The Big Knit...

This year I have taken part in the Innocent Smoothie Drink  Big Knit campaign.  Innocent drinks wear these little knitted hats for a few weeks of the year and the drinks company donates 25p to Age UK for every bottle bought.  Age UK provides advice and help to the older generation in the UK.  

The hats are very easy to knit.  There are patterns here ranging from beginner to expert.  Some of the expert patterns are very clever.  But I had lots of other things to do this summer, so I concentrated on the beginner pattern.  All the hats in the photo follow the beginner pattern .  I had a bit of creative fun making the teddy face in the centre of the photo with buttons and embroidery.  At the front of the picture is a dark red hat with a little green stalk.  It doesn't show up well in the photo but I was aiming for a "red fruit" look.  

The other hats are just wearing homemade pom poms.  I wanted to make my own rather than use the little pom poms that can be bought in craft shops..  I found a great tutorial on the Eskimimi Makes blog.  It describes how to use a kitchen fork to make a pom pom.  I found that this method produced a pom pom that would be perfect for a baby's hat but was a bit on the large side for these tiny hats.  You can just about see this larger one on the left hand end of the back row.  I adapted the tutorial and wrapped the wool around the handle of the fork rather than around the prongs.  This produced exactly what I wanted.  They don't look as perfect as shop-bought pom poms, but I learned a new skill and I'm hoping they have a charm of their own.

These hats really are quick to make and are a great way to use up scraps of yarn.  The deadline for sending them in is October 1st.  I think they appear in the shops a few weeks after that so I will be looking out for them.  Why not knit a few of these for this good cause?

A little sew and sew.....

From the age of 7 it was my job to sew on buttons and repair hems at home.  I was more or less left to get on with it without any instructions.  Luckily my primary school was unusual in that boys and girls were taught to sew from a very early age.  So I grew up knowing how to sew.  I enjoy it and have definitely got my money's worth from my old sewing machine.

I saw a posting by Julie on the Mack and Mabel blog which talked about a free sewing pattern for a simple vest top.  Here's the pattern for the Sorbetto Top.  I can recommend it highly.  I especially liked the way the bias binding is attached to the neck and arm holes.  It was very simple and is now my preferred method of attaching bias binding to anything that needs it.

As you may know, I am very frugal.  I managed to find a massive piece of burgundy material in a charity shop for £1.99.  I started by making the blouse exactly as the pattern required.  I knew it was going to be too short.  But I wanted to see whether it would fit nicely and whether I could manage the bias binding.  Julie mentioned that it is a flattering shape and she was right.  It even drew unsolicited compliments from Hubby which is extremely rare!  Somewhere on the pattern it mentions making the bigger size if you are between sizes.  That's what I did and I'm pleased with the result.

So the blouse on the left will really only be worn under a cardy or v-neck jumper.  I was happy otherwise, so I added 3" to the pattern pieces and made the second burgundy blouse.  As that was a success, i found another charity shop bargain and made the navy blue polka dot blouse.  These last 2 blouses look lovely as tunics over trousers.

I still have lots of burgundy material left.  I made myself a simple neck scarf and still have enough left for a little girl's dress.

This is a simple pattern just requiring 2 pieces of material and some bias binding.  In fact the only fiddly part was printing off the pattern and joining the pages together.  But now that is done I have filed the pattern away carefully.  I can see myself making this again and again.

Especially for you.......

If this is the first time you have visited my blog.....welcome.

I was amazed to receive an email from Saga to say that my blog has been reviewed in their latest magazine article about the fifty top blogs by over fifties.  I'm not sure how that happened as I didn't enter any competitions and there are many brilliant blogs.  I'm just going to take it as a huge compliment.   The article will be published on August 28th.  For more information about Saga Magazine, see here.

I started this blog about 8 months ago just to record my crafting.  Since then it has had over 13.000 page views from all over the world.  Along the way I have met many other crafty bloggers and have been entertained, amazed and educated by their blogs.  You can see many of them listed in my right-hand sidebar.  The joy of blogs is that each one is as unique as the blogger who created it.

To me, age is just a number.  I feel as fit and active as ever.  Nothing slows me down.  In fact my age was a real advantage when compulsory redundancies were being dished out by my employer 2 years ago.  Luckily, I was just old enough (by 6 weeks) for my pension to kick in and I haven't looked back.  I relished all the unexpected free time and returned to knitting as a hobby.  I have also taught myself to crochet.  Most of the things I make go to various charities which I list at the top of my blog.  I usually photograph my creations and these can be seen by clicking on my photostream in the left-hand sidebar.

By sheer coincidence, my current project is a blanket that will be donated to a care home.  Here is a photo of the centre panel.  It is called Twining Trees.  

I found the pattern on Ravelry and fell in love with it.  It was a bit of a challenge but looks wonderful.  I added a log cabin border as this project was a good chance to try the technique.  My next job is to add a couple of rounds of crochet until the panel measures 18" square.  Then I'm going to knit leaves in autumn colours and sew them to the panel. I'll write another blog post when it's finished, so watch this space!  

I will send it off to SIBOL which is an organisation run by a lovely lady who distributes crocheted and knitted blankets to residents of care homes in the UK.  If you are experienced at knitting and crochet or feel like giving it a go, making squares and blankets is a worthwhile pastime.

I am always making something.......crochet, sewing and knitting....and I update my blog regularly.  If you like my blog, please come back again.  Even better, why not leave me a comment?  I always read my comments.

Before I go, I must applaud the regular visitors to my blog........you know who you are!!! 

Thanks for visiting.

Looking after number one.....

I absolutely love this time of year.  The thought of summer keeps me going through the cold, wet, dark months.  But this week I remembered those months and my mind turned to hats.  I don't suit hats but there are maybe a few days each winter when I would really benefit from wearing one.  When the cold is so perishing that everyone brings out their woolly hats I feel tempted to join the club.

I found a hat pattern on Ravelry and liked it enough to buy it.  That is really rare for me.  The pattern is called Awesome Hat.  It is simple yet clever.  The brim turns up neatly and the crown decreases fit well and look tidy.  My blue and pink hat is just as the pattern was written.  The black sparkly hat is slightly amended as I did stocking stitch instead of rib for the main part.  Both yarns came as bargain buys, the black from a charity shop and the blue from Ebay.

I knitted the biggest size.  I have shortish hair and like to push it all into a hat.  I also like to pull a hat down to keep my ears warm.  These hats will match my winter jackets and I might actually wear them!!

That's me sorted for the winter.  Now I can get back to enjoying the summer and making my charity knits.

Not a sheep in sight........

This is slightly off topic for a wool/knitting/crochet blog but I just had to show the 2 dresses I made this week.  I used to sew a lot many moons ago and even made my own coats, trousers, jackets and blouses.  Then I stopped sewing and promptly forgot nearly everything.  These dresses have been a steep learning curve and I'm pleased with the way they turned out.

They are very similar to the pillowcase dresses that people make but I actually followed a Simplicity pattern.  I looked at lots of online tutorials about how to make this type of dress but gave up partly because I don't have any spare pillowcases and partly because I bought this lovely material for the bargain price of £1 a year ago and have been itching to use it.  The blue material at the hemline is from an old sheet that I had already chopped up and used to line a baby blanket last year.

These two dresses are supposed to fit a girl aged 6 years old.  The organisation I am thinking of sending these to is Sew Scrumptious which distributes dresses to girls in Africa, India and other countries worldwide.  With that in mind, I made a great effort to make these dresses as indestructible as possible.  They will hopefully be handed down and worn by many girls over the next few years.

As I am not lucky enough to have a sewing room, I have to use the dining room table.  This time of year the room is bathed in natural light and warmth.  I'm going to take advantage of that and do a bit more sewing before the weather changes.  

Playing yarn chicken.....

Every time I saw this wool in my wool bag, it shouted out "Make me into a balaclava hat."

Balaclavas are a bit of a nostalgia trip for me.  When I was growing up, all boys wore balaclavas   They keep the ears and neck warm and are, in my opinion, the perfect alternative to a hat and scarf.

The pattern I like to use for children's balaclavas is here.

I know from experience that 50g of yarn is enough for the age 3-4 years size.  My very inaccurate scales told me this ball of grey wool weighed roughly 50g.  I decided to play yarn chicken and cast on for this size.  I didn't want to make the smaller size because I feel odd about knitting grey for a baby.

The photo doesn't do justice to the wool.  It is grey with little black and white flecks.  It seems to be a better quality than my usual acrylics, so there is probably some real wool in it.   It was really lovely to knit with.   I had a Plan B in case I ran out of wool, but
I kept my fingers crossed that I would have enough to finish the hat.  Knitting with crossed fingers is not easy!

I won the game of yarn chicken!  Here is the finished balaclava together with quite a bit of wool left over.

I'm always amazed at how little wool it takes to make one of these cosy hats.  This one will be going off to a children's charity as soon as I have enough to fill a smallish box.

These balaclavas are quite easy to make and very addictive.  I will definitely knit more in future.  

Three more kiddy scarves....

it's been too hot to knit, but my fingers were itching to make something.  It's a long time since I did any crochet, so I picked up my favourite hook and produced these three children's scarves.  The pattern works up very quickly and is here.  I think I made all three in less than two weeks..  Knitting them would definitely have taken much longer.

I had quite a lot of 4 ply yarn in dark colours.  They were mainly single balls of each colour and not easy to use up.  So I combined them to make these scarves of roughly dk weight.  It's the first time I have ever crocheted with 2 yarns together, so that was a milestone in my crochet journey.

For the top scarf I used a ball of navy blue yarn  together with lots of oddments to make the stripes.  I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.  When I have enough oddments, I will make another of these scarves.

I started the orange and blue scarf on our hottest day of the year.  It will always remind me of the blazing sun in a cloudless sky.  I almost needed my sunglasses because the orange was so bright.  It's a bit narrower than the other two because I used up all the orange yarn.  I'm hoping there is a child somewhere who likes being "Tangoed".

The third scarf is bottle green and soft pink.  It was the only way I could think of to use up one ball of bottle green 4 ply.  This was surprisingly the most difficult scarf but only because the green yarn was unfit for purpose.  It had a couple of knots and SEVERAL breaks in the yarn.  I could understand that if someone had used it before.  But this was a new ball of wool.  How a manufacturer can produce yarn like that is beyond me.  I know someone who always rewinds new balls of wool before she uses them.  Now I know why.  Luckily, joining broken yarn in the middle of a crochet row is less of a nightmare than in the middle of a knitted row.  If I had been knitting with this yarn, I would definitely have given up and I rarely do that.  Hey ho; all's well that ends well.

These will all be packed off to a children's charity at some stage.  I just haven't decided which one yet.

The weather here is starting to cool down a little and I'm planning some knitting projects.  I think the first one will be slightly less colourful....to give my poor retinas a rest!