Baby, it's cold outside...

... and the weather shows no sign of getting any warmer.  We all know that new babies need to be kept cosy, even in the summer, and with that natural warmth nowhere in sight then a blanket is one of the obvious answers.  And, as they say, here is one I made earlier.

A colourful & cosy blanket for baby

My sister chose this pattern from Cutest Ever Baby Knits by Val Pierce and then came our first dilemma; which four colours should we use for the different squares?  Eventually we settled on the green, white, yellow and blue with a hint of lilac, with pink flowers as a contrast.  Although it appears to be knitted squares, this clever design is made in 5 strips of garter stitch squares contrasting with squares containing a stocking stitch panel (shown more clearly below).  When the strips are sewn together, the impression is of a blanket made up of individual squares.

 

We then had another dilemma with the flowers.  The pattern gave a knitted design, but I had also found a rather nice crochet flower in the Tea Cozies 2 book featured in my Time for Tea post.

Knit (above) or crochet (below).  Which would you choose?

 

Eventually, we solved the problem by going for five of each type.  Sometimes compromise is just the best solution!  Then I came up with a little finishing touch of my own; a bronze bobble on the corner of the inner squares.  I learned how to make those  from the Christmas pudding hat pattern, where they were originally in red to represent holly berries.  Now, one of these days, I really must show you that hat but, in the meantime, I can assure you that the blanket will be ideal for keeping a new baby warm.  It was delightfully cosy on my knees when I was working on all those finishing touches!

 

Keep warm until the next time we meet up.



Let's get cosy!

In these days of central heating, not many of us get cosy round a roaring log fire, but when it comes to keep your boiled egg warm, there seems to be endless variations on a theme.  Here are just a few I have made in the past few weeks.

 

 

First up are Mr & Mrs Jumper Cosy, attended by the hat egg cosy.  One of the great things about these little items is the fun you can have with them, closely followed by the delight of using up oddments of yarn, to come up with really quirky items.  And don't you just love those pompoms which, of course, were made using the pompom maker featured in my first blog.  Not cute enough for you, well how about these?

 

 

Bobble hat egg cosies joined by the mega cute bunny egg cosies!  Bunny has been a real success.  I think I have made about 25 of them in the run up to Easter.  In addition to the practical matter of using up yarn, I have also made both the hats and bunnies in yarns previously used to make hats for children.  The right hand bunny will be going to a young lady who has a beret made from this yarn.  Hopefully the connection will be appreciated by the young people concerned.

 

The bobble hats, which my sister discovered on the nakeidknits.com blog, are knitted in aran weight yarn and helped me rediscover the joys of knitting in the round.  The jumpers come from Weekend knitting by Melanie Falick and are great for using up your double knitting leftovers.  Finally, bunny is to be found in The Knitter’s Year by Debbie Bliss.  He is also a double knit project but knitted on 3.25mm needles to give a lovely close fabric.  Can't get enough of those bunnies?  Here's a basket full of them!  Keep cosy!

 

 

Time for Tea!

Cornish Ware Tea Cosy

We all know the frustration of trying to find those items in the shops that we think are ordinary, only to find that they are not available at all or seem inordinately expensive.  This happened to a friend who wanted to be wanted a tea cosy, so she asked if I could make her one.  She chose this lovely design from Tea Cozies 2, and I had great fun knitting it.  One of the things that I enjoyed most was applying techniques learned on one project to this one.  For instance, the picot edging to the saucer came from a technique I learned for making holly leaves and worked really well here. 

Detail of the cup and saucer

 The handle of the cup is an I-cord, a technique I had never mastered before but it was just the thing for this project.  I searched my stash of knitting books and found a really good guide to how to make one in the Knitting Know-How section of Find your style and Knit it too by Sharon Turner. And having mastered that technique, I then applied it to a mobile phone cover, of which more anon. The yarn for the cosy is Sirdar Supersoft Aran, bought from Pack Lane Wool & Crafts. As the weather seems to have turned cold again, there will be more cosies and the mobile phone cover coming soon!

 



Happy Mother's Day Scarves!

It's Mother's day and I'm delighted to show off some of the scarves I've made.

 

Let's travel back in time, without resorting to the Tardis(!), to see this one I made last year for my friend Jan.  The yarn is Wendy Frills, which is so easy to use but, as I hope you'll agree, produces a great effect.
 

 

The latest additions to The Knitting Scribe's repertoire were made in Wendy Rococo, by a customer who ordered a Frills scarf for her Mum and then wanted two more made for other family members.  Rococo has a very different texture to Frills and tiny sequins give it a very different look, 'very sophisiticated' according to one person who saw the finished items.

  Finally, for something completely different.  Olive's scarf is made in Rico Pompon, consisting of little pompoms (believe it or not!) linked together.  I wondered how on earth I would ever be able to use the yarn when I first saw it, but it really is very easy to work with and the finished product is very effective.  The scarf is also very warm, ideal for the coldest British weather, whenever it decides to turn up.  Pompon is available in a wide range of colours and has proved popular with the chaps as well as the ladies!

 

 

For those of you who like to know these things and live nearby, the Pompon and Rococo are both available from Pack Lane Wool & Crafts, while the Frills can be purchased at The Wool Shop, Newbury.

 

Thanks very much to Jan and Olive for modelling the scarves and
yes, there is a certain resemblance between the two ladies.  They are mother and daughter.

Happy Mother's Day to you all ladies!

New twist on an old pattern

Twelve squares make one side

The snow has finally melted here in Hampshire but it certainly was cold over the past week, so I was glad that I'd finished a new hot water bottle cover for my niece.  As she's a Harry Potter fan I had used blue and a bronzey brown to reflect the colours of Ravenclaw house.  Now, I know what you are going to say, this piece is actually crochet rather than knitting, which is perfectly true.  However, this is ancient Woman's Weekly pattern makes an ideal cover to keep the toes toasty but not overheated.  It is also about as far as my crochet skills will stretch, but I hope you will agree that it makes a striking piece. 


Detail of the square

Pompoms made easy!

Pompom with the rings used to make it

 

Don't you just love making pompoms - those wonderful little trimmings that can add so much to a piece of knitting but what a nightmare to make!  All that messing about with a pair of compasses, a ruler, pieces of cardboard, a pair of scissors and that's before you even start winding the thing!  So, imagine my joy when I discovered a nifty little gadget from Pony - a pom-pom maker!  Three interlocking plastic rings of different sizes to help you make the perfect pompom and colour coded to make sure you don't get muddled.

The pompom maker

 

Not convinced.  Well, I did wonder if this would be another of those knitting gadgets that looked good, but didn't really do the job.  So I took my new acquisition to road test at the Knit & Knatter held in Basingstoke Discovery Centre last Wednesday.  Being the first session of the New Year, there was a good deal natter than knitting or even winding of pompoms.  However, I eventually got down to the job and behold! about an hour later, the first pompom was made.  I can hardly describe how pleased I was!  You can judge the result yourself above.  I reckon this is just about the best pompom I've ever made!  So, farewell cardboard etc, the pompom maker is here to stay and I am looking forward to making more pompoms in the future.  In case you are interested, I got this one from Dunelm Mills in Newbury for the amazingly low price of £1.69, so great value as well as a great gadget.