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Category Archives: inspirational knitting

A new home for the pointed needles

I have been tidying up! The yarns in big wicker baskets and the needles in their new home.
I bought this gorgeous antique sewing box for pennies in a car boot sale last year. It was filthy and slightly damaged but I knew the wonder it would turn out once I got my cleaning lotions and potions on its back.

The summer sunshine was inspirational and here are some sneak peeks.

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This lovely box now houses every knitting equipment I own. The wooden vintage needles, the DPNs, the interchangeable knit pro needles, and some row counters and stitch holders. All my antique bone crochet hooks too have a little drawer of their own.
A place for everything and everything in its place…The true home of pointed needles.

Cable knitting without cable needles.

My recent impulse buy has been such an inspiration. Invariably the colour of the yarn really gets me excited. This one is a gorgeous tweedy turquoise. I had to knit something almost immediately! Do you ever have such an urge that a material is almost impossible to put away?

I had watched this fab Utube video a while ago on knitting cable patterns without the need for those menacing and intimidating looking cable needles. I was rather impressed with the simplicity of the tutorial and decided to try it out on the next suitable project. My opportunity was staring at me when both the yarn and the project in mind came together. I was going to knit myself a phone cover. Quick and easy yet challenging in technique.
The pattern I chose was once again from one of my all time favourite books, 200 knitted blocks for blankets, throws and afghans (Paperback) by Jan Eaton (pg. 72). I modified the pattern to suit my phone cover.

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So as you can see from the photo, I used only the central pattern from the entire block. However, unlike the Utube tutorial I did use a double pointed needle to hold my stitches as it was easier than swapping them over on the working needles as suggested. However, what I learnt was that cable knitting was not that hard and fairly straightforward once you pick the concept.

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So that’s what my phone cover looks like. I added the ribs to them to make it easier to insert and remove the phone.

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The back is fairly simple with the ribs at the opening.

The best part is, I knitted this in one evening and now I love how the inspiring cable knit turquoise yarn goes with me everyday on my various adventures.

The weekend warrior project

I seem to have been working on some never ending projects these days and in a way it’s frustrating even. So I decided to join a few DK yarns (lambs wool) together and create a quick chunky seat cover for a lovely vintage office chair I have been meaning to restore.

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These three, red, grey and black yarns form a lovely pattern when knitted together and a stark colour that is perfect for a high use office chair.
The pattern I chose is from 200 knitted blocks for blankets, throws and afghans (Paperback) by Jan Eaton (pg. 63). This is a gorgeous chevron pattern that lends itself to a simple yet distinctive seat cover.

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The flat area of the seat was fairly straightforward if you follow the pattern to the letter. My biggest challenge arrived in the form of ‘shaping’ the seat. For this I got out my crochet hook. This is simply because I know how to create a wall far more confidently with crochet than I know with knitting needles (something I have plans of rectifying in the very near future). So the walls were created with double crochet to create well fitting corners that makes the seat cover rather snug.

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So this is the complete seat cover. Rather chunky, sturdy and what I consider very utilitarian. Well pleased with this as I managed to finish this over one weekend, brining back my passion and love for knitting which was slightly flagging in the past few weeks.

The next thing I want to do now is make a cover for the back rest! I will tackle this once I get another weekend where I can work the cover start to finish in a couple of weeks. Keep you posted on that project.

The olymics mania is manic depressive

You can’t escape it… You can hate it, love it or even be indifferent to it. The one thing you can’t do if you live in the UK is escape it. No not the Queen (for that all you have to do is not read the Daily Mail), I mean the crazy Olympics mania that has almost become a heady mix of national pride, sport fanaticism, fashion, travel and celebrity. But there is a dark side to this polarisation of public opinion. Take for instance these SIBOL blankets/throws for her Alzheimer’s charity are now not going to be allowed to be auctioned off!!

Why oh why you ask? Simply because it has the copyrighted Olympics logo on it, and this my friends can only be used for the sole purpose of making money for the multinational companies not for good causes. Of course not! Sue has gone to great lengths to fight her cause writing and speaking to the London Organising committee of the Olympics and Paralympics games. She has even written to the prime minister and has received no response.

This is not only ridiculous but shameful and regrettable that a country with one of the most aging populations with 800,000 people with dementia and a projected over 1 million cases by 2021 has little to say to a great effort coming from the grassroots.

Inspiring a generation? yeah right!

International yarn bombing day!!

So today is the international yarn bombing day and getting us in the mood is this fab video by Mixing Realty originally posted last year on Knitta

How cool!! Speaking of cool the image that has to be the epitome of yarn bombing is the bus photo by Cesar Ortega for Lela Nargi’s Astounding Kints

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Yarn bombing bus, Toronto.

Flickr too has a cool and growing collection of works by yarn bombers around the globe. Have a flick through and Happy Yarn Bombing!

starting on a tangent

I know this gallery is not strictly knitting… but as inspirations go, it is second to none. Love it.

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