Doon the watter

On a very sunny Saturday we went, where millions have went before, doon the watter to the Isle of Bute.

I finished my mont-royal/Mint Royale hat the night before, and took it on the trip.  However it must be said that on the first warmish day of Spring, a 100% wool hat is probably unnecessary!

The hat is very cosy and the pattern very well written.  The yarn was some Sirdar Majestic that I had been given, as is probably older than I am.  There were a number of breaks in the yarn, which was rather annoying, but hey, it was free so nevermind.

Bute was fantastic.

We went on a tour of the extremely fancy Mount Stuart.

A wander round Rothesay castle, where we saw some herring gulls who were happy to pose for photographs.

And also a very pretty swan nest by the castle moat.

One other reason to love Bute, is that it has the best name for a local newspaper ever.

It's ok...

Spring is here.

My new hat is on the needles.

It is mont-royal by tshep.  I can't think of this hat, without humming 'Don't falter' by Mint Royale.

I am continuing my yarn destash, and using some Sirdar Majestic that I was given for this hat. 

Also I have a rather bright green crochet project on the go, for a very special Craftbomb - more details coming soon!

Eggcellent!

With the ten-stitch blanket still being worked on, I was looking for smaller, more portable projects. I picked a variety of toppers for Easter eggs and started to knit.  Firstly, Eggheads by Emily Ivey.

These are very cute, and very quick to knit.  There are three different hats to knit, and they look great topped with a tiny pompom.  These fit a Cadbury cream egg, or a medium hens egg.  Next I knitted a rabbit egg cozy by Linda Dawkins.  The ears are adorable.  The finished cozy is slightly bigger that the Eggheads pattern, and will fit a large hens egg or a Kinder egg.

They will also fit a guinea pig.  Here is Jeremy auditioning for a role as the Easter Bunny.

Finally, I knitted fuzzy Easter bunny egg warmers from Drops. These are knitted using two strands, scrap acrylic and a mohair-look yarn.

I then added felt eyes and nose.  They are very sweet!  These toppers with cover an egg completely, and they will stand up by themselves.

Are you knitting anything for Easter?

Where is the bear?

Back in November I had a try at illusion knitting.  I had thought it was going to be very complex, but was much easier that I thought.  That is thanks to the excellent tutorial from Woolly Thoughts and some stitch markets (stitch markers are your friend in illusion knitting).  I chose a teddy bear pattern from Woolly Thoughts for a friends baby, some Sirdar Snuggly, and got to work.

The blanket took about 3 weeks, including the border.  Full details on how I did the border my ravelry project page.  The blanket is very cute, who would have thought that knit and purl could create such a great illusion.  And the bear will be perfectly seen from a baby's-eye-view.  I had a little yarn spare, so added a simple baby hat by Allison Williams, with added teddy bear ears (obviously!).

And also some cute booties.  These are Seamless Baby Booties by Laura Yarnthrower.

These were all good fun to knit, and I would certainly like to try more illusion knits.  Ps) Apologies for the dull lighting in the photographs, roll on Spring!

Holiday crafting...

January is coming to a close, and I am only just sharing my holiday crafting... A squishy red festive hat for a friend, using the Farm Beanie pattern by Allison Britt and drops merino extra fine.

Wingspan for my mum, using drops delight.  I really like the long colour changes in this yarn, it works really well with this pattern.

And more freezer paper stencils, I love Fenny bags, for friends who just love Fenny Stratford.

I still have some other rather fabulous knitted gifts, but can't share them just yet!  In the meantime, have you seen this wonderful knitted Black Forest cake? 

Hats for Him.

I asked Mr Crafty if he would like me to knit him a hat. "Yes" came the reply, and then the clause "can it be blue, yellow, red and white".  Little stripes or big stripes I wondered, "big stripes, obviously".  So this hat came to be.

It is apparently inspired by the colours of a Raleigh Burner BMX, and incidentally is the same colours as the flag of the Podlaskie Voivodeship.  I used the Tristan pattern by Drops, I like the texture it created, but don't really like how the pattern disappears on the crown.  As this hat is on the bright side, I knitted a more subdued hat for Mr Crafty, for work wear.  I used the fantastic Farm Beanie pattern by Allison Britt, which I had used previously.  I knitted it in some stash that I had previously used to make some hand warmers for Mr Crafty and his terrible glove problem.

Mr Crafty is now ready for winter!