Look, I knitted the world!

I found this lovely pattern via Ravelry and, though I can crochet perfectly well, I much prefer to knit. So I wondered if the pattern would translate to knitting ... and bravely decided to give it a go. As knit stitches do not form a perfect "square", I was a little concerned that it might come out slightly elongated. If you've ever looked at knitting graph paper you will notice that the squares are slightly wider than they are tall, so that when you create your design it comes out "square". I wasn't sure if the same thing applied to crochet ... anyway enough waffling - here's the end result:

As you can see, it worked perfectly! I was quite delighted. Here's Europe and Africa:

And look! The chart even has Antarctica on it:

If you would like to have a go at making the globe and you are not on Ravelry, visit Crochet Parfait for full and comprehensive instructions on how to crochet it.

I gave the globe to my two little boys to play with, they were delighted!

I love commissions!

Although I am still making my sock monkeys, the majority of my work this year so far has been via commissions (and most of them knitting ones!). I have a couple on the go at the moment and a couple in the pipeline. I love working on commissions, the back-and-forth with my customer to choose what they would like, the visualising of the project, the research to get the final look just right. But most of all I love the way that it brings variety to my work and often introduces me to new techniques and materials that I've not had the chance to try out before.

This is one of my current commissions, a pair of Gryffindor Pride socks:

Gryffindor Pride designed by Ann Kingstone

New techniques learned here - knitting cuffs with knitting in elastic (very odd stuff!), and my first attempt at intarsia in the round. It's not that hard actually, just looks impressive! Quite slow to knit though; this is about 10 days' progress. I'm hoping I pick up speed.

My other commission on the go today is some bunting for a fabulous friend Bronwen in the States who makes nappy cakes for baby showers. She sent me some divine flannel material, which I have augmented with a lovely yellow design I found which I feel complements her work fabulously!

Just look at that cute fabric with the babygrows!

So I sat in my kitchen this afternoon, with my i-pod tuned to Radio 3, and cut out some bunting:

As you can see, not ironed yet!

You can probably just make out in the picture my scribblings for the design. You can almost guarantee I will lose that bit of paper before I finish. On the right are my treasured pinking shears, which once belonged to my granny (and I think to her mother too). I lost them for about 14 months and truly mourned them as I thought they had gone for good. They are wonderful scissors. Any seamstress will know how valuable good scissors are (and how attached you get to them!).

More past projects tomorrow :o)

Pipe cleaners and pompoms - the universal cure-all

Calum has been off nursery this week. It started with him losing his voice which totally freaked him out (and of course I didn't help when I said "oh, you've lost your voice!" because then he started frantically looking for it!) He then developed an ear infection and conjuncitivis, poor wee man!

Anyway, at an attempt to cheer him up as he was missing nursery, I got out some pompoms and pipe cleaners and bits and pieces from my box of tricks. Calum had a wonderful time making snakes and "prickle fish" as he called them. "This is so fun, mummy," he whispered, "I am so happy!" Awww!!!

And in other family news - I am an auntie again! This time to a gorgeous baby girl. I have knitted a wee car-seat blanket - just the right to tuck around her when she is out in the car. I decided to do very brightly knitted squares (photo above Calum - for some reason blogger decided to mess up my photo order!). However that left a LOT of ends to be sewn in - argh!

So I took the cheat's way out and backed it in fleece instead of sewing them in!


Should be lovely and cosy on cold days anyway :)

Don't forget folks - there is still another week to enter my giveaway - link it on your own blog if you have one to gain an extra entry!

Mr Tickle in stitches

I love designing and creating intarsia but it's been a while since I did any now! However Calum had been asking for a Mr Tickle jumper for ages and I had an idea in my head, so I finally came up with this!

Getting the arms to line up was a bit of a fiddle, and as you can see by the time I had frogged and reknitted this one three times I gave up:

However this one was a little more succesful!
Calum is thrilled with it, I had to sneak it away when he was sleeping to wash it!