If I knitted socks

Drawstring Bag for small knitting projects with Japanese flowers for USD$18

This would fit needles up to 20cm but I love my 30cm Swallows at the moment so I'm not planning to buy this bag althourhg it is gorgeous. I really wish I could knit socks but I'm still learning and doing scarves.

Art yarns

Listening to Lime & Violet's episode 62 and laughing outloud as usual I was very much impressed by the homespun goodness they talked about from StudioLoo. I never thought about the fact that you could spin things into your yarn although I have read descriptions of how to knit in beads to projects. I thought I would profile some of this delightful art yarn and I am now wondering if there is a name for yarn that has decoration added to it.

If I was to buy some of this arty handspun I would probably cut it in half and use it for each end of a scarf. Or perhaps you could match similar shapes of art yarn to create a very special scarf. Granted this yarn is expensive but when you think that it is hand carded, handspun, artfullly dyed, quality ingredients and loveling cared for its a bargain.

Studio Loo's Patria 176yds for USD$55

Snowberrylime's Pink pearls 72yds for USD$34

Enchanted Yarn's Clara Bows 82yds for USD$26

AuthenticFiction's Raspberries 'n' Cream 125 yds for USD$33

Snowberrylime's Blue princess 59yds for USD$30

How to torture baby in knitting

Knitted Dancing Star Baby Bunting

"Knit this attention-grabber in stockinette with Jiffy. It has separated legs, so it fits easily into a car seat. It's soft and washable. Closes with Velcro. Fits infant to three months."

In my mind I think of an irritated baby rolling about in this thing trying to grap something, its like a star shaped baby staight-jacket. I mean its sort of cute, but practical only for one day at Christmas time if your baby decides to sleep all day as the fairy on top of the Christmas tree. Also the insantiy of having seperated legs for use in car seats, if you are going to give your child no hand openings why would you be so practical as to make them strapable into a car seat, I guess to give your child extra restrictive torture.

The Genius!

While knitting my Creamy Feather's Scarf I found a knot in the brushed mohair yarn I am using. I had really hoped this wouldn't happen as I have struggled to tidyily weave in or knit in ends. As I am knitting the two halfs of the scarf independently and then kitchenering in the middle to ensure I get a pretty cast on ruffle and the right feather and fan pattern, I hoped to not have to join yarn together. I did a search for join techniques and found the felted join!

Knitting Help's Felted join video

Essentially you split the ply, wet the ends and felt the ends together by rubbing between the hands. Crazy Aunt Purl has a great blog post here.

Cha-cha-changes

Apologies for the title, my husband has never watched The Labyright (I know! Like how!) so I'm in a bit of a Bowie phase after watching the movie.

My husband hates using the bus, I don't but I love him happy, so he wanted to buy a scooter. We went and inspected it, liked what we saw and they agreed to deliver it that day. Unfortunately it was also WWKIPD which my husband had forgot. When I told him at 1pm he apologised and said we could go to our local event at 2pm but I said that was fine so we instead waited for the scooter to be delivered. So I knitted at home but no KIP for me :( I will forever see the scooter as the anti-KIP vehicle as not only did it mean I missed out on WWKIPD but I also no longer KIP on the bus. But the scooter gets us home in half the time and my husband is so nice as he lets me knit all the time. In the end, as much as KIPping is fun, I'd rather be at home snuggling with my husband than KIPping to fill in time while sitting in a traffic jam on the bus.

Two weeks ago we got two kittens, one is almost full size at six months and the other is a little one of two months. We went to the pet shop and took home the ones that jumped on us and were smoochy. They are very well toilet trained, they have an almost 100% toileting in the litter tray percentage except for when they got locked in the bedroom and both went on some paper on the floor so was easy to throw away and when they kicked sand out of the tray and went in that. Touching and hugging them has brought me back to love the feel of natural fibres and so I am in love with mohair. We'll hear more about that in the next post.

Knitting for my Mere Male!

I wanted to use up my Patons Inca 7001 Beige bulky wool on a scarf for my husband and I thought AntiCraft's Mere Indecision would be great. I still haven't made it the right width for him, I have frogged it four times. I think I'll try casting on 26 sts next!


I'm using my 7mm needles and the Patons is a 14sts/4" vs the pattern using 9mm needles and Lambs Pride which is a 11sts/4".

Aqiqa Hat

I went to an aqiqa last night and I didn't have time between hearing about it and going to get a present for the baby. I think a sweater would take too long to make, especially since I'm making one for myself so I thought I would go for a hat. I haven't yet learnt how to knit in the round so I thought a hat knitted flat would be great.

I did lots of searching and I think this looks the easiest and thus the quickist the Liong Brand Baby Hat - Oh Natural! The other bits in the set would be fun to do too but I'm not sure I'd have time.

Here's atesmom's take on the project which I really like as it has no tassle:

Check out her cute matching sweater on her blog

We don't have Lion Brand in New Zeland so I plan to use:

Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky in Teal for $12.95

As the pattern needs 101m, I'll need to buy two of the 65m Cashmerino, I really have to get used to the fact that nice yarn costs $26 just for enough to make one hat, sigh!

In other news my Knit Picks Options are going well on my one-piece sweater Extra Easy, Extra Fabulous Sweater with the arms about 4 inches wide. Unfortunately the wire has got a bit twisted, I'm not sure why this has happened but when I finish the arms and the piece has a lot less stitches I'll get it onto my Swallow Timbergrain Needles and try to untwist it.