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I finally managed to get buttons sewn a couple of jackets that have been in limbo for a while now.

The first one is a cream 3/4 length aran coat.

This coat sat in a box for a couple of months just needing to be sewn up and the front bands and collar knitted and I kept putting off finishing it.

But I finally got it done!  I bought some toggles to go on this one, but when it came time to sew them on, I couldn’t figure out how they were to be attached!  There was no hole!!!  I’m not sure if there is supposed to be a hole for them to be sewn on by or not but I didn’t think they would stay on very well if the yarn was just wrapped around them and then sewn onto the band, so I put some buttons on instead.

This grey jacket is knitted in aran weight yarn and has lovely cables going up the front, back and sleeves.

It was fairly easy to knit and knitted up quite quickly.

My daughter offered to put them on for the photos, but then she said she didn’t want to be in the photo!  So I started playing with photoshop and got rid of her altoghter

I should have more FOs to post soon.

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Tags: Aran, aran coat, aran jacket, Hand Knitting

Davids sock drawer is starting to look a bit empty and I saw him put a pair in the bin the other day, so I knew things must be getting bad!

When I looked at his socks, every single pair had holes in them.

Now, David is always saying that he needs me to knit him some more socks, and normally there are a dozen pairs in his drawer at the time, so I have not been knitting his socks lately!  That’ll teach me!

I am now going to have to knit as many pairs of these socks as I can and as quickly as possible so that he doesn’t run out.

These socks are knitted in aran weight yarn and on 4mm dpn, so they do not take long to knit up, but I have a few other projects that have to be done too.

I guess I will be putting in some late nights in the near future.

Tags: Aran, Hand Knitting, Socks

Recently I received an email from a company in London asking me if I would be interested in knitting traditional Aran Cardigans for them.  They had found my details on the UK HandKnitting website

After sending them an email saying that I would be interested, they replied saying that it was normal practice for “new” knitters to do a sample project first, before they send out yarn for cardigans.  I agreed to this and the next day I received a parcel with yarn and a pattern to knit an aran hat.

The pattern had several pattern panels ranging from 4 to 12 rows per pattern.  After a couple of false starts, I finally got going with the pattern and finished the hat in a day.

When I saw the yarn colours that were to go into this hat, I didn’t think they would go well together, but I was really pleased with how it turned out!

I posted the hat off to them and the following Monday I received an email saying that they were very pleased with my “sample” and were wondering how many cardigans I would be able to do before September!

Now, my first Craft Fair this year is on the 5th of September and I need to get some serious stock done before then, so I told them this and said that I should be able to do two cardigans before September for them.

To my surprise they were quite happy with this and I received a parcel the following day with yarn to knit two 38″ Gents Aran Cardigans.

When I opened the parcel, I was expecting to see cream yarn to knit the “traditional Arans”, but boy, was I wrong!

There was two cones of aran, but the colours were far from traditional!

One is a Lime Green and the other is a very bright Orange!

I have been knitting the Green one for the past few days and I am sure I am going blind with the brightness of it!

Hopefully I will have the first one finished and posted back by next Monday at the latest.  They want to see the first one before I start knitting the second, just to make sure that I do it properly, so I will try and get some stock done while it is in the post.

Tags: 100% wool, Aran, aran cardigan, aran hat, gents aran cardigan, Hand Knitting

When I was little, I was mad about horses and wanted to have one of my own.    There really was no way we could afford one and we would have had no where to keep one anyway as we lived on a housing estate.

My mum gave me the closest thing to a horse that she could!  A jumper with a horse on the front of it!

When I got my mothers patterns, after she passed away at the start of this year, I found the pattern that she had used for my jumper.

Now that my youngest daughter is going through the phase of wanting and having a horse, I thought I would knit the same jumper for her.

I am sure that my mother made a better job of knitting this, but I am really pleased with how it turned out and my daughter has been wearing it every day since I finished it.  I have been putting it through the wash when she is at school so that she doesn’t notice.

Tags: dk, double-knitting, Hand Knitting, horses

I have been trying to find ways that I can build my stock a bit quicker, because I have a lot of Craft Fairs crammed into a 4 month period at the end of the year.  Each adult aran can take upto a week to knit and this doesn’t give me much time to get a decent level of stock done.

So I have been knitting some childrens arans, starting for age 5 years and up.

This one is for a 4 – 5 year old and was relatively quick to knit up.

I am currently playing catchup.  Trying to get buttons sewn on and photos taken, but the weather hasn’t been too good here lately.  It has either been very dull and overcast or it has been pouring with rain.

Today hasn’t been too bad, quite sunny, but a bit windy.

I did manage to get a photo of my third lacy scarf knitted in Rowans Kid Silk Haze.

Although this is a fairly straight forward pattern, it is a 16 row repeat with wrong side rows in purl, it is very easy to drop a stitch or knit a bit of fluff instead of the yarn, so this one has been on the needles for about 4 months.   I haven’t mastered being able to watch tv and knitting with this yarn at the same time yet so I have only been knitting it during the day when there is nothing worth watching.

When I was taking the photo, I had a hard time stopping the scarf from blowing away with the gentle breeze.

I do love how this yarn looks and feels and I enjoy knitting it despite having to concentrate more than with other yarn.

I still have enough yarn to do another two of these and I fancy buying some more colours!

Tags: Hand Knitting, Lace, Rowan Kid Silk Haze Scarf

No knitting updates today, although I have been very busy on the knitting front.  I just haven’t gotten anything completed.  Most things are waiting for me to get buttons.

We have had some excitement over the past week!

I have wanted a pony/horse since I was little.

We finally got not one, but two!

Enter China.  and Elvis!

This is China and my youngest daughter Rebecca.

Elvis is Chinas companion and they go together.

Now I don’t know the first thing about horses or how to look after them, but Lee has said that she will come over and show us what is needed and if we have any problems or if we are not sure about something, just to give her a call and she will keep us right.

We had wanted to have a stable built before we thought about having horses home, but Lee needed to move them and has said that they are used to being outside.

This means that there is yet another urgent job on the building front to be done and I guess I will need to wait a while longer to get the house finished, but I think it will be worth it!

Tags: horses