My Birthday-Worthy Cowl!

My Mum gave me this lovely, unusual yarn for my birthday.

Actually she gave me two and I so wanted to do them justice! They are so beautifully PINK, in such a delicate, understated way (except for the white ball of course) and my Mum really loves pink! So to do honour to her obvious good taste I wanted to make something that the play of different textures wouldn't get lost in.

At our local post office/gift store they are selling these lovely long cowls, the sort you can loop over your neck again to make a short cowl and I was pretty sure it was in a kind of flat brioche stitch. 

I've only relatively recently made the acquaintance with this lovely stitch and my first excursion into that terrain had been in the round with a hat. 

This was quite different. But I thought this particular pattern was just what I was looking for so, nothing daunted, I grabbed my yarny gift and extra yarn to provide a little contrast to the lovely Casoria’s pinkness and headed off… 

...only to stop because I couldn't for the life of me understand the written instructions. I couldn't wrap my head around how the stripes were to be done and it wasn't until I finally found Verdigris’ tutorial that I finally got my head around it! 

When I was doing Brioche in the round I was used to working one set of stitches all around and on the second sweep, doing the alternate stitches. But when doing it flat of course you knit the first set of stitches and then purl the same set. You only start the alternates in the next knit and purl rows. 

Since the “ball” of Casoria actually consists of four “mini-balls” I knit two of the fluffier yarns with the bulky Twilley’s Capricorn Bulky and the two smoother balls with the silkier Sirdar Spree.

 In retrospect, this wasn't the best use of the yarns properties but I was winging it and I only figured it out when I looked at the finished product. Hey, I have another ball left of Casoria. I can always try again! 

The hardest part at the end was undoing the provisional cast on I’d done (you can see it just at the bottom of the picture here) and doing the three-needle bind off. There seemed to be loops going off everywhere! In the end I just bound off with a haste born of desperation and made sure I had no stitches or things that looked like stitches hanging loose! 

I am very pleased with the results. It definitely qualifies as a worthy project for my Birthday-yarn. It is a very striking and relatively simple knit, once you get the hang of it. I can see me making a few more of these. I did cast on 15 stitches instead of the 13 recommended in the pattern but I think I’d even double that if I did it again! Now if only it was cold enough here to wear it!!

See you all next time :)

Today is My Birthday!!

And I've had a lovely day! My presents all came by post so I've been extra good and saved opening them for today...and that was hard since I knew what two of them were! I've been mooning over this box for over a week!

So, after trying to sleep in and failing thanks to sore shoulders and leg I gave up and started opening my pressies!

The first one - from my Mum!

She loves me and understands my addictions so she got me an Australian Galah cross stitch kit, two balls of novelty yarn from Spotlight that feel and look wonderful, a memory and charms necklace and a memo book with a pen. Really looking forward to making something nice with the yarn!

The second one is from Me, really. I have this pattern in one of my magazines, The Knitter with a wonderful pattern for a fair isle vest in lovely colours. So I ordered the yarn kit from Jamieson and Smith - Shetland Wool Brokers Ltd.

I'm kind of nervous now. The pattern has all the traditional attributes of fair isle, the stranded colour-work, corrugated rib and steeks and everything! But I'm going to put it aside until I've finished everything else I've got going. Even the cross stitching might have to take a back seat! But I'm really excited to actually do a honest-to-goodness Shetland Island item with the proper wool!

And lastly, another present to myself.

I've always loved the Anne of Green Gables collection but I've never had a chance to read all through the series in the proper order. I only had the first book and I've read the others at different times I think through library loans but I really wanted the whole set so I could go through the journey properly...and now I can! They look so cute and their in their own box and everything!

Everyone I loved rang and wished me happy birthday, and Hubbie bought me chips for lunch (in a little town like this, you're grateful for any take away food you can get and I love chips!) and all in all it was a lovely pleasant day. I am so blessed and days like today remind me that I have so much to thank God and those he's placed around me for. Sigh...

Oh well, another year passes by and time marches on. See you all later :)

Blackwork, Redwork...whatever you call it!

I love the impact of fine lines on fabric and blackwork has that sort of impact in spades! Especially when it's centred on a single small motif. So, like the pin cushions I just finished, I have about 5 designs that are either entirely blackwork or use it principally and I'm going to make a collection of scissor fobs using them. And so here is the first offering! It's kind of off-putting calling it blackwork when it's red but I can handle that, even if my kind of aspergers-y brain keeps saying you can't call it that! Dammit! I will tough it out. Shut up Brain! That's what it's called!!...
...Anyway, here's the latest.

See? Isn't it pretty?

One done, onto the next side.

When I started assembling this I used beads again around the edge since it looked so good on the last pin cushion and I used crochet cotton for the tassel and the loop at the top.

And here it is, as it would be used on a pair of scissors (I only had my shear scissors on hand). 

All stuffed nice and tight so I can put needles securely in there and the beads look so nice. Sigh. I am very happy with this if you hadn't noticed. And what ever takes my mind off possibly having ruptured my Achilles tendon is a good thing. Damn body falling apart!

See you all next time. Off to start the next one!

Big Finale! Last Pin Cushion!

I have completed the last (for the time being anyway) pin cushion of my small set! So I decided to go all out with it's decorative bits!

This is the front piece design I copied from the blurred photocopy I had. I used the organic cotton for all the colours except for the white on the wings...and now I look at it I realize I forgot the one black spot for the birds eyes. Bother!! Oh well, too late now :)

So here is the finished product! I even found some ribbon to do the tie at the top instead of the ring. And I added beads around the edges when I was closing it up. I am ridiculously impressed with myself! It's so pretty! And a suitable finale for my collection of pin cushions.

See? Lovely red beads all hand stitched on, even around the ribbon join. And now...I think I'll give it a rest for a while. No more pin cushions...
...but I do have some adorable black-work motif patterns that would make absolutely gorgeous scissor fobs...mmm...maybe keep the threads out a little longer!
See you next time :)

Cross Stitch - the Other Obsession!

I've been on a mission to complete as many cute pin cushions as I can while giving my hands a bit of a rest from frenetic knitting...not that I'm not still knitting, just not so much like a machine!
I've been tooling around on Pinterest and there are so many beautiful patterns and projects! I love small motifs, both in cross stitch and black-work because they are so simple, are relatively quick to complete and have huge impact visually because they are so small and cute!
Also I wanted to use an organic cotton thread called Scanfil which has a large selection of lovely colours. Since it's a bit heavier than regular cotton I find it quite suitable to do fine cross stitch and black-work with.
Anyway...I have finished all but one of the designs I downloaded. Here they are in order of completion!

Roses and Bees

This one taught me a few things. That sewing together the two sides SOUNDS easy...but not necessarily in practice! Fortunately I'd followed the pattern and it had this backstitch square sewn around the design and you thread through that so you get a neat edge on the completed item. Very clever :) The brass ring is so you can attach it to your sewing basket or something. A ribbon might have been better but I didn't have any and the rings were just sitting there, so...

Birds and Flowers

These are on even weave fabric and it never occurred to me how tiny the gauge would be until I was pretty much past the point of no return and my eyes were hanging out of my head!  When I downloaded the picture of the design it was hopelessly fuzzy so I drew it all out myself and as close to the original design colours as I could. When I didn't have a colour I needed in the Cotton thread I just used DMC instead. All at 1 strand thickness.

 

Ladybirds and Flowers

...And straight after tiny gauge, back onto usual gauge! Don't ask me what gauge that is, all I know is the previous pin cushion is 6cms square and this one is 8cms square. So, a bit of a difference. I think both designs cover a 50 x 50 graph square. 

Ladybirds and Bees

Back to sort-of tiny gauge. Not quite as bad as the Birds and Flowers one but still pretty small. All Scanfil cotton. I was pretty pleased with this one too. But because of the large piece of base fabric I used that I didn't trim down, folding the edges in was a bit of an irritation!

Ladybirds and Lily Bells
 And my nemesis! The design had lovely white flowers on a pale khaki background. I didn't have any base fabric darker than the cream stuff I'd used on the 8cm pin cushion so I though, "I know, I'll just sew the background the colour I need so the white flowers don't disappear into the cloth. Brilliant!"
Most. Frustratingly. Slow. Design. EVER!!
You don't realize you've  become used to finishing a piece in a specific period of time until you hit something that defies every attempt to hurry it up! It does look very attractive, as a finished project...But I would NEVER do it again!!

Florals and Swirls
And this is my latest finished one. Pretty, cute, little (About 6-7cms square) and finished! I have one more design that I had to redraw out because I couldn't see all the squares to do and it is under way as we speak. But I'm pretty proud of my collection. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with them all but I have a similar problem with the vast amount of finished knitting projects I have so why should this obsession be any different? Hope you enjoyed my little brag show. See you next time :)
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