Spun Mag (Spun Mag, last seen issue Spring 2006- has anyone any idea what happened to this online magazine? they had some interesting patterns and articles)
Well! I was very surprised with the yarn. It was a great yarn to knit with, probably helped by me using bamboo also, and it had so much yardage!! So much so, that I think I could really have knit a pair of socks from it after all!
 I had enough from ONE skein left over to make this mobile phone cosy for my Mum
and enough to make another one, which my Dad is now using for his phone
and guess what? there’s still some yarn left over from the skein. I may make a mobile phone cosy for myself from it.
And I have another skein still to use!
The pattern is easy to follow, however, there is a mistake in it. If I was a learner sock knitter, I wouldn’t have realised.
It says:
Work a decrease round as follows:
• »Needle 2: Knit all stitches.
• »Needle 3: K1, ssk, knit to end.
• »Alternate even rounds and decrease rounds until Needles 1 and 3 each have 15 stitches
Spot the mistake?
It doesn’t tell you to do anything with needle one, goes straight into needle 2 and 3. If you are a learner knitter, make sure you insert this line into the pattern:
Work a decrease round as follows:
•>>Needle 1: Knit to last 3 stitches, K2tog,K1
- >>Needle 2: Knit all stitches.
- >>Needle 3: K1, ssk, knit to end.
- >>Alternate even rounds and decrease rounds until Needles 1 and 3 each have 15 stitches
I think you should go and check out the yarn now in the The Natural Dye Studio now, just in case it all sells out very quick!!Â