Crafty Little Rat

  Lately I’ve been having fun making some stitch markers – I really enjoy making them and I hope you’ll like them too!   These are owl charms from Beads Direct. The clasps are lever back earrings – I find myself drawn to these more and more. They can be slipped directly over a knitting needle up to a fairly large diameter OR you can unclip them and put them into crochet. I finally found a use for those sugar skulls I bought forever ago in Cardiff! The green beads were bought in Nottingham; I think they work pretty well with all of the colours. This is a set I made for Angie – Who’s exclusively a knitter. I found winding the purple wire tricky to do myself and I’m glad I found another option! Which was these – Toggle findings for Jewellery; obviously with the toggle part thrown away. Angie loves cats as well as Purple so these were ideal! Several people have suggested I sell these… I’m not so sure!

  These last few weeks I’ve been very busy knitting and crocheting away – but had a few things I couldn’t show because I didn’t know if the recipients read the blog. That means a bumper F.O Post today though.     I’m still keeping up with the LSG Secret Sock Club projects; or what I call my “Year of Socks”. This is officially pair number 8 for the year – August’s Socks. I’ve actually knitted 10 pairs already this year but these were chosen randomly from stash yarn and queued patterns. After last month’s Broadripple’s turned out too tight I was secretly happy when I pulled the pattern again from the queue. This time I knitted them using 3.0 mm needles and they fit and fit well. I’m debating pulling out the pair I did last month and re-knitting them with the larger needle. We’ll have to see. The yarn is Stylecraft Aviemore and has been in stash since September 2012 according to Ravelry.   Earlier this month I knitted, sewed in a zip and lined a knitted pouch f...

  I’ve finally finished some spinning! I’m an infrequent spinner – I enjoy it, but never seem to find time to just sit and spin – something I’ve tried to remedy by having my wheel downstairs. This is a skein of mostly worsted weight Shetland Humbug from Wingham Wools. Fibre from when I first got my wheel! Due to a non working scale (boo!) I spun as a single onto one bobin and then made my first attempt at N-Plying. As you can see I got a bit too much twist into the plying in places but I’m happy for a first attempt. There’s 110 meters here – so a cowl possibly. Who knows? Next up is some Baby Camel that I bought 3 years ago at my very first wonderwool!

  Guinea Pig that is! I love the way his eyes look in this one – he’s a piggie with ‘tude! Rhys’ cousin has three wonderful girls and we’ve been invited for a 4th birthday party for the middle girl. Who’s apparently mad on Guinea Pigs at the moment. I don’t blame her – piggies are awesome. This was an incredibly simple knit – - a Debi Birkin Pattern ; I’ve knitted her Nip and Nora rat patterns a few times and knew before I’d even started that this was a pattern worth paying for. The body is plain stocking stitch and afterwards you take a slicker brush with wire teeth and brush the living hell out of it. I used an acrylic boucle which worked pretty well. The success is dependant on being able to pull out loose fibres from the yarn and she recommends Mohair for this which I think would work fantastically. This is a toy for a child though; and I’m on a yarn diet so it had to do. The only modification I made to the pattern was to make the front feet proportionally smaller. Gu...

  A lifetime ago now I won tickets for the Edwards Menagerie book launch at Toft Alpaca. Situated in Warwickshire, near Rugby it was pretty much perfect distance for a day trip from my friend Angie’s in Cheltenham; so I asked her to come along with me and we had a wonderful day. After having a sad couple of weeks (We picked up Esk’s ashes today) I’m just going to post some pictures of the day, but going back through and editing these has made me remember what a great day it was and the joy of spending a baking hot day with a fantastic friend.