Cottage Garden Hot Water Bottle Pattern (and Kit)

I have been busy designing a hot water bottle pattern, using the lovely soft Samite Silk Blend wool from Blacker Yarns, where I work. You can buy the pattern later today in my shops on Etsy, Ravelry and LoveKnitting when I have uploaded them. 

The pattern is designed for DK wool, and there are instructions for two sizes, and information on how to fairly easily adapt it for other sizes of hot water bottle. It also has charts for two flower designs - tulips or poppies.

If you want to buy the pattern and wool as a project kit this is available on the Blacker Yarns website. I think it would make a lovely gift for any knitter who wants to dip their toe into fair isle knitting. It is a fairly easy introduction, as you are only ever working with two yarns at once.

My husband has just told me it is not the time for hot water bottles, but I have pointed out to him that we are only one little bit of the world. I am sure there are places where it is cold. In an effort to save on the heating bill I have frequently sat hugging a hot water bottle this winter.

You can see in the background of the photos below The Lost Flock by Jane Cooper. This is a really interesting read about the history of Boreray sheep, as well as her own personal story of a move from the northeast of England to the Orkney Islands, where she became a sheep farmer with her own flock of this rare breed.

Child's Foxy Jumper Pattern

I've been working on this childrens'  jumper pattern for quite a while. When I look back the first small version was knitted in August, so I realise I am not working at a very fast pace. But finally the pattern is complete and published on ravelry, Etsy and LoveKnitting. The photo below shows Age 1-2 years, and 2-3 years, and the pattern comes in two more sizes up to Age 7.

I really like the little fox border, although in the last week one of our lovely chickens has disappeared. I suspect perhaps a fox, my husband a stoat, and we have also wondered about a bird of prey. But there was no sign of feathers, so my neighbour, who also has chickens, says she may have got broody and be hiding, sitting on a nest of unfertilised eggs somewhere. That would be great, but I am not very hopeful. If it was a fox I know foxes just do what they have to do to live.

Apart from the fox border the jumper pattern is really quite simple. It is knitted in 4-ply, from the bottom up. It is seamed, and has raglan sleeves. The bottom and cuffs have a border of garter stitch, although this could be altered to rib if you prefer that, and the neck is a simple roll collar. You need a small amount of two additional colours for the foxes, and a tiny bit of black for their eyes and noses, which are embroidered on at the end.

 

 

I so love these little foxes I am thinking of knitting a bigger version for myself.

Completely Handmade Cushions

I put a picture a few weeks ago of some chunky wool I had, and decided in the end to make some new cushions from it. My husband was not keen on this idea, as the last cushions that I knitted looked lovely at first, but went saggy quite quickly. But I found a lovely pattern on ravelry Knitted ZigZag Cushion, and convinced him and myself that if I made these with slightly smaller needles than suggested, combined with the fair isle pattern meaning wool will be carried across the back, they would knit up into a nice firm, dog-proof, fabric.

I think I was right, but I guess only time will really tell. The pattern has a stripe of moss stitch at the top and bottom. I did start off with this, but because I did not have the right sized needles, it was much wider that the rest of the knitting. So I back unravelled this at the very end - not that easy a thing to do.  I really love the way the colours look together.

So I had quite a bit of wool left over, but not enough to make another cushion from this zigzag pattern. I started off trying to knit a very simple fair isle design, just with spots, but half-way through realised that I was going to run out of wool before it was a square. So that was unravelled too, and cushion number two is a bit simpler, just rows of stripes.

 
I have called this my "completely handmade cushions", as the intention had been to machine sew the fabric backs. I don't have my own sewing machine here, but thought I could use my daughter's mini John Lewis one. But unfortunately we can't get this to work - the stitch just keeps going long and then short. So the only solution seemed to be a bit of hand-sewing. I do enjoy a bit of hand stitching, but this was a bit much, as it involved removing the zips from the old cushions, sewing them into a new back, hemming the back pieces, and them sewing the knitted fronts to the thick back fabric with wool.

I am really pleased with the finished cushions, but am not going to sew anything by hand for a while. Finally I can start on my mail order wool.

Just a reminder that there is still plenty of time left to join in my Ginx Woolly Linx party for April. Click on the photo above or at the top of the page to find the party. I would love to see what you have been working on this month.

Fingerless Gloves

I had left my gloves in the country, so decided to make myself a new pair. I have used this pattern before, when I made these mittens and gave them to a friend: Margot's Garden Fingerless Mittens.  

I love the design, and fingerless is usually my favourite sort of glove. Perfect if you have jobs to do, or photographs to take. I didn't look back at the previous post, but once again I extended the ribbed sections for the wrist. 

Just a reminder that there is still plenty of time left to join in my Ginx Woolly Linx party for Feburary. Click on the photo above or at the top of the page to find the party. I would love to see what you have been working on this month.

Fair Isle Beret and Waistcoat

I have been working away at this project for many weeks. I started the beret as my holiday knitting. Perhaps fair isle is not such a good idea for knitting in the car. It is a present for my great niece, who lives in Ireland, and has just turned one. But having finished the beret I thought it would also be nice to make a matching waistcoat. 
 

Both are now off in the mail, and I am hoping they fit her, and I will get some photos of her wearing them. But until then my model is Clopper, my daughter's toy. Clopper has appeared on this blog once before, when he went on holiday and met a Dartmoor pony. He seemed more or less the right size, although I am sure my niece is not as tubby as him.

Both beret and waistcoat are knitted from a book I bought in a charity shop Bright Knits for Kids by Debbie Bliss. In the pattern the beret was knitted flat with a seam, but I decided to knit it in the round on 4 needles. That was fine for the lower section for which there was a chart, but I may have got slightly muddled at the top, where the instructions were written out with knit and purl rows. I sometimes forgot to convert this, as in the round you are always on a knit row. But I think it looks OK.

I also found adding the buttonband to the waistcoat difficult. It is a little puckered. It shouldn't have been hard, but it is a long time since I have made a garment in this way. Then I accidentally sewed up the side seams, before adding the armhole bands. So instead of unpicking I knitted these in the round as well.

Knitting fair isle is extremely satisfying. The end result is so pretty, but running in all those ends was very hard work.

Fair Isle Hat

For a bit of a change I thought I would have a go at knitting Janet of Yellow, Pink and Sparkly's Fair Isle hat pattern. I haven't done much Fair Isle knitting recently, (unlike Janet who seems to be able to regularly knock out a Fair Isle garment) and had forgotten how very pleasing it can be. I know this probably looks very tricky, but you are only working with two colours together. The knitting is not the hard bit, compared to the running in of ends when you have finished.

I just picked out these colours from my stash of wool at randon, trying to mix it up a bit with some light, dark, brights etc. The pattern really usefully tells you exactly how many grams you need of each of the eight colours, which explains why I was there in the kitchen weighing out my wool before I started.

My little model has become quite reluctant these days. (I can't understand it, as she always seems to snapping pictures of herself or her nails.) So the best way to get a photo was to pop the hat on her head while she was distracted with homework. We also ended up with some "why are you asking me to do this?" photos, but I really like the one below. We decided to go for the slouchy look. You also have a rare thing; some photos of me at the top and bottom of this post.

My only problem when it came to the knitting was that I only have a black and white printer, so had to spend a while marking on the pattern chart which colour was which. Perhaps if I am going to more Fair Isle I will have to invest in a new printer.

I am really delighted with my new hat. Thank you for the free pattern Janet. Having blocked my socks last week, I thought the hat might also benefit from being blocked. I am not sure if a slightly deflated football is an accepted method, but it seemed to work, and smoothed out some of the stitches. I am thinking of taking it in to wow school knitting club next week, as they have been asking me if you can mix up colours when you knit! 

Northern Lights Dress and Intarsia Knitting

The idea for this design came from the beautiful colours in the wool (James Brett), and also that I sort of love Polar Bears. I knitted a polar bear sample square a while ago, with the idea of using it on a garment. I have an idea for a polar bear hat, possibly with smaller bears.

The dress/top pattern is basically the smallest version of my Baby Daisy Dress, and although I love the finished result, I've decided not to publish this polar bear version as a pattern, mainly because it was such a tricky knit. I thought the snowflakes would make it a bit easier, as the white wool is carried across the back on the blue parts, but the blue is not carried behind most of the bear (except on the leg section), as it was such dark wool it would show. 

Here is a photo of the chart that I made to use on this design. As you can see it all gets a bit scrappy. When I make a chart it usually involves a lot of tracing paper and transposing marks. There is also then the problem of how to get a large chart into a pattern document. (I had the same problem with my Tree Cushion, where the chart was absolutely enormous.) 

There must be an easier way to make a chart I thought, and with a bit of surfing around, I have found it. The Knitting Site has software to convert any digital picture into a knitting chart. You can scale the chart up or down, according to the wool you are using and how much detail you want in your design. So although I didn't use it for this bear, and can see myself coming back here for some other intarsia designs.

And here is the little lady wearing it ...

Baby Daisy Dress

My new pattern has taken quite a bit of thought. I love dresses with a yoke, and I also love moss stitch. So to combine the two took a bit of working out. I also love fair isle, but not the really tricky kind. So the fair isle daisies are pretty, but quite easy to follow.

So my Baby Daisy Dress incorporates all of these, but is still a fairly easy knit. The pattern comes in two sizes (0-3 months and 3-6 months) which is why it has taken me so long to produce. It even has a proper tension square.

I like baby clothes not in the traditional blue/pink, which is why I went for this gentle green. (This may be a bit radical, but I also think baby girls can look pretty in blue, and I like babies in dark colours.)

I have photographed it hung on my new willow screen, which hubby put up to hide a rather the neighbour's ugly fence. I thought it made a rather cool backdrop. 

It is knitted in Aran wool, which makes it a fairly quick knit. The front and back are the same. If you don't like the daisy pattern it would be quite easy to knit it plain, or come up with your own pattern. I will be posting about another version of this dress with an interesting intarsia design in a few days.

This dress has gone to its new owner, whose Mum's favourite colour is green!

And here it is knitted in the smaller size, using Rowan Felted Tweed Aran wool.

The pattern for Baby Daisy Dress is available on ravelry, Etsy and LoveKnitting.

Margot's Garden Fingerless Gloves

For a change I wanted to knit something from someone else's pattern, and which would be a bit of fun. Ravelry always comes up trumps. I love these fingerless gloves from Margot's Garden Fingerless Gloves pattern. The pattern has a chart, which was very easy to follow. I knitted them on four needles, which is the way I prefere. I made the ribbed sections a bit longer than the pattern suggests, and although I also used thicker wool, they seem to have turned out fine.  And also this pattern is a free ravelry download.

I really enjoy a bit of colourwork, and found a bag with some wool left over from a tapestry project. It worked out really well to use these little skeins of wool for the coloured flowers. One skein was enough for each set of flowers on both gloves. But I found I had no green, so used some 4ply wool that I had, but knitted two strand of wool together to get the same thickness. For the main shade I used the Patons Diploma Gold DK Black that was left over from the wheels of my London Bus.

I love the gloves so much that now I can't quite decide whether to give them as a gift or keep them for myself. But I have more little skeins, so may well have to make another pair.

Fair Isle Gloves

This is one of my Christmas knits, which I probably shouldn't be showing yet, but I am pretty sure that the recipient isn't a regular viewer of my blog. If she is then hopefully she won't guess and they will still be a nice surprise.

They are knitted from a free pattern on ravelry by Cailyn Meyer called Wintergreen Gloves. Some of her other patterns look lovely, so it may be time for my second ever pair of socks.
 

I knitted on double points, and rather just grabbed some wool from my stash that I thought would look nice together. After the first glove I realised that I might not have enough of the purple colour for the second one, so that knitting was a bit stressful. But in the end it worked out that I did have enough, but only just. I love fair isle knitting, as the end result is so pretty, but there were a lot of end to run in. The good thing was that they are knitted in the round so no sewing up.

The pattern was really easy to follow, with instructions and charts. Although I did think I might have to enlarge the chart on a photocopier. That isn't a criticism though, just a reflection on my eyesight. The pink wool I used was a bit thicker and fluffier than the others, which I think is why those lines have puckered a bit. I knew I shouldn't be using it, but I thought the colour was great so just went with it.

Singin' Sweet Songs

I do hope that my blog post title makes sense, although I have ended up with more than just Three Little Birds.

Here are a few pictures from my new pattern - Christmas Bird. Just for once I am trying to get my timing right. Although I wrote the pattern in the spring, I thought I would sit on it for a while and bring it out pre-Christmas. 

The plain white bird is made with a wool with a bit of sparkle, although I found it hard to bring this out in the photo. I decided to let this bird be very simple, and let the shape and wool speak for themselves. On the yellow bird I have just added a bit of embroidery. I am really looking forward to seeing what others make from my pattern, as for a Christmas bird beads and sequins would also look great.

I concentrated really hard on getting the shape of the bird just right. I tried to make an elegant, 3-dimensional bird. It is an easy knit, with just three flat pieces. The pattern contains instructions for plain birds, or Fair Isle ones. I think the Fair Isle ones are really Christmassy, and the pattern contains my Fair Isle chart, and a blank chart so you can have a go at making up your own Fair Isle version. 

You will see that on some of my birds I have added wire legs, while on others I have used a hanging cord. I haven't worked with wire before, so found making the legs a bit of a fiddle, although I think it does make the birds more realistic. My husband made the hanging stick for me with a branch of our apple tree. The choice is yours. 

One of my cats certainly was transfixed with these birds.