princessdeia

Several of our friends have recently had babies, and after years of fighting knitted gifts for babies, I decided to make some toys rather than clothes of all the new bambinos. As everyone has had a little girl, Poppy seemed like the perfect pattern!

I wanted the dolls to be perfect so I decided to have a trial run, a first pancake if you want, yet to see test how complicated the pattern was and also make any modifications. As it turns out the pattern is written just perfectly and I was extremely impressed with the finished version. The only think I would change is knitting some “knickers” on the little doll (I have seem a few people on Ravelry do this).

This Poppy, is now living with my older sister, who has named her Dolly! Seeing as I have a lot of scraps of yarn (and buttons), I think Dolly might soon has an amazing wardrobe.

Tags: Poppy, Toy

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I seem to have got my knitting mojo back! I just loved the newest Knit Love Club pattern, that I have been happily knitting away! I actually managed to finish one sock in four days, that has to be some sort of record for me. Yet again Alice has managed to create a pattern that has managed to teach, engage and amuse me. I won’t blog too much about this sock as it is still within the blackout, but I had to include a shot of the lovely cuff.

With my knitting mojo back, I have decided to take full advantage and see if I can finish my demon UFO. I started this project for the Ravelympic, but it quickly got pushed to the side. I have picked the cardigan up again several times, and taken it along to knit night in the hope that seeing others knit might inspire me, but instead it has become a running joke. This week I have managed to finally finish one sleeve and am feeling pretty smug with myself.

Tags: 2luvcrew, fwcardi, knitloveclub

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One of my current obsessions is Afternoon Tea, which is very strange as I hate clotted cream, but there is something lovely about the tiered cake stands filled with finger sandwiches, cakes and scones, and of course drinking tea from a proper teapot! When I started to restart my 101 list, one of the things I was really keen to do was have Tea at the Ritz, reading  up about the experience online I discovered afternoontea.co.uk – a website dedicated to places to have afternoon tea in the UK.

The website list several places and I soon discovered several interesting twists on the traditional tea, from a Sex in the City themed tea to the Not the afternoon tea at the OXO tower. So, I decided rather than have just Tea at the Ritz, I would try three different teas.

The “alternative” tea that appealed to me the most was the TLSee at the Swissotel, a traditional tea themed around London landmarks! I noted they were doing an early bird special, so on Saturday we had afternoon tea as a late lunch. I have to admit, I had a bit of a sugar overload but luckily they supplied us with a lovely themed box to take the biscuits home in.

Tags: 101things, afternoon tea

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Way back at the end of May, I meet up with Alice very briefly to pick up June’s installment of the Knit Love Club. The gorgeous yarn arrived, with a packet of beads and extremely strange beading needle. So of course I was really eager to start this project. After a hiccup with the beads (it took me ages to thread them onto the yarn), I was happily knitting away.

I finished the first sock pretty quickly, but since then I have lost my knitting mojo! I figured Knit Nation would be the perfect place toget my mojo back and finish the sock. As it turns out I only really had one opportunity to knit when I was checking tickets on the door, but during this time I some how managed to lose my first sock!

I was so close to the finishing line, and now I am back at the midway point! I have very little of the yarn left, but have put a plea out of Ravelry to see if I can have anyone else’s leftover yarn to finish these socks. I am extremely annoyed at myself for losing the sock, and also a little upset about the hard work for nothing. I am trying to be positive and think about wearing these socks in the autumn (I figure it will be then by the time I have finished them).

Tags: caretta caretta, knit love club

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I wish I had been more organised and blogged each night about Knit Nation, but I was far too tired each night to even think about doing anything other than sleep, it did manage to tweet a little on the tube journey home.

I offered to help Alice as a volunteer on her crew, which meant lots of early starts! After a morning of helping out in the registration area, and then in the afternoon I did the Advanced Lace class with Anne Hanson. If I had to grade myslef as a knitter by level, I would say I was an immediate, so I was little concerned about how I would cope in the class. But is was exactly what I needed – it was a little confident booster, and I can’t wait to start working on my next lace project.

After class, it was time for the market preview, which really translated to 250 knitters all in the rush to get to the Wollmeise & Rohrspatz stall, I had popped in the marketplace earlier during the day, and was amazed at all the yarn they had but was still a little worried that they might run out!

I was very restrained with my purchases, all I really wanted was some Wollmeise in My Old Blue Jeans to make a shawl and some brown for a shawl and beret (maybe the Ishbel shawl). The rush at the Wollmeise stand was too much for me, so I only managed to score on skein on sock yarn in the right colour, and then found the most amazing dark chocolate brown at the Old Maiden Aunt stall. My purchases where topped off with a Zauberball – I had a few ideas of what to do with this – either another blue shawl or some socks. I also got some lego stitchmarkers (not pictured).

Friday, I was down to help on the desk all day and intended to do not purchasing, however after lunch Jaq appeared from the marketplace with a skein of Woolmeise lace in My Old Blue Jeans, and mentioned they had loads more there, so of course my no buying policy ended! In the evening I helped out setting up for the Ravelry Talk. It was amazing to hear Jess and Casey talk about the history of Ravelry, and some of the new features they have added. It is clear they are passionate about their work and I got the impression they still have several more idea of how this site is going to grow!

Saturday was more of the same, helping out on the desk, buying more Wollmeise lace even though I don’t need it! After a brief break for pizza and cake, it was off to set up for the Ravelry party. Finally a time to sit down, relax and catch up with friends.

Like most I found the whole weekend truly amazing, I have so many little stories from the weekend that just prove to me that knitters are the most amazing people! I got to catch up with some old friends, turn Ravelry friends into real friends, meet new people, learn some new techniques and also enhance my stash. I am hoping for more of the same next tine!

Tags: knit nation, meetups

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Over the last few months, I have been trying to keep two blogs… One devoted to knitting and the other in my attempts into being a domestic goddess, as a result I have done extremely well at ignoring both of them! I have just had to pay for the renewal of this domain and for a long time I thought about letting it lapse… but then I thought I used to love writing this blog and it does serve as a great memory of everything I have been up to.

So I have decided to just keep the one blog (this one), but am going to take some of the ascepts of the other blog (my attempts at cooking, my favourite things for each month and some of my adventures in London) and add them here!

To add to this reset, I am also going to restart my list for Day Zero. I still don’t have 101 things (at the moment it is around 50)

Tags: admin

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I am a little late blogging about this sock – but I figure it is okay as spring seems to be a little late this year too! The beautiful spring yarn was part of the March installment of the Knit Love Club. As I have mentioned before Alice always manages to challenge us where the sock club is concerned and this pattern was no different. In fact it crossed the border out of my knitting save zone.

Like most people the knitting techinique I have never tried is steeking, my opinion is simple, why would I want to cut my beautiful garment that has taken me so long to knit! This pattern involved a strange form of horizontal steeking used in the Cat Bordhi Personal Footprint book, you can see a video of the technique here.

So this funny flat fish looking piece of knitting was turned into the foot of the sock – with the leg appearing between the two safety lines, It was an extremely strange construction but there wasn’t a lot of sewing involved so I guess that was a good think – I had to look for the silver lining somewhere. But I would add the sock fits beautifully.

Tags: knit love club, spring shoots, yarn

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One of the main reasons I have not been blogging is because I have been to New York… We really didn’t think we were going to make it after having our plane cancelled twice due to the volcanic ash, we ended up having to leave two days later than planned but added an extra few days on to the end of the trip to make up for it!

The reason we went to New York was to attend Jason’s school friends wedding at the magnificent Mandarin Oriental Hotel, this gave us the perfect opportunity to explore the city with old friends. Even though I have been to the Big Apple several times, I love becoming a tourist and trying something new and touristy, this time we opted for a Circle Line Cruise around Manhattan, carriage ride in Central Park, a trip to the American Museum of Natural History (we love the Night at the Museum movies) and of course some shopping on Fifth Avenue. Jason hates been classed as a tourist so always tries to find something that native New Yorker would do, he got to go to the driving range at Chelsea Pier and have a Papaya Grey’s hotdog! Of course no trip to New York would be complete without seeing a show on Broadway and we were lucky enough to see American Idiot, which was truly amazing!

Tags: New York, Travel

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As promised from last week, here is the finished version of my Rumpled socks, I found it very strange knitting with the yarn – it was 6 ply so was extremely awkward to knit the lace part of the sock with – however, the thinker yarn also looks so good in the pattern – so I guess it was worth it.

I also managed to finish my Skew socks just in time for the second Knit Love Club sock to arrive – and I have to say it is a “scary” pattern!

Tags: Finished Project, knit love club, rumpled

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Over the past few months over on the Knit Love Club ravelry group we have been having a few little swaps. Originally it was a Christmas Swap to tied us over whilst waiting for the first sock package arrived, but it has morphed into something larger! Because I have been such a bad blogger this year, I didn’t get a chance to post the wonderful gifts I got for Christmas and Valentine’s Day (all I will say is there were Jelly Belly Beans involved).

The current swap is for Easter, and my parcel arrived this morning. My swap partner Crochet-y-Knitter, she handmade most if it and I am extremely impressed with all her talents!

The parcel included a knitted bunny, crocheted bird, hand painted wooden eggs (which I am hoping to hang on a branch to make an Easter tree) and some mini eggs (my favourite).

But my favourite part of the gift has to be in mini owl brooch – it is a replica of the Knit Love Club logo and is going to look amazing on my knitting bag!

Tags: Swaps

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